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 Posted: Tue May 30, 2023 10:14 pm
tell me we both matter
[wc: 1,512]
Daedalus wasn't sure how long he napped for, on that bench where Langite left him. It was a light rest, not really deep enough to be true sleep, but when he woke, he did feel at least a little refreshed, which was a positive. Having his energy drained had not been what he would consider a pleasant experience, but at least it was over, and he'd had a chance to rest, and he'd hopefully helped Langite out to some degree, which seemed a fair repayment for Langite getting him away from that chaotic battle mostly intact. He could breathe cleanly, now, no more hacking and coughing, and he was safe from the fires his own people had started inside the bank.
His thoughts drifted, settling on his...rescuer? Was that the right word for what Langite had done? Rescuer, kidnapper--did it matter, in the end, when the result was the same? He was away from there, and alive, and uncorrupted, and even if he was a little lost, he had Langite to thank for it.
Langite.....
Langite, who had been Merak, but who wasn't Merak anymore. He'd said that "Langite" was the name he preferred, hadn't even recognized his true Senshi name, had seemed thoroughly dismissive of Daedalus using it. Was that something the Negaverse did to all its Senshi? Stripped them of their true identities as a method of control? How ghastly, if so. To deny a Senshi the most core piece of their identity, the name of their world...he couldn't imagine going by anything else, himself. Certainly not some impersonal mineral, stripped of the very thing that had been his. A name that had been a defiance. No one in power on Daedalus had wanted him to be their Senshi, but he was.
And he would continue to be. No one would be able to take that from him.
But Langite...that was the name he wanted to be called, and it was the one that Daedalus would have to use, if they found each other again. Perhaps, he supposed, that name hadn't been forced on him. Perhaps he had chosen it, in an act of defiance of his own, against a fate that surely must have seemed strange and unknowable, if he was born to a world that had barely touched its own moon, never mind the further stars. Certainly Daedalus couldn't know, not with what little evidence he had.
If they found each other again, maybe he would ask. Maybe Langite would tell him. And maybe it didn't matter, because Langite was the name he wanted, and that was what Daedalus should care about.
He sat up, and immediately regretted it, hit with a sudden wave of dizziness. Apparently, there were indeed some lingering effects from energy draining, and a quick, half-restful nap hadn't taken care of all of them. He took a deep breath and stood up, forcing himself off the bench, and shivered unhappily, pulling his jacket closer around himself. It wasn't even particularly cold, he supposed; the chill came from within, and from the realization that he had no idea where Langite had brought him. That he was somewhere in an unfamiliar city, completely lost, with basically no direction.
The realization sat heavy in his chest, and he plopped back down on the bench, as if sitting there would help.
The Merak he knew wouldn't have abandoned him somewhere unfamiliar, but the Merak he knew had known him. Had a reason to care. This one didn't. Daedalus was just some stranger calling him by a name he didn't know or didn't want, acting like he was entitled to any of Langite's time because of what they'd had a thousand years ago, in another life. Quite literally, in Langite's case.
So perhaps he had earned being left abandoned on a bench, in an unfamiliar part of an unfamiliar city, by pushing too hard for something that he was not owed.
Daedalus had always treasured what he and Merak had, even if he found the affection strange and a little inexplicable. Someone like Merak should never have wanted someone like him, and Daedalus had never really been the best at properly reciprocating what he was given. He'd failed, time and time again, to properly show Merak how much he cared, how much they meant. But Merak had meant the universe to him, and what they'd had...
Perhaps it was lost forever. Perhaps Daedalus only got one chance, and perhaps, in the end, his own choices had meant that he would never get another. Perhaps, in some way, Langite's soul remembered hat Daedalus had chosen his work, his cause, his planet, his people over the man he loved. Not just once, either. Over and over again. So many times, more than any one man should have endured, and yet Merak had. He'd come back, or he'd opened his door when Soren showed up, pathetic and full of apologies, no matter how little Soren deserved his regard or his forgiveness. No matter how well they'd both known that it would absolutely happen again. No matter how Soren had never been able to promise that it wouldn't, because for all his other failings, he hadn't wanted to lie to the man he loved.
He had always come back, always given Soren another chance. Until the last time. Until it became too much to bear. And, worst of all--perhaps they could have fixed things. Perhaps Soren could have gone to him, admitted that his illness was getitng worse, that he feared he didn't have much time left. But he'd never gotten the opportunity.
Merak had stormed out, had gone back to his world to cool off, and Chaos had descended not a week later.
Daedalus wondered how long it had taken, for Merak to fall. Had he lived years past Daedalus being lost? Had he thought Soren dead and gone, lost to him? Had he found someone else, been happy?
