LAUREL HIER

Twenty-three years old S Gene: Nothingness Manipulation Daughter of Russell Hier and Corinne Blackwood Twin sister of Luke

[dunesdayiscoming]

[kazbrekkker]

[laurel-hier]

lilshitshepherd:

Colton raises a brow at her. He can’t relate to her fear, or whatever it is that agitates her. “You are missing my point.” But he doesn’t add any explanation. His view is quite irrelevant in this. If she wishes to live under the pressure which is unnecessary in his opinion, it’s not his problem. He is just trying to fix this mess he has partially caused. Colton pinches the bridge of his nose as he focuses, activating his ability. His eyes color themselves gray with cold sparkles. He reaches for the red strings around her which appears as he touches them. His finger traces one of them. This way he can read them faster. Information flows into him, calculation begins. At the same time he prevents anyone from walking into the scene by pulling a string with his unoccupied hand. Colton glances at her briefly. Premonition is a powerful gift, one even him can’t trump quite so easily. “Well, I do enjoy good challenges.” He jokes dryly with a smirk, before it dissipates behind his usual glassy look. “You may address me as Shepherd.” He responds distractedly as his mind processes the vast amount of information and estimation. “Don’t mention it. It is partially my fault…”

“And you’re missing mine” she stated right after he spoke. As indifferent as this guy seemed to be, Laurel wasn’t expecting him to relate to her or to understand her. But she did expect him to understand the severity of the situation, of the sheer destructive force of her powers, of the massive killings that could occur if they didn’t somehow stop this. Or at the very least find a way to prevent the explosion of her null energy to be so devastating. When he fell silent and his eyes changed color to a silvery bright hue, the girl figured he was making use of his power even though she couldn’t see what he was doing. “I really hope you’re up for this challenge” the brunette said with a light smile, devoid of any hint of humor. She didn’t say that because she doubted his abilities, she said because she genuinely wished she was a challenge he could beat. “Okay. Shepherd” she nodded, taking note of his name. “Well, at least you’re doing something about it. I know you’re not doing this for me, but I still appreciate the help”.

[laurel-hier]

lilshitshepherd:

“But one cannot not endeavor to avoid the prophecy.” Colton shrugs, in his callous way. “I am not interested in defeatism, however,” he adds quietly. Had he seen no way out of this, he wouldn’t have interfered in the first place. He doesn’t play a losing game. He can read the signs of panic in her expression. Obviously he is not much use in comforting. He was born with a congenital case of apathy and numbness. Only strong, stinging emotion such as anger is functional. What he devices to survive in this world full of muddled irrationality is a sense of responsibility. “Everyone is potentially a killer. Human is rather idiotically fragile” He states matter-of-factly. “Of course, you should be more careful than others. But not in any way it means you should abuse yourself. The die is not cast just yet.” Colton emits a small snort, amused by his own unintended pun, casting one of the die in the air. It’s 1.  “1, identify the direct cause. That will take some time. I am gonna have to read your thread. And you–” it occurs to him he doesn’t know this girl’s name, so Colton simply points at her, “need to calm the fuck down.” He then throws the next dice, which lands in 2. “2, eliminate the cause. 2′, in case it cannot be removed, plan a damage control.” The third dice is thrown, “3, plan restoration.” It is simple as that. Deep down, everything is a simple cause-and-effect relation. Eliminate the cause to prevent the outcome. “Lucky for you, I am quite brilliant at making things to happen or vice versa.” 

All she did was nod lightly at Colton’s words. He was right. If a crappy future awaited you no matter what, you did all you could do avoid it. Compared to her brother, Laurel was passive. But not as passive as to await this doomed fate with arms crossed. “This has nothing to do with humans being fragile. Fragile or not, my power eats away everything. And I’d like very much not to become a mass murderer” the girl stated without any enthusiasm. She looked at him in silence as he spoke, working on keeping her emotions under control. When he mentioned he would have to read her thread, whatever the hell that meant, she gave him a quick nod “Do what you must”. This guy could work a little on his tact, not that he seemed in any way concerned to be a little less tacless, since he had a rather blunt and somewhat rude way of talking. Like when he told her to calm down. She was calm. Or well, as calm as she could be knowing she was a fucking time bomb waiting to explode. It didn’t help that she could feel herself charging with null energy already. Not on cataclysmic levels, but she was charged still. “Yeah, lucky me” she said in a low tone. The last thing she felt was ‘lucky’. But she did appreciate that this guy was helping out “Let’s hope you can make this not happen. Or at least on a smaller scale”. She met his eyes, working on relaxing a bit more “Thanks for the help, uh- what’s your name?”.

