And when you take me in your Mind..
In short, the Gestalt Pair of Ataxia and Lupe go to Beta of Hydra for help. Into Hydra, they meet with Psi.. and both begin to recover. Lupe finds her voice over her bitterness once more, Ataxia's release is her sister's release in this.
StrangeWarp(#223RLJ)
Hydra/Beta is simply a presence, curiously waiting for *something* on the edge of some ocean heavily strained with disturbing colors. And, this is what she is thinking about, even as she sprawls out by the fountain in the main square.
A pair of toy jackals, ragged and decayed looking, make their way through the warp. Both seem not to mind their surroundings, however out of place their bright colourations are, their very smiles forever etched, their redesign to something of simple happiness. Minds not matching bodies, though, have brought the gestalt pair into a state that might be a little shocking, though. Latex hangs off of them in strands, plastic claws lay frayed on the end of hands adorned with ripped gloves. They stopped worrying about fighting their internal order ill match to their body, it seems. As they walk forward, one stops, though its hard to tell one from another from sight alone. She calls out quietly, a soft vibrating howl, high and long trailing.. then, another.. "Beta.. Please, talk with us?" the other says.
Hydra/Beta rises, with a slow almost telekinetic standing, as if she's pulling herself by something other than muscle. Her tatters, some suggesting elegant lacings, some Charm-bright, some quite plain, some shiny and sleek... all flutter, as if some strange life stirs through them. And, Beta smiles, teeth revealing with a warm gleam. "Why, hello, dear ones. What would you like from me this fine skan?"
Lupe rubs a paw absently against her throat, as she's not howled around the latex before, and now that it's the first time, her own influence is attacking the lining... so she has that ticklish kind of sensation in the passage. Annoying, but not harmful. And since Ataxia has had more often and more recent contact with Beta, she keeps quiet on this one.
The jackals are rather close in appearance in that way, though its all charm tatters, really. The endlessly smiling pair approaches closely.. "Beta, you know of my sister from my memories.. but you have not met her. She spent an additional month inactive after the dump. I was immediately active." Ataxia trails.. She reaches out a hand quietly.. "You helped me to cope. You've been there with me when it helped most. My sister Lupe is myself, we remade each other slowly into our images, but I cannot do the same for her entirely as you did for me. She and I feel alone save for ourselves." she continues. Her free hand holds Lupe's closely..
Morgan is, as usual, tucked away into an alcove on the far end of the square. As quiet and still as the grave.
Hydra/Beta's smile widens, even as she begins to spread into two circles around the pair, another Beta emerging to join in on the other circle. And, she speaks, "We have met, once before, with her as a wall, and I introduced herself to a pyramid of trapped memories." And, then, both pause in their nearly ritual circling. "And, now, do you then wish for her and you to come with us?" She seems to be speaking the 'you' in a plural, not singular, sense.
Ataxia nods softly, her smile.. forever. She looks from one Beta to the other, the soft draw of air past rubberized teeth almost an inward hiss, but not one of anger or fear.. but not of release, either. "I want us to come with you." she responds, quietly. "She needs to know.. and we need to know.. how to cope.. when realities are shattered, and there's no foothold left. We are both too young to know many things like this, even collectively, even in separate."
Lupe is admittedly a trifle confused by how she could be recognized in such a state... Change in species, change in chemistry... plus the latex shreds of a dream faded and gone? A rather astute bit of detective work. There seems to be two of Beta, though, which is fitting for two jackals, though this one still holds her tongue; anything that she *does* say will be gestalt mind-talk.
Ataxia did mention Lupe's name, outright, so it could have helped.
Yes, but that would be logic, and we don't need no *steen-king* logic!
Hydra/Beta gazes directly at Lupe, blowing her a kiss. Two kisses. "Come on in, then, taste our countless and countless memories." Emptinesses glitter, twisting green lights dancing over the eyes. "Dear Lupe, you have an altered aura, but you still taste in some way like yourself." "You smell of yourself." She isn't speaking of physical sensations. Sweeping together, two figure almost colliding, weaving rapidly amidst the two jackals once toys, suddenly drawing in close to a warm, fizzling touch. "You are bound together in strength and weakness, let us help you find that strength so that it will drown out the weakness."
Ataxia sighs out softly through her teeth. Her eyes would close a moment, but she is incapable of the action. Some of her distress is tangible. Whereas her distress before was vague and with an absent care of sorts, there is something stronger with the two jackals around. "Take us in, Beta.." both respond, Ataxia's head down. "Let us find lost strengths, strengths unknown. Let us take hold in the world, rather than simply decay.."
You whisper, "Ataxia's mind touches yours.. and encourages you.. a kiss.. a request.. to speak to Beta as well, not simply speak the thoughts that occur so strongly between the pair, but.. what memories might remain, what emotion is left.. break free, allow it.." to Lupe.
Lupe keeps her eyes on one Beta, focusing in upon it to the exclusion of the other, like one who's trying to break a game of Three-Card Monte... Such observations are really uite true; what harms one, harms both, and likewise for healing. Her own muzzle moves, speaking Ataxia's plea, as her own mind chews over the offer. "Any help you could offer would be greatly appreciated."
The mirror-blob swells into a pregnant sphere and then bursts to release Kosmos.
Kosmos sighs and moves about his buisness.
Kosmos hmmms.
Hydra/Beta blends together, into one and three, a convulsing of conjoined bodies giving rise to that third. And, now, the trio speaks, the single one being strikingly different and easier to mark apart from the others, "Let us open the gate, then." "Pick your choice of strengths." "Queen or demon or tower or self." The third, a plant-being, splits to form the frame for a door.
Lupe whispers, "Lupe is just as loathe to share her innermost hurts with others as she is with you, though... even more so with others, since they don't have the benefit of a mental link; she can be fooled with protestations of well-being. Why invite questions she wouldn't want to answer, when a suitable liberty with the truth will provide a tenable status quo?" to you.
Hydra barely gives an attention to Kosmos. Unafraid, even of being defined into stasis.
You whisper, "Ataxia will not force you.. of course, Beta can.. link. "What do we have to lose?" she asks, quietly, through the link. "Ourselves. What more?" she asks. "Why not want to answer, at this point?" she considers. "If you want to try to shape this in a way.. tell me how?"" to Lupe.
Kosmos hmms. "Demon."
Hydra/Beta singsongs toward Kosmos, "Our offer, dear bringer of unchanging, is not for you but for the duo of Ataxia and Lupe."
Morgan, still sitting in his alcove across the square, calls out to Kosmos. "Oh, eternal one, spare us your mewls. Leave this place this instant, for we do not wish to see such perversions of the way of things, such abominations, in our midst. So speaks the High Lord Morgan."
Lupe whispers, "Lupe's answer flickers back, wisping across your mind before she gets distracted with the other duo present. "Strength is different that weakness. Hurt is weakness. Find more strength, not need weekness for that." (And no, I don't want to shape this in any way, shape, or form.)" to you.
Kosmos intones, "I am denied none in this place. Hinder me at your own peril."
Morgan calls out, arrogantly, "I am Lord of this court, plebian. Bow as you would address me, or prove your worth and step into the puddles, and let the gift of the Hemotopians choose you, for good or ill."
Ataxia considers the thoughts.. "Subconscious creativity and imagination, Strong bindings and structure which can be held, actual understanding but the chance to be struck down, or once more back to pure unbroken ideals of self.." she considers.. "Or do I imagine the choices wrong, Beta, and friend?" she asks, quietly.. she looks to her sister, blowing softly across her muzzle.. And coos, aloud.. "I don't know where we might be strongest.." she admits.
Kosmos steps forward into a puddle of Strange virus and it recoils from him remembering the last time it tried to consume him...he advances on Morgan with the icy calm of eternity behind his eyes.
Morgan sniffs. "Worthless," he proclaims.
You whisper, "Ataxia wants your hand in this. She wants to know the best way to help her sister, and wants to guide her across the river to the other side, where they both may lay, pant, then stand again, stronger.." to Lupe.
Kosmos intones, "I am the function that will still all that is Strange if it harms any other warp. My hand is stayed only by Mother's will. And she alone I listen too."
Morgan eyes Kosmos from above. "Riot? Wot's this, Mother? Ain't nothin' goin' t' stop o' still me. Now shut up, an' let this happen, riot?"
Kosmos cools not taking the bait. "Mind my words, but seek your own counsel. It seems that is all you listen too." He turns and goes back his original position and continues to study the air about him.
Lupe hears each of the options outlaid one-by-one, differing shades of just how far the help extends before leaving the supposedly-finished product ready. With the other confrontation going on, it helps to still any words in her throat; a mute nod will have to suffice.
Hydra/Beta giggles in pairs, "Come with us, and you can taste futures." And, then, they pull open the door that was Hydra/Gamma, exposing a gaping... greenness, almost a nest, twisting passage without defining walls. The air in front of the open gate is already warping with strange aethers, dustdevils springing into brief lives. It might even be something Kosmos hasn't experienced before. Or not. But it is open for Lupe and Ataxia alone. "Come within me, dear two, drift in rivers of memories of past and of your futures."
Kosmos walks deeper into the Strange off on his own business soft crystaline sounds echo behind him as the virus freezes from his steps and then shatters to freedom a second later. The sound drifts away as he advances.
Ataxia breathes in slowly past rubberized teeth. Her nod is in unison with Lupe's, her tail lashing slowly.. She looks in past what was Gamma, and for a moment, she looks to her gestalt sister. And with a soft squeeze of her hand, she steps forward with her, leading her on, or walking in perfect step. "I am thirsty.." she whispers. "I want to taste. I want to know, what I might have, what I might share. Or else, I will simply decay, if nothing else."
