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[persisto]

@ JOYCE.B
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room #025; bunk 38 (formerly with Mrs. Sheringham)
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[persisto]

Are you fighting?

[That's the instinct. That's what her entire life has taught her to do, what her acute stress response had long been hammered into the shape of. That's what the tight grip from Senua seems to dictate.

But it's hard to shake the reality of Will screaming, sightless and soundless, letting the wrong one into the deepest pieces of himself, because "fight" had been the wrong option.]

[senuna]

[ Always is perhaps the answer. What is life if not a constant struggle for and against survival?

But another sound seems to catch her attention before she can answer, her head whipping to see behind her back as her breath quickens still. ( The beast is here. ) Oh, how it has always stalked those dearest to her, hasn't it? It took her mother before and then it took Dillion and now it's coming closer. She lets out a whimper of dismay before starting off down the hallway, hoping to tow Joyce along to a stride. Better still, a run. ]

[persisto]

[She knows that blink into the distance. She knows the abrupt shift when the lines of reality got blurred and tugged a young mind infinitely far away from the moment.

She shouldn't conflate Senua with the pain and panic and monsters she knows, but perhaps that's her own demon to grapple with.]

What--?

[The half-question escapes loudly, but Joyce certainly doesn't hesitate to follow where she's being tugged.]

[senuna]

[ She leads her down the hallway in a frantic, stumbling motion until she comes upon an open door to someone's room, empty for now but scattered with belongings. It will have to do for a hiding place. Once they're inside, she hits the console repeatedly to force it to close the door. Only after the silence of the sealed room settles that she allows her limbs to relax, letting out a sigh.

Senua understands that she is as frightening as she is herself frightened, but she would rather be feared by Joyce than have to mourn her. After all, not everything she sees is false. ]

Would you hear what it is I see?

[persisto]

[The shift once they're inside is palpable, even without the empathy bond they're always swimming in. It isn't enough to stop the worried hammering in Joyce's heart, but it relaxes some of the wrinkle in her brow.

Not all, but a little.

It certainly doesn't stop her from reaching to keep contact with Senua, fingers pawing with a practiced gentleness for shoulder and cheek, hair and forehead. (How many times has she had to check the fever of a child holding much less still than this? How often has she needed to find pupils in eyes just as frantic?)] Of course, sweetheart. You can tell me.

[senuna]

It was like a fever, entire years of me in flames. Light to drive out the dark. I felt safe then. I was a pillar of fire.

[ Senua catches the hand that reaches for her to place it against her own left cheek. ( Can't she feel it under her fingertips? Ash and embers. Hela. That goddess. That monster. Hel. A. ) There is such a thin line between fear and the heady rush that comes from a brush with power. ]

But it wasn't the burning that hurts me but the aloneness. I am learning to be touched. To be heard.

[ Slowly, she reaches for the bone she had given to Joyce, fingertips running across the carved surface. ]

Joy. Joyce? It has to mean something.

[persisto]

[She doesn't understand, but that's not new. That's part and parcel, now, of the sensation of protecting someone who only half needs protecting in the first place. (They're so powerful. Beyond what they can do, beyond what they've accomplished, Joyce is floored over and over again by what these young spirits have survived.)

Her thumb moves slowly, gently where it's allowed to rest against the younger woman's cheek.]

I hear you. [That much is absolutely true. That much is something she understands in her own bones; hopes Senua understands in hers.] Is it-- hard?

[senuna]

[ No one's asked her that before. Her father was demanding, accusing. Dillion was as curious as he was dismissive, feet planted solidly on heart. They asked her where she went, what she saw and heard, and never if it was hard.

Her response is a slow, unsteady shake of the head. It isn't a lie. Truth is, this is too easy, like sliding down a bottomless hill, faster and faster, like tipping your head up to the night sky until it's all you can see, until you're convinced the rest of the world has ceased to exist. All she must do is let go. Only not yet. Her eyes are searching, for now intensely present. ]

Are you afraid?

[persisto]

Sometimes.

[Her thumb moves fretfully, but her voice is steady enough. It's been important to be honest with this one since the first moment their hands had touched, after all.]

Not of you, sweetheart.

[For her? At the edges. Of her? Even in moments like this? Even having seen the strength of this young woman and tasted the edges of instability? Still not a chance.]

