View source for Alma explains her misplaced warning

{{
| date=08/25/2018
| cast=
* [[Alma]]
* [[Zach Penn|Zach]]
* [[Notion|Note]]
| place_name=[[Hall of Science]] grounds.
| log=When last we left our intreped party Alma was, first, freaked out by
the entity who does freaking weird energy things with someone and then someone
suicides. and then she was freaked by the emotional collapse of Victoria. Kai
had asked her "how do you know what is normal weird or weird weird. Alma
started ruminating immediately, and then the sobbing. Like someone learning
that their husband died. She had to leave. Kai was there, a comfort sent to
Victoria.

Zach, meanwhile, is exiting the Wayne State campus via a pedestrian
access. Hands-in-pockets, stepping through a crowd of people that essentially
doesn't notice him. It's a familiar routine, for him, but it takes a bit of
paying attention to where everyone else is going - rather a dynamic slalom. He
steps between a quartet of undergrads on their way to class from breakfast -
and a cluster of two dozen runners making their way around the same. Most of
the traffic on the sidewalk had stepped aside for the runners, so he comes out
in their wake - a clear patch of sidewalk that gives him a clear view of the
groups of people just beginning to integrate themselves back onto the sidewalk
around Alm... oh hey, there's Alma. He diverts in her direction.

Deep sigh and a slower pace than her usual, Alma has split her
attention between her phone, the people around her, and any trip hazards. She
is furiously texting, actually she isn't. She is furiuosly typing but pauses.
The words are deleted and then she sends something very short. There's a nod,
and she sends another even shorter thing. The phone goes back in her pocket.
With her attention less split, she walks faster. Defeat weighs her down,
changes her face. Severe concentration is evident in the furrowing of her
brow. Her eyes glisten.

Which is enough to slow Zach down on the approach. He waits for her to
finishg pocketing her phone before he hails her. "Alma," he says - gently
enough to not jostle but loudly enough to carry to her. From perhaps sixty
feet away. His hands come out of his pockets now, one to wave, the other just
chills out at his side. "You doin' okay?"

There's a tension to her jaw that reflects down to the rest of her
body as she attempts to smooth down all of the confusion and jitteryness so
that she can talk to someone. She slows and tentatively walks up to slide arms
around Zach and squeezes him in an extra tight hug. He isn't a stranger.
There's always been an intiimacy of conversation, /thinking/ about things.
This bypasses her tension and she starts to shake for a moment and then
retenses. Like she doesn't feel like losing her shit. "Yeah," she claims.
"Mostly," she underadmits.

"Yuh-huh," Zach says, skeptical. His arms go around her and that
squeeze is echoed and respondd to in kind. "What happened," he asks, just sort
of brushing past the part where he double-checks her self-report and going
straight for the part where support is offered, and he can figure out how
serious or proximate whatever's got her upset like this is.

"It's complicated," she says. She concentrates for a moment. "It's
plural. there's more than one 'its'." She shakes and flinches at the intensity
of multiple paths. She wants to chase everything down. figure it out
immediately. "Are you busy? I feel like I need to warn you, but it takes
explaining?" She nods over towards the Hall of Science. "We can sit in one of
the culdesacs. my office," she trials off.

"I got time," Zach says, shrugging. "Wherever you want." He loosens
the embrace to give her more room to maneuver and make suggestions or indicate
new direction.

She takes them to the grounds of her building, and follows a path away
from people walking. picks a spot without loiterers. "Here." She settles htem
down next to a tree. Somewhere above the rustle of feathers hints that Note
might be watching over her. Or it could just be any crow. She can tell if
someone asks. She's been cautious about it lately.

Zach follows along, not pushing her to talk, but obviously very
interested in what she has to say. He settles down with her, using the tree as
a back rest so he can be in a sustainable posture for what sounds like it
could be a long story. Or anthology. The rustle in the tree pulls his
attention briefly, but only briefly. It's a natural sound, one well suited to
the environs.

Alma establishes the fear. "New things," she says, "sometimes the
entirity of everything freaks me out. Maybe for a moment." She waves up to
Note. "It happens with juviniles. adults too. Then I dive in." Big sigh. If
she wasn't holding Zach's hand she takes it now and presses closer in to feel
the comfort in the existence of her friend. "It all got short circuited
yesterday."<br />

She looks up at Zach to see if she can continue. He's not one to
interrupt, and she does. "Suicide is complicated. A lot of times you'll hear
people talk about how happy the person was lately. Like maybe things were
going better. Someone commited suicide in the neighborhood, and there was no
talk like that. I got, suspicious. It wasn't just that though, there could be
all these dangling threads. The paper said he had no known family. I wondered
at that. and what about friends? Maybe they'd like to understand more. So I
pressed in to it."<br />

She lets go of his hand a moment to press in to the ground, another
way of saying it. She has his hand again."And saw some really confusing and
alarming things. And, it was weird. they were all weird. and Kai was right,
how /do/ I know what normal weird is with weird weird. And suicide can be
alarming. and murder, if it's that. and things I've never experienced before.
and it wasn't until later I thought, it's not weird, it's just different, calm
down Alma, it's just a new different thing. There area lot of things I haven't
experienced before that feel different. So that's that." She looks up and over
at him, "and so I had the freakout reaction to warn you, because you work for
her. I didn't know what the fuck, and I know you protect your /mind/, but this
was... maybe /soul/ maybe something else. I don't know if you know that
protection because I'm just learning it and we haven't bounced it around, so I
had to give you heads up and then you could take care of yourself until I got
you more info, but then I... I was warning Kai too, see? they're friends.
relaxed around each other. She had to know."<br />

She lets go and shakes out her hands and body like she's flinging off
tension. That's when Victoria shows up, taking pictures like she does. And I
was just telling Kai about the death... and Kai says she'll talk about it and
I didn't need to and then starts telling her I was worried about a suicide.
I'm, fuck, this person may have sucked hte will to live out of someone? And
Kai is just letting htem know I know? And then Victoria freaks out and rushes
at me, but it's because--like she wants to know who it is, who died,
immediately. She's crushed. I don't understand a thing."<br />

I still think you need warning. Like, I can tell you all of what I saw
and felt. Maybe it wasn't her, maybe it... I only watched from outside hte
house. but he drank whisky before doing it. that doesn't sound like anyone
inside forced him?" She's been fingering hte ground and brushing her palms
against it, and takes Zach's hand again.

