milliways_bar | (no subject)

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So, she's never walked downstairs from her room and had her clothing suddenly change before. Jenny hasn't left Milliways since the disaster on New Thal and every day has been about the same for her: running, reading, studying, spending time with Bart if he's around.

But clothing changes? Yeah. So very new.

Her eyes glance downward at the change. Her trousers are now practically skin tight and laced up the side of her legs, exposing her pale skin. Black boots go up just to her knees and that white shirt she's wearing is too tight, too short, and too low cut. There are heavy gold braces on each wrist and her eyes widen.

Hands go up through her hair, now down and partially braided. There's some sort of cloth covering it and she wrinkles her nose.

But when Jenny sees the sword hanging off her waist, her eyes light up. Brilliant!

[tiny tag: jenny, teddy altman]

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She nods eagerly, even forcing a fake little grin on to her face.

"Yeah. Exactly."

"It my prerogative not to believe you."

"I..."

She can lie again, can't she? It's bad enough Teddy's worrying. But this is Edward and it's infinitely harder to avoid not talking to Edward.

Her hands wrap around her body and she shrugs a little.

"I'm afraid to leave."

Edward nodded, still not pleased with the tricorn hat on his head moving with him.

"Because of your friend?"

A small nod.

"Yeah."

That did make some sense of her erratic reactions.

"What of all your grand plans and worlds?"

Jenny shrugs, looking distinctly uncomfortable. She despises this conversation already even more than the fight.

"They can wait."

"They need not to, Jenny." Her posture already betrayed her uncomfortablity, as he wondered if anyone had gotten that from her yet. "It will be the same universe tomorrow as it is today and was that day."

"But in a hundred years?" Her blue eyes look earnest as she talks. "In a hundred years, it won't be."

"No, it will be still. The garments and scents and faces will change, but the things you're afraid of will still be there the same." His expression softened, even as he shook his head briefly. "There will still be wars, violence, wrath, evil, death."

Jenny shakes her head adamantly.

"But the war on New Thal might not be there anymore. And then no one will ever have to know I killed Voule and... and maybe in a hundred years, I'll forget."

But she won't. She knows she won't ever. That won't ever become one of those compartmentalized memories,. Jenny can't let it.

Edward reached out slowly, curling his fingers into his hand, and rested the first two fingers with infinite gentleness against her cheek. "You won't, and even though you don't feel it now, one day you'll understand why that's equally as important as not letting it chain you."

Edward knew those intimately. Yet she hoped she remembered far fewer faces, even as he somehow doubted it.

Tears filled her eyes and Jenny stared at Edward for a moment more before moving away from his hand to hug him tightly.

"I know that. I know that already," she murmured. "But I can still hope, can't I?"

She hugged him and he moved his arm out of the way and then around.

The scent of salt increased and he wondered if it was good or bad that he could see what would come, how if he stayed, if he allowed her to keep being attached to him, he'd be made to watch her change and grow up in ways others both did and never could.

The innocent strips slowly and painfully removed.

He kept his voice light. "What about the coasters and the singers and the stars and the beauty of the universe you are so in love with? They still are waiting for you right now. Are they not worthy of witness even more now, out there triumphing against the darkness?"

"I don't know."

She chewed on her lip for a moment, trying to keep tears from falling. It was mostly a successful venture - mostly.

"Everyone dies except me, Edward. I don't know if I can live with that."

It might be too much. She was so young and not young and had forever. People had broken for lesser reasons in the time he'd passed through.

"Not everyone."

She took a shuttering breath, closing her eyes and rubbing her face against his shirt in an attempt to hide it better. The cool marble of his skin didn't both her at all.

While Jenny knew he was correct, stubbornness and a desire to argue won out. "Majority."

Edward let her be with her attempt to crawl into him to hide. "How is hiding here keeping you from that? The percentages are different but the majority of them are mortal, too."

Stupid, stupid valid point. It wasn't fair.

"Cause they don't die here," she muttered after a long moment taken to think it over. "And I can't kill anyone here."

"You can not be certain of either of those," Edward said archly, even though his expression concerned. "The rules do not stop them from aging, and fighting still happens."

"But I don't have any reason to fight anyone here!"

Edward shook his head, looking at the faintest traces of water on her cheeks. "In a hundred years many things could change."

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