[PRP] in the grey (melany & jeremiah)

[shibrogane]

"Stop!" Melany put her hands up over her face, releasing Jeremiah in the process. "Stop talking! I don't want to talk to you, I don't know you, why are you so ******** obsessed! You're reporting to her, aren't you, you're going to tell her where I am and what I've been doing and who I'm with and you can't, you can't, I'll--"

Her breathing was harsh. Though vehement, her voice had never risen above a conversational level; few people were turning to look, but those who were had their phones out. "--I'll die before I let her take me again," she said, "I'll die, I'll die, I'll ******** die--"

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

Once he was released, Jeremiah took a couple steps back and the world almost immediately righted itself for him. His head spun for a moment, not expecting it to surge all back in, and he was blinking his eyes rapidly to gather himself (and his vision).

Briefly he opened his mouth and then closed it. There was risk here. Though she was not loud, she was still in the process of breaking and that was not what he wanted at all. It could lead places no one around needed to deal with.

"I'm not reporting to anyone; no one around here is going to take you," he said in a calm, even voice (even if he was actually more on edge than he had been in a long time). "Bloody hell, I thought you were Minerva Mercer, the person I've talked to on the listserv. It's what those runes say so I thought you were someone related to me." A breath. "I'm leaving. You're better off without me talking to you."

What had he been thinking? Not that it mattered, he was going to stop talking and give her her space back.

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"Because I lied," Melany said, "I--I got this invitation in my email and I thought maybe someone there could help but I couldn't risk her knowing it was me and I just--she used to be in my dance troupe--we--we used to--"

She sat, suddenly, crumpling to the ground.

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

Jeremiah had wanted to leave- he meant to- but her crumpling to the ground stopped him. He crouched, looking around at everyone and then focusing back at Melany.

"... she was in your dance troupe? You used to what?" His voice was softer this time as he spoke.

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"She was my friend," said Melany. "I don't understand, she was my friend."

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

"Did something happen?" Melany said was. Granted, so far as he knew, Minerva Tailor Mercer had been missing for years at this point but had not gained the details to that- not yet.

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"I don't know," said Melany. "I remember all these things and they're not all my memories and if I stop to think about them I forget, and I..." She shook her head. "Do you know what it's like to be unmade?"

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

Jeremiah went still, the words echoing in his mind. Do you know what it's like to be unmade?

"I don't. I can't even imagine it." He watched Melany. "It is a fate I would not wish upon anyone." A breath was exhaled, Jeremiah shifting just a little. "If it helps, I know there was a Minerva Mercer but she disappeared in 2013." That perhaps those were her memories instead of the memories of another that were slowly taking over her mind bit by bit, changing who she was.

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"I think someone did unmake me," said Melany. "I think they unwound me into little pieces and then tied me back into a shape they liked better. I think... I don't think I'm real anymore."

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

"Melany, you're real. Alright? Don't doubt that." What she was saying, however, was unnerving because it was- Well, that was what happened to another young woman that had bore her name.

She had been unmade and made anew into something else.

Even if it was likely that someone was currently trying to pluck at those pieces still and rearrange them.

"Whomever is doing this to you- it's wrong." Though that was a wide and varied thing, including the girl that looked like him that was stalking her.

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

Melany didn't answer. She pushed herself back to her feet. There was an odd grace to it. Less a ballerina and more something ancient, and eldritch, with too many angles. But the girl that looked up at Jeremiah was just that, a girl, nothing spinel about her.

"I guess so," she said. "You tell her that. You tell her to leave me alone."

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

"Give me a description," replied Jeremiah, coming to his feet. There was something about the way she moved, the way she carried herself, that set him more ill at ease than he liked.

"If I see her, I'll do that." Though he may not like who it was in the end. Melany was studied a little before he was speaking again. "Will you be alright? In this moment, I mean, to go wherever you were going before I ruined that."

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"You don't know your own sister?" Melany hardly seemed aware of what she was saying. "How do you--"

She collapsed, right there. The bystanders who had been holding their phones close, watching this confrontation between the magical Chief of Police and a slip of a girl, rushed in to help, one of them calling for the first aid personnel on site.

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

Jeremiah opened his mouth then closed it, watching as she collapsed (there was too much there that he could not say, could not understand, did not understand). He moved quickly to catch her, not wanting her to fall, and shifted to the ground with her. His own phone was brought out, thumb hovering over Shiloh's number before he looked up at the small gathering.

"Make space," he said - that calm, even authority voice he had that never saw him raising his voice - to the people that rushed in, "and if you haven't put a call in for first aid, do so," they likely already had, "and don't crowd so they can get through."

Leaving before verifying she was alright was not going to happen, though now he did regret not asking if there was someone he could have contacted for her.

shibroswol

 

[shibrogane]

Every bystander watched Jeremiah with wide eyes: prey frightened by a predator. "Sir," said one of them, "We all saw you fighting with her. She didn't want you here. Maybe you should go."

azuredreams