The Emissary ♈ Aradia Megido (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
emissaries) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thebastion2014-11-11 12:55 am
emissaries) wrote in thebastion2014-11-11 12:55 am
Entry tags:
Day 248 ♈ Closed
Who: the Emissary, the Disciple, the Helmsman
Open: Closed
When: Day 248
Where: Skyway
What: So three aliens walk into a bar, only instead it's a crashed spaceship on a ruined planet, and there's no booze. Actually, wait, this joke sucks.
Format: starting with log, but will match.
Warnings: well, Psii's gonna be a bit messed up.
[0. Skippable wakeup scene]
In retrospect, she wasn't really sure what she'd expected a Scratch to feel like. Amazingly, the written record is kind of sparse on what it's like to be retroactively wiped out of existence. She'd known it was coming, of course. She had plenty of time to prepare herself. It was time to wipe the slate of the universe clean and start over.
The last thing Aradia had expected was to survive.
The Battlefield hadn't been so lucky. It had been torn to shreds, and now great chunks of the little planet's checkered surface floated in midair all around her, cracked and littered with debris. A few spots were surprisingly intact, though, including the one where she'd woken up. Her breath caught, and she whirled to check on her companions. "Tav-"
Oh. Oh, no. No, no, no.
Tavros and Sollux hadn't moved from where she'd last seen them. They stood together, tall and still, gazing up at the shattered sky with blind, ashen eyes.
The Emissary was no stranger to death. She'd grown up steeped in it, with spirits for her playmates. She'd seen wars, and the aftermath of wars. She'd lost friends. But... "Not like this," she whispered. "Not like this." There was a gap between them, where a moment ago she'd been standing. Their flaking hands still grasped the empty space where hers had been. Her boys had been incinerated where they stood, and she'd escaped without a scratch. Why? Why only me?
... After a long moment, she finished getting to her feet. What now? She had to... to go somewhere, do something, but what? She'd thought she would be dead for this, she hadn't exactly made any plans. But she couldn't stay here. They were dead. And if the dead hadn't lingered, then the living had no excuse.
"Well," she said, forcing herself to smile. "Looks like I missed the train again, huh? Sorry about that. I'll have to catch up with you later. Don't cause too much trouble on the other side, all right?"
She leaned forward, took their hands one last time - and jerked away as their fingers fell apart beneath her own. Followed by their arms, and their torsos. "Oh, shit." Tavros's head fell backwards from his collapsing shoulders, and without thinking she moved to catch it, but when it landed in her hands it disintegrated into a cloud of black dust that made her cough and set her eyes watering.
Eeeeyup, those two were well and truly not coming back.
[I. Hours in the future, but not many (Disciple)]
She wandered the fragments for probably hours - maybe less, it was hard to say. The black-and-white chessboard of the Battlefield gave way to greener pastures, quite literally, but she hadn't passed out of sight of it by the time she spotted the light in the distance. At first she took it for a reflection, but on the second look it was too steady, and not at all as far away as it had seemed.
Without any better options, she made her way toward that for a while, until something else caught her eye. Something bright red, pointy, and large, with a column of smoke rising from it. She squinted at it. Some kind of spaceship? It couldn't be carapacian, theirs only came in gold and purple.
Well, that was a much better lead than a light. Curiosity and something like hope took hold of her, and she bounded down the crumbling pathway toward the ship, unaware that anyone else might be around to see it...
Open: Closed
When: Day 248
Where: Skyway
What: So three aliens walk into a bar, only instead it's a crashed spaceship on a ruined planet, and there's no booze. Actually, wait, this joke sucks.
Format: starting with log, but will match.
Warnings: well, Psii's gonna be a bit messed up.
[0. Skippable wakeup scene]
In retrospect, she wasn't really sure what she'd expected a Scratch to feel like. Amazingly, the written record is kind of sparse on what it's like to be retroactively wiped out of existence. She'd known it was coming, of course. She had plenty of time to prepare herself. It was time to wipe the slate of the universe clean and start over.
The last thing Aradia had expected was to survive.
The Battlefield hadn't been so lucky. It had been torn to shreds, and now great chunks of the little planet's checkered surface floated in midair all around her, cracked and littered with debris. A few spots were surprisingly intact, though, including the one where she'd woken up. Her breath caught, and she whirled to check on her companions. "Tav-"
Oh. Oh, no. No, no, no.
