Fantasy The Old Gods

[Syntra]

"Hijacked. Took over. Made him my bitch," she explained, ever patient. Okay, no, not quite; Phaedre and patience usually went together about as well as Phaedre and staying silent, or Phaedre and fitting in. Perhaps even Phaedre and not getting into trouble? In case you hadn't noticed, those things... didn't usually work out all too well for her. But! There indeed was one big but this time, and the caveat was that it related to her work. So, instead of her brain finding the shortest, most efficient route from point A to point B, she allowed it to dally and flesh the scenery out a bit. "There's a chip in my head," she said, in a tone that suggested it was absolutely normal. That, of course, implied the exact opposite was true, "Once calibrated properly, it can do a lot of things. If you really think about it, Elra... Are bodies that different from a machine?"

They weren't. 'My body is a temple' this, 'the flesh is sacred' that; all just dogma, and all pointless. All just a smokescreen hiding the real truth.

Not waiting for the Talron's answer, Phaedre cracked a smile, "They aren't. It would depend on your definition, of course, but, the main point is, it's just a shell designed to do something." Usually, that something was survival. Survival, and reproduction as well. Both goals were... understandable, even if they also irked Phaedre somewhat. "And it follows a set of rules. Every action begets a reaction. So, theoretically, if you know what kind of action to take... you can also get some pretty unorthodox results."

And, the thing was, it seemed that the conversation itself lead to some unorthodox results for Phaedre. Gone were her usual, mildly annoyed mannerisms; for once, the woman actually appeared interested, a most striking change. It was all the difference between watching a dead TV, and remembering to turn it on.

"I see," she said, not even trying to suppress the smile, "Fates. A convenient shortcut." The line of reasoning was familiar, the same way that a half-forgotten dream was. Sure, Phaedre didn't know all the details, but she didn't have to. The parallels spoke clearly enough. Something had created Elra, just because it could; and, in turn, their gods had created them, with no rhyme and reason either.

Of course, both were nonsense. Things didn't just happen out of the blue. They never did, and ignoring that truth was half the reason they were stuck in this mess in the first place.

That didn't mean there was no value in what she'd said, though. Oh, not at all. "I'm just saying it's more worthwhile to walk the longer path. It may get you to the same place, but--" A passerby gave her a pointed look, and Phaedre glared in turn. They were a middle-aged man, perhaps around forty, wearing leather and way too many piercings; so, the opposite of strange, in this day and age. Normally, he wouldn't have so much as turned her head, but... Did he recognize me?

Ever the question!

Thankfully it seemed they'd reached their destination, wherever it was.

Phaedre would have thought that comfort would come with that, but apparently that was asking too much. Instead, Elra seemed... scared? That piqued her interest, "Normal? When have I ever not acted normal?" A very good question, and the honest answer would be: 'throughout most of her life.' "Besides, normality is based on context. If you don't tell me what the context is, you can't possibly expect me to know which social script I am supposed to..."

Follow. Phaedre didn't finish the sentence, mostly because she was too busy staring at the half-naked guy. Two questions emerged in her head: 'Who is he?' and 'No, really, who the FUCK is he?' Some associate of Aren Gold's was the most likely conclusion, because Elra... didn't seem like the type. Like the type for what, Phaedre couldn't quite tell; it was one of those intangible, hard-to-define things.

"Yes, hello," she rolled her eyes, as if the two weren't invading the man's home, "Can we go inside? It's kind of awkward to explain in the hallway." That much, at least, was true. Not that it would be any less awkward to explain inside, but that was a problem for future Phaedre! And no, she couldn't explain why her arm wrapped around Elra's waist, "Wonderful to finally meet you, by the way. The name's Phaedre."

Fuck. Should she come up with a nickname?

Probably.

 

[Kinney]

Highjacked.

The word jumped out, in uppercase and bold print, and it burrowed into her brain while Elra did her analysis of this stupid terra boy. The ridiculous swoop of cigarette-ash hair above his ear. Aren had liked to wrap it around her finger. The quarter-sized port wine birthmark on his chest, the childish tattoo of a wine glass just above it, which he got just because he thought it was hilarious… he had been drunk and cried the next morning, in regret. The patchy stubble that he’d tried to grow out once, but he had looked Amish. Aren had been too nice to tell him.