[laurel-hier]

oliver-cross-booker:

Oliver presses his lips together making a quizzical look as Laurel apologizes. It’s not like he was breaking any law, or did something wrong to the woman. He sees no reason to apologize, let alone Laurel who did nothing. “Why are you apologizing?” asks him to Laurel, then turns to the woman. “I’m not sorry, by the way.” Oliver wonders how the hell did he end up in a women’s bathroom of a cafe. He doesn’t even drink coffee– coffee is for the weak. Wrinkling his nose at the weird smell of coffee, Oliver looks around the cafe. He was already dragging out the chair. He pauses for a moment, reminds himself some manner. “…sure?” He thinks it’s weird to wait for a permission to sit down. It’s a freaking chair. It’s made to be sitten– sat? He reaches for the chocolate chip cookies because he is starving. 

The brunette glanced at him with a confused look. Why was he asking that? “Because that-” she began, but cut off the moment Oliver bluntly stated to the woman that he wasn’t sorry. Laurel gave the woman one last look, one that looked almost apologetical, before she walked away. Once at the table, she took a sip from her tea. It was somewhat cold, but she didn’t mind. She looked up from her cup, seeing that he had eaten a cookie. Again, she didn’t mind. “Have you and Luke been friends for long?” she decided to ask, because she was curious about the friendship between him and Luke. She still find it somewhat odd that her brother would be friends with someone as peculiar as Oliver.

[laurel-hier]

lilshitshepherd:

Colton merely raises his brow at her accusing words. Out of his last ounce of courtesy and patience, he doesn’t sneer as he explains shortly. “I will get to the details.” Sometimes, a future event has too big of a ripple effect, it also affects the present. Colton, and the kid with premonition, can sense it. But to understand why it happens, he needs to trace the ripple, which takes time. “Actually, it was his father, King Laios who enabled the prophecy to be fulfilled, by casting out Oedipus. Prophecy tends to fixate the future it tells.” Colton corrects her, crossing his arms as she goes over to pay for her drinks. He is aware that his action is also fixating her future, by telling her that it is going to happen, or just by reading her future. But to fix it, he needs to interfere. That is the paradox of being able to predict future, he supposes. He follows her out of the bar. He keeps throwing the dice in the air and catches it. With his eyes fixed on the dice, he walks without bumping into anything.

This whole issue made her very uneasy, but when he said he’d give her the details later, she nodded and didn’t push it further. Laurel was a patient person, she could wait for that. She could only hope he didn’t wait too long to tell her, until it was too late. “I never studied much on Greek tragedies” she stated with a light shrug after he corrected her, explaining the correct version of the story “But we have the same point here same. Trying to avoid something that was foretold can make it happen. By telling me this...” she trailed off, looking away. She was afraid, despite all her efforts not to be. The energy flowing inside her felt stronger, its presence becoming more evident. Her fear was feeding it. She looked down at her hands once they exited the bar, they felt warmer than they had before. It was the terribly familiar sensation of her null energy coursing beneath her skin. It wasn’t reaching a dangerous point where she couldn’t keep a leash on it, but she was getting charged. That was bad enough. Her eyes moved to meet Colton’s. “What do I do?” she asked in a quiet tone. This guy didn’t seem remotely interested in helping out, but so far, it seemed he could hold the answers to keep this doomed fate of hers from happening. “Can you see if there is any way to avoid this? If it happens I could end up killing people... lots of people”.

