#soley because of which pod they were put into

[transkingcobra]

Also just. Every one of the origins is a follower.

Lae’zel knows what’s going on with illithid bullshit - but she’s no leader of her people, she’s fighting to be seen amongst her people by her queen. She’s also in a very different place with very different people - while she mentions subordinates so she may have some experience with leading, she is still very young so that experience will be short, these are not fellow gith she has to deal with, and the violent ways she leans with her preferences are a very different set of skills for searching for a crèche in this unknown area.

Shadowheart may be in the grooming process to become a leader, but she doesn’t know that, and she’s nowhere near being allowed a position remotely close to a leader - Viconia never believes her good enough, and constantly puts her down. She’s not allowed to lead. And generally speaking, you have a gith with you. The gith won’t trust someone who just took issue with her race, and Shadowheart won’t trust a gith, so that defaults to Tav/Durge.

And so by this point typically you already have a set leader, even really before Shadowheart, but of course you don’t have to have any of these people when meeting a companion for the first time.

Gale does not seem the kinda guy used to group cooperation. When you’re the poster boy for gifted kids, your focus is on what you yourself can do, how good you are at it, in this case how good is he with magic. That isn’t much of a group effort, that seems simply a case of studying and practice, at most with a teacher to guide and peers to bounce off of, but not to a collective goal. Even outside of a classroom, Mystra was his teacher then imbalanced lover - he was never in the leading position. He’s book smart, he can cast spells, he can be the devil’s advocate yet try to steer your opinions towards good, but he’s no leader. And then he just spent a year in isolation speaking to no one but Tara. His social skills in general are gonna be shaky.

Astarion hasn’t been able to lead his own life let alone anyone else’s for two centuries. He doesn’t know what to do, even without the “I’m not a details person” mindset. Also: he’s an escaped pet. He needs protection. He doesn’t much care about anything but surviving and being free at the end of all of this. And the easiest way to have protection here is to let someone take the lead and want to protect you, not demand it from them. So his goal is to get the important people on his side - the leader will unify the group to his goal, or (iirc) going for the strongest (touchable) member, Lae’zel, should the leader not play along.

Wyll is quite honestly my personal favorite for choosing a leader among the origins. But he’s still not used to leading people. He’s second youngest and been alone for seven years - before that he was also no leader, he was still a teen. He knows how to fight, but it seems he’s been on his own this whole time for it. When you recruit him it’s pretty much either “I’m gonna do my own thing with this devil but if we find a cure for this worm that’s cool too” or “oh shit I’ve been lied to I guess I’ll hang with you because you’re right and I need help if I’m to figure out this worm.” So he either doesn’t care about the tadpole but will accept the help, or he’s now feeling lost after the deception and still needs help with the tadpole.

Karlach is another one who hasn’t had autonomy for years, she couldn’t lead her own life. She took orders to fight in the blood war and before that took orders from Gortash, a man she looked up to, to protect him. She’s a soldier and a damned good one but she’s not the type to call the shots because she isn’t a planner - she can even get herself arrested trying to get to Gortash on her own. She’s the type to run headfirst into a fight with little thought - which is fine when you’re being told “go here and fight,” but is not sustainable to do all the time as your only plan, especially for how big and complex the journey in the game becomes.

And then you have the other companions - Halsin, Minthara, Jaheira, and Minsc. Mostly these guys are going to follow your lead because you’re already the leader.

Halsin is done being a leader and never wanted to lead anybody to begin with. And at first he’s not even there to help you with the tadpoles, he’s helping around in camp to travel with you since you have the same destination - so it’s safer for him to get there. If you help him lift the curse, he stays and helps in return. You are already the leader and again he’s done leading, but also you are the one to make the plans to help him while also hunting down your own cure. And if he’s coming with you to act 3 - your plans work.

Minthara I honestly am not sure I can speak much to her character but - your plan saved her. Her plan got her tortured and tadpoled. It is the pretty logical solution to let your rescuer lead in such a situation. You are her only safety, and if I remember correctly she doesn’t even think the others care for her at all - they just follow your lead.

