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Lilian Rook     For how little it affected her, the twenty-four hours of the Storm that had followed the end of 1929 were a special sort of hell for Lilian.

    Despite Vertin's support, there was no way to ignore the fact that everyone else in the Suitcase but the Timekeeper, Tamamo, and Sonetto, feared or hated her now. Despite the beautiful little mansion that she was so enthralled by, and the massive Wilderness beyond, just the knowledge that she was unable to leave had driven her subtly stir crazy regardless. The fact that she hadn't checked in with anyone in two days, and that the two specific days together meant that she'd suddenly lost contact across her Trídéag, Laplace, Sapient Heuristics, and Immune corps obligations, drove her halfway to rampant anxiety every time she let her thoughts wander.

    And worse than all that, thinking about Schneider drove her absolutely mad. No matter Forget Me Not's claim, or Arcana's absolute judgement, she had undeniably seen Schneider use arcane skills countless times. Winter Crow had responded to her touch, and she knew her weapon inside and out. That humans are have-nots, forsaken by gnosis, and arcanists have the light of arcanum within them, had been incontrovertable truth until that very moment. The chaos in her mind caused by the burning questions was intolerable. 'What is an arcanist? What does it mean to be pureblooded? What is arcanum'.

    And there were no answers to pursue at all, because just as she revealed to Schneider what would haunt her forever if she hadn't, the Storm had killed her.

    Or, rather, the Suitcase had. But if she began to resent the Suitcase for judging Schneider unworthy of life, she would never be able to look at Vertin the same way again.

    Her relief, coming with the end of the rain and the freedom of the wide world outside, was short-lived. Refusing to return to the Foundation at that point was unthinkable. The interrogation was expected, and utterly infuriating. The petty fight that transpired left her fuming and miserable. Being unable to see anyone else, awaiting a comprehensive physical and psychological examination after so much time in real world proximity to Arcana, only served to douse her with something adjacent to intolerable homesickness.

    Pacing around her barely veiled quarantine like a caged tiger, stressed to the point of pins and needles and muttered, manic cursing, Lilian wears herself out in the course of hours passing. When Mesmer opens the door, she finds her huddled in a corner of the room, knees to her chest, Night Mist braced between her legs and her chest as an axis of stability and a source of comfort.

    When she looks up at the intrusion, her eyes still show traces of redness around them. Without spare clothes, she's still underdressed after the doomed Walden exfiltration. She looks tired. Somehow she even looks hungry. The empty water bottle and snack wrappers from her bag are pettily left on the floor, so someone else has to clean them up later. The bag itself had been confiscated, leaving her feeling even more naked than before.

    "You're joking." Lilian rasps. She can't bring herself to summon any emotion but disappointment. "Why is it always you?"
Foundation Scions     Twenty-four hours on, twenty-four hours on, twenty-four hours on- on the safe-kept grounds of Laplace Scientific Computing Center, the Timekeeper's crucial warning comes on as sudden as a heart attack, and refuses to let up. Emergency committees, drilled and yet still always besieged by complications, rush to recall personnel and assets, secure the campus, assess and modify prediction models, and conduct last-minute research; others, in the Rehabilitation Center, care teams scramble between tending to the inflow of injured field agents to containing Storm syndrome-afflicted patients, rest-breaks overwritten by the immediate need to invent and trial treatment protocols to counteract it.

    From the tail-end of a routine day of work, to the countdown to the Storm, and still, throughout the full day it takes for the world to be Reversed and re-written by the rain, Mesmer Jr. hasn't had more than scattered moments of peace, as her 'today' stretches out into a blur of exhaustion, frustrated words of argument over treatment plans, scrubbing in for emergency surgery- blink, and it's another task, another hour, droning on and on. The outcomes slip from memory faster than practiced motions, and even those blur together in the stimulant-haze needed to just stay standing.

. . .

    Mesmer Jr. opens the quarantine room with her shoulders, a clipboard clutched under her arm. Shaky hands strip off blood covered nitrile gloves, from some now-silenced emergency code; the what, why, or who of that event all chased from her mind with 'Here, in room number-' and a slip of papers shoved into her grasp. Biohazard bins are in the same spot in every room; Mesmer barely has to look to dispose of the gloves. Behind her, the door automatically locks as it shuts.

'You're joking.'

    Mesmer Jr. stares, eyes puffy-red, bruise-like dark circles beneath, makeup long-since made a smeary mess by sweat or tears or anything else. She's dressed, otherwise, as she always is- her hair is thoroughly disheveled, by stressed fingers running through it again and again and again.

    A deep breath, half-held rather then exhaled, fortifies her through some apparent surprise-disgust-bafflement, complete with a lip-twitch, uncertain whether it's from emotion, or cocaine. "What shape is the sun?" passes by her lips on habit, the first of the routine sanity-confirmations used in the midst of the Storm syndrome's influence. Shaky hands take the clipboard, and hold it loosely out in front of herself, glancing down at it, then back to Lilian.

    Wordlessly, before continuing, a keycode-entry opens one of the beige metal examination-room, and a pure-white examination gown, folded up, is placed on the countertop, it's impossible to say if that's also an automatic action, or some statement of Mesmer's distaste, or some alien kindness towards Lilian's state. Only then does she answer, "I'm the Mesmer. Who else would it be? You're due for a full evaluation, I'll be administrating. If you're bleeding, say so now, if you're bleeding internally, say so now, if you've ingested poison, such as gold-plated lead, say so now. Otherwise, seat yourself at the end of the examination cot."

    Avoiding the wrappers on the floor with at least a foot of margin, Mesmer sighs, shaky, and walks to begin powering-on some of the wall-spanning Artificial Somnambulism machinery, flanking the requisite examination bench-bed. At her shoulder, louder than she's prone to keeping it, her EM detector buzz-clicks incoherently, soon joined by a soft machine wake-up hum as CRT consoles spring to life.

    "So? What did you do this time?" Angry, the moment she's not facing Lilian, those words come with a sharp twist of a few console-knobs, with no apparent effect. "Exposure to novel psychological contaminants, unknown risk for further transmission, unknown risk for further insanity, unknown risk. I hope it was worth it."
Lilian Rook     'What shape is the sun?'

    Lilian, staring at the blood-covered gloves, breaks her dull vigil on the biohazard bin and looks up into Mesmer's mascara-smeared face. At first, the banality of the question makes her laugh, monosyllabic, disbelieving. "A giant baby, like on teletubbies." she says, and then immediately feels a stab of regret for doing so. "It's a sphere. Round if you want to be pedantic. I'm not mental and I don't have Storm Syndrome."

    'I'm the Mesmer. Who else would it be?'

    Lilian's mood hadn't once improved in the last twenty-eight hours, but she feels her heart sinking all the same. She croaks "I don't know. There has to be someone, hasn't there? It can't just be only you doing everything." and then wheezes softly as the mirror neurons bitterly connect. She still doesn't want to believe it. "I'm not bleeding. I'm not injured. I'm not poisoned. I'm fine." she says in rasping monotone. "Just relax. There's nothing for you to do here. Take a breath."

    She doesn't know why she said that.

    'So? What did you do this time?'

    Lilian hasn't moved when Mesmer finishes with the equipment. She remains huddled in her corner, without the energy to get up. Her stare at the white gown is deeply mistrustful. More than that. She looks at it just like Mesmer might look at moldy food left for her to dispose of. Nervous. Disgusted. Silently aggrieved.

    'I hope it was worth it.'

    "I didn't do anything." Lilian answers after an enormous delay. Her voice only rises for the one syllable. Like a dead battery, her anger only lasts long enough to flicker the LED for 'check engine'.

    "I did everything by the book and everyone else letme down." she says. Raw. Heavy. Crushingly exhausted. "I was abandoned in a Manus Vindictae base of operations for six hours, and the Foundation doesn't like me. That's it."

    After a long, long pause, more bargaining than defiant, "I'm not taking my clothes off." How very hopeful.
Foundation Scions 'A giant baby, like on teletubbies.'

    There's no rise from Mesmer. If she's even listening, as she stares, it's unclear. She doesn't laugh or scoff, doesn't startle or chastise. It's just another breath, another pause, like Mesmer's already, on a gut level, put together that Lilian's past this field-diagnostic threshold, one way or another. Lilian's follow-up confirmation, however, still lets the half-held breath from before slip out like relief this won't be messier than it has to be. Clipped, Mesmer's "Thank you," is a surprise to herself.

    "It's the Storm. Everyone is doing their part," comes out next, bitter, but stained with being the same empty amelioration offered to patients thirty hours ago, twenty, ten, five- the countdown clocks have already been reset by staff, to blare next time, but the statement remains true. "I don't know why you'd expect anything different," however, is all bile.

    "Have you consumed anything, liquid or solid, in the past forty-eight hours? If so, say so now" It's obviously another diagnostic question, answered already by the wrappers on the floor. Mesmer's heels, and toes, nearly tap, anxious-impatient-upset as she stands still, for unsaid and uncertain reasons, even as she busies her arms with the clipboard. "I'll get a chance to relax when this is over. Until then, I have a job to do." That Mesmer follows this up by taking a deep, slow breath, is something she'd be upset with herself over, if she had the focus to even notice. The EM crackle at her shoulder shifts, softening, and sharpening again.

'I didn't do anything.'

    Mesmer lets out a curt, impulsive 'tsk' at that, but doesn't interrupt. "Protocol is protocol, whether or not the Foundation has anything for or against you. Six hours is an entirely unacceptable amount of time, uncorroborated, and unmonitored, in enemy environs. Even one hour would warrant this. You aren't special. This isn't the first time I've had to do similar today." Then, assuming, with her own opinions filling the blanks, Mesmer Jr. adds in a sickeningly shared-anger sympathizing tone, "You shouldn't have trusted Vertin to do anything but let you down."

'I'm not taking my clothes off.'

    "Fine. Wear it overtop. It's clean; you aren't. I can't start until you're decent and at low risk of exposing me to contamination, or other danger, so put it on, put that sword away, and have a seat. We'll begin with a rudimentary assessment of lingering influences, and proceed to Artificial Somnambulism to ascertain current level of stability and trauma, and corroborate your alibi." Tense, Mesmer turns to stare, which doesn't start as 'staring daggers' but becomes it quickly, at every moment of inaction.

    Hopeful of cooperation, Mesmer's EM monitor is unclipped from her shoulder, and held in hand; and a small palm-wrapping EM field manipulator is shakily put onto her opposite hand.Then, as moments pass, unable to stop herself on-impulse, Mesmer, frustrated, tired, and with ungodly amounts of random neural firings, stamps her foot.

