driftfleet | [Closed]

[An afternoon to stretch her legs off the ships did sound like heaven-- or at least it did until they actually left the ships and she found herself burdened with a mask and looking around dubiously at all the mist.]

If it's so poisonous, why do people live here?

[That being said, it doesn't change her mind. Spaceship where everyone looks at her oddly or island where nobody knows who she is. Easy choice.]

[The necessity of the masks had given her an idea on how to initiate her plan. But not yet.]

I imagine they do not have much of a choice.

[Though it was also interesting, how they made use of this mist for other purposes, making the use of it's promise as an energy source in spite of the hazards. Good on them, really.]

Perhaps it was not always this way. They may have had to adapt, if something had affected the world so profoundly to lead to this result.

Oh...I suppose you're right. Like pollution on a vast scale. This sort of thing could happen to us, probably.

[Us back home. London isn't the greatest already, lbr.] The rich people have either already left or make money off this somehow, one assumes.

Many things are possible. Since it seems they use the mist as their energy source, somehow.

[Perhaps their practical adaptation, even if they could not overcome the madness of it.]

And as new generations grow, they live with it because it is what they know.

I'm not sure whether to praise them for their adaptation or curse them for remaining ignorant of better options. Then again, who knows? I'm sure there are some here who study the mist so they can hopefully fix the problem for future generations.

[Anyway, too deep. She doesn't want to add this place's problems to her own, so with an easy shrug, she moves on.] Did you have any particular places in mind?

[Too deep indeed, while it would be easy to slip into philosophical about other planets, that really wasn't the aim here.]

I want us go to find places that aren't meant for tourists. We can go shopping later.

[Because while the clothes here seemed marginally more interesting than the kinds back on that other planet, it wasn't a priority and they would be here for a while anyway.]

Ooh, what kind of places? [There's a curious element there bordering on teasing. Katie and... well, Katie are not that different, once you don't look at the magical side of things.]

We're not going to get into trouble are we? [She doesn't sound particularly perturbed about it, though.]

That depends on how much fun you want to have.

[A wicked grin. She's actually teasing, really, but maybe she's been hanging around Katie a little too long.]

I thought some of the other islands might be more interesting to look at. Chase a story, see if it's real or not. I'm not afraid, are you?

Of course not! [...a little. Look, she still lies sometimes.] What kind of stories are there, though?

They talk a good deal about so-called legendary creatures that only appear under special circumstances, and ancient ruins full of treasure and mysteries. The latter seems more interesting, don't you think? We could find you something shiny.

Well, I do like shiny.

[The legendary creature is just a legend anyway, probably. She gestures with a small flourish.] Lead the way.

[Honestly, she's not so much interested in the "legendary creatures", given the sorts of things she's seen in her lifetime. Even if it would be new, it's less exciting than poking around for history and secrets and all that deep stuff and unraveling mysticism at its core.

Even if all of that was a ruse to get to a less populated area. All that was required was a suitable distraction, or to hope that her "sister's" mask would slip and need help adjusting it--really, that was the best opening she could want, but beggars could not be choosers in terms of opportunity.]

I thought you might.

[She says, unfolding a map--she'd already had an idea in mind, but better to seem authentic before leading on to the veritable unknown.

And so off they go.]

[Katie doesn't think anything nefarious is really going on, so it's surprisingly easy to lead her wherever Haggar wants to go. She does pay attention to the surroundings, though, as much as she can see of them; ingrained training. But otherwise, she helps navigate the map until they find themselves in a nice, quiet location.]

...well, this is exciting.

[Said sort of dryly.]

[Yes, this was good enough, she thinks.]

The map says there ought to be something here. Perhaps there wasn't much to those stories after all.

Perhaps not. May I have a look? [She holds her hand out.] I'm an old hand at maps. You should seen some of the streets we have to navigate in Bath.

Perhaps you should have been the guide instead.

[She gives her a wry look, as she hands it over.] Although I suppose it is not well marked.

Hm, you're not joking. [She peers at it, finger trailing over as she marks exactly where they are, and frowns.]

There's nothing actually listed for this area. Where were you trying to go...?

Are you certain? I could have sworn...

