maskormenacelogs | Adjusting is Hardest at the Start

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Adjusting is Hardest at the Start

WHO: Nightfall, the residents of Jeopardy #002, and anyone who wants to join in.
WHERE: Jeopardy #002, around Jeopardy, Porter Cities in general.
WHEN: Between the middle of the month and the end of the month.
WHAT: Literal 12-year-old tries to get even vaguely comfortable.
WARNINGS: Implied disordered eating.
Not a warning, but this is my first open prompt, and it feels awkward to me when I read back to mself. So if anyone could give me a few tips and some critique over on Plurk (

greyways) or in my HMD post I would be really grateful!

Jeopardy #002

Nightfall is never seen without a mask. Never. If one is inclined to check in on her during her sleep (and one can silently pick locks), she can be seen in pyjamas instead of her costume at least, and a simple domino mask instead of her usual. She goes around the house doing stretches, practicing her ballet-like movements, sometimes just flat out practicing ballet. Meditation is another activity she can be found doing more often than is to be expected of a child, even a super powered child.

In the kitchen she can sometimes be seen looking at the fridge with a note of concern in her eyes that doesn’t match the smile on her face. She has added a series of protein shakes in one corner of the fridge, all labeled with her name on the easily-washed containers. Aside from there being a higher quantity of fruit and vegetables, nothing else seems to change. Well, aside from a blender that wasn’t on the counter before, with a note by it that says ‘please clean thoroughly after use!’ in a cute and delicate script.

Should one see into her room after the 20th, they will notice she has already begun to transform it. A window air conditioner sits securely where it should be, a set of blackout curtains that had clearly been adjusted to the proper height cut off all light above it. The room has a few books (a couple of which might not be appropriate for children in the eyes of some, and not appropriate for anyone with good taste by those who don’t understand the appeal of bad horror novels) in appropriate places. Her bedding is covered in stars, and looks soft and fluffy. In her drawers there are no clothes, only useful items and a massive variety of multivitamins, should one get up the guts to go rifling through her things. One thing that looks a little out of place however is the beginnings of a chemistry set.

Sometimes she can be found napping in odd places after returning from school each weekday, having been unable to keep herself awake through the end of her meditation.

When she’s asleep one in or around the house might be capable of sensing a strange aura, should one be attuned to psychic powers, or the effects they have on the surrounding world. If one is asleep themselves, they might be beset with nightmares. These nightmares are often simply more extreme versions of those the dreamer might have normally, but on occasion the nightmares will appeal to more primal fears, sometimes creating an amalgamation of the usual nightmare with an enemy or friend turning into a large shadow wolf, or an unsafe place giving off the feeling that it is actively seeking to cause harm in and of itself.

The aura comes from Nightfall and carries the nightmares to any who might be susceptible. The observant might realise that this aura is only present when her own sleep is visibly disturbing to her. However, it might be difficult to notice when she’s actually asleep in her bed if one actually had problems with invading privacy and picking locks.

Around Jeopardy

Comparatively though, she spends very little time in her assigned housing unit.

She goes to Jeopardy Middleschool every weekday morning, her uniform shifted to less flashy shades of purple in a vain effort to not distract the other kids trying to study. She finds everything but the history classes to be rudimentary at best, but pretends to be an ideal student while paying only the bare minimum attention required to seem knowledgeable in all of the other classes.

Lunch and recess are a special kind of hell, having to pretend to other children that she’s just like them, but with super powers. At least it gives her an excuse to not touch the food she’d been given that would set her dietary calculations off, as she was too busy speaking to do more than take sips of her protein shake. She reasons to herself that she has probably just inspired a good deal of the present children to go into rescue services, so in the end it was probably more worthwhile than it feels.

Then there’s the weekend paper route where she goes around on a bicycle and expertly chucks papers on to the welcome mat where they belong. It’s honestly menial work if she’s ever seen it, but she keeps up a smile on her face and greets everyone along the way. Her uniform remains her outfit of choice during even this, though she has helpfully added reflective tape to both her utility belt and her hair ribbon. Even if she wasn’t doing a paper route at night she had to be a good example, after all. It was a little strange how she never seemed to have the tape on when she wasn’t delivering papers, however...

