HereComesTheSnow

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

@Silvan Haven@Crimmy@Write@Plank Sinatra

Pushing through struggles?

Well, that'd be a nice romanticization of it. Really, I'd have argued something more along the lines of stumbling, but...

She wasn't wrong about the others. It was the whole reason I'd stepped up for electroshock torture all of four hours prior, after all. I could take a lot, but letting other people get hurt...

It sat wrongly with me. As if I'd failed them somehow.

...So I bleed as an act of penance for my failures?

Weeeeh, that's a weird way to turn. Are we sure this wasn't some repressed masochism?

Maybe. But if it could help others, I could accept being a little less sane than I liked to pretend. As long as it didn't make anything weird, I was actually really grateful for... whatever had bubbled up inside of me. This drive I'd gained to support others. This desire to lend them some of whatever gumption kept me ticking.

The conviction to see everyone through to the end, no matter the cost.

Well, taking it seriously, that sure sounded goo—hold that thought WHAT

I turned my head to Beryl, trying my level best to mask my shock. I had just been thinking about it, when did she learn?! Wasn't your semblance a hydrokinetic sort of thing, and not mindreading?!

"What makes you say that?" I responded, carefully neutralizing my voice.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

luke takes a beating but that's about all he does aside from some facepunching

simple stuff

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

"Not all of us try to run from our feelies on our heelies, Gratia."

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

if his mom would get him the ones that light up maybe he would GEEZ MOM

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

luke can count to five

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

it's college dude

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

>33

dude

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

@Silvan Haven@Crimmy@Write@Plank Sinatra

"Aaaah." I said plainly, nodding my head in mostly-understanding.

Literally being the water... You know, I didn't think that was what Bruce Lee had in mind when he said that. Indeed, famous actor and martial artist and fitness guru that he was, I very much doubted a spiritual connection towards any body of water you were in were what he was expecting.

Beryl, I hate to break it to you, but the man might have called you an overachiever.

Still, though.

"That's..." I found myself stifling yawns again. "Pretty impressive."

I knew better than to trust a yawn to tell me if I was going to sleep any more.

If every bit of water around her did indeed extend further than simply standing bodies around her, then it wasn't just impressive. It was absolutely insane. Terrifying, once you remembered how much of the body is made of water.

I reminded myself to stay on her good side, but fortunately, I was growing to realize her good side had to be a mile wide.

"The semblance coming from the soul's always been an interesting theory." I mused, watching her kick back off the edge of the pool and back out into the water. Maybe it was just me having her semblance so recently explained and thinking about water in general, but the pattern of ripples in her wake caught my eye for a bit.

Kind of mesmerizing.

"I mean, I wonder how it decides which part of the soul it takes from. If it can ever change if the person changes. What it says about my sister that hers is creating auric strings, while mine heals me..."

I blinked.

"...and others, now."

Hrm. What deep and philosophical questions those were.

Seriously, is Dawn a puppeteer or something? A seamstress? I don't understand that.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

@Silvan Haven@Crimmy@Write@Plank Sinatra

"And I guess cutting to close someone else's wounds kind of kills the idea even further, doesn't it?" I agreed wryly, flexing my palm a few times.

"At least I've got the hair right."

Poof.

Well, it wasn't long enough that I could blow it out of my eyes yet, so that was something, at least. That meant it wasn't too ridiculous, right?

Or it was just really stubborn...

After all it did have a habit of hanging over an eye. Frankly though, I thought this length looked good on me. My competitive drive when it came to making a bet against my sisters had a silver lining after all...

Of course, it was a sucker's bet.

April had been planning on switching to a ponytail for months, and Dawn somehow managed to change hairstyles every third week. In short, I had realized my loss after a scant few months.

...Why do I feel like that makes me a bit dense?

I looked back down to Beryl, who was currently laying almost flat on her stomach in the water. Like the most literal interpretation of the term "water bed" that you could ever hope to see.

How the heck was she doing that? I mean, being a good swimmer was one thing, but at least that was something I could wrap my head around! If I tried to do this, the closest I could have gotten was the dead man's float! Even on my back, I had a lot of trouble these days?

...I guess I could contribute that to density, though. While I've never been necessarily out of shape, my body composition had greatly changed after training, especially in regards to my muscle / fat ratio.

Still, Beryl cut a lean figure in her own right. I was more than aware of that, and actively beat down memories as to why so as to keep myself focused. As a guy, I was always going to be more cut simply due to how biology works, but for her to float like this so easily was still out of the question normally!

I had to ask.

I couldn't not ask.

For the sake of my own curiosity, no, for the sake of mankind, I would ask.

"...How are you floating like that, anyway?"

I thought in that moment, fleetingly, that I was beginning to understand Gratia.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

@NarayanK same