chronal-anomaly

[chronal-anomaly]

❝ I’ll go on the straight and narrow when hell freezes over.——

an independent, single muse blog for E.lizabeth ‘Ashe’ C.aledonia from O.verwatch. penned by Janice ( she / her ). [low activity blog.]

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two hr sketch of ur gal, @chronal-anomaly

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this terrible thing we’re witnessing now is not unique you know it happened before or something much like it

Sophocles, trans. Anne Carson, Antigonick

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Lviv - Andrii Kolodii  , 2023.

Ukrainian  , b. 1986 -

Oil on canvas , 40 x 60 cm.

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There were some days she grew concerned for him up there, isolated in a harsh environment that invited violence, danger, exposure. The hunger for violence instilled by Talon's hardware could result in trouble, death, dismemberment, and Lena found herself relieved for the quick responses slipped out over direct messaging. Another visit was already planned for next month, like clockwork, unless something interrupted the structure.

[Text: Prodigal Son] pictures can do that. hold onto things that we think weve lost [Text: Prodigal Son] or be used to send cute pictures of animals

...

[Text: Prodigal Son] excuse u?? im an adult woman n its a chipmunk !

Snow dampens the sound up here and the forest steeps in a pseudo quiet beneath cloud cover greys. The chipmunk has scampered off since the photograph, and he peels off a cotton knit beanie as he lumbers into the cabin with a log culled from the firewood shed. Lena's notifications come in default pings, a wind chime's knell, bright and crisp.

[Text: L. Oxton] I'll spot you one next time you're here. Wouldn't lie to you.

...

[Text: L. Oxton] Feels strange. Being able to hold what you see even after it ain't around anymore.

He looks down at the picture of the rodentia and this, too, is strange: Being able to yank at the corner of a memory and dislodge a scene from the past. Lena Oxton in milky dawn light, sat across from him on a modest cabin table and occupied by a salad bowl of foraged greens and berries bedding a slab of smoked trout. A smile idles into his expression.

[Text: L. Oxton] Looks like you.

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Selina slumped and the brief flush of panic that burned through Lena dissipated quickly, the languid form melting into her lap. It was easy to make space, looping her arm around the cat's shoulder and pulling her in closer. Time ticked, a distinct thump intentional in the back of her mind, creating distance between the stitch of skin and the slip from a thunderous roar, landing somewhere soft on the ground.

Warmth bloomed from beneath her gloves, easily peeled away, revealing pale gun-mettled callouses. Dips and rigidity in mangled scars brushed textures against Selina's hand, trapping it lightly between her hand and knee.

The silence lurked, loud and heavy in the evening air. The heat of anxiety had seemingly been chased from the room, replacing it with something steady and soft and warm. Lena laced her fingers between hers and Selina's, fingers brushing against nails that earned the vigilant her nickname.

"Is when you've got someone to keep you safe." She grinned, teeth flashing against the low light of the room. "Are you going to let me take a look at the rest of you, Claws? Or do you need a bit longer?"

come back down to me, claws. you’re safe here. lena says, and selina shrugs the suit off in a forgotten half-heap that’s laid in a black shadow on the floor. it looks like a black cat, she thinks, and she shivers again, blinking. the hot feeling in her throat is still there, accompanied by the quick, acerbic sting that reminds her too much of rubbing alcohol than alcohol at all. it helps the pain, the feeling, but she doesn’t like it. the heat is spiky.

it feels literal. she thinks it must be literal. lena tells her to come down to her and she does, a liquid movement that slides her forward from the couch to the floor beside her. she’s a formidable creature, the sight of her nothing but muscle, dusting of clear, dark purple bruising peppering her anatomy here and there, a dotted canvas.

the long, lean line of her straightens out, her neck only just supporting her head to pillow it gently against the cushion. good girl. she feels her face flush, eyes closing comfortably to lean her arm against the other’s knee. head tilts all the way back, pale column of a throat marred only by the gummy, messy slice at its left side. her gaze is softly chestnut, turns upward, pupils that enormous black glass whenever she holds a subject within their cradle.

“no such thing as safe.”

tongue clicks. head rolls lazily. eyes are so, so brown.

“that’s a dangerous myth to believe in.”

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i mean it makes sense to have lena go first into things with the recall ability, it really does - not to mention the self-sacrificing fool will just charge in without asking permission first if there's no orders to follow. however,,, i wish she would not!!! i wish she would not use the recall as an excuse to put herself in harms way when in reality she's got the whole penance thing going on, tipping that cosmic debt in her favor. it makes sense but it is infuriating !

