The light in Bea's room flickers a couple times, rapidly. Tabitha, as you look around, inhaling the weird scents of the place, you see words appear on Navi. i c u!!!!!
Inside Bea's room, you see an image of this:
She looks right at you, Ourania. Her expression is troubled, but she forces a slight smile when you look at her.
Tabitha, being disconnected as you are from the other students, you have a unique perspective. Also, you've effectively "merged" with Gwen, too (not quite sex, more like ghosty second base). Gwen's best way "in" is to inhabit a body. She has none. Her corpus was recycled.
Gwen nods, thrilled that you see her. You notice, however, that while you see her upper body, she seems to disappear into shadow somewhere around her knees. She holds out her arms, as if to hug you.
But you pass through her, Ourania. She turns, hovering in the air, a pained and stricken expression on her face, looking at you both.
It's painful to watch Ourania and Gwen try to interact like this. If what Gwen needs right now is a body, then..why not let her borrow mine? "Gwen, maybe we could do. Something like what we did before? You could use me to visit. With Ourania."
After volunteering that, I'm a little afraid. What if it's like Iso? Or I die? But I trust Gwen - I didn't die last time. Besides, maybe it would be nice.
When you let Gwen inside, roll with Dark. On a hit, she's in. On a 10+, you can take back over whenever you want, share, watch, whatever. On a 7-9, you're out, pushed into that space she came from.
(take a +1 Forward acting on your Heightened Senses roll)
For a moment, the image of Gwen is there, flickering. But then she sees Tabitha, who is watching her with an intense expression. Gwen walks forward, towards Tabitha, then into Tabitha. She doesn't pass through.
Your roommate blinks a couple times, shakes her head, then beams with excitement.
"Rania?" Tabitha says, but her voice seems softer, "It's me. It's Gwen." She moves to you, wrapping her arms around you tightly, hugging fierce and without abandon, her body warm against you.
You feel Gwen inside you. It's like it was in Iso, but there are many more sensations here than in Iso. Still, you have a better sense of your self, less disconnected. How does it feel to you this time, Tabitha?
Along with Gwen using your mouth, you're distracted by something. A voice. Not yours, not Gwen's. Not even Ioanna's. It sounds like Priscilla. Singing a soft song, one with many, many verses.
I'm still experiencing myself..I feel like I could take over my body again if I needed to but I relax away from it. Without the paralysis of Iso, it's more satisfying. My voice feels funny though. Well, maybe not mine.
Gwen's hug is very different from the kind I give people..either the short, rough bonding moments during Speedball or..I guess holding Zola, or holding Ourania. I don't feel much like I can or should otherwise.
I want to turn to the singing..but that would shift my body, wouldn't it? I try to focus on it in the same split way I did the interface in Iso.
You spend a moment focusing and yes, you can hear it more clearly. She feels close, right now, and almost present, in a weird way. There's even a faint echo to her voice, as if you're in the same room.
Priscilla's "mind-voice", as it were, is surprisingly soulful, speaking of pain and loss, fear and loneliness. It's like a voice she hides when anyone's around, but well, now. Well, nobody's around.
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands, Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes, My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums, Should I put them by your gate, Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?
The kings of Tyrus with their convict list Are waiting in line for their geranium kiss, And you wouldn't know it would happen like this, But who among them really wants just to kiss you? With your childhood flames on your midnight rug, And your Spanish manners and your mother's drugs, And your cowboy mouth and your curfew plugs, Who among them do you think could resist you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands, Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes, My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums, Should I leave them by your gate, Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?
"Pris? What is that you're singing?" I feel almost like I've snuck up on her, but I can't just wait and stay 'hidden' any longer. "You're so good at it."
I watch with wide eyes and open mouth as Gwen merges with Tabitha. As Tabitha lets herself be possessed. Drokking Void. All sorts of questions there.
Then Gwen/Tabitha… Gwenitha? Is hugging me hard and I’m returning it just as fiercly. It’s a crazy mixed message of a hug, though. It’s Tabitha’s body with those long lean muscles from speedball, and Tabitha’s scent. But the way she holds herself, the way she rubs my back is definitely Gwen.
And somehow I’m wondering if Tabitha is doing this for Gwen or doing it for me. Both probably, but I wonder.
Even before the hug is over I think about the cameras.
“C’mon” I say, taking hold of her hand and going back to our room.
I pull her to sit on my bed, sitting close, holding both her hands. There is still some cognitive dissonence, looking into Tabitha’s face, at Tabitha’s body, but even her experession is different.
“Stars Gwen, I missed you.” I say after a moment of awkward silence. My emotions are still high and on edge from my little incident. “But you… your accident happened months ago! How long have you been, um, like this?”
Gwenitha sits on the bed, her thigh touching yours. She's all smiles, gently brushes the back of her hand against your arm as she answers, "Months, I guess. Time passes weird. Like, jumps around and stuff. Sometimes I can focus for a whole conversation, but others... I just fade." She takes your right hand in both of hers, "Right now? I feel solid." After a moment, she looks down at herself, "Gods, Tabtiha is so skinny. I'm so jealous. You hear me in here, Tabs? You're too cute, it isn't fair." She laughs lightly, squeezes your hand. "So tell me how you've been. Start with all the stuff to make me green."
Tabitha,
"What? Is that... Tabitha, is that you?" Her song ends, but somehow it echoes a little after, longer than it should. "Are you in the interface? I don't see you. Oh, the song. It's an ancient one called Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" You feel her laugh lightly. "It sort of meanders, but it's the longest song I know. And I dunno, it feels nice to remember it. What-what are you doing here? Are you okay? Please tell me you aren't in the med bay sick!"
I chuckle when she laughs. I don't know if Tabitha is just sitting behind her eyes, watching... but then, what else would she be doing?
"She's right, you know, Tabitha. You really are super cute." I say that a bit louder. As if she can't hear me quite as well, like she's in another room. "But you're, ah... you're just as cute, Gwen. Always have been." I smile tentatively. I don't want to just fawn over her. Well okay, I do. And I've been given another chance to do it. Still.
I shrug apologetically. "Other than having the best roommate in the whole ship, there isn't much to say on the green front."I barely said a word to anyone for a month after you died. I pause. "The food is still stomm. Pris is sick. Eveyone else is a drokking asshole, especially Larsen. He's decided to date Nadja. Rys and Lucas are both after Ashlee." I take in her expression. "I know, right? And I'm still the enemy." I think of Bea accusing me of Gwen's murder. It still hurts. "It's just..." I pause and then shake my head.
When you compliment Gwen, Gwenitha gives a sad smile to it, like she's not "cute" anymore, she's gone, but she doesn't say it. That turns into a small frown at the mention of Pris being sick, everyone being awful doesn't help. When you slam Larsen, her eyes crinkle in that way you remember they do when she knows "there's more to that story", then she actually laughs at the idea of Rys and Lucas chasing Ashlee. Not a spiteful laugh, one of surprise and a little delight. She covers her mouth when she does. Which is why you don't see her mouth tighten when you tell her you're still the enemy. Her right hand comes up to brush a strand of your hair out of your eyes and she looks at you with all the concern in the stars, her voice soft, caring, "It's just what, Rania? It's okay, it's just me..." she pauses, does a slight eye-roll, amends, "Well, it's just me and your cute, best roommate. But seriously, Rania, what is it?"
"I finished my un-school for the day. I have seventeen more hours to go." Priscilla answers, trying to keep her tone neutral instead of sad, but it bleeds through a little. "I'm glad you aren't sick. Although, the new doctor is really sweet." After a moment, she adds, "And pretty, too. I think she's barely older than us. With Haladay gone, they must have put her in with us. I wonder if maybe she graduated? Wouldn't that be zeng? If she was one of us. Someone who made it." The thought trails off. Through the bleed of your consciousness and hers, you pick up a thought she tried to hold onto, "I'm not... going to make it."
They can't connect her to some feeds? Come to think of it, we're quarantined in communication as much as we are in body. They aren't going to get the plague from a Navi message. My resentment for the authority is plain.
If the new doctor is young..then she has to be a graduate, right? That would be the most sensible thing. I just can't trust the simple answer, though.
In the interface, I can't guard myself and just be silent. I can feel that she didn't mean for me to 'hear' it, but.. "You have to! I want to see you again. We all want you to beat this!"
"I want to see you, too. Did Ourania tell you I asked for you?" She pauses for a moment, then asks, "Tabitha, you seem different than when we talk face-to-face. More fluid? Or together. Something. It's really nice talking to you like this. I always feel like you're holding back in, ah, in meatspace."
"She did tell me." Some of my emotion from moments ago recedes. This is time with Pris, right now.
I blink at her next question. I guess I didn't think about it because I didn't..have to think about it. "Oh, well..I mean, I am holding back in meatspace." Hah. "But I've got a neurological disorder, where my mind contains..just a lifetime of words but I don't have the reflexes to use them. I don't have to use my reflexes to speak here. It is really nice."
"Oh," Priscilla reacts, some discomfort coming through, "I didn't know you had a disorder. Did Ioanna? Or was it something from the process of how they made you?" Once the floodgates open, she thinkasks, "Instructor Malcolm said the cloning was a failure, but I always thought it was just the memories. What really happened?"
I don't blame her. "It isn't like I tell anyone." This is sort of why.
"Ioanna was fine, I think." It feels strange to be the subject of honest curiosity instead of preconceived judgement. "But you're right." I hesitate, I don't really want to make Priscilla more uncomfortable. "My body grew just like it was supposed to, but the memory transfer process is very hard on someone, and Ioanna was too weak to survive it. So I woke up before anyone was ready." Me least of all. My feelings are thickly tangled.
"Adults can call me a failure because I'm not Ioanna, but I'm doing so much more than they expected of me, and..I guess a year isn't a long time."
"Whoah," Priscilla thinks. "I've never thought about it. But you're one. That's wild! All I could do I at one was drool!" There's some thought mirth passing through."I don't think you should worry about what they think, Tabitha. You're smart, hardworking, thoughtful, and a great athlete. You got all the good parts of Ioanna, and you've become your own person, too. I didn't know Ioanna as well as Mark, but I see ways where you're different from her. Like how you walk. It's very different."