Jaheira is honestly to me a weird one to have tag along but I can see the why. She is also a leader, but for her she can lead her people from a distance. The Harpers she’s leading are following orders and snooping around and they don’t need her personally there all the time even if they are constantly acting as one group - which I feel like they don’t for such a secretive thing, groups get noticed. Her Harpers are pretty much assumed to be a well-oiled machine - I don’t expect her to bring people she doesn’t trust into the shadow cursed lands, nor do I expect her to send people after Minsc that she can’t trust do the job without her either. So for her with the tadpoled group, it’s already got a leader, but it is also not entirely her fight to lead. You are leading the fight against the Absolute because you have the one thing that keeps the Absolute at bay, and she’s offering to join that fight directly. Not as an ally to the cause to work separately, but a direct member of the party working towards the defeat of the brain. She is a hero, after all.

Minsc is, well, Minsc. He follows Boo. He follows Jaheira. And he’s only alive because you lead the party to save him. Jaheira puts her trust in you and is following your lead, so Minsc is of course going to do the same.

People wonder how Tav became a leader so easily and let me tell you: after being in several projects, majority of people really do appoint leadership to the very first person who glances at the wheel of the ship. Most people want to be given a task and do the task. Anyway I'm just like Tav for real irl please demote me I beg I do not want to make decisions

[tallidiot]

Okay, so this morning I woke up and I went to Watrous, to get a reading done from the lady that I won the gift certificate from and I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect…I didn’t really have any expectations when I was going in or anything because I don’t know, I guess I was kind of skeptical.  Anyways, I got there and she a had a little studio in the back of a health store on main street there.  When I went in she said that she could sense my nerves and everything, and she explained everything to me and she told me that sometimes when she is doing a reading she will start to cry and that she gets anxiety but she is fine…and they aren’t her emotions and not to worry.  She told me that she sat down before I got there, and she had a notepad written out of what she had already been sensing and that I already had a few people there.  I took a picture of the pad, Ill show you.

The first thing that she brought up was a grandfather from my dad’s side.  He died when I was really little so I didn’t really know him that well. He was an alcoholic and my dad had a poor relationship with him after my grandma died  (I never knew her)  She said that she knew that he died a long time ago and that he was one of my guides and he was really far away and she couldn’t get a clear image on him.

The second person that she felt, was a friend?  She said that she didn’t know if it was male or female and she said that the images that they were showing her were like a hula hoop and a big bright lights like the circus or cirque de solei? Which didn’t ring any bells to me at all, so I was kind of confused and told her that it didn’t really make any sense to me. She said we will come back to it later.

She asked if it was okay to touch me and she put her hand on my knee.  She closed her eyes and her face was like scrunching up a little bit. She said that people come to her in whatever stage of their life they want her to see, so she said that she say a man in his 40s with a round face and he was scouling and really angry.  I immediately knew that it was my grandpa that just passed away because he always had a mean look on his face, I didn’t say anything and then she sensed that it was my grandpa on my moms side.  She said that there was a lot of regret….she said that he was really angry and since he hasn’t been gone for that long, he hasn’t learnt what he needs to learn yet and that he will eventually change, but the feelings and everything are all so fresh and new for him, or something a long those lines.  She asked me if he was into lawn bowling…or if lawn bowling meant anything to me, and I didn’t really have an answer for her about that…but eventually she said that she meant croquet and not lawn bowling which is something that tanner and I used to do with my grandpa all the time when we were younger at the lake and in my grandparents backyard when I was younger. He told her that he wanted me to remember the good times like croquet, and forget about everything else that happened later on in life.

   She said that she saw him as putting himself on a pedestal and that he was always looking down at people (which is so true.)  She asked about his relationship with my mom, and she said that he always looked down at her (also true) and that they had a bad relationship….she said that he didn’t approve of one of my moms realtionships (which…he didn’t approve of my dad and later in his life he didn’t approve of mom and Byron getting married.)  She said that he said that he missed my grandma and was showing images from their wedding to her? And that they were on the same playing field and were like two peas in a pod and so alike and that she always took him down a peg or two with his anger and helped him to be more level headed….(also true)  She said that he mentioned the song “misery loves company” jokingly about their relationship.

