All right. (She loves him so much!) First things first - "Daisy, we're gonna find a place to meditate; we'll be under all night. Do you want to stay with us, or should we get you into a concert or something first?"

    "I'll stay with you."

"All right. Are there any hotels around, do you know?"

    "Yes, I saw one on the way in." She leads the way.

(He loves her too!)

He follows, wondering idly what kind of concert produces the best feelings.

It's a pretty nice hotel, to his sensibilities; Pradnakt is less impressed, but satisfied enough.

The clerk wants to see their identification. "You don't need to see our identification," she asserts.

how do you make it work like that?

Without telling the truth.

Same as always? It has to be something that could be true, you have to be able to imagine what it would be like to believe it, but it doesn't work any differently if it is true.

(The clerk finishes up and gives them directions to the room, and Daisy leads the way; Pradnakt spends a sliver of attention on guiding them along behind her.)

i have to believe it at least a little. but i guess it doesn’t have to be true.

It’s not like he was actually supposed to be on the ship where he stowed away.

Yeah, that part probably takes a little practice. It's not that hard, though, I bet you can get it. If you want to. She drifts closer to nuzzle his cheek.

probably a good idea to know it.

Good idea to know any skill like that they can use, even if he never has to.

That one's not a huge priority - she can use his voice for it just fine - but the principle is sound.

And here's the room. "Thank you, Daisy. You can go out if you want; we'll wait here for you if you're out when we're done."

    "Yes, Ma'am."

"It's just us, here, you can call me that if you want to but I'd rather you not."

    "All right."

She grins. "Good. Here's some walking-around money, I won't ask you to account for it."

    "Thank you."

"Have a good night, Love."

will she be safe?

She turns her attention back to the neighborhood - she's a little more able to filter out the crowds, now that she has a little more experience of them. It's not upscale, but reasonably safe, with a decent police presence. Yeah, I don't think she'll have a problem. She won't stay out if she thinks it's unsafe. It's an intuition, but a strong enough one that she thinks there's missing memories behind it.

Daisy's still there to be asked, though, so she does: "You'll come back if it gets dangerous, right?"

    "Of course, Ma'am. I know you still need me."

"Good." She gives him a squeeze. "He'll worry if you don't."

    "I'll be very careful," she tells him.

Aww.

"That's good."

After a moment of contemplation, he adds, "have fun."

    "I will." She goes.

Ready?

well as i know how to be.

And she opens her senses.

The first concert is still in full swing, and the second is just starting, while the crowd for the third settles in, and now with her full awareness devoted to it, they can sense dozens of smaller gatherings, a mosaic of moods and energies.

Oh.

It's not quite like seeing a city out a window and not quite like a starscape and not quite like tuning a radio but it's a little bit like all of those things.

He lets his awareness of the room around him dwindle away as he takes in the whole of it, and tries to get a closer feel of that first concert.

He can't hear the music - or not at first, anyway - but he can feel the beat of it, like a heartbeat, uniting the audience. It's a hopeful song, a little bittersweet, about challenges overcome and good times to look forward to.

He definitely hasn't felt anything like this before. Or, he has, but never with the intensity of hearing it live, and only as himself, not as so many scattered hearts.

He drifts, and – he can't get quite close enough, he'll just let go a little more of the feeling of his body, fall a little further into the crowd.

(It's a good song to feel.)

Pradnakt fades with him, following his lead, twisting her attention just slightly to begin reading minds, the very lightest touch of it, multiplied over thousands of people, everyone in range. With that, they are the crowd, no more aware of any individual in it than the whole crowd could be, but hearing what it hears, seeing what it sees, feeling what it feels.

He loses his body.

They sway and pulse and drink in the music, existing synchronized with themselves by the rhythm – the only thing that they all know is this one thing, and they surround it, and they are part of it.

It's wonderful, glorious, pure. There's no time, no space, no thoughts, just music, feelings, life.

The concerts begin and end and begin again, but eventually they begin to peter out.

The crowds are thin enough that it's not one experience, anymore. It's diffuse, floating on steam.

If he was holding onto enough of himself to think about it, he would remember how Pradnakt let herself go before, to heal.

It is like that, more than a little.

The crowds continue thinning. He comes back to himself first; she's still drifting, no thoughts, just experiences.

...now that he's felt it, it's not so scary to feel her like this.

He lies next to her and watches her.

She comes back much more slowly than he did; it's like watching her when she came back from being taken, but all sped up. The very first thing is her sense of herself as a body, of his body, her awareness of the things that they're feeling and hearing and seeing. And she's content with that, for a few moments, still drifting, not even cataloging anything, just present, feeling it. She notices that she can move, next, but has no reason to do anything with that until her emotions come in, a moment later, and she curls toward him, mine.