station72 | EMPTY CHAIRS AT EMPTY TABLES

Entry tags:

EMPTY CHAIRS AT EMPTY TABLES

CHARACTERS: All
WHERE: Concordia - VEN DIAGRAMS HQ + BOUT IT OUT PARLOR + BEARINGS APARTMENT BLOCK
WHEN: Late Day :022 + Early Day :023
SUMMARY: The results of all your hard work - for better or worse. One win, one draw, one loss. Anakin Skywalker bites the big one.
WARNINGS: Violence, non-graphic character death.

IT’S BEEN A LONG DAY. Unfortunately, that’s not about to change any time soon. In the late hours of the evening, two things are happening: the final round of the Bout It Out expose between Kun-Kun and The Darkling is spooling up; meanwhile, the infiltration team at Ven Diagrams is working to retrieve information on H+H1 from the company’s security drive. Unfortunately, neither is going to reach the natural conclusion.

At the REGAL STREET GAMING PARLOR, emotions are running high. After a long day of simulation violence and the reveal of Kun-Kun’s new automaton fighting avatar, the crowd has been stoked to a few pitch. The music’s loud but the crowd is louder: cheering and booing, shouting for every landed or evaded strike. There’s an electric pulse of excitement in the air-- and then there’s a very literal one as an electromagnetic pulse rocks the Regal Street Parlor. The Bout It Out ring shorts and the entire parlor is pitched into total, window-less darkness. It doesn’t take more than a few seconds for the crowd’s excitement to melt into panic. Pushing, shoving, shouting - a piercing shriek as one of Kun-Kun’s representatives is stabbed. The nearby hosts (Lexa, Sam Alexander, and anyone in their faux attachment) should be able to help Kun-Kun and his reps to safety, but the crush of the crowd tangles up everyone else. When a rudimentary bomb goes off in the center of the parlor, it catches plenty of people in the crossfire.

There’s a white hot flash. A pulse of heat. A sizzle of agony. It’s a pain that guts, that persists long after the flash of the bomb and extends all the way to the infiltration team at Ven Diagrams. It’s like a limb badly severed. Anakin Skywalker is killed by the blast and every host knows it before they’re aware of anything else.

Unluckily for the infiltration team, they won’t have much time to recover. News of the bombing hits Extraspace in a matter of seconds, which triggers Ven Diagrams - paranoid from the recent attack on their own properties - to lock down their headquarters. All systems are tightened and security clamps down before the infiltration team can access the private servers. If you’re somewhere you’re not supposed to be, now’s the time to get the hell out of dodge.

Retreat, regroup. Upon returning to the Bearings apartment block, the hosts will find that two of their previously comatose friends have woken up: Hux and Aoba Seragaki will probably need to be briefed on the current situation.

     I. THE ROOM WHERE IT HAPPENS
In the Regal Street Gaming Parlor, a pulse flashes. Electronics sizzle. A fight reaching rhythm is shattered and darkness consumes the parlor in its entirety. There’s something like a collective inhale - and then the panic sets in. Screaming. Pushing. Elbows in the dark and a wave of bodies forcing their way toward wherever they think the exit is. Parlors like this one are supposed to be shielded from this kind of problem, but today that doesn’t matter. In just a few short moments of panic, a bomb - basic compared to the one that blew out the Ven Diagram warehouse only days ago - goes off.

There’s a buzz. An electrical hiss. In the wake of the explosion - in the wake of the agony of Anakin’s death -, the parlor’s fire systems go off flooding the upper and lower levels, the spectator balconies with flame retardant powder and coolant. The emergency lighting kicks on, throwing the carnage into stark fluorescent light. The probable intended victim has escaped, along with his entourage, but there are plenty of wounded - groans and weeping permeate the chemical stale air. In addition to Anakin, three people have been killed and two androids have been rendered into scrap by the explosion. Countless others could use help; maybe even a few other hosts have been wounded by the blast.

     II. MEANWHILE...
If you’re part of the infiltration team, you’ve officially overstayed your welcome. Security tightens to a chokehold; if you’re somewhere you shouldn’t be, it’s time to leave. An alarm blares through the development laboratories. The building is evacuated and then sealed throughout. The powerlifts cease operation. All networked systems go offline.

     III. FROM THE JAWS OF DEFEAT
Back at the parlor, the evacuation continues. The parlor is half-collapsed, there are injured to tend to and local authorities to deal with. In a matter of minutes, the the parlor is swarmed by public security and medical personnel. If you’re able bodied, you’re welcome to assist with rescue efforts - or try to find a lead on who could’ve been responsible for this. Some evidence, some sign - anything to make this worth it. During this time those with Kun Adetokunbo will have the chance to make their case.

