#put me down for black sails archivist

[theredontbedragons]

Black Sails Sets: The Walrus Half Ship & Full Merchant Ships

Source: Ross Jenkin

[still-busy-being-mortal]

the rising of the moon

word count: 4544

rating: G

fandom: the mechanisms

warnings: major character death

summary: They've lived so long together, perhaps it is only fitting they die alone.

story notes: so this came about as a result of wanting to cry MORE about the mechs. don't ask me why.

features raphaella spouting unnecessary science jargon, ivy being emotionally repressed/depressed, drumbot brian holding a conversation with himself, and the toy soldier being actually emotionally intelligent.

——————

JONNY

It’s a quiet day aboard the starship formerly known as The Aurora. Most of the crew is out, and she’s drifting slowly through a dusty asteroid field. Ivy has stayed aboard to read, and Drumbot Brian was designated ship-sitter, so he’s stayed on as well. When enough time has passed (Is it days? Or decades? No one knows anymore, and no one cares. They are all so tired.), Brian hits the alert switch that will tell the Mechanisms to come home.

Ivy feels the gentle vibration in her brain --the pulse of The Aurora’s beacon-- and she puts her book down before walking slowly to the navigation bridge. Marius’ hand starts to buzz, messing up his note-taking; he apologizes to the rather fascinating asteroid-dweller he’s interviewing and takes his leave. Ashes feels their chest hum, and they turn away from their beautiful, fiery meteor shower.

[read more on ao3, or continue below!]

One by one, the Mechs find their way home. It takes some longer than others, but they all return eventually. Or they should; right now, there are only seven crewmates in the navigation bridge.

“I’m sick of waiting--where the hell is Jonny?” Tim whines.

“I guess he decided to stay in the asteroid belt?” Marius says.

“Woulda been nice to let us know,” mutters Ashes, “So we’re not all sittin’ here for ages.”

Brian stands and raises his hand. “All in favour of leaving and returning in a few decades?” They all agree, so he pilots Aurora away from the asteroid field.

Time goes by, and they do not hear from Jonny. Of course, members of the crew sometimes stay away for long periods of time, but that doesn’t mean their absence is not felt. And Jonny hasn’t appeared to try and contact them at all.

After a while, they vote to return to the asteroid belt. When they arrive, they split up, communication devices in hand.

Ivy combs through her memory, trying to summon any knowledge she has on Asteroid Field 01.18.20. The Toy Soldier moves methodically from meteor to meteor, searching for their lost comrade. Raphaella interviews any inhabitants she comes across, axially coding their qualitative responses to identify patterns in the data. Tim goes to a bar for a drink, irritated at Jonny’s latest antic.

He walks into some nameless, backwater joint and sits at the counter, flagging down the bartender with a lazy wave. He orders and waits, mechanical eyes roving the establishment. And then he freezes.

On the far wall hang a few dozen photographs, all dusty and poor quality. Above the photos is a crudely-done banner that simply reads “Cheers to Our Past Patrons.” One of the pictures is of Jonny.

When the bartender returns, Tim asks: “What’s the deal with the wall of fame, then?”

“Oh, that,” they answer tiredly. “Just sum dark joke the old owner thought up. Them’s the folks who kicked it in this here bar, you see.”

Tim was confused. “You mean those people died here? That can’t be right; my friend’s up there, and he can’t d--he’s alive.”

The barkeep shrugged. “Don’t know, pal. We had to bury most of thems out back, if you reckon you want to check.” He chuckled darkly and went back to drink-making.

Tim quickly finished his drink and went out the back door. He debated alerting the other Mechs about this development, but decided he might as well see for himself first.

He found the makeshift graveyard quickly, small rusty mounds amid the equally rusty asteroid outback. Some displayed names on roughly carved wood planks, but obviously none of them said “Jonny d’Ville” (Tim laughed at the idea of Jonny carrying around an ID). Most were unmarked, however, so he started to dig.

He used his hands, too impatient to try and find a shovel. He came across bodies and bones in various stages of decay, but none that had any chance of being Jonny. About fed up with this ridiculous idea of his, he decided to dig up one more grave. He shovelled dirt and rocks out of the way, until his hand hit something hard and cold. Something metallic. He pulled on it, and came away with a belt. Christ , he thought.

He quickly scooped away the rest of the dirt, revealing the corpse of Captain First Mate Jonny d’Ville. Dead. Tim stumbled backward, hand fumbling for his comm. “Um, mates, I-I found him.”

The Mechanisms were different after that. Yes, Nastya had gone Out long ago, but they had never actually come across her dead corpse , so it wasn’t the same. Marius had examined his body and declared him fully, completely, and irrevocably dead. They had held a funeral, but they were all too much in shock to really remember it. All they knew was that they were down a crew member, without a captain first mate, and terribly aware of their own mortality.

ASHES

About half the crew was in Raphaella’s lab, helping her with some complex kind of experiment. Raph was mixing two viciously green liquids together, while Marius was unspooling wire from a large bobbin. The Toy Soldier was holding an ultraviolet light against a motherboard, and Ashes connected the motherboard to the chartreuse concoction using the wires. After pouring all of the chemicals, Raphaella pulled on some rubber gloves and pulled out a small pocketwatch from her shirt. “Are we ready?” she asked gleefully. Without waiting for an answer, she started the countdown. “Five! Four! Three! T--curses!” The pocketwatch slipped from her gloved grasp and fell into the churning beaker. All at once there was a flash and a bang, and the lights went out. They stood in complete silence for a minute, before the backup generators flicked on.

The Toy Soldier clapped its hands, “That Was Jolly Good! Can We Do It Again?”

“No, TS, look, I got goop on my--wait!” Marius shouted, “Where’s Ashes?” They all turned to look at where the quartermaster had been just moments before. The floor where they’d been standing was a scorched, intricate, dark pattern of swirls. “What the hell is that ?”

“I Do Not Know, But I Will Go Get The Archivist!”

TS returned with Ivy, who took one look at the patterns on the floor and asked: “Who is it that has been time travelling?”

“Time travelling?!” Raph exclaimed.

“Yes,” Ivy said, “Those marks are a perfect exemplar of the evidence left behind when one has been forcibly transported forward or backward in the time continuum. Which one of you did it? Did you happen to bring back any books?”