THEN the most fucked thing happened, she started talking about how there was a lot of regret, and something about missing an event in a basement hall (HELLO, my fucking wedding) and how he still had a lot of anger about that.  She asked me what was going on and why we were mad at each other, and I told her that it was because he accused my family of stealing some stuff from their house and also because he thought that I was talking about him and my grandma at that one Christmas when I stopped talking to him.  As soon as I told her that, she said that he put his hands up in the air and let them fall to his side and said, “im done” which…is something that he always did in real life, and I can picture it…like its so fucked up?  Then she said that he said “they turned their backs on me” which, I guess is kind of true because we stopped talking to him after that Christmas and him not coming to my wedding.

Since my grandpa has passed away my grandma has been telling me all sorts of awful things about him, like almost a side to him that I have never seen or heard about until he was gone. Tanner and I were over for supper right after my grandpa died, and she was telling us that when my mom was first born that my grandpa took her outside of town for a drive with my mom when she was a baby and they stopped outside of PA and my grandpa stopped the car, and he started RUNNING!!!! And my grandma was alone holding my mom in a dark field and that she heard shots being fired at them and she thinks that my grandpa hired someone to kill her and my mom because he didn’t want the responsibility of being a husband and a dad!!!! She was bawling when she told Tanner and I this, but it seems so outlandish that I didn’t really know to believe her or not. She also told me that she woke up one night and that my grandpa had tied a bedsheet around her neck and he was trying to KILL HER.  Also, most recently, she said that her blood sugar was really low and she was telling my grandpa that he needed to take her to the hospital and he wouldn’t!! and he wouldn’t call an ambulance either, and she passed out and she was out for almost an hour and he wouldn’t do ANYTHING!!  And I keep on hearing these stories from her, and how she thought he was schizophrenic or there was something mentally wrong with him and ten years ago she said “enough is enough” and said he had to go to a psych or she was going to leave him because she just couldn’t do it anymore.  The psych talked to just her afterwards, apparently and told her that she should leave my grandpa.  She was crying and crying and telling us all of this and saying that she has held onto all of this for 51 years.

SO, today the medium was asking me about like near death expierences or somebody that should have died but didn’t?  And I was like, well…my grandpa has had four heart attacks, so I don’t know if he is talking about himself or what?  And, she was like it seems like a women is attached to the image?  And I remembered the thing about my grandpa passing out and my grandpa not getting or calling for help so, I told her about that and she said that my grandpa was pacing and saying “im a bastard, im a bastard, im a bastard” over and over again?

She said that she didn’t get any emotion from him, and that she has never had a read like that before….She said that he said he was never mean to me (true) and that he always really liked me and really was proud of me and what I do but there was a disconnect and he didn’t know how to let me know (which is also so true, I never remember my grandpa once telling me that he loved me)  

She said that the person that had the imagery about the cirus/bright lights/hola hoop was being so persistent and telling me that I would “get it” but I just didn’t.  The only person that I can remember passing away that I was close with was Jason Pawelko (my friends younger brother that OD’d and I lived with him for awhile)  But the circus/hola shit just didn’t ring any bells.

Anyways, she moved back on to my grandpa on my dad’s side which she kept saying “he is right here” which kind of freaked me out because she said that they don’t usually get this close, but he wanted me know that he was always looking out for me.  She said that he was skinny and frail and she wanted to know if he was always this docile in real life, and I told her from what I remember, yes but I didn’t really have a relationship with him. She said that he watches over me, and that he is so proud that he had something to do with naming me, which at first I was like…I don’t think that he had anything to do with the name Savannah…but then I remembered my middle name, Mae.  His wife’s name.  She said that he was proud of me and that he really liked tyler.  She said that he had something to do with Tyler and I meeting (from the other side) and he knows that we met by chance (fucked!!!) She said she could see him sitting there with his arms crossed, and that he didn’t have much to say but he just wanted me to know that he watches over me.

