breathe air you're not used to

[pushfall.livejournal.com]

Who: Claire Bennet & Severus Snape
What: Familiar faces in new places
Where: Here and there
When: Shundi afternoon/evening
Notes: N/A
Warnings: TBA


Claire hasn't been here long: long enough to establish that she's not where she expected to be when she woke up a few days ago; long enough to rationalize that keeping her head down and her voice just another hum of the crowd's was the best course of action; long enough to have put the more important aspects of her observations of Noah into practice as well as she could with the money she had been provided with upon being let out of that room. The clothes she has been given are muted and very not her, but that's fine with Claire, as is the length of her hair, barely brushing her shoulders as she leaves the Inn, determined to venture a bit further than she had the day before.

Her room at the inn is small, compared to what she's used to, but it's given her a place to sit and quietly gather her thoughts, get her bearings, put away the emotions she can't use to fall back on now that she's someplace new and alone here to boot. If this place is anything like the City, reaching out and contacting the others she's seen on this place's version of the Network would be beneficial, but she can't shake the doubt that has been systematically built into her over time. She needs to suss out the details first, establish certain boundaries, and get as acclimated as she can to eliminate all the blind spots.

It's never worked very well for her before, but she's never been one to admit defeat, and so she takes a street that has become somewhat recognizable and walks for a while, catching her reflection now and then and refusing to be as startled by it as she was the first time she looked at herself in this place. It's looking at herself this way that she catches sight of a set of shoulders and head of hair, a way of moving, that could be familiar.

Claire turns, twisting her head so that she can look over her shoulder, following those shoulders with narrowed green eyes, her own posture tight as her hands curl into fists where she's got them stored in her pockets. The decision to follow him comes only a few moments after she's spotted who she thinks must be - can't be - Severus Snape, and it's only when she's risked losing sight of him that she takes off, hurrying at first but slowing to a casual stroll once she's not in danger of missing him around a corner.

Comments

[inkdamage]

He has a moment - a visible one, even - in which he almost snaps at Claire that it's only obvious to her, but it's so brazen concerning the nature of his spell that he's immediately irritated that he nearly slipped. He keeps his silence, and an annoyed expression to go with it. Who is this person, who looks at him with such plain familiarity? He wishes he could just turn and leave her, but that is of course, completely ludicrous. This is a variable that holds knowledge about him, and it cannot be left unattended. (He hates it when variables are people.)

"I suppose 'nothing' will not cause anything but petulance," he remarks, sounding a bit snippy. He is not having this conversation - or any conversation - out in front of bloody Merlin and everybody, and the idea of eavesdroppers or even innocently curious observers makes his skin crawl. The absurdity of the pair they make is not lost on him; beyond the sight of a man buying something mysterious and expensive being confronted shortly after by a bright-eyed girl who'd been following him about the place, she is beautiful, and the sort to draw even the most idle of stares. Their contrast is noteworthy.

With a resigned but not entirely tolerant look, Severus glides past her, but not at a pace that suggests retreat. Apparently he expects her to follow him properly, now.

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She's ready to snap that she's not petulant, but that kind of a response would be petulant, and despite not knowing what she has to prove to someone she apparently knows in name only, the last thing Claire wants to do is prove him right. Rather than reply, she presses her lips firmly together, sealing her voice in her throat so that it's not tempted to break through her teeth and come barreling out of her mouth. The only purpose this serves is to make her look like a ruffled and irritated chick, puffed up on false bravado.

Instead of immediately following him, she stays rooted firmly to the spot she's been standing in for the past several minutes, until she realizes that if she holds her position in an attempt to be defiant - or petulant, since she's proving him right the more she tries not to - she might lose him and never manage to find him again. It's not a paralyzing or particularly disarming thought, but it's not an idea that she likes, alone in the crowd as she is, and as she suspects he'll treat her as if she owes him an explanation, Claire reasons that she'll be able to get something out of him in return, whether it's regarding this place and how to survive it or answers about the version of her that he knows.

She lengthens her strides as much as she can in order to cut down the distance between them, and if Severus was hoping to keep a low-ish profile by staying a few steps ahead of her, Claire all but shatters that illusion as she falls almost into step beside him. There is a glaring height difference - as there usually is with Claire and anyone else in the world - and she's a bright speck against his backdrop. They've always contrasted, but it's never stood out to her as much as it does now.

"Where are we going?" she asks, but not with the sort of wary hesitation that she probably should give him.

[inkdamage]

There are no outward signs to suggest that he expects her to trail along beside him like a child, or that he's bothered - specifically, anyway, Severus always looks bothered in general. His face is a cold mask once again, hurrying with a grace that he's fortunately already more or less grown into. In his mind, he's detailing the ways he could kill this girl, if it comes down to it, or rip the information he needs from her mind. (He has no idea. Truly.)

