Open: A Kindness to soothe the hurts

[killedwithlove]

Cole is what he is because of what he does and so what he does is try and help.

He doesn't understand electricity, or computers, or what 'genes' are. He can't cook because he doesn't eat and he barely recognises the robots as existing because they lack the thing that makes him realise they're real.

So he lets himself sit, quiet and open and he listens for the hurts he can help. The things that need soothing and the emotional wounds that fester and need lancing and the aches that just need airing to begin healing.

And when he hears it, he follows.

OOC: (Cole is a spirit of Compassion and has an instinctively understanding of what is troubling people and what might help them recover. This can be as simple as listening to someone talk, or as complex as setting up a situation that would allow them to relax and forget about it for a while.

If your muse needs (or wants) some kindness, leave a top level and Cole will come to help.)

Comments

[livingdeadgirl]

It's been a couple weeks. Sometimes, when Ami can find enough busywork to keep her mind occupied, when she's making friends or learning things, she feels like maybe this whole situation isn't so bad. Sure, it's bad, but not the worst it could be. She can handle it. She's doing fine.

But then there are the low times, the doubts and worries and insecurities that gather like moss the longer she holds still. Near misses that remind her how much danger she's in. Nights when she can't sleep because she wants so badly to be back in her own bed, after hugging her mom and dad and telling them goodnight...

It's past midnight. She's sitting just outside the bedroom she's claimed for herself, reading by a dim light in the hall. It's her Japanese textbook - not much use here, but it's something from home.

She thought she'd just open to a random page, but what she gets... She's read it a bunch of times before. It's so trivial - how to say hello and goodbye. Yet...

"Ittekimasu," she murmurs.

It had become a little ritual with her parents, lately. They spoke English around the house, but her dad was still fluent in Japanese, and tickled pink to be able to help her practice. She'd leave for school, call out "ittekimasu," and from somewhere in the house he'd call back "itterasshai."

It translated to a sort of "see you later." I'm leaving, and I will come back.

But there's no guarantee she will, now. It could be years. It could be never. Could she really stand never hearing their voices again? Her parents, her teachers, her friends? They'd never know what happened to her. She could die here, and they'd never know.

She shuts the book and pulls her knees in close. Her eyes water.

"Ittekimasu."

[killedwithlove]

Her hurt is louder enough that it drowns out the wrongness, that Cole approaches and doesn't immediately realise that she's not really there, that there's her and something else that sleeps, or is Tranquil, is wrong.

But the hurt is loud and he approaches, shy and quiet. "His voice calls back, Itterasshai, but I don't know if it's true anymore, will I go home again? You remember what matters, even if the details soften and blur."

[livingdeadgirl]

Hearing a quiet voice, Ami raises her head, blinks a few times and wipes her eyes. She didn't hear him approach, he's just there all of a sudden, as if he was never anywhere else.

She's a little wary - what's he doing out here in the middle of the night? Then again, it's not like she's one to talk. Maybe he just can't sleep, either. He phrased that stuff in a really weird and vaguely unsettling way, but it echoed her own feelings pretty much to the letter.

"I guess," she says, then rubs her eyes again and yawns. "Sorry. I wasn't making too much noise, was I?"

[killedwithlove]

He has the pale, washed out skin and bruised, sunken eyes of an insomniac, or malnutrition. or both. He doesn't look up at her, watching his hands, picking at the threads of the cloth wrapped around his fingers and hands.

"No. Your hurt was loud, clear, but even if you don't remember the specifics, you never forget the things that matter. The way that voice made you feel, the warmth of the love of what that means. Those don't fade."

[livingdeadgirl]

Maybe it's the dim light or the lateness of the hour, but the longer she looks at Cole, the eerier his presence feels. It's as if she's entered a twilight zone where fantasy and reality mingle freely, but which one is he? Both, neither? A wandering spirit visiting in a dream?

She's got to be dreaming, right? How else would a total stranger know what she's thinking, and exactly what to say? How would he "hear" someone else's hurt?

Why would his words be resonating so much?

In her head, they make sense. She may forget her father's voice, but not his love. And he may be right, but she can't shake the feeling there's something more to it.

You never forget the things that matter.

But... she has, she realizes. Suddenly, overwhelmingly, she's certain she's forgotten something. Something that mattered so, so much.

"Wait," she says, getting to her feet. "What do you mean? What did I forget?"

(Aradia's soul stirs in its sleep. Doesn't awaken - not yet. But it could. All it needs is to remember itself...)

[killedwithlove]

"I am a spirit, you're not dreaming. I don't go into the Fade anymore. I can't here and I don't want to. I just listen for the hurts, so I can help."

So that answers that.

"Everyone forgets specifics. Mortals aren't meant to remember everything always." But as he says it, her hurt is burning off into fear and he suddenly sees it.

His eyes go wide. "You're... Tranquil? No. She lives in you, sleeps in you, you're an Abomination." His voice drops and he steps back. His step takes him back three steps, with a flicker of smoke around him. "You're you, but she's there too, she shouldn't be in a mortal! It's not good for either of you, you'll go like Anders, like Vengeance, you need to get out!"

It's not anger. Fear, definitely. Maybe something a touch closer to horror or revulsion. And he backs up further, in another flicker and curl. "Mortal bodies aren't for spirits to live in!"

[livingdeadgirl]

The accusation comes out of nowhere, hitting her like a punch to the gut.

"What...?"

She shrinks back, flinches as he moves faster than he moves. An abomination? No one's ever called her something so cruel before, why would he say that, she hasn't done anything wrong! What is he talking about? Who's "she"?

"I don't understand," she murmurs.

He blinks away again, and it hits her - he's afraid. He's at least as scared of her as she is of him. Scared... and disgusted.

But she hasn't done anything wrong.

She doesn't understand. Nothing he's saying makes sense. She wants to flee, but her legs won't move. Tears run down her cheeks. All she can muster is a quiet, pathetic protest.

"Stop it...! You're scaring me!"

[killedwithlove]

He's definitely frightened.

"No, not you! Her! Her in you, sleeping, Tranquil, too powerful, she'll hurt you if she stays and you'll hurt her and she has to get out!!" Cole cringes back. "I'm sorry, I don't want to scare you, don't want to hurt you, but two people shouldn't be in one body!"

He looks at her, then seems to look past her, deeper, deeper than any gaze should. "She's asleep in you, but if she wakes... she'll hurt you. She will hurt you. She has to go away."

If she woke up, maybe Cole would be able to read her, understand more, but she wasn't and he couldn't.

But something... did echo.

"What did you forget? No. What did she forget?"

[livingdeadgirl]

He doesn't want to scare her? Too late for that. His eyes, reflecting in the dark, seem to pierce right through her, opening her heart and examining its contents, and finding inside it - something monstrous. A slumbering horror that must never awaken.

What has she forgotten?

Ami raises a hand to her heart, her breathing shallow. Her other hand fumbles for the controls on her bedroom door.

"Y... you need to leave," she says shakily. "You go away. Leave me alone."

The door hisses open, and she ducks inside and starts mashing the CLOSE button. Please don't follow please don't hurt her please leave her alone.

[killedwithlove]

She yells at him to go and Cole vanishes. He turns and run, but he's gone in a puff of black-green smoke as he runs, willing himself away faster and further than any legs can move.