(Post Soundtrack: "Again & Again" by Against The Current)
Sitting at the center of the immense underground complex, The Slab was as convenient & common a meeting-place for denizens of The Tombs as one could find. It was a circular structure which occupied a Y-junction, where traffic from other areas of the old subway system converged as it once had years ago. The first floor consisted of a raised dais which had been manufactured from detritus gathered from the labyrinth of tunnels - recycled into floors & walls which separated The Slab into sections with private seating, a bar & kitchen, and a common area where visitors could congregate. Lighting was provided in the form of candles, flaming barrels into-which wood & debris were thrown, and lamps which had been hard-wired into the countless kilometers of cabling which still fed power to the city above.
The bar’s proprietor, Gideon, flitted to & fro - keeping up with the constant demands of nearly two dozen patrons who were seeking food, drink, or simply a place to rest from the tiresome endeavor of surviving the events of the past few days & hours. Typically, approaching The Slab, one would have been met with all manner of songs, laughter, and conversation...
But a somber mood had descended upon the establishment like a dark cloud.
Following their reuniting at the Tombs’ hastily-erected medical area, Ivory had drawn Daiya away with promises of food & drink - leading the despondent teenager to a private booth well-away from the other patrons. Entirely out-of-character from the Daiya Ivory knew, the young woman hadn’t said much... only offering simple one-word answers in the affirmative or negative to Ivory’s questions of what she wanted to eat or drink.
In the end (and after Ivory had to twist Gideon’s arm for a proper meal), Ivory had brought them each a small bowl of stew accompanied by chunks of day-old bread, and cafe-cups of lukewarm beer. Knowing she needed to keep up her strength, and already starving from the long trek into the Tombs, Ivory dug into her portion with gusto... but noticed, rather quickly, that Daiya had barely touched her own.
Elbows on the table, Ivory paused after a few bites, watching her companion, and noticing the girl seemed to be avoiding her gaze. In an attempt to elicit some kind of interaction, she gently prodded:
"The soup is good. Do you want some hot sauce or something?"
Yesterday, her world was so big. Galactic-sized, as the young shadowrunner laid plans to explode onto the major screens with a message of power. She felt on top of the world then, nothing was standing in her way!
This morning, her world was shaken. With plans gone awry, Daiya did like always. She made the best of them, and then she put the pieces back together. It was like a hundred other times before, not really, but she was still confident things would work out.
An hour ago, her world was shattered. The teen crouched over her broken and bleeding boyfriend, pouring out her heart to him. His frigid heartlessness broke her as well, leaving little for her to put back together again.
Now, her world was a piece of bread and some stew. She stared at it haplessly. In some, far-off world, another Daiya knew what it meant. Her world made sense, and she was probably happy about it. Daiya wasn't happy, she wasn't sure she
was much at all. The bread and stew meant something, just not to her. She couldn't make the pieces fit together anymore, they didn't make sense.
Nothing did.
Daiya shook her head. The woman was talking, not that what she said really mattered. Ivory was trying to be kind, supportive. The teen knew she was supposed to be grateful for that, and some part of her knew she needed to nod. And smile, everything needed a smile. A smile meant that everything was okay, or that it was going to be, or that she wanted it to be. Daiya shook her head, not knowing what she wanted anymore.
Daiya’s wordless response said volumes.
Ivory took a deep breath, then sighed as she leaned back in her chair without looking away. Her brow furrowed as she considered the situation - recognizing that something was, obviously, very very wrong...
She leaned forward, rubbing her palms together, and looked down at the table as she considered what to say next. Before speaking, Ivory glanced around their private little section before lowering the volume of her voice:
"Daiya, look. I’m sorry I wasn’t here... sorry I left you alone. I understand things went... really wrong... but, you have to understand these things happen."
Words. Ivory had more words that weren't going to fix anything. Daiya raised her head, only managing to stare blankly past the rebel woman. Something itched in her palm, a compulsion to do something. The teen didn't think about it, she didn't want to think about it. Thinking made her feel worse than an itch, and a breath caught in her throat just to consider it. Her hand grasped the spoon in front of her, a dull movement to gather some of the stew and put it in her mouth.
"
Sure," she told Ivory in-between bites. The stew tasted like nothing, she couldn't make sense of what her tongue wanted her to know. Stew wasn't going to fix anything either, it was just better than talking.
The one-word answer was delivered in a robotic, flat tone; entirely emotionless & without inflection. At a loss for the moment of how to respond, Ivory retrieved her own spoon and dug in again; oddly paying attention to the sheen of grease which covered the top of the watery repast. She realized that perhaps she was giving too much credit to the cooks... that maybe the food really wasn’t that good.
With a smirk, Ivory held up her spoon for Daiya to see, then turned her wrist - pouring the contents of her spoon back into the bowl with a wet splattering sound.
"If this is what they’re giving us, what do you think they’ll give Cartri?"