“It wasn’t us: it was Ashes.” Marius said, “And we don’t think they’ve come back yet.”

Ivy grew very pale. “That is highly alarming. There’s a less than 0.1% chance that a time traveller ever comes back if they do not return instantly after the outset of their journey.”

“Y-you mean Ashes might not...” Marius trailed off, “...Wait a second! That doesn’t make sense! We don’t experience time linearly!”

“That may be true, but we are not forcibly moved through it either. We are at the whim of the narrative flow, and any alteration to that usually produces negative results.”

The Toy Soldier flashed through many emotions at once, though its face never changed. “So Quartermaster O’Reilly Is...Gone?”

“We can’t prove that yet!” Raph cried, fluttering around the lab and grabbing various scientific instruments. “Maybe if I can pinpoint when exactly they’ve been transported to, we can...we can bring them back.”

“That’s quite a long shot,” Marius said.

“What is science if not a shot into the ignorant dark?” Raph replied, rigging up a technological monstrosity. She aimed the thing at the charred spot and clicked a button, causing the machine to emit a pulsating, whirring sound. “Oh, you all might want to close your eyes.”

With a burst of green and a harsh dial tone, the thing spit out a strip of paper. Raph grabbed it and read it intently. She dropped it suddenly, eyes distant and empty. “They are gone.”

The room burst into a cacophony. (“What do you mean?!” “Gone How? Gone Forever ?” “It was statistically unlikely that they could have returned.”) Raph picked up the paper and pressed it onto the lab table. Most of it was meaningless words and numbers, but Raph pointed out a string in the center: “RESULT) DATE: %& INFINITE ROUNDING ERROR $! _ LOCATION: SINGULARITY!UNIVERSAL IMPLOSION. ANALYSIS) CHANCE OF TERMINATION: 100.0% +-0.0 R = 1.0”

“They’re gone.”

RAPHAELLA

The crew was far more disorganized after Ashes left. With no one to maintain inventory or keep the crew in line, The Mechanisms started to fall apart. Raphaella tried for a while to build some kind of time-travelling device, some way of defying the inexorable march of the story, but it was in vain. She was left with only one option; one experiment she hadn’t tried yet.

She carefully laser cuts some metal from the starship once known as the Aurora. She sits in Nastya’s former workshop for hours, bending and twisting and fabricating until she is left with wings; wings more breathtaking than any she has possessed before. Once on, they fan out behind her in a starburst of blue and metallic grey.

But her crew will never see them. In the cover of darkness, she steals away to the airlock. The ship is currently sailing past a black hole (Raphaella has the Messier number and NGC identification memorized, but that’s not her concern now). With one final look backward at the place that had been her home for millennia --the place she thought she would call home forever -- she casts herself into the black hole.

Ivy finds the note she left, succinct and unmincing as ever:

“Addressed to whoever finds this first:

After a brief review of prior literature, I have found extensive holes (no pun intended) in the study of singularities, specifically as it relates to a singularity’s effect on a humanoid body and mind. I seek to rectify this, as well as explore the possibility of horological manipulation, though perhaps my methods are not entirely replicable. It is every scientist’s dream to be on the cutting edge of research, and so I initiate this experiment joyfully. Also, black holes are hypothesized to have magnificent magnetic fields!

Yours,

Dr. Raphaella La Cognizi”

TIM

Tim, Marius, the Toy Soldier, Brian, and Ivy wait. They do not wait together, and they do not know what exactly it is they’re waiting for, but they wait nevertheless.

Time passes.

Brian pilots the ship towards various planets, pointless battles, dying stars. One day, the remaining Mechs arrive at a lawless sea-based war occurring on a planet composed entirely of liquid obsidian. They commandeer a ship (which they dub the ‘Dawn’) and spend decades wreaking havoc as the most formidable group of pirates. But Tim knows something is wrong.

“Tim, take out that vessel off the starboard side.” Brian orders from the prow of the Dawn.

Tim smoothly preps, loads, and positions a cannon to aim directly at the enemy ship in question. He lights the fuse, and the cannon fires. The crew watch as the projectile hurls through the air, arcing like a cold meteor into the distance. They watch it come down towards the enemy vessel. And they watch it miss.

The crew turns to stare at Tim. He’s not nearly as mortified as they expected. In fact, he’s perfectly serene.

“Um, Tim…” Marius starts slowly, “D-did you know you, uh...missed?”

“Yep.” he responds, popping the ‘p’.

“Did you mean to?”

“Nope.”

“And...you’re not upset by that?”

“Not especially.”

(“That’s a fascinatingly abnormal psychological response,” Marius mutters under his breath, jotting something down in a notebook he appears to have produced out of nowhere.)

The crew continues to stare as Tim goes below deck to his bunk, humming slightly.

Tim has known something was off for a long time now. His aim started to err by nanometres, then by millimeters, then more, until he was missing entire ships like today. He’d panicked at the beginning, of course, but now? Now, he was ready to be done.

He’d felt the pressure building up in his head, behind his eyes. He got spurts of tunnel vision randomly, and sometimes his vision just went to static. He gradually lost the ability to see some colors, as the electronic rods and cones went out one-by-one and refused to self-repair. But he wasn’t nervous or distressed or alarmed; he was excited.

You see, he’d been saving something for a special occasion. He didn’t know what ‘special occasion’ entailed, since the Mechs never consistently celebrated holidays or birthdays, but permanent death seemed like a pretty good one. He rooted around in his rucksack, and withdrew a set of shiny silver keys; keys he’d stolen a long, long time ago. These were the ignition keys to the largest gunship existence will ever see, and Tim planned to go out with a bang. That evening, he told the crew he wanted them all to return to the starship so he could be dropped off somewhere. They all agreed, since they didn’t have any real cares anymore, and they set off for the planet Tim had etched into his memory.

Tim sits in the cockpit of the gunship, the planet itself already ruined and smoking from fighting his way to get here. The Mechanisms were long gone, as he’d told them to leave without him. He hadn’t exactly said he wasn’t planning on coming back, but he thinks they understood. With one last grin of pure, unadulterated madness, he kicks the gunship into gear and blasts off.

The ship goes too fast to comprehend, and in an instant he’s shooting across the cosmos, shattering stars and razing entire systems of planets. The universe has never before witnessed such complete and utter desolation. Tim doesn’t process much during this rampage...until he starts to die.

