Let the games begin!

[thespaceopera]

[several days late, as has been the trend lately, the Shuffle's transmission plays for the Fleet.

...or, it tries anyway. the music doesn't even make it--just a punch of static with sad, scattered pieces of musical notes trying to struggle their way through.

when Diamond's voice is finally heard, it's only intelligible in three little bites.]

--Three disappearing from-- ... --new faces, so-- ... --Captain Halliwell--...

[and then the music blends strangely with other sounds, like someone flipping idly through broken radio stations. it takes some time for anything to come in clear, and every frequency turns up the same interference. it isn't until several minutes later that one signal suddenly stutters into clarity, and music begins to play.

wherever you are, they are playing your song! and if there are multiple people in the room, maybe the speakers nearest to each person are playing different songs, each specific to the closest passenger. and after the signal connects, the speakers will continue to play whatever song they started with, even if different passengers move toward or away from them, and will only play something else when the controls are messed around with. and the signals and machinery will continue to behave in this way sporadically, all through the month.]

ooc: the musical madness has begun! feel free to use this post as a mingle for interactions relating to shuffle day and the ensuing musical chaos. if you have any questions, please post them to the January ooc post!

→ Shuffle ooc post
→ January system ooc post

Comments

audio | action for the red fish

[theboogieman]

[with all the other sounds on every other channel, this one might be pretty easy to overlook. it's just a woman humming. it might have been a song once--it brings to mind many old lullabies and folk songs, and sounds familiar just before it turns into something else.

it's a little... disjointed, the real words long forgotten, the tune going on forever. but she sounds happy.]

---

[for anyone on the Red Fish, Zhas can be found sitting to the side of the cargo bay, hunched over the sound coming out of his communicator. he's completely absorbed in it. he won't even notice you approaching.]

[aberrant_type]

[She whistles at him through her teeth before she comes any closer. Wouldn't want to surprise the big guy when he's so deep in contemplation.]

[theboogieman]

[good thing, too, since he almost startles--he looks at her with wide-eyes until he remembers where he is, what he's listening to, and why he'd retreated to the cargo bay to begin with.

he anxiously lowers his communicator against his leg, but it only muffles the noise. he looks back down at it. he doesn't have the heart to turn it off.]

[aberrant_type]

You've got it too, huh?

[It's not as if she's going to mock his 'choice' of music. It's not hard to extrapolate why a woman's warm and semi-tuneless humming might be what someone heard.]

It'll be interesting to see what comes of it all.

[theboogieman]

[still looking at his communicator, he signs for "bad". time to see if she remembers, with how drunk they were...]

[aberrant_type]

[Silence trickles out like molasses. She squints at the signs... mulls it over... she knows this, she's sure she does.

They were very drunk... luckily, Hange is smart as hell. Three signs, three letters, and something rises out of the murky waters of her deeper memory.]

A bad sign? Sure seems that way.

[theboogieman]

[that's not quite what he was trying to get across--but what he's trying to express is a complicated concept one shouldn't expect to be understood through just one word. he wishes he could speak through his hands, but he sits and winds tight and tries to think of a way to express what's trying to claw its way out of him.

it's bad. he can't do it. she can tell he's getting really upset.]

[aberrant_type]

[Hange's eyebrows rise as the air knots up with tension. She's not actually sure exactly what will defuse him, but she comes over and punches him in the shoulder anyway.]

Hey, now, simmer down.

[theboogieman]

Nn-- [he moves, finally, to rub his shoulder. that snapped him out of it. it gives him a little room to scramble for something.] --she's real.

[aberrant_type]

[She hoped that would do it. Zhas responds so well to tactile things. Hange points to the communicator:]

The woman? I don't doubt you. What's the problem?

[theboogieman]

My master. [maybe he should call her--his queen? his... her name keeps slipping away from him, it's right there--] This is her.

[aberrant_type]

... Did this technology not exist in your world?

