( OPEN | DAY 19 ) the brainiacs club

[skaikru]

CHARACTERS: clarke, sam, damon, elena, murphy + everyone who wants to meet the symbiote face to (brain) face
WHERE: Hyrypia - The Graze, an impromptu coroners tent
WHEN: DAY :019
SUMMARY: Before his cremation, Lavellan still offers a few answers to some burning questions.
WARNINGS: Mentions of character death, medically accurate gore, an autopsy, a lot of talk about brains, the symbiote is terrifying, and probably puke.

( for clarke, it seems like the next logical step. first, a rough introduction to the symbiote. second, glimpses of a brain scan from the depths of john murphy's mind. third, seeing it with her own eyes.

so naturally, it doesn't take much convincing.

they have a body. when asked, they're provided with a set of odd tools and a wealth of apologies for their loss by the hyrypian natives. and before they go about building a funeral pyre, they set themselves up in a well-lit tent and carefully remove the corpse coverings. clarke's never done this before, sam's never done this before, and as intently as they hover, damon and elena offer little advice, mostly morbidly driven moral support. murphy has a wide variety of medical supplies at his side, and doesn’t say much. but it's not hard to figure out. under sharp instruments, skin cuts like butter, and dead bodies barely bleed. it's easy to get through the skin and hair, to peel it back and reveal the white bone of lavellan's skull. it's harder to look at the dead man's face, peaceful as if in a deep sleep, while fumbling for an archaic trephine and swallowing down bile.

first, they punch holes. cautious, careful to draw back when the tool burrows too deeply. if they want to examine his brain for answers to all the questions digging (quite literally) in the back of their minds, they can't damage the delicate tissue. as bone dust flies and catches on her hands, clarke quietly wishes for sterile latex gloves — anything to buffer the sensations, to make this feel less real.

then comes the drill, held at an angle to cut relatively straight lines between the burr holes. lavellan's head wiggles under the vibrations of sawing through bone, the same tremors that run up the length of clarke's arms as she cuts, and her throat is uncomfortably tight when she asks elena to hold him still. it takes some time, but piece by piece the hard bone is chipped away, each sliver of skull carefully set aside in a bowl until they're faced with a grey layer of dura. the tissue is cut and snipped, pulled to expose the veins and the intricate tubing of lobes — the brain, the epicenter of all life, now red, and wet, and still.

it's not over. the brain is soft, threatens to break under her fingers as she claws into his skull; pushing and pulling until she can cut at the spinal cord tethering mind to body. and with a trickle of cerebral fluid, the brain is born into her hands, a squishy and floppy mess. the answer to so many questions, and disgustingly delicate.

for a moment, they all just look at it. choke on actions, implications, guilt. then: )

There, ( clarke announces, turning the brain over in her hands. on the underside, just above the base of where the brain stem had been cut, a soft bundle of white. it looks almost like particularly dead nerve endings, a tight grouping of listless threads, but that's not right. clarke uses her pinky finger to shift the elastic folds of the brain, tugging to try to see where the branches of the symbiote dig deeper into grey matter, and brush the hard black flecks embedded into the alien organic tissue. there, that's what it looked like in the flesh.

her stomach churns. nausea or nerves, the uncomfortable idea that that is inside all of us at the forefront of her mind — her distress is tangible in the air, but it's anyone's guess so far as contributing factors. she extends both cupped hands, offering a better look to those around her. )

( ooc | dogpile all in one thread, write your own starters post tent, someone eventually get clarke a jar to put the brain in or something please for the love of god…! basically, do whatever and have fun with it. )

Comments

[adamance]

impassive at the wrong times | ota

[Carata had made it clear on Concordia when the two of them stood on the roof of the Bearings. Lexa recalls feeling as if her life ended that day. The flippancy from the other woman had been a weight on Lexa's shoulders—and that weight continues, no matter how many times Bellamy insists that they'll go home. Eventually, they'll go home. But for months now (it's been a couple months, at least for her), she's known that home isn't home—that by selfishly choosing to live her life, she had cast aside that possibility. She knew—but it's one thing to know and another to see physical evidence of it.

