For Zurha the day had been going rather well, she'd just finished reading through a whole swathe of Kato's memories, particularly about the gigantic balls of fire which used to shine brightly in the depths of space: Stars they were called. Though she had been particularly drawn in by the descriptions of systems in which two or more stars orbited each other, these so-called Binary and Trinary star systems, of which he'd apparently seen many.
Now she was on her way to see the poor captain in person, mainly to pester him to see if he had any holograms of such a wonderful thing, that or even any old VR systems which she could use to pretend, if even for a second that she was back in that time. The overexcited intelligence officer had just been about to press her hand to the screen that opened his door, (She'd fiddled with the administration setting on who was allowed to use the captain's door to include her, which considering the ships age wasn't that hard. Although the ship did seem incredibly willing to let her get away with that, which seemed odd.) when the little private channel that she, Dal and Tsuan used so frequently to keep them connected beeped into life.
She only needed to hear the first few words picked up by the little device before she was bursting into Kato's room, holding the thing out at arms length with the volume boosted to full to ensure he heard it. "KATO YOU NEED TO HEAR THIS NOW!"
The ancient captain, his body a mess of wires and machinery slowly pushed himself upwards into a sitting position, she'd only just left him to no doubt listen to more of his memories. At least he'd been allowed some peace, or the closest to it after chatting with her for a while, he'd been able to go back over his memories without those ... voices appearing once more. "Wha.. what is it Zurha? What's with all the rack ..."
He trailed off slowly as the voices trickled in through the machine, each word being transmitted clearly into that small room.
"Those damned fools, come on Zurha, let's see if we can't sort this out before it becomes something a lot worse." On rare moments that ancient monolith of a being looked properly motivated as if their entire presence was being pulled out of the past in which it spent 90% of its life and into the present. This was one of those moments.
With seemingly no more words to say the old warlord pushed himself up to his full height before striding from the room, each stride taking him seemingly an almost inhuman amount of space forward. The ground seeming to push him along faster than any reasonable distance should have been able to take him, then as Zurha stepped along to follow in tow, she found much to her surprise that she seemed to possess the same speed as Kato, barely having to put the effort in to keep pace. What an odd ship this really was.
Ike had been standing there hesitantly his arm vaguely pointed towards the corporal in the uncertainty of someone who has just picked up a gun for the first time in their life and now had to choose between shooting the threat and letting it continue on being there. Of course, he would never fire, he couldn't, not against some high ranking officer, that had literally been programmed up into his code, but no one else knew that and he was hoping his bluff would work.
Of course, it didn't. He was weird bubbly and utterly naive Ike and people knew that they knew the synth would never have the guts to shoot someone like that, many people would even be unsure if he could even kill anyone.
That didn't stop him staring defiantly out towards Robert, a figure who seemed to be so deliberately antagonizing towards the person he loved. Those little violet eyes pricking with anger and frustation, why did such a perfect idea have to go wrong? "Just ... just stand back! I can protect myself and Riley! I AM A WARMACHINE DAMMIT!"
Despite everything that was being done to calm the situation it seemed inevitable that things were going to escalate, a thought that would have brought Ike out in a cold sweat if he had even been capable of such a thing. Everything was going wrong and he didn't even know what to do to fix it. If only he could think of the right things to say, if only he could be as efficient at solving problems as he was at piloting the ship, if only ...
He turned his head, just slightly, but enough to get a glance at Riley. Oh god, why did she have to look like that? Why did she have to be so scared and vulnerable in this situation ... why oh why?
Then everything seemed to happen at once, like something out of a horror film, the wrench sailed past his head towards the officer, the girl moving protectively in front of him and her slight shove backward. He watched her, stand there ready to take any punishment for attempting to protect him, that terrified resistance towards something he didn't know. What he did know was that Riley was now in danger and he had to act fast.
"RILEY YOU IDIOT!" There was no way he was going to let anything happen to her, if she was going to be an idiot to protect him, then he was going to be an equally big idiot. Turning he slammed his right hand down on the controls, increasing the artificial gravity of the ship in such a way that not one of the occupants would be able to stand up properly. He was not gonna let anything happen to the most precious thing in his life.
For a few seconds, everyone would be forced to roughly stand in place until moments later a lurching clang would rock the ship. Such noise and vibration could only mean one thing: that the ship had landed back in the hanger. Not once in those few seconds had Ike been able to lift his eyes away from anything but Riley, she was his world after all, if anything happened to her, it would happen to him too, after all they were a team and teams stuck together.
For a few long moments more the ship would simply sit there, holding its occupants locked in place through the little self-contained gravity field. That was until the door to the ship slid open, disabling the internal gravity field as it did so and replacing it with the normal ship-wide one instead. Silhouetted in the doorway was the giant hulk of the ships ancient captain, the monolithic figure focusing the weight of all his years onto each occupant of the ship. "ENOUGH! You are both officers aboard this ship and should know better than to be fighting! You are setting a bad example for your crew!"
A long sigh trawled out from between his lips before the ancient husk began to speak again, more softly this time, but still with no trace of his usual wistful faraway nature. "You forget that as heads of divisions you are both of equal rank, Riley, Firth if you cannot agree then please separate from each other. Now! Riley striking a fellow officer should get you sent to the brig however for the debt owed to you by this ship, I will let this go, this once, do you understand? And Firth? Come with me, lets you patched up buddy, there's something I want to talk to you about."
Now she was on her way to see the poor captain in person, mainly to pester him to see if he had any holograms of such a wonderful thing, that or even any old VR systems which she could use to pretend, if even for a second that she was back in that time. The overexcited intelligence officer had just been about to press her hand to the screen that opened his door, (She'd fiddled with the administration setting on who was allowed to use the captain's door to include her, which considering the ships age wasn't that hard. Although the ship did seem incredibly willing to let her get away with that, which seemed odd.) when the little private channel that she, Dal and Tsuan used so frequently to keep them connected beeped into life.
She only needed to hear the first few words picked up by the little device before she was bursting into Kato's room, holding the thing out at arms length with the volume boosted to full to ensure he heard it. "KATO YOU NEED TO HEAR THIS NOW!"
The ancient captain, his body a mess of wires and machinery slowly pushed himself upwards into a sitting position, she'd only just left him to no doubt listen to more of his memories. At least he'd been allowed some peace, or the closest to it after chatting with her for a while, he'd been able to go back over his memories without those ... voices appearing once more. "Wha.. what is it Zurha? What's with all the rack ..."
He trailed off slowly as the voices trickled in through the machine, each word being transmitted clearly into that small room.
"Those damned fools, come on Zurha, let's see if we can't sort this out before it becomes something a lot worse." On rare moments that ancient monolith of a being looked properly motivated as if their entire presence was being pulled out of the past in which it spent 90% of its life and into the present. This was one of those moments.
With seemingly no more words to say the old warlord pushed himself up to his full height before striding from the room, each stride taking him seemingly an almost inhuman amount of space forward. The ground seeming to push him along faster than any reasonable distance should have been able to take him, then as Zurha stepped along to follow in tow, she found much to her surprise that she seemed to possess the same speed as Kato, barely having to put the effort in to keep pace. What an odd ship this really was.
Ike had been standing there hesitantly his arm vaguely pointed towards the corporal in the uncertainty of someone who has just picked up a gun for the first time in their life and now had to choose between shooting the threat and letting it continue on being there. Of course, he would never fire, he couldn't, not against some high ranking officer, that had literally been programmed up into his code, but no one else knew that and he was hoping his bluff would work.
Of course, it didn't. He was weird bubbly and utterly naive Ike and people knew that they knew the synth would never have the guts to shoot someone like that, many people would even be unsure if he could even kill anyone.
That didn't stop him staring defiantly out towards Robert, a figure who seemed to be so deliberately antagonizing towards the person he loved. Those little violet eyes pricking with anger and frustation, why did such a perfect idea have to go wrong? "Just ... just stand back! I can protect myself and Riley! I AM A WARMACHINE DAMMIT!"
Despite everything that was being done to calm the situation it seemed inevitable that things were going to escalate, a thought that would have brought Ike out in a cold sweat if he had even been capable of such a thing. Everything was going wrong and he didn't even know what to do to fix it. If only he could think of the right things to say, if only he could be as efficient at solving problems as he was at piloting the ship, if only ...
He turned his head, just slightly, but enough to get a glance at Riley. Oh god, why did she have to look like that? Why did she have to be so scared and vulnerable in this situation ... why oh why?
Then everything seemed to happen at once, like something out of a horror film, the wrench sailed past his head towards the officer, the girl moving protectively in front of him and her slight shove backward. He watched her, stand there ready to take any punishment for attempting to protect him, that terrified resistance towards something he didn't know. What he did know was that Riley was now in danger and he had to act fast.
"RILEY YOU IDIOT!" There was no way he was going to let anything happen to her, if she was going to be an idiot to protect him, then he was going to be an equally big idiot. Turning he slammed his right hand down on the controls, increasing the artificial gravity of the ship in such a way that not one of the occupants would be able to stand up properly. He was not gonna let anything happen to the most precious thing in his life.
For a few seconds, everyone would be forced to roughly stand in place until moments later a lurching clang would rock the ship. Such noise and vibration could only mean one thing: that the ship had landed back in the hanger. Not once in those few seconds had Ike been able to lift his eyes away from anything but Riley, she was his world after all, if anything happened to her, it would happen to him too, after all they were a team and teams stuck together.
For a few long moments more the ship would simply sit there, holding its occupants locked in place through the little self-contained gravity field. That was until the door to the ship slid open, disabling the internal gravity field as it did so and replacing it with the normal ship-wide one instead. Silhouetted in the doorway was the giant hulk of the ships ancient captain, the monolithic figure focusing the weight of all his years onto each occupant of the ship. "ENOUGH! You are both officers aboard this ship and should know better than to be fighting! You are setting a bad example for your crew!"
A long sigh trawled out from between his lips before the ancient husk began to speak again, more softly this time, but still with no trace of his usual wistful faraway nature. "You forget that as heads of divisions you are both of equal rank, Riley, Firth if you cannot agree then please separate from each other. Now! Riley striking a fellow officer should get you sent to the brig however for the debt owed to you by this ship, I will let this go, this once, do you understand? And Firth? Come with me, lets you patched up buddy, there's something I want to talk to you about."
He didn’t speak, he couldn’t speak, he just stared off, trying to think over what happened in his head, and turned to Kato and spat a canine tooth out beside him, saying, “I am not fighting, old friend, with all due respect I never threw a punch, insult or threat, not to mention if she aimed a little higher with that wrench of hers i’d be dead as I stand, she knew who I was and didn’t hesitate to attack, which means my job here is done, we’re marines, we’re supposed to be killing machines..sir.” He didn’t care if he got in trouble, what he knew is that he could be a villain in the recruits eyes, villains needed to be bested, and he could work with that.