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Death was a fickle thing, something unknowing and indefinite in its obscurity. This mystery had sparked countless of passionate pursuits into explanation, man clutching to stories of god, and deities, science, of flashes of memory of a long life past lived and half a dozen other excuses to puzzle through the cruelty of death. Those storytellers that experienced the act were too far gone to reassure the next generation to face their fates. No, in fact, death was a one way ticket, punched with the slam of a hammer or the buzz of an organ failing; different methods, same results.

Lena didn't have much patience for the artistic renditions. Here one second, gone the next. The before usually came associated with flashes of pain, but that bore the extent of warning of the termination. The chill of blood loss, the pain of a bullet lodged in the ribcage, the deafening roar of an explosion, and then, after, nothing

It was a rare portrait, to see Lena Oxton still, quiet, blood congealing at its exit of the severed carotid artery as gray matter splattered the dusty sand. Her legs twisted long, as if she was midstride, died in motion just as she lived. But now, death slammed the breaks, left her stiff and empty, with the exception of violent spasms associated with the bullet slamming through muscle and sinew.

The sun set on her life, bathing the world in a glowing dusk, as the accelerator rebooted and sparked back to life, falling back on backup batteries. A violent flash of blue obscured the recollection of brain and bone that constituted her cranial cavity, and the expulsion of a bullet lodged in her spine. A thin, round circle crests between the jut of collarbones, serving as a reminder of her death at Agent Cassidy's hands.

Consciousness chased her revival, awareness seeping into her extremities before ricocheting into cognizance. Air pressed into her lungs automatically in a violent gasp, her medulla regaining control. Lena's eyes chased the feeling, cracking open with a hoarse gasp of pain. The ache of death fuzzed in her limbs, and her skin felt tight, sluggish, around the indents left behind from her murder.

Too ill to rise yet, Lena simple stared at the smear of stars across the horizon, and tried to focus on maintaining breathing. If Cassidy remained in his vigil, she was unaware, perception poor in her life reclaimed.

Agent Oxton collapses. Cole watches her skull rupture into confetti-piece bone and shredded brain sequins, the upchuck fanfare of blood streamers. Her head is the explosive death knell of a dying star. Skull viscera splatters audibly across the dirt, heavy shrapnel subjected to the uncaring disregard of gravity.

And in that instant, silence.

Thunder shatters into the eye of the storm, into the eye of a God that seems to rule over his life with a white knuckled grip that sits snug against his jugular — serenity and blue sky so abrupt it is a different kind of loud. The nuclear meltdown corroding holes in his head ceases.

(There was a time. There was a time, maybe, this wasn't the case. This used to hurt more, something in the gut that ached and twisted like a fitful sleep churning that burned its way into his brain, burrowing in the way of worms, until he learned to let it go, until he remembered to slug another bullet into the meat of somebody's chest cavity. If he let it go, it stopped hurting, and this oblivion peace with the kiss of heroin blew through his system in its place. But it took a long time. Something inside, innate, burning itself alive; crucifixion lynching made of its own body parts. They don't let him linger on this. If he does, the pain crashes back in, flash flood devouring everything; everything.)

He knows that she will be back, and so he walks to her body, boots step-gliding over pale desert dust, the crunch beneath the heel and toe of one foot and the staggered drag of the other where leg musculature fails to respond around the bite of a pulse round. He levels the revolver barrel to her throat and fires another round, watches as the punch of it jerk through her body, rips whiplash into her limbs. Three.

Idly, in the now, vacuum silence of the din, he wonders if she will feel this when she returns. There is no satisfaction in hitting a fatal shot on a corpse, and, yet, still, he briefly considers bringing peacekeeper's nose to that iconic blue disc that now lies dormant and dead centered in Oxton's chest. His head cants. He allows his arm to fall to his side and toes the shell of Oxton's harness. The comms in his ears bide empty, vacant of orders, and so he waits, hovering over his kill like a turkey vulture skulks vigil over its meal.

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Scorching heat radiated from his body; it superheated the room, typically frigid in its deep burial under layers of concrete and earth. A wing for prisoners, for those too wicked and unpredictable to see the light of day again. Lena's skin crawled with a thousand spiders, though she wasn't sure if that was the proximity to the core or the hate that scorches in typically-warm eyes.

