eachdraidh | second trial. | voice (unlocked)

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second trial. | voice (unlocked)

[ thomas has not been a common presence on the network since his arrival to the drabwurld; gaining the ability to talk telepathically with the people who've been close to him have made it fairly easy for him to communicate without it. but this time, thomas addresses the network at large, although only with a (perhaps semi-familiar) voice.

he sounds uneasy. tired. ]

Do any of you have nightmares? How do you deal with them?

[ it's a stab at anonymity, mostly because he doesn't want to show his face, but the storms currently raging over head have not made his life any easier. thomas sleeps fitfully, twenty minutes at a time, wakes up screaming. no one's going to see his face as an effect of that. eventually, he tacks on a soft--]

Thanks. [ --and the line goes dead. ]

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Control them.

[ Reyna knows nightmares and knows that she hates them with a fair amount of vitriol. She's a demigod and of course there's always going to be someone finding their way into her dreams. Nightmares that she can't control— nightmares that end in her waking up in a cold sweat aren't things she likes to deal with.

Her answer stops there for a moment, like she's carefully weighing how to word the rest of her thoughts. When she does start speaking, it's with a solemn tone. ]

Take control of them. Don't just let your mind wander until it stumbles right into them. You have to start dreams where you feel most comfortable and if the nightmares come anyway— they're not real. They can't be where you feel the most comfortable.

[ thomas has plenty sassy to say but he tamps down on it. clearly this girl has her own issues with nightmares--it seems to be a common facet of the drabwurld and the shardbearers that are beginning to inhabit it. it's not so easy that he can just control them, considering, and he respects that this girl's able to, somehow.

but he can't stop it because they're not nightmares. they're memories. nightmares are an easier thing to call it. an easier thing to admit to than being kept sleepless at night by the people you've gotten killed, the promises you've broken, the things you've seen. the silver monsters nearly ripping winston's face off. the red stain that remained on the maze floor where alby had been standing.

chuck, a knife buried in his chest.

steadily, thomas asks: ] How do you cope with them if they are real? If they were real. I don't dream about giant spiders or falling off of buildings or anything like that.

[ reyna considers pointing out that falling off buildings is a very real possibility for some and that— while she's never run into giant spiders herself, you just learn to not underestimate monsters. she doesn't though, because it's a distraction from the point she thinks thomas is trying to make.

dreams based on memories— those are real. they were real at one point in your life and that's the problem, isn't it? you know you did something and you'll relive it in your dreams because it's all in your head. those memories don't just leave because it's been years or because you want to forget them. they stick around and fester only to come out when you least expect it. ]

Can they happen again, [ she asks simply. there's more questions involved and more of an answer that she can give, but it all does depend on whether or not what's happening in the nightmares can occur again outside of them. ] Outside of the nightmares, not inside of them.

I don't know. [ thomas is silent for a moment, before he says, bluntly, maybe a little too dark. ] I'm running out of friends to get killed.

[ and it's true, really. so many people have died because of thomas. people have died for him. minho can tell him newt's death wasn't his fault but it was. thomas pulled the trigger, even if newt begged and screamed and forced him to. chuck leapt in front of the knife to save his life. even if he didn't take responsibility for the rest, he still had to, because in the end, the thomas of WICKED put them all in the maze in the first place.

his tests killed them. his monsters shredded alby, zart, jeff. his conditions broke newt. killed the spirits of the rest of them, made them hopeless and lost. whether thomas took ownership of that didn't matter or not, because in the end, it was still his fault. the concept of control is impossible for him because the things he dreams are memories he relives, over and over and over. ]

[ reyna is silent for longer than thomas was before she finally does say something to break it with an equally as blunt response. ] You can't kill them twice.

[ they're dead and unless his world permits them to come back, that is their one and only death they're granted. it's something reyna's had to acknowledge herself, that death only happens once and when it does you can't go back from it. you can't change what happened, but you can choose not to acknowledge it even in your dreams. ]

Memories are in the past. Reliving them over and over doesn't do anyone any good. It can't change what happened. You can only control and change what you do now. If you don't want to dream about them and you catch yourself doing it, you have to remind yourself it's not happening now. It can't happen again. It's just what happened.

I don't think I can just move on like that. [ it's not defensive but it's true. will thomas ever accept what happened to newt? can he ever see newt like he used to know him, smiling and kind and warm, their glue, and not see his face papered over with the crank that screamed for thomas to kill him, who cried and looks relieved when thomas's finger started to squeeze the trigger?

eventually he adds, tentatively. ] ...at least not now.

[ maybe his self control and will just aren't strong enough. maybe they will be some day. but it happened just before the drabwurld, and then--teresa, teresa is a whole other fish to fry. he checks the private lock before he continues. ] Someone who died because of me appeared here, and it's worse. It's like seeing her ghost before I can see her. Now I dream about it and I look at her and I just--everything she could have done in the future there is gone. [ we'd finally escaped, we'd finally--she was almost--

i only ever cared for...

thomas scrubs a hand over his face. ] Maybe I could do that in Paradise, but I don't think I've got a chance here.

I never said it was moving on. [ maybe what she described is technically moving on even though reyna would argue that moving on would mean it doesn't effect you, but she doesn't think it's moving on. ] I also didn't say it'd be instantaneous. You have to train yourself to do it, it's not as simple as turning off a light.

[ reyna listens choosing to remain quiet until she's pretty sure that thomas is done. the talk of ghosts stirs her own unpleasant memories enough that she can't help but take in a sharp breath. ] In Paradise? [ part of her wonders if that's an actual place or just the idea of a paradise, either way maybe it's just a moot point. ]

Unless you can see the future and know it's set in stone, you can't know what she could have done in the future. [ she pauses and sighs. ] Does she know that she's dead at home? Or is that something only you know?

[ a little tersely: ] That's what I'm trying to do.

[ thomas isn't exactly the most patient guy in the world, but he knows this--recovery, or whatever--is a process. he hasn't had time to sit still in a long, long time, so now he's kind of left floundering in all of these memories he's now stuck with. for the first time ever, thomas has to live with himself, and he's not sure if he can. ] Paradise. It's the last safe haven for munies. We didn't make it there easily. [ that's an understatement, and that's all he apparently has to say on that subject. ]

Yeah, she knows. She came here right when... [ thomas stops, swallows. ] I know she's dead, which means she has no future. If we leave here, she'll be dead, and it's my fault.

[ had this been video, reyna would have given thomas a look. it's a look she's used before when someone in the cohorts had said something unwise and generally her default look when it came to ninety percent of the things octivian had ever said to her. as it stands what reyna actually does is sigh. ] Safe havens aren't usually easy places to get to.

[ and if they were, could you really call them safe havens. ] Unless you killed her yourself, it's not entirely your fault. [ technically speaking, though she gets it. ] She's here now, though. Alive through whatever magic the monarch or this world has. There's war going on but— there's worse places to have a future in.

[ never mind that it could be cut off at any time. ]

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second trial. | voice (unlocked)

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voice. private. sorry about the lateness, holidays killed me.