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 07:25 pm
thespaceopera) wrote in driftfleet2019-01-20 07:25 pm
Entry tags:
- !event,
- !mingle,
- adrian "alucard" tepes,
- baku,
- bentley "ben" douglass,
- ciel phantomhive,
- connor,
- felix gaeta,
- glenn rhee,
- grievous,
- haggar,
- james tiberius kirk (au),
- kaname buccaneer,
- katherine "kitty" pryde,
- keith,
- krolia,
- lance,
- libra,
- loki,
- lorden gesh,
- lup,
- magnus burnsides,
- manji,
- messer ihlefeld,
- mikleo,
- nico di angelo,
- pavel chekov,
- prompto argentum,
- remy lebeau,
- sorey,
- taako,
- the vision,
- thor odinson,
- tyrion lannister,
- vash the stampede,
- veronica,
- victor frankenstein,
- wanda maximoff
dreams in digital
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(last updated: 1/21/19)
no subject
[She pokes at the mix for a moment with the spoon, and then clears a section of the counter and dumps the swirling mass out as a ball of dough. She immediately starts to knead at it like a pro, and continues whatever song she'd been humming earlier, leaving Magnus to his own devices.]
no subject
[He wanders off but not too far, eyes roaming over the things on the table. He reaches for the robe without thinking, wondering if he can tell whose this is. This place has a lot of memories for him too, even if he didn't remember everything until a short time ago.]
no subject
She comes home to a scrappy, one-room, one-bed apartment, tired from a long day's work, anxious of what she'll find here. Today's supposed to be the day. Today is when they'll know, after months of waiting. The mail is on the floor and she scoops it up, flipping through. It's mostly notices for funds owed- to the alchemist, the armory, the supplier. Everything they'd scraped together on lien so they could perform their practical exam, with the promise of payment (and perhaps a Charm spell or two to get the paperwork signed) was now due. They were fucked if-
-if the IPRE letters weren't there. Which. They were. Emblazoned across the wax-sealed envelopes, plain as day. "The Institute of Planer Research and Exploration". One for her, one for Taako. She does not open them, not even her own. She sits down on the bed with them, and she waits quietly, fingers twisting together, stress permeating the whole room.
what if we didn't get in?
what if we fucked it up?
what if one of us got in and the other-
She replays the exam in her mind again, over and over, searching for any errors she could have made that would result in them denying her entry. She hadn't. She couldn't have. And Taako boasted that he'd done it perfectly as well, but he'd have done that anyway, even if he'd bungled it up. He wanted her to get in as much as she wanted him to.
fuck
fuck
we'll have to skip town again, we'll have to start over
This paranoia feeds her thoughts until the door opens and Taako joins her, bitching about work or some other nonsense until he catches sight of her expression, and the envelope in her hands. He freezes. Wordlessly she holds it up to him as he joins her on the bed. Silence lies thick like a blanket between them both, until finally Lup says, "Together, or not at all."
"Together, or not at all," is his echo, and as one they tear open the envelopes and draw out the letters to read the contents within. Lup's eyes scan the text until she finds the word she desperately needed to feel safe again. She looks up at the same time he does, frozen in shock for a moment. 3...2...1....
"Accepted!!" they shout at the same time, turning their letters towards one another- identical, save for the name attached. Taako lifts his hand for a high-five but she just lunges right at him, tackling him down against the bed, giggling wildly, her legs kicking as he laughingly protests. She knows he's full of shit- he's as happy as she is.
Accepted. Accepted. With full fucking scholarship. Their lives were going to change forever. Their lives were going to be amazing.
no subject
He remembers how good it felt to know that he was going to be part of something great.
Magnus sets the robe where he found it, folded as neatly as he can manage.]
Hey, um... Sorry for peeking. I didn't realize it'd-- do that. The memory thing.
no subject
No fear, big guy. After a hundred years, we don't have that many secrets left to share, do we?
[Even for the ever-secretive twins, most of what they hold close to their hearts is just... old shit, for them. They'd lived over a century by the time the Starblaster crew was assembled. Who wanted to talk about childhood after that long?]
no subject
Yeah, that's true. I mean, you even know about that mole on my--
[... That's probably not something she needs to be reminded of. Thankfully he gets distracted by the tiny ship in a bottle.]
-- oh snap! When did we pick this up?
[And of course he touches it because it looks freaking cool, that's why.]
no subject
--is what she'd say, if she wasn't giggling about his dumb mole comment as the world bleeds white and he's thrown into another memory, this one significantly more familiar.]
[The ship is real, now, no longer in a bottle but all around. Six people stand in a circle on the deck - Lup, Taako, two human men and one woman, and a dwarf. A gnome steers at the helm, apart but close by. Stars fly by the ship as it sails and in the distance, huge and overwhelming but mercifully leaving the ship alone is an enormous mass of black scarred by countless streaks of colours, tendrils slamming down on the world they're abandoning. Everyone is quiet, the atmosphere solemn and grim as they watch the destruction below.