It all happened at once - RIley shouting over Ike as he whirled on the control board behind her, the tail end of her demands to leave him alone transitioning into a hoarse cry of shock and pain as an invisible hand fell down atop her. The floor rushed up to meet her as RIley was forced brutally down to one knee, palm planted on the cold floor as she struggled to battle the forces of gravity itself.
She was the only one among them to be so severely affected, with Tsuan only lurching some and grabbing onto something for added support, where he stand off in a corner trying to be invisible and failing miserably.
Luckily for the little engineer - who clearly was even more of a wimp than she already seemed, given how poorly she had fared against a simple gravity lock - the hand of physics was content with releasing her from its cruel grip before she could go pulling muscle in her continued efforts to overcome it like the absolute bullheaded moron she was.
Her eyes had not quit their defiant boring up at the big man, her steely glare like gleaming iron in the sun through stray bangs of red. Only when the door opened and the centurion captain stepped in did her eyes dart away. But even as her glare was refocused, the girl heaved herself back to her feet with great effort, stumbling back into Ike in the process and leaning her back bodily up against him in a way that was both supportive to her own sore legs and ridiculously and ineffectually protective.
She did not reply to Kato. She did not apologize, did not thank him or even acknowledge that she understood what he was saying. Her steely gaze never faltered, not even a spark of outrage as it was acknowledged that she should have been in trobule, nor a wave of relief as she was let off the hook. She just glared, eyes sharp as razors as she seemed to be anticipating an attack.
The girl looked practically feral, like a wild-eyed beast protecting the corner it had been backed into. Part of her mind was still convinced that Kato was somehow her enemy, but she wasn’t presently thinking even about that possibility. She was not trying to think of what could go wrong, how to defend herself if someone should attack - just standing there in stubborn terror masked with feral rage as if her body alone could have stopped any force in the universel.
Tsuan, meanwhile, had wasted no time in taking his leave - slowly sidling along the wall toward the exit as if he thought he could somehow slip past the colossal man-machine unseen. E’tzu really wasn’t a coward - he’d had several chances of proving that during his brief stint in the Lisaran patrol before joining the military - but this was some pretty risky business and did not constitute the kind of danger he was interested in sticking around with. Especially not new as he was to the crew, the last thing he wanted was to be stirring up trouble with the officers. Of which, he would realize later, there had actually been two - apparently that little runt was the head of the engineering department and therefore a ranking officer? Wild!
Assuming Kato was not interested in confronting him immediately, Tsuan would sidle his way out of the scout ship and experience one, brief moment of liberation before a dark, ebony hand snatched the back of his shirt collar and yanked him to the side.
”Ayo’ where’da @#$% you think you goin’ boy’you betta’ getcho’jive-ass ove’heah fo’ahwhoopit twice goddam Birdbrain gittin yo’sef in troub’al ready-’”
Dallen, having been closer to the hangar when the connection came through, had already been frantically tabbing through one of the hangar terminals trying to initiate a recall, only realizing that one had already been initiated from the ship just as the two were barreling through the doors. There hadn’t been much to say, since her friend was unlikely to know more details about whatever the @#$% Tsuan had gotten himself into than she did.
Back inside the scout, Riley had not faltered - nor would she. It was abundantly clear that she had no intention of moving from that spot, keeping Ike practically pinned up against the control terminal behind her. Not that he couldn’t have ‘escaped’ with literally no effort at all She was staying put and not uttering another word until she and Ike were alone again - no exceptions.
Which meant, by extension, that they were going to be taking that scout back out again whether they liked it or not. Even in her wild panic, rage and despair, RIley knew what she was not going to allow Ike’s dreams to be crushed any more than they already had been. At least, if she had anything to say about it.
And she did have a few words for him - but until the men were gone she would utter not a sound, and move not an inch...
She was the only one among them to be so severely affected, with Tsuan only lurching some and grabbing onto something for added support, where he stand off in a corner trying to be invisible and failing miserably.
Luckily for the little engineer - who clearly was even more of a wimp than she already seemed, given how poorly she had fared against a simple gravity lock - the hand of physics was content with releasing her from its cruel grip before she could go pulling muscle in her continued efforts to overcome it like the absolute bullheaded moron she was.
Her eyes had not quit their defiant boring up at the big man, her steely glare like gleaming iron in the sun through stray bangs of red. Only when the door opened and the centurion captain stepped in did her eyes dart away. But even as her glare was refocused, the girl heaved herself back to her feet with great effort, stumbling back into Ike in the process and leaning her back bodily up against him in a way that was both supportive to her own sore legs and ridiculously and ineffectually protective.
She did not reply to Kato. She did not apologize, did not thank him or even acknowledge that she understood what he was saying. Her steely gaze never faltered, not even a spark of outrage as it was acknowledged that she should have been in trobule, nor a wave of relief as she was let off the hook. She just glared, eyes sharp as razors as she seemed to be anticipating an attack.
The girl looked practically feral, like a wild-eyed beast protecting the corner it had been backed into. Part of her mind was still convinced that Kato was somehow her enemy, but she wasn’t presently thinking even about that possibility. She was not trying to think of what could go wrong, how to defend herself if someone should attack - just standing there in stubborn terror masked with feral rage as if her body alone could have stopped any force in the universel.
Tsuan, meanwhile, had wasted no time in taking his leave - slowly sidling along the wall toward the exit as if he thought he could somehow slip past the colossal man-machine unseen. E’tzu really wasn’t a coward - he’d had several chances of proving that during his brief stint in the Lisaran patrol before joining the military - but this was some pretty risky business and did not constitute the kind of danger he was interested in sticking around with. Especially not new as he was to the crew, the last thing he wanted was to be stirring up trouble with the officers. Of which, he would realize later, there had actually been two - apparently that little runt was the head of the engineering department and therefore a ranking officer? Wild!
Assuming Kato was not interested in confronting him immediately, Tsuan would sidle his way out of the scout ship and experience one, brief moment of liberation before a dark, ebony hand snatched the back of his shirt collar and yanked him to the side.
”Ayo’ where’da @#$% you think you goin’ boy’you betta’ getcho’jive-ass ove’heah fo’ahwhoopit twice goddam Birdbrain gittin yo’sef in troub’al ready-’”
Dallen, having been closer to the hangar when the connection came through, had already been frantically tabbing through one of the hangar terminals trying to initiate a recall, only realizing that one had already been initiated from the ship just as the two were barreling through the doors. There hadn’t been much to say, since her friend was unlikely to know more details about whatever the @#$% Tsuan had gotten himself into than she did.
Back inside the scout, Riley had not faltered - nor would she. It was abundantly clear that she had no intention of moving from that spot, keeping Ike practically pinned up against the control terminal behind her. Not that he couldn’t have ‘escaped’ with literally no effort at all She was staying put and not uttering another word until she and Ike were alone again - no exceptions.
Which meant, by extension, that they were going to be taking that scout back out again whether they liked it or not. Even in her wild panic, rage and despair, RIley knew what she was not going to allow Ike’s dreams to be crushed any more than they already had been. At least, if she had anything to say about it.
And she did have a few words for him - but until the men were gone she would utter not a sound, and move not an inch...
During the short journey back Ike's eyes had been for Riley only and as he glimpsed just how much she was suffering from the gravity lock he'd induced a small shiver of frustration shot up his spine. This had been his idea to go out on this cruise and even in trying to protect the most precious person in his life, he'd ended up causing her more pain. At least he told himself, that it was less pain than she could have received otherwise.
It was with complete surprise that he swung around to see Kato appearing in the doorway, that hunk of a man clearly silhouetted in the harsh sterile light that poured in from the hanger. Not many seconds later his gasp of surprise turned itself into a sigh of relief, the captain was here to break up and conflict on the ship between officers?He'd almost forgotten that his beloved Riley was actually the head of a department and therefore an officer. The two had been the engineering team for so long that distinctions between them had faded away in his mind. Still, as he remembered he felt a glow of pride for Riley and her status.
As he listened to the first few seconds of the hulking monolith's speech, the overwhelming relief he felt could be so clearly seen in the smallest of details. His left hand began swinging itself back into its normal position, the fingers knitting themselves back together and creating what could have passed easily for a normal human hand once again. If there was any doubt that weird bubbly Ike wasn't still utterly the one in control of his functions it would be erased now. Not that any real thought would have been needed, he was was always too much of a little bundle of excitement and naivety to be anything else.
He'd just been about to take a step forward to thank Kato when he felt a new weight press against him, the small figure of his best friend and the one he loved pressing him back towards the corner. Despite how unneeded he felt it was any more he allowed it to happen, deciding to take comfort in the small corner she had created for him to be safe in.
And despite how puny his protector looked, that synth really did feel safe tucked away in that corner. This was Riley he was with and the two of them were a duo. She was there to help and save him She already had so many times and in return, he was there to protect her. There was nowhere else he felt happier and safer than tucked away in her protective grasp.
Instead of taking any other action that little synth decided to return the sentiment and just go with the moment. Slowly Riley would feel his little arms wrapping themselves possessively around her waist, the skin feeling just as human once again as hers, his fingers curling up around her shirt and locking into place. Seconds later a little weight would be pressed against her neck as Ike buried his face into the little nook in her shoulder, nuzzling in with the stunned joy that could only be born of relief. It felt warm and comfortable like this, something to protect him from how utterly ruined his plans were.
As Tsuan slid closer towards Kato it would become obvious that the larger man had utterly no interest in confronting him, nor did it seem he really noticed the fourth member of the ship. The pitiful attempt made to try and hide seeming to work in the face of all the odds.
"Thank you"
It was barely a whisper, something that could be mistaken for a trick of the breeze, apart from the fact that there was no breeze. Just the two of them standing in that doorway. The little noise which only Tsuan would have been able to hear fading away as quickly as it had come. Not that anyone had been looking at him while it was said, certainly not the captain who's gaze was focused well inside the ship.
Although even after he'd been grabbed and pulled aside, it seemed there was no respite for that poor man, not it would seem would there be any for Dallen either as a figure bodily threw itself into the two of them, an arm wrapping around in a pretty all-encompassing hug. The new figure of torment for the two of them was of course none other than the third member of their little trio, the now extremely overexcited intelligence officer: Zurha.
"Hey good job back there Tsu! That sounded like things were getting a bit outta hand on that lil ship over th ... there. Hey Tsu ... What were you actually doing on that ship?"
