︵* LOST / STAR

#OFTROIA —— an independant and selective portrayal of Donna Troy / Troia of DC Comics, written by Hope ( she / they ), +18

JUMPING ACROSS THE MULTIVERSE WITH: sonburied / lifebleeds

IMPORTANT LINKS:

✧ CARRD ✧ RULES ✧ VERSES

BLOGROLL: @astraldestiny / @bhaal1st / @relicfound / @sanguisana / @9neyes

" Am I glad to see you, Twinkle Toes! " And though the dire need for help might have been greatly overstated, Wally's presence was nonetheless appreciated, her friends always were. She ushered him towards the common room. " The ' kids ' have been driving me crazy. Jesse keeps talking about some kind of shift in the Speedforce or something but I can't detect it and I'm honestly not sure if she's just joking or not. You wouldn't mind checking it out, would you? " She had already pushed him through the door before waiting for a response from him.

" Ah my friend, you are too generous! " And perhaps the declaration that his twin sister had picked out most of the items for him helped her accept it without much of a fuss. If he chose to hand over the glory to Jeanne-Marie then Donna could, for once, act like she did not have to do the whole dance of trying to turn a gift down, to tell the gift bearer that it was far too much and she could not possibly accept such generosity. Clearly such words would have had to be directed at his twin sister and not Jean-Paul himself, therefore this would do just fine. You hear, it will do just fine — stop worrying about it, Donna!

Isn't that the damn truth of it all?

Donna had walked through the hate mobs before, more times than she could count on one hand, had heard all the oh so clever insults and the fearmongering against her kind. Yes, fear was man's most effective tool and she had suffered its use many times. Perhaps she was naive to hope for change, to expect anything else of them in reaction to a group they had never really tried to understand and maybe it was also, in part, cynical of her nonetheless to expect a uniform reaction from humanity that proved they could change. Ever the optimist and pessimist at the same time ...

It was easy to get lost in the what ifs, in the what had been and what might still be — to be swept away by the ocean of possibility and drown among the regrets. Reality had always been in motion to her and that did not stop the moment she placed her head upon her pillow to rest. She had woken up only vaguely aware of the noise around her, of her own screams echoing through the room, had not recognised Kyle at first and pushed him aside when he had stirred at her side, quickly having risen to try and calm her, evidently unsuccessfully. For a moment she still feared to be stuck in the whirlwind of time itself, a chaotic tide of timelines and potential. But what had it been that had caused such horror within her? Could she even remember?

She had climbed halfway out of her bed when she finally paused to look around. She knew this place. It was her home. This was her bedroom and it was her bed — one she had pushed Kyle out of in her panic. " Oh Kyle, I'm sorry — " It was his luck that she had not pushed with more force out of sheer habit. She could have easily broken a bone or worse. Thank Athena for the small victories. " I don't know what came over me, I — " What had she seen? Now that the moment had passed she struggled to replay it in her mind. Fire, she had felt the heat of fire on her skin, but from what? A burning house with a crying toddler in it again and again rescued by a Goddess, by her future sister, by no one at all — all that had ever been and ever would be. No, there was no house, the fire was no fire at all. It was the burning surface of a planet, the spark of too much energy between her fingertips — the feeling of pulling all life from the woman who had tormented her the most across dozens of lifetimes, who in the end was just another facet of her herself, the act of unmaking herself to save the world. A cosmic mistake through and through. Impossible in her very existence. She could see everything and yet nothing at all.

She felt nauseous again.

It was not often she saw a man like Northstar reveal any kind of vulnerability to her like this. People like him tended to try turn away from her, well aware that she had a habit of seeing right through their bullshit. Blessed by her Gods as she was, she tended to say, to see truth where others tried to deceive her even without meaning to. It meant she attempted, quite frequently, to try and dismantle her more stoic friends' façade against their will. She seldom left much to hide behind and while it was her way of offering shelter, of proclaiming she could provide a safe refuge to those she held dear — many saw it as a personal attack, or worse, as an attempt at pity. In return they tended to avoid her or simply worked to improve their ability to lie to her over time. It was a dance of sort, one where she had to try and keep up or hope they would resign themselves to letting her in or risk being shut out by them entirely one day. She could not stop pushing, not when she felt like someone had to try and look beyond the mask.

Thus it came as quite a surprise to her to hear Jean-Paul admit to any kind of uncertainy about himself. The great ex olympian skier, with a whole fanclub worth of adoring fans, a man frequently titled the most arrogant mutant by those around him, more or less behind his back, supposedly utterly full of himself — and in spite of all of this he had deemed her worthy of a glance behind the curtain. She would honour his trust of course, for Donna Troy knew no other way of reacting to such an admission of any kind of insecurity, settling down at his side, giving him her whole attention in an instant. " Well, " she began, " I'm sure a lot of people would have something to say about that one. " And they both knew it would hardly be something kind, partly due to his own behaviour, partly due to circumstances entirely out of his control. But that was not what she was here to say. That much he could certainly figure out himself, hell, it might be the whole reason for his comment in the first place and she was hardly here to affirm the perception of others, had she herself suffered under the opinion others had forced upon her, Troia, the woman lost in the perfect façade which she had created for herself to try escape scrutiny only to fall for the trap of constructing her own self after other people's expectations.

The irony of Jean-Paul voicing his doubts around her of all people was not lost on her.

" I think it depends what answer you seek here — could go many ways. I could tell you the obvious. " She shrugged, nonchalantly. " You're a mutant, we share that, you're our leader, you can thank Lorna for that one but, " and she paused, eyeing him for a moment before settling on how far she wanted to go with this. He might just call her a sentimental fool should she push a bit too hard and yet ... he had indirectly asked for her opinion tonight had he not? With only her and the stars as company, it was upon her to offer some kind of revelation, or maybe it was absolution Jean-Paul sought, or perhaps what he needed was simply a reminder of something important. She would have to take a shot in the dark and hope to make the right choice. As if she had ever made the right choice in her life. " At the risk of sounding cheesy, you're our friend too and you know, you have a wonderful husband who I'm sure could answer this all way better than me, not that I'm bothered by this, quite the opposite. " After all, there were times in which Donna wondered if it was her purpose to play confidante to those who struggled to share more of themselves with others. She was good at lending an ear and, occasionally, a few good words as well.

" There's more of course, if you want me to go down the whole list. We both make great improvised flashlights for one, though I guess you need your sister for that one. " Her laugh rang hollow, a poor attempt to make light of the situation as her mind was set on something much deeper, something that threatened to squeeze her throat shut just thinking about it, let alone say it out loud. And maybe she shouldn't say it after all. Maybe she was going to overstep, maybe he would never speak to her again if she dared to take this path, maybe she would wake up to a note on her bedroom door informing her of her termination from the team if she decided to breach this topic. But who was she if no a woman who had to take a risk every now and then?