mental link;

[shri]

[ Knock-knock -

- or something like the creak of city gates of her wanting to reach out to anyone else in the hive that will respond. ]

( These ability we have aside from communication. I require a trainer for my own.

And a decent explanation of what they are and their pitfalls. I am not familiar with this kind of... magic. )

[ Yeah she can't think of another word for it. ]

Comments

[sistershoggoth]

( Magic is a really downer word for it. We're telepathic, not wizards.... )

[shri]

( There is a difference?)

[ More curious, than defensive though. ]

[sistershoggoth]

( Yeah, I mean the end result is the same, don't get me wrong, shit. )

[ She pauses to think of examples. ]

( The big difference is, if someone decided to autopsy us, they'd find the thing in us that causes this. That's not magic, that's a symbiotic relationship with a parasite that's nervous system has developed to transmit hive thought in complex host organisms. If it was magic, there'd be no physical evidence that you could point to as having a physical cause in us. )

[ The sentiment of a shrug. ]

( It's arbitrary as shit, I just don't want to live in Harry Potter world, ok. )

[shri]

( .......... Harry Potter? Who is he? )

[ Okay right, carrying on. ]

( The Half-breeds I wage war with are certainly physical in their changes. No matter how you cut them up, and I have killed a great many in my time. Would that be science or magic by such a definition? )

[sistershoggoth]

( A wizard from a book, it is absolutely not important. )

[ It wasn't even a book Annie liked, she'd only read it to make inane small talk with her classmates aka ignore them while pretending to be engaged. ]

( Dunno, I haven't autopsied one. I have met girls that can morph into any animal in the rainbow, they got flexible as shit cells and a rolodex of DNA built in to them, fuck knows why, but if you had the right equipment you could see it in their cell structure. )

[ Why would anyone know that? Cuz the headmistress experimented on them to ascertain such things, duh. ]

[shri]

( I really do fail to see how that is not magic? That sounds exactly as a half-breed transforms. )

[ Somewhere Tesla is sighing deeply at her confusion. ]

[sistershoggoth]

( If you can explain it with science, it's not magic. )

[ Annie comes from a scifi adventure........ ]

[shri]

[ H e l p. ]

( ... I am afraid I may not be the kind of woman that takes that understanding well. Academics were not my... strongest suite as a girl. I tend to leave the nuances to others. )

[sistershoggoth]

( Duh, girl. That shit's so fucking complicated and specialized. I only know anything about it because they fuckin' experimented on us to find out how our powers worked. )

[shri]

( They did what? )

[ And that makes her recoil utterly in a far too real anger. ]

[sistershoggoth]

[ An instance where she's been too cavalier. Annie's desire to not be bothered by these things often causes her to spew truths she shouldn't, then uncomfortably having to talk about them further. ]

( Aliens. You know how they can be. )

[shri]

[ She's confused and worried and - ]

( Aliens, what do you mean aliens? )

[sistershoggoth]

( Like aliens? We're surrounded by them. Species not from Earth, advanced technologies, shitty ethical boundaries? )

[shri]

( Well yes I -

- you have encountered these sorts of creatures before this... place we find ourselves in now? )

[sistershoggoth]

( Yeah, the bitch who ran the boarding school was an alien. She started it to raise lady soldiers to take over the world. Then another one of her species showed up and apparently they don't get along, so they stopped playing human and trashed the place fighting with each other. So I killed them.

It's a long shitty story. )

[shri]

[ Well the one part she is able to follow is that Annie is... young, and that someone had taken advantage of that and then... it had been dealt with. So to that at least comes with a gladness at least of that notion.

She really has too many people to hunt down as it is. ]

( Good. She should be put down for that. )

[ Shoves it through, unforgiving in her condemnation and easy in the praise for it. ]

( And no one has done anything like that to you since, here? With these... other aliens. )

[sistershoggoth]

( You mean aside from having a telepathic parasite implanted in me? Nah. )

[shri]

( That is... something I suppose. )

[sistershoggoth]

( It's not worth thinking about any more. It's done. Time to just deal. )

[shri]

[ And just like that, Annie, she likes you. ]

( I found that to be the best option, when it comes to it. My husband said I never had much of a dreamers heart. )

[sistershoggoth]

[ Lakshmi was upset with the idea of alien experiments, Annie recoils from the concept of marriage, of husbands. ]

( Who cares what he says? )

[shri]

[ ..... she does not get anyone in this place, what on earth is so strange about marriage? ]

( He is my husband...? We spent our lives together, since I was a girl, he knew me better than most to make such a judgement. )

[sistershoggoth]

( If you say so, Lakshmi. )

[shri]

( It's marriage not losing a limb. You must be the third person who seems to find it something so much worse. )

[sistershoggoth]

( I sure as shit ain't ever getting married, how about that? )