[ This is becoming a trend; her hounding those in Kaji's orbit, as if their slightest wobble might affect his gravity and thus it would be her business. One doesn't step down from orchestrating a multi-tiered paramilitary organization without feeling the itch for some kind of replacement activity, now more than ever. Her mind is carefully folded away, junk stuffed into a drawer and locked. ]
[ Her mind's quiet, at least. It's a welcome break from the relative noise of everyone's collective grief. His own quiet feels more hard-earned, strained, like bracing against a door that someone's trying to kick down. ]
(You say that as if hiding's a bloody option.)
[ They can all find each other, can't they? They're too close, whether they want to be or not. He doesn't sound thrilled, but his frustration's already dimmer than it'd been on arrival. ]
[ Grief is something she has learned to drown out by sheer tenacity. An ostrich with her head in the ground. If she doesn't see it, it can't get her, or so the logic goes. ]
(I've been hard at work, you haven't noticed?)
[ Another time and she might find it reason enough to feel offended. ]
(I thought about it, if you'd know the things your people know. I guess not.)
(Making a point of not noticing things, actually. Nice to know I'm still capable.)
[ The sentiment's clear; he wouldn't have minded being unplugged for Lavellan's death. The phrasing your people chafes a bit, but he doesn't have the energy for corrections. The follow-up's impatient of its own accord, though, as if he's only asking because he doubts shutting her up is an option. ]
[ What the fuck. (Shout out 2 Kavinsky for the lingo). It strikes an odd chord, symbiote aside; parasite's a decent stand-in for possession, and he's already spent enough time wondering how much he's lost of himself to that. ]
(Burn me— I'd rather be neither, but if I've got to choose than I'm the bloody host. If you're here to tell me it's the other way round, I'm fine not hearing it.)
[ Good. Good, brood mia here teaching him the ways. ]
(I'm not really here to tell you anything. I was asking you a question.)
[ But it strikes her, it does, how she is speaking so unlike her idea of herself. How she is spinning words around like Kaji, like Ritsuko? Like someone else. Identity is such a vague, formless thing. ]
(Well, okay, let me ask you this then: do you want to get out here? Do you want to get that thing out of your head?)
[ Punchy as his responses are, there's no real hint of hostility beneath them. His thoughts are bleeding over into honest curiosity, kept in check by caution — or fear, though that he tries to deliberately mask.
The next answer's a bit more level for it, bordering on resigned. ]
( I don't think you need to read my thoughts to guess the answer to that. )
[ But she's asking for a reason. The hope that kindles, dim as it is, still feels embarrassingly naive. ]
[ The naivete charms her, however, along with the hope. She aims her attention on it, the pinpoint of a stage light upon something so small still, and she softens her voice to nurture it to burning. ]
(Not everyone's on our same boat.)
[ That is, there was a time when she thought this could be home, only now the prospect of giving up, giving in, seem so distasteful. ]
(I asked cause we need to know what we're up against to know how to get out. There's no point hoping for a miracle.)
[ He's got more faith in the latter, though the absence of his own luck is starting to feel more and more acute. The softness in Misato's voice doesn't bring his guard down, exactly; but it does put him on a more even keel, a sense of fairly easy trust, the quieting of his usual undercurrent of slight paranoia.
.... well, mostly. The topic isn't doing his paranoia any favors. ]
( You think they've gone mad.)
[ Anyone sane would want to leave. He's still dodging the word parasite, but in the end it's all just a loss of self. ]
[ This topic is distilled paranoia. As a reaction to it, she would unearth every concealed corner of the topic in full belief that the incongruous shape of the fear dies when brought to light. ]
(I don't know if it's madness to give in to it. It sure would be easier.)
[ He isn't the only averse to the thought of parasite, when her first utterance of it was a form of exorcism, a way of forcing herself to spit it out. To no avail. ]
(Maybe it's madness to fight against something inside yourself, but I'd rather that kind of madness. Don't you think?)
[ Again, he'd rather neither. The latter's still the best of bad options. Options Rand had, he thinks — though he also thinks Rand went with the easier of the two. ]
(Of course I think. I'd rather be mad and myself than something else.) [ The sentiment's layered, overshadowed by memories of the ruby-hilted dagger, of Rand. It all bleeds together and makes him wonder what she's getting at, exactly, and lends itself a not entirely kind assumption. Politics, choosing sides. ]
( I won't fight them, though — anyone who's not on our same boat.)
(I won't either. Anyway, I don't think anyone disagrees, It's just that they don't want to fight it.)
