Igraine

The Last Kings of Orion

Thank you Kuro - a post isn't a post without your tension-building sound effects!

Aaaaaaaand *shudders* Creepy as hell robot things >< Thank you Japan, for the nightmare fuel!

I'm still on team OLGA - I have faith!

The Last Kings of Orion

That sounds absolutely beautiful Idle, so glad you two had this time off together, to just enjoy one another

The Last Kings of Orion

Awwww... Your lack of faith in OLGA is... Disturbing...

The Last Kings of Orion

Abby knew very well, subsequent to innumerable basic lifesaver courses over the years, that slapping a choking person on the back was pretty much futile. But that didn't mean all the Mom instinct in her wasn't screaming to reach over and give Gavin's back a few hard, helpful smacks anyway when his hot coffee went down all wrong. The only thing that kept her in the seat was the knowledge her erstwhile efforts would probably end up sending scalding coffee in Gavin's lap, and he probably wouldn't thank her for yanking him from an uncomfortable - but recoverable - bit of sputtering, to a burn injury of the groin...

She chuckled at the thought, waving away Gavin's self-deprecations with a wave of her hand and a roll of her eyes until he began to speak in earnest, sharing his own knowledge of the cryobeds even she had not realized. Her fingers wrapped tighter still about the mug in her lap, her shoulders aching and stiff with the tension. Abby had not even considered the idea, that Sy Jacobs could not have managed the medications in the cryobeds on his own, her own expertise [or blinders] leading her to question how the security measures and alarms could have been breached...

Abby let loose a long, pent-up breath, ice blue eyes closing for a moment against the relentless ache in her head, returned with a vengeance and punctuated like a sledgehammer by Gavin's every last dire word. She let loose her two-fisted death grip around her own mug of coffee, finger and thumb massaging the bridge of her nose some seconds before she could open her eyes semi-comfortably again.

"Oh 'I think,' Gavin. I really do think. That's why I'm here, talking to the smartest man I've ever met," she said softly, though with a firm conviction as her fingers wrapped about the mug again. "And it doesn't hurt that your coffee's always second to none anyway."

A breathy gasp of a laugh escaped her lips, but Abby knew her small attempt at a jest was lame and broken from the moment it left her mouth, and mercifully died in the air between them.

"But no, nothing you're telling me now doesn't square with the big fat ugly suspicion Second Shift missed something huge. An accomplice? I'll admit, it's a stretch. The survivor... " Abby let loose of her mug, setting it up on the counter beside them swiftly before the fingers of one hand flickered over her tablet again. She lifted it up a few inches toward her face, squinting and resisting the urge to purloin Gavin's reading glasses again.

"Pauline," Abby said finally, laying the tablet back to her lap again. "Pauline Weber is her name. Pauline only identified one attacker, but... Damn... God alone knows what the hell she had coursing through her veins at the time. And Jacobs never gave up an accomplice's name, not even to save his hide from execution. Then again... "

Abby's voice trailed off, the frustration gnawing at her gut just begging for some small confidence to lighten the load she carried, even by a single ounce. "Gavin, what I'm about to say doesn't leave this room. Please. Between you, me, and these four walls, yes?"

She leaned forward toward Gavin without even realizing she did so, as if even this small measure helped keep her words closer still between them. "Even if Jacobs had coughed up an accomplice, I don't believe for a second that would have saved him from being shot out an airlock. Jacobs' execution was a foregone conclusion, the moment he laid a finger on General Lahan's daughter."

Abby sighed, and then sat back in her chair once more, taking a long final swallow of her coffee before setting the empty mug on the counter. "And the interviews of Second Shift personnel? They're woefully short on particulars - cursory, at best. All I can imagine is that they had their guy, and wanted the whole Godforsaken mess done and sealed and over with. Anything further digging was just... Well... Unwelcome. Unthinkable."

'Unthinkable... Until it suddenly isn't.'

"No one even thought to nab a friendly cryotech as a subject matter expert either. Antoine Eodore - that's his name. And it was hard not to notice, he was the only one of the cryotechs in the Third Shift briefing who had the huevos to stand up and name himself."

Abby shrugged her shoulders helplessly, one eyebrow arched dubiously. "Not a clue if that makes him honest, callous or just batshit crazy, but he's as good a place to start as any. I plan to catch up with him later today, but I'd really like you there with me. Seriously, if he starts throwing technical jargon at me in that French accent, I'm just going to blank and stand there nodding like a bobblehead doll... "

"Spare me the humiliation of becoming the embodiment of another 'dumb blonde' stereotype, Gavin." Abby graced the doctor with her widest, sweetest smile, a little surprised to discover doing so actually helped lift her spirits, even a little. "Please... ?"

