milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Steph's in a booth, curled up on the seat, writing in a notebook. She looks distracted and anxious, possibly because her bed's currently occupied by an unconscious big brother. Also, there are bloodstains on her sleeves.

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"Hi, Michael," Steph says, sounding a little tired, and then notes his concern. "Oh, it's not my blood."

Surprisingly, that doesn't do much to help the concern.

"Whose is it?"

[ooc: heading out to a meeting in about fifteen, but I shouldn't be gone too long]

"My brother's. Dick. He's okay, I think, at least for now. Physically. But he's just - running stupid risks, and not looking after himself, and stuff. Boys. What can you do." She glances up. "Hey, you're still blue."

"Yeah, I decided to keep it. No reason to go back to Earth right now, and if Maria wants me to go with her, Isabel can change it easy enough. What'd your brother do to himself?"

"Went out on patrol without armour. Got himself stabbed in the thigh. Like, practically in the same spot he got shot, a few months ago." She gestures vaguely in the direction of the stairs. "He's sleeping and I got a doctor to look at him, but if he's not gonna look after himself, I don't know what to do."

Michael nods. "I'm not half the healer Max is, but I could handle one wound. Won't stop it happening again, though."

"He's got a thing about magic, so I'll have to ask him before I let anyone heal him, when he wakes up. But yeah, I'm more worried about the patrolling-without-armour than I am about the stabby. He's - I mean, it's not like he doesn't know the risks. I'm the second sibling-sort-of who's died doing what we do. But he's had a really, really tough year, and ... yeah. I'm worried." She props her head on her hands. "Boys," she mutters, only half-heartedly.

"Mine's not magic, but fair enough." He hesitates before continuing. "When you say 'tough year'... you don't think he's trying to get himself hurt?"

"That's what I'm worried about," Steph says, heavily. "I mean, last week I woulda said not in a million years. But - I mean, what else am I supposed to think? Maybe he doesn't realise it. It could be all a subconscious thing. But ..." She leaves the sentence hanging, and sighs.

"But you're scared for him." He nods. "I know."

"Yeah." She shrugs. "I shouldn't be whinging to you. I'm just worried. So ... tell me something else interesting, to distract me while I wait for Dick to wake up."

He gives this some thought, then offers, "The door doesn't open on Earth for me anymore."

"It doesn't? Where does it go? I didn't know it could change!"

"To the palace, now. I didn't know it could either, but I guess it's telling me... that's really home."

"That's awesome! And kinda sweet." Steph misses home. "Wow. So, is that why you're still blue?"

"Pretty much. I wasn't planning to spend much time on Earth anyway - wouldn't go back at all if it wasn't for Maria, her mom's still there - so this just helps with that."

"'s not a bad look," Steph says. "Only it makes me think of that fox flu, and that totally sucked."

Michael blinks, having managed to completely miss that. "Fox flu?"

"There was some magic fox flu going around, a while ago. I forget how long. Bar time and relative time keep getting mixed up. But heaps of people caught it and nearly died, and I was totally stuck being blue for, like, a week and a half." She grins. "'S why I went back to normal colours straight away. Had enough blue."

He grins back. "Sounds fair enough. So, what'd you think of Antar?"

"Nice place," Steph says. "Pity about all the fighting. Which I stayed out of, like a good girl, in case you didn't notice." She grins. "Looks like things are going to be pretty cool there from now on, though."

"Definitely better", Michael agrees. "Not that that'd be difficult, with how they were under Kivar. But this is how it was meant to be."

"Yeah. You guys were great out there. I think I learned stuff just from watching."

"You were at the coronation, right?"

[ooc: and if she'd like to say anything, it's an open thread in

waysofantar]

"Yeah, I was there," Steph says. "It was awesome! Just to see - like, most of the stuff I used to do, it wasn't like I saw big results. Made people happy and stuff, but never on that big a scale. I feel like we totally achieved something."