RUBILYKSKOYE INBOX.

[explosion]

TELEPATHY • HOLOGRAM • LETTERS • DELIVERIES • ACTION

✿ Rubi-telepathy (easy mode) feels different to ✦ Wanda-telepathy (hard mode).

Comments

[explosion]

[ She can't help but laugh. ]

I hear and see things. I can walk by someone and hear their thoughts and see what they daydream. It's sometimes very distracting if I'm not paying attention.

It can be easy to forget who you are. But the telepathy here is… different.

[unconscionable]

You were a telepath even before you came here, weren't you. Such a different magical skillset from anything my own world possesses. But the way the curse joins us all, mentally, does that not feel the same? Can you distinguish one kind from another?

[explosion]

I still am one.

[ The use of "were" makes it seem as though that's stopped being true. But Wanda knows her telepathy is different to those in Rubilysk. Incredibly different—dangerous. ]

It's different. It's like swimming in a shallow pool. You can feel the bottom of the pool at your feet. It's softer. Everyone's inexperience is like being gently splashed. But telepathy for me has always felt like an ocean. Sometimes I'm swimming above the Mariana Trench and sometimes I sink to the very bottom.

It's like being an Olympic swimmer in a pool with people learning how to swim. Everyone is wearing floaties. Yours are very cute.

[ She doesn't mean for it to sound so arrogant, but it's the easiest way to describe something that's so intrinsically her. ]

[unconscionable]

Wow, thanks.

Weird, thinking you're probably more powerful than me. I'm not used to that.

[ Like, at all. Like he can feel himself feeling unreasonably stressed by it, just another thing out of his control. At least Wanda's a sweetheart, and it's easy to let it go. ]

For me it's just like... you know the ticker tape underneath news broadcasts where all the headlines scroll past? Like that.

[explosion]

It used to be like that for me, and then it became one of those windows where there were several televisions all running at the same time.

I don't think that will happen here for you.

[ And then it became louder and louder and louder until it became the ocean. But those are boring details, and do nothing to help John navigate his own mind reading capabilities. ]

I'm sure you're still very powerful. There are some things I can't do that I'm sure you could do.

[unconscionable]

Not sure that's actually true, but my ego thanks you for saying it.

[explosion]

Whenever you're feeling powerless, you can always come by my door and I'll remind you that you are very, very pretty and that I like you despite your power. How does that sound?

[unconscionable]

Yeah, you know, I mean, couldn't hurt.

[ Don't mind him just preening at being called pretty. John Gaius Will Remember This. ]

[explosion]

You are very, very, very, very pretty.

I'll tell everyone that I have a pretty friend and his name is John.

But then they'll want to be your friend rather than mine. I don't think we can have that. I might have to tell everyone you're ugly instead.

[unconscionable]

There's plenty of me to go around, promise. I think I'd like to be everybody's friend.

[ House called it day one: this is a guy who really longs to be liked. ]

I'd tell you you're pretty too but it feels like a criminal understatement.

[explosion]

[ She laughs and blushes. ]

You don't have to flatter me. I already consider you a friend.