Back in the doorway, Kato would wait until Firth had joined him before leaving the ship. From there he'd walk with the corporal towards the medbay, falling into a steady gait that the two of them would be used to using whenever it was just the two of them together. This time unlike many others he didn't walk in that dreamy trance he spent so much of his life in, while there did seem to be something on his mind, it seemed that for once it was a matter in the present rather than in the past.
"Hey ... Rob ... have you ever wondered what's left of the galaxy? Outside our little ringworld that is...
Only once everyone had left a little voice wafted up slowly to Riley, it wasn't cracking with frustration yet, but she would be able to detect the hints in her best friends voice even now. "I'm sorry Riley for causing all of this, shall we just head back to our room?"
It was with complete surprise that he swung around to see Kato appearing in the doorway, that hunk of a man clearly silhouetted in the harsh sterile light that poured in from the hanger. Not many seconds later his gasp of surprise turned itself into a sigh of relief, the captain was here to break up and conflict on the ship between officers?He'd almost forgotten that his beloved Riley was actually the head of a department and therefore an officer. The two had been the engineering team for so long that distinctions between them had faded away in his mind. Still, as he remembered he felt a glow of pride for Riley and her status.
As he listened to the first few seconds of the hulking monolith's speech, the overwhelming relief he felt could be so clearly seen in the smallest of details. His left hand began swinging itself back into its normal position, the fingers knitting themselves back together and creating what could have passed easily for a normal human hand once again. If there was any doubt that weird bubbly Ike wasn't still utterly the one in control of his functions it would be erased now. Not that any real thought would have been needed, he was was always too much of a little bundle of excitement and naivety to be anything else.
He'd just been about to take a step forward to thank Kato when he felt a new weight press against him, the small figure of his best friend and the one he loved pressing him back towards the corner. Despite how unneeded he felt it was any more he allowed it to happen, deciding to take comfort in the small corner she had created for him to be safe in.
And despite how puny his protector looked, that synth really did feel safe tucked away in that corner. This was Riley he was with and the two of them were a duo. She was there to help and save him She already had so many times and in return, he was there to protect her. There was nowhere else he felt happier and safer than tucked away in her protective grasp.
Instead of taking any other action that little synth decided to return the sentiment and just go with the moment. Slowly Riley would feel his little arms wrapping themselves possessively around her waist, the skin feeling just as human once again as hers, his fingers curling up around her shirt and locking into place. Seconds later a little weight would be pressed against her neck as Ike buried his face into the little nook in her shoulder, nuzzling in with the stunned joy that could only be born of relief. It felt warm and comfortable like this, something to protect him from how utterly ruined his plans were.
As Tsuan slid closer towards Kato it would become obvious that the larger man had utterly no interest in confronting him, nor did it seem he really noticed the fourth member of the ship. The pitiful attempt made to try and hide seeming to work in the face of all the odds.
"Thank you"
It was barely a whisper, something that could be mistaken for a trick of the breeze, apart from the fact that there was no breeze. Just the two of them standing in that doorway. The little noise which only Tsuan would have been able to hear fading away as quickly as it had come. Not that anyone had been looking at him while it was said, certainly not the captain who's gaze was focused well inside the ship.
Although even after he'd been grabbed and pulled aside, it seemed there was no respite for that poor man, not it would seem would there be any for Dallen either as a figure bodily threw itself into the two of them, an arm wrapping around in a pretty all-encompassing hug. The new figure of torment for the two of them was of course none other than the third member of their little trio, the now extremely overexcited intelligence officer: Zurha.
"Hey good job back there Tsu! That sounded like things were getting a bit outta hand on that lil ship over th ... there. Hey Tsu ... What were you actually doing on that ship?"
Back in the doorway, Kato would wait until Firth had joined him before leaving the ship. From there he'd walk with the corporal towards the medbay, falling into a steady gait that the two of them would be used to using whenever it was just the two of them together. This time unlike many others he didn't walk in that dreamy trance he spent so much of his life in, while there did seem to be something on his mind, it seemed that for once it was a matter in the present rather than in the past.
"Hey ... Rob ... have you ever wondered what's left of the galaxy? Outside our little ringworld that is...
Only once everyone had left a little voice wafted up slowly to Riley, it wasn't cracking with frustration yet, but she would be able to detect the hints in her best friends voice even now. "I'm sorry Riley for causing all of this, shall we just head back to our room?"
This…
This made it all better.
Memories were such a strange thing. A complicated and confusing thing. Good ones, bad ones, ones to keep, ones to let go. And there were so many of them.
She had not felt that piercing surge of despair strike through her chest again, not since that first day. And now, when she watched this young warrior scarfing down junk food or singing along to bits of songs she’d never heard before or just wearing her own ridiculous, rainbow hoodie - she didn’t see pain. Scars, perhaps - but no pain. It warmed her hearts as always, but there was something new and special, too. Many people had called her many things - most of them nice, some not so much - but nobody had ever called her ’Mom’. It was nice.
”Uh, heck yes.” Mackie affirmed, her lazy grin brightening marginally at the idea - almost as if it were something blatantly obvious, but she didn’t mind stating it anyway. ”I’ll rig it up with some thicker gauge strings - ones I got on there are super light ‘cause steel strings hurt my fingers~” A sort of playful admissiveness there as she waggled her fingers for emphasis - knowing that the notion of someone who could take lasers and shrapnel in stride having sensitive fingers was silly, but not being particularly ashamed of the fact. ”I bet you’ll pick it up wicked quick, too. Just, like, a hunch. I’ll dig it out later.”
With that decided, Annag mentioned the possibility of cleaning up and Mackie responded by looking around the room as if she had only just realized where she was, or that it was presently an absolute disaster area of leavings and packages of all kinds. ”Uh, yeah, I Guess we should proooooobably do that.” It was virtually impossible to determine whether the woman was actually as scatterbrained as she sometimes appeared to be - but she was still a total stoner, so that might have had something to do with it. ”After that I’ll show you how to clean the XR-42s like a baus and we can start on that, like, giganto-mountain of them over there.” Realistically the majority of them were still within perfect operating standards for Federal military - but they weren’t up to Mackie Standards™.
The next few minutes were taken up by the pair cleaning up the aftermath of their feast. Mackie switched the music back over to the soft, relaxing folk tunes and sitars that she preferred listening to while working. She also tried many times to toss bits of trash into the disposal from all different spots about the room, and kept doing this even as it became tragically apparent that she was never going to actually get one in. At least she had the sense not to throw anything made of glass. And, of course, each failed attempt only made her laugh, or sometimes curse with feigned frustration - then laugh. She did a lot of laughing. Also chortling and giggling. But not usually snickering.
Just another paradox - a woman who could hit a dozen fun-size targets at long range with a peashooter, but couldn’t get a soda can into the disposal ten feet away. ”I think I, like, should not ever play basketball, pff~”
With someone else to keep her from getting distracted by other things - unintentionally or otherwise - the armoury ended up more tidy than she had seen it in a very long time. Looking about with raised brows, the gunsmith momentarily considered the idea of reorganizing things into a more efficient system - but quickly decided that her own cluttered method had worked for too long to go changing it now. Puffing with satisfaction on her ever-present joint, Macks nodded, extinguished it in an ashtray shaped like some kind of goblin (While the secondhand smoke from Macks’ blend ws mostly impotent, somebody with a low tolerance might still be affected if spending too much time in very close quarters, such as they would while she showed the girl proper rifle maintenance techniques.) she proceeded to one of her many workstations, beckoned her adopted daughter and enthusiastic assistant over, and proceeded with an intuitive lesson on how to disassemble, clean, and reassemble the standard issue XR-42 laser rifles ’like a baus’. The deftness of her fingers and her familiarity with the task were, of course, nothing short of masterful.
She was an excellent teacher, too. Patient, understanding, always eager to answer questions and rephrase things to clarify. Even if Annag had experience with these very guns, Mackie had much to teach - but within the hour the two were both working on separate weapons, with Mackie occasionally peering over to give helpful advice. ”It’s easier if you sorta’ slide it from this way...Be sure to get up under the rail there-...Rad, yo, that one’s perfect~”
Within the second hour, Mackie decided that the girl could be trusted to clean them on her own, and had taken to doing repairs and maintenance instead. Making sure to remain at the bench closest to Annag, she talked about what she was doing as she dug about and fiddled with the sensitive equipment, allowing the kid to watch and learn without insisting on it. ”See the diode’s got like these four little pin thingies that gotta slide out-...This is like, a suuuper common issue with the whole XR series so it’s like the first thing-...There’s like a sorta’ spring release right up under there you gotta’ watch out for, it bit me one time and-...”
It had been real quality time between adoptive mother and daughter. Time well spent. Already the gunsmith found it difficult to imagine the enthusiastic teenage girl as having been an enemy. Then again, Mackie had a hard time viewing anyone as purely an enemy. There was always so much more to a person than what first appeared.
Mackie had been rooting around in some shelves toward the back of the room, in search of a spare regulating module to replace one that had been fried by a stray shot when their visitor appeared in the doorway. Poking his big, gently bobbing ‘head’ in with what amounted to something vaguely along the lines of ‘subtlety’ - his lowly rumbling chassis could be heard ten feet down the hall, but that wasn’t the point.
”HelloooooOOOOoooooOOo?”
Something about the robot’s voice - which was still somewhat muffled since it emanated from the speaker on his still hidden body - sounded vaguely tentative. Mackie, standing on tiptoe as she peered through an inconveniently placed drawer and dug awkwardly around inside, did not appear to notice the peculiar tone. She just glanced back and grinned as usual. ”Eyy Danesh, what’s up my Metal Medic?”
Slowly, Danesh maneuvered his ostrich-like body into the armoury as Mackie returned her attention to digging about for the part. ”Your attention anchovies artwork iiiIIIIiiiiis rewarded required.”
This time, she must have noticed something weird. Part in hand, Macks turned and sauntered back toward the workbench, one brow raised inquisitively, still grinning. ”Oookayyy~?” She prompted, placing the part down and tilting her head. ”Well you, like, got it bruh, what’s up?”
Danesh’s body vibrated for a moment, likely for no particular reason. ”UP is classified corrugated aaaasss- you are required for iiIIIIIiinjection of vital agent for maximum health of rooooOOoobototitc limb.”
The instant the weird old robot got to the word ’injection’, Mackie froze - suddenly looking very stiff - though her expression did not change, the grin at once was no longer reflected in her eyes.
”You, uh, y’whatnow~?”
Danesh rumbled again. ”You are needing shot. VeeEeeery important please. Needle is small, not hurting.”
Mackie blinked, her eyes trailing down from the robot’s big softly glowing green eyes to one of his many-fingered hands, delicately clutched within was a simple syringe filled with clear liquid. Mackie swallowed, suddenly going pale. The grin was frozen on her face, but her eyes now told a very different story.
