(OOC:  With respect to the posting order, I'll go ahead and write a little of Esther's reaction.  I don't want to cut in front of anyone, but I imagine, other characters might be wanting to take her current status under consideration.  If this is uncouth, I'll merrily delete this entry!)<br/><br/>Esther's gasp at herself in the mirror was wholly unfeigned.  She expected to change, but not so drastically.  Even before the rest, before the clouds, before the pact Billy made with the unknowable force above her, and before the serpent tattoo attacked her, she was already different.  Unfeigned fear and the conditions that caused it were things she actively avoided in her life, and so she was uncustomarily shaken as Billy called to the sky-creature, her hands held to her chest and her eyes wild and wide.  She'd put this motion, knowing she wasn't ready for the ride.  Part of her even wanted to scream, but for how small she felt against Billy's booming voice and the thing that heard it.<br/><br/>The serpent tattoo was by far the strangest thing.  She flinched when she saw it moving, aiming for her in a way that defied her knowledge of perception and space.  Her fight or flight instincts would have kicked in had it been any slower.  But when it climbed her arm, although she was terrified, the sensations were somehow comforting.  The familiarity of the chill, despite what was causing it, took her back to a boy that had played with ice cubes on her arms.  It wasn't evil or good, malicious or gentle: but it was real.  She turned to Billy, her expression fearful and waxing confused.  Esther's body wriggled with the chill of it as it ran under her clothes moving around her body and settling on the small of her back.  But as it settled there and grew in warmth, fear lost to pleasure, and she moaned in a much more luxurious way than the others might have expected from Esther.  Her face had a slight flush to it when she looked at herself in the mirror again.<br/><br/>It was true that she didn't notice Billy at this point.  She tried to calm down, expecting to feel embarrassed by her heavy breathing, expecting a need to push herself back into her aloof shell.  But she didn't feel embarrassed at all.  She didn't feel afraid of anything.  All those years.. all those repressed things, and all the bitterness she'd used to suppress them..  She couldn't tell if they were there or not.  That chilled her: she'd imagined that after she had done this, those things would out-pour from her.  She'd forgotten what they were, but it seemed they'd either died on their own or she'd given them up for the ability to feel them.  It was a fair price, really, in a poetic sort of way.  More than fair, practically.  She hadn't been using them, and there was no reason any longer to repress them, or anything else.  She stared at herself in the mirror, noting that the only physical change she knew she'd undergone was a sense of perception: a different way her eyes looked.  It was the knowledge that there was no longer a reason to be afraid.<br/><br/>There was a muffled sound of Billy asking for another volunteer, but she couldn't have cared less.<br/><em>I've gotten it.</em>The thought made her mouth quirk in a half smile.<br/><em>I'm never going to fail.</em>Her lips blossomed into a full smile, guileless and surprised.<br/><em>I'm never going to be like Mom.</em>Her hands touched her face, and she saw herself beaming for the first time in years, and a chuckle escaped her.<br/><em>I never have to be afraid again.</em>Esther started to laugh, genuine and pure.  Her hand went to her mouth, as if to stop it, and she remembered she didn't have to.<br/><em>I'm completely free.</em>And she laughed louder.  And laughed, and laughed, and laughed, pumping her arms up to sky, leaning her head back, and feeling the damage that years of angst and petty hate had done to her wash away.  Unrestricted laughter.<br/><br/>She walked away from the effigy, turning her eyes to the world around her, taking in how different this new outlook made it feel.  The night felt different, as though it fit better around her than it had before.  The school stadium, so often an object of derision and scorn, seemed proud in it's quaint little way.  Sure, it wasn't the site of roman gladiators, but there was a measure of glory here, and she could appreciate that now.  Even the school it was an extension of.. she no longer felt trapped by the concept.  It was just a place she happened to be, nothing more.  And she could leave any time she wanted to.  She thought of Hallie, for some reason, as Esther's laughter matching the spritely blonde's bubbly persona, and felt that perhaps she would even look forward to drama class.  The thought made her dance, her skirt twirling and her eyes closed in delight,<br/><br/>She was conscious of the others present:  three lost people that needed this feeling as badly as she did.  One godlike being in the air, and his warped emissary making a sales-pitch to the rest.  She was also distantly aware that what she had paid was a pretty steep price.  But with what she had gained.. she could get it back!  She could get everything she'd ever wanted!  In fact, she couldn't<em>not</em>get everything she wanted!  The ecstasy of that knowledge, of really<em>knowing</em>that, flooded her like a wild new drug.  Some part of her was still human enough to know that she was in danger of letting that run too far, which was comforting, but candidly unwelcome.  She wanted to celebrate the moment, and intended to.<br/><br/>She spun on the balls of her feet, turning to look at the other three.  She could tell they knew: she wasn't the same sardonic hippie-girl they'd met at the train station.  She was grinning, free and alive as though for the first time.  She couldn't think of anything to say, but part of her wanted to go and kiss Jason just for the fun of it.  She felt like dancing.  She felt like creating.  She felt like living.  But first, she felt like watching what the others would do.  She watched expectantly, offering no further encouragement than her own delirious joy.