[color=f6989d]Optional Reading. 

17 years ago. 
Carlow Asylum, Ireland. 

Lillian frustratingly sat atop a lamp, watching her sleeping body and feeling rather annoyed. For the seventh time that week she had awoke to find herself laying on the floor beneath her bed, bodiless, and to cheer herself up had decided to amuse herself by sitting atop the flimsy light fixture that sat on the beside table. She was [i]in fact[/i] amused by being able to do it, but there are few problems in life where sitting on a lamp would prove anything more than a fleeting cure for ones sadness, and she quickly became upset. Her 'episodes' as the doctors called them had gotten worse since she'd been placed in the care of the asylum by her well meaning, but foolish family. The doctors had taken the episodes very seriously and were doing their best to help, but Lillian got the distinct impression their commitment had more to do with seeing her as a fascinating test subject than having anything to do with a genuine desire to help. Or rather, it was less a distinct impression and more a confirmed fact. People say very telling things to each other when they think the subject of their conversation isn't listening. Lily once heard one of the doctors joyfully talk about how the asylum would be funded for years by the McClellen family in an effort to cure someone who was just born with a bad brain. Lillian was unsure what part she found the most insulting, that her family was seen as nothing more than a cash cow, that the doctor was intentionally taking money from her family despite believing there was nothing to be done, or that he saw her as having a bad brain. Which ever option was worse was a moot point as his comments earned him Lillian's attention for a short while, and the so called doctor no longer worked at the asylum. Had everything gone to plan the only place he'd be likely to get work was with a traveling freak show. 

The door to her room opened and one of the new nurses, a woman by the name of Clodagh who wore the bun she kept in her hair too tight, strolled in with a happy chirp to her step and a toothy grin. Lillian often wondered if the grin was intentional or a side effect of the bun. Clodgah declared it was time to wake up, and unlocked the bared window to let in fresh air. She made a few gentle attempts to wake Lily but when her attempts were fruitless she adopted a worried look and ran off.

Lillian sighed to herself. "Here we go" she thought.

A minute later Doctor O'Ceallaigh bounded in with Clodgah hot on his heels. He was one of those men who started to go bald early and refused to accept it, leading to numerous fruitless attempts to make the hair he did have a dramatic feature. He had a long combed and waxed beard, and a long waxed mustache that circled in on itself so dramatically it made him look like he carried a pair of spectacles under his nose. He immediately went up to Lillian's body and grabbed her foot, shaking it rather violently. When that failed to do anything he moved to stand beside her, took one of her arms, lifted and moved it so her hand was above her face, and let go. As expected, Lillian slapped herself rather hard as her limp hand collided with her unprotected face. The transparent girl tried not to take it personal as she knew it was the best way to confirm if someone was faking, but she did wish they'd be a little more careful about it. They didn't need to lift her hand as high as it could go to get the same result, and it would lead to a bit less pain. 

"Another episode. Seventh time this week. Things are getting worse, it must be that medication we put her on when she arrived. Take her off the modafinil immediately and switch to Armodafinil, uh, two doses in the afternoon." He nodded very firmly as if he'd just done some great work and left without another word. 

"Today is bath day, lets get you cleaned up." Clodgah said in a far too cheery voice before leaving. Lillian fell off her lamp from shock. She hated bath day at the asylum in general, but the thought of someone else washing her sent her into a bit of a panic. She quickly took off after the nurse, closing and locking her room door behind her as she did. Lillian spent the next few minutes disrupting Clodgah's attempts to gather the needed bathing supplies. Nothing too harsh, the woman was a kind soul even if she was so kind it rather made the young girl want to strangle the woman. But she was kind, and didn't deserve harsh treatment. 