Lup is the one who breaks the silence, first with a flippant joke-]
Listen. That stuff I was saying down there — that wasn’t just, that wasn’t just talk. I believe that, one of these times, we’re gonna get it right. And we’re gonna find a way to defeat the Hunger and... save everybody inside of it. I— I have to believe that, to keep doing what we do. Because I have to believe... that I’m gonna get... those fifteen dollars back from Greg fucking Grimaldis!
[-to make them all laugh and then, more quietly, to encourage them all to do better, to be better.]
Seriously, though, it got— we got dark down there. I— I know this journey’s been hard, and it’s only going to get harder, but we can’t allow ourselves to— to get to that place again. To even think about destroying an entire world. We need to promise each other, right now, we— we won’t let one another get to that place. Never again.
[She stretches a hand out, holding it in the air towards the center of the circle, her expression firm and urgent. She won't tolerate a repeat of what happened, no matter what. Slowly, one by one, they all join their hands with hers, echoing the sentiment in their own ways, and she smiles at them all. This is her family now, every single one of them, and she believes, she knows they can be better. She looks at Taako in particular and something shifts in her gaze, a look of understanding and forgiveness. He'd done something to earn her ire, but in the end he'd made it right again. She's glad, the relief in her expression plain as day. She hates feeling angry with him.
They all stand like that for a while as the ship flies further and further away, leaving the ruined plane behind them, and suddenly their bodies all dissolve into threads of light, carried off to separate corners of the ship. The cycle begins anew.
Here we go again.
[And with one final flash of light, the memory is gone, and the kitchen is back.]
no subject
Oh, [he says, and pulls his hand back.] Tiny boat. Big memory.
[He glances over at Lup, and then back at the ship in a bottle, and then he wisely decides to keep his hands to himself.]
I don't really know how to say this, but... I-- I remember wanting to leave, too. And that doesn't... feel great, because you know I never abandon anyone. It felt like if I tried to interfere with the relics, I would be abandoning everyone on the ship. But if I stayed up there...
[He remembers the crippling guilt, now. The frustration of not knowing the precise magnitude of what he'd done, and of course, what he'd inflicted on the kind and generous people of Refuge.]
They didn't deserve that-- and that's why you left, right?
no subject
[She's quiet for a long moment, idly tapping her foot against the floor a few times, her hands going still around the mixing bowl. Finally she sets it down and turns around to face him.]
I was so crazy-jealous of you sometimes. I never told you, but it's true. Barry too, but mostly you. And it's- it's so shitty, I get it, but there was so little news about your relic. No huge disasters, no massive death tolls, just a big old question mark. And it kinda felt like, no news is good news, right? Like you could make yourself believe that maybe things were okay. I just... I hated how short-sighted I was, giving mine nothing but raw power without realizing how much damage it could do. Fucking with time magic seemed a lot cleaner in comparison. ...Gods, what an ass. Sorry.
[She looks down at her hands, shoulders hunched. Sometimes she's still jealous. Refuge was a mess for a long, long time, but they're all happy and alive and free now. Not Phandalin, not Cordelia, not the ]
It was... more than ten thousand. Ten thousand, Mags. That's how many people the gauntlet killed. Twelve after Phandalin. The night I left, I added it all up in my head and just... I couldn't do it anymore. I got us all to make that damned promise and it was my idea to break it. I felt like if I stayed one more goddamned day on that ship I'd go insane.
no subject
I never blamed you, not really. Honestly? I was... I was jealous too. You always knew exactly who you were, or at least it felt like it. You were braver than me when you left because I just kept going back and forth with myself. And I guess I was a little upset because I wanted to go too, but with you being gone I had to stay. I thought I could keep everyone together if I did-- at least until we found you again.
Maybe I'm the one who rushes in all the time, but when it really counted, it was always your voice they heard first.
no subject
And some of them... well, it's strange how much she's missed. Magnus at the start had been so reckless and short-sighted, focusing on strength of body and discounting so much more. They'd all had flaws, of course, but he'd been so young, and already thought he knew so much. The Magnus she sees now, at the end of a journey she wasn't there for and hasn't experienced? He's grown up.
She smiles and reaches out, bumping her fist playfully against his bicep.]
You've gotten pretty good at the pep talk stuff too, Burnsides. What the hell made you so wise while I wasn't looking, huh?
no subject
Like always, he clutches his arm exaggeratedly and pretends he's grievously injured for a moment.]
It's not wisdom, it's the teacher voice. I coached a bunch of kids in Tesseralia. They weren't that bad-- well, actually, they were terrible. But they were good while I was there.
no subject
[Because goooooooods it was good. So, so good.]
Am I just hallucinating, or were you practicing speeches in front of the bathroom mirror at one point?