driftfleet | the white noise is deafening silence

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the white noise is deafening silence

[In the very early hours of January 20th, as the Marsiva and her captives drift nonchalantly through the depths of the universe, there is a call. Every single personal communicator and console springs to life, spitting out a stream of indecipherable static and showing only gray snow on screen. It continues like this for a few seconds longer, going black and then going staticky, and then the signal switches to the encrypted channel generally used for speaking to the Interceptors when something big goes down.

This is a little more successful. The voice may be familiar to some, at least through the static.]

Zhade here! I trust I ███ your attention? I'm having some ██▓▓ble ██tting through. Some of the ░▓██▓█ are missing. I can't ░▓▓▓ read on their loc█████ns. [A particularly long burst of static.] ███stening. I'll s█▓▓█ more inf██▓▓▓▓▓█ I get it.

Stay sharp! [There's the sound of someone actually doing the fingerguns wink noise, and then static.

Any messages sent back won't get through, and Zhade isn't there to answer.]

[ A blip of lost time passes right after those words, before every passenger mysteriously wakes alone in their own unfamiliar room. The style of decor resembles that of the Marsiva's Hospitality Deck, if any passengers should remember what that's like. It sounds and smells the same as the host ship as well, all clean and chrome.

Welcome back to the Marsiva, dear passengers. It's time for round three of calibrations. ]

[ This mingle will cover all non-calibration room interactions. Please continue to come back to it for the duration of the plot! You are, of course, free to post any other mingles/posts/etc. that you'd like. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[This entanglement of spirit, of energy--it was hard to deny even now, that pull, that fascination...

As time had gone on, Haggar had streamlined the process. It was taking long--much longer than it might have taken otherwise, had she not had to be so precise with the delicate balance of soul and energy. She retained her caution, but she could sense, when and where she could draw the energy in quicker, where to maintain the separating, thread by thread, seeing only the energy and soul and less of -- well, the state of the room itself around them. The time for Haggar passes differently than it does for Lup. She can sense Lup's holding on, that inner turmoil--but she must remain focused, logic over emotion.

The goal in mind was to help preserve--to help maintain the person on the other end of it, which differed so much from how she would usually handle such a task. Understanding and consistently recalling that there was more than just an artful array of energy here. It was more than doing what needed to be done for the sake of being true to her role in maintaining an empire. This was -- an individual, who had already gone through so much.

Individuals had not ever really stood out before, if not for their strength or their uses, and previously, only one had been elevated to any height of importance. But this was different. So very different. She maintains. It's close, now, and yet--

It happens, then, that swirl of something buried deep, and that backlash of pure--raw emotion and words that ripple back upon on her like a sudden wave and all she can do is brace through it as the counterspell clashes through the orb, threatening to break apart the process. It barely holds long enough for her to release the energy safely, and finally Haggar lets out a scream of her own as the sphere dissipates and she crumples to her knees, breathing hard.

The wards remain intact, the lingering energy still powering them from the ritual, but Lup's intent was crystal--and she’d certainly promised to stop, at that.

Finished then, for now--but was it enough?]

[For a while, Lup does nothing but stand there, hand still outstretched, her form visibly trembling from the effort and energy expelled over the course of the ritual. More of that ugly black mist ebbs away from her body in wisps and curls, dissipating into nothingness. It stops after a few moments, but evidently the damage has been done. The wraith twitches, flinching back as if stung by something, and finally drops to the ground and collapses in a heap of robes and chains, face down and unmoving. Her form still ethereal, she actually sinks into the floor somewhat, but the chains holding her in place prevent her from going too far.

There's still some energy radiating from her corner, indicating that she's- well, not alive, because that's not how undead creatures work, but existing at the very least. The level of power she possesses has been severely weakened, her form damaged, and too exhausted to move for the moment.]

[Haggar watches Lup, sensing for her energy levels to make certain she's still--present, but that had been... rough, to say the least. That emotional backlash had been something she could not prepare for, despite everything else.

Reality was so much different when you could feel what was in it. And that pain and desperation, that utter sense of despair leaking from Lup had been... awful.

Either way it was a learning experience--there was some threshold there to not cross. Should not have been crossed. She had learned so much about--regret, here.]

... Lup. I am sorry.

[There's another lengthy silence, until finally the heap on the ground stirs very slightly. She doesn't get up, content to just lie there and rest, but very quietly she speaks up.]

...no... don't be. I should've... seen that coming.

[She doesn't know how either of them could have anticipated that, but in retrospect, this is a predictable conclusion. Ever since the tree she's been unraveling, so of course those memories would be at the forefront of her mind when she's already in such a poor state- and in her lich body, trapped and powerless to escape? Yeah, she definitely should have known.]

