mental link; the sound of silence

[huntsmachines]

[ Aloy has been trying to ignore that empty buzzing at the back of her head. She never got a chance to know most of her broodmates very well but their presence had been comforting. Now she was alone again. She could ignore it but unlike being alone normally, this one comes with a keen sense of awareness that she is alone and that she shouldn't be. ]

( It's so quiet without the rest of my brood. )

[ It feels strange to say that, but it's true. ]

( What do I do? )

[ She's not using to being connected to anyone this way and she's definitely not used to missing them. ]

Comments

[skaikru]

( there's a flicker of conscious sliding alongside conscious. featherlike flutters of acknowledgement and commiseration that don't feel adequate enough to be of any comfort, like applying a bandaid to a bullet wound. she'd lost two of her brood already; had never learned their names, even though they persistently sat at the tip of her tongue, and the faceless voids in the back of her mind haunted her.

clarke wants to offer some sort of consolation or advice, but the words stick. what had she done when she'd lost someone? cried. sealed up the grief tighter than an airlock. thrown herself headlong into thwarting the next greatest enemy. run. none of that had ever successfully chased off the bite of loss.

eventually: ) ( What do you feel like you should do? )

[huntsmachines]

[ Aloy gently reaches out for that conscious flicker. It's a relief to have others who understand and want to help, even if they don't really know what to do any better than her. She likes Clarke, really. She's been nothing but kind ot Aloy despite their rocky start. Loss has been hard for Aloy, but this is a different kind of loss than Rost or anything else from her previous experience. It's like a piece of her is missing. ]

( Mourning doesn't feel right. It's not... Not like death. They're just gone.
I'm not sure. Maybe try and accept it. Ignore it. But that feels wrong, too. )

[skaikru]

( I don't think ignoring it will work. )

( through trial and error, she's learned that running from problems, thoughts, feeling, pain? it doesn't work. probably less so here, thanks heightened emotional feedback loops. )

( It's okay to mourn what you've lost, even if they're not dead. And maybe some day they'll come back. )