station72 | [closed-ish] all the way north on the train the sun

[ For herself, this time away from the others is the quietest anything has been since she escaped the enemy to this Station. It is welcome to her, beneath whatever veneer she wears, she will always long for quiet. For little more than the breath of a simoon across a wasteland, for little more than the stir of leaves as spiders clambered through them. The little noises of the Station itself have been acceptable in that way. Its sighs, the locus of its strange sounds, not quite words, not quite mechanical.

Cathaway and the Prince are mostly tolerable companions in this. They are quiet in their own ways, and leave her be, except... Now here she is with Cathaway, watching her movements quietly, suspicious of why she's been summoned but unwilling to fret openly about such a thing. ]

Not as you suggest, no.

[ Not in a kitchen, not with a recipe. She has cooked small vermin over flame in her life, that is the extent of it. The rest has been as Cathaway knows it: the drip of fruit, the comfort of renewable food grown at her own touch, the sense of her importance that she be blessed enough to eat of it, the intoxicating and unearthly ozone of the Godking's magic intertwined with the dirt, greenery, and stagnant water. ]

I had not the means.

[ And now she had not the inclination, she ate what she herself grew, simple and raw. ]

Fair enough. She - Cathaway, we mean - didn't do much of it either.

[The tough shell of the trust's peel falls away from her knife and into the counter with a hollow clack.]

We thought it would be nice to have everyone together when they come back to the Station. Unfortunately, free food is often the only good motivator to get everyone in the same room.

Here-- [She turns the knife deftly in her fingers and offers it out to Ilde. There's a small collection of like fruits to be carved up.] Would you help us with that?

[She does, after all, know how to use a knife.]

[ She comes. Indeed, this is a task she is quite practiced at. Her garden had been intended for Dreus, and sometimes he intended lavish feasts of fruit and vegetables. Camille's violent demise was tied to such a scene, or rather the witch had been tied to a chair before such a scene.... Ilde tries not to think on it. That particular memory disturbs her.

Instead, she begins to work on the next bowl, comfortably and mindlessly peeling and cubing. ]

Would it? [ She asks eventually, as her thoughts settle. ] Be nice to have everyone together.

[ She isn't convinced of it. So many of them need more time before they will be even halfway pleasant, in her mind. ]

Edited 2017-04-24 16:38 (UTC)

[She laughs, absent and melodic. That's fair as well. Half the hatches are unmitigated disasters, sharp or brutalized or both, and the rest-- well, they're an incongruous selection of beings to be sure.]

Be that as it may, we would like to do our best to foster a more natural environment of companionship. It seems like a missed opportunity to expect the lot of you to care for one another when we've done nothing to assist you.

[Not that one meal around a shared table would fix anything, but for some people it would be enough to pretend. As she'd told Prince - fake something with enough frequency and eventually it becomes true.]

[ Ilde sighs heavily. ]

I never achieved the understanding I had hoped for. Nor the strength in my brood, that I knew was there.

[ She responds, eyes on her work, the blade pressed down beneath her thumb as the waxy skin of some wildly fuchsia fruit spools off. There is a lack of particular emotion to this statement, it is more a status update than her usual fraught confessions to Cathaway. The woman knows what she had wanted, what she had tried to share and show with the others. ]

Perhaps the others will do better.

[ She doubts it, but if it's Cathaway's desire to try, then there's no reason not to. It's not like Ilde has to attend, and she likely won't. ]

[There's a large head of something like a cabbage; Cathaway draws a hefty knife and makes short work of separating it into two halves, firing out the brilliant blue gelatinous middle then curbing that. Her hands are efficient, capable even if she has no joy for the task.]

We realize this may sound insensitive and don't mean to make light of your loss, but- [she sweeps the cubed jelly into a small bowl, then repeats the process with the next leafy head.] Remember that your brood is just a piece of a whole. It's true that their loss is painful [devastating even] but you are still a leaf on a branch on a tree even if that branch has become... sparse.

['This too shall pass' is a stupid phrase and she doesn't believe in it. But maybe 'This is just one part' isn't so difficult a concept.]

[ She quirks the vaguest of smiles, her exasperation still muddling it sharp at the edges, but she knows exactly what Cathaway means. She and her elder have had their differences, but Ilde has always been more alike to her than not. More than one of the others has said something to the effect of 'who will be the next Cathaway.' What a limited view. Cathaway was just one part. Ilde was another. ]

Thank you. [ She says softly. ] Loss has always driven me forward.

[ She opens up. Part burgeoning flower, part spider web made to sing. In the absence of her brood, other voices have risen up more clearly. She hears them, listens to their disparate canticles, and increasingly has begun to add her own. Her own tale, her own grievances and beliefs, a contribution to a greater dream. ]

( You seem different today. )

[The transition to the mental length is as natural as her grip on the knife's smooth, cool handle. The tough leaf separates under the blade--]

( Is that right? We must be careful when the Station is breached. Our attentions must focus here in case some danger manifests. )

[While moored in the void, there was no reason to pin her attention so completely to the Station or its resident Hosts. No, for the most part she's better served by being Elsewhere - eyes and ears and thoughts leaking in from across the universes. But she can't afford to be distracted while the Station is exposed.]