Loss craves old rituals, Lena tucking her fingers to the pale stretch of wrist, tucked against the pulse point, counting the beats that thundered against the flesh. A small degree of relief washed over her - Cole Cassidy was still alive. They can still fix this.

Concentration shattered through his quick movements, Lena letting go and falling back a half step. A muscle memory sent her own digits twitching for a guns stowed away, but she choked it off in a brief override of war-forged instincts. I'm not going to fight you, Cole.

Turning her back, Lena moved to a corner of the room behind the bed, retrieving a rag and a bottle of water from a table there. A brief moment to chase after wayward breath, feel the wash of grief that threatened to overwhelm her. Later, Oxton. Focus on the job. Wetting the rag, she returned to the bedside.

"Something happened. Talon did - something awful to you. But we can help you. We can help you." Lena wasn't sure if she was reassuring herself or Cole as she dabbed his forehead with the cold rag. "Angela thinks it's a - a hardware or something. They're taking you up for a CT scan later, going to confirm if it is or isn't."

Her own heartrate slammed back under control, Lena moved the cold rag to his ears, his forehead, his wrists, ensuring she was far from biting distance. At this juncture, she was unsure what he would do, exactly. How desperate he would be to escape - or kill her. "From there, we'll decide what to do from there. Maybe we can remove it, and you'll be back to normal."

Every sentence she delivers is an exposed nerve rooting for harbor, sizzling raw as it curls through scorched Earth, salt dirt. Each identifier squeezes nothing but a pulsation, knife bite mauling a twist somewhere behind his eyes. Still, he watches her, her sparrow-brown eyes taking flight to a red dot in the orbit of a camera lens.

She stands too close, doused in flourescents humming milk white, made grey by pale, naked wall panels deprived of color. His fingers twitch for something as her touch lands above his wrist, her fingerprints tepid, almost cold, on a body temperature running too hot. Seeking a gun, maybe. Her throat, maybe. Something inside you knows how to kill her a hundred ways. This is familiar. She's familiar. He thinks, maybe, he's supposed to kill her. It feels like a promise. It feels right.

He forgets the cuffs hugging his wrists until he attempts to move them off the table, chasing a nameless instinct and stopped short and choking. His skin pulls tight against it, indents white beneath.

This table is cold.

He frowns, voice dry enough that it reaches for water. "Funny way of helping."

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no tornado shelter we die like true midwesterners

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"Right." Articulators pinched off the word sharply, relief impossible against the swim of concussion and blurring of timelines staining her vision, pixelation of another time driven by a brain haunted by shell shock. The steering wheel fuzzed away, the joystick of a careening plane replacing it. It was incredible how the distant tick of a turn signal mirrored warning alarms. But pain was a relentless predator, and for once she was grateful for the dig of metal into her spine, the crush of metal that threatened to dislocate her kneecap, and the dull throb behind her eyes. The pain was real, the car was real, and they were really slung around the base of an oak tree.

She untangled a comms unit from the center console, grateful for the magnet charging station that held it in place during the crash. Perhaps they should make the grav field out of similar magnets. Lena allowed herself a soft smirk, wincing at the way it pulled her split lip, before radioing into headquarters.

"This is Tracer. Fritz and I have been in an accident - suspected sabatage. Request evac and support teams." Lena reviewed the general inventory of injuries, followed by a string of mumbled coordinates, before hanging the radio up with a cough. And now they wait.

Lena grit her teeth as the car rocked under Fritz's movements, branches snapping from the groan and twist of metal and glass, a promise of gravity and violence rumbling over the horizon. The pulse pistols glowed beneath her, a homing beacon to some kind of protection from whatever came after the launching-the-car-off-a-cliff plan. Too bad they were tucked under a knee ready to snap at any movement.

A hiss of annoyance escaped between clamped teeth, brown hair crushed as she leaned her head against the headrest and tried to snuff out the creeping feeling of claustrophobia. You keep talking.

"There was a -" Lena faltered off, thoughts slow and sluggish. Order of importance. Get out. Get weapons. Get revenge. Revenge sounded nice, rewarding. Keep at it, Oxton. "There was a bike. Rider dressed in black. Came up around us, doing 190, maybe more. No markings. Guessing his friends aren't far behind."

"I didn't see shit."

