(no subject)

[skitter]

((All of Taylor's posts this month will be cw: bugs and emetophobia))

The small white room was bad. And Taylor knew she should have kept her head and kept calm, made herself sound reasonable. But almost all the swarm was gone, and so was the link to the twins, and she was disgustingly alone in her own head and the room was so small. And then the Authority had refused to tell her how to reunite with Dad, with Hunter, with Shen ge or anyone at all, and she had said things. Screamed things.

At least the door to her room here is open, can't be closed. But the swarm situation is... worse. The bugs aren't all gone, she can feel some around her, little grounding points of orientation and senses. But there aren't enough, and and the ones she can feel, she can't control. Like limbs half-asleep, wandering around in and out of her painfully contracted range on their own.

Like her first day on the Barge, but so much worse.

She doesn't give herself any time to acclimatize. She has to find people. She staggers out of her room, never quite able to trust where she thinks the floor is or how far away the wall is, but that's not going to stop her.

Week 1

She's a frequent visitor to the Sick Ward at first, for various reasons. The over-the-counter-strength anti-emetics they give her help a little. The stairs up to her Floor 4 cabin don't, though at least the padding means she hasn't broken anything.

Then Norton's request comes through in a sizable explosion of butterflies, and life gets a lot easier for Taylor. She traps a few dozen before they can disperse through the ship, carrying them with her, and plans her day around staying within range of the large majority. During the morning, that's upper decks, sitting in the glassed-in walkways outside the cabins. Later in the day, she can move to the main common room. She sleeps there, sometimes, so long as there's someone familiar present.

((Further weeks to be added))

Comments

[wildguardian]

"Hey, Taylor," Yunlan says, a few days in, settling down next to her among the swarm of butterflies on the glassed-in walkway on the upper deck. "How's it going?" She's looking a little better than she had when she'd first arrived, at least.

[skitter]

She tilts a little, to let her shoulder press against his.

"This place is exhausting. How about you?"

[mindshermanners]

"Skitter," says Bonesaw, mouth dropping open in surprise as she rounds the corner and comes face to face with Taylor. "The Nurse said we'd have some new people coming, but I never thought--"

Her face falls suddenly, the pout almost comically childish.

"But I'm an assistant now, so I can't even make art with you."

What a waste.

[wildguardian]

"I've had better weeks." Shen Wei's absence is eating at him. His absence, and the fact that they can't know that he's okay somewhere...

"You don't happen to still be able to feel the Shens, do you?" he asks, staring up at the glass unseeingly.

[skitter]

The voice registers before the face does, and Taylor's frozen in place suddenly, her ears seeming to ring with shock as she stares at the younger girl. Taylor's older than when she last saw her, taller, but she takes a hesitant step backwards all the same.

Fork.

"No." She barely breathes the word, a rasp of sound.

[skitter]

She shakes her head glumly. "I'm sorry. There's nothing. The link's... gone." Like it never was at all.

[mindshermanners]

"You don't have to look at me like that," she says, the pout deepening. "We can be friends here."

She takes a step forward, slightly bigger than Taylor's step back.

"That's what the Clipper's for."

[wildguardian]

"Right." He's silent for a long moment. "They couldn't just get picked by the same damn ship, could they?"

week 1

[lonelinessloop]

It takes Haruka a couple of days to both find her and approach her. She isn't scouting her out or unwilling to talk to her, it's just that she's busy and she wants to give the other girl her full attention.

But eventually, she'll come to find her on one of the glassed-in walkways.

"You are Taylor-san?"

[neverwaitslong]

Ulla knows that if Warren were on board, he'd have sniffed her out by now. So she isn't holding out hope of him turning up. And there's no one else from the Barge she wants to see as desperately.

But Taylor is still reassuringly familiar, and when Ulla finds her sleeping in a common room, she settles in nearby to keep watch. Just because this place is trying too hard to seem safe doesn't mean it is.

[skitter]

"I just hope they're together." Her voice is quiet. "I just- if they really want us to be happy here, why can't they just give us any information?"

[wildguardian]

"Oh, I don't think they want us to be happy," Yunlan says, bitterness laid open and raw in his mouth. "I think they want us to play nice."

He pauses, and rubs a hand across his face. "Sorry. Anyway, yeah. I hope they're together too."

[qingofcats]

"Hey!" The indignant voice comes from down by her feet, right after said feet collided with something solid but with a lot of give. "Watch where you're going with your big, clumsy human feet!"

[skitter]

"Well, I'm not playing nice in the dark either," she mumbles, agreeing.

[skitter]

Her eyes dart over Bonesaw, looking for weapons, but the girl could be hiding them anywhere.

"Get back." It's a bark, harsh and over-loud.

[skitter]

Taylor's sitting on the floor, her back against the glass and a handful of butterflies in a (plastic!) jar held in her lap, but she looks up from it when she's addressed.

And blinks at the familiar face.

"I am. And... You're Haruka."

[wastedluck]

Because that's just typical for his luck - or maybe it's because he's a Toon, or Disney, or some other can of stupid beans - the butterflies like Oswald. And it's not uncommon for them to settle on his ears when he's trying to do literally anything else. It's atrociously cute, not that he appreciates it.

But it does mean that he notices when there's a girl carrying around a jar of them in her arms like a lifeline, so he bounces along and catches up with Taylor when she's on her way to the main room, walking in step with her but watching the bugs swarm over their heads.

"An' here I thought I was representin' ol' Walt," he comments dryly.

[skitter]

It's not dark here, or especially quiet, so it's not long before Taylor stirs, face tightening into a scowl before her eyes open. But she relaxes a little when she sees Ulla, and shifts in her large chair to face her, still mostly curled up.

"Hi."

[skitter]

Taylor stumbles back, catching herself with a hand on the wall, startled both by the near-trip and by the talking cat. At least she's only in her socks.

"... Sorry. I'm used to more eyes."

[qingofcats]

Da Qing sits back on his haunches with a harumph, and then makes a show of grooming himself, smoothing his ruffled fur back into place. "More eyes? You only have two like you're supposed to, how can you be used to more?"

[skitter]

Taylor looks down and pauses, and has to wonder for a moment if she's hallucinating. Because he's in 2D.

That explains a few weird glimpses she'd caught through the butterflies.

"More like Marvel than Disney," she says after a moment, having had to take a second to parse... well, all of him.

[skitter]

She points up to the butterflies. If he's not going to explain being a talking cat, she's not going to explain them.

[qingofcats]

Why on earth would he explain being a talking cat? Of course he's a talking cat! He's the ten thousand year old talking King of Cats. And besides, she didn't ask.

He looks up at the butterflies... and his eyes instantly dilate as his tail begins to twitch. "What do butterflies have to do with eyes?" he demands as he crouches with a little butt wriggle.

[skitter]

Oh, no. She puts a hand above him, in the way of any hypothetical leaps. "Hey, off-limits. I need them all, they're mine."

[qingofcats]

"What do you need them for? They're not even big enough to be a snack," he asks, shimmying a little to the side so he can see past her hand.