xp_logs | Nathan and Lorna, backdated to Wednesday afternoon

Backdated to Wednesday afternoon. After Manuel and Lorna's argument in his journal and his talk with her about it, Nathan, seized by a certain amount of fellow-feeling for someone else with something resembling the phobia he's finally licked, consults the Askani on the matter. They have a suggestion, which he decides to pass along to Lorna.

Lorna got to the sunroom a bit earlier than the time specified in Nathan's email and tucked herself into a chair in the sun. She was reserving judgment on Nathan's offer until he had time to explain it but she wasn't really optimistic. If this was another attempt to draw her out, well, she could move faster than he could.

Nathan, a few minutes later, hobbled in more slowly, trying not to wince. Damn, he actually missed the wheelchair. That was sad. "Hi," he said a bit unsteadily, making his determined if unsteady way towards the other chair in the full sun.

She looked away from the view out the window and blinked against the comparatively darker room. "Hi," she responded once her eyes adjusted, giving him the once over. "Nice lack of wheels. How did you manage that?"

"They decided it was time I was back on my own two feet again," he said, his voice a bit uneven as he lowered himself into the chair, setting the cane aside. "Ow, by the way."

"The sun is a great cure-all for pain. Also a cause of skin cancer but what can you do?" Lorna smiled, "But isn't walking better than not?"

"I haven't decided yet." He sank back into the chair as much as he could, or as much as the back brace would let him. "So," he said, gazing thoughtfully at her. "I wasn't sure you'd come. I wasn't very specific in the email."

She sighed and pulled her good leg to her chest, resting her knee on her chin, "I nearly didn't. But I thought I'd give you a chance to make me say no in person."

"You remember me telling you about the empathic defense the Askani taught me? The one that lets me keep my emotions inaccessible when I concentrate?"

Her eyebrow quirked upwards. "I'm headblind. That won't do me a bit of good. My defenses are about as good as they're going to get." It wasn't much as a no as a challenge to change her mind. She didn't want to get her hopes up.

"There is a version for non-psis." Nathan smiled a bit at the quirked eyebrow. "I didn't know about it until Askani mentioned it to me, but that's not unusual. I've only scratched the surface of the various psionic techniques they use; they adapted what they could for their headblind Clansmen, and I haven't had much time to go over that in any kind of detail." There had been other priorities.

"How effective is it?" She didn't ask how hard it would be to learn. For everything that psis had to learn, non-psis took twice as long.

"From what she explained to me, it would be... a stall, instead of a wall," Nathan said wryly. "Not impenetrable, more of a meditative technique than anything else. Hell, to be honest, I'm not sure how mine would actually stand up to an empath trying to smash their way through and it's actually a shielding construct. But the other, if you learned it properly... it could at the very least disguise or blur your emotions to a passive scan, and buy you some time to react if you ever found yourself in a situation where you needed to defend yourself."

"Something is better than nothing. How…how hard would it be for me to lower it?" She couldn't have said why she asked. That was her story and sticking to it.

"It would be a question of unwinding it. Consider it a knot, that you twist your emotions into. It's easy to release, or at least the telepath's version is. You just pull on the right 'string'." Nathan smiled a bit whimsically. "You've probably heard me talking about patterns before. This is just one of the many."

Well that wasn’t terribly helpful. But again, better than nothing and there was bound to be more than on unscrupulous empath in her future. "You're going to lecture me on what the pattern is before you even start, aren't you? This is going to be like the coins."

"Me? Ramble on about patterns? You must have me confused with someone else with ghosts from the future in his head," Nathan said with a perfectly straight face.

Lorna buried her head in her hands. "Kill me now."

(some time and lots of Nate lecturing later…)

"I got it, I swear! No more talking. Just show me already," Lorna begged. She had started playing with paperclips awhile back and was making the paperclip T-Rex attack the scorpion to keep herself from going crazy.

"You really aren't much on this whole patience thing, are you?" Nathan asked humorously, then reached out a hand. "Need a link. Just a light one."

"I'm very patient. I regularly watch dough rise. You just don't shut up!" Lorna said in her defense. She gave him her hand and lowered her shields slightly, focusing in on a calm meditative state so this would be easier.

Nathan kept the link as shallow as he could, knowing that Lorna would be more comfortable that way. That done, he projected the image of the pattern into her mind. #You need to focus on being calm, when you do this,# he sent. #A sensation of cold was how I finally got it, actually. That's the sensation a scanning empath would get from me when it's active.#

Lorna appreciated his light touch and was able to focus on the pattern rather than being nervous about having someone in her mind. Like a landscape of ice?, she framed the thought clearly as the headblind were taught to do. The pattern was deceptively simple, she knew that just by looking at it.

#In a way. But the ice is just a facade. All of your emotions are still there, untouched, beneath the surface.# He held onto the link for long enough to make sure she got a good look at the whole pattern, then severed it gently.

"It's not a magic wand, Lorna," he conceded aloud. "But if it does nothing else, it might help you feel... safer."

She raised her shields again before answering. "It's better than not. And that's justification enough for learning it, right?" She scooped up the paperclips and blended them into a simple bracelet around one wrist.

Nathan nodded. "I'd say at least a half-hour's practice every day, if you want to master it in any kind of timely fashion," he said.

"Oh joy. I think I have half an hour too much sleep anyway. I'll just get up earlier." Lorna sighed. Sometimes it seemed like the day never ended.

"If you need a refresher on the pattern, just ask," Nathan said. "It wouldn't take me more than a minute or two."

"I'll let you know. Probably by throwing something at your head but we'll just pretend that's training." Lorna sighed and glanced out the window. The sun was much closer to setting now. "Which ever of the kids is in charge of dinner tonight is probably about to get started. I should go supervise."

"I should go find something to drink, myself. Hoarse from all that lecturing," Nathan teased, getting up slowly.

Lorna retrieved her crutches, "Come on, old man. I'll buy you a drink in that most excellent of establishments, my kitchen. I might even throw in a pre-dinner snack if you're real good."