station72 | [open] isn't that awful

Comment here to add or correct anything to the timeline in the main body.

( You have had enough time to rest. Meet me in the rooftop garden. We must speak. )

[ When it's her turn to call the meeting, how could anyone doubt it's in the garden. ]

( On my way. )

[ as promised, sam's making an appearance shortly after, tapping out a cigarette and pacing over to settle himself down next to Ilde, with a small shoulder bump of greeting. hey, you. ]

[ His answer is wordless, as though his mental voice is too hoarse to use after all that shouting. One side of his face is battered and bruised, the rest of his aches and pains hidden behind clothes and a sturdy wall around his mind.

He straightens where he stands, off to the side of Ilde and almost eagerly tasting the smoke that dissipates from Sam's cigarette. He'd rather stand than sit. ]

[Still sporting the obligatory sling (thank you, investors), Ren's there as requested: most of his deeper bruises have faded to near nonexistence where the symbiote's rushed its healing to compensate. Had he had more time on the Nesting Deck before being forced to leave, more time to integrate properly, he would've already been fully healed by now.

Without Anakin or Jessica, the meeting feels anemic this time; it pains him in ways he's loathe to admit.]

[ She's waiting for all of them, one knee over the other. There's a little pinch between her brows, a frown that is there too often. She lets them choose their places, and for a moment she even contemplates letting them speak before her, but... She knows what she has to say. ]

We have failed ourselves, again.

[ She folds her hands together over one knee, flexing her foot lazily in the open air. ]

There is no blame heavier than any other, we all contribute. We have not progressed since the last time we had this conversation. This cannot continue.

[ More assertive than she has ever been, someone has been saying something to her. ]

My only concern for the remaining time we are on Concordia is that I return to the Station with what remains of my brood. However you see fit to achieve that, see it done.

[ She brushes off her skirts as she stands, but that is her only real hesitation before she stalks off to the stairs. She sees no need at all to continue the conversation, it has been had, and the diplomacy of it is worthless, clearly. ]

[That, he did not expect. Perhaps he should have. Perhaps if he had, the sternness in her words would sting less. But then again he's always had thin skin, and in the end he feels wounded all the same. Betrayed.

Had she not seen what he had lost? Did it mean so little to her, was it so trivial that she would think to chastise him? —or that it was somehow her place to. The thoughts swell like a rising tide, a steady, livid pressure against his temples; it shows at the corners of his mouth where they've turned sharp, jaw working to grit his teeth.

Better that she did not stay long enough to see the flames she fanned.]

[ Guilt stutters through iron-willed certainty that his decision was the right one in the moment, guilt for the pain it caused her, and his gaze lowers as she speaks, unfocused. He's the one that first told her that they needed to work together.

Maybe there's a way for one to temper the other, for them to balance each other. But he refuses to lose any part of himself in order to achieve that balance, even as he still demands his broodmates to do better.

Off to the side he can feel Ren's mind churning, a thread of pulsing red infection. Gets his own jaw tightening as he closes off his mind, and then it feels like it's too late to call Ilde back even if he had something worth saying. An apology isn't going to hack it, and compromise is still nowhere in sight. ]

[ when steve wanders up, sam offers the cigarette pack and lighter to him, happy to share. they all need a smoke or a stiff drink about now.

but once Ilde starts speaking, he's silent along with the others for a long moment after, watching a blank space on the roof pavement and rolling it over in his head. it's certainly a surprise to hear such assertiveness coming from Ilde, but she isn't shy about her opinions. maybe just in pushing them at her brothers. ]

She's right. [ sam speaks, after that long moment, when Ilde's disappeared down the stairs. he feels Ren's fury building and Steve's stubborn will steeling. Ren was too angry, Steve was too unforgiving, Sam was too rash, Ilde was too passive. All of them played a hand in it. ]

I know there was good reason, and that's not invalidated, but it's not the only thing on the table either. [ Ren was right to grieve, wrong to spin out so chaotically. All of them were right and wrong in ways, and it came out in disaster. ] We lost one, and we couldn't have seen that coming, but we almost lost another all on our own.

Could've lost all of us, even, if things went worse. Maybe the three of us, leaving her alone with just the void of us missing. [ like this sharp, burning ache where Anakin used to be, the cold distance where Jessica is. That, multiplied by five, on one little girl that's already twisted and wounded by loss. ] Do any of you really wanna be that one person left behind?

