A. Rama Raju ([personal profile] load_aim_shoot) wrote in [community profile] singillatim 2024-09-19 02:09 am (UTC)

"Ah..." Raju grimaces. Not only does it feel ridiculous to say, he'll have to explain that he can't control it still, after all this time, when every other person who had that same damned dream about the fire manages perfectly well. He could cite Jopson instead, but Jopson hadn't seemed to want to go into it much when Raju had asked. There's William. He'd make a much more comfortable example than Raju himself would. William hadn't seemed too secretive about what he could do, at least in broad strokes, and being Hickey's... whatever the two are would mean it wouldn't matter much if he was, doesn't it? Not when it comes to any respect Raju might show the man. They haven't spoken since before Hickey kicked Francis' ribs in.

"William Gibson. You'll know him, I think. He dreamt of fire. Putting his hands into it, becoming one with it. Now he can defend himself. Fought an intruder off some time back by setting the man's arm on fire just by thinking about it. But if he's too angry, or too frightened..." Raju trails off, shrugs. "It'll happen whether he wants it to or not."

Francis might only be able to stretch stoking that fire out for so long; as Raju finishes speaking he starts moving food closer to the stove and the pot, fish from where it's been set out. Maybe cooking will help, if Francis needs something to focus on once the fire's going.

"Hardly worth something you could do just as well with tinder and a spark, and more reliably," he says, setting the salt next to everything else. That's less usual, limited as everything like it is in this place, but if Fitzjames might stay long enough to eat they should put some kind of effort in. "It isn't the only thing people've woken up with here, but all of it is like that. I don't know if I've heard of any one of those... abilities... that's actually useful yet."

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