The accent was thicker, and it was a sure sign of distress. Cassidy had been on him, so fucking lovingly on him about slowing down a fraction. Coming down from the hellhole of hyper vigilance he'd lived in for five years, before the cowboy brought him home. The cliff was a nice view, so Fritz had been trying to do right by his boyfriend, and enjoy it. Like a normal human being. He wasn't dumb enough to think this was a testament to go back to the person he was in dirty warehouses, tracking Talon and waiting to get shot, but still. It was frustrating.

The medic had flexing his hands and feet before the order not to move, and he was proud to hear his own training out of Lena's mouth. Enough to stretch his own into a crooked smile while he let his head tilt back against what was left of his seat.

"Don't worry. The universe would never let me rest." The last word warped into a groan as he tried to free the arm pinned under part of Lena's seat. From the cracked glass of his passenger window, he could see they were all but wrapped around a tree, caught where the tire on his side met the door. With a sharp inhale, he turned to look through the rear windshield. The movement was enough to tell him he'd busted at least one of his ribs.

"We might shift backward. It looks like the trees will catch us if we do. We're not careening anymore, they look sturdy enough to hold us." Fritz sat back in his seat, and took a selfish moment to just hurt. Ten seconds to hurt, and then he had to do something about it.

"... Get the call out. I'm going to try for the Blutsauger, it's in the back seat. It'll buy us time while they figure out how the hell they're going to reach us." Fritz reached up to assess the blood running down his face, and did not care for what he felt. "After you make that call, you keep talking. About anything."

Fritz gave her hand a squeeze before he turned with a yelp of pain at his ribs, and made a very ginger attempt to climb from the ruined front of the cab to the back.

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Little inbox call

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Dizzying glow of adoration dusted her cheeks as Lena fell farther into the rings of fire. Thoughts about the fierce quirk of determination that squeezed Emily's lips into a thin lipped grin, the way she tied her hair back when she was digging deep into a research project, laying groundwork for groundbreaking stories. The work was dangerous, but then again, so was hers, and these lives slotted easily within each other.

A warm nod of agreement as Lena sipped her tea, the sound of affirming leaving her throat with a grunt came as easy response. "Of course. I was thinking about having her at the base, but there's always the risk of being pulled away and I don't want to leave her here for who knows how long. So I was thinking dinner at the flat, trying to get everyone together. Might be cramped, but the more the merrier!"

Lena glanced over at Fareeha, smiling knowingly. "Of course you would be. Everyone's invited! You lot, the folks from flight school, it'll be a right party. Pretty sure that crew could keep up with Gabe and Jack when it comes to their alcohol."

In the moments that follow such an easy - yet important - question, Fareeha's smile slowly grows, partly hidden by the hand that props up her chin, long legs tucked away beneath herself in the corner of the couch opposite Lena. Of course, she's mentioned Emily offhand plenty of times, but to hear it from Lena like this?

Well, she can't help but smile.

"She sounds... incredible," Fareeha surmises, and she's sure Lena is liable to agree with that. There's a warm feeling in her chest. Even without knowing the other woman, she can see it on Lena's face. Genuine, real love.

"I better meet her before you propose, or it's going to be awkward first meeting at your wedding," Fareeha laughs, and moves her legs to be bent at the knee, wrapping an arm around them both. There's a thought about bringing a certain plus one to this theoretical wedding that comes and goes quickly, but she doesn't linger on it. "I mean, assuming you'll invite me..."

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@mercymedic from [x]

it's a small cut; maybe half an inch just above her brow, cleaned and stitched together by angela's own practiced hand. it's not uncommon being struck by a patient—there are a multitude of reasons why people get anxious or scared in medical settings. it's usually best not to take it personal when it happens... but people talk, and they are angry, and all the vitriol they have at overwatch being attached to angela's name make it hard. only somedays. ( only today. only yesterday. only last week—- ) she catches lena's eye in the sink mirror as she's applying antibacterial ointment on her work, then glances away to rinse out the sink. "well, doctors usually aren't anyone's favorites," she says, attempting humor to keep things light, but when she smiles, her vision blurs. "i am used to it—"

"Right." The doubt that dripped from her voice hung in the air, dissent evident against the doctor's laissez faire attitude to blood sliding between neat eyebrows. While her own white-coat syndrome had reared its ugly head plenty of times, the vitriol in the exchange earlier had not been palatable. This was not an innocent patient fearful of a needle pricking their arm.

