some die looking for a hand to hold

[gramarye]

Who: Wolfgang and OPEN
What: Antipsychotic medications have been known to exacerbate psychosis. There is a risk of permanent chemical dependence leading to symptoms worse than before treatment began.
Where: Badside, Mog Hill, Echomire, Brock Marsh, Raven's Gate, Chimer
When: Veerdi-Shundi
Notes: FEEL FREE TO SKIP THE OP it's me tl;dring. Thread starters in comments, if none of those work just... post whatever and I'll roll with it. Also, a polyvore.
Warnings: Medical/health care. For real. Specifically, this post touches on symptoms of mental illness, drug dependence, side effects and withdrawal, medical treatment, and seizures. Very possibly TW for suicidal ideation.

He's halfway down the block before he realises he left his body behind.

Panicked, he runs and hides, waits for whatever this is to end. It doesn't. He slinks back to his bedroom at five in the morning, watching his body sleep, pacing the length of the room and wondering if he can get back inside. Eventually, it becomes less terrifying, but it is frustrating to be outside of his body while the flesh sleeps and unable to do anything -- unable to touch anything, to speak to anyone, to even be seen. It further blurs the line between dream and reality; which is which? Which really happened?

It was supposed to get better. He was supposed to Awaken and this would stop. He'd be fine, he could stop taking the meds, he could get his life back, everything would be like it used to -- when he was young and wild and free and knew he could do anything he wanted, whenever he wanted. Only this time, he wouldn't have to be so lonely; people would understand...

Instead, it's getting worse. When he's not on them, he can't tell the voices apart, can't tell what's real and what's in his head, feels smothered under the weight of the irrational thoughts that plague him. He argues with people who aren't there in public, not realising he's the only one who can see them, or that maybe they're not there at all. He gets random pains -- swift, shock-like ones and longer-lasting muscle pain, stiffness in his neck, long-lasting headaches that aspirin doesn't fix. His hands shake so hard he can't use them. When he's on them, the side effects now outweigh the benefits. The sedative effect of antipsychotics makes day-to-day living harder when he is already sleeping thirteen hours a day. He falls asleep anywhere, at any time -- on the train, at work, in bars -- but no matter how much he sleeps, it's never enough. He is losing time. He'll sit down and the next thing he knows, the sun is much lower, or else it's dark out, and he's confused and disoriented. Once, he wakes up on the floor of his living room with a paintbrush still in his hand, and his entire body feels as if it was just tazed, just one giant, sore muscle, and there's blood in his mouth -- he bit through his cheek.

It only happens once, but it's enough to thoroughly scare the shit out of him.

Above all else, though, it makes it clear that no matter how many times he smiles and says "fine, thank you, how are you," he is not functioning. He is consistently late for work, if he manages to go at all, and when he gets back to his house, he has barely enough energy to collapse on the mattress he set up in the living room, and then he sleeps the rest of the day. He needs a drink -- or six -- just to get through the day, and if he has to go outside and socialise like a normal human being, he takes stimulants. After the incident last week, he has stopped answering his CiD, and he quits one job, gets fired from another, and stops showing up for the third. Having free time again is nice. It's not much, a few hours between sleep, and even then he doesn't use it very effectively. Does some work on the house. Reads, when he can muster up the energy, the big medical texts he borrowed from a public library.

Does not like what he finds.

Clozapine has been shown to lower seizure threshold and produce significant EEG changes. Although not a commonly used drug, both clinical neurophysiology technologists and interpreting electroencephalographers need to be aware of the effects of clozapine on the EEG...

CNS Effects of Haloperidol
Insomnia, restlessness, anxiety, euphoria, agitation, drowsiness, depression, lethargy, headache, confusion, vertigo, grand mal seizures, exacerbation of psychotic symptoms including hallucinations, and catatonic-like behavioral states...

The words keep ringing in his head, over and over. He has to read it over and over again because it takes that long for anything to sink in -- he sees the words, but he can't make any sense of them, and when he finally does, he just sits there quietly and thinks about what they mean. He is not sure how long that takes.

Maybe he should tell someone.

