driftfleet | Out of the Bone Orchard

Entry tags:

Out of the Bone Orchard

Who: Death and Everyone Else
Broadcast: Of course!
Action: SS Caprine
When: Today

Action – SS Caprine (Bridge)

He is the first to arrive and the last to leave. Of all the temporary things in life, he is the one that lives the longest, so to speak; longer than plants, people, and the stars themselves. Death is a force of pure energy that is needed wherever there is life, no matter how small. Naturally, he feels quite out of sorts on a spaceship. This is not his beautiful manor nor is it his beautiful planet. Nay, the SS Caprine is the very opposite of one.

It’s the starts that bother him most, really. They’re not at all familiar from anything he’s seen in the past, nor do they look like anything he had seen coming up on the horizon. For a being that’s used to knowing precisely who, what, and where he is, it’s awful. So much vastness in the universe and now he’s lost in the thick of it.

So he sighs. The sound is like dried leaves scattering through a graveyard, the final breath of a whole world, the very essence of finality in the softest tones. The pudding in his hand is pushed around with the spoon.

I DO HOPE SHE WILL FORGIVE ME…

Broadcast

There’s a sudden burst of noise as the feed partially turns on. Still quite dark, but the deep tombstone voice is distinct as it mutters away.

OH! I THINK IT TURNED ON. ODD. SHOULDN’T I BE ABLE TO-

And the broadcast is completed at last, with deep dark pits marked by two bright blue pinpricks of light look into the camera. The pits are a part of a skeleton’s face, permanent grimace and all. Death makes a thoughtful noise.

SO IF THIS ONE TURNS THE VIDEO ON, IF I PRESS IT AGAIN-

Darkness once more, but now the reaper may yet speak with confidence! He turns the feed right back on and nods.

YES, I THINK I HAVE IT NOW. IT LETS YOU TRANSMIT BOTH IMAGE AND SOUND. HOW INTERESTING. THE WIZARDS WOULD HAVE QUITE THE TIME TRYING TO PIECE TOGETHER HOW THIS DEVICE FUNCTIONS. AND IF THIS WORKS THE WAY IT APPEARS TO, I WOULD LIKE TO SAY HELLO AND MAKE AN INQUIRY OF ANYONE WHO CAN SEE THIS. WHERE EXACTLY AM I, AND IF POSSIBLE, WHEN AM I?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ By now he's kind of, sort of, starting to get the hang of this, and he's bright enough to put two and two together when he hears that same trill of musical tones as when he showed up. Han isn't exactly eager to play welcome wagon, but he's good at commiserating and... Well, look. He's been a spacer most of his life, but that doesn't mean he doesn't get bored on long-haul sublight flights. It just means he knows how to deal with being bored.

Part of which is taking advantage of distractions. ]

Welcome to your home away from wherever,

[ he says mildly, coming in and... okay, stopping short, just a little. ]

[Death turns slowly, his robe sweeping the floor as he does so.]

OH! HELLO THERE. I'VE GATHERED THAT THIS THING IS A KIND OF SHIP, BUT IT'S VERY DIFFERENT FROM THE KIND I'M USED TO. ARE THEY STILL REFERRED TO AS WOMEN HERE?

[ Fundamentally, Han is a skeptic. He's pragmatic. His strong point is definitely, definitely not believing in things.

Which means that half of him registers this as a large, robe-clad skeleton with glowing eyes. But that makes no sense-- so, the rest of him,reasons, this must be some sort of being that kind of looks like a skeleton, which really isn't all that impossible to buy. The galaxy takes all kinds and now they're in a whole other one. ]

...As women?

[Take your time, Han Solo, he'll be here a while yet. Death is still pushing around his portion of the pudding.]

SHIPS AT HOME TEND TO BE CALLED "SHE" BY THOSE WHO RIDE THEM ACROSS THE OCEANS. I WONDERED IF SUCH A CUSTOM EXTENDED TO THIS KIND OF SHIP, SINCE IT NAVIGATES THROUGH STARS RATHER THAN A BODY OF WATER.

[ Nope, he's... yeah. He's satisfied with that assumption. Some kind of alien. Han tries not to be weird about that kinda thing, you know. There are humans who are, but he's never been a fan of most Imperial attitudes. ]

Oh... Well, I don't know about here, but where I'm from, a lot are?

[Technically, Death is a kind of alien. He is meant to only exist on his home planet, after all.]

I'VE ALWAYS WONDERED WHY IT WAS SO. ALL I COULD THINK OF WAS THAT TREATING THE SHIP AS A WOMAN MADE THE SAILORS MORE WILLING TO TREAT HER WITH RESPECT, THUS PRESERVING ITS INTEGRITY AND APPEARANCE OVER TIME.

I guess?

