Shimmer, Glimmer, & Gleam - A Quest of Loss & Gain

The inmates surge forward. At this point, you know, there is no reasonable control over the battle; you're not their leader, you're just the inciting incident of a riot. There's going to be casualties, and the best you've managed to do is give the guards a decent excuse to stay down when they go down. When the Panopticon has been countered, and everyone but you, Nattie, and Marie is dealing with a splitting headache, then maybe you can keep more people alive, but right now it is what it is. Just like those five years will be.

It might be a good idea to talk to...you know, just calling her the Everlasting Lady seems bad, right now. Stella. You should talk to Stella, when you can. And say sorry for the god thing. Time and distance from that conversation and dealing on a daily basis with people who don't understand your identity and being Inside where people would call you 'miss' just to piss you off and deny you any shred of autonomy has provided a bit of a different perspective there.

"Nattie -"

She flinches and turns her head away, making a hiss of pain that you recognize far too quickly. Fuck. "What the fuck?" she groans, so you put a hand on her shoulder.

"Do you trust me?" you ask quietly. It's not the first time. Those are words you've said before starting a fight on her behalf without making her seem weak, when you've faked beatings so the guards would look the other way, on nights when the two of you shared a bunk and you let her cry into the pillow; she's said them back to you, when you had to do the same, when she took contraband off your hands in a shell game against the Panopticon, when she shyly showed you how a person touches -

"I trust you," your cellmate whispers.

"Stay on me. We need to find -" you start to say a name, then stop yourself. "- we need to find the kid."

"Library," your cellmate says instantly. "And fast. She's been hiding in the library, the guards kinda let her, but if they're getting froggy..."

The two of you take off at a run. This quickly proves to be a problem, as guards are coming to flank your riot, a squad of si -

- Nattie throws the knives in her hands, and you feel the manifestation quake, try to contain whatever refraction she's attempting, her own strange gift like yours or the Captain's or Doctor Heller's. But here whatever force is maintaining the dream of the Panopticon fails, because the shadows the knives are casting split into dozens and dozens of shadowy blades that race along the floor and walls, cast by lights whose position should make such a thing impossible. Where they slice into the shadows of the guards, gouts of blood flow beneath armor, hands are slashed away from grips on their weapons, faces split into floods of gore that flee from cracked bone, and great is the slaughter upon the Law of the Long Arm. She scoops up the physical copies of her weapons on the way through, blood flowing freely from her tear ducts.

How long has she been able to do that?

Part of you thinks about grabbing a gun on your way through, but the thing there is the guards have helmets, and you do not. There is a point at which you are perhaps a bit cavalier about your personal health, but going instantly deaf for life in this prison just for a fleeting combat advantage seems like it might be a bit too far. Though the Panopticon version of the prison has very clear firing lines, the manifestation is no longer having everything its own way; tilt your eyes this way, and you can put the claustrophobic hell of the true Durance-on-Bay between you and sniper fire. You already are, in fact, as evidenced by the repeated crack of bolt-action rifles that are, mysteriously, not killing you.

The Warden's order hits your selfhood like an iron fist, demanding that the Convict obey, that it accept its place as subhuman, as filthy, as cast-out, as other. You double over, wings flapping madly - they clipped them, they've been clipping your wings, they clipped your wings they touched you and -

You pull a knife and hack away at your jumpsuit, leaving shallow cuts on your chest and arms, but as it goes into tatters you feel more and more able to push back against that voice. You are not Prisoner 17060. You reject the Warden's hollow law. Thin trickles of your own blood mixes in with the gore of the guards, and you know that the awestruck and terrified look in Nattie's eyes, full of admiration, is more than mere lust. But that is a problem for later, with the freedom you're going to earn. "Library," you growl, and the two of you go until you find a locked door.

But there are no locks that may bar you, are there?

There's gunfire coming from the library. Nothing wild; probably suppressing fire. But if you open that door you're gonna be in for a world of godsdamned hurt...

Wait a minute.

"Give me ten seconds," you tell your cellmate. "And don't scream."

"Why would I scre-" Nattie bites her lip to stop herself from screaming as you return to being a reflection once again and the prison splinters into windows of light in your perception. And if you step this way, you can see out of a riot helmet, and hear...

Marie's voice is coming from behind a shelf that has been pulled down to rest heavily against another. It's unstable, but for now it's putting a lot of wood and books between her and rifle fire from every direction. The guards on the catwalks are calling for her to cease manifesting, but she is ignoring them. She's...

...Praying.

"...By my blood I call; by my hate I implore. Witness, for the Law is lawless, and rotten, and cored. I summon what I cannot banish, I name you Wasp, the oldest law of the living world, and I cast myself from this shadow in favor of the truth that is venom by sunrise and the blood of prey so I might die another day..."

The manifestation around her is shaking and quaking. This isn't a refraction, or it isn't yet. She's trying holy oneiromancy, and she's trying it with the god that the Empire's faiths understand to be a force of evil and scorn.

(But is it? Is that the nature of the Wasp? Is this something you have to stop?)

Lose 2
[ ] Your okay health
[ ] Marie's trust and respect
[ ] The lives of these guards
[ ] The use of your left arm, perhaps for good