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 Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2018 7:02 am
His youma had not, in time since they’d become companions, made a habit of leading him around. The Bear usually preferred a rolling gait just to his left and a half-body more behind. Half through their walk to the great street with the sigils in it, Skeiðbrimir whuffled and drooled along the ground, stood, left great streaks of saliva where it licked and nosed wall and then further stretched itself up to smell the currents of air. Since then, the creature lead him, waiting if it trundled too far ahead for his endurance-focused, guarded loping. Mark the turnings. The stones. The crystals. 3 left, 2 right, 2 diagonal like a star, the pillar of crystal like a palm tree- The hunt led beyond the paths that he’d explored and marked for himself long ago. It was easy to go beyond the small margin of what he’d explored in his small tenure as an officer. The bear waited again just up ahead, pawing at some shape on the ground that didn’t look to have the hard edges of crystal. Coming nearer, slowly, it was the smell that hit him first. It was a familiar one from High School at Hillworth. Long Unwashed Human, mixed with sweat and dust and acetous against the Old Dust and Cave that permeated the Rift. It wasn’t the same as the toxic river. It was a living, bacterial smell, moldy smell like people brought in on their clothes to grow near lights on subterranean tours. And…..industry? Why a smell like a train yard around a corpse? A shine of metal. A person. It must be an officer. Exploring or captured and dragged? Insane like Obsidian? A youma would not care about a body.
A dead body. A living one has a starseed, though. They are alive? Titan's trot slowed as Skeiðbrimir was not contented to wait. Lowing once, pawing at the trunk of the body, the bear then bit carefully, wetly, onto the nearest boot and drug the whole discovery to Titan. This deep in the Rift, it was difficult to discern the man, no, youth’s aura. A face drawn in skeletal ruin, but still cusped before squared jaw, widened shoulders or much beard growth unshaven for as long as he must have been stranded. Titanlåvenite crouched. “Metal...a youmafied officer? Good find, Skeiðbrimir. Good job. Take guard. “ “Can you hear me? I will get you out of here. “ He pushed a large thumb against the adequate lower lip, there being lack of upper, to test the color and flesh turgor. Dehydration was advanced. "I will carry you. Do not struggle." Hands carefully spatula-ed under the thighs and chest, marveling at the pipes. The half-youma barely weighed anything. A balanced lean and one arm under his a**, letting the legs dangle, should let the poor thing feel secure and not jostle the machine parts. Is it new? New-ish…? Recently turned over more chaos and got lost in all of this?
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Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2018 7:43 pm
The turn of rescue hadn't caught up with him. Bound he was in the snuffle against his face, greedy jaws groping and hot breath drowning out all his resistance. Muzzle hair's coarse feel embedded its memories into his hands. Hot, wet. He licked the fat slugs of spit from where they dropped against his mouth and chin.
But he moved now, not of his own accord. A belated jerk and his bones shifted away from the touch. What grazed on him now? Legs dangled and something dug into the dearth between his bones. Something — a general. His dirtied hands found muscle now. An arm. A support. His feet found nothing. The ground disappeared below them, unbidden, and his eyes narrowed while rapid-blinking ash from his eyes. Grey streaks found their way across this general's uniform wherever his hands spidered. A general. His wire-thin mind latched to the thought magnetically. A general. A general. Meaning slipped and slid as he worried at its edges. A general.
A general. Rescue.
Faustite shudder-coughed a breath, wincing at new-old pains in his throat. He nodded to a voice he never really heard. The landscape shifted again. With every hyperventilated breath, new crags arose. New ruins dotted the corners of his vision. And finally, from the endless fog came the desperate salvation of the Citadel, now crowning its lopsided crag.
His hand found the unseeing skull crowning the general's shoulders and his fingers crawled in its eyes. They sought their weary, taxed purchase on old bone like they had in hours past. He forgot, in that short span of time, how the Citadel meant quenching thirst and sating hunger. How it meant sleep. Safety. Solace. The words spoken to him fed him in ways he didn't want right nnow. The Citadel became its memorized search, now looming tantalizing into view and speeding his heart to an untenable melody.
Every snuffle and moan jolted him, however, and exhaustion swept through the betweens. Excitement for basic necessities whittled quickly; his moth-eaten imagination could not form what wasn't in front of him.