 Back to grandpa jim, she said that if I had any questions or anything for him, that I could ask him in my mind and she would get an answer or an image or something from him that I would have to interpet, since she already kind of touched base on the whole wedding thing, and how he was still hard headed and still thinking that he was right about the whole thing, the question that I wanted to ask was “were you really as mean to my grandma as much as she says you were?”  the medium put her hand on my knee, and I thought of the question.  She said that the image that she got was an almost cartoonish set of angry red eyes with laser beams glaring down at me.  She asked me if that was making any sense to me…and it wasn’t really, and then she said…it almost doesn’t even feel like it is coming from him?  It is really weird and that she had never seen anything like that before.  I was thinking about it, and as soon as she said that it seemed like it wasn’t from him…I was like…is this the fucking side of him that I never knew?  Is this….what my grandma has been trying to tell me? So, I asked the medium if it was okay to tell her what I asked and she said yes, and I kind of explained (in not tons of detail) about how since he has passed away that I have been hearing all kinds of horrible things about him and that I didn’t know what to believe because it was a side of him that I would never have imagined seeing.  She then said that she didn’t want to scare me, but it was almost like a devils face…and she said, I have been doing this for a long time, and I have been in contact with people that have been murdered, but I have never seen something so negative and scary and bad.  She said that there was something going on that I didn’t know about, I told her that I didn’t really know if I believed my grandma about what she had been telling (I didn’t know if it was dementia, paranoia? Old age? Or what….) and the medium said that she didn’t want to tell me what to do, but that she said if she were me that I should believe what my grandma is saying……..the medium was crying when she said it.

 We went back to the hoola hoop thing one more time, and she said that sometimes it is like a future prementation or almost like a psychic like thing, but if I get asked to go to the circus or to cirque de soliel or whatever that I should go…..don’t know what any of that means?

 Anyways, she hugged me and I left.

 I got an email a little while later after I left and she said that she got more insight after I left….She said that she would like to call me after 5 o’clock…she basically said that she got more information about what she say (devil) and that maybe something is attaching themselves to my grandpa because he was so angry all the time. Not to sure what to make of all this, but pretty crazy nonetheless.

[readingat3amisnormal]

Two in the morning on a Tuesday, and he shouldn’t have been out here, shivering in the cold, his brand-new boots soaked through and with nothing to show for it.

The air escaped from his mouth in a miserable hiss as he fumbled for his keys, gloved fingers slipping over the bare metal and only increasing his frustration. No, no, no- yes!

His unspoken exclamation was punctuated by a bell tolling in the distance. Two-fifteen, it chimed, reminding him that he had work that morning and he really, really shouldn’t have been there.

“This better be worth my time!” he yelled at the boarded-up windows. The old brownstone was completely unremarkable- faded, dilapidated, damp, mouldy, dusty- which was not her style whatsoever. Still, he knew she was up there.

She’d asked him to meet her.

And he’d said yes.

Because of course he had.

He cursed himself as he moved up a narrow stairwell, the smell of mildew and rot so strong he felt he might throw up. On each level there was a window, crusted over with grime and dirt so the light from outside was diffused, distant. He spotted the vague form of a hoarding, and the tell-tale flicker of siren lights.

Top floor, nowhere left to go but further into the building. He pushed the door open and was surprised when it swung open easily. He shouldn’t have been, in hindsight. She knew what she was doing.

They’d been best friends forever and then a bit, like peas in two slightly different pods. She was an event planner and performer, constantly on the move. Through thick and thin, they’d been together.

These last few months had taken their toll, though.

She’d been away a lot, involved with this strange new art project that involved acting like a superhero of some sort. He hadn’t been paying all that much attention to it- of course he’d seen her on the screens at work, the CCTV perspective failing to capture the beauty of her ribbons and figure, down the street from him during a confrontation, her form resplendent even through a crowd of bystanders.

But he hadn��t been actively involved, until this night.

He emerged into an ancient auditorium, dust-and-cockroach infested. The seats were hard, the fluff having long disintegrated.

The last message she’d sent him, in an old-fashioned eggshell-white envelope with an accompanying key, read as follows:

             Seat 5A once you get to the top. Don’t be late. This might be your last chance.

He fucking hated that.

