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]

[ Her first thought is it's not like being a siren. No, no, it's nothing at all like it. Being a siren isn't -- forgiving. It flows, like this feeling that washes through her. Flows, too, but so does magma. The hot, chew up, spat out core of the earth. Feeling her skin crack and heal itself like the Badlands in desert and rain. Like learning how to breathe each and every time, it left her gasping and ruined.

But she'd take it, she thinks, for this - she's never full, she knows, she's been empty since the day the Eridium left her, since the symbiote took over a dead body with a working mind and kept it running. The hive, it helped, gave her something outside of herself to keep her distracted, but this doesn't feel like that either. Keeps it down, keeps it so far down because to look at it, to acknowledge it, was to give into it. Push that pillar over and she'll come tumbling apart like a house of cards. She can't have anyone know that, can't have anyone see that. She tries to cover it as best she can in the way she's stumbling through being part of the hive, because it gives her plenty of reasons why she should savour the heavy feeling of her skin, the way she can feel muscles pull at bones.

Not least of all ( Ahsoka's forehead pressed to hers, fingers locked tightly, promising her she never had to be alone again ) what she had found here.

Because she doesn't know life, she has it now and barely knows what it means, she doesn't know living except in the surety that she has not.

This is - this is pure life. She has been holy, but she has never been pure like this. Wrapping around her, promising her something she knows she has no right to be near and it would be easier to hate it but, junky craving, ugly in her veins, she's just so - so - empty, and as Ahsoka, what Ahsoka is, settles inside of her bones, into those empty places. ( After fire, comes growth, she not made to grow things but - Ahsoka is, Ahsoka is, Ahsoka is - ). Tells her, feels it, promises her that connected holeness. Something pitiful and dead in her lungs that begs it to leave her alone, she's not made to grow back in the same breath that she wants to beg it to never leave - it, Ahsoka, let her stay in this space inside of her because nothing's been the same since. Holy and she's profane for touching it, the destruction she's caused, the lives she's taken. Not all Jack, never all Jack, but Jack's daughter, and just as vicious -

It's almost too much - but she shoves it deep, shoves it low, Ahsoka doesn't need to know, no one does. Like shoving the back of her hand into her mouth to keep the low noise out of herself as Ahsoka works. She's vile, she knows, wretched, sick to her core, she wants the life that ebbs through her so much that:

She'll never say a damn word of it. She never had before. It was easier to just let it burn up the inside of her throat. Letting Ahsoka's perusal draw her back, anchor her.

Is this what being clean felt like? This is going to destroy her. How dare it, how dare it remind her of the thing she knew better about. Hope, it promises, all things are connected, such is life, such is transience. When a siren dies, another one is born. It will continue, there is an after, and it's the thousand people that she can feel brimming in Ahsoka's awareness.

Ahsoka - it's what draws her back. She'd said to trust her, and here she was eating her words. Finds herself hanging on just where she must to keep them tethered. Feeling her word, move through the corridors of the machine's inner workings, look over it piece by piece with surety, and trust in her and it stills, that burning, twisting feeling, (God, is that what being clean felt like?)

Trust Ahsoka, trust herself, that's what she had said. Trust, trust in them both for this. It's hard, to keep her tone unaffected. Doesn't want to worry her. She never wants to worry Ahsoka, and that's - what she needs. She can work through this - she had promised, against the after taste of chemicals in her systems, that she would never let that trust be a lie again.

It hurts, hurts because she will never not want this, she will never be that kind of whole, but - she can be something else instead. Grits teeth, closes her eyes, forces herself forward against it. Not anymore, Jack. ]

( That.... That looks like it. )

[ Words far off, polite as she always is, she can work through this. She has before, even if it didn't cause her to go stiff then hot then lax as some many things moved through Ahsoka, moved through her.

No, nothing like being a siren at all. She'll pay for this, later, when Ahsoka leaves, she'll heave her guts up and hate herself for what she never had a choice about. She'll melt something in rage and cry for three hours, but she'll do this - do this for Ahsoka, and do this for herself. ]

[snippycup]

[As close as they are, the fact that they are one, makes it impossible for Ahsoka not to feel Angel's reaction, the surprise and initial recoil from the purity of the Force. She had expected as much -- though she was born into the Force, its presence could easily be overwhelming, even to her. She respects the other woman's personal space, her mental scape so entrenched in the mix of themselves, and opts not to acknowledge it.

But she does go slower, allowing Angel to sink into the flow that pushes back against her own while she works. A warm embrace, a lullaby, power and surety. The Light comes easily to Ahsoka -- the Dark, deep seeds waiting to be watered, but buried far beyond simple reach. She knows in a way that Angel cannot that the temptation for the easy way out is too great for an untrained mind, so she doesn't linger long.]

( Almost done. )

[A reassurance, a warning, a promise. The sickness stewing in Angel's gut stirs in her's in turn, and she swallows it down for both of them.

