S72 | mental link

[sistershoggoth]

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

TELEPATHY PERMISSIONS

Annie is a lot of things. She is not entirely just a human, her consciousness is also the consciousness of an alien planet: where she is life and death, growth and decay, all of nature and the ocean and all of the things that survive in those places. She's every rock down to its individual atoms. A casual observer is unlikely to get that far in their understanding of her, but those who get closest to her and end up sharing dreams with her will have a chance to understand this granularity of her other-ness. At a further distance, the inside of Annie feels very expansive, a large and lightless space which observes. There is always a sense like she is getting closer to you, a subtle invasion of privacy, space, autonomy. She doesn't do this on purpose, it's just what's in her. There's definitely a sense that she could swallow or drown you, in herself. The big black emptiness she feels inside is rarely in line with what she's presenting externally, it's very dissonant. It's worse when she's actively analyzing you. Better when she's totally dismissive of your existence. This is what lurks in the depths of Annie, but her human side is there. Her humanity is strained by the enormity of what she is secondarily aware of. She's not entirely sane, nor stable. Her mind is extremely active, and her imagination particularly vivid. She comes with a great deal of noise and color, which is a total smokescreen for keeping the more otherworldly aspects of herself in the periphery. This only kind of works, her other nature tends to expose itself regardless and her mental voice is not merely one voice, but all those voices coming together, which gives them a warbling, underwater like quality. She's a recovering, and often relapsed, addict and alcoholic. She is always trying not to feel something, and always wishing to not really be herself. The noise and color also tries to cover up this, she is always trying to ignore her own strain: pain, anxiety, sorrow. When she is drinking, much of the sensory onslaught of her is muted, a way of clouding herself: a murky swamp that she wallows in. When she is using... everything is amplified and she is particularly sprawling and out of control.

Comments

(frozen comment)

[sistershoggoth]

[ Her head pops up, giving him a look to make sure he's not thinking of taking the shit back from her. ]

So they get a little woozy, it probably won't kill anybody. Besides, I also need it for canvas work.

(frozen comment)

[somnifacient]

[He feels like attempting to take it back from her would be a mistake, anyway; besides, Noctis hopes that she has enough good judgment to not kill a fellow host with alien paint. Sardonically:]

Woozy one moment, dead the next. I wash my hands clean of any accidental deaths, you know.

[It's a joke, but he'd actually feel pretty bad, so... please don't kill anyone, Annie.]

I found a canvas, too, by the way. It's kind of big, though. Will you be okay carrying it around? [Where is said canvas? Not here, it seems.]

(frozen comment)

[sistershoggoth]

Nope, [ She answers brightly, ] it's definitely your fault if I kill them.

[ She makes a flappy gesture for the coffee, simultaneously flicking the end of her cigarette away. ]

And yeah, I can carry it. I'm pretty built, just sayin'.

[ That is not the right word to use, because she's like 5'2" but she is quite strong. That stupid gauzy shirt of hers shows the definition of it through her back and shoulders. ]

Soldiering since birth. Was it you I told that to earlier? Nah, I think it must've been tiny twat, I remember someone yelling at me about it.

[ An idle reminiscence, definitely zero emotion about pissing off some of the other hosts. ]

(frozen comment)

[somnifacient]

Ha ha. [The driest response ever. But he shrugs it off for now. (Or pretends to. Seriously, don't kill anyone.)]

I'd say I'm surprised, but I'm not. [Yes, Annie is tiny, but he's caught images of what had lurked in that chest of hers. "Soldiering since birth" is... something to wonder about, but not that much of a stretch.

But no point in getting off track. He'd have plenty of time to ask later, and right now he just wants to unload this canvas. So Noctis extends an arm, flexing his hand as if he's about to grab at something invisible. His magic activates with a shattering of blue light, and a large canvas appears out of thin air. Noctis catches it with his fingers before it tumbles to the ground, and the light dissolves into nothing.]

Here. One of the corners is banged up, but other than that it should be fine.

(frozen comment)

[sistershoggoth]

[ She gulps down the coffee extra quickly so that she can squawk at him, ]

That one is pretty good. What else do you keep in your fuckin' magic pockets?

(frozen comment)

[somnifacient]

[He sets the canvas down on the ground next to where she's seated.]

Weapons. Swords, axes, lances... shields. That kind of thing. [A beat.] A fishing pole.

I don't usually utilize it just to carry around other people's stuff, so you should feel special.

