driftfleet | Naviadna Mingle

[Once Keith reaches her side, Honerva finally becomes aware enough of his presence that her gaze slides over to him, posture shifting slightly in her surprise at how he had made his way to her mostly... unnoticed.

The will of the planet had profoundly clouded her immediate senses. She did not like that.

As for his words, try as she might, it's hard to focus on what he's asked. She can tell by the way his lips move that he's speaking to her, his body language seems... relatively nonthreatening, but the words are mostly lost to the strange cacophony going on in her mind that clashes with ... discordant whispers.

So she doesn't verbally respond, not knowing that what she's been asked directly related to whether or not she could actually hear him, but her brows do crease in some confusion toward him as an indication of having noticed him now. Perhaps that's evidence enough that she's managed some awareness of her surroundings, but not entirely.]

[Okay... so he managed to get her attention, at least, but she looked confused. Keith was pretty sure the energy around them was related to the planet and her receptiveness to it. He was kind of sensitive to things himself, though he never really knew why, and the fact that he could tap into and manipulate quintessence so easily compared to the others had been something that quietly hung in the back of his mind, especially after he'd found out he was half-Galra.

He frowned a little, though.

He imagined that Allura might have had a similar reaction, but he also had a feeling she could have channeled it better. The overwhelming sense of loss and that sensation of holes in his memory and mind that he had felt during calibrations had been enough to give him something of a clue. She had the power, but the planet's voice... was that something that maybe was pushing the wrong buttons? He wasn't sure, but she looked... almost... lost?

He tried a different tactic. Maybe it was too much to try and be verbal with her. So, hesitantly, Keith reached out his hand.]

[He's not wrong, really. She has not made the full journey to Oriande as Allura has, and there is much that evades her still. Too much. And so it is a combination of factors that led her here to this point, and for a few long quiet moments all she could do was look from him to his silently offered hand, caught up in that confusion, still feeling lost from the song and now his actions.

An offer of... assistance? To her?

That was a rare gesture for her to ever receive. One that she'd only truly experienced here, though from others.

The thought, is there: why? But then... she remembers something. They had talked, she had... allowed him in, to share ... an understanding. Perhaps that was... enough. Thinking any further than that was difficult, to keep a stream of thought for too long to herself. It was too strong here, the strength of the song, that sense of energy, even something about these flowers, strongly familiar and yet not. It meant something but it was evasive, but nothing would change if she just continued to sit here, struggling with it, so.

So.

She tentatively reaches back, toward his hand. She doesn't grab his, not quite, it's too forward a move for her. But there's something there, briefly in her eyes as they flash toward him. She tries, a word:]

... Please.

[She barely hears herself, and she's hardly certain if she did manage to say anything at all. His presence is almost surreal, amidst everything else there, as it had been in her mind, and he could leave at any time, but again, he stayed, why?]

[Well... that got a response. Keith honestly hadn't been sure what to expect and how she'd react, but this was definitely one of the better options available. He watched her hand for just a moment, his brow crinkling just slightly in surprise as she finally spoke. He gave her a nod and then gently shifted his hand enough to close the distance between them, taking hers in a light grip. She could still pull away if she wanted to, and, for that matter, so could he if this backfired and some sort of weird energy burst zapped between them...

He really didn't know what to think about it, but he was going to try.

He moved to stand, ready to help get her on her feet if she needed it.]

[He seems as wary as she is, and Honerva still wasn't certain why he had agreed, but still, the lack of threat he's presenting is very clear, even if the circumstances are not.

When he takes her hand, he would notice the energy, as though it were an invisible outline of warmth that surrounds her even though her hand seems cool to the touch otherwise. Potent, perhaps, if she were startled, but her state does not seem to be as such.

There's still a little bit of a daze to her, her eyes lingering over the field of those strongly familiar and yet unfamiliar flowers, before looking back toward him. There is something grounding, about having someone outside of the inner chaos holding her to attention, as she slowly moves to rise with him when he stands, pliable enough despite her predicament, or perhaps because of it.]

[Keith wasn't the type to take advantage of someone like this, especially after calibrations. Had this been back home, things might have been different. Keith wasn't sure. But, what he knew right now, in this moment, was that she was troubled and needed help. And, with their tentative unspoken truce for the sake of the Fleet, Keith was determined to do the right thing... and right now, that was the give her the help she needed.

He definitely felt the energy, possibly stronger than someone else might have, and it was a strange sensation to feel her cooler skin beneath. It was like there was a warmth radiating from her body that the rest of her didn't seem to reflect. He watched her look over the flowers for a moment, and he wondered what she was thinking about them. Keith had a vague idea, and he found himself mentally searching for the word as she stood.]

Juniberries, right? From Altea.

