mental link | day: 006

[shri]

[ Her options are at this point, are brood up how much she wants to kill Damon and Elena, or get on with work. She didn't do so well at brooding, though her mind is still so new, so sharp and edged and not kept inside of herself. But in this case, a fire trying to find new kindling to keep itself going. Her own impatience and frustration are evident. But when isn't she anyway - ]

( I was informed when I arrived that we need to be ... ascertaining particular pieces of information.

Have we begun such? If not, should we not begin planning to reconnoitre? )

[ She has already plans, but even so, if it's already been done - well, she's happy to be told if it means she doesn't have to go chasing her own tail. ]

( And does anyone know how to use these - light books - that has the time to show me? It keeps flashing at me and I cannot make it stop. I think it wants something. )

[ The data pad, she means the data pad, she's grouchy at it for not! giving her! the things! she wants! Being a grandma in space is a trial. ]

Comments

[servitor]

( Your highness, I've been at war for twelve years under the command of now two kings and a prickly generals. I can take a few bites. )

[He's used to all of it by now, humor included. He might not be the best at holding his tongue, but at least he's got enough of a sense to know how to treat everyone equally. The royals he's gotten to know are just decent, if reckless, people with some power.

And no, he doesn't drop formalities until he feels comfortable about it. Or he decides it's a joke like with Noctis.]

[shri]

( I will hold you to it, when the time comes.

And - Rani. Call me Rani. I am not 'your highness'. )

[ A fond, if firm correction. She is no European title, and she appreciates, that he doesn't reach for her name. It is to be given, not merely taken. A wall she maintains around herself. ]

[servitor]

[That earns her some points, at least. Nyx would've maintained the title if she asked of him, sure, but she sounds reasonable enough.]

( Rani, then. I'm Nyx Ulric. You're new around here, I take it? )

[He would've remembered anyone with a distinct manner of speech like hers, as well as someone who's actually focused on the task at hand.]

[shri]

[queens who live in brothels don't have much sense of stand on ceremony left any more. But she is welcomingly warm. For all her burning hatred of Lycans and Vampires, she rather prefers being charitable to others. A thought of his name as soft as a touch to the back of his hand. ]

( Well met, Nyx Ulric. Indeed I am. Arrived some three days ago, to my reckoning. )

[servitor]

[He sighs, irritation flaring through the link briefly, the tempered fires of his mind jumping erratically before settling back down once more. It's not because of Ravi, hardly. It's because of the inevitable push back she's going to meet from the others.

Because these people don't seem to understand the concept of the greater good.]

( Well you're going to meet a lot of heavy resistance around here if you start suggesting ideas. Just so you know. )

[shri]

[ She sighs, oh, politics. How tedious. ]

( Naturally. I won't bother with those that are against even the simplest task. We have neither the time, nor I the patience to deal with such.

I will only ask for help, and if it does not come, I will simply do it myself. )

[servitor]

( Nice attitude to have, but it's going to keep dividing us. We can't afford that too much from the way I'm seeing and hearing it. There's a few of us you can count on, at least, if you need us. )</b

[shri]

( Believe me, I would not enjoy doing it all myself. )

[ A laugh that is quick and sharp in her lungs - says that she has done it all, alone, and many times. ]

( For that, I thank you. No doubt, when I have an idea - you might regret that invitation. )

[ Unforgiving is the sort of things she tends to ask in the name of duty. ]

[servitor]

[A light scoff, on his part. Nyx doesn't look back, hasn't looked back, not in a long time. What he does keep from his past, he carries it with him as motivation, not a source of grief.]

( I don't regret a lot in my life, and I doubt the invitation will be one of them. )

[Which is entirely true, including every single stupid thing he's done.]

( Just know the offer's there. )

[He's sincere, even if the link is... slightly braced for some kind of pushback. He's been conditioned so quickly.]

[shri]

[ Oh - but she likes you Nyx. A thud of heartbeat. Not of pushback, but acceptance of that feeling, that feeling the same. Push forward, always forward, with the whole of herself into it. ]

( And the offer is the same in me. Ask, and I will come. )

[servitor]

( Big words I usually don't hear from royalty, your highness. )

[He's joking, obviously, what with the warmth and the cockiness glimmering in the link. If they're to be equals, well, he's going to treat her the same way he'd treat his own. Noctis isn't an exception either, despite being his King.

