pushbackthedarkness | [powers plot

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elsa,
powers plot

[powers plot - Elsa]

Marcus doesn't like this. Doesn't like any of it and yet there's not a lot he can do about it besides what he's doing now.

Matthias has given him Elsa's number, he'd told Marcus she has similar powers, that she'll be able to help, and Marcus doesn't really know what that means or how she's supposed to be expected to help him with this, but in the end he calls her all the same. It's dangerous, what he can do, and after a day of sitting alone in his apartment and causing snow storms to swirl around outside the window no matter what he tries to do to stop it, he has to accept he can't do this alone. If he buries the damn city, they'll all be in danger and Marcus can't do that. He simply can't.

She agrees to meet him so easily and even that makes him feel a little guilty. It's like he's taken something from her and even so, she's willing to help him, and Marcus doesn't know if he would ever be so generous with himself if the same thing happened to him. It's not as if hearing God is a power, not in the same way, but he's long since lost His voice and if someone were to ask him for help, if someone were to tell him they were hearing God and didn't know how to deal with it, Marcus might very well turn his back on them out of anger and jealousy.

But Elsa doesn't do that. She agrees to meet him and so Marcus pulls on the gloves he's taken to wearing almost all the time and makes the trek down to the beach. There are coves at the far end, she's told him, and she'll meet him there. Marcus is just pleased to know it's a secluded place and all he can do is hope, once he arrives, that he doesn't hurt her by accident.

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Elsa has battled with her powers, with herself, for so long that, even now, there are days when she feels it would be simpler not to have them at all. That everyone would be safer that way.

There is something worse than not having her abilities, though, and that's someone else having them. The winter cold in Darrow has been punctuated by cold snaps she suspects have to do with the fact that ice powers are being used by those who don't know how to control them. She's worked with Jessica, but it seems as if she's not the only one.

With her dark hair tied back in a braid, Elsa paces in the sand, waiting for Marcus to arrive. She had her powers all her life. She can't imagine how poorly she would have handled getting them out of nowhere. At least Jessica has seen her use them before. This poor man must have no idea what the city's gotten him into.

At the sound of footsteps, she looks up, gaze dropping briefly to the gloves he wears. It's cold out, so it's no surprise, and still she shudders slightly, remembering those rows of gloves in her trunk. "Marcus? I'm Elsa."

Even though he feels as if he doesn't have any other option, for a moment Marcus still considers backing away, leaving her to her relative safety. She's a friend of Matthias's, someone he trusts, and Marcus should be able to extend that trust in turn, knowing Matthias will only ever have his best interests at heart, but he's frightened.

It's been a long time since he's been scared like this. A demon is one thing, but Marcus has never liked to dwell on the power in his hands, not even when it was God working through them rather than the ability to create ice and snow. It simply is, a thing he's always been able to do, the control with God. Now, though, he's not sure where the control might be.

"Thank you for meeting with me," he says, offering her a thin smile instead of abandoning the situation, the offer of help he so clearly needs. "Matthias said... well, not a lot. I've mostly been keeping to myself. Been a bit worried about what I might do without meaning to."

Elsa's heart goes out to him at once, constricting in empathy. "It can be frightening," she says. "I spent a long, long time trying to keep to myself for the same reason." It hurts to think of those days, all the time she lost, the people she must have hurt by staying away, the pain she caused Anna. But she's learned a lot, too, since then. She hasn't ever had to articulate it before, but for Marcus's sake, she'll figure out how.

She doesn't step any closer, well aware how easy it can be to startle someone with these abilities, how readily they react to such feelings. Hair trigger. It's not a phrase she knew in her own time, but it's applicable here and now. "It is possible to control it. It can be used safely and kept in check, with a little work."

Marcus nods, because he's not afraid of a little work. He's been working for God all his life, since he was only a child, since the time most other boys his age were running around playgrounds and kicking footballs. Since the moment he'd confronted his first demon and had banished the foul thing back to hell with God's hand guiding him. Work is simply a fact of his life, a means to an end, a way to help people.

Now he has to do a little work so as not to hurt them and he's more than willing to put in the effort to accomplish that.