Lexa also recalls Murphy's desire to cut the symbiote away. He'd been foolish. From what she sees, he would have dramatically harmed himself. And he would have dragged Bellamy along for the ride.

(Her resentment for that at least feels justified.)

She wonders how far the creature has reached into her brain, and realizes that it doesn't matter. Just as the Flame is a part of her (and will end with her), so will this symbiote. She doesn't feel horror or disgust. Instead, as she stands at the back of the tent, her eyes are calm, distant, numb—like what she sees before her is just an answer to what she's believed all along. No one can deny what they see.

But instead of putting that conclusion out into the air, she instead brushes her mind against those around her, as if she's determined to see what they've concluded. The push itself is more forceful than the curious, probing nudges she usually applies; she wants to know if she needs to say what they've all denied. Will it be necessary?]

her people | to Bellamy, Murphy, and Clarke

[Lexa knows what Bellamy has promised to her, and she assumes that it's the same for Murphy and Clarke. The promise had meant nothing to her because she hadn't fully understood how he might act upon it—or, perhaps more importantly, whether he could act upon it. To her, the promise had been less a declaration of capability and more a sign that Bellamy cares. But here's the thing: she's come to the point where she knows Bellamy cares, that Bellamy would die on a sword for her. Reconciling the two (a promise for a different life once they live and his feelings toward her) is where she struggles. Struggled.

Though the present tense is really what matters here and now, in the wake of the autopsy.

She calls the three of them over with a sense of control and dignity, drawing them toward her as if she has the right to do that. Some part of her knows Murphy will bristle against that. That same part probably did it for that reason.]

( We've spoken before of returning to our people. I believe you can see now why this was a foolish notion. ) [There's a hint of impatience to her words. They're unfair. She's being unfair. But Lexa's emotional state is (and will be, as the funeral proceeds) both mercurial and numb, like one disposition is competing with the other.]

barges in here first

[deployed]

[ Being called over is ultimately unnecessary. If Lexa hadn't beckoned, Bellamy likely would have drifted into her orbit sooner or later. Just like he'd needed to check on Clarke, and to see Murphy, he'd inevitably have circled back to Lexa. The adrenaline of the canyon was behind them. Having the time to sit with the loss and the discovery Clarke had wrenched from Lavellan's mind was something else entirely. ]

( Not necessarily. )

[ Bellamy's answer is seeped in stubborn denial. Octavia lurks in every syllable. He can't accept a future that doesn't include a way back to her. ]

It can't be taken out. But it doesn't mean we can't survive with it at home.

[ Spoken aloud as Bellamy enters the tent, straightening up. But Kaji's words come to mind too: so long as the symbiote is in them, could they ever be free of this place? ]

jumps in here second

[skaikru]

( home. that's a notion at the furthest edge of her mind right now, shuffling along to lexa without really considering the summons, feet moving of their own accord. clarke's still wrapped up in having held a human brain, stared deeply into the symbiote as if the dead organic organism could stare back and might start talking to her. but their people.

she is suddenly and wholly aware of how much more comforting it would have been to have her mother at her side in the autopsy tent, rather than the likes of sam, damon, and elena. )

We could just still be connected when we get back to Earth.

( which... honestly? isn't the worst thing in the world.

(purposefully ignoring the fact that going back home means lexa would be dead? yes, purposefully ignoring the fact that going back home means lexa would be dead.) )

[wrackful]

[Anger is cold and hard across the surface of Murphy's mind when he enters the tent, edged sharp like shards of ice rising as it cracks under pressure. It isn't at Lexa's calling them all here - that would've just been irritating. It's at the now in what she's said. Arriving at a conclusion ten steps behind and still set on lording it over all of them. The same conclusion that's been carving a hole in Murphy's chest since the day Clarke had arrived.

