station72 | mental link

[ They appear on him, bite wound on his neck just starting to heal, burns and bruises further along. He feels them as they mark his skin, sharp stings and quiet aches, but he ignores them. They'll be gone soon enough.

He listens to her instead, unsure of where she's going - but he doesn't argue it, either. She's the second one recently to see as something dangerous, and he guesses it's only fitting that the other one was the Darkling.

Though he wonders what makes her think that he's the most dangerous of all of them. ]

( There're a lot of different ways to be dangerous. What do you see as mine? )

( You think that you're a healer. You aren't. You don't heal wounds, you take them, and you can return any of them that you wish to. No one else has such infinite possibility to harm. )

[ She could only hurt minds, if she wished to hurt bodies she had to be stronger, faster, more clever, but he had them at his fingertips. He had Ren's lightsaber, at his fingertips. ]

[ Oh. She's the first to bring that up with him, but it's not something that hasn't already been at the back of his mind. He calls himself a healer when he does give it a name, not because he isn't aware of the potential of his ability but because it's how he chooses to use it. And it has limitations, as it stands, but that says nothing for its possibility.

His fingers shift absently, like they're going to lace through hers, but he catches himself at the last minute and stills his hand. ]

( It doesn't feel like healing. It feels like a transfer, always has. ) [ But as far as he's concerned, it's not just an ability that makes someone dangerous - it's what they might do with it. ] ( Do you think I'd use it against the Nest? )

( Not yet. )

[ But they all have a long and treacherous ways to go ahead of them... ]

[ He already has, is the thing, against his own broodmate. It hadn't been intentional - it'd been back when he couldn't control it - but he would do it again under the same circumstances. He doesn't regret it.

But that hadn't quite been what he was talking about when he asked the question, and she says the only answer he has for himself. He doesn't know; he can't say what the future holds.

Of course, there's a lot of things worse than physical injury. He doesn't have to tell her that, but the feeling hums across their connection anyway. ]

[ She lifts her hand to rub at the drying blood on her neck, irritated by the way it pulls at her skin. It's been a long time now, since she has sustained injuries in such a way, and now she's been beaten twice. Such an affront, to treat the godking's favored in such a way. But of course none of that matters here.

She says hoarsely, ]

Silence is no argument.

I don't know if I got an argument. I like to think that I'll only ever use it to protect us, but it's not something I'm gonna promise. I've saved a lot of people in the past, but I've killed 'em too.

[ He pauses, briefly, considering all of that. ]

I don't know if that makes me the most dangerous.

You're the only one that concerns me.

[ She's taken measure of all the others, and even if they are currently physically more powerful than she is, she's found some defect that makes them small to her. The rest she knows she can direct on soft ways or disregard entirely. Even the Darkling, the only one she really considers a peer at this point. It's an arrogant little hierarchy she's built inside her head. And out of all of them, only Sam meddles in the background, pulling cards from her tower.

Is that the same thing as being dangerous? Well, it is to her. ]

Although I am sure a few would proffer me as the greatest impediment now.

Edited 2017-04-02 18:33 (UTC)

[ Sam isn't sure that's a bad thing. Most days, he's pretty sure he and Ilde both want what's best for the Nest - he's just still pretty sure that even on the days they both agree what that is, they have different motivations for it. ]

Maybe we should concern each other.

[ But he quirks a tiny smile at her last comment, and doesn't disagree. ]

Probably. But I'd bet most of them never felt grief like that, or don't want to acknowledge shit they might've done.

Not the parasite.

[ She means a vampire, but that's not a creature they have in her world, so she's confusing the description. ]

He is not remorseful for what he has done. He will be unruly, like Petre was.

[ Was. She mostly has the demon under control at this point, it merely took feeding him, cooing to him about how proud they would be of him: Diana, Angel, herself. He was childlike in her weaknesses. ]

[ Most of the time he's heard the word 'parasite' recently, it's been referring to the symbiote, and her use throws him for a moment.

But he picks up what she's talking about when she goes into remorse, and compares him to Petre. And he notes the use of was, too, carefully slots that away. ]

I'm gonna bet he thinks he was justified because he was provoked. [ Sam doesn't entirely disagree - but mostly he thinks both of them could have made better choices. Still, he'll talk to Damon anyway. Damon is... complicated, but he has a good heart. Even if much of it is because of Elena. ] I'll wait to ask if you've got regret until a little more time's gone by.