The real joy comes from patrolling Jeopardy, sometimes during the day in order to make herself more known to the public, but always at night because that was where the real action was.

During the day she would often walk up to people and ask if they needed any help. She could count on five hands she didn’t have how many times she’d helped with pet-related situations. Sometimes people would try to pay her (albeit with pennies and nickels) and she would turn them down. All in all, it felt a lot like when she was first added to the team back home.

Sometimes she would see people who appeared to be truly out of sorts. She made a bee-line for these people, making herself look as unthreatening as possible, and spoke up. “Hello, are you alright?”

During the night she was surprisingly stealthy for someone who dressed like a dark magical girl who got really into ballet. She would use rooftops to get around where she could, jumping the gaps of most buildings without too much trouble, but due to not knowing the surroundings yet she was often forced to backtrack or simply revert to ground level every so often. Nonetheless, she would rush to any sounds of a fight or a scuffle.

This didn’t turn out too well for her one night around 1AM. A group of people had ganged up on a man and had been very loudly proclaiming they would beat him up. Had she been back home she could have directed Dynamo to the location and used her as a distraction so that the victim could be gotten to safety. If she’d gotten the chemicals she’d been fighting with the government for she could have used one of her knockout gas vials. If her power to make people fall asleep had worked how it did back home it would still have been simple enough. Instead she’d had to do her least favourite thing and take the situation head on.

One (short) discussion on why violence was rarely the answer later, she was fighting a group of men who, while not well armed, were armed. For all her prayers that the victim would see this as a chance to escape so she could disengage, it seemed like he was frozen in place. Even after calling out to him to escape all the man did was stand there gobsmacked with his back to a wall.

She hated when that happened on a good day, but seeing as how she was vastly outnumbered in this moment and significantly smaller than her opponents, this was not a good day.

All she could do for now was fight the men, try to trip them up (which would have been easier had there been more room to maneuver), and pray they made a mistake before she did. At least she could identify the way they fought easy enough, and once she got one of them on the ground there would be more room for her to actually take care of the situation.

There was the vague hope that someone else would come to help her, but she couldn’t exactly count on it. Not without her team.

Other Porter Cities

Rarely was a little girl with a mask and delicate costume seen outside of Jeopardy, unless one counted seeing her at the Porters themselves. Instead, a little Japanese girl with bright grey eyes and medium-length brown hair that changed style each time she visited a different city could be found wandering around. She dressed in sunset colours most often, chunky bracelets on both wrists, and sensible (but still cute) flats on her feet.

Perhaps Nightfall would have been chewed out for creating a civilian persona so soon after arriving there, but she reasoned with herself that it was important to understand the local culture from the perspective of someone who was at least trying to appear to be a native. In reality, she was just getting a break from being Always On in public and private alike.

One day, she found herself staring at an ice cream stand. It wouldn’t have normally been so tempting had she not seen the majority of children in the area carrying the frozen treats around, but she found herself ‘wanting to blend in’. (It was perhaps a little too hard to admit to herself that maybe she just wanted ice cream.) She was shocked out of her focus when she heard someone come up beside her.

“Oh! Am I in your way?” She spoke with the voice of a particularly shy child.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's easy to tell when there's a new resident in the house. At least this one was less messy than Klaus. The mask thing is weird, but then, they already have Jadus, so Bean is sort of used to people hiding behind masks by now. At least hers has eyes.

He comes into the kitchen when she's peering into the fridge, and reaches up into the bowl of fruit on the counter to grab an orange. Funny, how much easier it is to reach the countertops now. He must still be growing.

"Did you buy all the fruit?" He asks, peeling his orange. "Thank you."

She had been aware of the footsteps behind her, but seeing as how they had seemed neither rushed nor sneaky she hadn't registered them as anything needing her direct attention and thus she'd continued to look into the fridge until the boy's voice was heard. She grabbed one of her protein drinks and turned around, closing the fridge behind her. She greeted him with a smile.

"You're welcome! I find that fresh fruit is always good to have around. If you have any requests, I would be more than happy to try to see to them next time I go shopping."

Her voice was cheerful and assured, just as she'd been trained to speak.