Tavros and Sollux hadn't moved from where she'd last seen them. They stood together, tall and still, gazing up at the shattered sky with blind, ashen eyes.
The Emissary was no stranger to death. She'd grown up steeped in it, with spirits for her playmates. She'd seen wars, and the aftermath of wars. She'd lost friends. But... "Not like this," she whispered. "Not like this." There was a gap between them, where a moment ago she'd been standing. Their flaking hands still grasped the empty space where hers had been. Her boys had been incinerated where they stood, and she'd escaped without a scratch. Why? Why only me?
... After a long moment, she finished getting to her feet. What now? She had to... to go somewhere, do something, but what? She'd thought she would be dead for this, she hadn't exactly made any plans. But she couldn't stay here. They were dead. And if the dead hadn't lingered, then the living had no excuse.
"Well," she said, forcing herself to smile. "Looks like I missed the train again, huh? Sorry about that. I'll have to catch up with you later. Don't cause too much trouble on the other side, all right?"
She leaned forward, took their hands one last time - and jerked away as their fingers fell apart beneath her own. Followed by their arms, and their torsos. "Oh, shit." Tavros's head fell backwards from his collapsing shoulders, and without thinking she moved to catch it, but when it landed in her hands it disintegrated into a cloud of black dust that made her cough and set her eyes watering.
Eeeeyup, those two were well and truly not coming back.
[I. Hours in the future, but not many (Disciple)]
She wandered the fragments for probably hours - maybe less, it was hard to say. The black-and-white chessboard of the Battlefield gave way to greener pastures, quite literally, but she hadn't passed out of sight of it by the time she spotted the light in the distance. At first she took it for a reflection, but on the second look it was too steady, and not at all as far away as it had seemed.
Without any better options, she made her way toward that for a while, until something else caught her eye. Something bright red, pointy, and large, with a column of smoke rising from it. She squinted at it. Some kind of spaceship? It couldn't be carapacian, theirs only came in gold and purple.
Well, that was a much better lead than a light. Curiosity and something like hope took hold of her, and she bounded down the crumbling pathway toward the ship, unaware that anyone else might be around to see it...
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It wasn't easy to keep her voice from wavering, but she had to. She clearly had the simplest job here, out of the three of them. As hard as it was on the Helmsman physically, the Disciple had to be taking it almost as hard emotionally. The least she could do was encourage them.
The progress bar was full for the next one, but she hesitated. Maybe just a few more seconds, to give them a chance to catch their breath... But the actual timing was up to Di, she reminded herself. She was just the messenger.
"Node three, ready," she said.
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It's a bit more of a struggle to reach the next one, buried deep within the wires, and she pulls back enough to assess the situation. Her eyes flit to the screen, read, shift back. Her lips pull back in a smile lacking all joy.
"Shut up Psii." She whispers, hating herself for it. Her hand lands on the knob finally, pulling it out in a quicker harder jerk. They're easier now that she knows what she's doing. If doing something three times can fit that bill.
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There's a bright side, although Aradia wouldn't understand the technological babble on the screen that tells her this. The only thing that's really left to unattach from the Helmsman would be the deceivingly delicate looking tendrils which wind out from his goggles up into the mass above him. The lower connectors have been detaching much more subtly with the other connections.
Of course, normally, there'd be a lowerblooded helper or drone to keep him held upright for this whole procedure- the initial arm tendrils are halfway off his arm, now, and he'll be going limp on that side soon enough.
But, well... They'll get to that when it happens, however unhelpful the Helmsman is.
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"Great job. We're more than halfway done," she said. "Disciple, you'll need to be ready if he falls. Keep an eye out."
She glanced back at the controls. She wasn't a medical doctor, either, but his vital signs made more sense to her than the rest of the technobabble. No alarms were going off yet, at least where the Helmsman was concerned, but she didn't like the way the readings were fluctuating.
After a moment, she asked, "How are you doing? Do you need a minute?" It was directed at both of them, though.
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"Oh--right." Her gaze skirts his face, up to the arms held above his head. They're coming into view again, queasily, slowly. They'll fall and he might fall with them. She shakes her head at the instinctive thought, can she hold him up and pull? Of course she can. She could have done it with him before, let alone with him skinny and frail.
