ArchivedLogs:Ivanhoe

Ivanhoe
Dramatis Personae Ivan and the girls.
In Absentia	2013-06-04 A glimpse into the horrible life of Ivan's capture. (Part of Them! TP)
Location Unknown
Location - Ivan's Prison The inside of this abandoned building has been stripped. The top floor, in what used to be space 6 or 8 apartments by the look of it, is now essentially one big open space with just the load-bearing pillars for support. The windows have mostly been blacked out or boarded over. In two places, the room has been walled off with a translucent papery material which is deceptively sturdy. These areas have been partitioned for privacy, and seem to just be a bathroom, and a bedroom. The bedroom looks like it was made for a king. A king who is also a teenaged boy. It has a king sized bed, a huge flat screen TV sitting on the floor and an apparently random collection of DVDs and video games in a pile near it. The giant insects people have seen around and on the news have been strange in their existence. But stranger still are the varying degrees to which they appear human. The 'insects' keeping Ivan busy are the most human-esque yet. They almost look like mutant women who took on the qualities of wasps. They have two arms and two legs, although each leg ends in two grippy feet, splitting off from a pair of ankles. They also have functional wasp wings, and exhibit the yellow-and-black striped coloration over their mix of skin and carapace. They have no hair, but antennae bob ceaselessly on top of their heads. Where a few unlucky humans sprout a vestigial tail from their tail bone, these 'women' have what looks like a 4 inch long stinger. None of the three here have bothered with clothes the entire time, and seem oblivious to the notion. Since abducting Ivan, there has been a round-robin of sharing, as the three find they can't entirely shield their minds from him. But the effect is cyclical, and Ivan's mind is exposed to their natural hive-mindedness as well. They told him early on that they were told to keep him here, but to keep him happy. And comfortable. And happy. We find them early Tuesday morning with sun peeking through the poorly painted over windows. Two of them flank Ivan in their enormous bed, while the third walks the perimeter, on guard. This has been their habit - two playing hive host, treating Ivan like a wasp queen, bringing him food, and entertainment, and... other things, while the third patrols. It is responsible, and efficient, and the third is never fully out of the loop anyway, with the hive consciousness being shared by the four of them. The two in bed begin to stir from their sleep, their minds buzzing pleasantly as they float towards wakefulness. {Good morning, chosen one,} Azaela says. She's the one already up. Blossom and Camellia are still waking up. {Can I bring you food?} Their language buzzes in Ivan's mind without any need to speak out loud. And what more could a chosen one want. Ivan's had a strange couple of days, his mind carrying him forward in a haze not dissimilar to that of a dream - bizarre situations accepted through a thick layering on top of his mind telling him all is well. And all IS well. He hasn't had an inkling of hesitation about the whole ordeal. No homework to worry about, no social ambiguities or threat of friends in harm's way to soak up concern. It's all been so very relaxing. {Good morning.} Comes his reply back, eyes still closed but a sleepy smile making its way onto his face. It's almost automatic, his every waking moment in the grasp of /contentedness/. He streeetches all limbs out at the same time, drowsily from under a blanket, before - eyes still closed - rolling onto his side and curling up halfway against, halfway /on/ Camelia, as if she were an extraordinarily comfortable pillow. {Yes please. What time is it?} The buzzing, good-natured laughter of the three wasps is pure elation in their shared frequency. {Silly man,} The voices seem to come from all around, emanating from each woman in turn. {It's /day/ time. Can't you see?} Camelia and pulls her Ivan-blanket closer, while Blossom rolls out of bed to send Azaela in. They touch antennae as they pass, the equivalent of a hug and a kiss, and the Azaela is bringing a plastic container of the fortified honeycomb stuff they've been feeding him. They occasionally get more human food delivered as well, but a person could almost live on this comb alone. She also pours hot water onto the waiting tea bag in the big ceramic mug waiting for him to wake up. She stirs in some milk and honey, just the way Ivan likes, and brings both over to him, sitting on the edge of the bed. Mmm, sleep. Mmm, amicable company. Mmm, food and tea - Ivan stirs, for a moment reaching out his arms for another stretch. Sleep time over. He opens his eyes and drags himself upright. {Day time.} He ponders, smile widening still as he looks from woman to woman. Wasp to wasp? Eyes lingering momentarily on wings, hands, feet- all the things /off/. So very fascinating. Like a puppy yet unfamiliar with its new owner. Then, ooh, tea. He reaches out for it, huddling up into pillows and still halfway under the blanket next to Camelia. Bleary eyes from sleeping - or perhaps just permanently sort of /glassy/ ever since he arrived - but peering expectantly at Azaela now. {Are you well?