Kosmos walks back from deeper into the Strange. This time not alone it seems. In his arms is a nude figure of a feline female. Quiet and uniform in color. A closer inspection shows her to be almost mannequin like in her uniformity. She lays her head on his shoulder and the face is a muted almost featureless thing. He cradles her with most care. Flakes of Strange Warp drifting off her and him...dead.
Calamity has connected.
Calamity wakes up, then yawns, and stretches.
Kosmos reaches down with his free set of arms and plucks a strangeflower, freezing it to perfection and puts it in his mannequin's clay like hair. "There we go dear. What a mess. Worrying your parents so. I doubt we would have found you if I hadn't set out right away. " He sighs. "Just rest now, I'll redefine the rest of you back when we get home."
Lupe has the hold of her other half, her sister, to steady her. Balance her in an inherently unbalanced situation. Not to the point that the jaqls are leeching off of each other in a vain attempt at repair, but somewhere in the vicinity. But her own words are more to the effect of "I just want to know" as a path is struck down the tunnel.
Kosmos watches the facinating Hydra's actions and her 'guests' interactions, recording for a moment.
Hydra/Beta holds out both pairs of arms, the two of her extending out welcomes toward the jaql-pair as they step towardinto the gaping portal Gamma now is. "Life is a struggle against decay. Grow." Almost sinister purrs blending together, yet warm. The two are now leaning together, taller than door, taller than two jackals, taller than thenselves, the shadows of their bodies weakening and the intense devouring green light seeping out...
Calamity gets up and watches, with a bit of interest.
The mirror-blob swells into a pregnant sphere and then bursts to release sabina.
Kosmos shifts and a sound is freed from his vicinity. For a second you can hear the laughter of children.
sabina slips out of the mirror, stumbling a little and sighing softly. Scenting the air, nose flaring a few times, kitten ears perked. "Hi Ms Calamity! Hello everyone."
Kosmos nods to sabina, swaying his charge gently in his arm. Covering her exposed waxen flesh with his arms and distorted light.
Calamity nods to sabina, and says, "Hello there, kitten. How about you come over here, and mind the puddles."
sabina mews soflty, nodding and padding towards the voice, brow furrowing. "Puddles of what Ms Calamity?" Not noticing Kosmos's nod, in fact completely unable to see it. Approaching very close t
Calamity, purring loudly. "Have missed You!"
Calamity hugs sabina lightly, and says, "Puddles of strangevirus, kitten. You *are* aware you came into the Strangewarp, aren't you?"
Kosmos intones, "I would advise standing close...but not too close to me. The virus stills in my presence. "
sabina squirms a little, pressing into the hug, nodding slightly. "i sort of thought so Ms Calamity, didn't know the virus was in puddles though. It seems to have become more, common then?" Purring and nuzzling Her generous cleavage. "Thank you Sir, that's most kind of you. i'm sabina and you are?" Head turning slightly in Kosmos's direction.
The Jackals are quiet, for the most part. Undisturbed by the green light, the noises, at least for the most part, by one part of the gestalt mind's experience. Though, then. that mind wasn't afraid or hesitant even before. Twin tattered toy jaqls, holding eachother's hands hands as they lean together and listen to the purrs, perhaps like that of a wounded kitten.. And, arms together and arms around the pair, they step inward, silently, one quieted by the other in some way, but its never sure quite which one.
Pulsing Green
A green light caresses you, the very hue pulsating right at you, each cycle drawing your rhythms close to its own, so that resisting it is a long, continual drain. Here, the curls and lines within the very construction of the place seem to run together, blending and meeting at a center. You are stained, touched, greened. Only your strength of soul will avail you, should you wish to resist.
Slowly, the twists open before you, softening their pressures... and, imageries seethe through.
painlonging The green tendrils twining beneath Ataxia/Lupe, cradling them... Intense heavy memories, replaying pasts... William... Toymaker... Frostbyte... Keharl... Explorations of (Ataxia?), Hydra pressprobing upon her, being probed... "You have possibilities, this is why you interest me."
Lupe is hard-pressed simply to cope with the realm she finds herself and her gestalt in... It's lacking any sort of coherency that would allow her to give it a description. And yet even as she feels the tendrils sliding around her, and against the rags of shredded latex, she knows, wholeheartedly, that the admission of their host is meant for the other half of her pair. Unified in mind, differentiated in body by others. So her own focus is on watching the flickering images, to see what she's not familiar with.
Ataxia leans, holds the tendrils, and shudders softly, and sighs softly.. "We have touched both possibilities, and very frequently, the seeming end of possibilities, Beta. I've invested myself into the possibilities of my sister most strongly.. But, so many times, together, we have found nothingness. I care less, often, as I don't hold strong onto some things anymore.. but it leaves her more desolated than I, as her hopes are rarely met or exceeded." she starts.. She watches her sister for some time.. She could say its not true, that Beta has welcomed both equally and would have done the same for Lupe if she asked (though she likely would not have)... but even coming from her sister, Lupe might yet not have the strength of self to touch more than the worst. And Ataxia rests, watching, distraught, distant from all, and unsure how to change this, but wanting it desperately.. The young jackal knows no better than to try for the best for her sister, and offer her the scraps she finds..
The scenes... are intended to how how much Hydra already knows Lupe and Ataxia... they are from their shared pasts, from Lupe's meeting with Hydra and the Pyramid, from Beta's curious couplings with Ataxia, the doe's body distorted into odd sticky dripping honey/nectar by entropic/ordering fields. And, suddenly, the shift, as a flashback of Beta stating, "You could be a Queen within Strange," to Ataxia. And, then, Psi rises, out of pools indeterminate in location.
Hydra/Psi
She is utter vagueness, an overlap of more shades and shapes than is readily comprehended by most. Locked into a faintly humanoid shape, with green blurs around the edge.
She is utter clarity, manifested straight angular patterns cast in paleflesh. Plainly human more or less, veiled in buckles, lace, fishnet gloves, rich finery of black and red with white and silver trimmings.
She is a conflict of two states, cube inside-out or outside-in, old crone or young woman, vase or kissing faces, all depending on your viewing of her.
Hydra/Psi speaks, "Ultimately it's all about the will to power, really. The will to power over what one is." A curious smile or a lifting of her eyebrow. "How many people do you see living to their full potentials?"
Ataxia licks her lips softly, liquid latex glistening.. "Will to power is to become itself, through overcoming all resistance to it.." she offers, quietly.. "I've known something of this.. Maybe you taught me, in all the coping methods you downloaded into me. I can't remember, but I know its there some how.. Which of Hydra are you?" she asks, curiously.. "I see almost no one living to their full potentials. I'm not sure if I see any. I had tried to do that myself, I was so vastly incomplete I stumbled and could only take so much of what was offered to me at a time.." she continues. Her tail lashes slowly as she looks to her sister, and back.. "My creation was to surpass my creator.. Lupe's.. creation, I think.. shall become mine, in time.. I will erase her creation, and all the pain it brings her.." Her rubber teeth click together at the end.
Lupe already knew of her own ignominious beginnings with Beta, but Ataxia's? Those always seemed to lack any sort of frame of reference, like saying 100 and forgetting to mention just *what* one has a hundred of. So seeing it again, in a relief against the same scenes of herself... It helps clarify, but not illuminate. That, she feels sure, will come later; people *never* illuminate up front - it spoils the surprise the waiting can be a game of power in itself. "For damn sure I wasn't," she mutters. "Amnesiac, broken from the very moment of creation... I only *just now* get a moment of completeness, and the rest of reality has to come along and fix that catastrophic blunder."
Ataxia breathes in through her teeth slowly as she listens to her sister.. "That's very much the same as me, in some ways. But I had the completion of knowing that my creator sacrificed themselves to create me. Thus, there was little to look back to. I don't know the details, I'm not intend to.. that's their work, and the beauty of it is in part that they should never see what they created, yet know it in every detail.. and I should never know, so I might go on to new things, untainted by what they could not overcome.." she trails.. "I already started to recreate you, Lupe. In Topwarp, that day, while everyone gasped at the prospect and the act before them in public. We can go further, until you've only the most tangential of relationships with your creation. You can be completed with me."
Lupe looks at the other jackal, remembering a wonderful, sunny day of debauchery and squealing with the repulsed citizenry of Topwarp give an equally obscene berth around the affair. It's true... that day she was shifted, molded into a near replica of Ataxia, but with minor flaws still yet remaining, to tell one from another. Which have since faded, washed away like a protruding stone does in the path of surf. Her paw lifts, looking at it, the ragged latex and pitted plastic that are supposed to be claws... the bare skin beneath that even now likely starts growing a pelt anew... "I want to be complete, but I never want to forget, either. Perfection is something I've found in you, sister, but losing my past means laying aside an axe to grind."
Ataxia's hand reaches out.. and quietly, she holds Lupe's, her thumb brushing on the middle of her palm, almost as tattered, if it were not for her longer hold out, and the help of Squeak. She remembers the day.. She had molded Lupe before, gave her whole new sensations from it.. and, has continued to do so. Part of her thinks she may have lead her astray in some way, but she doesn't regret anything she's done with Lupe, even the hard parts. A broken thumb claw slowly trace as she looks down to it as well. So much promise, so much tattered being.. "Let me grind the axe with you.. Let me be there for you. Let me help pull you from the brink when you've gone to destroy that which abandoned you. So I can do what they never did for you. So I can offer you what you were missing, rather than leave you just alone, with absolution but no direction, no fix but the ending of pain. I want to be there to give you the beginning of everything, of happiness again, or at least purpose with me."