[ Clean, he's been knit together by bandage and force of will. Returned his own two feet and not dragged down by pain and exhaustion. He can answer her call. ]

( I'm out on the balcony. Shall I come to you? )

[ He's willing to go along with either, per her need. ]

[ No answer in words, but the newfound thread between him-and-her is reeled in, growing shorter. She is coming. She appears in the doorway quietly, an expression of circumspection on her face. Her feelings on him already in opposition, but now her brood is also divided. Her lips purse. ]

How do you fare.

[ More perfunctory that legitimate concern. ]

[ There she is. Small and quiet, with hidden depths he -- admires, so greatly. Concordia's city stretches out before them, neon lights and the whir-buzz of life and traffic. It's so alive. Foreign to him. ]

It's been a long time since I felt mortality.

[ The question may be mere pleasantries, but he answers just the same. ]

[ She folds her arm across her chest. Mortality is a constant lingering taste in her mouth, she has not yet shed its trappings. However, she understands what he is saying. Comparative to the constant threat of whence she had come from, life amongst the Hosts was downright indolent... The reminders had their uses. ]

Death is everywhere.

Never closer than it is right now.

[ Gradually, he settles down upon the balcony's floor. A strangely vulnerable gesture that places him below her gaze, his back against the decorative rail that is one of the few things between the two of them and a very long fall. He thinks about the fall, in terms of denying the few things he still can. ]

I'm sorry. For my lack of decorum concerning yours.

[ Yours, he says. Meaning Steve, mostly. Her brood, in its entirety, maybe. He's not sorry for what he offered Ren-Ilde, though. ]

[ She tilts her head, watching his posture change so dramatically. As with all things that involve him, there is a pull in two directions, to remain on her feet and lord over him, and then to drop down at his side and be close. She chooses the latter because she appreciates his understanding that he should not have touched Steve. Had he failed to recognize the fact on his own... Things would be very different. She tucks her white skirts beneath her knees as she sits down beside him. ]

Thank you.

[ They are hers. He should not have touched them. Most especially Steve. She has a much more complicated bond with Kylo Ren, but leaves him almost entirely to be his own man... Steve Rogers is more of a project to her. Something she nurtures and she dislikes outside forces influencing him. She tolerates Bucky, having no other choice, realistically he came first. ]

We will recover, although the others are disconcerted. [ With Anakin dead and Jessica Jones comatose, that makes it quite plain who she means. Sam and Steve. Though she qualifies, ] Though you are not the cause of that. They have been disturbed by me, by us, for a long time now.

Edited 2016-08-04 03:06 (UTC)

[ It was a personal failure, for him. He should not have been so drawn in by Steve's assault as to lash out in retaliation, and scramble the rest of Castor in the wake. Nor, he thinks, should he have lost control of his own memories so carelessly. They were his, after all, old and buried - or they were once. Whatever has been happening to him, it's opened a rift in his defenses and an outpouring of chaotic imagery and bitter, snarling resentment has begun to hover around that insight.

It should not have compromised him, in dealing with Steve. And yet it did. Had one of Ilde's lashed out at Bellamy, or Clint, the same way that he had lashed out at Steve... he would expect the same sort of apology. Or things would be different indeed. ]

By you and Ren. [ To confirm. Ren-Ilde, he feels camaraderie for. Steve-Sam, he understands. In the same way he understands the otkazat'sya. ] I envy your closeness.

Yes. They find us unstable.

[ Which they are. They have each taken their turns falling into a murderous rage, though lacking the Force Ilde was less immediately lethal. This allowed them to excuse her faults a bit more easily. If she had Kylo Ren's reach, she would not be so different in the throes of herself. ]

But we have been close since the first moment we met.

Edited (dysphasia from helllllll) 2016-08-04 04:10 (UTC)

Like calls to like.

[ Words he's said before, and believes in. Faint longing. He closes his eyes, attempting to steel himself against the memories Ilde and Ren's connection bids to rise within him. The image of the woman from before - she with white hair and light cupped in the palms of her hands - is a balm to him as she is what makes him unsteady. Oh yes, he envies Ilde and Ren in the same breath he misses her. ]

You found one other, across worlds and realities. They could not begin to understand.

[ Ah... well. ]

No, they don't understand very well. But they do care.

[ Maybe it is an incorrect interpretation, but she sees Steve's rally against Kylo Ren as a kind of caring. Someone needed to stop him, for all their sakes. Ilde only regrets she was too rattled to do it herself. A pang that she had lost all control in that situation. ]

I think we are strong brood.

Edited 2016-08-04 16:10 (UTC)

Of course.

