It's a shame how much she misses by turning her face. She can hear it all just fine: the shouting, the fighting, the beast above and the friends below. With eyes shut and breath pushed in tight, shallow pulls, it's almost something to meditate to. Not calming in the least, of course, but there's a little trance in everything. Just lean in. She's got her face pressed to the figurative glass of the thing she needs to make sense (and maybe even a bit of use) of herself, but there's no reaching over to the other side like this. Not even this wretch can trick herself into a nap under these circumstances.
Especially when the circumstances begin to writhe around her.
She watches what she had been almost sure was a dead body pry itself up, rancid meat splitting open over yet more lovely plumage. The...thing, rises, and it maybe looks at her before shambling off to become somebody else's problem. And there's this ugly stab of something (jealousy?) in her gut, because as pretty as this thing is—these things are, whatever-it-is/whatever-they-are have achieved what she had wanted only for herself. Something has seeped into those bodies and made them beautiful and then taken them.
Thief.
Such a bitter reaction should be beneath her but right now she just can't help it. She'd marvel at that novelty were there not bigger matters at hand. The bald woman kicks and twists dramatically, awkwardly working to offload her rotten meatshield before it, too, sprouts feathers and becomes an issue. It's the nearby voice of one of her newest, bestest, interestingest friends, the tall woman with all the hair, that has her redoubling the effort to properly uproot herself. With a roll as graceless as the whole process before it had been (and a shocked retch when she finally, mistakenly, huffs in through her nose; that combined hit of cadaver funk and more bird fumes is no joke), she's out of the pile and onto the ground.
The witch gets a wide, excited grin after this bald woman's done with her dry-heaving. It's just so nice to know that nothing nefarious has oozed into her, no part of her has been ripped wide by feathers as the bodies had been. That means there's still room inside of her. That appears to go for all the rest of her newest, bestest, interestingest friends—many of whom are being so heartwrenchingly brave that she wishes she had some sort of reward for them. Treats of some kind...oh, she'll figure it out, but right now she's too taken by the witch's flesh-shaping to plan anything. She'd been unluckily incapacitated before; this is her first proper eyeful of this, erm. This—
"Wooow." She'd pity it if she hadn't still been so upset about the theft. Strange-eyes had given the things a name (or maybe he'd just been cussing about them). Malachim. It's not a word that means anything to her besides being what these stolen bodies are called. In no mood to wobble back up to her feet, she slinks across the ground to paw at what the witch has made of the body. Dead, changed, taken, changed again. How exciting. "Did you wring it out? Is it still in there? Can you get it out?" What are the left-and-right limits of what she's done to the thing? Pale eyes flit to the Battle of Big Bird (Is! That! A! Kitty! Oh she will have to investigate this once it's not so busy ripping and tearing) and then back. Questions pile upon questions, but the answers might not be so satisfying when there's imminent danger that lurks. The bird, the bodies. "If I put my ear to it, could I hear the ocean?" A silly one to start, then. She rocks her weight back, kneeling, cupping her hands around her mouth to stage-whisper: "Are you any good in a fight? Because I'm certainly not. But if you shape them all into something sweet then we won't need to be. It could...be...a puppydog, if you close one eye. And squint the other."
She does just that and...well, admittedy it still just looks like so much brutalized meat, but that's no fun. Since when is what one sees with their own eyes any truer than what they decide to believe, anyhow? It's a puppydog if she thinks it to be so.
"They must be gentle things, really. Whatever they are. I bet they're cozier in a shape that can't be anything but. It's such a kind thing you've done! Maybe, instead of the ocean, you would hear a thank you. Do you want to check?"
"Oh!! I'll ask their cooties to please play nicely with mine, then. Thank you!"
She has already managed to painstakingly sandwich herself between two bodies by the time that big, gorgeous woman's warning makes it to her. Admittedly, health and sanitation hadn't been on her mind whatsoever; these had been yet more things she simply hadn't felt applied to her. Now that she's firmly crammed into her hiding place, she decides she's made her peace with catching whatever the dead have to give over taking her chances in the open with whatever's made that awful noise. She wonders if this means she is not a very brave person. It might've occurred to her that this sort of defect is one imperative to work on, given the circumstances, if thinking of herself as defective didn't force a sudden guffaw out. Absolutely not. This body, maybe, but that's hardly her so it doesn't count.
She breathes deep and only through her mouth in anticipation of the corpsestink--though, admittedly, it's difficult to think of these bodies as corpses now. Being up so close after pawing at them had only cemented her belief that they're something that will open, a room that nobody can keep her out of (mushrooms, maggots, me; the dead want something to live in them, don't they?), but given time to think on it has her stumped as to why that is. How can you live in an empty house? How do you read off of a blank page? She knows with certainty that she could close the distance between herself and the people that she's met. Somehow. She knows, too, that she feels the same about these bodies. So they must be the same. So, yes. Or no. One is the answer; she doesn't know the question. They're not breathing. And many are visibly damaged. And they are not alive, and yet...