At first I'm so confused, I can't imagine Pris ever drooling how could she laugh about..? "Oh! Right, babies! I've never seen one."
Most of the time, I just want to be ignored. But right now I'm okay with Pris' attention. I'm definitely not everything that was good about Ioanna..she was full of experiences, knowledge. She knew love from just drokking around.
"Uhm, thank you, Pris. You're sweet. And really brave, I think."
Mark..he probably saw a whole lot of Ioanna. I wonder now if it's hard for him to be around me. If it is, he's been a champ about it.
"I don't have her fingerprints, either. How is my walk different?"
I bite my lip, hesitant. I just don't have the emotional energy to lie to her and conceal it. And I can't bear seeing her disappointment if I didn't hide it.
"I don't know if it's worth it, anymore. All this." I say. "Not after what happened to you and Pris."
She tilts her head to the side, a move you remember from before when she feels sad, but know there's more going on. "If what is worth it? Living? I know you, Rania, you're a fighter, so it isn't that."
I shake my head. "Stars, no, not that. I mean..." I pause again. Lower my voice more."I mean the corps, and what I do, and... and this whole.... this whole system. I... I used to think the Co... that the adults were doing the right thing. That they knew best. That... that my duty was clear." I look up at her. "And now... I don't know." I glance away. "Even if it is, and I should do it, I don't know that most of the people here are worth doing it for."
Gwenitha zeroes right into what you mean. She lowers her voice to match yours, leaning closer until you can feel her breath, her hand squeezing yours, "Rania, what did she make you do?"
"Oh, I'm not brave, Tabitha," Priscilla answers quickly. "Ourania, she's definitely brave, putting the ship above her own needs like she does. Olivar, in his own way, he's brave, too. He'll say what he thinks no matter what it costs him. Okay, maybe he's just crazy." There's a feeling of mirth bleeding through with that. "Most of all? You're really brave, Tabitha. You never give up, even though they say stuff to hurt you, you keep fighting. It's... it's beautiful. I think you're amazing, Tabitha. Ourania does, too, you know. She'd never say, it isn't her way. But she does." Then you mention fingerprints and ask about how you walk. She laughs again, the laughs coming easier and more frequent the more you talk with her. Like you've turned on a little light inside her. "You have different prints? That's fascinating. I wonder how that happened? Do prints evolve based on growth factors, or was it a planned part of the... oh, your walk. Well, it would be easier to show you, of course, but Ioanna's walk was more relaxed, like, her shoulders were lower, her head moved around a little slower. You're sort of straighter? More upright, more focused and alert, but also, well, wary. I dunno, I just like watching how people move, like they're talking without talking. Does that make any kind of sense? I never talk about that with anyone, but the interface seems to remove filters, you know?"
"Olivar is careless," I chuckle with her, there's something I enjoy about taking Olivar so lightly. "Or maybe a masochist."
"You're really good at seeing the best in people, Pris. I think that's what makes you brave. Or maybe, you need the courage first."
People do more than say things to hurt me. "I don't feel brave, but..I don't know. If I stopped fighting, I couldn't be.." Not happy. "..satisfied."
Wow, Pris loves talking. This is kind of like listening to Ash. "No, it makes a lot of sense. People are always expressing themselves, I think. It's how I look at people during speedball. I guess I am wary all the time, you caught me."
"Ha ha, I caught you!" Priscilla teases lightly. "I won't tell anyone, and I don't blame you. It must be hard, the way they treat you. It's stomm. I wish I could change it, Tabitha. You've done nothing wrong, like ever." She pauses for a moment, a thought flitting into her head, something she's mused before, but now it comes through the interface, "You know, I wonder if maybe you're immune to the plague. I mean, you were created a year ago, the spread of the virus came and went by then, it was localized to us kids, but you never were a kid, technically. I bet you're immune. They could send you through right now, and you could be doing real work, or just, you know, doing things without constantly being monitored." There's a bleed of wistful sadness there, the wishing to be free, to survive to adulthood.
"Thanks. Mostly it's the attitudes that get to me." That people think they're right to do what they do to me because I'm a 'failure' to them.
Immune to the plague? That would be nice.. "I guess? I've wondered why they would put me here after growing me there. Also..how long do they keep me here? Till I finish school? A year? Seventeen? Usually I chalk it up to spite..they want to put me someplace where they don't have to feel responsible for me. Where they don't have to see my face."
"I don't know. Maybe I'll get my chance." I expect them to finish what they started, though. "If I do, I'll keep in touch.'
"Don't give up, Tabitha. If you don't, I won't. Okay?" She makes the promise and it feels like a lifeline for her. After a moment, you feel regret through the bleed, "No wait, Tabitha, that's not fair. I'm not your responsibility, I shouldn't have said that. Just... just don't give up. Your a wonderful person and you make the whole pod better. The ship is stronger with you in it."
"I'll do it." I don't hesitate to say. "You're not my responsibility, it's more like..you're running pace with me. All that wonderful stuff is true about you first." I guess I just had to go with an athletic metaphor.
The ship is stronger with me in it..seems like a weird thing to say. "I'm actually..kind of perverse..I know lots of people want me to fail. I love rubbing their noses in it when I don't. So with them pushing and you pulling I won't give up."
"Maybe it isn't very nice, but it gets me through a lot of stomm."
"Should I start pretending to root against you?" Priscilla jokes, you feel the thin attempt at humor in her mental tone. "Don't give up, Tabitha. I want to hug you when I get out of this stupid coma." She pauses, seems distracted for a moment. "Hey, I'm feeling a little fatigued. Is it alright if I go try and rest? I really enjoyed talking to you, probably talked your ear off... or something."
"Hah, no, that won't work." It's a cute joke, we both know she couldn't fake it.
"Oh? Yeah, of course. I'll visit you again soon, this was nice." With that said, I hesitate just a little before..well, I guess trying to shift back to 'where' I was before.
You settle into your self. Your body language feels weird, too. There's a comfort in the closeness with Ourania, the intimacy of this friendship, something you've seen perhaps, but never felt until now. Through it, you see Ourania struggling to tell you something, it feels important. Except, well, she's telling Gwen. Surely she knows that, right? She probably thinks you've overheard all of it.
The look on Ourania's face is complicated and vulnerable..I do get the feeling she's thinking about how to word something for two people instead of one. What they've been chatting about fades into my memory, like I'd experienced it but of course I didn't.
I guess I'm skinny? And that's good? Cute. That's good.
Gwen is thinking of the Commandant. Asking about her.
Gwenitha reaches up to gently, but firmly take your chin in her hand, turns your face to look right at her. "I'm here for a reason, Rania. I have to be. Maybe this is it. Somebody you can tell. Soooo, fess up." A quirk of a smile plays at her lips as she tries to soften this a little, for you, "Don't make me tie you down and tickle it out of you, alright?"
Normally such a silly threat would have me raising a brow and smirking. Right now a ghost of a smile is the best I can do as I return her gaze, a squeeze in my chest.
“Tickle, huh?” it’s a rough whisper. My eyes escape theirs as I turn to face that cliff again.
I swallow hard.
“I…” I stop. I moisten my lip and start again. “I poisoned Pris.” There’s an interminable pause. “Or…I infected her. I… I gave her this stuff, in her drink. The next day her symptoms started. If…” The words choke off. I breathe as best I can. I ’ve really had enough of the crying for one day.
My skin feels cold and run through with needles. My stomach has dropped out. "You didn't."
"What stuff!? Why would you give Pris the plague?!" I grab Ourania by the shoulders and push her down on the bed roughly. All the softness of earlier is something I can't betray on the turn of a moment, but I'm filled with hard thoughts. Pris, who is suffering but still always thinking of others, poisoned by my roommate? Ourania, who talks about the good of the ship, spreading the plague? It's madness.
"'Didn't question?'" I ask Ourania, face livid, my face, betrayed and disappointed..wouldn't she drokking know better?!
I see the snap back to Tabitha and the betrayal on her face in quick succession and I cringe away, automatically and I actually let out a little yelp of surprise and fear when she pushes me onto my back.
Now… now I finally see some of my own anger at myself from someone else. Is this what I was hoping for? You know that thing I said about being tired of crying. Yeah… well it apprantly doesn’t mean I'm actually done with it. Her anger is all the more painful for the comfort she just gave me. And while she’s right to do it, that she assumes the worst… that stabs hard and my defenses are already down. You’d think I’d drokking learn, right?
All that is in there somewhere but the first thing, top level, is a more primal fear of someone bigger than me on top of me, and mirroring my anger and betrayal.
Panic, and pain as I twist in her hard grip. "I’m sorry! Stars, I’m sorry! I didn’t ask! They didn’t drokking tell me what it was!” The ragged, sobbed protest doesn’t do my already torn voice any favors.
They didn't tell her. They'd never tell her, why would they? I was looking for something in her story to forgive her for, even slightly, and I have it. I lift myself off of Ourania with a cry of anger and regret.
I pace next to the bed, shaking my head, wiping my eyes in the crook of my elbow and wanting this not to be true.
"How dare she?!" The Commandant I wanted to dance with and kiss. "She has to make you do it?!"
A few heavy breaths, and I think I can push words through my throat again. "I'm sorry. You. Aren't the enemy, Ourania. The Commandant had..two poisons. Don't you think? And if you. Didn't drink yours, then the pressure. It would start. Meals, Water, Navi. Classes, Corps, Iso." A few more breaths, a shudder. "But if you did, this. Where you think the truth. Is this is maybe who you are. What we are. Hard sacrifices. Expendable bodies. I'm sorry, Ourania."
This is so heavy, and hard. I have to settle myself on the floor. "Pris thinks I'm so good. But could I..starve myself to death. If orders came for me? I don't know."
Her weight is gone. I'm left with ragged breathing and hot tear tracks down my cheeks. She tells me I'm not the enemy, but a moment there she assumed I was. The truth is worse really, that I'm just a stupid tool used to hurt the only people I can touch.
I drag myself up to a sit on the opposite side of the bed from where she is. Head aching again and more painfully now. Her words make me think of the Commandant, sitting there calmly, making me poison my friend. Anger again, surging up over the despair.
"You are good." I say with my now rough voice. I'm probably going to lose it for a while. "Those criteria are stomm. This whole place is stomm. Most of the people in it are stomm." Including me. I'm flipping the ring on my index finger, then stop suddenly, staring at it. The burner turns up a notch.
