lostcarnival

Entry tags:

JAIL

Who: The Psiioniic and Foster
When: Day 90
Where: Cave Jail
What: /HUGE SHRUG

Psi didn't really have any idea what he was doing. It's not like this was an easy place to accidentally be. He was probably only allowed because of his status as supervisor, and even then he knew people thought it was strange that he'd come here. The cave jail was dank and dark, to the Psionic that made it feel homey. It brought back barely cognizant memories of his wiggler hood and post-pupation before the trials. They weren't things he remembered, but the feelings were there. However, considering the differences between their species he doubted this place held the same sorts of feelings for the human held inside. He comes up to the bars, not really sure what he's about to see. He doesn't know what sort of shape Foster will be in after their manhunt. He tries to be prepared for anything. With Foster though, he has a feeling that might be difficult.

"Hey."

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Irritating vagueness?

There is no 'irritating vagueness.'

There is only the Psionic, hearing a collection of words coming out of Foster's mouth--answers to questions he asked--and not listening to them at all.

Which is--well, it's not the exact reason he received Psi's claim to want to understand him with such confusion, with such alarm and resentment--but it's less terrible to approach, so it is now. His dread of the inevitable. All he can remember now, and he remembers nothing but more of it, growing worse and worse and worse. This is what he hates... he hates talking to anyone, he hates it, he hates the results, he hates the process--

He buries one hand in his hair, trying to push his fingers back through it, and instead gets tangled in a knot of crusted blood.

"No. No! I'm just a disease! I'm just a disease! I am... just... a disease."

Both hands buried in his hair, clenched tightly with fistfuls of filthy blond locks--

He cannot say it any more literally! He always says exactly what he means, and no one ever hears it at all.

Edited 2017-05-12 03:32 (UTC)

"Well you don't look like one!" he says, voice raising in volume at least a bit. He wants to understand, really he does, but Foster is so difficult and so irritating. But he absolutely doesn't want anything like this to happen ever again. None of the people here should be trapped like this, in a cage. It made him sick.

"You can make your own decisions. Disease can't do that and it can't argue either."

It was stupid and pointless to get angry, he knew it. He knew getting emotional here was entirely counter-productive, and yet how could he help it knowing what Foster had done? He wasn't Signless with his infinite calm and patience no matter how much he wished he could be. He sighs resting his forehead against the cold metal bars and closing his eyes. He just wished there was a way he could understand.

One of the biggest problems Foster has with communication, besides everything, is honestly the vague, intuitive fashion by which other people navigate the process. He struggles enough to articulate things within himself; his thoughts are disorganised, language elusive. Ideas and concepts shift and warp.

Psi may not have meant to, but by antagonising him so specifically, he's actually helped Foster narrow down what he's trying to say, error by error.

"It's my brain. It's in my brain, the disease is in my brain!"

Everything you are is inside your brain; your thoughts, your feelings, the very concept of the self is in the brain. Everything you do begins first inside the brain; everything you've done or not done is stored inside a few pounds of fat and blood.

His brain is diseased; he's diseased. His brain is diseased; he is a disease. It's rotting, he's rotting, rotted--

Anger is fine, anger is good! He can take anger! He wants Psi to raise his voice louder, to escalate this, to grab him by the throat and slam him to the stone floor, where he can only choke out broken syllables past the saliva and claws.

Then he could say what he really thinks, he could think and speak clearly at last--!

"Having a disease doesn't make you a disease." he says back, not with the shouting of before but looking just as irritated.

"You have to at least know that much."

"Wrong."

He's talking with his hand covering his one eye, his head tilted back so the back of his skull is pressed against the hard, smooth stone, saliva flecking his lips, wetting his chin. His fingers are cracked over his eyes, just enough to let the light in--not to see by, no, but to hurt.

"Oh, people have diseases. People are born! They're alive! You were born you." Foster knows nothing about trolls. But the manner of Psi's entry into the world wouldn't change his argument in the slightest. "They thought I was me. I thought I was me. That I was born normal. Born healthy. That I was going to be alive! But they were wrong. I was born rotting--born dying. And when they were growing up, were reaching their full potential, I--

I--!"

It all comes bubbling up to the surface. Not like a living creature, but like the deadly gasses of an undersea vent, rising in silent premonition of death.

"I was lied to."

Anger--real, cold, ugly anger flashes its teeth for the briefest second. Then suddenly he's backpedalling away from it again--retreating, talking faster; as though the more he talks, the further away from that feeling he can get. They lied to him, they lied to him and wasted him, his entire life, his entire chance, and now--

Even now--

"I told you--I know you can't understand! I know! But don't lie to me. I know what I am! I know what I'm like. There's no difference! When you talk to me, you're talking to a disease. When you touch me, you're touching the body of a disease. Don't fucking lie."