Then again, he's as lowborn and foreign as you can get in Insomnia, and add to that a soldier who has a bad habit of questioning and defying orders.]

[shri]

( Well, perhaps they aren't worth their titles. )

[ A comfortable open boast, that is teased like fine thread back at him, her mind still too young to the hive if not particular youthful herself, and it delights at least, where she can bark with someone that doesn't mind the bites. Rippling with the laughter that is yellow fire warm. Mirth rolling like bush fire. ]

yo this got wordy? my b

[servitor]

[It's... a little strange, to be frank, to sense and taste flames that were less a blaze and more a source. The fires of his soul aren't unlike hers, in a sense. Fire and lightning, controlled at their best, wild and unyielding at their worst. Asuka's red, angry fire pushed back against his own deep purple skies and blazing flames, crackles of heat and lightning hyperfocused into a purpose to convince her she's not alone.

Still. He's not like Ravi as far as he can see. His flames weren't nearly as tempered. His flames were wild and prone to burst when he would get tested too much, when there was too much to do, too much at stake. It was a welcoming campfire that threatened to be a wildfire at just the right time, when pushed the right way, when the perfect series of events made the flames grow and eat the world. Hadn't he done just that?

He tries, instead, to be cool, like the waters in the forests of his shields. Mutable, powerful, calm. Still a base element.

Still a wild, destructive force that he couldn't outrun. Nyx scrubs his face at the realization that maybe, just maybe, he isn't meant for anything else anymore, only the fight. That all he has going for himself are the skills he's acquired and the capacity to channel the energy into a way that benefits everyone the best.

It's a jumbled mess that passes through his own link rapidly. The flickers of self-doubt disappear as he forces everything so unlike himself into the white-furred, horned beast he's formulated to maintain focus. The coeurl prowling flicks its tail and ears in the proverbial Galahdian forests of his mind.

It's Nyx all over again, with an easy smirk and ready to throw back a few barks of his own.]

( Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe they'll earn it in time. It's how it usually goes. )

I love it so omg what a gift in my inbox

[shri]

[ The only thing, in the end, all men can lay claim too is time. And if the blackwater gave her anything, it was more of that which was so irrecuperable. Time to learn how to hold herself in and of those flames without extending too far beyond it. Learn to treat it - herself - as a tool and no more. To stare so long and hard to her own emptiness and find what stared back and bask in it.

To not be afraid of it, all of it, any more, to know there was no difference, what was Kali the destroyer, but another form of Lakshmi? Her own protection and vulnerability, in and of herself. All the women she is between her own beginning and end, put to kindling to those flames. Gave herself, and to find it gave itself back.

But to that perhaps, she shivers, to the cold of that beast of his mind, slipped against her own, that want, ever, to warm - fire was after all, one thing. To warm. ]

( Let's see if I can earn mine with you, shall we? )

[servitor]

[He tilts his head, in such a way that even the coeurl tilts its head.

Then he laughs softly, shaking his head.]

( I don't think I'm the one you need to impress. Just give the right orders, do the right thing. It's not that hard to earn my faith and trust. And I don't think I'll be disappointed. )

[Yet he knows the words and actions are deceptively simple. After all, it took a series of heroic acts and brash deeds to earn an unrelenting trust from a majority of his comrades. He could've been promoted, been a captain, lieutenant, what have you.

But he didn't. The front lines is where he wanted to be. In every sense, he was the glaive of the king, the knife the legends said came from the gods to slay the darkness.]

[shri]

[ Do the right thing.

If there were words that could make a ruler - any ruler, laugh until they were sick and their advisors begin to talk about soothing drinks to ease that hysterical sound, it might just be that. ]

( What a thing that is to do. Very well. I will attempt it. )

[servitor]

( See? It told you it's not that hard to earn my faith. )

[It's better than giving no comment, even less so for trying. Trying's a pretty good way to go about things in his book, and that earns plenty of respect on his behalf.]

[shri]

( We'll see about that.)

[ Young men could be so very willful about the things they thought were simple. But then, it wasn't so much about earning, she supposed. She would do what she would, she always had. Didn't much ask for except for everything. ]

close it up here?

[servitor]

( Yeah, I guess we will. )

[Young? He hasn't felt young in years. Willful, though?

Willpower is what he has in spades, even when it backfires.]

sounds good!

[shri]

( I'll call on you when the time comes. See how you fare with your promises then. )

[ A good bye, so far as it goes, her mind detangling from his. ]