[But she takes a step closer, reaching her hand over to point out what she was talking about, but instead she reaches to grab Katie's hand instead in a quick movement, dark purple energy swirling around her fingertips.

That's all the warning she'll have, really. It is not too gentle, this probing sort of psychic energy, but the intent is there.]

It is time for you to wake up. I know you are in there.

[Katie starts at the sudden grab of her hand, not fully registering what's going on. She wasn't expecting attack from this quarter, and her eyes widen behind the mask at the sudden dark glow around her supposed sister's hand. That can't be right--]

What--

[Oh my god, what are you doing? It's the most unpleasant feeling, and her knees buckle slightly before she catches her balance and tries to yank her hand away, the map fluttering down from loose fingers.] Let go!

[It feels wrong.

(It feels familiar.)]

It will only hurt for a moment. Wake up.

[Though when Katie shouts at her to withdraw, she does--she had given more than enough to light a spark, or so she intended.

If it didn't work... well, that would present an ugly sort of problem, really--it would mean that it was the augment after all, and that would be unfortunate.]

[She backs right off, shoulder smacking against the wall. Lack of contact doesn't change the feeling. It's nausea, though it's quickly burning off into a rising kind of warmth that fills her with all kinds of alarm. It's not that it's unfamiliar. Because it is. But memory is still shattered, still trying to piece itself together, and the only thing that comes to mind, oddly, is the sudden image of shoving at a man in a ruined street and yelling at him to go because--

oh.]

You need to leave. [The words feel difficult, and she snaps her teeth shut. She's still startled at the attack, but she's not outraged. Though maybe her sister deserves to be at ground zero for the lie, that's just not how things are done. Not really.]

[It was a perfectly harmless white lie. She just didn't think introducing herself as a shapeshifting witch would go over very well with someone who couldn't remember their own magical bits. This was a comfortable guise.

Not that she liked introducing herself at all.

She can see that shift in Katie's body language when she hits the wall, hears that bare hint of a warning through the other's clenched teeth-

Well, leaving, she was good at. If something had been shifted--corrected--in her "sister's" state, she could simply pop back in and check on her later, and that was all to it. So as Katie struggles the warning, her eyes narrow slightly, as she makes to teleport herself to another area. Something she could ordinarily do quickly and with ease, but for the augment's nasty little delays.]

[WELP, SUCKS FOR YOU

Katie's older and has more control than when she was a child, at least-- memory fills in its gaps, a trickle just ahead of the surge of magic that follows, and ten years ago she'd have painted this entire neighbourhood in the uncontrolled glamour that comes with a secondary chrysalis. (Or a third, they really need to stop doing this to her, it's not the way it's meant to happen--)

She still loses control of the wild magic at the outset. Can't be helped. If Haggar had managed to teleport even a single street away, she'd have remained safe. The only warning, if it can be called that, is when Katie's look turns to alarm-- why haven't you left?-- and then her eyes flare bright green, the pupil going from normal to slitted like a cat's in a bare instant.

And then hey, the entire alleyway is getting washed in brilliant gold. It's not an unpleasant feeling. It's buoyant and full of possibility, but it's not meant for humans. Or space witches. It paints everything in its wake in new colour, new darknesses, and just for a moment, it's blinding.

And when it's gone, well.

Katie seems not entirely human.

Welcome to being enchanted.]

First of all, rude.

[She doesn't sound that put out.]

[ She had been trying to leave. She should have been out of there in less than a tick, at the word go-- but no, something was interfering. The augment, of course. Would that she could only disable that thing--

But there isn't enough time to consider that thought, not with what happens next.

...That... sensation...

Well, even if it's not exactly meant for magic space witches, there's something about it that feels... familiar and yet not. Startlingly addicting, and mostly startling, in that moment of being awash in it. Not quite quintessence, but it packed enough of a punch to have her off balance and stop her attempt at teleporting away.

The light fades, but she can still... feel it. She blinks, slowly, taking in Katie's revealed looks. The feline features were different but not entirely unexpected, all things considered. ]

... you have returned...

No. I'm a figment of your imagination.

