mental link

[circumspector]

[ someone's up and awake again. Not so tired sounding, though. This time, she's remembered to go and eat before she reaches out to the rest of the hive. ]

( Is anyone in the Bearings that can give me an update on what I've... missed? As much detail as possible.

If it were safer, I might suggest we start keeping more accessible records for these... interludes. )

[ She's not fond of this not knowing everything all the time ever. Which on the note of: she sighs, little echoing tumbling thought that is edged with frustration. ]

( And... does anyone what kind of tricks lions should do? Are they meant to be predators? Are they meant to be tamed?

.... Actually, does anyone know what a lion is? I'm starting to realise I don't know very much about animals if they aren't trying to eat you. Which isn't particularly useful, right now. )

[ ... and for anyone looking for Angel, she will be with a strew of mechanical parts around her that is half in her room, half in the corridor for her shiny new, tackely bright gold performing robotic lion. ]

Comments

[circumspector]

[ She can't, she couldn't to Petre, even if she had to talk around it - she can only say what she wants. ]

I want to. I never want to go back to where I came from.

[ There is no more than that, that matters. Her fingers grip the screwdriver surely. Her eyes are set on the machine parts in front of her. She would never go back. She'll destroy herself again. It flares hot and sudden, her body wracked in agony, burning through, burning up, she has accepted this, she has accepted this. This will be her end. Everyone else could burn, she would never be kept again, and she would never go back to that room. ]

I want to stay. I think that's... that's as much as I can do. As long as that's true, I think I will yes.

[erbier]

[ The flames of Angel's indignation wash over her, not so much immune to the sensation as all too familiar with it. The rise and fall of unseemly emotions. Her eyes flicker up to watch the other girls continued work as her center blazes. ]

I missed you.

[circumspector]

[ She looks up from where she's sitting on the floor with a confused look on her face - she's never thought of it in context of being missed. There has never been anyone to miss, to be missed by. Jack never did. She was right where he left her. ]

I'm sorry I went away for so long.

[erbier]

It's not your fault.

[ She understands, and she has no desire for Angel to feel any guilt for it. ]

But I have realized that it is difficult to find anyone comparable to speak to, about certain things.

[ She could tell Angel anything, but it was not so easy elsewhere, even with others she was close with. ]

[circumspector]

[ She disregards her work then, setting aside the screwdriver and letting the light dim from her hand as she turned back to Idle. A shuffle forward on her knees. Careful with her touch, knowing that her fingers were slick with engine grease.

Up until she gets close enough, and she leans up and in - like she's begging for a kiss where Idle is perched on her bed. Leaning over its edge where she's propped up on her knees, supporting her upper body on her elbows to make sure she'd didn't smudge her bed sheets either. ]

I don't know what I would do without you to talk to. [ Aoba could be skittish around some topics, Petre was more a process explaining than anything else. ]

[erbier]

[ It is love's way to make every little thing charming and she thinks her grease-stained little bird is especially sweet. Ilde first places the braid of flowers onto Angel's head, and then scoots closer to lightly toy with the other girl's blackened fingertips. ]

I did not think about that.

[ Not that it surprised her, but it was easy to get lost in ones own sense of isolation. Ilde found it particularly difficult, at times. Keeping herself carefully removed from others was a habit hard to break. ]

One of the boys [ Now they have so many young boys... What did the Station mean by bringing so many children into all of this? ] has been telling me about his life. His parents. Going to school. You wouldn't have needed school, would you...

[ She trails off in distraction, but her overall envy for the idea of education is clear in her voice. ]

[circumspector]

[ She holds herself still so she can settle the flowers in her hair, eyes closed in the moment before she opens them again. Leans her weight forward on her elbows so that Ilde can loop through her fingers.

