The Lunatic is In My Head | Video | Open

[ushahin]

[It's right around three in the morning, but does Ushahin care? No. The video opens up with a tapping sound that seems to happen every couple of seconds. He's tapping the phone, unable to tell if the video is playing. He's been able to figure out text and even audio, but thus far, the video function has eluded him. Give him time.

When he's satisfied that it is indeed working, it begins to focus in. The light in the room is dim, providing barely enough illumination to see by. Considering how sensitive his left eye is to light, this isn't just for a mood enhancer. He's lying in a bathtub empty of water, fully clothed, a pillow and blankets evident.]

It's quiet again. [His voice is soft and exactly the sort one would expect to hear in the middle of the night in a dimly lit room.] Back to the usual dreams. And such strange ones you all have. So many questions and all the space of the slumbering mind in which to think them.

[He pauses and his eyes drift off to the side as if his mind has gone elsewhere. Finally, he blinks and seems to come back to where he is.] It's all just a spider's web. Snap one thread and it all can disappear.

Comments

[inappropriatelaughter]

[ He's propped his phone up against something so he can be lazy and slouch. ]

See, you just did it again. What's that even mean, you can't tell if anything's real or not?

[ushahin]

I don't just see the thoughts of people. I see their dreams and those dreams are just a different sort of reality than this current one I sometimes see.

[His eyes get that unfocused, far away look again.]

Sometimes, I feel as if I am always dreaming, even when I am awake.

[inappropriatelaughter]

[ He makes a kind of not this dreams shit again face, which really has nothing to do with Ushahin, but it's automatic. ]

You gotta get an assistant, you know? Somebody to follow you around and be like, nah, that's not real.

[ushahin]

[Considering he's been surrounded up until now by people who rather encourage the insanity rather than rein it in, that's not a half bad suggestion.]

Are you offering to apply for the job?

[inappropriatelaughter]

Me? Hell no. Sounds like work. [ He grins, a teensy bit self-deprecating (only a teensy bit, though, because ha ha work). ]

I gotta watch a kid with way too much energy all day, anyway.

[ushahin]

Ah, yes. One of your companions.

[He'd seen their faces when he went into Goyjo's mind, felt the emotions attached to their presence there.]

[inappropriatelaughter]

Did you just do that thing again?

[ushahin]

No. I got that from going in the first time. Thoughts that lie on the surface of the mind are the easiest to access.

[inappropriatelaughter]

[ Oh, good. Super. ]

You say that like it's not even a big deal.

[ A pause. ]

Hey, can you do that to anybody? Even these gods?

[ushahin]

I have been doing this a long, long time. Longer than you've been alive.

[He has to think about that for a moment.]

I never attempted to penetrate the minds of the god I served back home, but that was a matter of respect rather than power. I can enter any creature's mind. Whether I leave again is another matter entirely. I have not yet attempted it on these gods.

[inappropriatelaughter]

So then… [ There's a theory on the tip of his tongue, but he lets it go. It'd probably just sound stupid. ]

Are you some kinda priest?

[ushahin]

Priest?

[The thought does get an amused snort out of him.]

Hardly. I was servant, spy, and whatever else was needed of me to the one I served.

[inappropriatelaughter]

Gods need spies?

[ushahin]

They do when they're waging war on their enemies.