He doesn’t know what he hit, but something has jolted the gunship just right, and he’s flung out the front glass. He knows he should die instantly, and he is, but his eyes are moving faster. They’re replaying his life, backwards, and he wants to groan with the cliché-ness of it all. But then it’s over. Or, almost over. At the very end, so fast, so short compared to the millennia he has lived, he catches sight of a young man in a trench. Bertie. A face he will never forget no matter how much longer he could have lived. And in the moments of blackness before he stops forever, he thinks about Bertie, about what comes next.

Faith is a moot point when you’re immortal, since you’ve quite literally come into contact with gods and demons, eldritch horrors and cosmic powers. But here, at the end of his wretchedly long existence, Tim wonders if he will ever see Bertie again. If he will ever see Jonny, or TS, or Ashes, or anyone ever again.

He dies blind, with their names on his lips.

IVY

Exposition: Ivy is quite spectacular at suppressing her emotions. She’s also skilled at identifying patterns, so by the time Raphaella left, she knew what was going on with 98% certainty. Without much fanfare, she packed her bags (5 for books and 1 for everything else), said goodbye to Marius, Brian, and the Toy Soldier, and left.

She rifled through her memory archives for the quaintest library she knew of, and headed there.

Rising Action: And so time passed.

Ivy read, and organized, and wrote, and...existed. Nothing happened, and nothing changed. Carmilla must have made an error in her mechanization because she’d never been the best at processing feelings, but she was happy, she thought.

Climax: A war came, and her library was attacked. With the numbest, most detached sense of purpose imaginable, she loaded an escape pod with random books she thought should be preserved and fired it out into the void. She didn’t even know she’d been hit until she’d fallen to the floor, blood streaming from a massive wound. She knows she is dying; she’d seen the patterns.

Denouement: Her brain whirs slower and slower, until it stops. The end.

MARIUS

They are not a crew any longer. Brian has firmly rooted himself on the bridge, more robot than man now. The Toy Soldier wanders the ship, searching for its friends who are playing the best game of hide-and-seek that the universe has ever seen. Marius putters along, doing some maintenance, writing down his thoughts, and waiting for his death.

He’d always known this life of theirs couldn’t last. Besides the conceptual and moral implications of an eternal existence without consequences, it didn’t even make sense physically . There was no such thing as a perpetual motion machine, and he was surprised his more rational-minded crewmates didn’t question it more. But now his theory had come to fruition, and his crew, his family , had slowly dropped off one-by-one, like leaves from an autumnal tree.

He’s at a bit of a loose end now. With no people left to talk to, no minds to pick, he doesn’t feel any sense of purpose. It’s not depression--he knows that; it’s more of a...cosmic futility.

He feels one last pull, one last tug of the all-pervading narrative, a tide of finality, urging him towards a certain door. He knows this door, knows what it means when he opens it. But he also knows all things come to an end eventually, so why not go out doing what he always did? Providing the comic relief.

“Time this for me, will you, Aurora?” he calls out. He turns the handle and steps inside.

BRIAN

Since Jonny’s death, Brian has been at war with himself. He supposes he’s always been at war with himself though, and his current moral quandary reminds him uncomfortably of his first.

Sitting on the bridge alone, he decides to have a conversation.

“So the crux of the problem is that we can bring people back from the dead, correct?”

He flips his switch. “Correct.”

He flips it back. “But the dilemma is whether we should bring the Mechs back or not.”

“Also correct.”

“Which we shouldn’t, because they wanted to die.”

“No, we should. We want them alive, right? Using magic is definitely the easiest way to achieve that.”

“But we need our family to be happy. God knows how long it’s been.”

“Is the end goal their happiness or our happiness?”

“If I answer that, will I change your mind?”

“Is altering the end goal really the moral way to win this argument?”

“You know what? Damn you.”

Time passes, and each crewmate’s departure only makes Brian’s contempt for his own inner hesitation grow. He spends years staring out into the cosmos, thoughts whirling just as fast as the dust and gases beyond the glass. He wonders if he will ever die and join his family, or if the degree of his artificiality will render him truly immortal. He hates that thought more than most anything else.

He stops smelling the smoke of Ashes’ fires one day, and wonders if his olfactory systems are shutting down.

He stops feeling the rumble of Raphaella’s experimental explosions, and wonders if his nerve endings are rusting.

He stops seeing the flash of Tim’s gunshots bounce around the corridors, and wonders if he’s gone as blind as the gunner himself.

He stops hearing Ivy’s narration, and wonders if his auditory fluids have finally trickled away.

One day, the lone violin that has been echoing throughout the empty starship fades out, and Brian feels his heart stop.

It restarts of course, but Brian knows.

He knows that it’s finally, finally time. Soon, very soon, there will be no more life aboard this ship. No life, where there had been life for eons. No life, where there had been life immortal.

His sense of taste has never come into doubt, because he can still taste the acridness of the Toy Soldier’s cooking wafting on the air. He decides it’s only right to bid goodbye, so he makes his way back to the kitchen. On the way, he passes the Doctor’s old laboratory. He briefly considers destroying it, bringing down the whole ship in a blaze of fire and brimstone, but he knows that isn’t right; it wouldn’t fulfill anything.

In the kitchen, the Toy Soldier is pulling something pink and grey and on fire out of the oven. “Hey, TS,” Brain says gently, leaning against the doorframe as his heart falters again. “I-I’ve got to talk to you.”

The Toy Soldier spins around. “Drumbot Brian!” it shouts joyfully. “How Have You Been, Old Chap! I Have Been Playing Hide-And-Seek With The Rest Of The Crew For A While Now, And They Are Definitely Winning! Have You Seen Them?”

“Oh, TS,” Brian says sadly, “We’re all who’s left now. Don’t you know? The others have gone.”

He sees the Toy Soldier’s wooden eyes soften, betraying an agedness he’s never seen before. “Of Course I Know, Bean. But What Have We Been Doing This Whole Time, If Not Pretending?”

Brian smiles sorrowfully, and TS matches it. “I just wanted to let you know, TS, that now it’s my turn to go.”

“I Know.” It salutes him. “Goodbye, Drumbot.”

Brain gently returns the salute, and leaves.

