epidemiology | EVENT ★ BACK TO THE FUTURE

BENDED TIME

As outlined in the OOC post, things start to slow down and grow quiet in Oska for a few days as the bugs crawl away and slowly disappear. But then the cocoons hatch. Fully grown temporal insects claw their way out of them, each about the size and temperament of raging bulls.

They come out far more aggressive and eager to fight, are are willing to take on anything that moves with jaws and claws alike. Except, of course, another insect — when two of them encounter each other, they enter into a mating dance and then slip away into another dimension, leaving behind only the temporary ghosts of years gone by. If you can’t find a way to pierce that thick shell to take one down, better find another one to pair it off with instead. Just try not to get bit while leading them around and find yourself suddenly 5 years old again.

The insects aren’t the only thing going on in Oska, though. As it turns out, unicorns really hate this adult form of the temporal insects, and will start kicking their way out of their stalls in the stables to get at the insects in an attempt to impale or trample them. According to Uruz they’re gallant warriors, but not always quite cut out to take on a bug, and can easily get themselves hurt or killed. She would really appreciate recruits taking a moment to recapture any stray unicorns they may come across and leading them back to the stables. Try to avoid any insects on the way, or you’ll find yourself suddenly fighting insect and irate unicorn, which is no one’s idea of a good time.

The lake is getting more active, too. All the fighting has woken up something in the depths of it. Dark red tentacles sometimes creep up onto shore — and don’t worry, this time they don’t belong to a sea goddess. The tentacles don’t attack unless attacked, and can in fact be quite agreeable. Nodes along the length of them act as primitive eyes, which see well enough to interact with anyone nearby. They’re also all a little peckish. Toss a tentacle a bit of food and watch it curl around and ingest it using tiny mouths on the underside. It might even be willing to play a few rounds of fetch or slap a bug into the sky for you if you put it in a good mood with a morsel of food.

The senior ALASTAIR members can be seen out and about and doing their part, too. Uruz and Dagny fight as a team, centaur and elf, sometimes fighting back to back and sometimes as mount and rider. They’ll stop and lend a hand, but the cats are a little less generous. Cherenkov and Crowley fight inseparably and use magic and science in deadly combination to ward off and destroy the bugs, but can usually only be seen darting on their way from one place to another. They have a lot of magitek to repair in the destructive wake of the insects. Pomarr, neither as senior nor as invested in actively picking off the bugs, offers shelter near a tentacle-free portion of the lake, calling down storms to toss away bugs for her and anyone in the vicinity.

OOC NOTES

This log spans a week ICly. Characters will find themselves beginning to understand each other again as the bugs first vanish, as the effects of the cats’ work on the magitek pays off. The translation problem will be completely fixed by the time the cocoons hatch. All of the bugs will have been killed or shipped off by the sixth day, leaving the last day before their departure to the next mission blissfully relaxing. Any temporally misplaced recruits will be back to normal by the last day, as well.

A reminder to anyone still texting: the texting feature of magitek jewelry operates based on thought! There are no physical keyboards, recruits merely think the message that they’d like to send to another recruit.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Finn could see her coming down the way, and he could see the way the acid still slightly clung to her clothes in places. Even though he wasn't supposed to show concern, should be focusing on getting back to his base and his position, he found himself sidetracked in a way that happened all too often to him.]

You okay? It looks like you ran into one of those bugs.

[He gestures toward her tunic.]

[ Anguish, fresh and sharp, pierced the heavy veil of her miserable fury. The tension drained slowly out of her shoulders, a numbness filtering down through the veins in her arms to pool in her fingertips as she stared on at him. It felt like she might drop the saber in her palm, but as the metal began to slip free, her grip on it tightened. That anchored her.

It was a part of her now, this weapon, for it was what she'd made of herself. ]

It can't be. [ She uttered the words with such a complete sense of loss that they seemed entirely at odds with the way she leveled the violet beam of light at him in the next moment, the tip hovering just near his collarbone where she knew a similar burn lay beneath his jacket—if it were really him—from the crossguard of Ren's saber. ]

What are you?