They’d met in high school, dated through college, wanted two kids and a shih tzu and a penthouse, childishly hoping they could live off a starving artist and mechanic’s salary in this broken world.

Aren Gold and Chance Mochida, a fucking Hallmark holiday special.

Highjacked. This wasn’t hers. This life, this guy - Chance wasn’t hers.

But he was her body’s, and her body ached. Rough hands dragging against her skin...

It was possible. Highjacking an entire person. Elra knew it was possible because she had highjacked an entire Aren Gold. But, for what it was worth, she hadn’t meant to. Fuck no, she hadn’t meant to… she took lives, not dreams, she wasn’t a monster. Why would she want this stupid boy, or this life, she didn’t want any of this - why would she want this twisting knife in her abdomen, the what ifs and what could have beens and -?

Her mood was saved from the spiral, when a warm pressure hugged around her waist.

Elra's mind emptied. Apparently it had been too much to ask for no weirdness. Figures.

…But she wasn’t complaining -

- she should be.

“Uh,” came the boyfriend's impressive reply. Chance appeared taken aback - slapped, even - his eyes glued to Phaedre’s arm placement, and Elra reanimated. She shoved through the door, and through the small resistance he’d put forth.

“Look, hi, I’m sorry and all,” She wiggled past him into the hallway, while also trying to wiggle out of Phaedre’s hold so she could concentrate, “we need a place to stay for the night. I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

“What?” He kept the door ajar. There was a hope in the air, in the way his brown eyes searched the two of them, and then out the door, and then back at the the two of them. A hope that this was a weird dream and he was still sleeping, maybe, or maybe that this was a prank, because even that would be more appropriate. “Are you serious?”

“I don’t have anywhere else to go,” she repeated, slow and matter of fact. Maybe he hadn’t heard…

“That isn’t my problem, Aren, Jesus Christ,” he cradled what was likely a raging headache with his hand. “You can’t come barging in here at three in the morning, shirtless," Elra had completely forgotten to care that she was only wearing a bra and tugged her jacket closed, "with some," he gesticulated at Phaedre, "chick and expect me to just house you for whatever fucking reason. Are you insane?”

“Please?” Elra cringed her mouth in what was supposed to be a grin.

“Who the hell is Phaedre?” He asked pointedly at Elra, ignoring the subject in question, and finally closed the door. Loud. He stormed off to what Elra knew to be the kitchen. “Your girlfriend or something?”

“No,” Thinking on her feet was easier when it resulted in bloodshed. She peeked over at Phaedre and recalculated. “Er, yes.” Girlfriend was probably a better answer than partner in crime in this scenario, which was saying a lot.

How the hell did her night even end up like this?

She meandered into the sitting room, which opened up into a kitchen, where Chance was surfacing from the fridge with a can of beer. It was homey in here, orange-lit comfortable and warm. It was unnerving. Also quite the contrast from the situation they'd left at her studio flat. She sidled up to the island and drummed her fingers against the marble, trying to climb into Aren's personality...

What would Aren do?

"Can I have one?" She jerked her chin at the beer he'd just popped open. Aren did like beer, after all. Especially amber ales. Never mind the inappropriateness of all of this, this entire situation, like waking up an ex-lover at 3AM with a supposed new-lover in tow, and then asking for a fucking beer.

He paused, shooting her a look that said 'really', before sliding his drink over and getting another one out of the fridge. Without a second thought, he slid one over to Phaedre, too.

Because Chance was polite. Even if his girlfriend was a bitch. Elra tried to swallow the inconvenient guilt in a wave of tangy ferment, but it only resulted in a slightly cloudier sensation of a rock wedged in her throat.

After he sucked down half of his beer in the most awkward fifteen seconds of Elra's life, Chance leaned against the counter and finally looked at them. "You ever going to tell me what's going on? Or do I have to just wonder like I've been doing for the past three fucking months? And why are your hands dirty? Is that paint?"

 

[Syntra]

Wow, this is a trainwreck.

