#going on in His Head so he can react in a natural way while kelth has negative clues as to what's happening

[riftwalker-limbro]

scarred - part 2

masterpost

----

It was another two days before the Helminth let Sufford know that the new warframe was ready, during which they’d managed to gather another dozen of Ordis’ mystery drives. Kelth had let Kali know, but denied its request to come meet the new warframe immediately, just because of the way he had reacted to just Sufford last time. Better not to take any risks setting him off again. Instead, they’d made a plan to gently introduce him to the rest of the team, and talk to him, see if they could establish common ground. If he even spoke the same language as them, that was.

Their foot was tapping a quick, stressed rhythm on the floor in front of where they sat on the couch. Some cynical part of their mind was constantly reminding them of the fact that they’d always been with Sufford for as long as they could remember. Other than him, they’d only ever made friends with Kali, and never had they met a warframe that seemed to act quite like this one did.

“It’ll be fine,” Ordis said reassuringly. “We can always still see if he’d fit better on Kali’s ship, if we can’t make it work- oh, here he is.”

The door slid open, and the strange warframe was the first to step inside. He looked a great deal better than he had two days ago - not actually bleeding anymore and standing upright, for one. The scars were no longer deep rifts in his armour, but had been filled out to sit flush with the original pieces. They looked a little like Sufford’s shoulder wound had, originally, though whereas his had looked more like an overlay of teal staining his armour, these looked like entirely new material. Which Kelth knew they were. They’d raided so many bases to gather enough stuff for the Helminth for them.

At the sight of him, they straightened up, suddenly nervous. He froze similarly, but was promptly knocked forwards a step where Sufford was following a little too close behind. The stranger didn’t look back, but took some steps to the side, letting Sufford pass him without any resistance. He was holding tightly onto the datapad with both hands, holding it in front of him, not unlike a shield.

The plan was as follows. Sufford was supposed to have let him know just now, through the datapad, that Kelth was able to talk to him faster and in a more pleasant room than the Helminth’s, and together, they would introduce him to Ordis. Then, the four of them could talk.

Their nerves got the better of them for a moment, and then Sufford was standing next to the couch, by their side. The strange warframe still stood next to the door, just looking at them, breath still audibly rattling in his chest, and Kelth’s brain kicked back in.

“Hey,” they started, internally cursing the nervous crack in their voice, “my name is Kelth, come and have a seat, let’s talk.”

He looked at them for a moment, then quickly glanced to the unoccupied side of the couch, pointing at it and tilting his head back at them. Great, he understood - one less obstacle to worry about.

“Yeah, go ahead,” they said, shuffling themself further into the edge of the couch that they were already up against. The strange warframe walked over and sat down stiffly next to them, as far on the opposite side as possible, but turned inwards a little, so he could look at them. Sufford took some steps forward, putting the table between himself and the couch, and adopted a relaxed pose, hands behind his back.

“So, welcome aboard,” they started awkwardly, trying to remember what they’d wanted to say, “um, this is Sufford, you’ve met him.”

The stranger looked up as Kelth gestured towards Sufford, who gave a little wave. He did not reciprocate.

“And our ship cephalon is called Ordis, he’s here too,” they said. 

The table’s built-in holo-display activated, and Ordis’ cracked cube flickered to life as he delivered his own little greeting, which also went unanswered.

“Do you have a name we can call you by?” Kelth asked him, hopeful.

The warframe looked back at them again for a moment. Then, shoulders drawn back up, he shifted the datapad into one hand and raised the other, fingers poised above the surface as if to start typing something. He stared for several long moments, and then, shrinking into himself, shook his head, lowered his hand again. Shit. Was that a misstep? Quick, something else-

“O-oh, that’s- that’s fine, that’s okay! How are you feeling, anyway?”

He didn’t even look up from the datapad, but instead just heaved a big sigh and started typing. He hunted for the correct letters slowly, deliberately, only typing a few words before handing it to Kelth to read. “Where am I?”

“You’re on our Orbiter,” Kelth said, a little taken aback that he’d just flat-out ignored their question, but if this was what he wanted to know first, then, fine. They pointed over their own shoulder, where they knew the lounge’s window to be. “In, uh, space.”

The warframe stared for a second, before motioning for them to give him back the pad. They did, and he erased his previous question, typing a new one. “Is the war over?”

