Page Syndrome

[TW: nonsexual dubcon/mental alteration/soul assault? I'm not certain]

<stanzicApparati> [You've been talking about it for a while now. It's certainly something that /needs/ doing.]
<stanzicApparati> [It's time to stop talking.]
* stanzicApparati PMs "Aelf" : (I'm coming over to visit. Five minute warning so I don't surprise you in the shower or getting out of bed or something.)
<lucidChthonia> [Well, since you're not exactly going to get out of bed, the warning is superfluous.]
<stanzicApparati> [You were mostly providing the warning so you don't accidentally end up seeing her naked. This is going to be awkward and miserable enough as it is, without adding that in on top of it.]
<stanzicApparati> [It does not take you long to arrive, and you're soon poking through the Spire to find Aelf.]
<stanzicApparati> [A rap at the door, when you find her. "May I come in?"]
<lucidChthonia> ["No." But both of you know the 'no' isn't going to actually get respected; you're just being petulant at this point.]
<stanzicApparati> [A sigh, followed by, "Please?" You wait a moment, and then open the door and go in; you know she won't say 'yes'.]
<lucidChthonia> [You're face-down on the bed, head turned to stare out the bedroom's open window.]
<lucidChthonia> [It smells like... juniper berries?]
<lucidChthonia> [Yeah okay so Aelf's choice in scents is probably not what normal people would expect. So what? The narrator would like to point out that you can't actually tell if she's passed out or not.]
<lucidChthonia> [Spoilers: she's not.]
<stanzicApparati> [You go to sit at the bedside. "Hey." You aren't about to assume she isn't awake - certainly not with the memory of how she nearly strangled you while she was ill.]
<lucidChthonia> ["I fixed my shiny regrowth mechanism, from the pictures on Pits." You mumble, head still not turning towards Cyma. "It didn't help."]
<stanzicApparati> ["Do you know what went wrong?" You don't mind, that she isn't looking at you. You're used to that.]
<lucidChthonia> ["It's regrowing what I /currently/ have. I haven't fixed the rampant packet-dropping in my emotional processing, nor the fact that I'm still utterly overgrown with Knight Syndrome, nor the fact that any bypass shunting I try to do is essentially guaranteed to go horribly wrong because I misjudge the threshold amount."]
<lucidChthonia> [In that torrent of technical information you point out, quite reasonably, that you have attempted to solve all these problems and that your solutions /haven't/ /worked/.]
<lucidChthonia> [This is used as evidence not to try finding any more solutions.]
<lucidChthonia> [The narrator has been through too much disappointment from you, Aelfrida Smithson, to be disappointed any longer.]
<stanzicApparati> ["Okay. So. Can we take pics, and work /together/ to fix things? It'll be harder for Knight Syndrome to regrow if there's something else where it's trying to put down roots, right? At least in theory."]
<lucidChthonia> ["As you like," you mutter dully.]
<stanzicApparati> [You suspect you've got an idea of what Proteus was talking about, in regards to filling empty holes.]
<stanzicApparati> ["I'm Page of /Mist/, Aelf. And this? You being able to be whole, and healthy, and with as much chance as anyone else at being happy? That is something worth fighting for, in my eyes."]
<stanzicApparati> ["And so, I offer you what tools you'll need to fix yourself with, o Smith of Heart."]
<lucidChthonia> [There is no response, for a few minutes.]
<lucidChthonia> [Finally: "I've been waiting for something to kill me for - for years now. Forever, it feels like. I can't do it. I /want/ to, but I can't, and that little voice in my head that has resolved to the recognizable voice of the Exile since I rolled Seer won't let me."]
<lucidChthonia> ["So I roll on and on, because nothing will get worse, but nothing will get /better/, either."]
<lucidChthonia> ["I've been running on inertia since - ever since I went through that first Door. Waiting. For years, and years, as things simply get worse for me and I mire myself further in this - in this whatever-the-hell-it-may-be that is worse than nonexistence."]
<lucidChthonia> ["I think I might be at the bottom, but I'm afraid to decide I'm at the bottom, because it might be worse soon."]