He thinks about that, those words still at the forefront of his mind, when he drags himself out of bed, forces himself to get dressed, and leaves the house, like maybe if he just goes out and does something, he'll be okay. He has always been able to push through this before. It has been one thing after another all year, and he thinks maybe it's indicative of some kind of personal failing that he can't take it in stride like the rest of the city. He has never been strong -- he thinks -- and ten years later he has been made more brittle by a lifetime of expectations and disappointments, by the slow reveal of an unjust world he is completely powerless in.

And it has been following him into his dreams. The old nightmares -- memories of past lives, people he's been before. Some he's had before and some he hasn't, but they're all familiar because they all really happened, except something is wrong in them this time. The way the trees begin to curl in on themselves when he looks at them too long. The patterns of spiderwebs, reflecting rainbow from morning dew, too unnaturally perfectly round. The thin lines of clouds curling inwards, inwards.

Always in a spiral.

Every time it interrupts the dreams he knows he should be paying attention to, knocks him out of the memory and into awareness, but still dreaming. No. He runs from them instead, swinging from memory to memory like handholds, but when he sees it again he misses the mark and falls. No. This is real running, the background warping behind him and he has to get away, really away, because he's not even safe here and he can't tell if this is real. He only jerks to a stop because there is nowhere else to run, he's standing on the edge of a cliff that is wrong because there's nothing behind him except more ocean. The sea, all around. Deep, open water, impossibly grey.

There is more than one way to go. He looks upwards, but he can see the clouds beginning to move, twisting and starting to spiral, and -- No. Just one. He jumps.

Seven miles under the surface, there is no light. No sight. No sound. No smell. No feeling. He can taste salt water sometimes, but that fades eventually. Above him there are hundreds of pounds of pressure threatening to collapse or explode his body, but that fades, too, until there is nothing but this -- drifting in blackness, enveloped in it like an isolation tank. A Ganzfeld cocoon.

Safe. The only safe place there is.

But in the waking world he wanders around like a zombie, hollow-eyed, closer to broken than anything else and too tired to fight anymore. He would just go under, if he could.

This is his last-ditch effort to find a way to believe that not everything in the world is evil.

Comments

badside, morning.

[gramarye]

There's beauty in Badside, if you know where to look for it.

And he does. Not even the sad, hopeful kind of beauty, like green shoots peeking their way out from underneath broken concrete, or a particularly skillful bit of graffiti, or the way the sunrise filters prettily through the fog. It's just that the nicer parts of Badside are that way because of the slow, encroaching gentrification, and looking at them does nothing for the ache in his chest where he thinks his heart is supposed to be. It's just hot anger there now, sometimes, but more often the steady dull beating of impotent frustration. Banging his hands against the bars.

He avoids the pubs he normally wastes time in because he doesn't have any money, and too many people here recognise him as their neighbour for him to be comfortable just sitting and people watching. He doesn't have it in him right now to have polite chats about how so-and-so is doing, how are the kids, shitty weather we're having lately. He would like to, is the thing.

Instead he drifts down the street, not looking at anything, not seeing anything. He should probably pay attention to where he is going.

mog hill.

[gramarye]

It occurs to him once he gets off the train at the Mog Hill station that coming here is a mistake -- too many people who know him, probably. But the train's already left and his feet are taking him in the opposite direction, anyway, like if he holds still for so long something is going to break. Like momentum can save him.

He finds a park, a little bit of greenery, and it's not natural but it's not the ubiquitous brown and grey of the man-made buildings that make up most of the city, so it's good enough. He has to sit because he's so damn tired, so he picks a bench that's close enough to a little playground that he can hear the kids screaming and laughing but not so close that he's some creepy strange guy sitting around staring at strangers' kids. He just needs to hear them, to have that reminder --

Of what? Because all he can think of is a little girl he failed to save.

He puts his head in his hands, breathes in deeply, and then slowly raises his head again, trying to focus on what is good about this. What is good: trees older than the city itself, new flowers blooming shyly in the early spring, children who don't yet know how bad it can get.

He used to be one of them. That's what he lost. He doesn't know anymore how to go back there.

A ghost sits down on the bench next to him and he doesn't even have the energy to panic about it, just watches her watching the children. Her face is familiar, but neither of them speaks. He wonders if she's really there -- if he's the only one who can see her.

[catiana]

Tatiana is leaving her shift at Glory Shada when she decides to stop by the park. She's been there before; there are quite a few strays hanging around. Some species she recognises, some she doesn't, some are just on the edge of familiar. She's offered all of them hands to sniff, crumbs to nibble.

