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Rain Dust
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>What implications?
Rogues or not, these neumono were fully-fledged people before I showed up. If you ask rogues what they'd give up to be in a hive again, their answers can frighten you, but it hasn't escaped my notice just how much power I've gained over these people for doing essentially nothing. I'm not sure how I feel about that.
>Move in together?
>Government assistance
Finances are going to be difficult... I don't care if I sleep on a bed or on the streets, but that's not going to work if I'm responsible for more than just me. Right now, I live in a musty one-bedroom apartment, which can't even comfortably fit two people, much less however many rogues I actually formed a hive with. I... never thought I'd actually be in this position, to tell the truth; I don't know what government assistance is available.
>Has anyone ever acted their way into becoming a queen before?
No, not that I know of. Spontaneous hive formation is extremely poorly understood to begin with, and it's drenched in pseudoscience and misinformation, but if it was simple as pretending to be a queen really hard, I don't think there would be as many rogues in the galaxy. People can't not have tried that, right? You cannot convince me they haven't tried that.
>Calm down
>Don't freak out
>Make sure they know you're fine
It occurs to me that what I feel is going to start having a bigger impact on those around me than I'm used to... I'm going to have to figure that one out. Good thing my empathy is so relaxed! I can already feel the alarm fading, and everyone else seems to be calming down again in response, though they remain crowded in around me. Let's just start where we can, go from there until we need to do something different.
>Enjoy the moment
Believe me, I'd love to. The emotions in the room are making that easier, but there's so many thoughts swimming through my head right now that it's still difficult, and I'm pretty sure I'm still in some kind of shock. Still... you're right. Worrying about them right now isn't helping us.
>Confirm the situation from Nellie
Okay, that's a good step one. She almost doesn't need to, though. I can feel their empathy flowing through me and back out through each other again. It's more than just a dead ringer for mine, it's functionally identical.
"Nellie. What happened after the end of the play?"
"Oh thank god, she's lucid again." Says a snowy cerulean neumono in relief, leaning over the bed to look at me. I don't recognize that one, but she was holding in more tension than the others. It's good to see it melting away.
Nellie glances at her, then back to me, and in efforts to get closer, she climbs onto the bed, drawing back the curtains to let some light in. It's difficult to miss her smile, even if she's radiating some definite anxiousness too.
"Well it was amazing, for one thing! I know you showed me some snippets when we were marking out the scenes, but wow, I was not ready for that. You had me in tears during the second act, and that conversation with the predator! It was like you were Arvenia!"
[Shit yeah, she was.] Comes the empathy from the snowy cerulean, which sparkles a wave of amusement in the group, though it does nothing to impede Nellie's exuberance.
"But... after that, well.. It was the end, and... I don't know. It all went so fast. I just remembered feeling like for the first time ever, I actually understood the play. Like, I got what you were doing with it, and I loved it. It was like everything suddenly made sense"
I am listening to her, but I can't help but get a little lost in the moment. Everyone in the room is a similar combination of extremely happy, amped up, and anxious. I can't really blame them. The way things are looking, they're going to have a hive now.
...Just thinking that word. 'Hive'. For the longest time, 'Hive' for me was a word to apply to others. It was something they could have. Never something that I could. Not ever again. I can feel some tears welling up inside of me, but I cried that river dry so long ago that I don't think they'll come out that easily.
"...And I just felt this connection with you and this pressure inside my head started happening and I got a little woozy, and then I realized that you were going off-script and just kind of... babbling up there."
"I... what?" I don't remember that.
"Yeah, you.. It wasn't speech, you were just kind of making noises." Says a neumono in the backpack in front of me.
[Suppressed second-hand embarrassment]
"Then you fell over. And we realized what was happening, and ran up there to try to protect you." Says the one in the cap, looking up at me. His empathy is surprisingly neutral, though the happiness is still radiating through him.
"Protect me?" I asks, looking at him. He pulls his cap down over his head a bit more.
