#bevrijdme

[vxlkyrieonline]

"Do you think there is a chance that we may become friends again? Instead of remaining... mortal enemies?"

“Of course there is a chance. There is always a chance.”

Angela answers quickly and without hesitation, a speed borne of certainty. In her mind, there are few, if any, truly irredeemable individuals, and Sigma is most definitely not among them. She has no quarrel with him, with the scientist behind the mask and under the armor - her disagreement has always been with the organization that “employs” him, the board of people that saw fit to bend a brilliant mind to their own purposes until it broke.

She’d be hard pressed to miss the plaintive note in his voice, that hint of almost childish hope. It’s like a soap bubble she doesn’t dare pop, shimmering and beautiful but incredibly, incredibly fragile. Underneath the confusion, the violence, the fear, behind the mask that is Sigma, Dr. Siebren de Kuiper is very much alive, struggling still with the consequences of choices he is no longer allowed to make.

Talon is playing with fire, and for them, it’s only a matter of time - they can’t keep gravity chained forever. It is a force of nature, inexorable, and although they may have harnessed its tendencies, there is no stopping its eventual progression. So all she has to do is wait; wait for Sigma to become fed up with his captors, wait for Siebren to realize he is not nearly as helpless as he has been led to believe, wait for the ball to drop at precisely nine point eight meters per second squared, accelerating towards the center of the Earth.

“Our goals are opposed,” she says, quietly, “but I have no reason to dislike you. You are better than they are. You always have been.”

[ursarosea]

bevrijdme replied to your post

‘that’s cute. i’d like to see you say it again. after i suspend you 10 feet in the air. :^)’

“Don’t use that word in my presence.”

[positivelyow]

@vxlkyrieonline:

@bevrijdme

     I'd like to recognize bevrijdme for being sweet, funny, and just an all-around great writer!! They're so enthusiastic about all the ideas I dive into their inbox with, even if they're just silly questions or random crack posts. It's easy to see that they have an incredible passion for their character and a deep love of their community, and that energy combined with their amazing writing has just made them an absolute joy to interact with. Thanks so much for all your content, Nix!

[sigma-only]

"To repeat the same mistakes in the hopes of achieving a different result is sheer madness. Your obsession with harnessing gravity will be your undoing, Siebren. I would know-- I was there when it happened."

“I’ll keep doing whatever it takes until I’m satisfied. My own safety is the least of my concerns, now,” he said, dismissing the other’s warning.

“However,” he shifted, “I am...curious about what happened. Do tell.”

[rendezvousaveclamort]

@bevrijdme started following you

-raises a glass of wine-

“Monsieur.”

[celestialcomposition]

@bevrijdme  /  ᴘʟᴏᴛᴛᴇᴅ ꜱᴛᴀʀᴛᴇʀ.

     idle hands are the devil’s favorite tools  --  it was something instilled into them from a young age, something every mother told their child, every pastor told their flock.  it was something meant to keep your mind, and therefore your hands, out of trouble.  at least, that was the point of it all ;  it wasn’t the life meant for them, however.  siebren let his hands move too much, it was maddening.  too much concentration ;  it was boring, sitting, thinking.  sigma craved more, wanted to move, to fly, to  ...  experiment. 

     “ we  grow  tired  of  this , ”  the tone is whispy, voice resounding as if it was one yet a million separate voices speaking together.  hands twist and wind together, intertwining fingers, tapping out a familiar, classical tune across his knuckles.  maddening.  “ day  after  day ,  nothing  but  papers ,  research .  nothing  but  being  a  good  boy  for  the  master .  let  us  explore  your  new  prison ,  hm ?  we  have  yet  to  experience  what’s  behind  the  scenes .  always  eager  to  learn ,  too  frightened  to  see . ”  an attempt to rile the other, both hands suddenly coming to flatten against the desk siebren sat at.  fingers dig at the faux wood ;  it seems even talon spared expenses.  “ we  grow  tired  of  this . ”

[vxlkyrieonline]

“Places can’t control how they’re remembered, they just… hang out… and then fall apart.”

Eichenwalde is its own museum.

The words Hana had murmured under her breath when they’d first laid eyes on the wreckage still make something cold twist in Angela’s stomach, when she recalls them: The destruction caused by the Omnics here...it reminds me of home.It has the same solemn, eerie feeling as any other memorial, the wrecks of anti-aircraft weaponry half-buried in rubble, rotting wood and fading signage. She can almost feel the ghosts, sometimes, if she takes the time to look, can see in her mind’s eye people chatting outside old coffeeshops and imagine the conversations that must have taken place on the streets, before grass grew up between the cobblestones and holes were punched into ground by bullets and bombs. Everything is preserved as well as it could possibly be, exposed as it is to the elements, an eerie display that explains itself without any placards at all, a macabre monument to the war that Overwatch ended so long ago.

“...”

She doesn’t reply, at first, to Sigma’s statement. When he says it, she’s looking the other direction, at the castle that still looms imposingly in the distance like a oversized mausoleum. She’s heard Reinhardt’s stories (who hasn’t?) about Balderich von Adler’s final stand, about the body still draped over the throne, about a dragon slain at the cost of a noble life. It’s a few seconds before she responds, her grasp shifting on her staff.

“It makes sense,” she says, softly. “Objectively, what difference is there between one location and another? They have only the significance we have chosen to grant them.”

The same war that creates heroes slaughters even more. It puts nightmares into the minds of children, turns men into monsters, people into weaponry. Mercy detests it, and standing in the corpse of a town while she gathers data for her newest project, the feeling only squeezes tighter, an omnipresent looming pressure. Don’t repeat your past mistakes, it whispers, and she thinks of a girl for whom home means destruction, whose fingers can follow her eyes faster than anyone else’s in the world, who carries the weight of a country’s safety on her shoulders as she fights the Omnics from the sea. Eichenwalde’s memory is a reminder, a reminder of what they cannot afford to lose. Not again.

(After all, what are museums but carefully-tended graveyards?)

[vxlkyrieonline]

“I’d really hate to see something happen to you, and being in the wrong place at the wrong time is all it takes.”

“You and all the others.”

Angela sighs, and as her shoulders droop the genial mask drops - her expression shifts for just an instant from carefully unreadable to absolutely exhausted. She stares at Sigma through an inch and a half of reinforced glass and a force field, at where he hovers two or three feet off the ground; he is only here because in some sense he has allowed it, and both of them know. Were he so inclined, he could level the entire facility, tear them limb from limb, and then simply…float on home.

It is what turns his statement from only a threat into an expression of genuine concern, although she’s sure it’s a little bit of both (”Stop meddling, Dr. Ziegler, and go back to your humanitarian efforts and your triage tents”). And so when he says that he cares, it is true, and she would be fool to ignore the sincerity behind the statement on account of a fractured mind and a damaged psyche.

But she can’t do what he’s asking of her. Hiding away forever is impossible if she wants to do her job, if she wants to make the difference she’s trying to make. In order to be in the right place at the right time, she must always risk being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Whenever she dons her suit and swoops onto the battlefield, whenever she accepts a position on a task force, it is the reality she confronts. And for all she does to minimize her chances of being caught away from where she ought to be, she can never make them definitively zero.

She knows this. Her teammates know this. They do their best to protect her, and she does her best not to rush in blindly. And yet… “It’s a risk I must take,” she says, out loud, and the exhaustion is gone again behind her impeccable bedside manner as she straightens her back and lifts her head. “Doing what I do without taking risks is…impossible.”

A pause. Her voice is gentle, when she next speaks.

“I’m sure you understand.”