taxonomites | ❱ nine。[ visual; location: the sanctuary ]

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❱ nine。[ visual; location: the sanctuary ]

Kara's tablet turns on when she smacks it as she turns over in her sleep. From the looks of it, it's not a particularly good dream. In fact, judging by the choked off yell as she sits up, it was down-right nasty. She looks at nothing in particular, her expression shocked like nothing else. "What... What the hell was that?" she murmurs quietly.

Without thinking, she brings her knees to her chest, curling her arms around them as she mutters to herself quietly in Kryptonian, trying to figure out what just happened. Her breathing is coming a little quickly as realization dawns on her and her expression slowly turns to something akin to horror.

"Oh, Rao..." Cue more angered murmuring in Kryptonian before Kara just buries her face in her knees.

The feed times out.

[ ooc | canon update! also. forward dated a few hours to like. 4 AM Wednesday. ]

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Nightmares.

... memories.

[ pause. ] Remembering things as they occur, even as we are trapped here in this dimension.

Pretty much.

Aximili's holographic image appears, looking almost disgustingly refreshed and awake at this hour of night. His thought-speech, though, is laden with concern. «What happened, Kara? Do you require assistance?»

"I don't need assistance, I just--" she looks kind of confused and overwhelmed as she looks down at the little hologram. "I think I just got the Taxon equivalent of a memory upgrade or something. I know I can't have gone home but..."

«Timelines realigning temporarily. Strange,» he muses, but even Aximili is not so obtuse that he can't recognize Kara's upset by what she's learned.

«Would you like to go running? I find it clears my mind when my sleep is troubled.» And it's just possible that he could use it too.

Kara gives him a small sort of smile. "I think I'd outrun you, but I could definitely fly alongside you."

Technically she could probably fly faster than him, but the wind through her hair has always been a calming thing and since she can't go out into space like she would back home, flying around the city is how she's been clearing her head recently.

Edited 2010-09-22 17:12 (UTC)

«I can also fly,» Aximili replies, and no sooner does he say this than he begins to sprout feathers on his arms and legs. He feels a pang of guilt for morphing for no real reason - his prince had long ago forbidden him to do so, and he never violated that mandate. Still, he tells himself, the circumstances are different. He is not at war, and his identity and morphing power are not a secret.

«Once the morph is complete, I will find you. This bird has very acute vision,» he says, even as his hindlegs grow scales and narrow into a raptor's legs.

"Sounds good," Kara says before reaching out to turn off her tablet. The thought of flying with someone else while trying to clear her head is a little strange, but on the other hand, being by herself isn't very appealing at the moment.

So, she dresses quickly and slips out her window, taking to the skies at a relatively slow pace, just enjoying the feel of the wind against her skin.

Take-off is a little tricky, since he starts from the ground and the owl normally gets a start from a tree, but the bird's mind knows what to do, and he soars over the forest. It's well before dawn, still, but the great horned owl can see through the darkness as if it were high noon. Kara's silhouette against the sky couldn't be more obvious if she had a spotlight on her.

The owl flies swiftly and in utter silence, joining Kara in flight. «Your ability to fly is incomprehensible to me,» he remarks. «Your body has no airfoils.»

"I don't really get it either," she admits. "All I know is so long as I'm under a yellow sun I can do things that I couldn't before." Like shoot lasers out of her eyes and freeze people with her breath.

Kara's quiet for a moment before she looks over at her feathered companion. "Hey, Aximili... Thanks. For flying with me."

«You are welcome.» At this close proximity, the owl's keen vision can make out every melancholy detail of her face. «Most problems cannot be solved by flight, but it is a pleasant distraction.»

"It is," she says and can't think of any more to say. Now that she's awake and processing, it's easier to deal with the rush of new memories. The melancholy and unsure feeling still lingers, though, and Kara's not really sure that's going to go away. Not for a long while, anyways.