But it's Clarke speaking when he gets there, and the immediate incredulity at what she's suggesting diverts him, responding dry and flat even as he pulls his veils loose.]

And bring the enemy down on everyone we know again. Great plan.

[adamance]

None of us come from the same world. [This is the fact that Lexa feels that she needs to drive home.] I'm only alive because of that technicality. I never died. If I had remained, I would have. [One way or another: that is the only consistent factor between the three of them.]

But each of you experienced the Enemy in your own way. Not side by side. But separately. Returning home isn't only a matter of bringing the Enemy with us. It's bringing the Enemy to four separate Earths and allowing them to destroy our people.

[Carata's truth has been there for Lexa since day one. She can't avoid it now. They all have to confront the reality of what that means for them. Bellamy, Clarke, Murphy, and Lexa—so much is similar, but there is a point where it's not.

And Lexa is the glaring flaw in it all.]

[deployed]

So we don't leave until it's dead and this war is finished.

[ Bellamy's voice has gone tight. Between the four of them, there's too much emotion churning in the air. This assembly feels volatile. The cocktail of secondhand grief and anger is like gasoline. Unthinkingly, Bellamy draws closer to Murphy, tugged in by the cold snap of anger coming off him in waves. ]

There's no point trying to leave now. We finish what we started, and then we can talk about getting back.

[ And unspoken: bringing Lexa back with them. The reality of her situation is something Bellamy simply hasn't tried to address, just as he hasn't reckoned with the idea that he may never be able to see Octavia again. ]

[skaikru]

( clarke's too worn to rise to murphy's vehement rebuttal, and almost too tired to reach out for lexa's arm when she starts talking about her death. but never, never too exhausted to worry. it's been eating at her since she'd learned the nature of the new universe — all their people, all their friends, and family were still on earth, and if the enemy had gotten to the four of them at four different intervals, what was there to stop them from going after the remainder of the 100, the lingering trikru? abandoning people who didn't even know the depth of what they were up against feels like leaving the stronghold unguarded, like some backward betrayal. )

How long is that going to take?

( also never too dead to the world to not sound moderately aggravated at their lack of progress. they'd just cut open a human (elfish) skull, and were still no closer to the answers they needed. )

The Enemy hasn't even been identified yet. And even if they are, the most we're supposed to do is keep them from getting on the Nector. We're not strong enough to fight them, so how long?

post autoposy / wings this

[deployed]

[ Bellamy stands outside the tent. There are other members of the Nest who are closing themselves away from the autopsy happening within, but Bellamy's mind is linked in with Clarke's. It's half curiosity and half concern. He remembers Clarke performing makeshift surgery, but never cutting into a someone newly dead. His mind is linked in closely enough to feel the nausea and anxiety. His hands are not wet in his gloves, but the sensation is there, along with the tang of blood.

On Concordia, this could have been Murphy. Looking through Clarke's eyes, Bellamy knows now what he'd suspected since: the symbiote couldn't just be so easily cut away.

Once the scrutiny is finished, and the brain tucked in a jar, Bellamy tugs at the edge of her mind. It's a quiet but insistent demand for her attention. ]

( Come to our tent. You've done enough. )

[ Preparing the body for the pyre would have to be done, and surely more people would want to ruminate about the symbiote, but Clarke had done her part. Bellamy's pull doesn't allow for argument.

Or at least, it pushes for argument to happen in person. ]

[skaikru]

( initially there is a tired flick of consciousness in return to his summons; quick and brief, i heard you, but a little dismissive. clarke's not done staring at the brain through glass and liquid, staring at the symbiote and allowing herself to be consumed by a numb haze of despair. she doesn't know what else she expected, what she'd hoped for. answers, maybe, but it wasn't as if the white clump of organic material was spitting solutions. if it had been alive before, it had died with its host. she also isn't done scrubbing her hands on a wet, blood-stained towel that didn't seem to be doing much good.