Lupe covers your paw with hers, holding it between both of her own, now as before. There's a soft smile from her, with eyes that only speak of their haunting. "The beginning of everything? I'll settle for peace and happiness; my own bitterness and envy are like running on a treadmill - even with more and more, I have to keep up the same pace to keep from being thrown off." Her bare pad is beneath your claw, along with a sliver of latex that rolls around, pried loose by decay and not yet burned away to nothing.
Ataxia's eyes touch yours, her ears drawn back, her breath held for a moment. She knows the haunting, she can feel it straight through her.. Her ears rise again, though, and her forever smile grows just a bit.. "Peace and happiness is enough. Its a lot, in fact. Bitterness, envy, jealousy.. I didn't know such things existed when I was first born, but I have tasted them all.. In some ways, I am better for it.. There was a time where I wouldn't admit such a thing.." she sighs softly.. "But that doesn't mean one has to endure it endlessly. Yes, I can touch on the negative and not drown, now.." she smiles a little.. She brushes the bit of latex.. "But I still want a perfection.. I guess.. that I can include such things in perfection.." she whispers.. She falls in against you quietly, her arm slipping under yours and around.. "This feels like.. direction.. that we've made ourselves.."
Lupe gratefully takes that hug, such a simple expression of care from so cherished a being. Yes, Hydra/Psi has a definite vantage of good will, even as the green tendrils hover in the background. What happened to the ideal? It fell, in the face of the real. But that's no reason to her to stop longing for that which can never be. Still and all, in a gentle hug with you, nestled front to front, she just wishes to lay her cheek against your shoulder and rock quickly in the green gloom. "We can take a small amount of it and still be perfect, dear; burning it away totally would include forgetting it existed. But yes, we've struck a direction towards a goal nigh impossible. So how do we get there?"
Ataxia enjoys her surroundings, oddly. The green tendrils. The home of Hydra and its myriad components. She feels at ease here, sanctuary with her sister. Perhaps its a place which would scare many, but she's been places like that before, and even lived there. The toymaker labs, to some, are a hellish dungeon, for instance. The green is not so much gloom to her. Its a comfort which lights her tattered flesh up and makes it unified again if only in colour.. "When I was first here.. you know my story, I know.. but, I was utterly indifferent to so much. Ignorant of the emotions, I could do anything.. Literally. You helped break me of that.. you were really the first break, because I cared for you.
I'm not unhappy it happened.. I got to see the nature of people, that way. How many tried to take away my will. Those few who cared enough to give me my will back. The gradient of all." she rambles quietly a moment.. "Reminiscing.. it isn't always bad.." she smiles softly.. "Our goal may be impossible. Beta says she might ascend in a million wheels. I'm not entirely sure what that means, but I think it means there's not just an impossible ideal.. but something to reach for. Will it be okay if it takes a million wheels?" she asks, her head a little to the side. "What do we need to know? How do we need to grow? What do we need to be stronger? Can we go unhurt by the slings, arrows, and outright fits of others, or will they continue to be able to hurt us? Will we be able to take what's good, and leave the rest with a few disdainful scratches of hindpaws? I'm not sure, but change is welcome. From tatters to something more. Perhaps just outfits to start, you had beautiful designs made for you
.. you in Topwarp.." she smiles..
Lupe considers that for a long moment, just taking an ease of rest with her sibling and listening to words that really make a lot of sense. Few actually have the keys for getting past her stubborn streak, and Ataxia would be one of them. Which is just as well, because the mention of clothing long forgotten has her laughing despite the present mood and somber circumstance. "They weren't made for me, dear sister; those work clothes I found were in the ruins of the Galleria."
Ataxia giggles.. "Like hell they weren't made for you.." she offers, leaning forward.. She touches as small kiss to Lupe's chin.. "They were made for you in every way by the time they were on you. Whatever their origin, they were really made for you. Beautiful.. I think we might find the same.. We were made for each other, by each other. Then made more like each other, our happy chevron, our matching set.." she trails.. She reaches up a hand, stroking her sister's cheek. "Whatever we find, if we want it, and can have it, then we'll make it ours, just like that.."
Hydra/Psi dangles and drapes, a curiously increasing length, a lazy arm reaching down. Her frame an upside down display of beautiful ruffs to you, even with the surface underneath always shifting, it always fits her. Her eyes gleam, always jade. "I am Psi, I am Jade, I am near the end of the path of transcendance the rest of me still slowly treads. I have stepped through enormous pain, and a part of me still suffers that pain. One day you may meet that pain as it walks around. Do not fear it, for it is the most dangerous aspect of me, but it is one that shall, too, pass on, and I have marked You. You bear sigils of protection from me even without knowing it. Let me tell you, the path I have treaded is an easy one to be lost on, but I have treaded it, and now I merely wait for the rest of me to catch up before I take my final step." A slow, slight smile. A little suggestion of cruelty, but one with odd benevolent drives. "Pain is a powerful impetus. You have tasted deeply of impetus."
Lupe is all the more earnest in her protestations at the chiding she takes, a mild tweak by a well-meaning sister who intends to compliment. But this jackal tends to be a bit of a literalist at times, and the possibility of confusion over the nature of her absent clothing is one that must be rectified. "It's true, dear... But I'm not sure it could even withstand our influence now; I found it before I found you if you'll recall." A voice? Stirring? ...Oh-ho, their host is rousing from observation. Even though she heard quite well that she was unaware of the sigil, she still looks down at herself and her sister, halfway expecting some glowing rune or other such visual auras. "Each in our own way, yes... and with our own preferred flavor of it."
Ataxia reaches up to touch an arm reaching down, to brush a finger to a palm.. "I was told to seek you out at some point, and speak with you, Psi, or Jade.." she coos softly.. She cants her head.. "How many wheels before you are to move onward, do you suspect?" she asks.. "Is there a time without pain.. or when that comes, is there nothing more? The time as a toy passed with little concept of time for us.. There was no pain, no impetus except that which was given to us by others.." she continues.. "I suspect this to be the case if such a time comes again.. Pain.." she trails.. "By all rights.. we should progress quickly.. we have such impetus.." she whispers.. "But we're lost in pain, too.. Have you been lost before, on the path we here all seem to travel?" she continues.. "I want to stop fearing pain. It came with pain, though, when I first touched it. Pain brought everything else, including fear in its wake. Fear often seems a pain of its own.." she continues.. "I wish to meet all aspects of you, all aspects of Hydra, in time.." She turns to Lupe by the end, though, and glances down with her still forever open eyes.. She reaches out, and touches the lens on Lupe, smiling a little warmly.. "If it matches our internal order.. we can accept it, still.."
Hydra/Psi quietly responds, brushing her palm acrosss Ataxia's palm, resting upon Lupe's cheek. "Dear ones, pain can be impetus both toward correct and wrong paths. Charm... it is another path to tread if not one to my taste. Theeka is more well experienced in that path than any aspect of me, and more than most of Charm. I am the end of a mad spiral that is oddly rational to take. The loss of ego and morality, the regaining of them when ones perspectives have been broken and made anew, so that one is no longer trapped by the old way. The paths of Charm are not for you even if they have been valuable experiences. The paths of Strange may not be for you. But I see you reaching out and I want to help you. Whatever paths you select, I want them to be toward the end of making yourself... someone that can reach your goal. Perfection, in your own ways."
Hydra/Psi pauses. "The one named Neg... is one who have reached the same stage as me and then gotten lost, even at that advanced stage, even as she turned back just to seek to help others along it. This is not what made her lost, but rather the forgetting of what precisely she was striving toward. She still tastes the bitter pain of that, and the bitter pain of seeing many in her home warp being lost on the mad spiral I spoke of."
Hydra/Psi smiles. "But she, too, will reach that end. All will, in time."
Lupe lifts her head from Ataxia's shoulder, pressing the other furless, tattered-latex cheek she bears into Jade's palm... How much of that pain was caused by her, in one form or another? How much could she have spared her sibling? Even should the answer be none, it's still something that acts as a nettle in her fur, goading her to look up at Psi with laid-aside ears. "Is it possible? To reach our goal?"
Hydra/Psi laughs. "Of course." She strokes, caresses, that cheek. "Strive. Many will not understand, but they have failed you anyway. Even with good intentions, they fail to understand you. You still care about hurting them. This may be obstructive, or it may aid you. I cannot decide your correct path for you, but I can give you the strength to do *what you must*. That is the greatest strength of Strange, the strength to taste the opposition, the disapproval of others, and to do it anyway."
Hydra/Psi's stroking hand is wood, marble, jade, flesh, bone...
Ataxia feels her sister has done not a thing wrong, that her pain was not wrong to have, just not set in the right direction.. That the pain she shared simply has been an impetus, though until having brought her sister to Beta, and thus the Hydra Network, it had only focus inward, only enough to lash out at the most direct of causes.. "A spiral seems to cover a lot of ground. Perhaps its not so mad in that way." she offers, quietly.. "I like Charm, and some times, I think tasting it won't be bad. I like Strange, and perhaps I shall taste that, too. I don't know what we will be in the end. But that's okay, not knowing. Just knowing we will be something rather than a forgotten decoration with meaning long gone somewhere.. that's good enough.." she trails, and listens to Psi further.. "I did things anyway, knowing disapproval.. but I hadn't really tasted it before.. It was a shock which brought me to inaction at times, but.. I overcame it, at least once.."
Lupe spares a moment to Jade's hand, as she feels the sudden compulsion to nuzzle against her sister for just a moment - friendly and even a touch playful under the right light and vantage point. "Whereas I... I'm the one with the independent streak a mile wide. If someone says do something, I'll dig in my heels. They say don't do something, I'll be first one in line." The relevance of the statement sort of fades from her grasp, until her muzzle clicks shut, bared bone scraping bare patches of teeth clean.