He’d gotten a therapist recently- a relatively stable job at an accounting firm as a receptionist meant he could afford it. And he’d come to realise that her ‘quirky’, ‘relatable’ nature was just a cover for being an emotionally abusive asshole.

He planned to tell her that tonight.

The sharp crack of heavy boots on wood knocked him out of his revere, and he snapped about to find a cloud of dust obscuring stage right. A harsh electrical hum signalled a stage light flickering on, pointed directly at it.

His heart, having skipped a beat, calmed- now that was more like her.

Before the cloud could dissipate entirely, she kicked again. Then again, and again, and he realised it was a beat. She was riling herself up, building up energy, waiting for the moment she could-

She darted out of the cloud, jumped off a springboard he hadn’t spotted, flipped twice and came to a stop at centre stage.

“Welcome,” she spelled off, and in that instant he could see her in a movie. “Welcome, hapless whelps and misfits of the world.”

“What—” he hesitated at that, completely unsure where he was going with the thought. It was an act, a performance of some sort, like it always was. But, as always, he’d resigned himself to playing second fiddle. “- is this?”

A wan smile as she traced the brim of her bowler hat was all the answer he got. A flick of her wrist; her white-topped cane flipped end over end, and when she caught it she was halfway across the stage. The thick curtains hid her retreat once she ducked behind them, and almost before he realised it he was alone again.

“Damnit—” he was moving, contemplating climbing over the chairs before he realised it was more trouble than it was worth, breaking into a run the instant he reached the aisle. “-GET BACK HERE!”

He clambered onto the stage, almost ripping his trousers on a stray nail. His heavy footfalls echoed more than hers had, and he had a second to consider that before he tripped over the springboard and ate dirt.

“Urgh.” He was pushing forward even before he was off the ground, intent on catching up with her and giving her a piece of his mind.

Backstage now, behind the curtains. Everything was covered in white sheets, and obviously hadn’t been disturbed in years. Or maybe she’d just set it up that way, given it that look for- what purpose? He didn’t know. Maybe to be dramatic.

He stepped through another door- the only one with a handprint on it, and now he was certain she’d doctored it to look that way. She was never as sloppy as that. The hall beyond stretched into oppressive darkness and silence, motes of dust flickering in the sparse overhead lighting.

And as he stepped into the hall, something slithered along the roof.

The creature was on him before he could react, dropping from above in a move that was decidedly un-boa-constrictor like. He knew it was a boa, of course, because he’d seen this exact one in a picture she’d sent him about a month ago. Same goofy look, same scale pattern…

It constricted around him, and the instant he realised what it was a boa constrictor did he was screaming. Of course, that didn’t stop the boa.

He screamed and screamed and screamed until his throat went dry, and still nobody appeared. His legs gave out, and he realised why the boa had dropped as it had- the lighting fixture it had been moving along had fallen on him.

The boa constricted further, and for a split second he was absolutely certain that he was going to die like this, with broken glass biting into his body, hands scrabbling futilely at the slippery-smooth scales of a snake his friend had set upon him. Alone and afraid.

His vision hazed over, and in a desperate attempt to find some semblance of beauty in his last moments his eyes flicked to the boa’s scales. They were, in a sense, beautiful- a backdrop of tropical green lush with floral yellows, verdant browns, blood reds…

The animal slid from his throat and torso, limp. He bent half-over, choking, coughing, hyperventilating, trying to get some air back into his system. He wasn’t dead, he wasn’t dead, he wasn’t dead…

“Well, that was a shame.” That… that thing called, and he looked up to find whatever it was wearing the skin of his friend staring right into his eyes. It wasn’t even maniacal- it was exactly her smile. A bit lopsided, with her cowlick perpetually getting in the way-

He vomited. 

“Follow me!” she giggled, then ran down the hall and ducked into one of the doors.

He breathed, in and out and in, trying to replenish his lungs. He’d almost died, and…

This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. That had always been their dynamic- she’d put him in danger, he’d call her out on it, she’d apologise, and they’d move on. Over and over and over, and eventually she decided to take his forgiveness as a given instead of something that had to be earned.

