[The sound that ripped through all of them and brought Xiao back to himself had hit hard, so Waltaquin's head is slightly off-center still, weighed down by how off-balance she feels.
She keeps a small sliver of distance between them; her healing spells can't be called on, either, but there's always field medicine if absolutely need be. She gives a reassuring chuckle that sounds like a heart beating.]
Running on little sleep. I shall take the most well-needed nap as soon as you're ready to go.
[ Psyche summons a little smile as she looks over, though this time she doesn't reach out. Waltaquin really does look more worn than she does, she thinks. Psyche's so often crossed those boundaries about touching her, and coming back to herself today to find Waltaquin hugging her like that... ]
I hope you do. You're not going to tell me what's wrong, are you?
[It had been impulsive and reckless, hugging Medea (and Psyche, by association). Perhaps she craved the blade under her ribs. Maybe she only wanted to know what it felt like. Psyche, who has touched her more than anyone else, knows more than anyone how much of her life she's spent in not doing it.]
It's getting very late, [she says.] It'd be boring if I gave up now, wouldn't it?
You do understand that once you've seen something you cannot remove it from your eyes. [What is it - an answer to Psyche's question, or a warning about asking it?]
[ "Boring"... Waltaquin's always talked like that, a little. So much has changed since her first impressions, but in some ways, so little.
Psyche reaches out carefully this time to rest her hand on Waltaquin's shoulder. Just a featherlight contact that would be easy to move aside from or ignore. Reassurance that she's there? After all these weeks, she still doesn't wholly know whether that's comforting to Waltaquin or the opposite. ]
I do know that. Ignorance must be the most comfortable way to live. But... it's stifling, too. I don't think there's any freedom in it.
[There's a terrible contradiction struggling to tread water in the sluices of her brain. Waltaquin, for whom power came in knowledge, who sought that knowledge at the cost of the safety of her own soldiers, fighting against the feeling that she is looking at a world that has collapsed into incomprehensible strands of fiber.]
...Hah... [It's uncontainable. It's delicious and it tastes like metal.]
I wish you all had kept your memories to yourselves last week. I have seen things, I have felt things, I have learned things that should not have seen the light of day. [Like her, like it, like them.] And my head -
[ Waltaquin's words being cryptic, too, isn't new. Psyche's brow furrows, but she listens carefully. She's always tried to. She wonders, just a little, when it had entirely stopped being because she was a little guarded with Waltaquin and simply became because she was worried for her. ]
Whose memories were they?
[ She wants to ask, what. Will making Waltaquin dwell on it make it worse? It doesn't seem as though she can get it out of her mind as it stands. ]
[In her defense, the obfuscation is not entirely her own doing, but an attempt to translate something that wants to scream out of her into words that can be controlled.
She always resists control. She doesn't want to be overcome. There is a genuine spike of fear that she might be.
It had started small, with memories like that familiar fear. Maybe that was the first cut. But it got so much bigger. She is looking at a fixed point on the floor, but it may as well be miles down.]
[ Carefully, she reaches for Waltaquin's hand. As cautious she might approach a wounded animal, light and grounding. As if she could pull Waltaquin back from wherever her thoughts are dragging her down to. ]
This... earth's? Did you see something about what this place is?
[ She could see there being horrors there. Although maybe not more than what Waltaquin already knows. Something about this feels too large for her grasp, like she's chasing the shadow of something moving far beneath the water's surface. ]
[She doesn't pull away, so there is that. At what point did something that felt so unnecessary and foreign become so familiar that it's been forced to feel foreign again, like everything happening is wrong?]
No. No. Not that. No, no no, that would actually be of some use to us, wouldn't it?
[Waltaquin puts her head down with a very primal and horrible groan.]
[ That sound sends shivers up her spine, prickling down her skin. The wrongness of it isn't something she knows, but she doesn't need to. The reaction is visceral and instinctual. ]
Waltaquin. I need you to stay with me. Is this... from your magic, or from the memories?
