John will squeeze him back just as hard, careful not to jostle her.
Bad. Understandably.
A deep breath.
She's been to the Dark World, Jedao. She was trapped there, her mind scourged. She knows only fear and to avoid the darkness. I had to tell her her name.
His eyes close.
...I don't think she'll be better even after the flood.
John isn't nearly so certain, but he'll nod. Jedao can have enough hope for the two of them.
I should introduce you to her. Let her know she can trust you. I've told her your name, that you love her, that she's as safe with you as she is with me. But it'll be better if I tell her while you're here.
"Hello, Justine," he says softly. He's sitting cross-legged, and he sits up straighter, so that he isn't leaning on John so much, ceding his comfort to her. He has his hands folded in his lap, deliberately unthreatening.
"A little while ago, I also of woke up in a strange place, without memories of my life. It wasn't quite the same, but I know...how much everything can be, when there's nothing before."
She's soothed by both of them, natural paranoia smoothed over by a good rest and their apparent knowledge of her. She sits up, away from John and reaches for Jedao, as if testing to ensure that he's real and solid.
"It is," she agrees. "I'm very afraid."
Though the sensation of it is dulled by their presence.
"He's right," Jedao murmurs, and strokes her hair. He feels an odd ache, and catches John's eyes for a moment. Neither of them are the people who lost their memories before them, but he doesn't feel like he's lying.
This Justine could become someone else, but she hasn't yet. It serves absolutely nobody for Jedao to quibble about whether they both deserve to live. That's not how floods work.
"You're just...disconnected from yourself, for a little while. And it's easy to feel terrible when, when you have nothing in yourself to fill up the time with. So we must fill it up with something else. I think you would enjoy making art, something with brightness and color. Will you try it with me?"
Art. It takes her a moment to conjure up what that might be. Colors and brushes and canvases and pencils and needles and thread appear one at a time in her mind like flash cards, and she struggles to hold any of them.
"Yes," she answers, because she wants to know. There is, at her core, an insatiable thirst for knowledge.
John looks around the room to see if there's anything easily accessible to hand her, knitting or sketching or something else. He spots her sketchbook and some colored pencils on her desk and turns a hand to beckon them over to hold out to the both of them.
"You can make anything that - comes to you." He thinks, later, Justine will treasure having some pure expression of this state, even if it's rattled her more than her last memory loss. And even if she doesn't, he'll appreciate it.
"Thank you, John."
He takes a few of the darker pencils, purples and deep blues, and sets the sketchbook open on the floor, so they can lie next to each other and each work on one page. She won't be judged for knowing how to do it; they're doing it together.
She settles onto the floor, mirroring his pose, regardless of actual comfort. She keeps a seafoam green pencil in hand and absently fidgets with it as she stares at the blank paper.
When she finally puts pencil to paper, she doesn't draw shapes as much as she draws forms. Amorphous blobs of colors that blend together and black lines that outline where they meet and merge, rather than highlight the colors themselves. She's fascinated by the blending, and her eyes grow wide as she uses her hand to smudge the colors.
"Does she draw with you?" she asks both John and Jedao.
"You two make art more often than I do. Sometimes I'll work on something just to - be with you. And then I'm always grateful that you give me an excuse."
Jedao, for his part, is doing little circles, chains and spirals of tiny circles shifting from one color to the next.
"Inspire," she repeats and tucks the page out of the way so she can start
with a fresh sheet. This, she reaches over Jedao for the darker colors and
digs deep, indents following the pressure of the blacks and blues. With
more confidence in her eyes and her hands, she sits up to work more
intently.
"What does inspiration mean to you?"
She looks to the other page, to Jedao's steady hand of circles, and starts
to fill her own page with darkness. "And why do you need an excuse?"
"It means to give her a feeling or an idea that she wants to express in song or poem or picture or dance. Usually, it's because she's got so much emotion that it has to go somewhere. I try to make sure it's joy, but sometimes it isn't. If it isn't, it's to help give her a place to put them or a way to use them so they don't sit inside and eat at her."
"Because I'm not so brave as you, I suppose," Jedao muses. "I'm tenuously part of a...group, that has an ancient rivalry with a group of artists. So for me to do it, even though I enjoy it, always feels a bit like I'm getting away with something I shouldn't be doing."
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Bad. Understandably.
A deep breath.
She's been to the Dark World, Jedao. She was trapped there, her mind scourged. She knows only fear and to avoid the darkness. I had to tell her her name.
His eyes close.
...I don't think she'll be better even after the flood.
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I should introduce you to her. Let her know she can trust you. I've told her your name, that you love her, that she's as safe with you as she is with me. But it'll be better if I tell her while you're here.
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It's something more than hope, more than faith. If it's not true, Jedao will make it true. He knows that, in the burning core of him.
That's probably a good idea, he agrees.
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The Admiral. Only the Admiral. Please.
[ He does not want to be responsible for Maddie getting hurt. He likes Maddie, and Maddie was Edwin's inmate. It would be-
No. Having her touch that, experience that, it's the last thing Edwin would want. ]
Let me rouse her
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Okay, let me...
[ And there's a gentle whisper of something that isn't sound but isn't not sound that will rouse her as if she'd woken up normally. ]
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Her eyes open and she rubs her face, sitting up to see -
She gasps at the second face, pulling back into John.
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"This is Jedao, the person I told you about. The other person who loves you. He won't hurt you. He's here to see you."
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"A little while ago, I also of woke up in a strange place, without memories of my life. It wasn't quite the same, but I know...how much everything can be, when there's nothing before."
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"It is," she agrees. "I'm very afraid."
Though the sensation of it is dulled by their presence.
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"This will keep the shadows away. I want you to keep it."
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She takes the globe and then wraps her arms fully around Jedao. "I don't want to be like this anymore. I want to be this person you love."
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This Justine could become someone else, but she hasn't yet. It serves absolutely nobody for Jedao to quibble about whether they both deserve to live. That's not how floods work.
"You're just...disconnected from yourself, for a little while. And it's easy to feel terrible when, when you have nothing in yourself to fill up the time with. So we must fill it up with something else. I think you would enjoy making art, something with brightness and color. Will you try it with me?"
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"Yes," she answers, because she wants to know. There is, at her core, an insatiable thirst for knowledge.
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"Here you go. To get you started."
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"Thank you, John."
He takes a few of the darker pencils, purples and deep blues, and sets the sketchbook open on the floor, so they can lie next to each other and each work on one page. She won't be judged for knowing how to do it; they're doing it together.
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When she finally puts pencil to paper, she doesn't draw shapes as much as she draws forms. Amorphous blobs of colors that blend together and black lines that outline where they meet and merge, rather than highlight the colors themselves. She's fascinated by the blending, and her eyes grow wide as she uses her hand to smudge the colors.
"Does she draw with you?" she asks both John and Jedao.
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"Usually we draw our own pieces, but we make art together all of the time. Sometimes, I inspire her to make things."
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Jedao, for his part, is doing little circles, chains and spirals of tiny circles shifting from one color to the next.
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"Inspire," she repeats and tucks the page out of the way so she can start with a fresh sheet. This, she reaches over Jedao for the darker colors and digs deep, indents following the pressure of the blacks and blues. With more confidence in her eyes and her hands, she sits up to work more intently.
"What does inspiration mean to you?"
She looks to the other page, to Jedao's steady hand of circles, and starts to fill her own page with darkness. "And why do you need an excuse?"
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