I stand and go over to my desk, open the lower drawer. I retrieve Bea's knife and the bag of sodium chloride I sneaked from stores a month ago. I go to the door and set the lock.
I turn back, looking at Tabitha on the floor. I set the bag down and pull my shirt off again, tossing it to the floor.
While I'm listening to Ourania, I'm also left to wonder if she really heard me. Mostly I don't disagree with her. She hasn't accepted my apology.
I watch Ourania collect things from her drawer. She never goes into it when I'm around..
I stand up, feeling a shift. When Ourania takes off her shirt, whatever that shift is, it doesn't become clearer for me. I swallow. "Help with what?" Is she going to do something with that little knife? Cut herself?
In your head you feel Gwen. "Stomm! Rania really did it? She's always done whatever her mother wanted. Always, always. Listen, we can't let her do anything crazy, she goes overboard when she feels guilty. So, you've got to keep her safe, okay? Promise me." You feel her shift inside you, Tabitha, like she has a bit more "hold", maybe? "That said, we need to help Pris, too. I'm betting Rania is going to try and get Pris out of Med Bay, so that's two birds, one stone. But she'll wind up in Iso if she isn't careful. We don't like Iso, right?"
I pull my pants and underwear off at once and kick them towards my shirt and, now completely naked, look back at her.
"I'm going to show her, show them that they don't get to do this stomm to Pris, to me, to you, maybe to Gwen....to us, and get away with it. Will you help?"
"I promise I'll keep her safe..oh, stomm.." I don't step back, but I feel like now that Ourania is naked she warrants a little more space. Like she takes up more.
It's hard to think clearly..the possibility of punishing the people who toy with us is so tempting..it's a fight to steady my breathing. Gwen is right, this is toying with Iso.
"How would I help? Will this be like. What you did to Mark?"
I glance again at the knife. At Ourania's body. Into her eyes.
“Something like that.” I say as I close the space between us slowly. “I can do things, Tabitha. I can make things happen to people. There is… power around us. I can… I can shape it, make it stick. I can do it alone too, but…”
I’m in front of her now, close enough to feel the heat and presence of her body on my skin. I’m looking into her eyes. “…Well, it’ll be easier with your help. And I…” Myy eyes drift to her lips before looking up again. “I like you. I... trust you.” I murmur, reaching up to feather my fingers along her jawline.
I do find Tabitha attractive, and I have a lot of affection for her. But mostly… I trust her.
I suddenly wonder if Gwen is still in there. If she… what would she do in this situation? What does she think? Gwen was my first. I didn’t tell her that at the time, but I think she knew. And once it happened I totaly fell for her. Not that I had far to go at that point.
It kind of broke my heart when we didn’t really do anything with it, she continued to act as if we were just friends. Close friends, but, well… It was not entirely surprising considering who my mom is, I guess. And she was older. I went along with it, a little confused, but I didn’t want to push and risk losing her, or for the Commandant to disapprove. I pined until I couldn’t take it anymore. So I finally decided to tell her that I loved her.
She was dead before I could.
Now her… her ghost acts just like before. Like we’re good friends.
You feel what can best be described as a ghostly shudder, "Oh gods, she's still so beautiful. It's been so long since I touched anyone, Tabitha. Is she going to drokk... us? I don't know how this helps anyone." Another shiver, "I don't know if I care. Please. Let me stay with you, Tabitha. I'm so lonely. I know you are, too. We can explore together. Rania's so..." her thoughts trail off a bit, she seems oddly distracted.
"I'll bring you with me." I raise up my fingers, wanting to trace them along Ourania's exposed collarbone, but I leave them centimeters away, waiting for some small nonverbal permission. Gwen's excitement harmonizes with my own, singing like gravity.
"I like you, Ourania. And you're beautiful. Gwen agrees, so much. Give me the knife and I'll help you. You can trust me." It feels so awkward right now, to still be clothed. I don't want to focus on myself right now, to move my hands and undress.
I lean my face in towards hers, lips parted. "How do you want me. To help?"
The news that Gwen is still in there somewhere... that she's going to be a part of this. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Weird? Aroused? How much difference is there between them? I'm not sure.
I lean forward into her hovering hands, shivering at the contact. I tilt my head to brush my lips over hers delicately, making a little noise at the contact. My hands go to to her waist, under the hem of the shirt, feeling the smooth skin and supple muscle there.
"Connections are powerful things, Tabitha. I whisper with my roughened voice. You feel this energy between us? It's just the flare of a star... but the whole thing is there, deep down. First... I want that connection. I want to be close to you. I want to feel that star in my blood, and I want you to feel it in yours. Then...." I brush her lips again, sliding my hands around to her back. "Then we use some of that power, that blood... just a little, to help us do what we want to do, to help me shape the power. But..."
I calm my hands look into her eyes, our foreheads touching.
"It's okay if you let Gwen be with you. I care for her too. But I want to know it's your choice. Too many people want you to be someone else, Tabitha. I just want you to be you. Okay?"
I smooth my hands along Ourania's shoulders, move my lips in sympathy with hers as they brush over mine..it's like I'm listening to her from a distance even as I'm touching her. Do we have a strong connection? Will we if we have sex? Right now it feels like yes and yes..
"Stars in our blood?" That does sound powerful..I rest my hands on her hips, still concerned about the knife. Not as much, though. It's so small. I kiss her, the second time she brushes my lips, pull her into me slightly.
She wants me to be myself..I hardly know who that is. I don't think I'm myself when I'm with Zola. Except for the first time, that was probably alright. "I'm supposed to. Belong to Zola. But right now I want to be with you and Gwen. Who got me through Iso, and who trust me. Right?"
I’m a planner. I see how things fit together. That’s a part of the way the power works through me. It’s part of what I do. Things connect more than people think they do, and in unexpected ways.
The mention of Zola sends an angry spike through me. It already feels amazing to have Tabitha’s strong, soft body against me, it makes it difficult to pull back from kissing those wonderful lips, but I manage it somehow, looking into her eyes. My brows draw together slightly.
“Zola’s?” I say, an edge to my voice. I think about that portrait of Tabitha that I stole. I hate the idea that Zola claims her. I hate it with my soul, and Zola’s name goes up a notch on my list. I tilt my head a little. I want Tabitha, and I want to boost the power, but after the closeness I just… I want her. And Gwen’s in there and… But I can see how things connect and now…
“I want this, Tabitha. I want you.” I sigh, smoothing hands over her marvelous shoulders. I meet her eyes again. “Will she be hurt if you do this with me?” I ask softly. “Did you promise…” I swallow at another strange spike of emotion in me even as the firm warmth of Tabitha’s body sings to mine. “Do you love her, Tabitha?”
I could give a drokk about Zola or her pain. And in some ways I want it even more because it would hurt Zola. But I care for Tabitha and… she’s just better than that.
Ourania tenses against me at Zola's name. Yeah, she doesn't like Zola. That's not at all hard to understand. I pull my shirt off when I have the distance to do so; it's a relief.
Her questions are no relief at all. They touch at the hard confusion, the helplessness, how deeply sunk I feel. All the time I spent comparing Zola to Dana and how I do like Zola but..no, I don't love her. I've drokked everything up. I don't have any answer I'm proud of saying. Ourania looks in my eyes and I have to glance down.
"I told her I did. I promised. Then she waited till after Iso. To promise back." She told me she loved me the way someone tells Instructor Malcolm they'll turn an assignment in early. Will she be hurt? I think she'll be angry.
I bury my face in Ourania's shoulder and shudder. "I don't love her. I didn't know."
Another tick up the list for Zola. I keep from growling, somehow.
My arms go around her again, tight, when she burrows into my shoulder. One hand cups the back of her neck, the other rubs her now bared lower back. I turn my nose into her short, soft hair, gently kiss the side of her head, her ear. She smells good.
“It’s okay. You’re okay.” I say to her, softly, rocking her a little.
Tabitha doesn’t love Zola. That helps, somehow. I’m still on the brink, managing, barely, to hold myself in check. She should break up with Zola first, really, but she doesn't love Zola and… stars, her skin feels good.
I hold her more tightly, pressing my body into hers.
It’s so much harder to think when you have a lot of skin contact. I should let go of her, just for now… I should… I don’t want to… Dammit. Break it off Tabitha, Gwen… someone… because I can’t.
You feel a shudder inside you that isn't yourself. Gwen sighs longingly, "Tell her you've missed her. Whisper it in her ear, Tabitha. Kiss her ear, her neck. She loves that." You feel Gwen tugging at your hands, like she's trying to animate your body. It's fumbling, you can easily maintain control. It's almost like she's unaware of how to make your body move, but in this moment, she's trying.
Ourania fits against me so nicely, smooth and warm. Even her scent is a warm kind of smell. I keep my arms around her and nuzzle the side of her neck, kiss it once. "I missed you," I whisper into her ear. It is true for me as well as Gwen, I was deadly lonely in Iso. My steady roommate would have been more than welcome to visit.
She still accepts me, even after hearing how foolish I've been. Some of my shame melts away.
How does Gwen know what Ourania loves? I tug at Ourania's ear gently with my lips. I can't quite tell what Gwen would like to do with my hands. Instead I pull my sweatpants off and toss them onto my bed.
I need to break up with Zola. Soon. Right now, though, I split Ourania's legs with my knee and kiss her deeply.
Yeah, my resolve was already stretched thin, so the one-two of the kiss to my neck in just the right spot, then my ear, crumbles it completely. Gwen must be… helping.
“Missed you too.” I breathe into her lips, then meet her kiss, groaning as my hands skim down to her flanks and I pull her into me.
After some indistinct delirioius, delicious time I manage to tear away, breathing heavily, making some vague ‘wait’ gestures with my hands. I go to the salt and draw a rough line around the bed with it. I won’t have to contain the power so much, making it easier to shape. The knife goes on the bed table.
Without Tabitha overwhelming my senses, I sense tiny doubts, fears in the back of my mind. What if this messes things up between us? What will Mother do if she finds out? When she finds out? How will I protect Tabitha?