[laurel-hier]

oliver-cross-booker:

Oliver simply shrugs at her. “I don’t even know. I just read some shits in my dad’s study. But they were boring.” Dad Cross keeps lots and lots of books. Oliver read few of them but they were boring as fuck. “If he stops being a smartass, I’ll consider it. If it makes you feel any better, he beat me more than I beat him.” They surely have different approaches in how they deal with a brawl. Oliver endures till the other gets tired and then throws a knock-out counter. Luke is more elaborate with his ways. Obviously, if they do have a match, Luke hits him more than he hits Luke. “We were?” asks Oliver as he strolls out the bathroom, his hands shoved into the pockets. Then he aimlessly follows her. It’s not like he has a job to go back to or a class to attend. For now, Laurel is the closest thing he has to something interesting. 

Laurel nodded at his words, not really thinking there was anything she could say about it. “That’s comforting...” she muttered with sarcasm lace into her voice. It didn’t surprise her to know Luke had beat him more, though. Her brother’s energy could last enough to endure multiple fights and he had the training for it. “Yes, we were” she insisted, giving him a look to walk out of there too. “I’m sorry” she said to the woman again before the two of them leave the bathroom. She returned to her table, where there were some oatmeal and chocolate chip cookies on a plate and half a cup of tea. The rest of it had been spilled on her dress minutes ago... She noticed Oliver had followed her to her table, not sure why he was still there with her “...you want to sit down?”.

[laurel-hier]

noah-spencer-cohen:

Noah let go of her, trying to calm himself down, taking deep breaths as his parents had always told him to do. He raised a hand, rubbing his temples as he already felt the headache which was destined to come. “I’m sorry.” He says, shaking his head softly, though he still felt the panic in his chest. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how I got here, I just… I needed to tell you.” He bites his lip. “I don’t want to scare you, but you need to be careful. The future is never set in stone, it’s changing all the time. But I have seen one of your fates, and… people get hurt.” He sighs, looking down at his feet, the scuffs on his trainers. Only then does he realise he put his shoes on the wrong way around in his haste. “I don’t want to scare you.” At his question, he looks up at her slowly, shrugging a shoulder. “I’m like you, Laurel. I can see things. Not always good things.”

She frowned a little, seeing the boy rub his temples. He didn’t seem to feeling too well and honestly, she wasn’t usure if she could do anything about it. “I’m no scared” the brunette stated simply, more to convince herself than to reassure him. It actually terrified her to know that somewhere in her future, she hurt people. She thought of asking how he knew her name, but hell if he knew her future... “Do you know why that happens?” she asked in a low tone. Surely it was because she lost control, but what could be so bad that she would be unable to control it? That Luke wouldn’t be there to anchor her null energy?

[laurel-hier]

lilshitshepherd:

He can give her few evidences of her anxiety– sitting alone but not waiting for someone, the drink that has been barely touched and most of all, her shock at his intentionally vague words prove it. But rather than wasting his breath in explaining his deduction, Colton rolls his eyes. He hates wasting time. “That is quite irrelevant.” He keeps his hand in the pocket, toying with the dices. The cubes rattle against his palm. “The point is that I know that you are, and you have every reason to be.” He stares at her with a slight tilt of head, observing, reading. “The kid you’ve met earlier, he is correct. The future is often precarious. But some possibility is more probable than alternatives.” He falls silence. As he narrows them, his eyes flicker in gray light. But as he blinks, it changes back to the usual icy blue. “That kid…” sighs him. “Are you familiar with the story of Oedipus?” asks him seemingly out of context.

His curt reply annoyed her a bit, though her expression remained more or less the same, she just looked away for a moment. Here he was, throwing enigmatic omens like that to her and didn’t even have the decency to explain himself. “You and that kid... you can’t just come into my life and say things like that without explaining to me why”. His next words bring an ounce of hope, though. That imminent fateful future of hers was a possible outcome among others. She had to find out how to change it, to make the other options her most plausible future. That brief glimmer of hope lasted but a couple of seconds though, until he brought up Oedipus “The tragic hero who accidentally fulfilled the very prophecy he was trying to avoid” she answered with a bitter tone. Laurel got up, leaving enough bills on the table to pay for her drink and approached him “This isn’t the place to talk about this” was all she said before heading out, turning to beckon him to come along “Follow me. Please”.