Bean looks her over when she turns around, silently sizing her up. She seems innocent enough on the surface, but he knows that there's a lot a person can hide from showing on the surface.

"I'm happy with fresh oranges. I work in Heropa so I can bring those home with me from there, if the Jeopardy produce isn't as good."

And oh boy was she hiding a lot. Though, she was far from malevolent, merely a little jaded. She in turn was sizing him up, looking at how he held himself, and noticing how quickly and easily he was peeling the orange. Better motor skills than she's have expected of someone his apparent age, that was for sure.

"Thank you! I'll keep that in mind. May I ask what your job is?"

Finding out the range of jobs this world would let children do was very much something she was interested in.

He's just eaten a lot of oranges relatively recently. He spent two months in Araraquara, Brazil and kind of got addicted to the things. But he definitely holds himself with confidence, the surety of someone who's used to being picked on for his small size-- even if he's not so small as he used to be.

"I teach at a school run by and for imPorts. It's called H.O.P.E." He plucks out a sliver of orange and chews on it, swallowing before he continues. "When I first arrived they made me a paper boy and wanted me to attend second grade. This is a vast improvement."

She looks genuinely impressed, and very much was. Even in her world it was rare that someone who wasn't at least a teenager would be allowed to be a teacher, and he didn't look like he was even as old as she was. For a world that coddled children with powers as much as this one did, it was even more impressive that her housemate had gained such an important role.

"I've heard about that school! It's amazing you're allowed to be a teacher there. This world seems to be very silly about what it will and won't let children do. I think they might have put me in charge of your old route." She gives a charming little giggle. "I'm still in school back home but... To be honest the curriculum here is a lot easier that what I'm used to."

"I'm lucky that I had an adult to vouch for me." He never would have gotten the teaching job if it wasn't for Walter Strickler going to bat for him. "And you don't have to do the paper route, if you don't want to. You don't have to do anything the government assigned you to do."

Like go to school, or even register. Sure, registration came with its perks, but Nightfall might be able to tell that Bean's tattoo still reads "UNSETTLED."

"I'm glad you did. It seems like this world isn't one where children are given much freedom to do what they excel in." She gives a wistful smile for a moment before she continues. "While that's true, since this world doesn't have a hero program that works similar to the one back home I'm responsible for my own income, and there are ethical issues to consider before I attempt some of the more obvious forms."

Back in her world the hero programs had official merchandise, in part to help pay for the care of the heroes and in part to further the goal of normalising those with powers. However, that merchandise was licensed by the government and not the individual heroes. Things that the individual heroes had a hand in were usually auctioned off to charity, making a distinct gap between the corporate and the personal.

Truth be told, her issues had far less to do with 'ethics' and more about keeping up the image she had back in her world just as she was expected to do.

"Most worlds aren't." Even most of the children on Bean's worlds live normal, boring lives. Only the most exceptional children were chosen for Battle School. And the best of those chosen for Command.

He keeps eating his orange, face tilted up curiously at her. "I have no idea what you mean by 'hero program.' I take it you're from a world where these powers are a common occurrence?"

She gives him a graceful nod. "Yes. It's theorised that as much as 10% of the population has powers. Though, the amount of people with powers that can be used on the field is a much smaller amount.

"In my world there are Junior and Senior Hero Programs. Programs that allow those of us with powers to learn how to use them for the betterment and protection of society."

Bean listens intently. It sounds so farfetched to him, but who is he to question the truth of another universe?

"How did that many people get powers? Did they develop naturally, or was there some kind of mass experimentation?"

"There have always been superpowered individuals. All the way back through history. Research is showing a large genetic factor, both in that people carry the genes that make them develop super powers naturally, and in that people carry genes that easily mutate under the right circumstances."

She gives a sheepish smile. "My world... Well. It hasn't been doing a very good job of curbing things such as pollution. The number of superpowered individuals jumped a great deal during the industrial revolution. Now the pollution is different, but just as rampant."

Nightfall then perks back up. "That said, not even a majority of superpowered individuals possess genes that mutated due to pollution. A large number of people possess genes that allow them to use powers, but they don't realise this until some form of change in their life makes it more obvious. Usually something such as high stress or puberty. In those cases the power has probably been in at least one side of the family bloodline, if not more than one, but never became obvious for one reason or another."