I push all that away by turning back and crashing into Tabitha again getting lost in her skin, pushing her down on the bed. I try caresses and kisses I learned from Gwen, noting the responses, and I adjust and look for others, look for what provokes Tabitha. Does… does Gwen respond to what her body responded to? Or… well the body is all Tabitha. Is the pleasure, the preference in the body or the mind?
I can feel the power pulsing underneath.
It is an exchange. I don't want Tabitha to feel... dominated, How I imagine Zola to be. I explore, I let her explore. The look on her face at her climax is the sweetest thing. It tugs on my heart, makes me smile at her, even giggle a little.
I worry about the last part though. She was nervous about the knife. It's been so wonderful so far, I'm afraid it will put her off.
You feel Gwen buzzing with excitement, she reacts very strongly to every touch from Ourania, her sounds echo in your mind. "Gods, Tabitha. She is so amazing. Thank you, thank you. Tell her what you want. Tell her how to take you to paradise." Gwen's hands caress you, tingles run along your body and center as she touches you. It's hard to tell if she's pleasuring you, or herself, or trying to touch Ourania.
Your Sex Moves fire here. And guess what? So does Gwen's, for both of you.
When you have sex with someone, you both get to ask a question of one another’s characters. This can be spoken by your character, or simply asked player-to-player. The other person must answer honestly and directly.
Tabitha, you can choose which Sex Move you pick up per the Hollow SM rules.
I'm not at my most verbal, but I manage to let Ourania know how I feel..what I like..what I really like..what's okay (I guess).
Part of me wants to lean entirely on the tricks I learned from Zola, but I want to touch her as myself, too. I can't help but switch from one to the other, listening to Ourania's reactions, falling with her as though this were an endless well lined with Gwen's gasps and touch-echoes.
There's no sense of a dare or a claim or a game in what we're doing. It's so different. Sex can be like this, too. I'm trying to be easy with her because earlier I scared her and made her cry.
I watch with patient confusion as she lays out a line of salt. It takes more than I would think. Longer than I'd like.
And then I don't have to think about that, or much of anything, for a time I can't estimate. I sit up when Ourania is giggling at me, and ask lightly, "What?"
I catch a look of worry on her face, flick my glance over to the knife.
I think this was make-up sex, so Ourania gets a string on me. I'll be taking the Ghost move for now.
Ourania, what was it like getting me as a roommate?
Gwen, were you mixed up in anything rough while we were teamies?
"Yes, I was with Lucas for a few months before Ourania. We could get messed up on tramahex and he liked weird stuff, like choking me, or spanking me sometimes, and sometimes, I didn't mind it. It was, I dunno, interesting? Eventually, Ourania and I got together and I thought we were something really special, but then the accident happened."
(these questions are heard by both of you as will be the answers): "Tabitha, will you find me a body?"
"Ourania, what are you doing with the salt and the knife?"
I sit up with her, take her hand, lean in toward her, nuzzling her nose and cheek, before giving her a soft kiss.
“I just like the look on your face right after you nova.” I say, edge of my mouth curling up as I look into her eyes.“It’s completely adorable. Open…” I kiss her again, brief and soft. “mmm…and happy.” I make a little half-shrug, then I indulge in another nuzzle, voice huskier. “I like seeing it… and I really like putting it there.”
The next part. I really can’t put it off any longer. The power is already jumping… maybe it’s because there was more than two…? I take a breath, lean and pick up the knife from the table, reversing it and holding it out to Tabitha, suddenly uncertain.
“Do you still want to help?”
Tabitha:I was wary at first of getting a new roomie. There isn’t a person on this ship who doesn’t know who I am and who Mother is. When I got the briefing on you though, it was a relief, and some excitement. No history. No built up resentment solid as bulkheads on either side. Like Bea said most of us have been cooped up together a long time. We all have entrenched perceptions. But with you I had a chance to start over, to be different than how I was to everyone else. Plus you needed someone to look out for you. Plus you are cute.
I found that I loved your questioning, your fresh perceptions of a world that had long since become impossibly static. It gave me strength again to do what I thought I needed to do.
Gwen,the salt is to contain the power, the knife is for Tabitha to draw my blood, and maybe hers. I’m going to hex my mother, punish her, and the ship, using my father’s ring… and use it as leverage.
Tabitha,You’ve seen me more vulnerable than anyone else has, What incident hurt you the most emotionally since you were born?
"For a long time, I couldn't grasp what happened to me. But now that I'm with you and Tabitha, I feel more connected. I am remembering. I was murdered. It was Lucas. He was angry that I was with you, Ourania. He choked me to death, then he threw my body down at the resyke."
I could nudge Ourania back down and just wrap my arms around her right now. Maybe sleep. I missed Ourania's face when she did, which is a shame. I nuzzle and kiss Ourania back, relaxed and delighted. "Hmm, I like it. You're good."
I take the knife from Ourania and nod..I found her old cuts while we were exploring each other earlier. It's just affectation, but I think she needs symmetry in them, so I place the blade accordingly. I frown, focusing. I just need to draw blood.
The blade breaks Ourania's skin, and I pull it as deftly as I'm able, not fast and ripping or slow and torturous. Then I turn it on myself. It only seems fair.
While I watch the swelling red of my blood under the knife, I say with a strange evenness, "I'm going to talk to Rys. And find out. What his drokking major malfunction is, that he. Can't move on Lucas. Maybe beat the stomm out of him. Go from there."
Gwen, I will try to find you a new body. I don't know where to start, but I think I know what you need. If anyone in authority discovers that I've woken up in my sensitivity to the ship, my time to do that will be very limited.
Ourania, Realizing with full depth that Zola will never love me like Dana loved Ioanna holds a close tie with touching Mark's cold, dead body in the explosive confusion of coming to life.
I hiss, wath the blood well up. Whether the hiss is at the cut or the sudden knowing about Gwen’s murder. The rush from the cut gets mixed up in the sudden rage at Lucas, and renewed anger at the adults, at my Mother.
With the power around me now I would destroy Lucas, if I had some pathway to him, some link. But I don’t. I could charge into the hall, hunt him down and make him pay directly, but I woiuld lose this extra energy. It is only that keeps me still as I watch Tabitha cut herself… for me.
I shake my head. “Don’t. Corps do as they’re told.” I answer her. “Blind obedience…” I snort mirthlessly, a little spike of self-loathing over my own blindness. “They aren’t here for us. They’re here for them.”
I look up at her, fire behind my eyes, and touch her cheek. “We’ll get him, Tabitha. I whisper. He will pay.”
I look down again, and I gently take hold of her cut arm and press mine to it, smearing our blood together. I pull off Dad’s ring, then I wipe my finger across the blood on her arm and smear some of it on the ring. I lean over and lick across the cut on her arm, taking the faintly metallic taste onto my tongue. I hold it there, sitting up and nodding to her, holding the ring in the open palm of my right hand and holding my cut arm out to her.
Once she does the same I close my hand over the ring feeling the pathway to my mother. The power pulses and I wonder if Tabitha can feel it. I lean into Tabitha and kiss her again with intensity, the bloodied ring in my clenched fist. Our tongues meet and I share the mixed blood as I shape the power with all my anger and condemnation, picturing my mother when I saw her last. The strength of it is almost too much as I finally shove the power through the pathway like a bullet.
rolling Dark +1 for Transgressive Magic. Hexing with Wither (pretty much want to make her inexplicably very ill.) Side effects to be determined since I'm still all Darkest Self.
You feel all that power, enough to make your hands numb, your body quiver. It coalesces into some unseen force, and you focus it, push it away, send it to your mother.
But something happens. Something unexpected. That shell of hate and loathing that has built up around you, Ourania, somehow it acts like a barrier. The force you sent away, it bounces against it like some kind of force-field, and gathers like a cloud above you. Only to rain down onto your hair, your shoulders, your entire body.
Immediately, your stomach lurches, and you feel cold sweats start. Your last meal starts threatening to come back up, and you feel dizzy.
What do you do?
The only way for the hex to be broken is to escape your Darkest Self.
Somewhere in here I'm supposed to get a token from you, Tabitha, You know about it and it's cool but so far I'm not sure what it would be.
"Stomm..."
I push away from Tabitha suddenly and stumble towards the bathroom. Stumble because I'm dizzy that way you are before you...
I don't quite make it, Loosing it just on the threshold to the bathroom.
It bounced back... the power bounced back on me. What does that mean? I... I meant for it to punish those responsible... It's my fault Pris is dying. Even Gwen... Maybe Dad's ring didn't mean anything to... Stars, now Tabitha is vulnerable...This is...
Although it will probably be miniscule comfort right now, Ourania, you can have my printed copy of the Annabel Lee poem.
There's something I feel while we do these things, with the blood, with our post-nova selves..something with a lot of force, a buzz and pressure. Ourania said she could 'shape' it. What does that shaping take? Is it supposed to be this rattling feeling? My arm guard hairs stand on end.
Her body tenses and she bails on me - is there something wrong with the way I've kissed her? My confusion breaks when Ourania purges on the bathroom floor. Something is wrong and it was probably not me.
I follow after her and help her the rest of the way to the toilet in case there's more..her skin is cold and clammy. I've..only vomited once, myself. Stomm got into my nose and I was convinced I was dying.
Holding her hair out of the way, I smooth a hand on her back.
That first wave of nausea passes after you empty your stomach, which takes a while. Your eyes water, and the last purge felt like you lost the meal before last. Your throat is raw, even your jaw aches.
I feel terrible. Exhausted. Still chilled. Trembling. Body aching. Pris certainly dealt with worse, though, didn't she. I drag myself to sit, propped up by the cool bathroom bulkhead next to the toilet. I think about getting up and washing out my mouth but it seems like a whole lot of effort and I don't know if my head, which feels thick, will take it.
I blink blearily at Tabitha.
"Thanks." I rasp out, and it really is a rasp now. My throat burns, raw from vomiting and still stinging with that bile taste. "Stars, I really drokked that stomm up." I take a couple breaths. "Sorry."
And whatever emotional link there was to Dad's ring was probably consumed. I look at my hand, at the ring.
I fill up our mouth-rinsing cup with water and hand it to Ourania. "Do we need to go. To the infirmary?"
I soak up the mess with some towels and immediately cycle them through the autocleaner. We're always the only ones who clean our rooms, so I may as well get to it. I don't have to go far, though.