(frozen comment)

[sistershoggoth]

[ An empty canvas is always a treasure. Although it's one that she's going to fucking destroy. So maybe more like a fucking toilet for her to vomit up all the foul shit that lives inside her mind on. Thanks for the toilet, King Noctis. She runs her fingertips happily down the blank surface of it, feeling the texture and weight. ]

Of course you're gonna hold my purse for me.

[ She doesn't have one. She never has. She can carry her own gear like any little soldier should. Although she doesn't have any. She came here from the dead of night in a pair of pajamas, doesn't have so much as a pistol, let alone the body armor she'd normal be asked to put on. None of that's stopped her from storming full speed ahead. ]

You're just ready for anything, huh. What a fucking show off.

(frozen comment)

[somnifacient]

[You're welcome for the toilet, Annie. She can paint whatever she pleases on it as far as he's concerned. If it helps fill that void, even a little — or just distracts from it — then it’s worth the effort.

No response to the purse comment, other than crossing his arms and leaning back in his seat.]

You didn’t think I was completely useless, did you? I’ve been training for awhile too.

(frozen comment)

[sistershoggoth]

I assume you're mostly useless.

[ She shrugs. ]

There's a reason there weren't any men at the Academy.

(frozen comment)

[somnifacient]

Well, I'm not. [A hint of petulance, like he's momentarily rewound ten years. But it flickers away, settling under the surface of everything he is now.]

Men couldn't pull their own weight in your world or something? [He sounds dubious.]

(frozen comment)

[sistershoggoth]

Eh.

[ She makes a vague noise of unhappiness, but this is her own blabbermouth fault for mentioning it in the first place. ]

It's a whole big thing with aliens. Most of us are dead now anyway.

(frozen comment)

[somnifacient]

[A hand comes up, rubbing at the stubble on his chin. Frowning, because he's not sure if that explains much of anything. Nor does he know how she can sound so casual about most of "them" being dead.

He pursues this line of thought a little further.]

So what happens when the fighting's done?

[His thoughts flicker to Eos, to the state of the capital city Insomnia. Ruined and crumbling. He wonders how the people back home would rebuild, after all was said and done. If he ever got a chance to see his duty through to the end.]

(frozen comment)

[sistershoggoth]

How the fuck would I know.

[ A shrug. ]

Spent a few years playing clean up but then we just fought with each other. Now I'm here, to fight some other fuckin' alien.

[ She fights. It's what she does, freewheeling trying to keep hold of sanity and will to leave. At least she has a purpose when there's fighting to be done. ]

(frozen comment)

[somnifacient]

Don't you care?

[He's projecting now, maybe. But it's a valid question nonetheless.]

It's your world, after all. Your people, even if you did fight each other.

(frozen comment)

[sistershoggoth]

[ The energy goes out of her. She's had this conversation. Noctis's voice becomes someone else's, a girl that had Annie had known since childhood. One of the survivors. She'd never thought much about Therese, until she'd survived, she and that dense as shit twin of hers. It's a pair of girls in her minds eye, the same face but their hair different shades of dye. Therese is the one with her arms crossed, beautiful and severe, her voice icy when she hisses,

I won't go back to the way things were.

A dire warning, a declaration of war. The stupid twin had a strange look on her face, waiting for the other. A keen look of excitement, like she'd been waiting for this moment a long time. She was excited. Therese was disappointed, disappointed that Annie wouldn't do more, for her. What the fuck had made Therese think that she'd had anything more to give. That Annie would take her side when all she'd wanted for months and months was to stop digging out bodies from the rubble and go home... Only home she'd ever known, as if she could clean all the death out of it and make it something better. ]

No. [ She mutters, uncurling from where she's sitting. ] Don't give a shit, let somebody else take care of it...

[ Her hand brushes the empty coffee cup and she stares at it for a long moment before slapping it off into the street. She shoulders her bag of paint brushes. Starts in on shouldering the canvas on the other arm. ]

I did enough.

(frozen comment)

[somnifacient]

[Watching her deflate is the same as feeling it himself. The spark in his words, born of curiosity just moments before, seems to die out in mere moments.

And so he just watches uselessly as the coffee cup is thrown and the canvas lifted up, everything about her body language telling him that she was about to leave. He tries to let his mind lace into hers, to understand just what switch he had flipped; what he sees confuses him (disappointment and disapproval, sisters?), and he doesn't linger there for long. That devouring, uneasy feeling that radiates from Annie is enough to discourage him from latching on fully.

