deercountry | march catch-all

[ it happens without warning. one moment, vesper is listening to anna practice; the next, she is flying through the air, a strange awareness as signals from her ocular units still reach her from outside her body. there is a rush, a vacuous cold within her-

-and then she is staring down at herself, holding a stringed instrument and processing internal systems that are not native to her chipset. ]

Anna? [ she can hear anna's voice from her lips, but she can't hear anna's song. she can see her own body reactivating, a temporary halt in system processing restored, but she can't hear anna. ] Anna, that's... That's you, right?

[ it's quiet.

it's so terribly quiet. ]

[she's always felt at peace like this, or at least she has since she picked up the instrument in the first place, so many years ago. hers hadn't come with her, so she'd needed to pick up one here. between that and the all-too-recent loss of her glass eye, she has felt adrift from recollé in more ways than she'd felt safe giving a name to—and that's to say nothing of the raging whirlwind within her skull in the past couple months.]

[but this place can never take her music from her. no matter what happens, she'll always have that. so she practices. it's calming, it's a ritual, and it makes her happy. and sometimes vesper watches, and she's perfectly okay with vesper watching. she's playing along to one of the songs that she plans on debuting the next time she's on stage, something from a band she hadn't heard anything from in a while, and she's quietly singing "give up what you love before it does you in" when the change happens.]

[suddenly, she's looking back at herself. the body she's in now is smaller, more compact. the machinery feels different, more complete, more deliberate instead of her normal patchwork clockwork. and it is loud to look at herself. the sight rings in her ears, and all at once she's met with a castrophany so immense that, she's sure, it could be heard far away in space.]

[anna slams eyes that are not hers shut and puts hands that are not hers over ears that are not hers. and she begs in a voice that is not hers,]

Stop this!

[ anna's voice is muffled. she can hear her, but she can't hear her. where's the sound? what is this? why is it all coming apart around her? there's an aching in her head, a pulse of wrongness being overlaid onto her. it's her. anna is listening, she knows it-

anna is listening. she has to be steady for her. focus. focus.

slowly, vesper sets the guitar down. slowly, she approaches vesper. and, thinking as hard as she can of her most calming moments - of memories floating alongside the other kolibri, of listening to anna hum, of kainé hugging her close - she tries to wrap her arms around the smaller form. ]

Hey. Hey. [ soft. reassuring. a voice she's heard from anna's form before. ] It's going to be alright. Alright?

[anna can't focus. she hears everything. she hears everything all at once, all around her. she isn't looking but the noises don't stop, and at the edges of her perception the walls of the living room aberrate. it feels like five or six rooms blending into one. she is here, she is in birch hills, she is in the bunker, she is atop a vast cathedral, she is in her room at her parents' house, she is kneeling at her god's altar. the rooms are all occupying the same space, and she is here in arms that should belong to her.]

Stop. Stop, stop. Bitte. Ich bin müde.

[hands that should be used for holding and healing, for creating and touching and loving claw against the thin fabric of a t-shirt. words blister the air, reds and whites in the imagined space that bleeds through lids into her mind like she's only making the image clearer by screwing her eyes shut. it needs to be over. it needs to stop. it needs to be silent.]

[ich. höre. einen. Klang.]

[she's trembling. she feels so vast and so tiny. all of it needs to stop or she will burst and she will die. even with some of the songs becoming familiar to her, even with some of them resonating in a chorus that she knows she could sing with. she can't do this.]

[ she can't sing like this. why can't she sing? why can't she lead anna's voice? even like this, she's starting to be able to hear anna resonate - the room vibrates, her vision blurs. right. anna's a replika too, isn't she? it only makes sense. language sears into her mind like a brand, the tongue of her native eusan-

a sound? ]

Anna. [ it's not sharp, but it's authoritative; it's not loud, but it's clear. ] Anna. Listen to me. Okay? Listen to me.

