trans_9 | All These Futures Turned to Dust [ Open ]

Red Snout was brooding. He'd gotten quite good at it over the last several days and today was no different. He had appropriated a sensorium room and was now sprawled in front of a simulation of his home. A dusty clearing near the edge of a wood that slowly turned into a sprawling grassland, a den sug into the side of a low hill. A breeze whispered through the trees over head and the faint sound of running water could be heard as well. The raptor himself was in front of the empty den. He laid there, tail curled slightly as he stared out into the trees.

Gone. All gone. Everything he had loved, protected and lived for. His world was quite literally shattered and there was nothing he could do about it. His chieftain, gone. His close companion and sometimes mate, gone. All of the little ones, the future of their people...gone. The thought was too painful to bear. So he hunkered lower in the dust and grass and stared listlessly off into the woods, hoping to somehow defeat this malaise that had settled on him over the past few days.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Goliath steps into the Sensorium, curious as he always is about the worlds the rest of the crew summon. He smells life on the air, though he sees no one immediately, but this does not look like an environment a human would summon. There are no buildings. No stones shaped by anything save rock and wind.

He finds himself admiring the view of the greenery in the sunlight, and in the process spots the raptor, curled before the den.

He does not recognize the creature. Literature, not paleontology, is his passion. But there is something that reminds him of his kin in the being's features, as in completely different ways, there are similarities between the shapes of humans and gargoyles. His curiosity only grows.

"This world is beautiful," he says, watching the creature to see how it will react, standing in the doorway where he entered, wings folded deferentially to acknowledge his intrusion on what passes, for the time, as another's territory.

Red Snout stirred, lifting his head to give a weak glare at the intruder. He did not possess enough ill will towards his crewmates to muster much more than that, most of his turbulent emotions being turned towards what was lost.

"Was beautiful."

Goliath acknowledges the correction with a soft, rumbling "hmm."

Again, he lifts his wings to shade his eyes from the sun. The greenery is that much more vibrant in the light, and it is lovely, but it is bright.

"And for your loss, I am sorry. As I am for mine."

They are bound, this crew, by nothing if not loss.

"There should be noise. Talking, fighting, yelling, laughter. There is none because they are not here. I do not wish to create them from Stacy...it would not be correct." Slowly, the raptor unfolds himself and begins to pace in front of the dim entrance to the den.

"It would not do their memories justice," he agrees, before considering the concept a little longer on his own.

"This place - it can call up memories. Does that include our families? Members of our clan?"

"It can. Or so I have heard. I have no desire to try. It would not...it would not feel right." Red Snout snorted again.

Haku wasn't sure what he'd expected, wandering into the Sensoriums like a curious human after the smell of food, but it hadn't been this virgin landscape. It gloried in it's wildness, grassland laid out like the forest's lazy lover, the wandering trails made by clawed feet rather than those with boots or shoes or wheels. It was beautiful, in it's ragged ugliness, and for someone who had seen almost nothing but perfect manicured loveliness in ten years, it was like the first breath of water-smell after an eternity in the desert. Two-legged, he paced the trails and found— Red Snout?

"You are mourning," He noted, after some time standing in silence, "But you don't know if they're gone, yet."

Red Snout raised his head, examining the new intruder. A human child. But unlike a child. The way he held himself, his gaze, his scent--like running water, not the sweat and scent that pervaded human kind--none of it was normal. None the less, he snorted, shook his head slowly.

"It is gone. They have said it is gone."

"They have said it was taken," Haku corrected with unflinching arrogance. No, this was not a human child at all. He stared, boldly, at Red Snout in return.

"It can be restored. The living sleep," He reminded. He would not brook despair in the face of this. Homes died, humans died, even gods died, but death wasn't something you could return from, not as you once were. Haku had never despaired except in his own heart while he stood and worked and bled for Yubaba's whip.

"I do not wish to return to that. I would rather die here, on my feet then return to that darkness, never knowing if I should awake again!" He snorted and began an irritable, jerky sort of hop-skip, moving from side to side.

"Gone! All of it gone, you heard what was said as well as I, whatever you are."

"And what about the ones still sleeping?" Haku challenged, taking a step forward with hackles raised. This was a creature of battle? Then let him see it as a fight, "Will you let them die, because you gave up?"

"I have not given up!" Red Snout bristled and let out an angry hiss. He didn't care what or who this intruder was, no one called Red Snout a coward!

"I am mourning for my lost kin! And you have no right to speak to me in such a way. If you wish to face me, then continue your insults!"

It just so happened that Kohaku had no intention of fighting Red Snout— but anger was good. Mourning was what faded you away, and Haku had no real notion of kin, except that some mortals would go through any trial to save their parents.

But Red Snout didn't know that.

For a few seconds he stared at the bristling raptor, then all in an instant transformed in a rattle of seashells and a ripple of white scales. Haku was a river-Kami, and a dragon, and he was bigger. But he only snapped once, and not dangerously, only as a display of threat before leaping into the air.

All These Futures Turned to Dust [ Open ]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

argh, why is this so late?!