Letting Off Steam

[Oriena]

[[continued from A Little Broken]]

Her mother lived in the shittiest part of town, and it was not a long walk from the church. Oriena paid gopniks to watch her door, make sure she stayed out of trouble, keep her safe from herself. Nadezhda just thought they were nice young neighbourhood men, despite the baggy pants and tattoos on their necks and hands. When she arrived she let herself in the apartment without knocking – there was rarely any point announcing herself. It was gloomy inside despite the cold afternoon sun, the curtains drawn until Ori tugged them aside. Her gaze wandered over the evidence of her mother’s strange obsessions without much feeling. The woman herself was kneeling in the dark of the living room, muttering to herself.

Nadezhda didn’t react right away to the light, though her gaze did rise, fixed on something unseen. The rosary was tight in her grip, the skin of her hands chapped and sore. Exhausted and soul-weary, Ori sat on the sofa to wait it out, running her hands over her head. Her muscles ached from the church floor, but it was the lingering weight of the ijiraq’s possession which muted her. She longed for the hot steam of a shower to scour memory away. But for now she simply sat with the one thing in this world that mattered to her above everything.

A hand eventually clutched at her knee, signalling her mother’s awareness of her presence. Ori let her hands drop from her face, wary for what Nadezhda would surface. She saw demons as often as she mourned for Ori’s soul, had done ever since the Sickness assailed her as a teenager, though none of the injuries were ever inflicted intentionally, physical or mental. Today her eyes were glazed and distant as she smoothed the hair from Oriena’s cheeks, wiping at imaginary tears. The rosary bit between them, but Ori didn’t flinch.

“Darling girl, darling girl,” she said over and over.

Oriena was dry-eyed, but the whites were all red. From the self-abuse of her own recklessness, from the tears she must have cried unknowing in the ijiraq’s grasp. She didn’t speak. It wasn’t like Nadezhda was really here. After a moment her head dipped, coming to rest on her mother’s shoulder.

Nadezhda sobbed enough for both of them.

---

She cleaned the house before she took the scalding shower. Made some food and watched her mother eat. Then she soothed Nadezhda into her bed and tucked her in.

When she was back on the street she shoved the earbuds in and turned up the volume. This wasn’t the sort of neighbourhood where it was safe for a woman to run alone, even in daylight, but Ori almost hoped for the challenge. Today the rhythm of pounding the pavement wasn’t going to be enough, and she already knew where her direction would take her. She’d not been to this particular gym in months, not since her fight with Luka over their sister’s funeral. By the look in his eye when his fist connected with her cheekbone she knew he’d not be goaded twice. It didn’t stop her spoiling for the fight though. And besides that, this has been her haunt since she found the crumpled flyer at nine years old. Long before she knew she had a brother at all.

Usually she’d just call Nox to meet her, because he was the only one she could actually rely on not to hold back or ask questions even when he burned with them, but he was in America. Ori didn’t inquire over the details, and she never contacted him when she knew he was away. So the disquiet of her mood was entirely her own to navigate. She didn’t probe herself too deeply, didn’t even name the emotions swimming around inside her chest. She only intended to excise them – push herself until she was in too much pain or exhaustion to keep feeling them.

Ori shouldered her way in the door, pasted with old and peeling posters. Inside was acrid with salt and sweat, the smack of gloves, the bark of instructors. Her gaze searched for Luka despite herself, but she couldn’t see him here. Maybe he hadn’t come back either. For some reason that only sharpened whatever she was feeling. No one she recognised here was likely to spar with her, not with the flat glint in her eye right now. Dumping her bag, she headed to the mats to warm up, then claim a punchingbag upon which to let out some steam.

[Mia Wolf]

Waking up in the middle of what had to be some god ritual of some sort, the type of thing she was supposed to stop in the long run was mild disorienting. Why had Mia been there? She hadn't really had time to ask, and Mia hadn't woken up the next morning she had. It was also disorienting. The trigger had been accidental, she knew that much and the letter in the journal sat unanswered.

My Dearest Mia... WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT!

It was only the next day, whatever it was hadn't allowed them to trigger back automatically. Trinity thought she might as well get the lay of the land and leave notes for Mia. That way she wouldn't stumble into the hornet's nest again. Mia's place wasn't the greatest in the world but it was clean and perfect for their business at hand. Out of the way and off the beaten path.

And everything else had the same flavor including the gym Trinity found herself in. Everyone minded their own business and it looked well enough. A woman smacked at a bag with a fierceness that one could only have for having shit hit the fan and there was nothing you could do about it -- that was the look she had.