Daiya shoveled another tasteless morsel into her mouth, despising every bit of it. If she managed to discern a taste of it, it was the taste of spite. Like everything else that had happened today, all a product of spite. The teen hated it, and forced herself to eat another spoonful. Her thoughts focused behind the spoon and its horrible contents, and the spoon clattered into her bowl with a splash.
The teen stared at Ivory, as if seeing her for the first time. Her curls, restored to their blonde and pink colors after an encounter with a damp rag, shook in front of her face. She took a thready breath, her heart weighing heavy with the crushing burden of her circumstances once again. "
He's fethed, Ives," Daiya started, and even she wasn't sure how she meant that. "
He's fethed and he's fethed up. He's got me all fethed up, and I can't fething even with this chit. What the feth does he want from me?"
She started to rise, reaching for the bowl in front of her, "
I'll bring him this fething soup right now if that's what it takes. Like, oh my stars, this fething boy needs to be so not my problem, but now that you brought him up, that's all I can think about. What does he need? What the feth does he mean?! Every thing that could have gone well today went straight past pear-shaped and right into the chithole of the fething Abyss!"
Her hands jolted with the words, and the soup tipped out onto the table. Daiya stared at it for a second, ignoring the splashing burns on her skin, before she posed dramatically to highlight the scene. "
SEE?! Every fething thing I do! One bomb slightly undercooked, and —poof!— CorpSec's locking everything down. I hear one thing wrong, and —poof!— Cartri's breaking up with me. I can't even eat some fething soup right." She sat down with a loud thud, letting the table rattle and shake under her armored body. Her heart beat so loud she was sure it echoed in the suit, and every breath seemed like the last one she might be given. "
You'd better go tell him about that, too, so he can blame me for it. 'Daiya spilled the soup, you're better off without her!'"
The rush of words came on so suddenly, Ivory was actually a bit startled - sitting back in her chair. The raven-haired rebel was careful to keep her body-language neutral; simply listening as Daiya’s emotional outburst manifested. The string of curses brought a barely perceptible smile to her lips, though she did her best to hide it. The sudden toppling of the soup-bowl onto the floor of The Slab didn’t make her jump, and she saw it play out moments before it happened... though she wasn’t sure if it was The Force at work, or just circumstance. When Daiya sat back down, Ivory leaned forward, looking at her friend directly.
"The soup can be our little secret. Any other bad news, and he’s liable to tell you you’re not a-mazing, anymore... which would be the greatest tragedy of them all."
Daiya's forehead pressed so tightly against her eyes it nearly hurt, and her mouth took on the deep lines of a scowl. Her eyes rolled as the teen looked to the side, not willing to meet the woman's eyes. She didn't understand, of course
The Donna didn't understand. "
How could you know, you weren't here. You're never here! You're always just off with your Coruscant gang, and then you swoop in for the glory. Whoops, none here today, better luck next time!" The thud in her chest pushed her on, even as Daiya was begging to stop this. It had been easier when her words wouldn't come, when the swarm of emotions were too vague and horrible to consider. Now all the teen wanted was for it all to end. "
Of course you'd stay away for this one, Ives. You're smarter than him, you're smarter than all of us, aren't you?"
The teen hadn't even noticed that she was crying again, every word strained between wracking sobs. "
Stay away this time, don't trust Daiya, or you'll just get hurt like Cartri!"
In an attempt to quiet the girl’s body-wracking sobs, Ivory reached out with both hands - taking both of Daiya’s hands into her own. Ignoring her words, Ivory took the high road; studying the girl for a moment. Her brow furrowed, and she bit down on her lip slightly... then, gave Daiya’s hands a squeeze.
"Hey. I want you to do something with me, okay? We’ll do it together. Take a deep breath in, then hold it for three seconds... okay? I want you to count to three in your head, then exhale in stages... Like this." Ivory took a deep breath... filling her lungs as much as she could with oxygen, tasting the musty air of the Tombs in the back of her throat, then waiting & counting three seconds in her head before exhaling out through her mouth. As she did so, she began breathing out in short bursts - counting five bursts of air out through her mouth until her lungs were empty. She would continue to do this, breathing in through her nose & out through her mouth, adjusting the tempo until both she & the blonde Shadowrunner synchronized their breathing.
If Daiya thought hard about it, she might just breathe out and then never again. She didn't want to think, she didn't even want to feel. If she had to feel, it meant listening to the way her stomach was twisted upside down and inside out. If she had to think, it meant understanding that there was never going to be a happily-ever-after for her anymore. She hurt too much to think or feel, and every rapid beat of her heart only sent that pulsing through her veins. Daiya stopped thinking or feeling, she just breathed. In and out, fast and painful.
In and out, fighting with a lingering whimper.
In and out, staving off her future with just one more breath.
