Chasing Phantoms

[Thalia]

She flopped into a chair, took an extra second to admire the ceiling with her head dangled over the back-rest before she sat up with a focused gaze. A smile crinkled the edges of her eyes at Jon's extravagant surprise, a little perplexed at the reaction, but it was such a normal thing for her to float out of her contextual depth that the confusion didn't seem to bother her any. Like most things she took it in stride.

Bear's smile was in contrast a small, polite thing, but Nimeda beamed in return, despite that his reticence washed up a memory she did not particularly want to linger on . She tucked her legs up under her, noticing that Jon hadn't answered her question, though she forgot it soon enough anyway. A train? His words were a rambling rush, and the blankness of her expression showed no recognition, though she at least offered him her rapt attention. She remembered nothing before waking here but she did not want him to think she wasn't trying.

Of course, her willingness to please only went so far. A wide grin threatened the attempt at studiousness; she was, after all, rather pleased with the fact she had found him at all, and desperate to share the success. Shouldn't he be happier? She'd expected him to be happier. He seemed worried, though, or stressed. Why wasn't he happy? Curiosity brushed her expression, dampening a little of the excitement. Had she done something wrong? Something she couldn't remember? She glanced a brief question at Bear, but found no answers.

"I don't remember a train." She shrugged, only slightly apologetic for her deficiency. Afterwards she scrunched up her face in mock thought, lips pursed. A little laughter danced behind her eyes, but she was making a very good try at seriousness, and actually she did try to cast her thoughts out into the mire of memory. She'd watched Jon's dreams, some of them anyway, and it had only strengthened her familiarity with him. The sense of him stretched back further than that first meeting, a memory that fluttered many echoes. He'd become something permanent in her world, or had perhaps simply reinstated himself.

So entrenched in this world of dreams, her image only flickered before jumping to the desk, dispensing with the act of actually walking there. In fact where she actually appeared was sat cross-legged atop it, head tilted curiously to peer at him, a curtain of hair resting on her knees. Her recognition surpassed his physical features, she intrinsically understood something else, but she looked closely anyway. "Yes. I think I know you. Tricksy though you may be." There was something profound in the way she said it, if it slipped away the moment after, replaced by a bright grin.

"You found me then! The other me. And it seems like a... bad thing?" A truthful frown pressed her brow, then fell away. It wasn't like Nimeda to step delicately around a subject, but she did not enjoy being a disappointment in Jon's eyes. She supposed she never had. Instead her fingers fluttered through the paperwork on the desk, which rippled and shifted around her. The wrongness touched her again, the instinct that had brought her here in the first place. "Why are you here?" She meant the physical space - where were they? But then her perspective changed. "Why are you asleep? Why am I asleep?" He'd said they were on a train?