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 Posted: Sat Jun 20, 2015 4:46 pm
 [MISTRAL] Level 6: Weapons Development
The prelude to Tristan's story: Aderyn Baskerville, a.k.a. Mycenae Page of Mercury, goes on a mission to help her fellow Knights and improve communications.
She dies, horribly.
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Posted: Sun Jul 19, 2015 3:16 pm
Creatures in the Dark
Ordinarily, Tristan probably would have stuck to studying in his dorm, conveniently and surprisingly provided for his late summer session classes. He preferred it there - it was quiet and reasonable, usually, and he could get plenty of work done without interruptions. But this time he had been awake for far too long -- he had started the assignment, he thought, at about six PM after dinner, and somehow it was five-thirty in the morning and he really needed coffee to keep going because the ******** still wasn’t done. So he had gone to the 24-hour coffee shop on the first floor of the dorm, set himself up outside, and started working his way through a very large thermos of pure black coffee.
It came with refills, which he was pretty sure he would also need.
In theory, he could have let this go, slept, and picked up the next day, but he had workflow going, and interrupting for coffee was enough interruption. Besides, procrastinating parts was just a way to lead to further procrastination, and he would have none of that. With no classes the next day and time set aside to review what he’d done for mistakes, he could afford to keep pressing until he finished the first draft.
He dove right back into his project, fiddling away at equations and balances, and when he first heard movement nearby, he paid it no mind. Probably someone else who had made the mistake of staying up far too late working, or who had procrastinated an assignment particularly hard and was making up for it.
When there came a bizarre scratch-screech-clatter, like metal on metal and concrete, that got him to look up and pay attention.
At first, he swore he had to be hallucinating and maybe it really was time to close up shop and go home. A strange giant centipede really should not be out at night.
A strange giant centipede with long, spindly, oddly bright legs,which opened its mouth - the only apparent feature on its “face” - to reveal rows and rows of horrifyingly sharp teeth was especially and particularly impossible. But it persisted in existing even when he shook his head and rubbed his eyes, and otherwise did everything he could think of to clear a hallucination from his mind.
“Cachi,” he muttered under his breath, closing his laptop and standing up. He’d heard reports of bizarre monsters, but this was the first time he’d encountered one face to face. He started backing away, hoping that its lack of eyes meant it couldn’t see, but apparently it could sense well enough somehow. It let out as grating, metal on metal screech, and launched itself at him, and while he got out of the way, one of its legs grazed his arm, opening a thin bleeding gash.
“Of course they’re ******** sharp,” he growled, stepping back. It came at him again, he was faster this time, moving towards a table to hopefully put that between it and him. No one from inside had come out - possibly they’d seen the creature and were making the wise decision to stay out of the way.
He’d thought he would have time to get some distance, but the creature let out another awful shriek and moved with impossible speed, slamming into him and knocking the man off his feet. It went, dedicatedly, for his throat, but Tristan was able to get an arm up between them and hold it off by what should have been the throat area - or was roughly analogous to it anyway - while those awful metal legs clattered around him, missing stabbing into his chest or side by centimeters. His other grasped desperately for anything to fight with - a rock, the leg of a table he could yank over, anything.
It found warm, rough wood, carved in a shape that seemed familiar. Tristan chanced a glance, and felt his breath catch.
A shillelagh. Carved of bright white wood, inlaid with bright blue lines, and faintly glowing. But mostly, a shillelagh, something he was well and capable of fighting with. What one was doing here, discarded, was beyond him, but he didn’t particularly care. He wrapped his fingers around it, and as soon as he did, he felt a surge of something from deep within him.
His vision was tinted, suddenly, in blues, but he could see clearly enough to swing the thing around and slam it into the creature’s head. It yowled, and he used the momentary break to get the shillelagh up and under, gripping it with both hands and pressing it in the same place his arm had been. This time, though, it wasn’t just for defense. He rolled the creature over, straddling it in an area between legs - which flailed at him in desperate frenzy, while he leaned his weight down on the creature’s throat. It screeched and gnashed and flailed, but he pressed harder, ignoring the legs that sliced at his arms and met the resistance of thick, layered fabric.
He pressed in one hard, powerful crush, and the creature let out a last clanging sound and collapsed into dust underneath him.
And with the adrenaline fading and only an awareness that he was wearing something far too heavy for the weather, a name whispered in his mind.
Mycenae.
Mycenae of Mercury.
