#disconcerting levels of array | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

tenspontaneite · 6 years ago

Text

Boundless (Chapter 2/?)

Chapter warnings: Body horror. Dysphoria? Some level of dysphoria and dissociation.

Spoilers for s3e2.

(Chapter length: ~9k. Ao3 link)

---

He woke up to the sound of Rayla cursing quietly over his head, and stirred. “Rayla?” He mumbled, incoherent and slurred from the edge of sleep. “Whas’wrong?”

She was silent for long enough that he opened his eyes, blinking blearily to resolve the shape of her, to see what she was doing. “…Sorry for waking you.” She said, softly, as if still trying to preserve his slumber. “You can sleep a little longer, if you want.”

He was a little more concerned about the barely-leashed fear behind her eyes. He fought towards alertness, and pushed himself up, and-

The new-limbs slid across his back.

Heavy. Heavier. Larger than he remembered – enough that he shot up the rest of the way in alarm, hands coming around to feel one, and-

“Holy-“ He yelped, cutting himself off more from shock than anything else. “Rayla, is that – did it really-“

“They’ve grown.” She confirmed, tightly, and shuffled over beside him, seated on her knees. “A lot.”

Still a little numb with shock, he took it by the base of a clawed finger and pulled it out from his side. It had felt so disgustingly heavy and meaty and foreign last night, when it was comparatively tiny, but now?

Now, the thing was – it had to be nearly as long as his arm, if perhaps somewhat slimmer. And the other one undoubtedly matched it. He wasn’t entirely clear on how big they’d been when they came out, but – if they hadn’t doubled in size, they couldn’t be far off it. “It’s only been a few hours.” He muttered, reeling, and stared at the skin of it in the merciless light of day. Maybe Rayla had been able to see this, what with her better night vision, but – it really was kind of disgusting. The skin was a dark fleshy pink, and disturbingly translucent. He could see the lines of blue veins running along the limb. He could see muscles, and – and tendons, and… “What are those?” he wondered, a little confused, and poked at what looked like a strange black dot underneath the skin, one of many arrayed against the outer edge of the limb. They extended all the way along the longest finger on the hand-joint, too, but not either of the other fingers.

“…Your guess is as good as mine.” Rayla said, voice strained, and reached out with a wavering hand. “Can I…?”

He blinked, almost surprised that she’d asked. “Of course.” Slipped from his lips, a reflexive response, and a little embarrassing for it. Still, she reached out to touch at one of the many black dots, and frowned a little.

“There’s something under there.” She concluded, after a little prodding. “I thought I saw these last night – but they’re more obvious now. They’re poking at the – your skin, a little.”

His stomach twisted. “So not only are things bursting out of my back, but they’re bursting out of the things that burst out of my back.” He said, a little sourly. “Great.”

She shrugged. “At least you can’t feel it?” She offered. And then-

Then, as if solely to spite her-

The limb twitched.

She jumped back from it as if it were a snake, rather than a limb of dubious and unpleasant provenance. He did more-or-less the same thing, but as it was attached to his body, this was not especially helpful. The end result of this was that he ended up half-fallen over on his side, staring at the ugly fleshy limb hanging over his side with wide and wary eyes.

“Did that just-“ He started, at the same time as she said “It moved!”, and they stared at each other for a moment of mutual astonishment.

“…Can you feel anything?” She ventured, after several seconds had passed, and the limb was still laying there placidly.

“…Not that I’ve noticed?” he answered after a moment, and pushed himself back up. After all, he’d just been pretty much squashing one of the limbs, and hadn’t felt anything, so he didn’t exactly expect that to have changed. Still, though….Cautiously, he reached out and poked it, and…still felt nothing.

Rayla eyed it pensively, and then, without warning, reached out and pinched its skin sharply between her nails.

It twitched violently away – spasmodic and uncoordinated, but….moving. Moving and responsive. As if it were capable of responding to pain that he couldn’t actually feel. He eyed her, not certain whether he should be peeved at the pinch or not. After all, he hadn’t actually felt it, but…

“…You really didn’t feel that?”

“Not at all.” He said after a second, admittedly bewildered, and poked and prodded at the limb some more. It didn’t provoke any new response, though, until a few seconds later it just sort of twitched mildly on its own. One of the clawed fingers at the end flexed in a spasming, jerking movement, and then went limp again. “…That’s kind of disturbing.” He observed, as clinically as he could when it concerned something growing out of his own body.

A second later, their observations were interrupted as Zym, apparently oblivious to all of his, rolled over in his sleep and onto his right wing. Both of them quieted, reminded that one of their party was still trying to sleep, and then communicated in a series of wordless glances and pointing gestures the need to remove themselves to a little further from the sleeping dragon.

They ushered themselves further over by the water, leaving Zym nestled amongst their bags. The back-limbs swung on his back as he walked, and as he came to a stop, twitched all-over in a spasmodic motion that fluttered against the skin of his back.

Rayla looked at his back at the same time he craned his neck to look over his shoulder. “…Do you think they’re going to start moving on their own? Like, properly?” She wondered, as if speaking an idle thought aloud, and he shivered.

“I really hope not.” He expressed fervently. “That would be beyond creepy.”

“…You’ll probably be able to move them eventually.” Rayla offered, in a sentiment that would have been more reassuring if she didn’t sound so uncertain about it. “They’re still pretty…red and raw-looking. They’re probably still…developing.”

He eyed the limb at hand with dislike. “I mean, they do still look…baby-skin-ish.” He agreed, deeply sceptical of his (alleged) own flesh. “But I’m pretty sure babies’ arms work. Maybe these will just…hang around uselessly forever, making it stupidly hard to wear shirts.” He contemplated his own ongoing shirtlessness, wondering how he was meant to actually wear clothes, now. Surely the addition of two giant stupid back-arms would make shirt-wearing a challenge?

“Twitching?” She suggested, looking as if she were trying very hard not to find morbid humour in the situation.

“Twitching through shirts,” he agreed, with deliberate levity, and saw her suppress a smile. “Everyone will think I’m hiding a couple of lizards in my jacket, or something.” He recalled some of Ezran’s more audacious attempts to bring animals into the castle, and the corners of his lips turned upwards.

She huffed, amused, and shook her head. “Well, I’m sure we’ll find out soon, if nothing else.” She said, which cast something of a pall on what little lightness he’d managed to muster. She was right, of course. The things had doubled in size in a few hours, so if they were likely to develop further…it’d happen soon. Sooner, probably, if he used any spells.

He frowned, suddenly, something about that thought prodding at him. “…Rayla,” he said, slowly, and her eyes went a little more alert, chin rising to look at him questioningly. “How long do you think it’s been? Since I, uh, cast a spell the last time?”

She blinked, tilted her head as if focusing on something, and ventured “Around five hours?”

Unease settled like a leaden weight into his gut. “….It was maybe a couple hours between the first two times I had to cast a spell.” He said, mostly to himself. “And then…longer, maybe? Three hours? And now…”

Understanding dawned in her eyes. “You didn’t wake up.” She realised, following his track of thought. “That weird…sky-magic-breath-thing – it’s not happening again?”

Callum took stock of himself; of the breath in his lungs, the Sky filtering leisurely into his blood, the arcanum within that welcomed magic in every time he inhaled…

There was magic in him. There was magic everywhere in him. But it wasn’t too much. It wasn’t building, wasn’t pooling, wasn’t stretching his lungs out until they felt fit to burst…

Slowly, like a foregone conclusion, he became aware of where exactly it was draining. To his fledgling magic-sense, the Sky was in him, and flowing through him, and…draining, very efficiently, into the new limbs in his back. It was disconcerting to be able to feel the flow of magic inside their blood-supply, when he couldn’t feel them at all by the more native sense of touch.

“The magic’s going into them.” He said aloud, nonplussed by this perfectly logical turn of events. It made sense, what with how everything had happened, but still… “It’s like…before, it had nowhere to go – or it did, some of it was going into…these things, but – it wasn’t flowing right? There wasn’t enough…room? I don’t know.” He puffed out a breath, frustrated by the difficulty of putting it into words.

Rayla frowned at him. She was far from the most magically-learned person in the world, but she at least tried to understand his arcanum-and-magic stuff, and he appreciated that. “…It drained it all out when you cast those spells, though.” She pointed out.

“Maybe that’s because some of it went out through the spell, so there wasn’t….a blockage?” He suggested, a little helplessly, then shook his head. “No, that’s probably not right.” He sighed.

Gingerly, she patted him on the shoulder. “They’re your weird-arm-things, Callum.” She said supportively. “And your Sky arcanum. I’ll do my best, but…” She shrugged. “Not exactly my area of expertise.”

He smiled half-heartedly at her. “Yeah, I know. Thanks.” A horrible thought struck him, and he stilled. “I wonder if my spells are even going to work, now.” His own words set his gut to squirming with awful, sickening dread.

She blinked, clearly not following. “…What?”

“The last two times I cast a spell – it didn’t really come out right.” He recalled, thinking of a wind-breath that barely gusted, a lightning-bolt that barely sparked, a spark that barely fizzled…

“I thought that was because you were out of breath and panicking.” She said, and then frowned with him. “But – no, that last time yesterday, you were fine. Well, fine, except for the…” She waved at his back. “You-know.”

‘You-know’, indeed. He supposed there weren’t a lot of diplomatic ways to say ‘the limbs that grew under your skin until they started tearing their way out of you’. “It was like all the magic went into these, instead of into the spell.” He remembered, uneasily, casting a look to the one in view. He lingered, uncertainly, knowing what he should do but not quite managing to find the nerve for it. “Like…there wasn’t any magic left over to do anything. So it…didn’t come out right.”

“Are you going to try it?” She asked directly, cutting straight to the heart of his newest anxiety.

He twitched. “…I should.” He said, as if to himself, with deep reluctance. Rayla looked at him expectantly, and he twitched again. “It’s not that easy, though.” He defended. “What if-“ The words caught in his throat, for a second, and then came out sounding uncomfortably afraid. “What if…it doesn’t work?”

The fear hung in the air along with the words he’d uttered, unexpectedly galling.

What if it didn’t work? What if, after everything he’d been through, and everything he’d gained – he couldn’t even cast spells anymore? What if the things on his back just…sucked it up, and always would, and he’d just be a weird magical human with weird magical limbs who could still never have the magic he actually wanted?

Rayla looked at him, sympathetic and firm at once. “Try it.” She said, offering her hand. “There’s only one way to find out.”

He took a deep breath, reached out to clutch at her fingers, and exhaled. “…Okay.”

With her other hand, she reached out and patted him on the bare arm, and abruptly he almost forgot to be afraid because he was too busy being self-conscious about the amount of skin he was showing. He felt his cheeks heat, and he looked away, reminding himself that he’d been shirtless all morning and all night and he should be used to it by now, and really it wasn’t like he could help it…

“Okay.” He said, more firmly, at least half to put a stop to his rambling thoughts. His gut clenched tight with dread that he tried not to focus on too much as he – not thinking about it, not thinking about what it’d mean if he failed – extended his hand to draw a rune into the air.

Aspiro, this time. His first spell. His easiest. The one he knew in his breath and blood, now, knew in the spark of a Primal nestled beside his heart. To his new understanding of the Sky, it was a perfect spell, a reflection of what the magic was in its purest form. He breathed into the Sky, and the Sky breathed into him. He understood this spell, now, in the same instinctive way that he understood the beat of his heart.

It should be easy. A spell that spoke to the breath of the Sky….it should be the most natural thing in the world.

He touched his finger to the air, inhaled magic, and-

The rune-light came as easily as it ought. The word, when he spoke it, came easy, too. The magic coming in from the Sky, coming in through his arcanum – it flowed like the unhindered wind. Easy, open, effortless, full of the pure exhilaration of the open air. But that was where the ease ended.

It started as it ought. The magic followed the spell into his breath, pooling in his lungs and following it up the centre of his chest as he began to exhale, chasing the air-

And then it stuttered, falling from the breath like a stone from a cliffside – and where it fell it was snatched away. It only took an instant. Just that. Nothing more than a second…and the things on his back, quick and remorseless and greedy, stole the magic away. All of that power, all of that boundless, exhilarating energy…just gone.

He blew out the breath anyway, even knowing that the spell was broken, even knowing it wouldn’t work. The air tumbled from his lips, and was nothing more than itself. Just breath, rather than Breath. Just air, rather than the issue of the Sky. Just empty, barren, powerless air.

The sheer, gutting failure of it hit him like a physical blow; he crumpled forwards, and hardly noticed the weight increasing on his back.

He only realised he was crying when Rayla took him by the shoulder and turned him around. He only had a second to blink at her through tears, only a second to realise that there were tears, and then she pulled him into a hug. He shook a little as her arms closed around his back – surely having to negotiate around the presence of those awful, magic-stealing things now – and buried his face gladly in her shoulder.

“It didn’t work, Rayla.” He mumbled, distraught, into the fabric of his own scarf around her neck. “It didn’t work.”

Her arms tightened. “…I know. I’m sorry, Callum.”

“It’s gone.” The words tumbled out of him, all misery, all hopelessness. “My magic – I only had it back for – for maybe a day. And it’s gone.”

A beat, and then she drew him back from her, as easily as if picking up a ragdoll. He blinked at her, eyes bleary and cheeks tear-stained. “Hold on a minute, let’s not go that far.” She said, voice firm, but carefully gentle. “Your…Sky arcanum. You still have that, right?”

For a second the question sounded absurd. Of course he had the Sky arcanum. She might as well ask him if he had blood or skin or hair – and then he managed to think past the utter depth of his arcanum to remember that he’d not always had it. That it wasn’t even really a day old yet. “Well…yeah.” He admitted, uncertainly.

“There you go, then.” Rayla nodded, with a small encouraging smile. “You’re still a magical creature, if you’ve got that, right?”

His eyes flickered down to his still-bare chest, as if he could see the Sky rooted there, as if it ought to be apparent as soon as anyone looked at him. It felt like it should be. It felt so much a part of him that he could hardly imagine that people would be able to see him without instinctively knowing that he belonged to the Sky.

“….I guess.” He admitted, more reluctantly. “But – Rayla – my spells. You saw – I didn’t manage to make anything come out. Not even a little breeze. These – things,” he bit out the word with something close to vitriol, waving over his shoulder in an almost vicious motion, “They just….take all of it. There’s nothing left for me to use.” Hopelessness encroached again, with the certainty of loss. “I’ve lost it.” Without spells – he might be magical, but…he wasn’t a mage.

Rayla looked at him, worried, brow lightly furrowed. “Well, you’ve only tried one of your spells so far.” She pointed out. “Do you think it’ll make a difference which one you use?”

Hope sparked for a second, but he quelled it, not wanting it to gain too much ground. Still, though… “I don’t see why it would.” He said unhappily.

She sighed at him. “Don’t be so pessimistic. Just try it.”

He wavered, for a while, staring back at her in consternation. He didn’t want to try it, he realised. He didn’t want to try it…because what if fulminis failed, too? As long as he didn’t try, as long as he didn’t know for sure…he could pretend that he still had the magic he’d fought so hard for. The magic that felt right. But, the second he drew that rune, and nothing came out…he’d lose that.

It was like the not-quite-secret of Harrow’s death, in a way. Something he knew, but…wasn’t at all ready to face.

Except he had to, didn’t he? He had to know whether he could cast spells or not. He had to. He had to try it, even if now…even if he was pretty sure that the unwanted limbs on his back would steal all the magic out of it.

He exhaled, feeling the magic travelling on the breath. Magic was in him, still. Coming in on the breath, filtering through his lungs into his blood, travelling along the slow path on his bloodstream to the magic-stealing limbs…and that was the passive way they drew in magic, wasn’t it? They’d sort of been doing that yesterday, he thought – taking some of the magical overload that had been building in him. But yesterday, there hadn’t been any way for the rest of the magic to drain. It had just…built up, an overpressure threatening to burst him. Until he cast the spells, and…it was redirected, somehow.

Now, the redirection wasn’t necessary. The magic had made its own pathways, beyond the slow natural journey of magic to breath to blood. And so…any magic that came into him, drained almost instantly away. Gone so quickly that there was nothing left for his spells.

It’s not going to work, he thought to himself, with something like grief. A day, he’d had his victory. Just a day, or not all that much longer. For a day, he’d been a mage again.

Still, he raised his finger to the air. Because he had to know.

