homeecspacecop | sorry lenka (week 3 wednesday)

sorry lenka (week 3 wednesday)

[Lenka says "find someplace easier to be" and Chuuta runs. He wants wings, he wants to fly so far and so fast that he gets out of this camp, but he doesn't ask for wings and so he just sprints to the cabin and slams the door behind him. He can't lock the door, can't barricade it, can't do anything to keep people out because this is a shared space and he can't lock his cabinmates out. He has wings, for just a second, enough to boost him up onto his upper bunk and back into the corner.

He's shaking from the tension of the whole situation, the feeling of someone watching him, the feeling of a target on his back.]

[Chuuta? Are you okay?]

Y-yeah. I think we're safe. I think we're okay. I don't think anyone's following us.

[Drew didn't hurt him.]

I know. Thanks. We can't hurt anyone here.

[Drew doesn't have a temper.]

I know that, but... I don't know why you attacked him. He wasn't trying to hurt us.

[...]

[Nothing. Drew has no real answer for him, and Chuuta doesn't like that. It's weird, it feels kind of dangerous not knowing why Drew reacted like that. Drew's always been a kind of stabilizing presence, if only because he's so weird. But this is messing with Drew too.

Chuuta doesn't move, and he doesn't know how long he's sitting there when someone opens the door and he snaps back to attention with a jolt.]

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Chuuta?

[He calls out first, keeping the door half open just in case -- he's rather learned to be careful with walking into Cabin 3 at this point, between Richie's traps and Talcott's knives (though the latter are probably no longer a danger at this stage, and it's not exactly a comforting thought), and while he hopes Chuuta's had some time to pull himself together... he's not counting on it yet.

After a small pause, Lenka pokes his head around the door to assess the situation, and approaches in a more normal fashion to perch himself on one of the steam trunks. He'll let Chuuta and Drew have their height advantage. A lot of them really seem to like high places, huh?]

You're here. [his voice is calm, stating a matter of fact, like Chuuta being all curled up in his bunk is part of the weather] I wanted to see how you were doing.

[They wound up here, that first day, and it's not Chuuta's favorite place but it's comfortable and it's safe.]

Mmm. [Chuuta says, a sort of agreement.]

Sorry.

[He understands, in a way.

He'd spent a part of the first days on the roof of his cabin, and still does when he needs to. Safety in heights. Places where danger and predators and prying eyes are less liable to reach you. The bunks aren't quite enough for that, in his case.]

You don't need to apologize to me.

[As far as he's concerned, if there are apologies to be made, then Chuuta and Mitsuru are the ones who need to agree on them. Maybe Drew, too -- it depends on how those two work out their differences with others and with each other. Speaking of which:]

You're not the only one with secrets, Chuuta. Or the only one who freaked out.

[He's not going to mince words there.]

Drew wanted to tell everyone. [And Chuuta just needs to learn when to listen to the Monitalien's ideas.]

But I thought it would be safer not to. If someone attacked us, I wanted to be able to surprise them and get away.

... and I don't want someone trying to take him.

I see.

[He feels like they might all have bigger problems than trying to covet Drew, at this point.

But given that Chuuta's literally attached to his alien, he'd obviously feel differently; it's interesting that Drew would be willing to reveal themselves, because it would indeed have been a safety risk, but that he would then attack over an argument. Maybe it's his personality; maybe it's something else.

Maybe Drew, too, feels the rising tension settling like a net of thorns all over everything.]

It's a small camp. It's not a bad idea, but a surprise like that would work once. [and now? well, now it's a bit moot, actually] It's safer, if you build a bigger net.

I thought... if it worked once, that would be enough. [But now, well, now that's out of the bag.]

If we didn't show him, he wouldn't have stopped asking, and we didn't want him to hurt us to try and get a reaction.

I don't know if it would have been enough.

[It's a touch dry.

He's still not sure of the full extent of Drew's capabilities, but there are likely people here who could match them. Mitsuru, probably, if he hadn't been stopped. And he has suspicions about the other magic users and fighters. He's not sure about himself; he's never really tried using the Arc against magic, and hopefully won't have to.]

But if you think that's a danger... if you think an argument is going to get out of control, then look for someone to help. Myself, or Kirijo.

[It would hopefully help with the volatility level, especially since he and Mitsuru might clash again. And hopefully defusing this time's magic slapfight would have given that idea some merit. He would also recommend Nine for this, but he's iffy on his conflict resolution skills.]

It would have been enough to give us time to get away. [He's confident of that, if only because he doesn't need a lot of time, they could get wings out and fly.]

... we should have gotten someone else, but...

[Drew didn't need his help.]

We felt like we had to protect me. [Pronouns are a mess when sympathy is involved, when their wills act in unison.] I know we shouldn't have, but it felt like we needed to.

[Chuuta. Chuuta, there are at least three people in his cabin who can also fly and/or teleport and/or float. Lenka just shakes his head after a moment.]

We're all trapped here. In camp.

[Just a friendly reminder.

Getting away doesn't necessarily mean getting away, unfortunately; and living in close quarters like this, with all of their powers clashing, is going to take some getting used to. Also a lot of wrangling. He takes a moment to untangle Chuuta-and-Drew, since they seem to be having trouble untangling themselves.]

... You felt like you had to do it yourselves?

I know that! But if someone attacked us, and we could get away to find someone else, we... we'd be safe. If someone attacked us, and we could hold them off long enough to get to a cabin, or the kitchen, we'd be fine.

