*** C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 hovers her hand in front of the door, unlocking it as did DEFENDER-1. She keeps a hand on her pistol, cautiously opening the door just enough for her to squeeze in and close it again behind her.
*** Garr stared at them when they came in. "...so a decision was made, then." They trill grimly.
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: So it was. ::>"
*** They stare. It was only the two. On manifest: an incredibly dangerous and powerful Biotic. Now alone in a room with you.
*** C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 commits the ultimate heresy in the eyes of that once-functional A.I. She breaches anonymity, if only for a minute, to let the Vortigaunt behold her face. Perhaps if she is seen, humanized, it would make it much harder to kill her.
*** Not completely pleasing to look at. She has a unique facial structure, blonde hair, deepset eyes.
*** Garr stares, honest in their surprise. Four dim red eyes behold the short woman -- odd in her presentation. The eyes are so deep they have the impression of an initial retreat when you stare at them. To see the enemy this close is striking. To see them this human. To see them as what they always are were and have been. A gentle look comes across the old Vortigaunt. Almost wistful.
*** C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 reclips her mask. She looks down at the shackles that keep 'this one' from that biological web of experiences. She hasn't the slightest idea how she ought to tackle this.
*** Gentle looks come to pass as the mask comes back on wordlessly and without fanfare. The clawed hands come up to offer the first step in doing so. They know not the process either.
*** C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 returns a gentle grasp beneath the claws of the beast, hovering her hand as she would a combine lock over one shackle.
*** They watch, awaiting what happens next.
*** Nothing.
*** C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 sidesteps, staring at the central control unit, situated awkwardly on Garr's crotch. She swallows her pride, bringing a hand over to it, again as before.
*** This time, success.
*** An electric switch releases, the rest of the shackles follow suit, save for those embedded in the skin of the Vortigaunt, though they only serve to hamper movement now, not utilization of the Vortessence.
*** C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 steps back, staring at the device, then back up to the now-liberated biotic.
*** The thing buzzes. It is off. The creature trills and lifts its head upwards to the ceiling. Sublime relief. To connect with the truth once again.
CMB:C38.BIOTIC.919 says "We, Tel'Ahm Garr, thank you."
*** C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 hesitates, saying nothing. Their head is hung in shame. A boundary transgressed. The feeling that motivated her to take action has retreated, she now realizes where she has placed herself. At the mercy of Garr, at the mercy of whoever might bear witness, might examine the discrepancies. She is wordless. She can only hope this reckless act will pay her in gold.
*** Garr observes them. They feel the hesistation. And, with one look, they portray this understanding. Or at least attempt to.
*** "We..."
*** "Thank..."
*** They reach to grab your hand.
*** "You..."
*** C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 slowly lifts her head up, staring forwards at the beast. She looks to the bench, noticing her notes. "Left them here again." She lets out an uneasy, awkward laugh. A joke to break the silence. Her voice is different. That cold, stern, high-fallutin German has retreated. She stumbles over the simplest of words, her tongue twisting to form abominable pronunciations, the pompousness and aboveness that the weight of her voice carried is gone. She sounds like any normal, scared refugee...
*** that might wander into a Lambda encampment. The facade has been lifted in the nakedness of her position. She controls nothing in this moment.
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*** "Hush." Garr says to shush their distractions. All must be entirely present in the mind for what will occur next. She controls nothing. The individual dies. There is no I. Maybe not even we, yet. There just is. Garr grabs Geyer's hand and lifts it to the space inbetween them. They hold it with two hands. The claws are felt gently against faux leather gloves. A strange feeling not unlike the beginning of a migraine follows suit.
*** C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 shivers. She attempts to remove a glove, to feel this without a middleman. Neglecting her headache, as she has in the past neglected pain inflicted upon her by all sorts of otherwordly forces, she struggles to release herself, but she does. Presented forth is hand scarred down the middle and the glimpse of wrists decorated intricately with self-inflicted ritualistic marks. Just a glimpse. They likely continue along all her upper arm.
*** Garr does not hesitate to allow her. The second skin touches skin...
*** A symbol or two carved into her flesh and made prominent with a scar may be familiar to Garr. May...
*** Black. No, white. The all of it at once. Like staring at the sun.
** You are on a beach.
** Your Mother is putting sunscreen on you.
** Last time you got sunburned.
** Her blonde hair is extra bright on the beach,
** You are with a squad of your friends. You are approaching a monastery on the shore. It is spectacular. You all wear the Lambda mark on your arms.
** Your best friend is shot. He bleeds everywhere.
** You all make it out alive. You are friends for life afterwards.
** You are in a frozen wasteland. Everything is dying.
** The sky turned black days ago.
** Some have taken their lives already.
** You are raking leaves off your front porch in London.
** You are helping your father pick out toilet paper brands at a Walmart.
** You are so many things.
** You are at the Nerve Center. You are in the inner circle. You are not some field agent anymore, but deep within. Where you wanted to be.
