this is the way of it [OPEN]

[firstroar]

Date & Time: 1/18 -> end of Jan
Location: near and around a bed
Characters: Soldier Blue, tbd
Summary: a psychic dying tends to dreamhop or suck nearby people into his own dreams.
Warnings: dying, references to such, any bad memories lying about in any given headspace


The way of it was unprecedented in his world: If any Mu before him had lived a life to its full extent, it was done so hidden away from notice. All others suffered and inevitably died far, far too young. Too many children.

Soldier Blue found his eyes wouldn't open, his body barely stir, disobeying every command just the way it had at the start of his fifteen-year sleep. He'd been so much more resigned to that, back then. Secure as he could be in the faith he had in his successor, his comrades. Here, though? Here, he wasn't so sure.

Throughout the days that passed, he found the strength to exert, push his mind away from the prison of his body, if only for a moment. But he'd lose himself in doing that, lose the purpose, drift and find himself straying into dreams or the passing presence of more focused, willful minds, some more familiar than others. It all twisted into pasts distant and near, making for disorienting journeys that often ended in the darkness that he constantly tried to shake himself from, harder and harder each time.

He chased the specks of light he perceived in the place of those thoughts and dreams, feeling weight bearing down upon his body the further he reached. Warmth on his cheek, the gentle breathy voice of his goddess...or some other? Everything blended together so seamlessly that the tears reality caused were frightening.

His reach shrank and lights grew distant like stars, became stars, a canopy of a hundred-years old vigil in an entirely different world.

Ataraxion? Exsilium? He couldn't say, not without someone to tell him the right of it. Whether they were ghosts or truly present, though...

Comments

[firstroar]

"Blue-1," he corrects, squinting. "Which one are you? You..." He squints harder. "You don't look like the rest of us. Why? Who are you?"

[vaccination]

"Ellie. It's me, Ellie," she says, slowly, and approaching him in a likewise manner. "You know who I am."

[firstroar]

Ellie. Blue's head ducks a little when she moves, his own body leaning as if to back away, but he remains rooted. Ella he knows, one of the girls whose powers awoke not long after his. But this Ellie is definitely not Ella. He shakes his head a little, but even doing so, there's something nagging him. Something...that makes him feel very strange when she insists. You know who I am.

"What do you mean?" His head lifts, eyes getting a little wider. "You mean...before all of this?"

[vaccination]

She lifts her hands. No harm. She's never hurt Blue, or even little kid Blue. Which is weird, and makes Ellie think this is definitely a dream. It happens, now and then, being aware that dreams are dreams. Usually she wakes up soon after, but this time it's not happening. Maybe his presence changes something.

"Uhhm. Yes and no. Remember Exsilium? The snow?"

[firstroar]

"I don't remember anything," he says, a faint note of contempt in his voice. "They took it all away, just like all the other kids. Why do you remember if I don't?" Why is she special? It's a frightening and frustrating thought; it makes his jaw clench.

But her insistence and the words twist in his head and make him doubt his own. She's right, but he can't perceive it so easily in this delirious, false memory.

"Ex...silium..." He frowns darkly, struggling with the word. Do I know it?

[vaccination]

She doesn't really get what he's going on about. Her hands remain in front of her, but she takes a step forward.

"We're friends."

A word she still has trouble with sometimes, considering there was a point where she would have a hard time naming two. It's been easier in Exsilium, and even though they haven't known eachother all that long, she considers Blue a friend.

"I'm not a stranger."

[firstroar]

Blue's lips curl back in a grimace, and in looking up at her again, his eyes cloud over and nearly spill out sadness.

"I don't even remember what my parents looked like," he says through his teeth. "I don't remember what kind of friends I had. Or what I was like."

He shakes his head quickly and lifts an arm, scrubbing at his eyes. And when he looks up, his expression has lost its anger and his voice grown thick.

"But I believe you. Why?"

[vaccination]

"Because I'm pretty sure this is a dream. You're not a kid. Not how I know you," she says, frowning, and taking another slow step forward and reaching out to touch his arm. And she thought she had a fucked up childhood.

Ellie bites her lip for a moment.

"If it helps, I don't know what my parents looked like, either. We both turned out okay, I think."

[firstroar]

He looks down, watching her fingers graze his arm. It's not the same as touch ought to be, where his mind gets pulled fast into the thoughts and feelings of an outsider. It can't be: He's already here.

