#— file ✧ eliana mitchell.

[pathlit]

⤷ ✧ @goodjobsport said, ❝ whatever she said about me, it's not true. ❞ for ellie.

❛ mmm. ❜ the neutral response merely buys her time, lets her pretend to consider believing him. she drops the act with a wide smile that completely belies her words as she concludes, ❛ nah, I think I think I'm going to believe her. ❜ it is, after all, her job. well, not her job, but the consequence of her job. or perhaps even that stretches the truth, but regardless, if she's picking sides, she's picking abby's, and she can't fathom how it would be any other way.

ellie does, however, fix mike with a look at she shoves the last of her things into her bag. ❛ you realize that, in the off chance she said anything nice, you just rejected that too, right? ❜

[trueseeking]

❛ I couldn't stop until I'd won! ❜ ellie states it like the obvious — and it is. what a nonsense suggestion, really, wholly overlooking everything christine knows about her. in another time and place, with another person, ellie might even be offended. ❛ they were all funny. all delightfully funny. you just a have a weird sense of humor, and that's not my fault. ❜

and they could continue like this, spiral into a conversation that has no thread of reasoning because it's all just them proposing the exact opposite — and neither of them with any evidence to bring to bear, nor even any intention toward which to move. but ellie did have an intention. ❛ for the record, though? I'm serious about a space party. and the planning part. ❜

❛ ⠀you could have stopped,⠀ ❜⠀ she says, pointing out the obvious. it was a play for the sensible, but with ellie, such behaviour could only linger for half-a-second, perhaps a sentence, before it dispelled under the weight of her glittering eyes and christine returned to her usual senseless chatter. ❛ ⠀i, on the other hand, was your victim! no, no, don't interrupt me, your victim. joke, after joke, and none of them funny! you know how much i dearly love a laugh! do you have any idea how frustrating, how tortuous this entire experience was?⠀ ❜

[gaerlhoss-a]

what type of symphony are you?

THE ELEGY: THE BLOOMING OF THE ROSE  ::  you are the crescendo,  a never-ending strength which arouses great power and love within.  you feel immensely,  intensely,  and every surface you touch is laden with love — but beware,  one must not cross you.  your ardor knows no bounds and your symphony echoes on.  you bring tears to one's eyes when they look at you too long, and you inflict hope within tragedy.  you are the end-all-be-all,  but you are not to be mistaken in fear — people cannot help feeling everything at once when they meet you,  for you are the cosmos which blinds the oblivious and gifts the shadows light.  your song: elegies of thule no. 3 by tonu korvits

[pathlit]

⤷ ✧ @mirrcr said, ❝ would you run away with me? ❞ from nikolai.

they are no strangers to the absurd, and by comparison the question scarcely deserves the label. ❛ I get a choice this time? ❜ on another's lips, the question might seem arch, yet she all but laughs it, delighted even as she teases. she has not kept a running tally of the growing number of times he has stolen her away with him, few days snatched from other responsibilities.

❛ not today, ❜ she offers by way of answer, faux-stern as if the words are not also an implied absolutely. ❛ I am not missing tonight's concert, and I am not missing tomorrow's festival. ❜ it was, after all, the entirety of the reason she'd arranged her schedule to bring her here now, and not in another month. she drops the effort at maintaining even a semblance of serious demeanor, her ever-quick smile returning almost immediately. ❛ then, I'm all yours. ❜

[pathlit]

⤷ ✧ @nursc / continued.

maybe she had not been, maybe the question had initially been nothing more than rhetorical, an emphatic punctuation mark at the end of what has long since ceased to be a short answer to a wholly innocuous question and long since descended into a rant. whatever it had been before, christine's query transforms it into an earnest question, and ellie fully believes it had always been so. ❛ yes, I'm asking for your opinion! ❜ ( why else would she have, you know, asked? )

and christine's her friend, so of course she's sure. by immediate nature of being her friend, christine, and along with her her judgment, is rendered positively unimpeachable. it is as simple as that.

more rationally, ellie knows she needs out of her own head. an objective, third party opinion ( okay, maybe not too objective: christine had better be on her side ) to offer some clarity — or, at least, keep her from making the bad decisions she's probably otherwise doomed for.

[pathlit]

⤷ ✧ @starstcff, continued.

it's not that she's ungrateful — it's really not. staying here, even with newfound friends ( dangerous mystical creatures out of legend though they may be ), was the last thing she wanted, truly. a whole world beyond boiled down to... this. the bounds of a network of caverns had fully explored in mere days.

so, no, she's not ungrateful, but gratitude takes second place to indignation. if he's safe, if ship and crew were safe, then sailing right back into the trouble you escaped in the first place to rescue her... that's the lives of a hundred people.

he's right, though, and no amount of blame or chiding can undo his choices, or eliminate her undeniable relief, the way worry and frustration ( carefully ignored ) uncoil. they got through alive. she might not have to remain here forever.

