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In the dark privacy of her quarters, with no-one around but the droid standing motionless at the foot of her bed, apprentice Deskyl meditates. Remembering how to establish a telepathic link is hard, and doing it is even harder, but she thinks in this case it will be worth it.
Hello? It's more a sense of presence than a proper word, easily mistaken for just another thought by someone not expecting such a thing.
Mmhmm. And she's a lightweight for spices, he'll probably appreciate how the beef stings her mouth a bit more than she does.
She appreciates it.
I think I want... someplace quiet, where she can stretch out her senses and just not run into any people at all, where it's all hers - theirs, now - to run around in and make art and do just precisely what they want, without anyone to have an opinion on it in the first place, much less answer to. She wants to be free, really, and that's what freedom looks like to her.
Oh.
He takes her image of freedom and puts it alongside the one he's been carrying with him.
His is...different. It's endless color and sound, main streets swarming with people, everyone in the world looking at you and seeing you and their eyes not mattering except as a measure of how brilliant your light must be to hold their gaze.
He wonders how the two can fit together.
Well, there's -
She's been to conferences, with their hundreds of attendees and thousands of staff; it's not pleasant, but that's mostly the politics, and the whole point of his thing is that there isn't politics, that nobody can challenge you. Without that - she still wouldn't want to do it often, ideally not more than once or twice a year, but, yeah, it would be fun, that often. And that gives them the whole rest of the time to make themselves and their artwork spectacular.
He imagines them at their best, silencing rooms the moment they walk in, making whole cities remember their brilliance.
"Not often", he thinks, would be fine, if it's like that.
...now they just have to make it out.
He scrambles for something else to think about, something other than how long they're going to be trapped here.
No.
You can't avoid it like that, it'll overwhelm you if you try.
You can survive this. You are surviving it. Just breathe.
But what if–
But how long will it last–
But what else will he take away–
Something else is going to come and he doesn't know what it is, he doesn't know, he just has to wait for it to get him–
He finds himself back in the corner again, blanket pulled around him as if that'll protect him.
He tries to breathe. He really tries.
She slouches down in her chair and concentrates on her own breathing, sending the sensations of it to him: inhale; exhale. inhale; exhale. Stay with me, Love.
Slowly, his erratic, panicked breathing starts to slow and match hers. Their chests rise and fall together.
He wants to disappear. He wants to forget himself and sublimate into her.
As soon as it seems like he has the attention for it, she recites:
Stand up, warrior; you are not yet finished.
Beaten you may be, but broken?
Angels have fallen from greater heights
and survived, so why shouldn’t you?
Never mind what you are made of;
you are more than this flesh that binds you.
There is nothing you have to fear
that should not fear you a thousand times more.
Your heart is a galaxy, and your soul is lined in stars.
You are something extraordinary, my dear.
Yeah. She takes another deep breath, and pushes herself back up in her chair.
You're stronger than you realize. You'll make it through, whatever happens.
We will. She swirls tight around him, like a hug, and then she goes back to her lunch; there's only a few bites left.
Her master is doing something at the computer when they're done. We're going to be here a while.
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