Dirt Breaks The Hivemind

Eithne approaches dreamtime, usual dreams give way into a cold wet nose, now familiar that bumps against her furry side. These transitions are getting easier these days, as images flood in and are processed. Somewhere new this time it seems, not that, that isn't new. Dirt's familiar, odd painted look, manages a magnificent grin, his stick-like tail waggling, waiting for a response. Eithne shakes herself as she slides into the dreamscape once more, stance dropping as she goes from biped to quadruped for whatever hijinks her Teacher has in mind this time. There's a slight headtilt at the rather obvious lead in, and she gives voice to the thought a moment later, even as her red furred coyote hide finishes being shook into existence; "What's the plan for tonight, then, Teacher? I half expected to 'wake' into something like an ink storm, or a subtle trick." "No tricks, just... look." he says, pointing to the area surrounding them. An image almost too intricate to see up close, like origami with many facets or a crystal. He then hops right into one of the edges nearby, his tail still waggling. Eithne takes a moment to study the intricate image before she follows, trying to work out what exactly she's looking at - or, at least, the impression it gives of what it is. Her stance is a bit wary, even as she plops herself down into a seated position. It takes a while for things to focus, almost as if Eithne's brain has to turn on its side to see. Like the eyes of an insect. It's a rippling swarm, a flower, an ecosystem, many things all at once, complex and beautiful. Sparhawk, the full self like a picture in front of her, so hard to see because it is so much. The crystal resembles more of the ink storm, full with sharp edges and sparkling light...but the storm is clearing. The mind inside the crystal is focusing on something else, a pair of very blue birds, one of whom is intimately familiar and the other whose thoughts and emotions can be heard on the gem's surface. Eithne nods, bobbing her head as things come into focus, before she rises to her feet. "Well, this will be interesting. I wonder how much will bleed through from the other members of the Greater Sparhawk?" she muses to the air, before glancing to where Dirt stepped into the image and trying to follow suit... And whistling The Song That Never Ends. The redfur is also trying /not/ to think of a heard of Buffalo. Or a flock of Daffy Ducks. Or a mischief of Bugs Bunnies. Like the surface of water, it ripples as she steps through, the entire /place/ vibrates at her entrance. Not subtle, and there's a snerk nearby, as the painted coyote dances across the surface without making a single ripple. Eithne rolls her eyes, and ceases the whistle. There's a light grumble about "not having been /taught/ to be stealthy" before she focuses on being a small breeze, floating across the surface of a lake, and trying to follow Dirt once more. Entering the mindscape at the same time as Sparhawk is reorienting hir thoughts away from the inhuman songs/sight/smell of nanite activity to the relatively normal eavesdropping on Skylar having sex...it is the best time to sneak, even with the ringing like a gong. Which works reasonably well to the midsection of the Neverending Story theme running through Spar's internal soundtrack. Eithne follows Dirt as he swaps from swimming to flying, and then touches down on the ground below. The great corpse of the Gmork, enwrapped in vines from the last trip through this familiar echo in Sparhawk's memories. And then he's off, padding across the swamp, his goal not clear. Eithne sniffs and pokes at the Gmork, wondering what it is exactly and taking a moment to inspect it, before she dances after her teacher once more. She's sure that Dirt's obvious goal will become apparent in time, and that his secondary (and tertiary) goals will become evident after much pondering. And then she'll get laughed at for presuming he /has/ secondary and tertiary goals whether or not the fact is true... Sparhawk shrinking and condensing. Reclaiming the sense of having-a-body brings whispered words to Skylar's ears, "I am glad you found hir," a generally loving presence somewhere behind the action. The swamp grows darker as the coyote reaches areas that even Sparhawk isn't aware exist, that portion of his mind he doesn't want to see. A dark cave, endlessly deep. He pauses to wait for Eithne to catch up, and without looking back. "It's calling from in here." Skylar blinks as she stops caressing Lasair on their afterglow moment. She turns her head and then remember how the whole thing works, replying to Sparhawk. 