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Y'All Need to Dream of Dancing Fish
Broadcast: fleetwide
Action: Iskaulit or Vanquish
When: 27 September.
[Because it's a matter of survival for the fae, Katie learned to deal with her own nightmares very early on. It's one of those issues when your existence straddles the line between the mundane world and the dream one and you see both at once. It can be fun. It can be beautiful. It can also kind of suck ass.
What happened to the planet below is still a source of roiling nausea for her, but she is by far not the only one dreaming of it now.
In one sense, it's good that the scale of destruction is so vast that the human subconscious has difficulty replicating it as echoes in the confined space of the ships themselves, but it doesn't stop her from catching glimpses of horrified faces in the corner of her eye. Ghostly echoes of copper-skinned victims before their death. Corridors suddenly filling with flame and screams. See, that one's jarring as hell and she has difficulty pretending she can't see it. It's enough that she excuses herself from polite company and locks herself in the Vanquish's personnel room, a ball of wool in her hands and a twitchy cat slinking at her heels. Licorice can see it all, too. That's the problem with getting too close to the fae. She wonders idly if Sam is having issues.
She can't exactly make an announcement to demand everyone get over it already. You can't get over something like this. It's healthy to go through that grief. But if a corridor happens to fill with fire while she's in it, she'll burn. And it's her job to try and curb this kind of thing, the way she ... totally didn't do that in Bath. Oh, well.
She does what she can.]
[Video]
Would anyone like a dream catcher? [She holds up a contraption made from baby blue wool and shells, shaking it a little. It looks decidedly average.] Personally speaking, I've always found the ones I didn't make myself far more useful. But you could always try them out and see what happens. Might help with the nightmares none of you are having.
Speaking of non-issues, I suppose this is what being a personnel officer is all about. I really do need my Doctor Is In sign, don't I?
She'll be mostly in her personnel room on the Vanquish because these things take time to make, though she'll visit the Iskaulit later to hang out in the fox park and recharge.]
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I'm...okay. Just some bad memories. I'm sure everything will settle down again soon. [That's....a little bit bullshit. But maybe not entirely. He'd been getting along fine (fine for him anyway) until all this happened. He's quiet for a moment before he backtracks to her offer.] I don't mind the color.
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[Headtilt. Huh.] That was a terribly cheesy metaphor. I'll have to practice.
Do you have any interest in making them yourself?
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[Okay maybe a little. And maybe he's just saying that so he can avoid the real point of it. She's not wrong. He's just...usually not ready to address his underlying issues. It's almost reflex by now to brush off offers to talk about things.
Felix takes a couple steps into the room to look at what she's doing.]
I hadn't really thought about it. Would it help?
[He doesn't believe Alvis' helps - he keeps it for the sentimental value, no the practical - but he believes in Katie and whatever extra abilities she brings. He...somehow doubts making them himself will help either.]
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[Innocently.]
I won't take any pictures.
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[His tone is very dry.
Felix's initial impulse is to shove the suggestion away, just like he shoved away her offer to talk. It's automatic, this strange grumpy impulse to reject anything that might actually fix or help him. (He has issues.)
...But hey, she could be right. The same way he'll sometimes mindlessly doodle to keep himself from focusing on other things. And it's not like he's only struggling with bad dreams.]
...Okay. Show me. [A pause.] Please.
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Take a chair or a blanket pile or whatever you like. [Excuse her while she dumps a whole pile of wool on her desk in varying lengths.]
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Felix is still tempted to take this all back, but something about the way she reacted to him saying yes stops him. It's still a little strange to him that she's invested in him doing this to any degree, but...clearly she is. He'll stay put for now and resist the urge to be a stick in the mud.]
What's the first step?
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Picking a colour you like. [Which-- well, the majority of the wool is that soft blue, but she has some varying colours now in the wake of Wrath's visit.] There aren't really any rules to it-- well, there's tradition, I suppose. But I find it comes down to your ability to make a pattern you like with a lot of winding.
[The first step is technically making a circle out of wire, but she's already got a half dozen of those put aside, so there's that.]
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[He actually reaches for the blue yarn rather than any of the other colors. It's a little lighter than his normal aesthetic but it's kind of a color he's used to. Maybe it's even better that it's not darker, because then won't remind him directly of Galactica.]
What's the tradition?
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[A dream catcher made by the right hands in her world can work to some extent if the crafter and owner believe in it enough, but whether that's just a psychosomatic reaction or not, who knows? Empowering it with glamour, on the other hand, sheer essence of belief-- well. It'll work regardless, if only for a few weeks. But that's often enough.
He chose blue. She likes it.]
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Guess that does make sense.
[He glances over at her finished ones, to see if he can work out for himself how to start. Clearly the yarn has to be attached to the hoop somehow. Felix picks up an empty hoop, and looks up at Katie again.]
I assume I start by tying it on?
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[She might be lying on that score.]
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He falls quiet while he works. His tiredness becomes more apparent as he lets some of the tension keeping him more obviously alert go. Even before the pattern-making, there is something soothing about this. The repetition.]
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It's when he's nearly done that she speaks mildly, soft enough he might miss the first few words.] You know, there's a couch in here. I'm sure a pile of half-made dreamcatchers would be at least as effective as one finished one.
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Felix glances up, absorbing her suggestion after a moment.]
...Oh. I think I'd rather finish this and then get out of your hair. [Because he's such a burden.] But it's kind of you to offer.
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Pity. I wanted to see what you'd look like with whiskers.
[It was a genuine offer, but hell if she's gonna couch it super seriously. No pun intended.]
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[He's not too tired to be a little sassy.
...He doesn't actually know what whiskers have to do with it...? Or, no, wait, maybe he does. She's probably talking about drawing on him.
Shit. He is tired.]
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Hopefully you'll get a better night tonight.