[It takes him a moment to remember the curse that she's referring to. It takes less time to determine that the relatively recent incident with Korra isn't what's troubling her (and something is troubling her, however little she allows herself to express it).]
That was only a curse. Something like this happened to you before...?
[She sits back, staring upwards, as if she can see her ship up there. She can quote this, directly,]
"I got an email from Korenchkin this morning saying he was coming up for an inspection. And when he arrived it was... something... revolting... it was Anatoly... but it wasn't... at the same time it seemed beautiful... and I felt like part of it... He sang to us... all of us... and we felt like one of Many..."
[She had never gotten to kill Anatoly for what he had done, only here in this ridiculous fantasyland where there is no up.]
You thought that this incident was repeating itself.
[That doesn't make shooting people okay, particularly when the one being shot is a close friend. But this is Delacroix--Delacroix, who is brilliant, psychologically damaged, paranoid to an extreme, and too prone to drinking. Can she be held accountable for her actions? Chekov isn't sure.]
Is there ever a time when you are not reliving a nightmare?
[Chekov doubts that Delacroix can be talked into seeing a professional (and, honestly, he agrees that she might be too far gone for modern psychiatric treatment). She needs to do something.]
Has this gone beyond any kind of help? There are friends who would help, maybe, if they knew how.
[It was difficult to judge, she had become this way... out of necessity. The necessity was now gone, and she could not return to herself, but did not entirely feel like an alien. It was like a lost limb, the phantom was still there, reassuringly, but it could not be leaned on.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
action;
That was only a curse. Something like this happened to you before...?
action;
"I got an email from Korenchkin this morning saying he was coming up for an inspection. And when he arrived it was... something... revolting... it was Anatoly... but it wasn't... at the same time it seemed beautiful... and I felt like part of it... He sang to us... all of us... and we felt like one of Many..."
[She had never gotten to kill Anatoly for what he had done, only here in this ridiculous fantasyland where there is no up.]
action;
[That doesn't make shooting people okay, particularly when the one being shot is a close friend. But this is Delacroix--Delacroix, who is brilliant, psychologically damaged, paranoid to an extreme, and too prone to drinking. Can she be held accountable for her actions? Chekov isn't sure.]
Is there ever a time when you are not reliving a nightmare?
action;
No.
action;
action;
Zhis 'as gone beyond a physician.
[So not completely oblivious to herself, but perhaps too tired and wounded and determined to find a course of action for this.]
action;
Has this gone beyond any kind of help? There are friends who would help, maybe, if they knew how.
action;
[It was difficult to judge, she had become this way... out of necessity. The necessity was now gone, and she could not return to herself, but did not entirely feel like an alien. It was like a lost limb, the phantom was still there, reassuringly, but it could not be leaned on.]
Zhe mind is not my area of expertise.
[It is a subtle, if bitter, moment of humor.]
action;
[Humorless. He shifts uncomfortably.]
Thank you for attending the party, even though it didn't go well.
action;
action;