there's blood under her fingernails. despite her best attempt to be careful when handling lavellan's brain, there's a scrape of brain tissue on her pinky finger. so she scrubs, and scrubs, and the frustration mounts until she's tossing the rag to the side with more vehemence than is strictly necessary, and roughly pulls on her gloves. there's a harsh sniff, clarke can feel her nose start to run and her eyes well up, and busies herself with pulling her hair into her hood and masking her face. for now, she leaves the brain in the jar by the corpse; stands, and finally pushes outside the tent to join bellamy outside.

she hadn't noticed that the tent had begun to smell like blood and the clustering of sweaty bodies until stepping outside again and breathes in the night air deeply, steels herself. she almost wants to beg off returning to the tent, almost suggests a walk. but her head is still thrumming with a vicarious hangover, and her knees ache from long interims standing and kneeling whilst cutting and drilling.

to our tent, he'd said, and towards their tent they set out. walk in relative silence until — )

( Bellamy... Promise me something? )

[deployed]

[ On Earth, Bellamy had been able to suss out Clarke's distress. Being able to read her emotions had come easily since things between them had changed at the dropship. But right now, he's feeling Clarke's pain from the inside. It's like a pressure behind his eyes, impossible for him to ignore even if he felt like trying. The sense of Clarke's emotional state makes matching her pace without pressing her to move faster difficult, but attracting attention by hustling her to their tent. Bellamy doesn't think Clarke could stand the scrutiny right now. All he can do is stay looped through her mind, trying to give her some distance from the endless replay of memories and sensation from the surgery.

Anything flicks formlessly through his mind in answer at her request. All Lexa's caution and critique hasn't stamped out the urge in Bellamy to offer himself up without question. ]

( Promise you what? )

[ Clarification is ultimately unnecessary, particularly when Clarke had to have already sussed out the affirmative from his mind.

He has his own sense of what she's going to ask. Not to end up on the table herself, maybe, or not to let something like this happen again. Bellamy doesn't blame himself for what happened to Lavellan, but he wishes he could have stopped it. He's sure Clarke wishes that too. ]

[skaikru]

( on earth, clarke had known all about bellamy's inclinations towards recklessness. she'd watched him run headfirst into danger, she'd seen him risk his life for the good of others; she'd benefited from it, she'd used him for it. and the longer they spent circling each other in camp, standing side by side, facing their troubles head-on, depending on each other — together — the more their self-sacrificial streaks had seemed to line up. that had been useful when their people had been on the constant brink of war and death.

and while the dangers on hyrypia seemed unending, clarke has rather selfishly decided that she would rather him stay alive than the lot of them have any success on this mission. was that wrong? )

( If we have to do all of this again — )

( this, stupid, dangerous competitions in the name of tradition. this, wade through murky political waters in an attempt to suss out a faceless enemy that would not hesitate to destroy them, but whom they weren't allowed to confront. this, dropping down on a dusty, arid planet and traipsing through miles and miles of desert, with no idea what it was they were walking towards. this, surviving in space. this, this, this — just all of it. clarke packs so many weighted ideas into the word that it's become a brick heavy enough to crush. )

( Stay out of it as much as you can. ) ( no more elin, no more poisoning people on the off chance of gaining a useless advantage, no more hunts. in essence, bellamy has already acquiesced to her request, but if feels necessary to reinforce that this is for real — not just a loose promise that only holds until the morning. i need you. ) ( Please. )

[deployed]

[ This is not the first time Clarke has made a request like this. He knows exactly what goes unspoken: I can't lose you too. But even that hadn't kept Bellamy out of the Mountain, and it can't keep him from doing whatever he can to bring the Nest success here. Bellamy's terrified of what a failure on this plant means. Clarke's asking for a half-measure this time, but the idea of holding back still makes him hesitate.