** You are in room. With a vortigaunt. You are there. But also elsewhere.
** Their hand leaves and you are no longer these things. The We disappears.
Player Toriwarrior30055 has joined the game
*** CMB:C38.BIOTIC.919 lets in a deep breath. It is finished. Their eyes slump, tired.
*** C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 stands there. Silent. Despite her mask, one can easily sense that she stares directly through you. And, for those few lingering moments, there exists and odd peace. She steps back, staring at those loosened shackles, then back to Garr. She says nothing, but she's looking at you. Mercy. Permitting you to remain connected to what you had been severed from for some few more fleeting moments. She reasserts her power with mercy.
** Was that all in a second? Or a day? Or an hour? It was an instant dream.
*** "Do," They pause, even perhaps anxious themselves. "Does this One understand the energy we bestow? What was referred to as... "arts"?" Their hands stay close to their chest, near their third middle-hand.
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: Yes. Yes, this-- this fits. Perhaps not snugly, though it fits. ::>"
*** C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 dwells for a moment, before reciting something...
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: I have seen the sun break through to illuminate a small field for a while, and gone my way and forgotten it. ::>"
*** CMB:C38.BIOTIC.919 learns forward to hear what they recite, intruiged.
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: But that was the pearl of great price, the one field that had treasure in it. I realise now that I must give all that I have to possess it. ::>"
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: Life is not hurrying on to a receding future, nor hankering after an imagined past. It is the turning aside like Moses to the miracle of the lit bush, to a brightness that seemed as transitory as your youth once, but is the eternity that awaits you. ::>"
*** D-4 has memorized this from somewhere. She has performed it before, a long, long time ago. She stumbles over some words, seeking to remember what was said, yet she performs with great, soothing cadence.
*** CMB:C38.BIOTIC.919 offers inquisition in only their agape gaze and silence. The cadence, although soothing, seemed to dress Garr's eyes with unease. The eyes. The was the only real readable part of this Vortgaunt's face. Or any Biotic's face for that matter -- it was difficult reading expressions perhaps due to difference in species.
*** C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 stares from behind her veil. "I think of this when I remember what was seen."
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: A solemn beauty found in the affirmation of life, no matter where, no matter in the moments of happiness or the tragic. ::>"
*** Pause. "It is," The say after a contemplation of what Geyer had said, "The truest peace; the affirmation of life."
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: There is profundity in what was seen, not only as what it is that is felt when there is 'we' without 'I,' but in remembrance of the condition beleaguering us all. I reduce myself to banalities. I find no scripture or dogma that might taint those brief moments. They will stay with me, forever, isolated from the words I read and preach. A reminder. Forever. To attempt to assimilate it would do it injustice. ::>"
*** "For moments are just those: moments. Without greater ideas in it of themselves. What is important to understanding the we," A motion and gesture is made at their own head, "Is not about the thinking. An individual can think the 'we' rationally, but can never feel it. Feeling is the most rational thing, in our perspective. Never the formal logic humankin boast."
CMB:C38.BIOTIC.919 says "To truly know the we is to feel. Not to deduce by distorted machines of reason. This is why the Combine will always truly fail in their endeavor. Whether they are aware of this fact or not."
*** C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 shuffles over to the cell bench, seating herself. She has not an ounce of enmity in her that might arouse protest. She permits Garr to speak, listening intently. She permits Garr to enjoy commune with the greater Vortessence.
*** And so they do. Whole again. The speaking stops and they sit opposite the bench of them. Almost like as if the space between them were one long invisible dinner table.
CMB:C38.BIOTIC.919 says "We feel our kin. We will not allow ourselves to let this ourselves be discovered. We remain secret, here."
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: You must go. Eventually. ::>"
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: I can only envision your freedom. ::>"
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: I cannot play a part in it, but I can envision it. I can hope that, should it arrive, I will never have to find you opposite my barrel. ::>"
CMB:C38.BIOTIC.919 says "Likewise. Though we hope our days of slaughter are over. We feel what we have taken now. The guilt the vortessence provide us now. The vortessence is never just a gift. Understand this. It is neither against or for us. It is entirely neutral. Pure energy."
CMB:C38.BIOTIC.919 says "...that is what we see it as."
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: I know not if you will ever feel shackled burden released from you once more. You would do well to carefully consider hiding yourself. For your own sake,. ::>"
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: If it is truly wise to refrain announcing your presence. ::>"
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: Impenetrable as these walls are, in the future wherever you are brought may not be. ::>"
CMB:C38.BIOTIC.919 says "The un-enshackling is merely our reprieve. Perhaps what is best for us and our retribution is to seek the shackles back on. Though we give eternal thanks."
