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[cagedlamb]

All things considered, Elizabeth knew she had been lucky. With only minor cuts and scrapes from fighting off panicked runners. With how insistent she had been about helping people, he should have been a lot worse. Booker was upset at her, but he also wasn't seriously injured. She didn't regret her actions in the least, though the more she thought about it, the more she realized the general consequences of her actions.

She had no idea who had seen Booker. A part of her hoped everyone was too panicked to see what the vigor did to his arm every time he used his ability, but she knew it would be hard to miss had they been paying any attention. All she could think to do was to continue on normally, and hope for the best. The morning was cool and cloudy, with some flurries falling here and there. She had work later on that day, but for now, she was out taking a walk with Oliver, the pit bull trotting alongside her obediently as she sipped her morning tea from the thermos she'd bought herself recently. As she rounded the corner, she nearly bumped into someone coming the opposite way.

"Oh, sorry! Are you okay?" The apology was almost reflexive, said before she even realized she recognized who it was she had just bumped into.

[OOC: Dated the 2nd!]

Comments

[cagedlamb]

Elizabeth hadn't really been prepared for this conversation. It had been hard enough telling Sybil, who she had prepared ahead of time to talk to. This was more on the spot, and no matter how seemingly okay she was about it, it meant she knew something was different about them.

"It's really important for you to not tell anyone about what you saw. Can you do that for me?" she asked, hoping against hope her feeling about Kate being a nice person was right. "I haven't...told you things about before here. Not because I don't trust you, I just - it's very complicated."

[everyonetakes]

"Uh, yeah, I can totally keep it a secret," she says, although she's thinking about Newt and she's pretty sure he saw the same things she did that night, so hopefully Elizabeth will tell him. Kate's usually pretty good at keeping secrets, mostly because she's usually pretty good at lying, but she's been shit at it with him.

She also doesn't mention that other people definitely saw, because that's the sort of thing that's hard to miss, but she doesn't want to worry Elizabeth, so she only nods. "Seriously, you don't have to explain why you didn't tell me. There's tons of shit I haven't told you about my life before Darrow and none of it's even remotely on the same level as what your friend can do. Complicated is a thing I totally get. Is it... can you do that, too?"

[cagedlamb]

Elizabeth isn't dumb. She knew people saw. She also knew that the chaos masked a lot. But apparently not enough, not for everyone.

"No, no, I can't do that," she replied. No, what she used to be able to do was infinitely more complicated, something she could only assume she was born with. She had no idea if she was going to get into that, though. "Only people who drink the Vigors get...abilities like that. They were created where I'm from. And where I'm from is why I don't really...talk about my past to people."

She paused, her gaze more on Oliver walking ahead of them. It was easier than watching her expression. "I come from a place in Columbia. You wouldn't find it on any map, not even ones from 1912, because it was a city hidden in the sky. I knew it as the place where my prison was. It wasn't - it wasn't a dank, cold place, I had books, and art supplies, but - I had no freedom. I wasn't allowed out from the few rooms I had. I was locked away for as long I can remember like that, just like that, and Booker was the one who broke me free."

[everyonetakes]

It's a lot of information to take in at once and Kate listens, blinking a few times. She's pretty sure Elizabeth has just told her that the dude who can shoot crows out of his hand broke her out of a flying city prison that she'd been locked up in for her entire life and she has no idea what to make of that.

"Holy fucking shit," she says finally. "Well, that's pretty intense."

And she's also thinking about the other thing that Elizabeth has said, that Booker had to drink something to give him that ability and that it's a thing that was created where she's from. What that means to Kate is that anyone can do that as long as they drink those Vigors or whatever it was she'd said. It's not a thing he'd been born with, it was something he'd done to himself with some kind of drink, basically, and that's actually really cool, too.

[cagedlamb]

Elizabeth hadn't been sure how Sybil would react when she first told her, and here she was, in that position again. Kate's shock was unsurprising, but she was quietly glad it didn't sound like she didn't believe her, or she thought she was some kind of freak.

