STATION 72 ; mental link

[shri]

KALI She Who is the Great Destroyer ; She Who wears a Garland of Skulls	LAKSHMI She Who Believes in Truth ; She Who is the Mother
DRAUPADI She who was Born of Fire Sacrafice;	DURGA She Who is perpetually endeavouring to protect the weak and the poor and remove their misery.

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Comments

day 12ish

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ hey there Rani hope you're not doing anything too important. Sam's mind brushes against hers with the sweep of feathered wings - closer to a mental "knock" than anything else, unwilling to try to widen their connection without permission. ]

[shri]

[ And her reaction is the laze of a yawn, doing something, yes, and it has been long all day for it - how could so few of them know how to ride? It was as basic to her, as walking.

Yes, Sam, she's listening. ]

several hours after shit goes down

[servitor]

[Somewhere in her mental periphery, there's a familiar sensation of lightning, warmth, fire.

Sparks.

Just along the edges of the link is the white coeurl with a single horn, slowly prowling about, then settling onto its stomach. Its tail and long whiskers crackle sway lightly, absently as Nyx waits to see if she's willing to let him in.

If she dares to study the beast for too long, she'll notice its bright blue eyes revealing the ferocity and intensity that its body doesn't display.]

[shri]

[ She could not be more wounded, more ripped open. Tired and sore, dragged herself back to the place where she feels some modicum of repair of herself. Like holding in the blood that is trying to seep out of.

It's no more a flick of acknowledgment whilst she licks these wounds in the hope that they will close. Wary, as if she expects reproach for herself - one she cannot bear right now. So it's a tempered acknowledgment so much as she does not seem to be able to keep herself inside of herself, no matter what she does.

Yes? ]

pretty soon after the whole Sam Thing

[shiro2hero]

[Sam may have blocked it from the Nest, but someone's in his head more than others. Paying closer attention to him. To the disturbance and the unrest. The ire her way.]

[It puts his back up, even if he doesn't want it to. And that, in turn, threatens to rouse something Else. The angry thing in the back of his head. The protective monster the Nest put there.]

[He doesn't want it do. But that stalking, prowling force is in the back of his thoughts as he reaches out. Defensive, wary.]

(What's going on?)

[shri]

[ And like reading off a report rather than acknowledging it as part of herself: ]

( Master Wilson and I have had a disagreement. )

DAY :017

[wille]

[ Misato finds that a long extended anticipation is more exhausting than endless exertion. It's like holding one's breath for something that may or may never come, like crouching at the starting line waiting for the gunshot that doesn't happen. And, it's always a chosen trick of hers to externalize what she fails to deal with inside her own mind. ]

( Ready for the big thing tomorrow? )

[shri]

( I believe the expression is - 'as I'll ever be'. )

[ Which is to say she doesn't deal with the deep breath before the plunge so well. So she is keeping herself busy, the ideal taken up thoughts that says she is embroidering again. Slow measured movements of the hook pushing through material, the thread wrapping around, and pulling back up again. ]

[sistershoggoth]

[ She's slinking around on her own for a reason. She doesn't want Noctis or Gildor or who the fuck else who actually knows that she's always a hair's breadth away from going back to her old habits to stop her. But that's the problem, even avoiding the drink and the drugs: she'd still done it. She'd gone and gotten her fucking fix off smashing herself into Noctis and Sam, one of whom had consented to it... the other hadn't.

Both weigh in the pit of her stomach.

And she'd like to just... not. Would like to numb her brain so she doesn't feel so guilty, and may have also convinced herself that maybe she wouldn't be so telepathically dangerous if she was too drunk to send herself sprawling into everyone else's heads.

She's outright stolen a bottle of that nasty grassy shit everyone has been drinking and is going off to lurk in the dark edges of the encampment when Lakshmi spots her. Annie freezes up guiltily for a moment before realizing... Fucking Rani has no fucking clue. So she just smiles wryly under her hood instead, ]

Wanna drink?

[shri]

[ no clue at all, save that it takes one doing who was used to doing things she's not supposed to, to notice that Annie appears to be... Up to something.

Though that why that something was as mild as having a drink? Mysteries for later on, as Annie offered up the drink and Lakshmi, behind her veils, seems taken back. At least for a moment - Gildor has no small problem with drink and she knew better than to drag him with her.

So it takes her a moment construct a wall that omits him from anything particular to her situation at the moment before she nods and... Takes the drink, go follow with the mildest, lightest sip. Erring more on the side of being polite and good manners than anything else.

"Thank you, Miss Annie."

