driftfleet | Twin Roses Mingle (visitors welcome)

Entry tags:

Twin Roses Mingle (visitors welcome)

Who: Twin Roses’ crew, friends, and lookieloos
Broadcast: Unlikely
Action: Twin Roses
When: March 2019

[Not much has changed on the Twin Roses since their stay on the Marsiva. No crew changes. No promotions or downgrades, although Vash is no longer co-captain, but rather first mate, in case anyone missed it and Krolia is still somewhat new among their ranks.

There aren’t even any stale donuts lying around which also means the plants in the garden and pets are thriving and their food stocks are still going strong. Yep, just totally normal stuff after being gone over a month! And probably no weird things to talk about after seeing each other’s memories. Business as usual here!

Also, there was the part where they attacked the Marsiva afterward for a hot minute. Just another normal day in the life of the fleet.]

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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?

It was only later while we were there. And it kept slipping away from me. Maybe if I could get closer...but I don't know where in the Marsiva it is.

[She didn't even know they could get back on the Marsiva without some Atroma-related shenanigans.]

I don't recall pumpkins, but you may be correct. It was some time ago, and I find my memory of this place is not as clear as it ought to be.

[Which he absolutely blames on the augment.]

It's a very large ship, but it may be worth a try.

[Quickly he flashes to her the known times when they can get to the larger ship: a pet clinic like Kitty mentioned, the Hospitality Deck when someone first arrives, and the medical facilities that a gravely injured person can be beamed directly to for treatment - which is also, he adds, where people who have died wake up later.]

I've noticed that about my memory too. I have some notes, but they aren't extensive. Especially early on I was extremely cynical about what we were seeing or being led to. I still am. I'm just angrier at them and willing to take more stabs at trying something. [Because of Winn.]

The pet clinic doesn't allow for much access. I've tried phasing from it to the rest of the ship and it wouldn't let me. I assume it's the same for Kurt's teleporting.

If it is a different part of the ship, it might be enough. I don't know.

I don't think it is trying to hide from me? Or that something is trying to hide it. It might just be too far away.

We also cannot eliminate the possibility it does not realize we are conscious or that we can communicate with it at all. That would explain its loneliness.

Regardless, it would be worth investigating from the pet clinic, I think. Or--Kitty, do you recall if someone who stays on a planet when the Fleet moves out of range is beamed back to their own ship or to the Host? That might be another option.

I've always heard if you try to stay on a planet it brings you back to the fleet, but I've never tried it and I can't remember anyone else trying it, so I'm not sure. I could ask Vash. He's been here the longest. It might be worth a shot if the pet clinic doesn't pan out and I wouldn't expect it to.

Also, I'm not the mind reader here so just in case anyone is thinking getting gravely injured is a good way to get to the ship...don't.

How many psychics have you had, and how many have gone to the pet clinic? If we're right, they don't have the same defenses against someone like me.

Do they punish us for staying too long on the planet? If they find out why, I worry they could change our memories. They can change what we see.

I remember several in the past, including Charles Xavier. [A name familiar to Kitty, probably, and for Wanda's benefit he pictures a young man in a wheelchair speaking into his mind from across ships.] But I don't know that he ever looked inside the ship for a consciousness.

Let's ask Vash, then. He might remember a time when such a thing occurred. I couldn't say if it's a punishment or a simple mechanic.

Jean was here very briefly, but she was so young I don't think she was as trained. Leto was...I don't know, a precog maybe more than a telepath. There were probably others I'm not thinking of now. None of them ever mentioned feeling anything like you've described to me.

I haven't heard about a punishment, but I can ask Vash that too.

Edited 2019-03-20 16:04 (UTC)

I didn't think it was the ship until Vision told me about the other one you found. And they do a very good job of keeping us away. I am surprised they were able to get so close to the Marsiva without something worse happening.

I would probably not have looked for it if I hadn't felt it first.

There is also a possibility it is still developing, and has only recently begun to have thoughts coherent enough for someone to sense.

In any case, there is at least one entity aboard the ship that is alive and unhappy. That alone would be enough cause to investigate it further, and to see what we can do to alleviate its pain.

(no subject)

passingthrough - 2019-03-23 22:56 (UTC) - Expand

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