He stumbles through the ship, heart failing rapidly now, but he makes it to the airlock. He knows deep down that there’s only one way his story could end. His whole existence has been framed by empty solitude, with his family providing the best aberration one could wish for. With his body more an empty metal frame than a robot now, he opens the airlock and casts himself back into the cosmos, from whence he came, and where he would die.

THE TOY SOLDIER

Its friends are all gone away now, and it knows this. There is no more laughter aboard the starship once known as the Aurora. There is no more gunfire or explosions. There is no more music. The cold mass of metal drifts through the void of the uncaring cosmos, with no living being aboard.

But The Toy Soldier has to be sure; it has to guarantee that it is truly all alone now. So it visits its friends’ final resting places.

It spends some years gazing out the front windows of the ship. The thrusters have been broken for a long time now, and the Toy Soldier doesn’t know how to repair them, so it just sits and watches. It wants to see the Drumbot, so it pretends that it does. Soon enough, out the starboard porthole, it spies him. His metal is rusted and warped, frost rendering most of his face unrecognizable. A drum is still looped around his shoulder. The Toy Soldier tethers itself to the ship and goes outside for a moment, drifting towards the robot. It lays a wooden hand on his deformed chest, and feels that his heart beats no longer. It carves off a long curl of wood from its side, and places it in Brian’s frozen hand.

It returns to the ship. It hadn’t known where Marius had disappeared to, but now it feels the force of the narrative driving it towards a certain room. It opens the door, and a handful of mangy octokittens hiss at it and scurry away. There’s nothing in the room besides a pile of crumpled clothes, a broken violin, and a metal hand, but the Toy Soldier could recognize that style anywhere. It gently twists one of its own wooden hands off, and lays it on the mound.

The Toy Soldier knows that Ivy went somewhere far away, so it closes its eyes and pretends that it’s there. When it opens them again, it finds itself in the charred ruins of some great marble building. At its feet lay bones, a metal flute, and a mess of circuitry, untouched by the ash. The Toy Soldier reaches up, removes a piece of wood from the back of its head, and lays it besides the flute.

The Toy Soldier has a harder time finding the gunner. It’s drawn this way and that, chasing an intangible trail through the stars and galaxies. All of the planets it passes are devoid of life. Finally, finally, it stumbles across an enormous, gaping wreck of a starship, all mangled and smashed to pieces. The ship is so large, it’s drawn smaller asteroids into an orbit around it. On one of these rocky satellites, the Toy Soldier spies a body: a skeleton covered in a long brown coat with a guitar slung across it. A pair of mutilated, metal eyes rest in the skull. The Toy Soldier smiles sadly, removes one of its own wooden eyes, and slips it into the pocket of the coat.

It knows it cannot follow the science officer into a black hole. It does manage to find the sketches of the wings Raphaella designed, so it gathers them up, takes two chunks of wood from its back, finds Raph’s keyboard, and casts everything into the nearest singularity.

After pretending to be at the end of space and time, it finds itself there. There is nothing, absolutely nothing. It removes two segments of wood from deep within its chest and places them in the nothingness, along with the strings of an old electric bass it had found. As it winks back to the ship, it catches the faintest scent of gasoline.

It returns to the asteroid Jonny had died on, the start of their ignoble demise. It visits his grave, in the taupe dirt of the desert behind the backwater bar, and sees all of the trinkets and mementos the crew had left behind. It knows none of them left anything during their makeshift funeral, so that means each of them must have slipped away at some point to come here on their own. Ashes has left their best lighter, Tim a pair of dogtags. Marius left behind all of his notes of Jonny’s disaster of a brain, and Brian has deposited some sun-scorched piece of space station. His harmonica has also found its way here, somehow. The Toy Soldier slowly, slowly reaches into its chest and removes its wooden heart, laying it down atop the mound of dirt and memories. It walks away, and knows that it can finally, finally stop pretending.

AURORA

There is no record of where the Toy Soldier went next. It certainly did not return to the empty ship once known as the brilliant Aurora. The lifeless, soulless, music-less ship drifts on alone through the cosmos, rusting and warping until no one could tell it had ever been a ship at all. Eons pass, and whatever memory the universe might have had of The Mechanisms has been utterly lost.

Until the misshapen mass gets stuck in the orbit of a planet. Molded and formed by the planet’s gravity, the ship is reborn as a moon. And all at once, she comes to life.

As dawn washes over her, the young moon hears a voice. “Hello, dear,” a woman coos, “My name is Dr. Carmilla.”

[aithne]

(Illume) Tomika's Letters 7/20 - 7/27: Skyhome

7/20/1583 at sea, leaving Miyazaki

Dear Lady Yukiko,

I know you've just left, but events today were so extraordinary that I felt as if I had to write you right away. It's not the same without you here; Panda appears to be doing the samurai equivalent of moping, the kitsune's been quite touchy (though whether that has anything to do with your departure is anyone's guess, really), and even my husband is not quite his usual charming self.

I have thought about your advice, by the way. I am trying to put it into action, but I fear the bold move may be beyond me for the moment. We will see, though.

Before he left, Akechi transferred five parts of the spirit he carries into Funitsu's orb. I feel a little left out, honestly, being one of the few among our company without a piece of the spirit. The transfer of the spirits, however, has caused the orb to gain strange new powers, which he has not quite puzzled out entirely yet. Or if he has, he has not yet told me.

I was also present, after Akechi and you left through the mirror for Kyoto, for the discussion of who was going to take what place in the Scorpions and, especially, the Black Hand. The librarian, as you have warned me to call him, has been declared the head, the person who provided Funitsu with his list of our enemies is the Second, and Funitsu offered the position of Third to Winter.

Winter accepted, and then turned right around and handed the position to Tadaki! At the same time, he handed his staff to the Sparrow. An extraordinary look crossed Tadaki's face, and he said, "That's....interesting..."

And Winter laughed, a little. He said, "My time here is done; I just needed to hand the staff off to a successor before I faded away. Hiroshi, I wish I could have stayed with you longer, but you'll do fine on your own. Tell Panda that I will miss her. And now, goodbye."

With that, his form faded until he was transparent and, then, gone. We all looked at each other, confused and silent, and then we all started speaking at once, trying to figure out what had just happened. Reiko went and fetched Panda, since she been out of the room during the discussion of the Black Hand. She was holding her orb with one hand and frowning. "That's...odd."

