This Dorm Hath No Fury.

[Samantha McManus]

After the departure of their unplanned guest, Sam gets a hot shower and emerges wrapped in a towel.

"Thanks for being a good sport about that, by the way."

[Miriam Bell]

Miriam for her part is sitting on the couch, wrapped in a Will-brand blanket and unrepentantly day drinking.

"I get this dorm-room as a whole is one to talk, but that woman has issues. No idea what kind but her mind is a lot and has zero filters." she says with a vague shudder.

[Samantha McManus]

"She's kind of like a shark, aye? And that's like... her big problem. She's always rushed from thing to thing to thing because the next step was really clear to her."

[Miriam Bell]

"She felt like I did at Muir, when 'being lucid' was something I clawed myself towards on the back of wanting to find that piece of shit asshole that killed my sister. Just... all the time. I would bloody explode."

"From the state of you I take it you dealt with that impression by headbutting a tree?"

[Samantha McManus]

"We had a conversation in the universal language," she smirks.

[Miriam Bell]

"The fact that you're a telepath and yet consider punching the universal language really says a lot about the level of intellectual discourse involved." she teases.

[Samantha McManus]

"She's the embodiment of divine retribution. Some things you have to dodge a tree for."

"Or not dodge, sometimes."

[Miriam Bell]

"So I should be prepared for her to throw a tree at me if her new clothes don't go over well?"

[Samantha McManus]

"What kind of girlfriend would I be if I didn't throw myself in the way of that arboreal disaster?"

[Miriam Bell]

"Careful, I probably have a lot of retribution racked up to come my way."

[Samantha McManus]

"She tends to go for the big ones that Greek tragedies get written about. Dipping your feet into the underworld aside, I think you've avoided most of those."

[Miriam Bell]

"I see. Not important enough in the grand scheme of myths, am I?"

[Samantha McManus]

"Seem to recall a conversation about how the alternative wasn't as fun as you thought."

[Miriam Bell]

"Yeah, well, I can still dream even if reality is sorely disappointing."

[Samantha McManus]

"You've got the attention of one, aye?" She smirks.

"Three, if we calculate things charitably."

[Miriam Bell]

"One that counts for three. And one that counts for... however many?" she says and tugs at the blanket around her shoulders appreciatively. "It's frankly ridiculous how outnumbered I am."

[Samantha McManus]

"We're just aware of the standard of living you expect," she chuckles.

[Miriam Bell]

"I'm trying hard not to expect but to appreciate. Apparently the two are different." she smirks.

[Samantha McManus]

"I'd offer a few of me to pamper you in thanks, but I think she managed to bruise me on a metaphysical level. Be feeling that for awhile."

[Miriam Bell]

"What does that even mean?" Miriam asks, sitting up slightly. Sam has taken physical and mental blows without noting it and those are really the only two options Miriam can conceptualize. "Like she punched your soul?"

[Samantha McManus]

"I don't know if you noticed, but there's no separation between her mind and her body. She is what she is what she is. She can touch the flock."

[Miriam Bell]

"I mean I can... wait you mean physically!? How is that even... what? But that makes no sense. Does that means he can just walk into my mind? Or is this some divine non-sense?"

[Samantha McManus]

"I don't know. She's just... you know, present on all levels. She doesn't project anything, her mind's an open book and she seems to perceive all that as real as the physical."

[Miriam Bell]

"You say that as if that makes any sense, but I'll take your word for it. More real. Or... extra-real. So what's the equivalent to a spa treatment or mental health day to heal divine bruises?"

[Samantha McManus]

"For starters, being... singular is feeling a bit more manageable at the moment."

[Miriam Bell]

"Well, if you want to slum it with us mortals, there's room on the couch and some wine left in the bottle."

[Samantha McManus]

"Sounds... pleasantly corporeal," she smirks.

[Miriam Bell]

"And uncomplicated. Come on." she says and unfurls one side of the blanket invitingly.

[Samantha McManus]

"If I get to drag home weird cosmic flotsam and still do this, I'll take it," she chuckles, settling in next to Miriam.

[Miriam Bell]

"I've resigned myself to insane things happening. At least this one wanted fashion advice instead of looping time or driving tanks through Maldon."