[ Don't want to think about it, because it's too painful to consider one's own helplessness in the face of inevitability. Rather be mad and themselves, if they're still themselves. ]
(So Mat, we'll find a way to remove it. We'll figure it out.)
[ It's meant to be reassuring, and her conviction goes some way towards that. It also reminds him of Egwene, and it's that comparison more than anything from Misato herself that makes him think the sentiment's a bit naive.
Saying something doesn't make it so, and that kind of certainty in the face of a challenge always walks a fine line between arrogant and productive. But it's also a comparison that reminds him of people he knows, people he (very reluctantly) misses, and that's the thread that pulls his curiosity off course. ]
(How well do you know Kaji?)
[ Better than the rest of them, he knows. He'd just like to hear her take. ]
[ It is her naivete, that is, her intentionally naive optimism in the face of unspeakable odds that she clings to as her one and only source of might. It is defiance against despair, or so she says. But it doesn't mean she will prevail or truly believes that she will prevail, only that the alternative, of believing it all to be hopeless, is unbearable, is unconscionable. She would give it no room in her thoughts.
Now, Mat wasn't the first to ask that very same question. Her response is immediate, a face changing from sweet to sour, the slightest sting of static in the air. ]
(Is that how you all think of me? As Kaji's woman?)
[ Not that she isn't. The tone's somewhere between affronted and teasing; that hadn't been his meaning, but he understands why it's the first place her mind went. ]
(You've known him longer than I have, that's all. Thought you might have insight these bloody things in our heads can't cheat.)
(If it's the mind that makes the man, the body just a vessel, shouldn't you know all there is to know?)
[ She sounds testy, more than anything. But even her retort betrays her insecurities, never one so gifted at concealment. It frustrates her that it is through Mat (and Rust, and Clarke) that anyone might get the closest thing to Kaji's truth, if such a thing exists. If the lie hasn't become the man. ]
[ Salty. It's clear he's hit a nerve, and there's a mild bristling of defensiveness in response; either an echo or just a natural response to hostility.
He'd asked because of what was in Kaji's head. The room, the pillars and the red lights — it's difficult to get at that without thinking of the strange images in his own mind. It'd been an accident, sharing those thoughts on his first day here. Knowing how the connection works means being more guarded, and for a moment his hesitation feels like a solid wall.
He could just throw Kaji's memory back at her and see how she responds. But he wouldn't want someone doing that with his thoughts, so after that heavy pause: ]
(The place the two of you came from. What's it like?)
[ As soon as it rears up, her anger recedes to be replaced with a tiny thrill of nostalgia. ]
(Beautiful, but out to kill us.)
[ She has an inkling, that if he's asking to get her version to corroborate Kaji's story, then her take on the story would directly contradict his. He would say that it's humans who have been trying to destroy the world all along, humans who had no rightful place on Earth. ]
(It's similar to this, but with bigger cities made of concrete and steel. Really tall towers, crowded streets, but with nature parts too. You know, mountains, lakes, deserts like this. We have a lot of sunken cities under the sea, a lot of ruins we haven't gotten round to fixing, but we make do. Is that what you're asking? Do you want me to show you?
[ 'Out to kill us' is a pretty big qualifier, girl. The rest of the description sidelines his skepticism somewhat — he used to love the idea of ruins and sunken cities. That'd been before he'd seen them firsthand, but it's somehow easier to romanticize all of it when it's as abstract as someone else's world.
It isn't completely what he'd been asking for. He could be more direct, ask after Kaji's strange comments about time, about that circle. But what she's put in front of him is interesting all the same, and the pause is much shorter this time while he considers. ]
(Go on.)
[ He's getting too used to the idea of people shoving their thoughts and memories on him without much complaint. It helps that she asked first, at least. ]
[ The problem with human perception is of course its subjectivity. The world where she left off was in the bowels of MAGI, the lightless room chilled to the temperature preferred by the supercomputers, amber text on black, the lingering scent of coffee. From there she traces her way back through dark passageways, elevators going up and up, and up some more, escalators stretching miles it seems, until the view opens: a glass pyramid amid pine trees inside a massive cavern, sunlight reflected on threads tangled overhead.
Up and up again, so she breaks the surface to a city perched above the cavern, a lifeless city, militaristic, robotic. The signs are everywhere: green tanks lining the streets, concrete towers without windows, the sunken buildings she mentioned just to one side, warnings shouting HIGH VOLTAGE, and nobody in the streets. It is this sight that wavers and trembles, the knowledge that it is only a memory makes her hesitate, never mind that the entire exercise is one of remembering. She shows him this and the truth: a lake made of overlapping perfect circles. Upon closer look, the periphery of a destroyed city upon the lake bank, and upon closer inspection, the realization that the circles were carved out by explosions.