DAY :20

[wille]

[ The true measure of intimacy is to do away with explaining context. It is to converse and operate in such choreographed manner that leaves most things unspoken yet assumed. It is to be direct, even more than direct. And so: ]

( What should we do when someone dies? )

[ Implied therein: I respect you enough to believe you know best. That is, What do you do on this dark and dreary day? That is, Are you okay? ]

[shri]

[ There is only one response she has ever been allowed in herself to believe. ]

(We look to the living. )

[ I must make myself be well, what else is there? ]

post Hunt, pre funeral shenanigans

[shiro2hero]

(Thank you. For what you did back there.)

[It's quiet, restrained. Starlight muted through city lights. Barely visible from concealing thunderclouds. Flickering through with green, sick lightning.]

[Someone told him what she'd done. Back in the chaos. Her and Bellamy both. He owes them more than just the words, but in the moment, words are all he has.]

[shri]

( One of us already died, I would not leave another to such a fate. )

[ Clipped intention - military to it's edge, duty bound in all forms. ]

late late, post funeral.

[deployed]

( Is there room for one more in your tent? )

[ Bellamy doesn't care to elaborate on why exactly he's seeking a new place to lay his head, but he does feel the need to ask before he shows up begging a place. ]

[shri]

[ The pour of oil is - contemplative. What's this? ]

( Of course. Did you need linens? )

post funeral/post awkward party time

[justttkidding]

[ Manners maketh man, so of course he doesn't just barge right into her mental connection. No, he knocks, at least as much as one can with their mind. It comes through to her as a soft but cool breeze, the first sign of winter after a warm autumn. ]

[shri]

[ She feels the curl of his mind against her own far before she hears the proverbial knock. It's that alone that lets her call back - her own the guttering flame, that gives warning to those leaves. ]

( Come in. )

[ And when he does, she is standing her her back to him - in the middle of preparing for bed. Wrapping material over scars, on her way to being completely dressed. ]

[sistershoggoth]

[ She comes to check on Gildor... In a way, she's always a little relieved when the hosts she cares about fall asleep. They can't get hurt when they're under. It's only a tinge, however, there's still the worry -- the want. Will he come back? Does she need him to? She sure wishes she didn't, but she's also glad he can't suffer from her drinking now. Which she is doing even as she comes into the room, pausing there and watching Lakshmi. ]

How are you doing?

[ No point asking about him. ]

[shri]

[ She sits, quietly and kept to herself, with Gildor's hand in her own. She doesn't ask for commiseration or throw herself down with grief. The jagged line that was a morning of doing nothing at all but being so utterly entwined with him - to this, now, where his mind has slipped out from her completely. ]

Well enough.

[ It's said without looking, her eyes still watching his face like if she looked hard enough and long enough, he might rise then and there with some laughing note about making her worry. ]

DAY :026

[wille]

[ It's a long time coming by her measure, she who strikes before lining up intent with action. Revenge a dish better served scalding. But this has nothing to do with that, vengeance that is, and her mind is unusually calm despite her accusing words. One can't blame the knife for a self-inflicted wound, or so it goes. This is a firm grip on the wrist, a quick interruption in an otherwise mundane day. ]

( What did he say to you that deserves getting stabbed over? )

[shri]

[ Oh, well, fuck.

But that he hasn't told Misato. Well that was his business, not her. Because it's not like she doesn't remember it. Doesn't remember the weight like the settle of a blade into a backhand strike. It is muscle memory, gone over and over again in her mind, drilled into her. ]

( Like most here, he mistook the purpose of a blade to me as something merely ornamental. Not that which my husband passed his honor onto me at his death, used to fight for the life of my people upon.

I corrected him about such notions. I do not take misunderstandings of that kind well. )

[ It has a ring of sincerity to it. In that it's gritted out: she wasn't pleased about it. He had misunderstood, like they often did. Of what she is capable of. Of what he had asked of her in such a state.

She wasn't sure she ever wanted another to see that. Those choices. The blood that is under the nails, like picking at a nail. First that, then Rust knowing of the blackwater. It sits like a knot to be picked apart but being unable to find the thread to start to unravel it. ]

[sistershoggoth]

[ After a few particularly loaded days on the airship, Annie's mere presence is finally no longer outright inebriating. She's now nursing a kind of prolonged, dehydrated hangover...

It was an easy and classic cycle that she can see all too well. Fall off the wagon, feel guilty, drink to feel less guilty-- But she knows all too well she can't really drink her feelings away, that she can't really hole up and isolate herself from the other hosts in this environment. The desire is strong, and her reeling sense of vindication keeps trying to convince her that 'if you do this, you can have that'. She knows all of its tricks, but once you start down the slope, your judgment lapses, and there's your justification. Rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat-- ]

( Rani. )

[ Distract me. ]

[shri]

[ There's a lot of things she could and couldn't say that are more or less inviting or demanding but the easiest one is simple. ]

( Come here. )

Hyripia: day 35ish

[earthborn]

( Hey, you free? Got a quick question for you, Rani. Personal question, nothing too scary. )

[shri]

( Of course, Commander, ask away. )