<stanzicApparati> ["...let's see if we can make things better, then. Roll over, please?" You're not sure what to do if she doesn't.]
<stanzicApparati> [You're not sure what to do if she /does/.]
<stanzicApparati> [And you doubt that the feeling of sickened self-loathing isn't about to go away any time soon.]
<lucidChthonia> [You scrimp together what little willpower you have and roll over, silently, dragging the blanket aside.]
<stanzicApparati> [A couple moments of hesitation. And then you slide a hand into her chest, so that you can cup her Shiny in your hands. Sam the suite of abilities you'll need for this, and hope she's up for looking with you.]
<stanzicApparati> ["Look with me? I'm half a Heart player at best."]
<lucidChthonia> [You nod, faintly, with a motion that might have been mistaken for a shift of the light.]
<stanzicApparati> ["Okay then." Your eyes are too good to mistake that for just a shift of the light. "Let's get started then." Pull out, one-handed, the Shiny camera and then start taking pictures, carefully rotating her Shiny so that you can photograph the whole thing.]
<stanzicApparati> [Once you've gotten what seems like enough pictures, you tuck the camera away. "Where should do you think we should start?"]
<lucidChthonia> ["Emotion," you manage to say, eyes staring at whatever point they seem to have come to most convenient rest on - which appears to be a ceiling fixture designed for hammock-hanging.]
<stanzicApparati> ["Okay. Let me know when I've reached it, then." You start turning and exploring slowly, waiting until Aelf says 'when'.]
<lucidChthonia> ["There." You indicate, flicking your gaze.]
<lucidChthonia> [Next door to the crater that should have been any sort of romantic inclination whatsoever is - well, it looks /broken/. Depending on Cyma's exact shiny-representations, it could be broken machinery, or leaking pipes, or perhaps, if she is borrowing Aelf's shinyreps, flowcharts with indicators pasted to the side of each individual node indicating that they are operating at, at best, 5% capacity - an occasional 6% or 7%
<lucidChthonia>  entry stands out, orange against the sea of red 5%, 4%, 3% signs.]
<lucidChthonia> [In the layer below, where all their connections must pierce to do anything connected to the rest of Aelfrida Smithson's mind, is a shimmering, oily, black haze - Knight Syndrome.]
<lucidChthonia> [Judging by the pulses of light, or information, or whatever it might be, that shuttle from one part of the shiny to another through this region, the Knight Syndrome is intercepting most emotional processing - indeed, taking over its function.]
<stanzicApparati> [You come to a halt at her words, "'Kay. What needs doing?" Your shinyreps look like embroidered tapestry; you're next to the burned chunk, in front of the spot that looks like someone's gone through it with a serrated knife and a packet of matches, with something organic and unpleasant growing like kudzu in the empty space that's been left.]
<lucidChthonia> [You look at it, and murmur, half to yourself and half for Cyma's benefit: "I tried to turn down my emotional processing, hoping that'd cripple whatever was feeding the KS. It backfired spectacularly, evidently."]
<lucidChthonia> ["There's too much to just /borrow/ wholesale unless I wanted to end up someone else, and as it is, I'd have to template an entire emotional module off someone if I wanted to get any of this working again."]
<lucidChthonia> ["Not just one. The entire /region/ is unsalvageable, as it is."]
<stanzicApparati> ["Hi. I've /got/ a working emotional module. And I'm Mist - if we copy-paste, it should think it's yours. Hopefully." You attempt to figure out how deep down the Knight Syndrome growth goes. "...fuck, this looks like kudzu or something. It's trying to replace the whole thing."]
<stanzicApparati> ["Or 'least, that's how it looks. 'Course, it also looks like someone went through this section with a seam-ripper and a book of matches before that."]
<lucidChthonia> ["Trying? It /has/, or is as good as."]
<lucidChthonia> ["And most of that was 'after'."]
<stanzicApparati> ["So. How do we uproot it and then get something healthier in?"]
