Post by Marshall on May 2, 2019 6:27:26 GMT -5
Perhaps it was hesitancy. Perhaps it was that he felt it was not his place... But that invitation was not accepted. Jeryndi had been confused before, but now he wasn't... He simply nodded towards Liv when she withdrew. He glanced to Breis and smiled slightly, then turned to look at Ava and Solomon. "The Dreamers?" he asked. He was not one to be deterred.
Solomon's attention was split for a moment. He had an eye on Liv, and an ear on the conversation. It was toward Jeryndi that he looked after a moment, "You were given until we left for the graveyard, right?" A glance was cast toward Breis to make sure he'd gotten that right, "Well, if we are leaving for the graveyard right now we have a bit more time to come up with a plan and discuss the problems that could come up. With what you’re proposing, there is no need to rush into it. We plan first, so we don't lose anyone later."
The invitations were not taken and Liv began to withdraw.
Ava felt own her reluctance. A strong and heavy averseness that wanted to push the matter with the Captain. There was still too much to know. Too much that could be found. Not just with her eyes but maybe with others who could see what she couldn’t.
However…. The Jedi withdrew. Her hand let go of Liv’s as she nodded in understanding as well as a quiet promise. The revelation Liv discovered in that moment would remain between the two of them. It was safe with Ava’s trust. It was a heavy, personal moment that almost felt shattered by the others.
Her throat cleared.
“I saw something in the Meld.” She announced. “Those that are pulled out of the Red… they don’t just wake up. They experience catastrophic reactions – like cardiac arrest. It’s like they lack self-regulation without giving any indication as to why. ”
"No, don't say they like it happens to everyone because we have one experience... Others, here, have woken from the Dreaming without that kind of distress," he told her. "Renda Amidi was woken from it with practically no side effects at all," he reminded them. He looked to Solomon. "As for discussing it... I don't see why. What point is discussing it? Beyond discussing the potential safety precautions we might employ. It’s not like you can just discuss how to walk into someone's dream or try to see their memories or try to wake them up. It’s not something to be discussed, it’s something to do or not do."
It had a tone of forced patience.
Liv made space. Breis, nearby, called a few names for supply-run duty. Dorara, Grot, Tavv'ari, Nen. Catia the Hapan mission tech shouldered a big rugged, empty-looking pack. The Hapan grunts were topside, on watch on the high point of Tal-Kebii'tra.
"Okay, two things," he went from having looked Ava's way to looking back at Jeryndi and his forced patience, "Renda wasn't pulled from the red. He was woken up while still in the red. Ava is talking about people who were -removed- from the haze while still asleep, and secondly -- that do or not do? Yeah, that's what we need to talk about. You seem to have no regard for the people you are asking to take the risks with you, pushing only for the idea itself. I, for one, cannot suspend the notion that someone I care about here -- in this group -- will be undertaking those risks. Cardiac arrest? Loss of function? These things NEED to be discussed. They NEED to be realized before we commit to this either way, because Force be damned if we lose control of your experiment and someone dies because we weren't prepared. It waits. That's my vote."
Jujanaj Azair brought the two smaller wakeks around outside the shelter. Before Jeryndi had undertaken to work on them, the doctor had barely been able to speak while handling two. Now he spoke haltingly, but he did speak. He stood out there, red-dyed and cloaked, taller than everyone else present, explaining the possible new situation with the wakeks.
The wakeks themselves stood tall, their meaty legs tucked up underneath them, their fat tails slowly swinging side to side as if the beasts were bored.
Liv Tino was lucky to be alive.
Renda Amidi was, also, lucky to be alive.
She ceased her report momentarily.
“Jeryndi.” Ava said in her own tone of patience which wasn’t procured from force, “I’m telling you what I saw so that we can gain further knowledge. The meld with Liv gave me an opportunity to watch and learn so that we could have a better understanding about what’s happening here. You both are right.” She looked between Solomon and Jeryndi.
