Delfi

Delfi isk Churusimpir lis Kuchruog lis isk Fuerruste lis Kuchruog lis isk Fuerruste Delfi isk Churusimpir (a.k.a. Del) Former concubine to the second-to-last Emperor of the Navlad (before the throne lost its power). Sai of Foreseeing and minor sai of Hearing. She and Jossalyn escaped Emperor by forcing one of the other concubines to attack him. He went nuts, tried to come after them, died with no offspring. From Evernote: Delfi Mentality Post TtVD flailing for balance- alot of her identity est.post. EmperorD reverting more and more to what she was taught as a concubine & never ended up using. Not conf with self anymore now that she's been violated. Misses husband and blames S. Coen after him physically but can't follow through on her own. Waits win to hurt her c she feels punished and can lash out at himSyrus isn’t familiar or comforting. He’s not Denz. But she can feel something in his mind that says he’s not looking to compound the damage the Fleet did to her. Looking at her pisses him off for some reason, so he avoids her if he can. But he’s buried the memory behind so many shields that it's not even something he thinks about anymore. And when he gets close to letting it rise to the conscious part of his mind, he squashes it back down. She starts sleep walking while they’re working on the ship? And after? Coming near his room while he dreams. Trying to figure out why it is he avoids her like the plague, but images of her broken and bloody on the floor in that room keep surfacing in his head. Overlaid with another woman’s image. She can’t say the words to him though, so he doesn’t know why she’s doing it. And she’s mad that she can’t speak in his head like she can with J. Or speak Imperial like she used to.She’s avoiding talking to J, because J is wanting to protect her and shield her and still blaming herself for things. Wants to make things the way they used to be, and nothing will ever be the way it used to be. Husbands gone and they’re on a ship with a man who wants nothing to do with one woman and follows the other with his eyes. And he’s their only chance at learning enough about the state of affairs for them to take off and go their own way. J wants D to talk about why she’s withdrawing her emotions.S thinks J is siphoning them somehow, but D is pulling them in, trying not to let them leech over to J and set her off or contaminate her. She’s wallowing, basically. And she’s twitchy around men and Syrus is the only one she knows doesn’t want to touch her for sex. J doesn’t know that though, so when she finds S putting D back in her room one night, she comes to the obvious conclusion and makes a new deal with S. Her attentions for his leaving D alone. He’d been going to whorehouses since that? Or going without? Whores. Doesn’t want to risk setting J off, because of rape and because of how explosive they were before. But he takes her up on it when she offers. Whores cost money. Knows at some point they’ll probably run off on him. Or he’ll get mad and space one or both?When she’s not mourning and acting out, getting drunk and trying to avoid J’s sympathy and attempts to fix her, D trying to peel back layers of S to find out why this life is so familiar to S and why he keeps himself so closed off. Who is this woman in his dreams? D is self destructing. Trying to keep her mind away from remembering the rape. How she failed J and wasn’t an anchor. She should have been the one to keep her from going insane. Should have kept from getting distracted and thinking she knew what was happening. Should have known the armor was blocking the understanding. D thinks she failed. Is mourning husband too. Just because she doesn’t show her deepest emotions, just shows the surface and flash ones as they happen, doesn’t mean they aren’t happening. She has a temper, but the more subtle things are still there. So she misses Denz, has been violated, and just wishes that HE was the one who could be there to hold her. Except she’s scared of what he’d think of her, because she got hit with the rage bomb too. Doesn’t know if she responded to the soldiers the same way she used to when she and Denz had angry sex. Is that why she got extra hurt? Is she to blame? Was she unfaithful to him?Delfi's Brain on SiphoningDefi's mind is a bit screwed up. As a kid she was in charge of keeping Jossa on an even keel. Still is. But J, being older, went into service first. She did her duty, because that's what she was raised for. Delfi has this big sucking well of feeling inside her, like she's all surface flash and not alot of things effect her. She feels things, but outside influences don't really make much of an impact. She would siphon off JOssa as she did her work, and get residuals of the EMperor at the same time. She knows it's HER duty. When they ran, Jossa prostituted herself to keep them fed. Different feelings this time. Not just resignation, but hopelessness and despair. Fear for them, fear for D. Her determination that Delfi shouldn't be reduced to this. That she'll have security and safety. But D is picking up on all this because she has to keep tabs on J when she's working. Not as much worry about leakage, since J isn't screwing an Emperor with affairs of state, but there's actually a bit more emotion, more subtle, that they are dealing with. And Del might be siphoning