It’s a long, protracted clean up and triage; it’s absolutely possible that some of the infiltration team members might make it to the site of the explosion to assist or care for their friends.

     IV. WE TEND OUR WOUNDED, WE COUNT OUR DEAD
In the early hours of the morning on Day 023, the hosts limp back to Bearings. Maybe it should be achingly quiet, but it’s not - there’s a murmur of activity in the mental air as Hux and Aoba muddle out of their way from out of their comas. From here, it’s up to to the hosts to recover, to discuss how they want to proceed, and come up with a way to recover from this setback - and from Anakin’s death.

((OOC NOTES: Here it is, your wrapup log for the event! You may have noticed that the Hosts didn’t succeed at the Ven Diagrams infiltration. We thought this was a better way than asking everyone to handwave a huge amount of plot or simply having the NPCs get the evidence. Don’t worry though - there will be other mysteries to unravel soon. Very soon, in fact.

There will be an NPC top-level for the escape with Kun-Kun, but otherwise you’re free to make your own top levels! If you have any questions please feel free to ask them in the event OOC post.

Thanks everyone!))

NAVIGATION • SETTING • FAQ • MOD CONTACT • GLOSSARY

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ The idea of taking a warm bath in sweet scented oils seems astonishingly luxurious to her. As the daydream of it sinks in as something she can truly enact in reality, the shock of it all sets in, making her mind give an uncomfortable bounce. Like forward motion suddenly colliding into a wall. She closes her eyes in pain. ]

( Have the others had their chance at the washroom? )

[ Those not asleep. She intends to commandeer it for a good long while... ]

[ She keeps her hand settled with Ilde's, leaning in close to press her face against her shoulder, nodding in reply. Still tired, sluggish with the morning motions. ]

( For the most part. You've been asleep for a long time. )

( Yes, it feels that way. )

[ All the more reason she will feel no guilt if she languishes in the bath for a good long while, they should have taken their chance when it was there. An inhale, kicking off the torn up shoes on her feet. She spares them a halfway displeased glance. She had rather liked them, white little ankle boots... but they're done with now. The glittering dress is done, its lace top. She can feel already that the top is plastered to her skin with blood, it will be easier to simply wear it into the water and remove it there once the scabs have loosened... ]

( How many dead? )

[ She gets up, and it's a languid stretch. Getting her bare feet on the floor, pushing up on her toes with her hands above her head. Feels her back settle in place before she goes to gather up the bits and pieces of Ilde. ]

( Just the one... of our own. ) [ it's a tender point, and no one knows it better than she does. Brushes against it like the wound it is. ] ( Outside of our own? The count hasn't come back yet. )

[ There's a twinge when she actually tries to focus on Anakin, and so she stops, lets her mind glaze past it and simply bear that lack of him the way she bears so many other wounds. It reminds her, in a way, of the large scar down her back from her most dire encounter with the shadows. That causes a lesser twinge, a well-worn memory from years ago.

Familiar, easier to handle, almost preferable. Normally she would be quite self-conscious to think about the large mark down her body, but such thoughts are the last thing to matter to her now. She plucks up one of the sweet smelling products that Angel had displayed for her without looking at them closely, her only real focus now to get all this ruined fabric and flesh off of her body. ]

( Some of them were there to see me. )

[ It's not guilt that comes with the statement, more a sense of responsibility. That she cannot simply ignore the fact of it. Anakin flits through her mind again, this time overlaid with the grief that had poured out of Kylo Ren and nearly smashed her against the rocks. All of his anger and sorrow.

She reels, catching herself with a hand on the wall. ]

[ She's there in the next second, her arm comes up under Idle's waist, her hand at her cheek, tugging her in close, supporting her weight like she had supported Angel in turn once. ]

( I'm here, I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. )

[ She guides then, the way she does best. The soft coaxing more physical than she's used to be exactly as she feels right with Idle to do. Slips with her, tugging her into her side, helping her along. ]

( One step in front of another, that's all you need to do right now. )

[ the tiny details, the reaffirming ones. She's got her, she's got her. ]

[ A long slow exhale as she lets her weight shift in Angel. She dislikes being on the receiving end of this care, her pride beginning to flare, but this not the normal sort of injury she faces. The physical pain is there, but then there is what she has done inside of her mind. ]

( I had already stretched too far. Before Anakin. Before Ren began to spiral. )

[ The raw edges of a gaping wound rubbed with grit and fire. Thinking about it is like being struck by lightning, but her body already too overwhelmed to even process the painful electrical current in real time, so it moves through her in torturous slow motion. A nauseating, stabbing, prickling sensation.

