Ashlyn

[undread]

Comments

[killies]

[ unfortunately, too caught up in trying to fix it, ashlyn fully fails to express any sympathy about the lost friend. terrible. ]

If all of you took it, then you should all get a say in what you do with it. You should get to take a vote.

And maybe you wouldn't like how the vote turns out, but it wouldn't be as bad as a fight where you hurt each other. You could just be mad about getting outvoted.

[undread]

[it's fine. she doesn't really want to think about f.c.g. but it is definitely the case that laudna is the one most of all having a huge irrational emotional reaction and can't really be logicked through it.

she didn't want to have a vote, because while she genuinely was disturbed by orym carrying the sword, she also just had a secondary motive of wanting to steal it for herself.]

I suppose. Maybe I ought to have brought it up. I just didn't think of it until later.

[killies]

[ but surely if everyone just acted fully rationally and detached themselves from any emotional reaction, it would all work out!! you know, like how people work!!!! ]

They tried to hear you out, even after waking up to a kind of scary situation. So I think that you can make up.

[ but also she thinks: they seemed way too unconcerned about how much orym had hurt laudna. he hadn't known, but once he realized... maybe she's just playing favorites. she doesn't think delilah is a good influence. ]

... But it's complicated. I get why you guys would fight.

[ and with that said... a memory of an argument resolved. ]

[undread]

[ooooh. ashlyn is a little bossy!]

Your friends are very nice.

[to be so understanding about how bossy she is.]

[killies]

No they aren't.

[ she's come to love them dearly but cannot abide someone calling tyler nice. also before i forget, from now on into eternity, laudna will see ashlyn's shadow as having short hair, like so! ]

[undread]

[that reaction is sort of funny; she understands a little.]

Well. Perhaps not all nice, but they care for you.

[killies]

You end up caring about anyone you're stuck with in dangerous situations like that.

[undread]

Maybe.

[but it's a little bit cute.]

What is the dangerous situation, precisely?

[killies]

Getting pulled into another dimension for seven hours each night. Full of monsters and stuff.

[undread]

Any particular reason why, or is that part a mystery?

[killies]

It's kind of still a mystery.

[undread]

...Imogen is often carried away to other places in her dreams. And things happen there that can affect the waking world. Is it similar for you?

[killies]

Kind of the opposite. If something moves in the [ sure, she'll use that phrase. ] waking world, they move in the Phantom Dimension too. But if we move something in the Phantom Dimension, the waking world version is unaffected.

Even injuries don't carry over fully. There's no physical trace of them and the pain is lessened by a lot.

[undread]

You said you felt you bore some sense of... responsibility, perhaps.

[or blame.]

[killies]

I... [ she's a little uncomfortable saying this part. she shifts her weight from one foot to the other, uncomfortably. ] I hear things, sometimes. Auditory hallucinations. Like a side effect of my sensitive hearing.

Or that's what I thought, but it's been the phantoms. And if I've been hearing them my whole life, that means there's some connection between me and that place. Like maybe I'm the one who pulled the others in.

[ she sounds uncertain about it, though, like this is just her best guess. ]

[undread]

[ah...]

It is similar to Imogen. [her hearing of other people's thoughts and emotions, her prophetic dreams, dragging them all into something dangerous.] I don't think you pulled them in. I suspect your sensitivity just made you alert in advance to something that might have otherwise been an unknown.

[killies]

[ oh. my redundancy. oh well. anyway. ]

Maybe. I don't know. They think that maybe we can open a rift between the two dimensions. And if that's the case and I opened it first...

[undread]

Would you notice, if you opened a rift?

[killies]

If it was me the first time and it was me every night since, no. I just know that we wake up there.

But... I... Did open one. On purpose. [ guess who's been compartmentalizing something for weeks. ]

[undread]

Did you? What happened when you did?

[killies]

I'm not sure. The power went out around me, and around all the others. Apparently they all sensed it, but—that's all we know.

[ which isn't. a lot. ]

[undread]

So then, if you'd been the one who'd opened it in the first place, you'd likely have noticed.

[she hmms.]

...Is this something that happened shortly before you arrival?

[killies]

Maybe. Unless there's a difference from doing it consciously and unconsciously.

[ she's not willing to dismiss the idea. ]

Yeah. It happened like... a day before we got here. I'd barely gotten to talk to my caretaker since it happened.

[undread]

...Are you worried about it?

[you seem worried about it.]

[killies]

[ a very tense nod. ]

I don't know what I did to those people. I wanted something bad to happen to them.