trans_9 | Don't Close Your Eyes [Open]

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Don't Close Your Eyes [Open]

Kelly was in her armor. The olive drab plates were polished to a glossy sheen, something that wasn't exactly practical if a soldier was trying to infiltrate...anything. But here on the ship, it hardly mattered. She could always dull the shine if the mission called for it. Behind her visor, her eyes were red and she knew her movements were sluggish. Or at least, what counted as sluggish for her. But she couldn't bring herself to sleep. The things she saw weren't things she would have willingly exposed herself to at any time. Chief Mendez had always said that a soldier's greatest weapon was their mind and that the most effective way to attack any enemy was to screw with that first. Apparently the Nightmare King agreed with that hypothesis, and she wasn't about to let him have the satisfaction of breaking her.

Still, even in wakefulness, she didn't feel safe. She's wandered in those 'waking dreams' that had been spreading, and it was beginning to get to the point where she didn't want to leave her armor. Here, inside the suit, she felt safe. She'd spent more than half her life behind the armor plate, and though she'd been trying to integrate with the crew outside it, for now she needed it. She felt at home. Still, her mind was foggy as she wandered aimlessly through the city. Her weapons were with her, loaded and ready, not that there was anything that would attack her here, but it was her routine. It was habit. She felt safer with then close by.

She couldn't tell how long she'd wandered here, among the buildings. It could have been hours, it could have been days, she simply kept walking, not caring where her feet brought her. Simply needing to stay awake. So it was that she found herself walking up toward the peak of a hill, the ruins of a familiar temple looming up ahead. Behind her visor, her lips curled in a wry smile as she ascended the cracked, weather-beaten marble steps and stepped onto the floor. She simply stood there for a long while, staring up at the broken statue of Athena that still stood on its pedestal. There was a sort of peace here. She didn't believe in gods, or fate, or destiny or any of that other crap, but in this place, she couldn't deny that there was...something that seemed to soothe her soul, a sort of calm that cut right through the exhaustion. She'd wondered of course. Magic existed, this Nightmare King was powerful beyond anything she'd faced yet. She'd seen things on the ship that she'd never believed existed. Who knew. Maybe in some far corner of some universe, the gods really did exist.

Shaking her head slowly at the thought, she reached up to pull off her helmet, leaning back against a wall and slowly lowering herself to the floor to sit. The armor plates clinked quietly against the floor as she set her helmet down, looking up at the statue of the goddess. Wisdom and war. Leaning back comfortably, she took a deep breath, closing her eyes. Maybe...just a few minutes. Maybe...

"Thank you." She whispered to the air.

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Asuka couldn't sleep. She didn't want to sleep. She remembered the nightmares with clarity. Every night, darkness, isolation - or her mother. She wasn't sure which one was worse. She'd started walking with no clear destination in mind - she just wanted to get away from everything. She'd been tempted to call Arha, but in the end she'd decided she didn't have to. She could deal with this on her own. Of course she could. She didn't need her right now. It was just some stupid dreams. She'd developed circles under her eyes and her already slender (and dangerously close to underweight) frame had gotten gaunter - of course, she was also in fairly decent shape. She worked out regularly now. Lack of sleep took it's tool, though.

She kept her gaze down, trying to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. She finally swayed to a stop and looked up, blinking, as she realized she come to the top of a little hill. A temple. Wait a moment. She blinked. She recognized this building. She'd seen it in photographs. With a faint sense of awe she climbed the steps, muscles protesting slightly, still sore from the last run. She ground to a halt a moment later as she spotted the older woman in dulled, green armor.

"...I didn't know someone else was here."

Kelly had heard the approaching footsteps of course. Dimly, somewhere in the back of her mind, she registered that someone was coming, but she was tired, and it was peaceful here, calm. She didn't want to open her eyes. Not yet. She just needed a few moments of rest. Just a little while.

She tried to ignore the sound, and was mildly successful. But when she heard the girl's voice, she had to look up. Her eyes opened slowly as she took in the slim young thing in front of her. Oh this girl. She remembered. Their last interaction hadn't been exactly...pleasant. Still, she could at least be cordial.

"Don't worry about it. It's a place of worship, everyone's welcome."

"Athena. Greek goddess of wisdom, right?" Asuka dredged the fact up from some part of her brain. She'd learned that somewhere. She couldn't remember where right now, but that hardly mattered. Probably when she was a kid. She took a few trailing steps forward, staring up at the statue. A moment later she glanced back at Kelly and blinked. She didn't really remember her - their encounter had been forgotten by Asuka. Just something to ignore and forget.

"And strategy. A lot of people forget that one. Though she was patron of a lot of things as well." She smiled easily, noting the lack of recognition in the girl's eyes. She was fine with that, a new start then. It wasn't in the Spartan's nature to deny anyone a second chance.

Asuka was just tired. She barely had the energy to be snappy at anyone these days. Still, she managed a grin up at the statue and laughed, "Dead religion, though. At least on my world."

