trans_9 | Tavros: What problems? [OPEN]

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Tavros: What problems? [OPEN]

How long has he been on the ship, a couple of weeks? Three? Time's flown by for the dorky little troll, and he's stopped keeping track. It doesn't seem to matter much, anyway. People go about their business, drama rises and falls, and for the most part he stays out of it.

As much as he's gotten to know and like this mostly-human crew, he has to admit it sucks being the only Alternian on the ship. He'd love to see another grey face or be able to talk about his custodian without having to stop and explain what they are. And of course, there's the matter of the evaluations. He has no idea what to expect or what's going to happen if he fails. When he fails, maybe. Conversations with Alex have made it obvious to him how different troll culture is from the basic human one that governs the ship. Are they going to judge him by their standards? Will he be culled if he answers wrong?

But enough of these depressing thoughts. Alex has been spending time with Luna lately, which has left Tavros free to explore the ship by himself. Today he's decided to see what these sensoriums can really do. First comes the easy part, reconstructing his hive and the area around it purely from memory. Barn, cliffs, and far below, the strip of beach and glittering dark ocean beyond. He's done this before. The darkness is just as comforting as it was the first time.

Now for the hard part.

Tavros closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Happy thoughts, that's how it works, think of good things, and...

He doesn't open his eyes until he feels the wheelchair drop away beneath him. He's still amazed to find himself suspended in the air, nearly seven feet off the ground.

He's flying!

He can't help it. Even homesickness and evaluations can't bring him down now. Grinning happily, Tavros takes off, swooping this way and that, only stopping near cloud level to have another look around. The forest, the ocean, the distant glow and thrum of a city just beyond the horizon, and above him...

Tavros smiles. He's spent enough time staring at these stars to replicate some of the constellations without Stacy's help. And let's not forget the moons, the huge baleful green one and the other tiny and pink.

None of this is going to fix any of his problems, but as far as distractions go, rearranging the stars is a pretty good one.

((OOC: Feel free to hop in! I'm never too busy for another thread. And don't worry, your character should be able to float or "walk" on the open air near him, unless you particularly feel like having them drop like a stone, in which case Tavros will do his best to save them. XD))

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Tavros isn't the only one thinking about the evaluations. Hit Girl, who made sure NOT to let on she was Mindy to anyone but that Sasami girl so far, was making sure that the bandages she had would stay. Like she'd said earlier, she didn't like questions and she definitely didn't want to be bothered by anyone trying to get all close to her now. She might be stuck on the ship and she may have to eventually listen to the stupid governing body here, but she damn well didn't have to like it.

The Sensoriums, she found, were actually an excellent way to get rid of some of that tension, not to mentioning kicking a little fake ass when necessary. When she walked in, she found it was being used: a moment later, she also found she was floating off of the ground.

"The fuck?!" She exclaimed, and shattering that illusion, plummeted.

Really Mindy, you should have a better imagination than this.

Tavros turns in surprise. He hadn't been expecting anyone to show up, and he was willing to leave if someone else wanted the room. He smiles, recognizing Hit Girl from earlier, but before he can say anything she has her outburst and starts one hell of a dramatic descent.

Tavros stares in horror, then dives after the girl. He's not sure if the sensoriums can kill, but he doesn't want to be the idiot who finds out the hard way.

God, she's falling fast. Tavros narrows his eyes and moves faster. This was his dream, he built it, and he'll be damned if anyone's getting hurt in it.

He catches her by the arms and carefully pulls into a gentle stop a couple hundred feet above the ground. He hovers still, holding her at arms length, staring wide-eyed. Breathing slightly harder from fear and adrenaline, he finally finds his voice.

"Are, are you okay? I'm, uh, I'm really sorry about this..."

She was falling pretty fast, too fast to even appreciate the wonderful scenery and cursing up a storm when she was grabbed up by a pretty familiar person. She looked up and saw that it was Tavros, the troll guy that she met from before. Wiping her mouth, she adjusted the purple hair and the skirt, almost glaring.

"Are you telling me you can fly now?" she asked, panting. "What's going on here?"

Tavros is starting to settle down already, though he still looks upset. He hadn't meant to scare anyone.

