I slept in medical, so of course can’t sleep now, but at least I can watch Kaoren sleep. I’m working on him getting more rest, and spent a big portion of the evening distracting him with what I’d written about my trip to Earth, and extended hand-holding. He doesn’t even remember calling me a stray, and said he was consumed by the discovery of the Pillar, and simply relieved I did exactly as he told me. I had to laugh at him for that. And I’ve found that if he starts having a nightmare while I’m awake, that if I think about something peaceful which made me happy, and kind of push it out to him, he settles down and sleeps more deeply. The power of positive thinking.
October
Wednesday, October 1
Respite
No dreams last night, which meant I spent the day trying not to fret about my dream girl. Fortunately Mara was in the mood to work me hard, which helped me not stress too much about it. My tremors are almost gone, but they decided not to do any testing today, so it was a full day of training.
Fortunately me sleeping through means Kaoren had another good night, and the shadows are gone from under his eyes. At the end of the day First and Fourth had a joint dinner in the canteen, and amused themselves interrogating the kids about what they’ve been doing at the Setari school. Rye’s so cute, drawn irresistibly out of his shell, and really wanting to not make a fool of himself among all these people who think he’s worth spending time on. Ys seems resigned to the attention, and is working to hide how much she hates the two people she cares about most letting more and more people into their lives. She reminded me so much of my dream girl that I couldn’t resist reaching out and rubbing her shoulder just for a moment. I can’t make her be happy, but I can do my best to be sure she’s comfortable and not pushed beyond her limits.
They haven’t decided what I’m doing tomorrow. Still debating risking returning me to Muina, but currently the no vote is winning.
Thursday, October 2
Big Sister
When I’m curled up in bed drifting off to sleep I spend at least a few minutes noticing the people around me – it’s like noticing the noises around you more when you’re trying to sleep. And especially when I’m asleep and not dreaming I often am at least partially aware of people moving around me, so I usually know if Sen has climbed into bed with Ys, and when Kaoren moves about. Of course, if my attention is caught up in something I can be completely oblivious to everything going on, which Kaoren wants me to make an effort to overcome. I’m getting a little better about it, I think.
Anyway, so long as I’m living in close quarters with people I’m always going to know who is sleeping with whom – certainly everyone within comfortable range distance which at the moment seems to mean all of First, Second, Third and Fourth, and a bit of Fifth and Sixth as well (I’m kind of glad I can’t reach Kajal’s room without deliberately trying). I can’t actually tell what anyone’s doing, just where they are, but if there’s two people in a bedroom all night it kind of becomes obvious. Alay often sleeps with one of the device technicians, and Ketzaren spends most of her nights with Jeh (I feel so thick for not realising they’re a couple). Maze and Zee don’t sleep with anyone so far as I can see and, for all his reputation, neither does Nils. Well, unless you count Ghost, who divides her favours between him, me and Rye. Though I guess Nils' reputation isn’t about sleeping.
I’m less aware of Third and Fourth’s relationships, but still am awkwardly conscious of knowing more about a few of them than I expect they’d be comfortable with. The thing that surprised me today, though, was Inisar and Taarel. Not sleeping together, but just I’ve noticed them together a handful of times over the last few days.
Inisar’s been kicking his heels while my projections fail, so I suppose it’s possible Taarel’s been assigned to be his native guide – or pump him for information. But they make an interesting pair – she’s so kingly and he has such presence. Though since Taarel thought she wasn’t a match with Kaoren because they both like being in charge, maybe Inisar’s someone she wouldn’t consider.
I’ve been in a very in-love-with-Kaoren mood all day, because when I woke up this morning he just had this look of contentment in his eyes. Being with me makes him happy. Spending an hour with him in the shower in the morning makes Ys give us scornful looks all through breakfast.
I didn’t dream of my ghost-girl again last night (which is probably at least part of the reason I’m burying myself in adoration of Kaoren), but on the up side Maze suggested that I try projecting my dreams of her as if it was a movie, and that worked in a patchy, disjointed way because it took a lot of what felt like mental gymnastics. Still, I was able to show them what the outside of the city looked like, and the guards, and that central room of the pyramid. The three Sight Sight observers (Kaoren, Tsur Selkie and Inisar) were extra-serious while examining the inside of the weird stone tent bubble with the one limp Photoshop God slumped in the upright sarcophagus.
They think it’s a door. Or a lock, like the metal boxes the Tarens put around gates. Or something. After that Tsur Selkie had me try to reproduce every view of the city’s outside that I could, particularly from when I was up on that roof, and they’re doing some topographic analysis of the land contours to see if they can figure out where all this happened.
I started getting muscle tremors again, not really severe ones, but that’s the last of the experiments for me for a while. A bunch of days of training and medical tests instead, while they try to analyse the jumble of images I’d produced.
Friday, October 3
Close Calls
Siame visited for dinner again. She seems to be swapping through approaches with these visits, first ignoring me, then interrogating me, and now making very polite conversation but looking completely bored. The most she achieved with that was annoying both Kaoren and Ys (who probably thinks she has dibs on being rude to me), and prompting Sen to offer her one of her dolls and then Ghost for cuddling. But Ghost doesn’t currently approve of Siame and went off to haunt Nils instead.
Rye was either oblivious to undercurrents, or determined to pretend not to notice and distract us with the latest news from Muina. A handful of the breakaway group of Nurans had returned to Pandora carrying one boy with a broken leg. Who’d had a broken leg for a couple of days. The leaders of the breakaway group had refused to allow anyone to call to Pandora for help, and since they had no skilled medics with them, the poor guy spent a short eternity in agony until finally his closest friends rescued him and tried to carry him all the way back to Pandora. I’m not exactly sure what the settlement’s Nuran Setari observer was doing during all this, but I expect he’s the reason a group of greensuits in a flier happened across them almost straight away and gave them a lift. Details are sparse, but KOTIS did make a short statement that those who had returned had chosen to stay.
Inisar went back this morning, before the news broke, and more news arrived after the kids had gone to bed that about two-thirds of the group had upped and followed the injured boy’s group and started marching back to Pandora. Some more fliers were sent out to pick them up. There’s a little under thirty Nurans left at Nurenor, which is what they apparently have named their little settlement. The news stories showed some aerial shots of Nurenor, which looked muddy and muddled and dispiriting. I was most interested in the number of hairy sheep that they’d managed to pen up. There’s more hairy sheep in that region of Muina than any other animal, I swear. Apparently being butted by one of the rams was how the injured boy’s leg was broken.