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Who: Katie and anyone!
Broadcast: Yes
Action: Vanquish
When: Today!

[So ever since a couple of weeks ago when she spent a couple nights off ship (for reasons she still hasn't explained), Katie has remained basically shut up in the personnel office instead of getting underfoot or sticking her nose out of the ship and making faces at the moon, a quieter shadow of herself. She's hiding. She also feels guilty for hiding, because she wasn't raised to hide, but she's at a complete loss of what to do about what, to her, is a critical and terrifying problem. What she'd really like to do is just tell an adult about what she saw, because that would be the simplest and wisest thing for any other child. There's something terrible. Make it go away. But with how much honesty would have to be involved she'd be a wreck on the floor within minutes.

There's a brief few days in there where her mind shies around the idea that she may have to kill someone on the Fleet. Which makes her shut down on multiple levels, because she's just a kid and kids shouldn't have to think about that, and it's a horrible act, and nobody would understand at all why she did it, and on a very base level she doesn't want to, she's not made that way. But not going through with it just means she's letting the problem roam free and he's hurting people just by existing. Any older fae would have dealt with this by now. Ignoring the problem is equally a terrible option.

So there's a third choice. She's just terrified of making that one, too. It's never ended well for anyone. Sam and her mother are testament to that.

In short, Katie is hiding because she can't make a choice and getting more and more frazzled and withdrawn because in not taking action she's letting things get worse and this suuucks--

Sometimes it might be nice just to be, in fact, a little girl.]

---------

[By the second week she starts making dolls. Simplistic blue yarn dolls at the base. It's just something to do with her hands and mind at first. Then she makes one in which her blue wool is dipped sporadically into black ink as she makes it, so the doll looks rather like it got thrown in a tar puddle when she's done. She attaches five or six pieces of loose, spattered wool to its shoulders, closes her eyes, and blows gently on its darkened face.

Don't ask why she does creepy things.

Then she stares at her little collection, swallows... and goes to watch Princess Bride instead. It's video courage! (Which small children have to make do with instead of liquid courage.) Which leads to this post on the network twenty minutes in, very grumpily:]

[Video]

If we're in space and everything's so very future and all, why don't we even have television? [Petulant, pale child alert. Please ignore the spattered bits of ink on her chin.] Aren't we allowed to watch alien TV?

...I don't suppose anyone can make a TV with magic, can they? I don't think you should have to watch movies on this thing. [She taps the screen and accidentally turns it off. OH WELL. Question stands.

...but now that it's off, after a few minutes there comes an addition in text:]

[Text]

If it would make everything better, would you do something terrible so that nobody else had to?

[Hopefully, that part's anonymous. Right?]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[But everything is automatically transla-

....

....

this is a riddle, isn't it

this is a riddle he can do this]

I don't suppose it's possible to teach someone how to understand this "French"?

[She's a little encouraged by that. Hmm.]

To know properly you'd have to be French too. But you could take guesses if you know how the French like to speak.

[Hmm, indeed. Actually, this reminds him a little of Lailah- all her whimsical ways of dancing around a straight answer. It merits more testing, at the very least.]

I'm a bit of a linguist, and I learn quickly. Maybe I can help.

[...HMM. That's a hopeful kind of answer.]

who am I speaking to?

[It's...probably on her screen somewhere, but she's not really paying attention.]

[Oh, right, resonance is weird on these things.]

It's Mikleo. Sorry, I don't show up on the comm.

[Mikleo. The seraph that nobody else can see. Least likely to judge her for being magical in her own right.

Give her a minute as she mulls this over.]

people can't see you and people can't hear me. that doesn't seem fair.

[Ahahaha... well. He can't say she's alone in those thoughts- he'd felt it before, when he was younger and understood less about humans. Even now, there are moments.]

You're right. It's a trade-off for associating with those who aren't your own kind.

But that's why we need to help each another.

[Not just the ones who are similar- mortals, too. That's a lesson he'd had to learn himself, after leaving home.]

[Okay, then. She has a little more confidence he'll maybe see through it.]

There's a vampire on board. People don't think he's a vampire, but he really is. He's tricking everyone.

[Huh. That's not altogether surprising, actually. Question is, which vampire does she mean?]

It's my understanding that they don't tell others what they are because they will be hunted. Have you been threatened?

remember that I'm French he's threatened everyone people see it but they're ignoring it I would have seen it but I'm blind

[The sooner he works out what "French" means, the better, really. Is the riddle itself the language?]

Perhaps they all need glasses. Or maybe you do?

[Oh! Glasses! Why didn't she think of that earlier--]

special monster seeing glasses I can make them but they hurt

Nothing hurts quite like the truth, but sometimes it's necessary.

[That is a terribly fitting thing to say, Mikleo.]

the problem with glasses is they can mess with how you see in other ways your eyes start playing tricks on you I don't think anyone would want that

Not the sort of glasses you can take off afterwards, then?

[There's always a catch.]

its like you stick them on your eyes and they go away on their own but you can't take them off yourself

[That's not so terrible. Here he'd been thinking it might be like an oath or something- long-term power granted at an unfortunate price. A temporary discomfort - or pain, as she'd said - is much easier to swallow.]

I wonder what the duration might be for something like that.

It's exactly the same for everyone as long as it takes to annoy them

[Unexpectedly less terrible yet again. He suspects there's still a catch he's not hearing, especially if she's limited by what she can or cannot say, but...]

That sounds doable. If you need a volunteer, I wouldn't mind trying on a pair.

[Oh thank god. This is something she'd really rather leave to someone more (a) responsible and adult(ish) and (b) someone who's capable of explaining properly what they see.]

thank you shall I come over?

By all means. We'll sort this out, I promise.

[Oh dear.

She wonders if that holds up in text and not in person. But she'll work that out later; she's just too relieved.

The Huntress will have a visitor some time later-- as soon as Bigby takes off from guarding her door, anyway-- in the form of one small child with a bundle of blue yarn dolls. WHERE YOU AT.]

[Well, at least "sorting it out" doesn't guarantee one result or another...

Anyway, he's hanging out in the docking area with a book, waiting for her, since she said she'd be coming. She gets a quirked brow. Voodoo??]

Dolls?

Voodoo dolls. [READ YOUR BRACKETS. But not really. She grins hopefully at him.] You shouldn't touch them until you're ready, though. They're like glasses. In French.

[Well-- she can pass glamour on, in the form of things she made herself. Her explanation makes no sense, but as long as he's careful it doesn't really matter.]

Do you know Sascha?

[it's extra funny because he doesn't actually know what voodoo is, so all she gets is a questioning look. He does understand what she means, though- those are whatever it is that will help him see her "truth".]

Sascha? I did meet him once, only briefly. He doesn't have any resonance and we have nothing in common, so.

[Shrug.]

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