I happened to be standing next to her, and asked, "What is?"

"Tadaki's not there. He's just in that staff. Just like Winter was. How interesting."

Tadaki, for his part, was grumping and saying that the hengenyokai could have asked before he gave him the staff. Funitsu asked, "Would you have said yes?"

"Of course not!"

"Well, then, that's why he didn't ask. Welcome to the Hand, Tadaki."

I am pretty sure those were hengenyokai curses the Sparrow spat before changing into his bird form and flying off, presumably to have a good sulk.

Panda was still looking around, orb in hand. She pointed at the librarian's leg. "That, too, is odd."

The librarian looked alarmed, and asked, "What's wrong with my leg?"

"You have the tattoo wakizashi on that leg, do you not? Something appears to be spreading from it."

Both Funitsu and Reiko were looking curiously at the librarian's leg now. He took the tattoo off, pulling the sword away from his leg, but it failed to stop or even slow down the spread of the magic. Oddly enough, that leg seemed to be thicker and better muscled than the other.

After some examination, it was determined that each of the wakizashis that we carry that turn into tattoos has the crest of a clan on it--Funitsu had the Scorpion sword by sheer happenstance, Tadaki had the Dragon (which he gave to Haku, since the staff Winter gave him was by far a superior weapon), and the librarian had the Unicorn one.

The sword was changing him to suit itself, it seemed. It was changing him into one of the barbarian Unicorns. The change is happening swiftly, and within the next day or so it should be complete. A strange upset for our clever archivist.

We sail north, along the western coast, tonight. We'll be searching for Skyhome, since we have the entire key now, and perhaps try to contact the ship Shadow of the Scorpion.

One more note that I found interesting, if not useful--I happened to be standing by Reiko when Panda came to her with a message. She said, "I did as you asked. There is something very strange going on with Ito, as you suspected. It seems as if his kitsune spirit is actually female, but he's been bound permanently in male form. The kitsune in him fights, trying to become what it is meant to be, but the spell on him seems to bind him well."

Reiko nodded and thanked Panda, her eyes distant. She grows strange, Yukiko. She grows very strange indeed. Though I have not known her nearly as long as you, I think that the periods of lucidity between bouts of madness are growing; but at the same time sanity seems a relative term. This evening, she even told my husband that he should keep the fact that Hirohito, your brother-in-law, is unmarried in mind; if we needed to make another marriage alliance, he would be a good candidate.

Funitsu raised his eyebrows. "And who do you propose marrying him off to, Reiko?"

She shrugged. "I was thinking the Unicorn, myself. A closer alliance with Storming Bear wouldn't be a bad thing."

"You want to marry Hirohito off to a barbarian?"

"It's just a possibility. I mentioned it because I simply wanted to pass the thought along. I am a politican, Funitsu. You never overlook the opportunity to strengthen a shaky alliance. As it is, the Unicorns may not go to war for us. With a marriage alliance in place...they very well might."

She then walked off, silently, leaving my husband looking a bit stunned. He seems to have a lot on his mind, these days; and I fear I am but the least of his thoughts.

Let Akechi know that his many-great grandmother seems to be intent on marrying his brother off. Hirohito is a bit old to still be unmarried, I seem to recall.

We've a strong wind sailing us along. And away we go, north.

Warmest regards, Soshi Tomika

P.S. My new family name still fits strangely. I believe that is the first time I have ever written it.

How far fate takes us, indeed.

7/23/1583 at sea

Dear Lady Yukiko,

Such an exciting day! I tell you, a rousing battle always does wonderful things for my spirits. My father used to say that it was too bad that I took so after my mother in body, for I have a samurai's soul and love of action. He said I would have made a wonderful samurai-ko, like Panda. Unfortunately, being slight of build and not particularly strong, I was destined for the wu jen school instead.

All things considered, I think it's worked out so far. But I do love the opportunity to fight.

About noon, the crow's nest called down that there were three ships on the horizon--two before us, merchant vessels, and one behind us, a strange flesh-colored ship. We tacked hard to port, but the ship followed us rather than the merchant vessels, which disappeared quickly in the distance.

We put up full sail and commenced running while we tried to asses the situation. Panda was scrutinizing the ship with her orb, and said, "That ship...is alive."

Gryphon went to go look. When he came back, he said, "I sang! I sang to it. And it sang back! It says it's hurt or it needs help. We need to help it! Let's go help it!"

Panda asked, patiently, "What's hurt, Gryphon?"

"The ship! The ship is hurt. And it has one of the people who wear things like he does on it." He was indicating Funitsu with one clawed forefoot.

We cross-referenced some notes that my husband had, and figured out that the ship was called the Shrike, which meant that the person on the ship was called General Hikaru. The notes said he was a "problem specialist"; we appear to be the sort of problem men like him are sent to solve.

After some time running from the ship, a clever plan was hatched. We would use the three wakizashi that cut holes in reality to quietly gain entrance to the ship. We would then kill the general, the wu jen, and the ninja who we saw in Funitsu's orb, the far-seeing one. The ship would be ours, then.

On occasion, our plans work out. This was one of those occasions. We gated into the living ship, which was an odd ship indeed--the walls were warm and almost pulsed with life.

We reached the control room, where we knew our targets were, and took out the two guards on the door with a minimum of fuss. It was the first time we'd seen the librarian in action in his new form, and he was indeed most effective as a fighter. Somewhat more so than he used to be, as a matter of fact.

Reiko opened the door, unleashing what I recognized as a Shatter spell, and most of us charged into the room. The ninja was nowhere to be seen until he dropped down on Gryphon's back, but Haku took care of him quite handily, his head going flying and nearly knocking Reiko into the control webbing. The wu jen, nearly dead, dropped a frostball at his own feet. Funitsu took quite a blow from that and went down, but Reiko kneeled and kissed his cheek, waking him. (I had an irrational bout of jealousy, though I quickly quelled it. The fact that the kitsune kisses people to heal them is still a trifle disturbing.) Finally, the general went down, and the day--and the boat--was ours.

Gryphon spent some time communing with the ship, and said that it rather liked people, but it disliked being forced to harm others when it wasn't defending itself. We asked it to follow us for a while, and it assented.