[He wasn't sure if she'd hear him or be able to answer in her current state, but it was worth a try.]

[As he has her attention, Honerva can see the way his lips move and read what was being said there.

The name of the plant itself doesn't carry any recognition at first, but yet, she knew that he was doing something she was unable to, and that was identifying the flowers. Why she was here. Why she had been drawn here.

Altea. These... blooms were from Altea. He was asking her to confirm, but she hadn't truly felt certain until he had made the connection. As it registers within her, her gaze moves, back to the flowers, then back toward him. Something fit into place, even if it was for a glimmer of a moment, before back to grasping in the dark.]

... it's been... Deca-Phoebs.

[So much longer. Haggar hadn't known them at all. Her own words are barely above a whisper. She can't shout over what's in her head.]

Yeah. I imagine it has been.

[That was putting it lightly. Keith already knew, after all... ten thousand deca-phoebes, to be a little more exact, but he went along with it. She seemed to need that. He almost started walking her away from the flowers, but he paused, looking down at one almost perfect tri-petal bloom.]

Did you... want to take one?

[He wasn't even sure if this was a good thing for her or not, but maybe it would help her find her Altean side again? He didn't know. It was something. The planet had a reason for generating them, right? It was trying to help... with something.]

Perhaps ...

[It takes her a moment to put together what he's asked, and she... hesitates. Now that she's here, it's hard to want to go anywhere else, but it's hard to sort out the whys of it, to find meaning in it, to stop the madness of the songs to pull in the greater understanding. The something more, always just out of reach.

But they've stopped, and she follows his gaze toward the bloom.

There were many here. Taking one flower would not despoil the field, though she feels within her that if she were to make the move she might unintentionally turn this field to dust, and... she did not want that, at least.]

... that one. If you would carry it for me. For now.

[An odd request for sure, but why not? There had to be a reason they were in a field of Altean flowers, right? He crouched down and carefully plucked one, making sure to do so close to the base so it had a longer stem.

He stood.]

You don't want to hold it?

[Granted, it was a flower. It wasn't like he was carrying an overpacked suitcase for her, but still... he definitely thought it was a little strange.]

Edited 2019-07-10 14:47 (UTC)

[To say that this entire situation was odd would be putting it very lightly. At least her ability to hear him was... improving, the more she focused. To his question, though, she shakes her head.]

... Not yet.

[Because of course she should be holding it. She was Altean, those flowers were clearly part of why she was here, now that she knew. The planet was try to convey... something she couldn't quite reach.

But she should probably convey her reasoning to him, even so. Contact with a plant wasn't exactly the same as with another person's hand.]

The energy may... cause damage to it.

[Which would defeat the purpose of taking it.]

[Keith nodded. Whether she expected him to or not, he actually understood. He could still feel it, buzzing around them, from the planet, from her. It was there, like one of the Lions in the back of his mind.]

Okay.

[He wasn't going to question it further, honestly. He waited for a moment.]

Ready?

[Did she even want to leave? He wasn't sure. If there was a part of her that wanted to recapture being Altean and free of whatever that shadow creature in the rift had done to her, this might be her chance.]

[She wasn't certain what to expect from him. He was being calm about it, and careful.

It was hard to know what leaving would do. The pull here had been... so potent. She could barely remember how she arrived, or how long she had waited.]

This... energy. You feel it, do you not?

[It's not exactly answering his question, but... she had to focus on someone else, when she couldn't keep her path of thought going inwardly.]

[Keith stared at her for a second.]

Uh... Yeah. [Granted, on this planet, most everyone in the Fleet did. It was pretty strong. But Keith had been hearing singing planets every time they landed on one. He didn't know why... but here he was, feeling all this energy. He took a deep breath.]

I do feel it.

[He felt it off her right now, he felt it from the Lions, he had this Thing he couldn't explain when it came to weird energy and quintessence...]

It is very similiar... to Altean energy.

[But it was more than that. Other energy was here, from other worlds, other realities, all blended and twisted together, the same and yet not. Different tunes for those who would hear the call of it.

And then there was the energy within her, that would distort this call.]

Explorers have been here once before, and remained. Their legacy is ... here.

[Honestly, Keith couldn't tell the difference. It was energy, and it was strange, and he could feel it. Pretty basic. Though, there was a little bit of a familiar twist to some of it, like the Lions, like the energy that was around the Castle, stuff he'd sort of gotten used to feeling all the time after a while, but then lost once he'd been pulled into the Fleet. Maybe that's why he felt it so keenly sometimes... because it was familiar, and something from home that he missed having.

Her comment about other explorers caught his attention. He nodded.]

I heard someone talking about the First. There's a memorial. The people native to this planet are their descendants.