*** C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 lets out an acknowledging, "Hm." She lowers her head, observing her naked hand before slipping her glove back on.
*** Garr lets silence sit. Then: "We sought to only teach absolute understanding. What The Insignia'd One does with what we have showed is entirely autonomous. We give knowledge but will not provide the answer, for we know not the true answer."
CMB:C38.BIOTIC.919 says "We speak large when presenting to this One's compatriots, but willingly admit here we are but an island among many that are our kin. Lost as we all are and were for generations under many lives of enslavement. This is were are not shocked by such actions upon us: we know the cruelty the Combine enacts first hand and have for ages."
CMB:C38.BIOTIC.919 says "We look to this One's upbringing with wistful regard. Perhaps if we were as young as The Insignia'd One -and as out of touch with the vortessence for most of their lives- we ourselves would be in much the same position."
CMB:C38.BIOTIC.919 says "Though we have lived for too long and killed for too long. We offer no more violence, but mere experience."
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: I, too, have killed--albeit indirectly--kinsmen of your kind. I do not know if I am steeped in regret or remorse. There is a feeling of detachment, yet regard, where once there existed callousness. ::>"
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: I do not know if I am capable of functioning with what has been conferred unto me. ::>"
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: I may, one day, have it wiped from memory. ::>"
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: Yet, should such come to pass, I would not permit your presence. ::>"
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: I would not seek to abuse you in amnesiac stupor. ::>"
*** CMB:C38.BIOTIC.919 reached over next to them and picked something up. Twisted in in all three hands. They handed it to Geyer.
CMB:C38.BIOTIC.919 says "We tell lies. We have read this."
*** C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 stares at the item, letting out a brief sigh.
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: Understandable. ::>"
CMB:C38.BIOTIC.919 says "If the loss of a memory is a possibility, then document them."
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: This memory is irreconcilable with mine own programming. ::>"
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: I hold deeply to what I have been steeped in. This is my direction. There can be no other. I am fated to stand guard as The Empire crumbles around me. I have not been relieved of my position. Form. I act with form... deprived of... ::>"
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: Content. ::>"
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: Opposing oneself as form. ::>"
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: This is my fate. ::>"
CMB:C38.BIOTIC.919 says "There are entwining rivers and paths. There is no straight line of faith. The past itself seems to this one ourselves as many knotted lines instead of one thread."
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: I cannot envision any alternate future. ::>"
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: I simply see persistence in what I have locked myself into. ::>"
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: Suicide is cowardly. I know I would face a most terrible fate if I were to flee, whether at the hands of my brothers or at the hands of yours, human or not. Solitude... ::>"
*** C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 shrugs. This existentialism is hers to bare. She wishes against spilling it to another.
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: I might elect myself for memory replacement. I may seal away this memory to be cherished, irregardless of empty form and persistent duty. ::>"
*** The Soothsayer stares down at her as she is reduced to this form. "We see not the benefit in such a foolish endeavor."
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: What ought you prescribe? If such prescription were possible, ackowleding that you are not the be-all-end-all. ::>"
CMB:C38.BIOTIC.919 says "We prescribe time. That is all that can be gifted so that one may understand this very dilemna. Many have had it before. The Insignia'd One is not the first."
CMB:C38.BIOTIC.919 says "We have felt in the web of the vortessence greater struggles. Those lost to the void."
CMB:C38.BIOTIC.919 says "...those brought back from the void."
CMB:C38.BIOTIC.919 says "And those who met great fates and found the greatest of gifts in the strangest of places."
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: Time. ::>"
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: As it was. ::>"
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: So I shall endure. ::>"
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: Perhaps, now, it is best we return to our duties. ::>"
C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 says "<:: Lest we chance fate. ::>"
CMB:C38.BIOTIC.919 says "Endure, we implore."
CMB:C38.BIOTIC.919 says "Give not to temptation. This one is still seperated: but we still wonder if that is not the true charm of humanity."
*** C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 lifts herself off her seat, grabbing her notepad. She tears off an idle doodle she'd made last time, a simple biotic, and leaves it there. "Need you bid any farewells to that cosmic webbing you call your home?"
*** C17:RL.DEFENDER-4 remains hesitant in calling the Vortessence for what it is. Old habits die hard.
*** They close their eyes. One last reaching into the binds that tie them to their kin. Such connection, universal. They nod once.
CMB:C38.BIOTIC.919 says "We are ready. Re-bind us."
CMB:C38.BIOTIC.919 says "If this be our time last to experience this, we are content."
*** Reassembling the shackles with utmost gentleness and due respect, DEFENDER-4 need wave a hand to take it all away. And so she does. For form's sake. She backs up, removing her mask once more, and staring to her unlikely soothsayer with unreadable eyes. It comes back on and she leaves quickly, footsteps on metal crosswalks fading and fading. And so it is.
***** And the prisoner kept there.