It's fascinating to Bean... as a theory. He can't imagine seeing it in practice. A world full of superpowered individuals, naturally occurring throughout history.

A thought strikes him... "Are powered people still thought of as human? Or are they a separate species?"

That earns a small laugh. "Yes. We are - though some hate-groups would like to argue otherwise. They don't have scientific data to back them up on that. Super powers are more like eye colour, or hair texture than they are signifiers of a different species, or even a different breed of human.

"While a lot of the time those who get superpowers have secondary powers or special genetic mutations to allow them to work without causing the individual in question harm, that isn't always the case. So say there are three children in a family who have super-sonic vocal abilities. Only two of them are likely to have the required genetic mutation to the eardrums that would protect them from damaging their own hearing. Their family line might have that as a common mutation that's never discovered until one of them has sonic vocal abilities, but those people are still just as human as those without the mutation. The same goes for their children, including the one who didn't get the protective mutation."

She then fiddles with her hands a little. "For a long time now people have tried to reason that superpowered individuals aren't human. While some of them aren't, since aliens and other sapient lifeforms have been shown to exist or to have existed once, those who have homosapiens in their bloodline are genetically human. They have all the physical traits a human has. They just have oddities. Two superpowered humans who have powers that alter their appearances to be animalistic in nature will oftentimes still produce a clearly human baby, and depending on the genetics the child will have a good chance of being without any abnormalities, possibly for their entire lifetime.

"People like to try and attribute powers to outside forces, gods, aliens, mole men - who are by the way not scientifically advanced enough to actually do any sort of modification to humans, nor have they ever been advanced enough based on archaeological evidence -" She sounds a little annoyed bringing this particular fact up, as if it is one of those myths that was debunked a long time ago but people still believe, "but in reality, all but a very small number of modern cases are just expressing different genes than the majority of the population."

She deflates just a moment. "The number of times I've had to explain to people that I'm not a demigod child of Hypnos or some other mythological figure is frankly depressing."

Yeah, yeah. Gods, aliens, mole men (whatever those are)... Bean is more concerned for this hypothetical third child who developed super-sonic vocal cords but not the required auditory mutation to protect their own ears from the sound waves.

"Is that common? People having powers but not the ability to withstand them?"

It was for the best, she would likely have looked like a kicked puppy dog had he asked about the mole men.

"Yes. It's not a majority by any means, but it's common enough there is a lot of research on it. Thankfully most powers involved can simply have the use avoided, but sometimes that isn't an option until damage has already been done. It's also more common with combat-level powers.

"Someone with minor super-strength, but lacking the mutation required to protect their bones and organs is less likely to notice any serious damage. They just think it's cool they can carry a lot of weight without any real problems. Someone with combat-level super strength who lacks the mutation on the other hand is not so lucky. It's possible for someone without the required mutations to break every bone in their chest by coughing, often times collapsing lungs in the process." She frowns. "A lot of research is being done into how to do tests to find out if a fetus has both a protective gene and a super-strength gene so that parents can choose whether or not to keep the baby which might die as soon as its powers activate and it gets a cold. But, well... There are a lot of ethical issues there, because of past attempts to eradicate superpowered individuals through eugenics."

"That seems like a design flaw." But then, Bean doesn't believe in intelligent design. And if what his government file says about him is true, he has his own genetic design flaw built in.

"Still. It must make adjusting to this universe a little bit easier for you. Easier than people who came from worlds without superpowers, at least."

Oh now that comment gets a giggle. "Oh, please don't let certain people hear that. They'll react quite poorly at the suggestion that there are any design flaws within either creation or evolution." She does not on any level sound scandalised.

"As for adjusting, well... It's far easier for me than the majority, I think. I'm also no stranger to being in other worlds. The boundaries between my universe and many adjacent universes aren't very strong, and even the average person has a decent chance at ending up in another world for at least a short period of time. The Many Worlds theory is taught to children in my world at a very young age." She seems perfectly fine with this. (And is.) Despite the implications that this is a theory small children might need to know.

"I know the type." He was practically raised by a Catholic nun, after all.

