The Princess Diaries: A Critical Review

After a further fifteen minutes passed, Nat still hadn’t returned.

As Violet sat, drumming her fingers on the now-empty bowl of popcorn, she followed the threads that lay before her: no sign of her returning for several minutes yet. This was unusual; Nat had chosen the movie, and the Princess Diaries seemed to be right up her alley-- a sweet, delightful, princessy Bisney teen confection. Had she gotten bored? Sidetracked? But she’d been acting odd before then. And the popcorn couldn’t take nearly this long to refill.

It was at this point that Violet decided to look around for her briefly missing friend.

Nat *had* originally made for the kitchen - the popcorn needed refilling, after all. But when she actually left the TV room, the heartbreak pushing its way up her throat only got stronger. She had hoped refilling the popcorn would give her the break she needed to collect herself, especially since she *knew* she was being ridiculous and drawing connections where there weren’t any, but if anything she was losing her composure even faster. So at the last second she swerved away from the kitchen and into the supply closet she kept her dive suit mech in, where she could at least have some privacy while she pulled herself together.

Which was proving much more difficult than she’d hoped. Nat was an expert at not letting herself think about things, and up until now she’d been very successfully not thinking about her lack of control, what her powers were doing to her voice, her evil alter ego, or how similar she and the evil alter ego really were. But now, wedged into a back corner between the dive suit and the wall and curled up with her face in her knees, Nat knew her composure wasn’t coming back anytime soon. *Fuck*. Hopefully Violet would just watch the movie and have a good time and Nat could say something about stopping by the bathroom when she finally got back.

Violet wasn’t exactly the Bisney Comedy type; the movie had gone on pause the moment Nat left the room. And for some time had sat there, lost in her own thoughts. But eventually… “Nat?” She said, peering through the base. Her powers weren’t precisely intuition, they were a set of additional sensory information she could access about the fate of the world. She passed room after room: finding it written in thread that she would not find the object of her search by peering within. “Where’d you run off to?”

Nat didn’t hear Violet calling. She’d made the mistake of acknowledging that she had things to be upset about, and all at once she’d totally lost it. Nat wasn’t born with power as strong as she was now - if she had, she thought bitterly, she might already have lost her voice forever - but it had grown fast, and she learned a long time ago that she couldn’t make noise when she was upset. She pressed her face into her knees, tensing every muscle in her body as hard as she could. When the burn of not breathing built up too much, she let her breath out in a woosh, relaxing as she did. Nat panted a couple of times, took another deep breath, and tensed again, straining against her own body to vent her energy without using her voice. Her face twisted with the effort; she rubbed it against the fabric of her leggings roughly.

Violet almost walked by the closet before noticing that it was different. Something about opening *that* door led to a different short-term outcome than the others. She looked closer, blinking. “Uh. Nat?” she asked, as she eventually pulled the door aside.

Nat jolted, startled. “Hi!” She chirped, voice a bit too high but (thankfully) not enough to hurt. “Um! I was, uh, getting the popcorn like I said, and then we needed more dish soap? So I’m in here?” Nat stood and wiggled out from behind the dive suit, snatching up a bottle and presenting it to Violet like it was a prize. She knew her face was probably a total mess, and there was no dish soap behind the suit, but it was worth a shot.

“... Nat… are you OK?” Violet regarded her friend, an expression of concern on her face as her friend held up a bottle of…. Was that Mel’s motor oil? “Are-- are you upset about the movie?”

“I…” Nat deflated, the hand with the bottle dropping to her side. “I just...it was getting to me a little, is all. The - Mia has to give up *everything*, you know? Her whole life?” Her face started to crumple again. “And she - she doesn’t know anything about Genovia, or what it’ll be like there, but it’s what people *need*, and I-” Nat broke off, turning away and covering her mouth with one hand to keep a sob in. The tension in her shoulders was palpable - she was physically shaking.

This was weird. It was, Violet, reflected, a plausibly sad movie about a girl being corrupted and co-opted into an aristocratic elite because of a fluke of Fate that assigned a special social caste to her. But it was also a fluffy comedy, and this wasn’t really the tone it had been intended to evoke.

“I think they made a sequel?” she offered, confused.