[ A dull, irritated look crosses her face. Oh, was that how it was going to be? She had provoked him, just as she had been the one to provoke Lexa. Of course. She had thought better of Sam, until this moment. ]

I did not touch him until he touched me.

[ Sour, even more sour as she says, ]

And you needn't wait, I won't be remorseful for myself again. We have already been down that road; shadow's end.

[A turn of phrase: an ending of shadows. All the turns of phrase from her world are about the shadows, death at their hands, waiting around corners. It's actually customary to spit at the end of that particular one, like 'throw salt' or 'knock on wood', but she currently can't work up the saliva, tired, blood encrusted. ]

Make of it what you will.

[ She's through playing nice with the hosts in the hopes of their acceptance. She will be the barbarous bloody thing she has always been. ]

[ Sam makes a face make at her, raising an eyebrow and shaking his head. ]

I said he thinks, not that I thought it, too. He should have left you alone if he wasn't prepared to deal with being lashed out at.

[ It takes very little to provoke Damon, Sam's realized, and while he still doesn't know what Ilde expected lashing out at anyone who looked at her too long - he does know grief isn't logical, and he gets being too overwhelmed to do anything but react.

Sam doesn't really know what happened, and he isn't planning on asking. He's not interested in judging either of them.

Her response isn't unexpected, either - but he's not going to take it at face value, not yet. It's not like he's holding his breath for her answer to change, but he knows better than to assume anyone is at their best for something like this. ]

I'm not gonna make anything of it. Doesn't seem like now's the time for sermons, either.

Forgive me if I lack empathy for a parasite's bloodlust.

[ She answers dully. ]

And I mean what I say. I allowed myself to be fooled that I might belong amongst the others. I don't, and I won't contort for the goal any longer.

[ They will all come together, eventually. Why waste the effort when so many of them would simply fall away from her. She would belong with those who survived alongside her. They could prove themselves to her, not the other way around.]

Nothing to forgive.

[ It's just an expression, Sam knows, but he says it anyway. For a moment, he's quiet, considering her closely. His thoughts are still hidden beneath his cloud layer, but there's a hum of contemplation across the mental link. She has never been one who seemed to be concerned about retaining her individuality, who opposed bonding with the symbiote or integrating more into the Nest. ]

You're part of the Nest. You'll always belong. The longer we go... even if you don't feel your own regret, one day you may feel someone else's.

[ A sermon indeed. She feels so sorely misunderstood in this moment, as she so often does. Some of this sensation is assuredly of her own making, as she too does not understand. What we imagine others to think of us reflects most clearly what we think of ourselves. ]

I am part of the Nest. I await the rest of you.

[ Even though she's only repeating what he'd just said, it sounds... different, coming from her. As though they mean two different things, and he realizes they probably do. ]

You're a deeper part of it than most of us, but you're still saying I. You still think of us as separate from you. Do you really want a closer connection with someone like me?

[ That sense of not being understood rises in her and she flexes a hand angrily, staring down into her palm. ]

I see no conflict in the Nest and myself. The symbiote may muddy the petty things, my likes and dislikes, my memories, but it cannot take what I am.

[ Just as Dreus could not. He had warped her at the edges with his infernal heat, turned her mind into a knotted wreckage of mad dogma, but she was still Ilde. A survivor, steel willed. ]

I do not speak of us as a group because too many of you rebuke me when I do, but rest assured you are all of me, and we are all of this Station.

[ He listens, part because he can feel her frustration at not being understood, and part because really, he'll always listen to her. He might not like what she says, and he might not always believe what she's saying is the whole truth - and admittedly, he might not always understand what she means or her motivations behind it - but he'll always listen.

He doesn't agree, though. There's so many things he believes she does for herself, so many times she shows no empathy for the other Hosts, no remorse for causing them pain. When she doesn't seek to understand them the way that she wishes to be understood, or seek to make who they are a part of herself the way she wants to impart herself on others. It's not that he thinks all of that is bad, exactly, but it makes her an individual. Means she considers herself separate from those who she disapproves of.