[So yes, then. In light of Haggar's enhanced vision, Katie occasionally looks like she's giving off sparks; like her aura is roiling and trying to settle and not doing a great job of it. She'll have to avoid people for a while.

Well. There's no point avoiding her present company. Not now. She glances around at the mists with fresh eyes, and her feline ears twitch, then fold back.]

And you chose the safest of places to do this, too. Are you still incapable of leaving?

[Because Haggar might pick it now, too; a shifting, slithering presence in the mist that hadn't been there before, hiding just out of sight.

...there might also be a familiar flicker of an alien cat, there and gone again.]

[Ah, it was good to have the old, twisty-words Katie back.

Not that she thought this would be the result at poking at her; Quintessence was a whole other existence of a world upon which she could feel and experience things on other levels, and this was adding another layer onto that that she was still trying to suss through, flickers of the cat catching the corner of her eye, as well as other sensations...

At the last question though, her expression turns displeased.]

I will test that.

[Because as much as she wants to poke and prod at seeing things in this highly fascinating new way, the fact was she wouldn't have gotten stuck in the first place if her abilities weren't compromised. And even as she attempts again--just for the sake of moving herself a few feet away, as much as she disliked the notion of being potentially vulnerable-- she... blurs, as there's a noticable stutter to what should have been an instantaneous movement, up to four ticks to vanish and two more to reappear, and really moreso than Katie's glamour backlash her irritation is Atroma.]

It seems I am still being inconvenienced by... other forces.

[Not Katie's. She tilts her head slightly as she turns to look back at her.]

Is there something that does not frighten you here?

The Atroma really don't like you, do they?

[She chooses not to answer that question. There's streaks of darkness much like treacle winding their way across the ground towards them, snaking out like a system of roots. This mist reflects people's fears back to them. Give a few months of that and nervosa will arise, and how long has this place been here for? Years. Centuries.

And naturally she has no weapon. Why would she have brought one? A minute ago, the monsters didn't exist.

Welp.]

Hope you don't mind. [She's going to put a hand on Haggar's shoulder-- feels kind of like a jolt, like static fizz-- and make use of the glamour wave, burning some of it off by teleporting them elsewhere. She's not sure where they are and things are unreliable, so where they end up is unpredictable.

...

Like maybe a deserted little island just bobbing around out here.]

It is not the first time they have inconvenienced me like this.

[Which Katie would know, since the result of that led to them becoming "twins" in the first place.

... Which perhaps was not a bad thing, but the fact was that it was still Atroma's meddling that led to it being necessary in the first place. And now they'd lost their map.

Well, this day was a lot more interesting now. Though she did take note that Katie's response to the question was to move them to another space entirely. Perhaps giving name to whatever it was she was concerned about would draw it forth? Haggar, at least, was not fearful. Perhaps concerned that her dexterity was compromised, as well as whatever else might have been, but she did not want to focus on that.

Or those odd sensations she'd noticed, before they'd left...]

Does this happen to you often?

Which? Being ambushed by evil twin sisters in misty alleyways or dying?

[She says it quite affably; Katie isn't offended by Haggar's actions in the slightest. A little put out it was necessary, maybe.]

Losing touch with this part of you in the case of your 'death'.

[A gentle shrug.] Not that death is a predictable event. However, if you are unable to confirm, I understand.

Bit hard to answer, isn't it? All I can say is lovely places like this seem to like disrupting the natural order of things.

[When she dies, she's meant to move on. Not... rebound back and go through cold science to be resurrected on some alien ship somewhere. It's enough to make her psyche nope out and bury itself deep.]

[She considers the response, before nodding.]

This reality plays by its own rules. Even if it goes against what would seem to be logical anywhere else.

[...Says the person who's had personal experience with seemingly unnatural revivals in her own world. Her eyes track some of the wispy shapes around them; the path of the strange alien cat, and a flickering figure of... her actual self, though much younger. And noticeably not blue.]

[...oh. This isn't who she used to be...? That's interesting, and she wonders how much of it has to do with that kind of twisted energy she can feel--

--but now is not the time.]

