Rave sighed as she projected her thoughts and shook his head. "That's what I was created to do, what other Ghosts and Spectres are created to do, to break and kill those without our talents. The difference is that Spectres are more aware of what we do, we have more of a choice. Ghosts...they're like slaves, though under Valerian's leadership, Ghosts are beginning to understand what they're doing more readily, where as before it was mindwipes after every mission, with hardly any idea of what the missions they were doing were about after the fact." Picking up a fry, he dips it in the ranch before eating it and chews slowly while thinking. It was difficult to explain what things were like without taking her there, and even that wouldn't be enough, as things were still in flux. Never mind that he didn't trust that Broodmother not to make a play for some new DNA from her.

"In all honesty, the only Terrans I've seen a Protoss do that to is those who they're fighting or the Ghosts who go prying where they shouldn't. They used to have this strong mental link called the Khala, it allowed them to communicate and share everything basically instantly as well as keep track of each other over great distances. While they remain powerful Psionics, they've since lost the Khala due to a dangerous and powerful foe, too long a story to get into." He fell silent once again and then reached out, looking for the location of the arms dealer's shop amongst the minds of those around them. He'd brought around two dozen spare clips for his AGR and his C-150, but it never hurt to find someone who knew how to fabricate more ammo.

@Zarkun

Akagalcia stopped chewing, watching as he borrowed again. She could only smell it before, but now with a bit of drink it sent tingles all over her skin. She fought the urge to hug herself and press the sensation away, squinting at her own revulsion. Compose... acclimate. Soot and shadow, even borrowing felt different. Why did it have to feel so painful? She opened her eyes, looking up at Rave with concern. <Doesn't that cause you pain? It's so hard to flex and reach...> "...everything I do seems to hurt just a little. A strange pain, like a stitch in my side." She flicked held up her free hand, snapping her fingers to leave a cluster of orange embers on her thumb...

...and with it, the pain. Not from the heat. She could fold the heat in on itself. It was the collection of heat, and the sustaining of it. Just holding the field was an effort. She winced again and Rave could if he thought about it experience the exact pain she was feeling. It was like a beacon showing up out of the corner of his eye. As though the body of her mind were somehow pressing against his, trying to draw his attention.

Rave was confused by her question as he continued his search, not sure why he should feel pain, and it showed on his face. "This was a part of me from the moment I was born, though control didn't come until I was eighteen. While it's been difficult learning, it was never painful." He grins wryly. "Well, for me anyways." As he searched though, he noticed her wince as she performed a task akin to pyrokinesis, though clearly it's nature was different. He reached out towards her as he noticed the subtle pressure being applied subconsciously from her to himself and winced when he touched it and felt her pain.

Suddenly he could see why it was inconvenient for her. Withdrawing from all the minds for the time being, he ate a couple more fries and took several bites of his burger in silence, thinking. What was so different between here and where she was from that something she did with practiced ease in her memories was suddenly such an incredibly difficult task; hell almost insurmountable obstacle if he was honest about it. "What precisely happened to you when you were left here to change things so much for you?"

The two of them ate in silence for a while. Akagalcia searching again for words. Rave could even hear some of them from her mind, each syllable urgent, but none of them intelligable. The storm softened after a few moments, then the tension he could feel from her mind grew silent. Akagalcia refilled her mug and scooped another handful of meat and vegetables, plucking again. She almost seemed to be waiting for something, as if paying attention to other things gave her a clearer view of him somehow.

"What precisely happened to you when you were left here to change things so much for you?" He asked. Just why was she trying so hard to seem as though she was ignoring him? It...

...he could still feel her pain, somehow. It was a sudden realization, and the moment it occured to Rave he found Akagalcia was looking at him intently and nodding. She knew.

It was there, tiny, a part of her even though Rave had closed all foreign thoughts away. It was like running one's fingers through one's own hair in the mirror and finding a single strand of a different color, or crossing each set of fingers together and tracing their tips over one another and feeling as though each was out of place. Tugging at the single strand of hair--the sliver of foreignness in his mind--felt so simple. But pulling only made the strand longer... only caused the sensation to grow... and a single tug seemed to pull on an ocean that crashed into him. Gentle. Impossible to ignore.



He smelled burning flesh and rose-stink and cold metal. Rave tried to open his eyes, and slivers of light pierced the darkness. He tried again, and there was an audible 'pop' as his eyelids shot open, crust falling across his cheeks. These were the first sights and sensations, and they came into his consciousness as though he had never seen or felt or heard anything before. His cheeks must've been burned terribly for fairy dust to feel so coarse. His ears had to be recently damaged somehow for the tiny scraps to make such a racket.

