"Victory belongs to the most persevering."
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 - 1821)
"Do you like playing games?"
It was an odd question to be asked, especially given the situation, and I rocked back on my heels for a moment while trying to think of a good answer. All of us were nervous and it sounded like some sort of icebreaker, but a glance at her face showed that it was nothing of the sort.
I mean after you'd seen someone methodically hack up Lung, of all people, until even his regeneration couldn't keep up you didn't expect them to follow you home for coffee. Yet here she was with that halberd, which I was pretty sure was Armsmaster's, leaning against the wall and staining the wallpaper with blood while she just held the cup in both hands.
I shot a sideways look at Alec, looking for support, but he was just giving that smile that he always did when nervous. Rachel was more obviously nervous though, especially with one of those dogs of hers sitting so close to the girl, but she seemed caught between fight and flight.
She didn't really look like much, at least on the surface. Skinny, a little flat if I were trying to look, but she had a mouth which looked like it would be nice if she smiled. If I hadn't seen here do that then I almost could have walked by her in the street without thinking much about it.
Unless I'd looked her in the eyes.
"Sometimes," I admitted cautiously, speaking rather than let anyone else draw attention, and resisted the urge to shroud the entire place in darkness then get the hell out of it, "Not too good at them, but it can be fun."
A glance at Lisa as I waited for a response, or another question, showed that she was focused on the girl in a way that I couldn't quite place. It wasn't her normal look, the way she liked to do before picking someone apart, and she didn't look worried… No, she looked concerned but not like she expected the girl to leap up and splatter us against the walls.
"I used to. Before." The girl said, idly swirling the contents of the mug around without drinking. Just warming her hands on it and keeping us here as a captive audience. "You've ever played a game where you get as many tries as you like? Just keep trying to get the timing right even when you finally work out what to do."
"I know the sort of thing." Alec, bless his twisted little heart, said and I almost sighed in relief that her attention was drawn from me to him. He made an obscure sort of gesture with his hands and grinned at her, "Those are a pain and a half. Most of the time I just quit and find something else to do. Or cheat somehow. Or get someone else to do it."
Despite everything I almost glared at him. That was something he kept doing, that I'd kept falling for, when he offered me a chance to 'play for a bit'.
"Ever wondered what would happen if you couldn't quit once you'd started to play? If you could only quit when you'd won." She asked and she was looking at me again. She kept doing that, and I didn't know why, but there was something in her eyes that made something deep inside me want to… I'm not sure what. There weren't bags under her eyes or anything, but I got this impression that she was tired. Weary down to the bone or even beyond.
I actually heard Lisa inhale sharply and tensed. That was never a good sign, not with how she could fit things together, and I really didn't like how it seemed this girl expected it. She just gave a small nod to Lisa then looked back down at her coffee again.
"Wha-" Lisa began then was interrupted by the girl replying to just the beginning of the question.
"It worked fine the first few times. Just a few tries and it came out right." Her words sounded bitter, an admission of some sort of weakness that I didn't like the sound of, "If I could win then I had all the time in the world to try."
Lisa looked at her, face blank in that way it always went when she was really focused on her power, then asked softly in a way I didn't think that she ever could manage, "H-how many times..."
"I wanted to save the world..." The girl almost smiled, still looking so tired that I wanted to just let her rest for a time, then said, "You see the problem don't you, Lisa?"
Thinker versus Thinker could be a game with enough layers to drive you crazy just trying to follow it, but even a guy like me knew that it wasn't a good sign when a stranger like this knew your real name.
"When Pandora opened that box all the evils in the world were inside." The girl said, not waiting for an answer to the question, "Hope was in there and it's the worst. Because it lets me know that my power wouldn't have worked if there wasn't a way to win. I just have to find it and follow it."
She didn't stay for long after that, none of us were comfortable with her there, and it wasn't until a weeks later that I started to realise why she'd introduced herself in this way. That it had just been a step on a road taking her to who knows where. At the time though I had glared at her, not understanding quite why or how she'd driven Lisa to tears, but I'd remembered the weird name she gave just before stepping out of the door.
Alec had even tried to cracked a joke about the name, although Lisa almost brained him for that, but after she'd left and things had calmed down all I could think of was how tired she'd been.
It was only after I dug up a book on mythology that I figured out what calling yourself "Sisyphus" could mean.
Originally published on the SpaceBattles forum under the same username.