    Almost pleading, with a hand moving to hover over a red button on the wall near the machinery, "This takes as long as you make it take. I don't want to be here longer than I have to be. I'll call security if you leave me no choice."
Lilian Rook     'It's the Storm. Everyone is doing their part. I don't know why you'd expect anything different'

    Lilian can't even sigh. She stares at the back of Mesmer's head, listless, without energy, and murmurs in spite of her better judgement, "Because until last night I didn't think the Foundation could be so cruel. It's taking a while to sink in."

    'Have you consumed anything, liquid or solid, in the past forty-eight hours? If so, say so now'

    It's impossible to get angry at a simple question. It's the most Lilian has ever seen Mesmer do her job, though she doesn't say that out loud. Despite her intense dislike of doctors, it's oddly soothing that anything is happening at all. That anything is progressing. That anyone is talking to her at all. "Yes." she says, and glances at the empty bottle. "I can manage a couple more hours." She thinks to add 'before I start gnawing on my fingers', but doesn't find it very smooth nor very funny. She says nothing about the deep breath.

    'Six hours is an entirely unacceptable amount of time, uncorroborated, and unmonitored, in enemy environs. Even one hour would warrant this. You aren't special. This isn't the first time I've had to do similar today.'

    Lilian can't help but bristle up at that. No matter how 'protocol' it is, it's emblematic of mistrust all the same. It's being treated as the incompetent rank and file, and it rankles her. "What sort of riffraff do they take me for." Lilian hisses. "Nothing warrants what they're forcing you to do. It just calcified this way, and they're comfortable in their board rooms, far away."

    'You shouldn't have trusted Vertin to do anything but let you down.'

    Nothing. Only a few days ago, Lilian had cursed Mesmer out for her attitude towards Vertin. Now, her empty gaze just wanders away. "She's doing her best." she says, half-heartedly. "And it wasn't just her."

    'Fine. Wear it overtop. It's clean; you aren't.'

    In that moment, Lilian realizes that she's going to have to. Perverse and counterintuitive as it is, she knows what that actually means. The gown is there for Mesmer, not her. The Mesmer gives in, and her face slowly falls.

    Lilian doesn't even say anything when she gets up, nor when she moves to the bed, faces the wall away from Mesmer, and strips off her top, followed by the rest, not allowing anything to touch the gown before she retrieves it. All she does is stop to check for cameras first. There's no good reason for it. The only thing she's accomplishing is silently stressing herself out to avoid adding anything to Mesmer's anxiety.

    Right now, she doesn't really feel like she has the right.

    'put that sword away, and have a seat.'

    She re-glamers Night Mist into a pendant, drops it around her neck, and monotones "Sorry, but this is the best I can do." She still doesn't make eye contact. All of it reminds her of the Walden; of her blind panic and Forget Me Not's magnanimous gesture to return it.

    '...proceed to Artificial Somnambulism to...

    "I'm sorry." Lilian says. "I won't tell anyone if you don't want to."

    'This takes as long as you make it take. I don't want to be here longer than I have to be. I'll call security if you leave me no choice.'

    Lilian squares her shoulders and balls her fists. Her knuckles whiten, chest still, until the flash of red passes, and she can shakily exhale. "At least here you're away from emergency surgery and raving lunatics. Whatever you think of me, talking to me can't be any worse than that." she says, tense. "So don't push me. I'm tired, and hungry, and they won't let me see anyone. I've been out of contact for two days, and everyone will be in a panic about where I've gone when I return to work. Things are piling up as we speak. I don't want to be here any longer than you do."
Lilian Rook     Only then does she finally sit down. The movement alone looks as if she expects the bed to electrify her. The creak of the material makes her shiver. She glances to the door, holds her breath, and says "Does it do that automatically? I hate locked doors."
Foundation Scions 'Because until last night I didn't think the Foundation could be so cruel.'

    Again, with automatic answers, not tailored at all for who the other woman in the room is other than a 'patient', "The Storm is a frustrating time." Then, like a joke, that she's getting absolutely nothing out of, "Grief is understandable."

    Glancing back around to Lilian, like some sudden thought sparked that she ought not keep her back turned, Mesmer adds, "If something happened against protocol, there are routes to report misconduct. Otherwise, please understand that everyone is doing everything they can to ensure stability, despite all of this. It isn't cruel if it's necessary." Saying that, she sounds frustrated at it herself. Somewhere left of sarcastic and yet still far south of sympathetic, "I hope letting that sink in fosters some calm."

'I can manage a couple more hours.'

    Thumbing the mechanism of a pen, click-unclick-click, that little extraneous action adds to the overall jitteriness of Mesmer, as she scratches something down in the margin of whatever paper is on top of the clipboard. Hopefully, it's a reminder to send in food and water later, but Mesmer doesn't think to say her intentions out loud, and it just as likely could be the opposite, to put Lilian's 'couple more hours' to the test. Like it's any reassurance at all, possibly just for herself, Mesmer scans the clipboard once more and says, out loud, "In that case, we're clear to proceed."

'What sort of riffraff do they take me for.'

    "Imagine, if you care to, even a successful and capable Field Investigator being left unaccounted-for in the presence of dangerous Manus Vindictae agents, with uncertain and invasive psychological influence. The responsible assumption is that they're likely to be a willing or unwilling informant to the enemy. It's suggested, in egregious cases, to dispose of possible informants, through arcane skills. Intention hardly matters. You should hope that proper examination confirms that you aren't an unwilling and unaware asset, and feel nothing else about it."

    Mesmer lets air out through teeth, slowly dialing something down on the Artificial Somnambulism machine's controls, dulling the room's hum, and becoming slightly more relaxed for it. Sour-tone, in agreement with Lilian's, despite saying words to the exact contrary, "I'm a Mesmer. I'll do what I have to, as I've always done. Whether it's warranted or not doesn't change that."

    Mesmer, clipboard to her chest, turns to face away from Lilian as she changes, the heel-swivel a dull plastic squeak against the sterile linoleum. Going off a blindly-guessed amount of time, rather than listening to when it sounds like Lilian is done, Mesmer over-estimates, before repeating the stiff turn back around. It takes her a moment to notice the sword pendant, which she blinks at, scowls, and says, "It's acceptable, provided you don't make sudden movements, the same as if you'd left it anywhere else in the room." Weirdly permissive, but still adding in an extra caveat like it makes Mesmer trust that she's really in control.
Foundation Scions 'I won't tell anyone if you don't want to.'

    "What? That isn't an option. The assessment will be recorded, I can't pass you through without completing it, and I wouldn't, regardless." That spikes her heartrate, and it's obvious. Shuffling, she clips the sensor away for a brief moment, and starts to rub and scratch at the inside of her wrist, twisting her sleeve-cuffs, before grabbing alcohol sanitizer to scrub onto her hands from a wall dispenser. "I have to do my job. It isn't optional, if it's unpleasant. I'll manage. This is routine, and I'm an expert."

    "You're right, however. Speaking isn't more unpleasant than surgery, and I've no reason to push if you cooperate. I'm glad we're in agreement. Please refrain from trying to convince me out of doing my job any further; if it's a habit, I'll be forced to report it, and it will affect the assessment's final outcome."

    Mesmer steps closer to actually begin, left hand to her own temple, on the edge of her plastic hairband, right, holding the sensor, waved near Lilian's head, hands, back, and head again, scanning for anomalous electromagnetic activity, like an ambiguous 'something' might have clung to her, invisibly, causing localized disruptions and corruptions- likely a fool's errand. It's punctuated by occasional diagnostic commands, 'flex this muscle', 'imagine this sensation', 'recall the events as you understood them', to try and trace EM signals, or see if remnant curses and impulses, if there, flare up.

     After each pass, silent, without explanation other than scowls, she goes back to the clipboard, flips pages, and scrawls her findings, or lack thereof, out.

    Frustrated from the preliminary examination, once it has concluded, Mesmer clips the sensor, powers it off, powers off the headband, and scrubs her hands with alcohol again. Sharp, "Lie down against the bed, and lower the dome of the Artificial Somnambulism machine until you hear a click. I'll engage it, and begin examining. Think as consistently as you can of the events of the six unaccounted-for hours, it will expedite the process."
Lilian Rook     'Grief is understandable.'

    Lilian lowers her gaze, rasps "Yeah." and no more.

    'I hope letting that sink in fosters some calm.

    Everything Mesmer says irritates her nearly as much as usual. Lilian shows it, here and there, in little twitches and strained looks. So it's not her mindset that's changed. It's a conscious decision, for some reason, to say, "I've had twenty-four hours to get it all out of my system. I'm as calm as I should me." and leave 'if it's necessary it isn't cruel' to Mesmer's devices for now.

    'The responsible assumption is that they're likely to be a willing or unwilling informant to the enemy. It's suggested, in egregious cases, to dispose of possible informants, through arcane skills.'

    "If anyone in the Foundation has any brains in their skull they'll know that there's a limit to how far they can push me. They wouldn't dare." Lilian says. For a moment, the fire rises, and there's real heat in her voice, matching the way her blood boils. "Their intention does matter." she says, reeling it back to near neutral a moment later. "You and I both know that they're looking for evidence to back their bias." Her energy drains out to south of neutral over time. "They need Vertin. They don't need me."

    'I'm a Mesmer. I'll do what I have to, as I've always done. Whether it's warranted or not doesn't change that.'

    "I'm sorry." Lilian repeats.

    'What? That isn't an option. The assessment will be recorded'

    Now on the edge of the bed, Lilian lets out a rasping-exasperated sigh. "I detest their insistence on recording every little thing. I wonder if anyone bothers reviewing even half of it." she says, to a woman who knows full well that they don't. She relents completely when Mesmer starts scratching. She looks at her with something that isn't quite pity in her eyes, but is close enough.

    'You're right, however. Speaking isn't more unpleasant than surgery, and I've no reason to push if you cooperate. I'm glad we're in agreement. Please refrain from trying to convince me out of doing my job any further'

    Mesmer ceding even that much is enough to make Lilian sigh in relief. Usually, she has to restrain the impulse to throttle this woman. Now, like in that parking lot, or much more so, she feels the perverse need to find common ground. "Okay. I wasn't trying to convince you." she says, lifeless as before. "I just didn't want to make you suffer any more than this."

    Lilian, when Mesmer entered the room, had already accepted that there was no possibility that Artificial Somnambulism would be anything less than hell for her.

    'Lie down against the bed, and lower the dome of the Artificial Somnambulism machine until you hear a click. I'll engage it, and begin examining.'

    The body scan is, naturally, fruitless. Tamamo had thoroughly purified every trace of Arcana off Lilian's body in their time together in the Weyerhauser woods. She reacts to every little wave with skin-crawling discomfort anyways, like at any moment, Mesmer might discover something she ought not to, and everything would fall apart. Her nerves are shot by the time the order is given.

