MENTAL LINK | IC INBOX

[narcissithstic]

HATRED all will suffer for their crimes.	SERVICE within it, glory beyond measure.
CONTROL chaos brought to heel through pain.	FEAR failure, weakness, mediocrity...

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Comments

Day 155

[erbier]

[ He is the only one... she can manage this with clarity. And she needs something from him that she is afraid to expose to anyone else in the asking. She reaches for his attention with a hesitance, still uncertain if this is really what she wants to do. ]

[narcissithstic]

[This is no new venture for him: he was born to meet the call of Snoke's voice, the whispers of the universe itself - she will find he responds with little hesitation or strain.]

What is it?

[erbier]

I must be able to swim.

[ All of the other training they have been beholden to has seemed arbitrary and meaningless to her, but this... The pool had terrified her, she hadn't even been able to contemplate getting close to the edge, let alone attempting to wade into it.

It is unacceptable. ]

Help me.

[narcissithstic]

[This is childish. A task so far beneath him that he could-- without so much as a glint of regret-- sever the connection in that instant. There are others aboard the ship more capable, more willing to hold her hand as she learns not to fall or falter.

The fact that it is her asking, however, stays that instinctive response.]

Briefly.

[erbier]

[ There are better teachers of the act itself, she can think of several, and she may even ask them when this task is complete. She needs him for something else. At his consent, she opens up, like peeling the skin from a grape to expose the tender flesh of her phobia.

The pool is a blue jewel. Its color so bright and so clear that it almost looks poisonous, artificial to her. She has never seen something so pure, never seen so much water collected merely to play in.--( She knows dingy water straight from the ground, she knows tin wash basins and rusted spigots. )

It feels like a trap. A surge of certainty from nowhere, perhaps some figment of a cruel story told her once upon a time, a genii and a mirage, luring you closer with something desirous. Luring you close and then pulling you in, wrapping you up in water and filling your insides while you thrash and bubble and then sink, cold with empty eyes and soft blue lips. Something beautiful, something deadly, she can almost hear the speech Dreus would make about the beauties of the world, treacherous, unseemly. ]

Help me.

[ She's willing to go deeper into the brambles between them to lose this. Willing to give up something of herself. That was always the exchange with the Hive, was it not?

She'll surrender it, if he'll accept her, replace her fear with his confidence. ]

[narcissithstic]

[Fear is potent, corrupt. It boils in his veins as clearly as the rage that fuels him and-- in spite of what the Jedi say-- there is strength in it. Desperation breeds determination, after all; the violent thrashing of something cornered rather than paralyzed. Or it ought to be, at least. His life has always been muddied with conflict that binds, rather than frees. Locks him to the spot of his own indecision.

Those days are gone.

For her, they soon will be as well.

Because there is nothing so new about peeling away memories like something physical and passing them off with purpose: Ren keeps the memories of water that are more...fragile close, but where she holds her fear, he offers the simplicity of experience. Life aboard Starkiller Base, the Finalizer, where troops and officers alike needed the comfort of recreational training within heated pools of glossy water. Not blue, but pitch dark and seemingly endless - a byproduct of the hewn obsidian stone that lined it. The deck would always be abandoned when he dared to use it (locked off on his own orders) but it was-- at times-- like swimming through the stars themselves once the light hit the water at just the right angle. Water lapping at bare, flecked skin. It was routine, and it was comforting as much as anything could truly be with anguish beating hotly in his chest.]

DAY 160

[erbier]

[ At a distance, evicted from the port by the Prince, she feels the threats to her brood, feels their responses. His is like a flame, hypnotizing in its easy certainty... She waits. Checks with Steve first, and then reaches for the other. ]

( Ren. )

[ Soft and placid like a whisper, no judgment from her on what he chooses to do, merely desirous for him to come back from his anger now that it is done. ]

[erbier]

[ She has to let herself drown in it. Has to leave herself open to the imprint of it, let it fill her lungs so that she can no longer breathe the noxious terror of her own fear. By her God, she had not even realized she was always so afraid, she had become so numb and comfortable with the terrors that she knew. Dreus had helped her with that, weaved a web of acceptance around her that made demons of all mankind, not to be trusted nor to be loved, except for he himself, most divine.

She has to let that go too.

Don't fight it.

It pains her not to, like the calling of an addiction, and brief gagging impulse to struggle is painful, choking on water rather than slipping peacefully out of herself. Briefly all the stars are falling, balls of fire that crater the surface of some distant world, but she regains herself with the spilling of furious tears, lips pursed, and they melt back where they belong, pin pricks of white in a dark mirror.

