I Know Something About Pain You Don't

She had been putting this off long enough, and after the insanity of the past few weeks, the more frequent lapses in her memory, and especially the news she'd gotten from home this morning Tahiri knew there was no way she could justify it any longer. She'd probably be needed, and soon, but more importantly she was sick of being a victim of someone inside her own head. To tell the truth she was annoyed with herself for putting it off this long . . . or maybe Riina was annoyed.

The fact that she couldn't tell only added to the argument that there was really no other choice. She felt bad about the timing -- Jaina, Karla, and Raven had not exactly had an easy time of it the last few days, but Karla and Raven had both been insistent, and Tahiri knew Jaina better than to think a minor injury would stop her. And there wasn't even a question of whether Ben wanted to be involved. (She'd asked anyway.)

Tahiri paused with her hand on the door and glanced back at the others. ( Okay, so . . . here we go. )

[OOC: With much love for the preplay to momslilassassin, glacial_witch, trickster_twin, and trigons_child. Let's call this one NFB, 'kay? Heavily, heavily adapted from the godawful Force Heretic III: Reunion by Sean Williams and Shane Dix, now with 99% less slashiness. OOC okay, and huzzah, dangling plot point dealt with! (Finally. I suck.)]

She had a lot to think about. She supposed she ought to be used to it by now, but it all just made everything in her head so much busier. Tahiri was tired of being tired, tired of losing chunks of her weeks because she'd been shoved to the back of her own mind by Riina, tired of her own mental stability being a rearguard battle of attrition.

There was no way she'd ever be the person she was before; she knew that now, and she'd accepted that, or been worn down enough to give in to it, if you wanted to look at it that way. The matter of accepting who she needed to become, though, was a snarl she'd yet to cut through. What Tahiri had learned from Tara did change things somewhat -- for all that the Yuuzhan Vong were fanatical and vicious, there was some innate decency somewhere. Beneath it all. She supposed she ought to have known that by now, having been raised by a race feared by most of Tatooine's populace, but . . .

Well. But what, she wasn't sure yet. So, avoiding the oddly persistent fruitcakes, she'd slipped away into the preserve as she did so often these days to find herself a quiet spot and meditate.

Or try to.

( Firekeeper, on the other hand, was less interested in meditation and more in finding a good spot to start a fire. )

[OOC: Preplayed with the always amazing kestrelswolf, who made a handful of pings so much more than I hoped they'd be and as such gets my everlasting love. NFI, subject of conversation NFB, and OOC totally okay.]

This was a conversation she'd been putting off for a while, but -- especially given that yesterday had been one of the bad days -- really needed to be had, so Tahiri had handwavily called a couple of people and then gone to see about getting some snacks. Because snacks always made awkward situations slightly less so, right?

There was . . . well, okay, there was a box of cookies, one of those tins with all the different-shaped butter cookies that all tasted the same except some of them had sugar crystals on them. And a couple of pints of ice cream. That part was a given, really.

A few weeks to mull over the idea that Riina had slipped out and done something to help someone hadn't made it any less weird; maybe knowing more about that would change things. Not to mention she did owe Tara an explanation for the whole "hi, I went crazy and kind of scary on you and then didn't remember any of it" thing.

. . . maybe she should have gotten more ice cream.

[OOC: For the boy, and for Tara, and specifics of conversation resoundingly NFB, please. :)]

Tahiri was sound asleep, a slight frown on her face, and despite having kicked the covers off hours ago she was sweating.

( This was why she never got a good night's rest any more. )

She awoke and blinked sweat out of her eyes as she sat up, breath coming in ragged gasps. Stumbling to the bathroom, she splashed water on her face and hurried out of the cottage to a spot by the lake. She wasn't going to move from there until after the sun came up.

[OOC: Establishy, OOC okay. Oh so very loosely adapted from Force Heretic II: Refugee by Sean Williams and Shane Dix, whose prose I would not inflict upon you in its original form, with bits and pieces adapted from Star by Star by Troy Denning and Edge of Victory I: Conquest by Greg Keyes. I've been meaning to do this for days but writer's block kept foiling me.]

Just because she'd gotten accustomed to never really having her brain all to herself any more didn't mean that Tahiri had to like it. The bad moments came and went; the past few days they'd never really gotten horrible, but they were more frequent than they had been. Her brilliant solution to those moments when they hit was to hide out, more often than not in some quiet spot in the preserve, or out here on the beach: natural spots, well away from as much technology as possible, and more importantly away from people. She didn't want to take the risk of a repeat incident like the one in the salle.

Sitting still was never something she'd been very good at, but spending time in meditative trances seemed to help. When she'd woken up this morning feeling more . . . fragmented than she liked, she'd picked her way out to a quiet spot and had been here ever since. Eyes closed, breathing slow and even -- it had taken a while to get calm enough to manage that -- and completely silent. Which, yes, for her, was strange.

It was working, at least. For now.

[OOC: Establishy, but open if you want, though as a warning she's not so much with the stable right now.]