Nat looked even more upset at that. She swallowed a couple of times, gathering herself enough to speak without her power. “Yeah,” Nat croaked, “a sequel where Mia has to *get married* whether she wants to or not, to some *guy* she’s never even *met* before, all because - because Genovia needs her, and it’s her responsibility!” More tears started to leak down Nat’s face. She dropped the bottle, pulled her sleeves down over her hands, and pressed her knuckles to her eyes.

“We…. don’t have to finish watching?” Violet offered, clear at least, that anything that did this to her friend did not bear continuing. “We can…. stream a different movie, or do something else?”

Nat just shook her head. Another wave of hopelessness at the thought of giving up everything she ever wanted for the sake of her responsibilities crashed over her; she didn’t trust herself to speak, so she just stood there and shook.

Violet moved closer. She didn’t know what this was, or how to help. Uncertainly, she patted a hand on Nat’s shoulder. “Uh.  I…. hear she’s good in *Ocean’s 8?”*

Nat lurched a couple of steps closer, face still buried in her hands. “Anne Hathaway is just fine,” she mumbled, voice thick. “She gets to perform as much as she wants. People *love* when she does.”

Violet made an awkward face; her hand had been on Nat’s shoulder, and then Nat took a step forward. Not much of a hugger, she was somewhat backed into a series of soothing back-pats. “.... this… isn’t about Julie Andrews, either, is it?”

“It’s about *Mia Thermopolis* and how she has to give up everything she ever *had*,” Nat sobs, against her better judgement. “She doesn’t know Genovia! She has to leave her only *friend*, and who *knows* if she’ll make any there! She’s the princess there, they’ll treat her *different*!”

“That’s…. what she wants, though, isn’t it?” Violet held Nat, a sort of awkward hug-- can’t very well let her just go sobbing there. “The whole fantasy. She wasn’t popular, didn’t think she was special, so something swooped in from above and gave her what she wanted?”

Nat usually did her best to respect Violet’s space. Violet wasn’t subtle about being uncomfortable with physical contact, and the last thing Nat wanted to do was push Violet’s boundaries. Right now, though, she was upset, and Violet started it, so she pressed closer into the hug, seeking comfort. “But her whole *life*,” Nat protested hoarsely. “All of it, given up. She doesn’t *show* it, maybe, because there’s nothing to be *done*, she *has* to do this, and - and people need her to keep it *together*, but she just gave up everything she ever knew!”

“It’s a big step,” Violet nodded, holding Nat tight with one arm and patting her back with the other, in what she hoped counted as a soothing manner, because the poor girl was shaking. “I -- assume she decides to go through with it? It looked like they were giving her a choice. Was that all a lie?” That perfidious Julie Andrews!

Nat shook her head a little, face buried somewhere in the vicinity of Violet’s shoulder. “That’s the thing,” she said miserably. “She does choose it, but like, what choice did she really have? When so many people need something like that? What kind of -” she broke off again and took a deep, shuddering breath. “What kind of person says no?”

Violet furrowed her brow in confusion. Was all this really about the movie? “I don’t know that people really *need* princesses, Nat? It looked like something she just… wanted, for herself?”

“She doesn’t *know* how it works,” Nat pointed out. “Mia has no idea if they can just dissolve the monarchy. She’s the only one who can do it, and if her people need her there she *has* to go or she just...chose her own dreams over *tons* of people!” Her voice grew more unstable again. “You can’t do that and sleep at night, y’know?”

“I thought that’s what the whole thing was, a trial period so she could figure out how it works, and if it was something she wanted?” Violet was pretty sure she’d followed the plot that closely, at least? “And they can always just… grab somebody from some other branch of the royal family, right? She’s got the option.”

“But is it *really* an option?” Nat mumbled. She knew she was being ridiculous. She knew from the *start* that she was reading way more into Mia’s predicament than was actually there. But she couldn’t let it drop. “I mean. Could she really be okay having shirked a responsibility like that for her own selfish reasons? Morally?”

“Isn’t the selfish thing the other way? Choosing to ‘be a princess’ and having people throw money and status and gorgeous dresses and tiaras at her for no good reason?” Violet asked, continuing: “Just because that horrible old lady swooped down out of the sky and said ‘you’re a different person now, trade your old life for a new one.’”  She was *also* quite accomplished at substituting her own bullshit for the actual matter at hand.

“*You’re* the one who pointed out it was a choice,” Nat said mulishly. “*I’m* saying she just...gave up anything she might have had in America. For - for a big responsibility. And then, then, later, they try to make her marry a *guy*, and I just!” Another shuddering breath. “She could have been *anything*! Had *any* dream! But not anymore.”

