mental link | day :034

[ophidia]

[The mental impression that comes with the connection is clean, precise. Confident in reaching like this, touching so many minds at once. If anything there's a desire, simmering beneath, to press and push even further than one simple stated request.]

( I need everything we have on the Carpathans. )

[And he sounds like he expects to get it.]

Comments

[wille]

( Ugh, don't act so special. All you've told me is how you expect to get your homework done for you, and how fishy it is that you won't say anything more. )

[ But, she reminds herself, it's about teamwork, isn't it? ]

( Tell me what you're thinking of doing, and I'll tell you what's relevant for you to know. )

[ophidia]

[There's a beat, and it's as though something in him seems to sharpen even further. Solidify. It didn't seem like he was playing before, but now, he's definitely done.]

( They sent us all down here to do the same mission. That makes everything relevant to everyone. Now you're trying to imply I'm up to something against the common interest of completing that mission, something I can't do unless my intention is to throw myself into the jaws of the enemy I came here to get away from. I don't need your help to do that. )

[He could go out in the street and take his robes off just fine on his own.]

( I can't tell you a plan I don't have yet, and I don't plan without information. Which you're withholding. )

[And that'd absolutely count as against the common interest of the mission.]

[wille]

( Honestly, whoever-the-hell-you-are? I can't picture you getting any farther than you have here until you learn how to talk to people. )

[ Again, here remains the big but, because his complaint about withholding information strikes her as familiar. She has been accused of that, true, and she has been accused of being unable to ask nicely, too. The texture of her mind softens, gives way, what comes next is the closest thing to an olive branch. ]

( You want a plan? I suggest finding this one who goes by Casiria, find out what she knows. )

[ The why is given less in words and more in scenes: what Annie has shown the others as seen through her goo, then herself standing amid the crowd to watch the bodies be taken away, the knowledge that she was among the ones who fed the information to Black, then the midnight scuffle between Carpathans and the guards. Still, this unknown Casiria remains out of the picture. )

[ophidia]

[She doesn't stop. Even finally giving him the information, she's still trying to direct him, power-trip this whole thing. And out of everything she's said and done in this conversation, it's clear that one question - you want a plan? - has pissed him off above all else.]

( If I ever need suggestions, I'll keep that in mind. )

[She's given him what she has, or what she's ever going to give. He disconnects, violent but clean.]

[wille]

[ Oh, no. She can't stop him from disconnecting, turns out it takes two people after all, but her retort is volleyed over the wall. A stone on a windowpane. One last power trip, a need to have the last, eloquent word. ]

( Asshole! )