Cisco Ramon (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
franciscoramon) wrote2017-04-06 09:14 pm
franciscoramon) wrote2017-04-06 09:14 pmriverview ∆ ic inbox ∆ @ciscodelamancha
 LEAVE A MESSAGE! voice | video | text |
franciscoramon) wrote2017-04-06 09:14 pm
LEAVE A MESSAGE! voice | video | text |
no subject
cool. got it. 👍🏽
...you good?
[ Cisco knows that in the past those canisters have caused some hardship and hurt feelings for Lup and her family, and even if her being dead is in a lich way that she chose herself and was all involved with magic... it's still being dead. ]
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[There's a pause, as if she's not sure what to write with her magic hand.]
I can't eat ice cream dude I'm horrible
but no I'm dealing. It was just after my staff and it's a little different to remember to be me than it used to
Taako's gonna figure something out
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wait seriously?????? 😱
epic fail
that sucks i don't know what i'd do without ice cream, for real
just after your staff?
[ He... is pretty sure he knows what she's talking about, but he wants to be sure that he doesn't end up spilling any secrets or spoiling anything. ]
i'm sure he will
he's a very resourceful dude
you know i'm not a wizard or any of that, but if there's anything i can do, you know i will, right?
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[Because of course.]
shit, I forget you weren't there. My thoughts are still a little jumbled??? Cuz Fisher and Junior also told everyone in all our planes the story so I kinda mix it up.
I made a staff... it's Taako's umbrella. It steals the magic from defeated enemies, and my lich form is like completely arcane energy so I got stuck in my own fucking staff after I died
took me a while to be me again and not just some formless energy
hold on lemme turn on video because it's a bitch to write with mage hand
[...and she does, kind of leaning the camera down so he could se part of her robe and not her face, just in case.]
...and I know you will, Cisco. You're a good friend... and that's what I need the most. This form is sustained by love, and with Barry not here, I need all the closest friends I can get.
[She makes a bleh sound]
Shit, that was sappy.
--> video permanently
He'd heard bits and pieces of this story, but hearing it from Lup illuminates the remaining details necessary for Cisco to really understand. He doesn't get how the magic of it works, of course. But he accepts the logic as Lup presents it: umbra staff that eats magic from defeated people, Lup being pure magic after getting killed, Lup ending up as formless energy in her own staff. ]
Shit. That's some fucking epic bad luck right there.
[ He doesn't ask how she died, though he does wonder - he's pretty sure that's just him being morbid and nosy and it doesn't matter in the long run. The important thing is that remembering to be herself is apparently an ongoing process, when she's like this. Which is a pretty terrifying thought. Cisco thinks maybe he's going to go to the library and see if he can read up on liches, one of these days, so he doesn't end up asking dumb or painful questions. ]
Well damn, Lup. If it's love that keeps you going in this form, you know I got plenty to spare. You ever need a top up, just hit me up, any time, any place.
[ Cisco is not embarrassed in the slightest by the full-throttle sappiness of that; he's a sappy guy, and he embraced that about himself long ago. He'd spent too many years when he was young trying to stamp it out, to be sharp and cynical and macho in a dozen ways that didn't fit at all. He's done apologizing for being soft and emotional, pretty much permanently.
His voice is quiet and coaxing as he teases: ]
C'mon, you can't tell me that you're a skull on fire now and then hold out on me and not lemme see your dope Ghost Rider face.
[ That shit is going to the top of their to-watch list
fourth wall be damned. But even though he's joking, Cisco really doesn't want Lup afraid to even let him see her by camera. She might be playing it off as no big deal, but it's got to be a really hard adjustment. He doesn't want her thinking he likes her any less because she's scary-looking, now. ]no subject
[She sighs. Lup doesn't even blame the Rockseeker guy for it, honestly. It was her own fault for not paying attention.]
Damn, my man. Gonna make a girl sob or something if she had some fucking tear ducts.