Violet nodded, solemnly. “I mean, sort of? She’s not real. She only existed for a purpose-- to give people the dream of suddenly finding out they’re a princess. Without that, is there a story?”  Nat really took her cinema seriously! She’d have to remember that about her friend, going forward.

“Yeah,” Nat agreed, “but, because of the story, they just...didn’t say anything about what she was giving up.” She had mostly gotten herself under control by now, but her voice started to thicken again as she continued. “In real life it’s so much harder. You know something’s the right thing to do but it takes *so much* from you and you just hurt *so much* no matter what you do and-” Nat interrupted herself one more time, clenching her teeth around the power threatening to spill out of her. Her whole body tensed again with the effort, her fingers tightening on Violet’s shirt.

“Oh.”

Violet wasn’t *technically* a herbo. But she wasn’t great at people. A whole pile of personal traumas and biases reinforced each-other to give her a difficult time really connecting with others, or seeing what was right in front of her nose. But eventually even a slow horse crosses a finish line.

“So… you’re struggling with doing something hard?” she asked, holding Nat firmly. “Something that’s going to hurt?”

Nat nodded, teeth still clenched. Another wave of shakes passed through her as she fought to keep herself from making a noise.

"Nat... we're standing in a closet. You want to go sit down, maybe I can get you some tea, and we can talk about it?"

“Okay,” Nat mumbled into Violet’s shoulder. She followed her into the kitchen, and while Violet busied herself microwaving water for tea, she said quietly, “I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to sing.”

Violet frowned, nodding. “But-- I’ve *heard* you sing before… you’re great?” A beat passed while she processed implications. ”Did something… happen?”

The microwave dinged.

Nat’s face twisted, even more upset. “I don’t know if you heard about the time mission I went on with Mel and Ryan, but we went to this hellscape version of Halcyon in 2054, and *I was the problem*. Like, the me there chose fame over safety or friendship or a*nything else,* and she leveled half the city! She uses her powers to *brainwash* people into liking her! And here I am refusing to just...stop? How am I any different from her if I’m not willing to prioritize other people over my own selfishness?”

“No, I hadn’t heard about that,” Violet considered with a frown. She offered her friend a warm mug of peppermint tea. “No wonder you’re so upset. But-- we don’t know how that person got to be there, you know. How her powers differed from yours, for one thing; I don’t think I’ve ever seen you use your abilities as mind control. And I don’t think you have *that* in you. Is it really fame that you think you’re chasing?”

“It’s not...directly mind control,” Nat admitted, gratefully wrapping her hands around the mug. “My powers, they can...influence you. Awe you. Get your rapt attention. She managed to train that to be strong enough so people would love her even if her concerts collapsed the building and killed them.” She wiped at her eyes again. “And, like, what else am I chasing? It’s not - I don’t just want people to hear what I write. If it was that, I would be okay with writing for someone else. *I* want to be the one to perform it. *I* want to know what it feels like to sing for an audience. How is that any different from *her*?”

“I mean-- that’s the difference between wanting to be a musician and wanting to be a composer. Might as well ask why somebody wants to act, instead of being a writer. There’s a kind of art, and you care passionately about it. If it was just--- just, look-at-me-look-at-me attention, I think you’d be different; there’s lots of other ways you can get that?”

Nat raised an eyebrow. “What, like joining a superhero team and fighting supervillains in the middle of the Boston harbor?” Her voice was bitter and sad, but none of that was directed at Violet, only at Nat herself. “I’m literally the same person as her. If I wasn’t, I’d have a much easier time giving all of this up.”

“You’re not. You’re just someone who looks like her. From what I understand, there’s an evil-mirror version of just about everybody, out there somewhere. God only knows how bad mine is,” Violet shrugged. “Some people… I guess… good people. People who haven’t done bad things, almost ever-- the ones that never saw it in themself? I think they get… shaken, a little, you know? By seeing the idea that they could do something bad, that it’s not guaranteed, that their goodness is *a choice*.”

“But I’ve never seen a timeline where I wasn’t hurting people,” Nat said miserably, looking back down at her tea again. “Here it’s by accident. There it was because I didn’t *care*.” She glanced back up at Violet, eyes narrowed slightly. “And don’t think I don’t hear you talking about yourself like you’re a villain, Violet. But you didn’t choose what happened to you. That other me chose everything she did, and I’m too selfish to choose to stop.”

