TheAmishPirate

Breathless Dead

“Galnius? Darling?” Vasilia smiled sweetly. “It seems you’ve bumped your head in the crash. And, I do so apologize for that, I’m usually far more precise when steering blind. If only I’d landed us more smoothly, you’d have surely remembered that Redana takes orders from me. You surely didn’t mean to imply your station lies higher than hers, did you?”

She lazily extended her claws, flicking at a bit of nonexistent dirt.

“Now then; would you care to repeat yourself?”

[Rolling to Talk Sense with Grace: 3 + 2 + 2 = 7. Vasilia wants Galnius back under her command, now.]

Fellowship: The Heart

Jackdaw stretched to her full height-

No, not quite stretched. More, jumped? Sprung? Sprung. Sprung to her full height, and didn’t come down.

This was it. Not, it-it, exactly, but a first. King Dragon, in some component of the flesh, no longer just in pictures and words on a page. She’d played this out so many times in her head, in so many places, with so many people. A good chunk of them were on trains, or traintracks, or trains on traintracks, or beside either trains or traintracks - well, most of those had been ever since they’d joined up with Coleman. So. There were at least a few that ought to apply here. She’d, she’d had a speech prepared and everything. She should probably consult it again, yes?

Paws trembling, she rooted through her pockets and produced a well-worn scrap of paper, and hastily scanned it. Yes, yes, yes it was...exactly the way she’d left it. Exactly like she remembered. Hadn’t forgotten. All here. So. All she had to do now was. Say it. Out loud. Like she’d practiced. Like she dreamed. Like all the heroes in all her stories would do. Tell the beast who stole her best friend’s heart just what she was going to do to him.

She opened her mouth.

She screamed.

She ran.

The word was

Coward.

[Rolling to Run Away: 3 + 4 + 2 = 9. Jackdaw...shoot, Jackdaw gets their quickly, avoiding harm along the way.]

Breathless Dead

“Mmm. Well spotted.” Vasilia flicked her tail out of the water for what must have been the hundredth time. It just. Refused to stay draped where she left it. Meddlesome little- “Now where would a trained Kaori strike force spring from? They can’t possibly be living here, and we’d have noticed the Armada catching up to us. Do you see any emblems? Anything about them ring a bell?”

Call it a gut feeling, call it a soaked tail, call it criss-crossing bruises across her chest and a distinctly Redana and Alexa-shaped hole in her ranks, but she just knew she wasn’t going to like the answer.

Breathless Dead

Oh. Good. She was alive and conscious for the embarrassing portion of the landing. What a blessing.

“Captain, are you alright?” Clever hands made short work of her restraints, and Dolce offered her a hand up. It was not quite…

Oh, leave off it. She rose like a dream, escorted from her seat like royalty from a carriage on their way to a fancy dress ball. There was absolutely no difficulties with either knee-high water or legs that refused to function as they should. When she reclined against the front viewport, it was to better take in the surrounding scenery. And if anyone had any complaints as to the accuracy of her account, they could submit them in writing, in triplicate, and she would burn them immediately.

Dolce squeezed her hand comfortingly. Well. Perhaps she’d burn them at her earliest convenience. “Sound off, everyone. Quietly now, we’ve already made enough of an entrance. Galnius, to me, when you can stand.”

Dolce hurried off to help the others up, and she returned her attention to the viewport. When the sound of wading hoplite drew near, she turned briefly to take him in. Still standing, a bit unsteady, none too pleased, but what else was new? Whatever, she could work with it. “What’s your read?” She asked, turning back to the window. “Everything this side of the planet must have seen us go down. We need someplace to get our feet under us, but if stay here we’ll end up fighting room-to-room in a spa.”

[Rolling to Look Closely: 3 + 3 + 1 = 7: How can we all get out of here to someplace safe to regroup?]

Fellowship: The Heart

The word was worthwhile.

...oh, oh no! No, it wasn’t the word just because Wolf had led them to safety and escape from a nightmare station! No, no, how horrible! How - she didn’t know! She couldn’t have possibly known. So, it wasn’t selfish, she was happy because Wolf’d regained their senses, and they weren’t hungry anymore, and, yes, she was happy to be here, but she didn’t do all that to be here, and - oh no Coleman’s been talking to you, quick, quick, what’d he say? Remember, Jackie, remember!