"Matthias said you do it very well," he says. "He trusts you." And Marcus trusts him. There are problems with that, of course, things he'll have to face eventually, but he's not prepared to accept that yet. One thing at a time, he thinks.

Elsa colors at that, pleased. "I'm glad," she says. Since he's here for help, she decides to give her trust as well. Accustomed though she is to keeping to herself, she's learned to be better about sharing in her time in Darrow. It was never like she wanted to hide away every part of her. It was only something she thought she needed to do, a duty that required tending like so many others that made up her life as the heir apparent.

"I didn't trust myself," she continues, "for a long time. It took me years to realize that trusting myself is... vital. This power is... connected, I suppose you might say, to what you're feeling, but also to trusting yourself. If you're frightened and nervous and you think you're going to hurt people, you very well might. You must believe you have it within yourself to control it. And I'm sure you do." She may not know him at all, but she knows he's come seeking help. That speaks to the strength of his character.

"I've had a bit of practice, controlling my emotions," he says with a faint hint of a smile. "And trusting myself. There may have been one or two of my... coworkers back home who would say I trust myself a little too much."

And he wants to be able to do the same thing here, but that fear keeps surfacing. It's harder to fight on his own, without people in his life like Mother Bernadette and Bennett, without their constant pushing and their tendency not to take any of his bullshit. He has Mother Bernadette' rosary in his pocket, though, and maybe it's possible for him to draw strength from that. To remember he might fail, but he can start again. All he has to do in the meantime is hope his failure doesn't mean anyone gets hurt.

"So where do we begin?" he asks.

It's a relief to hear, to know that Marcus has this to his advantage already. Elsa had that confidence as a child, but she had to learn how to feel it again, had to earn it back. If he trusts himself, he's already miles ahead. He'll be fine with a little practice.

Of course, that's the hard part. For her, this is so natural and instinctive, something she figured out as a child, that it's difficult to put it into words. Still, for his sake, she must try. In his shoes, she knows she'd spend the week trying not to use it. That's not always an option, though. After all, she tried that for years only to unleash it at the least convenient moment possible. Using it is necessary to understanding it, controlling it.

"Let's try some exercises," she says. "Your emotions matter, but so does your imagination. If you can envision it, you can build it. So let's start with a snowball. Try shaping it with your hands and imagining it taking form."

It makes him want to laugh, just a little, and he thinks he might if not for the memory of what he had done on New Year's Eve, the ice that had come from him, blasting freezing patches just past Matthias's feet. Though he'd had no real idea of what he was doing, even at the time it had seemed like too much of a threat. He'd been convinced he might hurt someone.

A snowball, though, is harmless and even with the memory of all that awful ice, he manages to smile a little.

"Gloves off, I assume," he says, taking his hands out of his pockets and then peeling the gloves off carefully. He doesn't close his eyes, just looks down at his hands as he shapes a good sized snowball, trying to picture it there. At first there's nothing, then a prickle of cold as a few flakes of snow begin to materialize.

It could go wrong very quickly, though, he knows that, and so he focuses on his hands and nothing else.

"That's it," Elsa says, pleased, "nice and easy. Now, when you make that, how do you feel? Calm, right?"

It's such an important part of all this. She's learned how to stay calm in the face of danger. Anxiety is harder to fight, but with work, she's gotten better at veering away from panic and into peace. The only better feelings for it are love and joy. Joy is hard to fake, but love can be conjured up.

"It helps if you can think of of a time when you were happy," she says, "with a loved one, maybe. A time when you felt loved."

That's what makes Marcus laugh, a rough, angry sound and the snowball forming between his hands suddenly changes, an angry blast of wind swirling the snow away from him and into the air. At least it wasn't ice this time, but it's clear what he's feeling has a great deal to do with how to control this.

That the snow had been blown away is the only reason he's not immediately more worried about Elsa. He's thinking about what she'd said, though, about thinking of a time when he felt loved and the only person he can even begin to relate to a feeling like that is Mouse.

And he'd ruined Mouse. He had loved her so dearly and then abandoned her when she most needed him.