[ Castor isn't his, he can't surmise what they think among themselves - as loudly as he hears Bellamy's presence. Clint's presence. Ilde's words, he simply takes at face value - even if his opinions might, well, differ. ]

I have no doubt you and yours will recover from this. There were a great many things we all experienced. And learned.

[ Ilde's desire to rise above, is the one that comes to mind. ]

[ She looks down at her hands, picturesquely demure. Habits of maidenhood that have long since been more gestures than true signs of innocence. She has been conflicted on this understanding of herself since coming to the Station, where suddenly the two sides did not meet quite so unquestioningly. Resolution has been a long time coming, in a way it is ecstasy to feel decided, but there remains a subtle pulse of guilt that she cannot cleanse.

It is there to feel, a squirm in the center of herself.

Powerlessness was a tenet of her worship to the Godking. To take would have been a challenge to him... But he is gone. She must be her own deity. ]

I am disappointed. I had promised him we would all return to the Station together.

Someone else is accountable for breaking that promise, [ a flick of his tone, the dismissive air of a man who very well knows their Enemy is ever-powerful and out of reach, but could reasonably locate someone more directly in their line of sight. And, he's gone and decided his next step. ]

Death is in the habit of disappointing even the most diligent of us. You're not alone, in that.

I have known Death a very long time.

[ Something she personifies, a figure that has stalked at her heels every moment, a laughing figure who awaits the day that she is not strong enough, clever enough to survive and he can finally take her. Death is the reward for the weak. These feelings play out like a childish little puppet show in her thoughts, ending with her own frayed little puppet skewered through the heart, writhing until no longer moving. ]

It was all around me, in the burning world. It had ceased to trouble me.

[ Past tense, tentatively. No one she has truly cared about has yet died, she cannot entirely convince herself that Death has troubled her yet. ]

[ It 'had' ceased, she says. That, he notices. By the sensation that accompanies her words - the macabre demonstration of the way her world worked, a puppet show of shadows and fire, the severance of her own life - how must it be, to have these certainties wiped clean of one's reality? Within the scope of that: what certainties had he lost, when he had agreed to leave his own world? ]

Tell me of it. [ A beat. ] Your burning world.

[ He's already seated, after all. ]

[ She turns her head to look at him, there's a tired sorrow that sits on her, like a death bird perched at her shoulder. ]

Shall I show you? I have been... preparing. To show the others.

Edited 2016-08-05 23:28 (UTC)

Permit me to be among the first.

[ What they will share among one another is difficult to decide upon. That Ilde has been - preparing, as she said - to share this world she has mentioned, that was her own... he feels a little greedy, a little more than desireful of that knowledge. Power and knowledge; two things that were infinite, in his eye. ]

[ She sits up onto her knees then, a kind of genuflection which prepares her for what she needs to do. She stares at him for a moment before lifting both hands to cup his face, it helps her to focus against the way her mind is still sore from the onslaught Kylo Ren had laid upon her. In a way, however, this vision practiced enough times before is almost like a slow familiar stretch. The sensation of her mind fitting against his is that of liquid adjusting to the shape of a new container.

The pressure of her presence comes with a scent of smoke, of wet earth, and flowers a perfume that is all her own, suggesting singed edges, dead bodies, the garden.

It is always easiest for her to start in the garden. It is the scenery of her inner world, luscious and cavernous and yet... Clearly underground. It is dark in all directions, the air closed in and damp, but there is a final sensation to it all that is unlike any other. The magic that Dreus imbued upon that place, an intoxicating power of light and heat, tempered for beauty here in this hidden sanctuary beneath his palace while the rest of the world is scorched. ]

( Heav'n but the Vision of fulfill'd Desire,
And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire,
Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves,
So late emerged from, shall so soon expire. )

[ Her voice, the recitation of a poem that she uses to keep her mind empty, to soothe herself into calm when the world above is too ugly... Beneath her pretty words comes a second voice, deep and masculine with a rhythm that seduces the mind into obedience.

The voice comes from above, and her mind follows it through the winding pathways of the dungeons, ignoring the skeletal reaching hands, the screaming, the weeping, making her way instead to a set of huge winding stairs, tiled with a beautiful mosaic long since smeared with blood and filth. On bare feet, she follows the cool pathway up into the palace where an unusually intense orange sunlight casts strange shadows through the high archways of the open air citadel that Dreus calls his own.

Throughout the various foyers, thin and sickly looking men and women sit huddled together, out of immediate sight. Their eyes turn towards her with starvation and envy as she walks by, but they say nothing to her.

