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CHARACTERS: Ilde
WHERE: Around
WHEN: Day 20 onwards
SUMMARY: 2 boys down, 1 to go.
WARNINGS: I sincerely hope Ilde somehow injures every single person who tries to talk to her. I am here to burn my CR down.
She had woken at the same time, with three other broods. Adara, Shaula, Castor; stars aligned. It had been a cacophony of new minds, of confused, heart broken, frightened things uncertain of just what they had done in answering the call that had brought them here. At first, Ilde had been so certain that the noise of it would drive her mad, she had told Cathaway was much. She had been alone for such a long time, the sounds of people talking and laughing had been too much, rubbed senses raw that had lain dormant for years. Had pushed on her a love and a longing that she had only ever really felt for Dreus, a figure of might and destruction that none of them understood.
Until she found Ren, in the garden she had already decided was her own, and taken his hand to place it down into the soil, for comfort. Instead, she had found the great black cloud that lived in the back of his thoughts. The dark thing that pushed and pulled him, the longing to be free of wrongdoing, to be made a tool, of use, of purpose. Worthy. Special. Their weakness and sorrow had wound together in an instant, brutally tight, thorny. He had hurt her, every moment that she had loved him. She was used to that. She was used to the conflict that tore at him, destiny and power. It was a comforting purpose to her. To love things half-mad with the destruction in their fingertips, she could weather their tirades, their fury, be one soft thing at their side. Planting seeds of comfort, peace, one at a time.
She would be his, if he would be hers. A blood promise, of purpose and belonging. No secrets.
But he is gone now. She feels their bond loosen, letting blood flow again to numb limb, and they begin to burn. She reaches after it, but the mind that has been hers to touch all these months loses all shape, her fingers slip through it. She can do nothing. And then it's gone. Her strings feel cut, a pointless, limp thing now and she sits down where she is without a word. Hurt buzzes in her chest, betrayed.
She could have tolerated any one of the other hosts leaving, none of them really mattered, except for him. She had relearned how to cry when Sam Anders had gone, she doesn't need the lesson repeated. Her cheeks flush with it, tears rolling down her face. Of course he is gone, like all things go. She picks herself up slowly, feeling sick, and angry.
She truly does have a garden of her own, now, and the Station's hallways align themselves for her seamlessly, taking her back to her own private place. The door shuts behind her and is gone. She stays there for the first few days, unseen, but her toxicity is visceral, a stain on the horizon.
Better not to see her.
The Nesting Deck
[ Everything she had thought perhaps to love lies silent in their pods now. Little eggs housing empty minds. She no longer brings gifts, and brushes away withered flowers she had left before, angry with herself for the act to begin with. She is filled with regret, for all she gave, for all she had deigned to take. She sits in the different pods, looking in on the silent faces of all the people she shouldn't have wasted her time to love. All she longs for now is to open up their safe little eggs and throttle them all.
She hates the way they linger. ]
The Training Wing
[ She has never cared for the exercise equipment, has always chosen to keep herself active through actual weapons practice. Always quiet and focused, but now her silence has an electricity and the practice dummy is shredded by the time she is done with it.
She'll take it away to sew back up, almost as vicious with her needle and thread as she was when she knifed it to strips in the first place. ]
The Recreation Wing
[ She's picking through the clutter for a book she can and would want to read. She scans the first few pages of each, hoping for one in her language and her mood darkening the longer it takes. ]
The Hangar
[ She comes down to pick through some of the junk that has been brought back from various planets. She likes to use the various metal pieces to craft with, since there is no one around to use them for their intended purpose... She is struck with the thought of it. Their real purpose being here. Just scraps of junk, breaking one at a time. She loses interest in the project, leaning back against one of the protruding arches from the wall that make the hangar such a tall space, a ring of junk around her. She fiddles with a piece of wire, winding it into a meaningless knotted shape. The sharp edge of it is tearing up her fingers, and she watches as it spots on her white dress dispassionately. ]
The Pool
[ She swims slowly in the dark, retreading a memory that he had once given her to help her overcome her fear, it's the closest she ever feels now. ]
Around
[ She keeps reaching into the dark, reaching after nothing, and the sting of what she lacks awakens in her over and over again. The bursts of reaching, desperation, and then of despair are hardly hidden. Each time, the dark anger boiling up grows only more black. Poisonous. ]
Other Wildcards
[ Bring it on. ]
WHERE: Around
WHEN: Day 20 onwards
SUMMARY: 2 boys down, 1 to go.