"I'm--I'm okay if Psii is okay."
She doesn't say that the sooner the better. The quicker they're done, the quicker she can get out of this suffocating room.
More suicidal thoughts, more Captors being unhelpful
Casual (if bleak) words in contrast to the harsh sob that wracks the Helmsman's body as the wires release up to his elbow, yellow blood sluggishly dripping down into the salt water, onto the bottom connections, onto Disciple. As he shudders in his station, the Helmsman sends more words onto the screen.
1 c4n k33p g01ng. Th12 dr34m 12 0n 4 t1m3 crunch, 12n't 1t? L3t'2 233 h02 f4r 1 c4n g3t b3f0r3 1 g3t dr4gg3d k1ck1ng 4nd 2cr34m1ng b4ck 1nt0 r34l1ty.
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He wasn't wrong about the time crunch, though. "All right," she said, continuing the sequence. "One second, and... node four, ready."
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"You can tell me all about them when we're back in safety and I'll tell you about mine and we'll be even. For all you know, you're both my dream. I still haven't rule it out on the long list of reasons why I'm here."
She pulls hard, dropping down to place her arms loosely around him. He's going to drop soon, better her arms be there.
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And as the knob is yanked into place, the text stops although the instructions for Aradia remain on autopilot. The Helmsman takes in a sudden deep breath, shifting a little like he's just woken up.
Oh. Okay. This really is one hell of a hallucination. It's not often he dreams of being disconnected from the ship like this. It's just plain not efficient. Makes it run on the lowest possible power settings before auxiliary can take up all the slack, and clumsily at that if anyone ever asked his opinion. (They never have.) But now it really does feel like he's being taken down for maintenance and...
Hell, maybe he is, and his thinkpan is just constructing an elaborate rescue fantasy. Maybe there really is some blueblood engineer patiently disconnecting him who he'd rather see as maroon, and maybe the arms wrapped around him aren't one of his long and faded beloved's but...
Thinking of the alternative makes him shake even harder in Disciple's grasp before the biowiring finally releases one arm and it flops uselessly down around her shoulders. He used to actually have some muscle to him, once upon a time, but you'd never guess it looking at the thin and shaking limb laying against the oliveblood now.
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"Last one," she said after a minute. "Ready."
no subject
It's a balancing act now. An arm looped around his waist and the other hand above her head. It's a blind search, given she's unwilling to let him go, to let him fall, and it's a solid minute before her hand falls on the knob.
"There!" She yanks, sharply and it slides into place.
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Despite this knowledge, the scream that tears out of his throat is even worse than the first one he made- shrill and strangled, broken only be desperate sobs and incoherent wails for words he can't manage anymore. There's blood on the back of his tongue, a sensation that's familiar to him now, and his free hand gives a manic spasm against Disciple's body. The biowiring connected to his goggles, to his face, is twitching and writhing and the movement is mimicked in smaller ways beneath his skin. He keeps screaming, stopping only when saliva, blood, and his own tears become too much.
The long thin wires connected to the goggles snap wetly, lashing back up into the ceiling right around the same time the biowires with his other arm finally release it. He collapses, not even any attempt to try to keep himself up from drowning in the water, boneless despite being made of nearly nothing but bones. He can't stop crying.
Congratulations, Team Nine Lives. You now have one (1) crying Helmsman on your hands. What now?
Because without its Helmsman, the ship goes dark.
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Actually, she could think of one person who deserved this fate... the one who had done this to him. The one who'd thought this was an acceptable way to treat a fellow troll. If that person was still alive, they'd better pray they never cross paths with the Emissary.
Because she would make them pay.
Letting her eyes adjust to the dark was mostly futile. Even troll nightvision needed some light, and here there was only enough to make out the vaguest of shapes. The water sloshed as she made her way back to the center of the room, or at least where the sobbing was coming from. A bit of fumbling found his arm, and she moved her hand to his shoulder, resting her hand there as gently as she could.
"That's it, dear," she said. "You're free."
no subject
"We should get out. If you have a illumination stick or something, now would be a good time." Pitch black and all. As it is, she's struggling to get a good hold on Psii, to lift him up and away without hurting him more. This is probably a futile thought.
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He seems content, so far, to be dead weight in Disciple's arms.