"We've been trying to stay low since we got here because of all of it. Booker only used those crows that night to protect me," she explained, letting out a slow exhale. "This place - I can just be myself here. Nothing stopping me, no one chasing me, no dangers. It's been more than I ever could have hoped for, because before here, I had nothing. And telling people this felt like a good way to make me stand out again. I just want to be normal, for as long as that's possible."

She knew one day they might find her. She knew this place, it's abilities. But she hoped she could live a peaceful life here. She hoped it would never change. That there were no Tears in Darrow for her to manipulate didn't matter to her. She didn't need that ability here.

[everyonetakes]

"Me seeing that? Me knowing this stuff about you, it won't change that," Kate says and she knows she can be a total asshole about a lot of things, but she truly understands the desire to be normal, to just get on with life without a bunch of stuff from the past hanging over her head. "I mean, I'm sure as hell not gonna treat you any different just because someone in your life can do some weird shit and you spent your life locked away."

She pauses for a long moment, then asks, "Why were you locked up? I mean, you're telling me all this other stuff, but if it's too much or you don't want to tell me this stuff, just say the word and I'll stop asking." For now, anyway, Kate's never actually been very good at keeping her questions to herself, which isn't fair, because she sort of hates answering unwelcome questions about her mother.

[cagedlamb]

Elizabeth smiled a little at the words. She knew it was likely not everyone would have the same reaction, but sh was glad Kate apparently wouldn't be counted among them. The question made her pause, but she wanted to try to answer it as best she could.

"I only have pieces of why I was there. I was never really told directly," she explained. She had her guesses mixed in with facts, though, especially as she came to learn more about herself and her lineage. "This is going to sound really strange, which - is saying something, I suppose. I didn't even know the one holding me captive was my father until after I was freed. Columbia treated him as a prophet and I was part of what he preached. Some kind of miracle child, a savior. I had a section in the museum there and everything which was - not something I expected to see. But it was all a lie, and I was apparently a bastard child, so his wife refused to let me stay with them. I was brought to the tower they made for me, the prison, first because of her insistence I remain out of her sight, then because - then because, I think, of what I could do. It's something I can't do here, so that doesn't really matter."

Talking about Lady Comstock left a bad taste in her mouth, and it was probably fairly obvious just by how much of an edge she had in her voice speaking about her. As for her abilities with Tears - Kate had been okay with everything else, it seemed like she was pressing her luck talking about how she could rip open Tears and pull someone with her into another reality. She still didn't understand it enough herself to really even explain it properly except how badly things had gone when she really started using it.

"I'm just me here, nothing special. And I like that. And Booker - he doesn't use those abilities unless he has to," she continued, hoping to make that really clear. He was no threat to anyone. "And I don't even know if he can anymore after that night, he's - you need something from where I'm from to keep being able to use them, something that isn't here."

[everyonetakes]

"Whoa, okay, so some crazy bitch was like, 'let's lock this girl away because I don't like how she was conceived' and your father just went along with it even though he was telling everyone you were some kind of saviour? Well, that's some fucked up shit." Her parents had driven her completely nuts sometimes, she'd made them miserable, they'd made her miserable in return, but she knows she could have always counted on them to do the right thing for her. To protect her and keep her safe and love her no matter what.

She doesn't completely understand why, but it makes her sad to think of Elizabeth locked up because of her parents. The people in the world who are supposed to be the only ones you can really count on had just thrown her to the wolves and completely fucked up her life instead of just letting her be a normal person.

"I'm really not gonna tell anyone," she says, then pauses. "Except you might want to tell Newt. I'm pretty sure he saw it, too, and... well, it'd be good to tell him." Because then she doesn't have to worry about lying to him, especially since she knows she won't be able to. She's a great liar, just not when it comes to him.

[cagedlamb]

Elizabeth hadn't ever really talked about that portion of her life. She had honestly never dealt with the shock, and she wondered if that was a bad thing. A stirring of resentment felt like it was growing in her now that she said it outloud, especially having Kate agree with her that it was justifiable to be angry.

