[He keeps holding Kiraman's hand because he knows he is about to drag the guy into the arcane.]
The doctor was a former... mentor of mine for a short while when I was a boy. I left his tutelage because his methods were typically not very ethical. As you can see.
But... I went back to him when I was struggling with the Hexcore. I knew he would understand... the lengths I would go to live.
[Would you not do unspeakable acts for love, Kiraman?]
I was only testing the Hexcore's abilities on myself, yes. I transmuted my leg using an altered drug created by the doctor as a catalyst. Shimmer. It worked. I could walk unassisted. I didn't need a brace or my cane anymore. So then I tried again.
[Beneath the neutrality, his emotions shift. His brows furrow and his eyes stray, like the times he supposedly heard a voice.]
Sky... I don't know why she was still in the lab, but she came in on my attempt, and she tried to help me. The Hexcore... turned her to ash in front of me because her body was too brittle to withstand its power.
[An emotion finally bleeds through the placidity struggling to contain it: guilt.]
No offense, Viktor, but even calling it Shimmer makes it sound like a backalley drug. [ like. he's just saying. but... ] Seeing it worked was enough to fill you with the confidence you needed to keep going. You got to experience a life without pain for a brief moment.
[ his own emotions reflect a kind of understanding as he keeps his eyes on viktor. ]
... what happened to her wasn't exactly your fault. It was a secondary action that you didn't plan for. Not like you knew she'd come back, or that it would hurt her so much. You just said before you were only testing on yourself. [ ... ] How... did she try to help?
Like you would expect of a young woman who did not know what to think of a man she admired touching some strange, dark object which was beginning to transmute his body. [He glances away.] She clung to me and tried to pull me away, but the Hexcore killed her. I can... show you what happened if you really wanted to see it, but it is not a nice memory.
It's why I'd like for you to really consider your self-inflicted obligation to helping me. I don't know what the journey for contact would be like, or if it's even possible on myself.
... another day. If only to fully understand. [ he thinks it might be important to know exactly how this happened, what viktor's manifestation of guilt really comes from. he would say "show me now", but he doesn't know if viktor would fully agree.
and he's rather continue digging into the problem on his own for now. ]
... she'd find another way to bring me back, just like always. [ but he knows viktor has a point, and it's for that reason he says this. ]
The first time I died, it was a choice I made. To stop someone else, I had to die, and then erase myself to make sure he was taken out, too. And the second time... Mist woke me up after 20 years of trying to fix me, but she ran out of time. I knew overclocking to catch up would kill me again, too, but I had to. It was the only way I could properly negotiate with the embodied to make things better for UIs and CIs.
[ ...there's a soft pulse of guilt in his emotions, though it's hard to say if it's his or viktor's that he's reflecting instead. ]
I don't want to leave Maddie again. But I don't want to let this go if there's something I can do about this, too. So maybe there's another way.
[ don't call them het jayvik even if i can't even argue that entirely. but okay. they really are just in the middle of the woods in this weird trance, but that's fine. once they're inside the void kiraman allows himself to float a little and look around a bit before focusing his gaze on viktor. ]
What is "it", you think? [ a blip of curiosity, like, immediately. ]
If it doesn't, we would just reach an empty space, right? Unlike when you were searching Vander and found him buried way in the core. [ he will start to move a little as if testing his range of motion. ] Anyway, we another person here maybe it'll keep... you open long enough.
[He can speculate, but none of the speculation will amount to the fact he doesn't know shit.
He sighs quietly out and toward the vastness. The mood is he's trying to prepare himself? The nervousness is less fear and more uncertainty.
Then he looks at Kiraman before closing his eyes. His brows pinch together; he concentrates inward this time instead of stretching his reach out into someone else.]
[ with not we, god. he drifts a little closer, the unease filtering into his own emotions and he's immediately fighting back to remain focused. viktor can navigate and kiraman will help untangle. he doesn't entirely know how to help, but he does set a hand on viktor's shoulder as if to ground him while he concentrates in this void. ]
[The uncertain anxiety becomes a less flimsy and more sturdy resolution under the reassuring hand.
His face pinches as he digs. What if he can't find it? Whatever the Hexcore had become inside him. What if it became too much of him and less of itself.
The space around them shifts ever so slightly. Webs of organic matter, translucent at first, stretch across the horizon, across the air by them. The energy feels industrial, cool, like steel, but old. Electrified at the edges.]
It's... more dormant here. Quieter.
[The webbing grows more opaque, thicker. It pulses with energy similar to Viktor's body, and the motion makes it seem as if it's moving. Maybe it is?
His eyes open when they settle in the thick of it, and he glances around.]