“We need to make a decision about what we’re going to do but… we also need to be smart about it. Eyes first – learn what we can and use that knowledge to our advantage as we move forward."
"I'm not just jumping into this experiment, Sol! I wanted to look at them and try to wake them up, not put someone under first. What kind of idiot do you take me for?" He held up a hand. "Never mind, don't answer that. You've made that abundantly clear."
His quickest response was the one he had to bite back on. A breath was taken, as well as a long and quiet moment of sizing up his cousin. His voice was metered when he spoke next, "Jeryndi," quiet that tone, deep and forced to be still, "You came to me talking about your experiment. That's what this group has been talking about for the past how many minutes? Ava's meld with Liv was done explicitly for what insight we might gain to carry out your experiment. All of this time has been devoted to this experiment you brought to us, and -now- -- NOW -- you talk about waking them up first. It’s on the list, and even so, we still need to talk about it. What Ava saw with Liv might, or might not, be able to help us even with just waking them up. We talk first. Move second. Eyes first -- we plan and then take action." He kept his eyes on Jeryndi Trander because if he looked away he was going to lose his grip on the Hate Game, and he'd told Ava he could play it.
There it was again. The urge to pinch her nose and ward off an oncoming headache. However, her helmet said otherwise.
“We don’t have time for this, guys.” She said.
“What is it that you plan to do first, Jeryndi?” Ava asked in hopes of finding some useful direction in all of this. “Where would you start first? I missed the introduction to your idea so... talk me through it, please?”
He hissed his breath in, looking back to Ava. "My actual proposition was to attempt to take put someone into the Red and the Dreaming with one of us to pull that one back out... We're trained. We're more self-aware. If we could go into the Dreaming with a waking state of mind, we might learn so much... And as I told Sol, it would all hinge on being able to successfully wake the dreamers up. So that was where I proposed starting." He looked back to Solomon. "And yes, I did say that."
“Okay.” She said. “What happened with Renda Amidi?”
"Renda Amidi is the one we found floating when we first got here," he explained. "They gave him some of the pods and he was awake within minutes... You were there for that," he told her.
"Are you planning on using the pods to wake the Dreamers?"
The man in question shoved his way up to standing. Right leg broken, he'd fashioned a makeshift crutch from parts brought to him by the others. He used it to steady himself. His leg had been set, precious kits raided for him, so he was better than he had been, but there was no point in straining the leg when there was no need. He might have reacted to hearing his name, but it was Dorara the zabrak who actually broke into the conversation with a hoarse-voiced: "We tried with ours. Most didn't wake. We even dedicated a whole new cache to ours."
Breis snapped a look her way. "The ones who vanished, you mean?"
"No," he told them all. "I don't plan on using the pods to wake them... I thought maybe that'd been the case," he told Breis. "That you tried that early on with your Dreamers, like you did for Renda... So I wasn't planning on using that, even as a fall back plan." He looked to Dorara. "How soon was that before they disappeared?"
She held her question and waited for Dorara to answer Jeryndi's.
Dorara answered Breis' first, but it was with a quick nod; it was clear that the new idea coursed through her. How soon... "We'd been trying before the Hapans got here. It felt wrong to just leave them to shrivel. We got the new cache... agreed to spend them all on our dreamers, to try one last time. So... They were there through all the night patrols. Up until just shortly before you all arrived."
"Huh," he said, looking back to Ava. "So... Yes... That was the plan," he said softly. "There's unlimited potential to putting someone into the Dreaming intentionally, but just as many risks... It all depends on being able to pull that someone back out. Sol said we should do it together and I agree with that-- because it will help to all be on the same page when we take a look at them. All of our talents are different. We can do another Meld for just the three of us if we do. So we're all aware of the others."