There are kids at the playground, today, and her steps slow as a small, wistful smile curves her lips. She remembers feeling that free, once. That confident and comfortable with the world.

Her gaze travels across the park, and she notices someone else watching - someone else alone, as the laughter echoes around them. She hesitates, but...heroism is more than fighting monsters, and she's already filled that quota for a while.

So she heads over to the bench, and she smiles. "Hi. Is this seat taken?"

[gramarye]

Wolfgang startles when addressed, staring at her for a few moments -- it takes that long to process the words. Then his expression does a series of contortions as he glances back at the other end of the bench and tries to decide how to answer. Saying no is not technically true. But Yes it's taken by someone invisible, while true, also sounds insane, and even though he knows perfectly well that people in Baedal take that kind of thing in stride, the fear of being seen as crazy is stronger.

The ghost doesn't seem to be moving. Whether she can't hear Tatiana or she's just so focused on what she's looking at, Wolfgang is not sure. He is very curious if she'd notice if someone sat on her. Would it be mean to let that happen? (Would it also be funny?)

Will Tatiana think he's nuts if he starts talking to someone who isn't there?

"Not really," he settles on instead, with a slight upward inflection as if he's not... exactly sure. That seems like an acceptable compromise. He probably does sound crazy, shit.

[catiana]

Tatiana waits patiently for the response, and the one she gets is interesting, more than anything. She tilts her head, peering at him. "You're not sure?" That's...not so odd, considering. That wouldn't be so odd back home, with some people, some places.

"Cause I don't want to end up sitting on someone, that's just rude."

echomire.

[gramarye]

The garden he finds himself in -- startled to look up and realise he is somewhere, as opposed to the nowhere he was hoping for -- is not like any he's seen before. The great stone sculptures have been here so long they're all covered with the same overgrowth that engulfs everything here, as if the land is trying to take it all back, or at least cover it up so nobody can see it.

He stops abruptly, disoriented, because he literally does not remember getting off the train and walking here, but he must have.

It's so quiet. He can't even hear any birds.

He turns his gaze to look over one of the massive sculptures, unidentifiable in form. Its stone eyes are nothing more than empty circles and he knows he's reading too much into it to see anything other than a blankness there, but it looks to him more as if it's screaming. If it was intended to frighten anyone, it isn't, at least not now. Looking at it just makes him feel sad and trapped and lonely.

Why did he come here?

He sits down on the edge of what used to be a fountain, now so overrun with plant life it's practically all green, and reaches in his pocket, finding a silver cigarette case he doesn't remember bringing with him. Smoking here feels vaguely blasphemous, even though it's not tobacco in his hand-rolled cigarettes (the smell is pretty distinctive), which is supposedly more natural. It still feels like he's disturbing the order of things, and the click-fwoosh of his lighter is incredibly loud against the stillness. All he can hear is himself inhaling and exhaling a cloud of blue smoke.

It's calming, though. The illusion of being alone. He stays there a while, the only sign of intelligent life anywhere around being the beacon his smoke becomes.

[caoineadh]

The fox curled up in the mouth of one of the statues isn't, actually, a fox. Rather, Clio had decided she needed to get out but hadn't wanted to walk around as a human - people look at her weird when she does, the last few months showing obvious signs. So instead, a crow had flown out from the Lea's house in Flag Hill and turned into a fox once it had settled down at the gardens because she'll look less out of place here. (The forests make her skin crawl, but gardens aren't too bad).

So. Fox. One that's still distinctly malourished, but people tend to care less.

Clio had been sleeping, but she'd woken up when she feels Wolfgang's - magic? Presence? - She's never been sure how to describe this sort of awareness, but she can pick other supernatural creatures. It's easier when they're fae and it always make her more curious when they're not. She hops out from the mouth of the statue and stalks closer to him, trying to determine what exactly he is. She is not being particularly subtle.

[gramarye]

Wolfgang is used to some weirdness from animals. It's crows, goats, and cats that come up to him curiously -- and all dogs react to him with the same aggressive terror. Wild animals, that's new, and in Baedal sometimes it's hard to tell when animals are just extra intelligent, when they're sentient, and when they're actually people. Still, his first thought when he notices a fox coming closer is that it's a fox, and whether it's the half the joint he's smoked already or the fact that it's not a person approaching him, he doesn't startle the way he would otherwise.

