[indent][color=dimgray]A small town outside of Edinburgh, a coffee shop. It was one of those rare summer afternoons in Scotland, the kind that seemed more a gift than a season. The sky above stretched wide, a pale and endless blue, the sun hanging low and casting its golden light over everything. It bathed the scene in an ember glow, soft as silk.

Two women sat outside at a small table, bathing in the glorious midsummer light. Cleo was the younger of the two, and she sat with her thoughts; wrestling with words that never quite seemed to fit. Across from her, Eilidh Vass, her mentor, radiated a calm that Cleo often envied. Waves of brown hair framed Eilidh's face and her eyes were soft but sharp, like someone who had long since learned to listen to what wasn’t being said, to see what couldn't be seen.

[color=#94b9ff]“I think I’m getting better at it, thinking about the feelings and stuff…”[/color] she said, with a shy expression. 

Eilidh smiled at her. “I know you are, you’re doing exceptionally well,” she affirmed, her voice warm and sincere. Patient and knowing.

Cleo smiled back, knowing that Eilidh couldn’t see it, yet she would see her entirely anyway. The woman had a mastery of her psionic gifts. Cleo, however, was still finding the ropes and her feet all at the same time. God she felt stupid even in the way she spoke… [i]“Feelings and stuff”[/i], she thought to herself, and Eilidh smirked from the other side of the table.

“You’re being hard on yourself again,” she remarked. Her senses keen. Little went undetected by her. She effortlessly slipped into Cleo’s mind like a whisper on the wind, no thought too quiet, no emotion too subtle.

Cleo shrugged, retreating to her mug of tea, letting her eyes trace their surroundings as she took a sip of the warm, honeyed liquid. A beautiful scene. A castle stood on the horizon, its ancient stones weathered and steadfast, a reminder of the past lingering in the present. It was like sitting in a postcard painting, untouched by modernity and were it not for the sudden sound of a car, or phone ringing that drew her back to the present - Cleo could have happily hidden away in the past.

Eilidh took a slow sip from her own cup, her gaze soft but attentive, always attuned to the subtle shifts in Cleo’s mood. “You’ve made incredible progress,” she said. “I’m almost to a point I can’t help you anymore,” there was some regret in her words. She’d grown fond of her student, afterall.

Cleo nodded, trying to accept Eilidh’s words - she trusted her more than just about anyone in her life. [color=#94b9ff]“I just…”[/color] she sighed, placing down her cup so she couldn’t retreat behind it - wanting to confront her confession. [color=#94b9ff]“The other day, I couldn’t… I couldn’t visualise a feeling. It was, heavy… Strong, I thought I was going to lose control,”[/color] she explained.

Eilidh didn’t flinch. Her eyes held Cleo’s in a way that was always grounding, as if her gaze alone could steady the storm. “It’ll happen,” she said, her voice calm as calm. “You’re a psionic, Cleo. Everything reacts to you, and you react to it.” She paused, letting her words settle like stones dropped into water. “I taught you those visualisations to guide you, to help you recognise the shape of your power.” She exhaled, smiling in Cleo’s direction. “Just remember that you’re not bound by them. Emotions aren’t… Something to be controlled. Sometimes, you just need to let it flow, they need to be felt.”

The weight of Eilidh’s words lingered in the space between them, a truth Cleo wasn’t sure she was ready to fully grasp. But as the moment stretched, she felt something shift within her. “You’re right,” she said, her voice quiet but certain, as if she were tasting the truth for the first time.

Eilidh’s grin grew, playful but proud. “I know I am,” she said with a light chuckle. “Now,” she added, lifting her cup, “there’s not a problem in this world that a cup of tea can’t help with. Drink up, wee one.”