[There was nothing bad about softness, it just wasn't her thing. Cisco is so damn sweet, though, and it makes her soul a little brighter, the memory of her heart a little fuller. Her family was splintered here, but the friends she had made tied it together.
She uses that to be.
Motivated my both is reassurance and the need to show off, Lup finally leans the phone up to show her face.
...well, what was left of it. It's mostly just a soot-charred skull with a glowing light in the eyesockets, and a red hood pulled up over it.
Then there is fire, flames licking up over her skull and forming the outline of what used to be Lup's face - cast in red and orange with the skull barely seen beneath.]
You can applaud now, my dude.
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[ He doesn't mean to ask it; he wouldn't have, if they were still communicating by text. But the words just slip out, concerned and quiet. If it had been in that last cycle, that means it couldn't have been the Hunger. And for some reason, that strikes Cisco as being much worse. At least with the Hunger it seemed like it was something they'd all gotten used to, more or less. ]
Well, long as it's a good kind of sob, I think I can live with that.
[ Cisco braces himself for how she'll look, but it's a lot different than he'd pictured. In that brief flash of the battle between Taako, and Barry and Lup and the Hunger, when that creepy elevator had shown up, he hadn't really gotten a close look at Lup. He'd been too preoccupied with everything else going on, and she'd been too busy raining down fiery destruction on the shadowy figures all around them.
He is glad, now, that she had contacted him like this, given him warning. The skull and fire are kind of scary and kind of cool, but it's the outline of her face the way that it had been when she was alive that throws him. If she were totally unrecognizable, in a way it would be easier. But he can still see Lup's face there, just translucently.
So he does applaud, but it's just a fraction delayed. He claps for a few seconds and then, wondering if it's the right move but too worried not to ask, he blurts out: ]
It doesn't hurt, right? Being a lich? I mean... you're not in pain or... anything?
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[She has to let him know that first, because she could almost feel his worry through the damn phone, the way he's just blurting out his thoughts like this.]
I can't feel much of anything, honestly. Which is a fucking relief in some ways, because yeah, I got my dumb ass stabbed - or more like, sliced? I got this dwarf guy opening this secret vault for me so I could hide my relic, but he got into the thrall of the stupid thing and knifed me.
[She shrugs, like it was nothing. The IPRE was far to flippant about their deaths, but this one was... well. The last one.]
It wasn't even a lethal cut or anything, so I blasted him through the door to the vault and locked him in. Buuuuuut the blade was kinda poisoned? That's how cha girl died, like a fucking moron on a cave floor.
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[ Lup might gloss over some things, might avoid talking about this or that, but he doesn't think that she would say I promise like that if it were an outright lie. Not feeling much of anything doesn't sound great, but it's better than if she were in constant agony. ]
Is there a way... is it permanent?
[ What he wants to know is, is Lup going to be stuck like this indefinitely, since there are no cycles to reset here, and she technically is dead. He wonders if there is anything he can do, scientifically. To make it easier for her to remember herself, or to make it so she could at least feel some good things - chow down on some ice cream now and then, or bask in the sun on a warm day.
He listens to her recounting her death, face growing more and more solemn. It's unusual, to hear her insult herself, much less twice in about a minute. And the story itself is hard for him to think about flippantly. Even the epic, badass, fighting-for-all-reality deaths he'd heard about from the IPRE crew bothered him, but this one is much more familiar, feels much more real and horrible to him. ]
Somebody stabbing you in the back doesn't make you a fucking moron, Lup. You didn't get yourself killed, you just. Were killed.
[ It might seem like a small matter of semantics, but Cisco is insistent. From the sound of it she's blaming herself for it and he is not about that. ]
I'm real sorry that happened.
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[At least she was more patient these days.
...it didn't mean she had the best grasp of her emotions, though - especially not after just coming out of a staff where she had been an awful mess in the first place.
Normally she either exploded or clammed up, like when she was dealing with her relic destroying so many people. Right now, it seemed she dealt with it by dumping her issues on the sweet kid she had only known for a few months.
