trans_9 | (no subject)

Who: Atom, Dhianelia, and Fuu
Where: Agrestic
Summary: Fuu and Atom ask Dhianelia about her encounter with the Ohm.
Warnings: None!

For some time now, Fuu had wanted to ask Councilor Athos and Setsuna F. Seiei about their encounter with the Ohm, a sentiment that had become even stronger after talking with Atom after the recording of the first crew's failed mutiny. It seemed clear that nothing the Daligig said about the Ohm could be trusted. Although the current threat seemed to be the Daligig themselves, she had no idea when or where they might encounter the Ohm again, and she didn't want to be caught off-guard.

In retrospect, she shouldn't have been shocked to find that Seiei had been repodded along with the people in Command. Of course he would be! Having actual, first-hand knowledge that the Ohm weren't just an evil power to be defeated... but Concilor Athos remained, so Fuu didn't want to waste time.

It was a relief to know that the Daligig weren't allowed on the surface, Fuu thought as she began looking around the port for the Councilor, and Atom too. She could send them a message over the omnicomms, but there was no reason not to try finding them on foot first.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"It is my deepest wish to try again, when the opportunity presents itself," Dhianeila began. "Until we are able to contact and form some sort of understanding as to why they have chosen the path that they have. If there are more crewmembers who possess similar abilities to my own, it would be an honor to work alongside them.

"But ... Setsuna is no longer awake," she added sadly. "He's been placed into stasis once again. I believe he, too, possesses a form of subconscious communication that his fighter unit was able to amplify. That was how he aided the both of us in our first attempt to contact them."

"I see..." Fuu was quiet, processing this new information. If contact with the Ohm relied on telepathic ability, it didn't seem likely that she herself would be able to make contact with them, nor Atom. But that was only a little disheartening, when she thought about it. She wasn't necessarily useless in this matter.

"I read the account you wrote in the omnicomm, after the battle. That the Ohm seemed to be sad. Can you... elaborate on that?" Because that detail had jumped out at Fuu the most. It made her wonder if they ought to be fighting the Ohm at all. The idea of fighting a sorrowful enemy hit Fuu in a painfully personal way, after Emeraude and Zagato.

Atom waited quietly for an answer.

"Of course."

She didn't speak again for a moment, recalling the event. Going over every attempt in her head, every feeling, intention she had sent to them, but more importantly the ones she received in turn.

"The Ohm are connected to each other, in a way that none on board our ship are. I could feel them-- their feelings, each one individual, yet they work together in a single, unified manner. Many of them were ... surprised, frightened, angry, when they realized what we were attempting.

"As for the one that approached us..." she continued, "before it pushed us away, I had tried one last time to convey to it how we felt. Not simply our desire to communicate. Our questions and our fears of the situation we've been unwillingly pulled into due to their actions against us. Our confusion, because we still do not why they hate us so. That we only wished to understand." She took in a slow breath, remembering its short, but intense response.

"They did not communicate with us with words, but rather feelings and intentions simple enough for us to understand. They were angry. But within the hatred they conveyed, it was one twisted up with sadness. A sadness as powerful as that hatred. They seem to believe we've done something terrible, that we're monsters."

Fuu took a deep breath. Now it really did sound like what had happened in Cephiro--only that the difficulties of communicating with the Ohm were much greater than talking to Emeraude and Zagato would have been. "But what could we have done?" she asked--a bit foolishly, she knew, because obviously Councilor Yunos didn't have the answer.

"If we keep trying, though, do you think it would help? If they understand that we don't know what they're doing or why--maybe they would reach back." She pressed her fingers to her lips. "It sounds difficult to communicate without words, though. I wonder if they have a language that we could understand."

"It was difficult, even when I attempted to convey my feelings to them," she answered. And then she smiled.

"But, of course I think it will help. The path we are taking ... the challenge we are facing, they're far from easy. As long as it takes, as many attempts it will take to better understand them, I am prepared to keep trying."

Atom had been mostly quiet so far, but as Dhianeila went on, he couldn't help but blurt something out. "If they hate us, we have to figure out why. We have to figure out what we did. Or whoever it was that wronged them. I bet..."

He looked down at his shoes, for a moment, staring. "I bet they're really suffering."