"It's not that I'm a villain, exactly. But..." She looked down. "I don't ever get to go back to not knowing that there's darkness in there, you know?"

Nat swallowed thickly. “Darkness that *happened to you,”* she insisted. “All I’ve ever seen you do when you’re in control is try to help. But I can’t do that! All I do is *damage*, and hope I only damage what I meant to.” She buried her face in her hands. “Which I wouldn’t bet on.”

“Nat-- if you only knew-- “ Violet trailed off, her eyes approximating those of a hunted deer. She glanced at her own hands-- did Nat even begin to suspect the things she’d done with them? How it had made her feel? In an ideal world, friendships should be built on mutual trust--but Violet couldn’t dare let her in all the way. Her regard was too important. She pivoted quickly. “My point is… it… *changes* people when they find out that they could have gone down a different path. Shakes their image of themselves. But you’re *you* because you made the choices you made, even when you could have done otherwise.”

“You keep saying that,” Nat said, “but look at the choices I’m making *right now.* The right thing is to stop singing. Find something else to do with my life. If I was the kind of person you think I am, that’s what I’d *do*. But even when it’s *self-destructive*, I -” Nat stopped mid-sentence and shook her head. “I just. You. You keep acting like you’re so awful but you’re not, and you keep acting like *I’m* not but I’m being *so stupid* and *so selfish* and-” Another wave of shakes. Nat’s hands spasmed around the mug, clenching and unclenching as she fought to keep her voice under control.

“Singing isn’t going to turn you into a monster, Nat.”

Nat buried her face in her hands again. “It’s going to turn me into *something*,” she muttered. “Maybe a monster. Maybe I’ll just go *mute* and none of this will *matter*. ‘S where it’s heading.” Her voice was quiet, like she didn’t mean to say that out loud.

“Where what is heading?” Violet sipped her tea. “Nat-- are you…” she squinted. “Are you-- maybe holding something back?”

Nat was silent for a long moment, pressing her knuckles to her eyes against the cry-headache she could feel looming on the horizon. "My powers. Because I can't control them, they're destroying my voice."

“Oh.” Violet nodded quietly as the penny dropped. There it was. Her friend’s actions came into focus.

“I’ll never get them under control before I lose it. I have to just...stop using them.” Her throat closing, Nat struggled to finish talking. “Give it up. Leave the team.” She clenched her teeth again.

“So… give up on being a superhero, to preserve your dream of being a singer?” Violet said. “Or is this a thing where you think you’ll never get enough control over your powers to be a singer, either?”

“I can’t be a singer if I can’t control my powers,” Nat said miserably. “I can’t control my powers without more practice. That’s why I joined Big Team in the first place. But my progress is so slow. I think I might lose my voice - my *whole* voice, so I can’t even speak - if I keep using them as often as I need to, to get better control.” She sighed, her breath shuddery and weak, her teary eyes trained on her tea. “I just...don’t see a solution. I have to stop singing and leave the team, or eventually I won’t have a voice at all.”

Violet sipped her own tea taking this in. She understood better than most what losing that would do to Nat. How it would feel for her to not be able to sing anymore. “You could give up on the heroing and keep working on your control,” she offered. “You might never get to perform live, but you might record. I’ve heard you keep it together performing for a few minutes, at least. Can you write music?”

“I write music all the time.” Nat’s voice was devoid of emotion. “I just...I want to share it with people. I want *so badly* to sing for people and see and hear that they like it, that I did it well. That’s it. But I can’t put that above people’s basic safety.” She wiped at her eyes again. “And recording’s not a *bad* idea, per se. But I would still break things trying to hit notes at the edges of my range, or getting too into it. I’m trying *so hard* to get my powers under control. I train with Ernest, I’m gonna start going to AEGIS workshops with A-Vis, I’ve seen voice coaches, I practice *all the time,* and I can just barely keep it together for those few minutes.” She closed her eyes, looking exhausted. “I can’t stop using my powers without stopping using my singing voice. I can’t keep them separate. And even if I could, how do we know I won’t go off the rails anyway?”