We hope that's a good thing.

[A small joke.]

( Is this you, centered? )

[ In a way, that would make sense to what Ilde thought she was noticing. A forthrightness and banality that she did not normally associate with the woman. Was that why they were here, over this menial task? Without any particular inhibition, she begins to feel out the shape of the mind she touches. Pressing in to the texture and grooves of it.

She carries on their original conversation just as seamlessly, ]

It is always a difficult journey, but I have never been taught that which comes easy is of any worth.

[ She might have said something similar to Ren once, kissing a face wet with furious tears, the cruelty of any true destiny... Has she managed to twist her suffering into some mark of her righteousness? Of course she has. That is her way, it is how she has kept herself together this long. Why stop now. ]

( What will you do, should danger appear? )

( Centered is something of a false equivalency. But this is us here as opposed to...us in a series of other places. )

[Is thought in the same breath as--:]

If possible, we would abandon this universe and make our way directly back into the void. Ideally we would be in a position to reboard all the Hosts currently at the Waypoint. But we would prioritize the Station's escape. It can't be compromised.

[In the same moment as the rise and fall of the knife's heel, the blade slipping through the gel and clacking in rhythm against the countertop board.]

They don't understand.

[ This isn't a revelatory statement. Ilde had not understood either, until the Station had taken her daydreams and made them into reality: root and fiber and petal. With her brood gone and the others at a distance, even, she has spent only more time listening. ]

I attempted to explain but, quite plainly, they care more for their heroics than anything else.

[ A pinch of annoyance, a sore point for her as of late. One reason, of several, that she is here on the Station, and not below lurking in dark corners, ready and able to coerce and condemn. She wonders, idly, what it would be like to take Cathaway from the Station, truly. Take her, her deft hands, and their knife into the street. ]

( What can I do, to help? )

[ The Station was a priority. ]

Edited 2017-04-26 05:23 (UTC)

They'll learn.

[She sounds unconcerned, the overlapping murmur of her mind pausing for a moment of simple clarity. It's true. Two things happened to Hosts: either they learned and they lived, or they didn't and went somewhere else or stopped all together. Maybe it's a cruel version of education, but nothing she said or did would change their minds. She has long given up at shaping the motivations of beings who become Hosts. Loyalty isn't bought, it's earned]

As for helping - for now? Just this. [She sweeps the cubed gelatin aside and begins on another.] If danger comes to this place, we may call on you to assist in escaping. But for now we must simply watch and listen and care for this place as best we can. Which means, naturally, all this.

[A silly banquet is an incredibly ridiculous way to earn affection, but small motions were better than grand ones. At least for this.]

[ A contained bristle. She does not want to help the others escape. She wants to see who makes it, wants those who have made their brash plans to suffer over those who do not. But would she truly stand by that point in the heat of the moment. No, unlikely, even she was not quite so detached. She slices into a fat pitted thing, its tough rind calls for her to lift from her elbow and push from her shoulder. It is a nice, rough, wrangling in a fit of pique. Brief, hot. Then gone. ]

I can harvest a bit more.

[ And it probably won't even be poisoned. Not even Lexa's bowl. That one she'll just spit in, she imagines that with a deep, vengeful pleasure. Smooth as pudding. ]

The garden is doing well.

Edited 2017-04-26 05:35 (UTC)

[She misunderstands - not in helping the others escape, but in helping the Station back to the void. It takes great effort to move Station 72 and doing so quickly would be...demanding.]

We're glad to hear it. If you'd like to prepare some of your things for this, we won't refuse it. Thank you, by the way, for tending to the plants so diligently. We're only good with the lilies.

[She cores the last cabbage head, cubing its heart with exacting snaps of the long knife. Then she sweeps the sum into a waiting dish and sets it aside.]

Tell us - how do you feel about the other Hosts? What is your estimation of them?

[ Ilde would be happy to know of her own misunderstanding, but in the moment her satisfaction with her pique is blinding. She is angry with them, the others, for all the ways -- perceived and otherwise -- that they fail and disappoint her. This arrogance makes her happier, calmer, than playing peers with them. In that way... to ask her what she thinks and feels... it will comes from such an unreliable source. ]

They don't understand.

[ She repeats, scooping out thick black seeds from the center of puce-colored flesh. They are the size of marbles, and she flicks them off the tips of her fingertips into one of the bowls now carrying only peelings. They clatter against the ceramic. ]

They're foolish and soft, which can be charming, but more often impractical.

[ By Ilde's estimations only a small handful have any sense. ]

[She hums, a small acknowledgement as she wipes her hands on a thin towel.]

But specifically - who do you find impractical and who is charming and why?

[There's no crueler concept than thinking of the Hosts as a series of small tools, but there is an element I'm that which can't be denied however much she or anything else might prefer to. Evaluating their use is important. How better to hone them?

(And if it sharpens Ilde in the process? Well, let no one say Cathaway has no experience in this.)]

[ A bitter smile curves to Ilde's lips, she turns her head to look at Cathaway. There is an affection to her look, but it is held aloft by ambition. An ambition to be more than this woman. A dream of a crown of fire, and fear. ]

You may spy on them in your own time.

