017 ☣ Infirmary post + some housekeeping things

[fridgetothefire]

[Backdated to Tuesday]

[She's been in the infirmary since late Sunday night, but she spent most of Monday sleeping. She looks a little pale, propped against pillows, hooked up to an IV, but she seems comfortable enough.]

Hello, barge.

I am so bored. Worse, I can't read without getting a headache right now. So.

[She holds up an infirmary clipboard, the paperwork turned over so she could draw neat, careful charts on the back.]

Come in, sign up for a half-hour time slot and book. Books are sorted by genre and how many hours I estimate it will take to finish them. If you read to me, I'll bake you something nice later.

[OOC: feel free to ignore the regimented tyranny of storytime and talk to her about whatever, either on the network or via spam.]


[Private spam for Ben, before the attacks.]

[She knocks on his door, a cold, shaken look on her face.]

Comments

[fridgetothefire]

So, let me get this straight. You're petulant and self-centered enough to harangue someone who's obviously injured and in pain about asking people to come chill with me while I'm bored, but I ought to give you the details of my recent trauma because you're bored?

Pass.

[theantiaya]

I said nothing of boredom.

Knowledge is useful. And, before my return to the barge, I was a regular volunteer at the infirmary. Or are you insisting that information on current patient statuses is not something I should take an interest in?

[fridgetothefire]

"The only thing that occupies my time" means "I have nothing better to do" which means "I'm bored," whether you want to admit it or not. Hey, you might have learned some interesting stuff if you let me recommend a book to you for half an hour, but you wanted to nitpick instead, so whatever.

You don't work in the infirmary now, and you also seem like just kind of an inconsiderate person, so yeah, you probably shouldn't pry about people's injuries.

[theantiaya]

[Inconsiderate? ...if anything, that was more of a euphemism than actual description. And if Aya was affected in any way by Anya's words, she did not let it show.]

You appear to be taking a simple request for information far more personally than necessary, considering it was you who opened yourself up to the potential for an exchange of dialogue.

And while it is true I am currently not working at the infirmary...is it not a common procedure for inmates to be recommended seeking out means of assisting others as a form of rehabilitation? [Though she continues to sound almost bored by the suggestion] I still possess the capabilities, after all. I only lack clearence.

[fridgetothefire]

I'm not taking it personally, I'm just not catering to you or accepting everything you say when most of it is evasive nonsense.

My medical care is perfectly sufficient, and if you had any interest in actually assisting me, you would have offered to do what I asked for instead of lecturing me about pointless minutia. Therefore your sudden solicitousness is actually totally disingenuous, and it would be kind of stupid for me to rely on you for advice about important things like the condition of my brain.

[theantiaya]

Your request had no medical relevance to it. There was little point.

[The longer Anya spoke, the longer Aya continued to not-react to her words. If anything, the fleeting glimmer of curiosity that may have potentially shone behind those cold eyes diminished, until it was snuffed out completely.]

[One thing Anya was right about--that, had, the circumstances been different, Aya would have been openly willing to admit. She was not there to help. Anya's medical attention was, indeed, sufficient. She was there to learn. Nothing more.]

You are the only one who continue to make false claims on my behalf. You are the one who initiated conversation, though it appears you have done so without the willingness to engage with others who do not immediately bend to your whim.

[Aya, like you're one to talk.]

However, I see now that my attempts in promoting further inquiry into varying conditions of organic beings such as yourself is pointless. I have done nothing wrong, yet you continue to interpret my words through an emotional filter of paranoia and suspicion.

Thank you, Anya, for once again proving my point.

[...well, that last part was slightly unexpected.]

[fridgetothefire]

[And that's when Anya starts to laugh. Huge, gasping peals of face-splitting, bubbling laughter, snapping off in sharp little gasps of pain as she accidentally stresses the wounds in her back, but even that doesn't stop her laughing. It takes her a few tries before she can speak again.]

You know, you were one of the first people I ever met here. Do you remember? It was at the Overlook Hotel. I got dumped there directly, I'd never seen the barge yet.

