[Harriet/Irena] - Braindoom

[shardstorm]

Who: Harriet, Irena
When: Sunday, October 2nd
Where: Harriet's office/lab
Before/After: Before Irena shows up at Nova's house
Warnings: MURDER, blood, head carving (glossed over), insinuation of cannibalism

Harriet sat in the office attached to her lab in the deepest underground level of the alchemist guild headquarters, hard at work on schematics for an adorable jerboa construct to follow Duncan around and protect him from his most dangerous enemies.

With all of the swirling possibilities of things she could be working on -- research to create a healing potion powerful enough to restore Lera's leg, maybe even a cure for death itself -- Duncan's robot bodyguard seemed the most practically obtainable and broadly beneficial. Keeping Duncan alive kept everyone else alive, and as long as everyone else was alive, there was a chance to fix anything else that might go wrong in the interim.

Drowning her fears in science was pretty effective for Harriet; she was completely absorbed in the task at hand, scarcely aware of the world beyond her desk, let alone the grim uncertainties of the future.

Her mind was so comfortable and in its element that it almost created a kind of resonance. It felt like happiness to Harriet; she was humming to herself atonally without even being aware of it.


Irena stood in her apartment, for some reason still inclined to stay in the place in Bastan. It was a reminder of what had been done and the people who'd done it. What Duncan had done to Nova, how he'd treated her when she'd come home to find the mess. How Harriet had treated Nova early on. Harriet's comment on the forums about being 'dumb' when she'd been in Irena's body...

Irena wasn't dumb. And she was determined to prove it.

After her experience as Khshathra, it was constantly coming to mind how normal she'd been. Well, not quite normal. Better than normal! All the things she could think of to do and build and mix, but the best part of it had just been the ability to think and comprehend normally what other people took for granted on a daily basis. The ability to focus, hold a normal conversation, go into details about things, understand what people were talking about...

She wanted that back. All of it. But there was only one way to get it.

It wasn't something she really sat around planning out. It just sort of came to mind that day, as she'd been practicing opening portals. She stopped, and started to consider where she could go, what she could do, and she realized, suddenly, that she could get to Harriet, if she really wanted to.

Deciding wasn't much of a struggle. Nova had killed someone to get at Duncan. Other people killed for money, for power, just because someone was in the wrong place. Killing wasn't the problem. Getting to Harriet was the problem. But now Irena had portals...

All she needed was to find her.

She pulled out a sheet of parchment and an Earth pen and scribbled a short, simple note onto the sheet. 'I want to talk to you' was all it said, and she set a stamp on it and held it up for the dragon that popped into the room.

It occurred to her only then that she didn't need to wait for Harriet to reply.

Irena felt for the dragon's magic, just as the little thing took to the air and vanished with her letter. She snagged onto it, calling upon her portal magic, following the trail the dragon left behind as it made its way to its destination.

Her portal opened, and she stepped through without a second thought.



Harriet didn't immediately notice the mail dragon flitting about, trying to get her attention. When she finally looked up and took the message, she had barely a moment to register its contents before Irena's portal opened with a soft woosh behind her chair.

Harriet startled and twisted to look, eyes widening at the unexpected intruder.

Was it a greycloak? An assassin? A vengeful alt?

...No, just Irena.

Holy shit, it was Irena!

"Whoa, you meant now," she said, her voice a little squeaky. There was relief in it, though.

Irena was intimidating. She was an alt, and Harriet wasn't her favorite person. But Irena was sweet and innocent and didn't really know all the rules of normal social interaction. Irena showing up terrifyingly in her office out of the blue was not that terrifying.

Whatever conversation Irena wanted to have might be, though.


It took a moment for Irena to realize Harriet was referring to what she'd written in the letter. Even though she'd only just written it.

"Yes."

She folded her hands in front of her as her portal closed behind her with another faint 'woosh', leaving Irena alone with Harriet. The crystal from her staff, still worn around her arm like decoration, glinted on her left wrist, alive with her magic.

She didn't have Bunny with her. Stopping to look for him would have delayed her arrival, but it was probably for the best anyway. Once it was done, he wouldn't be connected to her like he was now. Would he revert to just being a normal rabbit, or...?

A sudden frown appeared on her face as she caught herself getting distracted, growing more impatient with herself. She struggled to keep her focus on the matter at hand, returning her attention to Harriet.

"You have something I want," was all she said.


"I do?"

That was, admittedly, a creepy thing to say. Harriet still didn't think she was in danger, though. Definitely in trouble, which she was more accustomed to, and was usually the closest she ever came to danger. So yeah, in Harriet's mind this was officially an emergency, just an emergency of extreme painful awkwardness.

"What do you need? Is something wrong?" In her efforts to twist the situation into something she could understand, she transposed want for need, and tried on a sympathetic explanation for Irena's intensity. Maybe someone was in trouble and she needed help. Did anything really motivate Irena other than trying to help other people?

Harriet still felt herself shrinking in her chair.


Need? Maybe she did need it, though Harriet probably wouldn't understand why.

"Very wrong," Irena said, unfolding her hands. "I'm broken," she added, a faint upturn of her lips indicating what could almost be a sneer as she used the term she hated most to describe herself.