Trinity watched as the bag danced around after each hit. For some that was what they wanted and Trinity couldn't tell one way or the other. But she stepped behind and out of the way of the bag but close enough to step in if wanted. "Probably feel better if you didn't have to chase it all around." Trinity nodded her head towards the bag indicating she'd hold it if desire. "Or a live target." She offered. Boxing wasn't her thing. Playing fair never really was, but she'd play by whatever rules there were. Life was a gamble and she was okay with the stakes.

[Oriena]

There wasn’t much that actually soothed Oriena, but sometimes focus made her grow quiet inside of herself. She wasn’t using gloves; she didn’t want the cushioning, and she didn’t care about injury. This wasn’t sportsmanship and it wasn’t training, it was just pure aggression. The bleeding inside kind. The kind that desperately needed silence of the mind.

Her eyes cut to the stranger’s approach, though only for a second, and it didn’t slow her savagery. It was the woman’s own fault if she got close enough to get caught in the bag’s violent swing.

“It’d feel better if it hit back,” she muttered. She didn’t stop, and for a moment it didn’t seem she would. Luka was MMA, they’d always sparred bare-knuckle, and there were no real rules with Nox. Admittedly the most rage-fueled of those always ended a certain way. She wasn’t someone Ori recognised in order to know her proclivities, but a woman was less likely to pull her punches on account of gender at least. If she crumpled disappointingly under the first hit, Ori wouldn't have an issue stepping over her body in order to return to her punchingbag.

After a moment she finally stepped back. Her breaths came hard from exertion, her skin sheened with sweat, but she didn’t want the pause of respite. The flicker of a smirk twitched her lips. It was the kind of unhinged expression that promised she was probably about to get them both kicked out, but it didn’t stop her lifting her arm and beckoning the challenge with the curl of smarting knuckles.

[Mia Wolf]

Trinity chuckled at her comment. "I hit back."

When she finally wound down and stopped, she looked positivity seething. Something darker and primal stirred just below the surface. Trinity followed the woman towards the rings.

There might not be a gloves rule but there was the whole liability about head injuries, so Trinity made sure to done the appropriate gear before she would step in the ring with a stranger -- if it were on the streets that was a whole different story.

Her training hadn't covered boxing persay. Hand to hand combat, fighting unfairly was usually the key to winning. "What kinda rules you wanna set before we step in the ring. I'm game for most things. Though fight to the death seems rather pointless. I don't wanna die, and I'm pretty sure I don't want to kill you either." But there was a tingle in the back of her head that said maybe you do. Trinity pushed it away. Death in the ring on a friendly playing field was not called for. This was not war. At least not yet.

[Oriena]

Ori wasn’t interested in fair, nor in talking. And neither was she particularly interested in winning. She watched the stranger don gear with a dispassion that suggested she found it a waste of time, but when someone chucked the same at her she only rolled her eyes and got on with it.

“You won’t kill me, sweetheart.” It seemed an odd fucking thing to say, but who was Ori to comment on a little viciousness? She glanced at her anew, but by the smirk she only appreciated the confidence. “But sure, that seems like a fine rule. Are we done talking?”

[Mia Wolf]

Trinity chuckled softly to herself and nodded. "Sure thing hun." Talking was overrated. She didn't much need it now that the rules were established. Fairness wasn't the issue, it was more about how far to let it go. There were times when the person on the other end thought it was friendly spar and Trinity had gone too far. Mia might have a thing or two to say if she went too far and she got blamed for it.  She was afterall the identity to which all their DNA and fingerprints were tied. Trinity was just a ghost hiding in plain sight.  Someone her handlers could get rid of with ease.  There was probably some kill switch that would eliminate her or the personality from which she was now living. Mia was a false trail.  Trinity was dead for all intents and purposes.

Trinity climbed into the ring and waited for the go ahead to start their impromptu match. There was always that moment of circling, sizing up the opponent.  The who is going to attack first. Trinity would spare a moment to let her opponent go this round, but normally she'd wait. She was pretty sure that there would be little down time and if there was a punch to the face might wake her up.

Trinity told herself this is fun.  It's supposed to be fun. But that nagging feeling persisted in the back of her head. Maybe not.

---

The immediate swing back of the “endearment” flashed some amusement. She didn’t offer a name and Oriena didn’t ask. It was irrelevant anyway. Once inside the ring she didn’t pause. She had a good few inches of height over the other woman, but that didn’t mean much in a place like this; sure you got amateurs, but not usually the lost female kind. And no one like that would have interrupted Ori in the first place. It didn't mean there was overconfident calculation in it though – in truth Ori didn’t care whether she was outmatched. The sharpness of her fist went straight for the face, of course. Mostly to set the tone.