“Maybe.” Violet considered. “But… I’ve seen you scream apart an ocean, and push yourself to volumes that they can hear in other dimensions. If what they said on BNN is true, you sang so loud you made it dawn over Boston. You… don’t do that when you just push your range a little, or get excited. It’s… at least possible that it’s the …. yelling-so-loud-things-catch-on-fire thing that’s hurting you, more than the attempts at controlled singing?”

“Ernest helped with the dawn thing,” Nat said more out of habit than anything else. “All I did alone was take out Nachtmusik and Undertow. But...I don’t *know*, Violet. I didn’t even know this was hurting me at all until we went to Boston. And I just...I can’t,” she made a vague gesture with one hand that could mean anything. “Every time I’m on a mission I’m a huge risk. Every time I sing I’m a huge risk. And it’s *never* me who gets hurt, it’s always Boon, or Overgrowth, or - or anyone else trying to look out for me. I just. I can’t keep doing this if all I ever do is make things worse, no matter how I feel about it. “

“OK. First-- you get hurt plenty,” Violet counted off on her fingers, “I think I’ve seen you lose consciousness more than any other member of the team. It still counts even if you pretend it doesn’t. And second, you saved Boston. An entire *city*. I think anybody’d be proud of that record, and everybody’s glad to have you on the team.”

“I hurt *myself* more than anyone else hurts *me*,” Nat grumbled, which was a lie. “And, sure, anybody’d be proud of saving Boston. And I *am*. But Boston was the exception. Most of the time I just make things worse, including for myself.”

“Maybe. But if you save a city one time out of ten you’re probably doing pretty good?” Violet shrugged, as if she’d ever extend herself the same charity.

Nat’s face tightened and she pressed a fist to her mouth for a long second. When she spoke again, her voice was strained. *“Pretty good* isn’t enough,” she choked out. “I keep *hurting* people, and I’m destroying my voice. It’s - it’s not something that I can just make better with practice. I thought practice was the answer, but it’s just making things *worse*.”

“I knew someone once who got carpal tunnel from too much practice.” Violet considered.”So he had to step back, but because he couldn’t play, he just rehearsed his fingerings over and over. Did some real damage he wasn’t ever going to recover from.”

This was not at all comforting. Nat’s face crumpled a little and she nodded. “That’s all I’m doing,” she agreed. “Just - being self-destructive because I’m too stubborn and stupid to stop while I can.”

“Maybe.” Violet rubbed her temples. “I don’t want to see you get hurt. And you do push yourself real hard.”

“I’m gonna get hurt no matter what I do,” Nat said miserably. “I keep going, I lose my voice. I stop, I spend the rest of my life hurting about this. I just...this is all I ever wanted. I *love* to sing. I lose that either way, and-” she broke off, voice choked, and buried her face in her hands. Again she tensed, straining against her own body to stay quiet.

“I-- “ Violet reached out and hesitated before making contact, pulling her hand back.  ”I…” Violet inhaled, equivocating.  “… believe it or not, I know you feel, Nat.”

Nat looked up at Violet again. Her eyes were red-rimmed and glassy, a far cry from her usual brightness. “I pass out and make things worse. I don’t pass out and make things worse. Everyone else has to deal with the consequences either way.” She returned her gaze to her mug and took a sip, careful of the heat. “I don’t...think this is comparable to what you went through, Violet. This should be an easy choice. I’m just being selfish.”

There was a moment’s pause, before Violet bit her lip, coming to a decision. “Give me your phone,” she said, flatly.

“Huh?” Nat glanced up again, clearly confused. “Why?” While still talking, Nat reached into her pocket, pulled out her phone, and handed it over.

Violet squinted a little. Four digits weren’t hard. Easy, clean fates. 4-9-1-4. She fumbled with it for a second (mumbling: “when’d they get the new interface?”), pulling up B-Tube. She put the phone on the table and, hesitating for a second, she hit play.

Nat leaned closer to get a better look, curiosity overtaking her despondent mood.

The sounds of a violin, wafting and melancholy, began to float from the device. “This is me,” Violet said, her jaw tensing a little, holding her breath.

Nat glanced between Violet and the violinist in the video, taking in the ways she’d changed in the intervening years. Her eyes were guarded - she was sad for Violet, for the things that had been taken from her, but she didn’t want Violet to see and think it was pity. After a few long moments of listening, Nat murmured, “I...you said they took music from you, before. I didn’t realize it was...as important to you as it must have been, for you to be this good.” She stared down at the smaller, younger Violet on the screen. “I’m sorry they took this. You deserved to have it. You still do.”

