most of her anxieties leave her when ana's trio of shiny starters open and stumble - with more grace than they ought to have like that - away from the door, revealing ana. mostly ana. ana 1.5. her gaze drops immediately, of course, to the leg, all shiny and brand spanking new. 

and then back up at her. 

anger flushes through her, making light lavender cheeks an odd shade darker. then she stalks towards her, snaps her arms out, and yanks her roughly into a hug. 

"you didn't wait! i told you to wait!"

ana fell

☉

got really excited is going to be the best explanation freya gets and no amount of scolding, threatening, or appealing to ana's better nature is going to stop her from doing the same thing in the future. all she can change is herself, and be there for her the next time she calls.

so she doesn't protest or try to beat a dead mudsdale, but she does frown when ana turns the tables around on her. 

"i wish it were a god," she says, tone flat, more than happy to let herself sink into the comfort of ana's embrace. "have you seen the news? bunch of missing persons over the past few days. we were all abducted and sent out to deep space on a megalopolan ship."

she tilts her head, pressing her forehead to ana's crown, feeling weary. 

and i was choked, strangled, misted, misted, misted, misted, misted again, ana, and i can't stand myself, i feel unclean, i feel unreal, i feel not here and too much and there are too many me's inside and sometimes, sometimes i just want you to take it all away, why can't i let you take it all away?

"but we made it back in one piece. i'm okay. how's the leg?"

ana fell

☉

freya doesn't let go, which is unusual for her. her golden eyes are wide, boring straight into ana's, and she thinks, with her lower lip trembling, i kinda love you too. and it's terrifying to think about - that she has enough love to give, enough love that it makes her feel even fuller. 

but not in an i'm trapped in my body and can't get out kind of way. in an i am comforted. i am here and you are here and that means something magical sort of way.

ana's ankle turns. freya inspects the leg, not knowing anything of what she's looking at, but everything seems fine. would ana tell her if it wasn't?

"is it terrible, that i want you there next time? when something happens?" she asks softly.

ana fell

☉

"god, megalopolans, or whomst the fuck ever, got it," she says, even if the logistics might be difficult to explain. although, again, maybe not. ana does have real ids and from what it sounded like before, cygne never made a whole lot of waves to the point where rocket conflict could complicate things. 

but what if she ever ran into - 

she's ushered inside and with all that she's lived through again and all that she's felt in the past few weeks (all nice and folded up into several days), she drops it. she thinks, i promise. i promise i won't leave you behind, but it feels a selfish thing too.

"you kept the draciary going while i was gone. thanks."

a glass is put in her hands very clumsily. a decent amount of it ends up on her shirt, but she doesn't mind. she snorts, thanks the skrunkly minions, and takes a sip. 

"i think you'd have been fascinated by what they were doing, all the nightmares aside. they made a whole space ship out of tera crystals, ana. out of that power and their sheer will."

ana fell

☉

she picks idly at her shirt while ana goes to clean her up and watches the trio of rapscallions trip over themselves around the kitchen. the rest of ana's house is a low buzz of activity, with bodies moving in other rooms, and it reminds her so much of her home in sootopolis. 

it's impossible to feel lonely here.

"we didn't get a good look at the outside. it crashed in - oh, it's in ultra megalopolis. i don't think we'd be able to get back to it easily, but there might be some schematics we can scrounge for in lesser megalopolis. or even in the ultra deep sea with the quaestor lucis."

she thumbs her lip. "the latter might make more sense, actually. tsubaki and i looked around it, but neither of us have your eye."

a small shrug of her shoulders, though she looks relieved when ana mentions booze. 

"the ship wasn't the bad part of it. honestly, i could have even handled the incarceration. the traumas, the starvation, all of it. what i couldn't handle was the - " her jaw flexes, teeth gritting.

"you remember what i told you before? when you broke into my hotel room? about the...person i let break me. make me. they did something similar to us." she touches her own arm, presses her fingers just until dimples start to form, watches her skin redden in the slightest. "made us complacent."

ana fell

☉

when she talks about it, it's not like she had before, with misty eyes and a tugging feeling as though she's there and back again. it's like she's a mile away, looking at what's happened to a woman she knows less and less with each passing day. she stares down at the indents, at the curve of her fingers, feeling like they're not connected to her.

snapping back when ana's energy shifts and even kanaya's attention seems to shift. freya waves her off, stepping neatly around the broken glass on the floor and over to the assortment of mostly-sugar-somewhat-liquor drinks ana has stacked up on the counter. 

"i'm more of a whiskey girl myself," she says and reaches for her wrist on her way to find a broom. 

"i don't know why, but it's like you said, right? my too much is higher than most people's, so better it happens to me than anyone else? i'm okay. i'm mostly okay, anyway. being here makes it better.

"knowing you're okay makes it better."

ana fell

☉