Soren hoped so. He hoped that Merak had lived a long life, that his death was peaceful, that he'd been lucky. That if an end had come for his world--and it seemed an end had come for many of the worlds Soren had known--it was at least a quiet one.
He hoped that Merak's life had been peaceful, before he was reincarnated.
He wondered, briefly, if Langite had someone in his life. He had spent it all on Earth, after all, and Soren guessed their ages to be relatively similar--well, relatively similar to the age Soren had been before his centuries of sleep. |If Soren was even more an intruder, coming into a life that was already happy. If Langite had wanted to leave because there was someone waiting for him.
Perhaps that was the case. Perhaps there was no point in hoping for anything between them. Perhaps this was, ultimately, Soren's punishment; he'd been a poor partner, who chose his cause over his beloved, and now, perhaps he wouldn't even be able to make that choice.
Worse, perhaps he would never see Langite again. Perhaps this was their one and only chance of crossing paths, and Soren would never have any of his questions answered, because the universe would never again align to bring them together.
He hoped that wasn't the case. The thought of it sent a cold ache settling in his chest. But it was impossible to know--Destiny City was large, he'd come to realize, and there were many Senshi and Knights and officers, and it was certainly possible that two people might meet only once and never again cross paths. Such was the way of things.
He wondered if Langite would even remember him. If he had even made the slightest of an impression, beyond the moments they'd spent together. If Langite would look for him again, like Daedalus would, he knew, be searching for Langite. If, if, if.
All he had were "if"s.
He forced himself to stand up, off the bench. Sitting here wasn't making anything better. He didn't have any more of an idea of where he was, and truth be told, he was just marinating in misery anyway. He had a thousand what-ifs and not a single solid possibility, just the hope that maybe, if the universe was kind, and if he was very lucky, he might get a second chance to speak to the reincarnation of the love of his life.
And that maybe he wouldn't ruin things a second time. Maybe, he could be better. Maybe things had changed enough in a thousand years that he could be the type of person Langite deserved.
That wasn't too much to hope for, was it?
It almost felt pathetic, really, when he didn't even know if Langite ever wanted to see him again. Sure, he was still alive, but what did that mean, really? Just that Langite hadn't wanted to kill him. Just that he got to walk away from this, with his starseed intact. And he was probably lucky, for that. It would be foolish to ask for more.
(Daedalus wanted to ask anyway.)
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Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2024 9:37 pm
an eternal flame
[wc: 1,537
backdated to late november/early december 2023]
It was a quiet day at the shop.
Most days at the shop were fairly quiet; Jack had a dedicated bunch of clients that paid very well for his work, and they came when they came, to have their old cars tuned up and fixed. Most of them, Soren gathered, were fairly wealthy, and their cars were show pieces, but even considering that, several were quite knowledgeable, and Soren found that he often enjoyed conversing with them, even if it itched at him to know that these people sat on their piles of money and threw them casually at maintaining vanity vehicles that were rarely driven.
The saving grace was Jack, really--an older man, a mechanic for his whole life, who had, by his own description, retired for a few years and had become so incessantly annoying to his husband with "projects" around the house that he was informed he needed a job to get him out of it again. So, he'd opened his own shop, and it hadn't been long after Soren came to Earth that he'd managed to get himself hired. Currently, he was Jack's only employee, and he got the impression Jack was happy with that. Something about too many cooks in the kitchen, he said, which only made so much sense to Soren, and honestly he had sort of just nodded and decided to accept this particular Earth idiom.
He got the impression, sometimes, that Jack knew there was something unusual about him, but the man wasn't a prier--he'd accepted Soren's concocted backstory about having to move to Destiny City to flee a bad situation on the other side of the country, which was....well, not exactly not true. He was fleeing a bad situation, it had just started somewhere much further away than the state of California, which Soren gathered was distant enough that it was easy to claim to be from there and not have it questioned. What papers he needed could be created by Mauvians, and what he couldn't create, Jack had seemed to want to help him with.
He was a type of man Soren knew well, and had looked up to back on Daedalus. The old union man, good at his job and proud of his work, who wanted to help protect the workers under him. Some of Soren's favorite people to deal with, back when he'd had cause to do so. And his husband was a delight, a painter who, by his own words, was lucky enough to have not received any real acclaim, but he still sold a piece or two every once in a while and that, and the money that Jack could charge for his work on cars ("bleed the rich bastards dry," Jack always said, in a way that made Soren laugh, "they deserve it and they can afford it") kept them, apparently, in a nice home and a good life.
Soren was, he knew, lucky.