"No, uh..." oh wow, how awkward. "I'm really sorry, if, if that scared you. I can't fly, not, normally. But in here, I thought, maybe I could at least, um, try. So I did." He grins. "And it works. You could fly too, that is, if you wanted to."

Huh. Well, that was comforting. She should have remembered that this was the Sensoriums anyway, and that she couldn't be killed. Then again, if it was true that she could fly...

She rose high in the air, grinning. It had always kind of been a kind of dorky dream, to be able to fly like some of the superheroes in the comic books, and seeing as how the jet pack was gone, why not?

She got higher and higher, now being able to fully appreciate the background around her. "Hey," she called out, "where are we anyway?"

Tavros grins too and flies up after her. There's nothing wrong with dorky dreams. Flight happens to be something he's been fascinated with since he was just a wiggler.

He pauses, still slightly beneath her, as she asks her question. "Oh, uh, this?" He gestures around, looking a bit sheepish. "This is, Alternia, where I'm from. I was just, um, messing around, though. You can change it, if you want."

"Nah," she said, grinning. "If we were to change to where I'm from, we'd probably have to avoid the skyscrapers and the smog. I've lived in the city all of my life. This is, like, the first time I've really seen a place this that looked this...natural, I guess."

She shrugged. "So...wanna tell me about this place?"

"Really? I never, uh, lived anywhere but out in nature. Alex showed me what your, human cities, look like, last time we came here, though."

He pauses, not sure where to start. He gestures far below them, at a dark structure with blue windmill blades.

"That's my hive, down there. It's... where I've lived, with my custodian, since I was little. And, my jousting dummy, and the barn, where I, uh, sometimes kept animals."

Fate normally didn't enter a Sensorium when someone was using it, but there were rare exceptions. She wasn't that surprised when she stepped out in the open air; her magic immediately kicked in, so she was floating in midair under her own power. She looked all around, admiring the view of the area she had walked into... the twin moons almost reminded her of Mid-Childa's, though they didn't nearly dominate the sky like her planet's.

And then she saw Tavros fly by, and her smile widened. She only needed to glance once at the troll boy to tell how happy he was; that pure joy one feels during times like this is almost impossible not to notice.

So when he paused, she called out, waving to him. "Hello, Tavros!"

Tavros started and turned, surprised. Oh wow, he must not have locked the door. Whoops! Good thing Fate doesn't seem too put off by the fact that the sensoriums were occupied.

"Oh, uh, hey Fate." He grinned back at her. She was one of the first people he'd spoken to on the ship, and she'd done a lot to put his mind at ease about being stuck here. He'd been hoping he'd run into her again.

But still, if she had important business here...

"Um, you can, have the sensoriums, if you want. I was just..."

He glances around. Sky above, ground far below, stars glimmering across the darkened sky.

"...uh, trying something different."

"Oh no, you don't have to change it! I just got a little curious." Fate said. She looked around again, her smile not fading one bit.

"Is this your home? It's beautiful."

Tavros grins, a little shy suddenly.

"Yeah, um, this is where, I lived. Before I got on the, uh, ship, I mean."

He points down at the structure with the blue windmill blades.

"That's my, hive, down there."

Custodians? Hives? The Hive made sense, but why would he be with a custodian?

"So you live with a guy that cleans and stuff," she said aloud. "And a barn. that's pretty sweet. I don't have any neat stories like that. I just lived with dad in the city. Nothing like here, but we liked it."

She shrugged. "Show me around?"

With most of her friends preoccupied, Starfire has been free to explore on her own. She's making it her personal mission to learn as much as she can about her fellow crew members and how they all fit together.

Today, her investigation starts in a Sensorium chamber with no ground beneath her feet. Instead, it's a beautiful sky stretching on seemingly endlessly.

Grinning with delight, she swoops into the air as naturally as she breathes, ready to meet another crew member. His world, as she sees it, is...

"It is beautiful," she whispers, admiring the view and hoping he'll elaborate.

"It looks like a nice place!" Fate said. It looked a little unusual to be a home, but there totally wasn't anything wrong with that.

"It's pretty big. Do you have a large family?" She knew that family was a sensitive subject for a lot of people on the ship, especially those that have recently woken up... but hey. Talking helps almost anything, right?

