( open ) with a few closed prompts

[cykedelic]

Who: Athena Cykes (cykedelic) & misc.
What: Event things
When: October
Where: Market district, stasis, her home etc
Warning(s): ptsd for one of the threads and sickness + for anyone who wants to respond yet hasn't filled in my permissions post please do that! It just helps me out a bit and means I won't have to keep bothering you for info re: her ability


open: clean up

[ It takes her a while to actually get back on her feet again, the dizziness from the waves of panic making it so that after the actual explosion went off she'd needed help keeping herself together. Even after things have calmed a little, emotions are running rampant which isn't exactly fun when you can hear a person's emotions.

She doesn't let it stop her from helping out, mind you.

Forcing a smile, she moves to whoever seems to need some help. It hasn't quite been an hour yet so she doesn't really know how serious this is but-- ] Hey, do you need some help with that?

open: therapy

[ Likewise, if anyone else seems to have been caught up in the blast, she'll scoot over to them whether it's a PC character or NPC. Whether your character needs help, or sees her trying to help she'll be actually pretty gentle about it. ]

Do you want me to get you a blanket?

[ It's good to keep the body temperature up in this kind of situation, after all. ]

I'm willing to listen if you're worried. Is there anyone you need to contact?

open: a few days later at home

[ It took a few days for her to finally wear herself out, and after being put on house arrest (or at least something close to it, for how little she actually slowed down the past few days) she's been texting people she knows to try and get visitors.

Also to ask for something that isn't chicken noodle soup...

If anyone visits they'll find her come to the door, draped over with blankets and a scarf around the bottom half of her face to stop her from sneezing on other people. ]

Hey... [ Her voice sounds a lot less chipper too. ]

closed: jj

[ After their conversation about having to keep to window shopping for the time being, it seems like a good idea to have support in not buying everything she sees. For one thing, she doesn't have the money for it. For another, she doesn't need half the things she keeps seeing in the market. Even food, Athena seems to have 0 control over her spending habits which means it's handy to have someone there to tell her "no" when it comes down to it.

Besides, it's nice to just be out and about with a friend.

Or it was anyway.

The stage is being set while they're looking at a stand's different fruits. Athena had been contemplating picking something out as a change from the pretty cheap options Edgeworth had picked up for them when she picks up on some discord in the area. It's only slight - a strange thrill of excitement that she can't quite place.

It's why her head lifts up to look at JJ, expression confused. ]

What...?

closed: lance

[ After about ten or fifthteen minutes she manages to get herself back together again. By then, people are already rushing around to try and either catch the person who left the explosive, or are trying to help anyone caught up in this. It's still overwhelming to stay in the market district area, but she's managing.

It's as she stumbles around one stand (gripping onto the table for a second to try and fight vertigo from the waves of emotions she's hearing) she spots Lance trying to help a person who had been caught in the blast. ]

Are they okay...? [ It's hard to imagine most of these people have any experience with things like this though. For her... it's easy to remember the state Apollo had been in after he was caught in the courtroom blast while protecting Juniper. ]

closed: eggsy

[ Running after people to ensure they're mentally sound kept Athena busy. She'd done pretty well at ignoring the symptoms thus far. Every sneeze was hidden by a scarf that she convinced people was a new fashion statement instead of the tie she was wearing before, every cough hidden in the same manner. She was sneaky when she blew her nose and pushing past aches in her body wasn't exactly a first with how hard she's pushed herself with exercise in the past.

But without rest, the body can't recover. Eating to make up for it wouldn't help with that either.

Yet, Athena can't finish her day without visiting those she knows in Stasis, giving them an update on how things are processing. Trucy's visit is pretty quick, an update to let her know how Phoenix is doing in case he hasn't managed to drop by.

With Apollo it's a little longer, telling him about how something similar to home might be going on here, that she isn't sure yet but they're looking into it - or at least Phoenix and Miles are. That she's been trying to stay strong for other people who need her help now.

It's when she's trying to find the last person that her knees give out when she's a few pods away. ]

closed: phoenix

[ She hasn't exactly been the most forthcoming about how caught up in the blast she'd been. When have they ever communicated on those kind of fronts anyway though? For one thing, worrying him unnecesarily seemed like a silly thing to do when she was still able to keep going. She was fine. It's only when she collapsed in stasis and Eggsy had to help her back that she was actually starting to admit that okay... maybe was was sick.

She might have stayed indoors most of her childhood, then in studying sessions, but she's been fit as a fiddle the past few years and it's frustrating to think all that self care and good luck had gone to waste.

Besides, all she can feel right now is miserable for herself as she pulls a third blanket over herself and seems to become more and more like a cacoon as the days go by.

When Phoenix gets back, he'll find just her eyes peeking out from the blanket, like a crocodile looking up from under the water. ]

open: other

[ If you'd like to do something feel free to hit me up on my plotting post or on plurk at serves

Comments

[cykedelic]

[ It isn't as though she doesn't have anything like that either, Athena just isn't quick to talk about it. No one needs to know about how her mother was murdered, how her friend went to jail for her for 7 years and was almost executed despite it being a false accusation. Her own life has been a mess, but it's not something to bring up with a stranger -- besides, they're all things that can finally be put in the past.

It feels better to actually just spend time with someone as a friend - that, for her, is a new experience as well.