Gently, his hand shifts to take hers and lace their fingers together. The weight of all Clarke is trying to encompass isn't lost on Bellamy. He would lift it from her if he could, but they'll both have to be content with this small gesture of comfort. ]

( I'll be careful. But if there's a way for me to help, I can't avoid it. )

[ Especially when it feels like the only way to get through this mission is to participate. ]

( You're not going to lose me. )

[ Whatever happened, he couldn't let Clarke or Murphy have to feel him die. Whatever self-sacrificial tendencies Bellamy had, he had to keep them in check now. Finding that line was difficult, but he'd never had such effective motivation. ]

[skaikru]

( she hasn't cried yet. lavellan had been a stranger, and to an extent, she had just actively participated in desecrating his corpse, all in the name of useless science. but the inclination to shed a tear was still present — drawn to the forefront of her mind, made all the more forceful as exhaustion, a blossoming headache, and frustration fold over themselves. and when bellamy takes her hand, it's like carelessly brushing against a hair trigger. when he says he can't, she sniffs.

you're not going to lose me — her fingers flex within his, an instinctual squeeze, a reaction to an imagined knife in her sternum. as close as they're walking, side by side and stride for stride, that small comfort isn't enough. clarke craves something more complete, like physically gathering everyone she wants to stay safe to her chest and holding them tightly until this was all over; something more tangible than holding hands and continually pressing against his mind, like a thumb over a pulse point. checking to make sure it hadn't stopped. )

( You can't promise that. )

( but she doesn't know what that something is. can't put a name to it, and can't think of a way to remedy it. not now, at least. so she will have to settle to using their joined hands to tug him just a little closer, so their shoulders bump with every step. )

[deployed]

( I promise I'll always come back, Clarke. I'm not going to die so far away from our home. )

[ If Clarke didn't believe that he'd go to any lengths to keep her from feeling him die, then she'd perhaps believe that sentiment. Dying before he had to a chance to mend things with Octavia isn't an option. Clarke had always known what Octavia meant to him. The link between their minds would only illustrate that further. He squeezes her hand before he lets go, guiding her into the tent with a hand at the small of her back. ]

Trust me, Clarke. I'm not risking anything worse than Mount Weather.

[ And he'd come through that alive, if worse for wear. ]

Come on, sit down. Let me see your hands.

[ The discomfort there lingers. Bellamy has just as much blood on his own, too much to flinch from the idea of helping Clarke clean away the memory of the autopsy any way he could. ]

[sistershoggoth]

[ She's here because she's not just going to ignore what's going on, but... She also doesn't agree with what they're doing. Maybe she was too fuckin' genre savvy, because what they expose doesn't surprise her at all, and it... reminds her of when she'd met Lavellan on Waypoint Shril. They'd talked about how likely it really was that they'd survive without the symbiote once it had taken hold. She was right.

And she's not surprised, she's just disgusted that these creeps let their curiosity turn this morbid. She doesn't hide that, standing in the doorway, but she doesn't say anything either. The elf was dead, it wasn't hurting him. It was just gratuitous, for the speck of worthless knowledge they actually gleaned from it.

That reminds her all too much of home. Reminds her of the surgical scars on her body that suggest she may or may not have all her organs, depending on what Sparrows and the nurse got up to in the night after anesthetizing unsuspecting students like herself.

She gives the group of them a fucking look as they clean up their hands, and she leaves, heading off to return to her new hobby of drinking herself numb every hour of the day. ]

Hope they're all fuckin' proud of themselves...

[earthborn]

[Shepard has killed a lot of people before. And likewise, she has seen surgery. Not often like this, the filthy, bare-handed autopsy; it was a far cry from even the cramped surgical suite on Normandy. This was pure butchery-- but with a purpose.

Still.

She didn't flinch, didn't react, and damn well kept her opinions to herself. That man had been her lover, true, but this was business. And when business was concluded, she lifted her wrist until the amber flash of an omnitool scan had gathered all it could about the exposed flesh of the nectrotic symbiote. Then she'd turned on her heel, and left. Unsurprisingly, Annie wasn't far behind.]

No reason they should be. [She has no particular emotion about this. Rather, there are many unspecific ones, all vying for dominance, none of them relevant, none of them expressed.] What's your problem?

