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)
driftfleet2019-01-20 07:17 pm
thespaceopera) wrote in driftfleet2019-01-20 07:17 pm
Entry tags:
the white noise is deafening silence
[In the very early hours of January 20th, as the Marsiva and her captives drift nonchalantly through the depths of the universe, there is a call. Every single personal communicator and console springs to life, spitting out a stream of indecipherable static and showing only gray snow on screen. It continues like this for a few seconds longer, going black and then going staticky, and then the signal switches to the encrypted channel generally used for speaking to the Interceptors when something big goes down.
This is a little more successful. The voice may be familiar to some, at least through the static.]
Zhade here! I trust I ███ your attention? I'm having some ██▓▓ble ██tting through. Some of the ░▓██▓█ are missing. I can't ░▓▓▓ read on their loc█████ns. [A particularly long burst of static.] ███stening. I'll s█▓▓█ more inf██▓▓▓▓▓█ I get it.
Stay sharp! [There's the sound of someone actually doing the fingerguns wink noise, and then static.
Any messages sent back won't get through, and Zhade isn't there to answer.]
[ A blip of lost time passes right after those words, before every passenger mysteriously wakes alone in their own unfamiliar room. The style of decor resembles that of the Marsiva's Hospitality Deck, if any passengers should remember what that's like. It sounds and smells the same as the host ship as well, all clean and chrome.
Welcome back to the Marsiva, dear passengers. It's time for round three of calibrations. ]
[ This mingle will cover all non-calibration room interactions. Please continue to come back to it for the duration of the plot! You are, of course, free to post any other mingles/posts/etc. that you'd like. ]
This is a little more successful. The voice may be familiar to some, at least through the static.]
Zhade here! I trust I ███ your attention? I'm having some ██▓▓ble ██tting through. Some of the ░▓██▓█ are missing. I can't ░▓▓▓ read on their loc█████ns. [A particularly long burst of static.] ███stening. I'll s█▓▓█ more inf██▓▓▓▓▓█ I get it.
Stay sharp! [There's the sound of someone actually doing the fingerguns wink noise, and then static.
Any messages sent back won't get through, and Zhade isn't there to answer.]
[ A blip of lost time passes right after those words, before every passenger mysteriously wakes alone in their own unfamiliar room. The style of decor resembles that of the Marsiva's Hospitality Deck, if any passengers should remember what that's like. It sounds and smells the same as the host ship as well, all clean and chrome.
Welcome back to the Marsiva, dear passengers. It's time for round three of calibrations. ]
[ This mingle will cover all non-calibration room interactions. Please continue to come back to it for the duration of the plot! You are, of course, free to post any other mingles/posts/etc. that you'd like. ]
no subject
...something just... clicks into place in her mind, as he says it. Ripped open. A hole in his heart. Stolen. It's too familiar.
The first time Taako died after she'd become a lich, they'd fallen together, too quickly for anyone to stop it or help them. Her spectral form had survived it, but... he didn't. And it'd been close enough to the start of the year that she'd truly felt his absence. It was her first time losing him, losing her heart and her center and one-half of the tether around her sanity, after giving herself up to the power and emotion of her own arcane power, and she'd never experienced his loss to that degree before. For weeks she'd been overwhelmed, practically drowning in it, burying her thoughts of him deeper and deeper into the back of her mind to avoid breaking entirely. She'd been... unsafe to be around, some days. Barry had noticed before she completely broke, had dragged her off away from the crew and helped her through some coping methods, stuck with her more often so she could center herself again. By the end of the year she was finally stable, enough that she could face him properly as herself when they both returned to life, and they'd returned to business as usual. But for a while, she truly learned the extent of what a risk she'd taken, choosing to become what she is now.
There'd been a hole ripped into her heart. He'd been stolen away. She'd remembered him still, but hadn't that also been the problem? Isn't that the problem now, knowing him and wanting him back when he's out of her reach?
She inhales sharply, her fingers tightening in the fabric of her shirt. She knows. She knows what this feeling is, now.]
Sorry... I didn't...
[She takes a step backwards, her voice somewhat strained and unfocused as she works through the realization. This was a mistake. This was a mistake and now they both know and there's a hole in his heart and he's her heart but she can't fill it.
Barry's not here.
She's not safe to be around.]
no subject
[He takes a shallow breath that should have been a deep one, but the gradually subsiding pain in his head won't let his lungs take in the air they need. He feels like he's drowning right here in the bed, grasping at the surface but getting dragged further under the waves as he fights to remember what he'd lost.]
--not your fault.
[You can trust her.
But he doesn't trust anyone.
But you could trust her.
Taako squeezes his eyes shut against the voice in his head, the one point of clarity in the mud of his brain. He could confide in her, but what good would it do? She sounds hurt enough already and if him being a sulky bitch-baby over losing whatever it was that he had last night - a brief, beautiful moment of feeling right - then didn't he owe her to pretend to be fine? She'd sat by his bed while he was nearly dead, told him that she'd never go anywhere, made his heart ache almost like this ache in his chest right now.
But it'd been pleasant. A relief. He had thought that maybe he could believe her.
And now she's hurting.]
It's not your fault I can't remember shit.
[It's not her fault he feels like he's living a half-life, calloused over and hardened against whatever it was that used to be in him. What used to be soft and loving maybe. Now he only understands immediate gratification, the most immediate needs. He's full of thorns and walls constructed to keep himself safe against a world that never gave a shit about him.
Taako sits up and he forces himself to breathe, blankets still wrapped around himself like a cocoon.]
You don't gotta apologize for what the Voidfish or the Atroma did. It's not like you did anything wrong.
no subject
[Well, she does and she doesn't, but they've already had that conversation and rehashing it right now would be pointless. She can tell by the sound of his voice that he's struggling in a similar way that she is, the pain of forgetting versus the pain of being forgotten, the conversation only serving to aggravate both. What else is there to say? To rant and rave against a problem they can't face? To get all riled up and accidentally out herself as some kind of monster in his eyes, thus separating him even further from her than he already is? Or worse, to hurt him more than what he's feeling now when the inevitable argument or combined misery causes her already strained control to shatter?
She needs to leave. She needs to leave right now. This chasm of separation, despite standing right in front of one another, is unraveling the tether around her soul one strand at a time, the one already frayed after ten years away from both of her centers. She can't think about this anymore, not when it feels like this.]
Listen, um... I'm gonna go. I have to take care of something. [Myself, my heart, my stupid fucking lich soul that kind of wants to explode everything in sight right now because this is the most frustrating thing in the universe.] No biggie, you just look like you need another six hours of sleep so I might as well do it now. But I'll be back s-
[She cuts herself off again, because- no. Not again. Never again. Those words still haunt her, that pointless, unhelpful note she'd left for them, the cause of her ten-year imprisonment with no hope of rescue. And until she gets this under control, she can't make any promises to him, period.
She takes a deep breath. Takes another step back, towards the door.]
I'll... talk to you later.
[And then she turns and runs out, because holy shit she can feel electricity sparking around her chest and she does not want him to see that. She runs straight for her room and does not look back.
Sorry, Taako. She needs help, and you can't help her.]
no subject
He can't blame her. It's not like he's given any real compelling reasons to stay other than a barely remembered dream and a bunch of static in his head. She takes a step back and Taako watches her as she runs, unable to get anything out before she leaves. The door swings slowly shut after her and Taako sits there, alone, staring at the spot where she'd been just a moment before.
He should have expected that and he lets out a half-hearted sigh, falling back onto the bed. Maybe he can knock himself unconscious and just forget this morning ever happened.
He seems phenomenally good at forgetting lately.}