trans_9 | (no subject)

Much of what we call art caters to an inner desire for comfort. Yet the most memorable artists created works which disturbed the psyche of the viewer. That is why the most important elements in any society are the artistic and the criminal, because they alone by questioning the society's values can force it to change.
-archives of the Missionaria Protectiva, unknown author*

Something had welled up in Sheeana in the past few weeks. It was an accumulation brought about by too much time spent around people whose secrets etched lines on sleepless faces. The mood had grown tense and the ship was starting to feel closed in. She knew she would have to express what she felt on this sooner or later. It was either art or snarky commentary that was sure to earn her enemies.

Thus she was down in the city with lasgun and crysknife, carving wood. It was far cruder than the shaper gloves she was used to, and she had not the time to create the traditional Fremen wind sculpture but she would have to make do. The beam sliced the heavy Elaccan fogwood with an impunity not known to any earlier carving instruments. The crysknife took care of any spurs. The sandworm's tooth knife was a finer carver than any before her had been blessed with. The cloying smell of burnt fogwood filled the chamber.

Gradually a figure took place. Born under eye and hand, emerging fully from her roiling brain like Athena, was a humanoid figure. Atop a deep bed of blue sand, he struggled on his stomach in an arch-backed pose. He was half sunk into this psuedo-ocean.

And emerging from the sand all around him were arms, frozen perpetually in the act of reaching for him. They emerged from the sand, their fingers open, questing.

It was an ambiguous sculpture. Was the man drowning or swimming? Was he sinking or emerging? Were the arms reaching for him to pull him under or to support him? To rescue him? The answer would depend on the viewer, and they would surely project their own psychic situation onto it.

It was a distressing piece, not comforting, but she hoped one that would provoke something within the watcher, stir parts of themselves they had not known to activate.

A quick wash of paint (grey for the man, vivid red for the arms), and it was done. She let out a sigh, contented as she felt herself relax from the trance of creation. Time gradually began to reenter its normal phase and she lost her tunnel vision. That was when she realized she wasn't alone.

*[OOC: quote is actually by Samuel R Delany]

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Jamie'd been observing her, dully - more because she happened to be doing something purposeful-looking than out of genuine interest in her craft or the object she was making. Once she came out of her trance and seemed aware of his presence, however, Jamie realized he'd better come up with something halfway intelligent to say, as justification for his mindless gawping. From a respectful distance he regarded the carving, eyes flicking between it and the woman who'd created it.

"That's, um. That's...interesting," he managed. And it was, in a disquieting way. It actually prompted him to try to examine it more carefully, as best he could from this distance, and the longer he did so the more unsettling the carving seemed.

Sheeana gave him an evaluating glance. A stripling boy, a few years younger than her it appeared. She knew better than to underestimate him though; Muad'dib had been like him when he was exiled.

"What does it look like to you?"

Jamie ventured a little closer to get a better look at the figure. "Looks like someone trying to escape from something," he said - somewhat guardedly, as though he suspected he might be guessing wrong. "Trying to break free."

"Interesting." She turned it on its base, offering new perspectives. "What he is doing changed in my mind as I sculpted it. He might be swimming. They might be reaching to pull him under...or support him. I am Sheeana, of the Bene Gesserit by the way."

His brow furrowed as he tried, and failed, to see the figure in a more benign light. "...'s the hands. They look..." He trailed off and wavered between finishing his half-formed thought or giving up on it, and ultimately chose the latter, taking the woman's cue to introduce himself instead.

"Jamie Hemeros. Nice to meet you." He watched as she turned the carving around, presenting new angles from which to examine it. "So...why'd you make it?" he asked, glancing briefly at her. "Any reason?"

"It's..." Sheeana struggled to articulate the welling up within her, the spilling over from that wild place that compelled these things to emerge from her. "The mood. The atmosphere of everyone's subconsciouses...It speaks to me. I have to articulate it. Or I will become unhinged. Do you understand?" Oh real great job there, miss calm and composed Reverend Mother. Way to not make yourself look crazy.

Jamie eyed her askance, a faint prickle of disturbance making itself known. "...everyone's subconscious," he repeated. "Can you - feel everyone's thoughts? What they're going through now, with the nightmares?"

"Not...quite. A fully trained Bene Gesserit can tell the state of a person's inner life by the unconscious tics they give off, the normally inaudible tones of their voice, and the pheremones they give off. All these things we can sense. But like any other perception, when it becomes overwhelmed, it must be rested or given an outlet." This was why they were sometimes called 'Witches'. For instance, she focused in on him and sensed his small disturbance...Not that one would neccesarily need to be a Reverend Mother to tell that much.

He supposed that made sense; he'd met empaths before and this sounded like a variation of what they'd described. "I think I get it. That, um...that must be hard, picking up on all that. Especially at a time like this."

"It is, but not an insurmountable difficulty. What brings you to the city?" She wondered if perhaps it was his way of escaping whatever he had seen in the sculpture.

Jamie lifted one shoulder in an uneasy shrug, averting his gaze. "Just...wandering, I guess. Trying to think. Trying keep my mind off things." It occurred to him, belatedly, that this statement contradicted itself, and he tried to rephrase it into something more coherent. "...I mean. Trying to think about some things and not about...others."

Well. That made a little more sense to him, anyway.

"Why...would you want to keep your mind away from these things?" She pitched her voice to be comforting, nonthreatening, even as the questions themselves seemed designed for the opposite effect.

"Because..." Jamie trailed off with a vaguely frustrated exhalation, brow furrowing once again. "They're the kinda things it doesn't do any good worrying about. 's nothing I can do about 'em now and I feel like - " He again cut himself off, withdrawing a little - physically and otherwise - as he left the thought unfinished. "...they're just. Not worth thinking about," he said instead, tone subdued.