Closed RP: Susan is Not Happy (and when Susan ain't happy, NOBODY is happy)
((Backdated to February 10, just after Stephen's popcorn-letter))
Susan had been patiently modifying her pudding-paintballs when the owl came. She thought nothing of it at first--Shaun and Liz owled her periodically, usually about her current project, and she took the envelope almost absently, setting aside her rather sticky project as she did so.
That idle curiosity changed to real curiosity when she recognized Stephen’s handwriting--she knew he’d resigned his commission as Potions Master, but hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to him since then. Digging her letter-opener (a miniature scythe, that had once belonged to her grandfather) out of her desk, she slit the seal and pulled out the letter, the parchment crackling as she unfolded it.
For a long, long moment she stared, her suddenly cold hand shaking just a little as she read. Even several months before, when she’d been a complete mess, she’d never, ever considered the possibility that Stephen might popcorn. The idea was simply inconceivable to her--his work was at Hogwarts, and thus so was his life. But his work here had ended, hadn’t it? She’d been meaning to drop by and ask about that, but first she’d been busy with one thing, and then another, and gods, she hadn’t really known--she hadn’t, and now she never would, and…and he was bloody gone.
It hit her then, really hit her, that he was gone, and that even if he eventually unpopped there was a good chance he wouldn’t be the Stephen she’d known. He was gone, leaving a kind of horrible void--even when she’d been too busy to see him often, she’d at least known he was there, also tooling away on some project or other, probably related to evil clowns. Even without…everything that had happened…he’d been the best friend she’d ever had in her life, and even when she’d realized she couldn’t trust him anymore he’d still been her friend, and now all that had been smashed to bits by his passing (for Susan did think of popcorning as a type of death, since it was so easy for a person to return amnesiac, and without that memory the person she’d known had, in effect, truly died).
A shudder ran through her, as her natural reaction to grief tried to take over--the half of her that was immortal, the half that was Death, surged forward like water through a breached dam, engulfing that grief and bearing it downward into some deep pit where she wouldn’t have to acknowledge it yet. Unlike an ordinary human, Susan simply wasn’t built to handle such grief, such a deep sense of mourning--she’d had warning when her parents died, and had been so busy and bewildered by everything she’d found out about her grandfather and his job that she simply had no time to grieve so deeply. She’d had no such warning now, and that part of her that kicked in to shield her from anything like real hurt took over with a vengeance. Cold washed through her, a welcome kind of cold, the kind that meant she could retain control, that she was at the mercy of nothing--not even her treacherous human half.
It became clear after a moment, though, that that simply wasn’t going to be enough. Even the inhuman half of her soul couldn’t handle something this big, this shockingly unexpected, and she shuddered again as something else overrode it--something that crept in, insidious, rather crashing through her as her Death-side had. It too was cold, so cold it burned, and she dropped the parchment as what pale coloring she had leached out of her skin. Her hair, its quasi-sentience suddenly overwhelmed by this new force, was reduced to a wild, hopeless tangle, and a blackness very few had seen bled into her eyes, blotting out the icy blue. This was good--this burning, this all-consuming internal fire, meant she had no time nor will to hurt…
…To hurt herself, anyway.
Humanity, she thought, or something thought through her. Humanity was what caused pain, through thoughtlessness or will or even simple circumstance. Humanity could feel in a way no other creature could, and thus could hurt like nothing else on earth or any world. It was a blight, a cancerous infection that had insinuated itself into the natural order of the world, taking, hurting, destroying--destroying each other and everything around them, torturing that natural order into something misshapen and ugly.
Humanity…had to go.
Susan knelt, pulling a long, heavily locked trunk out from under her bed. Muttering several complicated spells, she unfastened each lock in turn, and when she opened the scarred lid she paused a moment, considering. Sword or scythe? Scythe, she decided--a symbol recognizable both by this world and by her own. Inhumanly pale hands reached for the smooth handle, hands that belonged to something out of a nightmare rather than a woman--even a woman who was occasionally Death. She stood, her blackened eyes traveling her tidy dorm room, and then she stepped through the wall, her feet silent on the flagstone floor. She wouldn’t start with Hogwarts--not where there were so many people who could not be counted as ‘humanity’. No, she’d go to London, which was packed with nothing but humans. London, and then…wherever she wanted to go from there.