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Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2018 10:33 pm
There was a madness to the farthest reaches of dehydration. For athletes it usually got no further than headaches, dizziness and extreme exhaustion. He’d seen this depth of it, though, in a handful of cases: potassium and sodium wanting, blood volume and oxygenation tanked. The captain was near Death's door and only serendipity and magic made it a roulette of hours or another day. The brain was fitful and damaged, accruing more, even as the cells fought to make the body do something to save itself. Sometimes, even gotten to the ER, a person in that far of condition didn’t make it back. But regular is not magic, energy healing, starseeds...hopefully those won’t need to be used. Words may mean nothing to him right now. He clings, though. There is enough recognition of help. Not fear. Gentle rolling steps and careful cradle, then, and humming susurrant, nordic tunes hearkening home and heartbeats far away. With footsteps, it may help to regulate the boy’s own breathing and heartbeat. Safety in clean scent, any scent, that wasn’t dust and crystal and ages dark. The bear moaned as the door to the Hall of Shadows and the circular stair loomed up and laughed at them in the rippling reflections of the putrid waters near to hand. “Look for others, he might not have come alone. Bring them here and I will come back later to check. “ The bearyouma shook it’s great shoulders and chuffed. Lowed at the floor and licked one of the captain’s boots. Lumbered off again into the far glooms. Titan hover-stepped to the stairs, taking them at greater pace. The denizens there were not to be trusted of patience, even to a General’s mind, especially not with wounded or sick. They as well make the boy join them in pawing the ‘glass’ for the next thousand years. He kept up his humming. Then there were other steps adding to the rhythms. Softly spoken, but heavy, orders to a lieutenant happened upon to run to whoever was present in medical to get ready. Run. Titan did not, given the jostling. He kept walking. Words interrupted again. “He’s far gone.” “ Do you IV? ” “Take it slow.” “Shock could trigger. “ Then a green square of sponge and a beverage cup was provided to the General while a bed and gear was readied. He did not put the Captain down yet, but dipped the sponge and help it up to offer the poor thing, “Easy, don’t eat the sponge. To wet your mouth. Little by little. “
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Posted: Tue May 01, 2018 5:49 pm
In the harrowing halls, Faustite called for magic that never came. Fluid whispers, reaching hands. He backed to working muscle with jutting pipe resting against a false skull carved out of some youma. Racing heart and racing breaths would've fogged glass if he had so much left in him. His hardware sat days empty.
Flashing in were low-light crystals, almost a strobe with the general's urgency. Flickerpauseflickerpauselickerpauselickerpauselicker—
Thought was swimming through mucus, and soon ice. Large hands worked a dwarfed green speck into water. A tired arm reached for it, fingers splayed, desperation on display. But offered instead was the green with words that quickly mired in that mucus, that ice. Faustite blinked and fought through comprehension. Wet. The thing was wet. He could taste it before it touched his tongue. Faustite grasped it, shaking, and pressed it to lips. Opening his mouth cracked skin with wanting to bleed but lacking fluid. The sponge touched his tongue — he sucked greedily at it. With any movement came pain in cracking reminders. Blinking, he kept trying to rid the ash from his eyes. Some flecked the sponge earlier.
Words and words with words on words. Movement, eyes, sights, awareness. Justifications were spoken over and beyond him. Knuckles laced and half-formed in rigor were pried from the sightless holes in the bone-shoulder. Hands pressed and pushed and churned, urging him down on his side against textured soft. He kept trying to rise.
He couldn't. The ripple of clothes and arms and legs and shapes and fingers gloamed quickly. Heat boiled and frothed, simmering in his too-tight skin. Someone took his hand — a gentle touch — until it wasn't. Another pinch and medical crawled over the hand. He couldn't, in all his urges, wrench it away.
A chill crept in to quench that fire. Too cold, at first, yet it spread its dominion like a tattoo on the inside of his body. Blearily he looked to the looming wall that bore him here. Fear so quickly abated to exhaustion.
One of the many bent at the waist to check gums and lids. Snorting at the smell, she straightened again. "Lieutenant, fetch him a starseed."
"Yessum." The youth, no older than early college age, power-walked stiffly out of the room. Shortly before she turned the corner, she began waving away at her nose and mouth.
The captain then turned toward the visiting general while remaining hands examined what and where they could. "Excuse me, General. If I may ask, can you tell us how you found this captain? Is there anything we should know? If he was, for example, held captive by senshi or recently youmafied. Anything you could tell me would help us treat his condition." Whatever that might be besides circling the drain.
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Posted: Tue May 15, 2018 9:36 pm
It does not look like there is much in there to answer questions better. There really was a want of the poor things name, commanding officer, how long missing or down in the Rift. Carefully, but firmly, he took back the green swab from the desperate, tiny hands and mouth. It was reswirled in the little cup of water and offered forward again for a second helping. He didn’t mind being patient. “Here….. Here...gentle. There is a whole cup. It isn’t going away, except as you drink it. “ The smell was really something. He breathed through his own mouth, and didn’t bother to grimace or wave. It wasn’t going to change until they bathed the poor thing in and out. It may even be part of some youma-defense. That would be terrible. “This one was in the Rift. My youma smelled the starseed out. There was no evidence of other ashed youma near. Or any other obvious sign. Lost or taken off by another youma, I don’t know. Face down, so at one time crawling, I think. No evidence how recent this ash is, the ash of self. I do not know this officer by name. Information will hopefully have a description. “ “Mint could help the mouth. Instead of this water. The leaves don’t hurt medicines. Like a tea. There may be some tea bags in an office, or meeting room, or in another General’s keeping. Or a mess hall. “ Other runners could be sent. Or summoned and sent. So they were, with bandied names and words that didn’t much matter any more than other pieces of grammar. "Name?" He said at the poor thing. "Your name?" Maybe repeated a few times, after a few swabs, and the syllables would start making a little sense. "name?"