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Posted: Sun Jul 04, 2021 11:10 pm
a wish on a grave
[wc: 1522 words]
Tristan had mentioned his intentions for the sapphire star charm he'd found at a booth to Charybdis, when they were picking up trash. With things having quieted down after the Star Festival, the terrible monster defeated, and everything relatively back to normal, he finally had some time to go out to the quiet little graveyard where Aderyn rested and bring her the gift. As he drew over to her grave, he let out a soft sigh, sitting down in front of it and setting the charm and a small bouquet he'd brought--mostly snowdrops and a few bluebells, Aderyn's favorite flowers. The charm was on a ribbon tied around the vase, and he set it in front of the tombstone, smiling faintly.
"You'd love the Star Festival," he told the cold marble, brushing his thumb over one of the bluebells' petals. "It's all about doing the right thing, and you always wanted to do that, didn't you?"
It had bene her end, he was willing to bet. Certainly there was no way to know how she had died, but he knew his sister. She had tried to take on something too big for her, and it had killed her.
He could still remember the horror on his ancestor's face when he first arrived on the Wonder. she'd called for Aderyn in the tone of a clucking mother hen, and then she'd turned, and been shocked to be greeted by someone very, very different from his little sister. She had barely been able to explain why she was expecting a very different Mycenae Page, but eventually she'd brought it around: Aderyn had been the Page, once, and she was an eager student, according to Elain. Too eager, by Elain's reckoning; too young, too full of too many absurd ambitions, too willing to charge ahead into situations that Elain didn't think she was ready for. Elain had told her as much, and Tristan completely believed that being told she wasn't good enough was a very hefty motivator in Aderyn running into whatever situation had gotten her killed.
It made him seethe with rage, if he was honest. Aderyn deserved better than Elain's condescending sharpness--condescension she'd been quick to turn on Tristan whenever he asked any questions about the Wonder, about Knighthood, about any of it. Whatever had kept her around to guide him, she certianly wasn't interested in living up to the role, and Tristna felt as if he'd bene left adrift and flailing. It was miserable and depressing, and he hated ever ysecond of it.
Were he honest, he would have to admit that "hate" wasn't even the right word--resentment was. He resented Elain, and her smugness, and her overconfidence. she had already gotten one Mycenae Page killed, and she seemed not to be particularly over-invested in worrying about her new charge.
Not that Tristan liked the idea of being in her "charge," of course, but the truth of the matter was that he was fairly certain she was supposed to mentor him, and equally certain that she resented the prospect. She clearly thought as little of him as she had of his sister, because she was wholly unwilling to compromise, to share knowledge, to explain literally anything about Mycenae the Wonder or its inner workings or anything except the very narrow range of things she considered acceptable to tell her "successor."
Worse, it was clear that she was displeased with him being a man; according to Elain, women had guarded Mycenae since its founding, and he was the first to break that trend. She was, it was obvious, not pleased to be training the first man to bear the mantle, and the entire thing made him roll his eyes. How idiotic, to reject qualified candidates of the bloodline because they were the wrong gender. There couldn't have been that many qualified Knights in the past, and it seemed miserable and shortsighted to remove potential candidates from the pool for such a petty, idiotic reason.
Ah well. That was hardly his problem. The mantle was his, and Elain couldn't do anything to take it away.
"Harker's back in town, but you know that already," he said, and he smiled faintly. "I know how upset you were about how things ended between him and me, so I hope it helps you to know that we're putting the pieces back together."
At least, it felt that way. Sure, Tristan couldn't be entirely sure that Harker wanted him that way, but it felt like there was a chance. Like he could have back one of the best things to ever happen to him, which he'd let go like an idiot. Harker seemed to be receptive, at least, and that was progress in the right direction. It was something Tristan had longed for, and if he was lucky, he would get to keep having it.
He brushed his fingers over the headstone, looking wry and sad. "He's still the same, you know, in a lot of ways. But I think he's sadder now. Something must have happened while he was away." He tilted his head to the side. "Ah, but the Star Festival...it's really something, Aderyn. Brought all kinds of people together. And it helped me feel like I have a better handle on being Mycenae, which is good, because Elain certainly isn't helping me any more than she helped you."
He looked around, just to make sure no one was listening who might learn something he needed to keep secret, but the cemetery was utterly empty. This wasn't exactly a visiting-a-relative's-grave sort of time of year, so Tristan was lucky; he could speak openly as long as he kept his eyes out.