Maybe she just doesn't know what a dead body really is or maybe these bodies aren't really dead ones or maybe it's some other, third thing. Regardless, her thoughtspiral ends with an impact that shakes the sky. Only by twisting to squint past the matted back of a body's head can she make out the massive shape of some thing come to hunt them. And, evidently, to leak monster-milk all over them. From this angle she can see it drizzle down and sprout ghostly feathers from corpse(?)flesh in its wake. How pretty. I'll bet I shouldn't touch it. She hooks her arms beneath the underarms of the body atop her to try and haul it higher over herself so tht it might shield her from the downpour. Her puff of exertion here is what draws in a fat lungful of something so noxious that she almost forgets to have a positive outlook on this damned situation.
Hck!
Having something to weigh her down (foul as it is) had been near-comforting before the coughing fit. Now she feels smothered, unable to suck a good breath in. She still refuses to breathe through her nose—there's no telling if this is making it any better or worse, but this is how she'll stay. She turns her head and yanks her shirt up over the bridge of her nose, airway smothered by cotton-blend and her own clammy palm. Turning takes her eyes off of what little she can see of her brave new friends out there, but she decides this might be for the best. She is deliberately opting to be of no help to any of them right now. Watching what happens next might make that decision harder to stand by.
Time has righted itself. It's disorienting; the same distant flames that had taken eternity to change shape now sputter away as usual, the same gust of ash and soot that she had seen billow up in a slow molasses crawl dissipates with her next blink. Where she'd been so certain that she had been trapped there for hours, days, longer, she now realizes it must have only been a few heartbeats. What a clever trick! She'd rather chew the business end of all these spears laying around than experience it again, but, still. Admiration where admiration is due.
"Did I frighten you? I'm awfully sorry, I didn't mean to. I should have been a better listener. Rest assured, I don't think you'd need your spear to stop me. A stiff wind would do it, eheh." She's back on proper timing, so that means she's going to talk some more. Meko gets an apology, first. She doesn't really mean it (is much sorrier for herself for having to endure a consequence), but she'd like to show some gesture of kindness and an apology will suffice. She hopes it also softens the tone of her following question: "What is the matter with you? You're smoking. Is this normal? Is it like how that other gentleman is on fire? Does it hurt? Does it have a taste? Or a smell? You tell me. I don't want to frighten you again by getting close to smell it myself."
Now, to speak again of admiration where admiration is due...she turns her grinning face to the man with the lightning-hands, clasping her own together at her chest. "And you! You little hero, you, how did you do that? It was very impressive, however you did it. I almost swooned. Still might." She's laying it on thick. Consequences matter and she has no weapons, held or innate, to contend with The Horrors. So if she can ingratiate herself to someone useful "—chivalrous! That's the better word. I'd give you a prize but it seems I've misplaced my everything, so I hope an IOU will tide you over." That grin twitches wider, held so long it becomes only teeth. Only aching cheeks. Then it falls and her attention is spinning away again, trying to catch up with everything she'd missed in her thousand-year-moment.
The old lady. Their shaman. With such darling braids. She'd been the one who magic-tricked the soot up, up, and away after the muddy-haired man brought her, and now she's mingling with the others. Or, had been, answering questions and the like before halting with that look of dismay shared by her compatriots. Something terrible has just happened, hasn't it? But when this woman shuffles about, craning to look, all she can see up so high is the person that'd waved at her before, only identifiable at this distance by their dress. "Gracious! They've more than just the face of an angel." She's all the more excited to learn about that one, now, though the three here with more of their bearings than all the rest don't seem nearly as enthused. Meko's aside to the blind man sounds as grim as they all look, and—
And then there is a terrible noise.
She's curious, excited to see what could make such a sound until she remembers, again, that she needs to take the threat of danger seriously. She isn't quite sure how to go about acquiring a missing instinct like self-preservation but hopefully it's nothing a little practice can't help with.
"You didn't know. I trust that you will do your very best to fix this. That's all we can hope to do when we make mistakes." Presumably it was the angel's ascent that had triggered whatever is on its way to them, now. They seem more than ready to fend off whatever they'd provoked, though, so she settles for the tame guilt trip and leaves it at that. Many of these new friends have such charming noble streaks. She'd like to encourage that behavior whenever possible. Decide now: run, hide, or prepare yourselves. It's a good enough suggestion that she stows all the questions she's brewing up for the angel. Later, then.