”A- um, uh, a s-shot~?” She squeaked, suddenly fidgeting with her hands and squirming where she stood.
”YyyyYYyyYyes. Not hurting. Very little one, vEeEEeery little.” He was right, to be fair - it really was a small injection - but that didn’t seem to be of any comfort to the gunsmith, who raised her hands in a defensive gesture and giggled nervously. ”I, uh, like, I think that’s like hardly necessary and whatever like I’m feelin’ pretty great and, uh, uh- OH! Would ya’ lookit that, just got a message from Kato he like wants to see me right away sounds super important better do this later bye!”
What started as a series of stammering hopelessly disjointed excuses took a turn when she remembered that the Captain had sent her a message a little while ago. She had ignored it initially - often she would pretend to have not received, or simply forgotten to read Kato’s messages, strictly as a means of getting him out of his office for a bit. She had been hoping this time for him to stop by, to give him an opportunity to see in person just how much of a difference he had made in the life of the girl he had spared. Now, however, pretending it had only just come in, it seemed like the perfect excuse to take her leave.
Hastily, the addled Mackie sidled around Danesh and slipped out of the armoury - leaving the robot to swing his head toward the girl with what would have been a very dry look had he the capability of facial expressions. It was accompanied with a small sigh, despite the fact that he did not breathe. ”Hm.”
Tsuan was pretty sure the captain had tossed him a word of gratitude. Pretty sure. Almost definitely probably maybe. Regardless, he was glad to see the situation defused one way or another.
Though knowing that he had apparently gotten involved with a spat between two officers still rattled him a bit. Seriously, how was that kid the head of engineering? Not that he particularly cared - just another thing on this big, weird boat that was wholly bizarre.
Before he could make excuses or voice protests - and before Dal could further berate him - the pair found themselves under the arms of their third Musketeer, who seemed pretty amped. Dal - who it took most people about ten minutes to figure out was really just an abrasive teddy bear - let the ‘angry big sister’ routine slide off, released Tsuan from her vice grip and cracked a grin. ”Aw, hell, he gone got backup. I see how it is.” She griped, crossing her arms and leaning on one hip. ”But yeeah, wha’was you up on’at ship anyhow?” She asked, a falsely-innocent question that didn’t extend to her knowing eyes.
Tsuan, busy adjusting the collar of his shirt, froze, then shot the girls what is universally known as a ’@#$%-eating-grin’. ”Huh? Oh, well, y’see, I had a hunch-”
Dal interrupted him with a groan, rolling her neck and smacking him on the shoulder. ”Awwww hail don’chu be givin’ me dat bo’@#$%, ZZ don’chu believe a word’is punk-ass be sayin-” Tsuan responded with a humorously self-righteous look between the girls - fake posh accent and all. ”Well I never! I simply cannot believe you would attack my integrity like that- Zurha are you hearing what this-ACK!” Tsuan’s act was cut off with a squawk as he was smacked on the back of the head. ”Oh, I’ll attack mo’den yo integrity yo’ punk-ass-”
It was the usual banter - little had changed when Dallen attached herself to the pair of childhood friends in boot camp, least of all the woman’s overly harsh demeanor, which was more a running joke than actual means of defense since she had no problem with people knowing that she was really a big softie...Being able to back it up with muscle and skills helped too. She had never been insecure.
Having only been a trio for a few years, Dallen did not share the bond that Tsuan and Zurha did, the two of them having been close since their childhood days. That she as marginally closer to Tsuan than Zurha had never been a point of contention among them - mostly since all it meant was that he usually got the brunt of Dallen’s well intended berating. Like he was now.
”Well even if I was skipping out on my training - which I wasn’t - I sorta’ saved the day here so I think I deserve to get off the hook, right Z? Riiight~?”
Riley didn’t skip a beat - and in her typically abrasive state it would prove difficult to determine whether she noticed, or even cared about the hints of frustration in her friend’s voice. Seconds after the door hissed shut, Riley was wrenching free of Ike as though she had not wanted to be up against him at all. Was she angry with him? ”You stupid?” she half-asked, not looking at the synth. Walking a few steps, she leaned down and picked up the wrench-made-weapon, examining it idly and scowling as she noticed the blood and little scrap of flesh dirtying it’s old, iron head.
”Ain’t none’a this you’s fault.” she continued, scraping off the bits of gore on the heel of a boot before returning it to her coat pocket. Was there a wisp of tension in the air? It was always so hard to tell with her, even to someone who knew her better than most.
Folding her arms with a frustrated huff, Riley spent a moment facing away from Ike, staring at the door in a way that was probably indicative of some inner debate, or possibly trying to cool herself off enough to say something the right way. She stood there for a long time, the moment dragging on, and on…
But Ike would not have the chance to speak, for the instant he tried she would whirl on him, looking through red bangs with an enigmatic expression that was somewhere between anger, sorrow and fear. That steely gaze was as powerful as ever, but in a different way. Something which spoke of experience beyond her years.
”What would’a ‘appened.” She demanded softly. ”What would’a ‘appened f’you shot him, ah? W’y meant to or not.”
With a sudden fervor, the small girl stepped forward and shoved Ike ineffectually in the chest. ”You’d be @#$%in’ scrap. That’s what.” She snapped through gritted teeth, voice cracking. ”They’d put you down, Ike. Jus’ like ’at.” She snapped a finger, steely eyes locked on his - the sadness and fear and anger all mingling into something obscurely intense and heartbreaking. But with a sniff, it became clear that the three would not be equal parts for long.
She had been there again. Unbeknownst to all but herself, standing there, behind her friend, so brave and strong and protective, willing to battle the whole universe if it meant keeping her safe. Her. Little, insignificant, unlikeable Rilynne Miles. A stain on the world that hadn’t been scraped up yet. It had played out for her. She had seen what would happen. Watching helplessly as he was taken from her - pathetic, helpless little her who had no choice but to watch.
She had come this close to losing him. She was sure of it. Maybe he didn’t know, but she did.
It was in her eyes now - the trembling look of someone who had seen something terrible - but what had she seen in the little scout ship that everyone else hadn’t?
”Ike, I-...I-...” She began weakly, voice losing its edge as the tears threatened to overcome her. Shaking her head, she pawed at her eyes with the back of a hand as if trying to dismiss the wetness there. That old army field jacket really was too big on her. She really was much too small.
Then, without preamble or warning, Riley practically lunged at Ike, throwing her arms around him, wrapping them around his waist and burying her face in his chest. An insignificant grasp, but she had clamped herself there with everything she had. Eyes screwed shut, the small girl refused to cry out. Refused to let a sob shake her. She gritted her teeth, nuzzled fervently into Ike’s shirt - sniffling, but refusing to weep openly. She had to be at least that strong.
And in the silence of the little scout ship, there she remained. Whatever had happened remained trapped in her head - but obviously something had changed. Something that, perhaps, had brought about a new, deeper understanding of just how much she appreciated the weird little synthetic. A stronger-still resolve that she absolutely, positively could not allow anyone else to die for her. It wasn’t worth it...Couldn’t they see that?
The long minutes wafted by, and Riley began to calm down. When she spoke, her voice muffled by Ike’s shirt, it was almost as if she were picking up where she had left off. Barely a hoarse whimper. Almost timid.
”I...I w-wanna’ go see it.” She breathed, sniffing again. ”I wanna’ g-go watch th'Ring wit' you."
This made it all better.
Memories were such a strange thing. A complicated and confusing thing. Good ones, bad ones, ones to keep, ones to let go. And there were so many of them.
She had not felt that piercing surge of despair strike through her chest again, not since that first day. And now, when she watched this young warrior scarfing down junk food or singing along to bits of songs she’d never heard before or just wearing her own ridiculous, rainbow hoodie - she didn’t see pain. Scars, perhaps - but no pain. It warmed her hearts as always, but there was something new and special, too. Many people had called her many things - most of them nice, some not so much - but nobody had ever called her ’Mom’. It was nice.
”Uh, heck yes.” Mackie affirmed, her lazy grin brightening marginally at the idea - almost as if it were something blatantly obvious, but she didn’t mind stating it anyway. ”I’ll rig it up with some thicker gauge strings - ones I got on there are super light ‘cause steel strings hurt my fingers~” A sort of playful admissiveness there as she waggled her fingers for emphasis - knowing that the notion of someone who could take lasers and shrapnel in stride having sensitive fingers was silly, but not being particularly ashamed of the fact. ”I bet you’ll pick it up wicked quick, too. Just, like, a hunch. I’ll dig it out later.”
With that decided, Annag mentioned the possibility of cleaning up and Mackie responded by looking around the room as if she had only just realized where she was, or that it was presently an absolute disaster area of leavings and packages of all kinds. ”Uh, yeah, I Guess we should proooooobably do that.” It was virtually impossible to determine whether the woman was actually as scatterbrained as she sometimes appeared to be - but she was still a total stoner, so that might have had something to do with it. ”After that I’ll show you how to clean the XR-42s like a baus and we can start on that, like, giganto-mountain of them over there.” Realistically the majority of them were still within perfect operating standards for Federal military - but they weren’t up to Mackie Standards™.
The next few minutes were taken up by the pair cleaning up the aftermath of their feast. Mackie switched the music back over to the soft, relaxing folk tunes and sitars that she preferred listening to while working. She also tried many times to toss bits of trash into the disposal from all different spots about the room, and kept doing this even as it became tragically apparent that she was never going to actually get one in. At least she had the sense not to throw anything made of glass. And, of course, each failed attempt only made her laugh, or sometimes curse with feigned frustration - then laugh. She did a lot of laughing. Also chortling and giggling. But not usually snickering.
Just another paradox - a woman who could hit a dozen fun-size targets at long range with a peashooter, but couldn’t get a soda can into the disposal ten feet away. ”I think I, like, should not ever play basketball, pff~”
With someone else to keep her from getting distracted by other things - unintentionally or otherwise - the armoury ended up more tidy than she had seen it in a very long time. Looking about with raised brows, the gunsmith momentarily considered the idea of reorganizing things into a more efficient system - but quickly decided that her own cluttered method had worked for too long to go changing it now. Puffing with satisfaction on her ever-present joint, Macks nodded, extinguished it in an ashtray shaped like some kind of goblin (While the secondhand smoke from Macks’ blend ws mostly impotent, somebody with a low tolerance might still be affected if spending too much time in very close quarters, such as they would while she showed the girl proper rifle maintenance techniques.) she proceeded to one of her many workstations, beckoned her adopted daughter and enthusiastic assistant over, and proceeded with an intuitive lesson on how to disassemble, clean, and reassemble the standard issue XR-42 laser rifles ’like a baus’. The deftness of her fingers and her familiarity with the task were, of course, nothing short of masterful.