Though the Godking's voice continues to float through the palace, the great titan himself is nowhere to be seen. He is still too complex for her to fully realize. For now. Soon enough she will master all this, and she will bring him to life before those who do not understand what it was to be ruled by such a magnificent and terrible figure. There are none who fully understand, except perhaps for Kylo Ren himself.

The palace of the Godking sits upon a cliffside, raised like a ziggurat at the top of four corners of immense concrete stairs. She stands at the top of them, looking out off the sheer cliff face across the wastes. An acrid breeze stirs her hair, makes her breath short and her mouth dry.

The world that she looks out upon has no greenery. As far as the eye is able to see there is nothing but miles upon miles of cracked earth, baked into a hardened brick desert where no water is to be found. In the distance, the smoldering ruins of cities can be seen flickering. Anywhere where survivors might have found true shelter burns day and night, for all time. Ash falls from the sky like an ugly toxic snow, let loose from the clouds of smoke that smother the sky into that strange, sickly orange color. It is never truly daylight here.

She takes her time imagining the slow descent down the enormous stairs. There are corpses, here and there, bodies of those who had tried to find sanctuary within the Godking's palace but expired in the dry heat. Their corpses are mutilated, picked at. Some clearly by birds, other much more thoroughly, to suggest something larger.

What that something is will be clear soon enough, she goes to the edge of the cliff and peers downwards into the shadow it casts. The darkness moves like a creature all its own. A swarm of hungry innumerous shadows waits for the nightfall when they will rule the wastes... But for now they bicker amongst themselves, restless and insatiable. Some of them notice her looking down at them and begin to scale the cliff, great maws open.

It's then that she turns to him. The man at the cliff's edge beside her, the one which followed her and shared her vision all the way up from the garden... ]

( Welcome. )

Edited (clean up) 2016-08-06 14:42 (UTC)

[ He very nearly has time to - warnadvise - her against touching him. The window slips out of his grasp, as Ilde lays her hands to his person - and shares.

He doesn't know what he expected, when she called her world "burned". An allegory? A hellish landscape, awash with fire and the sluggish crawl of lava? Instead, the world is, quite literally, incinerated. Inside of her mind and her memories, he smells as she does and sees as she permits. His path is preordained by the one that she takes, though he is able to make slow circles on his toes - turning his gaze up to the ceilings of her king's palace. To the dark alcoves where the emaciated figures of the less-loved reside. He follows Ilde, his navigator, through her landscape. From the garden to the clifftop, to gaze across the burnt world.

( The voice of her king shakes his bones, and it takes him a long moment to realize how much he may be sharing with Ilde, in this. )

The world is burnt. The smell of decay and incinarated flesh takes him back, within his own memories ( -- there, out of the corner of his eye, the heaped bodies on a pyre. children mothers men with hands limp and outstretched, a woman cradling her child, nothing but charred meat and agony -- ) that he dismisses with the sharp, quick flick of his hand. Ilde is sharing, he does not want his attention to waver. Not even it may be in... solidarity. ]

( This is the only harbor? ) [ The palace of her king. Is it the only place left that provides and shelters? The Darkling asks this of her, as she welcomes him, but his eyes are drawn down, down along the cliffside to where the monsters climb towards them and he -- can't -- deny himself the simple, elegant pleasure of witnessing them. He leans, forward, braced against the brisk, acrid winds to see them better. Their maws, their darkness. The faint thump of his pulse beats, harder - elated, rather than fearful.

In the folds of his kefta, something shifts ( the blink of eyes, too many eyes in the dark, the flex of a shadowy-silk claw - something calling out to another thing in hissing-buzzing-animal cries in the depths of the darkness that overtakes his expression, something that could have been a cousin, could - possibly, be the same, though of another origin ) and out he breathes, sharp and nostalgic and familiar: oh. ]

( How? ) [ A question. One that asks about everything she knows. How did this happen to her world? How did those creatures come to be? ]

[ She does not so much watch as feel his movements through her vision; the pulse at the crux of his jaw beneath her palms a million miles away. She feels the way his memories rouse as she carries his sight through her panorama, feels the pressure of his carrion as it rises in his thoughts. His pyre would not be out of place here. Out in the wastes there are such totems to the Godking's wrath, bodies mounted, burned and shredded in effigy to mankind's limitless wickedness and suffering.