---

Trinity smiled and ducked out of the way. It seemed they were on the same page. Her fist sped past her ear and Trinity tossed a jab to her chin and spun away from her.  It was a series of dancing and trading blows.

---

It became immediately clear that the woman wasn’t an amateur, and appeased by that knowledge, Ori stopped thinking. It wasn’t even viciousness anymore, just instinct with no holds barred. Nor was it clean fighting, contained by rules and sportsmanship. She took every opening, and the stranger did the same. But at some point Ori stopped dodging the blows. She’d been breathing fast even when they started, so it might have just been exhaustion catching up, though by the sly twitch of her smile sometimes perhaps not.

---

The dance was invigorating. The fight went round and round trading blows. Trinity felt the other woman growing tired and maybe a little more sly, but that didn't stop the smile that spread across her lips. Another round of trading blows and one snuck through Trinity's defenses and pegged her right in the face. The blood from her nose trickled down her face and in to her mouth.

The iron taste. Trinity wiped the blood from her nose and glanced at the stain on her glove. "I told you maybe you do." There was darkness in her eyes that wasn't there before. A hunger, a desire to draw more blood, though not her own.

The gloves on her hands bound her fingers. She struggled against them, she wanted to rip her throat out. She lunged at the woman across the ring from her, arms flailing wilder than before, angrier.

[[ ooc: with oriena ]]

[Oriena]

Hurt always felt better when it was translated into the purely physical. Ori was a master at self-sabotage, and she let far more blows land than she should have. It wasn’t in any way a yield though; her own attacks never ceased, until one burst blood from the stranger’s nose. Something changed then, a viciousness like the haze that descended on Nox when the horde was pressing up under his skin like a demon scratching for release. She didn’t know this woman, but she saw the light in her eyes change. Curiosity met the new challenge rather than fear. As the spar turned into something more real, more dangerous, Oriena was vaguely aware of shouting around them. She held her own, at least for now; wondering how far the other would really go.

[Mia Wolf]

Rage. Fury. Passion. Death. Blood. Kill All thoughts that raced through their brain.

Blood. Death. Kill. They didn't know. Didn't want to know what fueled the rage. This person had done nothing. Hurt nothing. Though their nose still dripped blood even as they swung and swung, faster and faster.

Shouting from outside the ring barely registered. Fight. Blood. Death. They cornered their prey against the northwest pole and a shock wave blast from the prey. The power of the impact as they landed on their back jolted her brain inside their skull. Her... I am me... Trinity blinked up from her back. What the fuck just happened!

Trinity didn't dare move, her nose ached, blood ran down the side of her face. The insides of her gloves felt like they'd been shredded trying to escape. Shit! Out of self defense and because her body actually ached and she wasn't sure why, it wasn't from the landing on the ring floor, though it was part of it. She didn't know what happened just then anymore than what had happened in the echo chamber of the cult of the Ascendancy. Fuck!

[ori modded with permission]

[Oriena]

It got nasty quickly. Ori let it go to the wire, but she wasn’t suicidal; when she realised exactly how far the stranger would take it, and who was going to win the match, she gave herself breathing room with a blast of power. It wouldn’t escalate anything – the woman couldn’t channel, so it was unlikely she’d even know what hit her. Ori could taste blood on her own lips – for the second time in as many days as it happened, though for more mundane reasons this time. Her skin slicked with sweat, and her body already ached where it would bruise. She leaned against the post, caught her breath, and then glanced over to where the woman still lay in a bloodied mess on the floor of the ring. Half a smirk twitched her lips, thoughtful. That hadn’t been normal.

When she straightened she waved off the commotion they’d caused. The woman wasn’t unconscious, even though she wasn’t moving. Ori presumed whatever darkness had overtaken her had receded, else she’d still be shredding in feral desperation to rid herself of the gloves. Maybe she was confused, and if so Ori didn’t care to comfort it, but she did walk over, looked her entirely up and down where she lay. “Got some demons dancing in that pretty little skull,” she observed. It wasn’t said in horror. Neither was it an entreaty for explanation. But she did offer a hand to help her up.

[Mia Wolf]

Trinity took the offered hand. But she had no explanation for what had happened.

Back on her feet Trinity looked at the woman who had been victim of a blackout and it wasn't Mia who had taken over. There was lingering shadow of something in her mind. A sinister and evil and deadly feeling lurking just under her skin. "I don't know what happened. I'm..." She wasn't sorry per se, she felt bad, but she was more concerned about what had happened than the victim of whatever she didn't remember.

Trinity took a deep breath. "Let me buy you a drink in apology."