"Sometimes I wish I could have approached him," she admitted. His wife too, though she had long since been dead. That bit of history made her think of Daisy, which was an unwelcome thought to have. "Demanded answers, you know? But sometimes I think it's better I didn't."

She had a lot of questions that she sometimes had some deep feeling she didn't want answered. Some things about herself that she was better not to ask about. After she saw the results of her use of Tears - well.

Well.

"I had a feeling he might have seen something," she admitted, brushing the thought away for now. For Kate, she would tell him anyway. She was being okay enough about this that it felt wrong to ask her to lie to him anyway. "I'll tell him, if he doesn't approach me about it. Thank you. For listening and understanding."

[everyonetakes]

"Hey, seriously, it's not even a big deal," Kate says with a shrug, although it sort of is. It's one of those things that shouldn't be possible, but she's spent so much time dealing with weird shit over the past several years that she feels like her tolerance level for weirdness has just gotten higher and higher until it seems like there's no cap to it anymore. Weird shit has always been part of her life, but living on the island had definitely introduced her to a whole new level of what was weird.

"I mean, it is pretty crazy when you think about it, but my boyfriend's a guy who lived in a world where giant monsters were climbing out of a hole in the ocean," she says with a shrug. "And my mom turned into a bunch of different people when she was stressed, not to mention that I used to date a guy who could do actual magic, plus, I'm pretty sure I've met werewolves and vampires and stuff, so crazy is all pretty relative when you get down to it, right?"

[cagedlamb]

"Your mother - turned into other people?" she asked. She had heard of the strangeness of the population. She hadn't expected anything strange out of Kate's background. She reminded her of Olive, in a lot of ways. That was a compliment. She didn't know about Newt, either - though she had met people from a time when the world apparently was ending, so that wasn't quite a surprise either. "You're right, though, I suppose. I've just spent so long trying to hide it, I - I suppose it's hard to trust, even with how kind people have been here to me."

She felt bad how much she felt like it was necessary. To keep that wall up. Even now, talking to someone about it felt off somehow as much as it was freeing.

[everyonetakes]

"Yep," Kate answers with a shrug. "I mean, it wasn't anything supernatural, just a mental illness, but still pretty goddamn weird when your mom turns into a teenager sometimes, right?" For a long time, she hasn't said much about it, she's preferred to keep it to herself if only because she didn't want to be defined by what had been wrong with Tara. She wants to make her own problems instead of always adopting her mother's, but she's come to a realization that not talking about it isn't the thing that changes how she deals with it.

The only thing that can change that is her own actions. She can talk about it, she can be honest about it and still be apart from it.

"And, shit, I don't blame you," she says. "I mean, tons of people can be total assholes. I got so much shit when I was a kid because of my mom that I didn't want to tell people for a long time either just because I'd heard it all before, you know? I'd been called names, I'd been the kid with the crazy mom. It's not something I go around talking about a lot and it's not even something that could put me in any danger, so yeah, I get it."

[cagedlamb]

Elizabeth had few books on any sort about people with illnesses of the mind. She knew of them, of course, but she had a feeling the advances in the field of that medicine were great.

"I'm sorry, that must have been hard for you," she said. She didn't say it to pity her, she could see she probably wanted that as much as she wanted pity for her own situation. "I'm...glad we spoke about this. I don't really like lying. Or omitting the truth, at least."

[everyonetakes]

Kate waves her hand, trying to dismiss it all. What she's said about her mom, the apology, the fact that Elizabeth feels like she needs to explain why she kept all this stuff a secret. Kate really means it when she says she understands, she knows it isn't easy to talk about stuff that makes a person stand out, especially when all they want is to be normal.

"Well, now all our shit is out there," she says with a laugh. "And seriously, I mean it, I won't say a word. Not that I think you're gonna want to talk about my crazy mom, but it's not such a big secret, so don't even worry about that." She doesn't need the same promise in return. The people who already know haven't judged her and she's pretty sure that anyone who does judge her over it isn't worth her time anyway.