That Phaedre García, the certified expert on missing social cues, was able to come to that conclusion likely wasn't a good sign, but it seemed like the world had run out of those anyway. And to think Jen said I'd die alone!

She recalled some modifiers along with the statement, such as 'if you don't stop being like that' (whatever it meant) or 'unless you stop dressing as if you'd just crawled out of a dustbin' (whatever that meant).

Well, Jen could officially suck it because she apparently had a girlfriend, now.

Act normal.

Act normal.

Just. Fucking. Act. Normal.

The words were a mantra in her head, though, in hindsight, that might not have been the best tactic here. For one, it was... sort of hard to figure out what normal even was in this context? In most contexts, if Phaedre had to be honest with herself, but she also felt that there wasn't a person alive on this doomed planet that wouldn't be stumped in this situation.

A (likely) ex-boyfriend, an ex-girlfriend, and said ex-girlfriend's current girlfriend? Barring weird, horny scenarios, Phaedre didn't think that was a combination that ever went too well. Or horror movie scenarios, her mind supplied. Someone could always be getting killed.

Not fucking helpful!

Although it also would have been less awkward at this point. Anything would have been. Chance looked as if he was ready to welcome the sweet embrace of death, and wasn't that convenient? Because, boy oh boy, did Phaedre have some news for him!

News that she very much couldn't share.

"I'm not some chick," the scientist rolled her eyes in the end, "I believe I've introduced myself. Why does everyone keep ignoring my name?" A beat, "It's nice. Rolls of the tongue really well when you say it a few times. You could try it." Yep, Phaedre at her Phaedrest! Arguing about her fucking name, because clearly there weren't better topics, such as explaining what the hell she was doing in front of this stranger's apartment at three am.

Please, let him be one of those guys with no self-respect. And maybe being buddy-buddy with a god did actually result in your prayers being answered? Because, before she could even consciously realize what it was that was happening, they were already stumbling inside; to warmth, to safety, and, as it turned out, to more stupid questions.

Fucking sigh.

Ever the party pooper, Phaedre just gave her beer a pointed look, "No," she explained, "It's blood. We've killed a few people, and are currently on the run. No pressure, but not calling the Enforcers would be really nice of you." What? It was true! And all the axioms their society was based around said that the truth was sacred and good, so Chance really had no grounds to complain about anything.

Unless, of course, he took it to be sarcasm. Phaedre might have delivered it that way, but how was she responsible for other people's perceptions?

"Look, man," she sighed, "We need a day at most, just to figure some things out. I know this is weird," to put it mildly, "But you have to admit it's also more interesting than just wallowing in your depression." Wow, a 10/10 argument! Phaedre herself felt a little tempted to cringe, and that she didn't was a proof of her having endured many, many awkward situations that she may have directly caused by... uh, being like that.

Perhaps that was what Jen had meant?

Terrifying.

She didn't want to live in a world where Jen had a point.

Unfortunately, something in Phaedre also couldn't stop proving her right. Perhaps that was why she went over to her girlfriend, and put her hands on her shoulders in an obvious gesture of affection, "We could talk! People love talking," why the fuck did she sound like an alien pretending to be human, "So, how have you been?"

 

[Kinney]

Paint. Elra lifted her palm, the dirtier one, the one that had done the "deed", and examined it. Yes, paint. Paint was a good cover, she could go with pai-

"No, it's blood."

Elra threw wide eyes at her accomplice.

Sure, the Talron wasn't a "pro" when it came to human interaction, but Elra and her three impressive months of being a terra were pretty damned sure admitting to a murder wasn't a socially acceptable thing to admit. In a knee-jerk motion, she drowned her twister of discomfort with the other half of her drink while Phaedre prattled the full extent of their situation. Yes, they've killed a few people, they were on the run, don't call the Enforcers.

Please don't overreact, please don't overreact...

Elra would kill the boyfriend if it came down to it, but for the sake of this damned Aren's heart and memories and desires... well, murder was very low on the list of things Aren's body would like to do to him.

Chance tapped a toe, crossed his arms. Stared, angrily. As far as reactions went, this one was... gloriously underwhelming, thank the Fates.

"Look, man,"

"Chance," he corrected.