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Posted: Sat May 19, 2018 8:49 pm
He needed the water. The questions asked held nothing pressing; they could wait minutes, a half hour, an hour. He wanted to speak without dying, without tasting pain on his tongue. He wanted to taste. He wanted to move his tongue without tearing it. He wanted the green swab in his mouth and out of the general's huge hands. He wanted.
Faustite slowed marginally to the general's urgings. Foreign he was, accent unreadable to Faustite, but general nonetheless. The weight of those words pressed down into his eagerness, softening it.
"The Rift," the captain echoed, nodding curtly. In from subspace came her tablet, wielded nearly as a weapon itself, and she opened to a note-taking screen. All the information the general provided was tucked neatly away into succinct bullet-point notes. She echoed each in a mumble as she wrote them into the program. "Possibly lost. Unknownite." That left very little for clues, but she doubted there was need for more information so long as this captain didn't die. He could fill the rest in himself if brain function wasn't at risk. And there was always room for sitting down with him when this recovery was a little further along.
Her industrious fingers stopped moments later and she turned to regard the next nearest recruit. This one, just as fresh-faced as the last, looked much more panicked to be noticed by higher-ranking officers. "You heard the general. Go look for some mint. You'll probably have better luck with your search in the Barracks; some of the other officers like to store their food there."
In came the previous lieutenant, flush-faced, but with a starseed in one hand. "Here," he offered breathlessly.
"For the captain, not me."
The lieutenant's rouge deepened. "Oh, right. E-excuse me, Sir." Immediately at a loss, the lieutenant sidled next to the occupied gurney facing pipes, then reached over the top of the patient to avoid intruding on the general's space. But the angle was strange, stretched, and strained — he couldn't hold it for long.
The chants of 'name' became irksome, as with the starseed hovering over his head. Hunger drove for the topmost and he snatched at the gem with spindly awareness. He traded the sponge just long enough to teethe it, to taste better memories and return color to the world. It aided enough to tentatively avoid a throat bleed.
"Faustite," he confided, parched. Smoke began to stir. The pauses were long, necessarily interspersed with the foam wedge. "Youmafied Captain. Under General Schörl."
"That's something," the other captain observed as she again scribed on her tablet.
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Posted: Thu May 31, 2018 8:59 pm
Unknownite, scoff-snorted through his mind with the same gallows derision as first conceived the turn of name. The call signs of the Negaverse flaunted John, Joe, and Jane. The mystery name was enough of a lead, the commanding officer’s name made trivial sugar of the next steps. “Don’t give him another for a time. Yet.“ Unless it came down that a youma was exactly what was wanted of the youth, more than one in his state threatened as much. The boy admitted his partial youmafication freely, so it wasn’t like to be an escape-gone-wrong from experiment or punishment. There were possibilities that Titan couldn’t predict given the name of the C.O. He remembered that one from the SpecOps. His communicator pen came easily to hand, “Copy Schörl.” Acid honey oozed the line in a breath, “He who doth bestride the narrow world—what does Rhodes want?”“I have Captain Faustite, found. Infirmary. Stabilizing. “ A work in progress, unsurprising, given the lad’s Extra-ing a baker’s dozen. “Ten minutes.”“In your care, General. “ Titan offered the dipped swab anew to the sallow, surly small. Once it was taken, the general turned his attention to commandeering the pillow from the empty adjacent bed. Intervals of gentle lifting and wedging carefully placed it under the boy’s feet. “No avoidable exertion. Lift him for him. Cut the uniform off, he can resummon it later. “ The floundering officer, starseedless, flustered but produced an s-cut to get onto the work of patient visualization. Titanlåvenite reluctantly stood, looming, cupping a hand gently on the thin shoulder, “Good luck, Captain. “
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Posted: Thu May 31, 2018 10:25 pm
Even a starseed, so brilliant and glimmering and dappled with hope, failed to drown the lurking beast of dread. He felt its shadow fall over him at name and deepen at saccharine singsong through the clouded line. Jostle-jerks from cutting shears failed to shake it — the lieutenant only prepped him for dinner.
Stunned, startled, silent as he was with the wetted sponge tucked neatly into his mouth again, he couldn't voice his concerns. The dilation of fear now alien to him, he only looked after the general's shrinking back while cold dread encroached. He wanted, then, to ask for reassignment to the general's side. To return to the Rift. To be eaten by the youma bear that so found and sopped over his face. But words were frozen in a locked jaw, compartmentalized neatly for the danger they posed. Speak, and the beast would hear. Would smell his breath on the air.
Ten minutes. His breath caught, his bones choking on their own dust. Nothing spelled out of his pipes, even as itinerant hands jostled him up and out and about.
Starseed starlight simmered and faded. The simple gift of rescue made clear its costly price. Ten minutes wound him spring-tight, where dread found him by the thrumming of his heart. Many gold garments has my Mother.
Lovecraft loomed a little closer.
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