godsfire

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

It is dark.

((Warning: Contains traumatized characters and other content that should be warned for. We will attempt to start keeping up-to-date specific warning list soon))

Comments

[dotted_lines]

"I can do that, yeah."

He notices the expression, realizes she thought he meant a stack, that's, really nice for her to be concerned about, she needs a hug.

...She is still kinda bloody, yeah. He looks around the room again. "I don't see any sources of water in here. Do you have a plan to get that off? I know a minor chant for getting blood out of things?"

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

"Disassemblers are the best way to do that, but severe trauma is better than nothing," she adds, absently.

"I was going to transform the gloves, and," Thorn inspects herself, "everything else that got some on it -- into something that wouldn't hold that. Although if the chant also handles cerebrospinal fluid that might be more convenient." She seems to realize what expression she was making, and adds, "This should not take too much longer."

[dotted_lines]

"Good. It should work, it works on ichor and hemolymph, and some ectoplasms, which are a lot less like blood."

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

Thorn nods, and silently finishes her task. Then she wipes off her knife and stands, stepping carefully around the body and her still-working nanofabricator.

"This is on the same scale as the shield you were doing earlier, right? --and you do have a way to handle blood contact?"

[dotted_lines]

"Right." He pulls the bloodstone out of his pocket, then ducks down to dip the rock and his uninjured hand into the convenient pool of blood on the floor.

Slowly, to make it clear what he's doing, he reaches out and smudges a bit more blood on the back of each of Thorn's gloves with the stone, then chants a few words in another language. The blood and cerebrospinal fluid on her clothes faintly red and slowly falls off of her and into the puddle on the floor.

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

That is much simpler.

Okay then. Can hugs happen now?

[dotted_lines]

Yes. Yes they can.

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

Then they will.

And Thorn thinks about that thing. If something happened -- Aisilian could apparently recover egos, but that might be interfered with by whatever the reason is that they have not even been contacted. The keeper -- exists, which is a whole concern of its own. There are a few other forms of immortality floating around the forum, but they all require being connected to that system.

"You are not allowed to die, okay?" she whispers, just loud enough for him to hear.

[dotted_lines]

That... that was concern and determination, not a threat. He hugs back.

He nods very slightly, hopefully too small a movement to be picked up by anyone but Thorn.

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

After a little while, Thorn sighs, unhugs, retrieves her nanofabricator, tucks it under one arm, and continues around the room, inspecting the panelling. At one point she pauses and looks at the floor with a somewhat bemused expression.

[dotted_lines]

Steve walks over from the wall-panel he was inspecting to where she's standing, and follows her gaze to the tiled floor.

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

The lines of the tiling are, on close inspection, made up of a less swirly, more sharp-edged version of the pattern on the walls. There are also slightly lighter or darker tiles, and slightly discolorations within them, but no coherent pattern is visible.

[dotted_lines]

"Huh. Yeah, that matches the ones on the wall. I can't see what these patterns mean either. But some are a little bit different. Maybe they'd mean something from a different angle?"

He returns to walking around the room, this time looking at the floor instead of the walls.

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

Thorn nods. "I want to finish looking at the walls, but I will look at that with you after that," she says.

She, too, continues her circuit around the room.

[dotted_lines]

He follows her, looking at the floor and trying to focus his eyes to let him see whatever pattern the discolorations follow. He sometimes looks up at the walls to find which panels' designs match those on the tiles.



Eventually, they reach their starting point, having completed a circuit of the room. The floor suddenly lights with a bright glaring glow, and a noise begins to play.

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

When the noise starts, Thorn flattens herself against the wall, pressing her hands against her ears. After a few moments where it does not abate, she starts to swear, occasionally interspersed with, "Do not listen to it, do not pay attention to it."

[dotted_lines]

He mimics her actions, she seems to know what's going on. He nods and presses his hands hard against his ears and tries to ignore the noise that leaks through.

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

She relaxes a fraction when he does that, and inches over closer to his position against the wall.

A few moments later, she stops swearing, and simply leans against the wall and breathes deeply. Then she murmurs: "Out of the night that covers me / black as the pit from pole to pole / I thank whatever gods may be / for my unconqurable soul. / In the fell clutch of circumstance / I--" her voice catches, and the next bit is indistinct up to "--the bludgeonings of chance / My head is bloody, but unbowed. / Beyond this place of wrath and tears / looms but the horror of the shade / and yet--" she chokes again, and the next bit is again unclear "--and shall find me unafraid. / It matters not how strait the gate / how charged with punishments the scroll, / I am the master of my fate / I am the captain of my soul."

Her breathing evens out a little when she finishes, and her shaking reduces somewhat.

[dotted_lines]

Thorn is saying something, but he can't hear what. It looks like she might be chanting? He gets her attention, then slowly moves his foot to hers.

When she doesn't seem to object, he slowly moves his foot against hers, tapping and pressing it. (tap press tap, pause, tap tap press, pause, press press press, pause, press tap press, pause, tap tap press press tap tap)

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

Thorn spends a moment trying to unravel that before her muse chimes in with a translation.

She shrugs helplessly.

[dotted_lines]

He moves toward her a little, then stops himself.

'hugs?' he taps out with his foot.

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

...

'your ears cover', she taps out.

[dotted_lines]

He waves his elbows a bit, leaving his hands firmly clamped over his ears.

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

Oh, okay then.

Hugs.

(She is not covering her ears any more. She is also not responding to auditory stimuli (like, for example, that particularly piercing note there) at all.)

[dotted_lines]

Hugs. Slightly awkward elbow-hugs of her head, but hugs. He shifts his balance to stay upright while tapping her foot from a hugging angle: 'yours?'