"What happened?" I press the back of my hand to Ourania's forehead. Now may be a bad time for her to be undressed.
I stare dully at the ring, wanting to cry but too exhausted. I wasted something precious. I look up to see Tabitha clean my mess and feel shame. I shake my head weakly in response to Tabitha's question, closing my eyes briefly at the touch of her hand on my head.
"The power... bounced back on me. It's making me sick. Nothing the infirmary can do." I don't know if the infirmary tested me if they would even find anything. Even if they did this thing isn't really driven by a virus. Stasis might not even stop it. Still... it doesn't mean I'm not contagious. "You shouldn't touch me. Don't know... if I'm infectious."
"Okay, so we won't go there." I conclude out loud. "I'll wash my hands. Or whatever. I'll be ok." I get our last bathroom towel over Ourania's shoulders and wait till she's strong enough to leave the room.
Comments
I frown at Bea's open room door, bothered by it. I glance around the corridor.
"Gwen? Can you see us now?" I say to the air.
Ourania and Tabitha,
The light in Bea's room flickers a couple times, rapidly. Tabitha, as you look around, inhaling the weird scents of the place, you see words appear on Navi.
i c u!!!!!Inside Bea's room, you see an image of this:
She looks right at you, Ourania. Her expression is troubled, but she forces a slight smile when you look at her.
What do you do?
Going to choose "What is the best way in/out for Gwen?"
Tabitha,
Tabitha, being disconnected as you are from the other students, you have a unique perspective. Also, you've effectively "merged" with Gwen, too (not quite sex, more like ghosty second base). Gwen's best way "in" is to inhabit a body. She has none. Her corpus was recycled.
I freeze, gaping at the apparition for a moment, my heart squeezing at her smile. She looks just as she did the last time I saw her.
After the moment of shock, I smile and go toward her into Bea’s room.
“Gwen… Holy Stars, Gwen… it's you.”
Gwen nods, thrilled that you see her. You notice, however, that while you see her upper body, she seems to disappear into shadow somewhere around her knees. She holds out her arms, as if to hug you.
But you pass through her, Ourania. She turns, hovering in the air, a pained and stricken expression on her face, looking at you both.
The Navi text reads:
bttr thn nthn ? missd uIt's painful to watch Ourania and Gwen try to interact like this. If what Gwen needs right now is a body, then..why not let her borrow mine? "Gwen, maybe we could do. Something like what we did before? You could use me to visit. With Ourania."
After volunteering that, I'm a little afraid. What if it's like Iso? Or I die? But I trust Gwen - I didn't die last time. Besides, maybe it would be nice.
Tabitha,
When you let Gwen inside, roll with Dark. On a hit, she's in. On a 10+, you can take back over whenever you want, share, watch, whatever. On a 7-9, you're out, pushed into that space she came from.
(take a +1 Forward acting on your Heightened Senses roll)
Rolling Dark: (Rolled: 2d6+3. Rolls: 3, 4. Total: 10)
Ourania,
For a moment, the image of Gwen is there, flickering. But then she sees Tabitha, who is watching her with an intense expression. Gwen walks forward, towards Tabitha, then into Tabitha. She doesn't pass through.
Your roommate blinks a couple times, shakes her head, then beams with excitement.
"Rania?" Tabitha says, but her voice seems softer, "It's me. It's Gwen." She moves to you, wrapping her arms around you tightly, hugging fierce and without abandon, her body warm against you.
What do you do?
Tabitha,
You feel Gwen inside you. It's like it was in Iso, but there are many more sensations here than in Iso. Still, you have a better sense of your self, less disconnected. How does it feel to you this time, Tabitha?
Along with Gwen using your mouth, you're distracted by something. A voice. Not yours, not Gwen's. Not even Ioanna's. It sounds like Priscilla. Singing a soft song, one with many, many verses.
What do you do?
I'm still experiencing myself..I feel like I could take over my body again if I needed to but I relax away from it. Without the paralysis of Iso, it's more satisfying. My voice feels funny though. Well, maybe not mine.
Gwen's hug is very different from the kind I give people..either the short, rough bonding moments during Speedball or..I guess holding Zola, or holding Ourania. I don't feel much like I can or should otherwise.
I want to turn to the singing..but that would shift my body, wouldn't it? I try to focus on it in the same split way I did the interface in Iso.
Tabitha,
You spend a moment focusing and yes, you can hear it more clearly. She feels close, right now, and almost present, in a weird way. There's even a faint echo to her voice, as if you're in the same room.
Priscilla's "mind-voice", as it were, is surprisingly soulful, speaking of pain and loss, fear and loneliness. It's like a voice she hides when anyone's around, but well, now. Well, nobody's around.
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I put them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?
The kings of Tyrus with their convict list
Are waiting in line for their geranium kiss,
And you wouldn't know it would happen like this,
But who among them really wants just to kiss you?
With your childhood flames on your midnight rug,
And your Spanish manners and your mother's drugs,
And your cowboy mouth and your curfew plugs,
Who among them do you think could resist you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?
Do you try to communicate, or just listen?
"Pris? What is that you're singing?" I feel almost like I've snuck up on her, but I can't just wait and stay 'hidden' any longer. "You're so good at it."
I watch with wide eyes and open mouth as Gwen merges with Tabitha. As Tabitha lets herself be possessed. Drokking Void. All sorts of questions there.
Then Gwen/Tabitha… Gwenitha? Is hugging me hard and I’m returning it just as fiercly. It’s a crazy mixed message of a hug, though. It’s Tabitha’s body with those long lean muscles from speedball, and Tabitha’s scent. But the way she holds herself, the way she rubs my back is definitely Gwen.
And somehow I’m wondering if Tabitha is doing this for Gwen or doing it for me. Both probably, but I wonder.
Even before the hug is over I think about the cameras.
“C’mon” I say, taking hold of her hand and going back to our room.
I pull her to sit on my bed, sitting close, holding both her hands. There is still some cognitive dissonence, looking into Tabitha’s face, at Tabitha’s body, but even her experession is different.
“Stars Gwen, I missed you.” I say after a moment of awkward silence. My emotions are still high and on edge from my little incident. “But you… your accident happened months ago! How long have you been, um, like this?”
Ourania,
Gwenitha sits on the bed, her thigh touching yours. She's all smiles, gently brushes the back of her hand against your arm as she answers, "Months, I guess. Time passes weird. Like, jumps around and stuff. Sometimes I can focus for a whole conversation, but others... I just fade." She takes your right hand in both of hers, "Right now? I feel solid."
After a moment, she looks down at herself, "Gods, Tabtiha is so skinny. I'm so jealous. You hear me in here, Tabs? You're too cute, it isn't fair." She laughs lightly, squeezes your hand.
"So tell me how you've been. Start with all the stuff to make me green."
Tabitha,
That echo was..odd. I suppose she was still drawing up her memory of the song? "I..maybe? I don't see you either."
Oh! It would make sense if I was attached to an interface like that. What do I say about this? Nothing alarming.
"I'm not sick! I'm fine, just trying something new. Do you not have anything to do in here, through the interface?" I should learn more poems.
She certainly does feel.... solid.
I chuckle when she laughs. I don't know if Tabitha is just sitting behind her eyes, watching... but then, what else would she be doing?
"She's right, you know, Tabitha. You really are super cute." I say that a bit louder. As if she can't hear me quite as well, like she's in another room. "But you're, ah... you're just as cute, Gwen. Always have been." I smile tentatively. I don't want to just fawn over her. Well okay, I do. And I've been given another chance to do it. Still.
I shrug apologetically. "Other than having the best roommate in the whole ship, there isn't much to say on the green front." I barely said a word to anyone for a month after you died. I pause. "The food is still stomm. Pris is sick. Eveyone else is a drokking asshole, especially Larsen. He's decided to date Nadja. Rys and Lucas are both after Ashlee." I take in her expression. "I know, right? And I'm still the enemy." I think of Bea accusing me of Gwen's murder. It still hurts. "It's just..." I pause and then shake my head.
Ourania,
When you compliment Gwen, Gwenitha gives a sad smile to it, like she's not "cute" anymore, she's gone, but she doesn't say it. That turns into a small frown at the mention of Pris being sick, everyone being awful doesn't help.
When you slam Larsen, her eyes crinkle in that way you remember they do when she knows "there's more to that story", then she actually laughs at the idea of Rys and Lucas chasing Ashlee. Not a spiteful laugh, one of surprise and a little delight. She covers her mouth when she does. Which is why you don't see her mouth tighten when you tell her you're still the enemy.
Her right hand comes up to brush a strand of your hair out of your eyes and she looks at you with all the concern in the stars, her voice soft, caring, "It's just what, Rania? It's okay, it's just me..." she pauses, does a slight eye-roll, amends, "Well, it's just me and your cute, best roommate. But seriously, Rania, what is it?"
Tabitha,
Through the bleed of your consciousness and hers, you pick up a thought she tried to hold onto, "I'm not... going to make it."
They can't connect her to some feeds? Come to think of it, we're quarantined in communication as much as we are in body. They aren't going to get the plague from a Navi message. My resentment for the authority is plain.
If the new doctor is young..then she has to be a graduate, right? That would be the most sensible thing. I just can't trust the simple answer, though.
In the interface, I can't guard myself and just be silent. I can feel that she didn't mean for me to 'hear' it, but.. "You have to! I want to see you again. We all want you to beat this!"
Tabitha,
What do you do?
"She did tell me." Some of my emotion from moments ago recedes. This is time with Pris, right now.
I blink at her next question. I guess I didn't think about it because I didn't..have to think about it. "Oh, well..I mean, I am holding back in meatspace." Hah. "But I've got a neurological disorder, where my mind contains..just a lifetime of words but I don't have the reflexes to use them. I don't have to use my reflexes to speak here. It is really nice."
Tabitha,
I don't blame her. "It isn't like I tell anyone." This is sort of why.
"Ioanna was fine, I think." It feels strange to be the subject of honest curiosity instead of preconceived judgement. "But you're right." I hesitate, I don't really want to make Priscilla more uncomfortable. "My body grew just like it was supposed to, but the memory transfer process is very hard on someone, and Ioanna was too weak to survive it. So I woke up before anyone was ready." Me least of all. My feelings are thickly tangled.