"We need a day at most, just to figure some things out. I know this is weird...But you have to admit it's also more interesting than just wallowing in your depression."

Elra now glued a hand onto Phaedre's beer and dragged it over, pointedly looking at the counter, the cupboard handles, the condensation on her drink, anything other than Chance's face. Her lips pressed into a thin line and she lifted the ale into the air, cheers, before drinking that one, too. Because fuck all if she'd try and get through the rest of this encounter sober.

Ke-bel! she did the Talron toast in her brain, and bid her brain farewell -

Warm pressure, again, this time on her shoulders. She choked on the last of her drink, coughed once into a fist, and recovered enough to maintain her dignity. Whatever dignity she had left tonight (it wasn't much).

"We could talk! People love talking."

"I don't," Elra shook her head in utmost sincerity.

"So, how have you been?"

"Shitty," Chance deadpanned, "'wallowing in my depression'. Thanks for asking. Swear to god, Aren, where did you find this girl?"

"Phaedre found me. Outside a bar, while-"

He swore under his breath, "I can't express to you how much I don't want to know."

"But," Elra tipped her head, brows squashed together, "you asked me?"

"Listen," he shoved away from the counter, "please, please don't tell me. You two take the downstairs office, I guess. I need to be up in two hours for work," He popped open the garbage chute and chucked the bottle inside before heading towards the stairs. Elra took this as her cue and leaned away from the counter, brain and face fuzzy.

"Aren?"

Elra paused and looked at him. Chance was standing there at the bottom of the staircase, looking peeved but something else. Conflicted. Tormented. Elra didn't understand the sentiment, and she was too tired to dig through Aren's wisdom to try and decipher it.

"Stay here until after I get off," he said, "please?"

After hesitating, she nodded her head and waited for him to disappear before she nipped Phaedre's sleeve between her fingers and strolled down the dark hallway, to the office in the backroom. It was an office that she'd helped move stuff into, when she'd lived here.

Well, not her. Aren. But it felt like she'd just been here yesterday.

It was bare bones in the room, aside from a computer table with a janky looking PC atop it. Elra walked over to the wall, where a cupboard was, and tugged on the string to reveal that it wasn't a cupboard, it was a murphy bed. It folded out to its full double size and Elra finally turned to Phaedre.

"Great job not being weird," her eyes narrowed. "A chip in your head? Can you be programmed to be less crazy. Shit."

 

[Syntra]

All things considered, this was actually going rather well.

Or, not too terrible?

Given the situation, which could only be described as the two of them being at Chance's complete mercy, 'not terrible' was absolutely an outcome that Phaedre was willing to accept here. "Right, Chance," she nodded her head, "Glad to have the opportunity meet you." Thank gods for social scripts! Always there for you to fall on... well, at least if you knew them. That could admittedly be a pretty big if, in Phaedre's case specificially. But, hey! Introductions weren't difficult!

They couldn't be, mostly because literally everyone had go through the ordeal on a daily basis. People just... had to know other people. It was how things worked, and given that the majority of the population was unapologetically stupid, the ritual had to be simple.

Maybe Phaedre, of all people, shouldn't be going around and calling others stupid when it was her who so very often couldn't cope with the realities of social situations, but what were you going to do? Arrest her? Others had already called dibs on that, so good fucking luck.

Staying silent honestly seemed like the best approach here, but Phaedre... wasn't exactly known for always choosing the best approach. "She didn't find me anywhere," the woman pursed her lips, "What do you think I am, a rare Magic: The Gathering card?" She might have been outing herself as a nerd, in more than one way, though Phaedre's capacity to care had also been depleted almost entirely. Whatever this man thought of her mattered very little. Whatever most men thought of her mattered very little, "Besides, I was the one who..."

But Elra took it upon herself to explain things. Not that Chance really appreciated it, which wasn't surprising; at this point, Phaedre thought there was nothing short of her committing ritual suicide that would please the guy.

I'm not being fair here. No, she very much wasn't, and she could at least acknowledge it. Why, though?