She was an excellent teacher, too. Patient, understanding, always eager to answer questions and rephrase things to clarify. Even if Annag had experience with these very guns, Mackie had much to teach - but within the hour the two were both working on separate weapons, with Mackie occasionally peering over to give helpful advice. ”It’s easier if you sorta’ slide it from this way...Be sure to get up under the rail there-...Rad, yo, that one’s perfect~”
Within the second hour, Mackie decided that the girl could be trusted to clean them on her own, and had taken to doing repairs and maintenance instead. Making sure to remain at the bench closest to Annag, she talked about what she was doing as she dug about and fiddled with the sensitive equipment, allowing the kid to watch and learn without insisting on it. ”See the diode’s got like these four little pin thingies that gotta slide out-...This is like, a suuuper common issue with the whole XR series so it’s like the first thing-...There’s like a sorta’ spring release right up under there you gotta’ watch out for, it bit me one time and-...”
It had been real quality time between adoptive mother and daughter. Time well spent. Already the gunsmith found it difficult to imagine the enthusiastic teenage girl as having been an enemy. Then again, Mackie had a hard time viewing anyone as purely an enemy. There was always so much more to a person than what first appeared.
Mackie had been rooting around in some shelves toward the back of the room, in search of a spare regulating module to replace one that had been fried by a stray shot when their visitor appeared in the doorway. Poking his big, gently bobbing ‘head’ in with what amounted to something vaguely along the lines of ‘subtlety’ - his lowly rumbling chassis could be heard ten feet down the hall, but that wasn’t the point.
”HelloooooOOOOoooooOOo?”
Something about the robot’s voice - which was still somewhat muffled since it emanated from the speaker on his still hidden body - sounded vaguely tentative. Mackie, standing on tiptoe as she peered through an inconveniently placed drawer and dug awkwardly around inside, did not appear to notice the peculiar tone. She just glanced back and grinned as usual. ”Eyy Danesh, what’s up my Metal Medic?”
Slowly, Danesh maneuvered his ostrich-like body into the armoury as Mackie returned her attention to digging about for the part. ”Your attention anchovies artwork iiiIIIIiiiiis rewarded required.”
This time, she must have noticed something weird. Part in hand, Macks turned and sauntered back toward the workbench, one brow raised inquisitively, still grinning. ”Oookayyy~?” She prompted, placing the part down and tilting her head. ”Well you, like, got it bruh, what’s up?”
Danesh’s body vibrated for a moment, likely for no particular reason. ”UP is classified corrugated aaaasss- you are required for iiIIIIIiinjection of vital agent for maximum health of rooooOOoobototitc limb.”
The instant the weird old robot got to the word ’injection’, Mackie froze - suddenly looking very stiff - though her expression did not change, the grin at once was no longer reflected in her eyes.
”You, uh, y’whatnow~?”
Danesh rumbled again. ”You are needing shot. VeeEeeery important please. Needle is small, not hurting.”
Mackie blinked, her eyes trailing down from the robot’s big softly glowing green eyes to one of his many-fingered hands, delicately clutched within was a simple syringe filled with clear liquid. Mackie swallowed, suddenly going pale. The grin was frozen on her face, but her eyes now told a very different story.
”A- um, uh, a s-shot~?” She squeaked, suddenly fidgeting with her hands and squirming where she stood.”YyyyYYyyYyes. Not hurting. Very little one, vEeEEeery little.” He was right, to be fair - it really was a small injection - but that didn’t seem to be of any comfort to the gunsmith, who raised her hands in a defensive gesture and giggled nervously. ”I, uh, like, I think that’s like hardly necessary and whatever like I’m feelin’ pretty great and, uh, uh- OH! Would ya’ lookit that, just got a message from Kato he like wants to see me right away sounds super important better do this later bye!”
What started as a series of stammering hopelessly disjointed excuses took a turn when she remembered that the Captain had sent her a message a little while ago. She had ignored it initially - often she would pretend to have not received, or simply forgotten to read Kato’s messages, strictly as a means of getting him out of his office for a bit. She had been hoping this time for him to stop by, to give him an opportunity to see in person just how much of a difference he had made in the life of the girl he had spared. Now, however, pretending it had only just come in, it seemed like the perfect excuse to take her leave.
Hastily, the addled Mackie sidled around Danesh and slipped out of the armoury - leaving the robot to swing his head toward the girl with what would have been a very dry look had he the capability of facial expressions. It was accompanied with a small sigh, despite the fact that he did not breathe. ”Hm.”
Tsuan was pretty sure the captain had tossed him a word of gratitude. Pretty sure. Almost definitely probably maybe. Regardless, he was glad to see the situation defused one way or another.
Though knowing that he had apparently gotten involved with a spat between two officers still rattled him a bit. Seriously, how was that kid the head of engineering? Not that he particularly cared - just another thing on this big, weird boat that was wholly bizarre.
Before he could make excuses or voice protests - and before Dal could further berate him - the pair found themselves under the arms of their third Musketeer, who seemed pretty amped. Dal - who it took most people about ten minutes to figure out was really just an abrasive teddy bear - let the ‘angry big sister’ routine slide off, released Tsuan from her vice grip and cracked a grin. ”Aw, hell, he gone got backup. I see how it is.” She griped, crossing her arms and leaning on one hip. ”But yeeah, wha’was you up on’at ship anyhow?” She asked, a falsely-innocent question that didn’t extend to her knowing eyes.
Tsuan, busy adjusting the collar of his shirt, froze, then shot the girls what is universally known as a ’@#$%-eating-grin’. ”Huh? Oh, well, y’see, I had a hunch-”
Dal interrupted him with a groan, rolling her neck and smacking him on the shoulder. ”Awwww hail don’chu be givin’ me dat bo’@#$%, ZZ don’chu believe a word’is punk-ass be sayin-” Tsuan responded with a humorously self-righteous look between the girls - fake posh accent and all. ”Well I never! I simply cannot believe you would attack my integrity like that- Zurha are you hearing what this-ACK!” Tsuan’s act was cut off with a squawk as he was smacked on the back of the head. ”Oh, I’ll attack mo’den yo integrity yo’ punk-ass-”
It was the usual banter - little had changed when Dallen attached herself to the pair of childhood friends in boot camp, least of all the woman’s overly harsh demeanor, which was more a running joke than actual means of defense since she had no problem with people knowing that she was really a big softie...Being able to back it up with muscle and skills helped too. She had never been insecure.
Having only been a trio for a few years, Dallen did not share the bond that Tsuan and Zurha did, the two of them having been close since their childhood days. That she as marginally closer to Tsuan than Zurha had never been a point of contention among them - mostly since all it meant was that he usually got the brunt of Dallen’s well intended berating. Like he was now.
”Well even if I was skipping out on my training - which I wasn’t - I sorta’ saved the day here so I think I deserve to get off the hook, right Z? Riiight~?”
♫
Riley didn’t skip a beat - and in her typically abrasive state it would prove difficult to determine whether she noticed, or even cared about the hints of frustration in her friend’s voice. Seconds after the door hissed shut, Riley was wrenching free of Ike as though she had not wanted to be up against him at all. Was she angry with him? ”You stupid?” she half-asked, not looking at the synth. Walking a few steps, she leaned down and picked up the wrench-made-weapon, examining it idly and scowling as she noticed the blood and little scrap of flesh dirtying it’s old, iron head.
”Ain’t none’a this you’s fault.” she continued, scraping off the bits of gore on the heel of a boot before returning it to her coat pocket. Was there a wisp of tension in the air? It was always so hard to tell with her, even to someone who knew her better than most.
Folding her arms with a frustrated huff, Riley spent a moment facing away from Ike, staring at the door in a way that was probably indicative of some inner debate, or possibly trying to cool herself off enough to say something the right way. She stood there for a long time, the moment dragging on, and on…
But Ike would not have the chance to speak, for the instant he tried she would whirl on him, looking through red bangs with an enigmatic expression that was somewhere between anger, sorrow and fear. That steely gaze was as powerful as ever, but in a different way. Something which spoke of experience beyond her years.
”What would’a ‘appened.” She demanded softly. ”What would’a ‘appened f’you shot him, ah? W’y meant to or not.”
With a sudden fervor, the small girl stepped forward and shoved Ike ineffectually in the chest. ”You’d be @#$%in’ scrap. That’s what.” She snapped through gritted teeth, voice cracking. ”They’d put you down, Ike. Jus’ like ’at.” She snapped a finger, steely eyes locked on his - the sadness and fear and anger all mingling into something obscurely intense and heartbreaking. But with a sniff, it became clear that the three would not be equal parts for long.
She had been there again. Unbeknownst to all but herself, standing there, behind her friend, so brave and strong and protective, willing to battle the whole universe if it meant keeping her safe. Her. Little, insignificant, unlikeable Rilynne Miles. A stain on the world that hadn’t been scraped up yet. It had played out for her. She had seen what would happen. Watching helplessly as he was taken from her - pathetic, helpless little her who had no choice but to watch.
She had come this close to losing him. She was sure of it. Maybe he didn’t know, but she did.
It was in her eyes now - the trembling look of someone who had seen something terrible - but what had she seen in the little scout ship that everyone else hadn’t?
”Ike, I-...I-...” She began weakly, voice losing its edge as the tears threatened to overcome her. Shaking her head, she pawed at her eyes with the back of a hand as if trying to dismiss the wetness there. That old army field jacket really was too big on her. She really was much too small.
Then, without preamble or warning, Riley practically lunged at Ike, throwing her arms around him, wrapping them around his waist and burying her face in his chest. An insignificant grasp, but she had clamped herself there with everything she had. Eyes screwed shut, the small girl refused to cry out. Refused to let a sob shake her. She gritted her teeth, nuzzled fervently into Ike’s shirt - sniffling, but refusing to weep openly. She had to be at least that strong.
And in the silence of the little scout ship, there she remained. Whatever had happened remained trapped in her head - but obviously something had changed. Something that, perhaps, had brought about a new, deeper understanding of just how much she appreciated the weird little synthetic. A stronger-still resolve that she absolutely, positively could not allow anyone else to die for her. It wasn’t worth it...Couldn’t they see that?
The long minutes wafted by, and Riley began to calm down. When she spoke, her voice muffled by Ike’s shirt, it was almost as if she were picking up where she had left off. Barely a hoarse whimper. Almost timid.
”I...I w-wanna’ go see it.” She breathed, sniffing again. ”I wanna’ g-go watch th'Ring wit' you."