Pushing herself upward from her lean in the door frame, Lena clasped a hand gently against Angela's bicep, firm and gentle and guiding. "Sit down, lemme see."

A crooked finger settled below Angela's jaw, tilting her head upward as Lena inspected the wound. Neat stitches marred pale skin, bridges across the canyon of the cut, efficient, clean. Better than the haphazard field stitches she was accustomed to. Dr. Zeigler, always the professional, always the graceful, even in light of abuse from titles hooked to her name, unfairly saddled. This was not her fault.

Lena looked down at her eyes, watching for pupil differences, light sensitivity. "Security has him. Them and the hospital want to press charges, need your say so to finalize it. There's footage of him calling you a traitor, so it's was motivated." Lena paused for a moment, brows cinching together in concern. "Maybe you should take the rest of the day off, doc. I can take you home."

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Here one minute and gone the next, the blink-and-you'll-miss it plumet into an unforeseen slice into the core of the earth. Lena had returned quick, picking her way over the gashes and potholes that rocked shallower cemetery plots, a promise of trouble that Cole had already found.

"Shit - Cassidy! Are you hurt?"

A hideous crack of silver-quick lightning lashed out over the horizon, dark clouds swollen with rain rearing its ugly face. Summer storm, rolling in steadily, the type of thing that would ground pilots until it passed, a reckoning of nature in the dry heat of summer. Quick, brutal, and easily capable of flooding narrow caverns. Thick, heavy raindrops plinked onto the etched stone as Lena glanced around wildly.

On the other side of the cliff face, a few slackliners took shelter beneath wind-bent trees. A plan formed, crisis response taking over as the rain picked up. Lena returned to the crevice, eyes locking onto his with a silent request. Do you trust me?

"Stay there. I've got an idea." Without another pause, her freckled face disappeared from view.

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❛ don't do anything stupid until i get down there. ❜

CANYON WALLS press the hug of a COLD COFFIN around him. There's some wiggle room, the chasm more a strip of a scar than the straight punch of a simple hole, but it's dead ends pinched off on both sides, and a long way up from where he is down here.

"Not much t'fool 'round with down here, Birdy," He calls back up to where Lena's head pokes out from the lip of a ledge, brunette fringe fluttering against grey skies.

Cole braces his prosthetic against the wind whorled rock, leans as his other goes to scratch at the back of his head only for the brief touch of contact to snap stars in his eyes and launch his shoulders taut. Air hisses between his teeth, a grimace smearing a rumple into his brows, kicking a twist into the turn of his lips. Something wet, something cold, plinks off his nose.

He blinks, and squints up at the pallid cloud cover. Water tip taps onto his brow.

"Lena," Alarm is packed to the two-beat syllables of her name, terse and tight, "It's raining."

[chronal-anomaly]

In what ways does your muse express their love to someone else (platonic, familial, romantic, sexual or otherwise)?

Lena is DEFINITELY a personal touch person, followed closely by quality time. Doesn't matter if they're platonic, familial, romantic or sexual, she's almost always touching folks ( unless they tell her not to, of course ). Some of it is the way she grew up, her friends always being very physical with each other, and some of it was the slipstream. There's a very reassuring presence of feeling another person next to her, and she capitalizes on it whenever possible. For platonic and familial folks, it usually looks like idly touches. Putting her hand on someone's shoulder while they're sitting on the couch or a chair, her knee pressing against theirs lightly if they're sitting next to each other. Sometimes she'll ask straight up for a hug, or bump her shoulder into theirs. Holding someone by the wrist - again, not necessarily in a romantic way, but just to feel that steadiness under her hand.

As far as sexual and romantic partners go, it's turned up to eleven. She'll tangle her legs in theirs when they're lying in bed, wrap herself around them if they're sitting down and press a big kiss against their cheek. Lena will either put her legs in their lap when they're sitting on the couch, or pull their head into hers. If they're standing next to each other, she's got her fingers interlaced with theirs, or forearm looped around theirs.

And quality time is so important to her, living a life so impacted by war and fighting. Like in the Christmas comic, Lena exists in this bubble of chaos that very rarely slows down, and so when she does get a chance to stop and breathe with loved ones, she takes it - even if she seems a little antsy at times during it. She might not be the best at staying still in the moment, but she tries. She'll spend the time watching tv, crafting/drawing/painting, dancing, maybe. Honestly she doesn't care, so long as they're together.