[sistershoggoth]

That's your fuckin' question? What I didn't make it obvious enough I thought that fuckin' gruesome jamboree was a waste of fuckin' time and that it told me a lot more about them than it did about the symbiote?

[ Seriously where is the fuckin' booze... She's not even hiding it at this point, enough people have given her disapproving looks and fucking tutted about it in their heads. It's only made her more resentful and defiant. So now she makes a beeline for the nearest source of alcohol. ]

Sure wish I had a crew from back home like them. We'd get some fuckin' shit done.

[ Too bad they're all dead. She loops a finger through the handle of a carafe of that grassy smelling liquor the Rabos like, plucking it up out of the crate it had been stored in. ]

[earthborn]

That's not a real answer.

[She's not angry, she's just annoyed. Like a low-key headache, tension in her face-- that's not a fair comparison, Shepard's been carrying pain like that for years now. Ever since she woke up to Miranda Lawson, that headache's lived. Maybe that's why she's like this; the kind of person who says exactly what they mean, even when it's not what they meant to say:]

You obviously don't have a legitimate reason why they shouldn't have done it, or you'd have stopped them. It's not like Neriel had a problem with the concept, but you do. [Shepard doesn't disapprove of the drinking; she got hers out of the way already, is all. It's a natural reaction, to run, to hide-- even when Annie had so badly wanted to avoid it. Anadoning her strength of conviction was her own choice, not Shepard's] So what's your problem?

[sistershoggoth]

Not a real answer? I didn't give you a real answer about how I feel about letting a bunch of fuckin' teenagers play surgeon on a dead teammate? Jesus christ.

[ She shrugs to the high heavens, tilts her head back, and drinks deep. ]

How about I tell you what I told him. You get the fuckin' symbiote out within the first few weeks, and you might stand a chance. After that, the fuckin' thing is gonna be twisted into your goddamn nervous system and that's the end of it, it's not going anywhere. Did we learn something different from this escapade? Don't think so.

And that-- [ Another slow slug of drink. ] Makes it gratuitous, in my book.

Look at me, giving a shit whether something is gratuitous or not. [ A snort. ] Nevermind, carry on, kids.

[earthborn]

Annie...

[Shepard turns away, suddenly aware that she is, perhaps, going to have to be the one to say it aloud. She scratches at the skin around her amp port, searching for the words, while Annie drinks and whines and tries to talk sense into herself.]

You know, we've all been in cryo for at least a few years, now. Nobody who's thought about it for more than ten minutes thinks we're getting these things out of our heads.

[Shepard is not comfortable, exactly, with alien things being stuck in her brain forever. But then, she doesn't have a choice, so she's made her peace with it.]

Even if we cut open one of the new guys as soon as they thawed out, it's too late for that. That wasn't the point of this.

[sistershoggoth]

Yeah?

[ She whirls, irritated that Shep thinks that has any relevance to anything. Whether it was years or just a few weeks, it didn't undermine her ultimate point that this was a fucking worthless expedition. That it was in them, fucking accept it. ]

What was the point. You tell me. I clearly just can't see it.

THE (NOT) PROBABLY PUKE

[wille]

[ The question at hand: is she a mind in possession of a body, or a body creating the illusion of a mind? Where lies the throne of souls, if souls exist at all?

Now, Misato is calm through the entire procedure. Motionless, rather. She stands with feet apart and arms crossed over her chest, supervising the proceedings with the posture of a bloodless tyrant, lips set in a firm line, the grooves on her brow becoming a permanent fixture. She neither winces nor turns her eyes away from the skull being chipped away or Clarke's struggle with the fragile mound of flesh that once housed the idea of Lavellan, if not his soul. This thing that they were once connected to like more than a sibling, like another limb, like a part of herself.

She readily steps forward when the girl holds out the brain, her dread deepening when she picks up a black fleck from its mucid surface and squeezes it, hard, between her fingers. It breaks like the shell of an insect. This is it, this is what imprisons them, a thing so inhuman yet so embedded in their selves.