“Whatever’s there, I hope we don’t find it and spoil the party.” He said, running his tongue around where the tooth used to be, the girl had a good swing, he’d give her that, meaning she wasn’t just all bark, good. He looked at Kato, something was up, he knew it, not to mention his breath,or a equivalent to breath, smelt awful, and said, “forget to brush today or something?”
Kato gave Robert a slow sideways look, his eyes slowly focusing as they roamed around the room. Gently his thoughts were slipping away into that realm that they so loved to occupy, whether that realm was in the past, present or even future no one would ever be quite able to tell. This land of memories and regret was ever shifting, the second someone even began to get close to any clear image of what it really looked like it all seemed to change, finding some new way to torture the single occupant stuck inside the never-ending maze.
Even now in a moment like this when it would be quite easy to tell that his thoughts were back on the galaxy that existed far outside of their little ringworld home, it would be impossible to tell if that same galaxy was what he remembered leaving behind or the one he imagined re-entering now.
Slowly one hand raised itself up to press gently against the single remnant of flesh which covered his right arm. The way his fingers held themselves atop the veins gently stroking the patterns was like a hand trailing across the engraved name of a long dead friend. There was something there that he treasured and yet missed so dearly, something that was etched into his being and yet was unable to ever share. Just another of the ancient beings weird ticks.
"Maybe any other humans survived ... Maybe there's others out there ... wouldn't it be amazing if we could just reunite with them someday?"
He sighed that long deep exhalation of breath from someone who's been wondering for so long they've almost completely given up on being given any answers. "I'm sorry, I've been doing a lot of thinking recently, ever since the attack ... I think it might be time for a change ... "
What the change was, he didn't say. That he would keep a secret until he'd managed to reunite with the other person he wanted to share this with, that hippie gunsmith Mackie.
For Zurha the universe just seemed to slide into place, its little gears sliding along on their smoothly oiled joint and she couldn't have been happier for it. She'd done a lot today, Boy what a packed day it really had been. She'd managed to meet the man whose memories had told her such a tale of a galaxy now long dead. She'd been able just for a second to share in his vision of the glittering void, not empty, but filled with so much life. All those strange strange creatures, sure she still had more questions, but those could wait, she had the roam of the ship now, all the time she could ever want.
Now all she wanted in those moments was to reunite and spend time with her friends, their own little crew. Tsuan her own (in her own head) twin brother with his laziness, which really should have got her rolling her eyes at him and yet he had a way, that no matter what he'd just done could always make her laugh.
And now looking at his grin, knowing full well he had been hiding from their teddy bear of a big sister, that was exactly what she did. It wasn’t a harsh laugh, or even preceded by a set of small giggles, instead it was like someone had flipped a switch, bubbly laughter burst forth from her lips, practically doubling her up giggling.
“A hunch eh? Oh my Tsu, that nose for trouble and sniffing out all the suspicious activities is gonna get you in trouble one day!”
She grinned as she turned an eye back towards her two friends and their antics, enjoying watching it play out for a few seconds. {color=sandybrown] “Ya gotta admit tho Dal, he does make a convincing argument, I mean why else could he possibly have ever been on that ship! I know Tsu and he would neeeeever have been doing something as heinous as skipping training!” [/color] The intelligence officer punctuated her last comments with a small nudge to his ribs.
It was almost as if nothing had changed really, like they were still back on that spinning ring down in the training camps. That thought encouraged her, she enjoyed feeling connected to people, especially if those people happened to be Tsuan or Dallen. Knowing the exact sort of bond that they shared was something that gave her a little glow of pride inside.
It didn’t really bother her that she didn’t share as close as bond with Dal as Tsu did, then again she never really was the sort to ever be bothered by that sort of thing. Zurha simply enjoyed having people around her who she could chat to, share experiences with.
“Oh I think I need to think about that one, one one hand you did disobey an order from a superior and therefore could be liable for dereliction of duty …. Her voice tried to keep as flat and authoritorial as possible, something that was rather undermined by the constant grin plastered all over her own face, then flat out betrayed by the following giggle.
“Buuuut, you did save the day and therefore are a Federal Hero …. So I say it balances out right? How about we skip the ceremonies and just let him off for today eh Dal?”
The embrace lasted only a few seconds, ending as quickly as it had started as Riley tore herself away from the teary eyed synth. Even though she’d left that little corner she’d pressed him up into, the force keeping him there being removed, he still didn’t leave. He didn’t even bring up an answer to her question, he couldn’t, he really had pointed a gun at a superior officer.
Slowly his hands bawled themselves up into little fists, she had every right to be angry at him, he knew that. He’d been the one to take her on this trip, the one to escalate things by being the idiot that he was. Even as she told him it wasn’t his fault he still blamed himself.
Even worse, he’d been willing to turn himself into a weapon, he had been on the verge of doing the thing he hated about himself the most. Yet that little pale synth did not regret that decision one little bit. He would be willing to do absolutely anything to help that little-redheaded girl who stood opposite him cleaning the blood of her own little weapon.
When he finally raised up his eyes to get a better look at her, it was with her back to him, facing that little portal back out into the ship and had he got one, that heart would have sunk right out of his body. It seemed she really did want to put this behind her and leave after all, still he didn’t say anything, allowing the moment to just drag on.
“ I…” He didn’t know what had prompted him to make any noise at all, much less attempt to formulate a sentence. Maybe he’d been hoping he could say anything to convince her to stay a bit longer with him.
Not that he would have been able to actually get anything further out as in that second he spoke she whirled on him and those eyes silenced him in a second. In that second Ike understood something about the little girl he adored and loved so much, she’d seen something, what it was he didn’t know, but she’d seen something that no one at her age should ever have had to see. He’d seen that look twice before now on this ship, once on another teen with robotic arms and almost permanently plastered over the face of their reclusive captain. Why did so many people have to suffer like this? It wasn’t fair, the whole damn world wasn’t fair.
He didn’t have an answer to her demands, he knew what the consequences would have been if he’d have done the unthinkable.
Yet even as her hands shoved into him he couldn’t bring himself to say anything, there was nothing he knew how to say in this situation. He’d done something so reckless that his past self would have probably been so appalled it would have never spoken to him again for such insubordination and yet -. He saw what amounted to heartbreak in her eyes and it was like she had suddenly developed Gorgon-like powers, he felt like he’d been rooted to the spot.
It only really hit him then just how close to death he really had been, how much oil he had been spilling over himself next to a dangerously close match. Most importantly, how close he’d come to losing the thing that mattered more to him than anything else in this whole dead galaxy.
He could see it more clearly now, that look which told of someone who’d seen something utterly unspeakable happen, something no one else had.
Even as she moved her hand to hide the wetness in her eyes he couldn’t do anything to hide the tears in his. Little rivers made their way down his cheeks, once more carving out that ever so familiar path down his artificial face. Ike really was a crybaby, wasn’t he?
He practically yelped in surprise as Riley bodily threw herself into him, clamping around him with her arms. Had the corner not been there to support him, Ike would have most likely been sent reeling back a couple of steps, but as it was he managed to hold himself in position. Suddenly, nothing really mattered anymore, not really, it was just the two of them alone in the tiny scout ship.
Within a second he had wrapped his own arms possessively around her, the two of them claiming and protecting each other from the outside world with all of its harshness and brutality. She was just as much his abrasive yet vulnerable engineer, just as much as he was her weird bubbly synth. Together in their first properly reciprocated hug from both parties, that same weird bubbly synth felt the connection between the two of them deepen, even if just by a small bit. This was their moment.
Gently he’d rest his head down into the soft bit in her shoulder once more, allowing all the tension and stress to bleed away into the ground. He was safe here, they both were safe here, protected by each other's little grasp.
As she uttered those muffled little words, Riley would be able to hear a tiny, almost imperceptible gasp followed by a few seconds of silence. “Thank you Riles, thank you so much.
Gently with one hand he’d lean over and begin the sequence to take the ship back up into the “air” of the hanger and then begin the journey back out into the vastness of space which surrounded the Last Light. Despite how complicated it had been before, this time it was a much more simple press of buttons which lead to the exact same result, this was due to the fact that on the first time around, Ike had been adding his journey into the autopilot and now was simply activating those controls to recreate the moment he’d waited so long for.
With the Synth practically bodily attached to her, Riley would be able to feel the small little wiggles run through Ike’s body as the excitement and joy of being able to, despite all the setbacks, accomplish a lifelong dream of his, especially with the person he wished to share his whole life with.
Eventually, it would become clear to Riley that Ike wasn’t going to let go until she did, that bundle of sheer ecstatic joy and love wanting to allow this moment of theirs to last as long as it could. But the second she did release or push away from him, he wouldn’t try and force it to last any longer, not while he had a little surprise for her.
“Hey Riles … there’s a little something for us I snuck aboard before we got on … its in a little cabinet below the desk on the right there.” He’d point with one stray little finger, practically unable to keep itself locked on to the desk in question out of excitement.
If she did choose to wander over to the cabinet in question and open it she’d find herself staring at three small plates, the first two contained large burgers, wrapped in a little self-heating wrapping to keep them as warm and freshly ready as when they’d been prepared. The third plate contained a small bag, which if Riley peered in she would discover something that was clearly meant to be the little snack after the meal Ike had prepared for the two of them. Inside were a number of strands of black licorice.
Even now in a moment like this when it would be quite easy to tell that his thoughts were back on the galaxy that existed far outside of their little ringworld home, it would be impossible to tell if that same galaxy was what he remembered leaving behind or the one he imagined re-entering now.
Slowly one hand raised itself up to press gently against the single remnant of flesh which covered his right arm. The way his fingers held themselves atop the veins gently stroking the patterns was like a hand trailing across the engraved name of a long dead friend. There was something there that he treasured and yet missed so dearly, something that was etched into his being and yet was unable to ever share. Just another of the ancient beings weird ticks.
"Maybe any other humans survived ... Maybe there's others out there ... wouldn't it be amazing if we could just reunite with them someday?"
He sighed that long deep exhalation of breath from someone who's been wondering for so long they've almost completely given up on being given any answers. "I'm sorry, I've been doing a lot of thinking recently, ever since the attack ... I think it might be time for a change ... "
What the change was, he didn't say. That he would keep a secret until he'd managed to reunite with the other person he wanted to share this with, that hippie gunsmith Mackie.
For Zurha the universe just seemed to slide into place, its little gears sliding along on their smoothly oiled joint and she couldn't have been happier for it. She'd done a lot today, Boy what a packed day it really had been. She'd managed to meet the man whose memories had told her such a tale of a galaxy now long dead. She'd been able just for a second to share in his vision of the glittering void, not empty, but filled with so much life. All those strange strange creatures, sure she still had more questions, but those could wait, she had the roam of the ship now, all the time she could ever want.
