[open] say hello to my little friend

[ceruleo]

Who: Lance (ceruleo) and others
When: Day 26+ (one backdated prompt)
Where: In the little pockets of backwards time scattered across the city!
What: Lance is having Adventures, and you're invited!

1. CLOSED TO CLARA - backdated to Day 21

[ Frustraton is a heavy weight. Two trips he's done out of the city now, and he feels like he's combed every street, looked into every house. He's not looking for Clara but finds her anyway, a note of panic making his voice shrill. ]

Clara, tell me you've seen Inui recently?

[ His voice is tight but his eyes say please. ]

2. A HISTORY LESSON

[ The city is alive again, even if it's just in flashes, ghosts stepping around them, the past and the present colliding. He watches a former agent of Atlas philosophize to an enraptured group of Kharans, his (her?) eight arms all gesticulating differently. ]

This is freaky...but kinda cool. Like a 3D movie.

[ His tone might be lighthearted, but it's only to better mask the anxiety that gnaws at him. The blue metal drone stays frozen at the base of the tree, but for how long? And are any more of them coming? ]

So if these guys called themselves 'the Last', where do we come in...?

2. I HAVE NO NEED OF YOU.

[ Lance is crouched by a copse of thick foliage, watching a dog-sized animal as it builds its nest, a kind of mound of packed-in sand and rocks. It climbs up to the core of a bulbous plant, much taller and healthier than its present-day counterpart, and pierces the sack to gather the syrup that comes from it. It then scurries back, using the syrup to cement its building. Pretty ingenious. ]

So that's what that stuff does...

[ The sound of his voice makes the animal jump, scurrying for its den. Cursing softly, Lance holds out a piece of old dried meat, making a soft clicking noise. ]

Here, little guy...

[ He might need help. Or you could just kill the little guy for food, because Lance sure isn't going to. ]

Comments

2

[sweatysometimes]

That's what I'm trying to figure out.

[ Pidge stands next to Lance, rubbing her chin thoughfully as she watches the brief glimpses of the past move by them. This whole experience has been strange from the start and this kind of thing just makes it even weirder. ]

The First? The next after the last? It's all such cryptic nonsense, it doesn't really matter, does it?

[ceruleo]

Skeleton-face [ That isn't very nice, Lance. ] did call us that--The First, I mean. That's what Cayde said. But, I mean...the First of what?

[ He exhales, visibly put out. ]

It just feels like we're all missing something.

[sweatysometimes]

Missing something is an understatement. We have this puzzle, but not all of the pieces. Also we're looking at it through like, a window and can't actually handle the puzzle. It's kind of ridiculous.

[ Pidge grunts in frustration and crouches down to pick up a handful of sand, then lets it drain through her fingers. She wishes she had something to do. ]

I wish I had my computer.

[ceruleo]

[ He wishes Pidge had her computer. ]

This all looks like weird space magic to me, dude. [ Of course Pidge is 'dude'. ] I mean, these people didn't even have metal.

[sweatysometimes]

Yeah, but still. I feel like I could do something useful if I had my computer. Right now I just feel like i can't do anything except bang rocks together!

[ Pidge sighs and pushes her glasses back up her nose. ]

Even if they have computer systems and even if I had my computer, I'm not sure how I'd get them to interact since they're clearly even more different from what I'm used to than Galra or Altean technology.

3

[mousewhisperer]

[ Allura approaches Lance on tip-toe, peering into the den from over his shoulder. She eyes the lizard-like creature with curiosity. No replacement for her mice, but she misses having her little empathetic friends, and this might work. ]

Are you sure meat is what he wants? Something else might get his attention.

[ Not that Allura is sure anything else will work, but she's curious to see how Lance handles this. ]

[ceruleo]

[ Lance's attention shifts, and he slaps on a smile when he sees Allura. ]

Is that a challenge, princess?

[mousewhisperer]

[ She looks from the creature to Lance, eyebrows raised. ] See who gets its attention first?

[ceruleo]

[ He turns back, smile turning into a smirk. ]

Oh yeah? You're on.

[ He's looking forward to seeing whatever Allura has up her sleeve. ]

[mousewhisperer]

[ Truth be told, she didn't have anything mind prior to this, but now - she looks around for a something, eventually snapping off a spine from the bulbous plant, holding it out. ]

2

[mobilized]

[Fuyuhiko finds it pretty morbid, personally. Like watching memories of the dead without their permission. It feels invasive, and he looks pointedly away from the time-warped bubble nearby.]

Dunno. Not sure they had any idea either, you know? [The hologram, movie, memory, whatever it was that the Last showed them has been hard for him to shake.] Just seemed like they were doing whatever they could not to be totally fucking wiped out.

