004 // text; username: werbinich

[hauntedsavior]

[this, like most of the posts that anna makes, comes in the middle of a sleepless night. she's gone as anonymous as she possibly can, at least. maybe that will stop people from calling her out. maybe one day she'll learn how to talk about her emotions without sounding like a theater kid turned supervillain.]

How are we all feeling in the wake of January?
Are we feeling whole? Normal? Like ourselves?
Suppose you aren't. Suppose you walked, or flapped, or slithered away from the shedding ceremony feeling extremely different.
Could any of you pinpoint that change, do you think?
Would any of you even still be aware that you used to be someone different?

And on the other side of the coin, for people who returned to "normal".
Do you remember what happened? Do you remember who you were?
Or is it all turning into some kind of soup within your own brain?
Do you have any way to stay that gnawing feeling of dread inside you when you think of the way you're losing touch with your own identity?

And if you have no idea what I'm talking about... call it a thought experiment.

Comments

[hauntedsavior]

If I have even the slightest understanding of how Trench works by now,
And I know I do,
It'll be ten days max before I end up stuck in a hole with him or something.

[slightlytaller]

If I get to him first, I'm going to teach him a few lessons myself.

Maybe take him to church.

[hauntedsavior]

Don't do anything at the shrine of his lies.
I've already offered him communion and it didn't go well.

[slightlytaller]

Please, Anna.

I've evidently got a kid that calls me Dad, who's amazed that the people here haven't abandoned him. I need to set a good example.

I'm not going to abandon you over this, or allow you to feel like you have to do it alone.

[hauntedsavior]

Yeah, Wave, I know.

[she doesn't mean to snap at him like this. there's another moment.]

I know that shit is weird and broken and fucked up right now. I know that you're my friend and you want to help me.
But I don't know what to do right now except eat soup and drink tea and hope that when I open my eyes everybody is going to be the way I remember them being again.
I didn't expect all this shit to be fucking with me given where I came from but there's a big difference between changing permanently and ping-ponging between all these extremes and it's fucking with me.
Sorry that I'm not, like, receptive to shit right now.
It just sucks.

[she presses her omni to her chest for a second or two.]

The fuck did you get a kid.

[slightlytaller]

We can probably find a way to petition to the Pthumerians to help us find a way to remedy this-- possibly a means of separating 'Apollonia' from 'Anna', or at least sealing her away so she doesn't surface again.

Although my problems are not the same, it's... Strange having Alexandria's everything in the back of my head. It's like... If somehow Iskandar and I jumped dimensions and had a child.

... Not that this has happened.

The boy I met in Trench, Jun, and I have been talking on and off for a few months. He's a very wise young person who has been through hell and needs to give himself more credit.

At least he's good at picking people for himself. He's romantically attached to Falco, and has been staying with Manabu. I haven't spoken with either, but they seem like good people.

[hauntedsavior]

[there's other things she can reply to, but her heart feels like it stops just from the suggestion.]

No no no no no no no.
No.
Not doing that.
No. Sorry.
I can't.
I can't have her inside me without me knowing about it.

[slightlytaller]

-- then we get her out.

Perhaps you're right. I did my education in the Spiritual Evocations department, but actual soul magic is up alley.

[hauntedsavior]

And then what?
She's just roaming around here freely?
Blowing people up and begging for death?
I don't want that either.

[slightlytaller]

.... We'll figure out something. You don't deserve to be living the kind of hell that you're talking about.

[hauntedsavior]

Is it hell?
Or is it just what my life has been for the past five years?
Just getting bigger and messier and more chaotic.

Did you know that this month is five years, for me?
Five years since my world changed forever?
I should be stronger than this by now.

[slightlytaller]

And have you given yourself a chance to stop and process this hell at all over the last five years?

I'm asking because Trench has hilariously been my first chance to stop in a decade.

[hauntedsavior]

Well I thought I had processed all my shit from Recolle in the year and a half I had off from trying to save the world but I guess the fuck not if I'm still scared of some of the shit that happened back then!
And I thought that I would get a chance to stop but no here I am losing loved ones left and right again and getting so traumatized I dissociate and feeling like I'm constantly in over my head!
Because of this fucking place that had to take me from home where things made sense and make it all worse!

[slightlytaller]

Anna.

Where are you?

I'll send Gray looking if you don't give me a straightforward answer.

[hauntedsavior]

Stay where you are.
Just for now.
I can't do this in person yet.

[slightlytaller]

You're spinning out.

As your friend and sibling in arms I'm allowed to worry.

[hauntedsavior]

You can worry.
Just.
Please.
I'm saying things that if I say them out loud and have to hear my own voice make the words, I'm going to start crying and never stop.

[slightlytaller]

Crying can be healing.

It might help get some of the pain out of your body.

[hauntedsavior]

And I'd look prettier if I smiled, too.

[slightlytaller]

Cry first, Anna.

There's no shame. Gods know I cried a lot when I was alone in my apartment that first month I was here.

[hauntedsavior]

Don't tell me what to do with my body right now, Waver.
Please.

[slightlytaller]

Ok.

I'm here for you, Anna. Always.

I wish there was something I could do to help.

[hauntedsavior]

I just want to be Anna again.

[slightlytaller]

...I know.

But, I don't think even Just Anna could remain unchanged with everything. The boy that I was didn't survive two weeks of the Holy Grail War and come out of it the same way.

I'm not a therapist. I'm not even a good magus. I AM skilled at hypnosis, but that is tricky to do over a distance with our blood types and no Bonds to connect us.

...What do you think Just Anna would be like, here and now, after everything that has happened?

[hauntedsavior]

She would still be confused and angry and afraid.
She would be a lot like me.
But she wouldn't be feeling like this right now.
She wouldn't be feeling like she's lived through so many transformations that she doesn't remember who she is anymore.
She wouldn't be seeing all these people going "you need to embrace it because it's who you are now whether you like it or not" and wanting to drag them into the street to punch them in the jaw because they don't understand.
They don't fucking understand.