Here is just as safe as where we left. Give me a moment. [She can find a way back from here-- a tracking spell fixed on any one person she knows should at least show her way to safer areas. Katie puts her hands together and blows on the tips as if she's cold, and a small wisp of bright light appears, bobbing in front of her face a moment before heading off on a slow weave through the mist.]

This would be better with a taxi. But such is life. Come on.

[She follows it.]

[Katie's words draw her attention again, perhaps for the best--there was no reason for her to be confronted or distracted by concepts she barely recalled.

Instead, more importantly, what a fascinating bit of work she's conjured up. Haggar was still trying to understand it; the nature of this magic, so similar to what she knew and yet not, and yet what sorts of new concepts could be gained by watching another at work? Fresh ideas did often spring forth from that sort of inspiration, after all, often through necessity, but sometimes, curiosity.

A little guide light through the mist. How appropriate. So as long as the person she was focusing on wasn't somewhere else as "safe" as this, which would be a truly ironic turn.

Even so, she follows, shadowy thing she is, because, why not? She was not afraid, either way. For the moment though, she's fallen more quiet and observant than talkative.]

[Sam would avoid this mist, so she focused it on Sam. Ergo, as long as they keep moving swiftly they'll be fine; the wisp will lead them directly back to familiar docked shuttles and ships.

Katie pauses at the outskirts of safety, though.] Did you have any stories about the boogieman in your own world?

[Her eyebrows raise slightly. Thanks to their conversations, she's grown slightly more accustomed to the odd phrases that Katie would sometimes weave in, or find sources to poke through to give her a better frame of reference.

Her "planet".]

Perhaps... they did have stories in that vein meant to frighten children, while others strove to prove whether or not such myths or tales had true origins. Most else was bound in secrets.

There are a lot of stories like that. Most of them revolve around the theory that the more you think of them as real, the more power you give them to hurt you.

[She glances back at Haggar, speaking mildly.] Just a thought. Entirely unrelated.

[Because you're gonna see some shit for a day or two, probably.]

Now that is fascinating. I appreciate the warning...

[Because she's kind of a weirdo. But she's a smart weirdo. She's just curious about power and how others make use of it for science, that's all.]

Your Earth must have a lot of those -- stories. Though I imagine you'd be hard pressed to find a planet that did not. With this power... it feels as if it must be another layer of reality that exists over another, for such concepts to take a tangible form...

[Unrelated, but oddly enough, that alien cat that's been flickering about and following them seems to be less of a dream-like creature for the moment, with the way it's stopped to stare at them without vanishing away now that they've stopped moving, though it appears a little different, more sleek and less fuzzy.]

[She's not surprised. Haggar must be noticing the cat. Were it another form of echo, she'd have delivered her warning earlier, but the cat is harmless enough.

...and it's a cat. She's biased.]

The real world works much the same. If enough people believe you have power, you have power. [Over those that believe. She's not willing to discuss the Dreaming inasmuch. Well, it's very difficult, to begin with.]

There is much to be said for the power of influence.

[She hasn't known what to make of the cat, really; it certainly was there, as if it had trundled right out of a memory, no less, but she hadn't given it much more thought than that, despite its current proximity.]

With these layers you can see almost anything if you wanted. It feels very much like possibility.

[In the creative, metaphorical sense, much like pure quintessence. No wonder she found Katie so interesting. Even if it meant putting up with those odd Earth movies. Not that space dramas were really any better.]

Does reality always look this way to you?

Good heavens, no. [Cheerfully.] I'd go utterly bonkers.

[It's a trip, having your feet planted in two different worlds at once. Space itself, though, is much emptier than a permanently occupied landscape would be.]

Too much to see and feel all at once? I understand.

[After all, becoming attuned to life energy was something of exactly that at times. That similar and yet different feel to all this.

These next few days would be a trip, all right.]

Are you able to channel this power at will, or is it something that you have no control over?

It varies from moment to moment. [Even if she could tell the truth, she wouldn't answer that one honestly to someone who hasn't given so much as a name.]

[Fair enough.

Still, she'll take what she can get, there. Might come in handy someday.]

Perhaps I will make you stronger by believing in it.

[She grins widely at that. What an observant space witch you are.]

Perhaps.

[Closed]

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