<lucidChthonia> ["Just pull at it - and figure out where to put it, because it /has/ to be above a certain level of sapience/complexity, and if you're not careful it'll latch onto /you/. You could try balling it up or compressing it, but that's less reliable than ripping it out."]
<stanzicApparati> ["...can I burn it?" The narrator despairs of your pyromania, Cyma.]
<lucidChthonia> ["There are two sapient individuals in this room. One of them is you. Unless you can seal your shiny in a hermetic box for the duration, I suggest you not, because airborne Knight Syndrome is probably contagious."]
<stanzicApparati> ["...noted. How complex does the thing I shove it in need to be?"]
<lucidChthonia> ["Most Underlings don't work unless you glue extra complexity to them on purpose. Consorts, but I think only the Elders are above the threshold and I honestly can't imagine why it would ever be a good idea for one's landrep to cause a Consort Elder to spiral into depression. Attempting to glue it to the Denizen would definitely work, but would also be suicidal."]
<lucidChthonia> [You think, for a moment.]
<lucidChthonia> ["...Moving right along."]
<stanzicApparati> ["...what about Carapaces?"]
<lucidChthonia> ["Probably?"]
<lucidChthonia> ["...I wonder if we're going to end up gluing this shit to the Agents."]
<stanzicApparati> ["I mean, it's horrible and probably counts as cruelty. But."]
<stanzicApparati> ["...okay, not sure if want, in regards to a depressed Noir."]
<lucidChthonia> ["...on second thought, I do /not/ want to know what KS does to prime Ringwraith candidates, considering they're generally omnicidal /anyway/."]
<lucidChthonia> ["Pick someone out-of-the-way, if you have to."]
<lucidChthonia> ["And then make sure they don't get Exiled, because Carapaces can't commit suicide and I'm not going to subject someone to that for five thousand years of prehistory or whatever."]
<stanzicApparati> ["One of the NPCs that we won't need, then. One second, I'll ask Desmond to arrange things, and be sure to specify one of the Carapaces that doesn't get Exiled."]
<lucidChthonia> [You are not going to let yourself think about what Cyma is planni - oops too late.]
<lucidChthonia> ["I wonder what Dad would think of this conversation."]
<stanzicApparati> [Eight years of Seer appears to have given you an unfortunate tendency to monologue. Your selves from sessions one and two are looking at you in disappointment.]
<stanzicApparati> ["Probably cringe about us sticking KS in a Carapace and forget that, oh hey, it's not like we've got a lot of choice about who /else/ to stick it in. I'm not risking it getting its tendrils in me, and I don't want to see an army of depressed Nans."]
<lucidChthonia> ["Splinter Desmonds," you offer.]
<stanzicApparati> ["I'll ask him if he's willing to volunteer any."]
<lucidChthonia> ["Probably he'd laugh and try to blow you up, if you asked. We'll have to go with the carapace."]
<stanzicApparati> [You fall silent after that, getting on your thinktop and talking to Desmond.]
<stanzicApparati> [It does not take long for the War-weary Villein to arrive, without an escort. He does not really need one - he's capable of handling himself on the Lands, although not a favoured companion.]
<lucidChthonia> [You know who this is. Profile, psychological: a glacial temper that is unstoppable if you start it but otherwise will never show up, a tendency to show up as a barely even name-dropped NPC in the Dersite revolution scenarios, homesteads on Skaia if possible. Rarely, if ever, Exiled. All in all, not a bad choice.]
<lucidChthonia> [You struggle up in bed to a sitting position. "He at least deserves an explanation of why he's here. Let me do it."]
<stanzicApparati> [You recognize him, barely, and nod to Aelf. "Your choice." There's no rush, not really - it's not like you're needed anywhere, not with the army of sammed Rainclones you have now.]
<stanzicApparati> [You settle back, cupping her Shiny in your hands and waiting.]
<lucidChthonia> [You look deep into the carapace's beady eyes, wishing you knew him better so that you could understand how what you're about to say could affect him. But it's not the right time to be looking up Wacky Antics guidelines on Pits, so instead you default to a hedged explanation style appropriate for most Carapaces.]