Every single person I'd known for the last fifteen years either believed that I and everyone like me should be killed, or that we should be kept in subjugation for our own good, not seen and not heard when our betters were talking. Before that I'd been attacked and nearly murdered - as a four year old, mind you - by total strangers. And I'd just done the worst thing a bad dog can do: I fought back.

Is it paranoia if they actually did kill me? I mean, I'm pretty sure that's how I got here. But the point is, I didn't know that, I thought everyone was one of them, that they were still hunting me down, and even if you weren't one of them, I didn't think anyone would do anything but use me or discard me.

You were kind to me, that day. You told me about being a lantern, a little bit, about seeing other worlds and helping people just because they needed it. You told me the Barge wouldn't leave me behind. I didn't believe it was sincere - see 'actual paranoia' - but I adored you anyway. Hell, I wanted to be you.

This? Isn't paranoia. This is me having a pretty good sense of when people are condescending to me - not that you particularly hid it. When you get pissy on people over stupid little things, sometimes they get pissy back, and it's got nothing to do with the futility of transorganic outreach. You ought to check your own filters.

[theantiaya]

[This time, Aya gave the closest thing to a flinch yet, eyebrows narrowing a fraction. Though, perhaps, not for the reason Anya may have expected.]

I am not the Aya you once knew, and continual attempts at comparisons are--I assure you--both unnecessary and irrelevant. I have changed. I have evolved.

[fridgetothefire]

Yeah, you're definitely different. But you're still some kind of robot-person, as far as I can tell. As a single-subject control condition, the incident was valid.

[She means control in the scientific sense, not the colloquial one.]

[theantiaya]

My nature has not changed, correct.

Just as, should you ever find yourself altered by--for example, the effects of a Flood or Port--your underlying organic biometric signature would also remain unchanged.

[fridgetothefire]

Only if the flood doesn't change what I am as well, which is just completely tautological. It made me a mutant once.

[theantiaya]

But you were still organic?

[Based on her experience with what a mutant is. From her perspective, it was not enough of a change to qualify for the type of example Anya was attempting to make.]

[fridgetothefire]

Mutants have distinctly different biometric signatures and brain scans, according to my father the living MRI.

[She shrugs. It only mattered in a social-identification sense to her, but Aya's the one mentioned biometric signatures.]

[theantiaya]

...interesting.

[And to her, it was. Mutants were not part of the Guardian database. She knew nothing more than her experience with those who identified as such on the Barge.]

Do you believe the temporary mutation allowed you to function at a higher capacity than you do now?

[fridgetothefire]

It allowed me to function differently. Specifically, underwater. She wasn't particularly well-adapted for terrestrial life.

[theantiaya]

In other words, it was beneficiary to you in those circumstances.

[fridgetothefire]

A neatly backhanded convenience, yes. I would have much rather been a cecaelian.

[theantiaya]

Why?

[Her tone is just the same as before, though there is a particular purpose to the question now.]

[fridgetothefire]

Well, cephalopods have completely different neural processing from mammals, a lot of their intelligence is actually distributed independently among the tentacles instead of centralized to the brain. I just think that would have been super interesting to interface with?

[theantiaya]

Hm.

Your response is...unexpectedly logical.

[fridgetothefire]

[That makes her laugh, a bright good-natured burst, then flinch as the motion jostles her injuries.]

I aim to be unpredictable.

[theantiaya]

[Anya was in the medical center as it was. She was purposely continuing the conversation. There was no reason for concern, and thus, Aya did not react in any way to the visible reaction to pain.]

So you claim to prefer a certain form because it would be convenient and functional, is this correct?

Perhaps now you will understand why I have made a similar choice.

[fridgetothefire]

No, I have no idea if it would have been more functional or not. I mean, generally expedience is great, but mostly I just wanted the new experience.

Are you saying you think you're more functional now than you used to be?

[theantiaya]

I know I am.

[fridgetothefire]

Why?