The air is warm and humid, and it smells like the sea. The sky is blue. The trees are green. The cicadas shriek in a deafening crescendo. It comes right back. ]
[ It's all foreign, though perhaps less foreign than it might've been before he'd woken up with a view of the station. Some of the images call up echoes, pale imitations of her modern constructs: stone towers, sprawling castle grounds.
The dead streets are met with quick understanding. Not for the tanks and the signs, of course, but the feeling behind it's easy to place. Mat's distracted by the image even after it starts to crumble, though the image of the lake and its devastation lingers, too — not like anything he's seen, no. Similar to things he's felt in dreams, and coated in the same hollow weight that always came with the aftermath of a battle.
The memories of actual life feel tacked on at the end of all of it. Persistent and inevitable, but still an afterthought. Her question doesn't catch him off-guard, but there's a deliberate pause as he sifts through his own memories. Rationalizes that if she's asking, then it's fair game.
The pause after that is his failure to put it into words. So he gives up, dredging up the images Kaji had shared the first time they'd met: a dark room, tall pillars, red glyphs. It's echoed by memories that are closer to home, a round room with tall pillars, yellow lights in place of red, that visceral scent of fur and blood that's always there with them. Mat's hold on his own thoughts is tenuous, at best, but he only puts a mild effort into holding them back. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
DAY :020
( Where have you been hiding away? )
no subject
( You say that as if hiding's a bloody option. )
[ They can all find each other, can't they? They're too close, whether they want to be or not. He doesn't sound thrilled, but his frustration's already dimmer than it'd been on arrival. ]
( I could ask the same of you. )
no subject
( I've been hard at work, you haven't noticed? )
[ Another time and she might find it reason enough to feel offended. ]
( I thought about it, if you'd know the things your people know. I guess not. )
no subject
[ The sentiment's clear; he wouldn't have minded being unplugged for Lavellan's death. The phrasing your people chafes a bit, but he doesn't have the energy for corrections. The follow-up's impatient of its own accord, though, as if he's only asking because he doubts shutting her up is an option. ]
( Go on, then. What've I missed? )
no subject
( Let me ask you first: do you think a parasite can become its host? Are we the parasite, or still the host? )
no subject
( Burn me— I'd rather be neither, but if I've got to choose than I'm the bloody host. If you're here to tell me it's the other way round, I'm fine not hearing it. )
no subject
( I'm not really here to tell you anything. I was asking you a question. )
[ But it strikes her, it does, how she is speaking so unlike her idea of herself. How she is spinning words around like Kaji, like Ritsuko? Like someone else. Identity is such a vague, formless thing. ]
( Well, okay, let me ask you this then: do you want to get out here? Do you want to get that thing out of your head? )
no subject
The next answer's a bit more level for it, bordering on resigned. ]
( I don't think you need to read my thoughts to guess the answer to that. )
[ But she's asking for a reason. The hope that kindles, dim as it is, still feels embarrassingly naive. ]
( Why? )
no subject
( Not everyone's on our same boat. )
[ That is, there was a time when she thought this could be home, only now the prospect of giving up, giving in, seem so distasteful. ]
( I asked cause we need to know what we're up against to know how to get out. There's no point hoping for a miracle. )
no subject
[ He's got more faith in the latter, though the absence of his own luck is starting to feel more and more acute. The softness in Misato's voice doesn't bring his guard down, exactly; but it does put him on a more even keel, a sense of fairly easy trust, the quieting of his usual undercurrent of slight paranoia.