    "I don't have to be knocked out this time?" she asks, far too hopeful. The way she swings her legs up onto the bed is excessively careful. A second later, with her hands on the glass bell, hesitating just before pulling it down, she asks a much, much more baffling question.

    "You're going to be okay, right?" Click.
Foundation Scions 'I'm as calm as I should me.'

    "Fine," comes out, quick and curt, like Mesmer can't really bear wasting time on it, for no real reason other than 'everything is taking too long', and, of course, sleep-on-her-feet levels of exhaustion. Irritated, Mesmer huffs, and then the irritation fades, not immediately on her mind.

'They wouldn't dare.'

    "You aren't an Investigator. They wouldn't have the authority." Mesmer adds, like it's obvious, or should be, or just annoys her to have to say. "This is the opportunity for evidence contrary to their 'bias' could come up, regardless. Vertin uses the fact she's indispensable to create problems like this, it's nothing short of a good thing to need to prove your usefulness. Anyone should be grateful for merit to matter overtop of nature." Weird thing for a glorified nepotism hire to say!

    Lilian's apology gets an annoyed pen-click, and a second one, and a third, before the object is put down- she doesn't get words back.

'I wonder if anyone bothers reviewing even half of it.'

    "In a case like this? It's likely. Regardless, archival is important for the possibility of review. It's the protocol, and I've no justification to bypass it with something like this." That sounds a little like she'd really prefer to weasel out of it. Noticing Lilian's gaze, mid-scratching, makes a flicker of upsetness emerge in Mesmer's face, and gets her to immediately turn aside to hide the habit, and her expression.

'I just didn't want to make you suffer any more than this.'

    Mesmer gives a small nod, as dread-disgust enters into her face, uncontrolled- it fits the corpselike exhaustion more than her routine apathy and disengagement does. Repeated, more under her breath, and thus more for herself than Lilian, as a warding spell, "It's routine."

    That Mesmer finds nothing with the scanner isn't a relief she extends to Lilian, even if it's likely obvious, if attention is spared, to the increasing frequency of under-breath mutterings about must-be-extant filth, not even really pointed at Lilian, but by nature of having to look close.

'I don't have to be knocked out this time?'

    "If you can fall unconscious, that's preferable. If you can't on your own, sedatives are available." Mesmer sighs. "If unconsciousness is impossible, it may draw this out, and be distressing. Accessing layers of the subconscious, while conscious, is difficult."

    "I'm only here to do my job. I'll be under Artificial Somnambulism as well." Granted, using a waking helmet. When the dome is clicked in place, Mesmer leans over, visibly checking its connections, tracing back through some pipes to the beep-whirring machines on the wall, and fiddles with the controls until the whirring stirs further alive. "Please begin to recall the events in question, as clearly as possible, recall sights, smells, sounds, and touch, in that order of importance."

'You're going to be okay, right?'

    Distracted, at the controls, with her own helmet now held-in-hand to put on, Mesmer lets out a faintly panicked "What?"
Lilian Rook     'They wouldn't have the authority.'

    "They don't have the balls, brains, or hands to do it either." Lilian says, still descending the other side of the moment of white hot fury. "Evidence to the contrary never matters to a bias. That's what defines it."

    'Anyone should be grateful for merit to matter overtop of nature.'

    "Were it only ever true."

    'It's the protocol, and I've no justification to bypass it with something like this.'

    Lilian grimaces at the reassurance that someone will, in fact, be watching this. She has no idea what will really come up. Though she doesn't believe for a moment it'll be clear enough to contradict her and Vertin's alibi, she doesn't imagine that it'll make her life any easier. "Then I hope it's not too bad for you." she says, suddenly even more tired than before, crushingly so, and lies down.

    'It's routine.'

    "Well it shouldn't be." she says, and adds with a different bitter note than usual, "They wouldn't treat you this way if you were a human."

    'If you can't on your own, sedatives are available.'

    "Not a chance." Lilian groans. "I'm not taking any chances about where I'll wake up" She doesn't even think about the fact that she doesn't have her stupid little ectrocution runestone on her person. The way that Petra scared her about Mesmer back then just feels so hopelessly puerile to ruminate on, for the single second she thinks of it. She decides on saying "My apologies if you're forced to wait a while.", and manages it no less listlessly than before, though the thought of tricking Mesmer into resting gives her some perverse iota of joy.

    'What?'

    Unfortunately, by the time Mesmer reacts, Lilian has already completely passed out.

    . . . . . . . .

    '"We may as well take it all in one stretch. Cover me for two minutes and I'll divine exactly how the labyrinth is going to shift for the next fifteen minutes." Lilian says. She snaps her fingers to conjure a tiny ghost-coloured flame, only getting so far as lighting the end before hurrying on to kneel down and flutter-close her eyes in familiar trance. "I'll try to anticipate Druvis as well." The slow neutralization of her tone matches the rapid eye movement. The burning incense turns from cinder orange to the same will-'o-wisp colour as her flame.'

    It's different from the usual. Trying to coax Lilian into any sort of productive dreaming state has always been impossible before, from the Storm in a Bottle protocol all the way up until Mesmer's doomed 'addiction rehabilitation program'. Now it's almost exactly what she asked for.

    '... Avoid Miss Arcana. No matter what. I think she's... Like me. But much... Much older.'

    Lilian's sensory fidelity is far in excess of Mesmer's. Colours are more vivid, details are more precise, smells are stronger, noises are crisper, and textures, especially, are almost overwhelming. The cold underground air, the eerie flickering light, the reek of potions, blood, bile, and the trace sting of gunpowder, the damp stone and the feeling of goosebumps on bare arms; all of it is there. White leaves with Marian. The strange spotlamp of quasi-first-person attention doesn't face Schneider, and barely catches Vertin.
Lilian Rook     'Lilian sweeps blind with her hand to find a flooring crack to jab them upright into. White disappears, and in that same absent-minded tone, Lilian says "Right. Arcana as well. Cover me a little longer and I'll--'

    Pain is a million times more intense as well. Or perhaps her recollection of it is just that traumatizing. Or perhaps it really was that way after all. The world disintegrates into screaming static. Colours split into their components and devour one another. Vertin's panicked shouting sounds as if she's on the other side of a metal door as the air rapidly leaves the room. It's incomprehensible that she stays as conscious as she does, and more so that she forces herself to bear it only so she can crawl towards where she dropped her sword and lay hands on it.

    And then there is a dream within the dream. A memory of what Lilian never remembers. Blacked out, drifting in a pitch dark ocean, older than time, she dreams of a world where the sun burns to death every slithering thing that could dare step foot on the barren earth, still hot from the planet's smouldering womb. She dreams of dark, massive shapes, and ethereally glowing jellyfish; of strange ferns and riotous buzzing; of rumbling storms and furious lightning and the terror and awe of ancient faces completing a circle drawn in the sand.

    Lilian awakens on a hard floor, behind bars made of dead root and barbed bramble, and the parameters of the dreaming simulation return to normal. Her rendering of herself is almost normal. Rather than the indistinct 'girl of the woods' she always seems to dream herself as under normal circumstances, everything is roughly where it should be, down to the scar on her face. She wakes, bleary and panicked, to the inside of the Walden, ravaged by the Foundation and humanity both, and looks to a grim-faced Vertin and a pallid Schneider, calling out desperately for something.

    The table is set for dinner. From below, Mesmer can see an awkward angle of the Manus Vindictae's upper ranks. The crab-faced man, the lady inside the cubist painting, the little girl who might be a vampire, the stuffed elephant toy, Druvis in her charred-broken mask, Forget Me Not himself, staring into the cage with rapturous, teary-eyed awe; the data is aggravatingly incomplete, for the fact that nobody's faces are as distinct as they should be. The fog crawling low to the ground and the smell of alcohol and cooking meat is more vivid. At least Vertin's will be clear.

    But Mesmer's luck doesn't last. Arcana enters the room, distaff lobotomy and all, and everything about her is so crisply preserved that it gives off the frightening impression that she'd walked into the dream like Mesmer has. As she strolls past the cage, the golden gaze she casts down at Lilian is so warm that the temperature climbs from chilling to soporifically cozy.

    The Walden's lights turn on. They shine on glittering glasses and pristine vases as if nothing had ever happened. The bar is bathed in tones of amber and honey. Distant, babbling noise emanates from a phantom crowd, and sets a strangely soothing background. Everything is just like she remembers from Vertin's mission to sneak in, except it's only her, Vertin, and Manus Vindictae, and when Arcana asks "Pray tell, why have we caged the two of worth? Release them.", something about her voice nags in an uncanny way at Mesmer's own recollection of Tamamo's.
Lilian Rook     Then, just as Arcana takes her seat at the head of the table, everything stops. As if the simulation had froze, like the machine had crashed, everything hangs in awkward, deeply disquieting suspension. Except Lilian, who drags herself to her feet as if nothing is happening, having to lean against the bars for support, which fail to stab her, and besides the 'door' that she remembers exiting through, which warps on its own.

    "Thank you." Lilian gasps to nobody at all. Delirious with relief, ignorant to Mesmer's presence, she says "I don't want to be tied to the chair again." like a scared-grateful girl. She reaches out into empty space, and her hand seizes thin-air, which pulls her up and out of her imprisonment. Night Mist; not the dark, iconic impression of a sword, but a necklace; falls from levitation into her hands, and she clutches it to her breast.

    "Can we never have this one again?" she says, and pauses for a while, listening attentively to dead silence. "No no, this part is fine. The one right before this. I don't want to see it. I don't care about it." A stretch of dead quiet makes her suddenly laugh. Something about it is hair raising. "Okay. If it's damaged anyways, let's just have fun with it, right?"
Foundation Scions 'They wouldn't treat you this way if you were a human.'

    "If I was born as a human, I wouldn't be born as a Mesmer, so it's hardly worth comparing circumstances. If I were born human, I'd likely have been reversed in 1999, along with the rest of the world. I won't think about it, as it's of no use to anything or anyone to consider. They treat me as they would any Mesmer, and like any Mesmer, I'll do my part."

'My apologies if you're forced to wait a while.'

    Mesmer looks up at the clock in the room, as if expecting there to be some sort of ticking countdown, still, a full twenty-four and change past the Storm. A bit frustrated, Mesmer fights back a yawn. "Take however long you need." Her tone, of course, says 'hurry up'.

. . .

    The acuity is distressing- it's never this sharp in the other dreams she has to work with, only Lilian's, and those times have been themselves unpleasant because of it, not only the content. At least it's actually topical, that saves an unknown, but nevertheless precious, amount of time- or at least it should, or at least it could, or at least Mesmer can hope it might in order to be done and move on to whatever else she has to, before resting.