it off, but she's also thinking about it more. And she's determined that she'll stand on her own two feet and not let Jossa take the brunt of all this. But J won't let her. So when J misjudged S and made her deal with him and he (horny bugger) took her up on it so he wouldn't have to pay whores anymore. Delfi angry. J doesn't need to do this. Tries to explain why she's been getting close to him while he sleeps. Says "something's wrong with him. Something he's hiding." J doesn't like it, doesn't like being around him, but they can't afford to be on own just yet. Not enough saved up. And NO PLACE is safe from Fleet. That's the other thing. They're just buying time until another Kuchen Fleet branch comes and takes over. So for now, they have to stay on the move. Can't afford their own ship, much less one with all the sheilding that S managed to strip off the last one. So J is not only sleeping with S to keep him from D, but to keep D from coming to him. So D siphons off J, hoping to find a crack in S mental armor. (Never hears anything about screwing Rissa). D is angry that she's back in the dependent role. J: Please, let me do this. I'm useless without you. Let me do this thing, to make things even. To contribute. Also putting self out in public to prove that she's an adult, that someone wants her. That she's not SCARED of people. D Pref-Fic NotesDelphi is dreaming. wakes up and realizes that she's alone Angry sad. Goes out to hall. Syrus sees her. Goes back to his room. Something in his head. Keeping himsef shielded more and more often lately. She decides she wants to set to the bottom of it. Is angry with herself because she thinks she failed Jossa on the base in TT she got distracted,couldnt find away to anchor them. Wasn't paying full attn to what was happening in the room until it was too late. TO distract herself from her self loathing she decides to go after Syrus. He was the one who woke them up and got them stuck in that room in the first place. Decides that she'll dig the answer out of him and use it to punish him. Also, doesn't know it, punishing herself for having made the prophesy that wound them up on the abandoned planet in cryo to start with. Starts stalking Syrus skin contact makes things easier. Syrus keeps it all bottled up inside. She finds out when Karissa's brothers show up. Goes after him then. Like, really goes after him. Wants details.Delfi Short OutlineShort story. Remember that. About Delfi’s frustrations, missing Denz and wanting to find out what’s going on in Syrus head. She’s jumpy around men, but he doesn’t scare her. He pretty much ignores her. Until she gets sunburned really badly. Takes place after the burn. Short bit about her waking up, falling out of bed? Skin hurt? Jossa trying to get her off floor. Syrus come in with medical stuff. His mind is a blank. She wonders why. Something about it’s flinching, but he’s not giving much up. She is mostly naked, can’t wear clothes on burned bits. They’re in a semi-settled area. Stocks of meds in cabinets are low, but he’s gone out to people and gotten some stuff. Antibiotic Neosporin stuff. Bandages. Their stock in the infirmary is old and some of it out of date. Really, really out of date. Spent most of the money they could scrounge on getting the ship and then installation of parts. Didn’t have much left for the infirmary beyond bandages and sutures. End of story: Delfi decides to find out what she can about Syrus. Doesn’t trust the blocks on his mind. And it will distract her from jossa trying to make amends for thinking she is to blame for going nuts. If Delf hadn’t been the one to get distracted, she would have been able to anchor Jossa better. Jossa concern is overwhelming her. Keeps reminding her of how she failed. Bit of her trying to draw him out when he comes in. Flash him. Looking for a reaction. Less awareness of what she’s doing and more of a subconscious act. Sad. Angry. Misses Denz. If Denz had been there, he would have had something to say. Even when he was chewing her out for getting burned. He would have tried to cop a feel. And she wouldn’t have minded that he was touching her. He would never hurt her. Denz would have made it all better. If only she’d never messed things up. Delfi Mentality Post TtV D flailing for balance- alot of her identity est.post. Emperor D reverting more and more to what she was taught as a concubine & never ended up using. Not conf wl set any more now that she's been violated. Misses husband and blames S. Coen after him physically but can't follow through on her own. Waits win to hurt her c she feels punished and can lash out at him Syrus isn’t familiar or comforting. He’s not Denz. But she can feel something in his mind that says he’s not looking to compound the damage the Fleet did to her. Looking at her pisses him off for some reason, so he avoids her if he can. But he’s buried the memory behind so many shields that its not even something he thinks about any more. And when he gets close to letting it rise to the conscious part of his mind, he squashes it back down. She starts sleep walking while they’re working on the ship? And after? Coming near his room while he dreams. Trying to figure out why it is he avoids her like the plague, but images of her broken and bloody on the floor in that room keep surfacing in his head. Overlaid with