[Praises - TSW] Focus
It's a doll. Pink dress, chubby legs, screws for arms and a lightbulb head.
She looks up. Laurence is smirking over his cup of Tang, something smug and cunning in those pale eyes. She drops the thing into a coat pocket, not giving it a second glance.
He's still smiling. Can he sense it? she wonders.
She carries her own hellfire with her. It wraps around her arms as she scrapes the last of the oatmeal out of the pot and into her bowl. It fills her chest, crackling in time with her heartbeat. It fills her lungs and throat and eyes, and every time she exhales she breathes sparks.
Not that anyone can see. But still, she shouldn't have allowed it to get so far. She's been trying, but the flames cling to her, unwilling. She's barely singed an undead hair with it. It's probably what she deserves for trying to use magic. At the same time, though, there's a growing resentment in her gut. Guilt she knows, she's used to that. This is different.
Anger.
She becomes aware that he's speaking again, but not in time to catch the words, and she blinks wide, dark-circled eyes at him until he realizes she's been distracted the whole time.
"I said, it's like a lint roller." His smirk has widened to a grin now. She stares back, stony-faced. "Ah, don't look so serious, Rev. You can figure it out." And, after a moment, "You're smart. You'll get it."
Distaste for the subject matter aside, he does manage to spark her pride with that. She *knows* she's better than the rest of them. She can feel it in the way her her heart lifts, taste it in the ashes at the back of her throat.
What is this magic, that she should fear it? It should serve her.
In her pocket, her hand closes around a hard plastic leg. It's just a gift. No harm in using it for a little while.