#!action

The sickness this past week and some got to you more than you’ll probably ever admit to anyone.

You haven’t just been feeling like shit. This whole ordeal occurred by your own doing, your determination to work until you drop because anything, anything is better than sopor or waking every hour from a new daymare. Exhaustion kept them from disturbing you as much, but it also meant you weakened yourself.

You never would have risked that possibility before. When did you get so stupid?

“Krrrrr?”

Kat seems to sense that you’re angry at yourself. Again. Still. The furret gets up in your face and demands pets, distracting you. Fex still sleeps on the couch, but her ear twitches.

“I’ve got to get out of here.”

It’s the first you’ve said it out loud. It feels… shameful. Desperate? You don’t know, it’s late and you haven’t slept and thinking is hard. You hug yourself, dragging a third hand down your face while the last still pets down Kat’s flank.

“I was never supposed to stay so long. I was supposed to look for somewhere else to go. We don’t belong here, you know? We’re too…”

You don’t finish the thought.

At least, not out loud.

                                                                         alphamxther

> All of the final, necessary adjustments had been made. The shield you'd cast was holding up perfectly despite the rain pouring in from the large missing chunks of glass and metal that once domed the Botanical Gardens your date was set inside. 

The gardens themselves had been ravaged by years of disuse and the plants had grown quite large, though that may just be remnants of the previous upset that had happened here some years prior. The place was abandoned, which was all you needed; abandoned and donned with larger-than-life flowers and flora that only the twisted green thumb of a certain Gotham villain could conjure. Hopefully, you thought, it would be a fine enough setting for a first impression.

The area you'd set up in had once been an observation floor but much of the area was covered in dense overgrowth, blocking off hallways and exits for the most part. The stillness and serenity of the entire building was something you weren't used to. The minimal empathic back-chatter you got from the lower lifeforms flying and skittering about were nothing compared to the onslaught of human spikes of empathy you were used to sifting through. It was a nice change. It let you relax some as you prepared for what was, essentially, your first 'date'. Not that you hadn't had any prior, they'd just never been so formally called such. Nothing acknowledged as being something purely in the vein of 'romantic'.

Your nervous hands straightened out your plate for the fifth or sixth time in the past several minutes. The table was much nicer than the surrounding bits of dilapidated and weather-worn furniture that was half-consumed by the surrounding plant life. You'd brought it from Azarath, not having a spare table in your own home. It was a thick, naturally ebony wood inscribed with intricate overlapping patterns. You'd laid a dark-red tablecloth over the top and had set up both of your dining arrangements on either side, with the bottle of red wine and the pasta resting in the center along with an arrangement of candles you'd tried very hard to get to levitate on their own. 

Not being able to use your own empathic umbrakinesis to assist was frustrating, but the runes suspending the wax in the air were a fine enough substitute.

Raising from the table, your digits find themselves raking through the tightness of your pulled-back hair, trailing back to the knot of your ponytail and fidgeting the elastic tighter against your scalp. The sharpness of your teeth bit at the inside of your lower lip, hands moving from hair to dress and smoothing out the jet-black material against your stomach. It was a simple cut, squared off with exposed shoulders, just something you'd had in your wardrobe. It was fancier than your undersuit, at least; though you still featured the focusing gemstones. Those weren't aesthetic, they were necessary. Now, more than ever. Especially with your nerves eating you up inside.

After some silence and the strange happenings of your computer getting hijacked and released within a few seconds, knowingoverseer replied. The computer dinged and you were quick to hammer on the auto-read command. Then there wasn't much more to do than sit there and listen to it get read out to you. So far, the conversation was pleasant. It was kind of surprising, actually. You'd fought this person and caused trouble, and here they were talking to you like it wasn't a thing at all.

Then you heard it. The computer read it out strangely at first, but it clicked and sent cold water pouring down your back. A flush of color painted your fins and you just kind of sat there, idly, attention forward at the hunk of computer in front of you. Calliope. The name brought back every last whisper of your blind rage. You could practically feel the slices to your skin, the ache in your chest, and the panic boiling through your veins. It knocked the wind out of you, making you double-forward and clasp your hands into your forehead to stop the world from spinning. Lranip. You could see the plume of white hair, the orange-gradient prongs. You could see it and it absolutely terrified you.

You try to compose yourself, try to figure out something to say. The audio program was pending and you didn't know how to respond. You could feel your pumper in your throat.