12. ibidem

[exnihilo]

[Video, public]

For the record, these penis enlargement pills do nothing. I'd like to register a complaint.


[Infirmary spam, open to visitors, backdated to 2-4 days post-Shakespeare flood.]

[She wakes up after jumping, her skin tight and and her eyes sore and her lungs aching in her chest. She groans, rolls over, tries to sleep. Maybe she can sleep for the entire toll. She's been trying so hard to be, to live and connect. Maybe she can just not be for awhile.]

(OOC NOTE: TW for suicide if people ask her why she is tolling. Ophelia's narrative was rough on her.)


[Private to Roderick, backdated also]

...can you do me a favor?

Comments

[exnihilo]

...I don't know if I even know what that means, really.

[She's never been safe, never bothered to try. She's always been at the mercy of forces completely beyond her. The Gods, the Admiral, Anita. Not Bianca, though, despite how it seemed. Not Iris, not Arthas, not Simon. They could all hurt her more than Cambridge, she reckons. Suffering for Mira has never correctly directly to pain. He's so scared, and she smiles.]

But I have more people looking out for me now than I ever have.

[irishrotter]

It's not the number that worries me.

[He offers her a pinched, anxious smile, but it's a fleeting one. He doesn't know how to let this go. He doesn't know how to believe it will be good for her. He wants to, but... he's wanted to believe a lot of things before.]

You think he'd stop if you said no?

[exnihilo]

Yes.

[She thinks of Jean, the strange consuming mistletoe kiss. Please, don't hurt me.]

It occurs to me, now. To try saying it.

I think he's more worried I wouldn't than I am.

[In this, she knows what she wants. Cambridge is authoritative but not overwhelming, not alluring in the way she is weak to.]

If Mal turns my DI back on, I could probably shut down his instruments in the middle, if I wanted. Would it. Would it make you feel better if I asked?

[She has left her DI deliberately dead; the Gods forbade her to turn it off again, and it's not compatible with the comms here anyway, she doesn't think. But it's a useful thing, without them. And she is...learning, awkwardly, to consider the feelings of others.]

[irishrotter]

[He pauses.]

If Mal turns your DI back on?

[He has, like, no idea what any of the words in that sentence mean, Mira.]

[exnihilo]

Oh - direct interface.

[She taps her temple.]

It's how most things work in my time. Alerts and - appliances, or whatever. The admiral turned it off too.

[irishrotter]

Is that how they...?

[exnihilo]

Oh. No, the DI is standard consumer stuff. Like a handless communicator, not - influence.

The controllers are mostly in in my ovaries and my endocrine system. The ones we've found so far.

[irishrotter]

In your--?

[Simon tries not to look slightly horrified, but he is. More than slightly, really. He'd assumed they'd be in her brain, and that's more than terrible enough, but there's something horribly invasive, too, about controlling her that way.]

Christ, Mira.

[Even Victor and John had left those parts of him alone.]

[exnihilo]

It's efficient. If you want to hack something, you use the systems it has for regulating itself.

[irishrotter]

[No wonder she wants the things out of her. Still... He wishes he trusted Cambridge more. He wishes he knew more about biology. He wishes he could be the one to save her from this.]

Try asking him, okay? If you could turn the DI on. If he still seems trustworthy...

[exnihilo]

I'll ask.

[It makes her smile, though. Being worried over.]