march catch-all

[wingstosee]

Who: Venus Vesper (wingstosee)
What: Catch-all for March, belatedly.
When: Late March
Where: Primarily in Kainé and Anna's place, but specified by thread.

Content Warnings: Likely language and references to totalitarian regimes, but past that all warnings by thread.

Comments

[foulhussy]

[ In Trench, it's never a good idea to assume that something surreal or terrible has stopped happening. Most of these incidents do, eventually, yes, but they have a nasty habit of going through a few stages first. Not that Kainé did in fact suspect it would happen again.

Vespers body bolts upward, as Kainé's mind is opened, filled with a bioresonant cacophony she has no way to comprehend. ]

What the fucking shit!? What just happened?

[ Even her movements are not the ones that Vesper's body would make, to say nothing of the words coming from her mouth. ]

[wingstosee]

Hey, language, [ she jokes without thinking, and then she continues without even stopping, ] sorry, sorry, not the right time for that. Uh. I know it's a lot right now? But it's. It'll stop after a day. You saw.

[ she hopes it's the same now, at least. ]

Are you able to handle the noise? Do you need to focus on me?

[foulhussy]

[ Right. It becomes more obvious with every passing second, moving this smaller body that feels so odd, cold but too hot, thrumming like some kind of manifest migraine all through composite flesh.

Seeing her own body in front of her, moving and speaking in ways foreign to her cements it. ]

Yeah. [ She exhales a sigh, between gritted teeth. It doesn't drown out the noise. She feels so on edge. ] I can't put up with more than a day of this shit.

[ But she reaches, unconsciously for Vesper's mind. An anchor in the howling storm of voices that fills her. She thinks it might rip her apart, drown her. She needs something to latch onto. ]

[wingstosee]

It's really not that bad? [ but she winces again, shaking her head. ] Crap. Sorry. It's... I know how rough it was for Anna. Most people just. Aren't meant to hear it, I guess.

[ she isn't bioresonant, in this body. she can't quite feel the tether reaching out for her. but she encourages it nonetheless - letting kainé hook in, letting her sing out every nook and cranny of her own soul. memories she's spoken of; memories she hasn't. she has nothing to hide. memories of floating in the song with the other kolibri, and giggling about jokes only they can hear.

it doesn't feel invasive to her. this is just... normal. this is just life. ]

...try focusing on me. It's easier if you drown out the noise with one signal.

[foulhussy]

[ Kainé scowls at Vesper, notes of distress bringing discord to her song. Yeah, it sure fucking was "rough" for Anna, and Vesper means no harm but this wincing understatement stirs a part of Kainé that's still a wounded animal, teeth and fury. ]

No fucking shit we're not!

[ The songs resound in her head like ringing bells, a cacophony that drowns out her ability to think, a symphony that threatens to drown her, make her just one note in the harmony that fills her, the ever-changing song of the universe. It reminds her of something terrible. ]

Alright. Alright.

[ Kainé winces, takes a deep breath. She feels cold. She tries to focus on Vesper, to filter out the rest of the symphony. It doesn't completely work, but she feels the connection, and focuses on it for dear life. She nestles herself into Vesper-in-Kainé, hears the lost songs of Sturm and Meer, their jokes, the familiarity that she feels in the cold coffin of S-23 Sierpinski.

But Vesper will feel Kainé's left arm burn, she will feel the stickiness of blood between her fingers and under her nails, the smell of smoke and iron. "Stop, stop, they're only children! Must you take everything from us, soulless monsters!?" ]

[wingstosee]

[ each time kainé lashes out, vesper's own song quavers, twists; the note goes sour, frustration and regret and unhappiness leaking in before she can force it out again. every cranny of the memory and then some; every last part of vesper's emotions and more. kainé can feel them all, direct and personal.

and vesper can't feel anything. she wants to cry, a little.

it's the burn at her arm that starts the feeling. a memory - not an entirely familiar one, one she's glanced at in passing and tried not to dive any deeper. a memory etched indelibly enough into kainé that it's starting to superimpose onto her. vesper winces, and draws in a breath quietly through grit teeth, and when the blood begins to get just a bit too real, slick and red across her fingertips, she says- ]

Don't think about it. [ smoke and iron. she breathes, ragged and slow; right now, she sounds more like kainé than she ever possibly could. ] Just focus. Alright? Focus on my memories, Kainé. Turn down the broadcast and turn up the input.

[ it probably won't make sense to kainé. how could it? but with this pain, the darkness lines and etchings starting to swell in her arm, the blood trickling down from her fingertips... something has to stop. ]

[foulhussy]

[ It's beautiful in a way, seeing everything of Vesper. It reminds of when she saw a different, and yet the same girls radiance shining out of a dead shell, of being wrapped in light and wings.

Feeling all of her, like this, an intimacy that submerges her. It's beautiful, and frightening. Memories flash like lightening. Her grandma's rough and gnarled hand, holding hers as she takes them home. Her sitting with a skeletal creature at twilight, outside at a campfire, talking about themselves. A wicked thing with a poisonous voice crawling into her heart and feeding on her hate. A silver haired boy reaching for her hand. Singing on stage with Anna for the first time. Venus hatching from her shell. Slowly they quiet, as Kainé forces the transmission into quiet. ]

Your... your arm...

[ She looks horrified. It threatens to come back, a frenetic song. She wraps her arms around her own body, desperate to prevent it from returning to the nightmare that was. ]

[wingstosee]

It's okay. It's okay. I'm... We're okay.

[ her own song betrays her fears. but even with that fear, kainé's focus slowly eases the pains inflicted onto vesper. the blood dries and fades, with no cuts there to have caused it; the scrawl on her arms fades into red lines, then away completely. she breathes in, tired and rough, and says: ]

Hey, cheer up, okay? That face is too cute for you to look that sad.

[ it's a joke, a play off some line kainé said once - whether to her or the her before her, she doesn't know. like this, deafened and quiet, vesper can't see as much of kainé's own memories as she'd like. but she still has those short glimpses, enough to say- ]

None of them are here. You're safe, okay?

[foulhussy]

[ She sounds a little more like Venus now, Kainé thinks, and then feels guilty about it. She doesn't know where to draw the line, but she tries to anyway. At least as much as is practical. It's not right, just treating Vesper as some footnote. ]

Her breathing slows. She focuses on the sound of her own voice coming from another's mouth. She thinks of how she's home, in a place where she matters. She thinks of how this storm will end. She holds Vespers arms. Her own. The universe roars at the edge of her hearing. ]

You've come a long way, flirting with me like that.