She feels the eldritch squirm of what lurks inside of his guise, and she knows it frightens her. Her heart beats that little bit faster, her lips pressed together in a thin line. ]

( All of it is His. The flames, the shadows. )

[ The dark shape of a titanous man watches the pair of them from atop the stairs, indistinct, lacking all the sensory detail of what truly makes him Godking, all except for the sense of pressure that comes from his mere proximity. ]

[ He has to tear his eyes from her king's monsters. They climb, but they are -- vision, he reminds himself of that. This is Ilde's vision, and he shares in it. Trembles as she does, basks in the quiet refrain of how she feels towards the mountain of a man - a shape, but not a defined thing, that looms before them. A fraction, perhaps?

The pressure, of her king's being, though - he feels that, most of all. ]

( What is he, Ilde? )

[ He'll ask her questions so long as she is willing to answer them, looking for her insight more than the facts. ]

[ It comes down the steps towards them, acquiring features the closer it gets. Her heart rattles in her chest, the closer her gets. The sweeping raggedness of the wastes loses definition, but then their attention no longer focuses there.

This is truly what has challenged her. She can build the gardens, she can build the palace, the wastelands... but He is so much more complex than all of that. He surpassed all other powers in their world, rose to a stature that no mortal could contend with. He is Godking.

His is a destiny of flames.

An asphyxiating heat radiates from Dreus and the air warps around him, displacing the world in a hallucinogenic halo. His pure searing existence makes the physical functions of the body begin to seize up, overworked, causing a kind of drowsy sluggishness. Drought infiltrates every pore.

But there at the tip of the tongue is something else, something both sour and sweet in one. Caustic but candied. One is the taste of his madness, and the other is the proximity of his undiluted magic. He seeps of it, a power that he cannot fully contain inside of his body and so it permeates the air like a drug. It dazzles, it fulfills, it gives strength where strength fails. A distracting counterbalance to how his corrupting flames blazes, spoiling meat and hearts. Ilde's spoiled heart is thundering.

There are times when she longs for her king. All the certainty he had provided to her in her life. She had been perfect in his eyes, an angel, and now she must be only herself, unforgiven, bearing all the worlds ugliness with no promise of redemption. ]

( He was born with this, and it grew inside him. There were once others with arcane powers, but they could not quell him. )

[ Her voice is soft in the distance, a whisper. Over top of her words are His: ]

I had heard of such plans such visions and I knew they did not see far enough, but what was demanded in a way of a plan needed to go beyond tongue and teeth and hunger and flesh, beyond the bones and the very dust of bones and the wind that would come to blow the dust away. And so I began to envision a darkness that was long before the dark of night, and a strangely shining light that owed nothing to the light of day...

[ One of his many rambling ideas that she had heard time and time again, but it is not the words themselves but the way in which he speaks them. He speaks in a cadence that seduces, an unnatural charisma that exudes from his deep sonorous voice. The richness of his tone evades all resistance, his words and the images behind them echoing in the depths of the subconscious. They ring there, resonating so perfectly, pitched just so.

And his eyes fixated with their hateful irascible heat, their manic intent, make it impossible not to listen fully... ]

[ Ilde's heart trembles, and his own mirrors it - for this is her world, and he is as much a creation within her memories as all of it is. He knows that her hands are on his face, that her mind is fitted to his own, but within... he is as close to Ilde's being as he could be, outside of being Castor. And though his heart shakes (foreign, confusing, amusing), he reaches for her hand and draws it into his own. Draws her to his side, as though in defense, as her king bears down upon them. ]

( I think - I can understand him. A little. )

[ Not the madness, though. The Darkling is a different breed of madman. He does not speak on the mount, his words are not feverish and painful to hear. He remembers what Ilde said before, he made us madmen with him, and he can begin, in fits and bursts, to comprehend her words. Had he been from her world, he would have been just as mad. Perhaps dead. He would not be himself - not prized, and certainly not feared. Ilde and her king speak, in two tones, but the same words, and even as he holds fast to Ilde's hand, his other reaches - stretches out. Gloved fingers spread, into the space between himself and her king. Her mad, frightening king.

The only thing that keeps him from bowing his head under the weight of her king's voice, is another. The cool, clipped tones of a woman recently dead. Scathing and vehement, as she promised him - you are destined for more than this world can provide, there is no one who can help you in this, you are alone but you are powerful, and you will bow to no other.