Hydra/Psi's smile deepens. Cruel, sly, kind. "Even when you are complacent, you are not complacent. It is easier to set you upon your own paths than for those whose are satisfied with who they are, or simply do not think much about it, or thinks the way to perfect themselves lies in slight improvements without looking much further beyond. If you find your own path, you will change in such ways that people will be scared of losing you. Maybe they will lose you, too. But... that can be a price of doing what you must to reach your potentials. People can be aid and trap, the latter most especially when they have no real ambitions to see you evolve." A tracing of her hand further down, soft brushing. "And being contrary can be a trap as well, as you forget what you wanted to do in the first place as you think more about what other people do not want you to do."
Ataxia's muzzle dips in against Lupe's, touching, brushing little wisps of once beautiful latex away, perhaps to touch flesh below.. The arm around her holds a little tighter, but her smile remains over the smile she always has. "I am complacent in only a few things, if any. I am complacent to continue growing closer to my sister, to gain different freedoms within our increasingly gestalt state. Complacencies like that arn't really ones at all.." she laughs softly.. "I have been scared of losing people. That's broken, recently.. Partially by realizing that I could not really control such things. I could be a part, but the other party will always have a say, regardless of what the situation looks like.." she trails.. A few broken claws touch up to Jade's shoulder, softly stroking.. "No real poles to flock to, are there?"
Lupe solemnly nods to Jade, since the second trap is an obvious reflection upon herself. Chastisement, but it's true, so nothing to do with those words except learn 'em. "If you're looking for poles, I can think of a place that has them. Two-drink minimum, though." And then, after voicing that mild jest, she keeps talking in that same conversational tone, like nothing happened. "I'm not scared of losing people so much as I am of having something happen to Ataxia, even by myself. Everything else takes a back seat to that."
Hydra/Psi gazes at you, a short frizziness to her hair, a curiously cute style. And her eyes say much, so much that you don't really understand it. But, she does reach for you, not really with her hand. Quietly, she... offers something. "You spoke of being demons and not angels," she speaks quietly, somehow knowing of that. "I spoke of being a Queen within Strange. Beta said that, and yet it's still a possibility. With your own ultimate path, you might even be Queens within Charm at the same time. Whatever you become, it's up to you how you transcend." A shrug. "All I hope is that you transcend. Take, if you will, what I offer you. A greater will to power over yourselves. That is all you will need, for this stage." The not quite describable thing she offers throbs, as if readying itself for you. "I can help you learn to be invincible in a way, to slide around whatever might happen to you and continue onward."
Hydra/Psi says richly, "Then you will not have to fear so much for the other sister."
Ataxia giggles just a little to the joke, her whip tail lashing behind her a bit, though its a bit slower since its in tatters - almost fluffy by now. "I can handle that." she offers, and for a moment, her muzzle dips down, and a quiet kiss is placed on her sister's shoulder.. "What you say, though.." she trails a moment. "Is true for the both of us.. I fear having something happen to Lupe, even by my self. She is my sister.. if she goes.. so do I. And those are the terms that I want, and that I've drawn myself to with her. That we've wanted, and we've come upon. I don't think I will lose anyone, really.. no, they weren't mine to begin with, of course.. Everything can always come back that was once lost, though, here. Or they'll simply go on to better things, ultimately, if they don't come back. If they don't, it may not have been a good thing, ultimately, anyhow.." she coos.. She turns up to Psi, her ears high to her.. "We came for help. We've received so much, already.." she smiles slowly, warmly.. She
.. She looks to her sister, quietly, though, reaching up to stroke behind her ears.. "I don't know what we will be.. but I know we will step forward to be something, ultimately.." she whispers, and looks a little distant for a time as she touches through her sister's thoughts, a gentle caress..
You whisper, "Ataxia gives you that soft, quiet caress.. "Shall we touch the unknown offer, and take a step forward, a path to try?" she asks.. "Or is there a path to touch without help but for each other, to start? I am not opposed to a touch of direction, or a blind stumble so long as its all in your arms.."" to Lupe.
Lupe is drawn by that petting given by her sister, the kiss and touch, even the almost-musical sound of her laugh in the air - a slight lick is Ataxia's 'thank you', ghosted across where whiskers would otherwise be. The rest of her, though, is having to think about the conversation so far, up to and including the oblique offer being presented, of just what is yet to be determined. Her glassine eyes, unable to blink, flick over to the side, perhaps thinking, perhaps responding to a mental summons. "Indeed... you've been quite indulgent for a pair who had no direction."
Lupe whispers, "Lupe looks at Psi... it's not the familiar face of Beta, the doe of whom she has fond memories from both herself and you. No, this is more an unknown. She considers that, then mentally noses your shoulder. "The only difference, dear sister, is that for an unknown path, the boundaries of the trail aren't marked as clearly as one set forth. Whichever you feel is best, I will go with you upon."" to you.
You whisper, "Ataxia watches Psi, too.. Jade. This new one. Beta told her to see Psi, at some point.. "I feel neither bests the other, sister.." she responds, first. An unknown. "Do you think this path is one we could be lost on? Could we be lost on the other? Is it strange, or is it something else, just knowledge, or more than we know?" she asks, quietly. "So long as I am with you, we both come to that point.."" to Lupe.
Hydra/Psi quietly looks at Ataxia and Lupe, now with Beta's eyes and face. Then it fades back into that now familiarly inexplicable warping of a face, eyes fixed in jade. "Together, take and accept my gift. Even if it is only for a taste of something to direct yourself as a stepping point." She waits without further pressing the case, though, for you to accept or to reject the quality still held out. Patient. Her hand now slips lower down, her body gliding down. "You were pain and love and rage and happiness and hatred and... just beautiful. Your discontent over who you are is beautiful, your oneness and twoness is beautiful. Even when you yielded yourself to aesthestics alien and distasteful to me, workings of Charm, you were beautiful in a way. And you are very beautiful right now." Sly smile. "You are casting off Charm's shells. What would you like to be today?"
Lupe whispers, "Lupe hasn't shifted her gaze from our host, and she twitches her ear slightly. "Regardless of Beta's protestations, sister, we do have to remember where we are. We might well be lost to Strange on this path, or to something else on another path. Risk is unavoidable. That is why I say you would be the better judge of which path is best."" to you.
Ataxia watches her sister more than anything else for a time.. then, slips just a little, but only to curl arm in arm with her. She offers out a hand, and Lupe, a moment later as well, as the gestalt mind comes to a bit of a medium under some sort of direction. "Psi, if we will not lose ourselves on this path offered, but only gain a quality.. If we are not to be taken over by whatever has been offered, what quality, what reality that can present us the steps forward.. then, we would ask you to place it in our hands, and we will accept. We are fragile, though.. and if it may be too much for us, if we may be utterly swept away by the nameless offering, then wait until we are stronger. We barely have our feet on the ground. But we have all the wheels possible before us. In that we are both fearless and hesitant at the same time."
[OOC] Lupe . o O ( ...Yeah! What she said! )
[OOC] Ataxia grins. Well, what we said. She should have properly posed that as Gestalt voice. :>
Lupe holds her paw out as well, standing in a position that still presents a faded, torn chevron across the fronts of both of them. Uncertainty is definitely a characteristic which could be said of both halves of the pair, as well as something else: a faint glimmer of something akin to hope. If the conditions are palatable, and no treachery lurks, then just maybe the jackals will be better off for the experience.
Ataxia watches the figure of Psi, still so new to her. Friend or something else, she's not yet sure. An aspect of something that surrounds her. A recommendation of Beta. But she learns by experience, and this is her time.
Hydra/Psi quietly unreleases, releases, the /quality/ into the hands of Lupe/Ataxia, an immaterial matter now resting within their paws. It... has a protean sensation, as if when the two imbibe it into themselves, it will change into something else, more closely fitting to them. The thing... smells, tastes of what could be called a certain amount of ruthlessness, or drive, or simply self-volition... It could just be assertion. It is the blood of many mighty heroes and devils and poets, distilled into an fiery core. It tastes of pain biting yet sweet, tolerable. It is a courage to pursue a goal and bring that down in a triumph. It does not seem to diminish empathy as much as it simply increases the capacity to act.
Hydra/Psi looks at you, now solemn intensity. "If you treasure something, remember it and keep it in mind. Do not lose yourself unless that will help you reach yourself. Keep it if you need to, without taking it in, for another time."
Ataxia and Lupe draw the immaterial upwards. Fingers curl in against it, and eyes stare down as words drift across. "Our wants, and what we desire to keep, are strong in us.." she offers, as she glances to her sister. She breathes in slowly, the taste on her tongue, which lulls down just to wisp across, to understand tits nature, the taste of pain and sweet, of blood and strength that doesn't overwhelm, simply grows within. Ruthlessness is a quality within drive and volition, a possibility, or perhaps even a misunderstanding by others, or by self. The assertion of her reality is more what comes across. There will not be a loss of self, what little self there is. What's treasured will not be overcome, she's sure of it. One jackal tastes, and more if the other follows. The touch will happen all at once if at all, as the pair will work as a single body in this, that it might tie them properly together, if at all.
Hydra/Psi chuckles, "But you have to go now, don't you?" Her feet seem to have sunken back into the odd chaos she rose out. "I have pointed you in what ways I can toward your potentials." Now her torso is beginning to get engulfed, her legs having already gone into that peculiarly folding green mass. "I would enjoy another meeting, whose ending would be less hurried." A grin, even as she shifts, pulling herself in deeper until only her face is emerged out of that writhing green, looking toward you and barely distinguishable as shape not color or texture. "Until other cycles when we will meet. The portal is opened for you." And, with that, she is gone. Only an open door, ornate, much like the one that had led here.