And he was even moreso lucky that he was being allowed to tinker with the prosthetic he'd recovered from his planet on company time. He'd explained that it was for a friend, who couldn't afford proper repairs, and Jack had silenced him before he had to say anything more. Between the multitool he'd gotten from Almadel over the summer and access to everything in the mechanic shop, it was, honestly, coming along quite nicely. At first, he'd found hismelf staring blankly at the inner workings, but...well. Machines tended to unfold themselves for him, and this was no different.
So he worked, and tinkered, and fixed, and he was fairly certain that he'd have something to present, finally, in a few days. It was what Procyon deserved, really--Dammen's besr work, and now Soren's best work, too.
He felt his chest tighten, and he set down his tools and turned away, letting the cough that forced its way out of his lungs escape. It was rough and raw, but fortunately, this time, it didn't bring anything up--that was still infrequent, msotly. More than he'd like, but at least it wasn't every time, or even almost every time. There was still time for him. Still a chance to try and do something right, with whatever of his life was left.
"You okay, there?" Jack asked, from across the shop, and Soren needed a momeont to catch his breath before he could answer.
"I'm fine," he called back. "Just a cough, nothing serious."
"Didn't sound fine," Jack said, and Soren didn't have to look to see the concerned frown on his face. "If you need to go home early and rest, go home. Can't have you getting sick on the job."
"I promise, it's nothing," Soren said. Jack frowned, and looked at the prosthetic in front of him.
"You almost done with that?" He asked. Soren nodded. "Good work. Finish it, and then go home for the day. Rest up, drink some orange juice. Might be a nothing cough now, but it's flu season. Don't take any chances."
"I..." Soren wanted to protest, but something about Jack's firm stare made protesting seem...well, rather pointless. So, he nodded. "I'll do that, yes."
"And go to the doctor if it sticks around." It was not a suggestion, and Soren knew that. It was also not something he could do. "I know how good your health insurance is, I pay for it. Use it."
"I will," Soren promised. That was a lie, and he hated himself for it. But he couldn't exactly explain the truth, could he? No, no Earth doctor can help me, my lungs were damaged a thousand years ago inhaling toxic chemicals in an alien factory. Yes, it's probably terminal. Yes, I've known this all along. No, he couldn’t pass that burden on to someone else. Jack didn’t need to know that his favorite and only employee was an alien from outer space, didn’t need ot know how much more complicated his story was than fled cross-country to get out of a bad situation, can’t afford to look back.
Maybe someday. Not today.
He exhaled, and turned back to his project. There was still plenty of work to be done, and he wasn't going to waste time when it was almost finished.
The internals were all well and repaired; it was just finishing touches. Like most things made on Daedalus, it was brassy and clockwork—not at all the right aesthetic for his pale, sleek sea-bunny friend. So, the final piece—he’d found that the Destiny City Public Library had a 3D printer of the kind that Procyon had shown him, and it was perfect for what he needed. The external casing for the arm was plastic, but sturdy, and painted to match Procyon’s color scheme so that it wouldn’t stand out from the rest of his outfit.
Honestly, Soren was incredibly proud of it. Proud in a way that he hadn’t been of…anything, in a very long time. It had been far too long, he thought, since he’d really managed to make something. Sure, he liked his work. Sure, he took pride in being the only other person Jack and his customers trusted to work on their cars—and he’d had to earn that trust, demonstrate that he was smart and capable, that he really knew as much as he professed to. And he was proud of that. Proud that he’d cracked the old man’s gruff exterior, proud that he’d convinced people who were wildly protective of their fancy vehicles that it was safe to leave them in his hands. There was pride there aplenty, and it was a good job, and he liked it, and it made him happy.
But this was different. That was work, necessary to make sure that he could survive and take care of himself and not be too much of a burden on the people he cared about. Whatever pride was there was dimmed, sometimes, by the knowledge of who would eventually be making use of his work, even if he and Jack did have the occasional joke at their expense. Even if most of them seemed, at least on the face, to be capable of pretending to be pleasant. They were rich assholes with fancy old cars, and it rankled Soren to contribute to any of it.
But this….this was different. This was real, genuine pride. The pride of repairing something with his own hands, of making it beautiful, of taking something of his people’s and making it useful again. He wasn’t sure he would ever be able to explain it to anyone, how much this meant to him—but it meant something. Something deep and significant, in his heart.
It meant that, whatever else, something of planet Daedalus survived. Something beyond its Senshi, in failing health and constantly exhausted. Something beyond whatever little memories he could share with other people. A tangible piece of the inventions that his people had so loved, had worked so hard on.
A piece of Daedalus that would exist as long as Procyon kept it, and as long as it could stay in good working order. That….was something Soren could feel proud of.
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Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2024 10:08 pm
exchange the experience
[wc: 1,010]
It was, by Daedalus's estimation, a lovely night. Many nights in Destiny City were lovely, though, at least by his measure--and this one had the special benefit of snow.
