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[persisto]

@ JOYCE.B
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room #025; bunk 38 (formerly with Mrs. Sheringham)
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outside her room

[senuna]

[ The lords she has heard tales of would give gifts of pottery, gold, jars of wine to allies and those in their good favor. Senua has never sighted such grand things nor found them on the planet. So this will have to do: the unblemished fur of a doe-like creature wrapped into a square and tied with twine. Inside are berries and fruits dried in the sun, and a polished bone of the same animal with etchings upon it:

᚛  ᚌᚙᚇᚕᚉᚆᚐᚄ  ᚜

It goes something like gàirdeachas. Joy. Exultation. Joyce. ]

[persisto]

[It's not something she's expecting, of course. It's honestly something she almost trips over in the little flurry of activity that always comes with leaving her own space (she doesn't actually have to take her keys and wallet, but it helps to have the faintest bit of normalcy).

And it's... not something she completely knows what to make of, as she carefully takes up the fur. There's something in the weight that makes her bring the little bundle inside and undo the twine, lips twitching up at the dried provisions and-- not down at the bone, but certainly back toward straight.

Not exactly a crayon drawing for a kid to show they care.

But thoughtful. Possibly even sweet. Certainly, given the etchings that look like something Will and his friends would have drawn on their game sheets, she's guessing this is either someone doing magic (concerning) or Senua (odd, but less concerning).

She'll test the second theory first (because if someone's already put a hex on her or whatnot, another few minutes can't make that much of a difference), twisting the bone delicately between her fingers as she pads along the hallways to find:] --Senua?

[senuna]

[ It's true. Every mark left against nature is a gift or a curse and magic courses through all things. A single action ripples across the world to find its way back to its origin. Nothing ever ends. Nothing is ever what it seems. These are the thoughts that occupy her mind when she turns to the sound of her name.

Fatigue marks her face and she regards Joyce with undue wariness. Her gaze drifts past her, beyond her left shoulder, to the hooded figure that only she can see. ( That creature again. ) She doesn't know what he means to do, only it pains her to consider how many he has poisoned against her.

Still, she remembers that fragment of bone in Joyce's hands. A gift freely given, regardless. ]

It's your name. To mark what belongs to you.

[persisto]

[It isn't exactly the same as the way Will's focus used to slide in and out, but watching Senua's attention drift aside tugs at the same place in Joyce's heart. The ache has a sting to it now, like fingers pressed down onto an almost-healed bruise.

It's good to have the bone to keep her fingers twisting around. Not reaching out to touch people has been getting a little easier, but it's still hardest in moments like this. ]

To-- mark, sweetheart?

[senuna]

[ In a moment, her expression hardens into anger, hate belying the hurt underneath. She clenches her jaw and breathes hard through her nose. Her eyes aren't trained toward Joyce, but still beyond, at how the figure of her waking nightmare leans toward her ears and whispers words she can't hear but can imagine.

Her eyes soften into a plea when they find Joyce's face again, though her words are snarled. ]

He's a liar. I would never hurt you.

[persisto]

Hey. Hey.

[Now this is familiar. That contortion of Senua's features is too directed, too specific, even before an unknown 'he' bubbles up over her lips.]

I know you wouldn't.

[Joyce can't stop the instinct of reaching out, one hand still gripping the bone but the other flitting toward catching a light hold of the younger woman's shoulder.]

Just stay with me, Senua, okay?

[senuna]

[ She flinches instinctively from the touch. Her mind catching up too late to realize that it comes not from those others she fears, but from Joyce. It's difficult to tell when her vision tilts and ripples, lights dancing in the corners, and when there's so much noise. ( As long as you remember you're you. She doesn't know who you are. No one does. No one can. ) Was that this morning? Yesterday? Did Joyce ever say those words at all?

She rests both hands on Joyce's shoulders, leaning in to close off the rest of the world. It's clear that she's struggling to stay, struggling to conjure a message that would make its way through. Her pupils are dilated, her gaze averted from here. ]

I'm here. I see you. [ She moves her hand to the carved bone Joyce holds. ] Something's coming.

[persisto]

[Flinching isn't good. The distant, reeling expression isn't good. But the fingers catching her shoulders and body swaying closer are something to be hopeful about.]

Okay. [Her fingers squeeze carefully, thumb shifting in a small circle. Something to focus on (for her? for Senua? she's not sure).] That's okay. Do-- Can you tell me what's coming?

[senuna]

[ Senua can see the circles Joyce draws upon her skin, like the map to a secret labyrinth, and she thinks she understands how it all fits together. She returns the grip with too much force, strong enough to hurt, and this is why she avoids the bond: because it betrays fear beyond fear, even when she shakes her head in reply and tries to speak as calmly as she can. ]

You must hide or you must fight.

[ The ship in her mind is dark and shattered. The walls never quite stay where they are. She can hear the sound of Joyce herself screaming just down the hallway, and she doesn't quite know which one is real. ]

[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.