such great heights -tag:OBERON-

[Piper Crumin]

Sometimes, she liked to see what she couldn't do.

It scared her how much she failed at failing. So far the only things she couldn't do were a little outrageous to begin with.

Like before she came to Hammel, she tried to walk on water at a lake near her father's house. She had gotten wet instead. She had never been so happy to be so cold, but she soon regretted it, as she was bedridden for a while

Another time was when she jumped off a short building in effort to fly. That had not worked, but she did land perfectly fine, so though she couldn't fly, she hated the fact that she hadn't broken her leg.

There were so many stupid things that made her feel less and less normal all the time. She wanted so desperately to be normal, she wanted so desperately to be special without being so... special.

Piper was doing crazy stupid stuff in the gym now, wanting her body to give way under her, for exhaustion to take hold, but no matter how hard she ran, and no matter what she did, her body just did it as if it was nothing. Piper felt her hands catch her as she flipped backward, her spine arching and straightening with ease. She sighed, stopping. the cold polished floor was cold under her feet, which she hadn't thought of before.

Her heart was so loud that she couldn't even hear the beat. She should rest, for fear her immune system would plummet dangerously if she worked too hard. She sighed, grabbing a towel and wiping the little sweat that she had worked out of her, wiping her skin down so she wouldn't get chilly, the put an oversized sweatshirt on over her head. Though her body was still warm, it would get colder really fast now that she wasn't really working her muscles all that much. She took a heavy breath in, and jumped up to the basketball hoop, grabbing it with both hands. Piper quickly pulled herself up, then perched on top of the backboard.

Piper knew she shouldn't be up there. but she saw no sign that said "PLEASE DO NO SIT ON THE BASKETBALL HOOP". She liked heights. Because everything looked prettier from father away. Well, mostly everything. She liked watching the world instead of being a part of it, too, and it helped when she was above and looking down below. Alice had called her a bird on a wire, and times like this Piper really felt that was true.

[Oberon Sparks]

Sometimes, it was Oberon who had to do the actual work in the office. That's where he was at the moment, going over expense reports from the recruiting department and compiling them, before he eventually was going to have to go to the Head of the department to tell him they were overbudget yet again, and could he please tell his recruiters to use public transportation more often, instead of always renting cars?

On days like this, when he was at work, he would keep himself from feeling antsy by duplicating, and sending his duplicates to work off some steam in the gym. (He even had a locker there, still.) There wasn't a class there at the moment--pleasant May afternoon, of course they were out on the field--so Benny and Ben decided to just stay in there and play some tennis, pretending that the one of the lines on the floor was the net.

Anyone who was watching might have thought that they were identical twins, matching everything down to the color of their shoelaces. (In reality, Oberon just bought multiple items in the same colors so there wouldn't be any arguments over who would get to wear which set of clothing. The only exception was Ronnie, and no one else wanted to wear her clothes anyway.) They quickly took to their sides, not noticing the girl who was perched up on the basketball hoop.

With a rather graceful move, Ben served the ball first. It was a game of calm concentration verses youthful energy, though the two had exact same amount of experience on the court. Benny was able to return it, and they kept the volley going for quite a while. Neither was good enough to be considered professionals, but they had some skill, and they appeared to be reading each other's movements in the way that only those who had grown up together and frequently found themselves in opposition of could. That is, until Ben hit the ball low, very close to the line that marked the center of the court. Benny dove for it, managing to hit the ball, but only for a wild swing that sent the ball flying up, into the rafters. They both looked up, waiting for it to bounce back down--point to Ben, by the way--but it soon became apparent that the little green ball was lodged inside the mechanism used to raise and lower the basketball net.

And while Ben rolled his eyes and went to get another ball, Benny finally spotted girl, perched like a gargoyle on a roof. "Hey you!" He waved to her enthusiastically, grinning. "Any way you could fly up and get that for us? Ben gets a point whenever I lose the ball."

[Piper Crumin]

Piper's blue-bell eyes watched wide-eyed at the siblings below. At least she thought they were siblings. Maybe they were kids that were all born identical, though they had no related parents. Maybe it was an illusion, an illusion capable of hitting a ball? No, no. They must be siblings.