But she had told Cathaway that this could be weathered, and Angel has shown her as much. She needs to grit her teeth and soften her mind and let it go. ]

[ It's an agony, she knows, too much given over too the hive has its cost. As much as she and Idle both give of themselves too. Give to each other. She keeps her fingers steady around her back, curled up in the material of her clothes. It's the steadiness that she had craved most in the same position, and it is what she tries to give now. ]

(you don't need to do anything else right now but hand onto me. )

[ give her something easy to latch onto has she guides her step by step out and away. Let her take however much time that she needs, Angel found it easy enough to give.. ]

[ They stumble their way onwards, making their way down the hall. The shared washrooms are simple and spartan, but to Ilde they are fantastic. Warm running water, inside, in plenty is still a dream to her. Even the shallow tub is a delight compared to her memories of a rusted copper bucket filled with cold water she had had access to in the depths of the palace...

With the door shut behind them, Ilde sheds her skirt and crawls directly into the tub with the last of her ruined clothes, twisting on the hot water with a sigh, letting her head fall back against the white tiles. Her eyes closed.

She is not fully at rest, exhaustion has her more taut than limp, as if... were she to relax, the utter weakness would take control of all of her faculties. ]

[ As soon as she disentangles and goes to the water, Angel picks up her skirt off the floor, folding it up loosely and letting it sit on the bench top. Busying herself with the small things so it is one less thing for Ilde to worry about.

After it's done, she comes back to her, sitting on the edge of the bath, fingers playing idly in the water a moment, skimming across sweet smelling bubbles. Gives her time to just unwind, before softly, she's leaning forward. ]

Lift up your arms for me?

[ Because she needs to get out of those ruined clothes now that they're becoming unstuck in the water and steam. ]

[ She doesn't resist, too drawn to think that no one has looked at her body in years, and besides if there is anyone she is ever to be comfortable like this with, it would be Angel. Ilde's is pale and shapely, and the paleness almost hides the many scars dotted all across her body. Almost. In the hot water, with blood flowing beneath them, they highlight in shades of pink. There are knife marks, teeth marks, other accidents, and tiny pinprick burn marks in patterns along her collarbone, her arms, her knees.

The largest and deepest of her scars starts around one shoulder, ragged down her back and then curling all the way to other side of her body around her thigh. It is particularly visible on the curve of her spine when she sits forward to splash water into her face, her blonde hair beginning to curl and tangle from the steam. ]

[ There's a moment where - after Lexa, she'd promised to keep it together better about this. But the breath she sucks in is - low. Her eyes lowering before she can just stare at all. In the end, the scars are the last thing she really notices, to just looking at her. She makes no comment on them, but all the same, her eyes are drawn to them as she takes away Ilde's clothes. She busies herself after that, because distracted or not, Ilde needs her for more than just to be close to right now. So she goes about putting the shirt in the sink, and then takes up the specially scented soap, a wash cloth, and comes back to her. A little more prepared for her.

She sets them out at the edge of the bath, ignoring them for the moment as she leans forward to splash water up Idle's back. Like it might wash away the markings. It doesn't though, and she keeps an eye on them, as she reaches for the liquid soap, tipping it onto the washcloth and lathering into thick bubbles before she gently begins to brush it against Ilde's shoulder. The motions are small, cautious, little. Brushing softly against her shoulder. The reverence she still has for touch. ( different, to how she like Darkling's fingers in her hair, or linking her arm with Steve, Idle was - was something else. The way that they can both be so bare to each other. ) ] Where do they come from?

[ Ilde begins to attend to her hair, combing pieces of broken plastic and grit from the tangle of it. As the soot and smoke begins to slide off of her, the water begins to swirl with grey. She watches it for a long moment, lulled into silence by the slow touch of Angel at her back and the curlicues of filth. Such a strange experience to just wash it all off rather than continue to carry it with her for weeks at a time. She thinks of sooty bare feet leaving marks behind her on the baked red earth of the wastes.

It takes her a moment to even realize what Angel is asking her, but it comes to her slowly, ]

I don't remember, most.

[ Part of life, things that had happened too many times. Or maybe it hadn't been her it had happened to, over and over, but she had seen it so many times that she had relived it. Scars aching. Someone with a knife wanting whatever little scrap of food you had found. That makes it sound as if the burning world's violence was driven by reason... but it wasn't. Despair and desperation turned some into murderers for no reward at all. There had been whispers of a woman who had killed her entire caravan in the night rather than see them live another day. ]

The claws and teeth are the shadows.

