Antlers
Pirouette
GreenGrenade
shylarah
Eddie Brock
Supermaxx
Captain Uni
Sep
Anciek
Location: San Francisco - California
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Titans Together! #1.11: Slip The First Stitch
Interaction(s): All - Everyone
Previously: None
Astral Projection was one of the earliest tricks Stitch had learnt, and it remained even now one of their favourites.
In the early weeks, lacking the need for (or ability to) sleep Stitch had quickly found the night hours to be particularly boring; after initial bodily excursions had been deemed "dangerous" and "hazardous" and "creepy when you stand in the corner and watch me", their creator taught them the art of breaking free the spirit from the shackles of the body. In this way, one could enter a deep and restful meditative stage in their earthly form, while the soul continued to freely experience and absorb the world around them, imperceptible to most and unhampered by tellurian limitations like 'walls'. When they arrived to the Titans, it became a habitual practice; the illusion of sleep that meditation provided helped ease their colleagues' instinctual aversion to the uncanniness of Stitch, while the projection allowed them to explore the tower, linger in its spaces, and generally mill about unseen, unheard, unfelt. Some might call Stitch's nightly custom "spying" or "an invasion of privacy" or "voyeuristic", but if they did, no one voiced it to Stitch, who themselves regarded it as little more than "healthy curiosity". In Stitch's short life thus far, they had learnt that 'living' could mean a lot of different things, and those differences became all the more pronounced between observed and unobserved behaviours. Eating, for example, was often a communal activity, rarely partaken in alone (apart from a few select cases), whereas bathing was a ritual nearly always undergone by oneself. The one time Stitch had seen two parties bathing simultaneously, cleanliness did not seem to be the ultimate goal, which was even curiouser still.
On this night, they drifted through corridors and walls awaiting the sunrise that would oversee their comrades' rousing into the waking hours, poking a head through closed doors to assess whether anyone else forsook their sleep. All things told, the early morning had been relatively bustling as the minutes ticked by; by their reckoning, Stitch would likely be the latest to rise, despite not even actually sleeping at all. Something in this irony burst joyfully within them, and their ghostly form twitched and hacked silently as they let the humour wash over them. They were still getting the hang of 'laughing'. Wally was up and about, pacing furiously through the corridors and Stitch in equal measure, before pausing - as he so often did - in the kitchen; Robin could be found haunting the gymnasium, all pirouettes and somersaults elegantly spun and caught, his body a whirling display that ended in a flourish and a bow, Stitch his unseen audience providing unheard applause; Roy, similarly, was practicing his own skills, counting his perfection seemingly to himself. Stitch lingered in the lounge, hovering an inch or two above the cushions of the sofa, observing how Megan sat and how best to emulate it, how best to reproduce camaraderie with a peer. They turned their spectral eyes to the television, practiced laughter again. They departed.
The noise blossoming through the hallways drew their attention next; Kyle, of course, there had been no doubt that those short, simple chords and rough-edged voice emanated from his dormitory, a habit as frequent as Stitch's phantom excursions. They had to admit the words were catchy - they'd found particular enjoyment in this thing called 'music' since coming to the tower, and often liked to spin rhymes about their own (strictly metaphorical) tongue in imitation of what they had been exposed to, stringing pleasing-sounding nonsense together in a manner not dissimilar to their creator's own ceremonial chanting, a recurring element of their early life. Kyle's music did not seem to cast any spells, however, unless the spoilt moods of those in proximity was an intended effect. Stitch couldn't be sure. The evidence was certainly there, punctuated as if on cue by the thumping of the shared wall between Kyle and Troia's respective rooms.
Their jaunt was cut short by the alarm blaring, and Stitch gasped as their astral form blinked out of existence and their consciousness was wrenched back to their ragdoll body. The echoing rhythms of Kyle's speakers were replaced jarringly with the ambient melodies of Stitch's own music, pulsing from the earbuds stuck to either side of their head; a technique to clear the mind, in aid of projection. Gingerly, they tore the tape affixing their earbuds, and the bellowing klaxon dipped momentarily to be replaced with the voice of their collective benefactor, Loren Jupiter:
With that, Stitch was up, taking a quick moment to smooth out their indentation from lying on top of the otherwise pristinely-made bed (they had never had a need to actually get underneath the covers) and then slipping into the all-blue, one-piece suit Jupiter had provided them on arrival; they paused in the mirror momentarily, admiring the outfit. They were, secretly, quite proud of it. Stitch's creator, a man of pragmatics and more cosmological concerns, hadn't seen the need for clothing at first, given Stitch's anatomy (or lack thereof); but Jupiter's costume both enabled Stitch's modesty (a lack of which, they were told, often made others uncomfortable, even in Stitch's special case), and also welcomed them fully into the fold. The 'T' logo, emblazoned on the suit in the center of the chest, was the strongest symbol they knew. It made them part of the team. It made them a Titan.