"I'm sorry," he says, still looking down at his hands instead of at Elsa. "That's... well, it's not the sort of thing I've had much of."

Elsa hesitates a moment and then reaches to rest her hand on his shoulder. She should have thought of that, she realizes now, considered that it could be a sore spot for someone. Even for her, on her bad days, it might prove more painful than helpful. She's not very good at teaching, she thinks.

"There's no need to apologize," she says. "It's all a process." For her, she thinks, that was part of why it was so hard to control when she was young. She was loved, but it was hard to feel it through the fear — her own, yes, but also that of her parents. When they were so clearly frightened, how could she think instead of their love?

"Happiness then," she says. "Surely you've been happy at one time or another?"

It's a sad thing to realize he's never really been all that happy either. He's felt fulfilled and he knows he's done good work, but real happiness has never been something he's found easy to achieve.

For all he'd hurt Mouse, though, he thinks he can remember the happiness he'd felt with her and so Marcus nods, grateful for the hand on his shoulder. Elsa might know what he can do now that he has her powers, but she isn't afraid of him and that means something.

"Think I can do that," he says with a faint smile and then he tries again, lifting his hands, thinking of the snowball, thinking of Mouse and the warmth he'd felt with her.

"There you go," Elsa says, hands clasping in front of her, delighted. Strange though it is to see someone else using her powers, she's pleased by the progress. A snowball may not be that much, but it indicates some small level of control, and if he can manage that, he can learn to handle more and maintain a careful grip on his new powers. That should be enough to help him keep from hurting anyone.

"Very good! Keeping control of it is... well, it helps to focus on the more positive feelings you have. I guess it just gives me a sense of confidence and faith. I think about my sister and how she believed I could do it, and I can."

"What if you've let down the only person who believed you were capable?" he asks and it's to his credit, he thinks, that the snowball doesn't crumble the moment he says the words. His feelings for Mouse are so messy and complicated and Marcus does everything he can to put her aside.

That isn't fair to her, but he just can't dwell. It's his fault she ended up where she did.

Maybe she's not the right memory to focus on. But for so long, she'd been the only person to show him any warmth, any love. He remembers that fondly, even if he'd ruined it in the end.

"I did," Elsa says. The memory of all the times she hurt Anna still pains her, more than she knows how to say. She wonders sometimes if anyone else understands the special sort of hurt that exists between sisters, if they don't have one themselves, and how much she would give for her sister if she could.

"I hurt her badly when we were young. And then I... avoided her for years, and hurt her again. I almost killed her." It's hard to say without crying, though Elsa has grown practiced over the years at keeping such pain locked inside. Even now, when she's more open than she once was, she hides as much as she can. "But that doesn't always stop someone from really loving you."

The relationship is different, but the things Elsa says ring so close to home that the snowball finally crumbles between his hands. No one else in Darrow knows about Mouse and he's always preferred to keep it that way, but she feels so close to the surface right now.

"I was a priest," he says. "An exorcist. She was preparing to take her vows, studying under me, learning about exorcism. It was a mistake, but she was young and I was so lonely and I fell in love with her."

And she'd fallen in love with him, too. He shouldn't have let it happen, he should have kept his distance and then maybe she never would have ended up in so much danger.

"She got too close to a woman I was trying to help," he admits. "Because she was curious and because I wouldn't let her. She almost died and I couldn't be there to help her."

Edited 2018-05-15 15:35 (UTC)

Elsa nods thoughtfully, taking in the story he tells her. There's a strange sort of comfort in knowing he was once a priest. Why he isn't anymore, she doesn't know, nor even if they're of the same faith, but she thinks knowing what it means to truly believe in something helps. The powers should be impossible, but they aren't. They require a certain faith, too.

"I've thought a lot about it over the years," she says. "I think... no matter how much we love people... we have to accept that they make their own choices and sacrifices. Sometimes that's what saves them. Her choices weren't your fault."

There's a lot of truth in what Elsa says and they're things Marcus has tried to convince himself of over the years, but the truth is, no matter how headstrong Mouse has always been, he can't help but feel like he's still the reason she ended up possessed. Without him, she would have been assigned elsewhere, she wouldn't have loved him, wanted to prove herself to him, and she would have been somewhere else.

