Hop,Skip,Jump,Fall
Chapter Two: Possession is Nine-tenths of the Law-=4=-
When they finally got back to the tank, lootless and burdened with one unresponsive cleanser, nobody was in a good mood. Then they had to decontaminate. Sigrun and Lalli decontaminated first, while Mikkel was trying to get a unresponsive Emil to get ready to do the same. Lalli quickly disappeared into the depths of the tank, leaving Sigrun with Mikkel.
“This is a problem”, she said from behind him.
“Which exactly, the braid or the catatonia”, Mikkel said dryly.
“Aw, take this seriously, big man.” She gave a considering look to the boy on the ground, then to the hose. She walked over to one of the empty buckets,filled it with the cold water from the hose, and then unceremoniously dumped it on Emil’s head.
Sigrun shrugged. “Always had to that to some of the new recruits. The boy’s obviously made of tougher stuff than that”, and with this she glanced at the braid “but it should work.”
Emil’s eyes flare open in sync with the stop of her sentence.
A frown appeared on Sigrun’s face. “Shoulda worked faster”
-=1=-
Emil is here. Emil is cold and wet an-. Emil is gone.
-=0=-
You open his eyes. There is cold water on his skin and you are cold. The sky above you is grey and you would have preferred a color that wasn’t so close to white.(you never want to see only white and blue again) The ground next to you is grey and wet also, but there are people there and the presence alone is enough to make it feel like a minor miracle. (you do not feel blessed) You are lying on his back.
Trying to get up feels wrong. The legs are too short, and the arms are even shorter. Your former body is not something you remember with any certainly(you remember green and red. this does not seem of importance) but it was bigger than this. You move the legs and the arms but they move themselves, muscles and tendons and joints using the afterimage of movements you cannot do by yourself,(you do not remember) but you can do it with them. Soon enough, you pull yourself up to a cross-legged position.
Then you see the people fully, a tall redheaded woman (that pings slightly, but it's not quite right), and a broad man with sideburns. The tall lady turns to the big man and says something. You don’t understand it. You know that you aren’t supposed to understand it, because who you were never knew.
It doesn’t matter. Being able to talk to someone is a luxury, so you open your mouth and speak.
“I don’t understand you.”, and feels wrong, with a voice too loud and too deep. Being able to talk is a luxury, but you don’t like this in the least.
-=3=-
Emil springs up to a crosslegged sitting position, but his movements are stiff and jerky, not precise but picky, and Sigrun could use many words to describe how wrong it feels, but she neither has the time nor the vocabulary. Then he says something in Icelandic, and Sigrun knows there is something wrong.
She’s read the personnel files. Emil spoke one language, and that was Swedish. Not Icelandic. Sure,concerns had been expressed about communication problems, but the finnish girl could solve that. It didn’t explain why he was suddenly speaking it.
Sigrun turns to Mikkel. “What did he say?” Mikkel was just as confused as she was, but he replies with “Emil said he doesn’t understand you”.
Then Emil says something else, and the realization is not as surprising as it is obvious. It’s not Emil speaking. Not anymore.
-=4=-
Sigrun turns to him, fury in her stance. “That”, she says,jerking a finger at Emil “is not Emil. The evidence does not crash over him, it slides neatly into place. Mikkel would love for her to be wrong. His family doesn’t believe in those things, spirits and magic. Mikkel is trying very hard not to believe in myths. What Mikkel believes in is evidence, and the evidence is making it very clear and very hard. People don’t suddenly grow braids, or speak fluent Icelandic.
Sigrun throws her hands in the air.” I’m getting the forest mage. He better have an explanation!”
His mind might have been occupied by other things, but it finally gets around to translating what not-Emil said.
“I’m terribly sorry”
-=5=-
Tuuri is busy transcribing the book Mikkel gave her, even with the disgusting pictures and the medical terms she can’t translate. Lalli unexpectedly appears in the room-when had he come back? It was a bit too early, wasn’t it? Tuuri looks down at the amount she’s managed to copy. Definitely too early. Something has gone wrong.
She takes a closer look at her cousin and she can clearly see the panic there, along with disgust. (Tuuri knows that people say Lalli isn’t emotional, but he is. He just doesn’t have much to be emotional about anymore.)
Tuuri cocks her head. "What's wrong?"
“Tuuri,” and yes that is panic “ a spirit has overtaken Emil."
She waves her hands, telling Lalli to please calm down because she doesn’t know what he is talking about. “Emil has been overtaken by a spirit? What do you mean?”
Lalli puts his hands together and starts fiddling his fingers. “ A spirit has overtaken him. Emil has been suppressed. His body is no longer his own.” His face scrunches up into something unpleasant and Lalli hisses. “Its a violation.”, he finishes, sounding -concerned and angry?
Tuuri considered it. While it seemed completely impossible, her cousin didn’t lie. She opened her mouth , ready to respond when Sigrun runs into the room, rage filling the suddenly very tiny space.
A/N: Freaking finally, guys. I procrastinated typing up this chapter, which is for the best, cause it turned out way better. *Points up at chapter title* Did you see that? Also the reason this is chapter 2 is because I am going to smash chapters 1&2 together when I get an Ao3 account.
Also yes do the constructive criticism thing.
Word count is 954.
Holy crap