Instead he shifts slowly, posture open, hands visible. "Hey," he says, in a soft voice like he doesn't want to scare her, and like talking to animals is perfectly natural. It used to be they'd talk back to him; lonely children have to get creative when making friends. "Where'd you come from?"

He doesn't reach out to touch her -- if it's a wild animal that's a bad idea, and if it's not then it's just rude -- but he does hold very still. "You're skinny. I don't have any food, sorry."

[caoineadh]

The way Clio pauses and ducks her head, sheepish, is a very unfoxlike gesture. She makes a note to remember how to sneak better - it's been a while since she's shapeshifted and it'd taken her an hour in crow form before she could even get airborne (it'd been embarrassing, flapping around Lea's backyard).

She can understand him and appreciates his reaction, but she can't respond verbally and there's a moment of indecision as she tosses up whether she wants to be people shaped. The answer is kind of 'not really', but she'd feel guilty if she kept playing as a real fox when she distinctly isn't. Eventually she settles on shifting back to human, giving a soft yip before backing up and changing.

It's a quick process, because it's magic, not physical and it also means she gets to keep her clothes (leggings, a loose hoodie and boots). So rather suddenly there is a smiling person in the place of a fox.

"Sorry." For intruding. And a potential apology in case she freaked him out.

brock marsh.

[gramarye]

There are a few churches in Baedal, but most of the House Ecumenal buildings are like this: small, nondenominational. They say they're open to anyone, and anyone can see the effort they go to to appeal to as wide a swath of believers as they can. They mean well, but sometimes with these buildings, in an attempt to communicate how they're different from the Twelve Point Divinity, they hang up crosses.

It's not welcoming; it's watered down. There's no familiar anchor here to hang on to, just empty white walls. It feels like praying to a corporate logo, an advertising campaign with a soundtrack of easy listening music.

He comes anyway hoping maybe this time it will help, but knowing it won't. He sits down among the scattered handful of other people trying to reach out to what they think of as God, their hands slipping as they try to hold on to their old faiths in a city that bulldozes over it, and even that is not enough, because he's still not like them.

He's prayed a thousand times before in this city and it's never helped; he doesn't think God can hear him out here. In Lebanon and Turkey at least there were people like him, so He never felt that far away. His faith may not have been consistent his entire life, and much of the time after he left home he may have been alone in it, but Wolfgang has always felt like God was there. He can't feel His presence in these carefully calculated buildings which they don't call churches even though they are.

He shouldn't have come here. It's just making him feel -- what, angry?

He gets up in one forceful motion and leaves in a hurry, but stops outside the door, leaning against the wall and trying to rein it back in. He's never felt so cut off from God. Here, he's screaming into an empty room where, his entire life up until now, someone has been.

[lupa]

Somewhere between the lines of her Ave Maria, GG has slipped from prayer to contemplation, her eyes closed as the familiar words peter out, her lips ceasing to move- she has not been saying the words aloud, preferring to mouth them silently. Now they drift away, though her eyes stay closed, blonde hair over her face; she doesn't kneel, sitting on one of the subtly uncomfortable chairs with her legs apart, elbows on her knees. Bent over, bowed, her hands clasped tight.

It's the busy silence of a number of people being very quiet, talking to themselves (or someone) in their heads. She breathes in and the scents are like colours. They speak of people on their own or in tight groups, and the curiously dismal air which spaces open to the public are prone to, as if the building itself is exhausted by the people coming in and out and never staying for long. It's not like home (it's not like home used to be) where religion was sensory and tactile, wooden pews and rosary beads between her fingers, incense in the air and a congregation murmuring in sync, rising and falling like waves- their voices and they themselves, standing and sinking on cue, carrying GG along with them.

This feels like a hospital waiting room, she thinks; there's that same air of slightly damp anticipation, the same urge to try and work out what everyone else is suffering from and the same fear of making eye contact.

She falls deeper and deeper into listening, breathing in, so still she could be part of the sparse and slightly sad furniture. Her mind is blank, but her senses are running wild, and it's actually almost peaceful in a last ditch way, until sudden, sharp movement from across the room makes her head snap up.