He was lying flat on his back looking up at pure blackness... but there was a light to it. It was the brightest black that black could be... but it was only black. He made to reach his hand, but just the impression of trying to move sent agony through his body. Reflexively, as though the pain was coming from outside, he curled into a fetal position, bringing his knees to eye level... his burned, scraped knees. Every single part of him felt as though it had been split open somehow. He shook his head and closed his eyes, fighting a sudden overpowering urge to wretch from the pain... and nothing was there.

He was empty. It was so hard to remember... what wretching was. He opened his eyes, looking at the skin on his knees... perfect... untouched. But why did everything hurt so terribly?

<Because this is not our reality... but it is real.>

Whose voice was that? It came from everywhere, like his skin was shouting it, like his eyes were opening up to speak, like the blackness that surrounded him was roaring. The blackness... the black...

<You pulled too hard... it is a very large part of me, I could've guided your hand I guess...>

Guided him? What was the... pulled?

And he did wretch, vomiting his serial number tumbling into his lap, jagged script that cut into his skin. It felt so--



Rave was sitting in his chair, still chewing on his last bite of burger. He didn't even feel the impulse to hesitate--the need to recover from what he'd just been. It was as though Akagalcia had left behind comforting thoughts. She had. There were scraps of warmth... raw, and pulled from within. Empty, but supportive. And not a moment had passed between when he had found the strand in his mind and now. He could still feel the strand, even... the little grain of thought. Those warm little cotton thoughts were all mounded into one neat blanket over the strand. They could do nothing to hide it, but at least he didn't feel the pain like some tickling underfoot that he could never scratch.

And Akagalcia watched him, chewing on another scrap of food... waiting.

"That is... the short version?" it was obviously a question, as though Akagalcia were trying a phrase she'd only just learned about in recent memory.

As the sensations ended and the strange memories disappeared, Rave found it took a far greater amount of focus than normal to extricate that one stray thought out of his mind and put it back where it belonged, so to speak. When Akagalcia said it was the short version of everything, Rave didn't immediately reply. The memory had been about something called the Empty, but all he could think of it was it was comparable to what he'd thought the Void had looked like for years until he had joined Artanis, Jim, and Sarah Kerrigan in facing down Amon inside it. Or perhaps where he'd been was simply Amon's prison. Finally, however, after another couple sips of whiskey, he spoke.

"I'll admit that was...different, but it also didn't make much sense, at least to me, and at this point in time. I appreciate that you trusted me enough to share that though." As he spoke, he swirled the alcohol around in his cup, still thinking. "And that means this all was quite the culture shock for you."

@Zarkun

Akagalcia burst into laughter at that, leaning back in her chair and folding her arms over her belly.

"A shock, yes. I think I lived longer in that place than I did on my motherworld, with only my teacher for company." She has another sip of rice milk, her movements swaying like silk. Clearly her drink was finally having some effect on her. "It is a thing that wants to teach people like me who we are so that we don't hurt ourselves. It teaches us to sense things as they are." She held up her hand, raising fingers to count, "To acclimate. To interpret. To subvert. To separate. To open."

She dropped her fingers, lowering her hand to take a final piece of meat from her bowl and ate, letting her words sink in before she continued.

"In some words, my difficulties are because I exist differently to everything around me. In others, everything I do and become exists differently to who and what I am. The pain is in having to understand and become what I am not, while remaining what I am. Fhaelne--uhm... working paradox? So... no. I am not from Koprulu, and no sort of near or far that I am is relative to it. But I am here. As far as I know, this planet is where I will be from... have been from?" Her face screwed up in another frustrated scowl. "...where my being has to have been before?"

Akagalcia laughed again, frustration giving way to resignation. "Culture shock. Accurate."

Rave didn't respond right away, instead mulling over what she'd said about where she will be from or basically was from and the connection to this planet. As he thought, one of Stetmann's crazy theories came to mind and Rave shook his head, initially dismissing it. Alternate dimensions and realities were insanely unlikely, and yet here was a person who didn't recognize any thing she'd seen so far and certainly didn't seem to belong to any of the discovered planets in the known universe. And the memories that I could see when she was making that spark... With a deep sigh, the Spectre decides that not saying anything was a worse thing to do.