    Keeping up with all of the events and context is next to impossible, in this tired state, but for signs of psychological instability, while all of this stays roughly in the realm of memory, the clearest thing to spot, obviously, will be contact and interaction with Lilian- substances, proximity, touch, breath. Beyond memory, anomalous conditions in dreaming show afflictions of the mind. Those, going in, Mesmer knows might be a pain to spot against Lilian's 'normal'.

    The horrific pain, of course, is one such notable abnormality, and it's also the exact last thing on Mesmer's mind as the dream is shredded into discordant sensory static, and that boundary-cross into a nested dream. Present-detached, as an explorer in the dream, she's not spared the absurdity of the alien sequence, horrifying, drawing-on, and miserable, the whole of it amounts to just another concerning but unrelated sign of worry for this examination.

    In and out of dreams, of varied types, in varied formats, with varied control, invariably comes with unnecessary-feeling unpleasantness, fear, disgust, embarrassment, all substrates to dive elbow-deep into and come away with fragments of insight that risk feeling disproportionate to the experience- this dream-in-a-dream, unclear in whether it's strictly a dream, or a memory, or a deeper layer of thought, or only some corroded anomaly, is, at least, novel. And then it's done. If it makes it to the disk, she hopes someone else will look at it- not her.

    The table with the Manus proves a relief, and Mesmer expects it could be intel, once she's blinked (uselessly) in the dream back to focused-eyes, despite no shift in the perceived clarity of sight detail. She takes an empty seat, gaining no rest at all from the action, but while she waits and watches, it's just harmlessly playing along.
Foundation Scions     Having not herself ever seen Arcana before, it's still obvious to Mesmer that this dream-rendition couldn't be of anyone else, and she scowls. That sharpness is skin-crawling, a painted face real enough to worry it's actually watching out, begging that one take some sort of shameful cover. Mesmer doesn't, but she still can't help going through a little 'skip-ahead' hand sign, despite this not being a processed program.

'Then, just as Arcana takes her seat at the head of the table-'

    Mesmer, on instinct, performs a small hand sign, like twisting her wrist, no doubt meant to be a signal to unpause the program, were that actually the case here- at first, she's sure she must have signaled wrong a moment prior and done something to the dream. She tries it again when it fails, then again. "Why did you do this," She asks, certain it has to be someone's fault. Of course, whether she's staring at Lilian, or the dreamscape-version of Arcana, the blame has no certain target.

'Thank you.'

    "Excuse me?" Mesmer adds, with a more scared tone than she'd prefer to have, were she not deep enough in sleep deprivation to have lost that finesse. Only then does this specific pattern of dream-behavior come back up to mind, despite the unpleasantnesses of Lilian's dreamscapes being dredged-up in earlier conversation, and this dreamscape itself. Like she's been shocked, Mesmer's tone sharpens- "You're speaking to the threat- aren't you? What was that name you had for it?"

    Through a few motions, all futile, Mesmer tries to dial up and down sensory-prioritization, brainwave type weighting, various filtering tools gesturing at altering the dream environment to show whatever it is that Lilian is looking at, or catch a whisper of response.

    Mesmer doesn't have the focus, as Lilian and her conversation partner speak, to try and interject, or piece together what the unheard words are, she has the focus to stand, arms-crossed, staring, upset, excited, scared- none of those are distinct for her, and, through some failure of composure, she puts her palm to the dream table to brace on as she leans to stare across it harder.

'If it's damaged anyways, let's just have fun with it, right?'

    That's scary- already rattled and disoriented, "If who- if what's damaged? What are you doing? What are you planning? Say it, say it out loud- say it for the record. Now. Say it."
Lilian Rook     'Why did you do this'

    Completely oblivious to Mesmer's presence up until the frozen moment, wrapped up in replaying the nightmare of the night before last, Lilian looks away from thin-air in front of her and stares at Mesmer as if she doesn't even recognize her.

    It's eerie. It's so easy to imagine that someone else is right beside her, staring at her with the same hostile gaze. Lilian stares at Mesmer as if she's in the crowd and Mesmer is the raving loon on the street.

    'You're speaking to the threat- aren't you? What was that name you had for it?'

    That earns Mesmer another prickly look. A glance shot sideways, more hostile than the last. As she drops the pendant around her neck again, Lilian says in that nerve wracking tone of anti-lucid smoke "Get lost. Only people who love me are allowed." and returns to her conversation as if she expects Mesmer has evapourated into nothing.

    "Is it going to be this way forever?"
    . . .
    "Very funny. I meant the dreams."
    . . .
    "Catty bitch~"
    . . .
    "Oh, I don't care. That wouldn't be a problem at all."
    . . .
    "Isn't that just more time?"
    . . .
    "No, not a thing in the world. They get what they get."
    . . .
    "Right?! Isn't it crazy!"
    . . .
    "They just let us right in!"
    . . .
    "Maybe? I don't know. I don't feel very mean."
    . . .
    "That's mean, Exis."
    . . .
    ". . . You know what? Sure. Do you think there are back rooms?"

    There is no filter that is built for this. Sensory prioritization only dulls the scent of the kitchen or makes it claw at the stomach unbearably. Emotional valence makes the table feel like a magnetic pull, or a push away from one, specific chair.

    Brainwave filtering only causes the carefully calibrated oversaturation of information in Lilian's mind to fuzz around the edges and then slide apart at the seams. Pushed badly enough, chasing the least coherent wavelength, the walls and ceiling actually start to to fall apart; peeled back, unzipped, slid open to reveal the substrate of howling blackness and blood red light that the Walden is painted upon.

    Though, for a split second before she returns it to normal, Mesmer could swear she saw double. Lilian. Again. Or something like her. With Lilian. An arm draped around her own shoulders, at her side.

    'If who- if what's damaged? What are you doing? What are you planning? Say it, say it out loud- say it for the record. Now. Say it.

    "You again?" Lilian says. Her lip curls at the sight of Mesmer, eyes narrowing from the bottom up, as if it were already tomorrow and this were the ninth time the same freak had shown up at her door to preach. "The <ward/gate>. Why are you even eavesdropping if you can't do it right?" Her eyes narrow a little further. "No no, I'm certain you're not meant to be here. Let's get you out of the picture."

    She takes all of one step towards Mesmer, and that's enough to convey the utterly harrowing posture of someone who knows this alleyway is a dead end and intends to follow you to it. Then, she abruptly stops and looks back, as if tapped in the shoulder, or as if someone called her name. Her expression softens into a vague smile.
Lilian Rook     ...
    "Oh, that's how it is?"
    ...
    "Oh! Ohhh, I see."
    ...
    "Okay then! I'll go see what there is~"
    ...
    "I'm gonna wake up hungry anyways, right?"
    ...
    "Just save some of her for me!"
    ...
    "Augh! No! Not like that! God!"
    ...
    "Hehe."
    ...
    "Love you too~"

    Inexplicably, Lilian turns on her heel and walks away. Forgetting all about Mesmer's existence once again, she happily trots over to the fully stocked bar, where the ticker board is a blurry smear of irrelevant data, and the back door still swings open to another room. Even though she holds her head as she goes, she seems to be in a good mood; the moment she doesn't have to acknowledge Mesmer at all.

    Leaving her alone with the frozen statues of Manus Vindictae, the slowly returning babble of a non-existent crowd, the ghostly sound of clinking glasses under the glaring gold lights, and a voice right by her ear that says,

    §<Sit down. Let's talk, shall we?>§

    It isn't Mesmer's dream, but it's exactly like she's the dreamer, because she doesn't really hear a voice at all. She 'knows' that she was spoken to, and she 'heard' the words, but the sensation is completely distinct from the audio that works through her neurally reproduced ears. None of the phonemes are uttered in English or any other language; at best, they are memories of tonality, inflected like stellar noise rather than by any person; and yet the structure, the cadence, the formless and implacable tone, is so very distinctly 'exactly the same as Lilian Rook' that it feels like she must be right there, whispering by her neck, even as Mesmer can still see her walking away.

    §<Don't you realize that <I/We> were being nice? It'd be better if you were only crazy. If you keep <looking under stones>, then we can't keep <coexisting> like we have so far.>§

    There are words and phrases that don't make any sense. As if she were the dreamer, Mesmer 'knows', the same as the rest, that they aren't unintelligible, but that she doesn't know what they mean; like a language she can't read, recorded in a way she can't perceive. The familiar terms that take their place are, painfully apparent, her own intuition.

    But it's Lilian. It can't be anything but Lilian. The doors are swinging shut behind her and it's still her. It's just like the way she speaks when her composure is sanded down to nothing and she revels in having no more choices left; but all the time, through every word.
Foundation Scions 'Get lost. Only people who love me are allowed.'

    It's utterly pointless for Mesmer to snap back with "You're speaking nonsense, stop wasting my time," and yet she does so anyways. From upset, and intrigued, at once again Lilian's nature comes up, here, able to be poked and prodded; Mesmer's just as quickly retreated to a nearly desperate amelioration-tone, "This is a necessary investigation. You're already participating, and I'm here to do my job, so, please-"

    Lilian's one(?)-sided conversation cuts Mesmer off, as she flips through filtering for the dream-projection. Even if it's an act motivated by pure frustration, to push the dream to its jagged seams, Mesmer's almost glad that the black-red background through the crumbling scenery, as a reminder that all of this still is a dream. It's unsustainable, but Mesmer considers leaving it that way, just for the assurance.

    "Who is that with you?" is another little mistake, accusatory, not even a finished statement before Mesmer's certain the double-image must be a system artifact, and certain that she sounds insane.

'You again?'

    "I haven't left. Get on with it. Fix whatever you did to the dream, it isn't funny. You wanted this over-with as much as I do. Did you forget?" With uncertain intention, Mesmer's tone threads between upset-hurt and mocking, noticed by her only in post.

'No no, I'm certain you're not meant to be here. Let's get you out of the picture.'

    Mesmer, delayed from processing time, only takes her own step back after Lilian has already stopped, and takes another before she realizes she isn't closing. Nothing should be worth considering a real danger, here, but nothing with Lilian's dreams obeys the 'shoulds' of normal examination and treatment.

'Oh, that's how it is?'

    Curt, defensive, arms crossed and still taking the occasional steps-back, "Stop doing that. The fake conversations, speak clearly, you're being recorded. It won't reflect well if you refuse, while lucid." 'Lucid' is a bold claim. Exasperated. she stares back and forth between Lilian and the space around her, over-adjusting out of disappointment with herself each time she realizes she's looking through empty air.

