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Who: Makie and you guys
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: Marsiva
When: This evening

[Makie wakes feeling more relaxed and a lot clearer than she has in a long time. It's enough that, for a time, she just stays in bed. An odd bed, a very soft one. Given she'd spent a year sleeping on the floor-- and her last memories-- it's a luxury she indulges in.

She knows this is an unfamiliar place. She just doesn't care.

Eventually she pushes the coverlet back and stands, collects her shawl from the stand nearby and settles it across her shoulders. Her clothes are clean and in good repair. That's interesting. The shamisen is there and she picks it up, freezing for a moment as she registers the difference in weight. Notes it, dismisses it. She doesn't...need it here, does she?

It's not until she explores that she begins to feel the first confusion. This is not at all what she would have expected, alien and unfamiliar walls and machinery. Not only that, the more she exerts herself the more the heaviness in her lungs becomes more pronounced, and eventually she sinks into a nearby chair to get her breath back. She's better than she was by far, but she's still sick. She shouldn't still be sick. Surely.

All right, then.

After a while, unnerved by the silence and emptiness of the place, she begins playing her shamisen. If she'd explored a little more, she might have found others, but she's tired. If there are others, they can come to her instead.]

---------

[Eventually, a broadcast. It's short and to the point and delivered in a thin, tired voice by a Japanese woman in a kimono with exceedingly pale skin.]

I understand this is no longer Adstringendum. [She still stumbles over that name, even after a year. Too many damn consonants. And then her tone turns wry.] It is also very clearly not the land of the dead, and this communicator is... familiar.

I apologise as you've no doubt heard these questions many times before, but I should like to know where I am and why.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[oh boy]

It's not really necessary to define it, if it's not bothering you. Some people just feel better when they're alone. Doesn't mean they can't have friends they love and miss, right?

That's right. [She relaxes. That's a good way of putting it.]

Then yes... it doesn't bother me. I've spent a good deal of time travelling across country, so you grow used to solitude after a while. Though there was a small child I was looking after, these past few months... [She pauses.]

I'm not sure I would like it if she came here. She adjusts poorly.

[Understatement of the year.]

Then...hopefully, in the meantime, I hope she's all right without you. And I hope you can make it back to her soon. She probably misses you terribly. [The observation windows aren't far, lining the wall as they turn the corner of the hallway. Sorey gestures toward them with a nod of his head.]

I believe...

[What she was going to say trails off as she catches sight of the view, and she's stunned into silence despite herself.

Sorey's description was accurate. She's getting dizzy just thinking about how endless those stars seem, and she puts a hand up on the glass gently, tracing a line between two stars. Or where they seem to be.]

...

This is amazing. I've never seen something so beautiful.

Yeah. [Sorey's been getting a little overwhelmed every time he glances over at these windows, but he can't deny that it's beautiful in its own way. Lonely, and maybe cold too, but definitely, absolutely beautiful.]

If you look really careful, over that way? [He points toward the very corner of the window.] You see these streaks of blue. I think they might be comets.

Comets...?

[She's never heard the word in her life; moving in the wrong circles in the 18th century. But it doesn't stop her from leaning in a little closer as if she can get a better view that way, to see the streaks of blue he's talking about. Colour. Out here.]

What other things are out here?

[Sorey laughs quietly, leaning a shoulder against the window to further out.] Your guess is as good as mine. I can't see any of the constellations I know. All of this is pretty new to me.

Generally speaking.

I wasn't expecting to see colour out here. I don't know anything about space. I'm from... too far back, I think. [Her curiosity diverted, Makie seems to have more energy than she did before.]

[From too far back? Sorey mulls that around in his head.] Huh... If it makes you feel better, my world doesn't have anything like this either. We know some things, about the stars and constellations, about comets and meteors and the sun but we've never even considered being able to go out there. Something like this? [He raps a knuckle against the window.] It's mind-boggling.

This...thing, [he says a little less certainly, touching the small lump behind his ear,] apparently gives us some knowledge, but it sure doesn't help with absorbing it.

I wonder how many people on this Fleet had never seen space before. [She mulls that over, fingers reaching up to feel at the small lump on her own neck.] It seems strange to take people who wouldn't be used to such a setting and then... magically give them what they need.

[Inefficient to say the least.]

Does your world have television?

['creepy' is another word, also 'invasive' but sorey doesn't like to dwell on those things.]

Nope. I'm still not really clear on what that is, actually. Do you know?

No. Only that people are apparently 'watching' us on one. Perhaps it's like a... stage.

[God knows. She doesn't know how it works, only that they're here for the entertainment of others.]

Many people seem to take it for granted, however. I suppose it's beyond the time of both of us.

What do you mean by that? About these things being beyond our time? [Because that's like twice now, and he's just not getting it. Is she saying stuff like this happens in the distant future? WILL HIS PEOPLE BE CAPABLE OF SPACE TRAVEL??!?!?]

Ah... [Hmm. How to put this.] I'm sorry. It's a phrase that was used often when I didn't understand things. When I met people from my own world, they always seemed to be several hundred years ahead of the time in which I lived.

[They even had a whole new way of giving the year. It was disconcerting. :c]

I thought the same might hold true for you, but then again many worlds are vastly different. Perhaps yours will never have television. Or perhaps you'll have something better.

You...

You've met people from your own future? That's amazing! That's incredible, that- You must have learned so much about your world! How did that happen?

[He's so eager she can't help but smile a little.]

Before I was brought here, I was trapped in another world that had the same variety in people and timelines.

I suppose there's advantage in that-- I'm prepared for such discrepancies. The only thing that surprises me about this world so far is that we're in space. Nobody ever mentioned space before today.

Trapped elsewhere... Was the little girl you were looking after from there? [Because if not, then that means she's been away from her charge for even longer and that's just too sad.]

She was. [There's a little more life in her expression at the thought. She has, at least, found people who make her happy.] Her name is Lilly. She didn't really have a home to go back to, so I took her in.

I'm told that I'll return there when I leave here, so I have that to look forward to.

Well, then, I sincerely hope that at the very least, you can find a way back to her. And if I ever hear of anything that might help you with that, you have my word that I'll bring it to you immediately.

Thank you, Sorey. I appreciate that a great deal. [She doubts he'll have any luck, but it's the thought that counts. And she believes he's actually sincere.]

What about you? I know you've come here with a friend, but is there family you've left behind?

Ah yeah, there's some. I have my family back home in my village, but also a lot of my friends. I can still feel them, so I think they must be nearby...or they're okay, at the very least. But I would feel better if I saw them.

You can still feel them? [Before Adstring she'd have just assumed it was sentiment, but everyone and their weird abilities...]

Over such a distance, that's incredible. [Nearby, though...] Do you think they're here?

I don't know. I haven't found them anywhere here, and there are other passages sealed off... [Sorey gives a wan smile and rubs at his chest.] They're all strong, way stronger than me so I know they can look after themselves but still. I'm worried.

I could hope they're not here. Or if they are, they aren't kept from you for long. [She doesn't know how this place works or she'd give him better news, maybe, but her voice is soft.]

...if it does help at all, I'm told you will return home eventually to the exact moment you left. If they are there, nothing will happen to them while you're gone.

If that's true, then...then that's fine. [It's not really fine, but there isn't much he can do about it by making himself sick with worry.] As long as they're safe, and as long as nothing bad is happening while I'm gone.

But how do you know that?

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