It was a very, very long time ago though, that Ilde speaks of, at least for Angel. About school. She had gone, once. She wore long clothes, all the time. Had strict rules about what she could talk about, when she could use her powers. ]

I didn't need to, no, but I did go. [ Her eyes drop, quiet, and she has spoken of her life in any great length to only three people, so far. It is not pleasant, it is not fair, and anyone else she might be worried what they would say or do with the information. But she could be sure at least with Ilde. ] That was before I - killed my mother. After that, I was locked away. So I didn't go for a very long time at all. [ Says it less for the cruelty of it all, but more to explain her limited experience. Knows the envy, too, how she watched and felt it all tumble from her. ] But school it is more than just learning and reading, it's about doing. Some schools - at least where I'm from, they offer lessons in how to make things, how to calculate things. How to create, how to envisage. Lots of different things, as you go further along in them, you can become specialised to do just one thing, too. Art, music, construction, law, there's even one for gardening. [ Soft, a prospect. ]

[erbier]

[ It shocks Ilde remarkably little to hear of the mother's death. For all she knew, she too had killed her mother simply by being born. It was the norm to die in labor in the burned world, that was why there had been so few children. Why Ilde had been alone except for one or two. Except for, briefly, Camille. To her, it is... merely something that happens. She attaches no maliciousness nor monstrousness to Angel for the confession. Her attention remains focused on school, on education.. ]

It seems very... comforting. Safe. Being with your peers, having someone... take your growth under their wing. [ She feels a little guilty, dismissing what she had been taught. ] Dreus taught me to read, and I had a teacher for the gardens before they became mine... but...

[ Well. It's different. Different than the images she had taken from little Sam about hallways full of laughing children, learning together... ]

[circumspector]

[ She nods, dancing her fingers where they are locked with Ilde's, light back and forth movement of her wrist. Pattering dots and patterns with her smudged fingerprints. ]

It is. It's good to be learning with people who don't know any more or less than you. It feels less like... playing catch up constantly.

[erbier]

I feel very ignorant, compared to the others.

[ Self-conscious baby from a backwards barbaric world. ]

Even with the Hive, much of what it tells me is so foreign it still makes little sense to me.

[circumspector]

[ she looks up, frowning a moment - had anyone said anything? She wouldn't be... pleased if they had. ]

You... shouldn't. Or at least, you should know that's normal... or, I think it's very natural, and people who act like they know or more less are very arrogant. You will know things they don't. Even - me, I had a galaxies worth of knowledge in my mind, and there are things they say to me I have no idea about.

[erbier]

[ Well. They do have some arrogant jerks around, ok. ]

I am patient with myself, but there is... so much to learn.

[ And she doesn't have the benefit of a planet brain. ]

They grow plants in water here. I don't entirely understand it, they talk about plants so differently... but I very much want to try this technique. [ Despite her subtle sullenness at all she doesn't understand, her voice lights up again. ] It would be very helpful on the Station, where our soil is limited.

[circumspector]

[ gently shoves them into the dirt. ]

There is.

[ Angel is a cheater, and she still doesn't fucking know what Zer0 is. ]

I've seen planets like that. In the swamps on Pandora. They can sometimes have beautiful flowers - they're called lotuses I think. But I can help you - if it's just a matter of knowing the right terms to understand it. I'm a little more familiar so I might be help you understand it.

[erbier]

Cathaway's chambers are full of water flowers...

[ It had been terribly beautiful. ]

I would like to grow some kind of fruit. I miss being able to indulge in what I've grown.

[circumspector]

Maybe we can find a special one for her, here, and then we can bring it back to her? As a present?

[ She settles her chin in Ilde's lap. ]

Fruit? What kind?

[erbier]

[ She smiles down at the other girl, finding her ever more charming. In a way, she would like to contribute to Cathaway's garden, in another she flares with a desire to murder and usurp her. Life is complicated. ]

Sam has given me a few plants, I worry about transporting them... If we must leave in a rush I won't have the chance.

[ It's a serious conundrum. ]

Peaches and plums are what I enjoy most.

[circumspector]

[ She hums, a thought there but more - her greedy way, she lives through others and through Ilde in particular, she knows she is guilty most with. ]

What do they taste like? Are they sweet?

[erbier]

[ For a second, it almost occurs to her that Angel might be trying to make her feel better about all the things she doesn't know. But then she realizes that's stupid, that she really doesn't and has been deprived of such common things as food. She knew that. She smiles, shifting on the bed so she can more easily lean in to kiss the other girl.

She thinks of fruit.