He looked down in abject horror at the corpse of the boa still wrapped around him. Even in death, it still had that goofy grin. In fact, with its tongue lolling out it looked even goofier.

He’d have vomited again if there was anything left in his stomach. Instead, he extracted himself from the corpse and stumbled towards the door she’d taken.

He threw the door open, threw himself inside the room, then threw himself against the door to close it. The room was decidedly less musty than the rest of the building had been- mostly bare, with a window that was clean on the inside but filthy on the outside. She stood in the centre, silhouetted against the moonlight.

“I’ve been expecting you.” She grinned.

“Is-” he breathed deeply. “Is this a fucking game?”

“Well you see, dear,” the words rolled off her tongue, “I’ve been on a bit of a… let’s say philanthropy binge as of late. And I wanted to show you some of it!”

“What? What is wrong with you?”

She said nothing, instead turning on a television he hadn’t even noticed. It flashed some news footage.

“The superhero known as Ballerita recently saved some kittens from a well! She then took some wall street executives and shook them upside down over until all the money they stole had been redistributed! Trickle down economics in action, folks!”

This was accompanied with B-roll of her running around doing stuff, using her signature cirque de soleie ribbons to incapacitate the baddies. She was wild, she was graceful, and it was all an act.

Or…

He recognised her, and her performance persona. It was something she’d cultivated over a number of years and was incredibly proud of. But there was something off about it.

“Wait, is this for real?”

She glanced back at him, confused. “Of course it is.”

He was silent.

…what?

Every single news story he’d assumed was a fake or a joke, every single bit of performance art… the orphanage on fire, the mobsters hung from a pizzeria sign, the babies saved…

… WHAT?

“Wh- why do you want to show me this?” he asked. “This- most of this stuff is illegal!”

“Weeeellll,” her grin was just the tiniest bit patronising. “I wanted to show you what it’s like. A day in the life of me. I had an itinerary and everything, you know.”

She looked up at him, eyes ever so slightly downcast but still full of that playful energy. What was he supposed to do?

“I almost died!”

She winced. “Yes. That was on me. I didn’t realise just how dangerous this place was to somebody who’d never been here.”

He waited for the ‘but’. There was always a ‘but’.

“But, I—"

“Of course.” He interjected, placing his face in his hands and raising his voice. “Of course, you would—”

“-wanted you to get a feel for the place! It’s got a library, just—”

“-justify almost killing me like this! This isn’t even the first time! What—”

“-like you’ve always wanted, and a terrarium, and I spent so long—”

“-possible justification could you have? I don’t get it, why do you constantly—”

“-getting it just right so you could have it when I’m gone!”

“-jeopardise our friendship like this?”

They stared each other down. Neither broke eye contact for an incredibly long, drawn-out second.

“What do you mean,” they both started, then she shut up and let him finish. “when you’re gone?”

“When I’m gone,” she responded, carefully, “as in when I finally die. Tonight, actually. What do you mean by ‘jeopardise our friendship?’”

He put his back to the wall, and slowly slid down it.

“No, seriously, we’ve been friends forever. What’s a near death experience between friends?”

“Y-” he hesitated. “You’re dying? H- how?”

She sat down next to him. “I got caught up with the wrong people. They gave me until tonight. I was hoping I could at least show you some of the ropes, try and get you ready to take my place.”

That got him to look up. “Take your place? As a- as a fucking superhero?”

The disbelief in his voice made her look at him, really look at him in a way she hadn’t until now. She’d been doing what she always did- treating him as the audience, and not as a person.

“You really didn’t know?” she asked.

“I thought it was a joke!” he ran fingers through his hair violently. “O- or some performance art, or some other shit like you always pull! I didn’t- who the fuck did you piss off so much that you can’t even try and run?”

She shrugged. “The government.”

He looked at her. Really looked at her as she had at him, at the dark circles under her eyes, at the scarring on her right arm, at her posture.

“I can book us a flight and get us out of this country before sunrise.” He said, even though he wanted nothing to do with her ever again.

“It’s the government, dude.”

“Well, there has to be something! Or did you just call me here to watch you die?”

She placed a hand on his shoulder in what was meant to be a comforting gesture, placing her finger under his chin and tilting it up to look him in the eyes.