She looks to the mounds of the dead. How many of them had been similarly ill-equipped as her? How many more were far more capable and died anyway? Fire has begun to rain down upon them, but the shaman has done another trick to shield their heads for now. This woman is all out of laughter, or else she'd chuckle again at their circumstances. Nothing about hell is funny when the fire can singe you. It occurs to her, as she stares, just how perfect of a thing a corpse really is. Empty. Something that could hold you if you asked.
And on the inside you know everything there is to know. That's love.
It can't happen now, not with her own body in the way (how could they be together with so much meat between them?), but the thought doesn't leave her once she has it. First she'll have to keep her body safe. Then she'll have to let it go. And then...well. She'll know when she knows.
"Any of you valiant hero types, you have my utmost confidence. Whatever comes a-sniffin' won't be expecting such a dashing line-up." If she had pom-poms, she'd shake them. "Good luck!" And she's off, staggering toward the nearest protected mound of corpses. She may not be able to get inside of them the way that she wants to right now, but surely if she's polite when moving them around they won't mind her using their communal grave to hide for a bit.
More friends come forth, shadows shaping and speaking up, and for a short time she pauses her approach toward the hut to admire the precious things. Particularly adorable is the little lady in her darling cape. A cape! Love that...how does one even get into cape-wearing? She has to wonder if there are good beginner capes to ease into the practice with. It'd surely be nerve-wracking to start off with such a nice, proper cloak like what the little woman's got on, but a professional cape-wearer like herself must have started somewhere.
Then there's the funny-looking gentleman at her side, and the one further off and on fire (!?). Her immediate neighbor is gifted a smile and a fast wave, which is enthusiastic but almost painful-looking.
"No. I don't know my name." A beat. Then she shrugs this off, wincing at the tightness in her shoulders. "Those things are everywhere, though. I bet we'll find new ones in no time. After we exchange names, you have to tell me why your ears are like that."
She's not a fan of the burning man's tone when he speaks, but his observation is a good one, so no fuss is made. She doubts he came from the same place as her, either. Looking at him brings about the same faint, patronizing kind of amusement she feels looking at most of the people here; their strangeness feels so novel, like some new treat. She nods emphatically, not actually sure what to make of this information right now so instead she uses the sweetheart who had why?'d waving back at her as a palate cleanser. How nice!
Now she's moving again.
The request that they stay where they are goes unheeded. She doesn't mean to be a pest, but she's got this overwhelming certainty that she is untouchable and above the demands of these costumed strangers. She'll careen around their charming little hellhole at her leisure, thank you very much! Then the man, which she swears had just been over there but is now right here, remedies her arrogance by shoving a spear at her. This would be hiiiilarious if it hadn't touched her in the next split-second. That's not supposed to happen.
She doesn't flinch. It's not that this woman fancies herself all brave and unintimidatable but that whatever instinct a rational person might have to shield themself is long gone. Because this isn't supposed to happen.
And yet.
I'm right here. She's right here, the danger's right there, and in spite of what she feels should and should not be able to happen, it can touch her. Hurt her. It is. That sting at her unguarded neck is all that she can focus on for the moment that follows, and it stretches,
—this is a horrible way to make friends, you know...whatever happened to class—
and it stretches,
—shoving your great big weapon at me, not even a mention of treating me to dinner, for shame—
and it stretches. What has he done to her? Had she felt slow and irate before? Well this is agonizing. Had she thought the spear was silly before? Well...well!! For weeks she is held at spear-point and for months a pale hand creeps into view. Distantly she can tell that other things are still happening, but it's hard enough to discern the slow crawl of events happening immediately front of her.
It could have been years before the friend at her side has fully grabbed the spear. She admires the gradual light-show that ensues since it's a fun way to conclude ages of watching something otherwise very boring. These arcs of electricity slowly blooming from his hand, which doesn't seem to be easing the sting at her throat, but may at least be preventing the spearhead from digging any deeper. She can't tell.
There are words. Several. She cannot register them any better than she can make sense of the things happening in her peripherals. Sick dread is finally setting in after a forever-long lag; what does she do if she's just stuck like this forever? In a sense, it already feels as though she has been. The man at her side's hand pries up after the light-show is done, dragging out of view little by little. Plumes of soot are starting to climb into the air, pushed by some other force. She'd be disappointed and amazed by these two things if she wasn't already super busy quietly wishing that Strange-Eyes' (she couldn't make out Meko's proper introduction) horned head would explode as a way to stay ahead of the despair. She isn't proud of this, but it helps.
Something is supposed to hold her and it doesn't anymore.