"Adults can call me a failure because I'm not Ioanna, but I'm doing so much more than they expected of me, and..I guess a year isn't a long time."
Tabitha,
At first I'm so confused, I can't imagine Pris ever drooling how could she laugh about..? "Oh! Right, babies! I've never seen one."
Most of the time, I just want to be ignored. But right now I'm okay with Pris' attention. I'm definitely not everything that was good about Ioanna..she was full of experiences, knowledge. She knew love from just drokking around.
"Uhm, thank you, Pris. You're sweet. And really brave, I think."
Mark..he probably saw a whole lot of Ioanna. I wonder now if it's hard for him to be around me. If it is, he's been a champ about it.
"I don't have her fingerprints, either. How is my walk different?"
I bite my lip, hesitant. I just don't have the emotional energy to lie to her and conceal it. And I can't bear seeing her disappointment if I didn't hide it.
"I don't know if it's worth it, anymore. All this." I say. "Not after what happened to you and Pris."
Ourania,
She tilts her head to the side, a move you remember from before when she feels sad, but know there's more going on. "If what is worth it? Living? I know you, Rania, you're a fighter, so it isn't that."
I shake my head. "Stars, no, not that. I mean..." I pause again. Lower my voice more."I mean the corps, and what I do, and... and this whole.... this whole system. I... I used to think the Co... that the adults were doing the right thing. That they knew best. That... that my duty was clear." I look up at her. "And now... I don't know." I glance away. "Even if it is, and I should do it, I don't know that most of the people here are worth doing it for."
Ourania,
Gwenitha zeroes right into what you mean. She lowers her voice to match yours, leaning closer until you can feel her breath, her hand squeezing yours, "Rania, what did she make you do?"
What do you do?
Tabitha,
"Most of all? You're really brave, Tabitha. You never give up, even though they say stuff to hurt you, you keep fighting. It's... it's beautiful. I think you're amazing, Tabitha. Ourania does, too, you know. She'd never say, it isn't her way. But she does."
Then you mention fingerprints and ask about how you walk. She laughs again, the laughs coming easier and more frequent the more you talk with her. Like you've turned on a little light inside her. "You have different prints? That's fascinating. I wonder how that happened? Do prints evolve based on growth factors, or was it a planned part of the... oh, your walk. Well, it would be easier to show you, of course, but Ioanna's walk was more relaxed, like, her shoulders were lower, her head moved around a little slower. You're sort of straighter? More upright, more focused and alert, but also, well, wary. I dunno, I just like watching how people move, like they're talking without talking. Does that make any kind of sense? I never talk about that with anyone, but the interface seems to remove filters, you know?"
"Olivar is careless," I chuckle with her, there's something I enjoy about taking Olivar so lightly. "Or maybe a masochist."
"You're really good at seeing the best in people, Pris. I think that's what makes you brave. Or maybe, you need the courage first."
People do more than say things to hurt me. "I don't feel brave, but..I don't know. If I stopped fighting, I couldn't be.." Not happy. "..satisfied."
Wow, Pris loves talking. This is kind of like listening to Ash. "No, it makes a lot of sense. People are always expressing themselves, I think. It's how I look at people during speedball. I guess I am wary all the time, you caught me."
Tabitha,
She pauses for a moment, a thought flitting into her head, something she's mused before, but now it comes through the interface, "You know, I wonder if maybe you're immune to the plague. I mean, you were created a year ago, the spread of the virus came and went by then, it was localized to us kids, but you never were a kid, technically. I bet you're immune. They could send you through right now, and you could be doing real work, or just, you know, doing things without constantly being monitored." There's a bleed of wistful sadness there, the wishing to be free, to survive to adulthood.
"Thanks. Mostly it's the attitudes that get to me." That people think they're right to do what they do to me because I'm a 'failure' to them.
Immune to the plague? That would be nice.. "I guess? I've wondered why they would put me here after growing me there. Also..how long do they keep me here? Till I finish school? A year? Seventeen? Usually I chalk it up to spite..they want to put me someplace where they don't have to feel responsible for me. Where they don't have to see my face."
"I don't know. Maybe I'll get my chance." I expect them to finish what they started, though. "If I do, I'll keep in touch.'
Tabitha,
After a moment, you feel regret through the bleed, "No wait, Tabitha, that's not fair. I'm not your responsibility, I shouldn't have said that. Just... just don't give up. Your a wonderful person and you make the whole pod better. The ship is stronger with you in it."
"I'll do it." I don't hesitate to say. "You're not my responsibility, it's more like..you're running pace with me. All that wonderful stuff is true about you first." I guess I just had to go with an athletic metaphor.
The ship is stronger with me in it..seems like a weird thing to say. "I'm actually..kind of perverse..I know lots of people want me to fail. I love rubbing their noses in it when I don't. So with them pushing and you pulling I won't give up."
"Maybe it isn't very nice, but it gets me through a lot of stomm."
Tabitha,
What do you do?
"Hah, no, that won't work." It's a cute joke, we both know she couldn't fake it.
"Oh? Yeah, of course. I'll visit you again soon, this was nice." With that said, I hesitate just a little before..well, I guess trying to shift back to 'where' I was before.
Tabitha,
You settle into your self. Your body language feels weird, too. There's a comfort in the closeness with Ourania, the intimacy of this friendship, something you've seen perhaps, but never felt until now. Through it, you see Ourania struggling to tell you something, it feels important. Except, well, she's telling Gwen. Surely she knows that, right? She probably thinks you've overheard all of it.
Have you?
The look on Ourania's face is complicated and vulnerable..I do get the feeling she's thinking about how to word something for two people instead of one. What they've been chatting about fades into my memory, like I'd experienced it but of course I didn't.
I guess I'm skinny? And that's good? Cute. That's good.
Gwen is thinking of the Commandant. Asking about her.
I curl a little, shrinking in on myself. Tabitha and Gwen already know I did something. I’m struggling with saying it, though.
“She... They didn’t make me do anything. I just did it. I chose to do it. I didn’t think about it, didn’t question it at all…”
I take a breath through my nose, expel it. Willing myself to jump off the edge. And I just…
I look back at her, at them. Trying to decide which is worse, telling them or not telling them. I’m afraid of both.
“And now, for once, I really feel like I am the enemy, just like they all say.”
Ourania,
Gwenitha reaches up to gently, but firmly take your chin in her hand, turns your face to look right at her. "I'm here for a reason, Rania. I have to be. Maybe this is it. Somebody you can tell. Soooo, fess up." A quirk of a smile plays at her lips as she tries to soften this a little, for you, "Don't make me tie you down and tickle it out of you, alright?"
Normally such a silly threat would have me raising a brow and smirking. Right now a ghost of a smile is the best I can do as I return her gaze, a squeeze in my chest.
“Tickle, huh?” it’s a rough whisper. My eyes escape theirs as I turn to face that cliff again.
I swallow hard.
“I…” I stop. I moisten my lip and start again. “I poisoned Pris.” There’s an interminable pause. “Or…I infected her. I… I gave her this stuff, in her drink. The next day her symptoms started. If…” The words choke off. I breathe as best I can. I ’ve really had enough of the crying for one day.
“If she dies…”
My skin feels cold and run through with needles. My stomach has dropped out. "You didn't."
"What stuff!? Why would you give Pris the plague?!" I grab Ourania by the shoulders and push her down on the bed roughly. All the softness of earlier is something I can't betray on the turn of a moment, but I'm filled with hard thoughts. Pris, who is suffering but still always thinking of others, poisoned by my roommate? Ourania, who talks about the good of the ship, spreading the plague? It's madness.
"'Didn't question?'" I ask Ourania, face livid, my face, betrayed and disappointed..wouldn't she drokking know better?!
I see the snap back to Tabitha and the betrayal on her face in quick succession and I cringe away, automatically and I actually let out a little yelp of surprise and fear when she pushes me onto my back.
Now… now I finally see some of my own anger at myself from someone else. Is this what I was hoping for? You know that thing I said about being tired of crying. Yeah… well it apprantly doesn’t mean I'm actually done with it. Her anger is all the more painful for the comfort she just gave me. And while she’s right to do it, that she assumes the worst… that stabs hard and my defenses are already down. You’d think I’d drokking learn, right?
All that is in there somewhere but the first thing, top level, is a more primal fear of someone bigger than me on top of me, and mirroring my anger and betrayal.
Panic, and pain as I twist in her hard grip. "I’m sorry! Stars, I’m sorry! I didn’t ask! They didn’t drokking tell me what it was!” The ragged, sobbed protest doesn’t do my already torn voice any favors.
They didn't tell her. They'd never tell her, why would they? I was looking for something in her story to forgive her for, even slightly, and I have it. I lift myself off of Ourania with a cry of anger and regret.
I pace next to the bed, shaking my head, wiping my eyes in the crook of my elbow and wanting this not to be true.
"How dare she?!" The Commandant I wanted to dance with and kiss. "She has to make you do it?!"
A few heavy breaths, and I think I can push words through my throat again. "I'm sorry. You. Aren't the enemy, Ourania. The Commandant had..two poisons. Don't you think? And if you. Didn't drink yours, then the pressure. It would start. Meals, Water, Navi. Classes, Corps, Iso." A few more breaths, a shudder. "But if you did, this. Where you think the truth. Is this is maybe who you are. What we are. Hard sacrifices. Expendable bodies. I'm sorry, Ourania."
This is so heavy, and hard. I have to settle myself on the floor. "Pris thinks I'm so good. But could I..starve myself to death. If orders came for me? I don't know."
Her weight is gone. I'm left with ragged breathing and hot tear tracks down my cheeks. She tells me I'm not the enemy, but a moment there she assumed I was. The truth is worse really, that I'm just a stupid tool used to hurt the only people I can touch.
I drag myself up to a sit on the opposite side of the bed from where she is. Head aching again and more painfully now. Her words make me think of the Commandant, sitting there calmly, making me poison my friend. Anger again, surging up over the despair.
"You are good." I say with my now rough voice. I'm probably going to lose it for a while. "Those criteria are stomm. This whole place is stomm. Most of the people in it are stomm." Including me. I'm flipping the ring on my index finger, then stop suddenly, staring at it. The burner turns up a notch.
