This is radio nowhere, is there anybody alive out there?

[notathreat]

WHO: Ellie + OPEN (Grab me if you want a custom starter, even if they haven't interacted yet!)
WHERE: Dreamscape!
WHEN: September 22-25 2512
WHAT: Ellie's managed to keep y'all out of her head until now, but everything's got a breaking point.
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Violence, death, torture, body horror (zombie-type), violence towards a teenager.

Radio Nowhere

Comments

[browbeater]

"Are you alright?" His question focuses on making sure she's fully pulled out of whatever nightmare they were both just in, rather than focusing on Republic City. This was the city at its ideal state, with figures flowing in and out like water.

It's all fluid in his mind, though contained to a set time period, rather than the scarred city he just left. But Mako had always been good at hyperfocus-- it's what made him such an effective firebender and lightning bender. What made him so good at pro-bending.

And what ultimately made it possible to break out of what she was feeling. Just that deep confidence and sense of self, only disrupted by one person, conveniently absent from the scenes of Republic City.

"That was intense, to put it lightly."

She might be able to see the street urchins running scams out of the corner of her eyes. If she focuses, she might see a figure who looks vaguely familiar, but younger, ducking into an alleyway as another, smaller figure suddenly calls for help at a rich looking woman in the distance.

[notathreat]

Ellie parts her lips, but the words die off, because it would be a blatant lie. Anyone with eyes can see that she's not doing well. But the stubborn set of her jaw makes it clear that she doesn't want it to be that way.

She wets her lips instead, breathing in that feeling of self, of confidence. Of focus.

It lays like a wash over her, comforting if it can't touch the deep undercurrent of what she's working through. The channels that contain more than she wants to look directly at, things that won't be solved without a good deal of work.

This is soothing, though.

"Sorry you had to see that."

Ellie fixes her eyes on the children, watching them. They are important, but she doesn't know how yet. Everything else in this place is general, built by feeling, but this seems more specific.

[browbeater]

And the child who disappeared into the alley, leaps out just to be an antagonist, his hands alight with fire. The old lady, pulled in by the other child at first, doesn't know what to make of it. She can't fight this new vagabond off.

And so the other child, determined to help, does it instead, flinging earth and rock, easily beating the other child who disappears again, "overwhelmed" by this kid's awesome power suddenly. The lady, relieved at not being robbed, tips him some money. And he looks so disappointed with the amount. "Only two yuan?!" she hears in the distance.

But closer to her...

"It's fine," Mako replies, following her eyes as she watches. The two children regroup, and then run off, off to buy lunch. Probably. But it's another piece of the fabric for the city. And as she looks at them, she could probably feel the familial bond between them, more the frustrated feelings of the older child ebbing into this sense of focus and calm.

[notathreat]

It's not fine, and they both know it, but she accepts it -- in the end they have to move on. Have to process and keep going. It's how things are; they don't get to stop for a break to let things heal over.

But this is nice.

Ellie grows slowly more clear as they watch, clothes less frayed, bloodstains disappearing. Less starved and haunted and wounded. The scars heal over, and it settles into something else. Flannel and a rifle. The smallest two fingers on her left hand missing.

She still doesn't look well, but it's at least more stable.

"... your brother?" she asks, her voice quiet. It's a guess, but she felt what he felt. What she was projecting had twisted itself, burrowed into his closest bonds to make sure it all made some modicum of sense.

[browbeater]

"Yeah," he answers simply, though he's focusing on her and observing the changes. "We grew up on these streets. Ran small cons like that to survive." Though he wants to know who she lost, what happened, and maybe try to understand her.

Because he knows that sometimes you can do bad, horrible things when you're desperate. And sometimes what you can do when you're not-- but what he'd felt, what he'd experienced, that felt like desperation. A kind he could sympathize with.

"After our parents died, we didn't have much else we could do."

Trying to communicate that he understood.

[notathreat]

"Better than what some people did."

Ellie doesn't sound particularly judgmental about it. Hell, she can't be. She's known and loved people who have done far worse things for the sake of survival, let alone for revenge. She owes her life to smugglers and cutthroats, to torturers and worse.

Shadows creep in at the edges of the dream -- the vines are old, breaking down foundations, reclaiming. He might get a whiff of fungal rot. This isn't industry and nature living in harmony. Instead it's squalor, home to scavengers, everyone looking over their shoulders.

It's indistinct. More a feeling than a place.