She glanced at Kelly curiously, taking in her battle gear again. "What's with the armor?"

The Spartan raised a brow at that. It wasn't that she was a lover of the gods or anything like that. But she'd come to realize that there were some things bigger than mere mortals, and they at least afforded some respect. Something in the girl's tone irked her, but she kept her reaction down to the slightest, involuntary twitch. "You'd be surprised." Was all the blase retort she allowed herself.

Tilting her head, she touched her helmet and shrugged. A tricky motion in the motion augmenting armor, but she'd had a lot of practice. "It makes me feel safe, or at least at ease."

Asuka knew there were bigger fish out there (just being on this ship was proof enough of that). She just didn't like to think about it. The idea that humanity was just a group of insects on a grain of sand rubbed her the wrong way; she'd been preparing for most of her life to defend it, after all. She shrugged at Kelly's retort, turning away from the statue.

For a long moment she stared at Kelly curiously, a sense of recognition and familiarity flickering in her eyes. Perhaps some surprise as well. She rocked back on her heels and then up onto the balls of her feet before she settled again. Her gaze slid away from Kelly as she replied, voice muted. "I know what you mean..."

She regretted admitting that much as soon she'd said it and she hastily added a bit of a snap to her tone. "...not that I need any armor to make me feel better."

No, Asuka just needed a forty-meter tall robot.

Edited 2010-02-18 11:56 (UTC)

It wasn't something she expended much of her energy thinking about gods or higher beings. Since boarding Stacy, she'd come to the conclusion that they probably existed somewhere. And maybe they were as powerful and omnipotent as legends said. But she didn't figure they made much of an impact on things. At least, not here.

Catching that stare, her head tilted more at the girl and she raised a questioning eyebrow for a moment before glancing away as well. At that quiet admission, she nodded. Everyone had the things that made them feel at home after all. "I'm sure most people would."

Noting the snap, the corners of her lips twitched upward in an amused half-smirk. This girl reminded her of Lafiel. "Of course. I wouldn't have thought so."

To each their own after all.

Asuka was an agnostic more than anything else - having half the human race wiped out before you were even born leaves religion a rather sore point. She folded her arms with a faint 'hmmmph' and shrugged her shoulders. "I just want this stupid thing to be over. Why don't we just go in and beat this guy up?"

Kelly had never put too much thought into it. And in truth, it didn't bother her all that much. True, in her world the situation hadn't been all that much better, but she'd never looked to anyone other than herself and her brothers and sisters to solve her problems. "You and the rest of the crew. There's some doubt as to whether we could do that in our current condition. That, and I don't know the first thing about fighting magic. Do you?"

Asuka frowned. She hated admitting that she couldn't do something. She scuffed a shoe against the ground and muttered a reply, "No. Not really."

It couldn't be that hard, could it?

It was a sentiment that the Spartan could get behind one hundred percent. She could do anything she put her mind to. She had to be able to. But at the muttered reply, something like understanding clicked behind those brown eyes of hers. "Let the magic department do their thing. When we're good and ready, I'm sure we'll all get a piece of the action. Half a battle is in the mind, isn't it?"

They didn't know that. And that was the problem. Inadequate prep had caused too many missions to fail. She'd seen it all before.

Asuka managed to put a cocky grin back on her face. She pulled her shoulders back, hands restin defiantly on her hips. the teenager flipped some hair out of her face and let out a small laugh. "Exactly! You can't let yourself get psyched out!"

Of course, it was relatively easy to psych Asuka out when you got down to it, but there wasn't much you could do about it.

Kelly couldn't help but smirk at that look, shaking her head amusedly at the girl. Really if she wasn't so cocky, and...stand-offish this was probably the type of girl most people would have enjoyed spending time with. "Yeah. That. Keeping your head in any situation is the key to getting out alright."

That fact would only have served to amuse the Spartan even more.

It might have been a few minutes, or it could have been longer before she wasn't alone anymore. Hard to tell with time on this ship.

"Never pegged you as being religious."

When he spoke, the soldier nearly started, jerking out of her half-awake state. Sitting up a little straighter, she ran a hand through her hair and turned to face the man, a wry, half-embarrassed smile flitting across her features. She was being caught of guard like that a lot more recently. She really needed her sleep.

"Do you need to be religious to enjoy the spirituality of a place?"

Leon shrugged, "Not really, though I suppose it helps."

She leaned her head back against the wall, shutting her eyes again and shrugging as well. "There's just something peaceful about this place. It's calm here."

"If you say so." Not that Leon couldn't appreciate the place on that kind of level, but he was acutely aware of the Nightmare King digging his way into his brain. Nowhere felt peaceful to him, since he wasn't at peace inside his own head.

"When you're done resting, though, I'll need you back out in the chaos."