It hadn't always been in her life either, in the wastelands all the trees were gone, all the foods had spoiled in the ruins of the homes. They ate flat breads and mush made from grain, when they could find it. Mushrooms from underground, although underground places were dangerous hiding places for swarms of shadows to wait out the day.

Fruit had become part of her life when she had been handed over to the gardener before her.

The taste of fresh fruit fills her with a sense of happiness, fullness, relief. Sweet flavors in the mouth, a soft weight in the palm, like a gift from the earth. ]

[circumspector]

[ Ilde kisses her, as the memory washes over her through the contact, and - it's good, she thinks, because she finds herself always hungry when Ilde kisses her. Finds herself following after the taste of sweet things that she can taste on her.

One, after another, after another. Pushes herself up to follow after her and keep kissing her eagerly. Hands leaving dirty marks all over her sheets as she gets herself at the right angle to just - stay there in Ilde's memory and with her lips on hers.

It's only after she pulls away a little, pink in the face and breathing a little quickly - ] Sorry. I like sweet things. [ Which, smooth, Angel, and she ducks her head giggling. Yeah, nailed it. ]

[erbier]

[ She flushes deeply, literal hand marks up the bedsheets and onto the edges of her white dress. It's not the mess, it's the physical mark of Angel's desire. Ilde has her own, and that sense of lust is still new and overwhelming at times, overstimulating. She can't even think for a moment, and then when she can she doesn't know if she has any words. What a dangerous business, this loss of composure.

She reaches up, flustered, and smooths out her hair. ]

There... there is some in the kitchen. No cooking, grab it when you're hungry.

[ Although her subtle jab at Angel's lack of care for herself is weak, fluttery. ]

[circumspector]

[ She leans in close, because - she likes it when Ilde is flustered so, makes her feel better for how easily she is when Ilde touches her. ( when will her skin not prickle so at the gentle brushes up her body? ) ]

Why? I like it much better this way.

[ She ducks her head, like she's worried she'll get a whap on the nose for it, but for all that, she settles her head in Ilde's lap. Content and safe, glad to be awake. ] I like how it tastes this way much better.

[erbier]

Well. I.

[ What does she even say to that. It isn't as though she's going to deny Angel anything she wants. ]

I'm... I'm glad.

[ To kiss, to play, to explore. Her fingers settle against Angel's shaved scalp, stroking behind her ear, thumb massaging the ridge of bone there. With a little pressure it is particularly calming, as it loosens tension all through the skull. ]

I have... been practicing different ways to share memories and sensations.

[ For more serious purposes than kissing Angel, but the point still applies. ]

[circumspector]

[ She's content, shockingly so. Her head settles against Ilde's thighs, hair sprawling out in inky tendrils. Sprawled and comfortable against her and - there's an audible sigh where her fingers find the point in her skull. Because... it's not a secret how much goes in her head, always churning, always pounding. The metal plates grate. Always in need of tune-ups, and the movement of the weather makes her head ache.

But Ilde's fingers ... relieve it. A shudder in her goes still, tamed animal in her lap. She has been awake for a little while, but she never really knows how to let go. But this - this she prickles and then the tension sinks out of her utterly. Makes her eyes close.

Takes her a second to respond. ]

I can tell. What else were you trying to share?

[erbier]

[ There is an ultimate goal: to inflict Dreus on all the other hosts so that they will understand why she views the way she does. But, that is a distant desire, something she would never attempt while they were in the middle of a mission. ]

One of the new hosts, Mara, has been training me. We sometimes try to sync physical movements with my powers.

[ Let her tell you how cool Mara is okay. ]

She is a very strong-willed woman, but warm. Not like Lexa or Parker.

[ Both of whom she hates. ]

[circumspector]

[ She hums, softly, in contemplation as she does, and it's definitely, tricky when Ilde's got fingers on her skin. Turns her all sluggish and like she'd been told about her lion: lazy and full. ]

Like I do with Ren?

[ A sore spot in her ribs, still. ]

Does she have more patience? [ her own private jab, back. She never minded Lexa, not really, an ache of who she wants to be, but Parker -

Well. There's a dead man, and she considers it still to be Parker's fault, and her name spikes a simmer of agitation that she quickly suppresses. ]