"I met someone who reminded me of you." He wanted to reach for the star charm Charybdis had given him, but it was in the pocket of his powered uniform, not reachable here. "Her name is Charybdis, and she's a Senshi. Younger than you by a right set, especially younger than you'd be now, but she was so eager, and stronger than I'd have expected from someone her age." He wondered, briefly, if there had been anyone who knew Aderyn as Mycenae. No one except Elain had reacted to him in a way that made it seem like they had, but that jsut meant he hadn't met them yet, not that they didn't exist. "We helped clean up the park as part of a wish--ah, that's a part of the Star Festival; people can put wishes on a tree, and ask for others to grant them. If you take a wish and grant it, you bury the little paper it's written on in the park."
He paused, briefly. "Or, of course, you can make a more personal wish, and bury the paper yourself. That's what I did," he said, and he got a little wistful again. "I wished for Harker, if we're telling the truth. You'd laugh at me, being so soft over that boy all over again, but he's always been special, Addie."
To say the least. Tristan rarely opened up, but Harker had that magical ability to worm his way in, and Tristan had missed how safe and secure he felt around Harker ever since Harker left. With him gone, Tristan had been all but certain he'd be alone for the rest of his life; it felt like the only possible outcome, when most people made him want to close off even more and hide away. But Harker had always been willing to wait and trust, and let Tristan come on his own terms. It was the reason Tristan trusted him so completely.
Tristna wondered if that was what he was doing now--waiting for some kind of signal, rather than making the first move. Tristan knew he couldn't be sure, but it seemed possible, and it made him resolve something to himself.
"I'm gonna ask him out, Addie. No dancing around, just a straightforward invitation. If he doesn't want me anymore, that way, it'll be alright, but I have to know." It would hurt, certainly, to be rejected, but at least he would have closure and be able to move on. Inasmuch as he was ever going to move on from Harker. But there was the chance--a larger chance than Tristan might have granted, when they first ran into each other again--that Harker might actually want him.
That chance was something Tristan needed to chase.
He stood up, resting a hand on the headstone one last time.
"I'll let you know how it goes." He smiled, fondly. "And maybe next time, I'll bring Harker with me, and we can visit you together. On purpose, this time, instead of just happening to run into each other by accident."
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Posted: Fri Jun 09, 2023 7:02 pm
whole goddamn night
[wc: 500 words]
It had been an absolutely ******** miserable night.
When Enfys teleported away from the strange white-haired Senshi that ******** bit him, he'd only thought so much about where he needed to go--home had been his first thought, but no--he ended up a few blocks away, and regretted it immediately. Not only for the weather, which amde the prospect of walking home incredibly unappealing, since it was very much still pouring buckets. Mostly because he had not considered the bleeding wound on his neck, where the Senshi's teeth had sunk in. Hadn't really considered that he had no idea where that mouth had been, what diseases might be lurking in there...anything at all about the kind of problems he was setting himself up for if he tried to ignore this, really. And it was, he was finding, incredibly painful on top of everything else.
Thus, although what he wanted to do was go straight home, he realized distantly that he couldn't do that. Harker would panic if he came home with a bleeding wound, and maybe that would be fair, but it would just stress everyone out. And that still didn't handle the potential risk of infection. Human mouths were not exactly clean places anyway, and who even knew what feral alien Senshi ate.
He could eat a starseed. That would probably fix the problem. Stop the bleeding, heal the wound, and refresh him on top of it. But the thought of it made his stomach turn. He had no particular qualms, in general, about the taking or use of starseeds--some deaths were necessary for greater progress.
(Elain, he suspected, from the little fragments of his memory he retained of her, would have treated that as agreeing with her. Siegenite firmly felt otherwise. She had acted as if it was her right as Mycenae to claim the lives of others. As if there was no reason to oppose it. Siegenite knew that to take a life was a heavy burden.)
But eating them...that felt a step too far, somehow. And besides, there were supposed to be all sorts of deeply unpleasant side effects to doing so. Addiction. Youmafication. Not paths he particularly wanted to tread.
So, with a displeased huff, Siegenite teleported a second time.
When he appeared a block away from the hospital, he was exhausted. But he powered down, and dragged himself to the emergency room door, and didn't let himself collapse until he had checked in at the front desk--kudos to the nurse there, she clearly saw all kinds of unusual injuries all the time, and his story about being assaulted by someone who was clearly on bath salts or something had just made her nod. She'd gotten another nurse to check him quickly and stop the active bleeding, but he'd been left to sit to wait for a doctor to do a more thorough evaluation.
With a huff, he dropped into a chair, and waited.
This, it seemed, was just going to be his whole goddamn night.
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Posted: Fri Jun 09, 2023 10:20 pm
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