    "Leave what? Don't say things like that when they make no sense. You're exhibiting clear signs of psychological instability, I doubt I can do anything to pass your examination if you don't stop." Whether that's true or not remains to be seen. Breathing fast, Mesmer adds in sequence, as Lilian turns to leave, "Where are you going?" and, a fully separate question, "Where do you think you're going?"

<Sit down. Let's talk, shall we?>

    With a point of confused resistance, viscerally unfamiliar with 'dreaming', and caught up in the relief that her surrounding's motion and pseudo-life has returned, Mesmer pulls her chair away from the table and sits down, looking at the masked people around for a sign as to which of them talked in that alien-way of Lilian's voice. Only after she's seated, 'listening', does she realize how unlikely it is for the voice to have come from anywhere at all.

    "'Nice'? Really? None of this is even close to nice. It's awful, or it's sick pranks, or it's a waste of my time- just get on with it." With all of the uncertainty, her default is to not take the circumstance seriously at all, to chide and snip. "It's on you to continue this-"
Foundation Scions     She pauses, trying to put words together, to recall what was said, what meaning there was in the speech, and comes up with a frustrated scowl. Even in the dream, she's jittery from the stimulants keeping her this just-barely focused. "I'm only doing my job. You're the parasite that's moved in here, to make my life harder, and stay in the way. It'll be easier for everyone if you actually did try to play nice, behave, and let everything only be as difficult as it has to be."

    "You can start by explaining what you're even trying to do here, if anything." Clinking glasses, shuffling Manus leaders, Mesmer's eye twitches as she sits still, at the table. Repeated, like a mantra, or an unwilling resigned beg, "It isn't funny."
Lilian Rook     'This is a necessary investigation. You're already participating, and I'm here to do my job, so, please-'
    'Who is that with you?'

    When Lilian looks back just to laugh at her, Mesmer can be absolutely sure that 'lucid' doesn't mean anything. The point of comparison; the previous state, from all of the previous sessions, is remembering almost nothing from any day of her life, contentedly existing in a moment of dissociated context with no meaningful past and no solid future. That a dreaming Lilian even recognizes that Mesmer is out of place, much less that she's able to recall events, is an enormous difference, and means nothing at all for her besides being judged as a person in a place and time.

    "Ohhh! Jealous ex-girlfriend type~? What a total freak." Lilian giggles, trying not at all to hide malice. "You're so desperate! There's no way I ever met anyone like you."

    'Where are you going?'

    Having concluded that Mesmer is a figment that she's accidentally confabulated while having a conflicted nightmare-daydream about the Walden, Lilian remains content to completely unperson her. On her way out, she reacts to the ridiculous double question as if she's been prompted to, and not as if she noticed it the first time. Blinking back over her shoulder at Mesmer, she says "It's the Walden. There's wine and food." as if something is self-evident, then shakes her head with another laugh, she says "You don't even know what that is, do you? What a shame." and turns her back again.

    But not before waving at the table near Mesmer. The empty seat next to hers.

    'It's on you to continue this-'

    

    §<It's on me to continue <all things in earth and heaven>.>§ cuts Mesmer off. It's insane and absurd that she can be cut off, because there's nothing to even hear; or at least nothing that could drown her out, instead of having to be picked up by instruments later. It's the jarring affect, most likely, of supremely interested disinterest, that makes it harder to think for a second. Like a sage on a mountain who'd just been shown a computer; or perhaps more like a queen's handmaid who has just seen a cockroach start begging for its life in perfect English.

    The idea that Mesmer is something new, exotic, and completely without merit exudes from the air as clearly as a facial expression. It says to Mesmer §<All <you> have to focus on is staying alive. Easy job~>§

    'I'm only doing my job. You're the parasite that's moved in here, to make my life harder'

    §<Mmm, that's not very nice.>§ skips directly to her short-term recollection of speech. §<I forgive you though. It's a really difficult <concept/proof>.>§ lands somewhat earlier, squarely in the middle of her auditory processing center. §<It is <funny/odd>. <Humans/Homo Sapiens> are so arbitrary and stupid that they can't define what anything means, but they're always totally adamant that it means something very specific.>§ The sense of being dialed in is unignorable. This time it got her inner ear nerves.

    'You can start by explaining what you're even trying to do here, if anything.'

    §<'Bitch, I live here'!>§ tickles the inside of the eardrum. The laughter that follows it is on the very edge of audible, clear and pretty and shamelessly malicious. The fact that the entire semantic payload is a quote makes it seem strangely certain that the speaker hardly even knows what it means.
Lilian Rook     Then the silverware next to Mesmer rattles from a loud, sudden noise against the table, and she finally hears the voice inside her head for real. §<Grow up. You're the nosy <little girl> who made poor <Lilian> have that same dream week after week. I'm going to hurt you no matter what, so you may as well smile and play along; or failing that, <listen to a word I say>, and hope <I'm/We're> in a better mood by the end.>§

    In the space of a blink, Mesmer can see §her§ hand against the table, palm flattened against the struck surface. She can hear §her§ voice as clear as day, §<I've been practicing my <idioms/context/semantics>, so humour me~>§ resonating in her ear. She only has to look up and to the side to see §her§ sat at the table beside her, on the edge of the tabletop, leg over leg, arm down to brace §her§ weight for leaning into Mesmer's ear, as if §she§ had been there all along. Exactly as if §she§ had always been there.

    Mesmer wouldn't know the difference, but the shape that used to be nothing but a blurry shadow behind glass, and then more recently a glaring white silhouette painting over the surroundings, has at some point become alarmingly three dimensional. Like white-hot infrared glow had gotten bored of being a wave and decided trying out this whole 'particle' thing instead, pressed solid by a mold and frozen like plastic.

    The ambient light neither colours nor details §her§, nor does §she§ cast a shadow, but pinpoint dots and streaks of interstellar vantablack create a bizarre sense of shading, as if filled out deliberately with a pencil at a thousand frames per second. Enough to pick out the vague shape of fingernails, or where one thigh presses against the other, or the difference between hair and back; and the former brushes the forks and knives and burning candles without a care. Absolute darkness only exists within §her§ eyes and the scar below them, and the lines of a design of some sort, as if inked onto §her§ back, completely different from the gold on Lilian's.

    §She§ puts §her§ hand on Mesmer's shoulder, but §her§ fingers idly wander to her neck. The touch on bare skin is like an injection of sweet morphine and cold iodine in the moment before it's carried into the blood; like a hazy idea of arsenic and bleach and chlorine brought forth by imagining the unworrying darkness of death. §Her§ body temperature is utterly lukewarm. §She§ has no pulse at all. Leaning only a little closer, §her§ reality is so intense that Mesmer can smell ozone, iron, and rain on §her§ breath; and a perfume somewhere on §her§ that's as if someone replaced all the metallic notes of freshly spilled blood with something candy-sweet and floral.

    §<But really, what did you think would happen? <Lilian Rook> told you over and over. Why would she apologize unless it was obvious you were <playing with a loaded weapon>?>§
Foundation Scions 'You're so desperate! There's no way I ever met anyone like you.'

    "False, on both accounts," Mesmer mutters, eye-rolled, but huffing and puffing about the dismissal is the best argument she can really muster, and a very bad one. Some part of her ought to remember that it's not, really, necessary for Lilian to be there through this in a guiding fashion for there to be enough proof one way or another of remnant psychological threat, from the Walden, but it's still a promise of more work in order to be thorough.

    "If you can't be helpful, at least be quiet," comes out on-instinct, with a nondirectional mocking-tone leaking in, like she's copying it from someone who it'd been said to, rather than throwing an insult, despite her intent to throw insults.

'You don't even know what that is, do you?'

    "What do you even mean?"

. . .

<All <you> have to focus on is staying alive. Easy job~>

    If this voice is part of a dream, and not a lucid subject, then there's no point in Mesmer responding, and if it isn't, there's still no reason at all for her to speak up with "It's impossible to kill someone through Artificial Somnambulism. So. It will be easy." Even if technically true, that denial-refusal serves, at best, as a dare, obviously fully unintended.

    That doesn't mean she isn't blatantly upset by the promised threat, she's fuming, while sitting arms-crossed with fingers tapping against her own vinyl sleeves. "What does it matter if I'm nicer than I'm required to be," comes out without the full certainty that it's even in response to anything, "I'm only here to ascertain contaminant exposure, and stability. That's it. That's all."

    Mesmer actually shivers as the sensory-input starts with actual periphery nerves, shockingly unpleasant, noticeably more tangible. "Stop doing that," is immediate and toothless, and, just as hip-fired, "I've no desire to talk about false stereotypes of humans, you should know by now that I'm not one, and can't speak for them. I don't wish to hear it, or for this prank, or these threats, to continue. Stop it."

    Sitting, being laughed at, or just being left with the feeling of it. makes her face redden, as does the uncertainty, as does the quote, as does the awful nerve-brushing, as she passes through a short-lived phase of just trying to ignore what's going on.

<I'm going to hurt you no matter what, so you may as well smile and play along>

    "What?" Lacking her usual dismissive apathy, this tired, this frustrated, Mesmer's voice can't even stay steady for that surprised inquisitive, fear leaks in. "I refuse. That was medically necessary, this, too, is necessary. Please return to the task at hand."

    It doesn't sound so stiff-formal from her, here and now, as she's obviously trying to stick to the security of some unwritten script. That this is all just a prank is a belief firmly held, the Mesmer is exhibiting higher than usual quantities of unfounded hope that things could go back to being easier. Failing that, Mesmer's fingers run through half of her system-stop gesture for Artificial Somnambulism, jumping the gun in telling what's on her mind.

    "If you just want to be listened to, act civil, and converse clearly. It's that simple." Elevated heartrate morphs fear into anger, visible in Mesmer's scowling eyebrows, scanning again around the table until-
Foundation Scions     It's unsurprising that Mesmer Jr.'s fear-response is, first, to freeze, rather than run. Seeing the figure perched right there, without having had to adjust projection-filters to even see her faint suggestion, would have Mesmer jumping out of her seat, if her nerves weren't firing sluggish and disconnected already, and so it's the wide-eyed stillness she meets her with.

    Registering her touch, too late, by visual cue more than the shock-medley of sensory input that comes with it, Mesmer flinches, and jolts up from the seat, squeaky-loud, sudden enough Mesmer ought to bruise from where the backs of her knees impact and push the wood of her chair, were the impact not only in this dream-space. A hand goes to her hip, for the K-tope Calibrator, resting on the handle, like she's forgotten the next step, or just that over-trusting of its implied threat.

    She stares, still reeling from the sense-payload, only to refocus when she notices her own behavior is worth having distaste for. That means, instead of staring dumbfounded, she's staring with upset and analytical intent, trying to make out what on earth she's even looking at, just another dream-construct, some strange trick of Lilian's, or some system corruption she's never seen in practice or in textbook.