[ She's not refusing to answer, merely laughing. What Cathaway asks for is precious, dangerous. Disarming. Like being asked to lay out her throat for her favorite knife. ]

There is a cluster of them who flock to Steven and Sam. Neither of them are showing capable leadership, and it makes all those under their sway less useful. I spoke to Sam on this, to encourage him to tighten their ranks. He mistrusts me, he hears beneath what I say.

The rest are mercenary, perhaps useful if they do not become too enamored with the sway of the larger group, and its particular brand of moralizing. Their sense of justice is what will drive individuals away, and I may be able to approach them one to one.

Not Lexa, not Addison, not Damon. Though whoever reigns Damon's wildness will be a desirable contact.

I have Petre well in hand, but my allies have fallen away.

[ Even the Darkling will go. She will just have to handle everything herself. ]

Edited 2017-04-26 16:40 (UTC)

[Something like satisfaction blooms in her, a seed flowering. Cathaway smiles as she sets the knife aside and moves on to preparing another ingredient. It's not a laugh, but the sensation is close to it - that, or a secret kind of pride.]

Yes, we thought the same. Every time a new host hatches, we have hopes they'll be a practiced person to wrangle the array of you. But it seems we must both make due. [It's clear they're in need a politician, not a war commander - Lexa and Shepard might have had their fair share of doping out orders, but that wouldn't stand to unite the disparate young Hosts.

(Not for the first time, she misses Sam Anders--)]

You know, you won't make new allies loitering in the Station like this. Not that we mind the company.

[ Cathaway's pulse for Sam hits her like a hand compressing around her throat. Ilde's lips thin, eyes darkening. She had still been so hopeful, when Sam had gone from them. He had instilled her with such promise. Cathaway is right, he had been a good leader. Able to bond and bind others in a way Ilde did not have enough time to study. She thinks he might be disappointed in her, but she can't care about that. He isn't here. None of them are, not even Steven though he walks the waking world. She has to do what she needs to do to protect herself, her deceptively fragile psyche, already splintered and spit at the hosts who had tried to console her. ]

I will do what I can. I have not the open charisma to draw them to me in droves, it will only come with time and the right moments.

[ Cathaway should know, really. She too lacked that open effusiveness and warmth that put people at ease, but they would come. Or they wouldn't. ]

We can't always hold their hands.

Edited 2017-04-27 00:12 (UTC)

Unfortunately true. [At present, in this exact location, she only has two hands - an exhausting design flaw, honestly speaking.]

But we could afford to be a little more [a soft noise] diplomatic. We're at a disadvantage because beings don't find us trustworthy - which, understandable. But incredibly annoying.

[Is she talking about herself or is she including Ilde? Difficult to say.]

It seems we must make an effort to be agreeable.

Must we?

[ Ilde is rather tired of the effort, and quite honestly she can't imagine that Cathaway finds it any more enjoyable, otherwise she might've done it from the start. She sighs with a shake of her head, taking a cube of a fleshy wet fruit that she has just carved from its tough shell and eating it languidly. ]

I think we should observe this fete, and decide from there.

[She laughs again, bright and clear as crystal as she slashes through another fresh fruit. The knife is sharp enough that all the juices don't run immediately free of it.]

You're a nasty young woman, Ilde.

[It sounds like a compliment.]

I've grown more comfortable with that.

[ And in growing more comfortable with what she is, she has found herself more comfortable with that archetype's place within the Nest. Blossoming rapid and aggressive like a weed. She is, assuredly, no longer the little girl who awoke here and cried to Cathaway. ]

This has been a good talk, for us.

[Yes, she's noticed that - the comfort. It would be impossible not. The recognition of it is relief mingled with concern, a latent aggressive pride tinged with a low melancholy or fear. Brilliant lights either shine for an eternity of burn away, she thinks.

And smiles, preferring for the moment to be optimistic and she wields the knife. The summery, gentle heat cheerfulness of her permeates the room, the glint off the sharp edge of the blade, through their link.]

Yes, we agree. We should do this more often.

[ The atmosphere that Cathaway creates tastes strange at the tip of her tongue. No, she thinks, soft. We shouldn't. This was a moment. So different from every other. They will, neither of them, ever be these two people, in this moment again. There was nothing here that could be replicated.

She sets down her knife and looks at Cathaway. There, at the tip of her tongue where the taste of summer lingers, an infuriating question is burning. An inadequate question that does not encompass what she truly wants to say. She rolls it over in her head: Who are you. It's making something pinch in the back of her thoughts. She's about to open her mouth and try to express it anyway, but the realization comes.

She exhales. Her head tilts at Joanne Cathaway, and sees.

Centered is something of a false equivalency. But this is us here as opposed to...us in a series of other places.

Their conversation until now takes on a different color, a sensation Ilde is growing used to. Used to the way things change, as her point of view does... It began the day she awoke in the Station to discover there was more than she had ever imagined. Discovered her world was the manifestation of one terribly powerful man's wretched perceptions. ]

You've only to ask, dear.

[closed-ish] all the way north on the train the sun

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