[network] @ADMIN; Arrival

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[heavensreader]

[Hearing the tablet's inhuman voice speak Enoch's words turns the experience surreal. At that moment, Kesara is near certain that this is the dream, and she is really still back in Serindia. And because this is Enoch, whom she remembers she loved, in some strange small way, she feels a terrible need to break that spell. Even if it means reaching out.]

I'll listen to it later - what happened, Mr. Enoch? Why are you unwell? Is anyone with you?

[warriorscribe]

It's only the wear of this place. I'm not alone, it's all right. I'm only not entirely comfortable with my voice at the moment.

[He hopes she takes it all to mean MN poisoning, or fatigue or hunger. Food poisoning. A perfectly normal illness, even. Something normal. He can't involve anyone else unless he has no other recourse.]

[heavensreader]

You know I wouldn't mind. You've heard me, well, you've heard me cry like a little child before. And you were so kind about it.

-> voice

[warriorscribe]

[...Maybe she'll only hear his exhaustion. He doesn't want to let her down. She's such a clever, resourceful child. The kind of child that will grow into greatness. How can he disrespect that by refusing this?

The mic opens on a slow exhale. He is breathing more heavily than usual, exhausted, and his slower speech reflects as much. There's a frailty to it, too, a pervasive split-second hesitation.]

I did give you fair warning, I suppose. This place is wearing on me. I apologize if it worries you. Welcome back, Kesara.

[There is a warmth at that, that covers the brittleness. Perhaps it serves to distract from it. Perhaps it only makes it more apparent.]

[heavensreader]

[He sounds utterly dreadful, and though she isn't frightened, at once it all touches her and she feels it. Kesara swallows a sympathetic rasp in her own throat, feels her breathing grow heavy to echo Enoch's. She has to swallow several times, in tiny discreet reflex, before she trusts herself to respond. She doesn't want him to hear how affected she is.

A door that opens both ways, Lao Dian had called it. Make sure you've a lock on your side.]

You sound very sick, Mr. Enoch. I think that you should rest. You will not do anyone much good in this condition.

[warriorscribe]

I know. I get what rest I can. Wilson - Doctor Wilson gave me some medicine to help. You would like him, Kesara, he's a very kind man.

[That medicine isn't helping quite as much as it should but he really has no way to know that his nightmares have anything to do with it - they're what caused the insomnia in the first place, after all, and the medicine does make him sleepy as promised...]

[heavensreader]

Another doctor? They keep coming. [A bit of information of great interest. Kesara always has her uses for kind doctors, especially one that doesn't know her yet.] But his medicine cannot be very good if you still sound like this.

[warriorscribe]

There are medicines that can do many things, but I doubt there is a medicine for everything. It does what it's meant to, I do sleep more easily with it. I'm not sure what state I might be in without it.

[The medicine works as far as he's concerned, it just doesn't make him less broken. Not that he's volunteering that. He doesn't really expect or even want it to. It would be like not taking responsibility for himself, in his mind.]

[heavensreader]

[Despite herself, Kesara feels a lick of fear along the edges of her spine. She is swiftly remembering the state that Norfinbury can reduce people to, has reduced her to. She does not like the implication in Enoch's words, of hopelessness.]

You really must rest then. If medicine does no good then there is nothing else to it. All the doctors I know say so.

[warriorscribe]

I know. I can't exactly... [He trails off in a breath of a humorless chuckle.]

I suppose eventually it will happen. You don't need to worry about me.

[He can't just keep having nightmares forever, right? There's always been a break at some point, always at least one night where they didn't happen.]

[heavensreader]

Oah, so everyone always says. You needn't worry about me, Kesara, go on and drink the last of the water, the brain shrinking within the skull is such a small insignificant discomfort. [Her exasperated tone hints that she is recounting a real incident.]

[warriorscribe]

[...He will have to ask one of the doctors if that's a real thing. That is unsettling, to say the extreme least.]

I'm...sorry, for whoever made that sacrifice. But you do know why, don't you?

[heavensreader]

Because I am a child, and it is the duty of adults to look after me. [She drones it as a hated refrain of her life.]

[warriorscribe]

Because you are already clever enough to be capable of greatness now, and you have so much to grow into. So much more you might learn. I know you resent it. But you will understand better in time, I know you will.

[It's probably - no, most definitely - something she would have heard from someone else. She may even have a better frame of reference than he does, an idea of the biological drive behind it. But he says it anyway. Not being the first to say it doesn't make it any less true.]

[heavensreader]

[Greatness, he says. Kesara wants to snarl at him, for all she cares for him and his kindness. He talks about her like she's a precious treasure to nurture, and she knows she isn't. She is nothing except what she will make of herself, and that's on her, not on anyone else.]

You lame camel, if someone who already is must hurt or die for me to be something I might then what's the use!

[warriorscribe]

[Except if you ask him, all children are precious treasures.]

The use is that there is a reason we protect children, with our own safety if we must.

Do you...do you want to talk about what happened?

[heavensreader]

Your reason is foolish and you ought to stop. [She cannot avoid snapping, and even as she draws a deep breath in she freezes. Her eyes flicker wide, then narrow in a frown.

Has she made a mistake? Was he trying to get her guard down so she'll talk? She can't talk.]

This is what happened. I am here and it isn't where I ought to be.