It starts with a lightness in her head that has her stepping back, gravity centering upon where the symbiote resides in her skull (there, on the back of her neck) to trigger a bout of nausea, a bag of bones in the pit of her stomach. She has the mind to turn and rush for the entrance, and the mind to stop short of opening the tent flap when she expels her last meal (measly, it's mostly bile) on the ground, on her hands and knees. The body's misplaced, desperate way of purging an alien intruder. So then, is she a mind or a body? Human or not? Alive? What does it matter when she is no longer herself, when she has become what she despises. ]

[ ooc: open to anyone in the tent! i'd prefer to keep it to a single thread with no tag order for continuity and speed reasons. thank you!! ]

[aluminumandash]

I | open to all you fools

[ It's underway already when Rust slips in, adding to the atmosphere of guilt and dawning horror the feeling of everything too loud, too sharp. His skin too tight. And a headache besides. The whole time he scarcely moves, eyes locked on the corpse laid out in front of them.

He's no stranger to autopsies, but that's not what he's thinking as Clarke's fingers dig into the inert lump that was Lavellan's brain. He's trying to separate the man from the alien stitching his head together, trying to picture the symbiote's death throes. The loss that had hollowed him out now seems—not remote. Physical. Hangover, withdrawal. Amputation, excision.

The body is not one member but many.

Staring at Clarke's hands he speaks, voice bereft of inflection. Hypnotic, almost. ] We could've stopped it. If we'd all of us said no, they wouldn't be able to do this.


II | open to the fool named clarke

[ He feels guilty every time he sees her—about the most that can be said for him—but until now he's never doubted his ability to bear it. Clarke's hands, spotted with blood. Bone ground to dust. Whatever's taken hold of her, a visceral revulsion that feels like the brink of something treacherous.

He touches a hand to her back, light and fleeting. Afraid of it feeling wrong, afraid of it feeling right. ] ( You did good. ) [ Bound up in the words: respect turned to bitter regret, the acute sense of something irrevocably lost, a choked sensation he might've cribbed from her.

Rust finds a jar next to the tray of unused Hyrypian implements. Sets it down, holds it steady for her. ]

heck yeah!

[skaikru]

( it's difficult to avoid folding in on herself; to shutting down and shutting out, blocking out the current world floating around her peripheral vision in favor of delving into her own mind. swimming and dancing with the various implications this, their haphazard post-mortem procedure has left to fester in the back of their minds. quite literally. she's still on her knees by lavellan's open skull, still cradling his detached brain and staring at the milky white fibers like they'd offer some answers to the muted, unspoken questions.

how do we remove it? how can we go home with this thing still growing in our skulls? how do we fight against something that's a part of us? it's an unending loop of how's with no explanations to follow up. and when rust touches her shoulder and brushes against her mind, it serves as a reminder that she's not alone. this isn't the time or place to fall apart in the face of compounding despair.

he offers up a jar, and with little preamble or acknowledgment of stilted praise, clarke tips her hands to gently slide the brain into the glass container. even with her palms empty and slicked with — a lot — the weight of human life still rests heavy in her fingers. it's metaphorical, or just the creeping sensation of some version of guilt. )

Thanks. ( quiet and subdued. thanks for the jar, because did she really do any good here? she sniffs, and when that doesn't do enough to clear the sudden congestion in her sinuses, clarke finds a relatively clean part of her wrist to swipe under her nose. )

[deployed]

Said no to what?

[ Lavellan's brain confirms what Murphy's explorations on Concordia suggested. The symbiote is growing. It was impossible to remove by now, as far as they can tell. But the idea of stopping it before it began— ]

What came for us would have killed everything if we didn't take the out we were being given.

[ Octavia whispers Bellamy's mind in an undercurrent; his priorities are always clear. He knows what would have been risked if he said no. The beast that came for him wasn't the kind of beast that could have been put down with either sword or bullet. It was too much to sacrifice, even knowing what he knows now about what he'd accepted. ]