It's hardly a thought at all, just this barely-there understanding. An observation that occurs just as quickly as all the rest: she's cold, it hurts to breathe, something's in her eye, this place is beautiful...what she can see of it as she lays there scrubbing at her ash-stung eye, anyway. Pawing at her cheek, her ear, her shaved scalp (???). Waiting for it to dawn on her why these things seem so strange when it is, after all, her body and no one else's (???). She'd long since rubbed the irritant out by the time she stops touching her face for good, pulling her hand sheepishly away like she'd been caught up to no good. She's no closer to understanding what that kneejerk apprehension had been all about than she is to understanding anything else that's happening, except that the sky is a very lovely color right now and she is not alone and, oh, how that hooks her attention better than all the rest.
One eye is squinted, still red, still watering as both turn to the others. She shifts up onto one elbow. She is expectant, waiting, though she doesn't know what for anymore. Something, perhaps, to be done about the distnce between them and her—it's immense, isn't it? They might as well be standing at the other end of a very long corridor, impossible to make out save for what is now lit by firelight. She stares, unblinking long enough for tears to well up in both eyes now. Waiting for something that doesn't come. The distance is still there and she still cannot place what is so wrong about that. Briefly, it occurs to her that if she were to somehow pry them open and climb inside then there would no longer be that distance, and something would hold her again.
But that would hardly be practical.
So it's a problem for later, then. Maybe. Thumbs brush over her closed eyelids, wiping again. There are voices that, like the people they belong to, seem too far away for comfort. She starts getting herself to her feet but the process is stiff, awkward. It's odd that she would want to crawl into another's body when she can hardly seem to get the hang of her own for those first few minutes. Well, but then they could do all this walking for me, she reasons brightly to herself. Easy. Easy-peasy. Way easier and peasier than doing it herself, but she puts on a brave face about it and shambles onward, staring in awe down at her feet, then the sky again, then her—their surroundings with a more critical eye. Razed buildings, the bristling walls around them, distant mounds of...bodies. The poor dears.
These people, this beautiful, awful place...they need help, clearly. The responsibility to try keeps her standing for the time it takes to assess a few of the closer individuals; a man, speaking and then not, with the nicest way of presenting himself. She's clapping before she realizes what her hands are doing, soot-stained palms beating cheerfully against one another. Bravo! Aren't you so dashing!
The clapping stops when another speaks. She has the prettiest hair, and this woman is certain that that other one is good, but she's clearly not as entertained by his posturing as this one is. This woman's fingers curl around themselves as she contemplates whether to butt in with a light admonishment...nah. The man, by his own admission, does not break or falter. He can stand to be teased for being a ham. If their days have gone anything like mine then I'm sure everybody's a li'l out of sorts. So long as—now, hold on a minute.
Have they even been hearing any of this?
She works her tongue around the inside of her dry mouth. No...no, they couldn't have, could they? What they are doing is talking. What she is doing is thinking. Right now there is a difference between those things and she cannot help but relate that back to how exposed she feels at the moment, like someone's gone and taken the shell off of some creature that sorely needs it (and this isn't just a feeling—she looks the part of some kind of shucked, soft-bodied animal too; wax-skinned, feeble, and unfortunate to behold). How silly, that she'd gone and mixed those things up. No matter! She'll just talk, now.
"Gh—" A thick swallow, jaw working, lips twisting unpleasantly. She knows how to do this, but she gets the impression that she doesn't do it often. Not like this. It's supposed to be different, easier, but it can't be right now. She laughs dryly, waits for another strange face to say his piece (the blind man says, in essence, what all she's about to; she could stand to learn how to convey it as succinctly as he has...she will not, but she could) and takes another stab at the whole talking thing, voice creaky with disuse but no less enthusiastic:
"Good morning!" Is it even morning? She's giggling again—still—uncontrollably, now. Goodness gracious. A fist to her mouth, the other hand held palm-first apologetically. She's not laughing at them. She's not laughing at anything. She's just suddenly so, so happy. Whenever she thinks the fit is done, another has her cracking up again, making it difficult to breathe (which also makes her laugh).
"I'm s—sorry, nothing's funny." she wheezes, cheeks aching from a wide and manic grin. "I shh—ouldn't laugh. It's impolite." Nobody else knows what the joke is, after all. Neither does she, but still. "Wha—ha!—t happened, in this place? Why'm I standing in it? Why're you? Does the sky," she points, as if anybody might need help knowing what she's talking about, "always look like that? I love that. Don't you just love that?" Her pointing finger traces a path downward to the brave man, the sharp woman, and the blind man. She really wants to know if they just love that, though her expression catches and crinkles around the nose; she's just now been able to get a better look at the last to talk's eyes and it doesn't seem as though he'll be remarking on the color of anything any time soon. She blinks and decides that, if she must apologize for the mistake later, she shall. But she won't do it now. Her hand continues, then, pointing toward the pikemen and their hut. Her body follows, wobbling closer for a better look.
