exhuxperation | 04. mental link

[For someone who exhibits shows of restraint in just about everything she does—as if showing restraint has been trained into her (because it has been)—there's a sudden anger unleashed from Lexa's mind not long after the arrival of the new Hosts. The anger itself is laden with condescension, and a flash of a face erupts in the mind of her brood: of Bellamy Blake. It's clear that he has wronged her in some way.

Like a flame that burns bright and hot for a brief moment, the anger flickers away the moment she begins to speak to this individual, like she's walling it back up and ripping any knowledge of it away from her fellow broodmates.

It's all just a little too late.]

[ As someone who shares similarities with the other commander– he understands. The sudden shaking loose of restraint and subsequent anger filling his mind is a shock to be sure. And just as quickly as it came, it's muffled. Like a glass being placed over a burning flame. An attempt to smother. ]

( Lexa? )

[Her response is not immediate. There's an indication of acknowledgement to him reaching out, but she breaks the link soon after to deal with Bellamy—and to deal with the conversation at hand. Accepting her death is a great burden, if only because it seems outside the realm of possibility. But what seeped away from Bellamy's mind to her own had been clear. Back in her world, she had died. Somehow, it had happened, even if she's here. No one else has spoken of dying, and it doesn't match any of the realities that Cathaway had shown her that one day.

Perhaps she is alone, waiting for the inevitable.

Because her conversation with Bellamy is not long (albeit strenuous: her mind is an emotional landmine right now, and one she barely keeps in check), she returns to Hux soon enough, breathing out from where she stands as if she's attempting to manage herself.

Many things are clear: the existential question of accepting one's death without having experienced it, and what it means for someone when their life's path is known? Lexa knows nothing about people who might live parallel lives, or that there might even be a parallel her. All she knows is the confusion that comes with this, and the fact that her death has left the woman she loved alone to save her people. Because she can't keep this in check, she feels weaker, like she's bare. Raw. Like skin that's just suffered a burn but hasn't hardened over.

Flames really do have their place here metaphorically.]

( I am here. You weren't intended to experience that. ) [As if that erases the circumstance. She knows very well that it doesn't.]

[ The response isn't immediate and on some level, he expects that. Even without her being pre-occupied, he would understand. Everyone deals with emotional upheaval differently and this is just another subset. Seeing as they're cut from a similar cloth– commanders, leaders, saddled with the pressure– they take time to consider.

To think it through.

There's the acknowledgment of course, which he appreciates. Something to show he hasn't been completely ignored in the process. But he lets her deal with it as she needs to. Lexa won't have to contest with nosiness on his part if she doesn't want it.

Still, his mind reaches out to her as soon as her voice echoes there. ]

( Sometimes what we don't intend happens anyway. ) [ Surprise on the battlefield and off of it. ] ( Would you like to clarify anything or do you prefer not to speak of it? )

[No, they don't intend everything. Would they have chosen to ask for these symbiotes to realign their lives, to give them a different perspective altogether? No, she thinks not. At least her perspective has changed from before. Carata and Nirad have proven that they are not all fodder.

It's a relief. Even if she would understand the sentiment being a leader herself, she would still like to fight in the war she has given up her people for.]

( No, we don't. Still, clarification would be useful. It may be hard to believe, but that man is under my protection. He has been a traitor to my people, but he was under the orders of an ... upstart. ) [She pauses.] ( Still, he is one of my people. His friend and leader has taken up my role in my absence. )

[It may be confusing, because it is, even for her. More than that, there's an underlying pain to these words that she can't shake, that she can't repress. It's the pain that comes right before acceptance, as in: she has a feeling that she will never see her people again, and is finally beginning to accept it.]

COMMAND over oneself and others	AMBITION nothing will stand in my way
ORDER chaos will not be tolerated	MANY over the individual

04. mental link

day 008

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this thread should work fine btw

rad!

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