Solomon had gone quiet to listen, and as Jeryndi recapped his idea for Ava, and the Mandals spoke with them, he pulled the cloth he'd been using to secure his right arm out and held it against his left leg, balancing it oddly enough to tighten a knot with two corners of the fabric. It was enough of a distraction to bleed away his snap reaction to Jeryndi. Mention of the meld came with him slipping the sling over his head, a quick look shooting toward Ava. The Meld. "A Meld....might be a problem for me." He stated while lifting his right arm with his left, slipping it to rest in the crudely designed brace, "I don't have the talent for them."
Meanwhile, Breis told Dorara: "Show me the pods you used. Where'd you get a 'cache' of them?" He'd signaled to the Hapans to give him a moment, already following the zabrak as she began to explain quietly to him, navigating rock that was here pitted like old lava and there sharding like brittle glass. They headed back to where an insignificant rise in the shelter floor loosely marked the boundary of a small half-bubble formation too broken to count as anything but a minor feature in Tal-Kebii'tra.
The clan head had given Jeryndi until Captain Black and her tech were ready to go for salvage, and in his estimation he'd been fair in that. He did want a solution for his sleepers, and news of a cache (the first he'd heard of that) had skyrocketed his interest. Perhaps unconsciously, he hoped to give them a few more minutes, but he suspected a particular outcome here, based on his observations of the newcomers involved.
Jeryndi's eyes, focused on Solomon as he spoke... And for the first time since coming into the presence of both the Mandals and Solomon, his anger and annoyance bled away... He could feel the hesitancy there, even if it wasn't in the Force. He knew... A Meld didn't require everyone to have the talent for it. Or even know how to do it... It only required one person with the talent/experience/know-how or all of the above... But he was acutely aware of how unstable his cousin was. How distrusting. How... Well he'd have used the word 'vulnerable', but that didn't -quite- fit... The only other word he'd be able to use was 'fragile', but that one didn't quite fit, either... He knew a Meld could open one up and reveal things to the other participants that one didn't want them to know... He could understand the hesitancy behind that. The knowledge that someone could see so openly into your own self was a little frightening and intimidating... It was a connection between two or more people to share thoughts, actions, emotions... And sometimes, bodies. "We will defer to your preference on that, of course," he told his cousin gently.
"Thank you," Solomon breathed out those two words, looking directly at Jeryndi, "And I'm sorry. You did say about waking the dreamers. I was wrong." There came a shifting of his right shoulder and some adjustments made with his left to get the knotted fabric around the neck of his suit to sit right, "If you guys want to commit to the meld, I will do what I can from where I am standing to help."
Ava knew the response that would come from Solomon even before Jeryndi finished the idea. But she said nothing.
I think… she heard her words mirrored back. He wants to trust the Force.
But now was not the time to push the issue - certainly not by her. And so her only response was a nod of understanding to Solomon before speaking to Jeryndi.
“I feel like the meld is our strongest advantage in this. But… we need to be aware,” Ava said “of potential, disastrous consequences to the Dreamers.” The images of what she saw to those who were pulled out of the Red would not be forgotten. The fight for Liv Tino’s life was not something that could be ignored. “Their safety has to come first.”
He nodded towards Ava. "That's a given... We take a look first, then try to wake them up... Shall we go now while have a chance?" hs asked, glancing between Ava and Solomon.
A given, yes, but the kind of given that had to be spoken. Perhaps if not for their own assurance then for the Mandals that surrounded them.
“While we have the chance.” She said in agreement. There was only so much time before the Mandals and Hapans both would be ready to move onward.
Liv had not spoken another word, but she had after a moment followed curiosity in the wake of Breis and Dorara. Self-contained and somehow raw, the Captain's boots crunched dully through Tal-Keb rock as she joined them.
Now that the action was clear, Solomon was ready to help and eager to move. He'd accompany Jeryndi and Ava...
... not far at all. With Tal-Kebii'tra's dreamers missing, the only sleepers they had to work with were the two humans and one invader that had been brought from Tal Ruus. Those had been kept a little apart, as before, but not exactly where Tal-Keb's dreamers had been. Instead, these were near the wakeks at the opposite end of the shelter, with the bound-up invader being closest to the carnivores. The two Mandalorian dreamers, the Amidi and the unknown one, remained buoyant, ready to drift and float, but this time they'd been tethered to the ground by cords weighted by heavy rocks. They just looked like they were laying on the ground asleep, but upon inspection one could see red dust blowing around underneath their trailing clothing and limbs.