She concentrates on trying to pin point where the emotion is coming from, but it's drowned out a bit by the sounds of other people around them. One angry customer trying to protest the cost of a kilo of apples, a happy child as their mother just bought them a lollipop, another sad because they're having a bad day--

Then the spike of excitement in the rush of things, comes from a shady guy close by. ]

Something doesn't sound ri--

[ She doesn't even finish it off though, because it's too alike the courthouse bombing. There's no beeping, no countdown to say anything is going to happen but that person runs and leaves something behind.

All Athena has time to do is yell get down as she pushes at JJ's shoulders, putting all her weight into it because there's no time to run and being on the floor will hopefully help. ...Right? ]

[underwhelms]

[ It doesn't occur to him that Athena is referring to her hearing. He's not used to thinking in those terms, or to expect that something might be amiss because Athena can hear the intent; her ability is cool and nifty, but he wouldn't have thought of it as a tool to use in dire situations.

Mostly because JJ doesn't often think about or expect dire situations to happen.

But she seems unsettled, and he focuses on that instead, wondering if something was bothering her about the prices, or if some creep was leering at her from across the road. And really, those options, as undesirable as they are, were probably better than what actually happens.

What actually happens is JJ is dumbstruck, first by Athena yelling at him, and then the explosion that roars through the entire district.

It's a curious sort of explosion: colour blasting through the area, thick and purple, the unrelenting push of air enough to rock JJ off his feet and falling back onto the ground despite Athena's attempts to warn him. But there's no shrapnel, and there's no searing heat enough boil the skin right off their flesh. It's just jarring, and JJ doesn't even know what's happening when he opens his eyes again, wondering why he can feel the rough gravel underneath his palms as he sits on the road, shocked and slightly bruised from knocking against the stand as he fell, but otherwise uninjured.

There's a quiet that spreads as the air settles, and everyone around them tries to process what happened, and JJ is no exemption. Eyes wide and ears ringing, he reaches out to Athena, settling a hand on her arm, but otherwise too afraid to say anything.

Who knows what else might be out there. ]

[cykedelic]

[ Her ears feel like they're on fire from the blast itself, like her eardrums have been pushed to their limit. It doesn't compare to the moments after the shock from the explosion finally seems to settle in the air. It's definitely not the place to be, as one child starts crying so loudly it's like he's wailing. Another joins in. A grandma comes waddling back into the area screaming for her son or daughter and the panic in the air starts bubbling up, threatening to boil over.

Athena's eyes are wet before she can even process it all, and by the time she can it's too late -- there's too much to process. Her hands move from JJ's shoulders up to her own ears, head burying against him as her jaw clenches and her eyes stay wide open, glassing over from being so overwhelmed by it all.

People are already running about by now, trying to work out what happened, frantically trying to get help.

It's hard to pinpoint who actually is calmer than who in this scenario with people all over the market area rushing in to try and find out what happened. ]

[underwhelms]

[ It's sad to say, but JJ can't often remember the details of the most important moments of his life. There's too much adrenaline when he's on the ice, or on a stage, and the rush of the moment is too much. He never remembers the reality of his actions or what was happening around him, only the emotion that he carried with him.

Right now, he feels numb. Not shocked or scared, but rather like a void, as if it's impossible for him to even accept that this is happening to him. He feels nothing, but the time around them passes slow, and when the child cries, and motion returns to the area, he can't hear it, like he's not even there.

Except when Athena's hands move from him, and then he zeroes into, uncomprehending at first as he watches her, tears in her eyes and frozen.

Then it comes: concern and confusion, and he's moving, shifting onto his knees so that he can get her arms around her. He doesn't know what to do other than pull her in toward his chest. She fits there easily, small and slight in comparison to his larger frame. ]

Athena?

[cykedelic]

[ Adrenaline is one way to describe it, but here she goes the opposite way to numbness in her case as well. In fact, it probably looks like she's not there at all, mentally that is. Physically, her body is shaking a bit from how difficult it is to block anything out, unable to stop the emotions from everyone around them seeping into her own from how loud it is.

It's a comfort when he pulls her in, but his own heart isn't exactly stable enough to latch onto either. The mix of emotions feel cloudier than normal, like he doesn't quite know how to feel either. She can't say she blames him for that, no one should be used to this kind of thing -- but except maybe Phoenix or Apollo.

She sucks air in sharply and curls her hands even more tightly over hear ears, dipping her head down in the hope that his arms might actually block out some of the noise as well.

It's too much. So much that she can't even get words out to ask for help. ]

[underwhelms]

[ Since he'd gotten here, there had been a few instances where JJ had feared for his life. He spent a lot of time fearing actually, fearing about monsters and about how he might never see his family again, and as lonely as it was here, there were people who had reached out to him and helped him.

He hadn't done much helping of his own.

And he doesn't know how, right now, with Athena starting to shake, but seeing her like this quells some of his own panic and confusion over what's happening. It doesn't really matter anymore.

Seeing the way her hands are over her ears, the dots start to connect, gaze wandering around the chaos in the district, before going back to her. He doesn't know what to do, so he just takes the most obvious route: he picks her up. Her weight isn't much, but his arms tremble slightly, weak from the shock of the explosion, but he holds on steadfast and then he just—

Goes.

Doesn't know where, or if it's making anything of a difference, but he keeps going, past people heading toward the commotion and anyone that might be giving him a strange glance he just goes until he's in an alley, out of breath. His back hits the wall there, until he's sliding down, more out of breath than he'd expected of himself but, well. ]

Is this better?

[ Hopefully. His head falls forward, forehead resting against her crown as his eyes close from the fatigue. How do you stop hearing? ]