“I-- learned to read music at four; composed my first piece at five. I practiced three to six hours a day, every day.” A dagger in Violet’s thoughts twisted: *now I can’t even read a single note.* “When I say I understand-- I don’t know, I didn’t ever have to *choose*,” the sounds of accompaniment strings began to fill the space behind her. “Not the way you have to. But…. I really do know what it feels like, to have that dream, and to want it with all your heart and soul, to chase it as hard as you can, and to watch it smash into a billion pieces,” she sighed. “I-- *know* how devastating this has to feel, and how hard it must be for you.”

Nat stared at the little Violet on the screen for a little longer, and then her hand shot out and paused the video, abrupt and too-fast. If Violet were anyone else, she may have been startled by it. “I’m sorry,” Nat repeated. “You were...really good. I remember how you reacted, the first mission we had together on the beach. It must have been hard to hear.” She looked up again. “I didn’t know it was a dream, for you.”

“--” Violet flinched. She’d let her guard down, because Nat was *important*, but the sight of her past self was painful to her, and the actual sound of her performance felt like cutting her soul. She retreated to her programming, to precise instrumentality. Solve the problem to avoid the emotions it brought up.  “Have you looked into specialists for treating the damage to your voice? Boon might be able to heal it, possibly. Epoch might be able to develop a way to absorb the extra strain. Libra?” Deep shaky breath, Violet.

Nat frowned, concerned. She wanted to reach out, put a hand on Violet’s, but - *Violet’s not big on touch*, she reminded herself. She kept her hands on her mug instead. “Violet...you don’t have to just bulldoze past this. You can talk to me, if you want. Like I can talk to you. That’s what friends are for.”

“That’s--” Violet glanced away. “Nat, you’re always there for me when I’m spiraling into… “ she gestured, wondering if she was dodging again? She felt sick. “In the ways I spiral out,” she sighed, rubbing her eyes a little. “I won’t pretend I don’t have some… stuff there. Honestly, it hurts like hell.  But you don’t always have to be the one gluing the pieces together through sheer will. I can have your back, too, you know?”

Nat softened and gave Violet a little smile. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “I...I’m not really used to this yet. People having my back, I mean.” She wrinkled her nose. “That sounds terrible. And melodramatic. I just mean - I appreciate it. I really do. And I appreciate you trusting me, too.”

Violet turned the phone over, to hide the image of the past.  “Yeah.”

“So…” Violet cleared her throat a little, feeling awkward; work the problem. “I figure just about everyone on the Team does to one extent or another. You tried treating the damage as a medical issue, instead of just… something to push past?”

“I…haven’t really been thinking about it, honestly.” Nat scratched at the back of her head self-consciously. “It’s...really upsetting, obviously. And me being upset is dangerous, so. I was just - trying to avoid acknowledging it, I guess.” She looked back down at her tea. “Leave it to me to read way too far into a movie and get all worked up regardless.”

“I am beginning to suspect,” Violet said, sipping her tea, “that it didn’t have much to do with the movie at all?”

Nat chuckled a little self-consciously and admitted, “I may have been...projecting.”

“So… having acknowledged it, what’s the next step?”

“Well, A-Vis said something about AEGIS running classes on controlling your powers,” Nat said, tapping her fingers on her mug. “I asked them to take me with them, and I’m hoping that might help? I just...don’t know if it’s possible. I always thought if I worked hard enough I could make it happen, but.” She sighed. “Thinking of it like a medical problem could also help. It’s a good idea.”

Violet opened her mouth as she began to ask how the other Cadenza reacted to losing her voice; but she read a response before it was spoken: She hadn’t.

“Hm. But this other future you still had her powers, right? That means whatever damage you’re doing to yourself, it’s reversible -- at least up to a point?”

Nat blinked. “I….hadn’t thought about that,” she says. “I - guess? It depends on what she did and how, but...but you’re right, she was, like, 50 and she still had her voice.”

“And we know she didn’t stop screaming, even louder than you do.” Violet was still turning over that bit about Cadenza’s Worship Flare in her brain. Nat’s power wasn’t yelling really loud. It was *related* to sound, and the experimental tuba-playing she had done on Thanksgiving seemed to confirm that it was mediated by her vocal chords. But it did things it shouldn’t be able to do, no matter how loud or precise a note you made. “So she must have figured out some way to contain the damage or channel her power more effectively? Maybe…. *grounding* it in some fashion?”