[laurel-hier]

lilshitshepherd:

Colton gathers the dices from the table, observes them in in his glassy stare. This is the form of training he has been doing lately. He has been seeing the red strings even when he is not concentrating… It bothers him, in several ways, primarily that he doesn’t have the control over his own ability, and that he can see how fast the world is moving– like right now, he can see the web of red strings tied to a woman. Colton remembers her– he met her at a cafe, last year November. He didn’t notice it then, but the possible futures surrounding her aren’t exactly optimistic. He tosses a dice at her table to draw her attention. The dice spins on the table for few seconds. “It’s highly probable, what you’re fretting over.”

The guy looked at her and Laurel held his gaze for a moment before turning back to her drink. She’d ordered it a while ago and it hits her that she should probably drink it. It was the only thing she could occupy herself with at present. She was about to take a sip when the dice rolled to her table, her gaze going back to him. For someone who guarded her emotions, and therefore her expressions, Laurel couldn’t help but momentarily display a bit of shock at his words. There was something terribly ominous about having two people on the same day tell her something would go wrong “What...?” she began, speaking in a low tone. “How would you know I’m fretting over anything?”.

[laurel-hier]

lilshitshepherd:

He throws five dices in the air, one by one. As he focuses on the strings of causality, the dices land, all of them showing six spots. He repeats. The number of spots change– 5, 4, 3, 2… 1. “How?” a person next to him asks, and Colton doesn’t bother to turn. “I’ll indulge you with a short answer,” he replies in a monotone, “I’m brilliant like that.” 

Laurel was sitting all by herself, her table merely a couple of feet from where Colton was. The girl wasn’t paying attention to anything in particular that was going on around her, she was just there with an untouched drink before her. What that kid said to her early in the day had left her feeling a little uneasy, but so far she’d done everything in her power to keep those emotions in check. She glanced to the side, hearing a man speak with some bewilderment in his tone and the curt reply that followed it. The younger one of the two seemed familiar to her.

[thorodinson]

[laurel-hier]

oliver-cross-booker:

Taking her silence as a victory, Oliver smirks at her then turns his focus on trying to put back his thumb into its spot. He fails, realizing that he might be making it worse. “Of course he does. Not as much as he loves you though, so you don’t have to get all, defensive about it.” He says as if she was being defensive or as if he wasn’t talking about killing Luke a minute ago. His nose wrinkles up as he looks up. He gives her a quizzical look. “What, like, Plato or Rousseau? Man, those dudes were boring.” He sounds offended, his eyes roll as he makes a groan that has almost audible annoyance. He doesn’t like philosophy or theories. He doesn’t believe the kind of life that can be proved by thinking. “Yeah!” It takes him few seconds to hear her tone. Again, he gives her a quizzical look. “What? That’s like, a year ago–” Then the door opens and a woman walks in since this is a public bathroom. The woman’s eyes get wider at Oliver, and she tries to say something. “Hey–” “I know this is a woman’s bathroom, thanks.” He waves her off like it’s nothing.

“I wasn’t being defensive...” she said with a subtle frown. If anything she’d been a little indifferent. The more Luke’s friend spoke, the more Laurel realized this guy was an odd one. Not that it was bad, she just didn’t know exactly how to reply to some of the nonsense things he said. “I’m no expert, I wouldn’t be able to tell” she answered with a simple shrug. She’d been thinking more along the line of stoner philosophers, though. The girl tilted her head to the side as he replied, sounding a little too excited or proud to have been the one to break her brother’s nose. “I don’t know how you and Luke have fun- frankly I’m not sure I’d like to find out, but please try to not break any more of my brother’s body parts” Laurel wasn’t lecturing him, or chastising him, merely asking something of him in quite a serious tone. She knew what pain did to her and her powers... and it could do the same to Luke. “I’m sorry, we were just leaving” she excused the both of them when the woman entered and headed towards the door.

[laurel-hier]

noah-spencer-cohen:

Noah held on to the fabric, the panic still wild in his chest. He looked into her eyes, desperately searching her face to try and help him remember everything from his vision. Already, the memories were fading, as if a dream. But he had to recall it all - he had to. This was important. “You! You. You need to listen to me. You have power. A big power. You’re going to lose control.” Noah groaned, frustrated with himself. “I can’t see- I need to see.”