“Fulminis,” he said, softly, like waiting for an axe to fall, and watched the rune-light sparking where his finger trailed. His arcanum sparked with it, opening wide as if to welcome in the Sky-

Magic crashed into his body, stronger than he’d ever felt it, and – and there was so much, a flood of it, the Sky poured in and in and in and – and as he’d expected, the new pathways channelled it straight into his back, straight into the wide channels of magic that each limb represented-

-But.

But…not all of it.

His eyes widened, the delay between speaking the spell and its inevitable failure widening, widening, widening – the magic finished crashing in from the Sky, and for a second, for just a second, there was enough of it that – enough of it to-

He pulled at the feeling of it with fresh desperation, the magic hot and electric alongside his blood, and what little had been spared followed the path he offered in a single searing instant. A lightning-bolt, thin and frail but so wonderfully bright, split out into the air.

“….Stronger spells.” He breathed, into the aftermath, into the lengthening moments of stunned quiet that sat between him and Rayla and the Sky. “That’s…that’s what I needed. Stronger spells. So there’s still magic left over from what these stupid back-things take.”

Quietly, Rayla reached out and took his hand, squeezing it. When he looked at her, she was wearing a smile, small but genuine. “See, sad prince?” She said, nudging him with her shoulder. “It’ll be fine after all.”

Callum exhaled, the relief shaking him to the bone. “…Yeah.” He said, quietly. “Maybe it will.”

The new limbs might be bottomless magic-hungry pits, sure, but…even they seemed to have limits. Maybe, if he used stronger spells, or figured out a way to draw in more magic at once, or to somehow control where the magic actually went…he’d be able to cast normally again. Even with these things on his back.

I’m still a mage, he thought, with a relief so heady that it was exhausting.

Then: “Hate to rain on your moment of triumph,” Rayla started, apologetically. “But you might want to take a look at your back-things.”

He paused, abruptly aware of the increased sensation of weight on his back, pulling around his shoulder-blades. Abruptly aware of, suddenly, the way that something prickled.

“…Oh.” He said, faintly.

---

In short order, they were examining his weird new limbs again.

“Arm out.” Rayla ordered him, and he complied wide-eyed as she pulled the left limb out by its longer finger to compare it to his outstretched arm. A very short while ago, it had been pretty much the same length, the tip of the longest clawed finger just about reaching the knuckles of his hand.

Now, it was almost a hand’s length longer, and already…it looked different.

The skin was a little thicker, a little less translucent. The veins beneath it weren’t so glaringly blue, and when Rayla pressed her fingers near the base of the whole thing, she claimed to find a strong and steady pulse there, as she would on the underside of his arm.

And, of course…the dark spot-things they’d both noticed had grown.

“They’re pressing through the skin now.” Rayla said, needlessly, as she’d pulled the limb around to demonstrate it to him. He could see quite well the way that the tiny dark spots had started growing outwards, like tiny rubbery spikes, almost translucent where they breached the skin. He pressed on one, gingerly, and found it smooth and cartilaginous. Behind them, a row more of dark spots had sprouted along the full length of both limbs, presumably to follow the progress of the first.

Rayla investigated the tiny row of spikes herself, following them along the edge of his back-arm to the elbow and then along to where the skin met his shoulder.

“There’s twenty-seven of these ones.” She reported, eyes narrowed on the foremost layer. “On both of them. Nine on the longest finger, nine on the wrist to elbow, and nine from the elbow to shoulder. Not sure about the rest.”

Callum tried to focus more on her words than the strangeness of watching her fingers on the rows of fine spikes. It was hard to pinpoint. Hard to identify. But…he could swear that he could almost feel the pressure of the spikes being pressed against the skin. He tapped the limb to check, and still didn’t feel that, but… “They’re so weird.” He said, helplessly, after a moment. “Are they – I mean….” He bit back any further words, mind whirling.

Too soon to tell, she’d said. But that was before. Was that still true?

“…What do you think they are?” He asked, eventually, when she failed to answer his poor attempts at articulating his thoughts. “The…limbs, I mean.”

Rayla didn’t answer that for a few seconds either, casting an indecipherable look over the limbs attached to his back. Still, though, she plainly heard the unspoken words, and knew what he was really asking. She poked at the tiny emerging nubby spikes, too, and he shivered. “…It’s not like I’m an expert in how wings work, you know.” She said, eventually, voice pensive, and the word wings set something in his gut to churning. “And I’ve not exactly seen a lot of winged toddlers around.” She hesitated. “I’ve seen baby birds, though. Their feathers, when they’re still growing…they look kind of like really long spikes, growing out of the skin, all in rows.” She trailed a finger along the line of emergent prickly nubs, pensive. “In rows like these, I guess, though you’ve only got two rows starting so far.”

He swallowed. “so…you think they are wings.”

She shrugged helplessly. “Either that, or you’re growing a set of weird spiky arms.”

Callum ran a careful finger over the tiny nubby spikes on the mysterious new limb, and felt words desert him.

Rayla noticed, and looked at him side-long from the corners of her eyes. “…You alright?” She asked, nudging him, and he exhaled.

“…I don’t know?” he expressed, conflicted, his maybe-wing still in his hand. She didn’t speak, just watched him, until he managed to find enough words to describe the mess of how he was feeling. “I just…don’t know. Like…it’s all happening so fast. A day ago – or maybe a little longer – I didn’t even have an arcanum, and now…” he pressed his thumb firmly into the flesh of the not-hand, and….and, he thought he felt something of it. Not a sense of touch as he was accustomed to, but a sense of pressure. “…Now, I might be growing wings.”

“Could still be spiky arms.” Rayla offered, in a plain attempt to be light-hearted. He couldn’t quite manage to smile at it, and she softened. “Well, at least wings are useful.” She said after a moment, as if trying to be reassuring. “If they’re anything like an elf’s, you should even be able to fly on them, once they’re done growing.”

He tried to think of the idea of flight. It couldn’t quite break through the numb shroud of shock of confusion that still hung over him, heavy and oppressive and bleak. “…I can’t even think about that right now.” He muttered, in the end. “I just – this is already…so much.” He raised a hand to his face as if to hide behind it, suddenly overcome in a way he couldn’t quite explain. It was just – so much. He’d not even adjusted to having magic, and then these things had started growing out of his back and they might be wings and he could hardly cast spells anymore and – and there was so much. What was he meant to think about any of it?

She regarded him for a few long moments, then took his hand. “It’ll work out.” She said, with a gentle smile. “Until then…” She squeezed his fingers, and nodded back to where Zym was still dozing in the morning light. “We’ve got a journey to make.”

The words were a breath of fresh air, in a way, and he laughed with dazed amusement. Because of course. He could gain an arcanum and have a pair of wings erupt bloodily from his body, but life went on. The war didn’t particularly care about his turmoil, and Zym still needed to get back to his mother. That, at least, hadn’t changed.

Rayla smiled a little more widely at him, as if sensing the near-calm the thought had brought him. Then she rose, pulling him up with her. “Come on.” She said. “Let’s wake up Zym, and get going. Lots of ground to cover today.”

As she said this, she looked out at the prevailing greenery with almost a hint of…excitement, or trepidation, or both. He would have asked, but she exhaled quick and fast, as though steeling herself, and pulled him determinedly off towards their things.

---

In the end, Callum did not like the idea of travelling through Xadia shirtless, so they had to delay setting off for a while longer to sort out his clothing situation. Given the increasingly large new limbs on his back, this was something of a conundrum.

His undershirt wasn’t even an option now, given it only had a couple of buttons. That had been fine when they were getting it off of a distended back, but was less fine now, when they needed to work around two significant obstacles. He packed it away, mournful, and turned to his sleeveless red shirt.

First they tried just putting it on as normal, essentially strapping the probably-wings to his back. This seemed like it might be successful, up until the right one twitched and the first claw poked cheerfully through the fabric of his poor shirt. “Okay, so much for Plan A.” Rayla said ruefully, as she peeled the shirt off him again to show him the hole.

He made a face at it. “Yeah, let’s…try not to actually wreck my clothes.” He said, with visions of entire clawed fingers breaking through his formerly-nice attire. “It’s not like I have a lot of them. So, er…” He frowned. “What else can we try?”

Dubious, they made a half-hearted attempt at a Plan B, which involved putting his new limbs through the shirt arm-holes, essentially putting the thing on backwards and buttoning it at his back. This let the new limbs hang out unrestrained, but left his arms pinned to his torso, which was decidedly not ideal. Rayla got a couple of chuckles out of that one, at least, so it wasn’t entirely a wasted effort.

“Okay, so maybe let’s not sacrifice your arms to the cause.” She said, lips still twitching as she removed the shirt yet again, considering. As she held it up, he was momentarily struck again by the commonality in colour between it and the scarf she still wore. He hadn’t thought she’d be keeping it, when she took it to distract Sol Regem, but with all the trouble they’d had with the Sky magic and his new back-limbs since then…well, she’d apparently forgotten to give it back. It sat well enough around her neck that he couldn’t quite make himself ask for it back. He smiled at her, gut fluttering in a not unpleasant way, and then belatedly remembered to focus on what she was saying. “But you know, I think we might be onto something, with putting it on backwards.”

He eyed it, and raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really?” He folded his arms, sceptical, and experienced a brief moment of disorientation at the fresh reminder of how shirtless he was. It was so awkward to be so unclothed, especially outside, especially in the open, and especially in front of Rayla.

“Trust me.” Rayla insisted, seemingly oblivious to his renewed discomfort at parading around in front of her shirtless, and he sighed. Sensing his capitulation, she flashed him a smile and ordered “Arms out!”

Obligingly, he followed her directives, and she pulled his arms through his sleeves…again, with the shirt on back-to-front. He couldn’t see what she did next, but he could infer from the shifting of the weight of his new limbs that she was moving them around, and then…a little of the cool air on his lower back eased off, as buttons were fastened into place along his back.

He blinked, and turned his head over his shoulder to try to see what she was doing. “Oh,” He said, surprised. “I should have thought of that.”

It was a decidedly awkward solution, but…a reasonably workable one. She’d buttoned his shirt up to where the limbs emerged at his upper back, and then insistently pulled his collar and upper two buttons closed at the top. It left a gaping diamond of skin of his upper back exposed, with the still-translucent skin of the prone limbs hanging down over his back, but…

“…That could work.” He decided, surprised, and adjusted his shirt as best he could to make it sit a bit more nicely. Even if Rayla had managed to actually get it on him, it wasn’t exactly comfortable to wear it back to front, and not even fully buttoned. He reached behind him and tried to smooth down the line of fabric that kept the buttons mostly invisible. “…Are you sure there’s no way to tuck these in, though?”

He didn’t need to specify what ‘these’ were. Rayla considered it, then went rummaging in his bag again. After a moment, she extracted the black cloak she’d used for her Human Rayla impressions, and he shivered a little at the sight of it. In his weird dark magic dream-quest thing, his other self had been wearing that. But…he supposed he couldn’t fault the utility. “This alright?” She questioned, apparently noticing his hesitation.

“…Yeah, that’s fine.” He said, determinedly, and she slung it over his shoulders. It couldn’t disguise the pronounced lumps on his back, maybe, but at least he wouldn’t be walking around with them looking all exposed and fleshy and flappy.

He took a step, and immediately proved himself wrong; the wings swayed limply and swung briefly out of the cover of the cloak, jarringly pale and alien to look at. He sighed.

Rayla winced, and folded her arms. “Well, then….” She trailed off, frowning, as she tried very hard to figure out some way to stop his wing-arms dangling and flapping every-which-way as he walked. “Well. I think…you’re either going to have to carry them over your elbows or something, or…”

“Or…?” he prompted, leadingly, when she didn’t continue. She was staring at his back, brow furrowed.

“Or, we use your jacket to tie your wings down?” She suggested, after a moment. Needless to say, they’d not even tried to get the jacket on him, when the shirt alone had been so much trouble. He still felt a little strange and exposed without it, thoroughly unused to being all in red again, and to having his arms all exposed. It was strange to look down at his arm without seeing blue. But…well, the jacket might manage as an improvised restraint or sling of some sort, he supposed.

He sighed. “Well, at least that way I don’t have to carry it.” He said philosophically, and Rayla went around to enact the plan.

It was not especially elegant, but she did tie the wings to his back, the sleeves of his jacket tied around his front, and the hand-joint of each appendage hanging over the jacket-rim at his back. He put the cloak back over the whole mess, and walked in an experimental circle.

“You can see the lump under the cloak moving a bit, but at least you’re not flapping everywhere.” Rayla reported, almost satisfied. “It’ll do. Finally!”

He observed her familiar sort of impatience with a weary air. “Time to get moving?” He asked, and hefted his bag. He’d never been grateful for it only having one strap yet, given that tended to lead to one very sore shoulder, but in this case….in this case, it being a single-strap bag meant he could actually wear it. Carefully, he slung the strap of his backpack over the other shoulder, and straightened.

Rayla nodded, briskly, and ducked to the side to pick up Zym and thrust him into his arms. “Time to get moving.” She agreed, and ushered them onwards towards the distant forest.

---

Zym, when they woke him up, had proven exceptionally astonished by the growth on Callum’s back.

That astonishment had not subsided significantly since.

Callum sighed and bent his neck forwards as Zym, yet again, slung himself around his shoulders as though acting as a blue draconian replacement for his scarf. A blue, unusually active scarf. A scarf that kept sticking his nose down the collar of the cloak to nose at his new set of shoulders, and therefore, not really anything like a scarf at all.

“Zym.” He complained, without any particular animus, at the warm feeling of dragon-breath whuffling down his back, where a diamond of skin was still exposed. “Do you have to keep doing that?”

The dragonling surfaced briefly to croon insistently at him, and then promptly buried his face under the cloak again.

A moment later, he reached out with a paw to bat and prod curiously at the new limbs there, the backs of his own wing-fingers poking Callum in the back of the head. He tried to turn to look at him, and promptly took a dragon-tail to the face. Raya, pitiless, snickered at him behind her hand. “He’s really fascinated with them.” She remarked, all cheer and light-heartedness, which was all well and good for her, but she didn’t have a young and very curious dragon messing with her.

“It’s just wings, Zym.” He said, exasperated, over his shoulder. “Well, probably wings. You’ve got them too, you know.”

Zym determinedly ignored him, and batted at one of his wing-claws. Callum winced, and – well, that was the thing, wasn’t it? Zym was delightedly investigating the new appendages with all the brazen curiosity of a young child, and Callum…

…Callum could feel it. He thought. Probably.

It was inconsistent and weird-feeling and not-all-there, but….

He’d felt that tug, a painful shove of a joint in a direction it wasn’t supposed to go. He’d felt the draconian snout nosing at the skin, albeit in a rush of half-numb half-prickling trickles that didn’t feel anything like normal skin should do. And, increasingly, there was this sense of…pervasive numbness. He hadn’t quite realised it before, but numbness was in itself a sensation, and before now…well, he’d not even had that.

But now, he thought, the wings felt numb. Heavy and ungainly and weird-feeling, like a leg you’d been sitting on for so long it had lost all feeling.

When he shifted, he thought he could feel the pressure of the jacket-tie around his wing-hands.

There was still absolutely nothing he could do about the twitching, though.

Callum winced as Zym – again – pulled one of the wing-fingers in a direction it did not like, and the whole set of digits jerked and flexed in response, sending the dragonling yelping back and up. He craned his neck to see around his shoulder, and surmised that Zym had gotten himself poked up a nostril by one of the wing-claws. He sighed, and coaxed the dragon off of his shoulders and into his arms. “Sorry, Zym, I didn’t mean to jab you.” He said to the little Dragon Prince, who suddenly looked pitifully betrayed. “I can’t control what they do, so…be careful, alright?”

Zym chirped at him, a little grumpily, reminding him uncannily of Ezran when he’d been told to keep his fingers out of some animal den or other. For a long, painful second, Callum fiercely missed his brother. Then he pushed it to the side with all the other stuff he didn’t have the time or wherewithal to deal with.

Luckily, it wasn’t long after that that they reached the edge of the towering Xadian forest, and then…well, then, he had plenty of things to distract him.

---

“These trees are gigantic!” He exclaimed to Rayla, open-mouthed and wide-eyed, as they passed between the towering tree trunks. The ones at the forest-edge weren’t that large, but he could see the way ahead; before them, the forest canopy towered so far overhead that he thought the trees would happily outsize the castles of Katolis, the uppermost leaves so far away that the light came down yellow-green and verdant, flickering over the ground. “This is amazing,” He breathed, a minute or so later, when he began to see the glowing mushrooms and colourful plants and luminescent motes in the air-

She smiled at him, tolerant, and patted him on the shoulder. “Oh, Callum.” She said, fondly. “If a few little trees get you excited, you’re going to have to raise your standards.”