Safe.

"No," he agrees. "Her choices weren't mind. But isn't it sometimes hard not to feel as if... if you were somewhere else, if you'd been something else, maybe they'd have made different choices, too."

Elsa nods, because she understands that. She made choices, did things, even by accident, that changed the course of Anna's life. The woman her sister became is in some part because of her mistakes. It's an awful, daunting feeling, to have so much power over someone else's life.

"It's a terrible feeling," she says. "It takes a lot of work to come to peace with it and even then... I try to tell myself that what's in the past is behind me. There's nothing I can do to change it. All I can do is try to be better going forward."

Marcus smiles briefly, the expression more pained than he'd like. All he'd done since Mouse was bury himself in his work, pour himself into being a better exorcist and he knows he's helped people in that way, but he doesn't think any of that makes him a better person. It doesn't earn him forgiveness of any kind; his own, Mouse's, or God's. And maybe that's not what he ought to be doing it for anyway.

All he knows is that he's a man in his fifties who's only now beginning to make connections that really matter. For the first time in his life since the woman he'd nearly brought to her death.

"Not as if we've really got a choice here, do we?" he asks, forcing his smile to be a little brighter. "Can't very well apologize to the people who aren't even here."

"Doesn't stop us wanting to," Elsa admits softly. She's apologized to Anna so many times, and Anna has forgiven her every time, but it's been years since she last saw her sister. It only makes it worse sometimes. They could have had so many years if Elsa hadn't failed her so thoroughly.

"But," she adds, "I think it just makes it more necessary for us to... maybe not quite forgive ourselves. I don't know if we truly can. But to... make some kind of peace. Accept what we've done. Otherwise, we only ever live in the past, and I can't do that anymore."

"You're too young, you know," he says. "To be this perceptive."

There's a hint of teasing in his voice, though, and he doesn't really mean it at all. There are so many people who would honestly believe such a thing, that Elsa is too young to really understand what she's speaking of, but Marcus isn't one of them. At twelve he'd been the best exorcist the Catholic Church had seen in decades and before he'd even hit his teens, he had seen more violence than most people do in their entire life. Age has so little to do with what people are truly capable of feeling.

"This isn't quite how I expected to spend the first week of the new year," he admits and then he looks at his hands again and concentrates, and very slowly, begins to build another snowball. "But now that you and I have met, I think I can look at it as a trade off worth paying."

"I have to be," Elsa says. It's an awful sort of truth, but she smiles all the same, pleased that he's glad to have met her. That's a good thing, both for her, since it's terribly flattering, and for his prospects. He seems to be in a better mood now than when she got here, and that can only help his control over the powers grow. It takes focus, but it takes a certain warmth, too.

"That's very good! You're making progress already," she says warmly. "And I know what you mean. I'm finally used to having those powers and now I have my —" She almost says my girlfriend's, but she catches herself in time. She doesn't want to give away her secrets. "Different ones," she finishes. "My girlfriend's trying to make me feel better about it, but I can tell she's worried."

"Is it nice or frustrating when she does that?" he asks curiously. She says girlfriend, so he has to expect she's not going to be particularly bothered by the idea of what he and Matthias are to each other. "Worry without trying to let on that she's worrying."

He's not sure how he feels about it himself. When Matthias worries about him, Marcus wants to tell him not to bother. He's been through so much and he knows how to keep himself safe, having someone worry about him seems like such an odd thing, something he doesn't know how to deal with most of the time. So it frustrates him sometimes and he wants to feel less like someone think they need to keep himself.

But at the same time it's not something he's ever had before. It's rather nice.

"It's... nice," Elsa decides, "but also not." She bites her lip, a little embarrassed. She doesn't want to seem ungrateful. She's lucky and she knows it, having someone wonderful as Jessica to care about her so much. But there's something uncomfortable about having anyone worry about her, as if she should be able to take care of everything herself.

"My parents used to do that," she says. "Worry about my powers and pretend everything was fine." It wasn't. The ice powers are terribly dangerous; she is dangerous.

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[powers plot - Elsa]

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