Reiko tried climbing into the control chair, which she'd been utterly dying to do during the battle but in a rare show of wisdom had waited until after the fighting was over. She cast a healing spell from the chair--and the ship healed! The others tried the chair, and for them the ship changed. For Tadaki, the ship became narrower, sparrowlike. For Haku, the hull became thicker and the defenses grew stronger, and so on. It is a marvelous thing, this ship, called Shrike.

The key to Skyhome is still leading us north. I am sure I'll write when we get there.

Subtlety seems to not be working on Funitsu. I will persist in this course of action for a few weeks and see if he notices, however. The samurai-ko's temper is shorter than I'm used to; is it possible that she caught a child in the pair of times she has been with her husband? She seems somewhat anxious about his safety, even going so far as to mention aloud that she would find it pleasant if we stopped by Akita, if our travels take us so far north.

Warmest regards, Soshi Tomika

7/27/1583 Skyhome

Dear Lady Yukiko,

We are here, at last! Though I know you already know this (and, hopefully, Akechi has told you the most surprising thing I will reveal herein), I thought I would write you with the story of how we found it.

The key began pulling Reiko to the east as we reached the town of M--. (The town, like the name of the librarian, is of course not to be committed to paper.) We disembarked and started out on foot into the hills surrounding the town. Reiko left Ito behind after much argument from him; he stays close by her whenever he can, for what may be obvious reasons. A pretty boy, but so very dangerous.

Into the foothills we went, until we came to a box canyon with a shimmering shield over it. those of us with better eyes than I could just make out two people moving around. Funitsu pulled out the odd gaijin spyglass that he picked up before I joined the group (well, was ambushed, kidnapped, and forced to marry Funitsu more or less at swordpoint, but let's let bygones by bygones) and said that there was a samurai and a wu jen at the shield, and the samurai was trying to hit the shield and having no luck.

Gryphon yodeled, "Home! Home! Almost home!"

With the distance cut to nothing by those wakizashis, we attacked the pair at the shield. we were doing brilliantly, if I do say so myself, until Tadaki shouted, "Hey, Reiko, behind you!"

Funitsu's Faery Fire outlined the shape of a large oni about four meters away from Reiko and closing. Reiko tried to run but the oni was faster and caught her. The first blow from its claws tore the shoulder of her kimono away, leaving deep furrows of bleeding flesh behind. The second blow sent her sailing through the shield.

And on the other side, she landed, eyes closed, bleeding into the dust.

Damn kitsune. Never any use during a battle. And she had the key--and was bleeding to death where none of us could reach her. The oni, running after her, smacked into the shield.

We all looked at each other, and then Gryphon charged into the shield. I expected him to bounce off, but he sailed right through, grabbing Reiko, disappearing through a shimmering portal on the other side of the shield.

The oni screamed, seemingly baffled. Panda stepped carefully around it, trying to circle it, evidently wanting to get the shield to her back.

Then the oddest thing happened. Panda got too close--and accidentally stepped through the shield.

Dodging the oni, we very quickly determined that Panda could get through the shield and the rest of us could not, unless we were holding on to Panda. In short order, we passed through the shield and through the door. We were met on the other side by Gryphon, who was very agitated, and asking to see the mirror.

Haku held out the mirror and he ran into it. Confused, we looked up to see Reiko lying beneath the paw of a very large, evidently older gryphon, asking her, "Are you all right?"

She opened her eyes and squinted upwards. "Eh. Everything seems to be in working order. I suppose I shouldn't call you Kittycat, eh?"

The gryphon was saved from having to respond by our Gryphon's arrival back through the mirror. "Panda! Panda! You're the chosen one! Akechi said! You're the chosen one!"

Panda, I am afraid, gaped a bit. Gryphon has that effect on everyone, sooner or later. "I'm a chosen...what?"

"And none too soon, either." The older gryphon's voice sounded, and he got up from where he stood. "There's not much time, the last air spirit is dying. Let's go."

We could feel the ground beneath our feet shuddering, and I recalled the tale that Gryphon told me once, that Skyhome was a city in the sky, held up by air spirits...the last of which was, evidently, almost dead. And when the last died, the city would fall from the sky...

We hurried.

We came to a grove, and Panda was brought before an old, old woman, looking like nothing more than a husk of a being. But she smiled brightly when she saw Panda. "You're here! Praise be. Quickly, child, come forward."

Panda did so, kneeling by the old woman. She said, "I'm sorry. I don't understand. I'm not an air spirit, I'm a spirit of the bamboo. How am I the chosen one?"

The old woman laughed. "Ah, child. You're more than you think. You see, Akechi, when he came here as a very young man, was changed into a spirit of the air. We sent him back to earth, there to find a Bamboo woman to mate and have a child with. That child is you; you have both, but the air is stronger, and it called you here."

She blinked, raising one hand to her mouth. I have never seen her betray surprise before, and I doubt I ever will again, but in that moment she was deeply startled. "Akechi is my father?"

"The one and the same. But the change left him unable to have children with human women, much, I believe, to his sorrow. We all liked Akechi so much. It grieved us that he would not be able to have his own human children. Though I have to say, you seem to have turned out all right."

Funitsu muttered in my ear, "Then Yukiko--"

"Akechi has to know, and more than that, he has to approve. Sssh."

The old woman was still speaking. "And so I will transfer my power to you, and you will be the new anchor for Skyhome. And your children, and their children, will be linked to this place. I hope you like it, dear. It's yours."

And with those word, she laid her hand on Panda's hand, muttered a word, and faded away. Her robes fell to the floor, empty.

We sleep tonight in Skyhome, and I am sure that Panda will have questions for Akechi, when next she sees him.

I heard Reiko mutter, "Are all of these my grandchildren? Ah, kami."

I certainly hope that Akechi let you know before you get this letter. I am sure you have a few questions of your own. As do we all, but none deserve the answers more than you.