The teen couldn't tell how long it had been, nor how hard her fingers had gripped Ivory's so tight her knuckles had turned white. With every breath of the Rebel woman across from her, she drew her own, finding a somber ease hiding inside that simple act. Daiya wasn't happy or sad anymore, she just
was, but what she was right now was breathing steady and slow with the pace set by Ivory. Every breath filled her with the strength to take the next, keeping Daiya going without thinking or feeling, or even talking.
For a few heartbeats, Ivory had closed her eyes... but upon recognizing that Daiya had actually started cooperating with her request, she opened them. She noticed the pain & sadness on Daiya’s expression fading as the young woman followed along with the pace Ivory set - a somber, quiet, and placid mask overtaking Daiya’s slim, pretty face. Her eyebrows, once curled & furrowed in anger, relaxed. The tightness around her throat, bleeding away. The tense, harsh breaths slowly becoming steadier.
Daiya’s strong grip on Ivory’s hands began to lessen... transforming with agonizing slowness from an iron grip to an (almost) feather-light touch. Their cyclical breathing even brought Ivory, herself, some clarity. In it, she could connect with the blonde young woman in a way she hadn’t been able to, before. Daiya was near the breaking point.
In an act of empathy, Ivory drew upon the subtle, quiet powers she concealed so easily - reaching through her fingertips to begin to gather some of the pain, anger, and wretched despair from Daiya’s spirit. Like a siphon, Ivory began to draw these nasty little thoughts & feeling - like black sludge - into herself, where she could hide them to be disposed of later.
She was certainly able to handle such things better than Daiya, anyway. She’d been living in this dark place longer than Daiya had been alive.
"
Oh!" Daiya couldn't help the sound escaping from her mouth. With it went the fury that had turned her world to shades of inescapable red, slipping out of her before she could pull it back. The teen wrapped her hands around her midsection, pressing deep to feel it beneath the armor she hadn't bothered to remove. She inhaled, and it came easily to her again. Too easily, and it bothered her for some reason. No, Daiya realized, it didn't bother her. It just didn't anything.
Why couldn't she feel?
"
It's so empty," she told the supportive woman. Her blue eyes didn't look up to the Shadowrunner, the Donna, the friend sitting across from her. Daiya ignored the hair that fell down in front of her face, blinking back dry eyes and swallowing over nothing in her throat. Her words came clearly, her breathing was easy, her heart didn't race...nothing even felt wrong anymore. "
Is it supposed to be like this? I was angry, but now I'm not. Now it's almost like I just...can't?"
Even if Daiya couldn't feel right now, she still
knew there were wrongs swirling around her. The injuries of her fellow Shadowrunners, and her part in responsibility for that. The Corpo's change in response to the mere existence of Darkwire in Seven Corners. Her relationship with Cartri, or the lack thereof. The young shadowrunner could understand that all these problems were hers, in part, to deal with. Still, as she considered each one, she let it go just as quickly. They lacked the connection, that intuitive response she had always relied upon to figure out a problem. To others, it might be just a feeling, but to Daiya those had always been her sturdy companions. "
Will I ever feel anything again?"
Ivory let Daiya’s hands go, and slowly interlaced her fingers, resting her fists calmly on the table. She took a final breath, then exhaled - allowing the whirling maelstrom of emotions within her to continue while she became the eye of the storm. Quirking her head slightly to the side, a small smile tugged at the corner of her lip.
"Of course you will." She replied,
"But in order for all of us to come out of this alive - Cartri included - we’re gonna need you thinking clearly. Whenever you feel overwhelmed, like you were, remember this. It should help you find your center, again."
Daiya took another deep breath, holding it for a few seconds. She breathed it out evenly, trusting Ivory more than herself right now. The edges of her
center felt a little like the hole of a lost tooth, and the more she probed it the more she understood the shape it took. It felt unfamiliar until the teen thought of the nights spent chatting in the
Blue Flame, idle moments with her friends, or the hours she could spend sketching something that didn't need to be perfect. She
had been here before, it only took a little breathing to get back to it.
"
It makes sense, Ivory," she managed, unwrapping her arms to open herself up again. Daiya didn't want to be overwhelmed again, she kept her breathing steady all the while, just letting a trickle of emotion return to her. As color seeped back into her world, the teen's eyes took it all in. Part of her still mourned for the hurt around her, with the pain inside of her as well. She took another methodical breath, finding an understanding that she couldn't fix it all right now. She wasn't ready, and neither was anyone else. "
I think I'm okay now. Not fine, I don't know if I'll ever be fine again, but I'm okay for now."
Brighter eyes looked back at the mentoring woman, and Daiya even had a short smile to offer. "
Thanks."
Ivory returned the smile, silent for a moment before nodding.
"You’re welcome." She replied, then stood up and touched Daiya on the shoulder.
"Come on. Let’s go find Cassus, Brie, and Ruby... maybe there’s something we can do to help."
(Written jointly with the ever-patient
Ivory Stroud
)
Daiya
Peyton Steele
Ruby Jaxx
Diocletian Kahmen’’a
Under Foot
Das