Now all she wanted in those moments was to reunite and spend time with her friends, their own little crew. Tsuan her own (in her own head) twin brother with his laziness, which really should have got her rolling her eyes at him and yet he had a way, that no matter what he'd just done could always make her laugh.
And now looking at his grin, knowing full well he had been hiding from their teddy bear of a big sister, that was exactly what she did. It wasn’t a harsh laugh, or even preceded by a set of small giggles, instead it was like someone had flipped a switch, bubbly laughter burst forth from her lips, practically doubling her up giggling.
“A hunch eh? Oh my Tsu, that nose for trouble and sniffing out all the suspicious activities is gonna get you in trouble one day!”
She grinned as she turned an eye back towards her two friends and their antics, enjoying watching it play out for a few seconds. {color=sandybrown] “Ya gotta admit tho Dal, he does make a convincing argument, I mean why else could he possibly have ever been on that ship! I know Tsu and he would neeeeever have been doing something as heinous as skipping training!” [/color] The intelligence officer punctuated her last comments with a small nudge to his ribs.
It was almost as if nothing had changed really, like they were still back on that spinning ring down in the training camps. That thought encouraged her, she enjoyed feeling connected to people, especially if those people happened to be Tsuan or Dallen. Knowing the exact sort of bond that they shared was something that gave her a little glow of pride inside.
It didn’t really bother her that she didn’t share as close as bond with Dal as Tsu did, then again she never really was the sort to ever be bothered by that sort of thing. Zurha simply enjoyed having people around her who she could chat to, share experiences with.
“Oh I think I need to think about that one, one one hand you did disobey an order from a superior and therefore could be liable for dereliction of duty …. Her voice tried to keep as flat and authoritorial as possible, something that was rather undermined by the constant grin plastered all over her own face, then flat out betrayed by the following giggle.
“Buuuut, you did save the day and therefore are a Federal Hero …. So I say it balances out right? How about we skip the ceremonies and just let him off for today eh Dal?”
The embrace lasted only a few seconds, ending as quickly as it had started as Riley tore herself away from the teary eyed synth. Even though she’d left that little corner she’d pressed him up into, the force keeping him there being removed, he still didn’t leave. He didn’t even bring up an answer to her question, he couldn’t, he really had pointed a gun at a superior officer.
Slowly his hands bawled themselves up into little fists, she had every right to be angry at him, he knew that. He’d been the one to take her on this trip, the one to escalate things by being the idiot that he was. Even as she told him it wasn’t his fault he still blamed himself.
Even worse, he’d been willing to turn himself into a weapon, he had been on the verge of doing the thing he hated about himself the most. Yet that little pale synth did not regret that decision one little bit. He would be willing to do absolutely anything to help that little-redheaded girl who stood opposite him cleaning the blood of her own little weapon.
When he finally raised up his eyes to get a better look at her, it was with her back to him, facing that little portal back out into the ship and had he got one, that heart would have sunk right out of his body. It seemed she really did want to put this behind her and leave after all, still he didn’t say anything, allowing the moment to just drag on.
“ I…” He didn’t know what had prompted him to make any noise at all, much less attempt to formulate a sentence. Maybe he’d been hoping he could say anything to convince her to stay a bit longer with him.
Not that he would have been able to actually get anything further out as in that second he spoke she whirled on him and those eyes silenced him in a second. In that second Ike understood something about the little girl he adored and loved so much, she’d seen something, what it was he didn’t know, but she’d seen something that no one at her age should ever have had to see. He’d seen that look twice before now on this ship, once on another teen with robotic arms and almost permanently plastered over the face of their reclusive captain. Why did so many people have to suffer like this? It wasn’t fair, the whole damn world wasn’t fair.
He didn’t have an answer to her demands, he knew what the consequences would have been if he’d have done the unthinkable.
Yet even as her hands shoved into him he couldn’t bring himself to say anything, there was nothing he knew how to say in this situation. He’d done something so reckless that his past self would have probably been so appalled it would have never spoken to him again for such insubordination and yet -. He saw what amounted to heartbreak in her eyes and it was like she had suddenly developed Gorgon-like powers, he felt like he’d been rooted to the spot.
It only really hit him then just how close to death he really had been, how much oil he had been spilling over himself next to a dangerously close match. Most importantly, how close he’d come to losing the thing that mattered more to him than anything else in this whole dead galaxy.
He could see it more clearly now, that look which told of someone who’d seen something utterly unspeakable happen, something no one else had.
Even as she moved her hand to hide the wetness in her eyes he couldn’t do anything to hide the tears in his. Little rivers made their way down his cheeks, once more carving out that ever so familiar path down his artificial face. Ike really was a crybaby, wasn’t he?
He practically yelped in surprise as Riley bodily threw herself into him, clamping around him with her arms. Had the corner not been there to support him, Ike would have most likely been sent reeling back a couple of steps, but as it was he managed to hold himself in position. Suddenly, nothing really mattered anymore, not really, it was just the two of them alone in the tiny scout ship.
Within a second he had wrapped his own arms possessively around her, the two of them claiming and protecting each other from the outside world with all of its harshness and brutality. She was just as much his abrasive yet vulnerable engineer, just as much as he was her weird bubbly synth. Together in their first properly reciprocated hug from both parties, that same weird bubbly synth felt the connection between the two of them deepen, even if just by a small bit. This was their moment.
Gently he’d rest his head down into the soft bit in her shoulder once more, allowing all the tension and stress to bleed away into the ground. He was safe here, they both were safe here, protected by each other's little grasp.
As she uttered those muffled little words, Riley would be able to hear a tiny, almost imperceptible gasp followed by a few seconds of silence. “Thank you Riles, thank you so much.
Gently with one hand he’d lean over and begin the sequence to take the ship back up into the “air” of the hanger and then begin the journey back out into the vastness of space which surrounded the Last Light. Despite how complicated it had been before, this time it was a much more simple press of buttons which lead to the exact same result, this was due to the fact that on the first time around, Ike had been adding his journey into the autopilot and now was simply activating those controls to recreate the moment he’d waited so long for.
With the Synth practically bodily attached to her, Riley would be able to feel the small little wiggles run through Ike’s body as the excitement and joy of being able to, despite all the setbacks, accomplish a lifelong dream of his, especially with the person he wished to share his whole life with.
Eventually, it would become clear to Riley that Ike wasn’t going to let go until she did, that bundle of sheer ecstatic joy and love wanting to allow this moment of theirs to last as long as it could. But the second she did release or push away from him, he wouldn’t try and force it to last any longer, not while he had a little surprise for her.
“Hey Riles … there’s a little something for us I snuck aboard before we got on … its in a little cabinet below the desk on the right there.” He’d point with one stray little finger, practically unable to keep itself locked on to the desk in question out of excitement.
If she did choose to wander over to the cabinet in question and open it she’d find herself staring at three small plates, the first two contained large burgers, wrapped in a little self-heating wrapping to keep them as warm and freshly ready as when they’d been prepared. The third plate contained a small bag, which if Riley peered in she would discover something that was clearly meant to be the little snack after the meal Ike had prepared for the two of them. Inside were a number of strands of black licorice.
In many ways Mackie was once again more discerning when it came to her daughter than anyone probably had a right to be. When she looked at the teen sitting there throwing food down her at a practically alarming rate and using what bits of free air she managed to gain to sing along to song in the background and saw scars but no pain she was pretty much correct.
To say Annag hadn’t thought of Reina during this time would have been a lie, she had shared a few thoughts to her lost friend, but she had not shared the same crushing sense of loss she had done before. This time the fool who’d tried to sacrifice themselves for her had survived, this time had a lasting bond with a person that had endured.
She had shared her hurts and now had a family who was prepared to help take away the pain from those memories. Just spending time keeping herself doing something helped her to recover, she felt like now she was actually being active, even if it was just eating junk food, she was actually being “normal” for once.
“You’re the best mom!” The sheer excitement was palpable in that fighters voice as she stared hungrily at the guitar. She’d always had a small dream of owning one of those, ever since she’d managed to watch a few short clips of a metal band performing in her own small like cell like room. Occasionally she’d have lain awake on the bed imagining herself up on stage belting out some track at the top of her lungs and each time she’d gone to sleep just that little bit happier.
Even as her mom showed off the “sensitive” fingers Annag didn’t really care at all. She’d seen how tough that woman truly was. ”If I pick it up quickly, it’ll only be because I have the best teacher around!”
Even as she’d suggested the idea to clean up she’d had a small glance around at the mess she’d made and found it almost impossible to distinguish from the rest of the room. Even though they did set about cleaning without distraction and managed to get the room surprising clean, it was pretty clear that not too long in the future the teen unless she was reminded was gonna have a lot more clearing up to do. “Yeah we probably should get going on that …”
“Wait you’ll actually teach me how to clean and upkeep the weapons! That’s so cooool!” Despite that outcome being so painstakingly in your face obvious right from the very start Annag still seemed to comment on it. Probably just to enthuse over something else she could consider her mom awesome for.
As they cleaned that muddy haired teen would always stop to watch the coolest person in the world ™ attempt to score a hit in the disposal. Yet despite how many failed attempts it seemed that the younger member of their little duo would never stop cheering her, constantly throwing out encouragements or commenting on how close it was, even when it really wasn’t. And whenever Mackie began to laugh about the matter so too did Annag, an unusually sweet laugh for such a harsh exterior and personality, but most importantly a truly happy one.
The instant she was called over to help with the weapons she’d practically scramble over everything in the room to get there as quick as she could, dropping whatever had been unfortunate enough to be in her hands in that second. One thing Mackie would probably have noticed during their time together is that her daughter seemed entirely unaffected by the secondhand smoke which wafted gently out from her joint. It was with a sense of satisfaction and awe that the teen got to watch Mackie demonstrate on the rifle, showing exactly how to assemble and clean the weapon. She’s seen others work on guns before, but this was watching a true master of their craft at work and the skill practically took her breath away.
Much like how Annag couldn’t have wished for a better teacher, Mackie would find the teen to be while always a bit on the crude side of things, a good and importantly attentive learner. Two things she’d quickly discover about the girl, if she hadn’t already was that she was an avid questioner, always asking about anything she didn’t understand, determined to do her best to reach that understanding. The second is that the girl seemed to handle everything with a sense of gentleness that considering everything about the girl would feel ridiculously out of place.
At one point she’d sneak in a quick surprise hug on her mother, lasting the few short minutes until Annag’s determination to get back to learning how to clean the weapons so she could better help her mom got the better. The first time she was trusted to actually do one by herself she radiated with the sort of inner pride seen generally on those who’d just been praised by an idol of there, which in essence, she had been.