It could be that Phaedre García just wasn't too interested in being fair, in general. On some level, that was most likely true. A glance deeper would have revealed that this was actually far more complicated, with her feeling... some type of way about the man apparently having had some kind of relationship with her god, but that was stupid, and Phaedre didn't do stupid things. So, she just refused to look. All solved!

Theoretically.

Phaedre and theories went hand in hand, though.

The offer to stay was accepted with a mumbled 'thanks' and she followed Elra to what Chance had called 'downstairs office,' though Phaedre wouldn't have used such a fancy name. Feels more like a basement. A glorified one, with a computer and everything, but a basement still! She turned to Elra to complain about exactly that -- and would have done so, had Elra not had other things in mind.

"How do you even know it's crazy? Are you suddenly an expert on human norms?" The words were combative, and Phaedre absolutely was ready to spin this as some kinda cultural mystery that a Talron couldn't possibly hope to grasp, but... well, there were limits to audacity. Even to her audacity, as it turned out. "I'm sorry," she said, deflated, "I don't really... deal with these things all too well." 'These things,' as in, everything that wasn't about her recording numbers. That, or working with ideas abstract enough that they didn't even approach the territory of being human.

"But you should accept that about me, given that I'm apparently your girlfriend. You know, since love conquers all," what, "Or something."

Yes, 'or something.' A brilliant argument!

Phaedre sat down on the bed, her thoughts momentarily turning towards the concept of them having to share it. The direction was weird, though, and so she steered them into a much safer direction: "Who's that guy, anyway? He isn't taking this too well."

 

[Kinney]

“How do you even know it’s crazy,” Phaedre replied. “Are you suddenly an expert on human norms?”

“This may come as a surprise… but Talron are not idiots.” Elra pinched the headache in her temples with a hand. Social terra norm or not, they needed Chance to house them. By any means necessary… but preferably not the most extreme of means. The shameful thought of her desiring to stay her hand, gods forbid, didn’t have an opportunity to air for Phaedre was giving her an adequate distraction.

By simply existing.

“I’m sorry,” she said, surprising Elra. “I don’t really… deal with these things all too well.”

“You really don’t,” A nondescript smirk stole her mouth. Elra supposed all of it was the slightest bit endearing…if she forgot the fact that she wanted to grab Phaedre by the ears and scold her for being less socially acceptable than a god trapped in terra flesh. For fuck’s sake.

And besides, whatever happened back there with Chance was in part because she had frozen up. How does one juggle all of Aren combined with all of Elra? She was already too much to handle on her own, what with the unbridled sentiment and hankering for violence, even without a failed, complex terra relationship and all the luggage that came with that.

Ugh, just... ugh.

“But you should accept that about me, given that I'm apparently your girlfriend. You know, since love conquers all, or something."

Elra Trur’els, a warrior, a deity with skin and resolve like granite, balked at the words. The words girlfriend and love, not really, but the appealing way love had been affiliated with conquering (Elra was quite fond of conquering things), but wasn’t that the most ridiculous thing? She snapped out of that insanity real quick.

And then Phaedre sat on the bed, and Elra paused again, her mind scurrying off in another entirely more risqué direction. Her head tilted, thoughts rampant -

“Chance Mochida,” Elra answered brusque, to interrupt her own train of thought. It had been hellbent on making this evening even more complicated than it had become, and she was tired. Exhausted. Fuck her habits for giving her the tolerance of a 6'4” gear head; the beers only served to lull her. She rubbed an eye and headed for the desk, muscle memory tugging the cardboard box from beneath it. She rummaged around. “He's Aren Gold’s boyfriend. Ex,” she felt the need to specify. "They were oathed to each other, or, ‘engaged’, I think you terras call it?”

She hissed a victorious 'yesss' but in her own tongue since she could, for once, and tugged out a huge grey shirt. Finally something clean... Off went the mahogany jacket and she slipped on the shirt (it was practically a dress). Intuitively, she pulled the collar up to her nose to inhale the pine musk. Old, barely there, mixed with the scent of cardboard, but -

Elra grimaced. She jolted to her feet and wiggled out of her black leather pants, leaving her clothes in a pile on the floor. "Here," she chucked another of Chance's shirts at Phaedre's face, "if you need one."

