i know you, that look in your eyes is so familiar a gleam

[thespaceopera]

[ Calibration Rooms ]
( for N-Z characters )

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ROOMS BY CHARACTER

N - P Nami Natalie Goodman Natasha Romanoff Noctis Lucis Caelum Nono Okita Souji Otono-Tachibana Makie Pavel Chekov Prompto

Q - S Riona Cousland Theirin Rip Hunter Sam Winchester Seymour Krelborn Shinji Ikari Shouta Aizawa Signy Mallory Sokka Sorey Steve Rogers

T - V Takashi Shirogane Takeshi Tyrion Lannister Uraraka Ochako Vash the Stampede Velvet Crowe Victor Nikiforov

W - Z Yuan Ka-Fai Zaveid Zelda

Comments

[passingthrough]

[She takes a deep breath as the scene changes.

That was no kind of choice for a child and yet in some ways it was more of a choice than Kitty saw for herself. But she was also older by then. Not an adult, but not so young as this either.

It takes a moment to adjust and when she does she can't help picking up the ornate jeweled hair pin she saw in the memory.]

[therewerefifty]

[The craftsmanship is excellent; it's expensive and wrought from gold with a jewel hanging from its end by a fine, ornate chain, designed to move and catch the light in a woman's hair.

And it comes with memory attached, of course; Kitty is dropped into a fight in a narrow alley between Makie and a scarred samurai. While she looks the same age as the Makie that Kitty knows, her hair is much longer, whipping free as she moves. But something is different here-- while her grace is present, her movements are slow, and the same lethal skill she had as when the raiders attacked the Fleet is very much absent.

It ends predictably, with Makie stumbling from the alleyway's end to the street, and the samurai's own weapon pressed to her throat. "Don't move."

But he doesn't seem inclined to kill her. Instead, he huffs, running his free hand through his hair. "You didn't even check out the battlefield. Either you didn't give it your best, or that was your best. Either way..." And he loses his temper, blade dropping away from her. "Idiots who can't fight should keep their swords sheathed, you damn FOOL! I said it before and I'll say it again-- anyone who takes up a sword can't complain when they get cut down. Is that how you want to die? EH!?"

Makie doesn't move from her sprawl, even as he retracts the weapon from her entirely, still lecturing her. "If that's the best you can do with a sword, you'd better stick with being a whore!"

He walks away, still muttering to himself as he glances over his shoulder at her one last time. And Makie finally rights herself, sitting in the dust of the road. What a thing to yell at her-- so similar to her mother's advice. And yet... she's oddly relieved.

There's the sound of footsteps, and she glances up to find a little girl she'd met earlier watching her solemnly. "You okay, lady?"

Oh... so close to their fight and she hadn't noticed. She's stricken. "You saw me fighting."

"Uh huh, and before, too." And Makie glances away, ashamed, as the little girl continues. "So, um... you're s'posed to be a swordswoman, right?"

"...yes."

"Gee," the girl says solemnly. "You're not very good."

Makie smiles at that. Two censures in one day, gosh. But like the first time, all it does is make her feel a little better. She reaches down to her obi and plucks the jewelled hair pin from where it's tucked away, holding it out. "You want this?"

The girl's face lights up. "Wow! Are... are you sure!?"

"Uh huh," Makie says, glancing back to the road, her thoughts already elsewhere. She gave it a try. She can't kill for other people, even if it's Kagehisa. It's... good to know. "Probably... I won't be needing it anymore."

The memory fades.]

[passingthrough]

[Kitty looks confused as she watches and uselessly tries to lunge in and protect Makie at one point. Of course it does no good and changes nothing. She's an observer here. She is trying to take it all in even as the scene changes back.

She glances around, wondering if Makie will appear in this space too. She could go exploring more of course.]

[therewerefifty]

[Makie makes no appearance. Look at that lazy ho, not even turning up to her own calibrations. Kitty can either travel downstairs into the field of dead trees or eventually find her way onto the balcony. Or investigate the clothing some more. Or none of the above.]

[passingthrough]

[She decides to leave the clothing. If this is where she needs to be she can always come back, right? She finds herself going downstairs and looking around at the dead trees.] Not creepy at all.

[therewerefifty]

[It's not creepy, it's symbolic!

...okay yes, it's creepy. The trees bear many different carvings:

- a stylised depiction of a pack of dogs;
- a slight young man, age indeterminate, wearing loose Japanese clothing and holding a sword in one hand, blade reversed to point toward him;
- a bridge carved across a stylised river;
- a tall man with a blade, huge and curved at the end, taller than he is (if Kitty ever met Mihawk during his brief stint on the Fleet, that's who it'll remind her of);
- a series of cross-hatched cuts with no real picture to them at all;
- a small girl on all fours like an angry cat, most distinctly recognisable as Lilly.]

[passingthrough]

[She touches the picture that makes her think of Lilly, remembering the girl from the brief time they were on the Windrose together.]

[therewerefifty]

[This is Makie's last memory of Lilly; before the Fleet, at the end of her time in Adstringendum.

The landscape surrounding them is poisoned. Grey, rotted trees and grass, heavily darkened sky. Makie is blessed in one way only, and that is that her illness means she has no appetite to eat anyway-- she gave what she had to Lilly, but it ran out a long time ago, and the girl is starving. Makie does what she can.

But it's all moot, because the twisted, rabid monsters that have been seen recently around the ruins that make up their world have finally attacked en masse. Lilly is a cowering shadow tucked behind Makie as she fights, and this isn't a fight that would strain her in the best of health. The foes she fights are no more than the bizarre natural wildlife driven mad by trying to live off this toxic landscape, and rabid is a literal description.

But appetite or no, Makie hasn't eaten in close to a week, and the strain is already felt as she swings around that bladed weapon of hers, slicing through things in an attempt to keep Lilly safe. She feels nothing. She knows, on some level, she has already failed. Lilly came to her already bleeding, already bitten, and she doesn't know for sure what that means, but she can guess. However this ends, though, she refuses to let any of these monsters have a child she's come close to calling her own.

And the fight is far, far too long for someone who had measured her lifespan in weeks at this point in any case. The very last person to fall on this battlefield is Makie herself, air gone from blood-filled lungs and her throat raw, her eyesight long gone blurry and dark with exhaustion and those final, dark stages of a lethal disease. The monsters are gone, but she didn't have the stamina to survive them. And Lilly pulls at her kimono, touches her shoulders and face and chants her name with increasing volume and panic, and she doesn't even have the energy to answer, smile, do anything except finally give in after fighting for so long.

This is how it ends. With a child screaming in her ears and knowing that even if Lilly survived, she'll probably die within the day. But given the deadlands they've found themselves in...

...maybe that's more merciful.]

[passingthrough]

No! [She says it firmly, but also with surprise and concern to no one. She pulls her hands from the tree as if burned. She doesn't want that for Makie or Lilly, but this is a memory. This already happened.]

[therewerefifty]

[The memory fades away, leaving the field of dead trees. But Kitty isn't alone anymore, at least.]

It shouldn't be the end. [Makie's voice is quieter than usual, her fingers touching another tree in this place; a gentle, sad reverence to the picture of the boy with the sword.]

Mr Sam says we both live. That's... nice.

[passingthrough]

[She turns toward the voice.] Right... You'd mentioned that. [It didn't make it easier to see knowing they have lives to return to there.] Still a hell of a thing to go through.

[therewerefifty]

I had always expected to die in much that fashion. I just didn't want Lilly to die, too.

[She's still not sure if Lilly died or not. But either way. Her fingers drop from the tree, and she turns to glance at Kitty.]

You should leave this place. There's nothing but bad memories in this field.