[Haggar slowly shifts her position, drawing her knees up and draping her arms over them, leaning forward. She was physically energetic but the emotions were heavy. A combination that just felt like everything around her was buzzing.]

We had much to prepare for.

[And it went without saying that Lup was already overwhelmed with all of it.]

More importantly, you are still here.

[There's a huff of weak laughter in response.]

Against all fuckin' odds. Might have, uh. Pushed a little too hard, there. [She hesitates, taking stock of her condition, and then adds,] I don't feel like I'm gonna blow a hole in the wall anymore. Actually, I don't think I can cast any spells, period. So... mission accomplished, I guess. For now.

... For now.

[She agrees, cautiously, reassessing what had happened. Sitting the way she is to try and contain that jittery sensation, from all the energy, the hijacking of emotion resulting in longer pauses between her words, while she catches her breath, from the sensation of her heart wanting to leap from her chest.]

At some point, we must account for what this means for the future. We can adjust... this method, now that we are aware of what the threshold is, to not--push so far. If you still accept this as an avenue, with what has happened.

[We she says, because when she commits herself to a purpose she doesn't do it lightly. Still, it was Lup's choice and she had bought her some time.]

... however, keeping your energy stabilized is one matter. Your... tether is another.

[Another long silence on Lup's part, broken only by the strange, ethereal noise that is her breathing in this form. She has no lungs or lips, but her soul remembers.

Her tether... Taako. It's true: Haggar can absorb all the excess energy that she likes, but it won't solve the bigger problem causing this.]

...Yeah. But my tether can also wait until this whole situation has been dealt with before I start worrying about that full time. I can't do anything about it when I'm... like this.

[If she tried to face him in this form, without him knowing, without him being okay with it? Either she'd get blasted or he'd Blink his way out of it, make himself scarce. He knows what liches can do, and any trust he has in her is tentative at best. Still far too easy to break, and she's already pushed him enough.

More than anything else, though, she just isn't safe.]

Once we get off this ship... I'll do something about it. For now I'll just use all this spare time to come up with something.

Yes... that can come later. For now, you require rest... perhaps even a distraction.

[As long as Lup was prepared to deal with the future down the line, she need not do it right away, especially not while in her current state, where she was too vulnerable, still.

And looking out for someone else's interests... well. That was something Haggar really needed to do, right now.]

Nnngh... maybe just a good thunk to the head until this headache goes away.

[Not that it works that way- she barely has a head to be aching, and any attempted thwacking would phase right through her.

Reluctantly, though, she finally shifts and floats herself up a little, until she's at least out of the floor and halfway sitting up. She gives herself a once-over, and... yep, all parts still accounted for, ghostly though they may be. Whatever just happened, it probably won't have lasting damage.]

Um... seriously, though... thanks. Even if it's temporary, I feel a little better about being stuck here.

[She manages a soft sound of amusement, at that first part. Her too, honestly--between the rush of energy and the emotion and the unpleasant persistent thrum of backlash from the augment's interference she did not feel inclined to move from her current position. She lifts her gaze slightly as Lup shifts to assess herself, but--only slightly.

... And then that gratitude follows, and it gives her a brief moment of pause before she replies, as she's surprised, in spite of it all.]

... you are welcome.

[It was still unusual to be thanked for the use of her magic, even if she had been the one to offer in the first place. It was never something to be thanked for, as much as she had serviced the empire as an instrument, to refine, stabilize or to destroy, but... not ordinarily to be used to aid another like this.

And with Lup, she had not hesitated to offer--let alone give thought to warn for the suffering it might have caused. And did, no less--but Lup had taken the offer, and so here they were.

Still strange. But it was important to -- be able to feel that, too.]

... it was... difficult for you. I am glad that it was able to help.

...Nah, just...

[She shifts uncomfortably, tucking her hands in her lap; the chains rattle as they drag against the floor. She's not even sure how to address what just happened, so after a long silence she falls back on her default: shrug it off.]

Dragged up some stuff, you know? Not fun in the moment, but I can deal.

... you deal with quite a lot.

[She had known many resilient people, but her job either had been to push them or to break them, not... relate. Not sympathize. She was still wrapping her head around the emotion that had settled into her. The terror of that power. Her power.

The terror of something that was--far less careful than Haggar had been, for all her intentions and preparation, but Haggar well knew she could have done the same, were Lup a resource and not--important, and it was an unpleasant sort of reminder all around, as important as reminders were, to -- resist such impulses, to stop classifying people the way the witch might.]