“My standards are fine, thank you, have you seen this place?” He said, staring around every-which-way until he pulled something in his neck trying to look too far upwards. He winced, rubbed at the sore muscle, and then focused his attention on the middle-distance.

Ahead, the forest floor erupted into a twisting mass of tree roots thicker than most houses, each of them wreathed in ferns and mushrooms. There were beds of strange flowers everywhere, lines of strange mushrooms along every root and bough, everything was sheathed in thick moss or lichens or some sort of life, and – and he had no idea where to look. It was amazing. It was all amazing.

“I did grow up here, Callum.” She informed him, lips twitching, and led him up onto one of the arching roots. “Though I wasn’t exactly here-here much, since my hometown is down over a cliff, and it’s hard to get up here.”

He eyed her, fascinated, and realised she’d hardly spoken about her origins at all before. “….So, how are we going to get down there?” he asked, then paused. “If we’re going down there. Or are we…not going there?” He couldn’t imagine bypassing Katolis if it happened to be in his way, but, well…maybe there was a reason Rayla had never talked about home? Maybe she didn’t really want to go back?

His thoughts had about a second to start speculating wildly before she rolled her eyes and smiled. “I’m taking you home.” She decreed, with such easy certainty and cheer that all thoughts of her possibly having an unpleasant home situation vanished instantly. “So yes, we’re going down off the cliff.”

Callum squinted, a little wary at the hint of mischief in her smile. “….How?”

Her smile widened. “You’ll see.” She said, secretive, and reached out to pull him by the hand towards the nearby arch of another root. “It’s not far now.”

He shrugged, too fascinated by their surroundings to want to press the issue, and let her lead him onwards.

---

He was distracted enough by all the plants, mushrooms, magic dirt, three-tailed squirrels, weird birds, musical flowers, and foul-smelling flowers that he almost forgot the issue of the stupid unasked-for probably-wings growing on his back.

Almost.

In the end, it was hard not to notice things that felt increasingly numb and prickly on your back, especially when they twitched and flexed and moved without your say-so, and especially when you started to be able to feel the sensation of that movement in how the numbness and the tingling shifted. He reached over at one point to poke at the skin on a wing-shoulder, once, and was almost alarmed at how…sort-of-normal it felt. Prickly, yeah, like a dead leg, but…

He could feel it.

Callum did not tell Rayla about the rapidly-developing sensation in his wings. He didn’t need to, in the end. They stopped for a rest in the verdant tree-shadows of the ancient forest, and quite matter-of-fact, Rayla pulled his cloak over his shoulder so she could have a look at his wings.

“They’ve grown. The spikes, too.” She announced, to no one’s surprise, and then reached over to untie his jacket-sleeves.

The jacket fell away.

The wings…didn’t.

For a second, Callum was as astonished at the sensation of the still-folded limbs as Rayla was to look at them. Then she whirled to face him, demanding “Are you making them do that? Can you move them now?”

“What? No, I can’t move them at all!” He protested, and…well, he tried again, just to make sure he wasn’t lying. But it…it was like there was nothing to move. He could feel them there, maybe, all heavy and numb and prickling, but he felt no more able to move them than the skin on his body. He tried to describe this sensation to Rayla, and she listened intently, tilting her head.

“Kind of like ears, then.” She concluded, to which he responded with a very sceptical stare.

“How is it like ears?” he wondered, furrowing his brows at her, and she blinked.

“You know, they kind of move on their own, and you can feel it but not really control it?” She offered, and he stared.

“Human ears don’t do that, Rayla.” He informed her, thinking of the times he’d seen her ears shift in a new light. “I mean, I think. Not that I’ve noticed?”

“…Huh.” She stared at him, a little nonplussed. “I did think your ears were weirdly still, but I didn’t realise they don’t move at all.” She inspected something at the side of his face for a few long seconds, presumably his round human ears, and then concluded “Humans are weird.”

“Weird for having not-moving ears?” He asked, and she nodded firmly.

“Very weird.” She agreed. “Point is though, Callum, you can sort of learn to move your ears by focusing extra-hard on what it feels like when they move. Like this,” She concentrated for a second, and her ears twitched noticeably up and down a few times. “See?” Her face fell, then. “But, I guess if you can’t actually feel them moving…”

He shuffled in place, almost guiltily. “I kind of can now.” He admitted, and she straightened, eyes widening. “Sort of? It mostly feels….numb and prickly. Like a leg you sat on too long, you know? But…” he shrugged, and felt the wing-shoulders shrugging along, as if to reinforce the point. “I’m starting to feel them.”

Rayla stared wide-eyed for around two more seconds, then leaned slowly forwards with a finger outstretched.

She poked him on the left wing-shoulder, firmly. “Did you feel that?” She demanded, and he rolled his eyes at her.

“Yes.”

She moved her hand. “What about that?”

He blinked. “No? What did you do?”

“Touched the…wing under-arm? But lightly.” She pursed her lips, pensive, and the rest of their break turned into Rayla finding different ways to test the developing sensitivity of his wings.

In the end, it turned out he could feel pressure, temperature, moderately-light touch, and also could feel the first layer of protruding barb-things – now a good couple inches in length – pulling at something unsettlingly deep in the flesh. Like they went all the way to the bone. Light touch was still beyond him, though, and everything he could feel came across in varying degrees of numbness, prickling, and tingling. The closest to normality was the wing-shoulders, which only felt slightly weird when poked.

“Maybe it’s spreading outwards.” Rayla suggested, when she’d run out of ways to poke him. “And your wing-skin will start feeling more normal further and further out from the shoulders.”

“…Maybe.” He said, dubiously, and looked at her for a long moment. There was something strange, he thought, about how oddly fixated she was on this, on testing the range of sensation, on figuring out how his wings worked. She seemed almost more interested in them than he was.

Should he be more interested in them? …It felt like he should. Probably. He tried to imagine meeting someone else with developing wings, who was also a friend who wouldn’t mind being poked. He’d want to know all about those, wouldn’t he? How the joints bent and folded, and how they felt, and how everything lined up. If it had been Rayla unexpectedly growing wings, he’d want to know everything about them, right? He should probably be more interested in his own wings than he was. Instead, he was just…oddly blank-feeling on the whole matter, in a weird and distant way that implied he probably wasn’t dealing with the whole thing as well as he could be.

“Why are you so interested in them?” He asked, after a pause, to distract himself from his own thoughts. His earlier thought reiterated itself anyway: if it had been Rayla unexpectedly growing wings, he’d want to know all about them…

She seemed a little taken-aback at the question, and then frowned a little, as if seriously considering it. “I guess I have been asking a lot of questions, haven’t I?” She said eventually, with a troubled glance over his shoulders.

“Usually it’s me who’s the curious one, right? Kind of a turnaround.” He said, with a teasing smile, and she huffed at him.

“You’re still the curious one, trust me.” She said, dryly. “If I let you, you’d stay in this forest looking at dirt for the next three years, probably.” Well. That was probably fair. “But, I suppose, to answer your question…” She frowned again. “I don’t know. I think – they’re just…growing so fast. It feels like every time I turn around they’ve changed, and it’s…” She searched for a word.

“…Scary?” he suggested, because that was about how he felt about it.

She side-eyed him narrowly, and he recalled that she (and Moonshadow elves in general) had a Thing about admitting to fear. “…I suppose.” She admitted, begrudgingly, and shot his wings an indecipherable look.

He considered them himself, gut churning uncomfortably, and nodded. It made a certain sort of sense. She was coping with the anxiety of having two limbs grow violently from his back by keeping on top of absolutely everything that changed with them, and he…he was doing his best not to think about any of it at all. Especially how much they were changing.

Still. They were a little less unsettling to have, now that he could feel them. A little less like horrifying parasites growing out of his body, and a little more like…he couldn’t really say a part of him, not yet, maybe not ever. They were too…weird. Too frightening. Too expected and uninvited and jarring. But they at least had some level of sensation now, and that was…better, in some way that was hard to properly put to words.

As if to purposefully disrupt the vague positivity of that thought, the left one flexed out fully on his back, all three digits stretching, and then folded inwards again. He grimaced, both at the movement he had no control over and the rush of numb tingling that the movement sent through the wing. The hand-joint and its constituent fingers flexed on the right.

“Ugh.” He muttered to himself, stomach roiling, and shook his head. “Can we keep moving now?” he asked Rayla, and she looked at him. Her brows furrowed, eyes worried, and then she reached out to replace his cloak. The jacket-tie didn’t seem as necessary now that the things were holding themselves up. Her fingers lingered around his shoulders, arranging the cloak over his collar, and for a second, he vividly recalled how he’d adjusted his scarf on her before she went to trick Sol Regem. It felt similar. He stared at her for a long moment, feeling oddly bashful when she looked up to meet his eyes.

She still was wearing his scarf, wasn’t she?

Unbidden, he found himself reaching out, a strange gesture of reciprocity, and shifting the scarf around her neck. Just adjusting it a little, so it sat properly. It still looked good on her.

When he looked back up at her, her cheeks were a little pink. “…Didn’t you want this back, at some point?” She asked, after a moment, fingers moving to play with the scarf-tail. The way she looked at him was oddly hesitant, for her.

…Would it be weird to tell her to keep it? It was his scarf, after all. He’d had it for a long time. He…didn’t especially feel its loss, though. And…it made him oddly happy to see it on her.

“…Well, it’s your good luck charm, right?” he said, after a moment, cheeks strangely hot. “Maybe you should hold onto it for a while.”

That wasn’t giving it to her, right? That wasn’t weird? That was…a normal best friend thing to do?

She ducked her head, suppressing a smile. Her fingers wrung the end of the scarf a little more firmly, and though she was still looking away, she looked pleased. “…Thanks.” She said, in the end, and her eyes flickered up to meet his, just for a moment. “I think I will.”

That moment of eye contact lingered, stretching into something that felt as strange and charged as the first time he’d adjusted the scarf on her.

And then it ended, and she stepped away. “Best get going now, then, if we want to get to the cliff soon.” She announced, and whirled away to stride up along another root.

He blinked after her, wondering why his heartbeat felt so strange, and then ushered Zym along beside him.

He supposed he was curious to see what she had planned for this cliff-descent of hers, so…

Quiet, with the wings tucked tight against his back, he followed her through the forest.

---

End chapter.

Notes: The response to chapter 1 of this was surprising, to say the least. I suppose I’ll not underestimate the power of new-season-hype in the future. Glad Boundless has pleased so many of you; thanks for reading!

On ears: Callum and Rayla are kind of mistaken, in that human ears can move on their own. That’s how I learned to move mine – I felt them moving and learned to control the sensation of those muscles in use. Still, I don’t think it’s exactly common.

On the wings: hopefully this chapter clarifies things with regards to what kind of wings he’s growing. If you want to spoil yourself, check the boundless tag on my blog. You’ll find a reference image for the fully-developed wings that I drew around a month before s3 hit.

Future updates: We have now reached the end of pre-written Boundless content. The next update will correspondingly take a much longer time to come out. I have written more Boundless, but it feels more like chapter 4 than 3, so could be a while until this updates.

In the meantime, please do check out my other tdp fanfiction, Peace Is A Journey, which has been my top writing priority for like seven months now. It has now been updated to accommodate s3 context and information, and I’ll be working on finishing and publishing chapter 11 as soon as possible – which, for reference, I expect to be around 20k long. That story is a beast.

#the dragon prince s3 #rayllum #tdp callum #tdp rayla #wingfic #tdp fic #boundless

44 notes · View notes

lonelypond · 6 years ago

Text

2025: Breakout

Love Live, NicoMaki, 5.3K, 1/?

Summary: Super Idol and Closely Held Government Secret Yazawa Nico's been back from her tour, but she and Tokyo's top robotics expert, Nishikino Maki, have been at odds, unable to just pick up their relationship. And even if they can, how can they make a future work in a Tokyo that wants to limit their choices. Sequel to 2024.

A/N: Giving myself a Lunar New Year present a day early and posting this as a challenge. I rough drafted this chunk a year ago maybe and I kept tossing between potential story arcs and stalled. However, this is one of my favorite AU's so I'm giving myself a nudge. Any chapters to follow may or may not follow a linear timeline. Apparently I’ve missed juggling multiple AUs. Enjoy!

Also, thanks again to the Love Live Wikia for song translations. And may the Year Of The Pig bring you health, prosperity, and happiness. Thanks for all your support.

Chapter One

"Ebbing and rising,

The waves of my heart wash me away The strength to desire something this much Is the passionate Reason in my chest

That's strange; I'm feeling fervent! Once you've taken the first step, you've gotta run Has everyone gone through this? Everything starts to pick up; Ah, I can't stop

I think I want to give those things a try; I'll walk forwards while counting them"

And that’s Love Arrow with "Yuuki No Reason". Winter is winding down with a bit too much gray for our liking, but the next Tunnel Rave theme is Neon Night. Password is “first step.” Text it to the number you know for the location. And we’ll also be hosting a virtual dance floor for those of you who can’t make it out. Diamond Princess has banned Nico Ni songs but send us your requests for anything else that hits the target for you. And Ballet Twist has some advice about which toys to avoid when you hit the virtual dance floor.

FALLING INTO HER EYES

Five times in the past month. Professor Nishikino Maki couldn’t seem to avoid events that the Number One Idol in Japan aka that demon doll, Nico Ni was scheduled to perform at. She couldn’t blame either Nico or her mother. Nico had barely returned from her tour of the North of Japan, released a new single with a new sound and a burst of popularity, pleasing her government minders. Tonight was the fifth event, an unveiling of a new Robotics lab at a small company Maki often consulted with. Maki wondered if the Air Special Defense Forces did too, but the robot she’d examined the night she’d uncovered Nico Ni’s double life was the only one of its kind she’d heard of. And Eli had put discreet questions out but received no answers. Maki was having no success growing her own organoid brain, even at a small size.

Maki had decided casual was the ticket for tonight so tailored black trousers, her N-Zan, grey button down shirt, loose white tie, black vest. She and Nico had tried meeting for a meal -- pizza -- in a dive near Muse, when Nico had first returned to Tokyo, but it had been an awkward encounter, neither of them sure what they could safely discuss in public. It had also ended awkwardly, a quick kiss and a promise to meet again when their schedules cleared.

Which didn’t suit Maki at all. No 1 Idol and the rest of the Idol Fools had been painting regularly, but Maki had noticed an increase in curfew drones and police foot patrols in areas that had been hit by them. Which worried her.

Maki entered through a few photographers and reporters, nodding in their direction, but neither answering questions or smiling, as they expected. Next would be the colleagues excited by her latest breakthroughs in electrical transfer from skin photocells. Batteries for emergency only would leave more room for processing power. She and Eli had been working on a breakthrough for two years, but after seeing what was possible with organic brains, Maki had to fake her excitement. But it had led to her contract being renewed, a budget increase and the possibility of hiring another grad student, although the department had pushed her to hire one of the younger male grad students, preferably a married one. That had been the theme of Nico Ni’s last song, a slow, pulsing number, the joys of newlyweds under the cherry blossoms, which had led to Nico performing at every wedding Maki had been invited to recently. The wealthier families being able to hire the crazy popular Idol made both marriage and wealth seem more exciting to everyone looking on through their personal devices. Maki was really quite fed up with both wealth and marriage, although she did appreciate that her money made much of what Soldier Game did possible as she had provided the seed money for Eli’s investment portfolio.

Inside, someone had draped black fabric everywhere, lights shimmering against the folds, highlighting the textures. Seemed gloomy, but maybe that was just Maki’s mood. At least there would be dark corners and Maki could hide there. She grabbed a bottled seltzer water and slunk into the corner she’d decided on. Wait for the music to start, give it a few minutes, then find the founder, shake his hand and express her reluctant need to get back to her lab. It was a great plan. Maki had spent at least an hour going through the steps in her mind, including the slight nod when the demonic black eyes of Nico Ni glanced in her direction. As if she didn’t know her, as if she thought the eyes were actually black, as if she hadn’t been dreaming every night about…

Nope. That was a trap. Take a sip of water. Focus. Ignore everything below eye level. Until they simper.

“So the brilliant Professor can’t stop stalking the great Nico Ni?” Nico’s voice sounded even peakier than usual.