GG sees him leave, stays frozen for a second. Some people ignore his exit, some look uncertainly over at the door and at each other.

"Crisse," mutters GG, appropriately, and hauls herself up from her chair, ignoring the less-than-holy clunk of her boots on the floor as she heads for the exit. The outside world is noisy and feels more real, less like a bad parody of itself.

God, he looks sick.

"Hey," she says. She's a tad too abrupt; it sounds more like a demand for attention than a greeting, as if she's caught him red-handed at something. "Are you alright?"

...a slightly pointless question.

[gramarye]

"I'm fine, thank you --" is an equally pointless response, and one that comes so automatically from him that it's laughable. He realises that, too, because he winces in response and barely manages to stop himself from apologising -- for what, he's not sure. The terrible lie, disturbing her, breathing her air? Someday he'll figure out what exactly he's so sorry about that he has to tell everyone he meets. Sorry, I'm sorry.

His hand, halfway into his pocket to look for cigarettes, stops. He won't light up with someone else around even though it's legal in Baedal and nobody really cares. It just seems --

Wolfgang shrugs and turns his head away. He smells like magic and medicine, violets and vetiver, paint, and a little bit of weed. Him and half the city his age. "I can't stand these places," he says. Not a conversation starter exactly and not quite an apology, more like an explanation, offered a little awkwardly. The fact that he's here at all says enough about why he bothered. Monotheists in Baedal seldom have any other choice but to come somewhere like here.

[lupa]

GG shoves her hands into her pockets, glancing over her shoulder at the not-Church. "--Yeah, they're...they don't feel right." There is, for her at least, the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Chimer, which is closer to what she wants, but somehow somewhere nearly right was worse than somewhere totally wrong. "The whole city doesn't feel right, but when it's this- it gets to you more, maybe."

It's absurd, of course, because she hasn't been able to go to any kind of place of worship in years because of the world imploding around her, but it's how she feels.

"Smoke what you want," she's moved to add, though it's not really that practical when your sense of smell is so highly developed; she's not going to be able to stop smelling weed for hours if he does light up. She can tell it's in his pocket, of course- not because she was intentionally sniffing it out, just because that's how her senses work now.

[bodilesswarrior]

Barbara doesn't linger by the House out of any religious affinity; she just wants to see how it's holding up, after the attacks. She makes these rounds regularly, in Brock Marsh - noting the progress, seeing if there's anything she can do. Usually it amounts to advice, to networking, but at least it's something.

From the outside, the House Ecumenal looks much like it always has, humble but stalwart; she's reconsidering entering when the door opens.

She recognises Wolfgang immediately, but she hesitates; their last meeting was...intense, and she hasn't wanted to haunt him with it. But he looks so strained, so exhausted, so utterly alone -

So she really can't help wheeling forward with a gentle, uncertain smile.

"Hey," she says softly.

[gramarye]

He's reaching in his pocket for... something, he's not sure -- a flask, a cigarette, something to rein in the feelings he is not used to having. (Blunted affect is either a side effect or a symptom, he's not actually sure anymore. The lines blur.) But he looks up when he hears a voice, surprised, as if he's not expecting to be addressed.

Pause. "Hello."

He should make his face look -- something. 'Friendly' is more feasible than 'fine' or even 'okay,' but that's a difficult distinction to make. He makes an effort to smile. It's not a very good one, but there's effort in it anyway.

[bodilesswarrior]

She appreciates the effort, and her own smile deepens. She can't help but look him over, though she does it subtly.

"What have you been up to?" She won't ask how he's been; the answer's a bit obvious, and she doubts he'll tell her anyway - not here, not now. She won't be pressing, regardless.

raven's gate.

[gramarye]

End of the line for the El is in Tar Wedge. He doesn't remember coming this far north, and he's not sure where he intended to go, but it doesn't surprise him that he's here, drifting his way towards the sea.

He gets off and follows the river because he needs that and it's close enough to the tang of ocean water, the way salt dries on your skin under the sun and leaves a scent there that lasts even if you wash it off. But he is tired.

He sits down by the edge of the river, feet over the side, very close to the water. Maybe about a foot between them. He knows there's things in the river, but right now he's not afraid of anything. He would welcome it, even, at this point: a way out. Some things can be gifts. But -- no, he knows some things, and it's not going to happen. Not today, anyway.