    "Don't touch me. However you're doing this, you shouldn't be. I didn't say that you could." In some barely-intentional attempt, Mesmer cycles, again, through a few dream filters, trying to dull sensation preemptive in a half-imagined caution as to what an unstable anomaly could possibly be trying to accomplish. Falling on the same cycle-pattern as before, she tries also to adjust wavelengths, idly reaching even towards that most aberrant brainwave layer in hopes that something will shock this back to 'normal, for a dream'.

    Quiet, under-breath, for all that matters, "She was only trying to dissuade me from my job, out of self-protective instinct, obviously. She knew she wasn't mentally stable, knew she'd fail the examination, and wanted to slip by unquestioned under some vague threat of danger. It's an animal instinct, one of emotion, not logic, she must have known I'd have no choice-" An eye twitch, and she shifts how she's talking, "You're still trying it, aren't you? I won't have it."
Lilian Rook     'It's impossible to kill someone through Artificial Somnambulism. So. It will be easy.'

    Laughter is the last thing in the world anyone would like to hear after saying that. Much less in Lilian's 'voice'. Much less in the exact same way, unbeknownst to Mesmer and yet instinctively recognizable in the primal hindbrain, as she sometimes laughs when having completely given up on not hurting someone. It's the sort of sharp and pretty that sends chills down the spine for utterly lacking any element of social consciousness.

    §<Silly girl. I've seen you do this week after week after week. I <know> how it works like <the back of my hand>.>§ says the voice in Mesmer's head. Somewhere in the midst of her sensory input nerves, a crackling neural noise takes on the tenor of a rollig purr. §<I know it isn't arrogance that makes you think <hell and high water> can be <subordinated> by a machine. It's fear I <smell on you>. You want to believe it, because you're so afraid of being <insane/right about anything>.>§

    'Don't touch me. However you're doing this, you shouldn't be. I didn't say that you could.'

    Unlike Lilian in the dream, who scorns and ignores Mesmer, there is no sign from §her§ that §she§ comprehended why a single thing Mesmer said could be important. It slides past §her§ like the meaningless background noise of the Walden, not even moving §her§ pitch dark stare. So when she jumps to her feet, the instant she raises her hand to adjust the filter, everything above the wrist is frozen in the grip of a pitch black hand, attached to nothing, geometric metal lacing its fingers with hers and threatening to cut into her flesh with anything more than its pervertedly fond squeeze.

    §<I know your tired routine by heart. Didn't I say?>§ §she§ giggles as if at §her§ own joke. Swinging §her§ feet idly back and forth over the edge of the table, the fact that §she§ has more of a face than anyone else in the dream, difficult as the silhouette is to grasp, stands out more for the lack of motion to §her§ lips, save a vantablack smile maliciously splitting the perfect white. §<You can't disconnect. You can't lower <the pain>. There's no escape. I won't <let you get any sleep tonight>.>§

    The fact that §she§ isn't wearing anything just makes it another step more deleriously worrisome when §<she>§ lifts a bright red fruit to her mouth and bites down. It's like nothing on Earth, and exactly like one from the Storm in a Bottle recording, down to the wet, glassy crunch and trickling goo, like oddly viscous, candy-lurid blood, smelling faintly of charred flesh and seawater.

    'She was only trying to dissuade me from my job, out of self-protective instinct, obviously.'

    §<Oh, she was the first few times.>§ §she§ says, electrifyingly nonchalant. The red on her chin beads and drips, stippling skin below the collarbone. §<But this time, you're in real danger. <Lilian Rook> can <intuit> everything <I/We> feel by the <negative shadow>, you know. And I know everything <Lilian Rook> feels the same way. She knew the risk~>§

    'It's an animal instinct, one of emotion, not logic, she must have known I'd have no choice-'

    §<Because I am the animal instinct.>§
Lilian Rook     The grip on Mesmer's wrist savagely twists. Too fast to even let her break the joint out of stubbornness. The pain is immediate, the leverage mathematically precise, forcing her to lose her balance right back into the chair she'd just stood up from. Another pair of hands shoves the chair, Mesmer and all, right back to her place at the table. §Her§ eyes wander in a way that can only be intuited by the rolling-disdainful tilt of her head.

    §<Coy little brat. Why <play hard to get> now? You've been chasing me down for months, and now <here/now> I am. Be more excited, okay? I don't really like being <responsible>, so I'll turn your brain to <splatter> and send you to the madhouse if you keep making it so funny.>§

    §Exigent Serenity§ wastes Mesmer's time as if it didn't exist. §She§ takes another lurid bite, chews while staring at the crowd of humans in the distance, and then extends §her§ arm to offer it to Mesmer, saying §<Want some?>§ and then forgetting all about it after ten seconds.

    Almost singsong, §Exigent Serenity§ moves on to idle-fond recollection, saying §<You know, 'Existential Threat' isn't bad! We had another word for <us> where I come from, though! You could try calling me a <Perfect Beast> if you want to be 'scientifically accurate'.>§ The thought of it makes §her§ laugh like giddily pulling the legs off an ant. §<Even you, stupid girl, must have figured it out by now, right? With that funny little <organ/delusion> you call a 'brain' you know oh so much about!>§

    §She§ pivots on the tabletop and lies down on her front against it, casually sweeping aside the plate and glass in the way to loudly shatter against the floor. Propping §her§ chin up in §her§ hands, idly kicking §her§ feet in the air now, §she§ keeps going one-sidedly as if remarking on the weather, §<How did you picture me? I'm really curious. Like a big <bacterium>? Like a wandering <tempest>? Did I have tentacles and eyes in your imagination? Or maybe fiery wings?>§

    §Exigent Serenity§ reaches out with §her§ solid hand, and contemplatively strokes the underside of Mesmer's chin, trailing fingertips up to her jaw, then dangerously near her eyes. Again, the strange lack of heartbeat and quasi-artificial texture makes the drugging touch feel all the more surreal. The slightest attempt to resist gets her another black iron grip to bind her in place.

    §<Hello Mesmer. I'm <Lilian, Too>. My nickname is <Exigent Serenity>. <We're> 720 years old, Capricorn, AB+ blood type, bisexual, multilingual, and a <Demon from the Stars>. We're trying out wearing your <mortal skin> for a while, so think of <me/us> like a new <transfer student>! Let's do out best to get along, shall we?>§
Foundation Scions     "If you've actually been paying attention, you'd know there's no parameter to remotely halt cardiac function and breathing, nor other physiological harm. Artificial Somnambulism is limited in the depth of its mind-body interfacing expressly for safety." Then, annoyed, and still radiating uncertain fear, a less solid claim, with more emotion behind it, You can't die in a dream."

    If the disembodied hand holding hers frozen had a heartbeat, Mesmer Jr. would be nauseous. Sharp, hard metal is awful, and yet still miles more tolerable. "Let go of me," she insists, without actually struggling, as though something this-close to mechanism and artifice should simply work as-wanted- or that here in this moment, survival instinct hasn't yet kicked in, or she's just that averse to the risk of spilling blood from the sharpness.

    Another layer of fear sets in after, as her posture struggles to adjust to the binding, and it actually, properly dawns on her that she won't even have the minimum control, at all. The thought to mirror the commands with her other hand, of course, bubbles up and doesn't make it into testing, expecting the same thing to happen if she tries so soon, and (wrongly) expecting she might be able try again, later, when it's more surprising, to disconnect of the dream. That refusal to test her again is still, really, the exact same thing as giving up.

    With no leverage or control, Mesmer still sneers, upset, undignified, and now trapped, not even able to sit back down or stand comfortably, it's just more empty emotional flailing. "Why? There's no rational point to drawing any of this out. You should be helping me, not getting in my way- let me go." Abrupt, those words fire off where she'd otherwise carry on her ramblings about her job, as new immediacy drags the circumstance back to her mind. Throat-tight urgency, not pleading, but evidently desperate.

    Wide, scared-angry eyes flick back and forth, before fixing on the bright fruit, fragmented threat-assessment wondering if this, too, is something to worry over, even before the neurons connect that this is somewhat familiar. For all she's trying to see this as just some horrifying prank of Lilian's, it's increasingly delusional to hold onto that. It doesn't have to be said for Mesmer to relent in viewing this as the real-deal 'Existential Threat' personification, and maybe that new level of concern is why Mesmer's eyes lock in still-fear at the candy-red droplets.

    "It's nonsensical to remind me of the danger. If you're the cause of it, then stand down. It's that simple. I can't imagine you expect me to do anything about it? I shouldn't have to." Lip-twitchy nervousness, Mesmer Jr. tries to shift her weight, turn her torso away from Exigent Serenity, or pull away from that frozen grasp, resulting first and foremost in exasperation. "She knew the risk? Her warnings were vague. I'd expect details and specific precautions."

    'Logically, you've no reason to hurt and kill me in a dream' is awfully thin-feeling armor to wear, but that's all Mesmer has. It's shredded immediately by the arm-twist, and she clatters back to being held in the chair with an uncharacteristically affected yelp of pain. Sphere-capped bootheels slip in immediate scramblings to push away from something, leaving herself only firmer in the chair.

    "What do you want?" comes out hissed. Heartbeat raised, no doubt mirrored in the flesh as in the dream, Mesmer might be a bit too confident in the safeguards of the Artificial Somnambulism device. Panicked, pained, Mesmer can't stop her eyes from locking back to the held-out fruit, to a delayed and mutter-exhaled "No. Absolutely not. Get that out of my face."
Foundation Scions     The confirmation of Mesmer's late-assumption, that this is the real deal, comes with the same sort of uncomfortable wince as the broken glass and plates do, moments later. While she still can, she tries to scan for if any of the resulting awful sharp-edged shards fall nearby, not to dream of grabbing some prison shank escape-weapon, but pure disgust over disorder, and specific fear. "What?" is Mesmer's first answer, to what she imagined Exigent Serenity as; "I didn't picture anything. I didn't think you'd have an appearance." is her disappointing second.

    There in the chair, under all the stress, fear, and heightened-focus, Mesmer's chest is heaving, as if drawing extra oxygen to brain and muscles where she is, beneath a chrome-and-glass helmet, has any way to help her here in alien territory. As much as she tries to freeze still at Exigent Serenity's face-stroke, she doesn't, and wince-shivers at the first brush, grimacing through everything after. Without meaningfully resisting, again, her heels struggle to find purchase on the floor, slipping rather than pushing herself away. Trembly, near-tears, over-stimulated in this sensory hellscape, Mesmer physically bites her own tongue to keep from screaming.