"Then you seem like the ideal candidate for the Porter." Coming from a world with superpowers and an in-practice multiverse? She's tailor-made for this nuzhnik world.

"Where I'm from, the multiverse exists only in papers about theoretical physics." Which Bean of course has read, when he exhausted the library's selection of military texts. "We only just got the technology to visit other planets, let alone other universes."

"I probably am. Out of my teammates I've been to the most alternate worlds," there's a bit of 'oh geeze' to her comment. "Though this is only my second time being to a world without at least one of the others here with me..."

She then gets back on topic. "Where I'm from, my planet is still working on getting to other planets, though we've had plenty of run-ins with aliens. I think the majority of the non-earth entities we've communicated with so far have all come to the conclusion that we're not ready for travel outside our own solar system yet."

"We didn't really get a choice as to whether we were ready or not." Of course, Bean wasn't alive when humanity got its first visit from extraterrestrials. "We were invaded by a hostile force. Most of the past century has been about defeating that enemy. We developed the technology to travel the stars based on what debris was left behind by their fleet."

The ships weren't the only tech they got from the Formics, Bean knows, but there's no reason to mention the Ansible here.

She nods at that. "I'm sorry you've had to go through that." She pauses, then looks sad. "My world was just recently invaded by an alien fleet. We," her voice starts to crack just a little, "managed to defeat their queen, which made them flee. But not before taking a great deal of damage."

She closes her eyes for a moment. "I hope that your enemy is defeated soon."

When she opens her eyes, her composure is back, a sad, soft smile on her face.

Bean's turn to frown and look away. "They were. We took the fight to their home planet, and wiped them out."

Every last Bugger, dead. All their soldiers, and all their queens. They'll never invade another planet again. But at what cost?

"I'm sorry." She sounds sincere. "Having that sort of thing as a part of your species' legacy is no doubt a heavy burden."

Even if they were defending themselves, complete genocide of an entire species was not an easy thing to life down for most humans, at least not from her world.

"It is," he agrees. "But the burden didn't fall on me, or any of the rest of us. It fell on our Commander who gave the kill order."

Even though it was Bean's comment about the enemy's gate being down that gave Ender the idea, Ender still took the brunt of the guilt on himself. So much so that he would never be able to come back to Earth.

Bean wishes Ender were here. It wasn't their Earth, but it wasn't the cold vacuum of space either.

There's a look of clear, genuine sadness on her face. "I'm sorry he had to do that. I'm sure it was a hard order to give." She hesitates, thinking about stopping there, but decides to continue. "In my world, some heroes have had to make choices with devastating effects, not the eradication of an entire species, but still a large loss of life, and it always leaves them changed..."

A lot of them don't make it past their first year after the events. The heroes will either throw themselves into danger, destroy themselves, or simply decide to end it all one day. And always, always it's brushed under the rug.

She tenses just a little, wondering if after what she and Wishmaster have done they'll end up like that. They only killed one person, but they were in her mind, restraining her in the process.

Bean looks away, not ready to accept the sad look on Nightfall's face. "It tore him up inside. He cried so hard he passed out, and then he slept for a week."

He'd be worried about Ender's mental health going forward, but from what Bean's heard, he has his sister with him, so Bean will just have to trust her not to let anything bad happen to Ender.

But this conversation has really turned in a depressing direction... Bean pops the last piece of orange into his mouth, chews and swallows, then moves to throw the peel into the garbage.

"This world is... odd. There are times when we have to fight threats, but-- At least we're all in it together."

Nightfall gives him a smile at that and nods. "That's true. I haven't been here very long, but just looking at the Network and all the teams shows that. I'm really hopeful that my time here will be time well spent being another member of such a large community."

She played that over in her head a few times, but decided in the end that it made sense, even if it was a little more vague than she'd usually speak. It was something to focus on at least.

"Just be aware, not all the teams want kids joining. Maybe you'll have no trouble, being older. But it's something to keep in mind."

Is Bean still bitter that Apollo wouldn't let him join ImPact? ...Maybe.

She smiles a little at that. "That's alright. If they won't let me join a team, well, there aren't any rules saying I can't make my own. Right?"

She was perfectly serious.

Bean laughs sharply and without much mirth. "Hah. Well. Good luck with that."