Anguish in dark waters. The rhythm of treading water begins to lull her in, and finally she sinks all the way to the bottom, staring up through murky layers at the distorted lights above. She does not resurface as herself, but as a piece of a part, body slicing through water, it does not matter whose. Rippling through the darkness, alone, not alone.

The way her restraints are suddenly gone is like a sigh, a long exhale, nothing but stars in her mind. No words, just comfort in him. ]

[narcissithstic]

[For a moment, he lingers too long in the absence of thought. So near to the placid peacefulness the Jedi once tried to bear down onto his troubled shoulders that it could border on disturbing, were he easily jostled by anything but his own insecurity. Instead his breath finds him, one palm braced across the table at his side.

This is where he exists, now.

Fortunate for her that he can leash the endless pull of the Force, keeping it from touching her at least for the moment. Better to spare her that anguish when she's already working to endure.]

Anything else?

[narcissithstic]

I'm fine. [Tinged with barely contained anger, bitter over the interruption suffered at the hands of his own brood, not to mention Hux himself. An insult, no matter how many times he replays the incident in his head.]

[erbier]

[ For a brief moment there's a radiance there, an expansion of light and hunger. For a moment the answer is yes, everything. She ropes it back, and there they are each of them keeping the hounds at bay, hungry teeth too close. Could she take it, all of it? And what would that make her if she were to do so... Why does it call to her at all. Is it just this insect inside of her that makes her feel this way? That sours the pleasure of it, like maggots in a corpse. She strives to be so much more than merely that.

Ah. She won't trouble him with that. There are some things that should be handled with your own two hands, rather than bargained away. ]

Thank you.

[ The words themselves are inadequate, but they serve their purpose. A punctuation to this, an end note to an exercise, although as the closeness of her thoughts recedes it never truly leaves. ]

[erbier]

[ The suggestion of a quirked smile, her mood far lighter than his. ]

( I assumed so. )

[ She has faith in him, whatever that's worth. ]

[narcissithstic]

Cathaway will be displeased.

[A thought that troubles him more than his prey narrowly escaping.]

[erbier]

[ Hm. She keeps back her sourness after Prince's disapproval, no need to bother him with it. ]

( Will she? Perhaps you should let her decide that for herself. )

[narcissithstic]

You didn't glimpse her mind the way that I did.

[Petty. Entitled. A touch defensive in spite of the knowledge that she's only trying to help - it isn't entirely malicious on his part, but the anger in his blood has yet to subside.]

Prince is already eager for my dismissal.

[erbier]

[ Ah, her disdain blossoms to think that the instructor would dare to treat her brood this way. Merely her is one thing, to share it to the others... Her anger is cold and sharp. ]

( He reeks of cowardice and fault. How many hosts have died under his watch, where are the others meant to fill the station? He would see me gone as well. I will not let him. Not for either of us. )

[narcissithstic]

You'd be foolish to think you could stop him.

[He outranks them in ability, in experience and possibly favor— though that mark he's yet to effectively gauge.]

[erbier]

( Doubt me if you like. )

[ So much judgment. ]

[narcissithstic]

It's not you I doubt, nor him that I have faith in. [But Cathaway— ]

We will see.

[They've yet to return, perhaps there is a chance he can argue his point.] Where are you?

[erbier]

( Beyond the port. )

[ Somewhere with as much greenery as she could get, how unsurprising. ]

( Northwest of our touchdown. )

[ Touching feet back to the ground, the way she visualizes does not quite allow for 'landing site' ]

[narcissithstic]

You have enough supplies to manage?

[Trade is limited already, and he can sense it— the coming storm.]

[erbier]

( Supplies enough. I need little. )

[ She is very good at living with nothing. ]

( My electronic can direct me to more, if it becomes necessary. )

[ She means the datapad, she means Angel. ]

[narcissithstic]

Do you care what happens to him? [Ren's attempts at conversation so often read as an interrogation, rather than anything socially acceptable. Still, there's purpose to it.]

Rogers.

[erbier]

[ Such a complicated question. It disturbs her to say she cares about anyone beyond whatever figure she has taken to worshipping now... and yet. ]

( It would be painful to lose him. )

[ Answer enough, maybe? ]

[narcissithstic]

Then I'll send him to you.

[Because if he spends another second staring into Steve's fragile, stupid little face as things are right now, he might find himself close to breaking it.]