She looked down, seeing how the boy kept clutching her sleeve. He seemed scared, panic visible in his eyes when he met hers. When he spoke of her power her eyes widened a little. How did he know...? “No, I’m not...” she shook her head, knowing that losing control wasn’t ever an option. People got hurt. People could die because of her. “I’m calm, my power won’t let loose” she told him in a low tone, more to convince herself than to convince him. “How could you even be able to tell?”.

[laurel-hier]

oliver-cross-booker:

Oliver, with no sign of seriousness whatsoever– which is explains his character along with the fact that he was passed out in a girl’s bathroom– rolls his eyes at her. The fact that they have just met doesn’t occur to him at all. “You can’t kill a person with chewed cinnamon sticks” although that wasn’t her point at all. Oddly dodging questions, deterring away points and spinning the tales when he needs to are what Oliver picked up from his family, mostly from his uncle. Her next words turns his look into a broad grin uncaring of whatever he was talking before. “Ha! I knew it. He loves me.” He cocks up his chin in smug, almost looks happy. “It is, innit? At least you don’t bullshit someone you exchanged punches with. They don’t piss your shit. That’s pointless, ‘cause y’know they will punch you and they know you will punch them. So really, it’s, y’know, honest and shit.” The way he has a point between his crude words is also typical Oliver. “I didn’t lose, by the way! He got me good, but I broke his nose so it was a tie!”

Laurel’s reaction narrowed down to simply frowning at the guy’s response. He was so odd... but she didn’t want to be too judgy of Luke’s friend considering she barely knew him. She wasn’t so sure she wanted to get to know him, though. “Uh-huh. He probably does” she said with a shrug, somewhat indifferently. It was an honest statement, though. Luke was friendlier than she was, more open to people, more keen on caring about and loving others. “A philosopher, I see” she said, not really meaning to tease, though it sort of sounded like it. Oliver certainly had a... peculiar way of seeing things. “Youre the one who broke his nose?” her voice rose a bit, tinted by an accusatory tone as she turned to face him fully.

[laurel-hier]

oliver-cross-booker:

“Yeah– wait, what?!” He almost shouts, his jaw dropping at shock. “He didn’t mention me?! That squirrelfucker– I’m gonna fucking kill him. I’mma beat him with chewed cinnamon sticks.” He mutters under the breath, forgetting that he is speaking to Luke’s twin sister, and he was supposed to make a good impression so that he can smug at Luke. Crossing his arms, Oliver pouts with a huge frown sitting on his forehead, grumbles, “Yeah, one of the bar fights.” He is genuinely offended that Luke didn’t mention him– not by name to Laurel. That bitch is gonna have to answer some questions. His look softens with a smirk when she asks of how they’ve met. Oliver is an obnoxiously loud, hotheaded brawler but his temper, as much as it is fierce, but it doesn’t last very long. Seeking revenge is a part of his nature, so on the side he starts to plan to torment Luke about this. “Funny story, actually we beat the shit outta each other the first time we’ve met. Then he bought me a beer.” That was a poorly told story, short, no detail, no structure, but it seems like Oliver believes that was an enough explanation.

Laurel stared at him with raised eyebrows, puzzled by his sudden outburst. This guy had a flair for drama if this was really his reaction to hearing Luke hadn’t talked to her about it, or maybe he was just a very impulsive person “You do realize that’s my brother you’re talking about, right?” she pointed out casually. Joking or not, speaking in front of her about retaliation towards her twin wasn’t a smart move. She was protective of him just as he was protective of her. “Ah, so he did mention you” the brunette said with a shrug, as if being called ‘the one of the bar fights’ was enough recognition. Once the stain has gone from the fabric of her dress, she took some paper towels to more or less take the dampness away. “That’s an uh- interesting way of making new friends” she said with a light frown, clearly not approving of Luke’s and Oliver’s methods to meet new people, but that was none of her business.

[fassbedner]

[laurel-hier]

fassbedner:

insp.