Zach listens along through the whole thing. "Yeah," he says halfway
through, not loud enough to interrupt, but just enough to add some additional
context, "They live together." Vic and Kai that is. By the end of it, he give
her hand a squeeze. "It sounds like you've got a lot of uncertainty about all
this," he observes. "Why are you so worried about it though? Like... I get
that suicide's a rough thing to contend with and process. I really do. But..."
He's searching for words. "It's a long way from a tragedy to a crime though.
Seems a big jump to make. Kai's no dummy, though. If she's that close to her,
then there's a solid chance she'd notice if things like that were going on,
you know?"

"Yeah, that's the true part. And I didn't think of it at first. It was
the stuff I'd never experienced before. Watching someone fight like that, then
get cowed, all this weirdness flowing around them. She kissed him and that
stuff was happening. And why did... see? all the new. the suspicion. It
contaminates the uncertainty." She nods in awknowledgement of his observation.
"Now I think of how, oh how we have a ritual. You allow me to feel you. what
would it look like to me if I didn't know. There would be all this weirdness
going on."<br />

"I've got this hangover now. Spirit. feeling. But still doubts." She
looks at him like she's willing to challenge, "Doubt is good. Doubt gives you
a solid foundation." Then she gives a 'yeah I know I messed up my foundation'
kind of nod. She's still got a lot of experience to train on. She knows. She
just doesn't always act with that. "So I don't know. That's why I'm all
shaking and stuff. I'm letting the" she looks up and around trying to know
what it is, "the everything just flow and settle down. and now you know what
my freakout warning was about.<br />

I'm glad you know how to take care of yourself." She sighs and has a
satisfied nod at that. "Most often very competent," that comes with an
accessing nod and slightly wrinkled brow as she brings all of her observations
together. She gives him a qualifier because he is competent when she observes
him but she does not always observe him and thus cannot take in to account all
of the data. "Oh hey, did you observe things?" She whiplashes the subject.
"Come by and give me your observations, if you would, or, where?"

Zach nods, still listening. "Fair enough," he says of her statement
about how she's processing. He shrugs off the complement about how well he
cares for himself, it's a nothing thim to him. "Errr, wait... observe which?"
He's thrown by that whiplash.

"Hart plaza? The hookups? Where things flow?" another thing occurs to
her, "Oh, and I don't know if you want to do the thing for Al. I haven't
checked up on the existence of the books for you yet. Uh, you got multiple
ways to contribute yeah? because if you do some weird not-doing-stuff due to
some, uh, comupance? thing? that's dipshit of you. Like, I care fuckall about
that, I want people to get stuff done." Wow, she's a lot calmer now. The
freakout tension has started to drain away even more. She's on a way more
comfortable footing now. Her body language changed to. Hey, look, her hand
started playing with his hand without her even realizing it at first. She
looks down at it, thoughtful. "Huh. embodiement." She looks back up at him,
calm and really curious to hear what he's discovered. Wait, more than calm,
like happy and excited.

"Haven't been yet," Zach answers, shaking his head. "Had a lot of
other things going on and I want to be in good shape to fight back just in
case." Perhaps a dissapointing thing to hear, but Zach moves at his own speed,
unhurried by basically anyone or anything else.

Sorry, Alma is too busy being patient and going at her own pace when
she can manage it and has even slowed down in all the things she is trying to
do. She's gained insight. What is she too busy for? Too busy to be
disappointed in someone because of their busy schedule. "Likewise. Well, I'm
still learning the cadence of things. I got hit up to go help people check out
Fight Club Island for something like that Zug thing. But I warned them that if
I'm in a car crash then count me out. I think I'll suggest someone they can
call for contingency plans. Not you, you don't know what they need, I don't
think. Plus they're, Zach Penn? dooom. and the friends he keeps. Except I'm an
exception, apparently. Cognitive dissonance maybe? Exceptional fallacy
blahblah whatever it's called. been a while. birds. me."

Zach laughs, "Yeah there's been an uptick in my bogeyman brand
recognition lately," which he finds amusing on at least some level. "It's
fine. I have enough on my plate as it is. Isn't that place in Canada anyway?"
A shrug. It's not his problem, she made that clear. "Kai's been particularly
aggressive about it lately." Just an offhand comment. He doesn't have much
else to contribute here.

"Something Wednesday said. I mean to ask Kai what he meant. I think
she was expecting me to bring it up and then I dumped that suicide stuff on
her instead." She pauses. "Wednesday talked to me about stuff, and I'm still
thinking about it. It takes a while sometimes." A breeze moves some frizzed
long hair against her neck at she puts it back behind her ear. She stares at
Zach and her gaze lingers on his curve of neck. She smiles and closes her eyes
for a breath and then opens them again. "I guess, I'm headed back. If I learn
something about the books, about the... how to throttle that input thing. I
text you. or find you. I could practice finding you maybe. I need practice at
stuff like that."
}}