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

[sereneflame]

"I promise with all my heart, for as friends we are bound by our mutual trust to aid and not to harm." She's got no idea if Giovanni considers that an aspect of their friendship, for he is a hard and dangerous man, but for this little boy she will paint the best picture possible.

She turns half away from him and beckons for him to follow. "Come, the kitchen is near. Let me show you my favourite foods so you can have a taste."

[badspine]

His uncertainty remains, but it's a smaller thing than it had begun as, and there's that deep lonely part of him that just wants someone to take control, to impose some kind of order on the confusion and fear this place is causing him. So he hesitates only a moment longer before his mouth sets into a resolute line and his hands sneak down to the pistols at his hips, briefly touching them, just a little reminder to himself that he isn't entirely defenseless.

They move quickly away again though - he doesn't like them, much, would rather not use them at all - and then begins to follow her, just a couple of paces behind.

[sereneflame]

She keeps half an eye on him as she leads them through the courtyard to the kitchens, wary of him skittling away.

"Isn't this a lovely morning? Look at how blue the sky is!" She recalls dimly that he's more used to caves and the underground, but she no longer recalls if he mentioned spending time above ground when he was younger. "Shall we sit out on the grass to eat or would you like to stay indoors?"

[badspine]

A lovely morning. It's a startling thing, actually, the first steps outside. The quality of the light is all wrong and the sky...it's big and open and the colour-- it's different from how he imagined it, how he'd always pictured it inside his head and he falters a moment behind her, face turned upwards, uncertain and awestruck all at once. Part of him wants to rush back inside, to take cover in the familiar, whilst the rest of him wants to drink it all down and remember it forever because he'd never thought he'd really see it with his own eyes. Almost didn't believe it could exist at all. Like a story.

"It's...blue," the words are little more than a whisper, and for now it's the best he can manage.

[sereneflame]

She pauses at the little whisper, turning back fully to stare at him. He really hasn't been outside!? How overwhelming this moment must be!

She comes to kneel beside him and stare up with him, seeing the sky anew.

"It's the purest blue you'll ever see." She points up at a fluffy white cloud floating to the left of where they're staring.

"Do you see that? That's a cloud. When they are ready to drop the water they contain they turn dark grey." She glances at him and internally puts off lunch for now until he's absorbed the wonder of the great vaulting air above them.

[badspine]

"...a c-cloud," he says it so quietly, like a breath, and for a moment he stays like that, just staring up at it with his head tipped back and lips parted in an exclamation without sound. It is wonder that he feels, a big all-encompassing awe, but the longer they stay there the more it corrodes beneath other feelings-- guilt and sadness and anxiety because where are the others? Where's Arthur and Lott, where are any of them, and most importantly--

"Lily would like th-this. Lily and H-Heine....but..." and he tries to bite it back but he isn't quite able, the hitch in his breath a quiet but audible thing, and even though he screws his eyes shut it doesn't stop one lone tear from rolling down the curve of his cheek.

[sereneflame]

She's careful as she wraps her arm about him, not wanting to startle him. The poor child, the poor deprived child. She knows what he's feeling so well, enough that her throat is stiffening as she thinks upon Cinder who had been in the research centre with her, her poor Cinder who'd been murdered before her eyes.

"I promise that they will see the skies as well. Shh, sweet one, and look at the view until your heart is full. You can tell them all about this when you see them again and give them courage."

[badspine]

At first he freezes up as he feels her arms slide around him, body tense and hard and slightly shaking, a quivering bow on the verge of release and it's there in him, the urge to run away or perhaps even bite, if he has to. But nothing follows it, nothing threatening, and after a while he gives in to it, muscles softening and his body going slack against her, as though this is exactly what he'd wanted all along, what he's always wanted. To be comforted and held instead of threatened and yes there's a part of him that's sickened by his own inability to be cold and strong in his own right, but the bigger part of him wants the comfort and affection more than anything.

"I h-hate it. I don't want to go back there. I d-don't belong there. Please don't m-make me," words broken up by the tears that he can't keep in check.

[sereneflame]

She turns to him and wraps her other arm about him, pulling him against her warm and solid chest.

"I won't send you back there, shhh, you don't have to go," she lies, stroking his pale hair. "I will keep you safe, my precious friend." She kisses his forehead as she rocks him and hums, trying to imbue her comfort down deep into his bones.

[badspine]

This time he goes willingly, allows her to hold him and, after a moment, clings to her pathetically in return. It's the first time in his short sad life that anyone has ever taken him in their arms like this, without something hard and fierce and threatening behind it, without the promise of pain if he doesn't perform the awful duties Mother expects of him. It's good to hear it, the promise in her words, even if he can't bring himself to believe them, and for a moment all he does is collapse against her and cry, fingers burying themselves in the material of her clothes. But it's more complicated than this, isn't it? If he stays, then what about the others? They wouldn't leave him behind in that cold wretched place if they knew how to escape it, would they?

(Yes they would, but he doesn't know this yet.)

"B-but everyone else is still there. Arthur and Lott and...and Lily! Lily and Heine...w-what about them??"

[sereneflame]

Lily? Serene knows she's heard him say that name before and her eyes narrow even as she tucks him under her chin and rocks harder.

"Shhh, shh, we can worry about them soon, but first we should make sure you are safe. Don't lift the whole world on your shoulders when you are still so small."

It comes to her then when she'd heard that name: Zeta-12 with that little squidge he carted about everywhere. She squeezes her eyes tight shut at another well of empathy hits her. Was Lily like her Cinder, her childhood companion who'd become her first love? He'd died horribly and she hardly spoke of him any more, but she still clung to his memory and how sweet he'd been.

"Oh Giovanni..."

[badspine]

He's still not sure whether he can believe it, whether it would even be possible for this person to rescue Lily and Heine and the others from that place, from Mother, and even now - small as he is, young as he is - there's a part of him that wonders if they'd ever be able to function in the world outside that awful facility considering what they are. Lily-- it's been harder and harder for her to control it lately, the Dog lodged in her Spine. She's a danger to herself and everyone around her and how could someone like that - something like that - truly be allowed to live in a world where killing and bloodshed aren't a daily occurrence? What would become of her?

But he tries to swallow those fears down, place them - at least momentarily - to one side, to do as this woman is asking of him and for a few short minutes think only of himself and his own fear and the sweeping relief that comes with being able to cry and hold on to someone who seems to genuinely care about him, who won't shout at him for giving in to weakness.

So he leans against her and cries for a while, until the tears bleed out into muffled hitches of breath, and then finally he's quiet in her arms.