She wanted a sister to play with. A sister that could do everything that she could so they could go jump buildings together. She watched them for awhile, hypnotized by the fact that they were almost dancing as they played, playing a mirror game. Piper used to pretend to dance with the girl in the mirror when she was younger, back before meeting her real father, back in Chicago.

Suddenly the bright yellow-green ball came up, flying-out-of-control. Her eyes were on it for awhile, almost as if she had entered a dream-like state; hypnotized by the twins below.

Piper's euphoric state ended as someone called her from below. It was one of the twins. Her big eyes turned on him, and she tilted her head gently.

"Fly...?" She repeated, thinking of her failed attempt, her mind going back to a moment of just descending and descending. "I can't fly!" She called back a moment later, standing and pushing her hair back off of her face. Her head barely brushed the bar that steadied the hoop. "I can get it for you, though!" She smiled awkwardly, then turned and jumped onto another one of the bars, her bare feet off of it; on her tip-toes as she reached up and continued climbing. Her little body moved quickly and instinctively, and finally she was close enough to the fist-sized sphere. She snatched it in her hand, then let herself fall.

Piper landed softly; something that sounded like a large cat. Her legs took the landing well; going into a crouch so her empty palm touched the floor.

She turned and trotted over to the brother who wanted the ball. "Here you go." She said simply, offering the rubber sphere in her open palm.

[Oberon Sparks]

Neither Benny nor Ben was observant enough to pick out the girl who had tucked herself up so high. Obie might have, and Oberon would have almost definitely. But Ben was the charismatic one....and Benny was pretty much just a fourteen-year-old who was in the body of someone twice his age. That's why he got along so well with students and was often the one Oberon let out when he felt like too much was going on inside him.

Benny watched the slight girl scamper among the beams and the supports for the basketball hoop, as easy as if she was swinging across the monkey bars on a playground. So maybe her power wasn't flight--which is what he'd assumed, seeing how she managed to get up there in the first place--but it was absolutely something fantastic if she could climb so easily like that. But what really amazed him was when she dropped down to the ground, and landed without a problem. That was simply unreal how she managed to just fall so elegantly like that. It was stunning.

The young man clapped slowly, smiling down at the girl. He (as well as the rest of the duplicates) was tall, and nowhere near as graceful as the teenager was. And therefore Benny was suitably impressed. "Thank you." He took it from her, then bounced it off the floor a few times. As good as new, and wouldn't Ben be surprised when he came back with a replacement? "That was quite something. I haven't seen anyone do something like that since we were at school here." He looked her over, but she didn't ring any bells in his head. "Are you new? I don't think I've seen you around here before, and trust me, we know everybody."

One of the problems with talking to a duplicate was a severe case of confusing pronouns.

[Piper Crumin]

Her cheeks lit up at the applause she got, small as it was. She pushed her hair out of her face nervously, grinning stupidly. Each of the men before her were super tall, making her feel absolutely short, but she was feeling okay about that. Mostly because her height allowed her to do the things she did rather easily. Her eyes went up to study each of the faces, and furrowed her eyebrows.

Piper eyed each of the different persons. Usually with twins or siblings they looked similar, but sometimes they would have a difference, like a mole or shorter or longer hair. It was strange, because all of the "different" people before her looked exactly alike. She narrowed her eyes a bit, but still smiled best she could.

"Yeah, I'm rather new. My uncle sent me here a couple weeks ago, is all. Not many people know me, anyway, I'm not much of a socialite." Her face was still a little squished in question of the man's wording. Calling himself "me" and then "we"? It was weird.

"My name is Piper." Her eyes couldn't help but still leap from person to person. "And I don't mean to be nosy, but considering where we are-" her voice trailed off. She was so bad at this, though she wouldn't deny that being at this school had helped her a little in the social department. "Are you just one person?" She tried to stop, but it was like she was puking out questions. "Or a bunch of siblings or what? why do you guys look so much alike? Is this an illusion?"

she shut herself up as much as she could, but still being new made her just want to ask more and know more and just be more wise in terms of where she was. She felt like there was so much to learn, but learning it seemed socially unacceptable.