“I-I, I didn’t see them.” Jackdaw shook her head furiously, tucking herself into her sodden cloak. “We were all together, then the next thing I knew I was in a...a...a trove? Desert? Dunes? A room full of dunes of broken glass, and nearly got robbed by a mouse who served King Dragon. Not, no, not Ailee, this one called themselves the Grand Squeaker?”

As she chattered away, her eyes never stopped moving; an echo, of sorts, of the Wolf. Only, the Wolf looked for danger. Followed her instincts. Scanned about the room in her own patterns, her own methods of vigilance. Jackdaw, she followed a thread that only she could see, tracing it from place to place, watching for the story it told. Straining to add it to her ever-growing collection.

[Activating Let Me See That on this part of the station:
-Who made it, and why should I care about them?
-What was this made to do, and how do I use it or break it? (Leaning more towards “use”, and definitely with a mind to “how can we get back here reliably?”)]

Breathless Dead

Flying a ship blind was not all that uncommon. Sometimes, the nearby stars are inhospitable to your approach vector. Sometimes, Poseidon decrees that no one shall witness his wonders this day, and sends a cloud of choking gasses to befoul the field. Sometimes, a skirmisher is blessed by Ares to sock you square in the face, and when the dust settles you’re somehow the one most fit to take the helm. A good Captain relied on as many points of reference as possible, and - by sheer focus, cunning, and the good favor of the gods - could reconstruct their position in an instance.

The art was, however, severely hampered by an inexplicable and unmeasured gap in Vasilia’s memory, that no one aboard knew to correct.

[Rolling to Overcome: 3 + 2 + 0 = 5]

Fellowship: The Heart

The word is familiar.

Did you know? The body can survive for a long, long time without enough food. Longer than you’d think. You see, it’s important to say ‘without enough food.’ Because you have to eat. You’re going to eat. If you don’t have food to eat, you make due with what you have. Garbage. Fat. Muscle. Bones.

Mind.

In the end, it all goes. You eat, until you have nothing left to eat, and only then will you die. Only, there’s a point before that where you may as well be dead. Where no matter how much food you eat, you can’t get back what you’ve already lost.

She hoped they weren’t too late. Please, let them not be too late. And, while she was at it, let her not screw this up. This might be their last and only chance.

Jackdaw put a kindly paw on Coleman’s shoulder. “Friend.” Loud and slow. Speak clearly. Don’t stutter. Don’t you dare stutter now. She tucked a paw to her chest. “Friend.” See! They were the same! Same sort of people! Same friend! “Friend!” She offered her paws, outstretched to the wolf. No sudden movements! Friends wouldn’t make sudden movements, would they?

Nice and slowly, she reached into a pocket - keeping one hand raised, no funny business here - and produced that most holy of salvation for the late-night study session: Jerky. Rich with protein, salted and spiced, the food that stays fresh forever. (And, coincidentally, the food that is nigh impossible to eat too quickly.) She placed it on the ground in front of Coleman, stepped back, and pointed at the wrapped treasure. “Food.” She pointed to the wolf. “Friend.” She pointed to the jerky, then to the wolf. “Food. For. Friend.”

When the first packet was devoured, it was replaced with another. And another. Then, when the edge of the wolf’s hunger had faded, just a little bit, she produced a satchel of dried potatoes. Rich in vitamins. Rich in carbs. Fuel. Energy. Filling. Then, a handful of nuts and raisins. A cupful of water from her canteen to wash down the salt. All the while, repeating, without fail.

“Food.”

“Friend.”

“Food. For. Friend.”

Please, friend. Won’t you come back to us? Won’t you tell us your name?

[Rolling to Talk Sense to the Wolf: 6 + 5 - 1 = 10. Please be friends and also don’t eat us. Spending 1 Food as a gift.]

Breathless Dead

All things considered, Vasilia thought she deserved a medal for only jumping in her chair and hissing an oath.

It was, perhaps, not the first thought she ought to have had in the electric silence that filled the shuttle. Other strong contenders included: “Is there any chance we’ll all survive that cannon firing?” “How far was it to the ground?” “Did that thing really sneak up on us, or did I let this happen?” To name but a few. Just about the only thing this thought had going for it was that it certainly didn’t make a disastrous situation any worse. That was worth something, right? Right. And so, she did the only thing she could do to keep that sterling streak alive for them all.