And with that he leaves the kitchen.

Norman's been...unsettled, since the incident with the dreams. Since he accidentally brought the worst of his world to this one, if only temporarily. Normally, Jeopardy wouldn't be a place he'd go to feel less unsettled, but for the moment at least it offers a welcome mix of safety and opportunity. Jeopardy wasn't impacted by the dreams. And if there's a clue they can find at to the new ways worlds are intersecting, Norman's still sure they'll find it here first.

Of course, there's still the question of what and where, which is why Norman is currently standing on a street corner looking intently at a map of the city he's made a number of notes on. It's a moment before he realizes he was just spoken to.

"Hmm? Oh, I'm fine." He smiles, looking at the girl curiously. That mask - is she an imPort or one of the natives who have taken up the whole "hero" thing?

She gives him a smile in return before she speaks.

"That's good to hear. Is there any way I can help you?" Her voice is cheerful, and her body language backs that up. "If there is, please don't hesitate to ask!"

In reality, she's expecting to be asked how to get somewhere - something that wouldn't be too much of an issue, as she's certainly been studying the local area and the system she used to memorise everything from street names to business locations was proving to be just as useful here as back in her own world. It was just a very run of the mill activity, and nothing to get particularly excited about.

"Well, if you don't mind..." Norman's smile grows from polite to bright. He's being ingratiating. "Do you live here?"

There are imPort heroes who go from city to city (though he thinks most of those are adults), so it's best to be sure.

She gives back a bright smile of her own with her answer. "I do! I haven't been here very long, but I've already familiarised myself with a lot of the city, so if you need directions or someone to lead you somewhere I can certainly help!"

Maybe it was a little presumptuous to jump right into that offer, but it seemed like a good idea to do so when admitting she had only been here for a short while. And, well, that admission helped her out when it came to expectations.

He blinks. Ah, of course he looks like he needs directions.

"Oh, I know how to get around, actually! I've just been asking people what they think of the city." Not as much recently, but it doesn't hurt to keep that side of the research up when there's an opportunity. There's always the chance of something new, or someone with the ability to notice something others missed.

"Oh! Well, it seems very nice! It's very different from where I'm from, but it has its charms. There are many things I'm still adapting to, such as the Church of the Ancient Web Mistress. Back in my world we keep a very close eye on such things after several situations that were. Um. Very supernatural." She gives a tinkling little laugh. "Though, one of the situations just turned out to be a misunderstanding, and everything turned out fine!"

The other situations, such as the Pastafarian cult that got a little way too into the idea of a pasta deity and accidentally summoned a demon... Those didn't turn out so well. But at least the Temple of the Hooded Moth had turned out to be simple, and everything was talked down until the heroes involved were able to help the hooded moth get back home.

Either way, she was very glad that it was other states that had to deal with that sort of thing, and not Illinois.

Oh, there's something supernatural going on there, Norman's certain. Wise not to say it out loud in public, though. Her response is very diplomatic - maybe she's an optimist, or maybe that's deliberate.

He gives a short, polite laugh in turn. "It is pretty different, isn't it? But it's nice to see new places, sometimes." A bright smile. He may not really mean that about Jeopardy, but it's certainly a true statement in general. "So you're an imPort too! It's nice to meet you. I'm Norman." There aren't that many imPorts around their age, and there's always something a little comforting about meeting one.

"It is! They say variety is the spice of life, after all." She was absolutely not talking about Jeopardy, either. She didn't actively dislike it here, but living in a city that didn't exist before it popped out of thin air was worrying. "I am! I'm Nightfall. It's nice to meet you, too." She gives a slight curtsy at that point, just as she'd been trained to.

Though she wouldn't say it, Nightfall felt similarly about meeting someone who appeared to be around her age. It was just somehow a reminder that maybe some others around her age might appear and be able to team up with her.

Jadus does not sleep. He never let others become aware that he needed to at all, once he became Sith. But in recent years the line between meditation and sleep has blurred to the point of erasure. He simply kneels, breathes deeply, and discards his body for a few hours of uninterrupted contemplation.

He does not often do this in the house. He has other locations that produce more productive results. But there is something new here, felt faintly in the waking hours. He wants to examine it.

