driftfleet | Arrival broadcast

Entry tags:

Arrival broadcast

Who: Glitch and anyone interested!
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: Marsiva
When: Now?

[He comes awake slowly, almost peacefully. His dark eyes stay unfocused and close again, still relaxed and calm.

The second time they blink open, there's a bit more focus and they shift to look around him.

Then he freezes.

It's a fear reaction. It's the rabbit in the headlights, stay still, maybe you won't be noticed reaction. His eyes dart around to take in details, but then he relaxes when he realises he's alone.

His hands come up and feel along the zipper in his scalp, checking with ages old familiarity for any change. Apparently satisfied that everything is right, he lowers his hands down.]

Hello? Someone? Cain… ooh, flashy light, what's… oh! Are you a Far Speaker? Miniaturised far speaking technology, look at the clarity of the screen, that's a mirror quality image.

[The communicator is grabbed and starts being turned around in his hands. His clothing seems to have once been very fine, but is now torn and dirty. His pale skin is marked with small abrasions and the dirt of living rough.

He's also still chattering away quite happily to himself.]

I wonder what sort of broadcasting signal this is using, wireless magics don't get this small, usually, but if it were pre-Witch-

[He goes stiff with shock.]

Merciful light, the Witch! DG! Where am I, I need to get back, I have to- I have to-

[He blinks and his face relaxes, all the sharp panic gone.]

Ooh! Far Speaking technology! It's so small, how did they manage to get it that small?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[There's a pause.]

For who?

Did you build things for the queen? When you were her advisor?

Oh, I built amazing things. I redesigned the entire Far Speaker network of Central City as part of my-

My-

... something.

project? [she suggests]

...Is Central City where you're from?

Maybe?

I don't know. I lived there. Once. Maybe? Yes!

What was it like? The city, I mean?

[now that she's fairly confident that he's not about to get irreparably lost, she lets her earlier curiosity take over.]

Oh, it's beautiful. It gleams gold in the sunlight and the marble soaks in the colour of the emerald shining from the top tower of the palace, overlooking the entire city.

[Sometimes, things just come flowing out, so long as he doesn't think about it.]

[it's not just the words...it's the way he says it. She can practically see it, shimmering in her mind]

I would love to paint that...

It was beautiful, back before the Sorceress...

[There's a silence and he blinks and looks at her, with a slightly absent smile.]

Hi! Have we met?

[she smiled, doing her best not to let the sadness of it reach her eyes...not that it'd likely be easy for him to see, until she'd been more cemented in his memory anyway]

We have. I'm Jilly. I'm a friend.

You've been brought to a new place, but you're safe and you aren't alone. If you forget things or just have questions, I'll try to help.

Oh, that good! I don't have many friends. Most people think I'm a criminal and I've done something terrible, but I know I didn't.

Where am I?

[Most people think I'm a criminal.

She doesn't skip a beat responding, but it's noted, especially since it seems like such an odd assumption to make. Sure, Jilly might be a horrible judge when it came to potential dates, but if there was one thing she was good at it was reading when someone was dangerous. Even with a conversation as remote as this one. So far, Glitch didn't even begin to register on her radar.] You don't seem like the criminal type to me.

You're on a ship called the Marsiva. It's a flying ship.

Ooh, flying ship! I can't feel the engines, it must be very good dampening technology.

I wonder who Marsiva was.

I'm not sure, but maybe Marsiva wasn't a person at all. Maybe it was a kind of animal. A lot of the other ships in the fleet seem to have names of objects or creatures. I'm on the Blue Fish.

Hm, maybe. Most ships and the like are named for people, or things which are enjoyed by the owners.

I don't know 'Marsiva' though, so I thought it must be a name of a person.

Maybe they were a famous explorer. Or...since that's the ship everyone arrives on, maybe they're the person who started the Drift Fleet.

That's what this group of ships is called, by the way. And it seems like everyone on them was brought here without warning. None of us really know how we got here...which sounds a little ominous, and maybe it is. But I've been here for a month, and so far the most dangerous thing we've faced is a stolen blender.

[which...was downplaying things a bit, considering the number of doubts she has and the Blue Fish's reaction to Azula's arrival. But, so far, Glitch seemed to remember things better if they were repeated. And, when they'd first begun talking about their strange circumstances, he'd mentioned a sorceress.

