Slow Rider, Slow Rider, Move On a Little More

[pretendtoneedme]

WHO: Everyone
WHERE: 6I's Town Hall
WHEN: July 10th
OPEN TO: Everyone who wants in. There will be one subheader for welcoming back the group and one for the actual meeting
WARNINGS: Nothing so far; please add headers in the comment subjects if something does come up that could be problematic

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The return is, when everything is said and done, uneventful. The group who went to explore the break in the canyon walks back into the village in the early afternoon, laden down with most of the supplies they'd brought with them and without any obvious injury. There's some scratches, a couple bruises, but whatever had happened to seal them away from the village for a week definitely didn't happen to them, and they're not buzzing with any news so world-shattering that everyone needs to be collected and reported to at once. There's enough time for the group to separate and grab showers, clean clothes, and something to eat, while the word passes from person to person that the explorers have returned and that there's going to be a meeting right after dinner for them to explain what they've found and answer questions.

At the appointed time, the five of them are there, looking less ragged, and ready to talk. They've brought a few things back with them to show the others in the village, but all in all there's just not a lot to show about the other side that's different - except for that one, giant thing. But the non-changes are going to be shocking enough for most people, and decisions have to be made about what to do with the information they have now.

Comments

[theintercessor]

What he expected the response to be, he isn't sure. Issues with memory or motor skills, issues with--keeping reality in its lines--aren't something he ever admits to lightly. It has to seem necessary, and usually it's only in the face of having an episode in front of the person, or being called out on something he's forgotten.

With the latter, sometimes he's just shrugged it off, stayed silent, and lived with the ire of the person he's let down. Bodhi isn't any of those things, and maybe that's why he seems to take it in stride. Maybe it's related to having advice. Jude tips his head back up, focusing in on Bodhi's face again, searching it for a reason not to ask. Finding none: "I mean, if you have some, I'll hear it."

[onlyeverdoubted]

"I don't know if... Well, maybe it can't hurt. I, um, I try and focus on... This'll sound weird, but some of the few--the memories I do trust. They have to be strong and only really be about me. Get something in there like my parents or... basically, the more ingredients, the worse it works. A strong impression, a person I recognize being me, and I can, well, ground myself a little bit. It doesn't usually fix what's wrong or, um, what's missing, but sometimes the stress kind of... Everything else gets easier." It sounds stupid spoken out loud by that, his own little mindfulness exercises falling away into nonsense if he tries to actually express them.

[theintercessor]

"That," Jude starts, watching Bodhi elaborate, grasp, judge himself short. "That sounds good, useful, for when it's happening." It isn't a subject he talks about often, if at all, and he has learned ways to ground himself and at least--not appear to be having a fit, when they happen. There's only a couple of kinds he can't do anything about.

Sometimes he just stops. There's nothing to remember and nothing to think or hold on to: he just isn't there for minutes at a time. Sometimes it's so bad, every muscle in his body stops too, and he falls where he stands.

In eight years, all he knows to do about those is hope they happen when he's alone, and stay calm to avoid them happening at all. That much, Bodhi doesn't need to know, when he's clearly making hard admissions of his own just to reach back out across a divide and try to help. There's a part of Jude relaxing in the face of it that never has before, that strange weight lifting: maybe I'm not just crazy. Maybe these are things that happen. "I try to think about physical things," he offers back. "Like how I'm still breathing, or if my clothes itch, what I'm standing or sitting on."

[onlyeverdoubted]

Bodhi nods, though that in particular doesn't work for him. Maybe it's all the time he spent in Saw's dungeons being acutely aware of every inch of cold, aching skin and not much else. But he has his own variation. "I know what you mean. It's even, well, a little like that. I, um, I use things like my first solo flight, or visiting the aquarium on Coruscant when I was little. More, um, more sensory than anything else." The memories too big and selfish and grand to be about the things he's lost, just the person he used to be and sometimes imagines he could be again.

[theintercessor]

Jude nods in turn, letting the words and their intent wash over him, it's own kind of calming exercise. There's nothing defensive left, nothing unkind about Bodhi's advice, Bodhi's first impression--they're just here. He likes his scarf, he feels easy under the sound of his voice.

It isn't conscious, but his posture loosens in his chair, and he slowly returns to the table, pencils stowed in pockets, hands idling. "What are aquariums like in space," he asks, like it's a perfectly normal question, like it isn't crazy that they exist in the same room. "Or, I guess, what do you remember about that one?" He doesn't visit them often out of his own fears, but he likes the photos.

[onlyeverdoubted]

If Bodhi had to pick his favorite thing about life in this bizarre place, it'd be hearing people independently refer to aspects of his life as happening "in space" as though that described anything at all. It's the same sort of half-tongue-in-cheek placeholder behind Beyond the Outer Rim and all his other old favorite pulp holovids. Sometimes the tech level locally can be a bit frustrating, but that part is just very gratifying.

So it's with a little bit of a snicker that he answers, though he otherwise plays it pretty straight. Explaining that Coruscant isn't exactly in space seems silly at the moment, and frankly he likes the image of an aquarium set up as a tiny, self-sustaining space station. "I... The moon I was born on hasn't had real surface water for millions of years. The sheer volume of, well, you can see holos of things like oceans, but, um, actually seeing it in person, and that's before you take into account the animals. Well. Some of them were plants, or fungi, or colonial--Not important. I remember more about the way they moved than any specific species or detail. There's nothing like it when you're used to rock and wind."