Tasha lies on the floor of the main boarding corridor of the Astraea, and it feels like her whole body is just a sensation of numb pins and needles. Her head is pounding, sound and light only add to the problem and tongue tastes ashes in her mouth. "You should thank me for keeping you alive, you know," Kai says, squatting down next to her. "I'm beginning to take it personally, like you do these things just to get me into trouble."
"You like trouble," Tasha wheezes from the floor, her voice dry and raspy, cracking. She tries planting a hand to the deck, just as she had in the no-space that was Galatea's memories, and like that motion her arm merely shakes before she crumbles right back to the ground. "Thanks, Kai." Her eyes flutters.
But there's more than just bodily pain. Body pain she can deal with, she's been so beaten up, bruised, cut and smashed, burnt and broken so many times it's almost become a joke. No, it's the other pain that weighs like lead on her soul, that infernal memory, her collapsing existence, her slow decay in to a raging madness she only barely managed to avoid by swallowing it all down and finding some reason, some splintered off view of the world and her own existence that made going on and remaining herself bearable. But the memory lingers... It burns.
Kai taps Tasha in the middle of her forehead, and says, "In this business you just have take heart in the fact that pain is mandatory, but suffering is optional. Now, which pain do you want to deal with first, and to what extent?"
"Kai," Tasha raps, sliding her arm across the ground to grab her foot. Her grip is weak indeed. "I have... I have an idea."
"Hmmm... do you want a little dragon remote body too then?" Kai asks with a smirk and a raised eyebrow. No species can look more smugly infuriating than Humans.
And Tasha knows this; she had to deal with Mariel's pain, Gabriel's devotion, Nora's resentment, and it's long been the reason why she couldn't get close to Humans. "Kai," Tasha says, more insistently now, despite her clearly deteriorating condition. "I have realized... So much potential... Is lost... In the need... To be punished. In... Guilt." She cracks her eyes open more and tries to look Kai in the eye in turn. "We should make a place... A place where suffering matters... Where we can use it... For something... More..."
"I'm not exactly familiar with guilt," Kai admits. "But what you suggest is pretty much why those dragons are here. And why they fought in Kainudy's crusade; for their pain and sacrifice to give purpose to their long lives. Suffering always matters. It's part of being alive. But are you asking about harnessing suffering?"
"So much is wasted... They all want to suffer, and it does nothing. For anyone. They want someone to punish them, but so many who would, would use them. They don't... Care... Like I do." Tasha sucks in a dry breath, coughs, and slides back to the floor. "Get me up, Kai. We can discuss it more... Later. I can't- I can't." And with that Tasha seems like she's said as much as she can manage, the rest reserved for staying conscious, as mentally stable as she can manage, and, quite possibly, alive.
Kai doesn't touch Tasha, whose nerves may not be up to that, but does levitate into a sitting position.. just not sitting on anything. The feeling of weightlessness helps a bit, at least. "Epiphany often comes from suffering, self-imposed or otherwise. Ask any man who wanders off into the desert and returns a week later, burned and starved and thirsty but with a new religion."
Tasha hovers like the aforementioned holy woman, held in places, but from the looks of her barely alive. The only indication she's not some graven idol or denial-leads-to-transcendence corpse is her shallow breathing and the way her mostly shut, sticky eyes watch Kai's faith.
Tasha doesn't speak; perhaps a clearer sign of her crumbling health than all the rest combined.
"Do you need me to clear you up a bit?" Kai offers. "Although it's bit like drinking alcohol while you have a hangover, which means you'll have a worse hangover afterwards."
Tasha's eyes crack open more, she certainly looks like she's hungover, or worse. "No," she whispers in a dry voice. "I just... Just needed a... A moment."
And so the red woman sucks in breath that shakes her body, her lip curling in pain, ears twitching back.
"I'll live," she concludes, seeing she didn't immediately go in to shock from the exertion. "Kai. Galatea said you'd... Know. What do to. Something about 'the power'. The rest we can work on... On later." A pause, seemingly to gather herself up again. "Galatea will be fine... I think. But I took the Marker... And I ate it. I remember."