As they moved towards the three Dreamers, Jeryndi stopped just long enough to run a hand along the wakeks' nose and neck, giving them a find little pat. One of them nudged him and he could be heard to give a soft, quiet laugh in response... The difference between before they were tamed and after was astonishing. Before, they'd been aggressive, dangerous, and tried to eat everyone they came across... Now, they were docile and even playful to a certain degree. More playful with Jeryndi than anyone else, but docile for others. "No eating the Dreamer, mmkay?" he told them. Meaning the Dreamer that was closest to them. The invader.
Then he walked past them to approach the Dreamers... He looked back towards Ava as he approached them. "which or both did you look at earlier?" he asked.
While Jeryndi was speaking to the wakeks, Ava had already approached the Dreamers. She was kneeled down by the Amidi woman. A glove hand brushing through the particles that floated in the air. The one detail that shattered the illusion of the slumbers.
“Her.” Ava answered with a nod to the woman as she stood up. “I started with her but wasn’t able to get far. A thief broke into the Tal-Ruus moments after Solomon and I tried.” Her brown eyes fell on Jeryndi. “I’d like to start with her again.”
"Sure," he said with a nod. "I worked with him, but didn't get far either," he said, gesturing towards the human male. "Meld first? Then we can have Solomon ground us?" he asked, looking towards his cousin.
“Yes.” She agreed. “The meld first.” Her eyes went to Solomon, keeping in mind his reluctance for such a thing. “We shouldn’t have to use Solomon, though. Have you attempted a meld before?”
"Participated in one, but not initiated it," he told her honestly. "That was a really long time ago. Long before my death."
"Okay. I can initiate it." Ava said. She'd done it many times now. "The main thing to remember is that the meld is of openness. There is nothing so pure. It's not a tool of harm or deciet. What you give into it is reflected back onto others. All you'll have to do is meditate." She would find him.
Solomon's attention was split for a moment. He had an eye on Liv, and an ear on the conversation. It was toward Jeryndi that he looked after a moment, "You were given until we left for the graveyard, right?" A glance was cast toward Breis to make sure he'd gotten that right, "Well, if we are leaving for the graveyard right now we have a bit more time to come up with a plan and discuss the problems that could come up. With what you’re proposing, there is no need to rush into it. We plan first, so we don't lose anyone later."
The invitations were not taken and Liv began to withdraw.
Ava felt own her reluctance. A strong and heavy averseness that wanted to push the matter with the Captain. There was still too much to know. Too much that could be found. Not just with her eyes but maybe with others who could see what she couldn’t.
However…. The Jedi withdrew. Her hand let go of Liv’s as she nodded in understanding as well as a quiet promise. The revelation Liv discovered in that moment would remain between the two of them. It was safe with Ava’s trust. It was a heavy, personal moment that almost felt shattered by the others.
Her throat cleared.
“I saw something in the Meld.” She announced. “Those that are pulled out of the Red… they don’t just wake up. They experience catastrophic reactions – like cardiac arrest. It’s like they lack self-regulation without giving any indication as to why. ”
"No, don't say they like it happens to everyone because we have one experience... Others, here, have woken from the Dreaming without that kind of distress," he told her. "Renda Amidi was woken from it with practically no side effects at all," he reminded them. He looked to Solomon. "As for discussing it... I don't see why. What point is discussing it? Beyond discussing the potential safety precautions we might employ. It’s not like you can just discuss how to walk into someone's dream or try to see their memories or try to wake them up. It’s not something to be discussed, it’s something to do or not do."
It had a tone of forced patience.