another woman’s image. She can’t say the words to him though, so he doesn’t know why she’s doing it. And she’s mad that she can’t speak in his head like she can with J. Or speak Imperial like she used to. She’s avoiding talking to J, because J is wanting to protect her and shield her and still blaming herself for things. Wants to make things the way they used to be, and nothing will ever be the way it used to be. Husbands gone and they’re on a ship with a man who wants nothing to do with one woman and follows the other with his eyes. And he’s their only chance at learning enough about the state of affairs for them to take off and go their own way. J wants D to talk about why she’s withdrawing her emotions. S thinks J is siphoning them somehow, but D is pulling them in, trying not to let them leech over to J and set her off or contaminate her. She’s wallowing, basically. And she’s twitchy around men and Syrus is the only one she knows doesn’t want to touch her for sex. J doesn’t know that though, so when she finds S putting D back in her room one night, she comes to the obvious conclusion and makes a new deal with S. Her attentions for his leaving D alone. He’d been going to whorehouses since that? Or going without? Whores. Doesn’t want to risk setting J off, because of rape and because of how explosive they were before. But he takes her up on it when she offers. Whores cost money. Knows at some point they’ll probably run off on him. Or he’ll get mad and space one or both? When she’s not mourning and acting out, getting drunk and trying to avoid J’s sympathy and attempts to fix her, D trying to peel back layers of S to find out why this life is so familiar to S and why he keeps himself so closed off. Who is this woman in his dreams? D is self destructing. Trying to keep her mind away from remembering the rape. How she failed J and wasn’t an anchor. She should have been the one to keep her from going insane. Should have kept from getting distracted and thinking she knew what was happening. Should have known the armor was blocking the understanding (hahahah! K told the guards to go for D first to set J off- comes over the bond just before she goes ballistic). D thinks she failed. Is mourning husband too. Just because she doesn’t show her deepest emotions, just shows the surface and flash ones as they happen, doesn’t mean they aren’t happening. She has a temper, but the more subtle things are still there. So she misses Denz, has been violated, and just wishes that HE was the one who could be there to hold her. Except she’s scared of what he’d think of her, because she got hit with the rage bomb too. Doesn’t know if she responded to the soldiers the same way she used to when she and Denz had angry sex. Is that why she got extra hurt? Is she to blame? Was she unfaithful to him? Delfi's Brain on Siphoning Defi's mind is a bit screwed up. As a kid she was in charge of keeping Jossa on an even keel. Still is. But J, being older, went into service first. She did her duty, because that's what she was raised for. Delfi has this big sucking well of feeling inside her, like she's all surface flash and not alot of things effect her. She feels things, but outside influences don't really make much of an impact. She would siphon off JOssa as she did her work, and get residuals of the EMperor at the same time. She knows it's HER duty. When they ran, Jossa prostituted herself to keep them fed. Different feelings this time. Not just resignation, but hopelessness and despair. Fear for them, fear for D. Her determination that Delfi shouldn't be reduced to this. That she'll have security and safety. But D is picking up on all this because she has to keep tabs on J when she's working. Not as much worry about leakage, since J isn't screwing an Emperor with affairs of state, but there's actually a bit more emotion, more subtle, that they are dealing with. And Del might be siphoning it off, but she's also thinking about it more. And she's determined that she'll stand on her own two feet and not let Jossa take the brunt of all this. But J won't let her. So when J misjudged S and made her deal with him and he (horny bugger) took her up on it so he wouldn't have to pay whores anymore. Delfi angry. J doesn't need to do this. Tries to explain why she's been getting close to him while he sleeps. Says "something's wrong with him. Something he's hiding." J doesn't like it, doesn't like being around him, but they can't afford to be on own just yet. Not enough saved up. And NO PLACE is safe from Fleet. That's the other thing. They're just buying time until another Kuchen Fleet branch comes and takes over. So for now, they have to stay on the move. Can't afford their own ship, much less one with all the sheilding that S managed to strip off the last one. So J is not only sleeping with S to keep him from D, but to keep D from coming to him. So D siphons off J, hoping to find a crack in S mental armor. (Never hears anything about screwing Rissa). D is angry that she's back in the dependent role. J: Please, let me do this. I'm useless without you. Let me do this thing, to make things even. To contribute. Also putting self out in public to prove that she's an adult, that someone wants her. That she's not SCARED of people.
 * -D 14 when died *-D 15 when leave * -D ~17 when meet crew of #Skatasi

