mental link: day 34

[erbier]

[ It is actually quite late when Ilde's soft voice moves through the hosts, her scent of smoke and earth. She is at a club somewhere deep in the city, dazzled by noise and light, something you are free to establish if you look for it. ]

( It has been suggested to me by a hacker named Y that I throw a concert to lure our bombers out again. )

[ This part is forthright, a statement of fact with no value attachment to it. ]

( I believe she is questioning who I really am. If I refuse this idea, I may encourage that. )

[ This may not be strictly true, but it is how Ilde has perceived their conversation. ]

( She seems to know something, but is it worth losing my guise? If not, how am I to refuse this suggestion and maintain it. I do not know if she is a part of the group who contacted us before. She may already know I am false and this is all a game. )


OOC: link & all threadjacking here very much encouraged!

Comments

[erbier]

( That is how I came to this problem, I may have encouraged her too much. )

[ But this is her first attempt at this, so maybe she can get a little slack.... or not. ]

[wrackful]

( Doing anything else would've blown it sooner. )

[He hadn't seen a guide with his fake ID, he assumes she didn't get one either.]

( You could use it to get out. )

[Just saying.]

[erbier]

( I suppose you're right. )

[ Doesn't entirely make her feel better. ]

( I think I can extricate myself safely. )

[wrackful]

( Got a plan for it? )

[erbier]

( It is a large commitment, this concert, I do not think it will surprise her if I wish to discuss it further. )

[wrackful]

( I meant a plan for getting out of all of it. The singing. The whole thing. )

[erbier]

( Does it matter? Will we not just simply leave this place one day? )

[wrackful]

( So you're just gonna keep doing something you hate until they tell us we're done. When's that gonna be? Months? )

[erbier]

[ In the silence, where at first she has no words, it begins to hum, softly. Emptiness, loneliness. All the years she had held herself together beneath the palace learning to love what she had been told to. It would not be hard to do again, but all the independence she has found since leaving that place balks, like a horse twisting its neck, eyes rolling in rejection. The vibrating sensation of her anger and unease begins to sharpen into many tiny little needles. ]

( No, I will not continue this for much longer. )

[wrackful]

[It's more reaction than he'd expected needing to deal with directly, his concept of mental walls paper-thin, too new and belligerent to the situation to do better. Her anger finds echo in him too easily, cold and sharp and always close to the surface. He has to stop and catch himself before it tries to rise to meet her. And then he has to try and carry on as if it wasn't a problem, the ingrained necessity of never showing a weakness.]

( Then you'll need a way out. Unless you want to just get on stage and tell everyone that you're an alien with another alien in your head. )

[erbier]

[ She reaches after his resonation, but it slips through her fingers. Almost disappointing, there is something desirable in being understood, something seductive in anger that catches her up in its claws. She has to sigh and let it go. ]

( I could retire to a hiding place, I suppose. )

[ She has already started to contemplate it, get away from the Bearings before someone followed her back there one day. ]

[wrackful]

[The feeling of her reaching after his anger is bizarre, too intimate - like everything about this mind linking is. He doesn't understand why she would. Why she'd want to. It makes him consider dropping the conversation, backing off. He deflects instead, aggressively irreverent.]

( Hey, we could always do our own bombing. Pretend you died in it. )

[erbier]

[ A flinch, like a door closing just inches from her face and startling her back. R... rude... So rude... She says nothing for a moment. The only reason she understands his bitter sarcasm is because they are mentally connected, were they speaking face to face she probably would have shrugged and agreed it might be one option. Instead, however, she's now left with limited avenues of reply to him... ]

( One of us has already died in it. )

[wrackful]

( I heard. Sucks for them. )

[He's been surrounded by death all of his life - the fact he's now mentally linked to a whole bunch of people he could experience it through doesn't sit easy with him, but it doesn't make him suddenly care more.]

( And I said pretend, anyway. )

[erbier]

[ It pulses in her. The fact that it was her broodmate, a sickening head-throbbing dizziness, and she already knows before it has even fully crescendos that it will not help this conversation at all, so she simply concedes simply, ]

( No less elaborate than performing, I will keep it in mind. )