<lucidChthonia> ["The Smith of Heart has had something nesting in her soul for a long time, a parasite - of sorts - that has destroyed her will to live and -" you search your mind - "the Smith's ability to build and extend and complicate, and the Hero of Heart's ability to understand herself and change her identity."]
<lucidChthonia> ["It's a parasite that requires someone who can talk, and think, to nest in, and the Smith of Heart cannot afford to give the parasite to any of the other Heroes of Skaia, for it would cripple them as fatally as it has her."]
<lucidChthonia> [You look down at yourself, unwashed and despairing and feeling, for all that you're certain that your shiny is still exactly as full as it has always been, /empty/ inside, and struggle to keep yourself from crying. Again. You know, because you weren't finished with crying last time. Or the time before that. Or the time before /that/.]
<lucidChthonia> ["So the Smith of Heart needs you to help, to keep the parasite within yourself so it no longer sits within her, no longer saps her will whenever she knows full well that she has prophecies to fulfill and tries to muster her strength."]
<lucidChthonia> [You stare down WV, eyes as hollow as that /feeling/ curling terribly within you, and ask the question: "Will you do this?"]
<stanzicApparati> [>WV: Consider. You never thought that the Heroes would come asking you for anything. All you wanted, really, was to tend to your farm and try to survive the war.]
<stanzicApparati> [But the Heroes will help /end/ the war. You know that - everyone knows it.]
<stanzicApparati> [You are not bright, as Carapaces go. Smarter than CD, although this isn't saying much. But you can get an idea of how important what the Smith of Heart is asking you is.]
<stanzicApparati> [And you /want/ to help bring an end to the war. Even if it is only by housing a terrible parasite, and keeping it away from the Smith and all the other Heroes.]
<stanzicApparati> [A nod and your voice quavers as you agree to help.]
<lucidChthonia> [You pull the sheets up to hide your face, with a muffled sob.]
<stanzicApparati> [You only need one hand to hold a Shiny. You reach over, with the other, to rub at her shoulder gently. "Shhh. It'll be out of you, soon." You aren't about to ask her to do anything right now - it costs hardly any pluck to use [Rainclone] and then another you is sitting next to you.]
<lucidChthonia> ["We might need to do this again, depending on how thoroughly you scrape. Let me do it." You push her hand away and seize your shiny back with one hand, digging into it to find the Knight Syndrome slick and - oh god it really is everywhere this will take a while.]
<stanzicApparati> [You were /about/ to hand off her Shiny to the 'clone, but that won't be necessary now. You extract WV's Shiny, instead. "If we need to do it again, then we do it again. As many times as we have to."]
<lucidChthonia> [A moment digging in your sylladex and you find a folding pocketknife, which you drop on the covers and remove the shiny-equivalent-of-a-pocketknife from, and begin loosening the edges with an intensity Cyma is more used to seeing on Epi than on Aelf.]
<stanzicApparati> [You wait, patiently. It is a bit unnerving to see something you'd expect from Riley, rather than Aelf. You've gotten used to her being listless - even when you know it isn't /healthy/ for her to be that way.]
<lucidChthonia> [It is not /easy/ to get Aelf into this state, but as she scrapes, with tiny, careful movements, squinting at the loops and whorls where the Knight Syndrome has trapped itself, her entire world collapses into two things: her shiny, and the knife that if it slips could do far worse damage than the Knight Syndrome has.]
<lucidChthonia> [An eternity that might have been a few minutes passes, and she's making progress, slicing off a first strip of solid Knight Syndrome like so much taffy, and shoving it somewhere in Cyma's general direction.]
<stanzicApparati> [You've pulled a pair of gloves on, in the meantime, and you start wrapping the skein of living thread around a shiny-equivalent-of-a-bobbin, to hold it until all of it can be gathered.]
<stanzicApparati> [If it even looks like it might be trying to get loose, you're just shoving the whole lot into WV's Shiny and working that way.]
<lucidChthonia> [Thread, or wire? Nobody quite knows which is more correct, as analogy. Whichever it is, it writhes faintly, but manageably, as Cyma winds it.]