[Miriam Bell]

After a while of talking, curled up on the couch Miriam seems to doze off. At least her breathing grows slower and the vague presence of her mind mellows out. Her eyes aren't actually fully closed but glazed over and half-lidded. And on closer inspection her mind is not cushioned by sleep but somehow distant, as if she was dozens and dozens of meters away at the edge of Sam's perception.

[Samantha McManus]

It takes an effort for Sam to cast her mind out from her body, especially after the beating she took. Still, this is odd enough that she feels she probably should. She pushes her consciousness in the direction of Miriam's.

[Miriam Bell]

Sam is at least somewhat familiar with Miriam's mind though it certainly has undergone some changes. Still, it probably shouldn't feel this... vast. And empty. Mindscapes can certainly be expansive but even a sleeping mind should be present in all of it. This feels like an empty airport, a mall stripped of all it's stores and people, echoing, deserted. Almost as if in response the mindscape seems to solidify around Sam into a train station. Behind her a modern train sits, completely bereft of passengers as if it had just delivered her here as the one and only occupant. Onto a terminal of old brickwork patched with crumbling concrete that feels wrong for it's lack of weeds pushing from the cracks and crevices. Beyond the station building itself Sam can see signs of a small English town and spreading landscape but it's interior is larger than it ought to be. Scuffed black and white tiles cover a huge waiting area with benches for hundreds of people and doors stand open into more rooms and corridors. Above the door leading into the vast space hangs a station sign hangs on an old wrought-iron arm reading Teorainn-upon-Lære. It squeals as it swings slightly in the non-existing breeze as if in response to Sam's attention.

[Samantha McManus]

"Okay Miriam, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I preferred the gothic shite." She mutters, peering up at the sign as she walks into the station.

"Boundary, is it?"

[Miriam Bell]

As if in response to her name, Sam catches sight of Miriam stepping out from one of the many doors inside the station and wandering down one of the corridors and disappearing into another door. Gone is the odd funeral shroud that used to envelop her avatar and the effigy of her sister, or rather the sheer fabric is now wrapped around her in a stylish dress. Probably a good sign overall, but she seems to have taken no notice of Sam.

And really, this seems less like Miriam's mind itself and more like, well, a boundary indeed. A liminal space she's... lost in? Projecting? Wandering through?

[Samantha McManus]

For her part, Sam hasn't tried to muster up a grand avatar for this outing. Occasionally out of the corner of one's eye she might blur a bit, or appear to have black or white hair, but by and large she's just her mundane self.

Which means she's a bit underdressed by Miriam's standards, but it is what it is. She picks up the pace to try to catch up to Miriam.

"Now how'd you find your way into here?"

[Miriam Bell]

As Sam rounds the corner through the door she saw Miriam step through the surroundings change. Or rather the building seamlessly moves from old train station to a walkway of steel and glass panels in lieu of railings, stretching out over a yawning void of a room. Empty as the rest of this place but full off similar walkways as the one they're on, criss-crossing through the open space between walls dotted with balconies and galleries. Down below is ground but it's far enough away that details are hard to make out. Miriam is further than she should be but with her in sight it's easy to catch up to her meandering pace.

She turns her head at Sam's voice and there's recognition in her eyes but not much understanding. "Samantha?" she asks, then slowly turns her head back and forth as if looking around. Then she takes a few steps and looks around again. "Where are you?" Her voice is muted, almost muddled as if she's only half paying attention to Sam and distracted by something else entirely. "Hmm. No, not there..."

[Samantha McManus]

"I'm right here, Miriam. Or is this place playing tricks? It's like a bloody house of mirrors..."

[Miriam Bell]

"No tricks. Mirrors?" she mumbles and starts walking away, then stops and turns around again. "There's too many bloody places with mirrors." she says with a hint of the edge her voice takes on when she's annoyed. "Can't be the mirror. Can't get there. Too many places. Too lost. Just skimming on the surface..." she says and walks back towards Sam, turning into black smoke as she does that brushes past Sam and when Miriam reforms on the other side the walkway has changed to a drawbridge of a castle surrounded by... technically a hedgemaze, but none of the neatly maintained shrubberies. These grow wildly and stretch hundreds of meters into the sky where strange purple flowers bloom at the very top.

"And this isn't any of them..." she mutters, annoyed and seeming about as lost as Sam.

[Samantha McManus]

"Feels like there's more than one boundary here. I'm not sure I'm seeing what you're seeing," she says, heading to catch up.

"Or if we're really even in the same part of it..."