WARNINGS: I sincerely hope Ilde somehow injures every single person who tries to talk to her. I am here to burn my CR down.
She had woken at the same time, with three other broods. Adara, Shaula, Castor; stars aligned. It had been a cacophony of new minds, of confused, heart broken, frightened things uncertain of just what they had done in answering the call that had brought them here. At first, Ilde had been so certain that the noise of it would drive her mad, she had told Cathaway was much. She had been alone for such a long time, the sounds of people talking and laughing had been too much, rubbed senses raw that had lain dormant for years. Had pushed on her a love and a longing that she had only ever really felt for Dreus, a figure of might and destruction that none of them understood.
Until she found Ren, in the garden she had already decided was her own, and taken his hand to place it down into the soil, for comfort. Instead, she had found the great black cloud that lived in the back of his thoughts. The dark thing that pushed and pulled him, the longing to be free of wrongdoing, to be made a tool, of use, of purpose. Worthy. Special. Their weakness and sorrow had wound together in an instant, brutally tight, thorny. He had hurt her, every moment that she had loved him. She was used to that. She was used to the conflict that tore at him, destiny and power. It was a comforting purpose to her. To love things half-mad with the destruction in their fingertips, she could weather their tirades, their fury, be one soft thing at their side. Planting seeds of comfort, peace, one at a time.
She would be his, if he would be hers. A blood promise, of purpose and belonging. No secrets.
But he is gone now. She feels their bond loosen, letting blood flow again to numb limb, and they begin to burn. She reaches after it, but the mind that has been hers to touch all these months loses all shape, her fingers slip through it. She can do nothing. And then it's gone. Her strings feel cut, a pointless, limp thing now and she sits down where she is without a word. Hurt buzzes in her chest, betrayed.
She could have tolerated any one of the other hosts leaving, none of them really mattered, except for him. She had relearned how to cry when Sam Anders had gone, she doesn't need the lesson repeated. Her cheeks flush with it, tears rolling down her face. Of course he is gone, like all things go. She picks herself up slowly, feeling sick, and angry.
She truly does have a garden of her own, now, and the Station's hallways align themselves for her seamlessly, taking her back to her own private place. The door shuts behind her and is gone. She stays there for the first few days, unseen, but her toxicity is visceral, a stain on the horizon.
Better not to see her.
The Nesting Deck
[ Everything she had thought perhaps to love lies silent in their pods now. Little eggs housing empty minds. She no longer brings gifts, and brushes away withered flowers she had left before, angry with herself for the act to begin with. She is filled with regret, for all she gave, for all she had deigned to take. She sits in the different pods, looking in on the silent faces of all the people she shouldn't have wasted her time to love. All she longs for now is to open up their safe little eggs and throttle them all.
She hates the way they linger. ]
The Training Wing
[ She has never cared for the exercise equipment, has always chosen to keep herself active through actual weapons practice. Always quiet and focused, but now her silence has an electricity and the practice dummy is shredded by the time she is done with it.