When Clodgah managed to get a bucket of hot water ready, Lillian tipped it over as soon as the woman's back was turned. "Oh heaven's mercy! Today is just one of those days" the older woman said calmly and ventured off to get towels. That gave Lillian a good twenty minutes of peace to concentrate on getting back into her body while Clodgah busied herself cleaning the mess. She found on more than one occasion if she calmed down, and focused, she could some times return to her body by her own volition. She hadn't quite figured out the mechanism to make it more consistent, but it did work. Not that she had had much of a chance to really practice the technique as she so rarely found herself able to be calm with all the poking and prodding, and all the things she had to watch her body get put through. 

Lillian rushed back to her room and found to her horror the door was opened. She ran in to see Walsh the Whale standing over her bed with the most cross look one had ever seen another human make. The crossness was to be expected as she was currently covered in numerous bee stings all over her body —which would make most people pretty cross—. Her face was bespeckled with white dots of cream she had placed on the numerous stings, and she kept shifting and scratching uncomfortably; All the while glaring at Lillie's useless body. During her last episode Lilly had located a beehive in an adjoining field and placed it under a bench she had learned was the head nurses favorite spot. Though normally terrified to stray so far from her body, under the circumstances she deemed the risk worth it. What prompted such an action on Lillian's part had everything to do with the fact that on her first day at the Asylum the so called head nurse had taken away Lily's stuffed bunny rabbit declaring it was 'unhealthy for girls her age to still be clinging to stuffed toys.' Lily had made quite the fuss about the toy being returned for the rest of the day until the head Doctor (Doctor Finnerty) reprimanded Walsh in front of Lily and had the toy returned immediately. According to the actual professional, under the circumstances a comfort item was actually a good thing. Unfortunately the events caused Walsh to take some petty revenge and when it came time for Lily to clean herself, the whale delivered cold water, the worlds scratchiest sponge, and soap that smelled of fish oil. Lillian went to bed that night cold, in pain all over her body, and smelling of fish. This is of course what lead to the beehive relocation. The reason for Walsh's extreme look of displeasure however was because the next time Lily saw the woman —post beehive incident— she pointed, laughed, and called her "Walsh the red spotted whale" a nickname that the other patients took up almost immediately, though it often got shortened to just 'Walsh the Whale'. 

Lillian carefully moved close to the woman and readied herself to pounce should the cantankerous whale try something. The head nurse had on more than one occasion suggested the patients simply needed a good beating to cure what ailed them, and though she had yet to show she was willing to follow through with that assertation Lily was always paranoid the woman would one day decide to take matters into her own hands.

Walsh stood at the foot of the bed for a solid five minutes, before turning and leaving. It was only after ten minutes of paranoid waiting that Lillian felt safe enough the bitch was not going to suddenly reappear. At that point she began the process of trying to calm herself enough so she might stand a decent chance of hopping back into her body, of course at that point she was only able to try for a few minutes before Clodagh returned with the bathing supplies. Lillian watched in hopeless embarrassment and personal despair as her body was moved to the cold tiled floor, striped naked, and cleaned far too thoroughly by a person she barely knew. What was worse was on several occasions some of the Doctors stepped in to have a word with Clodgah, and neither of them had the decency to try and retain the young girls dignity. Clodgah would keep working no matter what was going on, and none of the Doctors had the good sense to maybe wait outside or at least talk to the nurse with their back to the events going on. One of the Doctors Lillian was unfamiliar with had the audacity to comment on her petite size and small breasts, which prompted Clodgah to explain it was because Lily was so thin. The nurse then stopped what she was doing to have a whole conversation about Lillian's body, often pointing to and grabbing certain parts to illustrate her points on why it would be a good idea to fatten her up during her stay at the asylum. The Doctor seemed to agree with the nurse, but did so in such a way that it sounded like he was trying to make it out to be his idea. At one point Clodgah shifted Lillian's body to better show off her hips which caused one her her legs to fall to the side, utterly exposing her to the doctor. The nurse made no attempt to cover Lillian, the Doctor made no attempt to look away, and in a fit of frustrated rage and devastated embarrassment Lilly punched the Doctor with both her fists in both his eyes as hard as she could muster. 