Time flows... differently between these realities. We cannot for certain say from when or where they may have been drawn... and how far removed those that are here now, are from them.

[Surely much was diluted, but yet, energy was... energy.]

They had no choice but to remain bound to these circumstances. To... build from them.

[She's speaking more now, even if it is slower than usual. It's... easier to talk, with him asking questions and her gleaning what she could, from all of this. It was a strain but it was... knowledge, there for a reason. There to remind them of possibility, even where others had failed in the past.]

I wonder how they got here... or, were brought here. If there's a clue on how we can get back home.

[Though, that meant losing what he had here, and he had a feeling Lance wouldn't like that idea. Still, it was a risk they constantly took, and Keith had this stubborn streak about doing the right thing, even if it meant sacrifice. Heck, it's not like much has gone right in his life anyway, so why should anything be different? He just couldn't see the point of trying to achieve something he felt he was going to lose anyway to the detriment of everything else.]

Perhaps it is... in their history.

[If they were called here by the planets will, or somehow stumbled upon it, while searching for proof of other realities. Only to remain caught...

And yet, here they were, drawn in to this reality by the Atroma's whims, just happening to drift by a planet like this, on this course.

There's something else that he says that disturbs her far more, and that is the thought of returning home. Being drawn back into their immediate circumstances without any hope of the time they had here retaining any meaning at all was... well. Meaningless, at least for where she currently stood, as much as she was so far behind Keith and the others. An unhappiness flickers within her, the pulse of the energy changing, only for a brief moment, but she falls silent.]

It would be worth a look, right-? [But maybe not? Keith frowned a little.] Do you... want to stay here?

... perhaps.

[What a question, one that peeked into her wrestling desires.]

To return will mean to return to war, without any guarantee that... what was learned along this path will maintain its meaning.

[She'd already lost so much. More than she even knows.]

[Keith frowned. In a roundabout way, it was something he and Lance had been sort of dancing around since they'd started dating. Neither one of them really wanted to talk about the inevitable... that going back meant losing what they'd gained.]

Yeah.

I can understand that.

[Having been back a few times, or gotten new memories from home, or whatever it was that happened to them, Keith knew for a fact that anything learned in the Fleet wasn't retained when they left.]

It doesn't come with us.

Not unless we are able to find a way to leave here... on our own terms.

[But even then, to return home at all... was a prospect she was struggling with. Even if she could maintain her own mind, the circumstances around her were not the best situation to be in. For want to follow her son -- he would not even want her, and she'd cling to him like a shadow at best.

Funny how those circumstances could feel so distant, so apart from the way she was now.]

How... many times did you go back?

[She knew that it happened, they couldn't help announcing it every time, and save for the few remaining, most had returned now. It's the closest she's come to asking about what's going on there--but she doesn't want to know, not with the dread of knowing that their paths, their fates seemed so bound to it no matter what.

Her current dilemma with the energy wasn't helping much either, but it was getting... easier, just by continuing to talk and focus outside of the conflict within, whatever needed to be done there, or accepted.]

Mm.

[Keith had to think about that. They'd first arrived after the second battle against Zarkon... the one where they'd lost Shiro. His first return home had brought him back to the Fleet after Nacxela, and then another after he'd found his mother. Two more after that, if he took into account the fight with Shiro, and then coming back after being on Earth, stopping the Altean mech, and recovering from their injuries. So... four times.]

Four. Each time was similar. It was only a week here in the Fleet that we were either sleeping or missing. And it was some stretch of time back home... different each time, I think. And back home, it was like we'd never left. We didn't remember anything, we were dropped right back to the last thing we had remembered... like Drift Fleet didn't exist.

But, each time we came back, we'd remember it all again, and have our new memories from home inserted into it. It was weird. Makes me feel like I've been through more time than I actually have, maybe. I'm not sure. Last time I was home, I was 21. But, when I'm here in the Fleet now that I've been back home a few times, I feel like it's been longer than that... that I should be older.

[And maybe it had been. Keith wasn't sure. After all, he found out that they had missed three years after the fight with Lotor because of the tears in their reality from the battle. The whole thing had been maybe four years? Five if they counted the time from the Kerberos mission... He thought. Keith wasn't really sure anymore. But, they'd been out in space at least a year as a team... three for himself if he counted his time with Krolia in the abyss, but three years after that battle when everyone thought they'd been killed...

Time was confusing...

And don't even get him started on converting between Earth time and those time measurements everyone else used... tics and vargas and quintants...]

[Four times. Four times to experience a passage of time, to have those recollections jumbled, and yet to be drawn back here. There were those from other universes who had gone through similar things, she knew, whose futures were all the more changed for those events. Who sought to be free of them.]

... Since my arrival here, I have not yet returned. The person I am now is... not who I was then.

Naviadna Mingle

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