Nat looked away, staring blankly at the sink. “I don’t know,” she said. “I was trying to avoid actually talking to her, ‘cause...I mean, I was with Big Team members, right? I didn’t want her to...change their opinion of me.” After a pause, she added, “It’s worth looking, I guess, but...I don’t really trust that whatever she did would be something I’d be willing to do. I’ve never used my powers the way she does.” The disgust in Nat’s voice was clear.

“Maybe.” Violet nods. “But it strengthens the case for taking it easy and being careful, for the time being-- until you can figure out a solution. Because it looks a lot like maybe there’s one out there?”

Nat swallowed and nodded. The lump in her throat was back - she didn’t trust herself to speak, full of warring senses of hope and the conviction that she shouldn’t get too excited in case it call came crashing down again later. She took a drink from her tea in an attempt to cover for her silence.

“It sounds like you have two problems; one is control. You can train for that, and address it by reducing the need for control, situations that are going to push you to the edge,” said the girl who wouldn’t leave the base without three superheroes to act as chaperones. “The other is that your efforts to get control may be doing permanent harm to your voice. That… seems to argue against pushing harder until you can find some way to repair or mitigate the damage?”

“I don’t know if that’s possible,” Nat said. “I mean, sometimes on missions you *have* to pull out all the stops. Undertow and Nachtmusik, for example - Ernest and Melody were getting their asses handed to them, and the only reason Undertow hadn’t thrown many hits yet was that I was standing next to Riptide.” She sighed. “I mean, I’ve always been dangerous to be around. I guess the only difference this makes is I’m dangerous to myself, too.” She dragged a hand down her face. “Ugh. I just feel so selfish, still not giving up singing after all this. But I don’t think I’ll ever stop writing music, and the thought of working so hard on it only for nobody to ever get to hear it? Or worse, writing it for someone *else* to perform?” Another sigh. “You’re right. I should see if Boon can help or something.”

“It sounds, in the short term like the superheroing is the danger, not the singing. I hate to admit it, but Tiago might be best qualified to understand the biophysical mechanisms going on-- if you’re just channeling too much raw power through structures that aren’t meant for it? AEGIS might have specialists there too-- they’ve made some safety stuff for A-Vis, I think? In the meantime, maybe try recording? Nothing at the edge of your range, nothing that pushes you too hard. But enough that there will be something there from you, that people can hear.” Violet’s eyes glanced involuntarily to the phone. *Even if the worst happens…*

Nat nodded, swallowing again. “You’re right. Those are good ideas. Actionable steps.” Seeing Violet’s gaze drop to the phone, Nat plucked it off the table and deposited it back in her pocket. “I have some music I could probably record like that.”

“And…. about that other version of you… I guess you never struck me as all that starved for attention?” Violet said, arching an eyebrow.

Nat chuckled, wet and a little self-conscious. “You’re not wrong about that either. My parents are a lot of things, but distant isn’t one of them.”

“Maybe she’s you from a timeline where your parents weren’t as great?”

“I...it’s possible,” Nat admitted. “We didn’t actually find out much about that timeline. All I know is she’s killed a lot of people - possibly including Big Team members like Ernest - and she used to be friends with Riptide, but she betrayed him too.” She chewed her lip. “I actually, uh, got in touch with him after we got back. Asked for a meeting. I was hoping he could help me figure out how she got so different from me - like, if I could figure out how he’s different from the him I met in 2054, maybe I could figure out how she’s different from me? And, like, I won’t pretend it went *super great* or anything, but he didn’t try to kill me again, so, progress.”

“Wait. You met with him *in person?”* Violet’s eyes narrowed. Bacetime was still a thing, right? Had people forgotten how to call and text while she was working for the Circle? God. That would explain all the memos…  “Tell me you at least brought some kind of backup?”

Nat froze, a dead giveaway even before she started to speak. “Um,” she said guiltily. “He agreed to come alone?”

“You were taking a supervillain’s word that he wasn’t planning to ambush you? Nat, why didn’t you *tell* me!?”

“I knew you’d be worried, and I thought you might try to follow me, or tell someone *else* to follow me,” Nat babbled. “Because I was pretty sure he’d figure out if there were other people there and think *I* was trying to trap *him*! If it makes you feel better, I didn’t tell any - wait, no, that doesn’t help my argument, huh,” she said, wincing at herself.