I stand and go over to my desk, open the lower drawer. I retrieve Bea's knife and the bag of sodium chloride I sneaked from stores a month ago. I go to the door and set the lock.
I turn back, looking at Tabitha on the floor. I set the bag down and pull my shirt off again, tossing it to the floor.
"I need your help, Tabitha. Will you help me?"
While I'm listening to Ourania, I'm also left to wonder if she really heard me. Mostly I don't disagree with her. She hasn't accepted my apology.
I watch Ourania collect things from her drawer. She never goes into it when I'm around..
I stand up, feeling a shift. When Ourania takes off her shirt, whatever that shift is, it doesn't become clearer for me. I swallow. "Help with what?" Is she going to do something with that little knife? Cut herself?
Tabitha,
"That said, we need to help Pris, too. I'm betting Rania is going to try and get Pris out of Med Bay, so that's two birds, one stone. But she'll wind up in Iso if she isn't careful. We don't like Iso, right?"
I pull my pants and underwear off at once and kick them towards my shirt and, now completely naked, look back at her.
"I'm going to show her, show them that they don't get to do this stomm to Pris, to me, to you, maybe to Gwen....to us, and get away with it. Will you help?"
"I promise I'll keep her safe..oh, stomm.." I don't step back, but I feel like now that Ourania is naked she warrants a little more space. Like she takes up more.
It's hard to think clearly..the possibility of punishing the people who toy with us is so tempting..it's a fight to steady my breathing. Gwen is right, this is toying with Iso.
"How would I help? Will this be like. What you did to Mark?"
I glance again at the knife. At Ourania's body. Into her eyes.
“Something like that.” I say as I close the space between us slowly. “I can do things, Tabitha. I can make things happen to people. There is… power around us. I can… I can shape it, make it stick. I can do it alone too, but…”
I’m in front of her now, close enough to feel the heat and presence of her body on my skin. I’m looking into her eyes. “…Well, it’ll be easier with your help. And I…” Myy eyes drift to her lips before looking up again. “I like you. I... trust you.” I murmur, reaching up to feather my fingers along her jawline.
I do find Tabitha attractive, and I have a lot of affection for her. But mostly… I trust her.
I suddenly wonder if Gwen is still in there. If she… what would she do in this situation? What does she think? Gwen was my first. I didn’t tell her that at the time, but I think she knew. And once it happened I totaly fell for her. Not that I had far to go at that point.
It kind of broke my heart when we didn’t really do anything with it, she continued to act as if we were just friends. Close friends, but, well… It was not entirely surprising considering who my mom is, I guess. And she was older. I went along with it, a little confused, but I didn’t want to push and risk losing her, or for the Commandant to disapprove. I pined until I couldn’t take it anymore. So I finally decided to tell her that I loved her.
She was dead before I could.
Now her… her ghost acts just like before. Like we’re good friends.
Tabitha,
What do you do?
"I'll bring you with me." I raise up my fingers, wanting to trace them along Ourania's exposed collarbone, but I leave them centimeters away, waiting for some small nonverbal permission. Gwen's excitement harmonizes with my own, singing like gravity.
"I like you, Ourania. And you're beautiful. Gwen agrees, so much. Give me the knife and I'll help you. You can trust me." It feels so awkward right now, to still be clothed. I don't want to focus on myself right now, to move my hands and undress.
I lean my face in towards hers, lips parted. "How do you want me. To help?"
The news that Gwen is still in there somewhere... that she's going to be a part of this. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Weird? Aroused? How much difference is there between them? I'm not sure.
I lean forward into her hovering hands, shivering at the contact. I tilt my head to brush my lips over hers delicately, making a little noise at the contact. My hands go to to her waist, under the hem of the shirt, feeling the smooth skin and supple muscle there.
"Connections are powerful things, Tabitha. I whisper with my roughened voice. You feel this energy between us? It's just the flare of a star... but the whole thing is there, deep down. First... I want that connection. I want to be close to you. I want to feel that star in my blood, and I want you to feel it in yours. Then...." I brush her lips again, sliding my hands around to her back. "Then we use some of that power, that blood... just a little, to help us do what we want to do, to help me shape the power. But..."
I calm my hands look into her eyes, our foreheads touching.
"It's okay if you let Gwen be with you. I care for her too. But I want to know it's your choice. Too many people want you to be someone else, Tabitha. I just want you to be you. Okay?"
I smooth my hands along Ourania's shoulders, move my lips in sympathy with hers as they brush over mine..it's like I'm listening to her from a distance even as I'm touching her. Do we have a strong connection? Will we if we have sex? Right now it feels like yes and yes..
"Stars in our blood?" That does sound powerful..I rest my hands on her hips, still concerned about the knife. Not as much, though. It's so small. I kiss her, the second time she brushes my lips, pull her into me slightly.
She wants me to be myself..I hardly know who that is. I don't think I'm myself when I'm with Zola. Except for the first time, that was probably alright. "I'm supposed to. Belong to Zola. But right now I want to be with you and Gwen. Who got me through Iso, and who trust me. Right?"
I’m a planner. I see how things fit together. That’s a part of the way the power works through me. It’s part of what I do. Things connect more than people think they do, and in unexpected ways.
The mention of Zola sends an angry spike through me. It already feels amazing to have Tabitha’s strong, soft body against me, it makes it difficult to pull back from kissing those wonderful lips, but I manage it somehow, looking into her eyes. My brows draw together slightly.
“Zola’s?” I say, an edge to my voice. I think about that portrait of Tabitha that I stole. I hate the idea that Zola claims her. I hate it with my soul, and Zola’s name goes up a notch on my list. I tilt my head a little. I want Tabitha, and I want to boost the power, but after the closeness I just… I want her. And Gwen’s in there and… But I can see how things connect and now…
“I want this, Tabitha. I want you.” I sigh, smoothing hands over her marvelous shoulders. I meet her eyes again. “Will she be hurt if you do this with me?” I ask softly. “Did you promise…” I swallow at another strange spike of emotion in me even as the firm warmth of Tabitha’s body sings to mine. “Do you love her, Tabitha?”
I could give a drokk about Zola or her pain. And in some ways I want it even more because it would hurt Zola. But I care for Tabitha and… she’s just better than that.
Ourania tenses against me at Zola's name. Yeah, she doesn't like Zola. That's not at all hard to understand. I pull my shirt off when I have the distance to do so; it's a relief.
Her questions are no relief at all. They touch at the hard confusion, the helplessness, how deeply sunk I feel. All the time I spent comparing Zola to Dana and how I do like Zola but..no, I don't love her. I've drokked everything up. I don't have any answer I'm proud of saying. Ourania looks in my eyes and I have to glance down.
"I told her I did. I promised. Then she waited till after Iso. To promise back." She told me she loved me the way someone tells Instructor Malcolm they'll turn an assignment in early. Will she be hurt? I think she'll be angry.
I bury my face in Ourania's shoulder and shudder. "I don't love her. I didn't know."
Another tick up the list for Zola. I keep from growling, somehow.
My arms go around her again, tight, when she burrows into my shoulder. One hand cups the back of her neck, the other rubs her now bared lower back. I turn my nose into her short, soft hair, gently kiss the side of her head, her ear. She smells good.
“It’s okay. You’re okay.” I say to her, softly, rocking her a little.
Tabitha doesn’t love Zola. That helps, somehow. I’m still on the brink, managing, barely, to hold myself in check. She should break up with Zola first, really, but she doesn't love Zola and… stars, her skin feels good.
I hold her more tightly, pressing my body into hers.
It’s so much harder to think when you have a lot of skin contact. I should let go of her, just for now… I should… I don’t want to… Dammit. Break it off Tabitha, Gwen… someone… because I can’t.
Or… you know… don’t.
Tabitha,
You feel Gwen tugging at your hands, like she's trying to animate your body. It's fumbling, you can easily maintain control. It's almost like she's unaware of how to make your body move, but in this moment, she's trying.
What do you do?
Ourania fits against me so nicely, smooth and warm. Even her scent is a warm kind of smell. I keep my arms around her and nuzzle the side of her neck, kiss it once. "I missed you," I whisper into her ear. It is true for me as well as Gwen, I was deadly lonely in Iso. My steady roommate would have been more than welcome to visit.
She still accepts me, even after hearing how foolish I've been. Some of my shame melts away.
How does Gwen know what Ourania loves? I tug at Ourania's ear gently with my lips. I can't quite tell what Gwen would like to do with my hands. Instead I pull my sweatpants off and toss them onto my bed.
I need to break up with Zola. Soon. Right now, though, I split Ourania's legs with my knee and kiss her deeply.
Yeah, my resolve was already stretched thin, so the one-two of the kiss to my neck in just the right spot, then my ear, crumbles it completely. Gwen must be… helping.
“Missed you too.” I breathe into her lips, then meet her kiss, groaning as my hands skim down to her flanks and I pull her into me.
After some indistinct delirioius, delicious time I manage to tear away, breathing heavily, making some vague ‘wait’ gestures with my hands. I go to the salt and draw a rough line around the bed with it. I won’t have to contain the power so much, making it easier to shape. The knife goes on the bed table.
Without Tabitha overwhelming my senses, I sense tiny doubts, fears in the back of my mind. What if this messes things up between us? What will Mother do if she finds out? When she finds out? How will I protect Tabitha?
I push all that away by turning back and crashing into Tabitha again getting lost in her skin, pushing her down on the bed. I try caresses and kisses I learned from Gwen, noting the responses, and I adjust and look for others, look for what provokes Tabitha. Does… does Gwen respond to what her body responded to? Or… well the body is all Tabitha. Is the pleasure, the preference in the body or the mind?
I can feel the power pulsing underneath.
It is an exchange. I don't want Tabitha to feel... dominated, How I imagine Zola to be. I explore, I let her explore. The look on her face at her climax is the sweetest thing. It tugs on my heart, makes me smile at her, even giggle a little.
I worry about the last part though. She was nervous about the knife. It's been so wonderful so far, I'm afraid it will put her off.
Tabitha,
You feel Gwen buzzing with excitement, she reacts very strongly to every touch from Ourania, her sounds echo in your mind. "Gods, Tabitha. She is so amazing. Thank you, thank you. Tell her what you want. Tell her how to take you to paradise." Gwen's hands caress you, tingles run along your body and center as she touches you. It's hard to tell if she's pleasuring you, or herself, or trying to touch Ourania.