There is a distinct division within him, now. There is himself-as-Ilde, heartshaken. There is himself-as-himself, rebellious and proud. And there is himself-as-observer, scientific, darkly curious. He turns the palm of his hand, the outstretched hand that seeks to bridge the gap between his mind-body and her memory-king. The soft snap of his fingers, and there is liquid-thick, flexing, coiling smoke and darkness -- it emanates from him, the way it does from her king. He cups it there, in the palm of his hand, and it flows, placid and impenetrable, before her eyes. Though he hasn't taken his eyes from the madman. ] ( This part of him, at least. )

[ It's the first step he takes, to confirm what it is he does and is, to her. ]

( The rest of it - I. Could not begin to. )

[ Such a novel experience. To have someone shield her... To shield her from Dreus of all figures in her life. All of her attention leaves the Godking, turning instead to the Darkling, watching his magic materialize as he understands it within her scenery. She had known something of that. The way he discomfited but still enthralled. It was the taste of magic at the tip of her tongue. Too sweet. Too potent.

A gust of wind hits them, dirty with soot and dust, not terribly refreshing at all. Dreus wavers at the edges, dragged by the wind, as her focus drifts.

And so she lets it go. Drops the imagery like a curtain, abrupt, and looks into his face between her hands. ]

Show me.

[ Here. In reality. ]

[ She releases him, from her world and her memories. Reality is crisper, less disconcerting, than the presence of her king within her. He breathes in the city air, tastes the neon and the electrical exhaust, and it's very real. Certainly it's a lot less wild-eyed and mad, and his pulse, racing in time with hers, finally begins to untangle itself and return to being... his own.

Show me, she says. Where things are real and not implied.

Somehow, he's disappointed to see that - even in reality, he'd reached for one of her hands. They're still on his face, and delicately, he presses them down. Away from his person. Giving her the benefit of putting distance between them, once more. There's a measure of hesitance, in the way his mouth pulls tight, considering her request. And then it's gone. There is no hesitation, and certainly no shame in showing her -- he presses his hands together, the breadth of his shoulders tenses. When he pulls them apart, there is - it's just - black. Darkness, smoke and liquid both, flowing from him - created - spiraling up into the air around them. He curls it, instructs it. There is no doubt that he is, utterly and wholly, in control of it.

And he waits, without explanation, for her response. ]

[ Many gut instinct responses pass through her at his display. Nearly all of them revulsion. She remembers a thing like him: Ba-rahmy, one of Dreus's shadow sons, one of the more intelligent and complete creatures that could take on human guise as easily as he could take on beastliness. Ba-rahmy had joined the witches, and upon his capture by his father... Too ugly for Ilde to think about right now, not with the wound of Anakin's death still lingering on her like a disease.

Ba-rahmy had been so much like this man. That crisp unnatural beauty and grey eyes...

Like always, her emotions conflict. Desire and dread. Dangerous, this man is much too dangerous. She is clearly flustered, disturbed down to her core. But what had they decided in the midst of the flames? They had decided that her fear need not be so debilitating, a lesson she learned a very long time ago but needed to find a way to learn anew in a much vaster universe. ]

He has sons like you.

[ It flows from him: like blood, like breathing. A natural manipulation of matter, at its most scientific. Unnatural, obscene witchcraft - at its least understood. The flex of his fingers curls that darkness through the air, in lazy spirals and sweeps - there is no doubt that, he, seated before her, is wholly in control of what is, truly, himself. Through their connection, he feels the way she recoils. It's not her fault, he's seen her world. Her king. Even if he hadn't, he was no longer concerned with what was thought of him, in people's minds and hearts.

He doesn't ask her not to feel this way. Time has tempered his shame and his inhibition. ] We call it the Small Science.

[ With his eyes, he directs her to look up. Releasing his hold on his power, until it begins to fade away. Neon light and the glow of the Bearing's inner rooms regains its foothold, and he places his hands in his lap once more. ] I outlived my father, [ or so, his mother had said to him. What he means, is that he is no child of her king's. ] I am the -- there are no others like me. Are you afraid, Ilde?

[ She inhales shallowly, tense. She is afraid, but she cannot stand to be paralyzed by it any longer. Ilde Vilmaine stares at him deeply, her pretty face surprisingly tranquil for the heat building in her throat, like a dragon building fire on its tongue.

The liquid of their thoughts is still freshly intermingled, and the feeling that she looses on him, like a well trained hound, is theirs. Both their horror. She lets the memory of Ba-rahmy seep: one so powerful amongst his kind, but nothing at all compared to the Godking. Restrained, subdued, helpless, hopeless, unable to die, unable to shake off his father's every invasion. So ugly, such abuse of body, mind, and soul. And no escape but the promised day of flame...