... you should know that while we were 'in the moment', as you say... I saw what happened to you. I can feel it.

[Granted, she didn't have all the pieces assembled, but something of a guess.]

[...Ah.

Lup is quiet again, for a long moment, then exhales a false breath and presses two skeletal hands against whatever passes for a face within her hood, a tremor passing through her form.]

Fuuuuuuuuck. Seriously, you saw that? All of it?

[Worse- she felt it? Because she felt it too, and it hadn't felt nice. About as un-nice as it'd felt back when it actually happened.

Seriously, fuuuuuck.]

Yes, all of it.

[She's quiet for a long moment, allowing Lup the time to process-- well, that. After all it was Lup's experience, and it wasn't as if they were in the Atroma-induced mindspace, either.

Her words carried a slightly less measured cadence than usual. There was never any--sitting around talking after a ritual. Especially invasive ones. Accidental as this result was, it was still an overstep, which -- had prompted that apology, earlier, as unaware as Lup had been at the time. So she scrapes for the words. It feels strange to explain this. She had forgotten to mention the possibility of it before, with all else there was to safeguard against. Flashes could often be disregarded easily, unless the goal was to search for them, which was an entirely different process. An entirely different ritual.

And yet what had occurred here was--not a flash. It was more akin to being engulfed by a wave, but she did not exactly have the language to describe that, either. Even when Allura had countered her magic, it was different, from this.]

... When it comes to... handling souls, encountering flashes of memory through a process is... sometimes to be expected. This was different. It was... as if your entire experience was fighting back at me. It must have felt... similar what you had gone through before.

[Welp. So much for keeping that little nugget to herself.

She huffs and leans back until her cloak touches the wall, sitting quietly as Haggar speaks. At the last part, she just nods and weighs her options... but there really isn't much else she can do. She can't just pretend it was nothing. And she's been on Haggar's case about honesty, and... ugh.

Times like this she wishes she was more of a hypocrite.]

You remember... that time, at the tree? When it gave me that umbrella?

[It's a rhetorical question; perhaps it's a little egotistical, but she has no doubt that Haggar remembers. That day had been stressful for both of them, and she'd put on one hell of a show before she bailed. They'd talked about what happened after, but she never truly explained herself. Hadn't wanted to, or needed to.]

I made it, years ago- it was my spell focus. It's called an Umbra Staff, and it's speciality is absorbing the power of defeated magic users... it swallows their spell focus, their wands, and adds that power to itself.

[Go figure. Try to do something good for someone else, and rip open old wounds instead. About right, for her luck with these things.

There had been no need to press further at the time it had happened, but it was not something to forget. She nods slowly, as Lup speaks, the description of the wand helping fit in some of the missing pieces about Lup's reaction to that weapon, as she reflects on that all over again. That feeling that there had been an untold part to the story. Lup had said she went off to try and fix their mess alone, for that final time, and then -- that incident must have occurred along the way.

A different story.

And to have on her a weapon with a power that was able to absorb, that trapped and held her within it... a weapon that she had herself created, only to be betrayed by it. Lup was no ordinary magic user.

... No wonder. She felt something in her react, as the pieces flitted to place, snapping her head up from where her chin had been nearly resting on her arms. What.]

-- And it gave that to you?!

[Lup didn't even go into any details and she was-- already angry. She shakes her head abruptly at herself for speaking out so suddenly instead of continuing to listen, but, it couldn't be helped.]

... My apologies. Please continue.

[It's hard to tell within the shadow of the hood and the lack of features, but after being momentarily taken aback, Haggar might catch the faintest glimmer of a smile, albeit brief. Sounds like she already gets it, at least to some degree. That makes this easier, in a way.]

Continue, and tell you what you already know, now? Yeah, sure. I was stupid, I went into this shitty abandoned cave to hide my relic- just me and a dwarf, acting as my guide. He noticed the gauntlet, and the stupid bastard stabbed me trying to get it. I still managed to lock them both away, but... well, poison. He got me good.

[She gestures vaguely, as if that explained anything, as if that can somehow convey the anger and self-loathing for her own recklessness or the regret she'd felt that there was no going back, that she'd be trapped like this, that her body was lost and the Bond Engine couldn't bring her back this time.

If only that was the worst of it. Idiot.]

I died there. And when I fell out of my body as a lich? Like I said, I'm pure arcane energy in this form. Umbra Staff did its thing, chomp chomp, down I went. And there's no way out from the inside.

[Haggar remains quiet, listening, the pulse of anger not quite faded, as the other pieces join in, from other conversations they'd had...