"Perhaps this is this dimension's version of your home. You see, a colleague of mine back home has this theory that there are alternate dimensions and realities, some created based on our choices here, others that existed before we even and a dozen other reasons that I didn't listen overly closer to. My point is, maybe you are home, but not as YOU know it, but as it is now in the current dimension or reality you're talking to me in. Does that make sense?"

@Zarkun

Akagalcia grinned with relief as Rave finished his explanation of how he thought of her situation.

"That sounds like something close to what I'm telling you. This is not my little thread of the fabric. But, staying here, it will be someday." She looked down at her mug, shades of forlorn dulling the twinkle in her eyes. "Finding another wakeful helps. I didn't know whether the pain I felt from working power was mine, or the power." She has a sip, her expression hardening further still.

"I know now." Glumness, determination, contentment; they all seemed to pull her expression one way and then another. She brought the mug to her lips, draining it and refilling it with the last pour from her pitcher. "I want to hate this. But it's people and fire and music. Everything is nice. I can't hate it."

Rave nodded and ate a few more fries in silence. As he did so, he decided to do a visual inspection of the surrounding people and was unsurprised by what he saw. Bounty Hunters, blue collar workers, dock workers; all the usual people who one would expect to see at a bar like this. Still, the people who had all, at some point, left before the Spectre and Akagalcia had arrived and the circumstances made him curious. No one had, after all, been paying attention to any of the conversation between the hustler and the arms dealer, for example.

And then there was the hustle, which was it's own interesting subject. One patron had been listening to the whole thing and had laughed quietly to themselves when the cyborg woman had laid out prices and such for arranging for some kind of meeting with an important person on the planet. The amounts were absurd, but then it had been a lie to make as much money as possible. What had stuck out though was the cyborg woman's clothing. That required some investigation for sure, but at a later time. "So what did you think of what we missed? Some of it seemed connected."

Akagalcia shook her head. "I wouldn't know. You get to see with other eyes--borrowing's a wide wakefulness." She looked up from her mug finally. It seemed to Rave as though she were seeing him for the first time, as though all of her thoughts had been too present for her to have time to appreciate base detail. She was very plainly studying his face. "I can vaguely know the shape of a happening. I taste the sand, sift my fingers through the grit and find what motes catch the sun. You take wing into the sky and see the dune, compare it to other dunes, speak to the wind. I, the ant; you, the eagle."



She decided to follow his gaze then, surveying the bar. She seemed to like whatever was finally playing, drumming the fingers of her left hand in time with the beat. "You're eager, though. Why?" Her eyes stopped looking at a particularly bulky humanoid at the bar, hunched over and heaving steadily with heavy breaths. "What is it you're looking for now that you're here?" Akagalcia craned her neck, looking at the side of the figure's head to the net of bejeweled wires haning from the figure's ear.

Rave didn't respond right away, his eyes still inspecting everything around him. Now that he thought about it, there was an eagerness about him that wasn't readily apparent without searching for it, but it wasn't enough to make anyone nervous or stand out extensively. "An opportunity. We're near the docks, and this is pretty much a place where all the information in the world comes through. A transport somewhere else or even a chance to shut down some ugly crimelord, I would take anything right now. Battle and war is all I know, so I like to keep myself sharp." After a moment, he stops and eats some more food.

Calling their server over, the Spectre orders more fries and another burger. Using his psionics always made him hungry for some reason, but usually it's not noticeable since it's usually on a mission or in the middle of a fight. "Guess it's also a force of habit from spending most of my adult life on the run from people who want me captured or dead."

@Zarkun

"I'm guessing a place with this many people and places is big enough to stay beneath notice just by being."

Akagalcia didn't seem surprised by Rave's second meal. Akagalcia decided to order a pitcher of milk stout for herself. Clearly they were going to be here a while. The beat of the music kept turning in her mind though, and by the second chorus she stood up from the bar, looking to a dance floor that was not too crowded with patrons. She looked back at Rave hopefully. "Do you dance?"

"I have other ways of hiding if needed." There was a moment of silence as the pair waited for their second orders, but Rave could sense that whatever the music was that was playing, as most of the songs the Spectre knew were some kind of weird country or western songs, was beginning to set Akagalcia's blood on fire with it's beat. Eventually, she stood and looked towards the dance floor and he mentally gulped. Here came the magic question.

"Do you dance?" The hopeful look made Rave sigh almost audibly and he nodded as he started to stand, retrieving his helmet and attaching it to his waist. Blending in meant he couldn't ALWAYS be in his armor, as much as he'd preferred to, but he'd learned how to dance before joining Project Shadowblade.