[It would explain why he's so het-up at hearing her, and it's the situation Hange herself is in.]

[theboogieman]

Not around her.

[god, he really misses her. she smelled like roses and iron. why can't he remember her face? what her hair felt like, what she'd say to him. what would she say to him now? it's too sickening a thought.]

[mortalcoil]

[well, Coil is in the process of fleeing the back room where his own song is playing, when he runs into this one.

...and just kind of stumbles to a halt, once he spots Zhas, and hears the song.]

[theboogieman]

[even then, he's slow to notice. his gaze tears slowly from the device until he finds Coil, and even then, his reaction is muddled. his instincts tell him to run, hide it, break it, keep it quiet, but never, ever, ever let it stop. how long has it been since Coil heard their "mother" humming like this?

so he tenses, his fingers curling tight around the device... but it leaves him, saps out of his shoulders as his attention slips back to her sounds, playing like a recording that he knows couldn't have ever have been made.]

[mortalcoil]

[and, really, Zhas is also Coil's secondary notice. the song is so quiet and so real that he holds his breath to hear it better, all of his focus pulled away from everything to be drawn to that little device.

he creeps over in that quiet way that he does, more afraid than usual to make a sound. just slipping over to silently draw up beside Zhas.]

[theboogieman]

[he lets him over. he even... because he feels that he needs to do something, move somehow, he slowly lowers his arm and sets the communicator down on the floor of the ship.

he draws his hand back like he's afraid it's going to shatter.]

[mortalcoil]

[setting on the floor like that, in this empty metal space, it echoes just a little despite its softness. and Coil feels too isolated and cold standing there above it.

so, when another few moments pass with no change--the song continues and doesn't disappear as he'd feared--he lowers down into a crouch, sitting on his heels. he wraps his arms around himself like he's fending off a chill, and he just sits as a silent presence beside Zhas.]

[theboogieman]

[after a little while, Zhas retreats into himself too. it's very subtle, the way he slowly pulls his legs closer and lets his head rest on the sharp points of his wrists.

from there, the feelings just get worse. the spinning fear, the gaping loneliness, the craving sorrow because he doesn't know what to do about her. everything he's been ignoring for days, weeks, months--it feels like its filling his lungs up with water.

so he tenses and he coils and he hunches up so tightly that anyone would be stupid to miss that he's upset.]

[mortalcoil]

[and Coil may not have spent the same constant, saturating kind of time around him that he used to, in quite some time... but being sensitive to these kinds of shifts is not a skill that has grown lax.

if anything, living with Robin has made him more aware of tiny, telling mannerisms.

so, after a minute of feeling this tide roll in, he looks over and raps a knuckle against the hollow metal of the floor. just something to get his attention and interrupt the cycle in his head.]

[theboogieman]

[it works. some of the tension drops just from his return to the present. more of it goes when he realizes that Coil is looking at him. the look he gives back is a questioning one.]

[mortalcoil]

[Coil just lifts his chin a little, questioning him right back.

because who's the one who is clearly having a harder time with this, hmm?]

[theboogieman]

[he doesn't want to, but... he can admit that. he looks back down at his device, listens to the absent noises, tries to think of something to explain. so many of his thoughts are dangerous ones. he doesn't want to admit how much trouble he's having. it's a gaping weakness, one he's not even comfortable sharing with Coil.

but... there's one thing he knows he'll agree with. he brings his hands up to sign.]

'We need to go back.'

[mortalcoil]

[Coil nods. he knows. he's had well over a year to dwell with that very thought.

so, all he responds with is the thing he's told himself a million times, whether he'd lost hope over it or not.

'we will.']

[theboogieman]

[he nods back. he knows it's true. it has to be true, he can't accept any other alternative. it's just... slow and confusing, and gives him a lot of things to worry about. he could talk about his thoughts, what he intends to do, what he's worked through so far, all his theories and concerns...

but he just... looks back at the communicator. sighs quietly, under the weight of it all.]