We had to cut it short like that because Lupe had class at that point! But there will be some sort of conclusion..
StrangeWarp(#223RLJ)
Hydra/Beta is simply a presence, curiously waiting for *something* on the edge of some ocean heavily strained with disturbing colors. And, this is what she is thinking about, even as she sprawls out by the fountain in the main square.
A pair of toy jackals, ragged and decayed looking, make their way through the warp. Both seem not to mind their surroundings, however out of place their bright colourations are, their very smiles forever etched, their redesign to something of simple happiness. Minds not matching bodies, though, have brought the gestalt pair into a state that might be a little shocking, though. Latex hangs off of them in strands, plastic claws lay frayed on the end of hands adorned with ripped gloves. They stopped worrying about fighting their internal order ill match to their body, it seems. As they walk forward, one stops, though its hard to tell one from another from sight alone. She calls out quietly, a soft vibrating howl, high and long trailing.. then, another.. "Beta.. Please, talk with us?" the other says.
Hydra/Beta rises, with a slow almost telekinetic standing, as if she's pulling herself by something other than muscle. Her tatters, some suggesting elegant lacings, some Charm-bright, some quite plain, some shiny and sleek... all flutter, as if some strange life stirs through them. And, Beta smiles, teeth revealing with a warm gleam. "Why, hello, dear ones. What would you like from me this fine skan?"
Lupe rubs a paw absently against her throat, as she's not howled around the latex before, and now that it's the first time, her own influence is attacking the lining... so she has that ticklish kind of sensation in the passage. Annoying, but not harmful. And since Ataxia has had more often and more recent contact with Beta, she keeps quiet on this one.
The jackals are rather close in appearance in that way, though its all charm tatters, really. The endlessly smiling pair approaches closely.. "Beta, you know of my sister from my memories.. but you have not met her. She spent an additional month inactive after the dump. I was immediately active." Ataxia trails.. She reaches out a hand quietly.. "You helped me to cope. You've been there with me when it helped most. My sister Lupe is myself, we remade each other slowly into our images, but I cannot do the same for her entirely as you did for me. She and I feel alone save for ourselves." she continues. Her free hand holds Lupe's closely..
Morgan is, as usual, tucked away into an alcove on the far end of the square. As quiet and still as the grave.
Hydra/Beta's smile widens, even as she begins to spread into two circles around the pair, another Beta emerging to join in on the other circle. And, she speaks, "We have met, once before, with her as a wall, and I introduced herself to a pyramid of trapped memories." And, then, both pause in their nearly ritual circling. "And, now, do you then wish for her and you to come with us?" She seems to be speaking the 'you' in a plural, not singular, sense.
Ataxia nods softly, her smile.. forever. She looks from one Beta to the other, the soft draw of air past rubberized teeth almost an inward hiss, but not one of anger or fear.. but not of release, either. "I want us to come with you." she responds, quietly. "She needs to know.. and we need to know.. how to cope.. when realities are shattered, and there's no foothold left. We are both too young to know many things like this, even collectively, even in separate."
Lupe is admittedly a trifle confused by how she could be recognized in such a state... Change in species, change in chemistry... plus the latex shreds of a dream faded and gone? A rather astute bit of detective work. There seems to be two of Beta, though, which is fitting for two jackals, though this one still holds her tongue; anything that she *does* say will be gestalt mind-talk.
Ataxia did mention Lupe's name, outright, so it could have helped.
Yes, but that would be logic, and we don't need no *steen-king* logic!
Hydra/Beta gazes directly at Lupe, blowing her a kiss. Two kisses. "Come on in, then, taste our countless and countless memories." Emptinesses glitter, twisting green lights dancing over the eyes. "Dear Lupe, you have an altered aura, but you still taste in some way like yourself." "You smell of yourself." She isn't speaking of physical sensations. Sweeping together, two figure almost colliding, weaving rapidly amidst the two jackals once toys, suddenly drawing in close to a warm, fizzling touch. "You are bound together in strength and weakness, let us help you find that strength so that it will drown out the weakness."
Ataxia sighs out softly through her teeth. Her eyes would close a moment, but she is incapable of the action. Some of her distress is tangible. Whereas her distress before was vague and with an absent care of sorts, there is something stronger with the two jackals around. "Take us in, Beta.." both respond, Ataxia's head down. "Let us find lost strengths, strengths unknown. Let us take hold in the world, rather than simply decay.."
You whisper, "Ataxia's mind touches yours.. and encourages you.. a kiss.. a request.. to speak to Beta as well, not simply speak the thoughts that occur so strongly between the pair, but.. what memories might remain, what emotion is left.. break free, allow it.." to Lupe.
Lupe keeps her eyes on one Beta, focusing in upon it to the exclusion of the other, like one who's trying to break a game of Three-Card Monte... Such observations are really uite true; what harms one, harms both, and likewise for healing. Her own muzzle moves, speaking Ataxia's plea, as her own mind chews over the offer. "Any help you could offer would be greatly appreciated."
The mirror-blob swells into a pregnant sphere and then bursts to release Kosmos.
Kosmos sighs and moves about his buisness.
Kosmos hmmms.
Hydra/Beta blends together, into one and three, a convulsing of conjoined bodies giving rise to that third. And, now, the trio speaks, the single one being strikingly different and easier to mark apart from the others, "Let us open the gate, then." "Pick your choice of strengths." "Queen or demon or tower or self." The third, a plant-being, splits to form the frame for a door.
Lupe whispers, "Lupe is just as loathe to share her innermost hurts with others as she is with you, though... even more so with others, since they don't have the benefit of a mental link; she can be fooled with protestations of well-being. Why invite questions she wouldn't want to answer, when a suitable liberty with the truth will provide a tenable status quo?" to you.
Hydra barely gives an attention to Kosmos. Unafraid, even of being defined into stasis.
You whisper, "Ataxia will not force you.. of course, Beta can.. link. "What do we have to lose?" she asks, quietly, through the link. "Ourselves. What more?" she asks. "Why not want to answer, at this point?" she considers. "If you want to try to shape this in a way.. tell me how?"" to Lupe.
Kosmos hmms. "Demon."
Hydra/Beta singsongs toward Kosmos, "Our offer, dear bringer of unchanging, is not for you but for the duo of Ataxia and Lupe."
Morgan, still sitting in his alcove across the square, calls out to Kosmos. "Oh, eternal one, spare us your mewls. Leave this place this instant, for we do not wish to see such perversions of the way of things, such abominations, in our midst. So speaks the High Lord Morgan."
Lupe whispers, "Lupe's answer flickers back, wisping across your mind before she gets distracted with the other duo present. "Strength is different that weakness. Hurt is weakness. Find more strength, not need weekness for that." (And no, I don't want to shape this in any way, shape, or form.)" to you.
Kosmos intones, "I am denied none in this place. Hinder me at your own peril."
Morgan calls out, arrogantly, "I am Lord of this court, plebian. Bow as you would address me, or prove your worth and step into the puddles, and let the gift of the Hemotopians choose you, for good or ill."
Ataxia considers the thoughts.. "Subconscious creativity and imagination, Strong bindings and structure which can be held, actual understanding but the chance to be struck down, or once more back to pure unbroken ideals of self.." she considers.. "Or do I imagine the choices wrong, Beta, and friend?" she asks, quietly.. she looks to her sister, blowing softly across her muzzle.. And coos, aloud.. "I don't know where we might be strongest.." she admits.
Kosmos steps forward into a puddle of Strange virus and it recoils from him remembering the last time it tried to consume him...he advances on Morgan with the icy calm of eternity behind his eyes.
Morgan sniffs. "Worthless," he proclaims.
You whisper, "Ataxia wants your hand in this. She wants to know the best way to help her sister, and wants to guide her across the river to the other side, where they both may lay, pant, then stand again, stronger.." to Lupe.
Kosmos intones, "I am the function that will still all that is Strange if it harms any other warp. My hand is stayed only by Mother's will. And she alone I listen too."
Morgan eyes Kosmos from above. "Riot? Wot's this, Mother? Ain't nothin' goin' t' stop o' still me. Now shut up, an' let this happen, riot?"
Kosmos cools not taking the bait. "Mind my words, but seek your own counsel. It seems that is all you listen too." He turns and goes back his original position and continues to study the air about him.
Lupe hears each of the options outlaid one-by-one, differing shades of just how far the help extends before leaving the supposedly-finished product ready. With the other confrontation going on, it helps to still any words in her throat; a mute nod will have to suffice.
Hydra/Beta giggles in pairs, "Come with us, and you can taste futures." And, then, they pull open the door that was Hydra/Gamma, exposing a gaping... greenness, almost a nest, twisting passage without defining walls. The air in front of the open gate is already warping with strange aethers, dustdevils springing into brief lives. It might even be something Kosmos hasn't experienced before. Or not. But it is open for Lupe and Ataxia alone. "Come within me, dear two, drift in rivers of memories of past and of your futures."
Kosmos walks deeper into the Strange off on his own business soft crystaline sounds echo behind him as the virus freezes from his steps and then shatters to freedom a second later. The sound drifts away as he advances.
Ataxia breathes in slowly past rubberized teeth. Her nod is in unison with Lupe's, her tail lashing slowly.. She looks in past what was Gamma, and for a moment, she looks to her gestalt sister. And with a soft squeeze of her hand, she steps forward with her, leading her on, or walking in perfect step. "I am thirsty.." she whispers. "I want to taste. I want to know, what I might have, what I might share. Or else, I will simply decay, if nothing else."
