Once more into the breach, dear friends

[hellonspectacles]

It is nighttime, or what passes for nighttime in space, and the ship Mount Ida is quiet.

It isn’t a particularly large vessel. There are berths for a dozen crew members and private rooms for the ship’s two officers, a mess hall, a med bay, an armory, a brig. Nothing about it is particularly luxurious—Blood of Eden doesn’t go in for luxury, and the members of Troia Cell are no different—but everything is functional and well maintained. The ship hums faintly with the sound of engines and life support and electric lights, a but most of the crew don’t notice it anymore.

Near the officer’s cabins is another berth, occupied (or so it seems) by a single person. It contains a bed, and a sink, and a table on which, strangely, sits the perfectly formed skeleton of a human hand. The door is locked from the outside and a crew member stands guard. Are these precautions to keep the person inside from escaping, or to protect them from coming to harm? No one is sure anymore.

The crew member, Sergeant Hot Coals of Vengeance, is bored. Their shift is almost over, they need a piss, and they’re not even sure what the point of this assignment is anyway. Sure, the room’s occupant might be a zombie lover, and she might be a little weird. And sure, she did dislocate Lieutenant Pash’s arm when they tried to take that gross little bag of bones from her, but that was months ago. These days, she’s polite, and she spends long hours in secret meetings with the Commander, and she always asks for an escort when she needs to leave the room.

Coals really needs to piss. They peek through the little window in the door.

Inside, Camilla Hect is curled up on a narrow bed, breathing steadily. She’s asleep, and anyway, the door is locked. What’s the worst that could happen if they stepped away for a few minutes?

Coals leaves their post, and Camilla sleeps on—or so it seems.

Comments

[hasapoint]

He's still not going to be seeing that from the outside, Need doesn't point out. She knows how to stabilize and transfer and re-anchor a mind and soul, whether that's into flesh and blood that can support them or into something like a sword, but she's not going to just promise something like that in these circumstances.

:It won't. There will be a price for my help, though. I don't imagine it's something you wouldn't agree to, or I wouldn't have come. She'll have to agree to it too and I don't feel like explaining it twice. You can talk to her first, even if you decide against my assistance afterwards and I go back to Velgarth.: I am such a soft heart, Need grumbles to herself.

-all right, one good thing about this situation. Palamedes and Camilla come from a culture that in most respects appalls Need's sensibilities but is not patriarchal. There's some remnants of that to the Blood of Eden people - she is snooping without fear or shame - but they're also almost Kaled'a'in-level egalitarian as far as gender and sexuality go. Huh.

There are still people that her mandate applies to. She's never visited a dimension or a world or whatever she cares to call it that has no systemic oppression, no one exploited and misused with impunity by someone who has power over them. They exist somewhere, she hopes.

:Now I want you to envision your left hand. Imagine I'm taking it and wrapping it around hers on my hilt. You can speak when that contact is there.:

[hellonspectacles]

::I don’t have a left hand:: says Palamedes, narrowing avoiding making the joke that the closest thing to his hand sits, in skeleton form, on the desk. Despite his skepticism, he does his best to do as she says—he pictures the sword that Camilla is practicing with, he pictures his long-destroyed body, imagines Need’s hand holding his as together they reach out a cover Camilla’s hand with theirs.

He pictures it, and he swears he can almost feel Cam’s hand, warm and strong, under his own.

::Camilla Hect:: he says, and he waits to see what happens.

[hasapoint]

:Tsh. Neither do I, still-warm, that doesn't make you special,: Need says, both caustic and amused. Imagine thinking less than a year is a long time. :Hands are a useful metaphor in my line of work. You still remember yours, be thankful for that.:

She doesn't remember hers in detail. That they were large and brown and had lost much of her old strength by the end, yes, with arthritis in her joints, and yes, that they were worn from her career as a fighter and then a mage-smith. Not which fingertip was missing and if that was actually on her right hand, not the way the loosened, less elastic skin set, not the number and placement of scars, not if her nails had been clean or stained.

Regardless the metaphor of her hand is cool and hard with calluses, and very sure. For the theatrics of it, Need exerts a mild influence on the nerves in the back of Camilla's hand, just a sunlight-touch of heat and pressure as if something really is there. She also ensures that as she passes Palamedes' voice along it seems to be coming more from the left.

She can handle it if the girl's response is to drop or throw the sword, but it's going to prolong things.

[hellonspectacles]

Camilla’s response is to go very, very still. For a long moment she stands unmoving, barely daring to breathe, ears strained for a voice or a sound to explain what she just heard—no, felt. But there is only the silence of the ship at night.

Maybe she’s going mad.

“Warden?” she says, words barely above a whisper.

::Cam! I’m here. Well, I’m always here, aren’t I? But I’ve found a way for us to communicate. No—I’ve found a friend who can help us communicate. That’s her sword, actually.::

“But how—“

::I think we may have asked her for help without meaning to. I don’t really understand it. Ah, she might be able to explain better than I can.::

[hasapoint]

These poor children. This limited contact she's allowed has shot fresh sensation into a raw wound. Whether that's useful pressure or just pushing into it, well. That all depends. The pain of that contact roils outwards either way.

It feels, in a way she would rather not let on, really good. Need can't hurt, can't be hurt like that anymore, and a bit of her covets the pain of a heart that can break, the pain that she was 'born' into when she caught her soul into the sword. She keeps an eye on that craving, doesn't let it get out of hand or express it.

:Yes, you're holding my focus. I can explain it, but I don't know what you know and how much I can make it sensible without taking three hours to make it about myself,: she says. Her voice has something in it of cracked gravel and banked heat, and a wry sense of humor. :But you might want to know, that person with the long literary name - oh, that doesn't narrow it down at all, does it? the one guarding you - is on their way back and about to peek in to make sure you haven't got up to anything while they were out.:

This is a test. Need wants to see how Camilla will respond - if she'll trust the voice in her head this little bit, what she'll do. She's pretty sure being seen will raise a lot of questions and can hide herself from view perfectly well in several different ways, if it comes to it.