Maki took a long moment and looked down her nose at the singer, taken aback by a Nico shaped hole under a lace cage of deep blue lights. It was disconcerting, she heard Nico’s voice, but as her eyes struggled to find definition in Nico’s face, she could only sweep the contours and as her line of sight followed the line of Nico’s body down, and she was pretty sure some of the curves were padded, but there was nothing but depth. Maki shivered, a hand instinctively reaching out but as she connected with the light cage, Nico Ni hopped back, “No touching, Professor. You’ll break the illusion.”

“Sorry,” Maki grunted, pushing her hand into the wall behind her to contact something solid, her eyes still futilely attempting to make sense of Nico’s lips and nose, lost in the darkest black she’d ever seen.

There was silence, a hole between them as black and deep as whatever was obscuring every detail of Nico’s appearance. Nico fell back into character, leaning forward toward Maki, what might be an arm sweeping her finger to her lips, her voice a coquettish giggle, “Don’t tell anyone, but Nico Ni is debuting a new song later. About pretty girls.” Maki was glad she couldn’t see the wink. That was her cue to accuse Nico Ni of being simplistic or untalented or invasive. Her cue for disdain and disinterest. They’d done this same exchange too often recently and Maki didn’t have the drive for another round.

“I’m sure I’ll enjoy the performance.” Maki shrugged and went in search of the founder.

Nico frowned, startled out of character for a breath as she watched the redhead get further and farther away. “No fight left?” Nico muttered, uncertain. Then with a smile obscured by designed darkness, she swept back into the crowd, every awed comment, every intake of breath, every ‘Nico Ni’ shouted greeting fueling her for the upcoming performance. No time for worry.

Maki had left halfway through Nico Ni’s performance and headed to the dojo. She and Umi were trying to build an light array based on specs Hanayo had given them. Umi was also working a program to mimic the abilities and reactions of the organoid brain. Maki calculated that if they could find the right pattern, seizures could be triggered in the A-RIse bots, similar to how patterns effected epileptics. It would be a strategy to use against them, if necessary. Eli was working on sourcing parts for a Taser sized EMP device that could trigger a robot shutdown. Nico would probably refuse if Maki asked to borrow one to test it on. But that didn’t mean Maki wasn’t going to work from the data they’d gotten. Maki guessed Nico and the rest of the Idol Fools would let their paint cans idle tonight. It would probably take Nico far too long to get the body paint off to make any other activity practical.

Maki pulled up the main screen and did an automatic check for Soldier Game mentions and #sgame on TWIG. The social media chatter had been dropping; the government had had a bunch of bots pushing Nico Ni’s latest single and spreading the rumor that Soldier Game were government agents. Attendance at the last rave had dropped and Nozomi had passed a rumor on to Eli that there might be a raid at the next one.

Maki sighed and hearted the latest IdolFools image. They needed to talk about a way to pushback. Eli had started taking advice from Nozomi, but she thought they needed to be public figures, something not even Eli agreed with. And Umi was preparing for a trip to see Alisa. Maki was the only person lacking advice from someone significant in her life.

Her phone buzzed? She looked down. The encrypted weather app. A change in the Kyoto forecast. That meant Nico.

N: Where are you?

M: Working.

N: Nico is at your place. And you only have pizza. （●≧��≦

M: Why are you at my place?

N: TO SEE YOU (ღ꒡ ᵌ꒡)⋆﹡♡⃛*⁎⋆(꒡ᵋ ꒡ღ)

M: I’ll be there in 10 minutes. Stay put.

N: ┗(^o^　)┓三

Maki pulled her hat down and tossed on a dark hoodie. Back into the tunnels. To see Nico. Her stomach fluttered a little as her pulse picked up. She hoped Nico had gotten out of that nightmare makeup. She had enough bad memories of the Idol’s ‘demon doll’ side.

Maki was surprised to find Nico calmly on her couch, wearing baggy cargo pants and an over sized sweatshirt. Her face had been scrubbed clean, but there were disconcerting slashes of dark on her neck that Maki kept staring at.

“You need to upgrade your makeup removal stash. Nico will give you a list.” Nico put down the book...one of Maki’s recent organic robotics purchases and leaned back, “Hey, genius.”

“I have a name.” Maki snapped.

“Professor Nishikino.”

Maki sighed and fell into the couch, “I missed you too, Lt. Colonel.”

Nico’s head was suddenly in Maki’s lap, Nico’s eyes literally holes in her head. Maki didn’t scream, that was a plus, although she did nearly bite through her lip.“Please, Nico-chan, take out your contacts.” Maki tried not to shiver, but Nico caught the movement away from her and bounced up immediately.

“Do you have anything that isn’t pizza?” Nico complained as she hurried into the half bath. Maki took a container out of her kangaroo pocket, “I picked you up some kind of rice dish from a street vendor.”

Nico leapt over the couch, kissed Maki and grabbed the box, “You are so worth it.”

“Worth what?” Maki kept staring at the paint slashes, which moved as Nico swallowed. Eerie.

“Sneaking out after curfew, fraternizing with enemies of the state, risking my career,” Nico turned, mid chew and winked, “And my heart.”

“You have one?” Maki doubled down on snarky and wished she hadn’t. This was a real chance to talk to, to be with Nico and here she was, back to blowing it. Nico raised an eyebrow and Maki saw another slash of dark under it. This looked like Nico had a tiny hole in her head. Tonight was a winner in the least favorite Nico Ni costume derby. “I’ll wait while you get out your stethoscope, Doc.” Nico waved her chopsticks toward Maki’s lab.

“I’m sorry.” Maki slid a little closer to Nico, “How’s the recovery from the A-Tak?”

“Nico hasn’t fallen in” Nico counted off something with the chopsticks, “Three weeks.”

Maki nodded, a little closer, her arm on the couch behind Nico. She watched as Nico picked up every last bit of rice and then neatly placed box and utensils on the table. Then Nico turned, “You look even better than I remember.”

So did Nico. Lips thankfully free of black paint, crimson eyes a mysterious, welcoming warmth. Maki could feel Nico so vividly, where her arm rested near the Idol’s back. Maki was 1000% sure there were important topics to discuss and lines to draw, but Nico wasn’t moving away and Maki just wanted to charge forward into a kiss. Touching Nico’s lips was a jolt, the first time Maki had been overwhelmed by the sensations that exploded, but this time woven into an even greater crash of sensations was the memories, the touches, the thrusts, the skin against skin contact that made every flinch, every twitch a wave. And Nico was moaning yes, and Maki barely heard a zipper through the cacophony in her ears and Nico was encouraging Maki to lift off her sweatshirt, then Maki’s lips were sliding down Nico’s tensing abdomen, her hands stroking up the dancer’s muscles that had always fascinated her, Nico crying Maki’s name and Maki suddenly desperately hungry for a new taste.

###

Couch again, Maki thought as she pulled Nico closer, before the blanket slipped off both of them. Not that Maki would have minded the view, but...not letting go of Nico while creating a warm space for snuggling seemed to be a higher priority to her instinctive reactions. Nico yawned and pecked a kiss on Maki’s cheek.

“Hey,” Nico wondered sleepily, “Where were you? The university’s further away than 10 minutes.”

“Top secret.” Maki murmured into Nico’s hair, “No one knows.”

Nico flipped so she was lying on top of Maki, her eyes full of the impish glee that had charmed Maki through the computer screen, “I can find it.”

“Ha!” Maki shook her head. Nico pressed her lips together, dragged an extremely distracting hand along Maki’s ribs and dropped her head to whisper, “Bet I can” into Maki’s ear, triggering shivers.

“No.” Maki managed to get out.

“No?” Nico pulled back, quirking an eyebrow.

“Won’t find it….” Maki was finding hard to get words out as Nico’s hands ranged lower, taking their time over her curves.

Maki kicked the blanket off and Nico laughed, “Getting hot?”Nico hovered over Maki’s lips, barely brushing kisses against them. WIth a moan, Maki wrapped her arms around Nico, forcing the Idol even closer.

“I think that’s a yes,” Nico whispered as her hand skimmed over Maki’s breasts and Maki gasped, nodding, her legs hooking around Nico’s as momentum took more than the blanket to the floor.

###

Nico and Maki were sitting, backs against the couch, pizza shared between them, blanket wrapped around them, speakers playing jazz.

“How’s the Soldier Game business?” Nico popped the tab on a cold coffee.

Maki frowned, finishing her slice of pizza, “Not as much traffic; government spreading rumors that we’re government agents. We’re trying to figure out a strategy to ‘retake a defensible position, ‘to quote Umi.”

“Give the people what they want.” Nico stated simply.

Maki turned, ignoring the blanket that fell off her shoulder, enjoying Nico’s inability not to stare, “And what do the people want?”

Nico’s finger traced a gentle line across Maki’s nearest shoulder, tapping lightly up her neck, “The people want sexy.”

“Sexy? But we’re anonymous…” Maki looked confused.

“So? You don’t need pictures. Music can be sexy. Haven’t you heard Nico’s latest?” Nico stared at Maki for a long moment and when no response was given, she shrugged and continued, “Nico will forgive you. It’s capital S, triple XXX, kiss the girl hard, SeXXXy. Kind winds don’t really blow the clothes off girls.”

Maki had recovered and her eyebrow went to war, raising archly to eloquently express doubt, “I don’t see yours.”

Nico roared with laughter, then kissed Maki hard enough to scramble Maki’s next thought, which was fine with Nico, “See, sexxxy. Spice up your music. Give the cute girls what they want.”

Maki growled, as she moved into Nico, “And what do you want?”

“There’s the sexy,” Nico bopped Maki on the nose, causing the redhead to sit up,”Growl like a...panther, prowl...visualize.” Nico gestured at herself, then slid the blanket off her shoulder, “You don’t get to see this much of the Number One Idol in the universe without some game.”

Nico was giggling. Maki sighed and leaned back.

“What’s wrong?”

“You have no sense of mood.”

“Nico Ni knows mood.”

“Nico Ni knows nothing.”

Nico pulled Maki in, kissing her so long and with so much weight that the redhead was breathless and panting and leaning forward for more, “Nico knows Maki will remember this.”

Maki didn’t want to let Nico win, while at the same time desperately wanting Nico’s kiss. Nico took advantage of her internal argument to once again advance, her caresses expertly deployed to melt Maki into a shivering mess.

“...want...No 1….Lt….Col...Yaza...you...,” Maki managed to get out amid mostly animal noises.

Nico’s laugh was a cold contrast to the warmth her hands were driving straight through Maki’s legs, “I bet I can have you singing my latest song. I know you listened to it.”And all senses surrendered before Lt. Colonel Yazawa’s bold sweeps. No treaties were signed.

THE MORNING AFTER

Fortunately, Maki did not have an 8 am class scheduled so sleeping in after Nico left at dawn was not a problem. There was a department meeting at 3 so Maki headed in early to clear out her email and prepare. A woman, dressed in more business like attire than the usual student wear, was pacing outside her office.

“Hello?” Maki greeted her visitor.

“Doctor Nishikino?” The woman’s voice had a lovely, musical lilt but everything else about her screamed razor sharp professional edge.

“Can I help you?” Maki tapped out her passcode, puzzled.

“Did you receive Doctor Amago’s message?”

Maki shrugged, “I had family business this morning and haven’t checked anything.”

The woman shook her head and followed Maki into her office, uninvited. Maki sat behind her desk, typed in her password and waited.

“If you had read Dr. Amago’s message, you would have expected me.’

“I am sorry if my being unprepared is causing a delay in your day.” Maki bowed her head slightly, monitoring the tone of her voice closely, “Can we reschedule for another time?”

The woman shook her head, still standing. “I am Inoue Kiku, departmental assistant for media relations.”

Maki realized the woman frowning at her was her link to the media, the Ms. Inoue who passed on all the requests for interviews.

“Dr. Amago has asked me to pass on a directive that the government had given to him.” Inoue linked her hands behind her back, light eyes boring into Maki’s. “For such a high profile department, working so closely with military suppliers, the government requests that you hire an assistant who is both male and married.”

“W...what...why?” Maki half rose from her chair, hands clenching.

“While we acknowledge that Ayase-san’s work has met the requirements of the position, we feel that two women at the head of our premier robotics efforts sends the wrong message.”

Maki stood, hands shoved into her desk to channel some of the flaring rage she felt, but any comments she thought crashed into her faltering mental filter so she just stared into Inoue’s expressionless eyes, mouth slightly open.

“Ayase-san will be moved to another, less visible department.” Inoue stated.

Maki shook herself, “I am not firing my assistant and replacing her with a random male. Does the university demand any level of talent or skill or experience of this imaginary male?

Inoue didn’t back down, even as Maki’s voice gathered force, “The government representative I spoke to was not concerned about that. We would pre…:

Maki inhaled and drew herself up, briskly cutting off Inoue, “I don’t care. I am not replacing Ayase-san. Her work is excellent. Please inform Dr. Amago of my decision. Should another research assistant slot open up, I will certainly consider his advice, but my main concern is the quality of the work being done. That will not change.”

“Your status does not make your position more secure, Dr. Nishikino.”

“Thank you for sharing your belief, Inoue-san. Please leave my office. I need to catch up on my correspondence.”

Inoue shut the door behind her and Maki fell back into her chair, all the post night with Nico jaunty replaced with worry for Eli and frustration with a government that had decided, once again, to put women in secondary positions. Eli’s partial Russian heritage heightened the probability that the department would not stop pushing until they’d found a way to replace her with a ‘definitive picture of traditional Japan.” Maki needed to install a speed bag here as well, especially if the government was planning to use her to further its agenda. How did Nico manage? Maki closed her laptop. Quick walk was a better use of her pre meeting time. She didn’t really want to think about the choices Nico made daily and the message Nico was promoting. Maki had been able to float a little above the fray, buffered by circumstances and money, but now she could feel the ground shift, about to tilt her into the messy middle of the fight.

###

Nico entered the offices. Sergeant Takeda saluted, “He wants to see you.”

Nico nodded, stepping quickly into Komura’s office.

“Yazawa.” Komura was sorting through papers.“Sir?”

“Phase Three is approaching and we are being ordered to develop new public outreach strategies. There’s a meeting in two hours with the rest of the team. Your “find a new songwriter” suggestion was a big success and a commendation has been posted in your file, but I want at least three more usable ideas from you.” Komura met Nico’s eyes, grim, “There are elements pushing back and we need to counter their efforts.”

Soldier Game, Nico thought to herself, and Maki had insisted that their numbers were lacking, but Nico couldn’t think of anyone else out there pushing counter propaganda. Well, the Idol Fools, but...

“Is there anything in particular going on, sir?” Nico was surprised that she asked, and recovered, “so I know where are our efforts are weak?”

Komura stood, clapping Nico on the shoulder, “You’re a loyal airman, Yazawa. I respect that.” He sighed, “Mostly foreign influences, celebrity postings on TWIG, a podcast and a few Japanese artists, some of whom are anonymous. We’ll be discrediting the public figures, but we need some high voltage celebrity presence ourselves.”

Nico nodded, good soldier Nico time. A strategy to boost Nico Ni’s image had flashed in her mind immediately, but she wasn’t going to enjoy it and she was willing to bet a certain temperamental roboticist would hate it.

“I’m on it, sir.”

“Good. Two hours, Yazawa, use them well.”

Nico saluted, thoughts pinballing between opposite worlds and incompatible needs.

INTERLUDE

Eli was always surprised at how quickly Muse had become a second home and how comfortable she had gotten with Nozomi. It was still disconcerting when Nozomi would fix Eli with an intense stare and insist Eli pull a card from her Tarot deck. The last had been a Two of Rods, with Nozomi insisting that Eli was preparing for a journey, to which Eli’s reply had been that she’d pulled Umi’s fortune by accident. And had then sat through a lecture on how the cards did not tell fortunes, they provided guidance. Considering how Nozomi’s turquoise eyes had twinkled and Eli’s reward after, Eli was willing to learn more about Tarot any time Nozomi was willing. Eli was willing to learn more about anything any time Nozomi was willing.

They were upstairs, in Nozomi’s room, jammed between the Idol Fools workspace and Kotori’s fabric and clothing storage. Eli was lounging on the bed in a open shirt while Nozomi puttered in the kitchen, making tea, in a sarong and bra.

“Is there always this chemical smell?” Eli wondered.

“Sorry. I’ll open a window. They must be trying a new paint formula. They mask the profile with smells the drones won’t track, mostly spices.”

“So that’s why I get a curry craving whenever Honoka and Rin hug me.” Eli yawned and laid back.

Nozomi giggled, “What kind of tea do you want?”

“You.” Eli propped herself up on an elbow, her best come-hither grin aimed right at Nozomi.