She releases it as abruptly as she did her vision, but this is less like the dropping of a curtain and more like the removal of a blade. ]

Yes, Shadow. I am.

Edited 2016-08-12 00:13 (UTC)

[ The sensation of fear she had sung into existence during the tournament was a distant, muted thing. She had reached for others, not her own, and now, she was turning that power upon him. Fear, terrible in extremes and wonderfully useful when controlled, sinks into him. Seizes hold of boyhood fears ( they held his hands to the fire and laughed when he cried out, wicked men - far older, far crueler ), and upends them within his adult heart. The distance he had put between himself and a childhood, of powerlessness and movement, fearful as the rest of his people were of the hunt and the pyre.

She is scared of him, and uses that fear as her weapon. Held down as he is by her power, though, he can't find it within himself to appreciate her talent.

There are terrible things. Her fears build off his, and his off hers. Until she releases him, ] Effective.

[ Swallowing against the tremble in his voice, the rise of fury in the face of memories ( his / not his ) he'd long since dissociated himself from, he pulls himself upright. He's too hoarse for his own liking, shoulders stiff and hands -- well, he's glad they do not shake too violently. It's been a long, long time, since he felt fear like that. Centuries. ]

I am no son of his, Ilde. [ Of that, he can reassure her. ( And himself. ) ] I admire you, and so, I won't deny what I am.

[ Especially, he means, if it will feed her power in return. All the better for the nest. ]

[ Everything he feels is not only apparent to her, but familiar. She understands it all. The cruel hateful childhoods that were no childhood at all, the careful division between between those feelings and memories, the roil of anger when forced to confront them. This was how she had become so tangled to Kylo Ren, too many similarities... but the Darkling is not her brood, and he remains within himself, makes no attempt to take her mind the way the Jedi Killer had, the way it had backfired upon him although the tangling is pleasant to them now. ]

Yes, tell me.

[ She relaxes against the railing of the balcony, her eyes closed as she waits for the feverishness that accompanies her abilities to subside. It is not so terrible as it once was, perhaps because she grows used to it, or perhaps as her body grows more in tune with the symbiote. ]

What are you?

I'll show you.

[ As she showed him her world, when he had requested it of her. How easy it could have been to deny him such insight, and yet, she had touched him and drawn him in and given her vision up to him. Included him in monstrous sights and soul-numbing terror. It's familiar and foreign, all the same. Ilde's world, Ilde's fear, coupled with the gauntlet of psycho-technical battle performed for the nest's goals left him...

tired. Bone-weary and worn thin, within his mind and across his defenses. ]

I'll show you everything I can. But, another time, I think. I am... [ A man who needs to actually sleep, in the way that he hasn't. So, he begs her a courtesy: ] Forgive me.

[ A faint smile. That human need is almost charming, in him. ]

Of course.

[ She might, possibly, forgive him anything. ]

Then, [ a casual motion, for now that he has his hands under control, it's easy to lift one of her own again.

It's not often he has to beg a favor from another. Much less to rest, above all things. Power like his, when utilized, would only feed into itself. An Ouroboros of strength, one he has not tapped into since his own arrival. That is the first thing that he will have to remedy.

Her hand, yes. Her hand, he brings to his mouth. A chaste brush of his mouth over her knuckles, before he climbs to his feet. ] Allow me to escort you out?

[ ( The curtains in his room block out the city's light. It's very, very dark - he figures she wouldn't want to linger. ) ]

[ No one has done such a thing to her since... Dreus. There are little white scars on her hand from just such gestures, burn marks from one who held her beloved. Yes, it is time for her to leave. ]

Goodbye, Shadow.

[ He can object to the title if he likes, but it is his now and it suits her understanding of him better. He can be a shadow with no master, if he likes. Though perhaps it is her flames that cast the shape she sees in him.

For now, she doesn't try to look back upon him any further. ]

Some of her subspace kids had come to watch her perform. They had been excited to see her on a real stage, dressed for the occasion at last. It had made sense to invite them, there was value in their interest in her, something that she had expected to plumb much more gently... But it had all turned uglier than anticipated.

It really isn't guilt that she feels at having exposed them to the explosion, but there is some responsibility there. She reaches out on the extranet to find who she can, to offer condolences where they are appropriate. She knows who she really wishes to speak to, but also knows the virtue of not laying out her intentions too readily.

