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The Last Kings of Orion

Not much if a weekend poster myself, but this is moving quickly, so I may be able to get something up tomorrow. =)

Mostly, I just wanted to comment in how I dissolve into childish laughter every time I see Kuro's sig. Hehehehehe...

The Last Kings of Orion

Hmm...what was that about strawberries?

The Last Kings of Orion

I mean, he's not bad.

Pieces of 8: Bones of the North

*sobs in heap on floor*

Animorphs

Hey guys, I'll be adding Max's stuff to the doc this evening. Just started a new job and been busy. =)

The Last Kings of Orion

Delilah Espinosa de Jesús Dominguez del Beltran, more colloquially known as Deli Beltran, or even just Deli -- who had time for more than two syllables? -- was the poster child for bright-eyed perky fuckers.

Granted, all this had been true nearly from the day of her birth, even considering she and her two brothers had been born almost two months premature, each of them severely underweight. But she had story after story after story from her mother about her creepy little newborn baby smile had been absolutely endearing, even to other parents in NICU.

But that had been twenty-one years ago (or twenty-four? She wasn't sure, and didn't care to ask. Stasis aging or no, she was pretty sure she wouldn't like the answer either way). Before Diego started talking, and before Dacio had stopped. Before little Fredo had come along, before running away to join the circus with her mother, and being dragged back to a relative reality with her father. Before -- though not long before -- discovering her love for explosives and anything capable of making fire.

Before the New Kind. Before the Mountain. Before the Change. Before the Copernicus.

And before waking with little more than a half headache that a full pot of coffee had already put behind her. It had been going into stasis that had nearly undone her. But they had drugs for that, and Deli could almost pretend she hadn't been screaming at them to leave her before they dosed her six ways to Sunday.

But time went on, even while you slept and dreamt of dying, if not in the nightmarish sense. That was fine. What what weird was the tech who'd showed her to her room (where she was already hanging movie posters and magazine cutouts), had told her it had been just three years, not the semi-promised fifteen. Fredo and Diego were still sleeping in their pods, alive and well to hear the techs explain it. But she wouldn't be joining them again for another year. There'd been an accident, they'd said, back on earth.

And now she was in fucking outer space, or whatever the science geeks called it.

"First things first," came the briefing to the briefing. "You've been reassigned."

Deli had looked back to the row of now-empty pods and grinned. "I'd noticed. What am I doing?"

"Demo for a asteroid mining pod. Three-man team. You'll be joined by Owen Reece and one 'Big Bill' Cothran. Or you'll be joining them."

Deli yawned, but she was far from bored. Or far enough. "Okay. Are they cute?"

The tech gave her a wry look, clearly unimpressed. "A little out of your age range, I'd think."

Her grin widened. "I don't typically do all that well with people telling me I can't do something."

"Then you're going to have a hard time here."

Deli exhaled, blowing a cluster of brown curls out of her eyes. "Yeah, so I've heard."

Three clothing changes and a forty-minute shower later, she was on her way down to the conference room. She got distracted by a floor to ceiling window to the rest of her new world en route.

Yeah. She could make a pretty big mess out there.

Pieces of 8: Bones of the North

Daisy knew when it was time to leave Veti be, which was just as well, because she was still watching the Wight. She couldn't help but play his words over and over in her mind, and yet there was nothing more she could do to understand them.

But she did.

It was not a simple understanding, not a basic translational knowledge that made the word 'muerte' into 'death', or 'lost' into 'égaré'. This was an inherent knowledge, at the very least, the way a baby learned to smile, or a bird to fly. Which was strange, of course, because there was nothing inherent to Death but inevitability, and hadn't his presence already refuted that?

Artie stayed at Veti's side, silent and unmoving as the proverbial guard dog he had never really been. But Daisy was already crossing the grassy field again, her gaze never once breaking from the Wight's pale face. She got halfway there, then turned around and went back to her mourning friend, one hand resting between wide set ears -- as close to a voluntary hug as Daisy would ever get.

"I'm coming back," she said evenly. "I...I have something I need to do first..." She glanced over her shoulder at the Wight again, and her face clouded, half confused, half terrified. Then she shook herself and turned back to the wolf. "But I'll be back." Then, as serious and solemn as she'd ever been. "Okay, Veti? Understand that -- I am coming back. I promise."

--

*One Year Later*

She'd asked for her name, and after a while, he'd given it. It hadn't been an easy process. Daisy had, despite her promise, disappeared for weeks after their first breakthrough -- and that was just weeks in real time. It was far longer in the strange Nowhere she could access now. It certainly wasn't life, but then it wasn't quite Death, either.

Death had been different, at least for Daisy, ever since Max and Kata had wiped her slate clean. She'd taken, at the very least, a year-long hiatus from the shenanigans B&H were pulling, even without Atticus and co. Besides, and Veti eventually showed her, staying put wasn't all that bad. She'd never liked kids, per se. But puppies were something else entirely. And that -- something else entirely -- was the same phrase she'd have used to sum up her life, and her death, and everything in between, everything she'd learned from Semyone's stories, mixing old legend and new superstition, and a whole plethora of things only Wikipedia could claim to be true.

In the end, she took what was left and made just that -- something else entirely.

For the moment, she'd promised to meet Veti and Wolfman Boss for dinner. Mostly, though, she was going to play with the twins. Artie absolutely adored them, and she worried sometimes that he was going soft. Also, that they were neither puppies, nor his. But Veti didn't seem to mind, so neither did she.

Her lupine friend had asked only once what she did on all those trips with Semyon, polite as ever, never more than a light touch.

Daisy shrugged. "I told him he had something that belonged to me."

At the quizzical look, the young maybe-Reaper had smiled.

"He knew my name. My real name." The creature with the pink-haired visage made a face and tucked her arms behind her head on Artie's furry flank, laughing as Bitty-Aislinn licked her face.

"Lucky for you," she'd said to no one in particular, "'Daisy' makes a better Twitter handle."

Pieces of 8: Bones of the North

The New Yorker said
But, there's gonna be more OitNB right?

Yes! With more Alex...I think.

;-; I love her...

The Last Kings of Orion

Home from work and building a response (finally!). I'll have to shower, eat, and make dinner (not in that order), but I *will* have a response up tonight. =)

Pieces of 8: Bones of the North

I shall have my final up tomorrow. For REAL this time.

Ugh, I hate endings. This is why I can't finish Orange is the New Black. =|