It was about time she washed the Enforcer's blood from her hands, so she ended up at the bathroom sink, rubbing her hands and brass knuckles under the stream of water, waiting for all the pink soap bubbles to disappear down into the drain. As she was leaving, a glass figure caught her eye. It was a tiny orange chicken, the size of a bottle cap, sitting next to the sink. It was so incredibly asinine... silly and ridiculous.

But Elra huffed a single syllable laugh and picked up the familiar thing. She rolled it in her fingers a few times before slipping it into the breast pocket of her borrowed shirt.

When she returned to the room, she pounced onto the bed and flopped over onto her back with her arms stretched above. A groan slipped over her tongue, mixing in with a garble of words: "Looks like I did get you in bed with me tonight, after all." She grinned at Phaedre.

 

[Syntra]

Really? Could have fooled me.

That this was the first thought that came to Phaedre García's mind regarding the Talron supposedly not being idiots said a lot of things about her, none of them too good. At least she didn't voice it, though? Which had more to do with her making a giant idiot out of herself than, well, overrated things like 'manners' and 'common decency.'

Still, progress! Maybe?

(Probably not.)

"Look," she sighed, "It's... it's complicated." The gesture that followed was something not even Phaedre fully comprehended; a handwave, but not quite, just like she was human, but apparently not quite. Everyone seemed to believe so, and Phaedre was becoming inclined to agree, nonsensical as it was. Of course she was human! What else would she be, a fire hydrant? An oversized anime figurine? Nothing about the genetic tastes she'd taken indicated that... though that she had even thought of taking those might have been a bit suspect on its own.

"All those rules that they never really explain to you, but somehow expect you to know. I don't expect the average guy to know much about the intricacies of soul-tracking, so what is so different about this?" As if it was somehow part of the human condition! To know about arbitrary bullshit.

To feel, rather than think.

And, yes, maybe Phaedre was being a little too open with the disaster god, but hadn't they just offed a bunch of Enforcers together? That... presumably made the heart grow fonder.

Or not, Phaedre thought, when Elra jumped from the topic of explaining who the fuck Chance Mochida was (a sucker, apparently) to this... weird flirting thing. Was it even flirting? Phaedre's radar for that might have been a little bit broken, but this wasn't the usual all too careful signaling, crafted specifically to create about a million impressions at once and confuse her, specifically.

No, this was about as subtle as a slap to the face.

A hot equivalent of the slap to the face!

Wait, what?

Phaedre... found that she didn't actually want to think about that, which might have been an entirely new emotion for someone so obsessed with thinking. So, she just sighed, "Yes, you did get me in the bed tonight. Wanna get a medal for that, Elra?" Suddenly, Phaedre was all too aware of the T-shit she was clutching in her hand, and that she'd have to take off her current one to actually wear it. Simple stuff, yeah? Except that maybe not with Elra right fucking there.

Feeling self-conscious? What is this, the teenage drama I missed out on while growing up?

Maybe! If teenage dramas were about misplaced gods and destroying the world, which... didn't really ring true to her. Like, there was being strange, and then there was being strange strange. Phaedre may have been close to the point of no return, but she liked to think she hadn't crossed it just yet.

"Either way, that guy really is a sucker. You just... waltzed in your fiance's flat with a new girlfriend in tow?" Somehow, Phaedre sounded almost impressed. Maybe she even was; recognizing what her own emotions were was becoming more and more complicated by the second. Not that it had ever been easy, but still! "That's cold. Poor man." A beat, "Do you think he'd be mad if he walked in on us kissing?"

Yeah, a totally normal question!

Mentally, Phaedre was kicking herself.

"Which is a hypothetical scenario, of course. It's good to have all the possibilities covered."

For reasons. But, hey! At least Phaedre did a good enough job not flinching, which was a skill she'd picked up during all the... well, equally embarrassing social interactions she'd been dragged into.

 

[Kinney]

"Yes, you did get me in the bed tonight. Wanna get a medal for that, Elra?"

