Lemons

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn's thoughts stuttered to a stop.

"W--what?"

How? How could that...? That didn't make any sense. She'd been so angry, Quinn had seen it in her eyes, she had been furious. Didn't that mean--how could it not--

"But, but, you saw it after the duel, right?" She reached a hand up to take Dahlia's, pulling it from her face and squeezing it tightly, face writ with confusion as she began once again to fumble over her words. It didn't make sense. It didn't make any sense. None of this made any sense at all.

"That's--isn't that why you--you got so angry I thought you--" She swallowed hard, cutting off her babbling, and her eye flicked over to the penlight that Roaki had left on the nightstand. She grabbed at it, pulling it towards them, but dropped it before it could reach her, tumbling down and rolling under the bed. She reached down to get it, but only barely managed to pull herself back to stop from falling herself. She swallowed heavily, feeling the hysterical tears starting to bubble towards the surface again, and closed her eye to keep them locked down.

Oh. That was right, Dahlia could see in the dark anyway.

At that thought, Quinn turned to her, yanking the eyepatch off her head to reveal the twisted expanse of gray scarring that dominated the right side of her face before leaning in towards her.

"Look," she begged, eye still shut tight as she hoarsely whispered. "Just--look--please."

Arknights: 5S

Aoife followed after Baltasar, joints cracking as she did from previous inactivity. She'd been in Hisn-ul-Zahra for about a week now, but she wasn't going outside much. Tara, after all, was a chilly, cloudy, damp place; deep forests, verdant swamps, misty rain. A part of her missed her homeland deeply, but an equal part of her knew that she could never go back; that though it might've been her homeland, it certainly was no longer her home.

Hisn-ul-Zahra, on the other hand...it could not be described as "chilly," or "cloudy," or "damp," by any stretch of the imagination. It was scorching hot, perfectly clear, and dry as a bone. Stepping outside of the branch office was extremely uncomfortable and had her sweating bullets almost immediately.

That, and she seemed to catch a lot of looks whenever she went out. There weren't many Vouivre in the town, she'd found, and those that were certainly didn't look much like her, with her arctic palette. She wrapped her long, scaled blue-black tail around her leg through force of habit, keeping it tucked out of the way save for the forever twitching tip.

The point was, she'd stayed in the branch office, for the most part, so the orphanage was, by and large, unfamiliar. Thus she propped herself on the wall and waited by the door, eyes closed, and listened to the explanation of the children. A strange tent? A strange military tent? Touching a jar and nothing else to win a monetary prize, and the hawker specifically calling children over? She frowned slightly. And then Nur vanishing immediately afterwards, followed by an equally immediate departure of the tent? She didn't like it. She didn't like it at all.

Still, she stayed by the door, doing her best to stay out of everyone's hairs. Or, she had stayed, until she heard Baltasar's response, at which point she grimaced, stood, and walked quietly over to stand directly behind him as she spoke for the first time since they'd left the branch office:

"Worth checking out. What hawker would use a military-style tent, and leave in the middle of the day?" She shook her head laconically. "It doesn't make sense and I don't like it."

Arknights: 5S

<Snipped quote by Nanolyte>

Great, you can throw her into the character tab. I'll get a starting post up tomorrow hopefully.

I also wanted to ask both of you if there were any canon operators you would like to be NPCs in this RP?

@Stern Algorithm

Ah, and before I forget: I feel like it's borderline necessary to have Aoife interact with Reed at some point.

Amygdala Circuit

As usual, Dahlia's voice interrupted the static.

"Just breathe for me, okay?"

The frantic thoughts jerked, and Quinn breathed.

In, out. One, two, three.

She dropped her hands from her forehead and found a few strands of hair coming along with them where she'd pulled them out at the roots. They trembled as she held them out in front of her, staring sightlessly at them with an eye at once vague, faraway, and horrified. Not just her hands; her whole body was shivering along with them. Her jaw clenched and unclenched unconsciously, creaking out a rhythm on her bones. The same refrain seethed through her head: why? Why? Why? Why?

In, out. One, two, three.

The frantic hammering of her heart, so deafening in her ears, began to slow, to abate. She pulled her hands into fists, squeezing them rock hard in an effort to stop them from shaking. It worked. Up to a point. It was no longer so visible or extreme, but she still felt it, even if it couldn't be seen as well. She squeezed harder, closing her eye tight and trying to blot everything out so she could think straight.

In, out. One, two, three.

