Springvale

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The door swings open, more or less; 'wobbles' may be a more accurate word. It's ancient, splintering wood hanging by the last good wishes of even more ancient hinges from a frame that wishes it could just lie down and die, and it opens onto a landscape of rather a lot of emptiness.

"I checked the ruins already," Ellen murmurs, indicating the squatty building in the distance. "There's nothing alive in there."

Icon to the contrary, she's taken the step of getting into her armor, which looks like a rather cleaner version of this, with American star-and-stripe motifs painted on the shoulder pauldrons and the Brotherhood of Steel emblem marked on the chest piece where a nametape might go.

Comments

[ladyfirestarter]

"Okay," Charlie says, "good ... How good is your armor against fire?"

Against ordinary fire, she means, but no point going into that now.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Not as good as the Hellfire suit I used to have," Ellen says. "But it dissipates a lot of heat before it can do any damage."

[ladyfirestarter]

"That should do it. I'm going to try for a small fire first, like I did in the bar -- if you see it get any bigger than my two hands this time, you might want to duck back through to Milliways and close the door fast."

Beat.

Wry: "Sorry if this sounds all melodramatic. I just don't want to hurt you by accident."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"It's okay," Ellen says. "One of the first survival skills I learned out here was how to detect and disarm land mines. Moving very fast at the first sign of possible danger is an important step to take."

[ladyfirestarter]

"Good," she repeats, and takes a deep breath.

And holds out her hand.



Heat hazes around her fingers; fire pools in the palm of her hand like water, and then sends up a few questing tongues of flame.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen isn't taking off her helmet any time soon, not with the possibility of fire raging out of control.

But rest assured she's making the 'oo wow' face underneath that helmet.

[ladyfirestarter]

Slowly she relaxes, as the fire stays where she intends it to.

And then -- oh, it's so seldom she gets a chance to show off. She lifts her hand and pours the fire from one palm into the other, and back.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Oh, nice," Ellen murmurs beneath the helmet. "How does that work, do you know?"

Sometimes the heroes in the comic books know. Sometimes they don't. Same deal with the people Tyler's told her about, in his world.

[ladyfirestarter]

She shoots Ellen a quick grin; it makes her look years younger.

"No one's ever been able to figure it out. I know how I do it, but not how I do it, if you follow me."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen nods. "I think I get the idea," she says. Then, her muffled voice more audibly curious now: "How much can you do with it?"

[ladyfirestarter]

"Uh ..." Charlie's smile goes crooked. "Kind of a lot. It's pretty powerful."

It's awkward to try explaining that the limiting factor has more to do with not wanting to melt the stone under their feet than anything else.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"I can only imagine," Ellen murmurs. "Does that make it harder to just give off light instead? I mean, it seems like it would, but I don't know."

[ladyfirestarter]

"Honestly I have no idea." Rueful. "I never tried. I've done just heat before, though, so ..."

Pause.

"I mean I guess I could just try to make the air around me hot enough to glow?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"It's worth a shot," Ellen says. "I've got butane if that'd help at all- although that probably wouldn't, since, well... it'd just burn. Um."

[ladyfirestarter]

"Okay." Slowly. "I'm gonna give it a shot."

She holds out her hand again and focuses.



It isn't long before heat waves are shimmering around her hand again, and rising through the air above it, but no glow appears to be forthcoming.

A sigh. "Think just the fire trick would convince them?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen thinks about it for a while. Eventually she says, "Can you vary the color of the flame? Or is that too dangerous?"

[ladyfirestarter]

She frowns. "I've never tried that either. Usually it just depends how hot it is, or what else it's burning."

Half a beat. "What color would you go for, if I could?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"There are two Glowing Ones in their supposed Holy of Holies," Ellen says. "They give off this yellowish-greenish glow. If the fire was more yellow-looking than just orangey, I'm pretty sure that'd do the trick. That's a temperature thing, right?"

[ladyfirestarter]

"Yeah --" Fire dances around her hand, bright golden yellow. "Like this? Brighter?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"That looks about right," Ellen says, "although brighter will probably impress them more, the way they always go on about Atom's Glow. The Glowing Ones are called the Sun of Atom, and Atom's Champion, by the way. And the cult leader is Radiant Mother Curie the Third. The gate guard is named Brother Gerard, if anyone asks about him."

[ladyfirestarter]

She nods, committing the names to memory.

"And our story," as the fire creeps up her arm, "is that the Atom sent me to make them stop handing out the holy water. For some reason. Maybe because the people aren't worthy of it, or something."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"The water was meant for the people of Megaton exactly as it was," Ellen says. "I'd like it most if they'd stop preaching at all, but... they're not going to do that. Confessor Cromwell's been preaching about Atom down by the town bomb for ages, from what I understand, and Mother Curie's probably the same. So maybe if Atom's light is meant only to be spread by preaching and teaching and example, instead? And not to be forced on people or offered to people until they ask for it themselves?"

[ladyfirestarter]

A breath. "Maybe. Okay." She looks up at Ellen. "Are we ready?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"I think so," Ellen says. "Let's go back to the Bar so I can pick you up from Springvale proper, okay? It's a long walk to the Monastery."

[ladyfirestarter]

She nods, and gestures. "After you."



About twenty minutes later (by Charlie's watch -- who knows how long in Ellen's world), the front door of Milliways opens again.