[ unlike viktor, kiraman does not close his eyes. he's attentive, watching closely as his eyes narrow and home in on these webs. it feels a little like resistance until they begin to grow more clear, more aligned with viktor, and more obvious. he doesn't move his hand away yet but he's monitoring the space as it shifts. ]
Wonder if that's because it's just for you and not the collective. A space meant to be hollow to connect with the rest. But it's here. That's a start. [ and it doesn't appear to be on the verge of collapse. ] So... we start working toward the middle then. Right?
[The connection is there in the way his bones hum. His hand lifts; he idly rubs at his sternum. Probably the tickle within it. Vander had been such a struggle. He's not sure if it will be the same, or different. How long will they have to return to do this until there is a breakthrough?]
It will be like a maze. We'll need to find our way through different parts. The Hexcore will try to hide.
So sentient in the sense that it knows we're coming for it. [ give him a second, he's trying to work with his own abilities as a UI to bring up anything to help them remember their path. a glowing light to lay out or anything. ]
Well come back to this point when we need to leave. It might take time to check the different directions. Should I be following your lead? Maybe it won't hide from me as fast.
[He gives Kiraman time to fiddle and watches, curiosity curling out of him. When you become increasingly interested in new forms of science because you are a nerd.]
I'm assuming you are what it's hiding from. The abnormality. [He looks off through the webbing, reaching out to brush some.] It can't run, at least. It will be here, somewhere. It may just take time to find it.
[ tmw I'm not sure if him being digital slightly trumps what he can normally do while in the arcane but it's fine it's rp science. we have a path of light. ]
I have time. [ he will duck through some of the webbing to walk ahead, peering through for a good path and leaving the light behind to mark their way. ]
...how long did it take you to find Vander, exactly?
[We say so in RP land. Caspian can do whatever he wants.
DON'T LEAVE HIM. Viktor moves to follow, ducking under and through webbing, nudging some out of the way as he passes.]
A little less than a week... His mind was hidden far back inside of the instincts of an animal. He was resistant. We would both grow tired, so I had to leave and come again for several days.
[ he does try to touch some of the webbing though to satisfy his own curiosity. but yeah, yeah, he won't go too far ahead. ]
But if you left, how did you resume from where you left off? Or did you have to start from the beginning each time and just keep pressing forward? [ he saw the memory but he likes clarifiers anyway. ]
[Thinks about how the living are having a great, messy time; meanwhile, this thread is about the desperation of trying to fix Viktor's soup brain.]
Each time was different. A different maze. Sky and I would push through until we arrived at something pivotal.
[The webs are, indeed, organic. Fleshy, rubbery. Not terribly disgusting - they lack any stickiness, any residue. Touching them produces a low song in the back of Kiraman's mind which puts life in them.]
No wonder it always took so long every day. [ he lets a hand rest on a piece of the web, focusing on the feeling and the sound in the back of his head. a finger gently presses to see if there's any impact on viktor himself. ]
But if this is the inside of your head, and a person's always thinking and feeling, of course the route would change.
[The webbing thrums, and then it attempts to pull away when the hand lingers too long. Viktor's brows furrow, and the emotion of being uncomfortable passes in a wave. Tendrils of webs stretch across the space between them from ones nearby, blocking them from each other.
Viktor reaches out and gently pulls one side away, coaxing it back.]
Let's keep going. [Before they get walled off.] We need to get out of this.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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The doctor was a former... mentor of mine for a short while when I was a boy. I left his tutelage because his methods were typically not very ethical. As you can see.
But... I went back to him when I was struggling with the Hexcore. I knew he would understand... the lengths I would go to live.
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But you were desperate. And you thought at the time the only person it could hurt was yourself. Right?
no subject
I was only testing the Hexcore's abilities on myself, yes. I transmuted my leg using an altered drug created by the doctor as a catalyst. Shimmer. It worked. I could walk unassisted. I didn't need a brace or my cane anymore. So then I tried again.
[Beneath the neutrality, his emotions shift. His brows furrow and his eyes stray, like the times he supposedly heard a voice.]
Sky... I don't know why she was still in the lab, but she came in on my attempt, and she tried to help me. The Hexcore... turned her to ash in front of me because her body was too brittle to withstand its power.
[An emotion finally bleeds through the placidity struggling to contain it: guilt.]
no subject
No offense, Viktor, but even calling it Shimmer makes it sound like a backalley drug. [ like. he's just saying. but... ] Seeing it worked was enough to fill you with the confidence you needed to keep going. You got to experience a life without pain for a brief moment.
[ his own emotions reflect a kind of understanding as he keeps his eyes on viktor. ]
... what happened to her wasn't exactly your fault. It was a secondary action that you didn't plan for. Not like you knew she'd come back, or that it would hurt her so much. You just said before you were only testing on yourself. [ ... ] How... did she try to help?
no subject
Like you would expect of a young woman who did not know what to think of a man she admired touching some strange, dark object which was beginning to transmute his body. [He glances away.] She clung to me and tried to pull me away, but the Hexcore killed her. I can... show you what happened if you really wanted to see it, but it is not a nice memory.