“I called you so you could take my place.” She whispered, “You’ve seen what I’ve done! What you could do! What do you say, friend?”

He went silent.

She took a deep breath, pulling her hands back before extending one out towards him. “What do you say, friend?”

“God, you’re awful.”

She smiled.

“No, I mean unironically, you’re an awful, terrible person.”

He grabbed the key to the theatre and flung it at the window. It bounced off, cracking the pane.

“I never wanted this! Any of what you did to me! Putting ourselves in life threatening danger again and again and again… that was your thing! I tagged along until it was fun, but once it stopped being fun, you didn’t let me leave!

“No, you sunk yourself into everything I did like some sort of social parasite. And now that we’re here, you’re going to go die because you got involved with the government somehow because you like going out and playing dress up, and I’m going to have to watch you die! And that’s supposed to motivate me to become a superhero? What is this, a fucking movie?”

He was hyperventilating again. “You brought me here to watch you die so I could take revenge on your behalf? What kind of friend does that?”

She remained silent. Then, just as he thought she might respond, might say something of note…

Copter blades in the distance. Out of the window, he spotted police lights.

“They’re here.” She said, emotionless.

He turned back to yell at her but choked on his own words.

She remained silent as he tried to compose himself. Failed. Then watched as he collapsed into a sobbing mess on the ground, curled up into a ball.

She offered no comfort.

Eventually, he had cried himself out, and the copter was the loudest it had ever been. Directly above them if his hearing wasn’t deceiving him.

“Have you had your tantrum?” she asked.

“Go fuck yourself.”

She got up, grabbed him by the arm, and dragged him. As much as he wanted to just lie there, dead weight as she tried to get him up the stairs, she was more than capable of carrying him. So, he rose to his feet. His heart thumped in his ears.

As much as he didn’t want to see this, he knew he didn’t realistically have a choice. She was a siren, he assured himself, mostly to try and shake the cold pit that had wormed its way into his stomach.

She wouldn’t have cared if you had died. He told himself.

It didn’t help.

He was going to watch his friend die. How was someone supposed to prepare for that?

They emerged onto the roof, and the nightsun was right in their faces, blinding them. The noise was deafening- two copters putting boots on the ground and a third, presumably, acting as reconnaissance. The instant it spotted them it swung around, and the cold pit in his stomach became an impossible weight.

“Put your hands on the ground, and don’t move.” A voice called. “You are…”

It continued, but it didn’t phase her at all. She’d been performing for most of her life, of course it didn’t.

Her form arced- a curve that started from her left leg, worked its way up her spine and terminated at the fulcrum of her hand. Her impeccably-manicured fingers splayed outwards like a flower in bloom, and he found himself shaking his head in disbelief and fear- it was a sort-of signature of hers, something she had spent ages perfecting and performing.

“C’est fini.” She whispered, then louder, projecting her voice across the roof. “C’EST FINI!’

Nobody moved for a long, long second.

“Well, now…” the lopsided grin was back, shining through the grime and sweat covering her face. Strands of her hair had come undone from her bun and were clinging despondently to her forehead. “Aren’t you lot going to do anything?”

Even with all the noise, it felt deathly silent.

“Or am I just free to go?”

Despite what he’d seen in the movies, he hadn’t expected the rounds to be that violent.

They tore into her body, passing through her almost effortlessly. Some hit him, but they weren’t as lethal. Of course they weren’t, they’d gone through about twelve inches of his best friend before hitting him. She ragdolled, but the gunshots didn’t let up.

She was dead before she hit the ground.

Two-thirty in the morning on a Tuesday morning and he was watching boots on the ground advancing towards him and a corpse- the corpse of your best friend, some part of his brain reminded him- and he just… didn’t know what to do.

He raised his hands over his head slowly because that’s what they did in the movies. It was two thirty in the morning on a freezing Tuesday morning and he was in a movie.

Then he was sobbing, and he clasped a hand over his mouth, fingers scrabbling to make purchase on the skin, trying to block out the dust and the acrid stench of blood and sweat, and as he tried to push himself away from the body he screamed-