It explained things she had not even considered fully, before, all of those hints and implications that she had not pressed. The least of all being the reminder of that grasp of her hand, when they'd met again after the tree, as if Lup had not been able to do so for some time--and Lup would have known what it was like to miss that, in her isolation.

Because her next leap... well. Hard not to guess, there, and unfair to have Lup continue on with what she had hinted at during other times: that she had ultimately been forgotten there, and that if she were to be sent back now she would still be there. Erased from the memory of her own brother, with no way out, and there really were no words to describe how ... even to use Lup's own words, shitty that was, no matter how resilient she was.]

I thought it better to hear as much in your own words, though the pieces... have come together.

...I figured, yeah.

[She fidgets uncomfortably, her hands lifting and twisting the chains together, letting the links click together like worry beads. It's hard to listen to her own voice relive the awful things she's been working all these months to bury and stop thinking about- except that this damned place is conspiring, over and over, to drag it to the forefront.]

I didn't... tell anyone where I'd gone. I thought they'd stop me. I thought- it'll just be a few days. I even left a note for them. "Back soon", I said. Gods. [Clink, clink, clink, go the chains, almost frantic, aggressive.] And then their memories were blocked off, so they stopped looking. How can you look for someone when you don't even know they exist? Not that I knew that. I didn't know anything, I couldn't do anything. I sat in an umbrella, in a cave, in the middle of nowhere, for ten years.

[Haggar listens: to the sound of the rattling chains, to Lup explaining, to that still lingering sense of fear and recoil coursing through, that perpetual cycling of energy.

Granted the amount of time isn't exactly something she's able to conceptualize clearly, but she well knew how tested the resilience of others could be, whether it spanned days or centuries. And to be in a state of energy, trapped within darkness, with nothing else?

She had once referred to it as a fate worse than death. But this was different, still.]

... for you to endure in such a state, and yet still have your own mind.

[Her tethers must still have been strong. And yet, keeping it that way... to think that things weren't worse for her right now. No wonder Lup had fought against this magic with her whole self. She hadn't been able to before.]

... But something must have changed. For you to -- know.

For me to what, be here and chill and not totally batshit? Yeah, uh. It was a wild year after that. Taako of all people found my skeleton there, but that was... after. The memory stuff. [She gestures vaguely towards her head.] He took the Umbra Staff with him, started using it a spell focus, and I had to get used to being strapped to his back all day. Still not ideal, but at least I was out of that fucking cave. At least I could do something to help, maybe keep him safe.

[It brought along with it all number of unfortunate issues, like having to piece together everything she'd missed in his life (and the lives of all her friends) the last decade, and just what the Director was trying to accomplish, and- gods, Barry- but that's a whole other thing that would be nonsensical to Haggar at this point, and she's too tired to get into it now.]

Back home I've been trying to reach him somehow, but there's only so much I can do- he can't hear me, and I can only cast a few little spells from inside on my own. Stuck waiting for something to happen, again.

[And it's infuriating.]

... So close and yet so far.

[It says a lot about her strength, even for things to have gone so wrong due to her choices. She might have been stressed beyond everything, but she was still Lup. Even so, the story continues, broadening the scope of this picture.

She knew that Lup had wanted something to help Taako, preferably something for his memories, but the tree... gave her the staff she had been trapped in the entire time... and somehow Taako had stumbled upon it, unknowingly, after a decade of her decay. That sure was something, right there.]

... And so when you were brought here, this--reality finally allowed you to meet face to face, but you only achieved this freedom... here.

[That was a lot, too.]

Yeah, you can probably guess why I've got some mixed feelings about this place.

[Freedom, finally, yay! Except not because they're all trapped here. Reunion with Taako, yay! Except not because he can't remember or hear the truth about who she is. She has a body again, yay! Except as soon as she leaves this place she's right back to being dead and trapped in an umbrella prison.]

It's not all bad news. I've been told that at some point in the future Taako remembers me, and I get set free. I've got some semblance of a happy ending to look forward to. It's just- hearing and knowing are two different things, right? And the waiting is... balls. It's hard to think positive when I'm stuck like this.

[Being told something and experiencing something as fact were different things.

Haggar has no such certainties, since all she had been told so far of her future was not particularly pleasant and yet had unintentionally led to the result in her desire for change, but she's only all too aware about what she will lose when the Atroma - tires. Frustrating, indeed.]

Whatever opportunity it is worth, for you both to be here in these circumstances... do not allow it to pass you by, even with the promise of such a future. You are free. You have ... choices.

[And risks, but that brought them here.]

the white noise is deafening silence

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