We're... pretty fast, when we need to be. I didn't show Mitsuru everything we can do. [And here's... kind of an answer to that last question, because the importance is not in the self but in the feel.]

And we both felt like we needed to defend ours... me? [Pronouns????]

If we hadn't both felt that way, we wouldn't have been able to activate a symbiotic technique at all.

I thought so. It's not a bad thing to defend yourselves until you can get away. Just don't get carried away. For everyone's sake.

[Which it had kind of looked like it was happening, back there with the laptops.

He's already getting used to the messy pronouns; he's spent almost half of camp at this point seeing Chuuta talk to himself in the middle of a different conversation, after all. You can't get too much more disjointed than that. He frowns a little, thoughtfully, at the mention of additional powers. He still thinks it's not bad to keep something in reserve.

But there's something...]

If you both feel a certain way strongly enough... it lets you fight the way you just did, right? [the real question is whether they're in sync or an actual feedback loop] Do the feelings work together? Or get stronger?

We won't get carried away.

[Chuuta doesn't know what 'carried away' would look like, but that wasn't it. He'd been in the process of pinning Mitsuru when Lenka burst in, and no one got hurt.]

[It's not a feedback loop.]

Yeah, it's not like we're... making each other more emotional. We're just feeling the same things and working with the same will.

All right.

[There's still a certain amount of leeway, for defending yourself -- though defending yourself is going to become hairier in coming weeks, if they find more information to put people on edge, get under their skin. It's definitely a caution for the future, if a verbal argument can turn into powers flying every which way.

But at least it's good, knowing that they're just... also stuck together emotionally, in a way. Even if he's not entirely sure how that works. Chuuta-and-Drew being themselves. That just seems to be the way things go, for now. Until Drew's really stuck to a rock.]

So that's part of how your... symbiosis works. You understand each other.

We've been together for as long as I remember, so it would be weird if we didn't understand each other. [Like not understanding a twin sibling, or not understanding your own thoughts.]

But we can only activate a symbiotic technique when we have the same goal in mind. If I wanted to do something but Drew didn't, nothing would happen.

For as long as you can remember... but Drew is an alien, right?

[Chuuta himself looks human, so either Drew was attached at some point or he was somehow born with an alien in his torso. Lenka's not sure if that's a stranger idea, or if all the magic users with mind ghosts and sword ghosts are the odder option here. Of course, he can't exactly talk, himself; but he is curious. Since Chuuta and Drew have to be considered together.

It really is a little like dealing with a pair of siblings. Half the communication and twice the firepower? Something like that.]

So, what is it Drew wants? Here in camp.

[He has a little bit of a grasp on what Chuuta wants, now. Drew is a bit more of an unknown.]

Yeah. [Which is as far as Chuuta's going with that, unless Lenka decides to point out why it's a weird thing.]

[Drew wants to stay with Chuuta!] [Drew says, emerging out of Chuuta's torso to stare at Lenka. His form seems oddly faint, even completely transparent in parts.]

[And Drew wants to see what happens next.]

Yeah. [Chuuta forgets that people can't hear Drew.]

But you're not an alien, Chuuta. So... how did Drew happen?

[Like, really, how did the alien happen, he would like to know.

It's not like he knows much about where Chuuta comes from, so for all he knows everybody there has become symbiotes with cute marshmallow aliens that sometimes spit cross-stitches at people they don't like. Lenka gets a little distracted when Drew pops out, eyeing the transparent parts with a little concern. Does that mean anything?

Does Drew want pets, incidentally, since we're checking on Drew.]

... What did he say... And, uh, is he okay? He looks funny.

[Drew will tolerate some petting right now, but he feels a bit less solid than usual, almost like trying to grab smoke in some places.]

He...

[Drew's still faded.]

It's my fault. He'll be fine when I'm... [more confident, but that sounds kind of embarrassing somehow] feeling better.

I don't know how I got him, but I... [yeah Chuuta's got no idea] I guess I must have been nearby when his previous host died, and he transferred to me. I must have been really little.

[And time to handle the question about what Drew wants.]

He wants to stay with me, and he wants to see what happens here. He's designed for observation, so he's always curious about stuff.

Oh.

[Lenka runs his hand gently over Drew, trying not to catch too much on the insubstantial places -- it really is concerning to see him like this when he's usually got such a nice texture and coat. It's a little sad, like melted ice cream or something.]

I hope you both feel better soon...

[He can take a bit of a guess at what needs to recover in Chuuta right now, but Lenka will let it pass. For now, the confrontation and their discussion about it are still fresh enough that he's willing to let some things go unless they become problems down the road.]

So you weren't born together. [it's still hard to picture tiny Chuuta-and-Drew, since it's easier to picture now-Drew-and-tiny-Chuuta, which is an oddly cute mental image] I think I remember you saying that he's used for scientific purposes. I guess that's why... he knows a little more about what happens here than we do.

[For the moment, he doesn't explicitly bring up the stone spreading.]

Edited 2018-07-11 06:07 (UTC)

Yeah. He's keeping an eye on how... much I'm changing. But there isn't anything we can do to stop it now.

[Drew nuzzles against Lenka's hand a little bit. And then a little bit more. It's a nice feeling, okay.]

So we just have to... to keep going.

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sorry lenka (week 3 wednesday)

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we can probably wrap here