Susan had been patiently modifying her pudding-paintballs when the owl came. She thought nothing of it at first--Shaun and Liz owled her periodically, usually about her current project, and she took the envelope almost absently, setting aside her rather sticky project as she did so.
That idle curiosity changed to real curiosity when she recognized Stephen’s handwriting--she knew he’d resigned his commission as Potions Master, but hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to him since then. Digging her letter-opener (a miniature scythe, that had once belonged to her grandfather) out of her desk, she slit the seal and pulled out the letter, the parchment crackling as she unfolded it.
For a long, long moment she stared, her suddenly cold hand shaking just a little as she read. Even several months before, when she’d been a complete mess, she’d never, ever considered the possibility that Stephen might popcorn. The idea was simply inconceivable to her--his work was at Hogwarts, and thus so was his life. But his work here had ended, hadn’t it? She’d been meaning to drop by and ask about that, but first she’d been busy with one thing, and then another, and gods, she hadn’t really known--she hadn’t, and now she never would, and…and he was bloody gone.
It hit her then, really hit her, that he was gone, and that even if he eventually unpopped there was a good chance he wouldn’t be the Stephen she’d known. He was gone, leaving a kind of horrible void--even when she’d been too busy to see him often, she’d at least known he was there, also tooling away on some project or other, probably related to evil clowns. Even without…everything that had happened…he’d been the best friend she’d ever had in her life, and even when she’d realized she couldn’t trust him anymore he’d still been her friend, and now all that had been smashed to bits by his passing (for Susan did think of popcorning as a type of death, since it was so easy for a person to return amnesiac, and without that memory the person she’d known had, in effect, truly died).
A shudder ran through her, as her natural reaction to grief tried to take over--the half of her that was immortal, the half that was Death, surged forward like water through a breached dam, engulfing that grief and bearing it downward into some deep pit where she wouldn’t have to acknowledge it yet. Unlike an ordinary human, Susan simply wasn’t built to handle such grief, such a deep sense of mourning--she’d had warning when her parents died, and had been so busy and bewildered by everything she’d found out about her grandfather and his job that she simply had no time to grieve so deeply. She’d had no such warning now, and that part of her that kicked in to shield her from anything like real hurt took over with a vengeance. Cold washed through her, a welcome kind of cold, the kind that meant she could retain control, that she was at the mercy of nothing--not even her treacherous human half.
It became clear after a moment, though, that that simply wasn’t going to be enough. Even the inhuman half of her soul couldn’t handle something this big, this shockingly unexpected, and she shuddered again as something else overrode it--something that crept in, insidious, rather crashing through her as her Death-side had. It too was cold, so cold it burned, and she dropped the parchment as what pale coloring she had leached out of her skin. Her hair, its quasi-sentience suddenly overwhelmed by this new force, was reduced to a wild, hopeless tangle, and a blackness very few had seen bled into her eyes, blotting out the icy blue. This was good--this burning, this all-consuming internal fire, meant she had no time nor will to hurt…
…To hurt herself, anyway.
Humanity, she thought, or something thought through her. Humanity was what caused pain, through thoughtlessness or will or even simple circumstance. Humanity could feel in a way no other creature could, and thus could hurt like nothing else on earth or any world. It was a blight, a cancerous infection that had insinuated itself into the natural order of the world, taking, hurting, destroying--destroying each other and everything around them, torturing that natural order into something misshapen and ugly.
Humanity…had to go.
Susan knelt, pulling a long, heavily locked trunk out from under her bed. Muttering several complicated spells, she unfastened each lock in turn, and when she opened the scarred lid she paused a moment, considering. Sword or scythe? Scythe, she decided--a symbol recognizable both by this world and by her own. Inhumanly pale hands reached for the smooth handle, hands that belonged to something out of a nightmare rather than a woman--even a woman who was occasionally Death. She stood, her blackened eyes traveling her tidy dorm room, and then she stepped through the wall, her feet silent on the flagstone floor. She wouldn’t start with Hogwarts--not where there were so many people who could not be counted as ‘humanity’. No, she’d go to London, which was packed with nothing but humans. London, and then…wherever she wanted to go from there.