The Doctor fell backwards into the open door and slammed his back into the door knob. He screamed out in pain and yelled about going blind. Clodgah rushed over to the Doctor and helped him up, asking all kinds of concerned questions before leading him out of the room to get him looked after. Leaving Lily's young body naked on the ground in the most indecent position. Feeling dead inside, Lillian decided she didn't care if people found out about her ability to manipulate the world while out of her body and set about showing herself a level of decency everyone else seemed dead set on denying her. She closed the door before anyone could look inside, finished bathing her body, clothed it with the new clothes Clodgah brought, and with a lot of struggling managed to get herself in bed. She carefully tucked her body in, even fluffed the pillow a bit before carefully placing her stuffed rabbit under one of her arms. She then cleaned up the wet floor and placed all the supplies off to the side before returning to sitting on the lamp where she pulled her non-existent knees up close to her chest and hugged them. Clodgah eventually returned after an hour and didn't even bat an eye that someone else had apparently finished cleaning her charge; simply picked up the supplies with a smile and left, locking the door behind her. 

Lillian remained on the lamp for the rest of the day, watching as her Doctors came in to poke and prod, and measure, and inject. 

Things went on like that for three days before Lily was able to return to her body. 

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Three years later.

Lillian sat upon a thin branch at the very top of the tallest tree in her families back yard. After numerous successful business deals on her fathers part her family had moved up considerably in the world. They went from being what most would call rather wealthy, to extremely wealthy. And so that change in wealth had meant a change in location as well. They moved from Ireland to a massive mansion on the outer edges of Prague, a city which her father claimed was one of the 'hearts of the world' what ever that meant. It was quite the change, and from time to time Lilly needed to be reminded it was all real and so would leave her body so she could sit atop the tallest tree and take everything in. The view of the ground was gorgeous, but the main reason she went up so high was because it allowed her to look over the roof of the house, past the small forest that hid the home, and look upon the city of Prague.  It was all real, her family really had moved up in the world. New city, new house, and most importantly for Lillian, a new life.

After numerous asylums failed to do anything other than make Lily miserable and bitter and angry, her family decided they would look after her themselves. They reasoned out that Lily always, eventually, returned and that was all that mattered. If Doctors couldn't fix what was wrong, it made no sense to force something upon her that just made her worse in other ways. In their own words 'we'd rather be able to enjoy what little time we get with you, then risk losing every moment trying to fix you.' In the end it turned out to be exactly what she needed; without living in fear of beatings, and needles, and all manor of other terrifying concepts Lillian was free to explore what she had eventually decided to call her gift. That freedom, that peace, that feeling of love and safety allowed her to learn to not only return to her body on command, but to also leave it on command as well. It had taken her family a while to figure out, but they eventually came through for her. 

In an instant Lily found herself back in front of her writing desk after deactivating her power, having had enough the view. Sprawled out across her sizeable desk were numerous books discussing orbital bodies and their celestial movements. Lillian had come to the conclusion that while each book had worthy aspects in their own right, they were all flawed. So she was gathering the best information from each book and condensing it all into a much more scientifically accurate record that she could better refer to in the future. The hardest part about the task was not understanding the material, but getting through books that were three times longer than they needed to be because they were written by boastful men who knew a lot about celestial bodies and not a damn thing about book structure. It was hard work, but satisfying and meaningful. Each page she wrote, each piece of information she gathered and put together with other knowledge, was science being furthered.

The past events of her life had left scars, not all physical, but Lillian had been given a fresh start at life. With a family that loved and cared for her and let her be herself, a city that didn't constantly remind her of her painful past, and the resources to dive into any topic she desired so that she could fully explore it's depths; Lillian had found her place in the world, and that place made her even happier than she had been before her talent manifested. There was a whole world of science and knowledge to explore, and she planned to fully lose herself in it. An idea that brought a large smile to her face as she wrote. 

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