It really was silly, how much he loved this kind of weather. Yes, it was cold. No, he wasn't the biggest fan of the chill, but his jacket and gloves kept him warm enough, and really, he was just happy to be able to walk around in the cold air and enjoy the snowfall without having to worry. To be able to breathe air that, while not perfectly clean, was far clearer than his homeworld's. To know that he was on a planet that was in trouble--he had, he admitted, started to familiarize himself with the politics and problems of earth, because if he could, he wanted to make a difference here, with whatever time he had--but one whose people seemed to want something better. To know that here, it was safe to breathe, that he would not get sicker simply from existing.
It was...also pleasant to sit on a park bench and extend his hand, and watch snowflakes fall into it. No, they didn't stick to him like they did the ground or the bench itself, but that didn't really matter. The point was that he was enjoying something that had been lost to his world long before its eventual demise.
He wondered if, perhaps, it might ever happen again. If, someday, it might begin to snow on Daedalus once more. If there was hope for him to save the world that had kept him alive for so many centuries.
He supposed that his continued existence indicated that someone believed he could do it. Or some[it]thing, probably, more properly. Whatever animus was at the heart of his world, it had preserved him, even in the face of what should have been a painful death from poison. It had kept him preserved in stasis, waiting for a chance to send him somewhere where he could continue to live. And considering that it had saved him, he supposed he owed it, in the end, to try and find a way to save it.
The strange creature he'd seen last time concerned him. It was new, and it might be a manifestation of the Chaos continuing to grow. He would have to find its heart, he supposed, and root it out--easier said than done, eprhaps, but he had never given up just because something looked hard.
And he would have to do it soon.
His body was deteriorating. he knew it. He was getting sicker and sicker as time wore on, and he feared that the newest developments meant that the clock was ticking ever faster. The real problem was, there was nothing he could do about that. The sickness had plagued him for decades.
Back then, though, his doctors had said that he could live for decades. Plenty of others with lungs like his had. Men who had worked longer and in far worse jobs had made it to old age. He should have had that time, too--or at least, he should have had far more than he did. An entire life, if he'd been lucky.
His doctors had told him to slow down, to take care of himself better, if he wanted those decades--and he did, truly.
But the work was more important. So many more people than him had relied on his presence, his abilities, his strength. So he had pushed onward, against all advice. Had made himself sicker.
And then Chaos came, and it got so much worse, so much quicker.
Just like his world.
He wondered, briefly, if saving it might save him, too, but that seemed...too neat, too clean. He wasn't one oft he special Senshi--the ones with the glowing lines on their skin that he had only heard of, the ones who were so closely bonded with their worlds that it made them incorruptible at their core. No matter how much he wanted to be, that was not him--though he certainly would have liked the protections it conveyed.
He exhaled, which set off a fit of cold, sharp, dry coughs, and he winced. Worse by the day, it seemed, sometimes. It was getting harder and harder to hide it, too. But there was nothing to be done. Not now, not here.
As he caught his breath again, and winced at the cold air filling his lungs, he noticed something.
A glow, near a small group of trees, just off the path his bench was next to. It wasn't a lamp--didn't match the color or brightness of the streetlights in the area, and it'd be an odd place for a handheld light, especially since he couldn't see the silhouette of a person behind it.
He frowned, and stood up, and approached it, snow crunching under his boots. It always felt good to take a walk after a coughing fit anyway, like he could clear his lungs with a little more motion. A silly idea, of course, but silly ideas tended to endure, one way or another.
As he approached, he got a better look at the thing--a floating orb of light, humming with a strange energy.
An energy that called him closer.
Daedalus regarded it curiously, approaching with care and with a hand extended, like he might do towards a strange animal. His fingers brushed it, and he swore--he felt a moment of friendship from the thing. When he withdrew his hand, it bounced in the air, and then swirled around him, a clear expression of light-orb delight.
"Well hello there," Daedalus said, smiling fondly. "What a unique little thing you are!"
It didn't exactly have expressions, or anything, but something about the way it bobbed in the air seemed distinctly...pleased.
"Are we friends now, then?" He asked it. It bobbed up and down, a clear little wispy "yes." Daedalus nodded, firmly. “Excellent, then.”
It seemed he was lucky enough to have found a pleasant little surprise.
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Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2024 7:08 pm
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Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2024 1:42 pm
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Posted: Sat Mar 30, 2024 2:10 pm
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Posted: Sun May 26, 2024 12:12 pm
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Posted: Mon Jul 01, 2024 7:53 pm
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Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2025 8:02 pm
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2025 12:34 am
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Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2025 2:59 pm
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Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2025 3:19 pm
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Posted: Thu May 01, 2025 7:29 pm
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