[ She can't even try not to let that thought bleed between them: the shadow beasts who moved like liquid, seemingly faceless but if you looked at them from the right angle you could see their glittering black eyes. When they opened their mouths impossibly wide, impossibly sharp, you knew.

The size of the scar down her back suggests the size of the beast. She had escaped it into the sunlight and found her caravan. They had almost left her, unwilling to be followed by her trail of blood, but one old woman had been willing to sacrifice her shawl as bandages. Such kindnesses were uncommon. She had ridden on one of the men's backs for an afternoon or two, until the ugly thing had stopped weeping openly. There are gnarled places in the line of it where it had become infected, where pieces were sliced out, where the scar is deeper and more twisted. ]

The burns are his.

[ She knows Angel can imagine it without her help and tries to clamp down on it finally. Knows Angel can absolutely be prepared at all times to be hurt by someone who says they love you, who you may love in kind, but where even tenderness is a sting. Angel has her ports, the memory of the shock collar. ]

[ she listens,and she splashes water up her body. Watching it trickle, until all the dirt had been cleaned off of her. Until she was down to these lines of white on flushed skin from the warm water and steam. Thick with the smell of flowers and berries. Hazy, removed from the reality that they both knew. She needs no assistance to understand such things. Pandora, she had watched in its misery and violence. Love, she had felt in he rip apart of her own body from the inside out. Scars, different but the same.

Listens, and when she finishes, she leans forward to brush her lips against the water softened scar she can reach more easily on her shoulder blade, then another, and another. It asks nothing, pointless really, save for the indulgence to do so. Not even to tease. Until she can't reach anything else from this angle.

Decides then, that she wants to follow through on this, before she straightens from where she's sat on the bathtubs edge. Hooks her fingers under her top, tugging it up over her head, and her pyjama pants follow, hitting the floor and kicked away as she steps out of them. Her markings for once on this planet, just flat blue scrawl up the inside curve of her thighs, framing her hips and under her breasts to where the centre marking is below her collar bones sits. Not working, just here with her and no one else. ( doesn't want to deal with listening to the body accounts. Just wants to be here with her. )

Then it's one foot in, then the other and she sinks into the warm water with her. Let the soot stain her if she so wishes, it's fair. They both pure and filthy, untouched and scarred. Wounded and crippled but flawless to the one that made them so. She settles on her knees either side of Idle's legs, her hands coming up to the bathtubs edge, slipping along it to balance her weight as she leans in. Going to kiss the scars again but further this time. Tasting water on her skin, lapped at.

She still can't say the words, she has made her peace with that. But she shows it. Loves her for these things, not in spite of them. As made by them as the stars were by cosmic forces. ]

[ Ilde's relationship to the body is a fraught one. Sometimes entirely too forcible: pain, pain, pain, hers, theirs, the world's. Sometimes so distant as to not exist at all: exhaustion so deep that flesh meant nothing at all. In a way, she thinks nothing of nudity, has seen plenty enough of it in her wasted world where modesty was nigh on meaningless, they were all dissipating skeletons, starving and dehydrated bags of bones. Facts of life, as disgusting as it was beautiful: momento mori.

And then there is the way that her body has been mythologized.

She shouldn't be touched. She had been assured of it, had undergone the procedure, so oddly scientific sounding for something built out of superstition.

The way she feels as Angel comes into the water with her is utterly foreign to her. She has felt very in control of things with the other girl, until now. They have gone somewhere she cannot identify, parts of her body and her mind lighting up in a way they never have before. Not for anyone. It is an overheated sensation that she could almost blame on the hot bath but--

She's not so terribly stupid.

She flushes, in her cheeks and down her chest, a kind of deluge unlike any other, too much emotion. Almost painful, but the pain does its work: the last thing on her mind is the explosion, or Anakin Skywalker. She is grounded in her skin, all goose flesh and over sensitive.

There is one more scar that her mind cannot stop catching on. One she never speaks of, one she had always assumed no one would ever see, but what if Angel continues to play this game of leapfrog? One after the other exploring a little further. Where will that take them. A terrifying but interesting prospect. ]

He... did more than merely declare me a virgin.

[ Breathless, a confession. Uncertain what else she intends to say. Some of the work was undone, it had been explained to her simply, a quick lesson in bodily function. She knows it was all madness, but she had worn that mark with pride a long time. Can she set it aside?

Her heart beats rapidly in her chest. Engulfed in her own disharmony. ]

[ Her kisses stay light, brushing against her skin in tempered little movements. She knows, after all the things she has seen, that this isn't exactly much. But for them? This is more than either of them know, so she's slow, careful. Doesn't do anything else, not even reach for her - where they have been comfortable doing so now for awhile.