Nozomi shook her head, “Chamomile it is.” After pouring water into the kettle, she sat on the side of the bed, taking one of Eli’s hands in hers, “I need to talk to you, Eli-chi.”

Eli immediately pulled Nozomi in for a hug, worry replacing any other thoughts, “What’s wrong?”

“Honoka and Rin found three more teens who were kicked out by their families.” Nozomi said, softly, her head pressed into Eli’s shoulders as the blonde tightened her hold, “We’ve almost got a safe place set up for them, but we need a little more help…”

“What do you need?” Eli’s organizational skills readied to receive a list

“Money, food, clothes….They had the clothes on their back and two kept their phones.”

Eli kissed the top of Nozomi’s head, blue eyes earnest, “I don’t have much, but I’ll talk to Maki.”

Nozomi shook her head, “No, Eli-chi, what they need is Soldier Game. We need to reach out to as many people as we can. We’re going to need more safe spaces and to tell people how to find them.”

Of course, Soldier Game. Eli blushed a little, embarrassed at her misunderstanding of Nozomi’s intent. Nozomi tilted her head, watching as Eli looked shyly away and took the blonde’s hand again, “You are a wonder, Eli-chi. You care and do so much. It’s what I love most about you.”

Eli raised her head, amazed as she heard Nozomi’s words repeat in her head. And then before she could stutter out a response, Nozomi’s lips reinforced the message they’d just breathed out.

###

"Flow like the waves until dawn breaks My feelings swirl more violently than usual And I feel as though I could fall apart completely

Should I sleep? The moon eventually grows light A gentle dream falls upon my chest

With this clichéd sadness and clichéd pain, I barely hold back tears and watch the stars They shine brighter than usual, and seem to fall As they quietly illuminate me…"

Greetings! That was our newest song "Arifureta Kanashimi no Hate". Ballet Twist here wishing you gentle dreams. But some of us are facing rather harsh realities and so we’re here tonight with a request from the IdolFools and new friend CupQueen, who are finding safe spaces for those turned out and turned against by families, landlords and friends. Next tunnel rave, three days from now, please bring an item that would get you through a dark night. We have to help each other. Code word is star watching; you’ll get the usual text. And watch the clubs for a Minalisky appearance; Love Arrow has heard they’ve been really restless lately and looking to burn up a dance floor ENBY style ‘til they close down the club.

On a brighter note, two newer and gayer episodes of Dynamic Leadership Rescue Force have been given the RAY treatment, redubbed for your virtual pleasure. Strap into our VRLock and see what Captain Sasaki and Dr. Tora have discovered on the Shadow Planet.

And now, our resident street medic, Diamond Princess, has recorded some tips for taking care of yourself out in the wild. Listen up. We got your back, hoods and g-skis, but you have to stay safe ‘til we can get you to help.

“DATING” Maki yelled. Eli and Umi looked up from the light array they were working on. Maki was hovering over a Yazawa Nico oddly lacking confidence.

Nico muttered, head down, Maki leaned down, Nico reached a hand out to Maki’s cheek, Maki stepped back and turned on her heel.

Eli and Umi exchanged a glance, as they caught the look on Maki’s face, sullen and scared. “Come upstairs, Eli. Alisa texted me some new photos of her latest eaglet.” Umi grabbed Eli’s arm, both doing their best to ignore the other two in the bunker.

“Maki…” Maki’s eyes were tearing and Eli hesitated, not certain what would be best to say. Nico’s head was still down, hands shoved deep in her pockets, “We’ll be upstairs when you’re done.”

Maki nodded. After Eli and Umi left, Nico came up gently behind her lover and looped both arms around Maki’s waist, “It’s not really dating and I don’t like it either, Maki.”

“I hate it.” Maki spat.

Nico leaned her head into Maki, “How can you…?”

“I have a job.” Nico said quietly.

“D..did Komura think this up? Because…” Maki began, fists clenched and started to press into her thighs.

“I did.” Nico’s voice was so soft Maki couldn’t believe she’d actually heard Nico correctly. “It was my idea.”

Maki turned, Nico’s arms still around her, amethyst eyes open and lost, “Nico-chan?”

Nico swallowed and then blew out a long breath, “After I saw you last, Komura told me our superiors wanted us to develop pushback strategies against things like Soldier Game. Having Nico Ni make public appearances with high profile athletes and celebrities was my suggestion.”

“Why? Do you want to?” Maki felt as if she were going to fall and Nico seemed to sense the sag in energy because she moved them both to a chair, sitting across Maki, arms around the redhead’s neck, one hand playing idly with curls of hair.

“No. And nothing will happen. But I have a job. And I want to do it well. And I don’t want anyone looking for reasons I might be disloyal.” I don’t want them looking for you, Nico thought as she took one of Maki’s hands, brought it to her lips and kissed the palm, “I won’t lie to you, Maki. But there’s some things I can’t tell you right now. You just have to trust me.”

Maki knew Nico was trying to distract her by letting her lips slowly move from palm to wrist to forearm, but she was too detached to notice the gentle pressure. “Nico-chan.” Maki’s tone commanded Nico’s attention and the ruby eyes blinked up at her, mischief clouded by worry.

Nico let Maki’s arm drop and put both her hands on Maki’s cheeks, ensuring that their eyes stayed locked on each other, “I want you. So much. Only you. Nico never imagined feeling like this when I was 18 and they said, “Hey Nico Ni, sign up here for ten years and be an idol.” Nico frowned, “I never imagined anyone as amazing as you in my life, Maki-chan.” Nico kissed Maki, lips desperately twisting to break through the barrier Maki’s stiffness was building around her heart. ”Please trust me. It’ll be like spending time with my little brother for Nico. People will mostly care about seeing posts on TWIG. I won’t care at all.”

Maki sniffled as Nico licked away tears rolling down her face, “I hate this, Nico-chan.”

Nico kissed Maki’s cheek softly before replying, “I know. But I can’t just quit.”

Silence. Both of them staring ahead, no future to be seen, wondering if the other’s was darker. Maki could feel Nico, so close, so much brighter and warmer than any tomorrow she could see. Nico would be with other people, talking, laughing, maybe kissing, maybe…

Nico’s eyes were serious, as if she were reading Maki’s mind, “I won’t.”

Maki had no words, but her hands grabbed the back of Nico’s head and pulled the Idol in for a deep, yielding kiss, any self control Nico might have had dashed by the sudden softness inviting her in, Maki’s whispers encouraging her to prove how much Maki would haunt her thoughts, pushing Nico deeper into the swell of need surging between them, into an intensity of emotion Nico was not prepared for, but there was Maki’s voice, the movement under Nico’s hands, the fingers gliding shivers across Nico’s back. Nico pulled back, staring into trust and warmth and confusion, taking a breath to regain control.

“N...Nico-chan?” And that breath became a hiss as Maki touched a hesitant finger to Nico’s underlip.

Another surge, another kiss, another second became an eternity for Nico, “I love you, Maki-chan.” And then Nico ensured that neither of them said anything else, so she didn’t have to think about what “I love you” meant or hear a response that would lead to a court martial. A moan, a cry, a plea, she knew how to handle those.

#nicomaki #IdolPunk #2025 #cyber #cyberdystopia #Yazawa Nico #Nishikino Maki #Ayase Eli #Tojo Nozomi #Sonoda Umi #2024 #2024 sequel

5 notes · View notes

skyrim-se-best-first-persft · 3 years ago

Text

V Rising Has A Seamless First-Person And Third-Person Camera Mod

💾 ►►► DOWNLOAD FILE 🔥🔥🔥 Players love Skyrim because of how immersive the play experience is. Getting lost in the vast, chilly province is probably the most enjoyable aspect of the game, and that level of immersion can be expanded upon with a series of mods that inject fresh experiences into the game. With so many talented players in the modding community, it's never easy narrowing down the best of the best in any category. But immersion mods are perhaps the toughest to decide between, as so many creators have sought to imbue Skyrim with such a wide array of different vibes. Nevertheless, there is at least one near-constant: a desire to stay true, to some extent or another, to the lore-friendly flavor that Bethesda so successfully planted way back in A more immersive Skyrim is a Skyrim that takes what Todd Howard's team did and treats it as a beginning , not an end. Updated January 28th, by Quinton O'Connor: Even as the launch of decade-toasting Anniversary Edition fades into recent memory, Skyrim remains a vital part of the gaming landscape. The wait for The Elder Scrolls 6 continues, and new tools are enabling brilliant modders to enrich the realm from Winterhold to The Reach and everywhere in-between. Anniversary Edition packs in every morsel of Creation Club content, including at least one big piece that absolutely earns a spot on this updated list. Animations in Skyrim certainly show their age. For players who enjoy Skyrim from a third-person perspective, it can be especially weird to see the lack of proper animations when opening doors or interacting with various objects around the world, such as looting a chest. The Immersive Animated Looting mod introduces some fast yet realistic animations to fix this. Because the animations are relatively quick, they hardly feel intrusive. As a bonus, the subtleties and swiftness of it all help to ensure that the mod can run just fine on lower-end PCs. It can be more than a little jarring when you walk up to an NPC to trigger some chatter and then boom , the camera slides right up to their face. Even more disconcerting is having the camera swing around oh-so suddenly to draw your attention to whatever guard or courier needs to chat. Alternate Conversation Camera seeks to overhaul this aspect of the game by making the camera move more naturally when you enter a conversation. There are multiple features to explore, including the option to show conversations with the third-person camera. On top of lacking animations for interacting with chests and doors, it's a shame that Skyrim didn't introduce anything for specific sorts of clutter. Opening up a pouch or a knapsack doesn't actually animate on screen, but luckily there's a mod that adds some realism to anything and everything. Animated Clutter makes not just chests, but containers of all kinds, actually open up in front of the player's eyes. From knapsacks to barrels, to coffins and beehives, these small and lightweight animations will give the game a more organic feel when adventuring. This mod alters the 'Blessings of Nature' quest to make it more immersive from a logical point of view. The original quest has you retrieving either some sap or a sapling to restore or replace the Gildergreen that proudly stands in the center of Whiterun. With Gildergreen Regrown, the sapling that can be acquired in this quest will now gradually grow into a grand tree worthy of a quest all to itself. The process takes six in-game months and feels so much more authentic for it. While audio mods are rather in a category all their own, Immersive Sounds is a must-grab for anyone seeking to — well, wait for it — enjoy a more immersive audio experience. That's because immersion isn't just about gameplay mechanics, but also pertains to big words like feel and sound. The sounds of Skyrim, although well-made, are in need of a fresh coat of aural paint. The Immersive Sounds mod introduces a massive variety of sounds for combat, nature and any other type of environment. Footsteps on different surfaces in particular will sound and feel vastly different, even coming from other creatures and beings. Random events are a huge part of Skyrim's immersive environment, but sadly the soldierly patrol units that wander the realm's roads in a time of great upheaval don't seem to do a good job of it. There are fewer patrols than is believable, and they tend to stick to the straight-and-narrow no matter what happens nearby. Now, patrols actually have a true place and role in the game, thanks to their adjusted number and better AI. Immersive Patrols adds more excitement in the form of groups of Thalmor , Stormcloaks, and Imperials in the wild. Dawnguard patrols are also included. Some of these folks will aid you in battle. On other occasions, you might just want to give them a wide berth — Stormcloak and Imperial patrol units react to each other about as well as you'd expect, and the Thalmor were never particularly nice to begin with. If you follow the Skyrim mod scene, the name JK should feel familiar to you. JK has graphically altered so much of the game in such splendid and lore-savvy ways that their work frequently features on best visual overhaul lists across the net. While JK's High Hrothgar is a graphical mod first and foremost, the attention to detail builds upon the Greybeards' mountain abode to the point that their solemn, solitary lives feel more believable — and indeed, more immersive. Rather than tossing in a bunch of clutter that no Greybeard would be interested in, JK has meticulously revamped the very walls and symbols themselves. With religion and the Eight Divines being such a large part of Skyrim's story and lore, it doesn't really make sense that you cannot make your Dragonborn a devout individual. Wintersun - Faiths of Skyrim solves this by adding not one, not two, but 50 deities for your character to worship. This mod adds more functionality to the various shrines that you can visit across Skyrim, and also packs in prayer, lost relics to find, and even the ability to gain blessed powers from the deity of your choice should you prove a faithful servant. With over 4. This mod is magnificent; more than 5, completely voiced lines are included, all in the original voices. By blending together preexisting vocal work, the creators have brought tremendous vibrancy into Skyrim's people. Relationship Dialogue Overhaul centers the bulk of its work on the characters you'll encounter the most, such as spouses, followers, and faithful companions. But you'll still find smaller aspects of its implementation even in the rambling of city drunks and wary soldiers. Unlike every other mod on our list, Fishing is purely a Creation Club feature. It's also our newest addition, having been released on Skyrim's exact anniversary date of November 11th, Owners of 's Skyrim Special Edition can download it for free, and it's bundled in with Anniversary Edition alongside hundreds of other projects. As you run around the world, you'll undoubtedly find more than your fair share of fish floating near the surface of Skyrim's lakes and rivers. No longer must you click manically hoping to snag one with your bare hands. Fishing is a complete package; not only will you tap into your trusty rod for great catches, but you can cook them in several available abodes or display them in all their fishy glory in your very own aquarium. The Daedric artifacts in Skyrim are some of the coolest weapons in the game, but in truth, only a few feel worthwhile. If these weapons really were that epic, they would need to be more powerful. But here's a thin line between powerful and overpowered, which can complicate the issue. Zim's Immersive Artifacts brings that balance to life. Artifacts crafted by god-like beings will actually feel that way, as the mod removes the leveled aspect of such items. This makes collecting these legendary artifacts far more meaningful. No longer will the game try to con you into thinking that Daedric piece you were rewarded with at level 13 bears any relevance in your arsenal by level While there are lots of mods that aim to improve the overall quality of Skyrim's weather effects, none aim for the same effect as Wonders of Weather. This mod adds choice touches to the forecast in a manner that heightens immersion without drastically overhauling the entire system. Some of these additions are quite noticeable, such as shooting stars and rainbows. Other changes are more subtle but equally appreciable, like the small splashes on flat surfaces when it's raining. Have you ever played Skyrim and found yourself thinking, "this would be a lot more believable if I suffered from severe hypothermia? This uber-popular immersion mod adds temperature effects to Skyrim which can have drastic repercussions for your character. No longer can you stride through the northern tundra in a freezing blizzard in naught but your skivvies and expect no penalty. Frostfall makes wearing the appropriate clothes and building up a tolerance to the cold a key component of gameplay. Fail to abide by Mother Nature's harsh rules, and you'll fast become a popsicle. Most vanilla NPCs don't have a lot going on upstairs if you take our meaning. Combat AI, scheduling, travel, and reactions to their environs all get a bump in quality. You'll spot the qualitative difference quickly — a midnight downpour without Immersive Citizens doesn't seem to bother even the elderly as they stroll along their merry way, but they'll be among the first to step inside their domiciles now. The province of Skyrim is lush and lovely. Toss in a few graphical mods, and it really comes alive, but why stop there? Immersive Fallen Trees adds a subtle but serious layer of immersion to Skyrim by injecting strategically placed fallen trees throughout the landscape to make the environment feel older and more organic. Certain fallen trees can even be used to cross waterfalls. It might not sound like much, but paired with several other immersion mods, Immersive Fallen Trees punches above its weight. For a province supposedly in the midst of a civil war, it sure feels uneventful! Skyrim Battle Aftermath makes the conflict between the Stormcloaks and Imperials feel almost too real by adding battlefields across the realm that showcase the feud's unabashed brutality. Corpses litter the ground, helmets are thrust on spikes, dead horses and carriages are strewn about, and arrows pinprick the landscape. It's a memorable moment, stumbling upon one of these sites of carnage, which helps to drive home the immediacy of Skyrim's woes. Weather is a major part of the Skyrim experience, and with it comes a whole lot of wind. Blowing In The Wind is a simple mod that causes signs and lanterns to flap about in strong winds, creating a sense of realism when the weather gets brutal. It's certainly a step up from the static nature of these elements in the vanilla game, providing a realistic visual response to the ear-piercing gusts coming in from the northern seas. Left to their own devices, your Skyrim characters will last for years on end without having to gobble down so much as a single sweet roll. What kind of realism is that? Food, water and sleep are now vital not just to your survival, but your overall health as well. Where you sleep will affect how you feel the next day, and can have a direct impact on your stats. By measuring these things accordingly and keeping your player in tip-top shape, you'll be better equipped to handle the world around you. Wet and Cold tacks on a variety of weather-focused effects onto your main character and other NPCs. Emerging from a body of water will cause you to drip all over the place while breathing in cold weather will produce moisture from the mouth. Snow can build up on your armor and clothing during a blizzard, while strong winds can have a deteriorating effect on your movement speed. Combined with Frostfall, this mod can really draw you into the harshness of Skyrim and its unpredictable weather patterns. The Favorites function allows you to quickly hot-swap a variety of items with a simple keyboard press. Why not take it a step further? Visible Favorited Gear displays your favorite items on your character, which greatly adds to the immersive experience. Why shouldn't that huge broadsword be featured on your back along with the other items you've favorited? Naturally, this mod does require a bit of common sense, and it can be a tad finicky sometimes, but it's a great one for showing off all that dangerous weaponry you're packing. Behold the best of the best. Download Link: Immersive Animated Looting. Download Link: Alternate Conversation Camera. Download Link: Animated Clutter. Download Link: Gildergreen Regrown. Download Link: Immersive Sounds. Download Link: Immersive Patrols. Download Link: Wintersun - Faiths of Skyrim. Download Link: Relationship Dialogue Overhaul. Download Link: Zim's Immersive Artifacts. Download Link: Wonders of Weather. Download Link: Frostfall. Download Link: Immersive Fallen Trees. Download Link: Skyrim Battle Aftermath. Download Link: Blowing in the Wind. Download Link: Wet and Cold. Download Link: Visible Favorited Gear.