Kosmos walks back from deeper into the Strange. This time not alone it seems. In his arms is a nude figure of a feline female. Quiet and uniform in color. A closer inspection shows her to be almost mannequin like in her uniformity. She lays her head on his shoulder and the face is a muted almost featureless thing. He cradles her with most care. Flakes of Strange Warp drifting off her and him...dead.
Calamity has connected.
Calamity wakes up, then yawns, and stretches.
Kosmos reaches down with his free set of arms and plucks a strangeflower, freezing it to perfection and puts it in his mannequin's clay like hair. "There we go dear. What a mess. Worrying your parents so. I doubt we would have found you if I hadn't set out right away. " He sighs. "Just rest now, I'll redefine the rest of you back when we get home."
Lupe has the hold of her other half, her sister, to steady her. Balance her in an inherently unbalanced situation. Not to the point that the jaqls are leeching off of each other in a vain attempt at repair, but somewhere in the vicinity. But her own words are more to the effect of "I just want to know" as a path is struck down the tunnel.
Kosmos watches the facinating Hydra's actions and her 'guests' interactions, recording for a moment.
Hydra/Beta holds out both pairs of arms, the two of her extending out welcomes toward the jaql-pair as they step towardinto the gaping portal Gamma now is. "Life is a struggle against decay. Grow." Almost sinister purrs blending together, yet warm. The two are now leaning together, taller than door, taller than two jackals, taller than thenselves, the shadows of their bodies weakening and the intense devouring green light seeping out...
Calamity gets up and watches, with a bit of interest.
The mirror-blob swells into a pregnant sphere and then bursts to release sabina.
Kosmos shifts and a sound is freed from his vicinity. For a second you can hear the laughter of children.
sabina slips out of the mirror, stumbling a little and sighing softly. Scenting the air, nose flaring a few times, kitten ears perked. "Hi Ms Calamity! Hello everyone."
Kosmos nods to sabina, swaying his charge gently in his arm. Covering her exposed waxen flesh with his arms and distorted light.
Calamity nods to sabina, and says, "Hello there, kitten. How about you come over here, and mind the puddles."
sabina mews soflty, nodding and padding towards the voice, brow furrowing. "Puddles of what Ms Calamity?" Not noticing Kosmos's nod, in fact completely unable to see it. Approaching very close t
Calamity, purring loudly. "Have missed You!"
Calamity hugs sabina lightly, and says, "Puddles of strangevirus, kitten. You *are* aware you came into the Strangewarp, aren't you?"
Kosmos intones, "I would advise standing close...but not too close to me. The virus stills in my presence. "
sabina squirms a little, pressing into the hug, nodding slightly. "i sort of thought so Ms Calamity, didn't know the virus was in puddles though. It seems to have become more, common then?" Purring and nuzzling Her generous cleavage. "Thank you Sir, that's most kind of you. i'm sabina and you are?" Head turning slightly in Kosmos's direction.
The Jackals are quiet, for the most part. Undisturbed by the green light, the noises, at least for the most part, by one part of the gestalt mind's experience. Though, then. that mind wasn't afraid or hesitant even before. Twin tattered toy jaqls, holding eachother's hands hands as they lean together and listen to the purrs, perhaps like that of a wounded kitten.. And, arms together and arms around the pair, they step inward, silently, one quieted by the other in some way, but its never sure quite which one.
Pulsing Green
A green light caresses you, the very hue pulsating right at you, each cycle drawing your rhythms close to its own, so that resisting it is a long, continual drain. Here, the curls and lines within the very construction of the place seem to run together, blending and meeting at a center. You are stained, touched, greened. Only your strength of soul will avail you, should you wish to resist.
Slowly, the twists open before you, softening their pressures... and, imageries seethe through.
painlonging The green tendrils twining beneath Ataxia/Lupe, cradling them... Intense heavy memories, replaying pasts... William... Toymaker... Frostbyte... Keharl... Explorations of (Ataxia?), Hydra pressprobing upon her, being probed... "You have possibilities, this is why you interest me."
Lupe is hard-pressed simply to cope with the realm she finds herself and her gestalt in... It's lacking any sort of coherency that would allow her to give it a description. And yet even as she feels the tendrils sliding around her, and against the rags of shredded latex, she knows, wholeheartedly, that the admission of their host is meant for the other half of her pair. Unified in mind, differentiated in body by others. So her own focus is on watching the flickering images, to see what she's not familiar with.
Ataxia leans, holds the tendrils, and shudders softly, and sighs softly.. "We have touched both possibilities, and very frequently, the seeming end of possibilities, Beta. I've invested myself into the possibilities of my sister most strongly.. But, so many times, together, we have found nothingness. I care less, often, as I don't hold strong onto some things anymore.. but it leaves her more desolated than I, as her hopes are rarely met or exceeded." she starts.. She watches her sister for some time.. She could say its not true, that Beta has welcomed both equally and would have done the same for Lupe if she asked (though she likely would not have)... but even coming from her sister, Lupe might yet not have the strength of self to touch more than the worst. And Ataxia rests, watching, distraught, distant from all, and unsure how to change this, but wanting it desperately.. The young jackal knows no better than to try for the best for her sister, and offer her the scraps she finds..
The scenes... are intended to how how much Hydra already knows Lupe and Ataxia... they are from their shared pasts, from Lupe's meeting with Hydra and the Pyramid, from Beta's curious couplings with Ataxia, the doe's body distorted into odd sticky dripping honey/nectar by entropic/ordering fields. And, suddenly, the shift, as a flashback of Beta stating, "You could be a Queen within Strange," to Ataxia. And, then, Psi rises, out of pools indeterminate in location.
Hydra/Psi
She is utter vagueness, an overlap of more shades and shapes than is readily comprehended by most. Locked into a faintly humanoid shape, with green blurs around the edge.
She is utter clarity, manifested straight angular patterns cast in paleflesh. Plainly human more or less, veiled in buckles, lace, fishnet gloves, rich finery of black and red with white and silver trimmings.
She is a conflict of two states, cube inside-out or outside-in, old crone or young woman, vase or kissing faces, all depending on your viewing of her.
Hydra/Psi speaks, "Ultimately it's all about the will to power, really. The will to power over what one is." A curious smile or a lifting of her eyebrow. "How many people do you see living to their full potentials?"
Ataxia licks her lips softly, liquid latex glistening.. "Will to power is to become itself, through overcoming all resistance to it.." she offers, quietly.. "I've known something of this.. Maybe you taught me, in all the coping methods you downloaded into me. I can't remember, but I know its there some how.. Which of Hydra are you?" she asks, curiously.. "I see almost no one living to their full potentials. I'm not sure if I see any. I had tried to do that myself, I was so vastly incomplete I stumbled and could only take so much of what was offered to me at a time.." she continues. Her tail lashes slowly as she looks to her sister, and back.. "My creation was to surpass my creator.. Lupe's.. creation, I think.. shall become mine, in time.. I will erase her creation, and all the pain it brings her.." Her rubber teeth click together at the end.
Lupe already knew of her own ignominious beginnings with Beta, but Ataxia's? Those always seemed to lack any sort of frame of reference, like saying 100 and forgetting to mention just *what* one has a hundred of. So seeing it again, in a relief against the same scenes of herself... It helps clarify, but not illuminate. That, she feels sure, will come later; people *never* illuminate up front - it spoils the surprise the waiting can be a game of power in itself. "For damn sure I wasn't," she mutters. "Amnesiac, broken from the very moment of creation... I only *just now* get a moment of completeness, and the rest of reality has to come along and fix that catastrophic blunder."
Ataxia breathes in through her teeth slowly as she listens to her sister.. "That's very much the same as me, in some ways. But I had the completion of knowing that my creator sacrificed themselves to create me. Thus, there was little to look back to. I don't know the details, I'm not intend to.. that's their work, and the beauty of it is in part that they should never see what they created, yet know it in every detail.. and I should never know, so I might go on to new things, untainted by what they could not overcome.." she trails.. "I already started to recreate you, Lupe. In Topwarp, that day, while everyone gasped at the prospect and the act before them in public. We can go further, until you've only the most tangential of relationships with your creation. You can be completed with me."
Lupe looks at the other jackal, remembering a wonderful, sunny day of debauchery and squealing with the repulsed citizenry of Topwarp give an equally obscene berth around the affair. It's true... that day she was shifted, molded into a near replica of Ataxia, but with minor flaws still yet remaining, to tell one from another. Which have since faded, washed away like a protruding stone does in the path of surf. Her paw lifts, looking at it, the ragged latex and pitted plastic that are supposed to be claws... the bare skin beneath that even now likely starts growing a pelt anew... "I want to be complete, but I never want to forget, either. Perfection is something I've found in you, sister, but losing my past means laying aside an axe to grind."
Ataxia's hand reaches out.. and quietly, she holds Lupe's, her thumb brushing on the middle of her palm, almost as tattered, if it were not for her longer hold out, and the help of Squeak. She remembers the day.. She had molded Lupe before, gave her whole new sensations from it.. and, has continued to do so. Part of her thinks she may have lead her astray in some way, but she doesn't regret anything she's done with Lupe, even the hard parts. A broken thumb claw slowly trace as she looks down to it as well. So much promise, so much tattered being.. "Let me grind the axe with you.. Let me be there for you. Let me help pull you from the brink when you've gone to destroy that which abandoned you. So I can do what they never did for you. So I can offer you what you were missing, rather than leave you just alone, with absolution but no direction, no fix but the ending of pain. I want to be there to give you the beginning of everything, of happiness again, or at least purpose with me."
Lupe covers your paw with hers, holding it between both of her own, now as before. There's a soft smile from her, with eyes that only speak of their haunting. "The beginning of everything? I'll settle for peace and happiness; my own bitterness and envy are like running on a treadmill - even with more and more, I have to keep up the same pace to keep from being thrown off." Her bare pad is beneath your claw, along with a sliver of latex that rolls around, pried loose by decay and not yet burned away to nothing.