Liv made space. Breis, nearby, called a few names for supply-run duty. Dorara, Grot, Tavv'ari, Nen. Catia the Hapan mission tech shouldered a big rugged, empty-looking pack. The Hapan grunts were topside, on watch on the high point of Tal-Kebii'tra.
"Okay, two things," he went from having looked Ava's way to looking back at Jeryndi and his forced patience, "Renda wasn't pulled from the red. He was woken up while still in the red. Ava is talking about people who were -removed- from the haze while still asleep, and secondly -- that do or not do? Yeah, that's what we need to talk about. You seem to have no regard for the people you are asking to take the risks with you, pushing only for the idea itself. I, for one, cannot suspend the notion that someone I care about here -- in this group -- will be undertaking those risks. Cardiac arrest? Loss of function? These things NEED to be discussed. They NEED to be realized before we commit to this either way, because Force be damned if we lose control of your experiment and someone dies because we weren't prepared. It waits. That's my vote."
Jujanaj Azair brought the two smaller wakeks around outside the shelter. Before Jeryndi had undertaken to work on them, the doctor had barely been able to speak while handling two. Now he spoke haltingly, but he did speak. He stood out there, red-dyed and cloaked, taller than everyone else present, explaining the possible new situation with the wakeks.
The wakeks themselves stood tall, their meaty legs tucked up underneath them, their fat tails slowly swinging side to side as if the beasts were bored.
Liv Tino was lucky to be alive.
Renda Amidi was, also, lucky to be alive.
She ceased her report momentarily.
“Jeryndi.” Ava said in her own tone of patience which wasn’t procured from force, “I’m telling you what I saw so that we can gain further knowledge. The meld with Liv gave me an opportunity to watch and learn so that we could have a better understanding about what’s happening here. You both are right.” She looked between Solomon and Jeryndi.
“We need to make a decision about what we’re going to do but… we also need to be smart about it. Eyes first – learn what we can and use that knowledge to our advantage as we move forward."
"I'm not just jumping into this experiment, Sol! I wanted to look at them and try to wake them up, not put someone under first. What kind of idiot do you take me for?" He held up a hand. "Never mind, don't answer that. You've made that abundantly clear."
His quickest response was the one he had to bite back on. A breath was taken, as well as a long and quiet moment of sizing up his cousin. His voice was metered when he spoke next, "Jeryndi," quiet that tone, deep and forced to be still, "You came to me talking about your experiment. That's what this group has been talking about for the past how many minutes? Ava's meld with Liv was done explicitly for what insight we might gain to carry out your experiment. All of this time has been devoted to this experiment you brought to us, and -now- -- NOW -- you talk about waking them up first. It’s on the list, and even so, we still need to talk about it. What Ava saw with Liv might, or might not, be able to help us even with just waking them up. We talk first. Move second. Eyes first -- we plan and then take action." He kept his eyes on Jeryndi Trander because if he looked away he was going to lose his grip on the Hate Game, and he'd told Ava he could play it.
There it was again. The urge to pinch her nose and ward off an oncoming headache. However, her helmet said otherwise.
“We don’t have time for this, guys.” She said.
“What is it that you plan to do first, Jeryndi?” Ava asked in hopes of finding some useful direction in all of this. “Where would you start first? I missed the introduction to your idea so... talk me through it, please?”
He hissed his breath in, looking back to Ava. "My actual proposition was to attempt to take put someone into the Red and the Dreaming with one of us to pull that one back out... We're trained. We're more self-aware. If we could go into the Dreaming with a waking state of mind, we might learn so much... And as I told Sol, it would all hinge on being able to successfully wake the dreamers up. So that was where I proposed starting." He looked back to Solomon. "And yes, I did say that."
“Okay.” She said. “What happened with Renda Amidi?”
"Renda Amidi is the one we found floating when we first got here," he explained. "They gave him some of the pods and he was awake within minutes... You were there for that," he told her.
"Are you planning on using the pods to wake the Dreamers?"