1 note · View note

everlark-your-own-adventure · 8 years ago

Text

Mockingjay Manor - Ch 6

Chapter One /// Chapter Two /// Chapter Three /// Chapter Four /// Chapter Five

Happy spooooooky Tuesday, everlarkers! Our last installment of Mockingjay Manor found Katniss and the gang trapped in the creepy attic laboratory, listening to a stranger approach from below. You voted for them to stand their ground and confront whoever (or whatever) is coming...

This week, the brilliant @appleblossomgirl0305 continues the adventure! Hang on tight, friends, the rating for this story has now been changed to M for canon-typical violence.

I glance over at Peeta and see his eyes wildly scanning the room for exits. But with the lack of light and terrors around every corner, I know there is no escape. Besides, this is my house now and just the thought makes me square my shoulders and grip the syringe tighter. We’re going to face whatever is coming up those stairs.

Peeta seems to come to the same conclusion and he nods at me, flashing me a heart-breaking smile just before he sets his mouth in a grim line. Even in this house of horrors, there is no one else I’d trust to have my back. A wave of gratitude washes through me that I’m lucky enough to have Peeta to fight by my side.

I press my back against the wall next to the door and Peeta takes up the spot mirroring mine on the other side of the doorway. I see Jo and Finnick, both still facing the freakish monkey, but moving backwards into the shadows before Jo’s cell phone light blinks off.

Once the room is blanketed in darkness, the birds immediately go silent, which is more unnerving than their grating racket. In the unnatural quiet, the steady clomping and creaking of someone climbing the stairs sets my teeth on edge. The shadows flicker and elongate as lantern light streams through the opening at the top of the stairs.

Whatever I was expecting, what walks through the door is not it. A small, thin man with paper white hair walks straight past me into the room. Though his posture is regal as he strolls by, illuminated by the warm light from his lantern, he looks more like a grandpa than a real threat. Somehow he doesn’t see Peeta and me as he walks past, trailing a peculiar scent of roses and blood.

Immediately, I scan the room; I can see Jo’s feet under the silver work table near the back of the room, but Finnick is nowhere in sight. I lower my syringe and take a breath to call out to this old man, who probably wandered in here to take refuge from the storm. But before I can speak, the old man says, without turning around, “Put that down, son. It’s a sensitive instrument.”

Peeta glances over at me, but lowers the microscope so it’s level with and cradled against his chest, like he’s just been reprimanded by our high school biology teacher.

I step forward, sliding the syringe up into my sleeve to conceal it, before demanding in the most authoritative voice I can muster, “Who are you?” Then, realizing that was the wrong place to start, I add, “This is my house, and you’re trespassing.”

He turns around slowly, leisurely to face me before saying, “Then Haymitch Abernathy is dead, I presume.” It isn’t a question. When I don’t respond, he adds with a cold smile, “I assumed he had imbibed enough alcohol to preserve himself for all eternity. And who, pray tell, are you?”

“Fine,” I say through clenched teeth, “I’ll start. I’m Katniss Everdeen.”

“Oh, right, the niece,” he says dismissively, “I see the family resemblance.” Glancing over at Peeta, who is still cradling the microscope, he adds, “And a similar taste in pretty blondes.”

Who the hell does this guy think he is? Am I so rattled by the storm, this house, the experiments, the mutated creatures, that I’m allowing myself to be insulted by this intruder? Planting both feet and lifting my chin, I grit out, “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

I hear a snicker from what must be Finnick as he answers, “Dr. Coriolanus Snow.” Then, taking a step towards me, he growls, “And I’d advise you not to take that tone of voice, Miss Everdeen.”

This close, I can see that his eyes are as unforgiving as a snake’s and I fight the urge to take a step back. At the sound of Dr. Snow’s menacing hiss, the horrifying, fanged monkey shrieks and climbs back into it’s cage. I feel Peeta step up behind me and fight the urge to lean against him for support. But just the warmth radiating off of him, like my own, private sun, strengthens me.

“As to what I’m doing here, I think you already know. I’m conducting research.”

“You mean, you’re- you’re responsible for creating these abominations?” I can’t keep the disgust out of my voice as I glance at the cages arrayed around the room.

“Well, technically your uncle deserves part of the credit. The inspiration was mine, but Mr. Abernathy was the engineer.”

“Haymitch was a software engineer,” I blurt out, wanting answers, but wanting even more to have this man and his cold, watery blue eyes out of my house.

Coriolanus Snow tsks me. “That’s what he became, not what he was. He was a geneticist and architect. Somewhere along the way, he lost his nerve, probably at the bottom of a bottle of whiskey. He wanted out. But ours isn’t the kind of business you get to walk away from.”

My mind is reeling. What had Haymitch sent me here for? His letter had said, “I need you to go back there and make things right for me. You’re the only person I know who’s strong enough to see it through.” Had he sent me here as an exterminator? To clean up his mess? Though he was a drunken wreck with terrible taste in women, he wasn’t a coward. He needs me to do something he couldn’t. In my head I can practically hear Uncle Haymitch’s exasperated words, “Figure it out fast, sweetheart.”

“Please request that your friends come out of the shadows, we wouldn’t want any… accidents to occur, would we?”

Finnick and Jo climb out of their hiding places, both still gripping their weapons and looking nervously between Snow, Peeta and me. Everything about this man is unnerving. Can he see through solid objects? His preternatural calm in the face of four armed opponents is disconcerting, bordering on frightening.

“Look, Snow-”

“Doctor Snow,” he corrects.

Gritting my teeth, I say, “Look, Doctor Snow, your ‘research’ is over. Grab whatever you need and leave. Tomorrow, I call animal control and start renovating this old house. That’s what Haymitch wanted and that’s what’s going to happen.”

“No, I don’t think it will,” he says nonchalantly, pursing his puffy lips and shaking his head slowly as he reaches into his pocket. Jo and I both raise our weapons as he pulls out a what appears to be a jar of golden jewels, at the same moment as he extinguishes the lantern. It isn’t until he’s thrown the jar and the sound of shattering glass is replaced by the angry buzzing of wasps that I realize we’ve been outplayed.

I hear Peeta’s grunt of pain before he shouts for me to run. I’m immobilized by the chaos around me: the birds are screeching, the monkey is shrieking, the wolf is howling. I can hear Finnick and Jo screaming, but they sound too far away. I lunge towards where Peeta was just seconds ago, but encounter nothing but air.

Then the stinging starts. The pain is like a strike of lightning, so intense that my vision shatters into shards of darkness. I howl for Peeta, needing to run, escape down the stairs, but unable to find him, and leaving him is unthinkable. I fumble for my phone, but another excruciating sting on my hand renders it useless. I hear the sound of crunching glass, but can’t discern if it’s my phone or the glass from Snow’s jar of horrors.

Lurching sideways, I realize that I’m so disoriented that I don’t even know which way to run. Worse, I seem to be losing control of my legs, maybe losing consciousness altogether, though in the shimmery darkness it’s impossible to tell. I drag my left foot forward and trip over something large and soft. The resulting “oomph” alerts me to the fact that I’ve landed on one of my companions. With my last shred of strength, I find a limb and start to drag the dead weight towards what I hope is a door, my only conscious thought is that I have to get out of here.

To my absolute horror, I smell smoke. I swing my head around wildly, but don’t see any light from flames. I redouble my efforts to drag whoever I’m holding onto and suddenly feel the weight lessen as the body begins to slide. Seconds later, I register hands on my shoulders steering me away from the bird cacophony.

The hands are small and light, so they must be Jo’s.

“Where’s Finnick?” I yell to her over the din. But it isn’t Jo’s voice that responds in a raspy whisper directly into my ear.

“Help me get him in.”

Trying to fight through the wooziness, I struggle to make sense of what’s going on, what’s real. It’s hard to be sure, but the voice sounded female or maybe a young boy? Whoever it is, it’s not Johanna or anyone we came in with.

A tiny penlight flashes on, the light sharp and refractive to my sensitive eyes. I try to focus and am able to make out that it’s trained on a symbol stitched onto the fabric of their shirt. That same golden bird inside a circle that’s on my key and that painting of Maysilee in the entryway.

The stranger’s light beam sweeps out in an arch and I see Finnick staggering in a circle with Johanna slung over his back as he swings the pronged pole in wide arc trying to stave off whatever attack is coming next. When the light blinks out, I’m left with the darkness strobing before my eyes. Trusting a stranger in this chaos is madness, but any way out is better than staying here.

I heave my side of what I’m now sure is Peeta and slam into an alcove in the wall. The sounds are muted and I slide to the floor, clutching Peeta’s arm against my chest. My stomach drops as the floor gives way. But I’m not falling, I’m in some kind of an elevator. In seconds, we slam into the bottom and I spring out into a small room, lit with a single-candle lantern. The warm light shows some kind of an office or pantry, the floor covered in a thick oriental rug, with a small sleeping pallet in the corner.

A rumbling behind me alerts me that the elevator, which I realize is actually a large dumbwaiter set into the wall, has started to rise. Grasping Peeta’s leg in both hands, I tug with all of my strength until Peeta is on the rug beside me and the dumbwaiter ascends. Presumably at the command of our savior.

I collapse on the floor next to Peeta, which is now covered in tiny orange bubbles, and pass out.

I have no idea how much time has passed when I come to. Peeta is few feet away from me and I crawl over to where he’s laying. I brush the sweaty hair back from his beautiful face and take a quick inventory. He has a cut on his forearm, but it has already stopped bleeding. I count five swollen stings and a bruise on his left temple, but otherwise he is gloriously intact. I can’t help myself, I kiss the bruise, then the corner of his eyelid, then brush my lips softly against his. One eye cracks open and he smiles up at me. The relief that floods through me at that sliver of cornflower blue at that heart-crushingly sweet smile makes me gasp. Experimentally, I try another kiss, a bit more demanding this time. He groans and snakes a hand up into my hair. And then I can’t stop kissing him. I can feel the heat and slight nudge of the start of his erection against my thigh and I want him with such intensely it steals my breath, and possibly my sanity.

To my great disappointment, he breaks the kiss to take a similar inventory of me. When he’s satisfied, he crushes me against his chest. “Thank god, you’re okay,” he breathes into my hair. “Where are Finn and Jo?”

I’m ashamed to admit, there was nothing in my mind but Peeta’s safety. Glancing up, I scan the room for an exit and catch sight of another portrait of Maysilee. I have a dizzying moment of deja vu, like I’ve met this woman recently. A cold sensation, like ice-water drizzling down my spine makes me shudder as I make the connection and recognize the flowing blond hair and exact green eyes that are set in the snarling, caged wolf-like creature from upstairs. A small shriek escapes me before I can clasp a trembling hand over my mouth.

No wonder Haymitch hadn’t been able to come back here. Hadn’t been able to face what had happened here. Rage flares in my heart as I imagine someone distorting the man I love into something as freakish as that abomination in the cage.

This isn’t about a fortune anymore.

I see a note tacked to the door and spring up to grab it. Whoever had helped us had scrawled a the following: “Your friends are safe. Stay here. I’ll be back soon.” I have no idea who we’re dealing with and my instinct is to get the hell out of here, but Peeta, who has propped himself up on his elbows, still looks weak and exhausted. I wrack my muddled brain for how best to keep us safe - should we trust this stranger and stay put, or should we sneak out and try to find Johanna and Finnick?

#Mockingjay Manor #EYOA #vote vote vote

109 notes · View notes

thestrifeuniverse · 8 years ago

Text

GORETOBER DAY 3 || THE SEAMSTRESS

Today’s theme: Skinning/Filleted Alive Word Count: 6010 words/11 pages Characters: High Officer Rex, The Seamstress, various other mentions of canon charas Pings: @xenoevil, @tepidoil, @snakesnbites

Trigger warning: skinning, heavy gore, vomit mention, body horror, unreality, self harm, intrusive thoughts, needles, graphic eye trauma, tooth trauma mention, general trauma/PTSD themes, drug mention

~*~Let the games begin~*~

They called her The Seamstress.

This is not a mission I need, but I’m here anyways. Doctor’s orders - you have to leave the nest of comfort sometime, right? It’ll be good for you. Some fresh air, especially after all the hardships you and your brother went through - something like that, coupled with a direct order from the Top Gun themselves. There’s more people than I thought would be here, surrounding, crushing me against the shoulders of my fellow soldiers while we’re all huddled together in what could only be described as one of those tents you’d see in the Entertainment squad. It’s tinier than usual though, and the ring of seats that hosts thousands to watch whatever cooky plan our Captain came up with are missing. Usually it’s a kind invite for a distraction, something that’d keep us all calm and stress-free.

In this reality, however, we’ve been herded here along with some nearby civilians by the Seamstress on “friendly” and “inviting” terms. My fellow soldiers and I are supposed to be undercover, but it’s hard not to fear there’s someone nearby listening in for the mechanical hum within our veins, or that any one of those civilian eyes staring at us would see right through the thin rags I bought from a merchant just yesterday. Try focusing elsewhere, Rex. Friendly. Inviting. The Seamstress sounded nice enough, if you’re a fool and an idiot. Friendly. She’s about as real as the faux flesh filling in the two long claw marks across my belly. Inviting: this felt too easy. Too kind. The Seamstress is supposed to be a high level monster, not a kindness. Friendly. Inviting. I can’t be too careful, not like last time. Inviting. Friendly.

Fingertips tap along my thumb as I count the ways I can say friendly and inviting in all the languages and cultures I know. It’s all I can do to keep a level head when I’m stuck listening to my fellow soldiers chatter amongst themselves while we wait.

“Welcome, friends, to my humble abode!” her voice booms over our heads like one of Devoltn’er’s loud speakers.

My head jerks upwards, then left, right. I don’t mean to look so paranoid, but I can’t really help it either. My therapist says it’s just a thing that happens when you witness atrocities like I have, like soldiers do. The trembling out of nowhere. My heart racing faster than Lieutenant Lark does down the race track. The jumpiness, the unexplained tears. Things that you can’t scrub from the remnants of your mind after watching razor-sharp wire peel flesh from bone and hear your twin brother screaming for help. I was lucky, my therapist said. Lucky to be alive. Lucky to still breathe while the corpse of my only living family had to be purged of all its blood by the PROGRAM because of the nanites in his system. Precious, filthy nanites. The tiny robots currently flooding my blood stream, making my veins itch, making my fingers twitch with the urge to gore my inner elbow in hopes of taking them out.

“Don’t be so spooked,” a voice in my ear caused me to jump. It’s my high officer, the one who oversees my familial platoon. He’s here with all the rest of us just to make sure we do our jobs. That’s what he said, anyways.

I can remember the sadness in his tone when he said it, like he knew what I knew. That he knew what it meant when Devoltn’er gave orders for a “full-purge excursion.” I saw the orders, actually. I knew immediately the second I saw her face where we were going. The orders were clear, and my therapist, that damn asshole, had the audacity to tell me I was going to be okay. That this would be a good thing for me, that we were safe, of all things.

Safe! This is the fucking soldier PROGRAM! No one is ever fucking okay or safe around here.

I count how many times I can say safe in all the foreign languages I know. Twenty-eight. Thirty, if I count the ones I made up in class with my brother all those years back.