She had needed to learn to be strong, when her bond with Anakin had severed. She'd never known such pain to exist in the whole of the galaxy, such sudden emptiness and nothingness that made her want to scream and cry. The lack of light from all the Jedi she had once felt, and then that loss--

It was a lot. She doesn't expect or desire anyone else to be familiar with the sensation, but it has made her fortitude into a shell that could not be penetrated easily.

A soft hiss comes from the droid as the coolant starts to flow into the chamber, though no activity comes from him. After all, she had unplugged him to make certain that they didn't electrocute themselves.]

( There. Now--we must let go. )

[She would not force Angel away, but she gives her the sense that she is ready to return to herself -- a gentle and reassuring squeeze of her hand, and then a lightening.]

[circumspector]

[ Like any drug addict, she knows, there's nothing like the first time. There's nothing like that first high. Where her whole body had been thundering with its own power. But she's been good, she's been so good. She does not think about ( only every other moment ), she sits at the foot of her bed and says her prayers to Cathaway and Prince with clasped hands, she kisses Ilde and holds Ahsoka's hand and tells herself how good it is all. She ticks off her check-list every day to remind herself that she doesn't need it, not even when she feels shockingly inadequate.

She feels like she could lose time to this, the thin high gasping in her throat as Ahsoka works. Somewhere between telling her to hurry up, she can't take much more of this, terrified, terrified of herself - because what she really wants is to keep her there. As long as she can. Forget everything again, forget how hard breathing, walking, moving is because she had stopped caring about it.

Takes more courage than she ever expected, when she does let go - promised, she tells herself, she's going to keep her promises now, she's going to be better, now. Wants to cry and sob and beg her like she begged Jack not to go but, she does.

Pulls away, and when she comes back to herself. God, she's heavy - she's so, so heavy and so - so empty, and she isn't sure her legs are going to walk and she thought she was past her mornings like this. Cold sweat on her neck, the palms of her hands, thin, quick breaths she tries to even before she speaks. ]

Did you find it? [ opens her eyes, and oh she misses her, she's right across from her, hand on hers and she's so very, very far away. Asks like she doesn't know when she knows exactly because Ahsoka had settled so inside of her, moved through her own abilities and -

- it doesn't matter, she was here to help Ahsoka, that was all. She is better than she, she does not need this. ]

[snippycup]

[Its impossible for Ahsoka not to feel Angel's panic, though she does a rather respectable job of keeping the emotion from bleeding into both of them while Ahsoka work. But she's aware, and she moves as swift as she can manage using another's body and mind. She feels Angel withdraw, and its something sticky -- not painful, just vaguely uncomfortable.

And when she's gone, she's not really gone. Ahsoka blinks back into herself, grips Angel's hand a little tighter when the heavy feeling settles in her own bones for just a moment -- not because she fears falling, but because she knows Angel's words are just that, something to fill the emptiness. There had been no way to predict how a non-Force sensitive person would react to suddenly being aware of its presence, but she had a feeling that it wasn't going to be simple, even for someone who seemed to have similar sense.

It had been there since she was born, since she was but a girl. Maybe there was potential for her to get used to it -- but she's not interested in finding out.]

Are you alright?

[She ignores Angel's question.]

[circumspector]

[ She so clearly isn't, shaking and sweating and rolling something worse than all of that. The colour drained from her face. Lips thin and bloodless, the taken too quick deep breaths. ]

Can you get me some water?

[ Closes her eyes, trying to drawn herself back down, in, out, where was her collar? Cathaway had said she would need to learn how to manage this herself. Her body surging like she still had eridium, when she didn't, she was going to burn herself out right now. Concentrate, concentrate, concentrate. ( Angel! You listen to me - ) ]

I'm sorry this is so late, cries

[snippycup]

[She doesn't even blink, raises her hand with the intent to call the nearest bottle of water with the Force before she remembers the situation. The Force drained the symbiote embedded in her skull (and strained the rest of the Nest), and given that Angel was still reeling from their encounter, it felt disrespectful.

So instead, Ahsoka gives a confident nod, and gently sets Angel down on the floor so she can retrieve what had been asked for.

When she comes back, she looks a little guilty. Her tone is full of apology as she untwists the cap of the bottle before extending it to her.]

I'm sorry, Angel. I should not have allowed that.

gnaws on

[circumspector]

[ She shakes her head, taking the water. ]

It's not on you to know about these things. [ she knew, but more than anything, she doesn't want to let it affect her. Most of the time, it doesn't. Most of the time, she's better than that. She's all outward motion that doesn't slow down for much if she can help it.

Rather she drops her eyes to the water bottle, bringing it to her lips. One moment wasted to the inhale of the fresh clear taste of it - water does not have a smell, exactly, there is chemicals in it, the compounds that make up water itself, but there's a clearness to it. Blank, clean. She needs that then. ] I'll be fine. Honestly.