D Pref-Fic Notes
Delphi is dreaming. wakes up and realizes that she's alone Angry sad. Goes out to hall. Syrus sees her. Goes back to his room. Something in his head. Keeping himsef shielded more and more often lately. She decides she wants to set to the bottom of it. Is angry with herself because she thinks she failed Jossa on the base in TT she got distracted,couldnt find away to anchor them. Wasn't paying full attn to what was happening in the room until it was too late. TO distract herself from her self loathing she decides to go after Syrus. He was the one who woke them up and got them stuck in that room in the first place. Decides that she'll dig the answer out of him and use it to punish him. Also, doesn't know it, punishing herself for having made the prophesy that wound them up on the abandoned planet in cryo to start with. Starts stalking Syrus skin contact makes things easier. Syrus keeps it all bottled up inside. She finds out when Karissa's brothers show up. Goes after him then. Like, really goes after him. Wants details. Delfi Short Outline Short story. Remember that. About Delfi’s frustrations, missing Denz and wanting to find out what’s going on in Syrus head. She’s jumpy around men, but he doesn’t scare her. He pretty much ignores her. Until she gets sunburned really badly. Takes place after the burn. Short bit about her waking up, falling out of bed? Skin hurt? Jossa trying to get her off floor. Syrus come in with medical stuff. His mind is a blank. She wonders why. Something about it’s flinching, but he’s not giving much up. She is mostly naked, can’t wear clothes on burned bits. They’re in a semi-settled area. Stocks of meds in cabinets are low, but he’s gone out to people and gotten some stuff. Antibiotic Neosporin stuff. Bandages. Their stock in the infirmary is old and some of it out of date. Really, really out of date. Spent most of the money they could scrounge on getting the ship and then installation of parts. Didn’t have much left for the infirmary beyond bandages and sutures. End of story: Delfi decides to find out what she can about Syrus. Doesn’t trust the blocks on his mind. And it will distract her from jossa trying to make amends for thinking she is to blame for going nuts. If Delf hadn’t been the one to get distracted, she would have been able to anchor Jossa better. Jossa concern is overwhelming her. Keeps reminding her of how she failed. Bit of her trying to draw him out when he comes in. Flash him. Looking for a reaction. Less awareness of what she’s doing and more of a subconscious act. Sad. Angry. Misses Denz. If Denz had been there, he would have had something to say. Even when he was chewing her out for getting burned. He would have tried to cop a feel. And she wouldn’t have minded that he was touching her. He would never hurt her. Denz would have made it all better. If only she’d never messed things up.