It was raining syrup outside. Well, that pretty much answered the question of whether Tahiri was going anywhere today . . . or it was a convenient excuse, anyway.

She expected she'd go stir-crazy holed up in her room after a while, but even if she was feeling more stable today, Wednesday night's incident with Raven and Karla in the salle wasn't something she could just brush off. Which could have had something to do with the fact that in between the time she remembered getting agitated by Raven's offers to help her and seeing Raven and Karla recovering from a telekinetic blast that she'd apparently thrown, everything was a blur.

That was new. And not at all welcome.

Yeah. Tahiri wasn't going anywhere today.

[OOC: Which does not mean you can't bother her, so the post is open even if the door is closed and the wee Jedi is not in the best of moods. She'd been in a good mood too long, dammit. I don't think canon allows that. ETA: Aaaaaaaand let's say the details of the conversations with Ben and Karla are NFB, please? Yay crazy head!alien?]

With the okay from atreideslioness and the supreme overlords, Tahiri's going to be having a little bit of a fun Spice side effect while on Arrakis.

Namely, her Riina Kwaad personality is going to be a little more active. Now, this won't actually play out very differently than it does when it's happened to her in Fandom, with the notable exceptions that it's being triggered by the Spice rather than physical pain/emotional stress, and she won't be as aware of Riina's more assertive behavior as she usually is. The practical upshot of this is that she may be acting a little bit bipolar, and at worst Riina may completely assert herself for a few minutes. In that case, it will remain a harmless, but probably WTFy, encounter -- no one is going to get hurt by this, but if the encounter is likely to be upsetting/scary I'll clear it with you ahead of time.

Now, of course, you don't have to play with this if you don't want to -- so if you don't want to deal with Tahiri's scary Yuuzhan Vong mental roommate, let me know here; I've screened comments and all that jazz. If, on the other hand, you'd like to have a run-in with Riina, let me know here as well. Or, you know, any questions.

And I promise, I won't be playing this for angst. I HAVE ENOUGH OF THAT TO DEAL WITH FOR THIS ONE. OH GOD, DO I HAVE ENOUGH OF THAT.

As decidedly less than thrilled Tahiri had been about the fact that someone had been able to pick up on her little mental friend so easily, Karla had offered her help. Riina had been pretty quiet lately -- but Tahiri didn't feel like counting on that to last. Although she wasn't holding out too much hope yet that there was actually a chance the girl she'd only just met a few days ago could do something about this problem, it definitely couldn't hurt to find out.

So with Hurley out for a few hours she'd handwavily given Karla a call, then took a seat on her bed to try and meditate for a little while. Talking about that particular experience was always unnerving, and just thinking about it now already had her on edge. Ergo, meditating. Or trying, anyway.

[OOC: Post is for peoples what know who they are, up whoa early for great SP justice and roomie modded with permission. Note to self, in case you forget because you are a flake, details of convo with Karla NFB like whoa, please. Notice for triggeriness: the thread with Karla will concern not-exactly-vague memories of torture, so consider that a heads-up.]

She'd spent all morning sitting in and advising on a far-too-long conference call she'd been hoping to put off for a while longer but just couldn't avoid any more, so the lingering effects of having to think Yuuzhan Vong for a while weren't doing much to help Tahiri's mood. Afterward, a long workout down in the salle (where she'd taken more than a few stun bolts in the process) had worked off just enough stress that she thought she could keep Riina in check, but there were still things on her mind.

Hurley hadn't come home last night, and that on top of Ben's weird behavior yesterday had had her edgy enough. When she finally got around to listening to last night's radio broadcast, it just added on to the pile. Not just Hurley, but John and Francine, and Dinah had been out there, and more people besides.

No, Tahiri was definitely Not Happy right now.

And sitting around here wasn't going to help matters much. Growling under her breath (things that Sliven would have been horrified to realize she'd overheard and remembered), she stalked back out of the room to find something to do. Someone who had a plan, people who needed help, anything. The last thing she wanted was to be alone with her thoughts right now.

[OOC: Mostly establishy, but if you wanna run into her on her way out, who am I to stop you?]

Sometimes Tahiri wondered if there was some kind of cosmic rule about everything going wrong at once. The day had started off well enough, and the field trip had promised to be fun.

But then there had been zombies, and Tahiri was far less than thrilled about her reaction to them. Getting back to the group hadn't been a highlight of her day either.

And as if that hadn't been bad enough (because really, hadn't it?) she'd come home to find a message from Firekeeper about going away for a while, and on top of that there was the message from Ben that was about the farthest possible thing from reassuring.

Sore, exhausted, and badly freaked out for reasons that had nothing to do with the zombies themselves, Tahiri headed straight for a really, really long shower and then her room, where she promptly curled up on her bed and tried to put herself through some meditative techniques.

[OOC: Establishy/linkdroppy, but open if you want with the caveat that I'm going to bed in about an hour. ETA: Wait, did I just linkdrop? Well, now I'm scared.]