[ Or both. She could see that spiraling into each other, the effects Waltaquin had dismissed and whatever thing she'd seen that she can't seem to contain. ]
[If anything, it might be that she hexes she hosts within herself, the curse of her own dark magic, that's giving her some stability. She knows the echoes and the calls of something dark and something more, even if, in terms of things swimming deep beneath the surface, they are a minnow in light of a megalodon.
"I am strong enough. Nothing can corrupt me."]
Memories started it. It just keeps going and going and going now, without any end.
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no subject
She keeps a small sliver of distance between them; her healing spells can't be called on, either, but there's always field medicine if absolutely need be. She gives a reassuring chuckle that sounds like a heart beating.]
Running on little sleep. I shall take the most well-needed nap as soon as you're ready to go.
[She will not be able to sleep.]
no subject
[ Psyche summons a little smile as she looks over, though this time she doesn't reach out. Waltaquin really does look more worn than she does, she thinks. Psyche's so often crossed those boundaries about touching her, and coming back to herself today to find Waltaquin hugging her like that... ]
I hope you do. You're not going to tell me what's wrong, are you?
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It's getting very late, [she says.] It'd be boring if I gave up now, wouldn't it?
You do understand that once you've seen something you cannot remove it from your eyes. [What is it - an answer to Psyche's question, or a warning about asking it?]
no subject
Psyche reaches out carefully this time to rest her hand on Waltaquin's shoulder. Just a featherlight contact that would be easy to move aside from or ignore. Reassurance that she's there? After all these weeks, she still doesn't wholly know whether that's comforting to Waltaquin or the opposite. ]
I do know that. Ignorance must be the most comfortable way to live. But... it's stifling, too. I don't think there's any freedom in it.
no subject
...Hah... [It's uncontainable. It's delicious and it tastes like metal.]
I wish you all had kept your memories to yourselves last week. I have seen things, I have felt things, I have learned things that should not have seen the light of day. [Like her, like it, like them.] And my head -
It's all I can do to keep from screaming.
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Whose memories were they?
[ She wants to ask, what. Will making Waltaquin dwell on it make it worse? It doesn't seem as though she can get it out of her mind as it stands. ]
no subject
She always resists control. She doesn't want to be overcome. There is a genuine spike of fear that she might be.
It had started small, with memories like that familiar fear. Maybe that was the first cut. But it got so much bigger. She is looking at a fixed point on the floor, but it may as well be miles down.]
The earth's.
no subject
This... earth's? Did you see something about what this place is?
[ She could see there being horrors there. Although maybe not more than what Waltaquin already knows. Something about this feels too large for her grasp, like she's chasing the shadow of something moving far beneath the water's surface. ]
no subject
No. No. Not that. No, no no, that would actually be of some use to us, wouldn't it?
[Waltaquin puts her head down with a very primal and horrible groan.]
I̷̻̩̗̾̄͜ ̸̤̐̃̄w̸̝̆̅̈́͆ô̴͎̘͖̈́n̴̥̑̄͛͗'̸̱̩̟͒̀̚t̵̤̭̠̏͒͆͗ ̸͙̻̂l̷̻͉̽̐é̴̼t̸̆͜ ̷̛͓͐ͅṯ̵̍̊ĥ̷̫̮͙̩i̸͈̮̪͌͗ṡ̷̬͛̕͝ͅ ̷̝̱̘̋̕͠s̷̬̝̞̟̽̿͋̂t̴̮̆͠o̴̹̥͎̩̅͋̈́͘p̵͚̣͎͂ ̷̡̛̦͙̦͘m̷̫͕͖̙̈ĕ̶͜.̴͈̥͂̉́
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Waltaquin. I need you to stay with me. Is this... from your magic, or from the memories?
[ Or both. She could see that spiraling into each other, the effects Waltaquin had dismissed and whatever thing she'd seen that she can't seem to contain. ]
no subject
"I am strong enough. Nothing can corrupt me."]
Memories started it. It just keeps going and going and going now, without any end.