Ourania and Tabitha,
Your Sex Moves fire here. And guess what? So does Gwen's, for both of you.
When you have sex with someone, you both get to ask a question of one another’s characters. This can be spoken by your character, or simply asked player-to-player. The other person must answer honestly and directly.
Tabitha, you can choose which Sex Move you pick up per the Hollow SM rules.
I'm not at my most verbal, but I manage to let Ourania know how I feel..what I like..what I really like..what's okay (I guess).
Part of me wants to lean entirely on the tricks I learned from Zola, but I want to touch her as myself, too. I can't help but switch from one to the other, listening to Ourania's reactions, falling with her as though this were an endless well lined with Gwen's gasps and touch-echoes.
There's no sense of a dare or a claim or a game in what we're doing. It's so different. Sex can be like this, too. I'm trying to be easy with her because earlier I scared her and made her cry.
I watch with patient confusion as she lays out a line of salt. It takes more than I would think. Longer than I'd like.
And then I don't have to think about that, or much of anything, for a time I can't estimate. I sit up when Ourania is giggling at me, and ask lightly, "What?"
I catch a look of worry on her face, flick my glance over to the knife.
I think this was make-up sex, so Ourania gets a string on me. I'll be taking the Ghost move for now.
Ourania, what was it like getting me as a roommate?
Gwen, were you mixed up in anything rough while we were teamies?
Tabitha,
"Yes, I was with Lucas for a few months before Ourania. We could get messed up on tramahex and he liked weird stuff, like choking me, or spanking me sometimes, and sometimes, I didn't mind it. It was, I dunno, interesting? Eventually, Ourania and I got together and I thought we were something really special, but then the accident happened."
(these questions are heard by both of you as will be the answers):
"Tabitha, will you find me a body?"
"Ourania, what are you doing with the salt and the knife?"
I sit up with her, take her hand, lean in toward her, nuzzling her nose and cheek, before giving her a soft kiss.
“I just like the look on your face right after you nova.” I say, edge of my mouth curling up as I look into her eyes.“It’s completely adorable. Open…” I kiss her again, brief and soft. “mmm…and happy.” I make a little half-shrug, then I indulge in another nuzzle, voice huskier. “I like seeing it… and I really like putting it there.”
The next part. I really can’t put it off any longer. The power is already jumping… maybe it’s because there was more than two…? I take a breath, lean and pick up the knife from the table, reversing it and holding it out to Tabitha, suddenly uncertain.
“Do you still want to help?”
Tabitha: I was wary at first of getting a new roomie. There isn’t a person on this ship who doesn’t know who I am and who Mother is. When I got the briefing on you though, it was a relief, and some excitement. No history. No built up resentment solid as bulkheads on either side. Like Bea said most of us have been cooped up together a long time. We all have entrenched perceptions. But with you I had a chance to start over, to be different than how I was to everyone else. Plus you needed someone to look out for you. Plus you are cute.
I found that I loved your questioning, your fresh perceptions of a world that had long since become impossibly static. It gave me strength again to do what I thought I needed to do.
Gwen, the salt is to contain the power, the knife is for Tabitha to draw my blood, and maybe hers. I’m going to hex my mother, punish her, and the ship, using my father’s ring… and use it as leverage.
Tabitha, You’ve seen me more vulnerable than anyone else has, What incident hurt you the most emotionally since you were born?
Gwen, Was your death really an accident?
Ourania and Tabitha,
"I think Rys knows."
I could nudge Ourania back down and just wrap my arms around her right now. Maybe sleep. I missed Ourania's face when she did, which is a shame. I nuzzle and kiss Ourania back, relaxed and delighted. "Hmm, I like it. You're good."
I take the knife from Ourania and nod..I found her old cuts while we were exploring each other earlier. It's just affectation, but I think she needs symmetry in them, so I place the blade accordingly. I frown, focusing. I just need to draw blood.
The blade breaks Ourania's skin, and I pull it as deftly as I'm able, not fast and ripping or slow and torturous. Then I turn it on myself. It only seems fair.
While I watch the swelling red of my blood under the knife, I say with a strange evenness, "I'm going to talk to Rys. And find out. What his drokking major malfunction is, that he. Can't move on Lucas. Maybe beat the stomm out of him. Go from there."
Gwen, I will try to find you a new body. I don't know where to start, but I think I know what you need. If anyone in authority discovers that I've woken up in my sensitivity to the ship, my time to do that will be very limited.
Ourania, Realizing with full depth that Zola will never love me like Dana loved Ioanna holds a close tie with touching Mark's cold, dead body in the explosive confusion of coming to life.
I hiss, wath the blood well up. Whether the hiss is at the cut or the sudden knowing about Gwen’s murder. The rush from the cut gets mixed up in the sudden rage at Lucas, and renewed anger at the adults, at my Mother.
With the power around me now I would destroy Lucas, if I had some pathway to him, some link. But I don’t. I could charge into the hall, hunt him down and make him pay directly, but I woiuld lose this extra energy. It is only that keeps me still as I watch Tabitha cut herself… for me.
I shake my head. “Don’t. Corps do as they’re told.” I answer her. “Blind obedience…” I snort mirthlessly, a little spike of self-loathing over my own blindness. “They aren’t here for us. They’re here for them.”
I look up at her, fire behind my eyes, and touch her cheek. “We’ll get him, Tabitha. I whisper. He will pay.”
I look down again, and I gently take hold of her cut arm and press mine to it, smearing our blood together. I pull off Dad’s ring, then I wipe my finger across the blood on her arm and smear some of it on the ring. I lean over and lick across the cut on her arm, taking the faintly metallic taste onto my tongue. I hold it there, sitting up and nodding to her, holding the ring in the open palm of my right hand and holding my cut arm out to her.
Once she does the same I close my hand over the ring feeling the pathway to my mother. The power pulses and I wonder if Tabitha can feel it. I lean into Tabitha and kiss her again with intensity, the bloodied ring in my clenched fist. Our tongues meet and I share the mixed blood as I shape the power with all my anger and condemnation, picturing my mother when I saw her last. The strength of it is almost too much as I finally shove the power through the pathway like a bullet.
(Rolled: 2d6+2. Rolls: 3, 1. Total: 6)
Ourania,
You feel all that power, enough to make your hands numb, your body quiver. It coalesces into some unseen force, and you focus it, push it away, send it to your mother.
But something happens. Something unexpected. That shell of hate and loathing that has built up around you, Ourania, somehow it acts like a barrier. The force you sent away, it bounces against it like some kind of force-field, and gathers like a cloud above you. Only to rain down onto your hair, your shoulders, your entire body.
Immediately, your stomach lurches, and you feel cold sweats start. Your last meal starts threatening to come back up, and you feel dizzy.
What do you do?
The only way for the hex to be broken is to escape your Darkest Self.
Somewhere in here I'm supposed to get a token from you, Tabitha, You know about it and it's cool but so far I'm not sure what it would be.
"Stomm..."
I push away from Tabitha suddenly and stumble towards the bathroom. Stumble because I'm dizzy that way you are before you...
I don't quite make it, Loosing it just on the threshold to the bathroom.
It bounced back... the power bounced back on me. What does that mean? I... I meant for it to punish those responsible... It's my fault Pris is dying. Even Gwen... Maybe Dad's ring didn't mean anything to... Stars, now Tabitha is vulnerable...This is...
Although it will probably be miniscule comfort right now, Ourania, you can have my printed copy of the Annabel Lee poem.
There's something I feel while we do these things, with the blood, with our post-nova selves..something with a lot of force, a buzz and pressure. Ourania said she could 'shape' it. What does that shaping take? Is it supposed to be this rattling feeling? My arm guard hairs stand on end.
Her body tenses and she bails on me - is there something wrong with the way I've kissed her? My confusion breaks when Ourania purges on the bathroom floor. Something is wrong and it was probably not me.
I follow after her and help her the rest of the way to the toilet in case there's more..her skin is cold and clammy. I've..only vomited once, myself. Stomm got into my nose and I was convinced I was dying.
Holding her hair out of the way, I smooth a hand on her back.
Ourania,
That first wave of nausea passes after you empty your stomach, which takes a while. Your eyes water, and the last purge felt like you lost the meal before last. Your throat is raw, even your jaw aches.
What do you do?
I feel terrible. Exhausted. Still chilled. Trembling. Body aching. Pris certainly dealt with worse, though, didn't she. I drag myself to sit, propped up by the cool bathroom bulkhead next to the toilet. I think about getting up and washing out my mouth but it seems like a whole lot of effort and I don't know if my head, which feels thick, will take it.
I blink blearily at Tabitha.
"Thanks." I rasp out, and it really is a rasp now. My throat burns, raw from vomiting and still stinging with that bile taste. "Stars, I really drokked that stomm up." I take a couple breaths. "Sorry."
And whatever emotional link there was to Dad's ring was probably consumed. I look at my hand, at the ring.
Ourania,
It's... nice. A well-made ring. There are memories of your father wearing it, but nothing to draw from. No pathos. No energy. Just a nice ring.
I fill up our mouth-rinsing cup with water and hand it to Ourania. "Do we need to go. To the infirmary?"
I soak up the mess with some towels and immediately cycle them through the autocleaner. We're always the only ones who clean our rooms, so I may as well get to it. I don't have to go far, though.
"What happened?" I press the back of my hand to Ourania's forehead. Now may be a bad time for her to be undressed.
I stare dully at the ring, wanting to cry but too exhausted. I wasted something precious. I look up to see Tabitha clean my mess and feel shame. I shake my head weakly in response to Tabitha's question, closing my eyes briefly at the touch of her hand on my head.
"The power... bounced back on me. It's making me sick. Nothing the infirmary can do." I don't know if the infirmary tested me if they would even find anything. Even if they did this thing isn't really driven by a virus. Stasis might not even stop it. Still... it doesn't mean I'm not contagious. "You shouldn't touch me. Don't know... if I'm infectious."
"Okay, so we won't go there." I conclude out loud. "I'll wash my hands. Or whatever. I'll be ok." I get our last bathroom towel over Ourania's shoulders and wait till she's strong enough to leave the room.
End Scene