[color=82ca9d]"We've met,"[/color] Tristan said to Keahi as the group slowed and stopped. He was absent-minded, but he wasn't sure his synthesized almost-voice carried that over, or tinges of emotion, an uncertainty that earlier had created a wash of despair, its edges trailing down into the fear his modified psyche now swallowed up into its endless roil. A hateful fisherman casting lines into the darkness. For the moment, he was only absent-minded. One eye swirled along its clockwork track to find Keahi. [color=82ca9d]"Officer. I was in...bad shape. You were kind. I'm afraid I didn't live up to that kindness."[/color]

He paused for a moment. Three eyes roved; one stayed with Keahi. The other had never left his one-time maybe-someday friend.

[color=82ca9d]"I think most of us have met. Except...him,"[/color] said Tristan. No need to specify. [color=82ca9d]"The...ghost girl, she brought us all here. Selected us all. Empowered us all. You the lawkeeper,
 yeah, but also me the petty criminal. With weapons. To be blades."[/color]

Tristan gestured towards his haul. Before they'd left the clearing his curious dais had spread out into new flowers, a geometric pattern, but its ambitions had been curtailed there - the whole thing had collapsed by now, he sensed, a serious of small, calculated explosions transforming the garden, just as it had been a transformation to begin with. Chaos into order. Order, into chaos. Those new flowers had provided, anyway. A second weapon, identical to the first, and a pair of what looked very much like fruits, whole and inviting, with soft silvery-green skin.

[color=82ca9d]"These aren't innocent wishes we've been granted, Officer Keahi."[/color]

Tristan hesitated, previously-devoted eye flowing away from the officer now, towards their prisoner. [color=82ca9d][i]Might as well.[/i][/color] He moved to where the other had been left in the grass, reaching down to do what he could about the gag. As soon as he stepped back, the ranting started. [color=82ca9d][i]Of course.

But...[/i][/color]

The machine-thing stood quietly, weathering Oedipus' speech, unreadable except within the ugly murk of his mind. His thoughts were not pleasantly-flavored. He watched Oedipus for a while, then turned away. [i][color=82ca9d]Corrupted[/color][/i] was too close to the theme of his thoughts to dare a response. An acknowledgement would make it real.

So he moved again, offering Koda and Stormy fruit as he passed, along with the short version of the effects and side-effects. Safe without any strong prior addictions. Dangerous with. Tristan tried not to feel like a monster as he explained it. There'd been farming back home, at the ranch. [color=82ca9d][i]But this isn't the same.[/i][/color]

He tried not to think about what it WAS like as he made his way to Tabitha at last.

[color=82ca9d][i]Hi, hello, how's it going, what's up, are you tired, Tabitha, help me...[/i][/color] Variables. He crystallized. [color=82ca9d]"Hey."[/color]

Tristan resisted the urge to shuffle, suspecting it would look ridiculous on his anodized frame, conscious again of himself. [color=82ca9d][i]The monster.[/i][/color] Oedipus' words rang in his mind, a supporting counterpoint, creating the inviolate architecture of a prison wall. He didn't like thinking about it around her. They'd all touched lives somehow, some kind of twisted daisy-chain being threaded by a dead imposter, but Tabitha was different. The kid and his sister, Stormy and their pioneer, the cop and the killer...significant pairings. Was he significant? To her? To anyone? The day was beautiful, but it wasn't their world. Everywhere he looked, the tinge of unreality seemed to wait to swallow the scene. Things boiled up in him, geysers from that terrified ocean, questions...

[color=82ca9d][i]Are you okay?

Are our friends okay?

Will I be like this forever?

Is there a way back home?

Can you stop Her?

Am I...[/i][/color]

He'd been staring too long. Five golden points formed a star that centered the girl he'd admired, once, the girl so careful with her faith. So careless of her fate. He wasn't sure how much the group knew about where he'd come from. Lane knew some of it; had he followed up? It wasn't a hard dig, however he sold himself these days. There'd been a couple back-page articles, when they arrived - the first door-to-door missionaries in Lightbridge, with a few unkind jokes in tow - and one for the front when Wolfgang had bought it. It should have felt distant now, but it never did, the life he'd left throbbed in his brain, sparked and twitched like a cut power line. Everything else had been mist, except the gang. [color=82ca9d][i]I was starting to...

No. Focus.[/i][/color]

What did people want around monsters? The answer was so obvious, so simple, even if he hadn't been attuned to it - and he was. Whatever his Semblance had been, it had cared an awful lot about the concept. [i][color=82ca9d]Safe.[/color][/i]

Tristan took the second gun, reversed his grip, unconscious of the way his arm fractured and reconstituted to do so, avoiding the vulnerability of letting the weapon enter empty air with a fluid maneuver of tendrils and carbon grips. [color=82ca9d]"I wanted to give you this. In case..."[/color] He trailed off, suddenly acutely aware there were no safe [i][color=82ca9d]in case[/color][/i] scenarios. He had no lip to bite.

[color=82ca9d]"And to talk, if you want."[/color] The if was easy, through the speakers. It didn't stick and choke the way words used to do. [color=82ca9d]"Everything's so...much. I'm overwhelmed. We're all moving in the same direction, but..."[/color]

He gestured helplessly. Helplessness was an emotion this new body seemed encoded to understand.

[color=82ca9d]"I look different. I know. It's isolating. You saw - everyone saw. There are currents forming in the group, and...we know so little about each other. I'm afraid-"[/color] [i][color=82ca9d]of me of you of what you say and don't of Her of him of the future the past this moment this feeling of power of weakness of corruption of faith of fate of everything[/color][/i] [color=82ca9d]"-of falling out of step. 

I don't want to get left behind."[/color]