It's why I'd like for you to really consider your self-inflicted obligation to helping me. I don't know what the journey for contact would be like, or if it's even possible on myself.
no subject
and he's rather continue digging into the problem on his own for now. ]
Are you worried about killing me?
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You do have someone you love waiting for you on the other side. The fact we're already dead and in Heaven notwithstanding.
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The first time I died, it was a choice I made. To stop someone else, I had to die, and then erase myself to make sure he was taken out, too. And the second time... Mist woke me up after 20 years of trying to fix me, but she ran out of time. I knew overclocking to catch up would kill me again, too, but I had to. It was the only way I could properly negotiate with the embodied to make things better for UIs and CIs.
[ ...there's a soft pulse of guilt in his emotions, though it's hard to say if it's his or viktor's that he's reflecting instead. ]
I don't want to leave Maddie again. But I don't want to let this go if there's something I can do about this, too. So maybe there's another way.
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Then, resolutely:] Come.
[He reaches up with his other hand and puts the fingertips to Kiraman's forehead to pull them into the chasmic void of the arcane collective again.
I guess they just stand around in a trance in front of God and everyone (literal) while this happens, it's fine.
Viktor in all his glowy glory is here again! There are normal, undisturbed emotions wafting around out here.]
First, we have to find it.
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What is "it", you think? [ a blip of curiosity, like, immediately. ]
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[He also glances around.]
I have never tried this on myself. I'm not sure if it will work.
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[He can speculate, but none of the speculation will amount to the fact he doesn't know shit.
He sighs quietly out and toward the vastness. The mood is he's trying to prepare himself? The nervousness is less fear and more uncertainty.
Then he looks at Kiraman before closing his eyes. His brows pinch together; he concentrates inward this time instead of stretching his reach out into someone else.]
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His face pinches as he digs. What if he can't find it? Whatever the Hexcore had become inside him. What if it became too much of him and less of itself.
The space around them shifts ever so slightly. Webs of organic matter, translucent at first, stretch across the horizon, across the air by them. The energy feels industrial, cool, like steel, but old. Electrified at the edges.]
It's... more dormant here. Quieter.
[The webbing grows more opaque, thicker. It pulses with energy similar to Viktor's body, and the motion makes it seem as if it's moving. Maybe it is?
His eyes open when they settle in the thick of it, and he glances around.]
no subject
Wonder if that's because it's just for you and not the collective. A space meant to be hollow to connect with the rest. But it's here. That's a start. [ and it doesn't appear to be on the verge of collapse. ] So... we start working toward the middle then. Right?
no subject
[The connection is there in the way his bones hum. His hand lifts; he idly rubs at his sternum. Probably the tickle within it. Vander had been such a struggle. He's not sure if it will be the same, or different. How long will they have to return to do this until there is a breakthrough?]
It will be like a maze. We'll need to find our way through different parts. The Hexcore will try to hide.
no subject
Well come back to this point when we need to leave. It might take time to check the different directions. Should I be following your lead? Maybe it won't hide from me as fast.
no subject
I'm assuming you are what it's hiding from. The abnormality. [He looks off through the webbing, reaching out to brush some.] It can't run, at least. It will be here, somewhere. It may just take time to find it.
no subject
I have time. [ he will duck through some of the webbing to walk ahead, peering through for a good path and leaving the light behind to mark their way. ]
...how long did it take you to find Vander, exactly?
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DON'T LEAVE HIM. Viktor moves to follow, ducking under and through webbing, nudging some out of the way as he passes.]
A little less than a week... His mind was hidden far back inside of the instincts of an animal. He was resistant. We would both grow tired, so I had to leave and come again for several days.
no subject
But if you left, how did you resume from where you left off? Or did you have to start from the beginning each time and just keep pressing forward? [ he saw the memory but he likes clarifiers anyway. ]
no subject
Each time was different. A different maze. Sky and I would push through until we arrived at something pivotal.
[The webs are, indeed, organic. Fleshy, rubbery. Not terribly disgusting - they lack any stickiness, any residue. Touching them produces a low song in the back of Kiraman's mind which puts life in them.]
no subject
No wonder it always took so long every day. [ he lets a hand rest on a piece of the web, focusing on the feeling and the sound in the back of his head. a finger gently presses to see if there's any impact on viktor himself. ]
But if this is the inside of your head, and a person's always thinking and feeling, of course the route would change.
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Viktor reaches out and gently pulls one side away, coaxing it back.]
Let's keep going. [Before they get walled off.] We need to get out of this.
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