Elra flipped to her side, elbow crushing a pillow to prop her head up with an angled arm, and she pursed her lips. Slender fingers through her long sunny sandy hair, her brain spun tiredly with thought: was this metal an award or a blade? Admittedly, both scenarios were intriguing. Somehow the topic reverted back to the boyfriend, Aren Gold very much approving of the readjusted direction while Elra... didn't quite know what she approved of, although it likely had something to do with this quirky girl she'd befriended.

Friend? That was pushing it. Accomplice was the more accurate term.

Cute accomplice.

"Aren's fiancé," Elra corrected in an impassive voice and supervised the now-clean nails of one hand. She'd rather not breathe another word about the unendurable boyfriend, or fiancé, or whatever the fuck he used to be... Although, in a way, she sort of owed it to him after the rather invasive way she'd burst back into his life. Yes, she'd waltzed through the door and yes, it was with a supposed girlfriend in tow, but to her credit, it wasn't an actual girlfriend, just a pretend one -

"Do you think he'd be mad if he walked in on us kissing?"

Elra's jade gaze dove over and clung.

"Which is a hypothetical scenario, of course. It's good to have all the possibilities covered."

Hypothetical... what was that again? Elra's mind slapped around blind through Aren's infinite (infinitely out of reach, more like) terra wisdom for the definition. Speculative, imaginary, theoretical. In other words: not going to happen. In your wickedly prolific dreams, Elra. But the idea was planted, the damage inflicted, and the terra-encased deity lay there dripping in intrigue.

...What would it feel like?

Every terra was different. They smelt different, tasted, felt, sounded different. Some liked rough, some gentle. Some smelt like spices and others, jasmine and candy sweet. What would this one...? Sight just south of Phaedre's nose, she wondered and then she wondered some more, and then she wondered so deeply words trickled up through her slender neck unbridled: "We could hypothetically explore that scenario."

And immediately after, less chaotic (barely): "You ever going to put that on?" Elra flicked her chin at the shirt in her hand, a diabolical slash on her lips. "I could help you out. Hypothetically."

 

[Syntra]

Alright. Alright! Phaedre supposed she actually had been asking for this, so she couldn't even be too mad at the Talron. The appropriate target for her frustrations? She'd see one if she looked into a mirror!

Except, looking into a mirror wasn't Phaedre's favorite hobby, and tiny details like things perhaps not being appropriate had never really stopped her before. Fairness, also, had never been her forte. Who even cared about that nonsense?

Fate wasn't fair, if you bothered to believe in it. Universe wasn't, whether you believed in it or not. Not one aspect of her life had been fair, and Phaedre García wasn't nearly enough of a sucker to try and break that trend.

"I suppose we could," she agreed, "If I remotely wanted to, which I do not." Well? Was that true? Maybe; maybe not. Within that little word lived infinite possibilities, and looking just a little bit closer would murder all of them but one. How was that ethical? Nah, better to exist in the vague, morally grey area of... Schrodinger's lust, some part of her brain supplied.

And, no, that it went so far to call it 'lust' wasn't fucking helpful.

Nothing about this was.

Briefly, Phaedre wondered if this was normal. If, perhaps, this slew of rather embarrassing reactions was somehow baked into the human genome -- this need to be close to their gods, close to their salvation, close to whatever they thought they could survive. Genetic memory, anyone?

Although, she wasn't quite sure if the way her gaze landed on Elra's lips had anything to do with memory.

'Fantasies' might have been the better term.

"That's why I called it a hypothetical. When you talk about a hypothetical zombie apocalypse, it doesn't mean you actually secretly want it to happen." Did Phaedre see the difference between fighting not to contract a deadly virus and kissing an - admittedly pretty - girl? Maybe, but since there were no mind readers around, good luck proving that! In the privacy of her head, she could draft whatever stupid comparisons she liked.

Then, of course, Elra had to mention the T-shirt, and Phaedre's stupid face colored a stupid shade of red. "No," she blurted out, not as long as you stare, "This is my emotional support T-shirt now. It's important that it stays where it is."

Emotional support T-shirt? It was safe to say that a large portion of her brain cells had just committed ritual suicide, but Phaedre thought it to be for the best. The sooner they died, the sooner she got to forget the entire fiasco! No such thing as embarrassment when you had no cognitive functions to speak of!