[senuna]

[ Her side of the bond is difficult to parse. It is standing amid a blazing forest fire yet never feeling the sting of embers on one's skin. It is exhilaration that comes from a hunt, though she can't now decide if she is the hunter or the hunted. A waking nightmare. ]

Perhaps you should be.

[ Spoken with fond concern. This is no threat. ]

You came to ask me what it means?

[persisto]

[Perhaps she should be afraid of Senua and the reeling edges she doesn't understand. Perhaps she should be afraid of El and the multitudes contained in that small body. Perhaps she should have been afraid of Will and the blankness that had taken hold of him before--

Her head shakes easily before moving to the question.]

Can you show me what you mean by "marking?"

[senuna]

There's no secret to it.

[ ( There is a secret to everything. You're keeping secrets again. ) It's not true. She turns the sun-bleached bone so the marks appear right to Joyce, writ in the old Ogham script. It is powerful insofar as the earth itself holds power, insofar as the trees can speak in languages beyond human ken. Each cut is a root and a branch and an unfurling leaf. ]

Women carve their names into stones to mark their land. Men trace their names onto their lover's skin. And now you know your name.

[persisto]

...okay.

[It's definitely out of her own sense of normal (although what that even is has been twisting and reshaping over the last few years), but the shadow is recognizable. The manner isn't familiar, but the impulse certainly is.

Her fingers move carefully to brush across the symbols that shape her 'name,' delicate but with an intent of recognition.] I can do that. [And, well:] Thank you, Senua.

[senuna]

[ Senua can afford a shadow of a smile, and a nod to hide most of it. She had been filled with such fondness for Joyce when she had hunted that deer-like creature, when she cleaned and dried the bone and carved the name so carefully. Only now she wonders if intent can ever outweigh the consequences, if it might paint a mark on Joyce. A mark for whom? She doesn't know. Some threat, some nightmare. ]

I need to wait and gather my courage. Out there is a shadow, furious because I have seen it.

[persisto]

You want company?

[Joyce doesn't know all the contours of Senua yet--but then, she hadn't known any of El's before they'd built the pool in the middle of the gymnasium. It's a learning process. It's a bit of touch and go and trying things out until things got properly settled.

Always worth it, in the end.]

[senuna]

[ Her father had wanted a prescription for her troubles, a fix to make it all go away. Senua is starting to learn that it isn't a cure she needs, but a guide, a tether back to the shared world, someone willing to walk the journey with her. But she would not risk a person so good to be hurt because of her.

She casts her gaze down and frowns, wringing her hands, never one to hide her fear. ]

I don't know if I'll win.

[persisto]

[There's no proper road map for this, of course. There had been incredible differences between Jonathan and Will, and none of the other lives that had flitted into hers had wandered any closer a road.]

It's hard to know. [Her own fingers twist lightly around the bone before stilling.] But alone is always harder.

[senuna]

[ Senua can say such things as the seams of this ship are rending or that time has lost its continuity or that she can taste space like metal on her tongue, but how can she make evident the terror that blankets it all? Only the hint of it is writ across her face, painted in the contortions it makes. ]

If he catches you, he will make you see how we are falling through nothing. He will make you think of it every waking hour. And each time you realize you stand on solid ground will be tainted by the reminder that soon he will find you again.

[ This is a deterrent, yes, but also a fair warning. ]

I would not have you battered by fear.

[persisto]

I know you wouldn't.

[It's how strong children with big hearts so often ended up alone.]

But we all get to make our own choices, right?

[And Joyce was going to keep choosing to follow good people down dangerous roads. It's probably always going to require conversations just like this.]

[senuna]

[ She wants to leave Joyce behind, somewhere safe, like a home or a glass box. But that was also the mistake she made when she left Dillion, wasn't it? If he had come with her, he might still be alive. If she had stayed, he might have survived. ( When will you learn? )

And she's right. ]

It's the only thing we have.

[persisto]

[That merits a laugh. Not a robust one, but the sort of quiet huffing thing that shakes a small frame like Joyce's in passing.]

It is. [Her fingers twist around the carving again, feeling the strange comfort of rough and smooth.] And I pick this.

[An incredible number of important choices happen with much less information than their time together thus far, after all.]