'Kinda stumbled on hir, thought we were all dead or on vacation. Where are you?' Eithne pads up beside her Teacher, looking into the cave with curiosity. She opens her mouth, probably to ask 'What calls?' before closing it and deciding to try and find out for herself. She closes her eyes and perks her 'ears', and opens her mind to things. "Home," says Sparhawk succinctly. "Welcoming." Still not entirely human psychology; shi's been spending entire days watching new nanite programs flying around the city, even stranger than the new mutants (whose appearance seems to have slowed to a crawl this year). Lasair gives a little stretch, as shi starts hearing the voices. Everything is muted and blurry though, must be the infection taking its sweet time as shi rests. A lonely voice, agony, it calls, cries for the end, for death, for release. It's familiar and different, almost like the echo of someone she knows. Dirt continues onward into the darkness ahead of her. Skylar returns to patting and scritching Las before replying to Spar. "Welcoming...Lasair back...? Or someone else?" She asks Sparhawk clearly confused and oblivious of any cries for death. Eithne opens her eyes, frowning a moment, before following after Dirt into the cave. "Should I light things up, Teacher, or...?" She tries to stick close to the godling, eyes roaming the dark for what she can pick out. Sparhawk is a desert island in bright sunlight, waves sparkling with reflections; welcoming to koi-shaped people and ignoring the stygian depths of oceans. Dirt takes a moment to thump his muzzle against Eithne's, affectionately, the answer being affirmative, seeing how she will handle the situation, enlightening things. Skylar is in silence, physically. Her expression, again, physically, seems about to laugh while her mind laughs loudly. 'Spar...did you...eat something you shouldn't have?' she replies through the link. Sparhawk manifests a confused firebird avatar on the island. 'Not that I know of? Nothing for some time, actually. Are you trying to make me psychosomatically hungry?' Sparhawk grins at the last question, as ever. The redfurred 'yote closes her eyes a moment, turning her gaze inward. A spark of her passion for discovery is drawn forth, and carefully fed with her curiosity - to find out what the source of the cries is - and compassion - for the begging, agonized thing sending the cries out... And then she tries twining the result in her fur, before she opens her eyes to see the fruit of her mental labor. Skylar quickly answers with a 'no' to Sparhawk while saying to Lasair: "I'm talking to Spar...shi's....doing something weird...as always." To Sparhawk she replies. 'Who are the Koi people...? And where are you? Sorry for all the questions, it's just kinda...confusing.' Like a beacon going off, a sun rising within the entire greater Sparhawk, illuminating the depths, caverns. A writhing Lasair on the ground in front of the two, wretched, not even entirely there, begging for death. The whole can hear her voice, shudderingly familiar yet strangely different. Sparhawk is startled to see a second sun rising over the ocean. 'Uh, let me get back to you on that...' The attention of Sparhawk shifts downward, inviting the other inhabitants in hir wake, sculpting hirself without fear. Skylar freezes as she hears the voice too. "Uh..." she says physically while saying 'Uh...' mentally. "'What...the...?'" she adds on both 'fields'. Eithne blushes through her fur at her brightness, but pads over to the writhing Las-image. She leans in and nudges it with her cold, wet canid nose, trying wrap her compassionate fire around the agonized bit of Las and offer what comfort she can to it. The image is quite real, and not at the same time, it reacts in fear to the wandering nose, backing away. It doesn't seem much like Las though, Las never having been fearful, or any of those things. A voice from behind says, "Shi's been dreaming of the end for some time now. It is time to do something." Sparhawk is all like 'Sup?' when arriving in the dark cave. Not occupying the walls or the terrain, giving the noisy interlopers at least one chance to explain themselves. Dealing with the...whatever that is...can come later. Skylar makes mental grabbyhands at Sparhawk while saying "Hang on a moment." to Las before she closes her eyes to concentrate onto the task. Eithne isn't familiar with Las, so the fearful shying away isn't all that odd to her. She carefully noses at the image once more, before glancing up to the source of the voice. Sparhawk's appearance gets a tail-wag of greeting, the tail briefly altering to make the gesture possible. Her voice is recognizable enough, at least; "The End of what? And what kind of actions are you thinking of?" Her rump plops down as she takes a