} A statement that does not come alone. Washing over her is the result of a subconscious and automatic effort to /read/ her, pull information about her condition. Granted, it doesn't usually manage to garner more than snippets from his pets, and he doesn't even look aware of the fact that he's doing it. The circular relationship is funny here, because the wasp-women see Ivan as /their/ pet, which is not something they could hide from him, even if they wanted to. Azaela smiles and runs her fingers through Ivan's hair. {I'm well, thank you.} Camellia rolls over onto her stomach, hiking the blankets to hide from the sun for another minute. Her stinger makes the blanket poke up. Rather than Ivan's probe reading Azaela's mind, she just tells him. {I had a scare last night. I thought someone was here to hurt you. But it was just a... hiveless man.} Her mind reaches back into Ivan's effortlessly to find the word 'homeless', but the word is too alien for her, so their minds adapt it together. {Can we watch TV? It makes sense through your ears.} They never thought much of his single-faceted, simple eyes, but they really enjoyed experiencing how he listened - to the TV, to music, even video games. There's a muffled verbal noise as Camellia finally comes around. {TV?} she asks, hopefully? Azaela and Blossom both giggle in their way. Camellia is always such a sleepy head. Ivan takes a sip from his tea, looking from woman to woman as they communicate with him. So efficiently. Somehow pleasing. He looks genuinely concerned, eyebrows twitching ever so slightly higher at the mention of the hiveless- homeless- stranger. {No one wants to hurt me. I don't know anyone who would want to hurt me} - {who would want to hurt us.} This rolls around in his mind for a little bit, before the question and giggles manage to banish the worries from his mind. And he's beaming again! Though the idea of TV does not much manage to excite him at first, the enthusiasm of the others seem to help sway his opinion /instantly/. Okay, yes! TV! He perks up, and nods- almost enthusiastically enough to make his tea spill over his hands. {We'll watch TV. Maybe the news is on. I haven't watched} His communication stops midway, something interrupting... a snippet of something deep in his brain, telling him something... isn't quite /right/. Isn't quite normal. His mouth twitches his smile into something slightly less bright, eyes fixed on the black television screen... {What time is it?} {It's TV time!} comes the beautiful chorus of buzzy voices. Even Blossom will be able to enjoy it while she keeps an eye on the perimeter, thanks to their linked consciousness. But her task is not at the forefront of her mind now. All thoughts of people coming in the night, or danger, or even /any/thing not being -right- is washed in a tidal wave of glee. {No, he doesn't want boring old news.} A tiny niggle under everything else - don't let him watch the news. {He wants the fuzzy channel! With the bears.} Ok, so the Discovery channel had bears on that /one time/ and now its the Fuzzy Channel, the one with the bears. Azaela crawls under the covers and points the remote. They have a show on about the acoustics of the didgeridoo. Everyone likes the droning noise it makes. The channel is left on all day, and that program is repeated twice more eventually. It reminds the women of /her/. Of /Thea/. The name floats to the top of the collective mind with genuine reverence. She is mother, and Queen, and protector. Ivan is promised to her, and the wasps are honored to keep him company. As day wanes to night, it's finally Camellia's turn to keep watch, and Blossom rejoins their tiny hive in bed. Just as the wasps are starting to think about finding food for their man-thing, a thrill runs through all of them, even thrumming into Ivan's psyche. {She's here, SHE'S HERE!} The women are all a-flurry as they rush around, doing their version of straightening up around the place. No human would find it any more or less tidy than it was 10 minutes ago, but still. They buzz. From above, everyone can hear a soft fwoosh noise, like glider wings, and then quiet footsteps. The wasp-women are beside themselves with excitement and anticipation. It's an infectious energy. Though he has never been the kind to stay in bed all day, much less with company /like this/, Ivan finds himself just as intrigued by the television as his new friends are. For a while it looks as though his face has gotten stuck in its almost /dopey/ sort of smile, until-- her. /Thea/. His smile wanes, though not for lack of excitement. But! He's got to get /ready/! He rolls out of bed almost the same moment the waspwomen leave it, half sort sluggish lack of coordination, half sort of confused. And two halves tangled tangled in a blanket as he tumbles head-first onto the floor. Aaaaaa. Get ready- how? Clothes! Clothes. Those are a thing. He bumbles about the makeshift bedroom naked for a moment, before remembering-- foot of the bed! There they are. Once he's in his (slightly crinkled) black dress slacks and (very crinkled) blue button-up shirt, he searches for shoes but is woefully unsuccessful. This does nothing to diminish his excitement, though! In fact, why even care. Because {she's here! I can hear her.