She'll take it away to sew back up, almost as vicious with her needle and thread as she was when she knifed it to strips in the first place. ]
The Recreation Wing
[ She's picking through the clutter for a book she can and would want to read. She scans the first few pages of each, hoping for one in her language and her mood darkening the longer it takes. ]
The Hangar
[ She comes down to pick through some of the junk that has been brought back from various planets. She likes to use the various metal pieces to craft with, since there is no one around to use them for their intended purpose... She is struck with the thought of it. Their real purpose being here. Just scraps of junk, breaking one at a time. She loses interest in the project, leaning back against one of the protruding arches from the wall that make the hangar such a tall space, a ring of junk around her. She fiddles with a piece of wire, winding it into a meaningless knotted shape. The sharp edge of it is tearing up her fingers, and she watches as it spots on her white dress dispassionately. ]
The Pool
[ She swims slowly in the dark, retreading a memory that he had once given her to help her overcome her fear, it's the closest she ever feels now. ]
Around
[ She keeps reaching into the dark, reaching after nothing, and the sting of what she lacks awakens in her over and over again. The bursts of reaching, desperation, and then of despair are hardly hidden. Each time, the dark anger boiling up grows only more black. Poisonous. ]
Other Wildcards
[ Bring it on. ]
rec wing
It's a waiting game to see how she handles it.
The conversation with Prince lingers in her mind, like remnants that she can't expel. She knew what it meant then, and now the situation doesn't even offer her opportunity for diplomatic approach to repair her circumstances. There is nothing she can do. But Lexa is not one who's quick to be lost to hopelessness, to dark thoughts; she's been there before, here and back home when she lost Costia. She refuses to do that again.
So, for her own reasons, no sentiment wafts off of her. It's a decision she made before sensing Ilde, and one she holds to once she does. Some part of her likes to stand in contradition to others.]
You won't find what you're seeking. Whatever it is that you are seeking.
no subject
It looks like maybe she might have something to say, but then she turns and continues to look through the books all the same. Desperation to find a little piece of something that could belong to her, and her world, her memories, instead of all this junk that is meaningless to her. ]
Do you think so?
[ A distracted vocalization. She knows what she wants. She wants the book of poems that she memorized long since. She wants the one that had belonged to Dreus, that he himself had separated out and kept from the fire. She's started to drop the books instead of placing them back where she took them from. ]
no subject
Yes. And I believe you know that, too. And you knew that upon coming in here.
[Presumptuous, but Lexa doesn't like to beat around the bush.]
no subject
Don't think to tell me my own mind, Lexa.
[ She warns, the storm in her eyes. ]
You should leave me. I have no use for you.
[ The softest words she has for anyone at the moment. ]
no subject
[If Ilde has managed to hit a nerve, then Lexa doesn't show it. For what it's worth: she hasn't succeeded. At this point, she's come to expect someone lashing out when she's specifically attempting to achieve that response.]
no subject
Let them. [ A snarl of utter rejection. ] I have dealt with enough in my turn.
no subject
["Dealt with enough." Lexa had tried to see reason with Ilde, but good intentions often fall through.
And she doesn't see the reason for them here.]
no subject
[ Ilde decides, eyes narrowing. ]
You've made your statement of detente, and now you will find a different way to undermine. A convenient enemy to rally others to you where they do not do so naturally? Now that you cannot cast that net on Ren.
[ Her lip curls. ]
You have no say here, Lexa. For days on days you try to find influence with them and they spurn you and take up elsewhere. I will not bend to you either. So do what you will, tell them what you like, or do something of consequence rather than continue on and on to nettle me.
[ There is nothing that Lexa could have said or done that would have pleased her. One way or another, Ilde would have twisted it hatefully, and so she has. Spinning a web of barbs around herself. ]
no subject
[At some point, she had wondered if she had walked into a game that she had no chance of winning. Explaining herself hadn't been difficult. She didn't want information in the wrong hands. She didn't want Ren to act to prove himself. She didn't want Ilde to act in a way that might end a mission, even if she saw that Ilde was able to move in a different direction.]
Any progress you make is simply an illusion to please yourself. I consider the whole of the Nest. Of what it has done and what it will do.
You only care for yourself. Do you think you're really that significant, and of such great consequence to us all? [Lexa hasn't utilized the loss of Ren just yet, but there's a prickling along the edges of her mind to see what it will do.