seat. Eithne lives up to her namesake - she's a little firecracker, energetic and bright. Crimson hair is left to splay about her head, wild and untamed. Her light green eyes shine with hope and zeal, and she's constantly twitching and moving... unless she's found something to tinker with, when she's focused in and every motion is careful. Or about to explode into movement in case the device is about to do the same. You never know. The coyote image grimaces, noticing they finally have brought the attention of the owner of this place down on them. He chides, "We really need to teach you subtlety." to his student, before the image is facing Sparhawk. His two dimensional form no easier to look upon hear than in reality. He sniffs at the creature known as Sparhawk and says, "You refuse to let anything die, don't you? Even when it's wanted." Sparhawk sorts shape and story out of form and movement and word, eyes flicking up and down Dirt and Eithne. Shi eventually says, "Heh. Subtlety. That's why you snuck in and are being vague and unhelpful?" Skylar stops the grabby hands and materializes herself beside Spar, alluding the action to climbing over a fence. "Hey..." She says not sure 100% about what's going on, focusing her stare onto the weird Lasair." Not-Lasair is curled up in a ball, as far from everyone as possible, looks all the more wretched illuminated in the light. A fraction of Las that should never exist, never have come into being. The coyote image known as dirt turns to Eithne and says, "Run!" and snags the Not-Lasair, leaping through the wall. Eithne shrugs at Coyote, a bashful smile on her lips. "I'm fire. What did you expect?" She glances at Skylar and Sparhawk, though, and turns to look at Not-Las just in time to see Dirt's trickery. She rises to her feet and leaps after him, trying to slide into the wall as her Teacher did... and flexes her mind to shed her 'sun' of a fiery pelt behind her, dredging up some long-buried panic to hurl towards it to feed it. Sparhawk puts an arm around the now-present Skylar and hugs warmly. And then Dirt decides to flee instead of answering! "Hey! Where do you think you're going?" Skylar gets swung up on hir back, and the fastest thing on six legs pursues. "I already had that argument! No one person agreed with me!" Skylar's eyes bulge as Eithne and Dirt run off with weird Lasair. As she's slung around Spar she says. "What...the hell is Dirt doing?" She then tries something of her own, focusing on being 'somewhere else' in this space, not beyond the wall but wherever Dirt, Eithne and the weird Lasair are now. Skylar first sees an image of the fleeing coyote in a strange world, almost block like and pixelated. And then another image of him running through the halls of a space ship, and then another. Fragments of him everywhere in Spar's weird mind, images of things shi loves. The coyote seems to be intentionally trying to confuse, and Eithne's nowhere in sight. Skylar hesitates before describing what she saw to Sparhawk, once she explains the image the continues. "I...dunno how we're going to catch up with them but...this is not physical, we should be able to warp to them or...something...I dunno what they were doing to Las but...she looked weird." Sparhawk draws to a stop in a cave corridor. "This would be much easier if Dirt rambled on like a proper trickster." Shi shakes hir fist, to the confusion of a nearby flying jellyfish. "You go back to the Las we know and remember--don't think about purple elephants." Skylar sighs. "Fine fine...I'll go back to her. Just...keep me updated and call me if you manage to actually talk to Dirt, not that I think it's even capable of coherent speech." She then pops out of mind-existence. Opening her eyes as she's back onto the bed she's sharing with Las. "Uh...Las? You're with us?" She asks, softly shaking hir shoulder, even if her eyes are open and alert. "Of course you're not thinking about purple elephants," Sparhawk comments to the empty air, trotting forward. "Too busy not being able to make coherent speech!" Shi aims for anyone else thinking about purple elephants, assuming the meme takes hold. The coyote mumbles something under his breath to Eithne about "stupid humans and their purple... what?" he blinks, and looks down at the strange Not-Lasair, who's shape has taken on some elephantine features. He growls. Eithne has immunity memes, but apparently her teacher doesn't. And Not-Las has a vulnerability, it seems. She tries to focus on Not-Las taking a more Lasair shape, canid tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth. “Elephants," says Sparhawk politely. "I don't suppose I can help you, gentleman and lady?" This time the question is mildly annoyed.