"So you want to turn that into something useful?" Kai asks. "That's easy. Tie it to the use of power. You can't abuse it then, or go out of control, because those memories will always anchor you. Because they do represent the hidden costs of using it. Using power probably should hurt, in an ideal world. Imagine how much nicer things would be for everyone. What would Blackwings have been like, if that were the case? Or you as an angry child?"
"I think everyone would be... extremely cranky," Tasha wheezes in a laugh that sends convulsions through her. When she manages to stop the spasming cough that follows, she grins a rictus grin. "Fine. Though... " And here she looks upon, frowning, which is a fitting enough expression given her state. "Isn't that what Kainudy did..? And look what it did for her... "
"It isn't what Kainudy did," Kai says. "She used fear as her anchor. Not fear of pain, but fear of going out of control."
"Look at me," Kai adds. "I'm all the urges she knew would make her abuse her power, after all."
"And here you are helping me... Control mine." Tasha's rictus grin gets even bigger; there's something obnoxious about being grinned at by someone who by all rights should be drooling in the floor, or for that matter, dead. "And fear of losing control made her fear... Fear control at all. Facing it, in time. What would happen. But I am... Not Kainudy."
The red woman sucks in a deep breath, shudders, then makes a effort to shake herself out, which practically makes her vibrate as she grits her teeth.
"Ahhh~" goes Tasha, in some perverse appreciation for how much that must have just hurt.
"Right now she has lost control, so is living her greatest fear," Kai notes. "What happens next is.. unknown. But, if it helps, I can promise to stop you if you go out of control. I imagine it would be a rampage. You seem the rampaging sort.."
"It's happened before, cerrr- Certainly,"Tasha agrees, and her grin gets even wider. Maybe she's grinning because it hurts, and that seems to be egging her on to hurt even more, perhaps out of a sense of defiance? "Well. Maybe we can punisher her too, in time. It should all be used for... Something. All their guilt, all their desire to have their failings rubbed in there face, to be tortured, punished... It should serve a purpose. Better than their... Useless paralysis... The self-doubt. Lost souls... I gather lost souls. Some of them... Want a place to suffer in... In peace. A safety. For a better cause."
"There is a tradition.. well, Kainudy's tradition, no longer followed.. that for two weeks out of the year she would.. not rage, but do whatever she needed to in order to blow off stress. A lot of times it was having a nervous breakdown. Once it was trying to build a castle out of toothpicks. She could never be seen to break in public. Always had to be unflappable, the smartest and most cynical person in the room. Hiding everything, showing only what she wanted people to see. But then she really did break down, and built herself a world founded on guilt, where she could safely suffer in private. I don't think it brought her peace, ultimately, or that her suffering solved anything. Maybe she thought she could just outlast it if she burned through it faster."
"To suffer for a cause though," Kai notes. "Wouldn't that mean somebody was benefiting from it?"
"Yes, it didn't achieve anything. Maybe a guide... Guides are needed. Direction. Signs of progress. So many of the ancients I meet seem looking for forgiveness, for a place to belong, for a way to move past their grief and their failures. For someone to hate them just enough without also hurting them and making their decay worse. They want forgiveness -- and they can never find it." Tasha then nods slowly, even if it hurts, perhaps especially because it hurts. "Not acting brings guilt, but they can't bring themselves to act. Take Galatea. So much potential, so much power, so many cruelties and disasters she could have prevented. Kainudy locked herself away. Eve destroyed herself. Horus withdrew. Gabriel feared to act for fear of failing again. Even me... Even me. The difference between me, and Kainudy, one of them, is that I can accept my monstrosity where she could not. And I know, now, in the far extreme of it all, I might turn on everyone, just to save myself from my own hell. And that is my failing." And so she, with deliberate a arm-shaking precision, taps the side of her head. "I refused to look away from the truth or cast it aside."