    Only after a moment's respite, or slight habituation, can she speak in response- starting first with 'mortal skin'. "You can't wear that. Just, say your actual terms already, this doesn't need to last. It doesn't. It doesn't need to be a game, there's no need to pretend to get along. Say it, so you can let me go. Let me go." Even that, fades back into holding-back shouts and screams, in head-pounding fear.
Lilian Rook     'You can't die in a dream.'

    Lilian would argue with Mesmer over this. She would reiterate her point as if Mesmer were simply failing to understand. She would get frustrated, and elaborate on her threat, and reframe it until it had any effect at all. §She§ sems to have forgotten the start of Mesmer talking before she even reaches the end. Worse than being denied or ignored, the words that §she§ doesn't deign to be heard, aren't.

    'Let go of me'

    §<Don't wanna.>§ is said instead.

    'Why? There's no rational point to drawing any of this out. You should be helping me, not getting in my way- let me go.'

    §<Rational? We're in a dream, <cute thing/detestable woman>. You must be the only human alive who expects rationality from a dream.>§ says §Exigent Serenity§. §<Expecting it from other humans is already <immature/embarrassing>. Are you crazy? Oh you must be, 'or you wouldn't have come here'.>§ The joy §she§ finds in quoting strings of words that a human being has written on paper at some point in the past is impossible to relate to. The particular sweetness of the achievement that achieves nothing is §hers§ and §hers§ alone to understand. The way §she§ laughs isn't meant to be heard at all.

    'If you're the cause of it, then stand down.'

    §<Don't wanna~>§ Again. Even §she§ knows that it's more upsetting done twice. Rubbing Mesmer's face in her own lack of leverage is the whole point, and §she§ only kicks her feet a little more every time Mesmer squirms and argues. §<The chain of <subordination> goes <nature>, <machine>, <flesh>, <will>, then <reality>, and <My/Our> place on that chain is to <enslave/humiliate> <reality> above it. Do your apples bark at gravity to stand down as they fall off their trees?>§ The air with which §she§ goes on is condescendingly explanatory; a teacher catching up the slow student after class.

    'I'd expect details and specific precautions.'

    §<Too bad. Some secrets bite you the second you know them, my stupid, presumptious little <moth to a flame>.>§

    'No. Absolutely not. Get that out of my face'

    §<Don't wanna.>§ A third time. The rule of three is invoked. The promise is sealed. The terms are set. The law is iron-bound. §Exigent Serenity§ only slides §herself§ closer, until §her§ face fills half of Mesmer's vision even if she looks away. §She§ takes some special pleasure, alien in its entirety to Mesmer of all people, in wiping away each luridly too-red drop, and licking the residue from §her§ fingers. The noise is unsettlingly crisp. The digits don't come away wet.
Lilian Rook     'I didn't picture anything. I didn't think you'd have an appearance.'

    §Exigent Serenity§ occupies Mesmer's personal bubble like a cat occupies a sunbeam. §She§ talks to her, close and intimate, like a queen orders a commoner to be beheaded. §<Oh, I don't.>§ §she§ says, bored-interested. §<That's why I have hers. We're <obverse and inverse>; my <law/nature> is part of <Lilian Rook> and vice versa.>§

    Almost playfully, §she§ walks §her§ empty fingers across the tabletop, slowly towards Mesmer. §<The more true that gets, the more <We/I> become <one and the same>, the more I become a thing whose <nature> is to have a <manifestation>. With all the little trials and . . .>§ §Her§ fingers reach the edge of the table, and traipse onto Mesmer's chest pushed against it by the chair, walking fearlessly from vinyl over to bare skin, treading ground in utter ignorance of sin. §<Joys, it entails~>§ §she§ says. Her fingertips walk a trail of soothing-poisonous numbness over Mesmer's heart, where they abruptly stop.

    §<Oh you're terrified, aren't you? Are you scared of <Me/Us>, or scared that you've gone mad?>§ §Exigent Serenity§ giggles indulgently. §She§ drops the fruit on the floor without thinking, spattering just short of Mesmer's feet. It lets §her§ prop §her§ cheek up in §her§ hand, gaze fondly narrowing on Mesmer. §<That's hot.>§

    'You can't wear that. Just, say your actual terms already, this doesn't need to last. It doesn't. It doesn't need to be a game, there's no need to pretend to get along. Say it, so you can let me go. Let me go.'

    Absentmindedly, §Exigent Serenity§ pinches where §her§ fingers rest below Mesmer's collarbone, perhaps intending to cut her off. §She§ twists once §she§ gets a reaction, to get more of one. §<Can too. <Lilian Rook> is <wearing> humanity right now. <I/We> have been stuck like that for longer than <I/We> would like, but it turns out, actually, that there are all sorts of things to enjoy with your <flawed design>, so it's not all that bad.>§

    §She§ forgot to state a term. Or make a demand. Or §she§ doesn't even mean to.
Foundation Scions <Don't wanna.>

    "What?" Genuine surprise, both because, in her hazy thought-processes, she's forgotten immediately that she'd said that at the hand-clutching hand, and because she didn't trace effect to source; staring at the metal hand, distressed, and trying not to pull away. She really expected the hand to just disappear because she said so.

<Rational? We're in a dream, <cute thing/detestable woman>.>

    "Dreams are projections of thoughts and memories, whether conscious or unconscious. Individual events being incoherent won't override that they're able to be assessed and analyzed for rational pursuits." Words as defensive chaff, from time and time again she's had cause to distance her job from 'arcanist things', to skeptics and coworkers alike. Heart pounding in her chest, upset-scandalized and terrified, "This isn't your dream, and you aren't dreaming, so I'll expect what I will."

    "I'm not insane. I've checked, three times today." That comes out quieter, on the exhale, to herself more than Exigent Serenity. "If it was a marker of insanity for anyone to expect order, logic, and rationality from others, the entire world would be institutionalized."

    Repeated, like she'd want to be pinching her arm as she says it, "I'm not insane."

    To Mesmer's detriment, each casual little motion of Exigent Serenity's, in this environment, in this state of mind, draws her attention like she just spotted a thrown baseball in the corner of her eye. Twitching, staring, scowling, in that sequence. The second <Don't wanna> draws out an exasperated little scoff-gasp, like a stillborn snarl.

    "Don't be ridiculous. You're hardly even real. Just a voice in someone's mind." Strangely light-tone, nasal, if this sort of derision has ever gotten Mesmer out of trouble, nobody's seen it happen. "You're the single clearest sign Lilian isn't psychologically sound, to pass this examination. So. It's already done. Let me out, and this can be the end of it."

    The tutoring tone is really getting to her, on top of the frustration of powerlessness. Infantilizing and embarrassing, as ever. Heightened emotions, unfortunately, often make Mesmer act stupid.

<Some secrets bite you the second you know them>

    "It's not my fault she's a hazard to the entire world. I'm only doing my job." Exasperated again, but this time, sad-frustrated-scared, more than angry, the strange shudder-breath she does is closer to a failed bark of laughter, as when nothing makes sense. "I've had a long day. It was supposed to be almost done."

    And the third, with the fruit out by Mesmer's face, makes her struggle to twist away and grimace. As such, there's no further away she can pull when Exigent Serenity herself slides closer in. Shutting twitchy eyelids doesn't even help, with the gut fear present and warning her that this danger here can't be left out of sight. And yet, as Exigent Serenity cleans off those scary-distracting drops, Mesmer is horrified to be relieved that there's some amount less mechanism of flesh to whatever the being in front of her is.
Foundation Scions <Oh, I don't.>

    Surprised, and, situationally-strange, amused, for the second it takes to reassess everything going on to her and around her, "So. I was right." That fear, to non-fearful comment shift, is as sudden as dozing off into sleep while still on one's feet, and jolting awake. Exigent Serenity's continued presence makes her jump when she refocuses.

    Mesmer Jr.'s eyes fix on the walking fingers, brows furrowed, waiting for them to stop when they simply don't. Vinyl is impermeable and safe, skin isn't- in that absurd getup of Mesmer's, there's no lack of it, as anger and discomfort and scandal paint her face red. That Exigent Serenity's touch numbs as it does, makes her motion's cessation spark some back-brain fear of metabolic failure, a stilled heart or stunned lungs. Her heart hasn't stilled, though- for not a moment will it drop under one hundred and sixty beats per minute.

<Oh you're terrified, aren't you?>

    It's a stupid motion, but Mesmer tries to kick-nudge the dropped fruit away, like it's toxic or corrosive or about to jump up and bite at her. The droplet-spray of it makes her flinch. More desperate this time, "I'm not insane! I can't afford to be." It's safe to say she's afraid of both choices. Then, "Don't say that. Don't. That's disgusting." Not even 'stay away', this time, or 'stop touching me'.

    Collarbone-pinching summons a behind-teeth scream, the pain more drops in the cup of impossible frustration and emotion-static. It grows, and fades as Exigent Serenity continues, dulling back to the new normal. Muttered, seething, "What? She is human. She can't take it off. Don't say it like that."

    Exhale-breathy again, nowhere to go or twist or pull away towards to feel like she can really breathe, chest so tight-pressured from stress and fear to do so even if there was, Mesmer adds, talking just to pour some of that emotion back out, combative, upset, back to scared- "There's nothing to be enjoyed about the- 'flaws', only fixed. Even this, stupid, insane dream, is an inefficiency- let go. Let go of me. I want to go home."
Lilian Rook     'If it was a marker of insanity for anyone to expect order, logic, and rationality from others, the entire world would be institutionalized.'

    §<I agree~>§ §Exigent Serenity§ purrs. The moment of peace, of being aligned rather than at-odds, between captor and captive, is anything but relieving. §<The <way of the world> is mad, and all of you should have noticed. That you humans are quickly going extinct is really just a <mercy killing>.>§

    Only when §she§ pauses, somehow projecting that §she§ is looking up and away, in a very human habit, does it become clear that §she§ has any short-term memory of Mesmer at all. §<I think one of my dreams would kill you, <Child of Eden>.>§

    'Don't be ridiculous. You're hardly even real. Just a voice in someone's mind.'

    Somehow, §Exigent Serenity§ manages to convey the concept of a noise; nothing like words at all, but the implicit intonation of explosively dwindling interest. §She§ rolls over onto her side, too, performatively throwing §her§ wrist over §her§ forehead; unfortunately not in the direction that shows Mesmer §her§ back. §<I can't tell if you're the <hopeless virgin> or <Lilian Rook> is. I'm <natural law compliant> enough to end your fetid little world, but I'm not more <natural law compliant> than a voice in a human's head? Why does she even try so hard to <keep me a secret from you/keep you a secret from me>? Everything would be simpler if <I/We> just <popped your cherry> already.>§

    'Let me out, and this can be the end of it.'

