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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. ]
no subject
[ Her voice rises as she speaks, and quite earnestly if he were not so much taller than she, she'd have a hand on his throat by now. The cruelty wheels in her, end over end; pinwheel blades. ]
You hope you can soothe me. And if not you'll martyr yourself to my anger to make yourself feel as though you've tried. That's all that matters, isn't it, that you put yourself, bleeding heart and all, out into the fray. Never mind consequences or competency.
[ She turns her head and spits. ]
There you are, Sam. That is what I have for you.
no subject
He's sure she means it, and after their talk after the Zhukov thing, that might actually be what she thinks of him. And under other circumstances, it might hurt. At the very least it'd make him take a step back, maybe get angry, maybe want to prove her wrong.
But he'd gone in here suspecting what state she might be in, and he's heard worse back at the VA, directed at others and at himself. Once upon a time, he'd said... well, maybe not worse, but similar. Anger and hurt and not caring who you take down with you. ]
Do you think it'll make you feel better if you make everyone else around hurt just as much as you do?
no subject
[ Her answer is abrupt, and her hand rises like she might hit him but she flexes it again. Lowering to her side. ]
I don't. I have played at being a part of the values respected here. To keep blood and strife off those who cannot bear it, but that is too many of you. You break too easily, every single one of you, and when I need all of you most you are too weak. You are too weak, you have nothing for me. And I cannot tolerate it. I cannot--
[ She's started to talk in circles. Saying the same things over and over again, rambling as if she can't focus. It's a mixture of disdain and longing and loneliness, possessiveness, protectiveness, viciousness. There is something conflicting in her that she cannot bring together, that hurts her when she embraces it, has been hurting her all this time and without Kylo Ren to keep her bound up in his poisonous clutches, she can no longer keep herself afloat. Can no longer orient.
She longs for power and control so that she can keep them all safe, and lacking it, she instead needs them to realize their limitations and grow. She'd needed that from Ren, needed his respect, needed him to grow with her, for them to be powerful together, for their brood, for their hive. He's gone. He left her, all alone. No one to confide in no one to understand.
There is no longer anyone she feels close to or truly loves.]
I cannot continue to protect all of you. There are too many cracks.
no subject
But he settles back when she lowers it, and he listens. Even when she rambles, he doesn't interject. He's not sure he's here to argue any of her points, not at the moment - if she'd ever listen to him at all, he's not sure it's now. Not when pain sends her rambling and lost.
He wonders how it is she thinks she knows all of them so well that she knows what they can bear and what they can't, that she thinks she knows what will break them.
Sam doesn't ask that, either, because his focus is what she circles back to. ]
No. You can't. It doesn't matter how strong you grow, you'll never be able to. [ It's cruel, maybe. Harsh, definitely, for all that there's nothing mean about his tone. But Sam's never hesitated when it comes to hard truths, and he isn't gonna lie to her. ]
It's the worst lesson I ever learned.
no subject
[ She squawks out, throat tight. She begins anew on some breathless tangent. Something about not being able to play pretend with all of the hosts and their precious ideals. That this world, the next world, all worlds: under their pretty wrappings they are all the burned world underneath. All as futile and cruel.
She's wailing at this point, completely unglued. There's little point in trying to parse whatever things she's saying, she can barely hear herself talking any longer, but the sluice of words --all her fear and anxiety -- continues to pour out of her as if she's sick with it.
It is instinct to try to calm someone that frantic, but she'd all but bite him the second he got any closer to her. The anger is easier to handle than this, and she stops suddenly, staring up at him, eyes wide. ]
Get away from me.
[ The first piece of her garbage circle she can get her hands on she's thrown at him, and the next and the next, just screaming, her voice echoing in the hangar. ]
no subject
Instead his mind brushes against hers, opening up a little - taking in her fear and anxiety and letting it wash over him, drift through the cloud layer over his mind and disappear somewhere in the mist. He's ready to reach out to her more when she suddenly turns back to him.
His wings flare out when she throws something at him, one of them whipping around in front of him like a shield. It'd be easy enough to stand here until she tired of throwing stuff at him, but what's the point? It's clear his presence is only provoking her right now, and that isn't what he wants.
He hadn't wanted her to be alone with her grief, and with the way she kept reaching out over the Nest, projecting the storm inside her to anyone nearby, he'd wondered if maybe she didn't, either - but maybe she'd only wanted to lash out, maybe she doesn't even know what she wants.
For a moment Sam'd thought maybe, maybe she could bleed some of the poison out on him and feel just the slightest bit better for having somewhere for it to go, that she could get to a state where they'd be able to talk a little. That he could tell her that he's living proof that you can move forward, even if she didn't believe him, but that sure as hell isn't the state she's in now. Sam isn't in the habit of trying to push people when it's clear that it's only going to make them worse.
Sam backs off, his mind once again reaching for hers to send acknowledgement. And to press in an idea, wordless and almost weightless, surrounding her like a breeze: it hurts but it doesn't have to be something you bear alone, there are people here who will let you in. When she isn't too angry and too consumed in grief to stand company without lashing out. ]