remembered Living Weapon (Shale) must’ve been used at some point, so here’s a prompt clip about that:
“I’ve—the Weapon has killed people,” telepathic (canine) Living Weapon says. Doesn’t look at Caretaker. “The Weapon has tortured people. The Weapon knows exactly what someone’s mind looks like when it’s about to break, the Weapon knows how to make a death painful, and the Weapon knows how to track down escapees.”
Caretaker sits on the floor with their back against their bed, facing its nest of pillows and fluffy star blankets. Facing it.
They sigh. “I read your file, kid. I know.”
“No. If you knew, you wouldn’t—”
“Doctor has watched the tapes. Every last one. Even the ones they think I shouldn’t watch.”
Weapon stares at them. Doctor has been nothing but gentle with it since it got there. They’ve only gotten gentler. If they watched everything, they should know how much it can handle. How much it takes for it to listen—
“Kid?”
It clamps its mouth shut. Stops whining.
“C’mere, kid.” Caretaker reaches a hand out, petting it when it comes into range. Letting it curl up on their lap. “Look at me. The tapes I haven’t watched aren’t the ones where you torture people.
Imagine: Telepathic Whumpee gets so overwhelmed by something, that they just… shut down. Maybe it’s another telepath’s attack. Maybe there’s just too much around them.
All caretaker (a non-telepath who Whumpee shares a special connection with, a connection that goes beyond telepathy) can do is tuck Whumpee into bed and wait for them to come back. Holding them close and whispering soft reassurances as the hours go by.
Whumpee never fully remembers what made them shut down, all they know is that they ‘wake up’ in caretaker’s warm embrace, feeling safe and loved.
brontide for the word prompt thing? (definition is "low rumble of distant thunder")
brontide (n.) - the low rumble of distant thunder
thank you for the prompt, anon!!
cw: memory loss, mind reading
"Ferny," Siena's voice filters warm and too bright through the door. It's summer sunshine, casting its glow across everything it touches, gilding edges gold and then wilted brown. "Open up, sweetie, it's time to work on your memories again."
Fern shoves the book they were reading under their pillow and sits up.
"Can we, would it be okay if we did it later?" they call back, tugging nervously at their sleeves.
They like what they picked today, leggings under a soft long tunic in a lavender so pale it's barely a color at all, more like a cloud than a flower, with thumb holes in the wrists for if they want to put their fingers out but still want the extra protection of sleeves over their palms. Siena's been busy with Axel lately, and Fern thinks they feel... clearer. Steadier. It's hard to tell, since their memory blurs everything into one hazy smear, but they think-- they hope that how they feel now is better than before. There’s a paper in their nightstand which they read every night. They don’t remember writing it, usually, until they read the memory of themself doing so, but when they do it comes back for as long as they hold the paper.
Siena lies.
"Don't you want to get better?" Siena opens the door and crosses the room to perch on the end of the bed.
Fern draws their legs up, folding into a cross-legged tangle and tucking their hands under their ankles. "I, I do, I do want that, I just--"
"Well then let's get to it!" Siena tosses her hair over her shoulder with another too-bright smile. "Hands, Ferny."
Their hands are out, palm-up, before they remember why the command spurs such instinctive, immediate obedience. Siena's fingers close over their own, and with them her shields, and Fern's spark of outrage is smothered by blank grey.
"Let's take a look at that first recognition again," Siena's thought-tone prompts.
She pauses, tugging the glimpse of the book cover they left under their pillow into better clarity.
“Oh, Ferny. A book on repressed memories, isn’t that a little dense for you? You don’t need that book, you have me.”
Fern can’t hide their thoughts from her. The second-hand bookstore, their hesitant query to the clerk, and Ezra’s enthusiastic support loses its warm tinge under the too-bright glare of Siena’s amusement. The memory wilts into faded shame until Siena at last releases it and returns to her original purpose.
The yielding, rubbery texture of their cubby surrounds them, then peels away to the feel of cold steel soaking through their thin scrubs and cold, bony fingers digging into pressure points along their skull.
"This one..."
Siena shouldn't be here, it's wrong, it's not how it happened, but they can't push her out. Fern can't get to this memory without her, they can't find it behind the haze and the drifting, obscuring uncertainty, but they don't want her here when they do get to it, poking and commenting and tainting what should be theirs with her presence.
"This one knew what he was doing." Unwillingly, Fern's memory focuses on the feel of the Path's fingers on their skin. Shields, different than Siena's, press against memory-Fern's mind. Shields on shields on shields, walls slamming shut around Fern, around memory-Fern, around another Fern behind all the others.
Fern trembles. They can't tell which fear is coursing up and down their spine, which lungs are tight with anxiety, theirs or memory-Fern's or both. They can barely breathe. Something feels like it's spinning, maybe the floor or the walls or Fern themself.
Pain spikes through their skull. Siena's breaking something open. She takes her time, pinning them into stillness as surely as the padded restraints held memory-Fern. Tears paint their cheeks, doubled against memory-Fern's older pain. Fern sobs, writhing uselessly against the feeling of things splitting, old scars they don't remember getting tearing open across their mind. Siena's touch lingers, drawing pain out of them with fixated, attentive care.
Something's breaking open.
Siena's breaking something.
Fern feels their chest hitch, terrified. Something's breaking and they can feel a certainty deeper in their bones than memory has ever reached that once it breaks it won't go back.
Something's breaking, and behind it something waits.
"Please," they whisper, perhaps. Their lips are numb.
She doesn’t hear them, or doesn’t care. They can feel, as her shields start to slip a little, how much their hurt fascinates her. She’s not doing this to help them.
“Stop, please...” the words drop like stones to the table, the bed, the floor.
Something’s breaking, something’s coming, and Siena doesn’t care. Their head feels like it’s peeling apart, exposing everything inside to raw, open air, and Siena’s too engrossed in the feeling of it to see what’s coming.
Something breaks, and Fern wails.
Something shatters, and Siena screams.
The thunderclap of something jolting into place breaks Fern’s consciousness under them, and they fall.