Dirt says, "You hold them hostage.  Even the thread that makes up you is tired of this.  How many make do you keep trapped in here now?" he glowers at Spar.  Looking back to Eithne he says, "Go collect them all, and bring them, we can talk rather than fight."

Eithne nods to Dirt, and to Spar, and then closes her eyes and opens her mind again, 'listening' for other discordant notes in the mindscape and using those to orient herself as she tries to follow her Teacher's order. Sparhawk folds various legs and sits for dramatic effect. "You know as well as I that I didn't enjoy the last fight. So explaining what you are talking about, yes. Let us do that. What thread makes up me?" Skylar's ears perk as Dirt speak, materializing herself back on Sparhawk's side. "Hey there!" She cheerfully says at Dirt. "Boy oh boy I sure would enjoy an explanation instead of more confusion and pointlessness!" She leans onto Spar with an arm. Dirt looks in approval toward his student as she seems to understand, one part having appeared without her even trying. The strange coyote looks back at Sparhawk and Skylar. "The thread that keeps all this together. The part of you that you borrowed from your child. It's getting tired, and hungry. You've denied it, left it chained up, and denied. And it's free, and has someone I care about. I was going to give this shadow as trade." nudging toward Not-Lasair. Sparhawk inclines hir head to the painted coyote. "As opposed to everyone else, who just have their dark impulses chained up with regards to the people driving in front and their annoying bosses. Why would you think I wouldn't come rescue a person--and also let you toss Lasair into alleged oblivion?" Skylar looks at Sparhawk and then back to Dirt. "Who is tired and hungry...? And...instead of coming and talking to us you decide to kidnap..." She hesitates. "...Lasair to do what's better for you...?" She then looks at Eithne. "Do you...even know what he's doing or are you just following blindly hoping it to have some Aesop style thing in the end of it, no matter the cost?" Eithne has vanished elsewhere in the mindscape, hunting down sources of Discord in this little bit of the mindscape and gathering them up. "She does not follow blind, unlike you, my dear. Have you considered for a moment that your master might have secrets he does not wish to share?" He's now closer to the two, looking at Skylar, sniffing her for a moment, "You are new here, and that is not the person you call Lasair. Not anymore." Sparhawk mutters something about 'don't like being called master' while peering at the mildly elephant-flavored Notlas. Shi pays a little attention to the room as well, finding it...curiously unfamiliar, for being inside hir head. "He's not my master..." Skylar says as she backs from Dirt as he sniffs, not liking him getting any info about her. She then grabs one of Spar's hand in an affectionate gesture. "He's my mate...and he has answered everything I've asked about so far..." She looks again at not-Lasairphant. "What is it then? What secrets would Spar keep from me?" "He's afraid to let anything die. Your friend wanted to leave for a very long time though stayed silent, and when it happened by accident, a part got left behind." The coyote looks directly at Skylar, "He will never let you go, he can't. He can't bring himself to let anything go." Eithne has various parts of the hivemind following her when an overpowering scent catches her attention. She follows it, the sound of buzzing drawing attention too. An insect swarm high in the air swarming over something. Sparhawk squeezes Skylar's hand reassuringly. "That is wrong and you ought to know it. Are there any feral shadow dragons in here?" Shi also beams a message up toward Lasair, the real one just recently reconnecting: 'I am sorry' Skylar also squeezes Spar's hand, a clawed thumb rubbing its back. "So...Las wanted out but...never said anything and somehow it is Spar's fault? I'm sorry. I don't see how you came to such a conclusion." Eithne ooooos at the buzzing swarm, and carefully moves forward to try and see what it's obscuring. There is a simple and effective answer to that, however, and the keen-minded 'yote applies it. She takes a deep breath, narrowing her eyes and her focus, and breathes out smoke from her 'internal furnace', trying to waft it over the buzzing horde. Dirt suddenly sniffs again at the air. "Oh, oh no." He looks very carefully at Sparhawk, "It found her." Sparhawk eyes Dirt dubiously. "They and him don't want to get involved?" Shi's got no idea who the two pronouns