"Do you live here? Do you like it? ...Do I live here?" She highly doubts it, but she'll ask anyway. Something about their manner of dress seems so absurd to her, costume-y, but she doesn't know what that judgement is based on. A glance down at her own attire leaves her no closer to the answer. "Does everyone?" All her guesses are a hand reaching out into a dark place and coming back empty, but she's now realized that she has no issue at all with asking questions.
The hand stays pointed, her body turns. Another distant voice had been there just a moment ago, the noise soft and short (why?) and matchable to a person standing in the ash. The angel gets their turn being pointed at, now, and a short acknowledgement of, "Hello, dear!" Before that pointing hand and the owner's attention goes meandering along to the next thing. Now that she's really engaged, she finds it's difficult to focus on one thing when there's just so much to take in. It's irritating that she must tend to all these things so slowly, though, and only one at a time. It brings to mind thoughts of a nightmare where one is stuck running through quicksand; all this urgency and only a fraction of the speed required. Exhausting.
Another quick point at another woman that she'd totally not noticed before. She doesn't hold it against either of them. There appears to be a good handful of strangers waking, wandering through the war-smog; perhaps once, she would have been able to count and follow each one with ease, but right now, she is stuck doing things in this odd, too-slow fashion for now. "And you, too. You get to be dear, also. Hello!" She makes a point of calling this one out over the other quiet ones only because she'd gone and made eye contact with her nervous staring and figured an acknowledgement was in order. It's right about now that she realizes just how unspeakably rude she's being, pointing so much, and that thin, useless hand drops down quickly.
Age of Death: — twenty-eight Gender: — female Race: — human [ telepath ] Psychology: — Curious, affable, and delusionally outspoken. Whyever would she be meek? She knows that she is good, and she knows that she loves you. Thinks she does anyway, and she might, the way a formicarist loves an antfarm. The way a hoarder loves their things. At the very least, she would like to know everything she can about you. She's introspective, will ponder herself in circles like this if you leave her to it and continue with the questions indefinitely if you entertain them. Often even if you don't. You're terrific, after all, so why would she want to stop talking to you?
All the world is a beautiful place, if you let it be. Even a place as foul and declining as this one. All people are good people if you teach them to be. Even the stubborn ones want to be better than they are, deep down. Everyone wants to know how to be good.
She knows just how to help.
She doesn't remember who it was that taught her she is blameless and true, burdened only with the responsibility to correct and guide the flock, but she knows it to be so. Therefore she is shameless and unworried, not the kind to hand-wring or second-guess her own judgement. Accountability and anxiety are for people, who are understandably flawed and must learn from this. She is not a person. She's—
...
She's just not.
... — [HVCEQ•]
⑇⑉What You Remember⑉⑈
Her purpose is a profound one.
An eye in the face of the new, man-made God wakes with the city. Dreaming a sick child's feverdreams, living a mother's early routine, a businessman's first step out the door, a student's scramble. She dreams their lives as they live them. Adores the lazy, mundane crawl of their existence.
Gonna wring his goddamn neck—
Oh! Well. She isn't the only one who hears it, but she's the first to respond. Dibs. A pressure in the back of the skull. A plummeting in the stomach. He knows he's being watched, knows better than to entertain such awful thoughts. She knows he does.
So she'll help. Of course she'll help.
(1) A telepath, she can expand the limits of her own mind to experience the thoughts and feelings of those around her.
(2) So long as there is someone else present in a place, she can see past her own body into areas unseen via their perception; remote viewing.
!! Both of these skills can only be activated while in REM sleep.
⑇⑉What You Don’t ⑉⑈
She's never felt her own fear before today. Has never endured this kind of confusion from herself. Pulled free of her pod, undreaming, she is alone with her own thoughts and a room full of the very people that she loves and has protected and she knows that they want to hurt her and she doesn't understand. How could this have happened when she worked so hard to guide them? How could they hate her when she made their world so safe? Didn't they understand how precious they and their goodness were to her? How she only ever wanted to save them from themselves?
The anger is short-lived, barely realized, but it burns unlike anything she's ever known. First it is the tired frustration of a weary mother (I know you know better than this) and then it's a kind of sour, self-righteous indignation (Everything I did, I did for you, and this is how you repay me?). As she's stomped out onto the pristine tile floor, that anger only mounts.
Perhaps if she could try again. Perhaps if she were firmer in her surveillance, more exacting with her reprimands, then they would all be good. Another chance is all she'd need. Another dream, and she would do it right. They would learn.
Age of Death: — twenty-eight Gender: — female Race: — human [ telepath ] Psychology: — Curious, affable, and delusionally outspoken. Whyever would she be meek? She knows that she is good, and she knows that she loves you. Thinks she does anyway, and she might, the way a formicarist loves an antfarm. The way a hoarder loves their things. At the very least, she would like to know everything she can about you. She's introspective, will ponder herself in circles like this if you leave her to it and continue with the questions indefinitely if you entertain them. Often even if you don't. You're terrific, after all, so why would she want to stop talking to you?