But first, she'll begin with this attack, to see where it goes.
(Besides, throwing Lexa's lack of power in her face has happened often enough that it feels like a cliché within the Nest.)]
no subject
[ She doesn't repeat back Lexa's words. But it's obvious enough: You only care for yourself. Do you think you're really that significant, and of such great consequence to us all? ]
Shut your mouth, or I will shut it for you.
no subject
She supposes that it's a good thing that the other woman knows little about her. She suspects that it might make any attempt on her less successful. (Suspects. Hopes. They may be the same.)]
no subject
The book she initially comes forward with she swings at Lexa's head, uses it as an imposition between the two of them for a strike or two, but is more than willing to let it loose from her hand. She doesn't know how Lexa fights at all, only knows she won her seat in her tribe with her skill and must be taken with seriousness. 'Seriousness' is not quite the right word, it implies some amount of thought and respect for her opinion, and Ilde really has neither.
What she has is resentment, for every time Lexa has spoken down to her, every time Lexa has cast aspersion on herself and her brood, all the little things that Ilde would have gladly have fought her over long before now -- In the burned world. Her resentment is that she ever bothered to resist, that she ever took this woman's advice, ever listened to her voice. Ever looked to her for guidance when they both had been new, but now at the ends of both their broods, it is still just them, unable to agree. And there is no longer respect, just anger.
All Ilde is willing to concede is that she won't just slit the bitch's throat with the knife at her hip.
But neither is she entirely sure where the line of demarcation is, when will she be satisfied with this, or will Lexa have to knock her out to be done with this. ]
no subject
Lexa's not surprised when the book comes, as a result. There might be idleness to the action, but it's not like her people have always had blades, even if she, like Ilde, has one at her side. When it comes, her hand raises up to push it back. She may not know her strength via the flame that burns within her, but she knows her increased physical strength. Just as her telepathy has grown (almost by necessity), her physical prowess has grown even more.
Once the book is moved, she leans out swiftly to rip it away and drop it at Ilde's feet before she bodily shoves herself against the other woman. Nothing about Lexa is meant to pour her rage into Ilde. Nothing she has lost involves Ilde at all. Her loss occurred back home, and continues to occur every time Murphy or Bellamy remind her of how her accomplishments stand on unstable ground. She's not one to prove herself in what she views as a petty squabble.
The point is to fix Ilde in place, to hold her without having to send flames burning into her hand to weaken her and cause her to lose the fight. Her fingers clutch to the front of Ilde's shirt, eyes meeting hers.]
What do you hope to gain from this? Because it won't be pride. And it won't be whatever has pushed you to act out again.
no subject
How sorry can Ilde possibly be to now bear down on the other with a miasma of terror. ]
( You are a stupid, empty, woman. )
[ Like digging her fingertips into a wound, she touches the places where they have both lost. Ilde doesn't care that the pain is also hers to endure, all that matters is the wound. The hurt. Two broods decimated down to stubs.
A heavy knife falling,
weight and edge driving through
a pale finger laid flat against the cutting block.
It splits through skin and muscle and nerve.
Hacks through bone.
Blood paints the blade, then the block.
A squeal like pain.]
no subject
(And among her people, she has always been aware that her strength had come at the cost of another's will to kill. Lexa knows that she is weaker than Luna—and Luna's face is what blooms. Because she knows Luna is alive. That she continues to maintain her civilization. That she has somehow accomplished something more stable than Lexa could ever manage, if only because she wasn't willing to commit to a balancing act.)
One wound reflects upon another, with Lexa's lying at home, and managing to strengthen the ones here. She knows that she will have to compromise the way that Luna could not in order to survive this experience. Compromise is all she can do.