[ceruleo]

[ Whoa dude, you kiss your mama with that mouth? ]

But if we're supposed to be--"Atlas Travellers", or whatever--what's our relation to those guys? [ He opens his palms, motions to the massive desert around them interpersed with bubbles of quieter, greener times. ] Why us? Why here?

[mobilized]

[excuse you his mother was a beautiful woman and also would have fucked your shit up if she felt like it so]

Don't look at me. [It feels like they've gotten a lot of information, but maybe that's just because it was any information. In reality, they don't actually understand anything about the situation any better, do they?] I don't remember signing up for some fucked up space adventure, do you? If there was an instruction manual or something in those pods, whatever they did to keep us under the radar must've axed it.

[ceruleo]

[ He's gonna start a swear jar. Just you wait. ]

Well, I was kinda already on a--[ he can't say it HE'S TOO PG-13 ] messed up space adventure, actually. I thought this was all kind of...an extension of that.

[mobilized]

[Fuyuhiko shoots him A Look for the self-censorship. Seriously, dude?]

The hell's that mean? [they would make bank off a swear jar, just saying] Somebody else shoved you in a different pod before this one?

[ceruleo]

[ LOOK OK if Lance talked like that he'd have gotten grounded for a month!!! ]

Uh, sort of? It's a long story. I kind got carted off to space by a giant sentient robot lion.

[ Of course, he doesn't really ask if Fuyuhiko actually wants to hear the long story, he just--goes. ]

Like, I didn't even think aliens were real? I Mean, I was a cadet at the Galaxy Garrison, but like, all I was expecting was maybe flying out to Pluto or something? But then one day--bam! Right outta the sky, an alien ship! My friends and I totally checked it out because we're awesome like that, and who's on board? None other than Takashi Shirogane! Which means the Garrison was totally covering up the Kerberos incident, but whatever, you probably don't even know what that is--anyway, Shiro's totally KO and Garrison is already all over him and the ship, so me and some guy [ Keith, he has a name, not that Lance likes to say it ] get in there and rescue him. Me, Shiro, my pals Hunk and Pidge, all wind up at the guy's hobo shack in the desert after getting on the lam, but by then we figure something's up so Hunk totally MacGyvers a device to get a read on the weird alien energy in the area! So then we head out to where the energy is strongest, and there's this underground cave--and there's a massive lion robot inside!

[ He makes a 'mind = blown' gesture, complete with sound effects. ]

[mobilized]

[jesus

just

this fuckin' guy.]

Hey, hey, hey. I wasn't askin' for your life story, pal. [That said, his life story involves an evil sentient robot bear, so he has literally no leg to stand on.] Skip to the important part. The lion stuck you in some kinda pod, or what?

[because, like, if that's the case, he can kind of sympathize, in a backwards sort of way.

his life is literally the worst.]

[ceruleo]

[ what do you MEAN you didn't want his life story, his life story is interesting okay!!! ]

Uh, no, the lion chose me and then it grabbed all of us in its mouth and then--bam! Space! And then bam! A wormhole! And then we were like, fifteen galaxies away! [ The pitch of his voice finally quells, just enough for it to dip into something more somber, almost soft. ] With no way back.

[ He throws his head back, visibly whining now. ] I never figured 'accidentally catapulted into space' would be something I'd just get used to, but here we are!

[mobilized]

It sounds like it kidnapped you. You know that, right?

[He says "you know that, right" in the sort of way that suggests he does not think Lance knows that at all, right.]

We don't know that's not what this is, either. We don't know anything about this "Atlas" thing. It's at least a big enough organization to kidnap a bunch of people from all over the— [holy shit he does not want to get into the logistics of space right now.] galaxies, or whatever. Accident sounds like a big fucking stretch to me.

2

[justice_of_toren]

[Breq stands very still taking in everything she can and trying to make sense of it until Lance speaks.]

If we were awoken intentionally, the beginning of a new cycle? [She turns to Lance, expression flat.]If that's so, I don't care to step into another mold made for me.

[ceruleo]

[ A cycle? It's probably the first theory of the kind he's heard, and it makes his head tilt, gears spinning--not for long, though, because Breq is speaking again and he's left even more curious. ]

I dunno, some molds are better than others. This one's been pretty crappy so far, though.

[justice_of_toren]

[Breq is old. 2000 years is long enough to know very well that nothing lasts forever, but some things may come back around. She sighs.]

I won't argue with either of those statements. And truthfully, avoiding molds entirely would require extreme isolation - we all have expectations of each other.