He kneels, breathes deeply, and leaves his body behind.

If he were to travel in the direction of the new sensation he would find the source to be a child, one around 12 years old. She was on the floor, sitting cross-legged with her hands on her knees, and her upper body leaning against the side of her bed. She had fallen asleep in the process of her own meditation from the looks of it.

While her appearance was clearly made to be non-threatening and soft, easily accepted by the masses, the aura she gave off was anything but. It was full of fear, and something else. Something heavy and sharp, and stalking. While it seemed to come from her in its way, it didn't seem to be a part of her so much as something that both came from and affected her, seeping out into whatever was near by.

And the affect? She was clearly having a nightmare, her face and fingers twitching, some of her muscles tense even in sleep.

Perhaps he could sense it, or perhaps he couldn't, but this aura seemed to be one that would rarely effect the conscious mind, instead being the sort that would be most likely to affect those who slept, and perhaps those who had opened up that part of their mind in other ways.

The sight granted by the Force does not show him the physical, literal world. He sees more vital things than that. He sees a mind full of unwaking fear, and something else that inspires it, just out of his reach.

To reach them, to observe more clearly, he will need to discard consciousness and sink deeper into his trance. He does so without reservation. Whatever now inhabits this house is of interest to him, and he will understand it.

Almost immediately, things go dark. So dark it would be hard to believe anything was there at all if there were not the oppressive weight of something bearing in on all sides, as if trying to smother any living thing through the force of existing and existing alone, and perhaps being the only thing that truly existed at all. Were Jadus an ordinary person there was a high likelihood that just that on its own might create a panic.

Very few people could handle what felt like the weight of dark nothingness bearing down on them and them alone, not because they were the sole target but because they were the only living being in existence. Perhaps what would cause the most panic wasn't the fact that there was the strong sense that nothing lives nor ever has, here. The worst, in fact, was that to the darkness they were but a speck, not even perceived by the vastness itself.

However, Darth Jadus was no ordinary being, and while the source of this feeling had not recognised him, there was a distinct chance that with the right influences it very well might, that all of this both limited and limitless expanse of nothing might become aware of its sole visitor.

The sensation was not unfamiliar. Perhaps before his arrival on Earth, he would have recoiled from it. Even in seclusion, he had retained awareness of the galaxy beyond. But when he had stepped through the Porter and onto the surface of Earth's moon, he had been faced with the stark nothingness of the world that hung above him, cut off by the distance of only a few thousand kilometers. He had stared at it, and the stars beyond, and he had felt nothing. What should have been universal, eternal, was now finite, false, and the world was utterly devoid of meaning. It was terror, in the absence of all other things.

He had taken to meditating there, to understand it more clearly. Fear was a gift, one he wished to understand and to spread. He had tested himself further on the flight to Phobos, refusing to use the provided nanite boosters, leaving him dead to this false Force entirely. He had suffered, and grown stronger. He had made mistakes since, an unwise communion with Skywalker had introduced flaws to his psyche, but he had set about ruthlessly excising them.

Here, he was a single point, surrounded by a dark he could not draw upon. It pressed in on him, and the flaws remained tried to buckle in response, a brief surge of untamed panic at the purity of the darkness around him. But he pulled the flaws into his core to strangle them, deep beneath the featureless armored shell of his mental defenses, and held steady.

It was some time before he felt stable enough to not simply exist here, but to push against the nothing, to declare his presence. To be fascinated by the emptiness.

Becoming known to the nothingness was no easy task. For the longest time - if time held any meaning in this place - his pushing went unacknowledged in any way. The nothingness didn't move, didn't shift in any perceivable way. It was what it was, and he was insignificant to it.

It could be either an hour or an eternity or a drawn out moment at the worst possible time when the nothingness became aware of him, when his efforts paid off.

It became horribly, startlingly aware. Though there was no light, nothing to see, it was if the eyes of all of existence (or maybe, things that would never reach that point) were suddenly upon him, not merely observing him, but seeing him.

And it was waiting for him to do something to be worthy of its attentions.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Adjusting is Hardest at the Start

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CW: Suicide mention

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around Jeopardy

Re: around Jeopardy

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