And right now, slipping silently into the fray of the gathered team members in the kitchen, tensions and jokes and clashing personalities making the space fraught with apprehensions, Stitch put a hand to that same symbol, feeling - not for the first time - that these were not comrades, or compatriots, or even colleagues. They were strangers.
In the early weeks, lacking the need for (or ability to) sleep Stitch had quickly found the night hours to be particularly boring; after initial bodily excursions had been deemed "dangerous" and "hazardous" and "creepy when you stand in the corner and watch me", their creator taught them the art of breaking free the spirit from the shackles of the body. In this way, one could enter a deep and restful meditative stage in their earthly form, while the soul continued to freely experience and absorb the world around them, imperceptible to most and unhampered by tellurian limitations like 'walls'. When they arrived to the Titans, it became a habitual practice; the illusion of sleep that meditation provided helped ease their colleagues' instinctual aversion to the uncanniness of Stitch, while the projection allowed them to explore the tower, linger in its spaces, and generally mill about unseen, unheard, unfelt. Some might call Stitch's nightly custom "spying" or "an invasion of privacy" or "voyeuristic", but if they did, no one voiced it to Stitch, who themselves regarded it as little more than "healthy curiosity". In Stitch's short life thus far, they had learnt that 'living' could mean a lot of different things, and those differences became all the more pronounced between observed and unobserved behaviours. Eating, for example, was often a communal activity, rarely partaken in alone (apart from a few select cases), whereas bathing was a ritual nearly always undergone by oneself. The one time Stitch had seen two parties bathing simultaneously, cleanliness did not seem to be the ultimate goal, which was even curiouser still.
On this night, they drifted through corridors and walls awaiting the sunrise that would oversee their comrades' rousing into the waking hours, poking a head through closed doors to assess whether anyone else forsook their sleep. All things told, the early morning had been relatively bustling as the minutes ticked by; by their reckoning, Stitch would likely be the latest to rise, despite not even actually sleeping at all. Something in this irony burst joyfully within them, and their ghostly form twitched and hacked silently as they let the humour wash over them. They were still getting the hang of 'laughing'. Wally was up and about, pacing furiously through the corridors and Stitch in equal measure, before pausing - as he so often did - in the kitchen; Robin could be found haunting the gymnasium, all pirouettes and somersaults elegantly spun and caught, his body a whirling display that ended in a flourish and a bow, Stitch his unseen audience providing unheard applause; Roy, similarly, was practicing his own skills, counting his perfection seemingly to himself. Stitch lingered in the lounge, hovering an inch or two above the cushions of the sofa, observing how Megan sat and how best to emulate it, how best to reproduce camaraderie with a peer. They turned their spectral eyes to the television, practiced laughter again. They departed.
The noise blossoming through the hallways drew their attention next; Kyle, of course, there had been no doubt that those short, simple chords and rough-edged voice emanated from his dormitory, a habit as frequent as Stitch's phantom excursions. They had to admit the words were catchy - they'd found particular enjoyment in this thing called 'music' since coming to the tower, and often liked to spin rhymes about their own (strictly metaphorical) tongue in imitation of what they had been exposed to, stringing pleasing-sounding nonsense together in a manner not dissimilar to their creator's own ceremonial chanting, a recurring element of their early life. Kyle's music did not seem to cast any spells, however, unless the spoilt moods of those in proximity was an intended effect. Stitch couldn't be sure. The evidence was certainly there, punctuated as if on cue by the thumping of the shared wall between Kyle and Troia's respective rooms.
Their jaunt was cut short by the alarm blaring, and Stitch gasped as their astral form blinked out of existence and their consciousness was wrenched back to their ragdoll body. The echoing rhythms of Kyle's speakers were replaced jarringly with the ambient melodies of Stitch's own music, pulsing from the earbuds stuck to either side of their head; a technique to clear the mind, in aid of projection. Gingerly, they tore the tape affixing their earbuds, and the bellowing klaxon dipped momentarily to be replaced with the voice of their collective benefactor, Loren Jupiter:
"All team members please suit up. We have a situation developing."
With that, Stitch was up, taking a quick moment to smooth out their indentation from lying on top of the otherwise pristinely-made bed (they had never had a need to actually get underneath the covers) and then slipping into the all-blue, one-piece suit Jupiter had provided them on arrival; they paused in the mirror momentarily, admiring the outfit. They were, secretly, quite proud of it. Stitch's creator, a man of pragmatics and more cosmological concerns, hadn't seen the need for clothing at first, given Stitch's anatomy (or lack thereof); but Jupiter's costume both enabled Stitch's modesty (a lack of which, they were told, often made others uncomfortable, even in Stitch's special case), and also welcomed them fully into the fold. The 'T' logo, emblazoned on the suit in the center of the chest, was the strongest symbol they knew. It made them part of the team. It made them a Titan.
And right now, slipping silently into the fray of the gathered team members in the kitchen, tensions and jokes and clashing personalities making the space fraught with apprehensions, Stitch put a hand to that same symbol, feeling - not for the first time - that these were not comrades, or compatriots, or even colleagues. They were strangers.
