"Not even," she snorts. "More like discarded refuse. They keep their belongings safe."

Aleks is cute, and she is going to take his hand over it.

"It's fine. I mean, it's not, but. I'm more offended on everyone else's behalf than upset on my own. It'd be kind of hypocritical, you know?"

Matkina glances at her sister holding hands with Aleks, and gives a disapproving groan, but doesn't otherwise comment. Yet. Ugh. Did the girl go and seduce the misanthropic speedy teleporter? That's damned clever, she admits, but ugh.

Aleks squeezes her hand but does not otherwise react. A cold glare can't be called a reaction if it's just what his face always looks like.

"Anyway. I have one for one of our brothers. Tash." Matkina looks away, and... it's so hard to think whenever he's involved. The fucker. There are so many holes. She's dealt with it for decades now and it's still the worst. "And I need you to use it, and tell me about it."

"... You can't use it yourself?"

"No. Obviously. Or I would be, instead of going to some naïve little girl who hides behind mortals and cringes about broken doors!" Matkina had been speaking normally, but clearly this struck a nerve, because now she's shouting. ... Why is she shouting? She doesn't remember. "I... why am I..."

The naïve little girl who cringes about broken doors frowns.

"Are you—okay?"

"NO. I am not okay. I have never been okay. Our brother," she points at the Merecaster, apparently she means Tash, "fucked up my head a long time ago, and I have never been okay since. So I can't use his Merecaster, because thinking about—that—is hard, makes my mind slide, and all I get when I try is static, and, and it won't fix anything but I need—to fill in as many of the holes as I can. Okay?"

...Aleks is happy he stayed. He would not want to leave his castoff here with her unstable sister.

Yeah, she's really seeing the wisdom in having him along! It is very good to have him along. She squeezes his hand, just so he knows that she cares and appreciates him.

"Okay. I can help you fill in as many of the holes as you can. Do I get any ability to steer or am I just along for the ride?"

Matkina focuses on breathing and trying not to shout.

"Some ability to steer, but not much. Don't get your hopes up. It's a recording, any wiggle room you use is just the simulation being thorough. You want to look for the, the..." she trails off, mutters to herself, then says, "... jahk. That's what it was. I don't—I can't—think of it, but that's what it was called. It was important. Maybe the, the key to what happened."

"All right. So... pay attention, try to gather as much information as possible, tell you as much as I can to fill the hole."

She doesn't like this, but she also doesn't like Matkina walking around with that kind of, of hole in her mind. And she is going straight to the guy who was responsible, apparently, and. And. Matkina feels so hurt and betrayed and paranoid, and she just wants to patch a hole someone else made in her, and. Probably if she didn't do it someone else would instead so it's fine if she's the one to do it no she will not absolve herself of responsibility. She is choosing to steal into her brother's past and into his mind and she will own up to it. It is wrong. What he did was also wrong, left a kind of damage that she, even as a literal mindreader, can't fully comprehend. She wants to fix it, even if that means being a little bit cruel to her brother. She'll apologize, later. If she ever meets him. For what little good it will do any of them.

"... You sound like you've decided," whispers Matkina. Terrified despite herself. She wants this so badly, but maybe it won't even work, maybe all of this hope will be for nothing and she'll still be floating around through life with holes in her head and, and.

"It turns out that I'm a sucker for a sob story," she admits. "Do you—are you—can I—"

She would like to hug her poor broken sister, but that is probably overstepping.

"Oh, spare me your touchy feel-feels." Without looking at either of her guests, she goes over and opens a small panel by her bed, and retrieves a small black device from the hidden nook. It's jagged and knobbed, and protruding with some kind of antennae. A symbol like their shared tattoo is emblazoned on it. "This goes right to where it happened. It was—I can't—I can't see but I know. By the gaping hole that I can't think about. I killed him and it didn't go away."

That last part is to herself, more than anyone else. Just bemoaning the unfairness of the world.

"I guess I can't apologize to him, then."

"Ha. You would want to? He didn't deserve it. I remember that much."

Aleks feels very much like an intruder here, this is awkward as helllllllll but it's fine. Castoff business. He'll lend moral support.

He is kind of, in an abstract sense, sorry for Matkina. But on the other hand she is an active threat right now and has not exactly done anything to earn his good graces so he thinks he will continue caring about exactly one (01) person, thanks.

"It's not really about whether he deserves it or not. It's about me erring. Anyway, uh. Do I need to do anything in particular, to. Use it?"

"No. Yes, but. It'll be obvious. Just follow where it leads. We call them the Tides for a reason. They have a tendency to just... sweep you away." She sounds so distant. So sad. It's pathetic and she wants to stop.

She slaps the device into her sister's hand, looking elsewhere and stepping away from her before she can change her mind. Please work, please work, please. She doesn't know what else she'll do, the holes are getting bigger.

It does turn out to be sufficiently obvious. There's a thing here, and it's calling to her, and. And all she has to do is just let it take her away.

She doesn't even register when she crumples to the ground as her mind leaves her body. Again.

Castoff fall counter: 03.

It's a pattern now.

Everything is wrong.

Tash's body—hers, now—clings like a wet cloak. The world is too bright for nighttime; everything is too clear, distances too close, edges too sharp. The memories fly and buzz past her head, too fast to be caught. A new body, a new mind, a whole new person—

She's gone too long without rest, she knows. And there's Matkina, as she was so many decades ago—as she is now—why did the castoff think of this as the past? This is how Matkina has always looked.

On the wastes, the light of campfires. And in the humble village before her, a bigger, brighter fire burns. A pyre. Inside, a body that's too large burns too slowly, greasy smoke snaking into the night. Villagers circle the bonfire, wailing and shaking.

"From exile, you are released," says the headman, throwing a handful of powder into the fire that puffs up as gold, green, purple embers into the sky.

("You are released," some mourners echo.)

She's... here but she's not. She's thinking but she's... not. She's floating, and she's somebody else, but she's not. It's incredibly surreal. It doesn't make sense. She's so very confused. Matkina looks so young, though. Not really physically, physically she's precisely the same, but her mannerisms are different. She acts so young.

Right. Observe. Observe things more relevant than just 'Wow Matkina looks way less paranoid and sad and crazy.' What is this? Can she figure it out? ... It looks like a funeral. She doesn't think Tash knew the deceased, but. It's hard to know anything, really.