But this is comfortable. Important to be on the same level, and she withdraws from her, pushing herself up and then back. The water running off her body as she settles back on the other end of the bath from her. The short ends of her hair getting damp and curling with the water and steam. ]

He made sure you couldn't ever be anything else?

[ Because she wore her collar, and never left her room. He made her unable to live or go to anyone else but him. Her God of a King was far too similar to Jack that they'd never needed the details to understood what someone else might struggle to comprehend, and she keeps her space to let Idle breath. Made the step, given the option, and that was - how this worked. Had to work. They were both too starved. Like the hungry always were, it had to be small mouthfuls first, too much and she knew they'd both be sick on the feeling of being so full. ]

[ She tucks her knees together, uncertain. This is never anything she's explained. The people of the palace had known what she was, no need to inquire. Out of all the hosts perhaps Kylo Ren has an inkling but even then... Her own memory of the process was dim, inebriated, all she had been able to express to him was pain, what that pain meant, what that pain had made her. ]

My womanhood was removed, and I was stitched shut. To retain my purity.

[ More than just being kept away from the world, there was a true restraint, as unquestionable as Angel's collar. Barbaric. Dehumanizing. Bodies denied. ]

The... stitches are gone.

[ But the scars remain. ]

[ It's not... surprising. Bandit clans would do similar to their women, and sometimes their men. Vicious, ugly, twisting, all about the price. About keeping, and owning and ensuring that this was theirs.

She'll be no more forgiving of Dreus than she would be of Jack, if she ever met him, that much she is sure. But that's not for now. ]

Do... do you want to be touched?

[ She figures to a certain extent, yes, they kiss, they brush against each other constantly. With fingers in hair or at wrist, all the sensitive thudding places they wouldn't let anywhere else near. But this is... well, there, or anywhere else related to intimacy. Purity - it's a hard thing to let go of, hard as eridium. She was wracked by it still. The cravings, the want, the thick thud of it in her veins. It might be the same.

Because they should limits, they're important with this. How much and how little, when and where and how. Too many pitfalls with all of this. ]

[ Angel's understanding is... comforting. That she can be understood without having to go into any further detail is a relief, and her fingers search out the other girl's ankle beneath the water, light fingertips brushing. In a way, yes. Yes, of course she wants to touch, but there is a place she has never been before, had been rather devoted she would never be.

But she is no longer a martyr. The one man who made her everything she was is gone, she does not have to follow his rules any longer. ]

I don't know.

[ It is the most honest answer she can give and her eyes flicker up at Angel. ]

( Perhaps we will find out together, some day? )

[ It doesn't need to be rushed into this moment, but it would assuredly be easier to figure these things out hand in hand. ]

[ She stretches her leg against her hand. The water stirring from it. Taking it as permission that it's alright to do so. ]

( Even if it's never, I don't mind. )

[ Assurance more than anything, that she's not going anywhere. That even if it's nothing more than laying here in warm water together just being - bare. It's comfortable. It's nice to be like this with someone who understood. ]

[ That is, perhaps, the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to her, given her full reign over her own choice. Ilde is quite genuinely touched, and after a moment she sloshes over towards Angel's end of the tub to lay her head against the other girl's shoulder. ]

( Thank you. )

[ Her arms come up and around her, settling on her warm skin under the water. Smoothing across the top of her thigh and pressing her face against her damp hair. That she would is - given. Idle didn't press her about the words she couldn't say, didn't think she would ever be able to. ]

( You're beautiful. I think you are. )

( We are better together. )

[ Together, two girls from two different worlds, they cemented their lives anew. Alone... well, they could be what they always were, and Ilde has always been beautiful. She traces small circles on Angel's stomach, mirroring the marking up her other side. ]

[ she considers, feeling the shiver of being touched on hidden away skin that is - pleasant. New, of course, but pleasant. Decides then that she wouldn't mind if Idle touched her more, wherever she felt like. ]

( We... ) [ Thinks and decides upon. ] ( We match, I think. We're different but, we fit together just the right way. )

[ Locked together in the water, a tangle of limbs, like the way the old structures of the Eridians made smooth pathways for the plants to grow up them, and in time, the planets held the statues together. Begot each other. ]

Edited 2016-09-24 04:53 (UTC)

[ She thinks on their similar but inverted lives. They have always dovetailed so neatly, from that first moment they held hands on Avera and disappeared off into the depths of the virtual, and all their shapes and colors bled into a landscape of overlays. Different but the same. ]

( Like Earth and Air. )

[ She comes from a world of elemental magic, this makes sense to her, that they could pull in opposite directions but still meet at the horizon. ]

EMPTY CHAIRS AT EMPTY TABLES

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cw: explicit fgm

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