mental link, day 22

[sizeofyourbaggage]

( Got some information for you guys - Annie was good enough to get some of her makeshift spycams going, and we set ‘em up with the leaders of the envoys. Activated them last night. )

[ There’s a curl of gratitude for those who went along with his plan, for those who spun stories or distractions or contributed to convincing the leaders of the envoys that the trinkets of Annie goo were part of a mourning ritual. Is he gonna talk about the fact that he basically disappeared after that until they boarded the airship? Nah. Instead, he jumps right into it. ]

( Didn’t get a lot from the Carpathans or the Meradans, unless you wanna know what the inside of Saridian Black’s room looks like or what other gifts people’ve been giving him, or see more of the Meradans trash talking each other while playing games.

Got the same Second that Annie saw last time, who’s friends with the Seconds I know, and this time he was with Ysiddia Cabrielle. He’s her son, and they were talking with a Second from one of the other Houses about the murders and the Circle having its work cut out for it when we get to the Red Coast.

And the Descendents - pretty sure we got a couple of them talking about the murders. They were wondering if “they” were discovered, who discovered them and what their intentions were - might have something to do with the last time we spied on people through Annie, and she saw the Carpathans that got killed talking about new friends. That, and blood debts and someone named Casiria, and that no one in Black’s retinue could know about it. Didn’t know this until a little bit ago, but guess what information got passed onto Black’s retinue? )

[ His mental “tone” is deliberately neutral there, but the difference from the usual warmth to his mental link is probably pretty telling. ]

( One other thing, about the circle that was found burned in the ground a while back when we were still running around on the ground and the tracks next to it - Rhan said the circle doesn’t look local, but the tracks appear Rabadocean. Hard to pin down more than that so far, except they don’t really match the Hypyrians. )

[ Is he fixating on that a little too much, to be thinking about it still? Maybe, but he's not gonna let it go. ]

Comments

[sistershoggoth]

( The shitty ballad of my wasted fuckin' youth. I was raised in a girl's school that was... just an alien science experiment for putting together the best super soldiers. And I guess that was fine, even though she really fucked us up, but then she got in a fuckin' slap fight with another alien and they were just kind of.... smashing the place. )

[ Blood raining from the sky. The academy smashed. Bodies, bodies, bodies. ]

( So, uh, I turned myself inside out and smashed them back before they, you know, destroyed the fuckin' Earth... )

[ She is pulling back hard on the reigns there, refusing to explode his head with what she means by 'turned myself inside out'. She's accidentally hurt Noctis one too many times letting that memory slip out of the cracks. Being drunk makes it easier: to not think too hard about something that haunts her. She wonders, more often than not, why she ever came back to her humanity. She should have let it go. ]

[justttkidding]

( Quite the fight. What do you mean by turning yourself inside out? )

[ Annie has pulled back as soon as she'd mentioned it, but he presses anyway, because he wants to understand. There's no logic in her description and it niggles at him, contractor reasoning running in circles to make sense of it. ]

[sistershoggoth]

( It's complicated. The big scar in my chest used to be a portal... Which turns out wasn't a power so much as. Me. )

[justttkidding]

( You're a portal. As in, your whole being? Is there something on the other side or is it more of you? )

[sistershoggoth]

( There's a whole world on the other side, that is also me. )

[justttkidding]

( A new meaning to layered existence. I'm sure whatever is there is just as pleasant as you on this side. )

[ He means it, because he likes Annie. All of her flaws and everything. There's never been anyone so honest in his whole life. ]

[sistershoggoth]

[ A sticky situation. She doesn't actually dislike her world and its creatures, but... they weren't human things. They didn't play by human rules. It made her human existence difficult. Fraught. Pulled in two directions, never fulfilling either. There's a reason she goes stir-crazy, comes unglued. Her glue is tenuous and works best when she doesn't have the time to think about what an accident all of this is. ]

( Well. It sure is something. Don't try to flatter me, you dick. )

[justttkidding]

( It's not flattery, scout's honour. )

[ Ok in the delivery it is, but the intent behind it, not so much. Annie has a lot going on behind the scenes but that's why they work together so well. November is a blank slate emotionally. And fear only registers if his life is actively in danger. So her having another weirder side is more interesting than it is creepy. )

[sistershoggoth]

( I'm pretty sure everything you say is flattery. )

[ Considering that lack of emotive thing. Hell, Annie knows all about that. She's so much noise and color and wild irrelevant emotion that much of what actually comes out of her mouth is just slotted to approximate language. Playing at human, a game of flattery: yes, you and I are alike. ]

[justttkidding]

( Does it make you feel any better? )

[ Because they are alike, even if the words could be hollow. They're an approximation of human, of feelings. That doesn't mean they don't understand each other on the most basic of levels. ]

[sistershoggoth]

( It highlights to me that you're a fuckin' weirdo. Y'know there are people around here who think I'm such a stupid cunt they won't even deign to speak to me, right? )

[ She's pretty self-aware of her flaws. But those flaws were part of how she had learned to cope. Not just with her inner problems, but also with the problems she had been raised into: all the violence and neglect and expectation. ]

[justttkidding]

( They clearly haven't seen your charming side. A pity. )

[ He's aware of her flaws, considering they'd spilled over into each other twice now. Minds linked, memories sloshing into a puddle and no way he can unsee any of it. No way to erase the experience, not that he wants to. ]

( People also have a difficult time when faced with strong personalities. Or anything they consider beyond the norm– you know that. )

[sistershoggoth]

[ He plays everything off too easily. It is both delightful -- because, really, finding people who can tolerate her nonsense is a rare and wonderful treat -- as well as disturbing. In so much as she can't upset him even a little. Where are the buttons. How would she extricate herself from this if she found herself too deep? She's probably already too deep and that's troublesome. She'd done the same thing with Nyx, spilled into him as soon as he was there. Like she needs something she doesn't want to admit she needs, and so she just keeps bubbling over the edges of herself into anyone who will help take it off her hands for a little while.

That's exactly what it's like. ]

( I don't think charming's the word you're looking for. )

[justttkidding]

( Isn't it? I used it. Perhaps I have a different view of charming. )

[ Considering his contractor status, that's absolutely the case. ]

[sistershoggoth]

[ She can think of plenty of unflattering words she'd use to describe herself. In fact, most of how she describes herself is unflattering. She's a mess. An unstable, loud-mouthed psychobitch who couldn't handle her own feelings most of the time without a sturdy barrier of liquor. And he says charming. ]

( Next you're gonna tell me I'm 'cute'. )

[justttkidding]

( You know, you stole the words out of my mouth. )