"Sure I do. I'm not sure if I'm going to enjoy doing it in my armor, but I'll give it a try."

Akagalcia guffawed, taking Rave's hand and leading him to the dance floor as she spoke. "The Rock of Khaldewa did turnwise and thirtystep in a suit of ironglass. You and I might as well be naked."

So eager was she to leave her body to the melody that she let go of Rave's hand before they'd reached the dancefloor proper, fastwalking into the crowd. Akagalcia was ...not... an artful dancer. But she was enthusiastic, and somehow in the mad twirling and giration and thrusting of her arms, she managed to keep rhythm with the song. She whirled madly but never quite came close enough to bump into anyone. Artless... but at least present on the floor. By the closing chorus she'd formed a little entourage of amateurs just as unpracticed but eager, and they were all either singing or yelling along to the music in equal parts.

It drew some of Rave's attention to just how much hide Akagalcia was actually wearing. Her movements heaved with every motion, she'd not cast off any of her belongings, and she was building up quite the sheet of perspiration on her face, her already massive head of hair seeming to swell with new moisture. Then she froze in time with the end of the song, striking a pose and staring down at the dance floor which stopped flashing in time with the beat and went black. <Thank you for living. You have brought me some peace today.>

Akagalcia looked up at Rave momentarily to emphasize her thoughts with an earnest smile, then immediately picked up speed as the next song kicked into gear, a much more frenetic beat--and apparently exactly what Akagalcia wanted to hear.



Whatever this was, it seemed much of the bar had been waiting for it. Everyone was packing onto the floor for what seemed to be the beginnings of a mosh pit, and the curtains at the performance stage--closed since they'd arrived--parted. Apparently a band was starting up their session. Akagalcia seemed none the wiser. She might even enjoy it.

Rave allowed himself to be led, even as he looked back wistfully at his plate of food and drink. He was pretty sure he'd have to remind her they had ordered more before she was done, but they had time for a dance or two, so he wouldn't worry about it at that moment. Once they found a spot, it quickly became evident that while his partner had no moves, but plenty of rhythm, the psionic had plenty of rhythm with moves to spare for the both of them. He started out tapping his hand against his leg to get a feel for the beat and once he had, he set into a series of break dancing moves combined with swing dancing, though the few swing dancing moves he did were meant for a solo person.

The amateurs all flocked to Akagalcia and he kept an eye on both their bodies and their surface thoughts, ready to put them on ice in a moments notice. After the first song ends, and Akagalcia sends her thanks with her thoughts, Rave smiles and inclines his head.My pleasure. Been nice to meet someone who didn't try to kill me outright for skimming surface thoughts.

The second song starts and Rave dances with Akagalicia, the pair drawing even more of a crowd. Now he's only break dancing, though now and then he slips martial arts moves into it to mix things up. As the second song begins to wind down, Rave launches into a shadow boxing match with himself, kicks, chops, punches, the whole nine yards, until it ends. Acting winded, the Spectre beckons her to follow as he spots their second orders reaching their table, but is stopped from leaving immediately by her not moving and the forming mosh pit. He taps her shoulder. "Hey, our orders are at the table, let's rest up some."

@Zarkun

Akagalcia doesn't seem to turn her attention to Rave, simply drifts toward him as he leads her back to their table, not truly composing herself until she's off the dance floor and forced to leave the rhythm of the crowd behind. She collapses back into her seat, heaving with the exertion of dancing in all of her leathers. "It is good to move like that... everything here has been too convenient. I haven't had to climb or slide or tumble or fight. I already missed these things before. Now that I have reason to want them again it feels wrong not to be moving every day. I do not like how easily rest comes here, Rave. It is not good." She sits up, filling her mug from her new pitcher and taking a long gulp of beer. Presently, the first song finished. The band took a moment to retune and introduce themselves.

"...are Twice Baked Virtues... that's Dodixie Black on drums. We're all sort of... coping with her new hair color, I guess? uh... I'm Lumita Jaya and..." The lead vocalist immediately struck a good rapport with the crowd, pulling laughs for every band member. Akagalcia turned to watch the rest of the introductions.

"So, what do you want to do once you've had your fill here?" Akagalcia asked. "I will owe you my time as often as you spend favor on my behalf. It is a nice thing for someone." Akagalcia didn't look back to him, suggesting the idea of traveling together almost as an afterthought. She made it seem like servitude for food was a fair trade in her eyes.