She lifted the right one, calling up her magic. It was an easy spell, only meant to freeze a target in place, and she cast it quickly, the magic releasing from her hand. The only visual effect was the faint glow of the crystal as her magic built up, which faded once the spell was cast.


This wasn't right. This was fucking weird. The instinct to get the fuck out set in, too little and too late. Harriet strained internally, unable to move a muscle. She could feel the sensation, like a succession of chills, as her heart jumped with fear.

Irena could be scary. Fuck, what did Harriet even know about Irena? She'd been alive and on her own and able to change and grow for months. Nova had become unpredictable to Harriet within days, and she she had written Nova.

But wasn't Irena an innocent person? A good person? Harriet could remember spinning headcanon with Alison, suggesting ways Nova might have tried to discover some thread of darkness or selfishness from Irena. Hadn't she said there was nothing to find?

Her jaw barely wanted to move, and she had to force it if she wanted to speak, her words coming out odd and strained.

"What are you doing?! What do you want?"

But a part of her brain, moving faster than her mouth, had worked it out already. Irena's mind was broken. Harriet's had been too, in a much smaller way.

The body swap.

If the godbrain had swept away everything Harriet ever hated about herself, what must it have done for Irena...?

Tears came to her eyes, and she struggled to break free from the spell, with enough desperation that she did manage to twitch and wriggle, just slightly.

"Oh fuck, oh fuck fuck..."


During the time she'd been played, everyone had treated Irena as this sweet little girl, been kind to her, given her gifts, accepted gifts from her. She'd been the girl Alison played when she felt like some innocent fun.

Now, though, she was free to interact with anyone, learn from anyone. She'd learned that people weren't always kindhearted, that a lot of people were only interested in helping themselves, or those they were close to. Which meant anyone else was fair game.

Even if it meant killing them.

She felt no sense of wrongness in what she was about to do. It was what benefited her most, and it worked out because Harriet wasn't exactly a nice, understanding person. It would benefit Irena's friends, to be able to speak to them and understand them as she wished she could, as she had when she'd been Khshathra for a day.

And it didn't hurt that it would probably piss off the other guild leaders, which included Duncan.

The crystal flared to life as Irena called up her magic, weaving it into a spell.

Mages no longer had to follow the restrictions set on them by the game. This meant Irena had been free to explore new options, create new spells. This had been influenced by Rayu's insistence that she not damage the area around her when attacking things- or people. Of all the spells she could use, all the elements at her disposal, Irena chose what she considered the cleanest, safest, and easiest way to kill someone.

Her hand rose, the spell forming an earthen cover over Harriet's mouth and nose, blocking her airways. The earth hardened as it formed, solidifying into rock, making it difficult to dislodge. She recast the hold spell, as well- it's short duration meant Harriet would have been free to flail and possibly call attention to her misfortune, which Irena simply couldn't allow.



A muffled scream came from Harriet's throat as the cover took shape, keeping air from escaping her mouth and nose, but not preventing her from expelling the air already in her lungs into her mouth. Unable to take a new breath, and overwhelmed by panic, she continued heaving reflexively and making strangled cries. She'd had enough time between the two freeze spells to bring her hands up to her mouth to claw at the cover, but that was where they were stuck.

It wasn't the quickest way to go. For about half a minute, she struggled, becoming more and more certain that she was about to die.

She forgot the Dark, and Duncan's promises to save her. There was no room for a revised metaphysical outlook when your brain was screaming for air. There was just the shape of death as she's always imagined it, a great nothingess, and a cosmic punchline to any life not fully lived. Dying here and now, when her guard should have been at its highest, at the hands of someone like Irena...

Her last thoughts were a painful haze of shame and regret. She'd never felt like a bigger fool.

She blacked out, hanging limply in the spell that was holding her until its grip loosened. The rest of the end was quiet.


There were no thoughts of how she should feel about killing a person. No second guesses, no doubts, no sense of wrong. It felt no different from killing a monster to cut up for enchanting ingredients. And she didn't even stop to consider how strange that was.

She had work to do.

She wasn't sure how long to wait to ensure Harriet was actually dead, but so long as there'd be no struggling, no cries for help, it was enough. The spell faded, but she took hold of Harriet's body with her magic to lower it slowly so nothing would get knocked over. Once that was done, and only then, did she falter. But not out of any sense of remorse.

Irena wasn't entirely sure how to get to the brain.

It would be messy, no matter how she handled it.

With a frown of annoyance, she reached out for the stone cover she'd created, and using her magic, formed a part of it into a crude knife as she pulled it away from Harriet's face. With it, she had to work to get the godbrain free from Harriet's skull. And it was quite messy.

Once she had it in her hands, she set the stone knife down and stood. And then a faint sense of panic started to settle.

She couldn't eat it here. She'd lose her magic, and with it any way of escape. Her magic was too depleted for a portal, if she could even focus enough to open one. Her binds were her only options... One in Bastan, probably not a good idea. One just outside the World Library, definitely not a good idea. One in Nova's house...

That was her best option. Nova would understand, wouldn't he? But what if someone else were there...?

She glanced around for something to wrap the brain in, finding a towel, probably meant for wiping hands on after work or something. She tucked the wrapped brain under her arm. She could say it was an enchanting ingredient or something, if she needed.

Then she vanished in a hum of magic.