He won't stop her, if she really wants to end the conversation. But that doesn't stop Noctis from speaking again.]

What about here? You're willing enough to participate in these missions. What's the difference?

(frozen comment)

[sistershoggoth]

[ What's the difference... God that's a hateful question, like a punch to the stomach. She starts to think about what's different. She thinks about the Academy, an array of young female faces that are either worn tight from strain or bright with the kind of sociopathy that allowed one to handle the demands of the Headmistress without much thought. They drop away one by one, at first: suicides, missions, ill-fated bullying, drugs, accidents.

But then they drop in a swathe. Their bodies mangled in the ruins of the Academy, the sky alight with fire and blood. This is familiar to him. The same series of events he had evoked out of her when they had first met aboard the Station. It is the prelude to her hugeness, to the reality of her, and it sparks for a moment because it is what comes next, but ultimately, it isn't the answer to the question: What's the difference?

The difference is how much was lost. How she may have beaten back the goddamn aliens but when she awoke anew in this wretched body she was more lost and helpless than she had ever been. After reconvening with those few survivors of her home -- Therese, the girl with the icy voice pulses in her again -- she had spent the next several years digging up bodies from collapsed buildings, hands on exposure to just how much had been lost.

Survivor's guilt at odds with the reality that she'd saved this world. Humanity at odds with a divinity she'd experienced for a flicker.

She feels sick, heat starting to run up her throat in that awful way it does when she wants to drink herself to death. ]

None of this shit matters.

(frozen comment)

[somnifacient]

[Fingers move to twist at the slumbering ring on his finger, an almost childish tell of discomfort. He wonders to himself if all of this, whatever it is they’ve all been dragged into, really means nothing at all. Others had told him that being alive was better than nothing, that at least they could fight here for the sake of their homes. For the sake of those they care about, even if returning was out of the question for now.

Suddenly he just feels tired again. With an exhale, he pushes himself off of the seat, standing — not without scooping up the unfinished coffee in one hand, not letting it go to waste.]

If it doesn’t matter, then there’s no point in fighting, either.

[Not so much an argument than it is a bland commentary. A sip of coffee — he immediately frowns at the bitterness.]

Did you know I was born just so I could die? [Not the grow-old-and-wither-away kind of die, or the glorious-death-in-battle sort, either. A sacrifice for the sake of fulfilling a Prophecy, one that he had been blinded to for so long.

He doesn’t expect sympathy, or even empathy, from Annie. He says it to draw a thin parallel, and doesn’t even give her time to comment on it.]

I’m not saying that our circumstances are the same, I’m just… [Words. Words always escape him when he needs them the most.] I don’t know. You’re not alone in having to… give away a big part of yourself for the sake of other people.

(frozen comment)

[sistershoggoth]

I know I'm not.

[ There's these crowds of faces that live in her mind. These groups that she's been a part of. She didn't realize how much the structure of the Academy had held her together until it was gone. Until she was naked and powerless, trying to replicate it by heading home but finding only that half-spawn bitch -- A sleek young woman with a narrow face, an unearthly smile -- doing the exact same thing, like she was gonna take over where Sparrows left off.

But an empty Academy wasn't going to do it, so they -- Therese, Therese -- had gone looking for who was left. The pathos bearers. Men and women, all shapes and sizes, united around the idea that they had the strength to put things back together again. They'd all lost something, and none of them knew where to go.

What Annie wasn't used to was never... never being able to do enough to solve the problem. The arguments had been endless. This is our world too, don't you care? The intensity of her sorrow is fading, a well worn injury at this point. She hadn't realized how lazy she'd gotten, being a school girl, a soldier. Not as independent and capable as she thought. As people needed her to be -- Therese.

She looks at her paints and her canvas and feels small. What, she was just going to bully Noctis into helping her keep herself together now? What a fucking raw ass deal for him. ]

You're super not dead, bro.

[ But whatever, really. Sigh. ]

You can tell me your sad story while we walk.

(frozen comment)

[somnifacient]

Not yet, anyway. [-is his response to not being dead. He had honestly been only moments away, a hair's breadth from summoning his ancestors to bring him into the beyond, to completely finish what he had started. His body, his spirit, everything, gone. All to bring back the dawn again.