All the world is a beautiful place, if you let it be. Even a place as foul and declining as this one. All people are good people if you teach them to be. Even the stubborn ones want to be better than they are, deep down. Everyone wants to know how to be good.
She knows just how to help.
She doesn't remember who it was that taught her she is blameless and true, burdened only with the responsibility to correct and guide the flock, but she knows it to be so. Therefore she is shameless and unworried, not the kind to hand-wring or second-guess her own judgement. Accountability and anxiety are for people, who are understandably flawed and must learn from this. She is not a person. She's—
...
She's just not.
⑇⑉What You Remember⑉⑈
Her purpose is a profound one.
An eye in the face of the new, man-made God wakes with the city. Dreaming a sick child's feverdreams, living a mother's early routine, a businessman's first step out the door, a student's scramble. She dreams their lives as they live them. Adores the lazy, mundane crawl of their existence.
Gonna wring his goddamn neck—
Oh! Well. She isn't the only one who hears it, but she's the first to respond. Dibs. A pressure in the back of the skull. A plummeting in the stomach. He knows he's being watched, knows better than to entertain such awful thoughts. She knows he does.
So she'll help. Of course she'll help.
(1) A telepath, she can expand the limits of her own mind to experience the thoughts and feelings of those around her.
(2) So long as there is someone else present in a place, she can see past her own body into areas unseen via their perception; remote viewing.
!! Both of these skills can only be activated while in REM sleep.
⑇⑉What You Don’t ⑉⑈
She's never felt her own fear before today. Has never endured this kind of confusion from herself. Pulled free of her pod, undreaming, she is alone with her own thoughts and a room full of the very people that she loves and has protected and she knows that they want to hurt her and she doesn't understand. How could this have happened when she worked so hard to guide them? How could they hate her when she made their world so safe? Didn't they understand how precious they and their goodness were to her? How she only ever wanted to save them from themselves?
The anger is short-lived, barely realized, but it burns unlike anything she's ever known. First it is the tired frustration of a weary mother (I know you know better than this) and then it's a kind of sour, self-righteous indignation (Everything I did, I did for you, and this is how you repay me?). As she's stomped out onto the once-sterile floor, that anger only mounts.
Perhaps if she could try again. Perhaps if she were firmer in her surveillance, more exacting with her reprimands, then they would all be good. Another chance is all she'd need. Another dream, and she would do it right. They would learn.
Appearance: Five foot nine (175cm), brown-haired, and unremarkable, Ilze's most notable attribute had once merely been that she's clean and put together. Her second most notable is an array of beauty marks smattered on her from head to toe. Now that Ilze hasn't seen the inside of a spa or salon in some time and has to resort to cutting her own hair (it's kept roughly above her shoulders) she leaves no real impression besides how ratty and gaunt she looks—but then, that's everyone these days. Ilze has a pale, heart-shaped face and big dark bug eyes with the kind of stare you'd expect of a shark, or a reptile behind glass. She's got a narrow, reedy build; a walking scarecrow.
Background:
For all her life, Ilze has felt as though she's watched the world from the other side of a thick pane of glass. Observing, not participating. Learning, not feeling. She knows that something about her experience isn't quite right, but it's never been a real point of distress. Just something to work around. A problem with a solution.
Ilze was born in the bay area, the youngest daughter of Latvian immigrants. Her mother: beautiful, distant, and out of the picture under unclear circumstances by the time Ilze turned six. Her father: a deeply anxious entomologist, brilliant at his work but unfit to handle people let alone children. Her older sister: an outgoing, vibrant young lady five years older than Ilze herself. This sister, Natalia, was more active in raising Ilze than their frazzled father was until she was killed in a drunk driving incident (Natalia, eighteen, was the intoxicated driver).
Up until her sister's death Ilze relied on Natalia to model socially acceptable, 'good' behavior, as that sort of thing didn't come easily to Ilze otherwise. Most of Ilze's prowess in early social situations (making friends at school, joining clubs, charming teachers) came about as a direct result of her copying Natalia's every move and mannerism. Left to her own devices, Ilze had a grim and unsettling private life; she often stole (not out of necessity but boredom), could not be trusted around small animals (her father kept many live insect and arachnid specimens in their home; Ilze did not harm these, as she shared his fondness for them, but their neighbors' pets are a different story), and went through a brief fascination with starting fires that nearly cost them their kitchen. Natalia was far more aware of Ilze's behavior than their father ever was, and while she never knew what to really do about it, she did spend a lot of her time vehemently redirecting Ilze's focus and trying to spark her interest in other, less harmful pastimes.