“Please, please,” the Seamstress’ voice cuts in again and I shudder, “come on in! I know it’s a bit crowded here but I promise you, I will get to each and every one of you as quickly and conveniently as possible.”

Get to us.

My eyes roam, trying to make sense of the place. The tent overhead can’t seem to fixate on whether it wants to be that flimsy easy-to-pack cloth we give our travelling entertainment troupes or if it wants to be a fully-fledged, weirdly convex house. There’s places where wood and plaster exist, aged and brown due to- what, I don’t know (and don’t want to know). Then, there’s gaps; cracked and ripped open like someone was desperately banging and punching through the walls, attempting to hide behind large crates and furniture that just can’t quite get the job done right. The ceiling looks like a tent the most though, what with the fact it’s pointed upwards smack dab in the center and has a row of tassel-like hangings coming off the support beams. I can hear breathing in the walls, I swear it, if everyone around me would just shut up with their quiet chatting.

Can’t say, though, that it’s too unusual to see shifting and struggling architecture anymore, let alone ones run down like this. Would’ve been unusual had this happened a few years ago, but currently? There’s so much shit you see with Monsters that anything’s possible. I’ve seen living trees skin the fur right off the animals they lured in. Watched as that oasis in the far desert became their tomb, the bark of the tree becoming even furrier than before. I’ve seen a bird bigger than our Captain efficiently push the whole skeleton - as if a child’s pop-out toy - right out of a soldier so it could decorate it’s lair with them. I’ve seen my own brother filleted alive and used as a puppet to speak sweet nothings to me.

Shit just doesn’t fucking have the same impact when you’ve been through hell like I fucking have.

The decorations are solid even if the walls are not, that I can confirm. There’s those tall furniture - scaffoldings, bookshelves, screens, an incredibly long couch with a painting behind it. Then the boxes and crates, wood, with trinkets and knick-knacks on display. Delicates such as faberge eggs and music boxes are probably the most innocent things I can see. Stained glass lamps, custom made from a local glass blower, tall vases and badly made cubic sculptures. Looks like an old grandma with an art hoarding problem, mixed with a touch of the nostalgic “antique” theme.

The most disconcerting things, however, are the mannequins.

I’m caught staring at one, unfortunately. It’s had its eyes on me since we got here - eyes I originally thought were civilian eyes, but are instead glass bead ones so hyper realistic I swear to god they might blink at any second. These eyes are green, like mine. Perfectly dark green sclera with a lighter yellow-green iris, a touch of orange for the veins in the corners. Eyelashes are almost nonexistent. There’s no other facial features except for very vague shapes that outline the bridge of a nose and perhaps a little cheekbone (again, like mine - highly raised and cupping the eyes like the prominent ridge of a woven basket). The rest of the mannequin is lifeless, formless. It’s dark grey and made of a hard plaster instead of the cloth ones I’ve seen in the fashion squad. Mitten hands dangle beside missing hips and legs, missing pieces that are instead replaced by a thick iron rod and a broad wooden stand. It stands a little lower than me, making me realize I’m hunching over to keep eye contact even when my fellow soldiers blip in and out of my vision from walking past and shuffling around by me.

“He’s beautiful, isn’t he?”

The Seamstress breathes right in my ear, once more causing me to jolt and pull back. It’s hard to relax when I hear her laugh at my reaction, “just simply eye-catching. That one’s going to be my favorite, I can tell.”

She glances round, gathering my curiosity. There’s a few others like me who’d been caught staring at mannequins as well.

They’re still staring.

“Come on, a little closer now, friends!” She calls, waving us to huddle in even closer after she walks through the crowd to the far back of the tent-house, “I’m going to start now, so let’s get ready!”

She’s the definition of long: taller than I imagined, maybe seven foot. Her body is just about a perfect cylinder, no form to it beneath the heavy, hand-made, silk robes she wears. Her needle-like arms stretch nearly to the ground, an unfortunate side effect of her Strife. Something about fearing being stretched too thin by her passion at work, or something like that.

I read the files on her before we left. The Seamstress is a dangerous high-class Monster that disguises herself as a friendly seamstress that offers civilians free clothing in their most desperate time of need. She can appeal to all classes, whether it’s the luxurious lifestyles of the upper class, the modest ones of the middle, or the more destitute and dire situations of the poor. She gathers in a vast array of civilians she feels need her “help” then dresses them to their deaths. There were parts that were missing from them, namely her background, previous life information, how she dresses her prey. The most important information was there, though: a speculation on how to escape her traps alive and possibly defeat her-

Being pushed forward by my friends now felt just about as abrasive as her earlier interruption. The feel of being pushed drives me nuts nowadays; I can’t stop my thoughts from imagining what it must’ve felt like for my brother when those teeth ripped through his flesh. Painful, sure, but was it like running a brush through tangled hair? A piece of floss too hard against the gum? Would it have been similar to the blades I ran through the back of my arm at night just to feel alive again? I haven’t brushed my hair or flossed my teeth in weeks because of thoughts like these.

My high officer has a hold on my right arm, the scarred one (or the one that would be scarred, had I not known how to use those dirty, disgusting nanites inside me to seal up the wound. A fucking curse upon me, they are, I tell you). I can’t yank away even if everything inside me screams too, there’s no room to jerk my arm back. I can’t tell him to fuck off; he’s my commanding officer and my closest friend here. I can’t be mean to him like that. My skin itches and god, it is so hard not to want to scrape myself clean of my own blood. Teeth grit. I can’t feel anything in the dead nerve where I lost one of my teeth. Since my fingers are suffocating in human bodies and the threadbare clothing of my peers, I focus on that instead. Try to “feel the void” within my teeth, try to become that void.

I can’t count how many times I could say void. I can’t breathe.

“Yes, yes, that’s it, dears. Now, stand as straight as you can,” god, she’s herding us into place like cattle, pushing some with her long thin hands and pulling others. “I need to take measurements. Don’t panic, beauties, but you’re about to see something somewhat unsightly. Take note it is perfectly natural, however! I will not be hurt!”

Wish I could’ve closed my eyes just to defy her, but I couldn’t. They’re wide fucking open when she lifts the sides of her robe - a robe I thought had been one piece, but was now revealed to be several pieces sewn together to accommodate something - and begins to rock back and forth. There’s a crack in her spine, a pop, snap, crunch - god, that’s bone - and soon enough her own ribs (or so I can assume) become limbs. Skin-covered grey limbs, lighter than the mannequins behind her but made of that same unsettling plastic-like material. Her hands, all twelve of them, original limbs included, are tiny, elongated. Like a child’s hand, yet as elegant and fully developed as my own. She’s no longer a cylinder in shape, but more like an open ribcage of arms. Her head remains the same size, but her neck is longer, like there’s nothing but spine and rib-arms. I used to think she had legs, but it’s actually just her spine supporting her. God, I knew she was a fucking snake from the moment I set eyes on her in the crowd. Why didn’t I trust that and read into the way her long robes dragged several feet behind her? Fuck.

The Seamstress began grabbing tools from all around the room, tools hidden from the untrained eye, ones like my own who hadn’t bothered taking note that everything’s so thinly spread across the room. Tape measures. Needles without thread. Thick string that doesn’t really move like string. It’s stretchy, pale, almost like elastic but far more organic. I’m thinking some kind of animal fur, but there’s no fur or hair I’ve ever seen that stretches like that.

My fingers are freed when she rips the fabric off my neighbor’s body like it’s nothing. Looking down revealed that there were hands all around us now, clammy, greedy. It took me a moment of glancing down and up so fast my eyes strained to realize she’s buzzing and vibrating, her hands and arms moving so fast they’re practically a blur. The hair on my neck rises a little, then there’s a sharp prick when some of them are accidentally ripped from me when one of her hands cleanly yanks my clothing off. The same hand ruffles my hair and rubs my sore neck, soothing it. It gives me a good pat on the cheek before moving on. When I make eye contact with her, she mouths an apology I can’t hear due to her buzzing being too loud.

She’s sized us all up, literally, and stripped us all down - also literally. Despite being nude among my peers, I fear nothing. Not even the concave scarring in my stomach from my brother’s murderer. The only thing I really wish I had was my binder, the expensive one she ripped right off me. There’s no point in it here of course,considering we’re all hanging out, but the light press of the binder kept me grounded whenever I breathed. Without it, my mind already begun slipping into that dark place again. I can’t count how many ways I can say binder in all my languages because I don’t know the equivalent words. It’s a new term to me, unfortunately.

“There we are! All ready,” the Seamstress clasped her hands together and smiled at each and every one of us, locking her eyes on us. There’s rows of three dots beneath her eyes that trail down to her jawline, “are you all excited for your new clothes? I know I am! I’m going to ask that the few of you I talked to earlier step forward. Yes, all you naughty little ones who I caught eyeing my beautiful mannequins! Please, please, come before your Seamstress so I can address you?”

My high officer is staring at me. He saw me staring at the mannequin to, didn’t he? Now that I’m thinking about it, I can recall seeing a hand waving in front of me in a way that didn’t match the natural way people walked. Was that him?

I’m reluctant to step forward. There’s only a couple that do; they’re the loyal ones, the ones best at following orders. I have no way out. There’s nothing behind us, even when I look. No door where there should have been (how did no one else notice this? Most importantly, how did I not notice this?), where there was. Skin’s itching again. Crawling. I can’t scream like I want to, can’t cry. It’s been a year since my brother died, but I still can’t talk. Can’t utter a single word. It’s like my tongue is sewn to the roof of my mouth every time I try, and there’s really nothing interesting I have to say, anyways.

My therapist is in the process of teaching me sign language, but mostly I just write or text her my responses. I want to finish learning sign language. I finally began to feel like I could actually get my points across this year thanks to it, began trying to talking to people again. Lieutenant Lark really helped me out with that, too, and our Captain - deaf as cee was - knew how it comforted me. My eyes are glued to the wall where the door should be. My overseeing officer is staring at me like he knows and understands why I can’t stop crying in silence.

I really, really want to keep learning sign language.

I really, really can’t fight the hands now dragging me by my arms and legs forward.

“There, there, don’t be upset. I know I pinched you earlier, but I promise it won’t happen again! Even the experts make mistakes, my grandmother used to say, though I’m hardly an expert. More like the all-time supreme, you know?” She chortles. It rings like false guffaw my father used to give me whenever I told him a dumb joke.

Naked and afraid. Isn’t that one of the jokes I’ve seen among my peers’ social networks? Naked and afraid. A real fear of some people. Standing in front of their closest friends, exposed, taking in the judgment. There’s no judgment here, though- we’re all pretty tight-knit in this troop. We’ve seen things in each other no one else would ever see. Many know my ticks so well they help teach me new words or hold my hand when I’m starting to count. Grounding. I’ve seen them at their worst, too. I know Rosie over there, with xir big eyes, cries in the evenings of each 24th day due to her son. I know Evamund loses his sight when he writes due to his stress. I know my commanding officer, RunDun, smokes too much of the medicinal stuff we’re all given after traumatic events to cope. I’ve given him my ration cards for the stuff before. I don’t need it. It just causes my shivers to worsen and my thoughts to darken.

Right now, though, I wish I had it. Wish I could be higher than the ribbed ceiling above us to think. The same ceiling that now seemed to spin as slow as the carousels at our amusement parks. Tassels chiming, wood creaking.

The cathedral ceiling to our eventual tomb.

There was info missing from the Seamstress’ file. Mostly details, things like her background. I’ve said that already. Background, past, history. All missing from her files. There was one detail I noticed, however, that sealed the final tasseled nail in this tomb of ours. The details on how to fight her, namely speculation on how to escape, mentioned a cue, a certain codeword she’d say that would signal us to the exact moment we should fight or flee.

There was no codeword in the file.

I looked, and looked, and looked, scraped through that damn thing for hours. Nothing, not even an inkling. Just the sentence, “at the codeword given, bring up your arms and send your Kallias in to fight.”

We did not have our Kallias. They were taken from us and penned up somewhere. I can feel mine now, even at the long distance, like a waning voice beneath my skin. I can feel it in my arms, in my throat, in the back or my body. It’s crying.

We were never given a codeword either, not even an inkling that there would be anything to look for to save ourselves. I’ve been stripped and now stand shaking in front of countless eyes who now realized what the real ultimatum of this mission was.

This is a full-purge excursion.

We were sent to die here.

Fingers comb through my hair, only worsening the shivering in my body, the prickling in my skin. Tears are so damn painful when they fill your eyes, like glass stabbing into the sensitive innards of your socket. My arms hang beside me like string while I look over the faces of the only family I have left to my name. The only people who, should I die, would miss me. The ones who’ve been there for me more than anyone else when my brother passed, who sung at his wakana alongside me. If only the Captain knew. If only Lark knew.

Maybe they’ll miss us, but I doubt it. We are foot soldiers. No one misses foot soldiers.

The hands in my hair run down to my shoulders and hold me in place, pushing me down like the weight that’s been on my mind since we got here. I can hear her hissing, whining. Sent here to die. Her head looms above those of us in the front - I can tell because, although my back is now facing her massive body, I can feel the stream of her breath falls over me like the mist of a waterfall. My head tries to move, to glance at my family around me one last time, but I can’t stop staring at the spot in the wall where the door should have been. Where I should have been able to get out, to leave.

“It’s time, my dears, for your new outfits.” The Seamstress is whispering so only those of us she’s summoned can hear her. My tears increase.

There’s no warning besides that. No time for screams even. It takes me a literal second or two to realize what I had just witnessed and why there’s no longer people standing in front of me, but masses of red with the occasional blue, green, and silver. The thing started with their feet and took literally nanoseconds to transpire- but I can figure how it might’ve happened now. Their feet, held by those thousands of hands I hadn’t realized existed, were pierced. I don’t know how or why, and I don’t quite know why it was so clean, but I can see the hands that were once on the floor are now on the ceiling holding thin strings where my family’s flesh hung like hide. Skinned completely without a single trace of error. The Seamstress is ancient. She’s been doing this since before I was born.

“Fuck! Fuck! FUCK! OH FUCK! OH FUCK!” My nearest neighbor is building herself up, body shaking despite being forced to stare at the bleeding muscle-like bodies still standing before us. “FUCK! SHIT! FU-”

My entire gut wrenches and I can’t fight a lurch. There’s nothing in there to purge, but the soldier to my right has the same idea and spews a rancid mess across the body feet from him. We can’t bend over; the hands are holding us by the hair and shoulders making us watch.

There’s a second flash, an angry RIP that’s combined with snapping and the rare crack. The muscle and tendons are stripped from bone in waves, sending organs splashing across the ground in a bloody mess that mixes and splashes all across the bones now falling to the ground. It’s only now that I realize we’re standing on a small stage lifted less than a foot higher than the rest of the floor. My feet are splattered with blood, but not coated. My body, too, has been painted. There’s flecks of green on my shoulder from what I can see when I look down. My neighbor to my right is covered in blue.

“FUCK! FUAAAAAAAAAAA!”

She’s just screaming now, struggling hard but unable to escape. I can’t stop shaking. Flesh peels and my focus is drawn to my front just in time to see the tendons being pried from the muscles in mid air. They’re stretchy, elastic, kind of like thick string but all bloody and hard to pick out. After the Seamstress puts them away, opening the crates nearby to reveal some kind of mildly glowing fluid, I watch the hands attached to her rib-arms lower and stretch the string I saw before, threading needles with it. Not string. Tendons, stripped until they were just thick enough to be string-like.

By now I have to watch out of obligation to my family. Their blood glitters and hums, buzzing with life just like my own are. I can hear something in my head, frantic, screaming faintly like it’s at a far off distance. My heart’s racing. The nanites in my skin itch so horribly I can’t help scratching my own fingers together while counting the ways I can say blood and skin in the languages I know. There’s a splash of blood across my face, an accidental flick of a needle missing its mark while multiple hands begin stripping flesh and sewing it together. I lose count.

Screaming never helps, I find. Monsters are only drawn out by it, egged on by the loud noises. Even when I do manage to squeeze my eyes shut and sob, I can’t scream like I want to. It’s pointless to try, so why bother. The sobs of my last surviving family act as backup singers to the frantic and anguished yelping of the woman on my right.

Escape is futile. In reality, in my own mind. My brother’s screaming had been close to her pitch, which makes it even harder to breathe. I can feel the pain I think they all went through after her hands stripped them. Could they even feel it? Was it so fast they couldn’t process it? They stood there after dying, staring. I think I could see my high officer crying just before, or after. Did that mean he felt it? Was he envious I was here? Did he wish it was me instead of him?

