driftfleet | Twin Roses Mingle (visitors welcome)

[He keeps his gaze on Kitty for a long moment, judging why this might have come up suddenly. Plenty of answers suggest themselves, actually, but which one is relevant? Why risk the side effects?

Because it's important. it has to be. He nods, gaze flickering back and forth between the two of them.]

Yes. Yes, of course I'm interested if it's important to you.

[Just asimportantly, he can anchor Wanda if it's any kind of dangerous memory, or if the side effects are powerful. He joins her on the bed so he can offer his hand, because touch is a particularly powerful conductor between them.]

Thank you. [It means a lot to her that they'd be willing to trust her on this with so little information. She hopes by the end of it that they'll agree it was worth doing.]

I was told it could bring up feelings of persistent dread, maybe a fever or even hallucinations. I had a lot of the first one and a few moments of feeling like I was catching things out of the corner of my eyes that weren't there. I think it's different for different people. [She'd say it wasn't too bad, but dread isn't something she's used to feeling and it sounds silly to say it was terrifying and made her feel anxious and vulnerable since that's kind of how dread works, but it did. She hopes it isn't retriggered. But she figures there's a better than even chance it will be. That's kind of their luck, right?] And it's a lot to ask.

If you want to do this, I do have some training and practice on how to work with and against telepaths. Hopefully I can help focus things. It's been awhile though, so I might be a little rusty.

[Well, as far as potential consequences go...] I've had worse. And if you think this is important...

[She takes Vision's hand anyway. It's still not going to be pleasant, and Wanda's not going to turn down potential comfort when it sounds like she might need it.]

I just need you to think of a piece of the memory and I can find the rest.

Vizh, I think I should look first in case it's bad. Trying to link three minds...if this is bad it might just make it worse. And I don't know if I could shield you both.

[He squeezes Wanda's hand comfortingly, but his eyes narrow as he considers what Kitty said. He speaks slowly.] Not unlike what I experienced when I arrived here for the second time, though it's mostly passed. [And he never had a fever, thank goodness.] If it resurfaces or increases, I'll let you know.

Wanda, I think seeing it first by yourself will be the better choice, but don't be afraid of pulling out if it becomes unmanageable. This isn't something with a time constraint, I think? [His eyes flicker to Kitty for confirmation, though he remains in place to give Wanda physical support while she's working in the realm of the mind.]

We should have time on it. [She didn't expect them to get that opportunity to fire on the Marsiva recently. She won't necessarily be able to predict when or if the next one might come so sooner is better than later, but sometime is better than never too.]

Definitely time if it gets overwhelming. As calibrations reminded me I've got a lot of bad memories in there that don't come with specific side effects, but wouldn't exactly be fun to see let alone feel. I mean, I've done it and I'm remarkably well adjusted, but you know, I did it over the course of several years. [She smiles like it's a joke. Calling herself well adjusted sounds like a joke to her. It was a lot even spread out over several years. And it's not like she's that old at the moment. Still early 20s over here.]

I'll work on trying to get things in order for you. Give me a bit and then jump in when you feel ready. [Kitty closes her eyes. It's not essential to the process, but it's what she used to do early on, back when she was barely a teenager and Jean was giving her lessons to fortify her mind. Kitty has no powers related to the mind, but anyone can learn to make it harder or easier to let someone in with practice. Depending on when Wanda starts scanning Kitty's mind she might see flashes of a short-haired redheaded Jean Grey teaching the much younger Kitty who has her eyes closed much like she does in the chair across from her. But her mind doesn't rest in this place.

She needs to pull up the right memory for Wanda. However, doing this so close to calibrations means there are a lot of memories here fresher than they have been for awhile. Maybe that's why she thinks, however briefly, about the first time she learned of Wanda. Not within the fleet, but back home. There was a photo so much like in Wanda's mind during calibrations. She was looking for something else, but she saw the photo and picked it up. Erik, Pietro, and a girl she didn't recognize. "What are you doing?" It's Pietro's voice behind her, startling her into not just dropping the photo but actually phasing as a reaction, and the photos falls through her hand. He is at her side, catching it before she can do anything. "You almost broke it!" He's angry and it scares her. She wants to run out of the room, but she stands there, hands fisted. "I wouldn't have dropped it if you weren't such a jerk!" She shot back at him before shaky legs did their best to drive her out of the room confidently. It was later that day Storm explained the story of Erik's daughter and Pietro's sister who died in their first mission and how it had changed each of them.

But these aren't the memories she's trying to find. She barely even notices them coming to mind as she tries to focus. A lot of meditation work is about dismissing errant memories as you work to clear your mind and in this case then bring one into focus. If anything she was more worried about bringing in some of the most reviewed memories from calibrations to the forefront. Things like finding out about her own death. The mission where her students died. Her parents' deaths. There's a theme and it was largely death. Those were the memories she was trying to keep quiet and guard against the most while the others swirled around instead.]