1/2 whoops
With the reels almost invisible in the dark, she had to spin her sylladex twice to find it (the first time, she accidentally swapped out her primary hat for one of the backups), but on the second try she got what she was looking for. When you went spelunking as often and impulsively as Aradia did, it never hurt to keep a hornlamp close at hand. Its beam was broad and clear, and it clipped conveniently onto her horn for hands-free lighting.
So let's see, next... Psii looked absolutely wretched up close, possibly even worse than he had before they'd disconnected him (though maybe that was just the light). At any rate, he clearly couldn't walk, and dragging him through salt water with a bunch of open wounds was a terrible idea.
"Here. I'll carry him," she said, raising one hand. His weight was basically negligible where her telekinesis was concerned, so she was sure she could carry him more or less indefinitely...
2/2
For a moment she just stood there awkwardly. She looked at her hand, turned it over a couple times, as if it really had anything to do with her powers, and then tried again. Still nothing.
"That's... weird," she said at last. "There's some kind of... psi-dampening field, or something." It wasn't impossible, anyway. Maybe it'd be better once they got outside the ship. In the meantime, they'd just have to do this the old-fashioned way.
Aradia sighed and moved in to take more of Psii's weight. "Alright, let's see if we can't get him onto my back for now. The less of him goes in the water, the better."
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"I can--Let's--fine. We should take turns on the way back ways." She knew how long the way back was and any oddly possessive feeling she might have right now weren't helping either of them. She gently shifted him upwards, trying to angle him onto Aradia's back. It felt odd to treat him like nothing at all and she starts speaking to him.
"Psii, just hang in there. And--don't worry about the sun outside. It's bright but it doesn't burn. It won't hurt us. Though who knows what time of day or night it is. The night doesn't come out here."
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As he's moved, the sobbing lets up just enough for him to... make some sort of garbled noise that's not really talking. He's forgotten how to use his mouth, there's never been any need to since no one gave a fuck what he said anyway. It was a waste of time. Figures, why can't this be one of the more relaxed hallucinations? Staying so realistic takes the fun out of what's surely a temporary break from his punishment.
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His garbled speech was disconcerting to say the least. She really hoped they'd done everything right, that they hadn't given him lasting brain damage or something. But there wasn't a thing they could do about it right now.
The air still tasted salty as they left the helmsblock, but it was cooler and fresher, far less oppressive than inside. As they made their way down the darkened hall, Aradia spoke up again. "Disciple - this town you mentioned. Do they have a doctor there?" Even if it wasn't one who knew anything about troll biology, it might still be better than nothing.
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Her eyes are trained on Psiionic and she almost hits her head on a fallen beam. She ducks quickly and thinks about the response.
"I haven't made many friends. I don't actually know." Which feels terrible. A time ago, she would have known the best places to eat, hospitals, places to buy supplies. It feels off to have lived in a place and know so little about it.
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Aradia smiled gently. "That's all right, don't worry about it." She didn't know how long Meulin had been living there, but she was well acquainted with culture shock herself, and didn't blame her. "We'll find out when we get there."
The parts where they had to duck - fallen beams, collapsed portions of the hallway - made for slow going, between her huge horns and having a tall guy on her back. Once she stood up too early and bonked her horn hard enough to hurt, but she only hissed and kept moving. You'd have to be some kind of asshole to complain about stubbing your horn while carrying somebody who was half-dead.
(Heh - half. She wondered if Psiioniic was as into twos as his ancestor had been. Sollux might have gotten a kick out of that pun.)
Before long, they made their way back to the junction with the monitor and camera. Aradia shone her light down the other hallway, the metallic one they hadn't followed earlier. "Yeah, this is the one," she said. "We were thinking it might lead to the outside." Her passenger started to slip a bit, and she shifted him slightly to adjust her grip. "I'm sure Psiioniic knows the layout, but I doubt if he's in any state to tell us."
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"I certainly hope it does. I guess we could make it be a way out if need be but that might be drastic." She looks at Psii and tries a smile.
"Yeah, rest your voice Psii. I'm sure the screams didn't help."
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But he can confirm something. There's a low hum, sort of affirmation. That other path can get them out well enough. There's no sort supply of other paths out of the ship, considering its condition, but that's definitely one of the better ones.
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