He didn't seem like a child, and now that they'd gotten past his first few glitches, she wasn't necessarily worried about him panicking if the more worrying details of their circumstances were brought up...but laying them all out at once didn't seem like the best plan, either]

[Glitch is friendly, open, trusting by necessity. He's not a child, not my any stretch of the imagination, and while he has trouble with impulses and memory, he's not childlike. Just innocent in a strange way.

He's relied on the kindness of strangers since he lost his brain. He has to trust people, because they might be the best friend he doesn't remember. He tries to be kind, because he needs kindness.]

That... sounds really nice, actually. I don't remember the last time I didn't have to worry about where I'd sleep, or where food was coming from. I mean, not that I remember anyway, but it was before they took my brain away. Maybe even before that.

You'd mentioned that before. About them taking your brain.

[quietly]

What--

[she stops. There's so much she wants to ask. Before he'd pocketed his device, she'd seen the zipper parting his hair, and she's seen enough magic to believe that, somehow, this could be truly possible (at least in some worlds). That didn't explain much, though, and there was so much she'd like to understand...but the words die on the tip of her tongue even as she tries to shape them.

He'd said most people thought he was a criminal. Whatever that related to...it wasn't going to be a happy story. Some day, she might ask. But for now--]

Could you get it back? Or could it be healed?

[He's quiet while she thinks about what she's saying.]

I don't know. No one's ever tried to reverse headcasing before. You could use a Viewer to form a new neural synpatic link, but that then becomes reliant on Viewer intervention to reach functionality and it's just inconvenient, really.

What did you want to ask?

[in many ways, it was like listening to a foreign language. She was quick, and prone to following the rabbit trails of people's stories into all kinds of fields...not just art and literature. But where she'd spent enough time around Professor Dapple and Christy to take the jargon of philosophy and narrative theory in stride, what Glitch was talking about was foreign (in more ways than one) and well over her head. Still, she tries, grasping at the basic concept even if she knows her understanding is probably elementary at best] People are brought here from all kinds of places. Different worlds and different times. Maybe someone would know a way to make the [how had he phrased it?] intervention...smoother.

But even if that isn't a possibility right now, you won't have to worry about food anymore. There's a kitchen right there on the Marsiva with all the food you could want. And it's the same on all the other ships, too. Food and cooks and a room of your own...or close enough. I guess there've been a lot of new arrivals, so some people are sharing rooms.

[Which was maybe less than ideal, but she knew what it felt like, to have every day mired in uncertainty. When you'd spent days or weeks or longer wondering when you'd ever feel "safe" again, and for how long, even a shared room could feel like a luxury]

[She'd leave it at that, too, but he catches her pause. And so she's honest, even if it's just one of the many questions waiting there] What...happened? With your brain. Do you mind talking about it?

I could probably do it, if I had all my brain here. And Raw. Make a thing... a doo hickey to simulate the psychic ability of the Viewer...

[He trails off, clearly thinking about it.]

I could sure go a nice, red, juicy apple right about now. I wonder if they have those.

[There's the sound of footsteps as he strides off.]

They took it out. I don't remember it. Probably, I knew something and wouldn't tell them, so they took it out to extract the information directly. The sorceress isn't noted for her patience. Or subtlety.

I don't think they have actual fruit in the kitchen. Not that one, anyway. We've got some actual meats and veggies here on my ship, but they didn't come with the ship itself, I don't think.

The things in there look weird...they didn't really seem like food I was used to, at least, but there are a lot of different flavors that taste like foods we have back home. It's not bad. Just...weird. [her smile can be heard at the last bit, just on the edge of a laugh. She liked experimenting, but even she had to admit that the space proteins were...strange.

But her voice sobers again after listening to him]

That's horrible.

Darn. I was really looking forward to an apple. Or a coffee. Or some muglug! Mm, I could really go muglug.

[His footsteps continue on.

He's not anywhere near the kitchens.]

Yeah. I suppose so. Once, headcasing was reserved for the worst sorts of criminals. Murderers. Traitors. I guess it's easier for most people to pretend it wasn't done to political prisoners and dissidents and not think that it could be done to them.

There should be coffee in there, actually! Thank goodness.

[she's about to ask what muglug is, but...

sadly...]

"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

[He doesn't know what most of those things are, but he understands the sentiment all too well.

Silence follows. A long silence.

He might've forgotten he's talking to someone.]

Arrival broadcast

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