[Wanda squeezes Vision's hand back and then turns to her work. She doesn't close her eyes, but they get that distant, unfocused affect they often do when she's reading someone. She doesn't know what she's looking for, so it's up to Kitty to guide her, but Kitty's thoughts aren't exactly settling.]

Take a deep breath, [Wanda tells her. But Kitty's thoughts resolve into something that could hardly have been the point and Wanda's grip briefly tightens on Vision's hand. It doesn't matter that she's never seen that man before - she knows it could only be Pietro. Well, the one that Kitty told her about.

And as she follows the memory - because she can't quite bring herself to look away - she frowns. It seems like they're always destined to be separated. Oh, Pietro...]

Just...just try to relax.

[If anyone catches the slight tremor in her voice, they're not imagining it.]

Right. Sorry. Focusing.

[Kitty takes the deep breath as instructed and just tries to focus on Castiel first. Hopefully not getting too many stray thoughts about meeting the angel in the underwater prison she spent time in before this abduction. Here, she had very little interaction with him and this was certainly the most memorable.

He came to her in a dream. It was a power of his. She'd been dreaming of a battlefield, so the setting is already dark with the upturned earth and deep scars and still burning embers around her and the man wearing a tan trenchcoat. He explains to her that he's there on purpose to give her a memory if she'll accept it and about how they wanted to only share the memory with this level of privacy. He tells her about the possible side effects and she accepts. She can feel her heart beat just a little faster thinking about what happens next. It's not the dread. It's just the memory of it at least for Kitty.]

Are you with me?

[Because next she is seeing out of Castiel's eyes and seeing Thor and Loki outside the Marsiva.]

I see it.

[She closes her eyes then, and now that she's found the right memory she can focus in on it. It's quicker than it might take Kitty to relive it...and it's not long before she's squeezing Vision's hand tightly as if he's the only thing keeping her from being swept away. This memory hurts and she feels that pervasive sense of dread and fear as if it's her own. And that creature...is that what she'd been sensing? Where is this awful psychic feedback coming from? The creature itself, or some safeguard the Atroma made to keep them from the truth?

If it is the presence she'd sensed, that might explain why it didn't seem like it understood her.

Wanda makes a soft pained sound as she reaches the end of the memory and opens her eyes, trembling. It's rare for something to effect her this badly, and seeing Pietro first only started her on shakier ground.]

That...was that...?

[Yeah, she's gonna need a minute. Or two. At least.]

[He holds onto Wanda's hand firmly as she squeezes his, and when she opens her eyes he moves behind her to hold her in a warm, firm embrace. I'm here,, his presence says, and I won't let it hurt you.]

Don't say it aloud. Take your time.

[He looks over at Kitty, a question in his eyes. Was that the thing she wanted them to see?]

[Kitty knows what she was focused on. She didn't feel Wanda seeing it exactly, but based on the reaction? She nods. There are a lot of upsetting things in her head, but only the one that gives that special since of existential dread. She wants to be able to talk about it, discuss it, but that would make having them feel it moot.]

[Still trembling, Wanda clutches at Vision's arms. It's not residual echoes from the original memory...these are her emotions now, even if logically she knows there's no reason for them. Her heart is still racing and the urge to turn around and hide in Vision's chest is almost overwhelming.

She would, if she didn't feel like she has to try to maintain some semblance of dignity.]

I haven't felt anything like this here. [A beat.] I think I can describe it in your mind, Vizh. It's not...I don't want anyone else to have to feel this.

Edited 2019-03-09 00:05 (UTC)

If you need to take a moment, by all means please do so. I'll be ready when you are.

[By contrast, he has felt what Kitty was describing, and if he needs to he'll share that with them both once he has a better idea if it's the same thing. It had been strongest immediately after he'd arrived here and had only slowly tapered off - perhaps coincidentally, just as he'd decided to pursue Wanda romantically.

It's probably, he decides, something he should talk to Makie about, see if her experiences correlate to his own.]

Kitty, would you say her reaction here is similar to yours?

Yes, I think so. [She isn't feeling Wanda's feelings, but she remembers the way she'd force the feeling down and her hands would still shake despite herself. It was overwhelming in a way she wasn't used to feeling.]

And there is at least one other thing that I know causes this feeling. [She wonders how much she should say about that. She's been open about it before, but now when it would be so clearly linked to this other thing it might be wiser to be more discreet. Though it's hard to imagine the augment or cameras or whatever means they use to watch them aren't picking up on it already.]

Wanda, can you facilitate mind speak? Where the three of us could discuss this quietly? [It's probably too much to ask anytime. Certainly seems too much to ask currently. And still, she asks. It could wait, but she would at least like to know if it's an option.]