After a few minutes, a little and familiar voice piped up. Quietly, and with as much tiredness as she'd allowed into her voice, Sherry read aloud from a corner of the statue of Athena where she'd hidden herself. The electronic reader in her hands lit her face up in blues, and it seemed like she'd read this passage sixty times silently. Maybe reading it aloud would help her get to the next paragraph.

She was going to get on to The Grapes of Wrath even if it killed her.

"'Thereon Athena went close up to the son of Peleus and said, "Noble Achilles, favoured of heaven, we two shall surely take back to the ships a triumph for the Achaeans by slaying Hector, for all his lust of battle. Do what Apollo may as he lies grovelling before his father, aegis-bearing Zeus, Hector cannot escape us longer. Stay here and take breath, while I go up to him and persuade him to make a stand and fight you.' ...hm. She's a stubborn goddess, too, I guess."

Hearing that voice, Kelly raised her head, eyes scanning the broad expanse of ancient floor. She could hear the fatigue in that little voice, and it made her frown for a moment before she stood, picking up her helmet under her arm and walking over toward the sound of the girl's voice.

Finding the girl, she smiled setting her helmet down and climbing up onto the statue's pedestal to curl up against one huge leg, resting easily to listen to Sherry read. It was a passage she knew of course, one of her favourites really. But hearing the clear, sweet tones of this little girl's voice reading it made her smile. At that last comment, she couldn't help a quick laugh.

"You read that very well, Sherry."

Sherry brushed her bangs out of her eyes and looked up at Kelly, "Thank you." She puffed with pride at the compliment. It's one thing to be smart. It's totally another to be smart and recognized for it. She liked that feeling, though, and didn't think about the darker parts that sometimes came with praise.

"What are you doing here?" She'd been running around the city, mostly by herself, sometimes with Yuri or Vega. It's... not better, maybe, by herself, but it does keep her from snapping at her friends about how dumb they can be sometimes.

"You're welcome." She smiled easily. Kelly had never thought about words of affirmation before. In the military, no matter how well you did, you could always be better. The higher ups only seemed to notice when you messed up. Not that a Spartan ever messed up.

"I like this place." She raised her head, taking a look around the ruin. "It's peaceful here, calm. Do you feel it?" Kelly knew all to well the feeling. She'd snapped at enough people as it was and wasn't keen on adding anymore to that list. But it seemed that despite her tiredness, Sherry was in no danger of being snapped at.

"I know that I can hide in here and be okay, so... maybe?" Sherry hadn't been one for spiritualism, her parents placing her firmly in the reality of the situation and the world. There was no God, there were only people, and easily gullible masses that served under the elite.

She shrugged a little, unsure of herself.

"Well, that's one way to look at it, I guess." After all she'd seen, back home and even on board the ship, the Spartan had to admit that there had to be some higher power at work. Not matter how anyone tried to say otherwise. What else could have brought them all together? One tiny puzzle piece out of the place. What if the Daligig had come too late? What if there had been an equipment malfunction? So many things that could have gone wrong, but didn't. And here they were, together, given a chance to fight.

She smiled slightly, shrugging as well. She didn't fully understand it either. All her life she'd been taught to rely on nothing but her mind and her teammates. Gods, and spirits, and fate. Those sorts of things still went over her head. But she felt...something. Maybe she was just tired though.

Sherry nodded quietly in agreement and yawned, looking at the letters on the screen and sighing. "I'll read to you, it's sometimes easier to understand what I'm reading if I say it out loud."

The little girl sat closer to Kelly and ahemmed softly before continuing. "'Thus spoke Minerva.'" The little girl paused and pointed towards the statue of the goddess. "That's her. Continuing, 'Achilles obeyed her gladly, and stood still, leaning on his bronze-pointed ashen spear, while Minerva left him and went after Hector in the form and with the voice of Deiphobus. She came close up to him and said, "Dear brother, I see you are hard pressed by Achilles who is chasing you at full speed round the city of Priam, let us await his onset and stand on our defence."'

"'And Hector answered, "Deiphobus, you have always been dearest to me of all my brothers, children of Hecuba and Priam, but henceforth I shall rate you yet more highly, inasmuch as you have ventured outside... the wall for my... sake when all the others... remain inside."'" Sherry's voice became softer and softer as she started to fall asleep, her head sliding over and coming to a rest on the Spartan's breastplate.

Maybe this time, she'd get to fight back in her dreams.

Obi-Wan had always made of himself a man of faith. It was true that he'd been trained to it, but from the very first he'd had no trouble trusting the call of the Force in his heart. Yoda had taught him to respect those who heard the same call, and Qui-Gon had taught him to extend that respect to those who followed it in deed, if not in name.

There is no one way that is more right than any other.

Obi-Wan watched Kelly settle herself against the pillar— he'd been in this temple for a good hour, wandering through the pillars and thinking of friends long dead. It would do him no harm to watch another of those friends and guard her rest. Indeed, could he do any less?

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Don't Close Your Eyes [Open]

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