Kai grins wide. "Ah, I was originally a way for Kainudy to talk to Humans, back when they were really going strong on building civilizations. But now I'm a monster. And there's nothing wrong with being a monster, if you know what you are and accept it. It means no guilt. No fear. Liberation from all things that normally keep you in check, like society or family or morality. Those are all just made up things. Monsters deal with real things."
"Yes, though we mustn't let our understanding of the real cause us to forget the most important immaterial -- our dreams, our desires, and what is important to us. It can be easy to let go, but hard to take hold again, and even harder to put back together all you dropped in doing so." Tasha draws in another breath; either she's feeling better or she's getting used to all the pain, either way she seems more alive and less a highly conversational zombie. "But as you say. It's opinion. And will. And sometimes force -- sometimes it's absence, too. I can't let this all slip through my fingers, whomever I may be. Whatever I may be."
"Then set aside some time," Kai suggests. "To suffer. Maybe it would be therapeutic, or maybe you'll just end up like this again, but whatever. It doesn't have to be all the time, after all. Your body and mind really can't handle it. So.. decision time. Do you want me to build you a vault, where you can but it into and just take it out when you really need to be reminded? Or at least until we can figure out a safe way for you to endure it. It's also a weapon, if you need it to be."
"A vault sounds nice," Tasha says, nodding slowly. "I've wanted a little place away here. Why not that? Somewhere where I can suffer in peace... The learning, I can do that inside." She tilts her head back and forth; it makes her eyes water. "How about something black, stone, those last forever and can endure anything. And stone doesn't burn."
Kai raises her eyebrows. "Oh, you want a physical place, rather than one inside your mind?" she asks. "I suggest one in your mind. It can be so useful. Especially against telepaths.. or anything else that pokes around in there where it shouldn't. Most people who have to deal with that build mental labyrinths or other defenses. But it can be both! A vault in your head to hold the blackness, and a physical vault you can go to when you want to experience it again."
"Really though, if you ask me, it needs to be much bigger," Kai notes, tapping her chin. "Someplace you and Galatea can fight."
"I did try and... Smash her through the floor. In our heads." Tasha chuckles, but it sounds like she's choking as much as amused any sound of amusement. "How about... About a big pyramid or... " She holds up her hands, putting pointer to pointer and thumb to thumb; a pyramid higher than it is wide. "Bigger on the inside. Ominous. Big stone gate."
"Hmm, now I want to fight her," Kai muses. "Big black stone architecture is very.. eldritch. So appropriate, for containing a monster. Traditional. Where would it be though? Here in Whisper's valley, or somewhere else?"
"How about underneath? Far from where the children... Play." But Tasha grins a little, and her grin is malicious without restraint. "Where we can play. We can put the entrance out back, place wards, using our torment to fuel its defenses. We can't have Whisper finding her way inside. There are limits. I refuse to lose.. anyone. They're mine." And then she blinks, catching herself having gone too far. "I love them." Uncertainty, but then she begins nodding, slowly, as if having worked something out. "I do."
"Ah, love can be possessive, otherwise we wouldn't have jealousy and paranoia!" Kai says, grinning. "Even I can feel jealousy. For a brief moment at least, before I act on it. It's why I won't let any other monster have you, Tasha. You're mine. To protect, and nurture, of course." She then touches Tasha on the nose and says, "Boop!" and some of the red woman's physical aches ease up, so that she doesn't feel so much like a reanimated corpse. Just someone with a body that wishes it were dead.
"Aww, it's nice to know I can nurture sentimentality in even soulless monsters. I really can reach out to anyone, can't I..?" Tasha's grin becomes lopsided; there's a little blood on her lip, from where she seems to have bitten it, perhaps during her earlier struggle. After the boop, which causes Tasha to bare her teeth for a moment -- reflexively, it seems -- she blinks, then she laughs more lightly. "I think I understand what it's like to be stabbed with my Yellow swords, now. What an awful feeling!" More laughter. "I felt better when I was in pieces!" And tears are streaking down her face. She sucks in another deep breath, convulses, and then tries to put a hoof to the ground.
