EVENT ★ BACK TO THE FUTURE

[futurologists]

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.

Comments

[whoosh]

Really? Well — [ anakin blinks. she doesn't look old. not the age he pictures a wife to be. maybe they just marry young wherever she's from. and a wedding! he feels terrible that she's stuck somewhere else too. kneeling on the floor, anakin pats her gently on the arm. ]

You shouldn't worry. Your husband will wait. [ he tips his head with an encouraging smile. ] He'd be crazy not to wait for you. But if you want, [ comes the quick offer, ever the kind boy, ] I can help you find someone to take you back. I'll walk you through the halls. I know how to avoid most of the bugs. And we've got this.

[ he holds up the lightsaber for good measure. see, he can be a great protector, so good, please pick him. ]

[thereddoor]

[ She has only recently been scrubbed to glow, scrubbed to smell enticing. He should not be patting her arm. Dany stares at his hand as though it is a novel thing, scarce taking in his meaning. She supposes she is pretty enough, though she has never felt as though anyone would want her as badly as the boy says. Illyrio had said she was regal, Viserys had said she was young and too skinny. But if he did not wish to see her wed, then he had wanted his crown far more.

His promise to her, hissed beneath an alcove, had been proof enough of that. Dany shudders visibly, shaking her head. The absurdity of a little boy (however brave) being her escort aside, she feels suddenly more afraid of Khal Drogo's courtyard than she had been of the monster. ]

No, [ she declines, her voice thin. Almost shamefully thin, childlike. ] It will be safer to stay here.

[ I don't want to go back. ]

[whoosh]

[ the mention of 'safer' gives anakin pause. despite his young age, there's a lot he's aware of that he probably shouldn't be. then there's everything he knows that no one be capable of knowing. that is a secret, however, one few need to know. his mother knows it. qui-gon does too; he figured it out quick as breathing, but qui-gon is a jedi. of course, he would know.

thinking of his mother, of qui-gon, of the others, of padmé, her beautiful face worried when she talks of the queen, reminds anakin of his duty. he cannot linger here. not only does he have to find his mother and stay with her, he promised his new friends his help, help only he can give. neither can he leave his new friend behind ( for he has already decided dany is his friend and he hers despite not even knowing her name. rescues from vicious alien bugs will do that. )

he can't do much about her marriage even if he were present. he can't promise her everything will be okay because he doesn't know if it will. he can stick around, however. and he can offer the best distraction he has: endless, friendly chatter. ]

I have to go back, [ he informs her because daenerys clearly needed to know. ] If my mom's still there, I have to free her. I also have to help my friends. There's a big race tomorrow on Boonta Eve. I'm entered in it. With the winnings I'll get them, they'll be able to fix their ship. Have you ever seen a pod race?

[ anakin's face lights up, voice gaining animation as the subject turns to one of his favorites. ]

I'm building my own racer. Not here. Obviously. [ obviously~ ] When I'm done, it'll be the fastest ever.

[thereddoor]

[ Racing, she understands. Men boast of racing swift ships across the Narrow Sea, and sellswords boast of comparing their powerful steeds. It is no stranger to offer coin in reward for winning a race, she thinks, than it is to offer coin for anything else.

Unfortunately for Anakin, it is one word in particular that has caught her attention, and it is not the subject he seems to like so much. She allows him to speak at first, not wishing to cast a shadow over the joy in his face. Had she ever seemed so happy? Perhaps once, she had loved to play between the caravans that traveled through the Free Cities, her mouth watering at the spices she smelled while she raced to catch a glimpse of the mummers' troupes--but that had been before Viserys' eyes had grown feverish, and before his hands had shook.

When he is finished, she plucks one of the metal items from the heap he'd cast it into, the focused curiosity somewhat soothing. His chatter seems to ground her, to shake her from some of her timidness. However frightened she is, it shames her to know he is only a child. She must be brave. ]

You say much between breaths, [ she tells him, not unkindly. He is bright and spirited, the sort of child she envies. ] But why haven't you told me your name?

[ Begin with that. ]

[whoosh]

Oh. [ anakin clicks his mouth shut. his cheeks redden. ] Oops. I forgot.

[ the excitement of a new place, new things, new people. anakin straightens his back as his mother showed him. shmi cedes nothing to her station, and neither will he. ]

My name is Anakin.

[ his name is not yet what it will be. does not carry the heavy weight of expectation that it will, the history or the reputation. anakin skywalker. the hero with no fear. but is his. his in a way little else is. anakin wears it proudly. ( even as his cheeks remain very pink. ) ]

What's yours?

[thereddoor]

[ His embarrassment removes the ground that his bravery had gained him. Unconsciously, Dany's face softens about the eyes and the mouth, her shoulders lowering. She is at least four years his elder; perhaps five, though it is difficult to tell. ]

You may call me Daenerys, [ she tells him, arranging her hands politely into her lap. It feels strange to speak with some measure of authority, any power at all. But if she must assume leadership, then surely she can do it for a child. ] Dany, if it please you, but only my brother calls me that.