"Oh, uh... sure. Oh, and a custodian is, more like a... maybe I should have, umm, called him a guardian."

He looks around. The ocean is incredibly dangerous, and he doesn't have very good memories of the cliff or the beach far below, so he leads her in the other direction, toward the forest. The trees are strange, blue-ish trunks and leaves that are closer to magenta in color. "That's the forest," he explains, though it's obvious it's a forest and he feels a bit dumb for even saying that. "Uhh, it's, not someplace where I go a lot, but one of my friends, um, has a treehive, somewhere deep in it. She's really--"

Something obscured by the foliage far below bellows, an echoing roar answered by a similar one farther away. Tavros stops, a little surprised. "Uh, wow, I forgot those were there," he says, a little apologetically.

Alternian hives ought to look unusual; they're designed when the trolls are still extremely young. Tavros' is pretty small and plain compared to some of the elaborate undersea castles, sprawling treehives, and cliffside mansions his friends have.

"Trolls don't, have families," he explains, still with a smile. He's used to explaining this one; it doesn't bother him. "Not in the, conventional human sense. We don't, um, trace that stuff, because we all come from the same, uh, mother grub. We live in hives, that we design ourselves, uh, with a custodian. I mean guardian," he quickly corrects himself.

Tavros stops pushing stars around with his hands and glances over, a bit startled. He's a bit more surprised when he realizes she's more humanoid than he is but definitely not human. She seems friendly, though.

"Uhh, thanks. It's called Alternia. Um... I don't think, we've met."

"We have not," Starfire agrees, "but we may do so now! I am Starfire, and it is wonderful to meet you."

She dives right into things, doesn't she? "Could you manipulate the stars in your Alternia?"

She looks quite tempted to try it herself. She's flown among the stars, sure, but played with them?

"Starfire? Is that, uh, a roleplaying name?"

What? The kid knows trolls who call themselves Mindfang and Dualscar when they play their games. It's not too farfetched in his mind.

"And I'm Tavros, uh, Tavros Nitram. I can't... mess with the stars, where I live. I was just, um, doing it in here, for fun."

Go for it, Starfire! You'll mess up his accuracy, but he doesn't care. It'll be gone when he leaves anyway.

"No, it is the common translation of my name. I am called Koriand'r by my people," she explains.

"Oh!" It certainly did look like fun. She loved fun. "So if I imagine a star appearing..."

The Sensoriums are still fairly new to her, so it takes a moment before a single green star forms between her hands. It's beautiful, but not quite as hot as a genuine star.

Giggling, she starts to carefully bounce it around.

"You... don't have a family?" Aaaand Fate's mothering instincts are kicking in! Sure, Tavros seems fine and happy, but the thought of a child growing up without any family at all breaks her heart just a little.

"A guardian huh?" She nodded, still trying to wrap her mind around the way that things were. What the hell did she know about his world anyway? Everything was a learning experience but she was a New Yorker and not a weak ass one: she would adapt.

The roar she hears too, and already her curiosity is perked. "Let's go over there then!"

"But that's, uh, a..."

Normally, Tavros would never have the guts to go near a musclebeast. This isn't cowardice; for once it's a healthy sense of self-preservation. However, this is still a simulation he controls, and it's not like even a freakishly strong horse monster can win against him here.

Well, against them. She seems pretty into this.

"Well, okay, let's go, then!"

His lance appears in his hand again. It's not part of the simulation; inventory systems are awesome.

As they swoop in lower, Hit Girl gets her first visual. It's bipedal, undeniably horselike, put together like a bodybuilder, and huge. It's nearly as big as the tree it just uprooted.

Tavros doesn't look too sure about this.

"I think I should, um, get rid, of that thing."

Tavros misunderstands her expression. Of course he has family; his guardian's still alive ~~for the time being~~. He also has a bunch of haphazardly-related ectobiological brothers and sisters, but he has yet to find out about that.

"I have my guardian," he reminds her. "Uh, he's taken care of me, since I was just a wiggler. He's not on the ship, which is too bad, but, um, I'm hoping that maybe he'll hatch in soon."

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Tavros: What problems? [OPEN]

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