Cleo lifted her cup once more, the warmth of it seeping into her palms. The sun dipped lower know, painting the sky in a wonderful hue of lavender and orange and pink. A slow and dying light of the day, melting to shadow. For now, the tea was enough. The sun, the hills, Eilidh’s presence… These were enough. And in that quiet, fleeting moment, Cleo felt the edges of her doubt soften, just a little.[/color][/indent]

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[/img][/CENTER][indent][sub][COLOR=SILVER][B]Location:[/B][/COLOR] [I]Formal Homecoming[/I] - [I]A.R.C., Pacific Royal Campus[/I][/sub][sup][right][COLOR=SILVER][b]Dance Monkey #4.086:[/b][/COLOR] [I]Soliloquy[/I][/right][/sup][/indent][sub][hr][/sub][INDENT][sub][color=SILVER][B]Interaction(s):[/B][/COLOR] [I]-[sub]-[/sub] [/I][/sub][SUP][RIGHT][COLOR=SILVER][b]Previously:[/b][/COLOR] [I]Happiness is a butterfly 
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This was not Edinburgh. This was not a quiet and calm cafe set aside a castle. This was not the time for tea and whimsy.

The ARC had fallen to chaos, and so quickly. The night had turned against them all. 

Fear filled the air, thick and bitter like sulfur, clinging to Cleo's throat. Burning, turning every breath to ash. It tasted like scorched earth, like burnt toast, dry and acrid, with each gulp scraping sharp and jagged inside her chest. She had felt fear before, but nothing like this. It was to her as palpable as the ice now caging the building, cutting them off from any escape.

A creature had appeared from the roof, tall and statuesque - bringing calamity in its wake, its shadow flooding the hall before the form had even touched ground. The Chernobog, it called itself, in a voice so deep in its declaration that it rippled the very air and in turn snuffed it out. Echoing like a death knell across a once safe and joyous space. Ribbons of red streaked the walls and pooled at the feet of those who had been too brave or perhaps too foolish to stand in its way.

The perimeter of the ARC was now folded up into walls of ice, students trapped inside - Cleo couldn’t sense them there, the chill enveloped her as she stood at its center, frozen not just by the cold, but by the crushing weight of her inability to sense the others. Manny, Lucas. She couldn’t feel them through it all. Her heart drummed in her chest, their names on repeat the only rhythm she could find in the madness.

But there, beside her, someone still stood—Molly, the Pink Lady. Without thinking, Cleo’s hand reached for hers, pulling her close, shielding her as the next wave of violence seemed to crash down. [color=#94b9ff]“Stay behind me,”[/color] she managed, surprised at the strength in her own voice. She didn’t feel strong. Not now. Not with the Chernobog towering in the distance, tearing through the night with it’s evil intent and mythic scourge.

Even as it all seemed to grow into a crescendo, a new epicentre of danger formed. A woman, she saw her, drop to her knees. Around her, power gathered, thick and suffocating like storm clouds rolling in, like a swell about to burst. Cleo could feel it, the grief and the rage, a pit of loss so deep it had no bottom, pulling everything into its gravity.

The Chernobog was occupied. Cleo moved - knowing what she had to do. She just moved. She just moved. She just moved, unthinking, only feeling. She didn’t know this woman, she had heard the name “Amma” said, and “Amaranthe” too. Cleo just moved. She just felt. She just moved. Her palm shimmered with a wave of psionic energy that formed itself as a bubble - the size of a soccer ball. They floated, graceful and harmless, fragile against the immense darkness swirling around Amma. She sent them forward, watching as they flickered and disappeared, swallowed whole by the storm like ripples on an ocean too vast to calm.

She thought of Eilidh then. The lessons, the hours spent practicing control. These bubbles were only a tool to recognise, not to control. She had to try something else. [i]She had to break through.
[/i]

Dropping to the floor, Cleo placed her palms flat against the cold ground. She just moved. She just moved. She just felt. She felt the vibration, faint, but there. Pulsing through the floor, away from where she crouched. It took everything to reach that stillness inside her own mind, to quiet the storm within her long enough to feel. [i]Let it flow[/i]. Eilidh's voice echoed in her mind again.

She reached out, deeper, through the floor, through the cold, through the chaos. The energy was there, coating her like an aura, and in the storm that surrounded Amma, she could feel the girl within. A child. Small, broken, drowning in shadows. But there was something else—something beneath the darkness, quiet as a whisper. A melody.

Cleo pressed toward it, her own calm swelling, and as she did, she heard it more clearly. The melody was soft and stirring, woven from love. Fragile but constant, flickering through the darkness. It had always been there, waiting to be found. She pressed harder, pushing back beyond rage, beyond grief. She just moved. She just felt. She pushed, letting the melody grow louder yet in Amma’s heart.

It had to be enough.

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