There's anger there that she hasn't fully worked through yet, and guilt that bubbles like acid in her chest and makes her insult herself without even thinking about it. She, Lup Taaco, the next best fucking person in the universe called herself stupid.
Because she had been.]
I should have been more careful, Cisco. If I didn't die like that, Taako would never have been alone.
[In the end, that is her reason for the guilt. She wasn't there for her brother.]
no subject
[ That is some relief, at least, and Cisco makes a mental note to ask Taako if there is anything he can do to help, as soon as possible. Probably it was almost entirely a spell, and nothing he can aid in, but who knows. Cisco's at least picked up now that occasionally some spells require... ingredients of some variety, so perhaps he can aid in that way.
For now though it's enough to know that something is being done, that there are options, and Lup knows about them and has some hope for a change.
As for the rest, Cisco treads very carefully, going silent for a few moments before he says: ]
Listen, I know how much it means to you to keep him safe and... it's gotta hurt a lot knowing there was some time when you weren't able to do that.
[ The words feel insufficient even as he's saying them, but Cisco forges on. It's so rare, to hear Lup talking about herself like this, and it's a topic he's spent more than a little time thinking about, himself. He'd been a bit closer to where she is right now, at first - thinking he was an idiot for not realizing Eobard was evil, feeling like getting killed was half his fault anyway for digging into things and then wandering down into that stupid basement alone. But he'd come out the other side of it, now, and for all that his feelings about his death are still complicated and awful, he at least mostly doesn't blame himself anymore. ]
But him being alone wasn't only on you, and- and the thing is nobody can be careful one hundred percent of the time. You just can't. That doesn't make it your fault some asshole dwarf decided to attack you. That's on him, thrall or no thrall, y'know?
[ Cisco thinks about what she said, about how she needs love to keep her on track in this form, and so he quickly tries to think of something that would make Lup happy. Movie might make her sad because of the popcorn (and also maybe be a bit distracting for other audience members). But that sparks an idea and he asks: ]
Hey you know we should totally record some sick specials effects for that movie project while you're all lichy. It makes your powers stronger, right? You feel up to blowing up some random shit in the abandoned city?
no subject
[She has faith in her brother, and in everyone who wanted to help.
Then Lup quietly watches Cisco as he speaks, obviously trying to cheer her up - and it's sweet, and he's partly right. He couldn't know how it felt, though. He didn't live their life.
He didn't know how fucking much they depended on each other ever since they were little. Just them against the world, her with fire and courage and him with wits and calm. She had always been the protector, probably before she could even walk.
He couldn't know how subtly different Taako was now, and how that changed their dynamic.
...but she listens, and she takes it in, because Cisco is her friend and he means well. Maybe he's a little right at some parts, too, but Lup doesn't have the energy to be logical right now.
So it's a good thing that he breaks the tension by talking about movie effects.]
Oh shit, definitely! I'm crazy powerful now, I could blow up part of the Hunger, can you imagine the shit I could get into now? We need to get that on camera.
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Well, if that dabbling ever gets into some territory where you need help with machines, you got my number.
[ He isn't really sure whether any of that actually got through, about not blaming herself, but he takes the lack of response as a strong hint that he shouldn't push it any further; at least, not right now. Besides, Cisco knows there is a very limited amount of good that can ever be done in lecturing and telling someone how to feel. If Lup is blaming herself, thinking badly of herself, he has a better chance of undoing some part of that by making her happy, reminding her of the good stuff.
And that means providing her with company, and friendship, and distractions, sooner rather than later. ]
You got plans this afternoon? We could go out and get some sweet footage, the weather's good today.
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[Right up there with Taako, Lucretia, Magnus and the most decent fast food place they could find.
Focusing fully now on this explosive adventure instead, she starts making plans for what spell slots to burn. This was all going to me pretty amazing, in her humble opinion.]
Let's get going!