Book 3 Start Point
At the start of Book Three, Delfi has done her best to break off close contact with Jossa, beyond the absolute minimum needed to keep Jossa from going batshit with excess emotion. She reopened the connection, at least in part, to give the distraction she needed to get to Syrus at the end of Book 2, but she didn't necessarily forgive Jossa, because she knows Jossa doesn't understand what she did wrong and would try it again in a heartbeat if the opportunity presented itself.

Delfi is too afraid and too protective of the independence she's managed to win for herself to do something as forgive in the Christian sense of the word. The best she feels she can manage at the moment is to set aside the hurt, sort of like she's been doing all along, and do what needs to be done to get them out of the situation alive.

The way she keeps burying emotions and shoving them down that pit in the center of her being is going to be an issue though, because even though she was at her limit before, with accepting Jossa's emotions and Syrus's by proxy, she's not been dealing very well with her own emotions either. Not entirely her fault, because she's been distracted, and having a temper tantrum of her own would only set Jossa off, but there's a lot of pent up anger and hurt and fear still stuck inside her that's going to have to be dealt with at some point.

The problem with all that is that she's been suppressing herself, and shunting the feelings down into what she sees as a bottomless black pit, she's starting to question if she even feels the entire range of human emotion at all. She's been getting lust and anger and all the rest at second-hand, and while she did blow up at Jossa and put her foot down, Delfi worries that her ability to shunt feelings out and away so completely has made her stunted.

Maybe she didn't really love Denz as much as she'd thought she had. Maybe she was only so very angry at Jossa because rage was so much a part of Syrus, which J then picked up on, and D siphoned off. Maybe she was only afraid after the rape because Jossa was so afraid of what might happen to herself if Delfi were to be put out of the picture for good.

Maybe, Delfi wonders, she doesn't just hold that pit at her center, but that's all there is to her. Anything else is just flashes and reflections or trying to mimic what she sees around her.

She's probably going to get an inkling of this wonder only after they wake up on the planet's surface. There will first be a big "wait, what, where's Jossa?", because the last time Jossa wasn't in Delfi's head was when Delfi was six. She doesn't remember how to be herself without another person taking up so much mental space. She'll be worried about her sister, wanting to be sure she's ok. Wondering if this is what's it's like for a Stable bondmate when the Unstable half dies.

And then she'll feel a sort of relief. A freedom. A 'wow, I'm not bearing the weight of a whole other person on my heart'. It'll creep up under the worry and eventually overtake it. But it won't last long. Too many other things will be going on. Maybe she reacts in ways Syrus isn't expecting, given how she's acted before, both under pressure and relaxed. He's never known her without Jossa, and he's never seen her outside of a pressure cooker environment of one sort or another (yes, he and J banging away at every opportunity counts).

But eventually, Delfi will feel Jossa's absence as less a relief. The worry will come back. Maybe they learn something about where Jossa and the other ended up. Maybe she sort of manages to reach out during a dream. Possibly, magic lake water is involved. But she'll start noticing her own reactions are off. She reacts to Syrus differently now that J isn't poking her nose in. Still the reflexive sexual taunts, but she's not doing them because she's angry or wants to rile him (or is trying to make a point about his own excesses).

Maybe she remembers what it was like just after they escaped the Fleet, before Jossa struck the bargain with him. Delfi remembers that he gave her space, helped her in his way, took care of her a bit, and wasn't an entirely horrible brute. In any case, she's going to have to learn how to deal with him without Jossa as a buffer.

She also has to learn how to deal with her emotions, her own emotions, instead of just shoving them down all the time. Maybe there is some trouble because of the lack. Or maybe some trouble because of her odd reactions. But she will probably have to take steps towards dealing with herself as a person entire before she can join back to Jossa again. And then she'll have to learn to keep herself herself.

That will probably involve something later, with Jossa having learned to stand on her own without a crutch (Tarva can't become too much of a crutch for J or the problem there isn't solved either). And then there will be a working out of rights and wrongs and harms done. And then learning to work together again, as a balanced pair.

Along with all the emotional stuff, and the deadening Delfi thinks she feels, there will also be the prophesies drying up. Not that they were particularly frequent before (give a mention of a few while they travel during book 2 so it doesn't seem like the only time they happen is during one of the books, and at key plot points).

The lack of prophesies, of feeling of foretelling, will weigh on Delfi as well. That was her main sai, the reason she and Jossa were so valuable together. She foretold, Jossa translated. The translations were a time when Jossa had to be the one responding. Delfi was taking initiative, even though it wasn't happening in any way she could control it (maybe when they realize it's actually Jossa feeling the future, they can work on making it more predictable).

Without her prophesies, she's not as valuable to anyone, because her range of Hearing is smaller, her depth of knowledge gained from it less-she was leaning on Jossa's Feel to get emotional shades and nuances that she doesn't always pick up on her own. She is crippled, and she knows it.

Delfi and Jossa will have to complete the first half of their arc separately, instead of being able to lean on each other.