The man in question shoved his way up to standing. Right leg broken, he'd fashioned a makeshift crutch from parts brought to him by the others. He used it to steady himself. His leg had been set, precious kits raided for him, so he was better than he had been, but there was no point in straining the leg when there was no need. He might have reacted to hearing his name, but it was Dorara the zabrak who actually broke into the conversation with a hoarse-voiced: "We tried with ours. Most didn't wake. We even dedicated a whole new cache to ours."
Breis snapped a look her way. "The ones who vanished, you mean?"
"No," he told them all. "I don't plan on using the pods to wake them... I thought maybe that'd been the case," he told Breis. "That you tried that early on with your Dreamers, like you did for Renda... So I wasn't planning on using that, even as a fall back plan." He looked to Dorara. "How soon was that before they disappeared?"
She held her question and waited for Dorara to answer Jeryndi's.
Dorara answered Breis' first, but it was with a quick nod; it was clear that the new idea coursed through her. How soon... "We'd been trying before the Hapans got here. It felt wrong to just leave them to shrivel. We got the new cache... agreed to spend them all on our dreamers, to try one last time. So... They were there through all the night patrols. Up until just shortly before you all arrived."
"Huh," he said, looking back to Ava. "So... Yes... That was the plan," he said softly. "There's unlimited potential to putting someone into the Dreaming intentionally, but just as many risks... It all depends on being able to pull that someone back out. Sol said we should do it together and I agree with that-- because it will help to all be on the same page when we take a look at them. All of our talents are different. We can do another Meld for just the three of us if we do. So we're all aware of the others."
Solomon had gone quiet to listen, and as Jeryndi recapped his idea for Ava, and the Mandals spoke with them, he pulled the cloth he'd been using to secure his right arm out and held it against his left leg, balancing it oddly enough to tighten a knot with two corners of the fabric. It was enough of a distraction to bleed away his snap reaction to Jeryndi. Mention of the meld came with him slipping the sling over his head, a quick look shooting toward Ava. The Meld. "A Meld....might be a problem for me." He stated while lifting his right arm with his left, slipping it to rest in the crudely designed brace, "I don't have the talent for them."
Meanwhile, Breis told Dorara: "Show me the pods you used. Where'd you get a 'cache' of them?" He'd signaled to the Hapans to give him a moment, already following the zabrak as she began to explain quietly to him, navigating rock that was here pitted like old lava and there sharding like brittle glass. They headed back to where an insignificant rise in the shelter floor loosely marked the boundary of a small half-bubble formation too broken to count as anything but a minor feature in Tal-Kebii'tra.
The clan head had given Jeryndi until Captain Black and her tech were ready to go for salvage, and in his estimation he'd been fair in that. He did want a solution for his sleepers, and news of a cache (the first he'd heard of that) had skyrocketed his interest. Perhaps unconsciously, he hoped to give them a few more minutes, but he suspected a particular outcome here, based on his observations of the newcomers involved.
Jeryndi's eyes, focused on Solomon as he spoke... And for the first time since coming into the presence of both the Mandals and Solomon, his anger and annoyance bled away... He could feel the hesitancy there, even if it wasn't in the Force. He knew... A Meld didn't require everyone to have the talent for it. Or even know how to do it... It only required one person with the talent/experience/know-how or all of the above... But he was acutely aware of how unstable his cousin was. How distrusting. How... Well he'd have used the word 'vulnerable', but that didn't -quite- fit... The only other word he'd be able to use was 'fragile', but that one didn't quite fit, either... He knew a Meld could open one up and reveal things to the other participants that one didn't want them to know... He could understand the hesitancy behind that. The knowledge that someone could see so openly into your own self was a little frightening and intimidating... It was a connection between two or more people to share thoughts, actions, emotions... And sometimes, bodies. "We will defer to your preference on that, of course," he told his cousin gently.