Now she finally began to calm down. The full-body shivering was almost gone now, and the hands weren't too far behind. She let the tight fists go, and her eye opened as well. It was still a little distant, but at least it seemed to be focused this time, as she pulled herself out of her head.

Her voice was still weak and reedy, but it wasn't as bad, and it wasn't frantic. She was almost sadly proud at how it almost didn't shake like a leaf, even if you could steal hear the tears in it.

"I..."

"I felt under my eyepatch." She let her fingers skate lightly over the fabric in question, swallowing down another spike of fear and confusion.

"Why didn't anyone ever tell me?"

Arknights: 5S

Hmm, she's more a blob of threads really, all people are to Seven.

But beyond that their proooobably simultaneously frayed and frozen simultaneously, with lots of the 'better' threads seemingly snipped off or frayed and leading to dead ends. Oh, and given the extent of Infection, it's incredibly 'twisted'. Probably manifests as some kind of mold growing on her that gives off very, very bad vibes.

While Seven can kinda deduce that Aoife has had a rough past, and has some connection to ice, she doesn't really know more then that. Her hatred for the sight basically means it's only useful for identifying human vs non-human and for general vibes. In the end it's manifestation is coloured by her experiences in the Infy Icefields, so she's more geared towards differentiating say, demons and humans compared to actually divining stuff through threads.

@Nanolyte

Oh that's SUPER neato. Such a cool power.

Arknights: 5S

You know, just rereading Seven's sheet @Nanolyte, I am really curious what 'twisted karma' Aoife shows; she's had an odd life and all.

Arknights: 5S

Ooooh, neato! Love the hippogryphs, dead nations unite!

Arknights: 5S

@Nanolyte Holy fuck I love her she's so EXTRA

Arknights: 5S

The first response to Jericho's question was a quiet but drawn-out groan of pain as the blue-white Vouivre sitting on a chair in the corner grit her teeth and opened her eyes. She reached her hand out in front of her, staring for a moment at the black crystal lesion that now sprouted from its back before dropping it back down again and glancing up at the clock that sat on the left wall. 12:43, it said; her next session with Polka wasn't until 1:15. She had half an hour to burn, and it wasn't like she was doing much good sitting here trying to ignore the feeling of the crystals growing from her body.

Rolling her neck as she always had, she sucked in a breath through a tight cage of teeth as a bone-deep ache shot through it. Right. Just another thing that she needed to stop doing as a result of her new...situation.

"Mhmm," she intoned softly, voice a touch husky from held back pain. She shook her head, cleared her throat, focused on the problem at hand instead of the pain of the growths. "Yes," she tried again, this time louder and clearer, as she hauled herself to her feet. She wasn't really that tall from head to toe, but her relatively imposing horns added several inches, and made her look both taller and more threatening than she at all was.

From force of long habit she tapped a finger against the handle of the sword strapped to her back. Perhaps she didn't need it here in Hisn-ul-Zahra; but after the years, she only felt comfortable when it was with her, so she kept it strapped to her even during her sessions with Polka. And as usual these days--the past few weeks--when she tapped the sword...

...Ah, there it was. The frigid wave rippled up her arm, even in the desert heat. Her...her Arts letting her know that they were still there, and did not much appreciate being contained and unused--she shook her head again like trying to clear cobwebs out, then reached up to rub the the temples at the base of her horns. Needed to calm down and talk like a normal person. Half an hour and then she could relax with Polka and relish the (relative) relief from symptoms that followed in the wake of her music.

"Yes, of course I'll help look." The lilt of her Taran voice shook, but held. "It would be bad if--" Her constant low headache pulsed and she flinched, reaching a hand up and pressing it to the side of her head briefly. Her symptoms were bad today. "Nghh, sorry. It would be bad if he went off somewhere and we couldn't find him." Left unsaid was a kind of guarded curiosity. She'd vaguely heard of operator Seven, but she hadn't been with Rhodes Island long enough to meet. Never let it be said that either Ash Girl or Aoife Eóganachta didn't like meeting new people; and this woman certainly looked interesting.

Arknights: 5S

<Snipped quote by Nanolyte>

Great, you can throw her into the character tab. I'll get a starting post up tomorrow hopefully.

I also wanted to ask both of you if there were any canon operators you would like to be NPCs in this RP?

@Stern Algorithm

I think maybe Firewatch might be neat occasionally, since she's the one who saved Aoife's life.