Ataxia's eyes touch yours, her ears drawn back, her breath held for a moment. She knows the haunting, she can feel it straight through her.. Her ears rise again, though, and her forever smile grows just a bit.. "Peace and happiness is enough. Its a lot, in fact. Bitterness, envy, jealousy.. I didn't know such things existed when I was first born, but I have tasted them all.. In some ways, I am better for it.. There was a time where I wouldn't admit such a thing.." she sighs softly.. "But that doesn't mean one has to endure it endlessly. Yes, I can touch on the negative and not drown, now.." she smiles a little.. She brushes the bit of latex.. "But I still want a perfection.. I guess.. that I can include such things in perfection.." she whispers.. She falls in against you quietly, her arm slipping under yours and around.. "This feels like.. direction.. that we've made ourselves.."
Lupe gratefully takes that hug, such a simple expression of care from so cherished a being. Yes, Hydra/Psi has a definite vantage of good will, even as the green tendrils hover in the background. What happened to the ideal? It fell, in the face of the real. But that's no reason to her to stop longing for that which can never be. Still and all, in a gentle hug with you, nestled front to front, she just wishes to lay her cheek against your shoulder and rock quickly in the green gloom. "We can take a small amount of it and still be perfect, dear; burning it away totally would include forgetting it existed. But yes, we've struck a direction towards a goal nigh impossible. So how do we get there?"
Ataxia enjoys her surroundings, oddly. The green tendrils. The home of Hydra and its myriad components. She feels at ease here, sanctuary with her sister. Perhaps its a place which would scare many, but she's been places like that before, and even lived there. The toymaker labs, to some, are a hellish dungeon, for instance. The green is not so much gloom to her. Its a comfort which lights her tattered flesh up and makes it unified again if only in colour.. "When I was first here.. you know my story, I know.. but, I was utterly indifferent to so much. Ignorant of the emotions, I could do anything.. Literally. You helped break me of that.. you were really the first break, because I cared for you.
I'm not unhappy it happened.. I got to see the nature of people, that way. How many tried to take away my will. Those few who cared enough to give me my will back. The gradient of all." she rambles quietly a moment.. "Reminiscing.. it isn't always bad.." she smiles softly.. "Our goal may be impossible. Beta says she might ascend in a million wheels. I'm not entirely sure what that means, but I think it means there's not just an impossible ideal.. but something to reach for. Will it be okay if it takes a million wheels?" she asks, her head a little to the side. "What do we need to know? How do we need to grow? What do we need to be stronger? Can we go unhurt by the slings, arrows, and outright fits of others, or will they continue to be able to hurt us? Will we be able to take what's good, and leave the rest with a few disdainful scratches of hindpaws? I'm not sure, but change is welcome. From tatters to something more. Perhaps just outfits to start, you had beautiful designs made for you
.. you in Topwarp.." she smiles..
Lupe considers that for a long moment, just taking an ease of rest with her sibling and listening to words that really make a lot of sense. Few actually have the keys for getting past her stubborn streak, and Ataxia would be one of them. Which is just as well, because the mention of clothing long forgotten has her laughing despite the present mood and somber circumstance. "They weren't made for me, dear sister; those work clothes I found were in the ruins of the Galleria."
Ataxia giggles.. "Like hell they weren't made for you.." she offers, leaning forward.. She touches as small kiss to Lupe's chin.. "They were made for you in every way by the time they were on you. Whatever their origin, they were really made for you. Beautiful.. I think we might find the same.. We were made for each other, by each other. Then made more like each other, our happy chevron, our matching set.." she trails.. She reaches up a hand, stroking her sister's cheek. "Whatever we find, if we want it, and can have it, then we'll make it ours, just like that.."
Hydra/Psi dangles and drapes, a curiously increasing length, a lazy arm reaching down. Her frame an upside down display of beautiful ruffs to you, even with the surface underneath always shifting, it always fits her. Her eyes gleam, always jade. "I am Psi, I am Jade, I am near the end of the path of transcendance the rest of me still slowly treads. I have stepped through enormous pain, and a part of me still suffers that pain. One day you may meet that pain as it walks around. Do not fear it, for it is the most dangerous aspect of me, but it is one that shall, too, pass on, and I have marked You. You bear sigils of protection from me even without knowing it. Let me tell you, the path I have treaded is an easy one to be lost on, but I have treaded it, and now I merely wait for the rest of me to catch up before I take my final step." A slow, slight smile. A little suggestion of cruelty, but one with odd benevolent drives. "Pain is a powerful impetus. You have tasted deeply of impetus."
Lupe is all the more earnest in her protestations at the chiding she takes, a mild tweak by a well-meaning sister who intends to compliment. But this jackal tends to be a bit of a literalist at times, and the possibility of confusion over the nature of her absent clothing is one that must be rectified. "It's true, dear... But I'm not sure it could even withstand our influence now; I found it before I found you if you'll recall." A voice? Stirring? ...Oh-ho, their host is rousing from observation. Even though she heard quite well that she was unaware of the sigil, she still looks down at herself and her sister, halfway expecting some glowing rune or other such visual auras. "Each in our own way, yes... and with our own preferred flavor of it."
Ataxia reaches up to touch an arm reaching down, to brush a finger to a palm.. "I was told to seek you out at some point, and speak with you, Psi, or Jade.." she coos softly.. She cants her head.. "How many wheels before you are to move onward, do you suspect?" she asks.. "Is there a time without pain.. or when that comes, is there nothing more? The time as a toy passed with little concept of time for us.. There was no pain, no impetus except that which was given to us by others.." she continues.. "I suspect this to be the case if such a time comes again.. Pain.." she trails.. "By all rights.. we should progress quickly.. we have such impetus.." she whispers.. "But we're lost in pain, too.. Have you been lost before, on the path we here all seem to travel?" she continues.. "I want to stop fearing pain. It came with pain, though, when I first touched it. Pain brought everything else, including fear in its wake. Fear often seems a pain of its own.." she continues.. "I wish to meet all aspects of you, all aspects of Hydra, in time.." She turns to Lupe by the end, though, and glances down with her still forever open eyes.. She reaches out, and touches the lens on Lupe, smiling a little warmly.. "If it matches our internal order.. we can accept it, still.."
Hydra/Psi quietly responds, brushing her palm acrosss Ataxia's palm, resting upon Lupe's cheek. "Dear ones, pain can be impetus both toward correct and wrong paths. Charm... it is another path to tread if not one to my taste. Theeka is more well experienced in that path than any aspect of me, and more than most of Charm. I am the end of a mad spiral that is oddly rational to take. The loss of ego and morality, the regaining of them when ones perspectives have been broken and made anew, so that one is no longer trapped by the old way. The paths of Charm are not for you even if they have been valuable experiences. The paths of Strange may not be for you. But I see you reaching out and I want to help you. Whatever paths you select, I want them to be toward the end of making yourself... someone that can reach your goal. Perfection, in your own ways."
Hydra/Psi pauses. "The one named Neg... is one who have reached the same stage as me and then gotten lost, even at that advanced stage, even as she turned back just to seek to help others along it. This is not what made her lost, but rather the forgetting of what precisely she was striving toward. She still tastes the bitter pain of that, and the bitter pain of seeing many in her home warp being lost on the mad spiral I spoke of."
Hydra/Psi smiles. "But she, too, will reach that end. All will, in time."
Lupe lifts her head from Ataxia's shoulder, pressing the other furless, tattered-latex cheek she bears into Jade's palm... How much of that pain was caused by her, in one form or another? How much could she have spared her sibling? Even should the answer be none, it's still something that acts as a nettle in her fur, goading her to look up at Psi with laid-aside ears. "Is it possible? To reach our goal?"
Hydra/Psi laughs. "Of course." She strokes, caresses, that cheek. "Strive. Many will not understand, but they have failed you anyway. Even with good intentions, they fail to understand you. You still care about hurting them. This may be obstructive, or it may aid you. I cannot decide your correct path for you, but I can give you the strength to do *what you must*. That is the greatest strength of Strange, the strength to taste the opposition, the disapproval of others, and to do it anyway."
Hydra/Psi's stroking hand is wood, marble, jade, flesh, bone...
Ataxia feels her sister has done not a thing wrong, that her pain was not wrong to have, just not set in the right direction.. That the pain she shared simply has been an impetus, though until having brought her sister to Beta, and thus the Hydra Network, it had only focus inward, only enough to lash out at the most direct of causes.. "A spiral seems to cover a lot of ground. Perhaps its not so mad in that way." she offers, quietly.. "I like Charm, and some times, I think tasting it won't be bad. I like Strange, and perhaps I shall taste that, too. I don't know what we will be in the end. But that's okay, not knowing. Just knowing we will be something rather than a forgotten decoration with meaning long gone somewhere.. that's good enough.." she trails, and listens to Psi further.. "I did things anyway, knowing disapproval.. but I hadn't really tasted it before.. It was a shock which brought me to inaction at times, but.. I overcame it, at least once.."
Lupe spares a moment to Jade's hand, as she feels the sudden compulsion to nuzzle against her sister for just a moment - friendly and even a touch playful under the right light and vantage point. "Whereas I... I'm the one with the independent streak a mile wide. If someone says do something, I'll dig in my heels. They say don't do something, I'll be first one in line." The relevance of the statement sort of fades from her grasp, until her muzzle clicks shut, bared bone scraping bare patches of teeth clean.