[His entire body stills if only because he's suddenly legitimately afraid that she's going to cut his down with that blade if he so much as moves a muscle. He swallows hard, fighting against the urge to run, his voice shaky when he finally tries to answers.]

I'm a Cadet, ma'am. For the First Order.

[He's not sure what 'can't be' about any of this, but he's not going to question it. He'd rather keep his head, thanks.]

[ Cold dread washes over her, the first feeling in years to snuff the latent smoldering fury that has driven her all this time. Rey's grip briefly loosens on her lightsaber, shock leaving her unsteady. When she notices, she tightens her grip by force, firming her resolve in defensiveness in fear of the vulnerability it signified. No. She can't afford to be weak and easily misguided now. ]

No. You're lying.

[ She swallows thickly.

Finn left the First Order before he ever met her. Finn was a decent person, a good person, the only one she could say with certainty that she'd ever met because he'd never turned away from her, wasn't alive to when it all happened. ]

What's your name?

N-no. I'm not.

[The knot in his throat only grows along with his discomfort, icy fear traveling through his veins. He's only ever had to deal with simulations. This is real, and he has no chance against her if she decides she doesn't want to talk anymore.]

FN-2187. That's my designation.

[ It can't be him. Finn was a person. He didn't have a designation; he had a name. But it doesn't escape her that he was a stormtrooper once, too, that he may not have always known it, that it may not have come easy. It hurts too much to think that it could be him, though, staring through her like this.

The Empire, after all, had used clones before. ]

Not your designation. Your name. [ She hissed the repetition, as though the demand clarified itself as she stepped closer, on the brink of some uncharacteristic outburst of violence simply to release the mounting sense of panic and dread and doubt and self-loathing that threatened to bubble up and burst within her. ]

[She is seriously freaking him out. If she wants him to be afraid, well mission fucking successful.

He lifts his hands, palms facing toward her in a sort of gesture of submission as he looks straight into her eyes.]

That's the only thing anyone's ever called me. I swear.

[ The movement was so passive, such complete surrender, that for a moment, Rey found herself torn paradoxically between the sick thrill of eliciting it and the horror at seeing it in Finn's face. Horror quickly won out, exacerbated by disgust with her own reaction and the knowledge that she could not forget it. The beam of her lightsaber died with the press of a button and she lowered her hand, stunned by her own aggression into a passing moment's silence. ]

Stop that.

[ She spat the words out when they finally came, disgusted with his submission as much as her readiness to take advantage of it. Suddenly, she felt very naked, very aware of who she was threatening. That she had caused such fear in Finn's face unnerved her in a way that made every atom in her body feel wrong, not just because of the man before her, but because she thought of Finn as she knew him, of that same look crossing his face when he saw what had become of her. ]

I'm not...doing anything.

[But at least she's putting the lightsaber away. That doesn't mean it won't come back out if she gets pissed again, but at least he puts his hands down in response. Maybe that's what she means.]

I didn't mean any offense.

[And he sure as hell wants to high tail it out of this situation, but he's not about to risk making her angry again. She can use the Force; she'll just find him even if he does manage to get away somehow.]

I don't care what you meant.

[ She doesn't care about anything, not anymore. That's supposed to be the comfort of this, but here he is in front of her, and she doesn't know what to do with it. She can feel his fear—and something else, something that tells her that this is him. This is Finn.

Nausea closes her airway. She can't breathe. ]

The very sight of you offends me.

[ It's fight or flight for her now, and she can't stand to look him in the eye any longer and know that it's him and know what will happen, what has happened, can't let him see what she's become. It hurts. So much that she can't bear it. ]

Leave me. Now.

[ The last word comes out as a growl, coarse and feral and forced. ]

[He clears his throat, nodding more times than is probably necessary and starts to inch away.]

No problem. I can definitely do that.

[His feet start to move faster even as he speaks before he finally just...turns and power walks as fast as he can away from her.

He's pretty sure he's lucky he's even still breathing.]

EVENT ★ BACK TO THE FUTURE

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