If Kara wants to talk about her experience, it must be freely offered; Aximili will not ask. After all, he would not want her to pry into his private affairs. Instead, he begins to spiral upward, toward the upper boundary of the sky. He has tried this before, of course, but something spurs him on to try again.

She doesn't say anything, not sure how she would even start, but instead follows Ax up and up and up. She's hit the upper barrier before, but no matter how many times she does it, she always loves the feeling of going higher and higher in the sky.

He can feel it, when it's near; the air currents ruffle strangely over his feathers as they're deflected by the barrier. A little further, and the sky simply stops. The owl is confused. Why is the air solid? Ax is also confused, but for different reasons. Who would want to trap them here? Yes, they are an experiment, a zoo, but why does it matter so much that it's worth such great efforts to confine them?

Kara reaches up and braces her hand against the barrier as best she can giving it a sad look. "You know... my parents sent me to Earth so I wouldn't be trapped in a place like this. Lot of good that did me. Or either or them."

«Your parents valued your freedom. They truly cared for you, then.» Aximili flies in lazy spirals around Kara, since the owl form can't hover.

"Yeah, I know. And... I feel bad for thinking this, but. It kind of makes having them gone worse." The expression on her face is one of such sadness that it's pretty clear her parents aren't just away somewhere. They're dead.

Aximili is a little unnerved. How strange, to learn of the deaths of one's parents in a single burst of memory as timelines align themselves. This is not the natural course of mourning.

«Andalites have a ritual of mourning which can be performed when the corpse is not present. Do you have a ritual you can carry out in your parents' honor?»

"Kind of," she says quietly as she backs up and starts flying again, wanting to get away from the barrier. "It's been over a month since my mother died and longer than that for my dad, so everything's really already been done." That doesn't mean she's not still grieving, though.

«A short time ago, you did not know. Now you do,» Aximili points out. «In that way, it is sudden.» He follows her trajectory through the sky, and is somehow inspired to say, «You would not be alone. There is someone I have already mourned who I ought to mourn again.»

"Kara?" The Doctor's face on the tablet is concerned, but at the same time he looks a little uncertain, like he's not entirely certain what he can say or do to help, but is trying anyway. "Are you alright?"

"Doctor... I'm--" she pauses and runs a hand through her hair. "Not okay right now. But I will be. Just-- Taxon's idea of a memory upgrade, I guess."

"Can I help in any way?" he asked immediately. He had a feeling the answer was 'no', but he could at least offer to listen or talk about other things if Kara needed it.

There's a long pause from Kara as she thinks about that. After a moment, she just sighs and scrubs a hand across her face. "I don't know. I'll get back to you on that one."

"Well, maybe if you told me a bit more about what happened at least?" the Doctor offered encouragingly. "Sometimes talking about things is the best way to deal with them. The only way. You said they did something to your memories?"

"Yeah. It's... it's like I went home for a while and came back. Except I don't think I left Taxon. At least not in the physical sense," she murmured, trying to wrap her head around it. It was all a little confusing, especially the times not adding up.

"Ah, some kind of memory deal then... They might have uploaded something into your head, I'm afraid." His fingers tugged at his lips and traced a path along his jaw as he thought.

"But don't think that means it necessarily really happened, whatever it is you saw, Kara. It might have been false, something they want to make you think happened."

Hey. Whats' up? You okay? [He's up, just having come home from a shift at the bar.]

I–– yeah. No. I don't know. Ask me again in a little bit.

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❱ nine。[ visual; location: the sanctuary ]

[ voice ]

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[holo]

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[Location: Taxon Sky]

[Location: Taxon Sky]

[Location: Taxon Sky]

[Location: Taxon Sky]

[Location: Taxon Sky]

[Location: Taxon Sky]

[Location: Taxon Sky]

[Location: Taxon Sky]

[Location: Taxon Sky]

[Location: Taxon Sky]

[Location: Taxon Sky]

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[Location: Taxon Sky]

[Visual]

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Late late late sorry

It's okay! <3