Violet drummed her fingers on the table, letting Nat dig herself deeper.

“And I ended up being right anyway,” Nat continued, unable to help herself. “He came with us to Boston, because his mom was there, and Ernest and Melody were kind of dicks about it the whole mission! Ryan took my word for it that Riptide was there to help, but they didn’t. Ernest kept trying to convince me *he* should work with Riptide when we split up instead of me, as if those two would get anything done spending half their attention on watching the other one instead of Undertow!”

“Oh. No. Definitely the right call.” Violet nodded. “Ernest’s cool, but he can be a bit, uh... fragile. I wouldn’t want to risk him being alone with a supervillain.” Violet considered. “So did he end up going with Melody or with Ryan?” Because the idea that Natalie Nixon was going to concede something once she’d made up her mind about it was more or less unthinkable.

“Um, Ryan accidentally threw themself through time and wasn’t back yet, so Ernest went with Melody and I went with Riptide,” Nat explained. “Probably not surprising, with the gauntlets, but Ryan managed to get back just in time to bail me out of a...minor issue. So after that it was the three of us.”

“Still wish you’d trusted me about going to see Riptide. Even if you were right, it was a risk. I would have --” Violet paused, because she didn’t leave the base without an escort to protect against herself. “I would have had your back, is all.”

Nat smiled sadly down at her tea. “I know you would have,” she said quietly. “I just...needed to talk to him, and I was scared getting anyone else involved would make that impossible. We’re, uh, probably going to talk more? It’s not a secret anymore since he invited himself on the Boston mission. I tried not to let it slip, but Ryan saw straight through me.” She sighed. “I didn’t get a lot of answers, but maybe eventually…”

“So…. next time?” Violet arched an eyebrow, hoping that at least she could talk her friend into bringing some backup, if not out of doing dangerous stuff altogether.

“...Yeah, okay,” Nat said quietly. “I’ll let you know, if I meet up with him in person again. And...I know I said this already, but really. Thank you. For all of this. I really needed to hear some of what you said.” Nat smiled, a little weak and watery but much more like her usual self than she had been since she left the TV room.

“Are you--” Violet screwed up her face a little. “Are you OK, now? How do you, you know, feel?”

Nat opened her mouth to lie through her teeth, but stopped and thought better of it. Violet was trying so hard, and had shown Nat something that clearly hurt her to acknowledge - she deserved better than for Nat to respond to all that with a lie. “I’m...better,” she allowed, “but I...guess there’s the other part of this. I mean, I still have to consider what might happen if nothing works, right? And I just...don’t know what I would *do*, you know? My whole life I’ve been working for this one thing, and if I can’t use my voice I don’t know what else I *can* do.”

“It’s…. possible.”

“The kind of people who were like me, who get tracked on the violin, who start before they’re seven, who spend that kind of time practicing-- maybe one in ten makes it to be a soloist. Even with everything you can do, there’s only ever an outside shot at getting the kind of outcome you want.”

Violet exhaled after too-long a moment, screwing up her face to say the next bit. “But Nat... you are *so much more* than just your powers, or even your voice. You are funny, kind, beautiful, *amazingly* brave, and one of the most fiercely *determined* people I have ever met."  It wasn’t an easy thing to say, but Violet thought Nat needed to hear it. She looked down and away, avoiding eye contact.

Tears welled up in Nat’s eyes again. She sniffled and rubbed her eyes, collecting herself again, before she tried to speak. “That’s...the nicest thing anyone besides my parents has ever said to me, I think?” She gave Violet another wobbly smile. “I...thanks, Violet. It means a lot.” Nat meant all of it, from Violet’s willingness to watch a silly movie to what an effort it clearly was to comfort Nat like this.

“Just… you c’n talk to me about this stuff, if you want... Instead of running off to the closet, or whatever?” she mumbled, embarrassed. It’s clearly not like she had a *lot* of talk points, but the ones she had, she wanted to spend helping her friend.

“It’s...kind of an instinct,” Nat said, ducking her head bashfully. “I don’t want to, like, bother anybody? But I hear what you’re saying. And, well. You know you can talk to me, too.” She looked back up at Violet, smiling again. “I’m really glad we’re friends.”

For her part, Violet nodded with an affirming grunt.

A pause.

“So, uh…. you wanna watch a different movie?”