"Sorry." She said quickly, "I don't- I didn't mean to be so- ugh." She lost her words again, "Sorry."

[Oberon Sparks]

Benny wasn't surprised to hear the girl identify herself as new. Like he had said, they sort of knew everybody. Oberon himself was a little on the shy and awkward side, but his duplicates were a range of personalities, and they got along pretty well with everybody at Hammel except for the receptionist at the front desk. Even Ronnie couldn't get her to warm up to her, and Ronnie was the nicest of all of them. (Granted, there was something intimidating about an already-over-six-foot male body in heels, a dress, and carefully-applied makeup, no matter how nice she really was.) He didn't exactly know where she was coming from, because he was on the outgoing side of the personalities, but he knew Oberon did.

That question was a common one for the duplicates, even when they were at Hammel, among people who knew such things were theoretically possible. "Well, Piper, me and Ben over there are duplicates." He pointed to the identical man who was walking back from the equipment closet with a new tennis ball in hand. Benny held up the original one with a smirk.

"My name's Benny, and there's more of us. Ronnie, Obie, Ron are the other three, and then there's Oberon, and he's the 'real deal' if that's how you think about it. We're all kind of part of him and come out when he wants us to. You probably won't meet Oberon on your own though. He's the school accountant and kind of boring." With a dramatic swing of his arm, Benny pitched the ball in his hand toward the other man, who looked at it skeptically as it came speeding to him, but caught it anyway.

Then Benny shrugged and grinned at the girl. "Eh, don't worry about it. we get stuff like that a lot. Comes with the territory. Do you get a lot of people asking if you can fly when you're up high like that?"

[Piper Crumin]

"Not really. People don't really notice things like me. I tend to be out of sight, so it's lucky if they notice me." Piper said gently, her eye finally resting on the duplicate named Benny. "And if people do see me, it's not like I'm doing something weird all the time. And if I'm running when they see me, they don't really have the time to talk to me. Or at least I don't." She sighed, thinking of her unsociable way of life. She knew it wasn't all that strange for someone to want to be alone like she was, but was she wasting time being alone and not having the want to be with others. Would the brown drain from her hair and would the periwinkle form her eyes fade, then would she regret not tying her red string to others'?

She tried not to think like this, but sometimes, her stereotypical teenage depression got the best of her.So she decided it was best to be interested in them. This came off more nosy than interested.

"So you're not really... real?? Or are you just like... incarnations of... what'shisname- Oberon's personality?" She chewed on her lower lip for a moment, looking past Benny toward the other duplicate. Eying the bright lemony-colored ball. "Isn't it hard to play with yourself, anyway? Do you know how the other is going to react to what you do?"

((sorry about the shortness and the wait. I've been losing my ability lately, and I'm trying to get it back. I should be back to my regular self in a little while.))

[Oberon Sparks]

Benny shrugged, grinning a little. "Well, I admit that I didn't see you at first. How long were you hanging out up there before I got the ball stuck?" Granted, Benny wasn't the most observant, but he knew most teenagers never bothered to look up anyways.

But maybe she was shy, and Benny could help with that! He was good at talking to people--after all, he lived with Jude, the talkiest person in the universe--even though he had the conversational skills of a teenager, and looked like he was nearing thirty.

Her question made him laugh. "Of course we're real. We were just playing tennis, weren't we? Anyway, we're all kind of part of him, and when we get absorbed again, it's like we stop existing. But when we come out again, we have all of our memories of being ourselves, as well as Oberon's memories from the time between." Okay, so maybe his existence was a little confusing, but not nearly so much as Ronnie's. "I'm better off than Ronnie is, at least. She's a female personality, but since she's identical to all of us, she looks like a guy."

And now that his oversharing moment was over, he caught the ball that Ben threw back at him and said, "It's harder than you'd think. Because we're kind of the same person, but mostly because we've been playing against each other for ten years or something."

Ben walked over to them, smiling politely. "Hello, I'm Ben, sorry if Benny is talking too much."