station72 | mental link | early day :006

[It's late in the evening - or technically very early in the morning when not so people are at least considering sleep -and somewhere, something goes quiet. Very, very quiet. A pressure that was there a moment ago is now gone, snipped away like a cut line. It's a sensation with some growing familiarity: the distinct odd moment of being unbalanced that comes from a host sliding into a coma. It's happened twice already in the last few days, and now a third. Maybe there's something in the air of Concordia that doesn't agree with you?

In an echo of Castor earlier brood's experience with Jessica, the sensation of something missing sticks with Adara brood for a few lingering moments. But the pang quickly evens out, fading to a dull uneasy tingle at the back of the mind.

--Or would, if it weren't for the bolt of anxiety that follows. It's loud, frenetic. Panic sweat on skin. A pliable stick bent too far and cracked across the knee. It punches through the mental link connecting every host, rattling high and sharp, and is tangible like copper taste on molar teeth.

It makes sleeping, uh... difficult.]

( Stop that. )

((ooc: /hacks another limb off Adara. Hi friends! Ares has dropped and will be going into a coma; on day 007, Nirad will be taking a trip back to the Station to transport all our comatose friends home ~~and pick up some new faces~~. Until then everyone please hug Adara brood and just...don't stop...))

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[There's a channel there, a little rivulet of a waterway running between them - narrow usually, flooded now. She opens to him (or goes looking or his stricken mind goes looking for something familiar) and he presses into her like water filling a container. Fear seeks fear and Carata's soothing hand hasn't yet swayed him from a certain inclination to shred himself in the effort to find it.

He shakes, sea salt flecks and foaming sweat lather like an animal trying to swim in a tide current with nothing in the way of relief - no shore to swim to, no sandy tributary bed to sink a foot into. Nothing.

That's what he's scared of. Nothing. Isn't she? What could be worse than that?]

[ Don't fight it. The flood of him hits her roughly, threatens to overwhelm for a moment but rather than try to fight it off she relaxes into it. Drowns in it, lets it fill up her thoughts, and then waits for the tide of it to slosh and froth back down to a level she can handle. Catches the core if it in the balm of her hands.

She has done this before. Has weathered this with others and with herself, and she grows only more steady each time. ]

( I know. ) [ The way fear spreads like a poison in the air, like a sickness. ] ( How may I help you? )

[ Cannot help those who do not wish to be, and he is not brood. ]

( Don't go away. )

[It's a simple, reflexive response - as much images as it is words, a sinking feeling of fear and loneliness. The sensation of being lost somewhere unfamiliar. The uneasy way a grip shifts around on something: fingers opens and then closing, tightening. Clamping down like the solution to losing things is to hold the rest tighter.]

[ She knows that emotion. Felt it when the angel girl had stared into her eyes and pleaded with her not go. Has felt it herself when reaching after Ren's retreating presence. Remembers it from when Dreus would lay his head in her lap and whisper that he could not bear for her to leave.
You must not leave.Will you stay?

I need you.

]

[ So much loss and desperation. Selfishness, possessiveness. The direness of it is repulsive. The utter vulnerability of desire. The curse of the Hive. They were greater for their parts, but they were now each a weak link where they longed for the others. Her heart beats furiously, overwhelmed with love and desire. The noise of it is exactly the opposite of Nirad's furious atonal murmuring, there is a deep rhythm, a strong sense of order and purpose in the din of it.

There is no way to retreat from it now, and lacking any other viable option she opens up. Meets his restless grasping anxiety and is there; present. ]

( Don't be afraid of such things. )

[ It is so easy for her to say such things, and with such conviction. So easy to build up others, tend their roots, kiss their wilting leaves. ]

[He can't help but be afraid - tonight he can't, anyway. The little desperation finds him in the dark and unsettles him, slips his wobbly footing. Later he might come to some form of sense, might rearrange and remember himself. It's easier be happy with company in the day instead of now, where the loudness of their mind just reminds him to be lonely. Even the points where she turns to him feels arrhythmic; their link is similar to what he wants, but not exact. No one's is. Not even Carata, her hand gentle at the base of his skull--]

( Aren't you afraid? )

[A little, pliant whisper - anxiety winding down by degrees. Maybe it's Ilde's good influence or maybe it's Carata's, nearer and marginally more familiar. The panic is still there, beating out a thudding beat, but slowly it begins to sound (feel) like a violent staccato being thrummed in some other, more distant room as opposed to this one.]

[ She is. She is always afraid. She did not realize that was the reality of her life until she came to the Station, until she was removed from the familiar torments of her vulgar world. She had become numb to the smell of rotting flesh, the sound of screams, the trails of blood. Had carefully inoculated her emotions against the terrors of the Godking's palace, but when it came to everything else... She was afraid. Always afraid, always wrapped in ice try to keep the fever of her terror down, to keep her mind slow and calm and unable to react with that paralyzing anxiety. ]

( It is easy, to be brave for others. )

[ A stroke of self-awareness. For all the sordid things Dreus had introduced into her world, he had also taught her how to comfort. She had learned to weather his violent moods, his paranoia, his anguish. To take it all in like a plant soaking up sunlight and bolster herself with it. To make herself strong and steady in order to accept the weak into her arms.

She has always looked down upon the weak, but love does strange things to the mind. She is not so self-aware of that emotion. She does not know its name nor its sensation, only knows the desire to see things grow, to better themselves so that there is less fear in the world. Something maternal in the girl who had been sewn up to keep her from ever seeing motherhood. ]

( Be brave for me. )

[ Not the first nor the last she will tempt with specialness. She does not realize it is manipulative, to imply her love and her favor. It had worked on Dreus, it works with Ren, why wouldn't it work else. ]

[Is it? Is it easy? What use is it to be special, to be wanted, to be brave or true or courageous for the sake of just one, tiny body set between two sides of a vice? They're all so small and gentle, dried autumn leaves in the palm. Waht's the point of swearing to such a delicate, breakable thing?

It's a flash sizzle thought, bright and then gone: flushed out by a following wave of desperate affection. Of course it's easy. Of course he wants that. Who doesn't want to be special? Who doesn't want to be somehow unique or wanted, to belong to someone where in the great big sprawling multiverse?

It's a very lonely world. He gets tired of that emptiness.

So the high jolt of fear settles, diminishes into a flat solid line - there still, but more easily managed by its consistency.]

[ Godking Dreus had known such an emotion. As destruction had run amok in his veins, scrambling his mind, irradiating his world with paranoia and hate, he had come to look at all men, women, and children as little more than tinder to a destiny of flame. What use were they... Until Ilde had failed to show him fear. It still lived inside of her, incubating, but her tired eyes in her young beautiful face had moved him with their peace. Why not stoop to recognize a flower which refuses to wilt.

Her attention remains intimate to Nir, even as he relaxes. ]

( Will you be able to rest? I can stay here, until you sleep. )

[ Murmuring soft poetry, a new rhythm to soothe a troubled mind. ]

[It curls around and about him, a easy lulling series of notes and intonations. He's weak to it, gentles against and into the shape of the sound. This is the easiest way to file down all the sharp raw metal edges of himself even if it doesn't fix the chewed up parts. He can pretend it does, though; they both can.]

( I'm all right. )

[It's a lie, but as far as lies goes it's a nice one. So where's the harm?]

mental link | early day :006

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