Warmest regards (and best of luck beating Akechi about the head and shoulders if this news comes as a surprise, because he will very well deserve it!), Soshi Tomika

(play date 8/8/2004)

Quotes:

"He has a fine sense of tumor." --Laura

"Wait a second. Barbarian Librarian?" --Derek

"I rolled a 4. I go on an 18." --Bryan, showing off his shiny new Init bonus

(Laura puts dice down the back of Kris' pants) "I'm still missing a D20..." --Ray 

"We're playing musical chair." --Laura

"So the first in the Black Hand is...a barbarian." --Derek

"Hiroshi SMASH!" --various people

"The dandelions are taunting me." --Derek

"Mmmm mm mmm mph mm mm mm!" "How many times do I have to tell you not to play with your food?" (dropping Reiko) "It's not food, it's friend! It's broken, fix it?" "Are you sure?" --Gryphon and his Grandfather

[scoundrelishgirl]

Earth-Talker

Tara buckled on the thermosuit, feeling her way between the clips. The Bauson had explained to her on the surface how to put it on, but now that she was down near the cave entrance, her fingers had become clumsy versions of themselves, the buckles slipping out of her grasp like wet soap. She snorted in frustration as she tried, for the third time, to catch the loop of fastenings near her wrist. “Here, let me.” Namia’s voice cut across her frustration. Tara let out a long, pent-up breath and focused on where the Force told her Namia’s face was. Namia and Master Samukay had accompanied them to Kankara to act as point guards while she and Master Dor collected data. It had been while they were planet-bound that the opportunity had arisen to record the dying words of the Ayezi, the matriarch of the Multvurf, a secretive subterranean species on the frozen planet. Tara had gladly accepted the mission, but Namia had insisted on accompanying her to the lower levels where she would don the life-saving thermosuit. When Tara had tried to refuse, Namia had pointed out that Davin’s hoverchair would not be able to negotiate the stairs to the lower levels, and that there should be another Jedi to keep watch. She hadn’t listened when Tara pointed out that Davin was perfectly capable of wearing the set of exos that the Healers kept suggesting. Namia had found a reason why that wouldn’t work either. She’d even gone so far as to sit in the briefings about the Multvurf society. Tara had appealed to Davin for help, but her Master had teased her about having two Masters and simply told her that it was adorable . Tara did not find it adorable. It was irritating. Irritating that despite how far she’d come, Namia still insisted on treating her like something to be coddled and kept safe. Sometimes Tara felt her girlfriend was suffocating her with the desire to keep her as close as she could as if that would somehow undo what had been done to her. “I’m fine,” she said grimly, as Namia’s fingers caught her arm and pulled it gently towards her. Tara gritted her teeth. “Don’t be silly,” Namia said softly, “I’ve got it. It’s a bit hard for you to get.” Tara’s fingers curled into a fist. It didn’t seem to matter that it had been two years since she’d come home. It didn’t matter what she’d achieved in those two years. Didn’t matter that she could now use the Force to navigate, which often meant that she didn’t need the help her friends so readily and eagerly offered. Tara couldn’t help but feel that what had happened to her had changed the dynamic of their relationship to something she didn’t like. Somehow Namia was trying to be her Master, her parent, and her lover all at the same time. This mission had kicked the protective side of Namia into overgear. “The catch on your shoulder isn’t done as well as it could be, I could get that too.” The words raked themselves down Tara’s spine and left a bitter taste in her mouth. Tara snatched her hand away, taking a step back. The words spilt from her mouth before she could stop them. “I’m not a child, Namia. I’m not a newly shorn padawan, either. Nor a doll for you to fix and care for. I’m me. I’m blind but I’m not useless.” She could still feel where Namia’s fingers had been, so firm on her arm. The cold wind that emanated from the cave whispered along the spots where Namia’s fingers had touched. It burnt and Tara bit the inside of her lip to stop herself from apologising. Instead, she clenched her jaw. “This is my mission. When I get down to the Multvurf I’m going to have to manage the suit by myself. I have to know how to do it.” She took a breath, trying to find her centre, but instead hit a wall of anxiety and anger. “I didn’t realise,” Namia said quietly, “I’m sorry, Tara, I-” “Never realise. Never think about how I feel when you mother me.” The words kept falling; the vehemence of her own voice startling her. She was less controlled than she would like. All the fear and worry about stepping into the unknown, the feeling of not being able to be herself around her friend, the overwhelming feeling that she was going to fail. That she would somehow stuff up and that would be the end of her ― down in the neverending cold. “I didn’t realise you felt-” Namia started again. Tara felt her friend take a step towards her. “Suffocated. I feel suffocated,” she spat back. She knew she was being unreasonable, but the feel of the thermosuit against her skin and the dangers ahead had clouded any ability to think rationally. “You make me feel suffocated,” Tara hissed angrily, not caring how much the words hurt. She couldn’t see Namia’s facial expressions, but she could feel the spiral of confused anguish across their bond. “I don’t understand. I thought we were-” “Lovers? Friends? It won’t matter soon enough. You’ll go off and become a knight. Like everything else you ever do, you’ll sail through it without issue.” Tara bent down and hastily jammed her archivist gear into her bag. “While I’ll be stuck as a padawan, still needing people to look out for me, because I’m somehow less than a Jedi.” There. That phrase. The one that played in her head in the early hours of the morning. Less than a Jedi. “No one sees you like that,” Namia tried. Tara could hear the whispers of the Force surround her as her friend took another step towards her. She threw up her shields to blanket the sound. “Everyone sees me like that. Less than a Jedi. The blind padawan. The one who needs her friends to watch out and over her. When you’re off talking to politicians in the Senate, I’ll still be here ― an archivist. A simple story-keeper. Staying in the shadows where I belong.” The suit itched as it sat hot against her skin. The stupid thing summarised her entire life ― covered, protected, suffocated to make sure she survived. “Tara, that’s not fair. I won’t forget about you.” Namia’s unwillingness to match her anger, to rise to the bait, somehow made her more insufferable. Tara slid her arms through the straps of the backpack and picked up her helmet. She shot what she hoped was her most withering glance in Namia’s direction. “I kind of hope you do.” She shoved her helmet over her head and swung the catch so that it snicked closed. Inside the suit felt hot and she could hear her own breathing over the insistent murmurings of the Force. She turned and made her way towards the entrance of the tunnels, telling herself not to look back, even as her bond with Namia screamed with pain. * Tara followed the narrow winding corridors. It was calmer down here. The Force, which merely whispered on the outside world, now hummed its