It's the compromise that she calls upon here, eyes flaring as she responds in kind (her mind is shakier than she'd like, but overcoming weakness is a strength in and of itself, and allowing herself that weakness—)]
( Your choice of insults is poor. )
[Her hand burns hot—this time literally, the lines of her skin appearing like a ground outside of a volcano, burning like the planet burned long ago where she's come from. She breathes into the heat to begin to catch the front of Ilde's shirt on fire. It's a risky venture, given her lack of control—but this is about compromise.]
no subject
She's screaming, her mind is, an inhuman and unearthly ululation of loathing and nightmares. Piercing in its octave, rattling their perceptions of the room around them.
She will kill her, the thought of this as a fight has snapped and all Ilde thinks about now is strangling the life out of Lexa, ripping the eyes from her head, the tongue from her mouth. She'll make a gruesome totem of her, right here, as a warning to all who might seek to defy her again.
The masculine voice, heavy as the night, chants behind her. Urging her on in some profane gibbering tongue from the depths. ]
no subject
Once, she had been asked to be less obsessed with the matter of her death—and far less willing to face it head on. When she had fought the Prince of Azgeda, she knew that there was a chance that her life would end there. Her fight hadn't been with him, but with his mother for taking the first love of her life from her, by cutting off her head and leaving it on her bed to coat the sheets in red. The squabble there hadn't been petty. It had been a fight between nations, a fight with purpose—
and she had killed Nia easily once she had made up her mind. She knew that wasn't where she would die. She knew that wouldn't be her day.
This won't be it, either. This is even less than that.
Lexa doesn't have the memories of the Praimfaya that burned all of Earth, leaving her people to be saved by Becca Pramheda. But she knows that her people rose despite it and became something new. Even without her, they will live, they will survive, just as they always have—and she intends to survive this, as well. This fight is meaningless to her. But more than that, her self-preservation kicks in.
Is it from within her, from within her genetic need to survive? Or is it the symbiote?
(It's both. She won't recognize it right away, but it's both.)
It's both that keeps her from igniting the flames further to give Ilde a taste of what she seems to want, because she doesn't know that she'll survive that either. And it's both that keeps her from showing the girl what it means to disrespect her, to insist on her being any less than she is just because she and others have failed to come up with insults that actually hit her core. Her people kill when they're faced with this, but the symbiote latches on to a change that Lexa made before this existence and emphasizes it. Punitive killing has no value.
Besides, this is barely a fight between them. This is the result of Ilde's pain, and she won't be the destruction left in her selfish wake. She's above that.
Though Lexa's strength begins to leak from her body, she drops her hand for a moment before dropping back and slamming her elbow up underneath Ilde's chin. The aim, the positioning, has one purpose: to end this. Not permanently (she will not kill her, or any other hosts, she knows that she can't), but enough that Ilde's pain is only within herself.
Bruises begin to spread across her skin as she steps back panting, leaving Ilde to drop against the floor. Her lips feel chapped already and an ache surges through her head.
But it's the knowledge that she can neither kill nor wants< to kill that hurts her the most, as she's caught in a crux between the past and present, knowing what should be expected and what she should want and how neither line up at the moment. Should she be above this? What is right escapes her, because this life isn't the life she lived before, and she's known that for a long time now.
(She's changed—when is hard to say, but she has.)]
no subject
The book hits the ground with a heavy thud. He doubles over in pain, the mind he's struggled to block out is suddenly less a heavy weight than the shock and sear of a lightning strike painfully trapped within a split second, vision distorted by the rippling screams and deep laughter that follows. Invisible hands struggle to grip the livewire, to take hold and wrestle it down, and in the real world his body moves toward the source -
- and then it's gone, a terrifying emptiness left in its wake.
He stands in the library, gaze unfocused in front of the scene: Ilde on the ground, and a stranger ( -a tyrant in flames - a tall silhouette with a scarred face - ). His mind tastes/smells/hurts of someone not himself, the fever and parch of infection that he's worked hard to keep at bay finds weakness, fills the space left empty in the wake of their broodmate's loss, his resentment and conflict giving it purchase to finds its path to that place and take hold.