So, little by little, ordinary girlhood fixations pushed Ilze's morbid hobbies to the back of her mind. Natalia passed on a penchant for makeup and clothes and pop media and boys, and by the time she went and got herself killed, Ilze was very good at pretending to be human. Meanwhile, their father's mental health declined rapidly after Natalia's passing. Always a man of few words in the past, he stopped talking altogether and fixated solely on writing for papers, articles, and textbooks in his field. Money had never been abundant before, but it became even tighter as their father struggled with leaving the house. As an older teenager, in order to make some money for herself and avoid her father altogether, Ilze loaded her schedule with reasons to be out of the house; sports (school and club), babysitting gigs, volunteer services, friends to chase around from sun-up to sundown, a summer job as a lifeguard.
Ilze grew into a respectable, well-liked woman. Her friendships were numerous to make up for how shallow they all were. Her relationships were pleasant but brief; she could never maintain interest in anybody for very long. Her work ethic remained as admirable as ever. The day she moved out was the last bit of contact she ever had with her father, and she's never felt inclined to reconnect with him. She only started small fires. She only kicked dogs when no one was looking. She patiently refrained from acting on her uglier impulses and, instead, kept herself busy with a routine of work and fitness and socializing.
Ilze Isarova carefully pretended at her humanity. She had gotten very good at it.
Ilze went to SFSU for a degree in business administration. Through the connections of an at-the-time boyfriend she was able to move from a secretary job to a position as an executive assistant for the CEO of a tech start-up based in Los Angeles (which she found, ultimately, to be no different than her old secretary job save for the fancier title). As part of a very limited administrative team she was given broad and often unchecked access to sensitive financial information. A couple of years into the position she began to grow restless, irritable with the environment at work and at home. After ending things with her boyfriend (Ilze was starting to find the marriage talk and family-planning unbearable, even after stringing him along for as long as she did) she began taking advantage of her limited oversight to fatten her pockets up quick with the intention of leaving once she could comfortably afford to relocate. Ilze was able to skim from fundraising efforts and routinely submitted fraudulent expense reports so that she could pocket the difference.
An unannounced external audit was days away from pulling the rug on her embezzlement. Luckily for Ilze and unluckily for the rest of the world, Project Zero set in first.
Personality:
( + ) FLEXIBLE PRAGMATIST Ilze is organized, adaptable, and goal-oriented. A proper little logistician. She likes structure and routine, but she won't fall apart in their absence; rather, she's more likely to do whatever is necessary to establish that order herself. Ilze is very aware of her own capabilities as a person, including her strengths and her shortcomings and what she needs to do to best utilize or work around both.
( + ) SUNNY-SIDE UP In spite of everything, Ilze is an optimist. She's very hope for the best, plan for the worst. Dwelling in negativity, uncertainty, or ennui is a waste of valuable time, in her eyes, and she'll often try to encourage others away from these tendencies as well. Why waste energy catastrophizing when you can actively work to improve a situation? There is, of course, always a way to improve the situation—and if there isn't, then all efforts should be focused on making one. No matter what, Ilze is convinced that there is always a way to come out on top.
( • ) TWO-FACED Two-faced may be an uncharitable way to put it, but Ilze's certainly not forthright with strangers if she can ever help it. It's not always a bad thing, though; Ilze will typically keep her complaints and judgement to herself if it's for the sake of achieving a goal, and is not so shortsighted that she doesn't recognize the value in shutting her mouth and playing along to get what she wants in the long run. She'd say she's just being a team player. A professional. This behavior is as much of a con as it can be a pro. So long as her goals align with someone else's, she'll be a perfect teammate.
( • ) CHAMELEON Hand in hand with her above trait is the tendency not to meet others as she is but as who she feels she must be to make them act the way she wants. In times of danger and uncertainty, she relies initially on a fawning response until she better understands how to handle the matter at hand. She wants to be liked, but she will settle for being overlooked as a nonthreat for as long as it takes to plan ahead accordingly.
( - ) OPPORTUNISTIC SNAKE Truth be told, Ilze is a self-serving wretch. Cut loose from the familiar routine of civilized pre-Rot life, she now prioritizes her own survival above all else, even if it comes as a detriment to others. She'll cooperate with anyone that looks like her best shot at safety and support, but she'll just as easily abandon ship at the first sign that it's not working out the way she wants it to. Her wellbeing comes first, no matter the cost to others.
( - ) IN COLD BLOOD Though she's keenly perceptive, Ilze is completely unempathetic. This disconnect between herself and others is a trait she has always had, and while she's worked hard to learn to understand her peers, why they may act the way they do, and the appropriate ways to respond, Ilze has never felt any real connection or camaraderie with them. As such, Ilze rarely feels guilty for or ashamed of hurting others; often she even enjoys it, the same way a child might enjoy pulling the wings off of a fly. While she's gotten very good at putting up a kind front, nobody has ever mattered to Ilze as much she does to herself.