When he looks down at the water all he sees is his own stupid face. He dips down, holding himself off the edge with his arms, to disturb the water with his foot just so that the ripples distort his image and he doesn't have to look at himself.

[rhinemaid]

Although it's not immediately clear, there is actually an eminently sensible explanation for why Ilde is standing purposefully by the river's edge a bit further down in a wide-brimmed hat and her underwear. It doesn't matter right now, being largely irrelevant to what follows, but it's worth noting: an explanation exists, and there is a method to her madness.

It can wait, whatever it is; when she notices Wolfgang, she makes her way down the bank toward him without stopping to consider small and unimportant details like 'whether or not he actually wants company' and 'whether or not he actually wants her company, particularly'. Or 'would he prefer her company to be wearing pants', though in fairness this last oversight has more to do with the fact that it's astonishing to find her wearing as much as she currently is by the riverside, and onlookers should really just take what fabric they can get and be content with that.

She sits down beside him, instead of saying hello.

[gramarye]

Well. Yes, at least she's wearing something as opposed to nothing, but when he notices her there -- and it takes him a moment to notice, like he's acting on some kind of delay -- he blushes and turns his eyes away. (Yes, really.) As if he's not already seen her naked, but -- that's different, she was underwater at the time. ... Times.

Baedal is really weird.

He doesn't say anything for a bit, and when he does, it's by signing -- his gestures hesitant and awkward the way everyone is when they're learning a new language. Hello, Ilde.

He knows she knows -- he remembers one of the last times they spoke, she signed at him from underwater. He's sort of curious how Baedal's translation effect applies to sign language.

[rhinemaid]

His presence here, in and of itself, is a pleasant surprise but not really very surprising, in the truest sense. She wasn't expecting him to be here, but she wasn't very startled by it, either. His chosen method of communication, on the other hand (so to speak)-- it's funny (except it isn't) that she hesitates to assume he learned for her. That's her first thought (delighted, touched, important enough to accommodate), but it's promptly undercut by her second and her third (there are other possible explanations, she isn't the only deaf person in the city; she shouldn't be presumptuous).

It's funny, except that it isn't, what she will and will not presume.

She reminds herself that she's pleased (because she is), before she can forget.

Hi. And then he gets to wear her hat. As a reward.

chimer, sunset/night.

[gramarye]

By the end of the day, he's here -- of course he is. He knows he should go to his friend's house, that he really shouldn't be alone right now, but he can't deal with any of his unsubtle hints and he knows he'll just offer Wolfgang things he shouldn't be taking right now. That he'll decide to do something stupid he'll regret. So he avoids that street and makes his way further to the sea until scent becomes sight and there it is, reflecting the setting sun millions of times with little rays that stab his eyes. He misses the sea all the time. He would live here if he could, he could maybe pull some strings and manage to afford it if he worked hard and supplemented it with magic, but --

-- people see his hand and then their eyes turn chilly, and often as not it is made very clear to him that he is unwelcome.

The boardwalk is busy at this time of day, everyone coming out after just having gotten off work, and he is anonymous enough. He could go out and touch the water, but he won't, because the thought of being seen --

Instead he sits on top of the low wall separating the beach from the sidewalk and wishes, smoking his last cigarette, and tries not to think about what he's missing because he is trapped here. They've surely guessed what became of him by now, would have been questioned by the police, but he hasn't contacted his family since he left. He's been too ashamed to call or write or even send a fucking Facebook message. He would give anything to hear his sisters' voices. It's been two years since he heard them speak. The youngest, Hava -- she'd be twelve now.

He is missing everything.

After the sun sets he gets up and goes looking for a pub or bar or club or somewhere he can get thoroughly, blackout drunk -- which won't help, but it will make him forget for a little while.

chimer, sunset/night.

[wontturntofoam]

Shrieky has been swimming, or, to be more accurate, wading through water that his legs haven't quite yet figured out how to move through easily. He's soaked through, and walking down the street beside the beach when he sees Wolfgang. Thinks he sees him, at least. There's a cascade of hair so blonde that it's almost white, narrow shoulders, and he can just picture the person up ahead of him turning around and being Wolfgang. The figure is distant, and walking away from him, so he decides to throw caution to the wind, and run!