She is a part of the Nest, but only as much as it serves her own purpose. But maybe he's misunderstanding again, maybe they still have two very different ideas of what the Nest is, and what it means to be a part of it. ]

I wish I had your confidence. [ That the symbiote can't take who he is, he means, if he stopped fighting it. If he stopped using it only the way he wants to, and really, does that make him all that different from her? ] You didn't answer my question, you know. You say we're all of you, but do you really want everything about me to be a part of you?

Do you think that you are such a unique man that nothing of you yet existed in the Nest?

[ There's a bite to her words, caused by her frustration, but that hurtfulness trails off as she speaks, ]

Every facet of us was already here, long before we hatched. Every part of you, is already a part of me.

[ And it makes his question a moot one. It was not about wanting or not wanting. ]

What you think of as surrender is merely accepting the reality that you and I are hands and eyes to the same body.

[ It stings, briefly, but only briefly. He doesn't, not really. Or rather - he thinks that no one exactly like him exists out there, but that there's likely many traits of his, many aspects of his personality, that already existed in the Nest. ]

I guess it could be argued that hands and eyes have very different perceptions of the world, when you only take into account what they experience individually. It's only when you combine it that you get the whole picture.

[ But it's hard to believe that she considers him so much a part of herself. ]

And yet you still don't approve of the way Steve and I do things. I still concern you. What parts of me do you see already in you?

I don't disapprove. [ She corrects him, bitterly. ] I'm merely concerned you'll get yourselves killed with your idealism, there is a difference.

[ And she glowers at him over it. Jealous of his privilege to his lofty ideals. Angry that he pressures her to list out what they share, as if he doesn't already know. Her voice lowers, every word soft and carefully formed with spite, ]

Let me ask you this, Sam Wilson. Do you think you could reach out to me as you do, if you saw nothing of yourself in me? [ Her head tilts, eyes narrowing. ] But to you, it is a wound to be sewn. You want to be the better version in all this.

[ That is what Aleksander will tell her: They believe you can be shown the error of your ways. Rehabilitated, if only you demure to your betters - ]

Until the Nest disposes of me, we are judged only by our efficacy. So let me ask you. Who discerned the locations of the bombs? Who fed the hungry of the Subspace? Who gave the people of Concordia the names of those who sought to fell their society?

[ She's radiating now, her indignation hot. ]

Every answer is me. While the rest of you squabbled over ways and means, I addressed our mission and even let the lot of you play heroes. Let you crow over your victory without interruption. And then all that has happened in the aftermath is insult and dismissal, and you are all complicit in it. Not a voice raised in protest. Even now. What will you do, go apologize to Damon Salvatore for my poor manners? Like Steven, apologizing to Lexa after she tried to burn me alive?

[ She pushes herself to her feet and spits. A barbarian gesture for how she will take no further part in this. ]

Take your misguided concerns elsewhere.

Edited (that was a different list 8V ) 2017-05-03 19:36 (UTC)

[ Sam laughs, low and humorless. ] Now who's the one with the sermons? I'm not the better version of anything, sister, and I don't apologize for anyone but myself. You don't understand me half as well as you think you do.

[ He pushes himself to his feet, her indignation sparking his. They're both hypocrites, maybe, sneering at the paths they've each chosen, both believing they have the best way of things - he doesn't, not really, he doesn't know what the best way is and he only sees it as different - but if she's going to call him on his, he's going to call her on hers. ]

You wanna bitch about the things most of us don't know you've done and how unappreciated for them you are, you wanna gloat about how enlightened you are about the Nest and how much better your approach is? You go right ahead. Keep thinking of yourself as a victim and martyr through all our injustices towards you, make everything everyone else's fault, cause hell, it ain't like any of us are really worth your time.

At last, you've grasped the concept.

[ Her grudge in this moment is entirely unabated. She knows this is what the others think of her, has heard from Lexa often enough. That's fine. Let them play act that they are faultless and heroic. They can die upon those swords. ]

[ Sam shakes his head, pulling in a breath and letting it out. He doesn't want to fight with her, not really, and he can't tell if it's her irritation he's feeling or his own. They're just talking in circles around each other now. ]

We could be a part of the Nest for a hundred years and I don't know if I'll ever really grasp you. I don't think you'll let me.

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