A horrible cry claws its way from his throat as he advances, vision blurred and his mind whipping across the edges of his straining shields. Flesh and bone fist swings at the target. ]
no subject
—and though she had come here to provoke Ilde, to see if her previously overturned leaf was a true thing, she hadn't intended for it to end this way, as it had only been a test—
—but tests fail. Just as she could feel the pain of Hux realizing the guilt of an action that he hadn't regreted before his time in the Station, could feel nothing but sympathy and compassion for something that even she would define as unthinkable, so does Steve, who is undoubtedly closer to those around him. Undoubtedly. Because that is his nature.
Of course, her mind only vaguely registers this, thoughts blurring into one another as she uses the nearby wall to steady herself and try to propel herself out of the way of Steve's attack. Her lips are so chapped that they stick together, almost too difficult to draw apart to eke out a faint sound. Lexa does pry them apart, single hand raising to deflect another blow—]
Steve—[she begins, the single syllable of his name pouring out just above a whisper. She repeats it mentally:] ( Steve— ) [And then projects a vision of them in the kitchen at the Bearings, oddly colored pancakes planted upon her plate as they talked cheerfully of the celebration before.
She would find the strength to fight him, but there is nothing in her stance that shows she has any desire to do that.]
no subject
It's the scent that reaches him, of all things, where voice and visuals fail. Slightly burned not-real-butter in the pan reaches his nostrils and for a split second he's in the kitchen at the Bearings - he's got his fist in the air and he can't - he's in the library and he's got his fist raised to strike and he -
His fist lowers, focus returning to his gaze and his face turning pale as whatever just took hold of him releases. ]
Jesus, Lexa - [ Sputtered, eyes flicking from Ilde and back to Lexa, taking in her injuries, the scent of burned cloth and flesh untangled from the images and sound of Ilde's memory. His features twist. ] Are you alright?
[ What the hell were they doing? ]
no subject
That seems unwise.]
And I will. But neither of us are in the position to do so right now.
[They may not share a brood, but Steve's mind is familiar enough now to sense that both of them aren't in the right position to have this conversation. Lexa would prefer to speak through it, and Steve ... she imagines that what he's been driven to here will be something he needs to examine himself.
Yes, she has her thoughts on the matter, as she does about anyone who lives their life. Her respect for him is what makes her keep them to herself, at least for now.]
no subject
Right - go. I'll... look after her. [ Or find someone that can. ]
(no subject)
no subject
It was their job to be aware, even his, so they knew even before the fight had come to blows that it was building, compounded by the losses, like kindling fed to a fire already burning too hot and too uncontrolled. The decision not to intervene too quickly had not been his, but he also had not argued. They could not be always stopping hosts from butting their heads and snapping their teeth at each other. From venting their anger. They could not always be there, and this had been no one-sided attack. Besides, he had not been near enough to interrupt before their fight had run its course.
At that point- without the taste of blood in the air that had kept his gaze focused on an unseen distance distant, without the echoes of fear shivering down his arms, the rage cut by half- more than half, he sees no need to speed his step. The girl would still be down, and the echoes of the conflict would fade. There were so few broodmates for the fight to echo through. And with Kylo Ren tucked away, tenderly by Cathaway's own hand, the danger was so much less.
So by the time he steps- through a section of the wall that had always just been a wall, to see the damage done, there is only Ilde there, collapsed with the strings of her anger cut so neatly. This was not a positive turn, but it was- understandable, in its way. When he stoops to gather her up off the floor- blood and bruises and the place where nails had caught flesh- he is careful.]
Will you meet me?
[On the nesting deck, where the simple hollowed spaces would help heal even these minor wounds.]
no subject
( Certainly. )
no subject
It was a problem to be solved later. For now he merely accepts her answer and takes Ilde to the place she will awaken, Cathaway's bright mind growing nearer with each step. The girl will wake when she wakes, alone in the warm white light of the same pod she had once awoken in.]