khuioduan | [Video] - Middle of the night...

[ Ilda's half-awake when she responds, almost as groggy, but just less shaken. ]

Oh hey, Big Sister.

[ Her head falls forward for a moment, then snaps back up suddenly. She stares at the yimo with wide eyes, Sheena's message and the midnight situation finally dawning on her. Yup, she's awake now. ]

Sheena! Oh no, did you have one of those visions again? I mean, I did, not right now, but— do you want me to come over?

[ Sheena doesn't respond right away, waiting to see if Ilda falls back to sleep. When she doesn't Sheena nods and sighing, tries to flatten her sleep-wrecked hair. ]

Yeah. This time, it was pretty bad. And I thought I was done with nightmares. I should really apologize to everyone...

[ She's about to refuse Ilda's offer, but thinks better of it. Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she nods again. ]

Yeah, but we need to be quiet. I don't hear anything, but I'm not sure I haven't woken my roommates.

[ Yeah, Ilda can ask her why she's not in her apartment yet as Sheena tells her her room assignment. ]

You had another one?

[The voice is calm and at ease, but interested, and politely inviting for more information. Padparadscha hasn't had another since the second, so if things are deviating now, they'd like to know.]

Yes.

[The visions had grown in intensity and the latest one had been so disturbing she hadn't been able to return to sleep. All those eyes staring out of the dark pits...What nightmare had Nerrin walked into?]

It's difficult to relate.

Yeah. This is the third one. And it wasn't exactly pretty.

[ She sighs and blows out a soft breath. ]

How many have you had?

That's putting it mildly.

[ Sheena doubts she'll be able to go back to sleep. She can still feel the pain of Al'amar being taken by a Venus People Trap plant. ]

If you don't mind me asking: how bad was yours?

Only two. But perhaps that stands to change now. [They suppose they'll see in the coming nights. It may not be a coherent message like some guessed, but the fact that the visions are now diverging may mean something.]

Whose experiences have you been following?

Two? How'd you get so lucky? [ There's wry humor there. She can't help it. It's one way she and her friends deal with certain topics. ]

Mine have been of a woman named Al'amar. How about you?

Perhaps I haven't been sleeping enough. [Padparadscha has a somewhat consistent tone of amusement to their voice, so they're hardly going to judge anyone else for handling things that way.]

Someone named Faias. A male, I think. [Padparadscha isn't exactly experienced in identifying that sort of thing.]

More disturbing than bad...I'm going to do some research in the Library. See if I can find anything on it.

So, nothing painful? Nothing that feels "real"--like it's your own memory?

[ She can still feel that pain, and probably will for a while. ]

The Library? Okay. I might go there later, but if you don't see me, my dreams are about someone named Al'amar, and this one involved a plant that bled when cut.

[ Bad and disturbing. Isn't Sheena lucky? ]

Because of the dreams?

[ Logical conclusion to the ninja. Some people react differently to nightmares. After all, it took three to get to her. Besides, she doesn't know what Padparadscha had dreamed about in those two visions. ]

You're not sure? Were the dreams of only sounds? Darkness? Nothing else?

[ That's kind of creepy right there--and she's a ninja. ]

Because I don't sleep in the same way living things do. [Or for the same reasons, really. They don't require sleep so much as it just happens to be a useful state for when it's difficult to sustain themselves on the available light levels.]

No. I'm just still not that familiar with how to identify one or the other. Humans and living creatures like them are strange in that way.

[Gems are genderless anyway, so the main notion Padparadscha has of gender is that it's something to do with how living things make more of themselves.]

It's not the first time I've lived someone else's memories.

[And some had definitely been worse than what she had experienced. The pain and trauma quickly faded when she realized it wasn't her own and didn't have the person nearby to keep it going. Valdis was a bit more concerned about the Death Plane and its involvement.]

A plant that bled?

Living things? You're not alive? [ Sure fooled Sheena! ]

Oh. I see. Well, hmmm. Usually, men can grow facial hair above their lips and on their chins. And sometimes their voices are deeper, but it's usually body parts that show the most difference.

[ And she's just going to blush a little here.

And where was Raine when she needed her? ]

It isn't? It's a first for me, and I really don't like it. I thought seeing someone's personal memories was bad enough, but this goes beyond that.

[ Sheena, however, can't be like that. As someone in another place long ago said, she wears her emotions where all can see. So, if someone is suffering, she feels it. And in this case, she's feeling it precisely--and remembering. ]

Yeah, it was all vines, and Al'amar cut it, thinking it would be a normal plant. It was hot, so she was probably looking for water, but instead...it bled. Like a person.

Then it grabbed her and started dragging her towards it.

I'm animate, of course, but alive, not exactly. [To live, as far as Padparadscha has learnt since being here, also means to die, and death has no meaning for gems like themselves.

That description makes Padparadscha laugh a little, though.] But not all of the men I've seen have that extra hair, and not all of the women have those fleshy bulbs on their chests. It's the variety that makes it more interesting, but also more difficult.

[That did sound disturbing]

I'm sorry you had to experience that...wherever they are, I hope we can find them.

[ Ilda sighs softly. Sheena did say they have to be quiet, and she doesn't want her voice to be the one to wake up her big sister's roommates. ] Looks like the nightmares aren't done with us. I had another one, too... and they're getting really bad. And creepy.

... huh? Weren't you assigned to a new room?

[ For all Sheena knows, they are awake because of their own dreams. No need to make things worse. ]

Yeah, they are. And I'm sorry, Ilda.

[ She sighs ruefully. ]

Actually, I found an apartment...but how about we meet in the common area? We can talk freely there?

So, you're like an android? [ Tabatha had been an android, and she had almost been destroyed. Wouldn't that be the same thing?

Her response makes Sheena chuckle and blush slightly. ] True those bulbs on a woman's chest tend to make things easier, but there's also something that's more common in men than women.

[ She points to her neck just below her chin. ]

Most men have a lump here.

[ But probably not as disturbing as what Sheena's going to ask. ]

Is it possible that these aren't memories? But we're seeing things as they happen?

I'm not capable of dreaming...and the shared nature of these visions make me think this is as it is happening.

[ Not capable of dreaming? Now that's something Sheena hadn't expected. ]

It's not the shared nature of the dreams that made me think that--but the fact that we could feel what was happening.
The pain, the fear--all of it.

I'm just concerned about what if the dreams go further and no more pain is felt.

[ If the person dies, do they die? ]

As I said, this isn't the first time I've lived memories like that. It's painful, it's easy to get lost, but I've never died or anything.

[Not that she'd ever experimented enough to find out if the memory of death would actually kill her.]

This kind of connection...it's possible to initiate, but I've never done it from a distance, the Dreaming is a on a whole other level.

[Video] - Middle of the night...

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