Here there be Shadows [open]

[quark_assassin]

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[hack_rat]

Alex was not known for his awareness of his surroundings.

Alice was not known for knowing when to not bother someone.

Between the two of them, it was a shock that they hadn't intrupted someone's alone-time before now.

Alex walked in, Alice darting ahead of him to investigate Dustin. She hadn't had the chance while they were disabling the bombs, and so she didn't intend on passing the chance up now.

Of course, Alice running up to Dustin was what made Alex realize he was there. He whispered, "Alice! Alice! Get back here! No! Come!"

Alice was not giving up so easily. Really, all Alex needed to do was to turn around and start to leave, and Alice would follow, but it was clear who was the domanant rat here.

[quark_assassin]

In the background, a tesseract danced over the piles of thoughts like a fourth-dimensional tumbleweed

[hack_rat]

Alex caught up to Alice and scooped her up into his arms. She didn't seemed too thrilled to be taken away from the person she had so wanted to investigate, but she obediently resigned herself to roam across Alex's shoulders.

Alex then stared around the sensorium in wonderment. His mind wasn't entirely sure what to do with all of these thoughts flowing around him, folding themselves neatly into piles.

Was he meditating?

Alex felt that he should probably leave, but he found himself rooted to the ground in awe.

[quark_assassin]

It took a moment--and several curious thoughts, impeded by the faint heat radiating from the two small bodies nearby, subtle but present regardless of quantity--for the scenery to change. It was a sudden change, yet not immediately recognizable to the inattentive observer:

Someone was here. Scenarios of who it could be played out in stray tangents that flickered over the landscape, leaving shadows of their constructed scripts for Alex to watch should he catch them whilst they faded. In this corner there were the distant memories of a childhood long forgotten, an embrace he would never again experience yet always remember in whatever warped sense it became, the specters of his youth. And in that corner there were the other familiar ghosts, the textured rub of a small creature against his calf, the brilliant laugh displayed not in sound but in splashes of orange and gold and green that suggested the sound all on their own, a cold, trusting sort of reliance that could apply to any number of people both familiar to this location and to

[slainrobots]

She had been shuffling by on her way to Engineering, humming in her tone deaf manner, random notes pulled incongruously and inharmoniously from thin air, when she heard his shout, and paused

[quark_assassin]

Meditating, meditating. Dustin was a silent figure, motionless where he sat in the center of the room, engulfed-literally-in his thoughts. They painted a fantastic portrait of his brain in all its organized complexity whilst they danced from corner to corner, displaying themselves in brief flashes of color and shapes before settling into their respective piles. From the simple, fleeting idea to the complex notions and desires, they marched relentlessly onward across the blank canvas.

And still Dustin was oblivious. Yoshimi had shown before that she could sneak up on him, and it wasn't like he was very aware of his surroundings at the moment anyways, thus he was pleasantly ignorant of her presence both in body and mind, as shown by the continuing fluidity of his organizing right up until-

A flash of surprise tinted the room deep with conflicting tones, each a different scenario that unfolded itself in an instant but, for Yoshimi's convenience, left a faint imprint against the quickly dissipating colors:

Was he being attacked?

[slainrobots]

"I was," she says, lifting her head to prop her chin on his shoulder, smiling a tiny little smile, "but I found him

[quark_assassin]

There came a second laugh, rumbling softly through his neck and down his back like a contented purr absorbed from the live walls, which consequently had become a bit more hectic as should be expected from conscious thought, although what had been sorted stayed dutifully in place and the rest that appeared were far more orderly than when he first arrived. At any rate they were all directed towards a similar subject now, which Yoshimi might recognize, albeit from a slightly...skewed point of view. Tendrils of emotion like sparks from a live wire tumbled through the floor in random bundles, bringing with them inner warmth and the rhythm of a heartbeat or...well