Work Text:
March 31, 1999
"Marty."
Triira turned her head at the moniker, realizing that she was responding too late to protest, much less arrest herself. Damn it, she thought. I guess it stuck. Across the several meter gap was Arthur, the protoframe leaning on the railing lightly to avoid bending it under the weight of his mostly-converted body. Even in the dark, she could see the instinct way he recoiled from her glance, his animal brain reacting faster than his restraint to the glow of her eyes. It wasn't hard to imagine what he was seeing - two pinpricks of eerie green light amidst the silhouette of a person illuminated by clouded moonlight.
To the man's credit, he was fast at recovery. "I thought I'd find you here." He grumbled by way of explanation. He was examining the gap between solid enough architecture and the hanging light-trellis she was perched on cautiously. "Risky jump."
Triira smiled toothily, the effect only narrowly lost in the dark. "Didn't have to." It was easy to find the instinct again, the pattern of breathing she needed to let herself slip. The cold rushed in, the material world fading away from her skin as it was replaced by solidifed Void, an overlapping of another reality that served the purpose of ground just as much as the aether served the purpose of air. She exhaled sharply; the cold retreated, and she was back in Höllvania again. "It's a pretty easy trick."
"I'll take your word for it." Arthur replied, scowling. "So, what, you can teleport?"
She shrugged nonchalantly. "Kind of. I can fold space around me, so it takes only a little focus to fold it elsewhere." To illustrate, she raised her hand, then bent her fingers back to touch her palm, like a piece of paper being brought back onto itself. "Not teleporting. Just making that distance disappear."
Arthur was staring at her with perhaps the correct amount of alarm. "Easy trick?" He repeated skeptically.
"And all it took was being in hell for ever."
There was an uncomfortably long pause. "What's it feel like?" Arthur finally asked, leaning a hair heavier on the railing. There was a faint groan from the metal, but for now at least it would hold the weight.
Despite herself, Triira found some point on the floor six meters below and stared at it. "Cold." The answer was easy to find, less so to share. "Heat is in things, and the Void is nothing. It's always cold." She shook her head slowly, not bothering to brush her colorless ends of her hair away from her face, before looking back up at him. "I can't stay in it long."
"Can't imagine it's much warmer here." Arthur muttered. It was meant to be good-natured, but from his gravely voice it mostly just sounded as grim as most everything he said. "Whiteout conditions tomorrow."
"It is." She caught his gaze and held it. "Trust me. It is."
Arthur watched her face for a long time before pushing off the railing. "I'm scrubbing ops for tomorrow. Not going to risk frostbite this close to spring. Get some rest." Coming from him, everything sounded like an order. He turned to walk away, then stopped. He glanced back at her, at her legs dangling over the floor below, and smiled thinly. "Good talk."
"Good talk."