❛ no, I need my breath for moving. ❜ she can't blame him aloud, at least, nor in honesty focus on it silently if she's to be present and aware. ❛ but I can blame you later. acceptable? ❜

probably not. it's not like he'll want to hear it any time, now or later, so she doesn't give him time to respond. ❛ we're getting my harp on the way, because I'm not leaving here it. ❜ if she'd thought there was even the remotest chance, she'd have kept it with her at all times, but even she, whimsical though she was wont to be, hadn't expected.

[pathlit]

⤷ ✧ @nursc said, ❝ may i have this dance? ❞

with leg tucked up under her on the couch, she picks idly at the strings of the instrument. or, from external appearances, it might seem idle, though in truth she strives, and fails, to match the music she plays over the speakers, recorded while on rarelta a month back. for a month, the instrument has stubbornly refused to cooperate; the locals had been happy enough to place it into her hands, but teaching her... apparently that just wasn't done. something about how, if you learned to play, it must be because the instrument surrendered its secrets to you.

it certainly didn't seem keen on surrendering any secrets to her, and ellie insisted, futilely, that she wasn't offended.

she must have sighed, or otherwise expressed the frustration she definitely doesn't feel. something to draw her friend from where she lounges, because suddenly christine is there before her, hands outstretched and question upon her lips. ❛ it's not exactly dancing music, ❜ ellie points out, more out of the principle of the thing than in any true protest.

after all, she still puts aside the instrument and takes christine's hands as she rises.

[pathlit]

⤷ ✧ @conflictaverse said, ❝ let me make it up to you. ❞

her shrug is halfhearted, but truly for all her dejected expression, she’ll be fine. ellie is always fine, in the end, her cheer resilient with the stubbornness of rubber. besides, it’s not on sam’s shoulders to make it up to her. ❛ it’s really okay, really truly. not everyone wants to let outsiders in, I know that. ❜ this is not the first and not the last time a new species had declined to share their music.

❛ there will be others. I’ve got plenty to work on in the meantime anyways, so maybe it’s for the better. ❜ she’s always behind, at least now while traveling with enterprise. when she stays in one place, there’s no new cultures to lure her from her current project.

[pathlit]

⤷ ✧ @goodjobsport said, ❝ well, I do feel better now that you're here. ❞

his familiar face had been a welcome sight amidst a swarm of strange adults and the children of varying ages they struggled to keep in tow. in a school gymnasium currently housing not displays of athletic prowess but of artistic inclinations ( talent might be pushing it, judging by some of the works ), ellie finds herself both horrifyingly out of her element and surrounded by sights not all that far in her past. she's not entirely sure which is the more disorienting.

❛ what, did you think I wouldn't show up for my favorite ten year old? ❜ abby might well be the only ten year old ellie knows, but that's not the point, nor does it diminish the fact that ellie is fond of her. she wasn't going to just... not be here. she'd promised, and if she was late, well, the blame lay with the people on the highway who'd gotten in her way.

it wasn't even rush hour. they had no reason to all need to be driving at the exact time that she needed to be. especially considering that her rehearsal had run late. ❛ she was worried I wasn't going to be here, wasn't she? ❜ there's a twinge of guilt that accompanies the question, a belated acknowledgment that she could have, and perhaps should have, called. no, there's really no perhaps to it, but she'd been so singlemindedly focused on getting here.

[pathlit]

⤷ ✧ @starstcff said, ❝ are you calling my life's work nonsense? ❞ from nikolai.

she would never... and she could earnestly affect an air of utter indignation, of offense that he would even suggest.... but instead she grins at him, unable to resist asking, ❛ and what if I was? ❜

her smile proves more fleeting than her usual, drawn quickly back into the furrow of her brow. ❛ but it can't possibly actually fly. ❜ that's not something people do, that's not something that wood and canvas can permit. the weight, the physics of air and resistance...

the little science transcends much, and elia knows all too well the way it bends what should be feasible. a whisper heard across a crowded courtyard too long to carry even in abject silence. resonance of music shifted just so to draw a tear from even the most stubbornly stoic... air ships, however, transcend credulity.

[pathlit]

the bright illumination of enterprise’s corridors leaves ellie blinking pitifully, but if she wasn’t awake before, she would be now. she’s grateful that even full illumination in her quarters is nothing compared to the default setting of the ship at large. ❛ of course! ❜ ellie’s response comes without any actual thought, more reflex than any conscious consideration. ❛ I mean, why settle for anything less than the best? ❜

she squints at christine then, in suspicion this time and not against the light. ❛ have you decided what you are dragging me into? ❜ ellie has perused no more than the scantest information about their destination, most of her knowledge coming rather from the excited chatter of the crew at large, all planning their own shore leave. ellie, however, if left to her own devices, would merely plop herself down, pick a direction, and see where the day takes her.

❛⠀⠀ how can i possibly refuse such a request? don't want you gettin' hungry and deciding my brains look delicious. ⠀ ❜ ⠀ she says, pushing herself off the bed, making a vague attempt at making the bed; half-straightening the sheet, so it covers the entire length of the bed, even if its path is obstructed by clumps and bumps. the pillows fare a little better, a byproduct of years of nursing, she fluffs and positions them with practiced ease at the head of the bed, turning to ellie at the end with a little flourish, hands smacking together in front of her chest.

picking up her backpack from the floor, she starts shooting ellie out the door with more nonsense.

