Thread: The Lady and the Wolf - Penitency x Praxis

She found the bobbing of his vision disorienting, twice having to open her eyes and peer about the blank space. The ceiling had been transformed from a usual, dim glow to a patchwork of stars in a blanket above her. Even this high up light pollution's reach made viewing the night sky a lackluster experience at best. Now though, with nothing taking center stage the Heavens were allowed full audience to the Earth. Taking their turn to rule the sky again and make all those who looked upon them tremble at their oppressive vastness. She found this a somewhat worse state and laid back, resting her damp hair flush against the cool marble flooring and bending one knee to allow a bare foot to plant firmly. An old trick she'd picked up in her earliest college years. If it worked for being much too drunk, perhaps it would work for this. Letting her lids slide closed again there was a brief initiation sequence before her consciousness was plunged back into Ethan. Right. Speaking of which, can you...not talk to me like that? Through your head I mean. It's...too weird. The fact that Rachel was asking him to stop the very thing she clearly intended to continue doing to him seemed not to occur to her. And though she was speaking at full volume, to Ethan who had no access to the higher levels of their shared mind, she was nothing more than an irritating voice in his head. Talk out loud, or something. The mic will pick you up. And- There was a sound of spitting are you smoking? Seriously!? Where do you even find cigarettes anymore? You know I can taste that, right? If this was easy on the mind to Rachel, he would have been in for a show had the girl decided to begin shouting the way he'd seen her do. The volume and inflection of her voice was something more like nervous. She was babbling the rough drafts of her inner monologue at him. Breaking her own silence by focusing on the sweltering chaos around him. She didn't have to feel the humidity of too many bodies panicking in a narrow space. Or the constant spatter of oily, cold rain from above. As usual she was safe in the confines of whatever paradise while he carried the weight. You're lucky. Local PD and Dispatch will be on generator power. For now, at least. What's going on down there? I don't hear any riot sirens. Where's all the patrols? This doesn't make any sense. A blackout this big should've tripped the Emergency systems. She could feel herself becoming tense again. She'd somehow hoped that wherever Ethan was that the situation would be better. That the issue was only a minor hiccup in an otherwise mostly flawless system. Something that the plastic faces on the morning news would joke about now that the danger of it was safely behind them and the sun had risen. None of that seemed especially likely as she nervously glanced around the capacity of her ride's vision. Some had taken to lighting small bonfires along the sidewalks, packing down the garbage in large, black, aluminum bins and setting blaze to the mess within. They produced a thick, acrid smoke but did offer some small, flickering light along his path. You feel tired. Sore. Her voice was softer this time. And tinged with an unidentifiable shade of something else. Compassion? Concern? Do you always feel like this? She flexed her right hand, sensing the pain in his own but not experiencing it. There seemed to be a stiffness all throughout his joints and ligaments. The sort of dull, tepid pain that always lingers in the background. A sleeping version of agony that remained mercifully dormant. One that's stirring would likely bring Rachel to tears simply at the knowledge of it. He seemed to brush this line of questioning aside, asking again for her location and putting an end to it. She had dropped from the feed for a moment, hearing the roar of engines in her mind. Snapping her eyes open she scrambled on hands and knees toward the viewing deck. Pressing her hands against cold glass she watched as a formation of eight tugs sailed below and passed her clustering of lofts. They were marked with large, red crosses. Aid ships. Dispatched from somewhere south of her by her best guess. But to where? She watched them disappear over the horizon until they were no more than blinking, red dots. Tripping over the edge of a long, black sofa in her haste to the home's main terminal, Rachel tumbled to the floor. Instinctively she'd gone to break her fall and caught only the sharp, hard edge of her coffee table, cutting along her palm in a small, crescent mark. She felt the hot sting of it and hissed at the immediate pain. Somewhere, though dim and far, she heard Ethan calling her name. Shouting it, along with some other garbled mess she failed to comprehend. After a moment it clicked. What did she do? She hadn't done anything. She hadn't even begun to enjoy her bath before the world had decided to gouge out the eyes of everyone and everything. She pressed her slashed palm against the softness of her robe and spat back her answer, closing her eyes as she did to bring him front and center. Do?! I fell and cut my fucking hand, you moose! Because there's no lights on! Because this entire fucking planet is going down the dra- ahh Her voice fell two full steps, a shudder escaping with the nonsense word. She, like him, was now staring directly down the barrel - barrels of a police cruiser aimed at him. Whoa. Shit. What did you do?