"I think Galatea must feel the same way... That is, a kind of love. Even after seeing me for what I was, and she had for so long... She still wanted my love," Tasha says as she tries to stand.
Kai eases Tasha down to the floor, but still 'supports' her so she isn't putting all of her weight on her feet. "Now.. should you be all cleaned up before letting anyone see you?" she asks.
"Let them see me... They'll see it eventually. All of it, eventually..." Tasha takes a step, but pauses. She then backsteps, one, the other, and again until she's beside the chamber that holds Galatea. "You're my faaaavorite doll. Come play with me soon... I miss you." A pause, then. "Get well, soon." She kisses her hand, then smears her blood on the tank, a reminder someone cares, and then she's plodding down the hall of the ship.
"I'll need the Marker back for building the black pyramid," Kai notes. "Since that's basically what it will be."
"I want to keep my memories," Tasha insists as she moves forward in one perpetual forward collapse. "Make sure no one can enter it easily. We can't have... Uninvited playmates."
"Oh you can keep the memories, but not the pain, if that makes sense, which it probably doesn't," Kai says. "I need to borrow that pain."
"The pain is killing you, afterall," the woman notes, and pokes Tasha in the stomach, which hurts.
Kai is treated to Tasha vomiting the last bit of her lunch; she even aims at the hand, grinning. "Prove it," she wheezes with a wide, almost manic smile.
Shaking vomit off of her hand, Kai asks, "Just look at you. Isn't that proof enough? There's a reason Kainudy was trying suck it all out of you in the first place."
"Hahaha... I know. I've been near death and at death enough to know. It just... irritates me, to back down." Tasha reaches the exit ramp, and it's about here irritation loses to necessity, because she suddenly has to grab the lip of the exit ramp seal and stop, eyes widening, holding her chest, claws digging in. She makes a twirling 'get on with it' gesture towards Kai, even as she stares wide eyed down at the ramp, teeth gritted and bared.
She feels Kai's hand on her back, and then it feels like long sticky tendrils are being pulled out of her. There is resistance, so when they finally let go it's a relief. The constant verge of panic that Tasha has been in is gone.
"Oh good," goes Tasha as she slides down to the deck, legs out, wings pressed outward by the motion. She blinks several times. "I forgot what this felt like." Another blink. "Everything tastes and smells like blood."
"Probably from the blood," Kai suggests. "Is your vision filmy? You were bleeding from your eyes too. And your ears. "And probably between your legs as well. Your blood pressure was really high."
"You know everything does look stickier and redder than I remember," Tasha blinks her left, then right, eye, then blinks more, wipes them with a hand which streaks blood across her face, and finally she can kind-of-sort-of see clearly. "What was I doing before this, Kai? Everything's kind of hazy."
"Taking pictures," Kai reminds. "You did something that made you turn it all over to Gabriel and come here."
"Oh right... Heroism." Tasha coughs a laugh, then spits out some blood outside the ship on to the tarmac. "Blech." She stares at the stain. "Pictures... I should get pictures." And then she fishes out her datapad, points it at herself, and grabs a few.
"Not suitable for poster prints," Kai chides. "Could probably fix you up in one of Galatea's tanks though."
"Feh," goes Tasha, who takes a few more. "No one ever sees me... At my worst. They should see the other side of things, too. It's not aaalll fun and games." And so she giggle-coughs, spits again, and then tries to get up once more. "Alright put me together I can't sit here all day... I'm a busy woman."
"Shouldn't take long, just need to accelerate a few things," Kai promises, and points towards an open tube. "Can you make it that far on your own?"
"Of course, don't mind the blood. I'm marking my... territory. This doll house is mine." Tasha wobbles to her feet, then turns around and starts back the way she came.
It's slow, but Tasha seems determined to be aggravatingly stubborn about it.