There’s more noises, but focusing on them won’t help. Even when I hear gurgling and ripping next to me, I can’t stop counting. Blood. Skin. There’s three. Four. Five. The voice on my left yells in anguish before going silent. I can feel hands smooth over my shoulders and neck, causing my muscles to tense and brace for some sort of impact. Pain, suffering, the feel of my own skin peeling open and off my flesh. It’s here I realize I can’t hear the backup singers anymore, right before the streaming turns to gurgling and a struggle, then a thump.

This is it. It’s finally my turn to die, just like it was all those years ago. Except unlike those years ago there won’t be a savior. No one’s alive here but the Seamstress and me. I’m going to lose my skin and she’s going to dress up herself in it. My hands lift and grip tightly to their opposing arm across my chest, nails digging into flesh so hard it hurts. It’ll hurt worse when she skins me, I know I will. All the cuts and bruises I’ve given myself won’t even compare! I’ll be here all alone, crying, shaking while my back is ripped off my carcass and I’m forced to come face to face with the fact I was the one who shoved my brother into harm’s way to save my own damn self!

The pressure of her hands leave my shoulders. I’m left alone. Sobbing, shaking, waiting for something. She’s still above me, her breaths heavy with the stench of something rotten and I feel something wet and warm hit my head. Is she chewing on the pieces of my family? The family who knew I had done that to my own brother but still continued to comfort me anyways? Who kept it a secret, mourned with me? Who were as guilty as I was for enabling me to save my own skin?

Stitching.

Chewing.

Mumbling, humming, flinging and sloshing.

Silence.

Something drags nearby. Slides across the floor, wood on wood. A thunk of something being placed down. Hands straighten my body so I’m my full height instead of the cowering mess I was. Arms are pried to my sides and my head’s tilted up. There’s a wet slap of what I assume to be skin slapping around and being toyed with.

Hands hold me still while things are placed on me. There’s a clasp sealed, my body covered by a warm blanket and my head adorned with something heavy and glassy. My shoulders slouch when she places a heavy robe or something on them. Jewelry is fastened. I’m pushed forward just a tad until my toes can feel the edge of the stage. Something soft tickles my chin.

“There, you’re perfect. Go on! Open those pretty green eyes, look at what I’ve made for you!”

The mannequin I saw before stood before me, dressed head-to-toe in the Seamstress’ handiwork. Skin draped down its chest, covering all the way past its hips, keeping it modest yet powerful. Its hips, which looked a lot like mine, jutted out at the sides of the draping mess over its front and back, but all the important areas were covered in a crudely sewn together mess of skin. Fur and hair lined the neck area, down over the collar bones and the hide the heavy brass shoulder clasps almost perfectly. Behind it, much like the Seamstress’ own robes, rested a long and heavy cape made of the leftover skin, fur, and muscle.

Jewelry made of teeth and bone accented the mannequin's arms and neck, and there was something resting on its forehead I failed to notice before. A string of eyes - the eyes from the mannequins, all but the green ones - rested like a crown over a messy head of tangled messy hair. Hair I’d seen my family brush before, let them brush when I couldn’t.

Then I realized that it wasn’t the mannequin before me, but a mirror. The same dark grey of the mannequin’s skin had spread from my fingertips and toes sometime during this whole process. Maybe it’s why I felt so bold, so unashamed to be naked. I don’t know how it happened, but it did, and now I’m a pretty and dressed-up monster just like she is. The bodies of my fellow “chosen” soldiers lay dead but intact next to me save a strip or two here and there and the wounds used to silence them forever. Their eyes were missing. When I glanced around again, I noticed all the other mannequins had new eyes. All but the one with green eyes. The one I was chosen by.

Fingers rested on my shoulders, weighing me down, further spreading the grey upon my skin. My lungs filled with air, no longer picking up the putrid smell of vomit and blood, but something else. Something akin to dust. The Seamstress’ head lowered until she was right next to me, staring into the mirror right into my vibrant green eyes. Those dots I’d seen on her face before glistened. They, too, were eyes.

“I told you you’d be my favorite,” she breathed.

I can’t feel my lungs anymore. I can’t seem to count, either. All I can see is the thing in the mirror wearing the skin of his own family. My hand lifts, a movement I can’t feel very well, and runs under the skin that covers my torso. There’s two grooves in what feels like plastic where my skin should be; the marks from where I had stripped pieces of my own skin off to attone for my sins.

Scars from my brother’s murderer.

The Seamstress asks how I feel. I don’t know how long I’m standing there staring and feeling myself before I lift my hands to reply. Tears still fall, but I can’t feel them. She asks me why can’t I speak, but I don’t reply. My hands are talking just fine for me. I can’t count, but I can speak. Words I couldn’t count flow through my fingers. My brother is gone. I can’t speak. The Seamstress grows impatient with me. Can’t speak. I can’t talk. But she can’t read sign language, so she pushes me around, trying to get me to talk.

In this moment I remember that I want to keep learning sign language.

It’s also in this moment I realize that I’m yet again the only one not dead, which meant I had nothing to lose. The boiling in my blood at being tossed and turned, treated like a rag doll intensifies. Her hand nearest me lowers, needle still in her grasp. It’s bigger than a knife.

It makes a great tool to stab her right through the eye.

-----

My therapist doesn’t talk to me anymore.

No one really does, not even after my promotion. High officer Rex, a real fucking joke there. My fellow officers don’t look me in the eye anymore, they can’t. I’m missing one of them and the other is somewhat glassy, unblinking. It pierces through anyone who tries to meet it just like that needle pierced through the Seamstress. She’s still alive, you know, walking around in soldier skin and muscle and fur that she hand crafted so lovingly into a robe. She even has the crown of eyes that I wore once. I’ve seen her. I visit her area on occasion. I’m trying to learn what she did to me so I can either reverse it or just embrace it.

So far, I can’t do much of either, so I’m stuck here in unfeeling, unemoting limbo until she teaches me. I’m the only one to have ever survived her attacks. Had she cut my hips off, I would’ve become a new mannequin! Isn’t that funny? But we made a deal. An eye for an eye, they say. Everything comes with a price.

It’s lonelier than ever, but I can’t really feel it as much anymore. Maybe I should thank her. Being a living mannequin with one eye has its perks. For instance, even though I can, I don’t count anymore. I can’t remember some of the languages I used to speak anyways, so it’d only drive me madder than I already am. Instead, I carve patterns into my plastic mannequin body to remind me of the people I’ve killed with my selfish acts of self-preservation and unkindness. My therapist told me it wasn’t my fault, that really it’s a miracle I’m alive. It’s a real miracle alright. I was the only soldier in a troop of twenty to come back different yet alive. Everyone celebrated and mourned. After she told me it was a miracle I was alive and that I should be grateful to still be here, I asked her if she knew what it felt like to feel a needle pierce her eyeball. If she knew how it felt to watch the program you work for carve into the corpse of your own brother just to retrieve the tiny robots living in his skin.

I asked if she knew I was on a suicide mission meant to kill me and all my family, knowing full well that no one would miss me, because we had all seen a Monster hand-crafted by the Leader themselves to kill civilians. The very one that she had told me wasn’t real before my brother and I went out to find. The one that only she knew we were hunting on that exact day at that exact time.

Then, I asked if she’d like to know what it felt like to be skinned alive.

---

My therapist doesn’t talk to me anymore.

#file: writing;#file: my writing;#my writing;#file: soldiers;#file: monsters;

14 notes · View notes

zairatimmel-blog · 8 years ago

Text

Humans are Weird-SciFi Part 1

Log: 863

Time of Catalogue: 11.2-17.8.3433

Cataloguer: Dr. Ensin Bryce

The following reports shared over the next few logs take place over the course of my younger years as I worked towards my degree in xenomology and unnatural biologies. The events themselves transpire at a much slower rate than will be recorded, as all species and manners of life communicate by way of their own language of birth or a variation of such. These recordings will be a transcription of their communications in my current tongue in order to save time. So, in the essence of understanding, note that all inter-species communiques were done through the usage of the P-1589 Intergalactic Translator, helpfully nicknamed ‘Janus’ by an associate of mine.

It should be made aware upfront that the events were very rarely altered by my own intervention and that I was merely an occasional onlooker and often an accidental victim. It is with great pride that I retell these events before my coming death so that those coming can know the true story. I will allow those who listen to these tellings to determine the worth of my words which may or may not contradict the established lore with which you hold. Just know that all for which I speak is the truth as far as I can remember and that I, Doctor Faluption Ensin Bryce am a first-hand account. Make of this as you will, even the young around me presently, choose to retell the events falsely, twisting the stories of Rhea which I have provided into that of a legendary god among men. Among all species alike, instead of those of a girl who was just as lost in this expanding universe as many others.

I will try to be most helpful to those who come after me by inserting my own critiques and explanations of the situations as they happen or afterwards, in case your technology has developed far passed what is recognizable to that of my modern time. And with this poor introduction, I shall recount my first days, which may or may not hold minor significance to the following logs, but share them I will nonetheless as they hold considerable significance to myself, and as the cataloguer of further events, I can share whatever I wish.

Returning to a time of my youth; the exact number of years I dare not say, for which I mean I do not remember, I was a charming lad. I had graduated with honours and certificates from the University Terra, the prestigious house of knowledge in the Sol-AR system. To those of you which speak my native tongue, the joke will not be lost on you, as our system can be shortened to the Solar System, a common name for our body of planets and moons circulating around our sun. Was it us who named our system as such? I do not know for sure, but the best I can guess is that only homo sapien sapiens have a comedic system through use of added words or hidden phrases. By which I mean puns.

My alma mater, while impressive for being the only school of higher learning in the system to accommodate non-humans was also famed in one other regard. It was the launching base for interstellar tourism. While most all cargo and heavy trade goes through the off-world launch pad on our moon, the interstellar launch site near University Terra accommodated those aliens and humans who wanted to tour the planet or travel to the intra-galactic launch satellite at Alpha Centauri-B. I do fear that I am slowing myself down and boring you all with my explanations of all these facts for which I am sure you are aware of, so I will try to limit myself to those matters which I feel are important to know. Or, in my old age I discuss in a tangent for which I did not mean to travel down.

Continuing on, I had just graduated with a degree best described as a middling degree. It gives me more knowledge than those who only spent a few years in school but not enough to truly become a doctor of the subject. I did however decide to spend the coming months travelling with my professor; a lovely woman by the name of Alder Biggs. She had the pleasant tendency to speak to me as if I were a toddler and refused to acknowledge my contributions to her papers or small tips to ensure her safety. This of course, would lead to her untimely death at the hands of a vicious predator known colloquially by the Ravvish people of Ravilan as a Death-Stalker. But, I am getting ahead of myself. What is most important for this log, is to know that I had signed up to follow her as a scribe for the next six months as she explored some of the uncharted planets in Z-66B-Tertiary-Sector star system, known much more nicely as the Lion-Eye Nebula.

Why was a scientist from Terra venturing to uncharted territory? Well, it was common practice and still is today to have at least one human on board any ship of the Galactic Alliance. It was considered good luck for the crew as we had the terrible habit of simply not dying. It was the condition of joining the Alliance in the first place.

The ship we were boarding, Dr. Biggs and I, was a massive star cruiser. Twice the size of any vehicle I had travelled on before and yet Dr. Biggs continuously assured me in her mocking tone that it was smaller still than the ship we would be boarding to actually reach our destination. I stepped nervously onto the conveyer belt, carrying my two over-shoulder bags with my two wheeled suitcases following along behind me. Dr. Biggs stepped on behind my luggage with her own. She chose not to acknowledge my tightly squeezed eyes as our conveyer belt ascended towards the middle-level of the ship, far higher than I wished to see. Finally, I began to hear the thrumming and continuous buzzing of powerful engines and machinery. I peered out into my new surroundings, a large white floor filled with aliens from all walks of life. I had studied at the University Terra so the many species did little to shock me, but I could only imagine those people who had lived in those areas where aliens rarely visited. Species arrayed from those that can only be equated to large space-slugs, wearing masks of pure nitrogen so they could breath to those species who had six legs and four arms, covered from heads to toe in orange pressurized suits. I had classes with Summegrians before and knew that their species favoured a pressure of 300 Kilopascals and air filled with mercury and sulfur.

“Stop admiring the aliens and come with me to the human floor”, Dr. Biggs had said to me while carrying her own luggage towards the elevator. I followed quietly behind her, just barely fitting into the elevator my with things and eight other families, of what species I cannot remember. The human floor was the most spacious with dozens, possibly hundreds of rooms for the six day trip to Alpha-Centauri. Very slow, even by today’s standards, but it was the cheapest ship available and meant as a sight-seeing cruiser more so than a destination cruise. What could be seen during the trip at speeds faster than light? Very little for most species. Humans did have the ability to see a few splashes of red during acceleration and dark blue during deceleration, but for the rest of the trip it was pitch black. My Drauvanian friend had told me that he was able to see beautiful scenery, with the births and deaths of stars as time passed before his eyes. I understood very little of his explanation, but his species was able to see an additional four trillion colours that humans could not, so suffice it to say I understood very little of what he explained in the arts department.

My room was a quaint little corner of the ship with connecting rooms to Dr. Biggs’s. It held a soft bed of about average length and a small metal drawer to hold my things. I chose to drop my bags beside my bed and open one of the suitcases. There was no reason to unpack everything for such a small and inconsequential part of my journey. With that little escapade done, it was off to floor 3, otherwise known as the Launch Floor. All arrays of life would be present, all seated in ‘seats’ designed for each species. For instance, us humans had a belt which clipped together at our chest level, and held our shoulders and abdomens firmly against the chair. The Willaxians each had a special room which locked during launch so that when they bounced around, they would not disturb other passengers.

I sat calmly in my seat and strapped myself in. To my left was another human; a tall, muscular man with a completely shaved head and a bionic eye. He turned to me, “First time launching?”

I nodded, “What made you guess?”

He nodded towards my clip, “it’s upside down. You launch in that state it’ll unclip and you’ll be flying around the cabin. Which, is not as fun as it sounds.”

I gulped and fixed my straps as best as I could, turning back to him for approval. “Thanks. I would hate to die on my first trip off-world.”

“Oh, you’re a Terra boy.” The smile he gave me was both endearing and disconcerting. It made me shift slightly in my seat. “Bit of a tip for you as you venture into the great unknown. Don’t, I repeat, do not try to win a bet with a Tommerenean. They’ll swindle you out of your skin sooner than accept they’ve lost.”

I gulped. “Good to know.”

“Other than that, it’s smooth sailing er-flying, all the way from one side of the supercluster to the next.” He placed his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. Fully relaxed in a seat that was about to reach speeds exceeding that of sound all before we even left the atmosphere. By the time we left the light speed barrier that surrounded the planet, some 50,000 kilometers from the surface we’d be travelling fast enough to cross the Atlantic thrice in under a minute.

I would explain to you what the Atlantic is, but keeping with my promise of not divulging more information than truly necessary, I will allow you to do this research for yourself. If you don’t wish to do any research into the planet of origin for humans, then be pleased to note that the speed we were going is fast. Incredibly incalculably fast. Well, it of course can be calculated quite easily, but I am not that sort of scientist nor did I much care, so it was incalculable for lazy old me.

But, it was the speed we’d need to kick-start the star liner’s antimatter reactors so we could break the light speed barrier. All this I had researched beforehand. I am not the type of person to get on a rocket I know nothing about. It was just one piece of useless fact which I managed to retain over my many years. The same way that I can tell you that the ship itself was built seven years before and had thirty six successful launches prior to mine own.

So, as I was getting acquainted with the head rest and continuously trying to tighten my straps even more than they already were.

It was in one moment of miniscule agony as I accidentally clipped my finger in the belt mechanism that Dr. Biggs joined me, sitting down lazily beside me, not even bothering to start strapping herself in. My head flitted around the cabin, as people began filling the seats. It was quite a lot of people, not so many that I felt uncomfortable, but too many to know the names of each and every one.

“The ship will be ascending in 15 minutes, please get to your seats if you do not wish to feel the full gravity of the situation.” A small female chuckle came over the inter-ship communication system. Honestly, that is probably not what the woman’s joke was, but it has been years since I was in this position, I deserve to make my own jokes. I think I felt even more nervous after the joke than before it. Dr. Biggs still looked bored in her seat, she turned to look at me quivering in fear, then looked back ahead, stifling a yawn.

#zairasstories #my writing #humanityisweird #about humanity #aliens #about queuemanity

3 notes · View notes