trans_9 | after my picture fades and darkness has turned to gray [Closed]

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after my picture fades and darkness has turned to gray [Closed]

This had gone on long enough. The last week, Meluly had been deflecting all inquiries away with an AI answering service, to the point where even the non-sentient machine was annoyed with it. She'd wracked her brains until the Birkin girl (one to watch out for!) had found a loophole in the machine's command to not tell anyone my location. That was as specific as the thing had gotten though, and so she'd been forced to stalk the third level, knowing she was there somewhere but becoming rapidly more frustrated with her lack of progress. She saded off the final portion of the level map on her omnicomm. One more door to check.

She heard a small noise from weapons and possessions...

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Nobody ever really comes down the sets of racks and stacks that Luly has hidden herself in. Why would they, after all, when all it is is hats? Endless rows and rows and rows of what must be thousands, no, tens of thousands of hats in every shape and style and variety.

Luly has dug herself in under one of the racks, a tapestry taken from the city level wrapped tightly around herself. And she's sniffling, softly, when Lafiel passes, and otherwise she wouldn't have been noticed at all...

Lafiel barely notices the rows. She barely even notices the small, sad sound. Certainly one who wasn't born with the Abriel clan's legendary hearing wouldn't have.

But she was and she does. She pokes her head around the cramped corridor, not caring about thousands of hats on branching racks.

"Meluly?"

That draws a long snort, of the trying-to-pull-back-tears kind, and Meluly retreats a little further under the shelving she's nestled into, trying to squirm away from Lafiel.

Lafiel steps forward hesitantly. "Luly?"

Another couple steps.

"...Reiozy?"

That stops the sniffling, and Luly tries to clear her throat, but it turns into a choking cough.

She twists, and the tapestry shuffles around with her under there, and she leans out just far enough for Lafiel to catch sight of one red eye. "Go awaaaay," Luly whines, her voice rough. She sounds noticeably dehydrated, at the very minimum.

Lafiel stops, taps her foot against the bulkhead. "Do you really want me to? I will if you tell me firmly."

"Nnh!" Luly half-coherently whines, retreating again under it. She doesn't really know what she wants, it seems. "You, you don't want to talk to me right now," she mumbles, on the edge of crying again.

Abriel pride mixes with concern into a sickly melange. "Don't tell me what I don't want. What I want is to find out what's wrong with my friend and make sure she is feeling alright."

"I'm fine, leave me alone," Luly mumbles, though she doesn't put much effort into it.

"I don't want to talk to anybody," she adds, her voice rasping a little. From the sound of it the subtext doesn't include Lafiel as 'anybody', though...

"Alright fine, I will. But from what I understand of your culture, it is considered very rude to make your reiozy worry like you just did." She spun smartly on her heel...

"...wait!"

Luly lets out a sharp hiss of breath as she pulls back again, though for a long moment the purple of her hair was quite visible.

"I don't want to worry you," she whsipers, mouth dry.

Lafiel turns back around (a hand and hair brushes a bowler) and leans down. "Then maybe you shouldn't have disappeared for a week during a battle. I didn't know where you where, if you'd been hurt, killed or were having another episode! How thoughtless can you possibly be?!"

"I... I'm sorry," Luly sniffles, breath unsteady. It sounds almost like she's ready to start crying. "I didn't want you see me like thih, ih-ihhhs, hnnnnf," she gets out, snorting back another sniffle.

"You must have forgotten. I've seen you in worse condition." She lays a slender hand on her shoulder.

Luly is mostly limp. It's nothing like the tensed-up mess she was with her last... attack.

"How long has it b—" she starts, and breaks into a dry cough, curling up on herself, face wet from half-tears and old sweat.

This honestly never got any easier, seeing her like this. "What happened this time?" She said, putting her arm around both shoulders and gathering her into a rather awkward, wobbly hug.

"Nuh-hnnn-hnnnn, nothing," Luly snuffles, squishing in against Lafiel tightly. "Just, the thing with the Yeerk got me thinking..."

Thinking in bad directions, apparently.

Lafiel plopped down (a dozen newsboy and dredloc caps bobbed) and squeezed her around the shoulders. "Thinking...?" There were several ways that could go.

"It's, well," she snorts back more tears, "they only cared about what he was, not who he was..."

Luly's grip firms up suddenly to squeeze Lafiel back very tightly before she relaxes up some.

"What he w...Oh. Prejudice." Lafiel's first exposure to interspecies strife on a more personal level had been on Sufugnoff. She heard Abh referred to as 'organic machinery'. It was natural that the Nazzadi, similar people but forced to live with those who hated them, would encounter strife. That didn't make it right though. "What happened?"

"N-nothing," Luly protests weakly, still pressing her head in against Lafiel. "Just, when I was younger..." She breaks off to struggle back another snort.

Lafiel thinks back...All she knows is a few days on Sufugnoff and Sobasch's stories...And they had the might of an empire to deter any locals with pitchforks and torches.

The Nazzadi have no such help.

She lets her hand rest on that deep space-black shoulder and tries her best comforting smile. She's still a little awkward with this. She's a soldier, unused to dealing with problems that can't be blasted away. "Do...do you want to tell me about it?"

"I, I think I just want to hold onto you a while," Luly says. She trembles as she tries to cling tighter to Lafiel. "I'm so tired..."

One might wonder how long she's been awake in there, crying.

Which she did as soon as the trembling eased. She made reassuring noises, stroked the dark purple hair. "How long have you been here?" Luly seemed to be showing symptoms like battle exhaustion...

"I... I dunno," Luly mumbles, her eyes closing as she clings tightly onto Lafiel. "A day... or, or three?"

"Or three?" Lafiel pulls abruptly away then stands. "Ooooohh...!" She's cutely petulant (perhaps she's keeping the full force of the Abriel temper on a leash for her), cheeks puffed with irritation. "Stay here!"

And she's gone down the hall, running to get glop and water from the nearest orifices/dispensers. She'll be back in a minute and thrust them at her in a way that won't take no for an answer. "Eat and drink."

Luly chokes a little down, taking it slowly... she's gone through food-water deprivation before and the military training sticks with her despite her current state of mind.

"...sorry..." she mumbles weakly, shivering. "I, I felt like I just wanted to jump off a bridge..."

Lafiel helps her get the rest of the water and slop down slowly. "It's a good thing we don't have any then. Next time though you need to call me."

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after my picture fades and darkness has turned to gray [Closed]

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