own melody. The Multvurf rarely came to the surface, preferring the almost pitch-black corridors that ran, warren-like, under the permafrost surface of Kankara. The Bauson, or surface-dwellers as the Multvurf called them, said it was because the Multvurf had been banished to the freezing depths long ago for some terrible crime. The two species shared, at least according to the archives, some common ancestor, but their relationship was now strained. It had, apparently, been at the insistence of their wise women, their Ayezi, that one had braved the surface at all to request the presence of the ‘ones that listen to the earth’. The Bauson had warned them that the tunnels were pitch-black and that the Multvurf did not allow light, as it offended the Holy Dark. The Bauson had said that in the depths the darkness was so dense that it would suffocate the unwary. They had not wanted them to go, but Tara had insisted ― an archivist’s job was to collect all the stories of the universe, no matter how dangerous. She could still remember the argument that had flared at her initial declaration. Namia had insisted that it was too dangerous for Tara and she would do it, Master Samukay had wondered whether she was physically able to take the strain of the apparent freezing conditions, and Tara had stood her ground trading barbs and counterpoints with equal ferocity. Eventually it had been Master Dor who’d settled the matter when he’d pointed out that the darkness would pose no problem to someone who couldn’t see. Now she strode cautiously down the slopes. She could no longer hear the wind that rattled Kankara’s surface, and the thermosuit had become uncomfortably warm. She could feel the prickle of sweat across her back. The Force sang to her, showing her the uneven floor, a dip in the ceiling, a fork in the road. It trilled that there was a life-form ahead and Tara slowed. “You the earth-speaker?” The voice was strong and bright and at odds with the ever-present sensation of being swallowed by the soil. “I am,” Tara said quietly. “You do not need your armour, earth-speaker,” the voice said. “We do not live on the surface where the wind howls. Mother Earth keeps us warm.” Tara paused, listening to the babble of the Force around her. There was no hiss of treachery, just a quiet susurrus that gathered together and threaded itself into a song full of trust and patient curiousity. She shook her head, not trusting the speaker or the melody. The Bauson had said the air down here was too cold for her to survive long and she had no intention of dying in the dark, despite her thoughts when she had been arguing with Namia. “If it’s alright, I’ll keep it on. I’m Jedi Padawan Tara Tarindae,” she said, bowing as best she could and feeling the beads of sweat gather and run down her back. “Are you Multvurf?” “We are the earth-movers. I am Juriska,” the voice said. Tara sent a tentative Force probe but could only make out the vague outline ahead of her. “Keep the suit if you wish, but Mother Earth protects us and she will protect you too, earth-talker. The gifts of the Bauson only promise danger.” Tara stood her ground. After a moment, there was a low chuckle. “Please yourself. I shall take you to Ayezi now.” The Multvurf turned and headed down a corridor. Tara followed, feeling more and more uncomfortable with every step. By the time they stopped again, she was light-headed. The Force buffeted and sang to her, murmuring that she was surrounded by more bodies she couldn’t see. Ahead of her was a figure, shining bright in the vision the Force gave her in the darkness. This was the Ayezi. “Juriska, why does the earth-talker still wear her armor?” The new voice, which came from the shining dark figure, was old and grated with the sound of rock on rock. “She will not listen to me, Ayezi. She believed the surface-dwellers, that our homes are inhospitable. She sees nothing but light and does not believe in the comfort of the darkness.” Tara stood silently, biting her lip in an effort to remain upright. Every part of her felt soaked to the bone with sweat. “I came to listen to your story,” she said softly. “Take off your armor.” The Ayezi’s voice was granite firm. “Once you are fed and watered, once your feet are cemented in the touch of the earth’s grace, once you reveal yourself to the wonders of the dark, then I shall tell you my story. Tara breathed out slowly. The Force murmured and hummed around her, reminding her that she was safe. Slowly, she reached up and unhooked her helmet. The relief as the cooler air hit her skin was almost palpable. There was a hiss from the surrounding Multvurf. “She cannot see,” a new voice said from the darkness before it was quickly hushed by another. Tara frowned, turning her head this way and that to catch the tiny whispers of conversation. “Look,” Ayezi whispered, her gravelly voice resonating with pleasure. “She is of the dark like us. The earth-mother sent one of the darkness. She will understand that not everything is of the light. She will tell our story.” There was a murmuring of agreement from around the cavern. “You should remove the rest,” Juriska said curtly. Tara raised an eyebrow. Under the rest of the suit she was not wearing very much. Juriska snorted. “The earth-talker is modest, Ayezi, she fears revealing her true self.” “Come, child, you are of the darkness,” Ayezi said and then laughed. “I know you. Although you do not think of yourself as a child anymore, you are still but a babe in my arms. You want all the trappings of adulthood but you are too terrified of what they might bring.” Tara frowned, wondering how the Ayezi knew that. There was another throaty chuckle. “You are not the only one the earth talks too. Remove your armor and then sit by me.” Tara slowly peeled off the suit, her fingers struggling with the clasps. The Multvurf stayed silent and unmoving around her, watching and waiting. It was so different from the surface, where everyone would rush to help her. Down here she was expected to be competent. The thought scared her as her fingers slipped over clasps and buckles. Down here they expected her to be more than a Jedi.

Earth-Talker Eventually she stepped out of the leggings, shivering slightly as her sweat-soaked shift caught the breeze. The cave was neither stifling warm nor icy cold. Instead, it hovered at what Tara would have thought was an acceptable temperature if she hadn’t been standing bare-legged in a wet, thin shift. For a second she felt panicky without a protective layer of clothing, but the Force whispered that down here she was safe. “Blankets and a drink for our earth-talker,” The Ayezi said quietly, “and then we shall begin.” Tara sank almost gratefully onto the cool loam floor. The rich smell of earth surrounded her, and a sense of peace she hadn’t felt for a long time filtered through. The tense friendships and the self-doubt and anger that had existed on the surface seemed to sink into the soil. Someone draped a blanket around her shoulders and pushed a mug of something steaming and hot into her hands. It smelled rich, spiced and warm. Tara placed it gently down onto the floor and retrieved her recording equipment. That sense of peace filled her again. This was her mission, her purpose. Here, now. This was what the Force had preordained for her. The listener and keeper of untold stories. This was what would make her ‘enough’ for the Jedi. Here in the cool earth. She was sure of it.

"Let us begin."