"Well, no point in having your take your clothes off," Kai notes. "They'll survive though, I'm sure. Maybe get rid of some of the blood stains. And other stains." She waits for Tasha to get into position, and grins. "I don't think you've gotten into a tube voluntarily before. This will be a first! No digital ghosts or hunky Vartans this time though, sorry. Just.. uh.. not sleep. I'm going to turn you off. So technically you'd be more comatose than anything. Whenever you're ready. You can even count backwards from ten if you want."
"Heeey you're right, this is the first time!" The excitement seems to visible age Tasha for the effort, and she slumps back in against the not-glass. "Okay... Sleep... Three... One- zero!"
At the count of zero.. Kai vanishes! And Tasha feels wet, and not water-wet, a different sort of wet. She feels it in her nose and longs and mouth and ears and her first reflex is to sneeze. But other than that, she feels.. normal.
Tasha quickly recognizes it as 'tube liquid' even if it's probably not the same tube liquid as found on the Fenris -- or the Bellerophon for that matter. Or any other ship she's occupied the infirmary of. It's really not a home until she's been bleeding in the infirmary, ships.
The red woman lifts a hand and knocks on the glass.
The glass spits and opens, and little bit of fluid spills out onto the floor.
Tasha wonders why, for all these devices, fluid always ends up on the floor. Perhaps it's some universal truth or constant. At any rate, it means she steps in it the second she exits -- and then she starts shaking herself off the like quasi-canine she is. "ANNNnyYYyoNe HOOmMmME?"
At the question, Galatea's little dragon bounds down the corridor. It's got Tasha's tablet in its mouth, with a blinking message indicator on it.
"Heeeeey thanks Goldie," Tasha says, sitting down the receive the dragon. Maybe she should have asked for a tiny dragon remote? Well, there's always later. She tries to take the datapad, and also wonders how the dragon even got her face on it. Wasn't it in her tube?
The little dragon also got into secure areas of Dark Horse, just like Galatea would by walking through the walls. The tablet doesn't look wet, though, and Tasha presumably stills has her underwear on.
Tasha considers this all one of the mysteries of the universe, tries to scoop up the dragon and put it in her lap, and then tries to read her datapad. She also checks the time, to see how long she's been out.
Apparently she's been out.. well, when did she first come aboard? How long was she in communion with Galatea? It looks like it's dinner time, so probably a few hours. The message plays as a short video, with Kai saying, "I took a bunch of pictures of the inside of Astraea for you, in case you decide you want an alibi. Also, I didn't just toss out your old body and make you a new one. If that were the case you'd be in a different tube than the one you entered, and wouldn't still be wearing all your clothes. Telling you this may make you worry about it though. Hah! I like my little jokes, don't you? Anyway, I'm off looking at.. caves. For the thing."
Tasha smiles despite herself. Maybe it's the understanding of her own monstrosity and unwillingness to put that part of her aside nor to look away from it, but it feels to her that Kai's become more endearing. "Dinner." That word stands out, however. Dinner. She could use a bite; she could possibly east a whole Bromthen hog and the farmer next to it. "Come on Goldie, lets go eat."
The dragon bounds towards the boarding ramp, and Tasha makes squelching noises when she moves. She'll definitely need a shower too.
Tasha decides to take the long way back, if just to dry off. A few shakes and some clawing should do for her hair until she can get to a real shower and a real comb. She heads off the ship, patting Galatea's tube as she walks past.
Nothing pats back yet. The dragon, 'Goldie', waits at the bottom of the boarding ramp, sticking it's tongue out.
Tasha sticks her tongue out back and, finally having some energy, hunches down and declares, "I'm going to get you!" and then starts chasing after the little dragon, so they can both get some exercise and she can dry off.
The dragon runs off with surprising speed, it's wings flapping around randomly. It heads toward the still never-flown dropship, which is the only other spaceship on the tarmac.
Tasha chases after, enjoying a bit of fun after facing the hammer of unmitigated truth and personal failings. She has to slow as she nears the ship because, unlike the little dragon, she cannot pass through solid objects, at least not without destroying the walls of said objects, and the dropship is still stronger than her body.