"...Not all of us are as stable as us. Lots are outside, too, but we didn't want everyone crowding you, and we seemed affected the least."
[Can someone else?]
The female that interjected with the joke takes over. "When people finally realized what was happening, it was chaos. Rogues started pouring in to get closer to you, past the aliens, past everyone. Hivers were trying to get out, I think some of the aliens got injured. And... well, some neumono can be complete bastards, you know. You're... you're our queen. We can't... We weren't gonna let anything happen to you." She was putting up a tough front earlier, but there's a lot of sadness and vulnerability surfacing in her empathy while she says that. Clearly she can be real when she needs to. The one in the cap nods firmly, and Nellie just looks kind of sad.
"Police were called in. They pulled a lot of the rogues away... It didn't seem safe to stay out there, so we brought you back here to my place because it was the closest. It's only been about an hour or two since then before you started making sense again." She says. [Anxious]
Rrgh. Of course rogues that learned about this would come charging in. It's a large open-air amphitheater and neumono are tough, of course they would try their hardest to get into empathy range. The disparity between life in a hive and life as a rogue can be enormous, and the joint government has always been poorly equipped and riddled with systemic insufficiencies when handling us, and that's when it's trying. It hasn't been that long since the answer to a neumono going rogue was killing them.
I've met the rogues that live here. I've talked with many of them. Some of them do fine. But not all rogues are equipped to live that way; they pine, constantly, for what they've lost... some of them embrace the Predator. Even for rogues, intentionally hurting someone over this is going too far for most, but when the stakes are so vast between living as a rogue and a hiver, can I really judge them for not being cognizant enough to avoid injuries? Especially if they're used to our regeneration, and are operating on blind panic for what could easily be a once-in-a-lifetime event?
Would I really not break someone's toe if I knew that it could bring me to an imagined paradise?
>Thank them
"Thank you for protecting me." I say, looking them over. I'm genuinely [Grateful]; by all accounts it sounds like I was helpless for the past few hours. "I'm still feeling a little shocked at saying this, but I'm Queen Ryka." A wave of happiness courses through the neumono in the room, and out into the ones outside as well. Good, I was hoping that would happen if I said that. "I haven't met all of you yet, and I don't know how well you know each other. We're going to have to do this again later, but we should do quick introductions."
In short order, I'm introduced to this gang of 5.
Nellie. Cerulean-redgrass female, first-generation rogue. She's pretty small. My gauge for her is that she's friendly and quick to help, but I've noticed she can seem kind of insecure at times. She's better with people than she gives herself credit for.
Rupert. A cerulean male on the taller end, an orphaned rogue that was apparently raised by human aliens. He's wearing a backpack and seems to have a sturdy head on his shoulders, but out of all of them, he seems the most uncertain of what's going on.
Lett. Jungle-cerulean male, second-generation rogue. His empathy is unusually even and mild, I wonder if he has a similar thing that I have going on. Apparently he was a pickpocket, which is pretty impressive for a neumono for a variety of reasons.
Kiara. Northern-archipelago female, like me, and apparently she's another second-generation rogue. She has the most spunk out of all of them, I'll give her that, and her empathy is stronger than the others. She's clearly had to get tough to get to where she is.
Rotali. Cerulean female, she's just about the smallest neumono I've ever seen, and I don't think she's said a word this entire time outside of introducing herself. I remember seeing her in the audience, though. She might be shy. I noticed that she's been taking glances at my costume and what remains of my ablative makeup.
"I really liked your play." Rotali adds simply to the end of her introduction. [Happiness][Shy][Anxious]
...Why is everyone so anxious? I think I've demonstrated that I'm alright at this point. Am I missing something...?
>Go to the orphanage
There aren't many neumono that fit that bill, actually. Most are adopted by one of the big hives, or by rogues trying to become queens. Other races might have a stronger presence there, but we're pretty good about this. Truth be told, if there were any rogue neumono orphans, they probably would have been part of the group that stormed the amphitheater.
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