[ he makes a noise as he heads to his part of the room, agreeing. no, he really doesn't like it that much, either.
but he likes this even less. it causes a few... conflicted feelings in him. he's sure that she's questioned whether he's wanted to kill her, in the past, or maybe if that's still in his plans despite what he told her about his goal for this place.
once? yes, absolutely. the thought has occurred to him so many times in the past 500-some years that he might as well have more than shi wudu's blood on his hands. but as he holds her close - sits on the edge of the bed while still holding her, instead of putting her down - he can't say with absolute confidence that it's something he's entertained in a little while now. ]
... you're here, now, so you obviously managed to get away. How?
[It would have been easy for his doppelganger to kill her then - as easy as it would have been for him to kill her over the past few centuries. Easier, perhaps, than it would be for him to kill her now.]
There was a... button, on the back of their necks. Medb came to help briefly, but Aoi was being stabbed, so she went to help her after she told me, and I... managed to hit it. You... the thing that looked like you... stopped moving.
[She reaches up and brushes her fingers very lightly over the back of his neck.]
...from there, we still had to go through the vents again to keep going. There still wasn't a door we could go through.
[ it feels like it was so long ago, now, watching her get thrown around by HK-47. longer, still, from when she was in chains in his prison, watching her brother prostrate before the urns of the dead. no, qingxuan is capable in her own right - but not as a fighter, not against something that only has killing intent.
when, in the hundreds of years, did that killing intent dull? ]
Buttons, the wire ports, your burn... [ too much of this is tying too uncomfortably well together. but he bows his head forward a little, to expose the back of his neck to her fingers, hair of his ponytail sweeping across her knuckles. ]
Did the paths of the vents make sense, or were you aimless and just following them? [ did they feel like they matched anything here, in the base. especially if they encountered a conference room... ]
[it's just skin there, under her fingers, unless you're about to come at me with a "surprise he's been a robot all along" or something like that, but i doubt it. shi qingxuan seems comforted by that, and lets her hand fall away a moment later.]
Too many things in the same place for it to be a coincidence.
[it's meaningful, somehow - she's just not sure what that meaning is, just yet.]
...we were just following them. This time when we came out, we were in a hallway - there was a door at the end that actually opened for us. It led into a room with a podium that had four handprints on it.
[...]
We heard noise from the vents, though - so we tried to shut the door. That creature came out of the vents again and was caught under it, and we put our hands on the podium. It - we had to make a choice. Yes or no, recalibrate or don't. But we also felt... really tired, and like we just wanted to go home. ...like maybe someone else could make the choice for us, like we didn't know enough about it, but it would change everything, and...
We chose to do it. That was - it was one of the tasks we were given at the start, so I don't know that we could have made any other choice. Especially not with that creature struggling to get free of the door.
[she closes her eyes]
...we changed, then. It was just like when I investigated the simulation room - our bodies changed in ways that were very similar to some of the features we've seen on the Avatars. [she shudders] ...it stopped, and we went - back to normal, but the creature got free of the door. It came up to us, and it was purring, and it opened its beak...
Last time it did that, it attacked us, so - I didn't wait. I kicked it in the face, first.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
but he likes this even less. it causes a few... conflicted feelings in him. he's sure that she's questioned whether he's wanted to kill her, in the past, or maybe if that's still in his plans despite what he told her about his goal for this place.
once? yes, absolutely. the thought has occurred to him so many times in the past 500-some years that he might as well have more than shi wudu's blood on his hands. but as he holds her close - sits on the edge of the bed while still holding her, instead of putting her down - he can't say with absolute confidence that it's something he's entertained in a little while now. ]
... you're here, now, so you obviously managed to get away. How?
no subject
[It would have been easy for his doppelganger to kill her then - as easy as it would have been for him to kill her over the past few centuries. Easier, perhaps, than it would be for him to kill her now.]
There was a... button, on the back of their necks. Medb came to help briefly, but Aoi was being stabbed, so she went to help her after she told me, and I... managed to hit it. You... the thing that looked like you... stopped moving.
[She reaches up and brushes her fingers very lightly over the back of his neck.]
...from there, we still had to go through the vents again to keep going. There still wasn't a door we could go through.
no subject
when, in the hundreds of years, did that killing intent dull? ]
Buttons, the wire ports, your burn... [ too much of this is tying too uncomfortably well together. but he bows his head forward a little, to expose the back of his neck to her fingers, hair of his ponytail sweeping across her knuckles. ]
Did the paths of the vents make sense, or were you aimless and just following them? [ did they feel like they matched anything here, in the base. especially if they encountered a conference room... ]
no subject
Too many things in the same place for it to be a coincidence.
[it's meaningful, somehow - she's just not sure what that meaning is, just yet.]
...we were just following them. This time when we came out, we were in a hallway - there was a door at the end that actually opened for us. It led into a room with a podium that had four handprints on it.
[...]
We heard noise from the vents, though - so we tried to shut the door. That creature came out of the vents again and was caught under it, and we put our hands on the podium. It - we had to make a choice. Yes or no, recalibrate or don't. But we also felt... really tired, and like we just wanted to go home. ...like maybe someone else could make the choice for us, like we didn't know enough about it, but it would change everything, and...
We chose to do it. That was - it was one of the tasks we were given at the start, so I don't know that we could have made any other choice. Especially not with that creature struggling to get free of the door.
[she closes her eyes]
...we changed, then. It was just like when I investigated the simulation room - our bodies changed in ways that were very similar to some of the features we've seen on the Avatars. [she shudders] ...it stopped, and we went - back to normal, but the creature got free of the door. It came up to us, and it was purring, and it opened its beak...
Last time it did that, it attacked us, so - I didn't wait. I kicked it in the face, first.