.... well, mostly. The topic isn't doing his paranoia any favors. ]
( You think they've gone mad. )
[ Anyone sane would want to leave. He's still dodging the word parasite, but in the end it's all just a loss of self. ]
no subject
( I don't know if it's madness to give in to it. It sure would be easier. )
[ He isn't the only averse to the thought of parasite, when her first utterance of it was a form of exorcism, a way of forcing herself to spit it out. To no avail. ]
( Maybe it's madness to fight against something inside yourself, but I'd rather that kind of madness. Don't you think? )
no subject
( Of course I think. I'd rather be mad and myself than something else. ) [ The sentiment's layered, overshadowed by memories of the ruby-hilted dagger, of Rand. It all bleeds together and makes him wonder what she's getting at, exactly, and lends itself a not entirely kind assumption. Politics, choosing sides. ]
( I won't fight them, though — anyone who's not on our same boat. )
no subject
[ Don't want to think about it, because it's too painful to consider one's own helplessness in the face of inevitability. Rather be mad and themselves, if they're still themselves. ]
( So Mat, we'll find a way to remove it. We'll figure it out. )
no subject
Saying something doesn't make it so, and that kind of certainty in the face of a challenge always walks a fine line between arrogant and productive. But it's also a comparison that reminds him of people he knows, people he (very reluctantly) misses, and that's the thread that pulls his curiosity off course. ]
( How well do you know Kaji? )
[ Better than the rest of them, he knows. He'd just like to hear her take. ]
no subject
Now, Mat wasn't the first to ask that very same question. Her response is immediate, a face changing from sweet to sour, the slightest sting of static in the air. ]
( Is that how you all think of me? As Kaji's woman? )
no subject
[ Not that she isn't. The tone's somewhere between affronted and teasing; that hadn't been his meaning, but he understands why it's the first place her mind went. ]
( You've known him longer than I have, that's all. Thought you might have insight these bloody things in our heads can't cheat. )
no subject
[ She sounds testy, more than anything. But even her retort betrays her insecurities, never one so gifted at concealment. It frustrates her that it is through Mat (and Rust, and Clarke) that anyone might get the closest thing to Kaji's truth, if such a thing exists. If the lie hasn't become the man. ]
( What do you want to ask? )
no subject
He'd asked because of what was in Kaji's head. The room, the pillars and the red lights — it's difficult to get at that without thinking of the strange images in his own mind. It'd been an accident, sharing those thoughts on his first day here. Knowing how the connection works means being more guarded, and for a moment his hesitation feels like a solid wall.
He could just throw Kaji's memory back at her and see how she responds. But he wouldn't want someone doing that with his thoughts, so after that heavy pause: ]
( The place the two of you came from. What's it like? )
no subject
( Beautiful, but out to kill us. )
[ She has an inkling, that if he's asking to get her version to corroborate Kaji's story, then her take on the story would directly contradict his. He would say that it's humans who have been trying to destroy the world all along, humans who had no rightful place on Earth. ]
( It's similar to this, but with bigger cities made of concrete and steel. Really tall towers, crowded streets, but with nature parts too. You know, mountains, lakes, deserts like this. We have a lot of sunken cities under the sea, a lot of ruins we haven't gotten round to fixing, but we make do. Is that what you're asking? Do you want me to show you?
no subject
[ 'Out to kill us' is a pretty big qualifier, girl. The rest of the description sidelines his skepticism somewhat — he used to love the idea of ruins and sunken cities. That'd been before he'd seen them firsthand, but it's somehow easier to romanticize all of it when it's as abstract as someone else's world.
It isn't completely what he'd been asking for. He could be more direct, ask after Kaji's strange comments about time, about that circle. But what she's put in front of him is interesting all the same, and the pause is much shorter this time while he considers. ]
( Go on. )
[ He's getting too used to the idea of people shoving their thoughts and memories on him without much complaint. It helps that she asked first, at least. ]
no subject
Up and up again, so she breaks the surface to a city perched above the cavern, a lifeless city, militaristic, robotic. The signs are everywhere: green tanks lining the streets, concrete towers without windows, the sunken buildings she mentioned just to one side, warnings shouting HIGH VOLTAGE, and nobody in the streets. It is this sight that wavers and trembles, the knowledge that it is only a memory makes her hesitate, never mind that the entire exercise is one of remembering. She shows him this and the truth: a lake made of overlapping perfect circles. Upon closer look, the periphery of a destroyed city upon the lake bank, and upon closer inspection, the realization that the circles were carved out by explosions.
The air is warm and humid, and it smells like the sea. The sky is blue. The trees are green. The cicadas shriek in a deafening crescendo. It comes right back. ]
( What did he show you? )
no subject
The dead streets are met with quick understanding. Not for the tanks and the signs, of course, but the feeling behind it's easy to place. Mat's distracted by the image even after it starts to crumble, though the image of the lake and its devastation lingers, too — not like anything he's seen, no. Similar to things he's felt in dreams, and coated in the same hollow weight that always came with the aftermath of a battle.
The memories of actual life feel tacked on at the end of all of it. Persistent and inevitable, but still an afterthought. Her question doesn't catch him off-guard, but there's a deliberate pause as he sifts through his own memories. Rationalizes that if she's asking, then it's fair game.
The pause after that is his failure to put it into words. So he gives up, dredging up the images Kaji had shared the first time they'd met: a dark room, tall pillars, red glyphs. It's echoed by memories that are closer to home, a round room with tall pillars, yellow lights in place of red, that visceral scent of fur and blood that's always there with them. Mat's hold on his own thoughts is tenuous, at best, but he only puts a mild effort into holding them back. ]
( He didn't show me any bloody lakes. )