Captain Vasilia raised a hand, and gave the robot a stately - if lightly dazed - wave.

“...how do you do?” She greeted the robot, manners holding by a thread.

Breathless Dead

“Always, darling.” Vasilia agreed from the helm. “It’s one loss, then straight to the nearest lonely mountain peak. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say their newfound meditative piety was more a newfound meditative tantrum.”

“Maybe losing is an important part of a balanced diet.” Dolce offered.

“The Fates certainly seem to think so. The moment you declare yourself invincible, every person in the system with so much as a pointy stick takes it as a personal challenge to prove you wrong. The wise weaponmaster would hire a bouncer or three to keep out the riffraff.”

Vasilia didn’t need invincible; that was a fool’s errand. You didn’t win by being invincible, you won by being just slightly better where it counted. She’d gladly take surviving, thank you very much, but even that was looking to be a tall order. The weeks since the Armada had been difficult for all of them, but every new problem demanded the Captain’s attention, and didn’t care much if she was ill or healthy. Apollo’s untimely reprimand had greviously taxed her constitution. Though her regalia was as spotless as always, though she sat with back straight and perfect poise, each breath came harder than it ought to, and her attention threatened to slip away with the slightest lapse in focus.

It had taken one miracle to escape, and another to get them this far. She sincerely doubted her ability to deliver a third.

What they needed was more. More hands, more capabilities, more tricks to hide up their sleeves, more leeway for things to go wrong without dooming the whole voyage. All they had was a battered old ship, a miniature phalanx, and a barebones command staff. If they could find something and someones in the ruins of Molech’s keep, that might be just the thing to keep them all going. She didn't care to entertain the future where they came back empty-handed.

Dolce, meanwhile, sat cleaning the valves and workings of his favored instrument, the saxophone. At the terrible sight of the Spear, he’d thought some music might help steel their nerves for the journey ahead, and Vasilia couldn’t have agree more. It was good to have something to occupy himself with. Something...simple.

He’d gathered, from the limited resources aboard the Plousios, that it really wasn’t that difficult to put a machine back together. The problem was putting it back together without hurting it worse. A Stage Machine, for example, might be repaired night after night after night, but every time it rose, it would be as if it was its first performance again. To keep the memories and self intact, that would take a skilled hand.

Stories told of such hands, devised - or perhaps recruited, as some tell it - by Molech himself. Machines with a high purpose, with skill and knowledge beyond even their makers. A machine, to create machines. Revered, respected, feared, by those without hearts of flesh. And when all others declared a mechanical thread ended, they could prove it had not. The Fates, in mechanical form.

And all the legends agreed they’d been lost when Barassidar fell.

It was good to only have a saxophone to worry about. He doubted he’d have the luxury for long.

Breathless Dead

Let us not speak too closely of the hours to come.

A start will be needed, certainly. A moment where the will to move overcomes heaviness of heart, that the next moment might come easier than the last. The first bone, touched. The first bile, swallowed. An honorable final rite, cobbled together from the safest he knew, thought up in the spaces between the idle tasks. Care, in repetition, lest it shield him from the dead.

What part would Hades play? When would he first freeze his new servant cold? Would he even mean to? Would he give him a respite from his gaze, or would his presence weigh unforgettable upon him? How hard would he fight, when Dolce tells him this one is not dead, merely sleeping? Will he let the matter pass? Will he press him mercilessly against the iron bounds of service, until only the timely aid of Hera could keep him from being crushed?

Let us not speak too closely of the hours to come. There is too much to know, and too little to guess.

Let us speak instead of the certainty of tonight. That Dolce would return to his Captain’s chambers, as soon as he was dismissed. That he would climb into bed with her, knowing of sweat and snot and shiver, and curl up beside her anyway. That he would not wait long, before she stirred in her sleep. That she would roll over, strong arms wrapping ‘round her Dolce, and pull him tight against her. That he would find peace in the crook of her neck. That no terror known or mystery unknown would get past her on this foul night.

That though the morning would not banish the dark, they would sleep long. Sharing last thoughts, and first dreams.