"Thank you," Solomon breathed out those two words, looking directly at Jeryndi, "And I'm sorry. You did say about waking the dreamers. I was wrong." There came a shifting of his right shoulder and some adjustments made with his left to get the knotted fabric around the neck of his suit to sit right, "If you guys want to commit to the meld, I will do what I can from where I am standing to help."
Ava knew the response that would come from Solomon even before Jeryndi finished the idea. But she said nothing.
I think… she heard her words mirrored back. He wants to trust the Force.
But now was not the time to push the issue - certainly not by her. And so her only response was a nod of understanding to Solomon before speaking to Jeryndi.
“I feel like the meld is our strongest advantage in this. But… we need to be aware,” Ava said “of potential, disastrous consequences to the Dreamers.” The images of what she saw to those who were pulled out of the Red would not be forgotten. The fight for Liv Tino’s life was not something that could be ignored. “Their safety has to come first.”
He nodded towards Ava. "That's a given... We take a look first, then try to wake them up... Shall we go now while have a chance?" hs asked, glancing between Ava and Solomon.
A given, yes, but the kind of given that had to be spoken. Perhaps if not for their own assurance then for the Mandals that surrounded them.
“While we have the chance.” She said in agreement. There was only so much time before the Mandals and Hapans both would be ready to move onward.
Liv had not spoken another word, but she had after a moment followed curiosity in the wake of Breis and Dorara. Self-contained and somehow raw, the Captain's boots crunched dully through Tal-Keb rock as she joined them.
Now that the action was clear, Solomon was ready to help and eager to move. He'd accompany Jeryndi and Ava...
... not far at all. With Tal-Kebii'tra's dreamers missing, the only sleepers they had to work with were the two humans and one invader that had been brought from Tal Ruus. Those had been kept a little apart, as before, but not exactly where Tal-Keb's dreamers had been. Instead, these were near the wakeks at the opposite end of the shelter, with the bound-up invader being closest to the carnivores. The two Mandalorian dreamers, the Amidi and the unknown one, remained buoyant, ready to drift and float, but this time they'd been tethered to the ground by cords weighted by heavy rocks. They just looked like they were laying on the ground asleep, but upon inspection one could see red dust blowing around underneath their trailing clothing and limbs.
As they moved towards the three Dreamers, Jeryndi stopped just long enough to run a hand along the wakeks' nose and neck, giving them a find little pat. One of them nudged him and he could be heard to give a soft, quiet laugh in response... The difference between before they were tamed and after was astonishing. Before, they'd been aggressive, dangerous, and tried to eat everyone they came across... Now, they were docile and even playful to a certain degree. More playful with Jeryndi than anyone else, but docile for others. "No eating the Dreamer, mmkay?" he told them. Meaning the Dreamer that was closest to them. The invader.
Then he walked past them to approach the Dreamers... He looked back towards Ava as he approached them. "which or both did you look at earlier?" he asked.
While Jeryndi was speaking to the wakeks, Ava had already approached the Dreamers. She was kneeled down by the Amidi woman. A glove hand brushing through the particles that floated in the air. The one detail that shattered the illusion of the slumbers.
“Her.” Ava answered with a nod to the woman as she stood up. “I started with her but wasn’t able to get far. A thief broke into the Tal-Ruus moments after Solomon and I tried.” Her brown eyes fell on Jeryndi. “I’d like to start with her again.”
"Sure," he said with a nod. "I worked with him, but didn't get far either," he said, gesturing towards the human male. "Meld first? Then we can have Solomon ground us?" he asked, looking towards his cousin.
“Yes.” She agreed. “The meld first.” Her eyes went to Solomon, keeping in mind his reluctance for such a thing. “We shouldn’t have to use Solomon, though. Have you attempted a meld before?”
"Participated in one, but not initiated it," he told her honestly. "That was a really long time ago. Long before my death."
"Okay. I can initiate it." Ava said. She'd done it many times now. "The main thing to remember is that the meld is of openness. There is nothing so pure. It's not a tool of harm or deciet. What you give into it is reflected back onto others. All you'll have to do is meditate." She would find him.