Hee, Kat and Astrane :)
Well I did reblog this solely so you could ask me, I suppose… :P
Sorry it’s taken so long.
It’s a little messy, sorry about that! I’ve tried to sort it into “Kat”, “Both”, and “Astrane” but… Yeah. Word salad.
One of the key things for Kat is the fact that she is away from everything she has ever known, and her life has been turned upside down. Her move to the States was huge in itself, but the fact she was infested so soon into her new life meant things changed even more than she had anticipated. Although a lot of the time she’s pretty consistent, sometimes she kind of goes into “fuck it” mode because she, herself, has barely anything left to lose.
She will never, truly, 100% trust Astrane. She knows Astrane can see everything she has ever thought and said and done, and the fact that the link isn’t mutual unsettles her. She dislikes being out of control, and given that her entire life is out of control, this is almost one thing too many. She knows that Astrane is as honest as she can be, but she is also incredibly aware of the fact that Astrane can hide anything she likes. For all she knows, everything up until now is a front.
She is quite cold most of the time. Not intentionally, but unless she takes a liking to someone pretty quickly, she simply doesn’t have much interest. She’s quite like this with Rachel, because she sees her as very different and pretty incompatible – same with Jake – but with Marco and Cassie she’s warmer because of the difference in their relationships. She’s become more like this as her situation progresses: normal friendships are becoming more and more irrelevant to her.
She is intelligent, and can work her way out of almost any situation she finds herself in, but she lacks long term planning skills. She can a little if the situation is important – like joining the Peace Movement and planning what to do about her parents – but generally she gives little thought to “the big picture” and just does what makes the most sense to her at the time.
She is a controller. I know it sounds obvious, but I need to keep it straight in my head that she is not the only consciousness in this body. This kind of goes for both of them, but it means keeping up the interaction between them, whether that’s just conversation, the switching of control, disagreements, collaborating… And it’s all stuff that no one else can see.
Neither of them have much sense of self preservation. This is partially due to their impulsiveness, but also they both firmly believe that there is a lot that’s more important than their own lives, and they are willing to risk anything of themselves to achieve it. Having a cause in which they both believe is what brought them together, and it’s what keeps them together.
They are both emotionally expressive, but it varies. Astrane is better at keeping her negative emotions under wraps, but it’s very obvious when she’s happy. Kat, on the other hand, has a wonderful poker face, but when she gets upset, or angry, or scared, it’s far more likely to show through. It’s things like this which bring the pair closer because their differences compliment each other.
Astrane is far from home, but it’s in a different sense to Kat. She left her home voluntarily, and although she’s found herself in a very different situation to what she expected, she’s also aware that her inexperience can be played to her advantage. As well as giving her an out if she messes up, she’s trying desperately to understand everything from all points of view, not just the way the Empire wants her to see things. Where for Kat, her change has been bad with a few good things, Astrane’s has been good with a few bad (mainly the risk to her life, but that doesn’t really bother her).
She is still conflicted about it all and this is the one thing she hides from Kat. Going against everything she’s ever known is still a huge step for her, and although she does believe in peace, she worries that she has been naive and sucked into the “wrong crowd”, as it were.
Astrane looks up to Illim and Lance more than anyone. They are the only ones aside from Kat who she knows she can trust and won’t try to get her killed, and they were the first to take the pair under their wing. They showed Astrane that there is a different way, and despite her internal conflict she knows that she would be very different if it weren’t for them.
She does trust a little too easily. Her youth and inexperience may be an advantage sometimes, but if it weren’t for Kat she would probably trust everyone to a greater extent than she should. She is aware of this but isn’t always so good at keeping it in check.