[ sturm's laugh. ariane's smile. kainé drinking oxidant from her wrist. images flash by in her head, rapidfire flicking on a shuffled tape-

she thinks of the pier, of looking up as anna lit her cigarette, and focuses on nothing else. she closes her eyes, to not see; she muffles her hearing, to not hear. all her being, all her song, is dedicated to this one performance.

please listen to me. ]

[the woman in white, all blood cells and cancers and horrible losses in the depths of space, her smile flickers in anna's head all too quickly. she can't focus on it, but part of her would love to. part of her would love to see ariane and think of how happy this world must be for her. at least it would be a promise that someone is having a good time right now. it would mean there's some pocket of this world that isn't filled with misery and skull-rending noise.]

[but she can't. it's gone before she processes that it was there. the noise builds and builds and pressed as she is against her own chest, it's the noise coming from that body that comes to her head the strongest. it's the same blinding snow as always, but like a radio tuner coming closer to a broadcasting airwave, it starts to clear up. the words become intelligible. she hears a sound, yes, but she hears a voice more than that.]

[(the world starts coming into focus. her head feels less like it's about to explode.)]

[it's her own face, but it's more than images. it's attraction and the shame of being attracted to her. it's guilt, almost crushing, over taking a single cigarette. and she listens, and it's dark, it's dark in ways that venus-and-vesper could never be. it's wrong, this memory, this song. dissonant, seconds and tritones and sevenths. but it's familiar. and it's something she can bring herself home to.]

[she takes several long, slow breaths. it gets easier the more she does it. the room shifts back into focus, into the reality that is her home, here, in trench. she is listening. the only words are in her throat, coming past her lips, muttering against her own chest.]

Danke. 'ch bin hier.

[ she's here. she's focused. she's stable.

slowly, vesper allows herself to untense. she lifts the restrictions on her new body's hearing; she opens her eyes, a little bit at a time, to look down at herself again. she keeps thinking about the dock, the pier, the feeling of looking at anna-

(-and when her mind wanders, when it wonders just how she remembers that so clearly, she hugs anna tighter and tries to push it away.) ]

You're here. [ slowly, she returns to stroking her old body's hair. ] It's okay. We're... We'll make it through this. I absolutely promise. Okay?

How long will it take?

[she wants that sentence to come out easier. she wants to know these answers. she hates not knowing so, so desperately. everything feels so new and confusing and loud even as she turns the volume down, even as the static fades. there's so much more than just the sound, so much more than what she's hearing. and she can never, ever completely tune it out, can she? she can never get rid of it or make it stop.]

[it's stupid that she ever asked vesper to do the same.]

[feeling fingertips in her hair sends a shiver down her spine. when has she ever been able to do this? when has her too-tall frame, all limbs and elbows and knees, ever been in a position to be small like this? why can't she be small like this all the time? why can't someone take care of her in ways that the physical world seems so happy to deny? so she goes back to her question.]

I don't want it to be over too fast.

I...

[ how long will it take? does she even know? can she even know? like this, alone and deafened, she doesn't know what to say. she can't tell the truth. she can't even tell anna what she wants to hear. she doesn't know.

it's terrifying. it's terrifying and it's isolating. she tries not to think about it, stroking anna's hair and hoping desperately she guessed right. ]

I don't know... how long it'll take. [ her voice is slow, anna's lower register almost faltering with each syllable. ] But- I'll stay here. As long as you need. Okay?

[anna shudders again. it's her own voice saying that. it's her own voice saying the one thing that she always tells everybody else—that she'll stay, that she'll be here, that she doesn't know what's coming next but she's not going to leave. and it aches in a way that makes her heart sing something miserable and free. she doesn't know what to do except breathe and grip the t-shirt that she should be wearing and try to keep herself under control.]

Please. I'm sorry. I wish I wasn't like this. I wish this was easier, I wish it was quieter, I wish it were just me and I wish I knew what that meant anymore. [she feels so small and isn't sure that she hates it. it's awful to be trapped within a body that isn't big enough to contain everything within. it's even worse to be caught in an even smaller body with even more information to live with. but if she focuses on the touch, the feeling, the words, she thinks—she hopes that she can get through this.]

You hear this all the time? Es'st wie eine Bombe.

march catch-all

3-21: anna

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