Rave debated on whether or not to explain that most of the convenience comes at the cost of time away from families and loved ones for others, those who made them and maintained them, but ultimately decided against it. Instead, he simply shrugged and took another sip of his drink. The whiskey wasn't likely to affect him like it should, since he'd been drinking it for years, but he also wasn't looking to get drunk either, so he didn't down it. "Constant movement, as you put it, isn't always a good thing, especially where combat and war are involved. Sure it supercharges the economy, provides a lot of jobs, but when it ends, it all collapses. And constant fighting isn't any better, hospital bills, funerals and their costs; things like that aren't great, nevermind the hurt it causes the loved ones of the dead and injured."

Another bout of silence reigned as the band began introductions and Akagalcia shifted her focus there for a moment, allowing the Spectre time for three fires and a couple of bits of burger before she continued speaking, suggesting that they travel together in a rather non-chalant way. If the psion was honest, the idea didn't bother him that much, since spending time alone all the time was beginning to get old, but he didn't want her to feel like she needed to offer something in return, and so he spoke plainly in response.

"I'd enjoy some company for awhile, but you are by no means required to pay me back for any meals or lodging I get us in the interim. Helping people is what I do, and I enjoy doing it. I never ask for anything back, nor do I need it." He falls silent once more and his seeing her memories played along the edge of his mind, specifically the fire she'd summoned. It reminded him of another planet that existed, one known for it's magic, and it gives the Spectre an idea. "I think I know where we can go to help you get your fire magic back."

"The fire is behind me." <The fire is behind me.> Word, and thought, as if mantra. At the mention of returning her magic to her, Akagalcia had turned instantly to stare at Rave, all traces of joy and melancholy in her voice and on her face gone. She spoke more as the next song finally began, but the din of the instruments and the movement of the crowd made it difficult to hear. But her surface thoughts were loud. <He did not leave me here to learn fire. This will return to me. He did not leave me here to learn The Void. This too will return.> Akagalcia had another couple of gulps from her mug. Some warmth came with it, a bit of brightness back in her eyes as she set her mug back on the table. <He left me here to learn the pain that hides Fire and Void and the patterns to stitch flowers from soot and spin silks from stone. My magic is not gone. My life is. I am begun anew.>



Akagalcia leaned back in her seat again, steepling her hands over her belly and nodding in time with the beat. <We talk past one another still. I am simple, and you look past this. I do not serve you because I owe you. I serve you because it is nice.> Her expression grew ponderous. <Would you not give favor to a crafter whom made you a shirt? My only favor is time, for I am free of it, and others have need of it. It is a nice thing for someone. We are the same.>

Rave didn't like the way she basically said that she was going to owe him no matter his feelings on the matter and that she was going to pay him back anyways, but dropped it. It was, however, odd in his mind that she wasn't interested in reclaiming something that was so much a part of her that having lost the ability to use it fully hurt her. "So what you're saying is that you don't want to reclaim a part of yourself? That's...strange..." Silence reigned once more as he finished his second plate and leaned back with his whiskey, rolling the liquid in the clear cup thoughtfully.

No desire to reclaim who she was...no, that couldn't be right. She thought this was some kind of lesson, but if that was the case, then the teacher needed to go back to school and relearn their skills. "Tell me why you think this is a lesson."

@Zarkun

Akagalcia sat up, leaning onto the table and glaring down at her hands with concentration, clenching fists and unclenching. Rave could hear her surface thoghts boiling again as she tried to find the right words. When she spoke again, Rave was close enough to her now that he didn't have to skin her surface thoughts to hear her over the noise of the concert.

"First... I need not reclaim what will return to me. I am not a cripple who was once whole. I am a finder who ventured into a cave for days and has only just returned to the sun. You have found me as my eyes adjust, and I come from the cave with treasures I can not explain until my sight is clear. My fire will return, as will the Void. The reaching does no thing--one does not walk with a broken bone after setting it to heal. One rests." Akagalcia looked up, meeting Rave's eyes.

"The lesson... it is lesson and test. This world is like my own, but not. To become here is to become broken and need to mend. To become some places would be too easy. Then my becoming is unbroken; then I can learn no thing. To become other places might bee too difficult--here I become and I must mend my leg, there I become and my head is one place and my body another. Here, I mend my leg, I learn something of the mending and something of the pain. I do this, I become another place where more might be broken, but I know the mending of myself." Akagalcia knuckled her chest for emphasis on that last word. "Each breaking makes a bone stronger in this. You understand?"