trans_9 | Get you Gone

"Oh!" The word popped out caught between delight and wariness with a huge helping of curiosity. Was it like armor, then? She peered at it this way and that, touching different parts to see how it all worked and fit, her fingers gently probing and her expression lit up like she'd been given a pouch full of water after days of thirst.

"The words make it go? Mm, powerful words, then," she asked, fixing her eyes on Roxie for a moment. "Is it magic?" Magic was not always magic, but she would say the Force was like magic. It was beyond a certain amount of understanding -- a living force. She lowered her voice a bit.

"Clever thing," she said nudging the main body with a fingertip.

"The words don't really matter," Roxie says, keeping a close eye on Arha's arm. Against her touch, the octopus-thing moves like a living thing, though the four arms stay tightly grasped onto her. And it's warm to the touch now...

"Some of my magic, mixed with a few other things. Try and pick something up with it."

It was definitely warm, now, she notice.

Arha tilted her chin slightly and slid the cloth belt from her waist. The attached crysknife, however, she freed from the belt and kept it in its sheath. It was the belt that she reached for with the oct-o-pooze thing attached to her. Safety came first, as always.

And with her movements—

It's like a phantom limb: the sensation's almost-but-not-quite there as the four poorly-coordinated arms twist in response to her intent towards the belt...

It's the kind of thing that seems like it would take focus and practice to use properly—not that that's at all unusual for a Bene Gesserit.

Oh, that was interesting. Arha brought her focus in sharply, concentrating on the belt. She would have to see just how much she had to concentrate to get it to work. Hyperthreading had its uses, working the oct-o-pooze was just another layer of mental control. If it could grab things, she wondered what else it could, feasibly, do.

For the moment, though, she honed her focus on the belt, and her eyes were blue-within-blue slits. Fascinating.

It's like working with new, unfamiliar limbs--through distant, strange channels of sensation she can feel what the metal touches... With four avenues of motion and a flexible, rearrangeable carapace, the mapping of what goes to what is far from inuitive.

"Like it?" Roxie asks quietly.

"I do," Arha said, flashing a smile. "It will probably take a bit to learn how to use properly, but I do like it. The flexibility seems to indicate that there is more to it than on first appearance. I assume it can be used for offensive and defensive purposes, one one had the proper scope of its use."

Roxie nods. "I've practiced some, and it's very flexible. Just... Kind of hard to use."

Her expression suggests that she likes to stick to rather more straightforward methods.

"Perhaps it is the approach that is wrong," Arha said in a soft voice. "Or perhaps you simply need to get used to thinking of it as a part of you before it becomes second nature." She brushed her fingers over the main body thoughtfully.

The thing seems almost... alive, even with the control. It ripples a little under Arha's touch.

"I already have a weapon that's a part of me," Roxie says lightly, carefully self-deflecting the resentment that popped up at her first suggestion. A hand goes to her neck, retrieving a little silver bell on a chain.

"Mm, then perhaps it was waiting for someone with the proper touch?" she offered. "I think, after seeing what I have on this ship, that there are things that may wait for a particular person to respond to the right way. Is such a possibility?"

Arha noticed the rippling and rested her fingertips against it for a moment. It could be alive in a sense, but she didn't know how. Her eyes flicked to the bell for a moment and then nodded.

"That might be the case," Roxie concedes, and that relaxes her a little, as the topic shifts away from her perceived inadequacies. "I've heard many stories of things that have languished for ages before being found by their destined holders."

Roxie's eyes follow Arha's fingertips. Something about her suggests she knows every detail of how it works—even if she wouldn't be able to quite explain properly.

"One does know know of such things until they have found their place," Arha said, flicking the belt from the grasping tentacles of the oct-o-pooze into her other hand. It was a great deal of intent, but with a split mind, Arha could manage it well. She took but a moment to flick her sheathed knife into her other hand as well and then secure it to her cloth belt. The empty space where her other blade had been felt odd, but it had gone with Luke and thus she felt better for it.

The oct-o-pooze was beginning to feel better on her arm as the moments passed.

"Try re-shaping it," Roxie suggests. "Make it into a sword. The arms can all panel together..." She gestures loosely.

Arha saw it in her mind, then, this oct-o-pooze sword--the way it should be. The idea of it came in the flick of her wrist, a twist of her mind, a reshaping. The eagerness of it solidified the phantom limb feeling until she could feel exactly what she wanted. Flick. The arms aligned, snapping out, a sword-like extension of her own body. Arha delighted in the response time, pleased that it had done what she asked.

She held it up, studying its angles for a moment and then moved in an intricate series of katas. Block, block, parry, thrust, spin, block. The oct-o-pooze sword flowed with her, wielded with grace and confidence. Yes. She did like this thing.

It felt...right.

She swung back into place before Roxie, her face flushed as she grinned.

"It feels natural," Arha said.

"How about a shield?"

Roxie is—curious, is not quite the word. And not quite prideful, but it's something in-between the two. Even if she's not using it, that's her work, or enough that she'd feel comfortable claiming it as such; she turned a ruined mess back into a working, beautiful artifact.

And a little jealousy joins the emotions creeping in at the edges of her face.

There.

A flash of insight, of something that could be a fan-like shield, one with a bit of curve on the ends to deflect outward and up. There was a rustle of metal, a shing!, and then there it was; a fan-like, interlocked shield that would do well enough to protect Arha herself and a patient.

Good oct-o-pooze, she thought. It was light, but she knew it would hold--it, like Arha herself, was deceptively strong. She could feel it in the metal and in the way it held fast to her arm.

"This will be good for protection," Arha mused and let the shield drop. The tentacles flashed back, winding themselves around her arm and over her hand like a gauntlet. "Especially should I need it to shield a patient while I stabilize them."

She nodded to Roxie.

"This is a beautifully done job," Arha said, her voice warm. "You have repaired it in the best way."

And that defuses most of it, all at once, though the pride wells up a little stronger.

"You'll have to feed it," Roxie says. "Precious metals if it gets damaged, bones or coral if we can ever get any... and it'll take some fresh blood every so often to stay healthy over the long term."

"Such as it should be," Arha said with a nod. "All good things have a price to bear. If it needs blood, I hope it shall take mine without qualms. I am most worried about about damage, as I know little about how to obtain such things at present--save perhaps in the Sensorium. I have to wonder if that may work."

Her expression shifted to curiosity.

"I suppose I shall see about such things as they arise, but it may take what it needs. I shall be mindful to take care of it."

"I don't think bullets would hurt it, but I haven't tested enough to be sure of much past that," Roxie says. "You might be able to use some of the extra stuff from the armory nobody's ever going to use, but I don't know if there's anything with a high enough precious metal content for that to be efficient."

"I will have to see what is available, then," Arha said. "As it can be difficult to find metals of a high enough caliber, perhaps I may be able to ask Stacy, at some point, about such. The other alternative would be an off-world excursion, assuming wherever we stop is some place with access. I wish to be prepared."

Get you Gone

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject