Day 15
We are set to arrive on Fendaar in two cycles. As we are currently stuck on the SIIR Noxos, I have concluded that the passages of time that I am free of duties would be best spent continuing to observe the human. The human, on the other hand, seemed to have different plans in that matter, as it took me an unusually long amount of time to locate her.
As I eventually found her, she seemed to be working on one of the control panels in the main control room, so I may excuse her absence with duties she had to attend to. As she saw me, although, she seemed rather…excited (this is obviously mere speculation, as the study of the Terran so far has provided far too little evidence to prove such theories)?
As she rolled out from under the control board and sighted me, her face once again split into a wide opening revealing her horrifying amount of teeth.
"Hey! Dude!", she said, raising to her full height and stepping towards me, still baring her teeth, although I did not recoil, as I did not want to seem impolite. She raised her arms, each pointing into a different direction, away from their connection to the human's body.
"Human Quinn. How are you?"
"Me? I‘m fine, the whole 'wandering around in space' thing just made me throw up, I honestly don‘t know why they insisted on keeping me there for two whole days."
The ends of her fingers, studded with claw-like (rather short and rounded instead of sharp, perhaps they were not meant to function as claws at all, or perhaps the beings on Terra were far different from what I knew, and therefore a shape like this was far more useful to hunt) protuberances, scraped over the back of the connection between her head and her upper body. If I interpreted her facial expression correctly, she seemed to be thinking.
"Maybe I got a light concussion too, I’m not entirely sure. But it's improbable, because I’m fine now."
I decided to focus on one piece of information at a time. "Well, this "throwing up" can certainly not be a healthy nor normal process, otherwise, it would not seem so violently painful and involuntary, would it?"
"Well it‘s not…unnatural, it‘s just something that can happen. And about health, it‘s not unhealthy, it usually helps us to get rid of stuff that is bad for our bodies!", she eludicated, moving one of her arms in a rather random manner.
"The scientists have concluded that this fluid is highly acidic. If this 'stuff' is so harmful to you, wouldn‘t it just dissolve in this fluid before being able to cause any further harm?"
Quinn seemed to think about that.
"Well, just because it gets dissolved, doesn‘t mean it‘s gone, you know? It's still in our bodies, and we have to get rid of it somehow. And if it needs to be fast, we throw up. Honestly, I‘d definitely explain this further to you, but Biology‘s never really been my strongest subject, ya know what I mean?"
I did not, in fact, know what she meant, but I decided against questioning her further.
After a pause the Terran spoke up again: "So, this planet we're landing on..." "Fendaar.", I clarified. "Right. So, this planet that we‘re going to, it‘s a desert, right?" "That is correct." "So, is it a sand, an ice or, I guess you could also count rock desert? 'Cuz on my planet, we‘ve got all of those types."
"Fendaar‘s ecosystem is mostly made up out of sandlike landscapes with rather scarce vegetation and biodiversity. Most of the planets in system 36-54 have rather extreme temperature ranges, and Fendaar is no exception.", I eludicated.
"Alright, cool.", she spoke, rolling back under the underside of the control panel she had been working on previously. She seemed to be sitting, or rather lying, on a piece of metal with four small wheels attached to it, allowing her to move it around.
"Your planet.", I initiated.
"Yeah?", she responded, while continuing her work on the wiring.
"Am I assuming correctly that your planet has a far bigger biodiversity?"
"Oh, yeah.", there was a small spring in her voice, as if she had let out air in the middle of speaking. "Big biodiversity. We‘ve got deserts and rainforests, coral reefs and permafrost - although perhaps not for that long anymore - mountain ranges and all that stuff."
"Interesting.", I supplied, for lack of a better response. If Terra had such differences in temperature and landscapes, it was a logical conclusion that the humans had evolved to survive under such circumstances.
"Yeah."
It was unusually quiet for some time. That was, until Quinn rolled out from the underside of the control panels.
"Alright, I‘m done." She took a deep breath before opening her mouth once again. Then, all of a sudden, the muscles of her face started contracting as if she was plagued by an invisible pain. Her eyes squeezed shut and she let out horrifying noise, holding an arm angled in front of her nose and mouth. The noise itself was not particularly loud or long, but I recoiled either way, as a measure of safety. I could not be certain if this gesture was meant to harm me, after all.
Quinn‘s arm sank down again as her other hand rubbed at her nose. She huffed, a sound far less threatening than the one she had produced a moment ago. One of the hair patches above her visual organs raised itself, prompting the question to arise if human hair was controlled by muscles or if it had a mind of its own, although this was a question that could be further investigated later. One of the corners of her mouth raised, revealing the seemingly sharpest teeth in her mouth.
"I guess dust is an inter-galactic thing, huh?"
I did not respond. Her face muscles contracted, causing the skin above her visual organs to crease.
"Hey, you okay? You‘re looking a little spooked over there."
"Human, I do not wish to cause you discomfort, but, if I may ask, what was the purpose of the noise you just uttered?"
She did not respond for a moment, blinking with both of her eyes as she stared at me. It was quite unsettling, considering her previous explanation, that most humans preferred not being stared at.
"I…sneezed?" The creases in the skin above her eyes deepened.
My front pliers uttered another rattling sound. "What is this 'sneezing'? What purpose does it serve?" I admit, I was quite curious. Terrans seemed much more complex than I had previously assumed.
She paused, seemingly to think of an answer. "Well, it‘s like…if something is bothering us at or in out nose, like dust, for example, it‘s kind of the natural response to that. To keep things out of our bodies that don‘t belong there."
"Human bodies seem to require a lot of defense mechanisms.", I commented.
She raised and lowered the connection of her arms to her upper body, baring her teeth once again while raising herself to her full height, using one of her arms as support.
"Y’know, it’s surprisingly hard to explain something you’re so used to to someone who’s never heard of it. I guess I still have to work on the whole 'awareness that I‘m around aliens' thing. S‘ kind of surreal."
She patted off her clothing, as if to remove non-existent filth once again. I had noticed the past few cycles that most of her clothing seemed to consist of several, usually differently-coloured, pieces of fabric.
Her clothes usually covered her body from the connection between her arms and torso to the connection between her legs and, presumably, her feet. Her feet were usually also covered, although I could not determine the purpose it was supposed to serve in the environment we are currently in, although the theory that the conditions on Earth are vastly different compared to the ones on the SIIR Noxos is gaining more probability, based on the Terran's narrations.
The human seemed to evaluate a question she wanted to ask (this is, of course, a mere speculation based on previous observations: her face muscles were contracted to form a crease over her visual organs, which could so far most likely be interpreted as confusion, thoughtfulness or discomfort; her head was both slightly raised and tilted to one side at the same time, a gesture that was most likely supposed to convey an ongoing thought process).
Although, before she could utter a noise, V-7 informed us of a request from the Vitrichl to gather for a matter of importance.
The purpose of his summoning was to divide the crew into several smaller groups that were to be assigned with different tasks to fulfill once we sucessfully landed on Fendaar.
I was grouped with the Terran, which was unsurprising, as well as Tkzt, a member of the species that is widely known across the galaxies as Ctzas (it is to note that the Ctzas have not evolved any form of written language and communicate exclusively through clicking and chittering sounds. The written forms of, for example, names of this species, are written by other species to produce approximately the same sound as the Ctzas make when recited verbally).
Tkzt, as a member of the unit controlling supply chains and keeping a list of the stock of the SIIR Noxos, would make a helpful addition in our task of seeking out the nearest settlement in order to stock up on supplies.
After all matters of importance were settled, the crew dissipated, continuing their respective tasks. The Terran was ordered to stay and to assist the Vitrichl in another matter, which is the reason I did not cross paths with the human again for the rest of this cycle.
Despite this, I am positive that accompanying the human on an foreign planet will give me a further insight into the species' mannerisms and interaction manners with foreign species, which will prove to be helpful further on in studying the human.
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Lucid Dreamer (2/2)
part 1
Gepard stalls almost a week before he finally goes out to the safehouse, and it takes him a couple days to find it because Sampo didn't have the time left to be wasn't super specific about the location. But he does find it.
It's pretty bare bones, really. Gepard knows that was probably to be expected, but… It feels crushing, when he realizes there are so few personal things here. It's nothing specific to Sampo. Just some food, some medical supplies. A cot and a heater and a lot of mismatched blankets. Nothing to remember someone by.
But he does find the letters, in a metal box stashed away under the bed.
There are two for him. Three for Natasha, and two for Seele. One for Hook, one for Serval, one for Pela, one for Bronya.
Bronya's is mostly business. They knew each other from the whole Stellaron incident, but not much beyond that, and the incoming catastrophe is a more pressing matter. Seele's is actually two copies of the same letter, and Gepard realizes why when Seele is so angry she rips the first one up without reading it. He gives her the copy a couple days later, and she slinks off without a word.
Pela seems completely normal after hers is delivered, but Gepard knows better than to trust that. The next day, he finds her asleep in bed with Serval, bottles abandoned on the floor, both their eye makeup smeared and running and Pela's glasses horribly smudged and crooked on her face. Serval doesn't read hers in front of him, but she's clingy with Gepard, Pela, and Lynx for quite a while after. She throws herself into her work a lot. She insists the heater from the safehouse is busted and she needs to keep it. It's too dangerous for use by someone who's not an engineer. Might burn their house down or something. Gepard doesn't argue.
Hook's letter is short, with easy to read words. The rest of it is actually a treasure map, and she and the moles spend the next several days running through the Underground, finding hidden candy and toys. Hook asks them when Sampo is coming back, because one of the marbles she found from his map looks green, just like his eyes, and she wants to give it to him. Natasha shoos Gepard out of the clinic before he can even begin to think of an answer.
Natasha refuses to let him see what's in her letters, which ok, fine, he'll respect that. He hears from Bronya who heard from Seele who heard from Natasha herself though that one of the letters was a map and the other a catalogue, with all of Sampo's hidden "warehouses." Gepard promptly marches himself back out to the frontlines, where he can turn a blind eye. If a ton of stolen goods suddenly enters the black market, and if the orphanage and the clinic suddenly have new supplies, well, technically that's none of his business.
Gepard goes to bed, curls up under mismatched blankets and closes his eyes.
He doesn't dream.
One of Gepard's letters was also business, like Bronya's and Natasha's. He and Bronya follow everything meticulously, down to the letter, because there has to be some good to get out of all this, there has to be. Gepard can't let it all be for nothing, it would bury him.
And so the catastrophe passes. Not without casualties, and not without a lot of damage and destruction. But Belobog survives.
And after that, time just kind of…goes on. Gepard has been a part of the Silvermanes since he was old enough to enlist. The Fragmentum had gotten so much worse in the years before Welt sealed the Stellaron. He knows the statistics, it is literally his and Pela's jobs to keep track. He knows when he sees a face everyday in the camps and then it's suddenly gone. He's not unfamiliar with things like grief and loss.
He still catches himself checking the trashcans and the supply crates and soldiers' footprints sometimes, though.
But there comes a night where Gepard goes to bed, holding the mismatched blankets to his face, and he dreams. And it's strange, it's off, it sticks with him. Sampo doesn't look the same. He's thinner. His muscles have atrophied. He looks like how Gepard has seen soldiers after months in the hospital.
The most unsettling difference is there's a scar across the left side of his head, Gepard can see it over his ear, peeking out past his hairline, carving towards his cheek. Sampo is always careful about his face. Gepard once saw him dodge a Fragmentum monster and literally let it cut across his neck just to keep his face clear. He wouldn't let that happen for nothing.
Their actions in the dream itself aren't new. Sampo seems tired, run down and worn out, but he announces his presence with aplomb by lobbing a bunch of smoke bombs off the rooftops and sending his soldiers scrambling. Same shit, different day.
The new part is what he says when Gepard chases him out to the edges of the camp, tackles him into the snow. Gepard pins him to the frozen ground to detain him and Sampo doesn't even fight it, just looks up at him like he's seeing sunrise for the first time in months.
"I'll be home in one week."
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Sentences or Sketches or Something... Sunday
Hello strangers! It's been a long time since I last did a progress post of any kind - thank you everyone who's continued to tag me so I don't get left behind! And thanks to @noblecorgi, @alexalexinii, @you-remind-me-of-the-babe, @blackberrysummerblog, @thewholelemon, @mooncello, @monbons, @prettygoododds, @shrekgogurt, and @youarenevertooold for tagging me, today. (I feel so loved! <3) I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone's up to.
It's still Sunday in my neck of the woods, though just barely. And yes, I've used my "sentences" banner, but... It's a bit more chaotic than that. Honestly, I wasn't sure about doing a post today because I'm a bit all over the place, but then I figured... eh, why not? I am all over the place LOL.
So here's your snippet from the collective efforts of Jo's creativity, lately, under the cut. (Because I ramble...)
On the Haunting of Simon Snow... I haven't forgotten about it! Nor is it abandoned. As I keep telling anyone who will listen, I have a rough draft, which basically amounts to an outline, meaning I have way too much figured out to just let the story fade away. XD I attempted to work on Chapter 2 earlier this month, and ran into some roadblocks - of the architectural variety.
So I've started to research manor houses and English estates like mad. I'm going to do the thing. I'm going to figure out Pitch Manor. Why? Because my brain won't let me gloss over paltry details such as the location of Simon in the grand scheme of the house, or how and where the roof attaches and where that tree is going to be. It's annoying, but I figure... This is a fun puzzle, too. One I hope to be able to share with the fandom at large once it's complete.
This little snippet is from an early design I've since scrapped (but you never know what might come around, again.)
"That's great, Jo, but how about some sentences?"
Okay. Ahem. Here's... some Simon sentences... that have just been scribbled out. *cough*
I sit there and listen to the man on the other side as he blathers on about extra fees associated with estate deliveries due to distance and blah blah bloody fucking blah. I wish he’d just say it. Just say 'this is the Pitch Manor tax.' No one ever does. But everyone charges it.
I HAVE WRITTEN SEE THERE'S PROOF.
Okay, moving on...
The other thing I'm working on is illustrations for @mooncello's beautiful fanfic, "Lost Boys." I just posted art from Chapter 1 here, and I'm working on art for Chapter 2, now. The story is stuffed to the gills with absolutely gorgeous imagery, so choosing what to illustrate is a challenge. Hopefully it all works out, and in the meantime, here are a couple doodles.
(I was telling Heath last night... this morning...? about how all illustrations start out as baby sketches XD These are the little babes in the creative nursery, basically. Also I have never posted baby sketches before and I'm kinda nervous about it. But. Well. >.> )
THERE YOU HAVE IT. A couple of my reasons for being so entirely absent from all other aspects of the fandom. (Also I got hit with the flu super hard, but doing better now!)
Tags for future wipsdays/hello's! @leithillustration, @artsyunderstudy (thank you for listening to me ramble about Pitch Manor), @erzbethluna, @nightimedreamersworld, @cutestkilla (thank you for also listening to me ramble about Pitch Manor sorry I'm reworking it again XD), @angelsfalling16, @fatalfangirl, @hushed-chorus (thank you for being my secret-garden-enabler XD), @rimeswithpurple, @best--dress, @whatevertheweather, @ileadacharmedlife, @scribble-tier, @imagineacoolusername, @brilla-brilla-estrellita, @alleycat0306, @ivelovedhimthroughworse, @tender-ministrations, @katmiscellanious, @anxious-m3ss, @bubble-gumhead, @ebbpettier, @facewithoutheart, @bazzybelle, @theimpossibledemon, @aristocratic-otter, @ic3-que3n, @palimpsessed, @raenestee
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