Goldie jumps into one of the engine intakes.
Tasha approaches in the intake slowly. Intakes make her nervous. Nora gave her a very long, very graphic description of the dangers of intakes, and she's never forgotten it. Back then they seemed like building-sized monsters that devoured everything and turned it all in to fire.
It strikes Tasha she's become the very monster she once feared.
"You're making me face ironic truths Goldie, that's cheating," Tasha complains and she reeeeaches out.
The dragon bursts out, scrabbling along Tasha's arm and bouncing off of her head onto the stubby wing of the ship.
Tasha is beginning to think maybe this was a bad idea, but she won't lose just yet. She begins chasing after the dragon down the wing, arms out, hand open.
The dragon makes it to the back of the wing and disappears over the edge.
Tasha has to duck under the bow of the ship to even get to the other side. She doesn't trust her body with climbing antics right now, she could very easily end up back in the tube, however great she feels right now. "Now where did you go..."
The wings have weapon hardpoints underneath, including missile racks. Loaded missile racks. And one of them has a little dragon hanging from one of those missiles.
Tasha decides maybe she shouldn't tackle a missile, which feels like -- and is -- an innuendo she'd appreciate if she hadn't just been through what she'd been through. Instead she tries sneaking up, because maybe moving slowly will succeed where speed and noise have not.
The dragon is distracted by the missile, looking at its reflection in the sensor lens at the tip.
Tasha reeeaches out, drawing on her inner predator, and than closes her hands around the dragon, careful to keep both herself and her hands out of the reflection.
There's a squeak of complaint, and squirming, but the dragon cannot escape the grip of doom.
"Bwahahaha," goes Tasha, having conqueror yet another dragon. "Seize the Goldie!" Concerned she migth be scaring the little creature, she does ignite her draconic aura a little, and nuzzles it as she starts walking back across the tarmac towards the galley.
The dragon eventually just sort of curls up in Tasha's arms by the time she reaches the base. The cafeteria-lounge area is surprisingly empty.
Tasha moves the dragon to hold with both hands, frowning as she looks around the empty room. She isn't sure why, but the emptiness disturbs her on some level, and it makes her feel far more lonely than she would have expected. "Looks like it's whatever-I-can-cook. Freezer meals it is."
Everyone must be somewhere. It isn't like people to miss dinner. Especially Karnors. It wouldn't be hard to locate them though, she just needs to use the comm system.
The freezer does have plenty of ready-to-heat meals though.
Tasha decides to locate people after she's heating a pile of Hungry Wolf, Predator, and Missy's Fancy Cake ready made meals. She needs a balanced diet, after all. Kai would lecture her if she didn't eat.
It's then Tasha pokes the intercom. "Hi, where is everyone?" She sends this to Gabriel, trying to mask any lingering pain in her voice, lest Gabriel worry.
"We're at the castle for the dragon photoshoot," Gabriel says. "Where are you?"
"In the kitchen holding Goldie. I went to visit Galatea and it took a lot longer than I expected." The sound of the heating unit beeping it's done can be heard in the background. "I'll come over while I eat. Oh: I think Galatea's going to be fine. Uh. Probably. We spoke for a while."
"No problems with her recovery then?" Gabriel asks.
"Too soon to say, but she's coherent and communicative on some level. I mostly spoke to her memories, however. It seems that fire was involved in one of the worst moments in her life, so her near-death at same disturbed her greatly." Tasha momentarily has to figure out how to jungle a small dragon and her food, ending up placing the dragon on her shoulder, her food in her hands, and one in her mouth. Gabriel can see all of this. As she begins to head out, she asks, "Hyeh Grabe?"
"Yeah?" Gabriel asks. "Do you have to talk with your mouth full?"
"Nroh Whry?" Tasha, without using her hands, tilts her muzzle back and promptly devours the meal in a series of staggered bites. "Dragons and food are hard to hold, is all." She glances at the camera, pauses, frowns, looks away, then looks back again -- and her ears cant back. Unusual. "Was there ever a time you'd have done something terrible, to get out of a overwhelmingly horrible situation? The dream? How far would you have gone.."