He doesn't know what Foster is talking about. There's too much, to many words that have so much meaning to the human that don't mean anything to the Psionic. He doesn't know about human diseases or rotting or who lied about what. He at least knows though, that he isn't a liar, and if that's what he has to focus on to continue this conversation he will.

"I'm not lying." he says the last word spit through his fangs. Foster's emotional display is effecting him, making him tense whether he understands the reasons for the feelings or not. He feel's like he's cornered a wild animal, and it's chosen to fight for it's life rather than flee.

"Lots of people have diseases, that does not make you a disease, it's just... It's just logic! Common knowledge! Fact!! Disease is caused by something, people don't have a cause."

Edited 2017-05-24 01:18 (UTC)

"Shut up!!" Foster snaps suddenly, commandingly--his teeth bared right back. It's a rare act, so transparent, so defensive, so borderline hostile that it's outright uncharacteristic. And it's gone in a flash--a flash of white, that is, of prehistoric teeth, before his mouth clamps shut, jaw clenched against a fleeting emotion, his face fixedly impassive.

Psi is more correct than he knows. Foster feels cornered, feels that wild animal pain and anger and fear, Psi's impatience backing him further and further into the corner until he's trapped there, trapped in a place he can no longer give up in, not any more.

"I....." Psi asked for answers and Foster's given them. But they're the wrong answers, wrong wrong wrong wrong. Every answer he gives will be wrong because he's wrong, his disease is wrong--

Every reaction is wrong. You are not responding properly to the situation.

And then, suddenly, with a flash of clarity, of viciousness, of farcical hilarity and divergent anger, he understands why.

Psi doesn't want Foster's answers at all. Psi wants answers that fit his reality. He wants answers to make him feel better--because he is afraid.

It suddenly makes sense.

Truth, reality, are not absolute--not concrete, not stable. An honest answer will never satisfy Psi, because his truth is too unpalatable, it simply cannot be digested. Because there is no truth in Foster that is not riddled in rot, not soaked in his own blood. There is no state of mind free from it, no freedom of thought in the face of disease. That's what's so horrifying--so appealing--so grotesque. Its power is the power to consume. How frightening! How disgusting! How... how....

"You say you don't understand, but you do. You just don't want to. Or maybe you can't. But I... I've deserved every awful, horrible, wretched, miserable thing that's ever happened to me! Even this--no, especially this!" He leans forward, one visible eye glinting, his breathing ragged, saliva wet on his lips. "That's all you need, right? To know that it's not unjust? To know you're safe! Something like this... could never happen to you!"

Is he smiling?

He's smiling.

That's normal.

"I was born dead, and I will either die rotting or live forever. It's all been planned."

The way he shouts, pulling his lips back to show his teeth, it's such a surprisingly troll like display that it forces the Psionic to step back. There's no hissing growl and there are no horns angled the Psionic's way. Still, despite the cage that's separating them, it's abundantly clear that Foster views Psionic as a threat and that is startling.

But why?! What threat do his words present? what is he doing that is making Foster feel as though his very survival is at risk!? If questioning Foster's logic pushed him to this level of anxiety... Was there something about him being a disease that he viewed as integral to his very being? If his brain was the part of him that was sick it made a sort of sense that he would view the sickness as an identity. A person's mind was the source of their thoughts, of their contagiousness, in a sense a persons mind was their very identity.

But having a disease just didn't make you a disease and why would anyone want that to be a part of their own identity? Some parts of a person they were born to, others they constructed as the result of their experiences. Which was this? A construction, some kind of sheild? Or was it just innate. Did it even matter? Could it be both?

Foster's words shake him from his thought process. The look on his face as he watches Foster happily explain how he deserves this, a mixture of fear and pity. It's terrible that someone could live this way. Maybe Psi really can't understand, but if that's the case it's only because he really doesn't know anything about Foster. And it's now clear to the Psionic that this just isn't a way he can learn about him. He needed to do something else.

He watches Foster as the silence lingers between them. He has no idea what to say. He wishes he could say something to make this better, but he fears everything he could say would only make things worse. It's as though Foster spoke a completely different language than him, there's no way he could attempt to communicate with the human without also risking making some sort of grave offense. It was frustrating, it was frightening. What would Signless do?

"...I'm sorry to have upset you."

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JAIL

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SORRY ITS SHORT

I actually never thought he'd make this connection himself, thanks Psi

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Self-defence, feat. Foster getting crazier instead of getting mad

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