[ Han has never thought about it. At least having a reasonable thing to discuss is a bit of a distraction from the weirdness of... whatever his new fellow crewman is. ]

This is the Caprine. I don't think I've heard people address it either way, and we're still getting acquainted.

CAPRINE. THE NAME HAS A BIT OF A QUIRMIAN SOUND TO IT.

[He looks back at the chairs the pudding had ended up on and gestures to it.]

WOULD YOU LIKE A DESSERT, THEN, WHILE WE BECOME BETTER ACQUAINTED? I BELIEVE IT'S CHOCOLATE FLAVORED, BUT I CAN'T BE SURE.

Who or what is Quirmian?

[ There is, rationally, absolutely no reason not to sit down and have some chocolate pudding with this reasonably friendly if oddly stately-sounding person who is probably some kind of alien and nothing less usual than that. ]

Sure. You know, I don't think I had mine when I got here. The food's not so awful, at least.

[ Han has long-haul spacer food standards, though. ]

QUIRMIAN IS THE LANGUAGE OF QUIRM. IT'S AN INTERESTING ENOUGH NATION. VERY BIG ON FOOD.

[Stately is the least of what Death is. He even has a manor to call his own, servant and everything.]

I DON'T REALLY EAT MUCH, BUT THIS DOES LOOK QUITE GOOD. INCIDENTALLY, ARE THERE OTHERS ABOARD THIS SHIP? IT IS DOUBTFUL THAT WE ARE THE ONLY CREW.

There's a few others. They'll show up eventually.

[ They're a crew, technically, but they're not the tight-knit functional kind of crew. At least not yet. Han's not helping; years of a crew of two means he's a little standoffish in a new group. ]

And there are other ships in the fleet. I think we're one of the smallest.

OH, GOOD. I MEET A LOT OF PEOPLE ON THE DISC, BUT I NEVER FORGET A FACE OR THE NAME THAT WENT WITH IT.

[Death makes a gentle pace to one of the chairs to sit.]

I DON'T BELIEVE I'VE CAUGHT YOURS. I AM... [There's a notable pause.] WELL, AT ONE POINT I CALLED MYSELF BILL DOOR.

Han Solo.

[ at least Bill Door is reasonably pronounceable? Honestly it's not all that strange by his standards, but really, Han has a whole galaxy full of cultures to fall back on. ]

So for the record, I've never heard of Quirm and you've probably never heard of Corellia. Or Yavin or Coruscant or Tatooine or any other planet I know.

[ Though still skeptical he's adjusted to the idea at least enough to talk about it casually over a cup of pudding, which yeah, he's not going to turn down. ]

A PLEASURE, MR. SOLO.

[He keeps pushing around the pudding, not yet decided if he wants to eat it or not. There's no point in actually eating it, but he ought to at least look like he's trying.]

NEVER HEARD OF ANY OF THEM, I'M AFRAID. MY WORK KEEPS ME ROOTED TO MY PLANET INDEFINITELY, ALTHOUGH THERE IS MUCH TO SEE ON MY WORLD.

[ Fortunately, Han's not paying too much attention to anything but his own synthetically-chocolatey treat. ]

A lot of people here say things like that. They don't even have ships, some places.

OUR SHIPS SAIL ACROSS OCEANS. IT WOULD BE QUITE INTERESTING TO SEE A SHIP THAT CAN FLY LIKE THIS DOES.

Space travel's pretty normal where I'm from. I'm not sure how I feel about boats, personally.

IS IT, REALLY? HOW FASCINATING. IS THAT HOW YOU MANAGED TO GET TO SO MANY DIFFERENT PLANETS?

Well, yeah. I'm not sure how else you would.

I SUPPOSE PERSPECTIVE COMES INTO PLAY HERE. I AM FAR MORE FAMILIAR WITH A NAVAL SHIPWRECK THAN A... [His voice fades off as he considers what word to use.] CELESTIAL WRECK, PERHAPS?

[ It's okay, he's just an enormously tall skeletal-looking alien with a morbid bent. This is fine and normal. ]

I guess. It's an awful pretty name for a pretty awful thing.

[Death may well be the very essence of morbidity.]

THAT WAS AN EXCELLENT PUNE. [He nods.] I CAN ONLY IMAGINE HOW DEVASTATING IT MUST BE.

[ It is a rare person who can out-morbid Han, in his experience. Usually he's the one being aggressively pessimistic... even if only to be contrary. ]

Yeah, well, so far I've been good enough to avoid it.

[With Death, it's quite passive, but he has gone out of his way to play it up in the past for the sake of propriety.]

AS I CAN SEE. I HOPE YOU CAN LIVE A WHILE LONGER. [He looks up properly at Han.] ARE YOU A PILOT? IT OCCURRED TO ME PRECISELY WHAT YOU HAD SAID.

[ A little weird, but it's a nice sentiment. ]

Yeah, I'm a pilot. Of this ship now, I guess.

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