slightlyoffchilt | - IC CONTACT POST FOR MASKORMENACE -

How are Fridays for you? After your classes -- I presume you're enrolled in something.

Fridays are fine, but no, I'm not.

Oh? But you're employed? At least Registered?

... You have healthcare insurance, right?

You'll get your due payment, don't worry.

[ Nice dodge. ]

You don't have to deal the pedantic information out now, but know that my secretary will inevitably need to check your insurance.

And it's highly suspicious if you're paying upfront in cash.

So I'll make it a cashier's check.

Look at you, so complete with your answers.

I've penciled you in. Until then, Ruka.

[AND WOULD YOU LIKE TO THREAD IT OUT HERE?]

Until then. It's much appreciated.

[ I WOULD LIKE TO YES. ]

[Friday morning, he had finally decided upon Friday morning. At eleven. Chilton had Walter White scheduled in the evening, and that session was dire enough not to threaten with Ruka's scheduling.

His office sought to mimic what he had left behind in Baltimore; black and gold accents with a light blue palette fulfilling the furniture -- a sedan in the middle of the room most prominent. His bookshelves boasted psychiatrist texts, his desk was peppered with a selection of gold pens.

And he was at his own desk, anticipating Ruka.]

[ If he's never seen Ruka before, the girl who enters the office won't look anything like he expects. Truthfully, nobody expects an appearance quite like hers: green hair, like sea foam, and if it's a dye job it's a very good one. It's mostly tied up and back in some elaborate braid, bangs left loose to hang in her face, though this does little to obscure the deep red heart of fabric fixed over her left eye. Beyond the striking, she dresses a little too dark and too heavy for summer, even if she's spending it in air conditioning.

She arrives just on time, her greeting is only a nod—no smiles—with arms folding behind her back, already on the mild defensive. ]

Doctor Chilton.

Don't draw up your walls already, Ruka, we haven't even begun.

[His way of greeting, perhaps. He gestured to the sedan, leaving the option of the wooden chair off to the said unspoken and unaddressed. She was free to take her seating anywhere, of course. Chilton couldn't dictate over that last remaining choice, not entirely.]

I believe we were previously discussing your people here?

[ Right to the heart of it, then. She doesn't seem perturbed by the barb—more concerned with the seats presented at first. After a moment, she takes her place on the sedan. Her arms unfold, but her hands come to rest in her lap rather than against any piece of the furniture. Even if her hands are gloved for the occasion, that mild caution is instinctive. ]

My "reviled" people, you mean? Those that I'd wish to leave this world.

[ Her posture, at least, looks a little more relaxed. ]

Though, maybe reviled is too strong a word, for most of them.

Well, if it is too strong a word, then now is the time to contextualize.

[It was a stark invitation to talk. His smile, however, had a little less edge to it -- something intentionally conjured, for the sake of civil professionalism.]

There's no reason to hold back, not here. Doctor-patient confidentiality and what not.

[And what not.]

Of course.

[ The damn doesn't open in an instant; Ruka tilts her head to stare towards the ceiling, sighing, as if pushing out air enough will dislodge words from somewhere deep in her chest. It does not. She'll have to draw each one out with force. ]

You've been around long enough to know, that when some people exPort, and Port back in, they're not always the same person. Older, younger, different history—different memories. Sometimes personalities stick around, but not always.

I'm sure you've had your share of that, but... well, there aren't many ImPorts who have stuck around for as long as I have, and the ones who have aren't exactly people I would call friends.

Because of that, I know a great deal about people who have never spoken to me. Good and bad.

A victim of chronological lapse.

[Intoned Chilton, as he made a quick note upon his legal pad. While this condition wasn't unique to her alone, it was true that those who spent longer years away from their natural universe suffered a sort of survivor's syndrome; dear ones came and went. Chilton himself had seen the passage of three ex-girlfriends, and Abel Gideon, and Hannibal Lecter, and Alana Bloom -- but those absences had served to benefit a scoundrel like Frederick Chilton. He was opportunistic, not empathetic.]

Do you feel that you're made into an invasive variable? Given how much you'd know about an imPort who had been, as you said, exPorted previously.

Something like that, certainly. When I was younger, so, before it was a very common phenomenon, there were a couple instances that made, mmm... trying to reforge those bonds into something traumatic, for the other person. After that, I've done my best to avoid contact with different "iterations" of the same "identity," but sometimes circumstance won't allow that.

At least you have the self-awareness of your prior behavior. [Chilton made a quick note, before moving on.] And you've avoided the pattern if it's within your power to do so, as you've noted. I might suggest that the enduring cycle of loss and hollow return -- in the sense that these other iterations of the people you've grown attached to as not the same, and thus the would-be bond is inauthentic -- well, that would be difficult for anyone.

How do you manage your anger?

Anger?

[ The word has the lilt of surprise, but not much. ]

I don't usually have to, for anger; it's pretty rare that I feel my own, anyway.

You're saying you've become more of a cipher than anything else? Using the excuse of your empathy prowess to repress your own original emotions?

I wouldn't say I'm "using the excuse," or anything like that. I've never been a person that gets angry easily, or even very often, so most of the anger I experience is not... mine.

[ Which isn't to say he's wrong on the concept. ]

Your dodge is noted.

[Chilton lacked Alana Bloom's more diplomatic language, but that didn't mean he wasn't sensitive to the needs and progress of his patients.]

You seem rather analytical, observant. Are there emotions you harbor that you can pinpoint belonging to certain individuals?

Yes.

[ Without even the barest pretense of consideration, or hesitation. If only all her answers could be so easy. ]

Describe them to me.

[He said, patiently, his attention presently devoted to her.]

[ Her mouth pulls to one side, though it would be hard to call it a smile. ]

I think all of them would take more than a day to list, but... the longing sort of joyous... melancholic devotion... of a person who lost the love of their life, but holds on more to the good things that love brought rather than the fact she's dead. And there's the furious hatred of the wrongly killed, and the intellectual heartlessness of self-seen justified... I suppose "grim reaper," though less 'grim' and more... deceptively pleasant, I guess.

[ Her hands attempt gesture through this, though the meaning is vague at best: rolls of the wrist, a shifting of weight from one shoulder into the other, a tilt of the head to one side. It's the most animated she's been since she entered, and probably the most physically expressive anyone has seen in months. ]

The sense of infatuation, that self-perpetuates regardless of circumstance; miserable platonic longing, the euphoric joy of causing suffering--that one's always pretty hard to overcome when it surfaces. The, uh, hopeless anxiety—the powerlessness as your life dwindles to nothing—

[ Her hand does another sort of roll, almost like she's trying to pull off a scarf. ]

—is that what you mean?

Existential emotions tend to dominate? At least -- according to the individuals you engage. Passion would be a given, whether that be dedicated to the justice indicated, or some more possessed target.

[Chilton had been jotting down the descriptions she drew forth, his notes accompanied by the occasional twitch of his mouth. Such was the only concession of his personal feelings of those emotions discussed -- he wasn't here to judge them, but only Ruka's extension to these unnamed individuals.]

And what about your own identity, in relation to these foreign feelings? Did they warp your sense of self, or did these waves seem altogether alien? [A beat, and he looked up to meet her eyes.] Could you guess on how much of you remains the true you?

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