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The divestment was plain in records, if the exacts of the reasoning weren't made plain on paper or pixel. It was a situation that begged both professional curiosity and concern, regarding the not so distant past and all the more future. Schörl altered plans and courses, followed the words to the woman who'd asked.

'Lieutenant Cinnabar.
Meet me at fifth and liberty. Let's put those assets of yours to work.' It was June. Three years.
'Our palms can never stop touching.' Are you leaving me, Cinnabar? Are you falling into the black hole you doused yourself half in? Is it the eventual end of every partially youmafied officer?
'Captain Cinnabar, but what a price.' The ones I have known? Growth of eccentricities only? Maybe it will be something else.

The glaze of the other's woman's face as Scholomance's blood had spilled and sprayed returned to mind as the wiry General as cane and heels crossed the thresholds of hall and holes through the Negaverse Cathedral. To where General Cinnabar took times past for practice. Turned gaze to find the sought-for leaned aside and offer a smile and outstretched hand like to lead to a half hug and Faire La Bise. "Cinnabar."

"What troubles your thoughts?"

Brevity via the weight of Truth, and in such moments there was always an undercurrent of loss an fear. Even from one like Cinnabar. It was interesting to hear the instance called out as nothing intentional, not a necessary positive evolution to the between state that following in the steps of the Youma Queen provided. Confirmation, then. Confirmation of the worse option.

There was no reason to go into what Schörl herself had or hadn't noted of the altered state. It didn't add anything to the conversation, and Cinnabar was candidly laying out everything, an pride set aside with the admission that help was needed and sought. Two things unusual to most of the Generals of the Negaverse, in admissions, and two things denoting trust, severity, and something else to be concerned about. The 'outcome' ... embracing or avoiding.

"It isn't an straight away cure, and like medicines takes practice and time to get to therapeutic levels....but we can work through meditation. That....of course assumes you will be able to reach an altered state. I have noted that the increase of Chaos energy within made it more difficult to meditate. You've more than that. "

"There's options to try. " The Green General lifted a hand to follow Cinnabar's own through the dark hair, tugging the wefts along the woman's temporalis to release some tension. " Here we can start with traditional, seated meditations with phrases, light, scent and sound. At a small expense we can book private use of float tank. Have you augmented yourself with any drugs to any effect?"

An eyebrow ratcheted up when a martial artist of all people gave sneer to meditation having legitimacy. Krav Maga classes the world over didn’t default to including it as a part of regular lesson and practice, but beyond the rabbity, soccer-mom, hipster appropriations of bastardized yoga, the word namaste, there was something a great deal more impactful and more real. And recognized time and again by hard studies. I’m not talking about weekend hot yoga and Jamba Juice.

“Actual meditation physically alters the chemical, electrical and matter balances of the brain. You remain a being of flesh, with nervous system; with a parasympathetic part that will slow heart rate, breathing and other involuntary motor functions, and put you more in control of yourself. If we can increase the gray matter in your frontal cortex, which is associated with working memory and executive decision making, by meditation, you will more accurately recognize, feel, and control your sympathetic system, which arouses the body, losing you to battle. ”

“How much time do you have, if you estimate yourself? How you feel within your own bones. Float chambers might be more necessary to start with, if ...windows are very short.”

“ Fear will be a problem as much as scorn. If we had easy access to fMRI and EEG..." The Green General sucked her teeth, "Then we could measure changes. “

Schörl considered, weighing pharmaceuticals against wagons. Recreationals and medicals all interfere, as much as the chaos itself is directly doing so. That may be a last itch effort, trying to drown out noise with other noise to leave the naked in the eye of the storm. There are some medical in our ranks. Are they of the sort that have access to the right equipment. Clearances, surveillance and hospitals are A Problem , A Pity.


“What makes you feel safe, in an environment. We should go from here, from the heart of Chaos. It may be safe in one way, but it is a whirlpool that is as much drowning outside as inside with …..this difficulty, I conjecture.”

“What first brought the phenomenon to your direct attention?” It was something to start and go off of, if smaller events passed notice entirely at first, and even on occasion now. Cinnabar’s estimations weren’t what could have been hoped for, a casualty of licking wounds in private for however long. I’m not convinced she’s more useful, as an advanced practitioner of Krav Maga, as an entirely Youmafied thing with degenerated creativity and thought. This thing inside her isn’t much of a thinking creature, from what I’ve been able to see first hand.

And a divide in considering the youma across from herself. An unusual status given the fusion and mutation of the starseed...if that is where it stands. Are there two mind states, or is that how best she’s partitioned and identified new manifestations- that if it goes all the way back to her promotion to a General. If it is two mind states vying for control of the whole, what comes of one or the other having complete control. And likely not enough time to come to the complete understanding of the situation before state-change.

“And your starseed. Has anyone had a look at it? Has it changed over time at all in structure or stability? We'll have trouble with those constraints of safety given your only made space is now an office within the Dark Kingdom. Unless you've fashioned any bolt-holes in the city for your team?”

Last Year. A ‘few minutes’ of unconsciousness small.
Inconsistency, again, from a long-trained martial artist, or a once-bountyhunter, in experience with brain traumas and black outs. It screamed to the fore for Reason. Prevarication deliberately? Shame? Could be interference of the condition. Latent damage from the trauma.

A year.
Why do you hide from me, Red General, Mirror-Mine?

Three months too much to ask for now, because a year ago and working through this could have been a great deal of mitigation that was pissed down the chronological river. And there were the further admissions. Part equivocating. ‘What I told myself.’ Unusually maudlin, this whole; where walks the bravado, that She, who condescends to strike down all things meek or mere because of naught but loneliness she feared?
‘My life belongs to Metallia. She knows that.’
Only months ago, months. We know, we knew, did we not, of each and other’s kine and kind? Where does this new turn come in, what does it mean, what does it shadow on the cave wall?

“To look at it now, alone, will do us only so much good with no comparison against the fore. It may come to that...may, but for now, best it remain within you. Unprovoked of the surge of chaos around it to pull it out. The immediate focus is grounding.”

Gaki, Jikininki. Whole of being to chaos, as the Rift is, so they dwell there. They do not die. They parasite, growing no fatter. They have uses, splendor and grandeur, but little agency. Limited scope in puppets. You will not know your arts when you are gone over, a general only and no sovereign. Not a greater youma. That is not useful. Schörl tapped a white knuckle against the bow of her own lips in rhythm to mantras unspoken, music remembered. Then offered out her hand to Cinnabar, “Tiberius will cover. We will remain secret and safe. At the flat. I’ll take us there. “