[b]Brown![/b]

"Hmm," said Brown.

Brown wasn't good at replying to things promptly. When someone said something interesting rather than reacting to it she went away and thought about it. She'll think about what Apostle says for about a week before coming up with a conclusion. It was a big thought.

"He thought that we did things [i]because [/i]they were clever," said Brown. "He said that it was because we thought we were smarter than everyone and so we'd do needlessly complex things just to prove our superiority. And we [i]were [/i]doing something needlessly complex so he just kind of ran out the conversation at max suspicion until we fucked up."

She sighed and kicked her heels. "I don't know, I didn't want to argue with him. But that was kind of the whole problem, he wasn't doing what we wanted him to do. He identified and burned every plan we had to trick him into doing it anyway. And we didn't have the guts to just use force, so where did that leave us? It left us on a clown spiral where our bluff was called and we had nothing behind it."

She looked up at the ceiling light. "That kind of comes up a lot? Yellow's extremely easy to discourage. Sometimes that's good if she's on the bad ideas train, but I don't know how she can wield direct political power if she's like that."

[b]Yellow![/b]

there is a trick to disappearing without a fuss. you just do everything efficiently and neutrally, smile at anyone who looks at you, and look like you're going to talk to someone, and then go to talk to the next person, and on and on until you start leaving collective sightlines. 

there's a 'but!' on the tip of her tongue. an explanation, a vision, a whole fuckin' thing - she was going somewhere with this. but, nah. nah if it wasn't working then, it wasn't going to work if she said a bunch more words explaining it. commit to the bit, sure, but if the bit sucked then commitment just dug you deeper. 

this was just an operation. black and orange, efficient organization of people in dangerous circumstances. there was no need to bring herself into it.

[b]Red![/b]

"Alright," she said, standing up. "I need to get to the operations centre. White and Cyan will be by soon to lift and load. Drink some water, eat these sandwiches[1] and rest for a bit, you don't have to go out right away. Get your head together and save your strength for when we really need it."

[1] A 500gram hunk of salted synthpork and a handful of crumbled arrowroot biscuits.

[b]Pink![/b]

Somewhere deep inside November was the idea that she could only have what she could capture. Yellow was its most pure manifestation; she could only touch, never be touched. She could only give, never take; only perform and never reveal. That she could only defile, and never be made sacred.

To accept worship...

... it made her itchy! It made her feel impatient and frustrated and on edge, looking for the escape, the break, the shift in the narrative that would change the flow of power. It made her feel like she was giving up too easily and it would be held against her. It made her feel fierce and focused and hungry, made her hands flex and strain invisibly even though the signals were disconnected.

She didn't enjoy this. Didn't fade into subspace. But that didn't make it [i]bad[/i]. Being teased, being provoked, being denied - the irritation built towards Intent, her mind increasingly drawn to the moment of reversal and revenge.