[Wanda takes a shaky breath and reaches for Vision's mind. She can try to get him to imagine it in better detail later, but for now - 'large shapeless creature, dark like an oil slick, all over the hallway and wall and ceiling' will have to do.]

I can try? I've never tried to link people before but I think you can talk through me.

But you might hear or feel things that you don't want to. It is...harder to control like this.

[As always his mind is a warm, calm presence when Wanda reaches for it. He has enough control to keep his own memories of the dark/cold/horrifying feeling separate by focusing in the present, and sends that focus along to Wanda as well: see, they're here in the room, feel the texture of the quilt and my hand, feel the heartbeat in my mind.

It's not familiar to me, he thinks clearly. Thank you.]

I understand the risk. Let's continue; I trust you, Wanda.

[He opens his mind a little more to her, so she can act as an intermediary: well-patterned, solid with logic but bright with threads of emotion, young and ancient and complex and with a purity of heart behind it all that almost burns with its sincerity.]

Sounds good.

[She she doesn't close her eyes this time but she relaxes herself, opening her mind up as she's been trained to do and directing her thoughts as much as someone with no psionic powers is capable of doing. She's more comfortable with this aspect. She's always thought of it as a more intimate way to talk. Also more covert, but both things can be true. But it doesn't feel like it takes as much concentration or vulnerability—at least from her end—as showing full memories.

Can you hear me?]

[Wanda finally begins to relax against Vision - not all the way, of course, but the chaos in her mind begins to settle. His mind is steady and comforting, and while she is still fighting not to focus on that awful psychic residue, he makes as good a distraction as ever. Wanda can anchor herself in him and then mentally reach for Kitty from a decidedly better place.

They're both going to get psychic echoes of what she's seen as well as shades of her feelings about them - love and trust (and no small amount of gratitude) for Vision, friendly warmth and concern for Kitty.

I hear you. Can you both hear me?]

[The echoes of Wanda's emotions are enough to cause the Vision to frown, but focusing on them isn't going to help anything to help anyone; he tables it into another compartment of his mind for the moment, one where his own memories of similar feelings are. For the moment, his mental voice comes through strong and clear.

I can hear you both.

As is often the case when he's linked to Wanda by her powers, the Mind Stone emits a low-level flicker from time to time, but he's used to it as so ignores it.]

[Kitty is doing her best not to let emotions—anyone's—get the better of her. She has a lot of practice at that as long as there's a mission to focus on instead and at the moment there is.]

Me too. We've successfully mastered three-way calling. And by we I mean Wanda. So, what I was saying before is that feeling of dread happened to me once before I was given that memory. It was back when I tried to remove an augment. The closer I got to acting on it the more intense the feeling got.

[The connection established, Wanda's eyes begin to glow a steady red.]

Do you think the augment is causing this feeling, not the creature? I felt another presence on the ship but it wasn't like this. It was anxious, but it was just worried about its 'sister.' It wasn't frightening.

I experienced similar feelings not long after my return, and often at a juncture when I was examining that process, along with a sense of extreme cold.

I would posit the feeling is caused by the augment and meant to dissuade us from investigating certain aspects of our imprisonment too closely.

[Yeah, he sure does talk like that even inside his own mind.][

That sounds right to me. I guess there's still a chance the creature is controlling the augments, but you're saying you felt concern from it or from a second creature?

[It would feel wrong if he sounded any other way.]

It was...hard. I could barely feel it sometimes, but when I touched that mind, it always seemed worried. I tried to soothe it, but...I don't think it understood me.

I could feel it was worried about a 'sister,' but it always slipped away before I could get anything else.

Maybe the augment has trouble with senses the Atroma don't have? I couldn't show the glitches on the Marsiva to anyone else, but I spent a lot of time reaching for that presence and nothing bad happened.

My thought was that it was the Marsiva itself, based on the message we decoded from the Virsua. Do you remember that, Kitty?

[It was all the way back when he'd first disappeared from the Fleet, a crashed Host Ship with fragments of systems and the only power available given over to broadcasting the same message over and over again. He presses his memories over the link, not sure if they'll travel well but trying anyway.]

Because that Host Ship mentioned a 'sister' as well.

I can only speculate as to the nature of the creature itself and its relationship to the Host Ship, but that there is a relationship I have no doubt.

The place with the pumpkins? [Listen, people have different priorities and she generally thinks a lot of the "clues" they find are just for the Atroma to make them run around a maze. It could still be that's all of this is. Her skepticism runs high especially after time in Marina.]

Wanda, were you able to feel the creature the whole time we were on the Marsiva? Do you know if you can feel it from the pet clinic on the Marsiva that we have access to?

Twin Roses Mingle (visitors welcome)

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