"Where were you going before you dropped in on me?" he asks, mostly rhetorical, though there's an edge to his voice. To what extent would she have followed him, unknowing? What difference does it make now that he's leading her willfully and not unaware?

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Claire tends to think of herself as invincible, which becomes problematic when put up against magic. She's never really experimented much with spells and hexes, despite knowing the people that she has, and walking along with him now, it's something that she wished she had investigated more when she was in the City. Could he kill her? The possibility stops being so interesting when she considers that she still doesn't believe he actually would.

When did she become so trusting?

She casually lets herself drift a few careful steps away.

"You tell me," she responds, without accusation or actual curiosity. Claire doesn't look at him but watches her shoes move over the unfamiliar bumps and cracks in the pavement. "I've only been here a couple of days, just wandering around, trying to... get some sense of direction, so to speak." A shrug, tense and controlled. "I don't really know where anything is here. I thought I'd explore, maybe try to find something I knew or recognized." Someone she knew or recognized, though definitely not him. "So far pretty much everything is nothing I know or recognize."

[inkdamage]

"Exploring in the unknown," he muses, and leads her into an area of the district that's not... entirely upstanding, but still busy. "Following a madman on his errands, who is familiar to you. Pray tell, why am I familiar to you?" Severus glances over his shoulder at her as he begins to climb a stone staircase that leads them out of the main road and into a labyrinth of cobblestone walkways and shop fronts, clearly designed with only foot traffic in mind. Somewhere down an alley, something is burning.

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Warning bells go off, her nostrils stinging with the acrid stench of whatever it is that's been lit on fire just down the way. For a moment, Claire stops again, her feet shuffling heavily against the cobblestones so that the scrape of her shoes echo off the walls. Where are we going? tries to press out from behind her lips once more, but she stifles it, more interested in the fact that he is finally, apparently, outwardly interested.

"What else was I supposed to do? Anyone that I get to know here could be a madman, and I could end up following them on their errands." She takes a step, knowing he'll keep going even if she doesn't. It's after a long stretch of silence that she speaks again, working her voice out around the taste that smell puts in her throat.

"Before I - I came here from... I wasn't at home when I was brought here." Pause. "Well, I was in a place I'd started thinking of as home when I was brought here. I was with my - I woke up here, which isn't exactly a new thing. The last place that I was stuck in used to do the same thing to the people that it pulled in. It was this place, called the City?" Claire phrases it as a question if only to see if it might spark some memory within him. "I was there for three years, got to know a lot of people I never thought could actually exist."

That's somewhat vague, so Claire tries a more direct approach: "I knew you there. An older you. You ran a potions supply store and I worked at the register and took inventory."

She doesn't say, We were friends, though it's there in the slightly plaintive quality of her voice.

[inkdamage]

He's listening as he moves, hearing her but no visibly reacting; nothing sounds familiar. Severus knows of other dimensional traps by reputation alone, always having been able to rely on technology or magic or even chance to let him dart to and fro out of the Nexus. He was always careful and precise, once he'd done all his exploring. A man on a mission.

It's apparent after a little while that they're in a system of alleys connecting the backs of shops, which gives the area its industrial feel. Another hike up some crumbling stairs, and Severus finally stops at a domed-topped complex and its heavy metal door. One hand on the frame, he glances in Claire's direction, but doesn't meet her eyes.

"Was I dead?"

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Claire might have some experience in dealing with the sort of shift being in an alternate reality provides, but the more she explains and the longer she follows him, the more it sinks in that nothing here is the same at all. No familiar faces, no familiar places, and she's on her own, following someone who is more or less a stranger down an alley that looks like something out of fantasy horror. She knows she's never had the best ideas, but this one is starting to appear as if it's going to top all the others.

Their destination draws her up short, and she halts several paces away from where he's standing with his hand on the frame before he actually addresses her again. She crosses her arms, almost as if she's cold, but it's the middle of summer here and even the winding and twisting network of alleyways can't pinch out the heat that well.

His question doesn't catch her off-guard, but she does spend a moment wondering how to answer, which may be an answer in and of itself. "Does it matter? You're alive here, aren't you?" She's not close enough to check for tell-tale signs, but she figures it's a logical assumption to make.

[inkdamage]

It's a weak answer. It broadcasts emotion; in that moment, he knows more than any interrogation could prove that she's not going to betray him or sell him out. Instead of being comforting or relieved, all Severus feels is bitterness. Of course he was dead. She might as well have an electric sign blinking in the affirmative. Too attached to just tell him yes, too aware to lie outright.

The smile he gives her is cold, and it doesn't reach his eyes. "Quite."

He vanishes into the complex, the great iron door clanging shut after him like it's being pulled by some unseen force, sweeping the wizard away into darkness. (She can try and open it, of course, but it's not going to budge. And who knows what shop front this thing could lead to. Good luck?)