} He moves slowly out of the sectioned off bedroom, on bare feet, peering around wide-eyed. The following thought, communicated without effort, only manages to feed his curiosity and impatience. {... Can she hear /me/?} It's almost /pleading/. Universal shared sadness dampens the mood for only a moment. The equivalent of quick whispering as they explain, {No, it is why she is sad always. She can't hear us like you can. Only mouth talking. Which is sad. Because mouths are for-} The idea is cut off as a new presence, a soft presence, gently inserts itself into the group's awareness. All three women gasp in surprise, experiencing their queen for the first time ever on this level. The gasp is echoed by the woman coming down the stairs. Soft steps on the stairs from the roof, accompany a happy sighing. They lead down right into the middle of the giant loft space, where Thea emerges. She was certainly beautiful before her mutation. Some might say she still is. At a medium height for a human woman, she is quite thin, but healthy. Much of her body is covered in a patchwork, chitinous carapace which shines with an iridescence like gasoline on water. She wears a modicum of clothing, hip-hugger short-shorts, and a fitted tank top which has been split from the collar to half way down her back. The split is to allow room for her two sets of long, gossamer wings. They must be twice the length of her body, and drape behind her like a cloak, or the train of a dress as she descends the stairs. A true insect enthusiast would note them as termite wings, and probably also notice the broad spectrum of insects she seems to resemble in parts. Closer up, her eyes still move like eyeballs, but their surface is faceted like a bee's. She also has antennae, but of a slightly different kind than the wasp women. Her skin is milky pale, and very obvious where it spans the distance between gaps in her chitin. Physically however, she is much more like a human woman than not, cosmetic mutations aside. More-so certainly than the incredibly thin wasp women. Thea sighs again as she looks at the wasps, and Ivan, with love and sadness. "This is wonderful, Ivan... I..." And slowly, she begins to use the collective. {I've never been able...} she stilts at it at first, but gets smoother. {Ivan, you've made me happier than I've been in a long time...} And then the /wasps/ are happy, because Thea is so happy, and its shared around. Though that tinge of sadness returns, and Thea nods when she senses everyone feeling it. {It's true, on the happiest day I can remember, I also have to tell you something sad. Girls, the Lady Green and Thomas are gone. They were killed in the tunnels under the city.} The wasps respond strangely. They are sad because they feel Thea's sadness, but they had no real affection for these creatures. Their images come through Thea's mind colored with her opinion, a beautiful, tall mantis, and a strong, protective termite warrior. Both honorable, and good. She misses them deeply, and the wasps know they are loved the way Lady Green and Thomas were loved. As the array of emotions hits the wasp women, so do they wash over Ivan. He seems reluctant to move from where he stands, dazed perhaps by what he's seeing, exactly. Eyes wide, mouth slightly agape- it's. This whole. Everything. He's just /stunned/, even through her joy and then the following bias and images flowing into his mind. {I'm sorry.} "{I'm sorry.}" Russian words spoken and meaning simultaneously transmitted to everyone at once. Utterly distracted but genuine if only for the fact that he can't help to be. But he can't help something else, either. Fascination rings clear in his mind, spreading through his thoughts and intentions quickly as he inches forward toward Thea. The different aspects of her are a point of great intrigue. {Who killed them?} He moves slowly at first, but should he be allowed to do so undisturbed, he intends quicken his pace to a tunnel-vision beeline toward Thea and to inspect and /touch/. Hands, arms, face, /wings antennae chitin/ this is freakin' great. Perhaps his revering involves more of a- hands-on approach. {It's ok,} Thea soothes, letting the notion of killers, and the dead fade away. The wasp women huddle together in their shared feeling of Thea and nod when she comforts them. They also seem to know that this is Ivan's moment, and they don't approach with him. Up close, it looks like Thea might be approaching 30 years old, but its hard to tell. Not young, not old. After living with insects for so long, many blind, or just with poor eyesight, she has left behind the notion of 'personal space'. She seems to welcome Ivan's explorations, her own motivations fairly clear, though in more general terms than the wasps. It seems Thea is only fractionally insect, while the wasps are fractionally human. She turns and lets Ivan inspect, reaching out her hands, which turn out to have exceptionally long and delicate fingers, each with one more knuckle than a human should have. She strokes his cheek and runs those fingers through his hair, inspecting him as closely as he does her. {I'm so glad to finally meet you...}