Blue's understanding of this grows slowly, but surely. There's a near-seamless shift, where the Blue he thought he was gives way to the one Ellie's certain of.

He lifts her hand off his arm, carefully cupping it in both of his hands, eyes still downcast, but there's glimpses of her to be seen now that his height is back.

"I think so, too," he murmurs. "Best we could."

[vaccination]

She's pretty sure she hasn't looked away, but somehow he's more like himself without Ellie really realizing it.

"You okay?" Dream visits are new. If this isn't something involving Blue's powers, well. That's weird and awkward and Ellie's not telling anyone about it ever.

[firstroar]

"Ellie..." Not Ella. Not any child carried away to the Shangri-La. He understands now, and the clarity doesn't stop there.

"I had resolved to avoid making you worry," he says, lifting his eyes, wearing a sad smile. "I've failed in that. I'm sorry."

He squeezes her hand before easing up to let it go. "But to be called a friend...that's an honor. I'm glad I could hear it."

[vaccination]

That's not really answering her question. She's used to dodges, thanks to Joel, but she still looks confused.

"It's okay. I don't really mind dream crashing. What's up?"

Because if he wanted to talk, she thinks the tablet is a little easier to use.

[firstroar]

This makes him hesitate, looking about the room again. With his head clearer, in a sense, it's easier to see that this is really a dream.

"I don't remember how I came here," he admits, searching for some sight that could be a clue. "Or if I was searching at all...I don't think that was the case."

[vaccination]

It's weird. Blue's so different from the grit of Boston, but she knows him, so it's a strange feeling of a piece fitting but not being the right picture.

"Sooo... what's going on? Are you asleep, too?" It would have maybe been helpful for him to do this trick when he was in his coma, but Ellie won't complain now.

[firstroar]

Even answering something that simple is a challenge. Blue frowns, hugging his elbows, pressing his arms to himself.

"I don't know, Ellie...I know that I..." He frowns. "I know I've been trying to wake up, but I've not always been sleeping." His eyes wince a little as he looks back at her. "I'm afraid it's difficult to explain."

Psychic problems.

[vaccination]

"It's okay," she says, and it feels like she tells him that a lot. Reassures him it's okay--not because things are okay, but because she's not finding him to be a bother. He seems troubled enough without having to worry about her.

She shrugs and motions at the room. "Guess you can make yourself comfortable until one of us wakes up."

[firstroar]

Ellie continues to impress, resilient girl that she is. Blue, for his part, is much more careful in this space of hers, knowing it to be more sacred than she seems to consider.

"This place..." He goes where she gestures her to, and hardly much farther. "What is it to you?"

[vaccination]

Another shrug. "It's where I used to live in Boston. A military school in the quarantine zone."

She'd be a killer no matter what.

"I guess I do dream about it a lot. I don't really miss it all that much, though. I just..."

And one more shrug.

[firstroar]

"It's familiar." He can understand that. He has no fond memories of Artemesia, but the dreams have come all the same. "It's a part of life before this world. It makes remembering...much more important."

[vaccination]

She nods. Makes sense to her. Blue probably understands this sort of stuff more than she does, anyway.

"And... before, that was you when you were my age? Or a kid?"

[firstroar]

He closes his eyes for a minute, reflecting on that confusing swirl of apprehension – where it came from, and why.

"I was fourteen," he says at last, nodding with certainty and looking back at her. "That's the youngest I remember. In being here...somehow, my heart wanted to resonate with your age. With nostalgic places of the past."

[vaccination]

"Not the most trusting kid, huh?" Which is probably stating the obvious. A kid like him, like that, wouldn't have lasted long in Boston. Hell, Ellie would probably be one of the kids bullying him for being different. It'd knock her up a peg on the totem pole.

"You grew up."

Into someone who doesn't seem to have too much trouble getting along with others.

[firstroar]

Blue nods. "Because in your memory, I was already grown. Being any other way made me a stranger to you here. And in a place of your past, I was a stranger, too."

[vaccination]

"You're definitely not a stranger now," she says with a smile, and walks in a little circle in her room. It feels a lot more real, now that she's so aware and talking to someone she knows doesn't belong here. And while the feeling is still there, she knows Rylie won't be making an appearance.

[firstroar]

Ellie's moving about makes it safer to move himself, to sit where Ellie had before he'd arrived.

"Will you tell me about this place?" he asks.