Skills: CROWD-PLEASER — Despite how ugly of a person she is on the inside, Ilze's been killin' it at the Smalltalk and Pleasantries game her entire adult life. She's patient, an active listener, and can be sweet, witty, and fun when she feels the need to be. This skill lends itself to team-building and cooperative efforts.
THE STOMACH FOR IT — Ilze has no issue with how disgusting and cruel violence can be. While the uncleanlines of it all might make her turn her nose up, it's not the yuckiness of an undead apocalypse that bothers her. The notion of inflicting harm against someone or something else doesn't disturb her either. While she'd rather avoid being the one to deal any blows (as this would better ensure her own safety), she has no problem getting her hands dirty if it's her last remaining option. Ilze is unphased by violence and will not struggle with that aspect of the current setting.
BASIC FIRST-AID & CPR — Teenage Ilze made money on the side as a babysitter and over the summers as a lifeguard at a community pool, and she's been vain enough to go out of her way to maintain those certifications even as an office widget. Just to say she has them. Just to brag. She isn't a medical professional, but she knows what to do in a pinch. Ilze will be competent when handling medical emergencies.
LIFELONG LEARNER — As much as it hurts her pride to admit to it, Ilze is very well aware of how out of her element she is in the world today, and therefore very willing to wring the necessary lessons she needs to thrive out of anyone who can be convinced to teach her. She is not too egotistical to learn. As a matter of fact, she is just egotistical enough to feel entitled to any knowledge that she lacks. She wants to know what you know. She feels you owe it to her. Make with the teaching, already.Ilze will actively work to learn any necessary skills that she currently lacks if the opportunity is presented to her.
Equipment: THE BAG — A duffel-style gym bag. THE BIC — One stolen BIC lighter. THE WATER BOTTLE — 32oz, metal. THE FIRST-AID KIT — A little plastic box with pre-packaged gauze, tape, bandaids, and alcohol wipes previously kept in the trunk of her car. THE....FOOD....? — Ilze's current provisions consist of one bag of Combos (baked cracker shell, the pizza flavored kind) and a container of tictacs (fresh mint, 3/4ths full).
Motivations: HOLDIN' OUT FOR A HERO — Surely any day now someone will do something and that'll make it all better. Just, all of it. Ilze won't be doing any of that, of course, but there's got to be someone else out there with a big enough, bleeding enough heart to try. She's just got to hold on a little while longer and this whole thing will blow over eventually, right?
PREY ANIMAL DESPERATION — Maybe this world is something worse than death, but Ilze is something less than rational when it comes to her own survival. She'll be the animal that gnaws its leg off to escape a trap. The one that eats its children in times of hardship. The ends justify the means, and the means will be whatever she feels it takes to keep herself alive.
Flaws: SCUMBAGGERY — Ilze is not a good person. Once upon a time she'd been able to hone and polish her Good Person Costume, an HR-approved guise of orderly niceness, but without the trappings of her old day-to-day that façade is no longer serving her the way it once had. Peel back the veneer and she is callous, self-centered, petty, and downright inhumane in the things she is willing to do for her immediate benefit. Some of it isn't even for survivals' sake; some of it is just mean. In many ways she owes her ongoing survival to her own selfishness, but it's not a super power. Ilze is bound to struggle making lasting connections with other survivors due to her own rampant neuroticism, and won't be able to garner the sympathy that she relies on to manipulate others if they catch her when the smile slips or are able to call her on her bullshit just from observing her.
DESK JOCKEY — Ilze is fit enough as a result of an active childhood and a desire to keep herself busy in her off time, but she's not buff and she's not a trained fighter. She leaned hard on cardio and mobility work and...that's about it. Besides all that, she worked behind a desk for much of the time. She has a strong desire to survive, but no practical survival skills to speak of.
[center] [img]https://i.imgur.com/BYXd5qm.png[/img]
[b][color=a36209]BUGMEAT ![/color][/b]
... 𓆣 ...
The hand sings [i]weapon[/i]. The mind says [i]tool[/i]. The body swerves in the service of the mind, which is evidence of the mind but not actual proof.[/center]
<div style="white-space:pre-wrap;"><div class="bb-center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/BYXd5qm.png" /> <br><br><span class="bb-b"><font color="#a36209">BUGMEAT !</font></span><br>... 𓆣 ...<br><br>The hand sings <span class="bb-i">weapon</span>. The mind says <span class="bb-i">tool</span>. The body swerves in the service of the mind, which is evidence of the mind but not actual proof.</div></div>
