03 ▒ EVENT: STRELA OUTPOST ▒ ASSIMILATION

[ataraxites]

CHARACTERS: Ensemble production!
LOCATION: Strela Outpost.
WARNINGS: Mind horror, hivemindery, etc.
SUMMARY: Communal brainwashing.
NOTES: Divided by locations; players are free to indicate which day/stage, and to begin new subthreads wherever they'd like!

Looks like the authorities have apprehended you and have brought you in for processing. After being forced to wait in the waiting room, you're brought to the assimilation room - a terrible white cell, where you're trapped for hours, sentenced to be slowly stripped of your individuality.

Comments

how do you thread with a character who has no (sincere) mind of his own....

[uncodlyawwesome]

The worst part is that he does hear her, loud and crystal clear. It's just not an issue. She's so angry and upset and if he tries to think about it (which he doesn't, really), she's always been like that, at least to him, and so why is she fighting so hard to stay that way? If she'd just open her mind a little, she'd be so much happier - they'd be happy together and she'd finally just be, just like him -

He feels that sentiment echo around him, from everyone else, and he considers just ruining her, shifting his weight, throwing her down, bringing her into the fold so easily -

But a far more insistent thought, far deeper and too hard to ignore, says don't you fuckin' dare. So he doesn't, even though running is just not worth it, and she doesn't even know what she's running from. What she's giving up. (What she's making you give up.)

For the first time he wonders if he should say something. But there's nothing to say.

with.... great difficulty

[fronds]

Feferi doesn't look at him for the rest of the sprint, doesn't even notice him. He's clearly there in her arms, but he could be a split second away from grabbing her by the throat and she still wouldn't see. She doesn't care. Can't, when all of her focus is set on just escaping.

What she cares about is that they make it. It's impossible to express her relief when they make it, when they step out of the fray and into the shipyard, but she doesn't stop running until the two of them are well and truly safe, inside a shuttle. She should go back, make another trip to round up more stragglers, but - there's no guarantee that there's enough time, and she's not wasting her one life (god, she misses her dreambubble system so much) on something that has a large chance of failing miserably without any profit at all.

Besides, she has to stay here and make sure that Eridan is returned safely, too.

She drops her trident first, and a moment later, dumps Eridan unceremoniously on the floor. It won't kill him. (Maybe it would be better if it knocked him out, though, because she's going to punch him in the face at this rate.) She steps over him and takes a seat, picks her trident up to lay across her lap and she just... waits. Watches people run into the shipyard, watches others run back out.

There's not much else to do, is there?

"Are you going to talk to me yet, or am I having a conversation with myself for this whole shuttle ride?"

here fuck it it's time to get eridan some conscious thought again

[uncodlyawwesome]

Eridan doesn't feel any way in particular about being discarded inside the shuttle. He lies there for a minute, staring at the ceiling, feeling disconnected in a way that he doesn't know how to describe, if he were ever pressed to describe it. Then, slowly, as if by someone else's hand, he sits up and takes stock of his location.

Transport. Gonna take you away from all'a this. And through it, Feferi's talking, acting as if she's doing him a favor by picking him up and taking him away and getting ready to cut the cord. He doesn't think about what will happen when they get out of range of the content feelings. Maybe he'll die.

He looks at her without blinking, his glasses needing minor adjustments but he ignores them, too. That deep, insistent part of his mind says, just fuckin' look at her, do you even remember her name? You still owe her an apology! Snap the fuck out of it! But then it stops, abruptly, cut off. He's better for it. Even when the shuttle's pilot somehow gets aboard and somehow gets them out of the bay, he doesn't think and he doesn't say one fucking thing. But the further out they get from the outpost, the closer to the Tranquility they get, the harder it is to keep his mind blank.

He finally adjusts his glasses, then finds his legs and, at long last, takes a seat that isn't right next to Feferi. He can feel that thick spider-web in his brain stretch, getting plucked away bit by bit, enough that he feels he should speak.

"You," he starts, then stops. Tries again. "I'm supposed to be back there."