“The war?” Kelth racked their brain. Sure, the system was in chaos, but there wasn’t anything as big as a war going on, not that they were aware of. “Do you mean the Old War?”

The other briefly froze. Grabbed the datapad back, shakily just entered a newline instead of erasing his previous message, and typed another question. “How long?”

Shit. “Uh, Ordis? Do you know?”

“A little more than a thousand years,” Ordis replied smoothly.

The warframe to Kelth’s side didn’t respond, didn’t ask for Kelth to give back the datapad, didn’t give any sign that he’d heard what Ordis had said. Finally, he turned his head downwards, towards his feet, and slowly raised his shaking hands to his faceplate, air starting to whistle through his intakes again like it had in the Helminth’s room last time. Shit, was he-

Sufford caught their attention with a snap of his fingers. “Let’s give him some privacy, let him adjust - he’s likely disoriented if the last time he remembers is the Old War. His room was ready, right?”

They’d hastily expanded their quarters with another private room as soon as it had become clear that this warframe getting brought back to life. Kelth was however entirely too unsettled by the warframe showing all the correct body language of a human about to cry to move or say anything, but Ordis had their back.

“We have made accommodations available for you, if you would like to be alone-”

Before he could even finish the sentence, the scarred warframe had stood up from the couch, swaying on his feet, looking everywhere but at the three others in the room with him. Helpfully, Ordis selectively lit up some floor-lights, guiding his path. He quickly followed them, all but fleeing from the room. Down the short corridor, they could hear the door of the new room open and close. The rattles and whistles of his broken breath cut off with it.

Kelth looked to Sufford, wordless, eyes big with alarm and unease. He sighed deeply and signed: “He likely just needs time. We don’t know how he ended up in pieces all across space - might have something to do with that.”

“Sure, but- was this a good idea, at all?” they asked, the same question they’d asked Ordis after meeting this scarred frame the first time. “Should we have done this? Was this right?”

Sufford walked around the table, on which Ordis’ hologram still hovered silently, and dropped himself heavily into the couch next to them. He reached out with one arm, and they shuffled over, leaning into him for the hug. A weak transference connection fizzled to life, and Sufford sent them warm comfort across it.

“I think it was the right call,” Sufford signed, not through transference, but so Ordis could still follow, too. “If he disagrees, though, I’ve heard of some companies doing warframe burials. We can give him that choice, at least.”

“Yeah,” Kelth said. Then, they realised what they were still holding in their hands. “Aw, he didn’t take the datapad with him.”

“I can have the taxon deliver it when he comes back out,” Ordis said. “Sufford, did you show him how to use it beyond writing notes?”

Sheepishness reached Kelth through the connection as Sufford reached with his free arm to rub the back of his neck. Kelth snorted.

“We can write a note and leave that open on the pad for him to see when he gets it,” they said. “Ordis, would you be able to put something together?”

At his “yes, of course,” they put the datapad onto the table, where Ordis took control of it and started writing out a small guide. Text appeared almost instantaneously, and the whole screen was full within a blink of an eye.

“There, that should cover the basics. Ordis will keep an eye on when he exits his room again.”

Kelth nodded and extricated themself from Sufford’s arm. The connection dropped away again like water. It wasn’t pleasant, but it was just the way it was. They stood up.

“Let’s wait with telling Kali about him until he’s recovered from that,” they proposed with a wry smile. “I think it’d be a good idea also to avoid going out until we know he’s stable. I don’t want to leave him alone on the ship just in case he tries anything, and we still don’t really know if he would try anything. The alternative is letting Kali babysit him, and that sounds like a little too much change in too short of a time.”

With no disagreements from either Sufford or Ordis, they made their exit and retreated back to their own room for some meditation practice. They didn’t want to think about either the strange warframe or Ordis’ drives, for just a short while. So much was going on, and they felt like they teetered on a precarious edge - about to discover things which might’ve been better left untouched, but now that they’d had a glimpse, they couldn’t just leave them be anymore. Not just out of curiosity: something about the strange warframe felt deeply wrong to them, but they also wanted to help him, and now that they knew Ordis was missing memories and they could play a part in recovering them, it was hard to sit still or do anything else, anymore.

Trouble, all around them. Breathe in, hold, release.