You can tell me your sad story, she says. The hesitation is clear. Noctis doesn't want pity, but he's also has no reason to deny her of his circumstances. And so, he takes yet another drink of the coffee he so obviously doesn't enjoy, gathering his thoughts.]

It's pretty straightforward. Some- [some asshole, he would have said, years ago. Now, he feels only pity for him.] -man, a king from an age long gone, wanted revenge for being betrayed thousands of years ago. By the gods, and his own family.

[He remembers that spite, all that bitterness directed squarely at him. It lurked under a veneer of twisted satisfaction, because despite everything, Ardyn was only getting what he wanted. The world in ruin, the utter destruction of the Lucis Caelum dynasty, the end to his immortality. A cold feeling runs up Noctis' spine, but he continues.]

He threw the whole world into darkness. Literally. Allowed daemons to wander the world, waiting for the Chosen King to rise and put an end to everything he had become. That would be me.

(frozen comment)

[sistershoggoth]

[ Sounds like a fantasy to her, then again maybe her shit sounded pretty weird to him too. Genre dissonance, she was from a world of aliens and powers that came from mutation, not from magic. Although Annie herself didn't exactly fall into either category. She wasn't actually a pathos bearer. Not a magic user. Something else, the same way the symbiote was something else outside of either of their experiences.

And as fantastical as it sounds, she is inside of him. She knows easily enough not a word of it is false, can feel the tired weight of ascending a throne of spectral blades. Maybe she envies him, that his death really would save the word. Morbid romanticism.

It's pleasant to her, even, to dip into his story instead of her own. Her agitation fades. ]

Did I forget to ask if you were a king? Shoulda guessed, what with princess Lucina and all that shit.

(frozen comment)

[somnifacient]

[He actually shrugs his shoulders, huffing out a laugh that's just barely audible. Air escaping his lungs, really.]

You didn't ask. I don't think there's much of a reason to go around telling everyone. It doesn't mean anything here.

[A comment indicative of Noctis' casual unwillingness to be treated any differently than the rest. He even manages to joke half-heartedly, motivated by feeling irritation wane on her end.]

We can always slap a crown on you if you're jealous.

(frozen comment)

[sistershoggoth]

[ She's a little surprised to find herself smiling at that. Most of her expressions were some level of hollow, every smile and smirk, but it feels good to get a little help lifting out of herself. The steady comfort of a broodmate, a sensation she hasn't had in long time now because everyone was dead or just gone. She didn't realize how abandoned she'd felt until the surprise of feeling genuine relief at Noctis's stupid joke. ]

I'm absolutely fuckin' jealous, but I'd make a shitty princess. And trash queen sounds a little too legit.

[ She adjusts the crap she's carrying as they nudge their way down the crowded streets back to the hotel. ]

It might help your team to play that shit up for the tournament, or it might just get you fuckin' kidnapped, I dunno.

[ Although it occurs to you, ]

The drama might even get you points. We'd just have to get you back again.

[ And she would. ]

(frozen comment)

[somnifacient]

[Stupid jokes and bad puns. Noctis is as much full of those as he is of more serious thoughts; sacrifice and darkness and sadness. But the young king is no masochist, and would rather linger in the feeling of relief and lightheartedness whenever it presents itself. It's rare, these days, and he can appreciate letting it wash over him in a feedback loop provided by the symbiote and their mental link.]

I think the title of Queen would suit you just fine. You'd get to boss people around and do whatever you want. [Which of course is not true as far as queens are concerned back in Lucis, but he can't be sure. He'd have to travel back in time to meet his female ruling ancestors, and Noctis is pretty certain he'd be nothing short of intimidated by some of them.]

We... could stage a kidnapping. [He's only half-joking.] But does anyone really care about a king of some land they've never heard about? It sounds... [What's the word he's looking for?] Vain.

(frozen comment)

[sistershoggoth]

Uh.

[ One of her incredulous faces, eyes narrowing. ]

That's the point of the whole fuckin' thing, to be vain and ridiculous. What, they don't have a fuckin' talent show in daemon land?

[ She may or may not have by now forgotten what he told her his world was called. Those kinds of details slip through her mind like so much sand, but ask her to recite off the Kings and Queens of England and all their family members, she's got you. It was a side effect of the way she was schooled, academic details galore with little ability for interpersonal remembrance. Shocker. ]

Besides, having never heard of it will just make you all brooding and mysterious and shit.

[ She rolls her eyes so hard it's a wonder they don't roll out of her head. ]