When the invitation to come out finally arrives, she forwards it to Sam. The only member of the brood in any real state for such an outing, if she is entirely honest. But there is also a certain android she hopes he will be able to speak to if Y is reticent. Ilde does not think she will be, if some of her interest is perhaps returned. She is determined to come back with something, this mission has gotten too unfortunate relying on the others.

She ties a few little sparkly things into her hair as she has seen others wear before, a strapless dress that ties around her neck made of sheer textured layers that has an odd duo-chromatic shimmer in the right light, and a her little ankle boots. Nowhere to hide a weapon, but this no longer troubles her. Her confidence is an interesting new facet.

She fetches Sam when she's ready, and they head out into the Concordian night to wait for their guide to the party.

well meet somewhere out of the way, you must be kinda spooked.

Edited 2016-08-11 11:50 (UTC)

Sam’s done his best to look the fussy manager part again, as he had at the drag race track, though likely with a bit more help this time. He isn’t particularly looking forward to keeping that act up all night, but it’s worth it if they can get some solid answers from this girl or her droid.

While they wait, Sam’s peering down at the sparkly bits in Ilde’s hair, giving a short laugh as he tugs lightly at one - not enough to dislodge, just being an annoying big brother. She really plays this well, seems at ease with it, and he wonders what her life might’ve been like if she was born somewhere like Caprica instead. If this could’ve been her life, if she’d have been happy with it.

“Nervous?” He asks, eventually. Of course, he could just skim her emotional state, but he likes talking.

Almost in response, although not consciously done, she fidgets in with her dress. It exposes more of her back than she likes, but it had been picked out for her by one of the girls in the early weeks of their time here. She knows it will do well to wear it.

"I suppose," she answers without commitment. She isn't entirely convinced the thing she is feeling is nerves, at least not now. Not after the explosions, not after feeling part of herself die in a blaze of fire. Something has been fulfilled, or perhaps emptied. It is unclear to her whether the distinction matters: loss or satisfaction.

And because she knows better than to say such a thing aloud,

( I grow weary of this place and its petty troubles. )

That tiredness trumps any nerves. She wants to make some kind of progress in their mission, and this is the only avenue she has before her to pursue. So she will.

The sentiment is shared - something of an emptiness that also spawns a kind of steeled resolve. They’ve lost something close to them, and the people of Castor are stubborn and possessive. Something was stolen by this place, something that’s left them deeply wounded, and there’s a determination both towards revenge and ending all of this as swiftly as possible.

Patient and understanding as Sam is, he’s always been more human than cylon, more man than prophet, and he has his limits. Personal loss is well outside of those limits.

( Preaching to the choir, sister. )

Hell, Sam had been ready to be done with this place a week into getting here. Nothing going on here promotes feelings of ease with him (not that a mission should, but whatever), and the longer he stays, the more he just wants to grab someone on the street and shout at them. Shake them awake. It’s a dangerous kind of agitation.

( Hopefully this’ll put us one step closer. )

Organization Bout It Out OOC Organization Punch Everything Outline	Bout It Out Reviews With Lexa What The Goal Is Talks to Tiny Sam Ilde Performs Her Creepy Song To Creep Everyone Out -- Has fans in the audience, subspace hooligan types she has been building a fanbase with. -- Sam & Steve have each performed as unofficial 'managers' to keep up appearances. -- Watches all the matches upon recovery from performance, but is pretty spent. Says Some Creepy Shit To Nirad Snuggles With Ren
Explosion Gets Blown Up Sam & Ren Ilde Is Fine + Top Level -- In shock physically, exhausted psychically, trapped emotionally inside of Ren's tantrum. -- Refuses to be removed from the scene without Ren. -- Can't stop him, can't stop Steve. Darkling Checks On Her Darkling Goes To Comfort Ren & All Hell Breaks Loose Tells Petre To Fuck Off Comforted By Nate -- Finally lets him take her back to the Bearings once everything has concluded.	Recovery Goes The Fuck To Sleep -- Gets cleaned up with Angel's help. Checks on Tiny Sam Meets Up With Big Sam Bucky & Steve Ren & Hux Ren & Darkthing
Pre-Talks Ilde & Steve Ilde & Darkling Darkling & Sam Darkling & Steve Sam & Ren Ren & Steve Ilde & Ren	Upcoming Castor Meeting Prep For Underground Rank II Underground

[open] isn't that awful

THAT'S NOT HOW THAT HAPPENED

CASTOR

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skips the queue fight me, nerds

ayyyyyy

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DARKLING

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cw: a little squicky and gross, I kind of tried to write around it

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UNDERGROUND

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