"I'm military, Tasha," Gabriel says. "I was trained to whatever was necessary to save.. Humans. I've never had to put any of that to the test though. The most terrible thing I've done is leave my family."
"To help them, if I remember right." Tasha rubs her face, flicking crumbs across the yard as she exits the galley. She's quiet for a long time but leaves the connection open, not looking at the camera, staring ahead as she walks until suddenly she says, "I'm a monster," right out of the blue.
"I think technically you're a chimera," Gabriel replies. "A monster in bed, certainly, but that's not a bad thing. Did Galatea call you one?"
"Yes- Well, no, she called me a demon." Tasha tries to look at the camera, fails, so instead starts petting the dragon as she walks along in the evening light. "When I spoke to Galatea, I... I retrieved my Marker. I saw what drove me mad. What destroyed my hope, why I couldn't function. Kai took it back, we need it for something, but I remember." Another long stretch of silence as Tasha seems to gather herself. "I remember I'd have done anything to get out of that hell."
"Anything, Gabriel." Tasha rubs her nose, looks down, then starts fishing around to see if she still has any cigarettes left. "I always thought there were things I'd never betray, never give up on, never turn against, never... Never hurt. But there aren't. Maybe there never was."
Like everything else, they got a bit soggy, but are still mostly intact. "Torture is not a valid way to get the truth, because people will say or admit to anything just to make it stop," Gabriel says. "Pretty sure that applies to all sapient beings. Except maybe Kai. I'm not sure she can even feel pain. And it doesn't have to be physical pain, either. Hold a child hostage, and a parent will do anything, including murder, to get it back."
Tasha nods slowly. "That's... That makes senses." She sounds like she believes it, at least partially. "Here I am trying to guide everyone and all I could see was how I'd fail them in the end. How weak and fragile we all are. The limits of mortality -- even immortality. I guess it didn't help I was half or all mad from... From what I went through. It's why I don't talk to Sam much, anymore." She holds out the cigarette and concentrates; this time there's no flourish, no presentation, it just ignites because Tasha made it so. "It's a bit like a poison. Kai says it'll kill me if I keep it. So we're going to do something with it."
"This is from your session with Kainudy where you ended up stabbing her, right?" Gabriel says. "Where you basically had to be fixed by a god?"
"The one and same." Tasha takes a deep, deep drag of her cigarette; it's been a while since she's smoked, despite being her own lighter. Many of the others don't like when she does it around them, so she's subconsciously cut back, and unlike Humans, she doesn't feel as much of an addiction -- at least not to the contents. No, what she feels is addiction to the burning, that red, consuming heat. "It ended roughly for all of us. It's why Kainudy is- No, that's not right. She's always been like that. I just shoved it along. Persephone and events did the rest."
"Hopefully it won't all come back to bite us in the ass," Gabriel says, then turns to shout something unintelligible away from the feed. "Katie is framing things, and asking for crazy poses."
Tasha laughs despite herself. "Katie's still Katie. I'm coming, be there in a bit. Hard to fly with a dragon in your arms, and I'm a bit beat up. I'm fine now. Earlier was just... Just rough on me. Kai put me back together. I'm alright." She eyes her cigarette, then her food which is steadily getting cold, and then pops her cigarette -- still lit -- in her mouth before starting to unwrap one of her meals. "At least if I ever lose it, we'll have an answer to that, soon."
Goldie takes advantage of the moment of distraction to snatch Tasha's cigarette out of her mouth.. and eat it, figuring it was some sort of candy.
"I've got to go, she wants me to lift Hakeber over my head for a shot," Gabriel says.
"Have fun -- and thanks for the talk." Tasha gives Gabriel a wink, but can't quite manage to smile, before shutting down the communication.
"That went well," she tells the little dragon before kissing the top of her head. "Maybe there's hope for me yet."