<stanzicApparati> [Hopefully, it'll hold still long enough to gather a majority of it. But you're not about to count on that.]
<lucidChthonia> [As Aelf continues to scrape across her shiny with aforementioned tiny, careful movements, and the Knight Syndrome spins and stretches out to the thread/wire that Cyma is continuing to wind, it begins to express more... life, the more of it gathers in Cyma's hands.]
<stanzicApparati> [It's starting to look a little too lively for your tastes. As Aelf keeps scraping for the next piece, you start transferring what's been gathered so far from the spool to WV's Shiny. Better safe than sorry, with this stuff.]
<lucidChthonia> [The squiggling works its way down the wire - Aelf is beginning to struggle to keep it in a /line/, rather than bouncing like rubber putty - and eventually she is forced to stop, with the Knight Syndrome on her shiny only /reduced/, rather than eliminated.]
<stanzicApparati> [It takes less effort to unwind it, and move it, than it did to get it wound. This should surprise you more.]
<lucidChthonia> [And she - and you - lie back, and stare at your Shiny, still encrusted with Knight Syndrome, and you dismiss the pocketknife's shiny and drop it back into your sylladex, and you finally let yourself cry in earnest.]
<lucidChthonia> [Cyma will need to hop to it, to keep the end of the Knight Syndrome line from touching her anywhere important.]
<stanzicApparati> [The 'clone grabs the loose end that's squirming around now - gloved hands, like the primary. It seems like a terrible idea to touch this stuff with your bare hands.]
<stanzicApparati> [For her part, the primary Cyma keeps feeding the Knight Syndrome into WV's Shiny - the sooner it's stowed away, the better. Even if it's horrible for WV, and this seems awful.]
<stanzicApparati> [She feeds it through as quickly as is safe - and soon enough, the end is shoved in.]
<stanzicApparati> [Your shirt sticks to you, damp and blue with sweat. Your somewhat cleaner, rather less sweaty, 'clone moves to pull Aelf into a hug.]
<lucidChthonia> [WV looks at you. You imagine it to be a questioning look, though it's impossible to tell through the film of tears. You choke out between sobs, "No, this isn't done. There's more. Much more. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."]
<stanzicApparati> [You/she rubs Aelf's back gently, "Shh. I can take over on scraping it out, if you'd like. Or I could fog you and scrape it that way."]
<lucidChthonia> ["...no. No, I can't do this."]
<lucidChthonia> ["I can't, I /can't/, I'm sorry, I can't..."]
<stanzicApparati> ["Shh, shh. I'll do it. The Page's duty is to fight, after all. And that applies to internal monsters as well as external."]
<lucidChthonia> [More "I can't" and "I'm sorry" intersperses itself, in an increasingly quietly exhausted way, with sobs that taper off slowly, more slowly than they have before.]
<lucidChthonia> [You wish, desperately and wildly, that you could keep screaming and sobbing, that you could get everything to /stop/, forever, but what little is left of your will betrays you.]
<lucidChthonia> [Beyond this there is only a false vacuum of crude exhaustion.]
<lucidChthonia> [There is nothing left with which you could possibly mount a defense, and Cyma is just going to keep /doing/ this, and things like this, and you - and you -]
<lucidChthonia> [You jerk away from Cyma's shoulder and curl up into a fetal position, taking the blankets and bedspreads with you to cocoon you in a stifling bubble that nevertheless seems safer than ever showing your face again.]
<stanzicApparati> [You wait patiently for a few moments, rubbing her back. When it becomes clear that she isn't about to uncurl, you get up and lead WV off.]
<stanzicApparati> [They haven't done enough. But it's a start, and enough for tonight at least.]
<lucidChthonia> [You're not sure how much you sleep, or how much you lay awake staring at your shins, inside that bubble. But it's too long, too long.]
<lucidChthonia> [By the time you find yourself waking up in bedsheets that have been kicked away, with a piercing dehydration headache and sheets that are /wet/ and not damp, you're certain you will never run out of reasons to hate yourself.]