❛⠀⠀ i mean, if you were going to eat a brain, it would be mine, right? ⠀ ❜

[gaerlhoss-a]

TAG DROP  –  eliana mitchell

⤷  file  /  eliana mitchell.

⤷  ellie  /  character study.

⤷  ellie  /  characterization.

⤷  ellie  /  visage.

⤷  ellie  /  interactions.

⤷  ellie  /  rel.  maeve donovan  |  doctordonovan.

⤷  ellie  /  rel.  cameron mitchell  |  duefaith.

⤷  ellie  /  rel.  raelle mitchell.

⤷  ellie  /  rel.  nissa conley mitchell.

[gaerlhoss-a]

TAG DROP — general tags

⤷  file  /  from the writer’s desk.

⤷  file  /  memes & sentence starters.

⤷  file  /  wishlist.

⤷  file  /  saved.

⤷  file  /  elizabeth weir.

⤷  file  /  casey mitchell.

⤷  file  /  eliana mitchell.

⤷  file  /  gabriel lorca.

⤷  file  /  john sheridan.

⤷  file  /  klaus.

⤷  file  /  samantha carter.

⤷  file  /  yasha nydoorin.

[pathlit]

her nose wrinkles at the designation of munchkin — she isn’t that short — but ellie cannot deny that christine is correct: it makes for a poor sob story. not that the lack of a future sob story evokes much sympathy in ellie now. or any sympathy, for that matter. ❛ my pretty head is already bothered with it. and if you don’t think that I won’t sit here and invent horrible answers to worry about anyways, you don’t know me at all. ❜

worrying about her friend, after all, is undeniably ellie’s job. however, for all the lighthearted tone, a furrow does crease her brow a moment later. ❛ I mean… obviously if it’s really truly something you don’t want to talk about, you should just tell me to shut up, but… you’re my friend and I love you and I want to help and I can’t help if I don’t know. ❜ the list blurs together in a single breath, ellie’s train of thought unstoppable as ever.

❛⠀⠀ yeah, that's the worst sob story i ever heard. i would not fall for that. help, i have no problems cause a munchkin bullied me into revealing all my secrets. no mystery, and i'll also sound insane. ⠀ ❜ ⠀ she says, as if right now she was the picture of stability. eccentric, odd humor and puzzling retorts can only go so far. they can't hide or alter what clings to her features, sapping them of their usual warmth, darkening her eyes to a dull, undertow blue.

stubborn in her sadness, in her determination to this with this by herself, she looks away.

❛⠀⠀ it's really nothing i wanna bother your pretty head with, els. ⠀ ❜

[trueseeking]

there's some comfort to the darkness of covered eyes, to the pressure of the heel of her hands pressing into her them. she doesn't lower her hands when christine nudges her, nor when ellie herself protests, ❛ I'm not saying you said that. I'm saying it... what if? ❜ what if, what if, what if... ellie, for all her usual confidence, is plenty good at those when it comes to this. even if she can look at the situation and know exactly what she'd tell christine if their places were reversed.

because what if there is some piece she is missing? something she did, or said, that justifies the mess this has become, therefore absolving him of everything.

all of which brings them back to her previous question. finally, she rolls onto her side to face her friend, finally abandons hiding behind her own hands. ❛ what am I supposed to tell him? ❜ maybe, just maybe, if she walks into this with a script — and with christine to hold her accountable — she won't say something inordinately stupid, won't cave on an impulse, won't...

❛⠀⠀ you did beg for honesty,⠀ ⠀ ❜⠀ ⠀ she says, her tone light as a feather, though a hint of warmth slips back into her voice. the mattress dips slightly under her wight as she joins ellie on the other end of the bed; sock-covered foot bridges the small distance between them, nudging ellie's thigh as she continues. ❛⠀⠀ and you are an angel, and all the other stuff i said, but don't go putting my words in the wrong order. who said it was your fault.⠀ ⠀ ❜⠀

christine knows she has no ground to stand upon. that same idiocy has visited her countless of times, common sense leaving her at the mercy of a pretty smile.

❛⠀⠀ it is his. plain and simple.⠀ ⠀ ❜⠀

[pathlit]

❛ what makes you think you're the one being tortured? you've been torturing me, refusing to laugh at my jokes. and that's downright breaking friendship rules, so I'm definitely the victim here. ❜ to say nothing of the fact that she's the one who had poured all the hard work into the effort.

the success, however, was certainly well worth the suffering, a sentiment she was very familiar with when it came to her musical endeavors and which she soundly rejected when it came to other things — like the strenuous rigors of exercise.

❛ ⠀ you win by suffering from my distaste for months? wait - ⠀ ❜ ⠀ a dramatic pause. white, messy hair brushes her shoulder as she tilts her head to the side, finger tapping against her lips as she pretends to run something through her mind, a mock-serious look pinning ellie down. ⠀ ❛ ⠀let's see if i got this right: you win because you've been torturing me for months. that's... huh, i don't know els, that's sort of cruel.⠀ ❜

did this go against what she just said? perhaps. but it is not important. what is important is that she's turning ellie's adorable little speech about hard-work into something sinister.