- IC CONTACT POST FOR MASKORMENACE -

[slightlyoffchilt]

"Hello.

You've reached the direct line of Doctor Frederick Chilton. As I am not available at the moment, you might assume I'm quite busy with something pressing. State your name and business, and I will return your call."

Comments

[dragony]

Have you ever experienced the sensation of death, Doctor? Or of dying.

[ Spoken as if they are two separate things. ]

[slightlyoffchilt]

[Chilton considers them separate, at any rate.]

Dying. I have felt dying. [Twice, soon to be three times in his world. Soon to be four times, three more years into his world.] But not death, no. Never death.

Am I to assume you have experienced both?

[dragony]

Yes. Death only once, but dying... I wouldn't be able to count the number of times, or measure the frequency.

If I can survive past that, I'm not sure how much impact yearning could have.

[slightlyoffchilt]

Escapism, mostly. For the sake of escapism.

[Not that Chilton could relate to that; he wanted to survive. He always would want to survive.]

But it is reassuring to know you don't see yourself succumbing to such thinking.

[dragony]

[ This actually gets something of a laugh out of her, startled. ]

If I acted on my feelings that easily, this would be a criminal case, not civilian.

[slightlyoffchilt]

Not many admit the typicality of homicidal emotions. Very few enact those emotions, of course, but most feel them.

Are you always so honest?

[dragony]

I try to be honest. I don't like being deliberately dishonest, when there's no point to it.

[ Her head cants to one side, loose hair obscuring her eye patch. ]

It's a natural conclusion to draw, anyway. I've felt the sensation of dying many times; it's only natural to conclude that the sensation of killing would come with that, at least some of the time.

[slightlyoffchilt]

I come from a world where killing is something of a currency. [Perhaps an exaggeration -- surely not the whole of Chilton's world was a mirror to Hannibal, because then how could the Chesapeake Ripper be so remarkable? But his city, his Baltimore, was indeed a murderous inferno. Hannibal Lecter had some influence, after all.] And whether or not that is an outlier in the universal scheme, there is a pattern to the sample size: those murderers who prove more empathetic became murderers in no small part to the death they had witnessed.

If you are not worried about such an outcome, Ruka, I would take you at your word.

[dragony]

I'm not worried. I used to be. There were times that I thought I had lost control of myself, and so hurt others... but in the end, it was only unfortunate coincidence.

I'm sure you saw the story back then, when that ghost Yomiel possessed different imPorts, committing crimes while controlling their bodies?

[slightlyoffchilt]

Yes, I had kept up with that saga. [Confounding to his own agenda, Yomiel had been courted as a patient. And while Chilton favored the obviously psychotic, for self-promoting reasons, he required some bit of control over the individual, some leash.]

I recall that the imPort in question found it all quite amusing. Our collective public image was tarnished for months. [Irritating for a medical professional.] Do you find that others, those like Yomiel, often prey upon you?

[dragony]

No more than the average, I would hope, but it stacks for me. Yomiel only picked me because of the physical proximity. The other one...

... I made a gamble with someone I shouldn't have. Not that I could have known it, back then.

[ She tries to shrug, "looking" to the side with a closed eye. ] But it wasn't until after Yomiel's confession that I realized what he had done while controlling my body—what the other had done, before—wasn't something I had done.

For a long time, I worried that it was my power, my empathy, that was the root of my violent actions... but it wasn't ever me, at all. So, if I haven't done anything like that yet, I'm not worried about it happening in the future.

There isn't any catalyst worse than what I've already survived.

[slightlyoffchilt]

You mentioned a gamble. [He wasn't about to let that go, tantalizing as it was.] One that you evidently had learned from. As clearly your capabilities as a survivalist is something of a learned process.

[Her sideways glance, accomplished with only one eye, was enough to insinuate the hint. Chilton wanted to know the trauma -- after all, that was what he favored to use in his treatments.]

[dragony]

A game, with stakes, to be specific. [ His assessment bleeds too close to compliment, so she reroutes. ] A variation of hide and seek, if I remember right. I had one day to "go to ground," to borrow vernacular, and if that person could get something to me in the two days that followed, they won. If not, I won. The prize was a favor.

It was pretty sketchy back then, too, but I was a lot more reckless those days.

[slightlyoffchilt]

Youth often provokes recklessness. What is more essential is that you did not repeat the same mistake.

[But how interesting. The sort of individual who would invite such a game seemed both whimsical and confident -- and while Ruka hadn't elaborated the precise favor, it was obvious she regretted her involvement. His gaze slid to her eyepatch.]

But back to your relationships. Are you thinking that you would prefer to refine coping mechanisms, or begin tearing down the walls put up?

[dragony]

[ She finds it easier to speak when she's not looking at Chilton; even if he's engaging her back, replying and prodding, the illusion of solitude helps. For that reason, she misses the way his attention refocuses on that miniature mask.

Still, a reply takes time to come for that question. ]

The former, I think. I should think the other option too volatile, considering... the people on the other side of those walls don't realize they're there. What's being held back.

[slightlyoffchilt]

Coping is the more sensible choice. [Said Chilton, aware that infusing his personal bias was not something a more orthodox psychiatrist might be inclined to do. But if Ruka was interested in someone tame and inefficient, she wouldn't have come to him, now would she have?] It is about adaptation -- that will be the reoccurring theme.

What is it that you do, already? To protect yourself. I don't want to regurgitate what you have already tried.