refer to, but doubts any straight question will get a straight answer. This distracts from inspecting the terrain. Skylar shakes her head at Dirt. "Who found who?" Shaking his head, "I need you to bring us there now. Picture my student, Eithne. Now!" he actually looks concerned. Skylar seems really surprised at Dirt looking concerned and looks at Sparhawk, still squeezing hir hand. "Do it. He's being straight, it must be something really terrible." The buzzing noise is now all around, Eithne's wandering closer the thick choking swarm is covering a figure, it's hard to see any aspect of it under all the crawling swarm, but two tails fork from behind. Sparhawk grins. Well, maybe it'll work from someone else. Then shi warily tugs Skylar onto hir back again, building an image of the science-neko shi's spent approximately ten minutes with in the Pub. Eithne continues breathing her smoke onto the swarm, trying to pick out the figure. After a moment, she tries focusing that pleased, sleepy feeling she gets when she's pet into the smoke, wondering if that will make it more effective... The Swarm seems to part in front of Eithne, encouraging her to move closer. Eithne creeps closer, wafting her smoke around. Y'know what they say about cats and curiosity, after all... Skylar helps Sparhawk by sharing what she knows about Eithne, which is mostly how she and Balina get toghether. Dirt hops onto Sparhawk as the three move directly toward the swarm. The thing is disturbingly large, growing bit by bit, and how it's gone unnoticed is... impressive. "So. Many. Alone." Many voices speak in tandem as the swarm of insects seem to raise the body from lying down to kneeling, the tails slowly being engulfed into the masses. "Where. Who." The swarm continues to guide Eithne toward the figure, it parting, showing a feminine figure, still covered from head to toe in crawling insects. What kind never seems to be determined, the shifting mass indeterminate. Whispers surround Eithne, "Ours, Mine, More." words all at once from many angles. Skylar looks surprised at the swarm. "Spar...is that...some sort of representation of your secrets? Or...is that...someone? Lots of someones apparently." Eithne makes a snap decision, not liking this situation at all. She draws forth her depths of compassion, whirls in her steely Hope, and wraps the inferno that is her soul around herself as she plunges in, trying to drive the swarm away from whomever it is in there with a high, piercing birdcall utterly unfitting of her current shape. Sparhawk raises hir eyebrows at the swarm. "I appear to be surrounded by people with pronoun issues today! And here I was thinking he-she was the biggest problem of the modern world." Brave mockery given, shi murmurs to Skylar, "Dunno yet. I think I see someone inside though." Skylar snickers, letting her nervousness seep through. "The biggest downfall of civilizations, the herm pronouns..." She looks at Eithne as she enters the swarm but says nothing. Dirt bolts forward, looking very concerned. He's far too late as Eithne dives into the mass of the creature. The swarm from all over moving down to swallow. The things pour onto her just as she comes into contact with the figure, sending them flying out of the swarm. Eithne writhes on the floor, yipping and yelping in pain beneath the mass of the swarm... until she stops, laying there beneath the droning multitude. A shrill shriek is let out as a runt of a lynx is sent flying from the mass of insects. "NOOO~!" She cringes and is slow to get to her feet. "They need a host... Hunger, loneliness... What are they?" She knows not her current bearings but she doesn't wait near the swarm, backing up towards the nearest figures that she recognizes, namely Sparhawk. Skylar hops off Sparhawk and runs at Eithne, kneeling beside her. "Eithne! Are you alright?" She holds her by her shoulders, not caring much about Dirt but shifting her attention at the young lynx. "Wait...what?" She asks to herself, quite confused. Sparhawk mutters, "Leaping into things blindly is the /first/ lesson yer dad taught me," following Skylar to the pile o' lynx. Some eyes on the bugs, main eyes on the suffering Grantok. "What happened and how didja get here?" The cloudiness of her own mind begins to lift as opposed to the instincts of self-preservation. "They get in your head and take over." Grantok responds to in turn to one and then another. "I'll be damned if I know where here is. All I can recall before having a cacophony of people all hungry and lonely is a giant forest where I first sensed the feeling."