[ Her fingers twitch where they lie, and then she holds out a hand for his again, curious to examine the dirt there. ] When you said you must free your mother, what did you mean?

[whoosh]

[ he lays his hand in hers, more reflex than conscious action, surprised she reached for him at all. it's with the uncomplicated manner of a child that he tells the truth, aware that it's wrong, that it shouldn't be this way, not yet knowing that the word should taste like shame as it comes off his tongue. ]

We're slaves. [ he blinks guilelessly at her. ] We can't go anywhere without our owner's permission. There's a chip implanted inside every slave. If you try to run away, they blow you up.

That's why I'm making a sensor. [ he points to his pile of scrap. ] I'm going to find mine and remove it. Then I'm going back for my mother and take hers out too. Then we can go.

[ anakin looks at the tops of his feet. when he lifts his head again, the passivity of earlier has given way to a fierce determination. ]

I had a dream. I went back to Tatooine and freed all the slaves. I'm going to do it. One day.

[thereddoor]

[ With careful brushes, Dany lifts a corner of the carpet and begins to rub at his hand, wiping away the dirt. She had done the same for Viserys once, before he had cast her away for touching him. Now, she feared she would wake the dragon too much to try.

Her movements are tender, almost maternal. She does not know what a chip is, nor has she ever heard the phrase blow up, but the context is evocative enough. She pauses in her wiping to meet his gaze, her violet eyes wide with horror. Whatever answer she had been expecting, it was not that. ]

That is-- [ the words seem to die in her throat. He is only a boy, she thinks. Only a little boy. There were child slaves enough in the Free Cities, of course, but Dany had always had Viserys, and her hunger, and her fear. She could observe, but it was simply how things were. To speak to him, a boy who was promised death if he tried to flee-- ] --very brave of you, [ she finishes, feeling sickened. ] It is noble. Kind.

[ And dangerous. She reaches for his other hand to clean it as best she can, for now it is the only thing keeping the dreadful imagery at bay. I must keep speaking, she thinks. She was born a princess, and a princess must listen. ]

How did your mother come to be a slave?

[whoosh]

[ some part of him senses he's upset her. it's the same part that tells him of when the winds begins to rise in the desert, warning of an approaching sandstorm. the same part that guides him when he flies: an instinctive knowing not acquired through the senses except for a feeling.

but he's also a little boy, eager and precocious, and so few have ever regarded his dreams with anything but scorn — none but his mother, and now the jedi qui-gon — that he smiles, trying on the words "brave" and "noble" and finding he likes them.

at her question, he makes a little moue. ]

I don't know. I think she's always been one. Or she was sold when she was very young. We came to Tatooine when I was three. We used to belong to Gardulla the Hutt, but she lost us to Watto betting on the pod races. Watto's not so bad. He doesn't beat us or starve us like a lot of the other masters do.

[ a smack on the ear when he doesn't respond quickly enough for him is nothing. anakin has learned how to manage the contrarian toydarian, keeping his face wiped clean of emotion when watts gets into one of his fits, and waiting quietly for it to pass. shmi handles him even better. anakin's mother has a way of gently turning watto's words against him, agreeing with him in a way that he has no choice but to follow one logical thought — usually the one that spares her son extra or harder labor.

the only thing in which she has never been able to get their owner to budge is in the matter of the pod races. anakin is too skilled a pilot — and less costly, receiving no pay at all — to not use in the races. it's the only subject that he is glad she cannot affect. he loves flying too much to stop. ]

[thereddoor]

No one should starve or beat you.

[ The words come out in a blurt, ungraceful and childish, but the sentiment is no less genuine. Something dark and strong unfurls in her, beneath the fear and the docility, and Viserys is not here to twist her hair and pinch her beneath her dress. For a moment, Dany's hand trembles where she holds Anakin's, and then she takes a breath and folds his smaller hand between her own. ]

No one should own you, [ she tells him, her voice sounding curiously tremulous to her ears. ] Do you understand? You should never have been sold.

[ Someone should have protected you, she wishes to say, feeling sad. Someone should have made you feel safe. You are too young to be so brave. But she says none of it, instead waiting for the storm she carries to pass. It is Viserys who is the dragon, not her, but sometimes--when she is angry, too angry to be afraid--Dany wonders what lies in her own heart. It frightens her. ]

What would Watto ask of you both, to release you? There must be some price. [ Her tone is quiet again, more reserved. She has heard of slaves purchasing their own freedom, or else winning it. ]

[whoosh]

[ anakin frowns. not out of disagreement; he agrees with every word. but no one speaks like that. slavery is an unfortunate fact of life. like the sandstorms that threaten the establishments or the distasteful sight of the hutts. if ever someone was so angry, it was worn out of them long ago. tatooine is good at that.

then he has to look away, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he thinks. but he already knows the answer. anakin shakes his head. ]

He wouldn't sell us. Maybe by betting…but he wouldn't bet me. I'm useful. [ none of the childlike pride that had marked him earlier rings his statement now. it is presented unadorned in its truth. ] Useful slaves don't get sold.