He hates running. The world lurches around him, and he's afraid that he's going to fall, but the space between he and maybe Wolfgang is closing and he doesn't want the other man (or perhaps woman, if he's wrong) to get away before he's reached them.

By the time he's at maybe Wolfgang's side, he's out of breath, muscles straining and heart pounding in his chest, and rather than trust his voice (which is by now silenced by the absence of any oxygen in his lungs) he reaches out to touch the back of his hand to the back of Wolfgang's. He doesn't want it to seem like he's trying to strike or grab at the young man, but he does, dearly want to attract his attention.

[gramarye]

Wolfgang does not hear someone approaching him. He should, he knows better than to tune out his surroundings in that way, especially somewhere that's proven to be as emphatically unsafe as Baedal is, but he's so tired and he keeps retreating inside his own head, preoccupied as he is.

A single touch is all that's needed to yank him out of his own head and throw him right back into reality, and it startles him so badly that he whips around, arms raised to protect himself and he can feel power building in him like a shot --

His response is so exaggerated that it surprises even him -- and worries him, because this isn't normal, is it? It takes him shamefully long to realise what's happening -- it's only a few seconds but it feels like an eternity to him. He's not being attacked, someone is trying to get his attention. Someone he knows. Not a threat.

"Oh," he says, and he makes a visible effort to relax. Embarrassed, he lowers his hands. "I didn't... hi. Sorry."

chimer, sunset/night.

[stitching_squid]

The evening hours are more to an illithid's liking than the cringing blaze of day, and so it is then that Manfelsashiir slips out of the inn to properly experience its new surroundings. The trains are something new and not unwelcome; no amount of curiosity can really make walking too far in a city on a bad leg a particularly wise course of action.

There are several neighborhoods that sound promising; one of them is Chimer, with both the river and a beach nearby and a reputation for welcoming "scholars and reclusive types" besides. If nothing else, it thinks, the humid air should make for a pleasant evening. So it is there Fel goes first, stick tapping softly, a peaceful observer. (A few people look mildly, briefly startled when they see it, but the surprise is never recognition. Here an illithid is simply one more xenian. Not even Sigil offered such freedom.)

The crowded areas offer crashing waves of every emotion, and for some time Fel opens its senses to taste them. It is a fast way to learn about the environment, if an eventually-overwhelming one. When the illithid has had its fill for the moment it moves away from the rush of beings in search of room to breathe.

Apparently one of the humans has done much the same. Away from the flood of other feelings the wisps of despair hang clearly in the air like dew-strung spiderwebs. Fel keeps walking, debates attempting communication. Those in such a mood tend to either welcome distractions or drive them away at once, but what's the worst that might come of it? To be asked for privacy is hardly an insult, and this does not seem to be an area where violence is a serious concern. An acceptable risk, then.

[Pardon me,] it murmurs in a soft, seashell-colored thought as its slow path parallel to the wall nears the stranger's perch. Not too close, some feet away, but just the same this seems the right phrase. [The sea is lovely, isn't it?]

A harmless pleasantry, for after Oryndoll Fel is still in a mood to keep its acceptable risks small indeed.

[gramarye]

Wolfgang has been in Baedal long enough that visibly non-human xenians no longer weird him out, although he does still tend to be surprised by them; coming from somewhere where almost everyone looks human to Baedal, you never really get used to it. What startles him instead is the voice in his head because he has a moment of intense panic -- real or not real? Is it his or someone else's? And is it his or is it his?

It doesn't sound like one of his. Generally, that's a voice telling him what to do, or else it's a voice talking to or about him like overheard snippets of conversation. Sometimes the line is blurred enough to be indistinguishable. With his senses open, it still takes him longer than it should to trace that thought back to its source, and his head turns, eyes wide, face pale and drawn.

"Oh," he says. Not his. (Real.) Then he relaxes.

There's a moment where he's unsure -- while he can pick up on others' thoughts just fine (too fine, since he keeps doing it accidentally), he is not really capable of sending them himself outside of simple feelings or compulsions, like run or hide or sleep, all of which have been useful in Baedal. It's hard to tell if someone who communicates telepathically can hear physically.

"It's -- yeah, it is." His smile is a little awkward and strained, but he makes the effort to be friendly.