    §<Don't wanna!>§ §she§ says a fourth time, and now it's breaking the rule of three that is unbearably funny to §her§. §She§ laughs as if a crowd of a hundred were laughing along with §her§. §<You're going to pass <Her/Us> as fit for duty. You're not going <anywhere/anywhen> until you understand that!>§ §she§ titters. §<I'm <Lilian, Too>, remember? Being <outed> is totally unacceptable.>§

    'I'm not insane! I can't afford to be.'

    §<Oh shut up.>§ §she§ says. §Her§ free hand jumps to Mesmer's face instead, pinching her cheeks between finger and thumb. §<Nobody cares.>§ Everywhere §she§ touches, Mesmer can no longer feel her own pulse. She can't feel her muscles quivering, or her ligaments complaining, or the creaking in her joints from tension. All she can feel is what's on her skin; as if touch alone were enough to hollow her out and reduce her only to the platonic idea of 'touch'.

    §<You don't even know what 'sane' is. All you ever do is obsess over trying to <reverse engineer> what you think reality looks like to everyone else, and practice regurgitating it back to them. Your <magic/affinity> is dreams; your <afflatus/destiny> is madness; it's impossible for you to be sane; you're just trying not to get <outed>, exactly the same as <Us>.>§

    'Don't say that. Don't. That's disgusting.'

    §Exigent Serenity§ smirks, enthusiastically malicious.
    §<<Bitch in Heat>.>§
Lilian Rook     'What? She is human. She can't take it off.'

    §<Wrong again! Wow you're stupid!>§ §she§ titters, even more evil than before. A giddy sense of anticipation keeps on rising in the tone of §her§ voice, bleeding into §her§ body language as §she§ rolls over and pushes §herself§ up to §her§ knees and tosses back §her§ hair. §<She <keeps it on> because she cares about you, for some reason. <Lilian Rook> knew what would happen if <you and I met>. You're just too much of a <kamikaze> to protect you from yourself.>§

    The atmosphere of anticipation reaches the prickling intensity of the moment just before the whole room yells 'surprise'! §Exigent Serenity§ getting excited for it feels more like seeing the snake that's already bitten you. §<You want to 'go home'~? You're so funny~>§ §she§ says. Flirtatious. §<Well you can't unless <Lilian Rook> clears your silly little <good luck ritual>. And seeing as <I/We> know you're a liar, a <conman>, a backstabber, and an unpredictable madwoman, <I/We> can't just take your word for it!>§

    Knelt on the tabletop, barely tinged by the ambient lighting, altogether far too solid for anyone's liking, §Exigent Serenity§ leans down, and down, holding §her§ hair behind her ear as §she§ lowers face to face and eye to eye with Mesmer. The second pair of black metal hands that appear to grip her feels like being restrained by orderlies. §<So I, <noblesse oblige> as I am, will fix everything~! Everyone will be happy and nothing will go wrong . . .>§ The suspense is nothing but cruelty. §Exigent Serenity§ drinks in Mesmer's expression, watching every twitch with a stare that betrays only a vast and bottomless hunger.

    §<If you can't bear to show the recording to anyone.>§

    §Her§ mouth tastes like saline and battery contacts. Whatever it is that isn't quite saliva; the homogenous off-magenta stuff; it burns.
Foundation Scions <I agree~>

    On top of it all, Mesmer Jr. is specifically averse to being in agreement with the detested, the fear and sense of mis-stepping is only worsened by disgust. Spurred on by alignment-drawing, "I'm not a human, and arcanists are the ones facing extinction, as is natural." Then, exhaled, more of a self-reminder, "The world is what it is, it's the insane that make it mad. It could be neat and sane, without them."

    "I don't believe you. I don't believe you dream." Empty, words thrown just to push away. Why would Exigent Serenity? It's not as if Mesmer could hook her up to a machine, to project whatever she finds on the big screen, and see if there's anything.

    Mesmer watches Exigent Serenity roll, with just as much fear-caution as everything, quickly becoming a background noise, while still escalating. Ameliorating, "I don't know why she does anything, that's inclusive of keeping secrets. She's impossible, incorrigible, and irrational. Can't you ask her yourself?"

    Still upset passively, scandalized, scoffing as best she can while pinned and trapped, and trying fruitlessly to squirm free when previously she's been still, save for flinches and reflexes, Mesmer's response tone is dry-distant and almost embarrassed. "I don't want to hear the rest of that. Keep it to yourselves."

    The fourth 'don't wanna' is a more-comfortable and still-scary shift back in the conversational medium. It affords Mesmer the chance to scowl, and feel angry again. "My work will be checked." Maybe. "If that's it, if that's the terms, fine. Let me out. I'll lie, and maybe she'll get lucky. So. Let me out."

    When that's not met with immediate agreement, and freedom, Mesmer's frustration is only magnified, there on her face. Red before Exigent Serenity pinches poorly cared-for skin, redder after, Mesmer doesn't even intend to listen and actually shut up, but she's stunned-quiet. The quieting of meat takes immediate, shocked focus, simplified and neatened. Novocain, upside-down, the fact that everywhere-else remains the same becomes harder to tolerate.

    Again, it's like her awareness of Exigent Serenity has, somehow, lapsed, regardless of the focus her presence (and danger) demands. Unfocused, tone still cutting, mad from something, and less guarded than she ought to be- "It's the duty of everyone to try, regardless of nature. Insane arcanists can still act suitably pacified and rationally, I've seen it, my work facilitates it. I'm a Mesmer. That's what I'll be seen as, regardless."

'<<Bitch in Heat>.>'

    "Pestilent lunatic," is thrown back, in pure anger now, immediately regretted- heeding that at all was surely a mistake.
Foundation Scions <She <keeps it on> because she cares about you, for some reason.>

    "I don't believe you. She'd have made this easier if she did. Preemptive apologies for this hassle-" A scared shift, facial expressions looser without the feedback-texture of muscles having to move to perform them. Her sneer is more obvious, so is the fright in her eyes. To caring, or to protecting, quieter, "She should be better at it, if that's even a believable motive."

<<I/We> can't just take your word for it!>

    "What? That isn't fair. I said I'd pass her. That's the agreement, you don't have any rational reason to not agree." 'Rational' is there, so often used by her, just as an intensifier, and in her words, to push past the tight-throat uncertainty. Desperate, almost begging, "I promise. It's simple enough for me to make sure a reviewer doesn't use much scrutiny, her examination's pass won't be rescinded. I just want you to let me go, to let me leave. That should be enough. It's what you want."

    <Everyone will be happy and nothing will go wrong . . .>

    Only once, has Mesmer Jr. been made familiar with holds akin to orderlies, herself- nine years ago, give or take, what preceded it was an embarrassment, what followed was nightmarish. Staring face to face with Exigent Serenity, it's fresh-in-mind that whatever's to come of this won't be anything short of nightmarish, again. Shoulders stiffen, arms try to, under vicegrip.

    Looser, and futilely, Mesmer's face flickers from uncomposed pleading, to anger, to detachment, faltering and shifting with each of Exigent Serenity's movements. Her mouth opens to say something, like she could interrupt, and instead, she stays quiet.

<If you can't bear to show the recording to anyone.>

. . .
Foundation Scions     There's a clattering of metal and glass on countertop as Mesmer drops her own disengaged Artificial Somnambulism helmet down, haphazard, the weight of it having slipped out of trembling arms. Adding to that cacophony, hurriedly ripped from velcro attachments, is the coil-wired EM sensor Mesmer clutches near her head like a rosary, a frantic banishment of something. By the blaring and urgent alarm-tone, indicating danger and instability, it hasn't worked.

    Turning on dangerously-unstable heels, like she'll slip on nothing, sweaty and hard-breathing, Mesmer looks towards the door, looks towards a rolling chair, and looks towards the emergency button on the wall, scanning for escape, stability, and angles to flail, respectively. She tries to re-clip the EM sensor, muttering "Shut up, be quiet, turn off-" at it when fingers fail to disengage it, and the velcro slips to let it tumble on its coil-cord to dangle by her side.

    Lilian's machine, also disengaged, at this point, draws Mesmer's eyes- scared and angry and filthy, smeared-over by mascara tears -after everything else in the room. Everything but the door would take her closer to her, and so it's the door that her instinct-unsteadied steps take her towards.

    Twitchy, a hand on the door's keypad, like touching metal will bite, Mesmer looks over her shoulder, to the waking-up Lilian, hissed and soft, like an obligation, rather than a concession or attack, "You're cleared. Someone will come by." She stays staring after punching the code, like there's more she'd say, fading underneath the static of something else.

    Green light beeping on the door, red light on the dangling sensor, a bracing inhale, as shaky as the hands Mesmer uses to frantically once, twice, dust off the front of her vinyl dress, prepares her for opening the door.

    Through, and out, the bright hallway lights illuminate Mesmer nearly slipping and falling, just outside the door, bracing on the opposite corridor wall with one arm, and covering her face with the other. The door clicks-shut once more.
Lilian Rook     . . . . . . . .

    Lilian slams her forehead into the glass face of the examination unit. There are any number of reasons for her to be shocked awake like that; even to the point of bending the hinges in her haste to throw the helmet-capsule off her. Wide-eyed, almost quivering, gown sticking to her from cold sweat, Lilian processes that there is no enemy on top of her first, that she'd shoved the expensive machinery second, and that her forehead hurts third.


    "Mesmer--?!"

    'Shut up, be quiet, turn off-'

    The horrid screeching of the alarm lands somewhere around fifth or sixth priority. Lilian winces at the sound, but only once she sees Mesmer's face contorted in panic about it first. Moving on autopilot, in the complete opposite of the kind that Mesmer can, she achieves kneeling in a fraction of a second, jumps down from the bed in another, and reaches for Mesmer before the halfway mark.

    'You're cleared. Someone will come by.'

    She's still only one step off the bed when Mesmer hisses at her. Far from arm's reach, Lilian freezes up on the spot, and then lets her hand slowly fall. Anxiety outpaces confusion, context dwindling away the latter, Mesmer's behaviour causing the former to skyrocket. Lilian curls her fingers by her side, then forcefully releases them again. She bites down on her lip, stifling the first wave of unhelpful emotion, then opens her mouth, hesitates for an instant, and shakes her head.

    "Mesmer please! Slow down! I know you don't like me but you're obviously not okay! Just-- Five minutes! Two minutes! Please just sit down and talk to--"

    She doesn't have it in her to try and rush through the door the second the code lock registers. Lilian hurries up to it, as Mesmer staggers out. She even considers running after her to catch her in the moment that she stumbles. But the Foundation is out there. Beyond the door, in that cold hallway, is 'everyone else' and 'the world'. And the evil is still too thick in the air inside that one room for Lilian to feel like the two should mix.

    So she turns away, pulls off her gown, and rushes to dry off instead.