Tides of Dusk: A Piratical Tale of Fantasy

Antonia took one horrified step back from the railing, her grey-eyed gaze darting frantically to Thomas. Nicolette's gambit had worked, and the helmsman's wits were freed from the sirens' song. The rogue could feel the Skate reeling beneath her feet, turning hard and fast from the doomed, burned out corpse of the Feather.

But their enemies were legion, and the sirens were swarming to the ship far too swiftly. Even now, hooked talons ripped into the hull of the ship as the sirens hauled themselves from the sea, gaping maws snapping open and closed, rows of teeth glistening wickedly beneath cold black eyes. They would be overrun, and devoured to the very last man. And woman.

And child...

Antonia groaned softly in the back of her throat, her teeth bared as if she were still in pain. Only the desperation of the dying could have called forward that one insane flash of something like a hope, a mad prayer, however dim and impossible...

"Je t'aime, Thomas," the rogue said softly, tearing her sight from the approaching horde of abominations to a sight she adored, to those bright copper eyes she loved so dearly. "Keep them off me. Do not let them interrupt, no matter what comes from the depths."

Antonia did not wait for his response - there was simply no time. The rogue sprinted several steps from the railing, falling to her knees as she reached into her boot for the sheath she kept there. The razor edge of a stiletto flashed in her hand, its blade biting deep into the palm of the other. Antonia chanted softly as she swayed to a music only she could hear - far, far away from the screeching cacophony of sirens; a vibrant percussion in perfect time with the beat of her racing heart, slowing as she slipped further from the Skate in her mind's eye to a distant night shore. Ancient whispers fell from her full lips, sacraments taught to men at the dawn of time, an ocean away, by the powers who both loved and reviled their creations.

The rogue's eyes were open, though sightless, staring straight ahead into nothing at all as her blade worked in blood and wood, carving an ancient sigil right there on the planks of the Skate's aftcastle. Impossibly straight lines worked into a V-shape, serpentine symbols snaking about its form, glistening and moving as if they yet had a life of their own.

Which, in a very true sense, they did.

The loa of lightning and wind. Sogba and Bade... Even in her mind's eye, Antonia's mortal sight could barely perceive the faintest idea of their true forms, the jagged blinding burning edges of Sogba, the perpetual swirling vortex of Bade - and yet they heard her, small, near insignificant thing that she was willing to shed her own blood for an audience.

Antonia bowed her head, respectfully. 'Brother Sogba, Brother Bade, I come to you in the most dire of times, with the greatest need. My son, my love and my dear friends - we are all going to perish, unless you call Agau and send us far from this place.'

'We know you, little sister. And indeed you will perish, one day. All of you. Dat is de way of mortal men, to live and walk de world but for a time.' replied Sogba, his voice searing a path through her thoughts.

'I do not argue, Brother Sogba. This is true. But it is not their time. Not yet.'

'And now you tink to know de future, little sister?' The laughing voice of Bade whispered over the thoughts torched by Sogba, a cool and soothing succor.

'It will be their future, if you wish it. If you will call Brother Agau, call the Storm. I have given my blood to speak with you now. Only name it, what I can give you to save their lives. Even my own life, if you ask it.'

'You tink to call us, to make a bargain little sister?' Sogba's laughter was an inferno that rocked Antonia's body backward where she knelt, flattening her form to the ship's planks.

'I will throw myself over now, if you wish it. I will slit my throat with my own blade. Only say the words.'

Only silence greeted her oath, a silence that reigned several interminable moments, a thick and heavy stillness like a living thing that wanted to crush her beneath its gargantuan weight, and squeeze all hint of breath from her lungs. Even Antonia's iron will came close to breaking beneath its heft, her head falling back, unseeing eyes staring at the stars above as her mouth fell slack.

As if a long-forgotten puppet just found by a curious child, her entire body snapped back up instantly, still kneeling on the Skate's aftcastle when the response of the loa at last lifted that horrible weight.

'Dis is no small ting you ask, little sister. We know where you go, de direction your ship takes. Black waters dere, deep and terrible. Dere might come a time dey curse your name, saving dem from death now, to deliver dem to what waits. But what comes, will come. De lives of dese men and dat woman, and your bebe - dat will cost you dear,' came Sogbo's words, staccato and sharp as a blade.

'I expect nothing less. Take what you will.'

'You will pay den, little sister?' Bade's voice surrounded her, lifted her and moved through her, and Antonia could have wept for the promised grace she heard in its whispers.

'I will. To the last.'