Plus, not existing would also solve the entire 'I have no idea what to do with my life' conundrum.

"I still can't believe you're like this," Phaedre sighed. Whether that was a good or a bad thing, she couldn't really tell; what she could tell, though, was that it was destabilizing, and that wasn't something she was used to. The ground under her feet had always been firm. Firm; hard; unchanging. With Elra, it... wasn't obvious whether there was something beneath them at all, or if she was just floating on a cloud of absurdity. "How about we actually work on something relevant?"

Right! A great way to regain that solid ground.

"Because," she raised her eyebrow, "I'm going to need your help with that little quest of ours." Of course. The traces were weak; dying signals, like the echoes of much too distant stars. Elra herself was a signal fire, but what were they? Just sparks, too inconsistent for any radar. But... a spark could grow into a fire, too. That was kind of their thing. Therefore: "What do you remember about your relatives, Elra? Tell me more about the ones you want to find. Pick one, and make it personal. Name? Pointless nonsense they liked?"

 

[Kinney]

Yes, as far as reactions went, this one was sufficient. Sure, it resulted in unrequited dalliance, but it stirred something and it was a something that had potential…

Maybe.

“I suppose we could… If I remotely wanted to, which I don’t.” Elra frowned an exaggerated thing, but the sentiment wasn’t entirely feigned. Failure curled a finger in her heartstrings, tugging her high spirits down and down, but the violent way in which Phaedre shouted her refusal and clutched her ‘emotional support shirt’ was cute and confusing. Didn’t blood in a face normally mean a different thing? It was contradictory to what she was expressing with words, and - fuck, terras were so weird. This one was in a league of her own.

“I still can’t believe you’re like this…”

“Like what?” Elra focused on picking under her thumbnail with her middle fingernail.

“How about we actually work on something relevant?"

“Kissing can be rele - “

"Because," Phaedre continued, "I'm going to need your help with that little quest of ours."

Elra lifted her gaze from her nails again and regarded Phaedre. Right… she hadn’t forgotten the real reason for this partnership. This cute crazy thing was going to somehow help her find her kin, in whatever magic manner of way she’d used to find Elra to begin with.

"What do you remember about your relatives, Elra? Tell me more about the ones you want to find. Pick one, and make it personal. Name? Pointless nonsense they liked?"

“You need to know all that?” Elra’s turn to cock an eyebrow. “Did someone tell you all about me, and that’s how you found me?” It was a concept most unnerving. It already was unsettling to know that one random terra with a chip in her head knew enough about her to be able to track her down… even down to the minutia detail like her name. More terras with that knowledge would mean trouble, even more trouble than this Phaedre chick, and based off of what little Elra knew of her, that had to be a lot of trouble.

“My relatives…” Elra tasted the word oddly, like an overripe blueberry. Aren’s mind dragged up images of so-called ‘relatives’: a blonde overbearing mother, a stern and salt-and-pepper bearded man whom she called ‘dad’. Another man who was bearded, grey and crispy with uncaring blues. But there was one, a boy she knew was the brother, who stirred something different. It was still a painful press against her thrusting heart, but no, nothing like Talron. “They aren’t relatives,” She despised the way Aren's entirety recoiled from the word. “They are family... but not the way this terra knows it. My Talron are kin. Deeper than family. My kin and I were bonded to each other, more than the matré that gave me life.”

Elra huffed an irritable breath and flipped onto her back, hands folded on her stomach as she examined the ceiling.

Pick one. Make it personal.

"Mag Grásta," The name trilled off her tongue, quiet and hesitant. She slid her turbulent turquoise gaze to Phaedre, but only for a moment before darting away again. "She was open-hearted, extroverted, and loud as fuck. She was another warrior. Tall, longer hair than mine which could touch the ground if it wasn't tied, with skin blacker than Domhan an Oíche... 'World of Night'," she explained with a flick of her hand, "it's like 'hell' to you terras. Anyways."

"She liked... her throwing knives. She was quite good at those. And she liked cats, but the big ones. The panthers. And cliff diving," A memory flashed across her brain, and it felt like slug to the gut. She blinked. "I don't know... and pineapple. Are those still around?"