Hydra/Psi's smile deepens. Cruel, sly, kind. "Even when you are complacent, you are not complacent. It is easier to set you upon your own paths than for those whose are satisfied with who they are, or simply do not think much about it, or thinks the way to perfect themselves lies in slight improvements without looking much further beyond. If you find your own path, you will change in such ways that people will be scared of losing you. Maybe they will lose you, too. But... that can be a price of doing what you must to reach your potentials. People can be aid and trap, the latter most especially when they have no real ambitions to see you evolve." A tracing of her hand further down, soft brushing. "And being contrary can be a trap as well, as you forget what you wanted to do in the first place as you think more about what other people do not want you to do."
Ataxia's muzzle dips in against Lupe's, touching, brushing little wisps of once beautiful latex away, perhaps to touch flesh below.. The arm around her holds a little tighter, but her smile remains over the smile she always has. "I am complacent in only a few things, if any. I am complacent to continue growing closer to my sister, to gain different freedoms within our increasingly gestalt state. Complacencies like that arn't really ones at all.." she laughs softly.. "I have been scared of losing people. That's broken, recently.. Partially by realizing that I could not really control such things. I could be a part, but the other party will always have a say, regardless of what the situation looks like.." she trails.. A few broken claws touch up to Jade's shoulder, softly stroking.. "No real poles to flock to, are there?"
Lupe solemnly nods to Jade, since the second trap is an obvious reflection upon herself. Chastisement, but it's true, so nothing to do with those words except learn 'em. "If you're looking for poles, I can think of a place that has them. Two-drink minimum, though." And then, after voicing that mild jest, she keeps talking in that same conversational tone, like nothing happened. "I'm not scared of losing people so much as I am of having something happen to Ataxia, even by myself. Everything else takes a back seat to that."
Hydra/Psi gazes at you, a short frizziness to her hair, a curiously cute style. And her eyes say much, so much that you don't really understand it. But, she does reach for you, not really with her hand. Quietly, she... offers something. "You spoke of being demons and not angels," she speaks quietly, somehow knowing of that. "I spoke of being a Queen within Strange. Beta said that, and yet it's still a possibility. With your own ultimate path, you might even be Queens within Charm at the same time. Whatever you become, it's up to you how you transcend." A shrug. "All I hope is that you transcend. Take, if you will, what I offer you. A greater will to power over yourselves. That is all you will need, for this stage." The not quite describable thing she offers throbs, as if readying itself for you. "I can help you learn to be invincible in a way, to slide around whatever might happen to you and continue onward."
Hydra/Psi says richly, "Then you will not have to fear so much for the other sister."
Ataxia giggles just a little to the joke, her whip tail lashing behind her a bit, though its a bit slower since its in tatters - almost fluffy by now. "I can handle that." she offers, and for a moment, her muzzle dips down, and a quiet kiss is placed on her sister's shoulder.. "What you say, though.." she trails a moment. "Is true for the both of us.. I fear having something happen to Lupe, even by my self. She is my sister.. if she goes.. so do I. And those are the terms that I want, and that I've drawn myself to with her. That we've wanted, and we've come upon. I don't think I will lose anyone, really.. no, they weren't mine to begin with, of course.. Everything can always come back that was once lost, though, here. Or they'll simply go on to better things, ultimately, if they don't come back. If they don't, it may not have been a good thing, ultimately, anyhow.." she coos.. She turns up to Psi, her ears high to her.. "We came for help. We've received so much, already.." she smiles slowly, warmly.. She
.. She looks to her sister, quietly, though, reaching up to stroke behind her ears.. "I don't know what we will be.. but I know we will step forward to be something, ultimately.." she whispers, and looks a little distant for a time as she touches through her sister's thoughts, a gentle caress..
You whisper, "Ataxia gives you that soft, quiet caress.. "Shall we touch the unknown offer, and take a step forward, a path to try?" she asks.. "Or is there a path to touch without help but for each other, to start? I am not opposed to a touch of direction, or a blind stumble so long as its all in your arms.."" to Lupe.
Lupe is drawn by that petting given by her sister, the kiss and touch, even the almost-musical sound of her laugh in the air - a slight lick is Ataxia's 'thank you', ghosted across where whiskers would otherwise be. The rest of her, though, is having to think about the conversation so far, up to and including the oblique offer being presented, of just what is yet to be determined. Her glassine eyes, unable to blink, flick over to the side, perhaps thinking, perhaps responding to a mental summons. "Indeed... you've been quite indulgent for a pair who had no direction."
Lupe whispers, "Lupe looks at Psi... it's not the familiar face of Beta, the doe of whom she has fond memories from both herself and you. No, this is more an unknown. She considers that, then mentally noses your shoulder. "The only difference, dear sister, is that for an unknown path, the boundaries of the trail aren't marked as clearly as one set forth. Whichever you feel is best, I will go with you upon."" to you.
You whisper, "Ataxia watches Psi, too.. Jade. This new one. Beta told her to see Psi, at some point.. "I feel neither bests the other, sister.." she responds, first. An unknown. "Do you think this path is one we could be lost on? Could we be lost on the other? Is it strange, or is it something else, just knowledge, or more than we know?" she asks, quietly. "So long as I am with you, we both come to that point.."" to Lupe.
Hydra/Psi quietly looks at Ataxia and Lupe, now with Beta's eyes and face. Then it fades back into that now familiarly inexplicable warping of a face, eyes fixed in jade. "Together, take and accept my gift. Even if it is only for a taste of something to direct yourself as a stepping point." She waits without further pressing the case, though, for you to accept or to reject the quality still held out. Patient. Her hand now slips lower down, her body gliding down. "You were pain and love and rage and happiness and hatred and... just beautiful. Your discontent over who you are is beautiful, your oneness and twoness is beautiful. Even when you yielded yourself to aesthestics alien and distasteful to me, workings of Charm, you were beautiful in a way. And you are very beautiful right now." Sly smile. "You are casting off Charm's shells. What would you like to be today?"
Lupe whispers, "Lupe hasn't shifted her gaze from our host, and she twitches her ear slightly. "Regardless of Beta's protestations, sister, we do have to remember where we are. We might well be lost to Strange on this path, or to something else on another path. Risk is unavoidable. That is why I say you would be the better judge of which path is best."" to you.
Ataxia watches her sister more than anything else for a time.. then, slips just a little, but only to curl arm in arm with her. She offers out a hand, and Lupe, a moment later as well, as the gestalt mind comes to a bit of a medium under some sort of direction. "Psi, if we will not lose ourselves on this path offered, but only gain a quality.. If we are not to be taken over by whatever has been offered, what quality, what reality that can present us the steps forward.. then, we would ask you to place it in our hands, and we will accept. We are fragile, though.. and if it may be too much for us, if we may be utterly swept away by the nameless offering, then wait until we are stronger. We barely have our feet on the ground. But we have all the wheels possible before us. In that we are both fearless and hesitant at the same time."
[OOC] Lupe . o O ( ...Yeah! What she said! )
[OOC] Ataxia grins. Well, what we said. She should have properly posed that as Gestalt voice. :>
Lupe holds her paw out as well, standing in a position that still presents a faded, torn chevron across the fronts of both of them. Uncertainty is definitely a characteristic which could be said of both halves of the pair, as well as something else: a faint glimmer of something akin to hope. If the conditions are palatable, and no treachery lurks, then just maybe the jackals will be better off for the experience.
Ataxia watches the figure of Psi, still so new to her. Friend or something else, she's not yet sure. An aspect of something that surrounds her. A recommendation of Beta. But she learns by experience, and this is her time.
Hydra/Psi quietly unreleases, releases, the /quality/ into the hands of Lupe/Ataxia, an immaterial matter now resting within their paws. It... has a protean sensation, as if when the two imbibe it into themselves, it will change into something else, more closely fitting to them. The thing... smells, tastes of what could be called a certain amount of ruthlessness, or drive, or simply self-volition... It could just be assertion. It is the blood of many mighty heroes and devils and poets, distilled into an fiery core. It tastes of pain biting yet sweet, tolerable. It is a courage to pursue a goal and bring that down in a triumph. It does not seem to diminish empathy as much as it simply increases the capacity to act.
Hydra/Psi looks at you, now solemn intensity. "If you treasure something, remember it and keep it in mind. Do not lose yourself unless that will help you reach yourself. Keep it if you need to, without taking it in, for another time."
Ataxia and Lupe draw the immaterial upwards. Fingers curl in against it, and eyes stare down as words drift across. "Our wants, and what we desire to keep, are strong in us.." she offers, as she glances to her sister. She breathes in slowly, the taste on her tongue, which lulls down just to wisp across, to understand tits nature, the taste of pain and sweet, of blood and strength that doesn't overwhelm, simply grows within. Ruthlessness is a quality within drive and volition, a possibility, or perhaps even a misunderstanding by others, or by self. The assertion of her reality is more what comes across. There will not be a loss of self, what little self there is. What's treasured will not be overcome, she's sure of it. One jackal tastes, and more if the other follows. The touch will happen all at once if at all, as the pair will work as a single body in this, that it might tie them properly together, if at all.
Hydra/Psi chuckles, "But you have to go now, don't you?" Her feet seem to have sunken back into the odd chaos she rose out. "I have pointed you in what ways I can toward your potentials." Now her torso is beginning to get engulfed, her legs having already gone into that peculiarly folding green mass. "I would enjoy another meeting, whose ending would be less hurried." A grin, even as she shifts, pulling herself in deeper until only her face is emerged out of that writhing green, looking toward you and barely distinguishable as shape not color or texture. "Until other cycles when we will meet. The portal is opened for you." And, with that, she is gone. Only an open door, ornate, much like the one that had led here.
We had to cut it short like that because Lupe had class at that point! But there will be some sort of conclusion..