Voices from Heaven (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thespaceopera) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
driftfleet2017-06-09 10:20 am
thespaceopera) wrote in driftfleet2017-06-09 10:20 am
Entry tags:
- !atroma,
- !mingle,
- anthony j. crowley,
- aurae "tempest" le paulmier,
- chuuya nakahara,
- daryl dixon,
- edna,
- fenris,
- ginko,
- ignis scientia,
- jack sparrow,
- katherine "kitty" pryde,
- keith,
- lance,
- lumiére,
- max rockatansky,
- mikleo,
- mon-el,
- nami,
- noctis lucis caelum,
- nono,
- okita souji,
- otono-tachibana makie,
- pavel chekov,
- prompto argentum,
- riona cousland theirin,
- sam winchester,
- sayid jarrah,
- shinji ikari,
- signy mallory,
- sokka,
- steve rogers (ou),
- takashi shirogane,
- takeshi,
- uraraka ochako,
- vash the stampede,
- velvet crowe,
- yuan ka-fai,
- yuri katsuki,
- zelda
i know you, that look in your eyes is so familiar a gleam
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the empty cell
And not only for her.
The touch is all it takes for the room to darken; the cell once seen from the outside is where you now reside, fearful and alone with little more than eerie green lighting to let you see anything. Yet you hardly need that much to know you've got reason to be afraid; they've thrown her in here with you, for some reason you cannot know, that you need not know to expect the worst.
After all, as you tell her--she is responsible for throwing you in there. For making you a prisoner of this place, where you've known nothing but anguish and fear.
Yet she tries to weave a different story, to claim she won't hurt you. You try to get away, pressing your back harder into the corner, scrambling to make some greater space when there is none. But she says it's a lie--that it's in your mind--
(flashes before your eyes: images you've never seen, yet somehow know.)
I don't understand you say, no longer looking at her. It's a mistake; she stands, steps closer and that fear spikes within you. She's gotten you to look away, to drop your guard, and this, this is her opening.
You lash out. Not knowing why you shove with all your might, and something forces her back as you scream. Her body flies across the cell, striking the far wall, and it's all impossible but it's happened, just like that, somehow.
She groans when she gets up, spells out what's just been done, what you can't believe. Yet for her it's a foothold, the first stone set in a foundation as she claims once more that this prison is your mind, that you control everything.
You don't believe her, and yet you aren't as afraid. You ask why she cares so much, when everything you know says she shouldn't.
She weaves a fine story indeed for you, and along the way, there are more
(memories)
flashes, images of people, events playing before your eyes, so much brighter than the prison where you're housed. The JSA, Commander Steel. Captain Rip Hunter.
Not a prisoner, but the Master of this realm.
Perhaps it can't quite be called faith, but when she puts her hand forth again, you take it. You let her strength pull you to your feet, and answer her call.
I'm Rip Hunter.
Captain of the Waverider.
Captain of the Waverider--and I'm going to open a door with my mind.
You try to believe, but the doubt threads its way into your voice--and that's enough, perhaps, to blunt the effort. Though you push against the glass it doesn't give, doesn't break or even bend. Instead you recoil, the pain ripping through your head from the failed effort.
But she is not alone, it would seem, and neither are you. A young man, another would-be captor, but alongside her--
A face you know. One you trust without reservation. Gideon.
The introductions are necessary and brief. The man opens the door, and you, without hesitation, move to embrace the one person who has offered you safety and comfort throughout all of this. But escaping the cell doesn't mean escaping the ship, and in short order your little group heads through the halls to try and find a way out.
And equally, the answers they need. You want to help them now--they allowed you to escape, after all. But you cannot give them the information about the Spear, or where Commander Heywood is hidden in time. Gideon is the one to point out that your mind remains captive; this ship still exists. But perhaps the memories of your old life can be triggered still, if only you can make it to the parlor.
A task not so easily accomplished; just as you all begin to run, you're forced to stop when confronted by mirror images of the woman and the man--of Sara and Jax.
Rip knows who he is. He's our prisoner. Isn't that right, Rip?
You look down; you don't want it to be true, and yet so much within you thinks that it is.
Jax tells Gideon to take you ahead, but you don't go yet. You want to know what they're planning, what they mean to do if left on their own--and for Sara the answer comes so easily, somehow. The determination to fight, the confidence to believe they'll win.
You can't think the same. Not as you watch them both struggle, before Gideon pulls you away.]
no subject
is this before or after he's shot her? christ, peggy can't tell. she gets no context beside the gibberish they speak to one another and the glimpses of something else. and perhaps that's just as frustrating on its own. captain, captain, captain. the word is thrown around too much and too often. a beat is reserved for playful patter. and peggy (her own native thoughts, she's certain) lurks behind it all with an overwhelming impatience. a mind inside a mind inside a mind.
(she doesn't want him humanized. she doesn't want him pitiable or sympathetic. she's got nowhere to direct her ire if he becomes those things.)
as she's torn back to where she stands on the waverider's bridge. her knuckles have gone white on the console -- and she leans forward, composure lost in the wake of too many competing emotions.
peggy's always liked a good puzzle. but this one's got pieces missing and clues unfinished. the code-key is faulty; it's as though someone had stolen a piece of the enigma machine and, without it, she'll never find her way out. ]
I see. [ quiet; charged. ] You've been 'round this block once or twice before.
[ you, this time. not him. and here in the fleet isn't the first time someone's gone a-stepping through his mind. ]
no subject
To confirm what it is she's just seen.]
Yeah. [Short, to the point. He's moved while she's been away, sitting now on the step one would take to get back into the parlor. He leans forward, arms braced on his thighs, as if there's substance there rather than a construct of light that isn't quite whole.]
Though I do think I have greater agency this time. [Ironically. He seems to be considering it rather intently.] I know who I'm meant to be--but I suppose I thought I knew before, too.
no subject
What changed?
[ -- is it simply that she's here for a second time? or has the hologram gotten some practice in the interim? what makes him so certain he's got any agency at all?
peggy spares him only a glance before her eyes fall back on the console. last time, it had only taken three before she left. but one instance does not a pattern make. hell, it barely makes for a hunch. ]
no subject
[What trust she'd managed to scrape together for a stranger had been shattered; what faith she had in Rip Hunter as he presented himself was gone. And though they hadn't known each other for very long at all, somewhere the hologram has come to realize that chance, that purpose had meant more than even Rip himself realized.]
The purpose of the Artificial Intelligence programs aboard these ships are to protect and serve their captains. [He looks up at her; shrugs his shoulders.] That is the part I'm meant to play in this--encounter. And you, Miss Carter, needed something more than escape this time.
[Or maybe Rip needed it of her. Who is he to say?]
You've answered the question in part. You can piece together why he shot her. [That Rip's mind had been corrupted, that his true self had been held captured within the lies inflicted upon him by another. She's clever enough to see it.]
I can let you out now, unless you need to know more; why he shot her.
no subject
something more than escape. she could laugh. but she doesn't. instead, she decides to ignore the console altogether. if need be, she'll look that artificially intelligent man in his artificially intelligent eyes and she'll say what needs saying. ]
I do. God, I do. But I also think I'll ask him for myself.
[ -- hauntingly similar to the sentiment surrounding her first exit, really. and her hardheaded pronouncement that she would make him talk. as tempted as she is to take the answer by force and by conquest, she remembers enough of what happens in her own dream-space to understand the value of persuasion. ]
no subject
[He waves a hand towards the doors--yes, they're there again. If they weren't before, it likely doesn't matter. They open even before she approaches them, signaling her freedom to leave the space once more.]
Though maybe start off with something a little less random than demanding to see his teeth this time.