'Yes, you will little sister. One day, we collect your payment - but dat day is not yet come. Make ready den. Agau approaches... ' The voices of both loa twined serpent-like in her mind's eye as a third voice approached from the horizon, swift and terrible in its unspeakable beauty.

The skies overhead opened up with a roar of primeval fury. Great forks of lightning struck all about the Skate, unleashed from the black roiling clouds that consumed stars and moon alike, licking at the sirens still in the sea, incinerating them in a blinding flash of steam and light. Great living gusts filled her sails, tempest-tossed waves and wind lifting the Skate away from the decimated Crimson Feather as blinding sheets of rain descended on the heads of all. Antonia slumped to the deck, her eyes rolled back into her head, mouth open and slack as the stiletto slipped from her hand to the waiting planks.

Masques and Daggers (Derren Krenshaw & Igraine)

Like the rapt, perhaps even entranced young lady she seemed in the presence of the beloved first son of the Takahiro clan, Shizuka held her breath as Souma took his first sip of her tea. Still as an alabaster statuette, she awaited his verdict. And though the graceful young woman did nothing to mar the flawless performance of the ceremony, his declaration of the excellence of the tea she prepared set a light behind her dark eyes, a glow that radiated warmth and genuine pleasure like a hearth in winter.

When he asked for a second serving of her tea, the pleasure radiated from her like the gentle rays of the springtime sun, and her gaze flickered toward Ai once more. Only for a moment, the small, ephemeral smile on Shizuka's lips said all she could not speak aloud, to the precious sister who befriended an eager foreign teacher and her brother, both so unsure of their footing in a land so very different and so very far from their home.

Oh yes, the young, naive and lovelorn woman she had once been still lived on within the calculating spy. Yet gutted and hollow as she had become after the voyage of the Empress, that lighthearted lady was not much more than a mask Galina wore when the guise of sweet, unassuming and genuine innocence was most needful.

Shizuka took the bowl from Souma once more, her gaze and small ghost of a smile entirely his as she bowed low. She cleansed the bowl ritually and in truth, all with those same perfect graces she had studied with such sincere dedication all these months. And the second bowl of tea she placed before Souma was as meticulously and mindfully prepared as the first.

Though she heard the conversation - the familial small talk that, for all its familiar subject matter, spoke to the love and dedication that flowed like gentle waters between father and son and daughter - Shizuka of course did nothing to interrupt or insert herself in any way. She simply turned to Ai, and then to Raigo, preparing for each a bowl of tea with all the grace and thoughtful attention she had for Souma, neglecting not a single slight move as unworthy of her intent and deliberate note.

And when she was done, the young woman simply remained where she was, as patient and unhurried as the eternal Mount Mitake. In truth, the veil of the woman she had once been glowed softly, happily, in these moments where she could do naught but wait for her time to cleanse and clear this precious tea set. If even for a few moments, that woman could pretend the compliment from Souma had been sincere, that he truly thought her tea excellent. She could pretend the surprise so carefully calculated by Ai and Raigo, the Western woman Shizuka, was truly a joy for the returning firstborn son, and that his hesitation at the doorway was born of genuine, joyful wonder.

She could even pretend she did not realize all too well, that Souma truly wished little else than to run the blade of that little dagger over her throat, if only he could.

It was all for the best, she supposed, that Galina was the wolf lying in wait beneath that veil. She'd grown quite fond of breathing through her nose, and not through a gash of hot blood and flesh carved into her neck.

Far easier to speak that way too. She sighed, and suppressed a small, weary laugh before it could escape. Oh, Souma had certainly received a message by now, but Galina still had far more to share with him than tea.

The Last Kings of Orion

Already said before, but congratulations again Idle! So happy for you and your husband - it sounds like you both found your one-in-a-million in the bar that night! And the only collab I know - cannot wait to see what you and Road do with it *grins so big*

The Last Kings of Orion

No she's not Kuro. Adrienne Lahan is the general's daughter, and is dead. Pauline was the fourth woman attacked, and the only survivor.

Oh, and thank you for making my experience complete Kuro, with the dun dun duuuuun suspense!

And honestly, I'm a little torn Justric. I give him.. Say... 30 seconds, or never? SO indecisive on that one!

The Last Kings of Orion

Awwww... I love OLGA! I think I'd be willing to trust her more than most people! Still, should be very fun!

Wonderful posts Heroes, such loveliness to come home from class to read! The only thing missing from the whole effect, is for Kuro to give us a dun dun DUUUUUN moment *grins*

The Last Kings of Orion

*pats Dot gently* OK so, fwiw? If you get the white page, do NOT hit F5 or hit "submit post" again if you go back a page, because... owwwwwwww...