“Thank you for all the help mum! I’ve never met someone as amazing as you with all of this stuff!”
The phrase making up for lost time was an alien one to that teen but had she known about it, she would have said that this day was perfectly setting her on that road. This quality time between the mother and daughter who despite being adopted and so seemingly different in personalities treated each other like they had always been family.
With all of this, it was becoming harder and harder for that Teen to comprehend the thought that she’d ever lived differently to the way she had now.
Hearing that strange robotic voice Annag looked up for a few seconds over at that bizarre bobbing robot the ship called its medic. After a few seconds and realising that the thing was there to weird out her mom she decided it wasn’t worth her time and went back to working on polishing up her latest run at cleaning and rebuilding a firearm.
She only looked up again when she heard Mackie stammering out a string of vague excuses, only to be followed up by the woman giving out a sudden exclamation and dashing from the room. Now that was something she was going to have to store up to ask later. If she had been expecting anything from that conversation, the outcome it had reached was certainly somewhere far away from the list she’d have drawn up.
“Well don’t look at me, I don’t know what happened there …” Slowly she trailed off, her mouth seemed to be trying to form words, a bashful, almost embarrassed look passing over her face. “Hey … thanks … for saving my mom. If I can repay you in any way I will do my best.”
To say Annag hadn’t thought of Reina during this time would have been a lie, she had shared a few thoughts to her lost friend, but she had not shared the same crushing sense of loss she had done before. This time the fool who’d tried to sacrifice themselves for her had survived, this time had a lasting bond with a person that had endured.
She had shared her hurts and now had a family who was prepared to help take away the pain from those memories. Just spending time keeping herself doing something helped her to recover, she felt like now she was actually being active, even if it was just eating junk food, she was actually being “normal” for once.
“You’re the best mom!” The sheer excitement was palpable in that fighters voice as she stared hungrily at the guitar. She’d always had a small dream of owning one of those, ever since she’d managed to watch a few short clips of a metal band performing in her own small like cell like room. Occasionally she’d have lain awake on the bed imagining herself up on stage belting out some track at the top of her lungs and each time she’d gone to sleep just that little bit happier.
Even as her mom showed off the “sensitive” fingers Annag didn’t really care at all. She’d seen how tough that woman truly was. ”If I pick it up quickly, it’ll only be because I have the best teacher around!”
Even as she’d suggested the idea to clean up she’d had a small glance around at the mess she’d made and found it almost impossible to distinguish from the rest of the room. Even though they did set about cleaning without distraction and managed to get the room surprising clean, it was pretty clear that not too long in the future the teen unless she was reminded was gonna have a lot more clearing up to do. “Yeah we probably should get going on that …”
“Wait you’ll actually teach me how to clean and upkeep the weapons! That’s so cooool!” Despite that outcome being so painstakingly in your face obvious right from the very start Annag still seemed to comment on it. Probably just to enthuse over something else she could consider her mom awesome for.
As they cleaned that muddy haired teen would always stop to watch the coolest person in the world ™ attempt to score a hit in the disposal. Yet despite how many failed attempts it seemed that the younger member of their little duo would never stop cheering her, constantly throwing out encouragements or commenting on how close it was, even when it really wasn’t. And whenever Mackie began to laugh about the matter so too did Annag, an unusually sweet laugh for such a harsh exterior and personality, but most importantly a truly happy one.
The instant she was called over to help with the weapons she’d practically scramble over everything in the room to get there as quick as she could, dropping whatever had been unfortunate enough to be in her hands in that second. One thing Mackie would probably have noticed during their time together is that her daughter seemed entirely unaffected by the secondhand smoke which wafted gently out from her joint. It was with a sense of satisfaction and awe that the teen got to watch Mackie demonstrate on the rifle, showing exactly how to assemble and clean the weapon. She’s seen others work on guns before, but this was watching a true master of their craft at work and the skill practically took her breath away.
Much like how Annag couldn’t have wished for a better teacher, Mackie would find the teen to be while always a bit on the crude side of things, a good and importantly attentive learner. Two things she’d quickly discover about the girl, if she hadn’t already was that she was an avid questioner, always asking about anything she didn’t understand, determined to do her best to reach that understanding. The second is that the girl seemed to handle everything with a sense of gentleness that considering everything about the girl would feel ridiculously out of place.
At one point she’d sneak in a quick surprise hug on her mother, lasting the few short minutes until Annag’s determination to get back to learning how to clean the weapons so she could better help her mom got the better. The first time she was trusted to actually do one by herself she radiated with the sort of inner pride seen generally on those who’d just been praised by an idol of there, which in essence, she had been.
“Thank you for all the help mum! I’ve never met someone as amazing as you with all of this stuff!”
The phrase making up for lost time was an alien one to that teen but had she known about it, she would have said that this day was perfectly setting her on that road. This quality time between the mother and daughter who despite being adopted and so seemingly different in personalities treated each other like they had always been family.
With all of this, it was becoming harder and harder for that Teen to comprehend the thought that she’d ever lived differently to the way she had now.
Hearing that strange robotic voice Annag looked up for a few seconds over at that bizarre bobbing robot the ship called its medic. After a few seconds and realising that the thing was there to weird out her mom she decided it wasn’t worth her time and went back to working on polishing up her latest run at cleaning and rebuilding a firearm.
She only looked up again when she heard Mackie stammering out a string of vague excuses, only to be followed up by the woman giving out a sudden exclamation and dashing from the room. Now that was something she was going to have to store up to ask later. If she had been expecting anything from that conversation, the outcome it had reached was certainly somewhere far away from the list she’d have drawn up.
“Well don’t look at me, I don’t know what happened there …” Slowly she trailed off, her mouth seemed to be trying to form words, a bashful, almost embarrassed look passing over her face. “Hey … thanks … for saving my mom. If I can repay you in any way I will do my best.”
It didn’t take long for Ike to start wiggling and squirming in anticipation of his ridiculous little venture - and for an instant, it might have seemed as though something about this had broken Riley down that last bit and brought about nearly silent, shuddering sobs. There were any number of frightful insecurities that might suddenly strike out from the little synth’s heart - but it did not take long for the distinction to be made. Riley wasn’t crying - she was giggling.
Maybe it was the manic euphoria of coming down from great stress. Maybe it was the liberation from some past demon, the freedom to openly cling to her friend, go all-in - maybe it was something else. But whatever it was, Riley was giggling. Her eyes were still watery, she rubbed them on Ike’s shirt, but didn’t stop the bubbly little sound.
”Y-you’re ridiculous~” She stammered softly through the laughter.
Indeed, Ike having gone so hastily back to being so very excited over this silly errand after all that was what had her going. There was still no way she could hope to be even nearly as enthusiastic about this nonsense as Ike was, even having endeavored to act more interested and appreciative than she had at first.
Their embrace lasted quite a while longer - and when it ended, it was not with Riley backpedaling, yanking away or making excuses - she just let it come to an end. Taking a step back, she wiped at her eyes again, still with a lopsided grin brightening up her freckled face. Then, folding her arms and heavily slouching her weight onto one hip she shot the synth a positively sassy smirk as if to say ’what, you want me to go get it?’. She still didn’t hesitate to spin and proceed over to the cabinet below the indicated desk.
Glancing back to him with one more skeptical, but thoroughly cheeky look, the little engineer peered into the cabinet - looked for an instant as though she had just seen some kind of mutant with several heads too many, then looked back at Ike as if he were an absolute madman. But…Not necessarily in a bad way.
That was food. Real food. Real, honest-to-space, 100% genuine food. Had RIley known anything of the legendary ‘Ambrosia’, she would have likened it to this.
Real food was something that Rilynne had virtually no experience with. The nutrient slop vaguely disguised as food they served in the M’Draani bunkers and facilities didn’t count. The MREs were somewhat better, a real treat at the time. Even after the dismantlement of the perpetually warring nations, the year-and-change Riley had spent following her deportation had barely been living at all. The ones who had allowed her to live in their shop’s spare room under the condition that she work for them doing repairs had never actually paid Riley. And while they had never forced her to stay, she had been too afraid of the new, confusing outside world to ever venture even as far as the end of the street in that dingy little ‘city’. She had eaten what they had left over - mainly more MREs that had been shipped to the nearby military surplus store - in the same shipment that she had come in.
Not sure what else to say, Riley just gave Ike that incredulous smirk as she handed him his half of the food. Then, unable to restrain her curiosity, she peeked into the little bag and-
”W- oh no way-”
Black licorice - the treat she had offhandedly described at some point as ’’at black, ropey stuff wot taste like trees’.
”Din’t think I’d ev-...” Riley said softly, that low, lopsided grin returning as she shook the thought away. The last thing she wanted now was to go getting all sentimental...Ironic as that was. But it was hard not to be, given that the last time she had been offered the candy it had been some two years ago, maybe longer...
Plucking up the bag carefully, Riley kicked the cabinet closed and plodded back to where the two could sit side by side, flopping into the seat and curling up in it. That this whole ordeal was lining up to be strikingly similar to a date was a thought gone right over her head.
”A’ight then. Le’s chick out th’show’like.” Riley said, trying to act casual about the whole thing and not tear off the self-heatng wrapper with the ravenous hunger of a half-starved wolf and actually succeeding. Moderately.
Danesh rumbled. Afew soft beeping and clicking sounds emanated from deep within his rusty chassis before his arms raised in an approximation of an inconsequential shrug. He was just beginning to lope his way out when ANnag spoke again. Pausing, the old junker swung his great, bobbing head around to face the girl again. ”nOOoooOO thanks is narwhal.” He said, and gave the impression of a bright, friendly smile without actually having a face. ”Nor re-e-e-epayment no thank you.”
Danesh took several more steps toward the door, but then stopped, and took several steps back toward Annag. He rumbled, vibrated briefly, and then spat out a thin slip of paper from a hitherto unknown slot somewhere on his torso. It looked almost like a sales receipt. With two deft, tentacle-like fingers he plucked the paper from his chassis, long, spindly limb extending to hand it to Annag before proceeding at a goofy trot out of the armory. As he did, the bot fiddled with the syringe in his other hand, loading it into a little tube-like appendage that had extended from his chassis.
The note, in faded printer ink read ’Try to get her to sleep more. She doesn’t get enough rest.’
Once out in the hall, Danesh hastened his pace into a run, old lenses following the heat signature of the fleeing gunsmith which lingered in her wake. The chase was on.
Mackie, who had been speed-walking to begin with, had little trouble hearing the approaching robot given the ruckus he made with every movement and picked up the pace - not quite running, but still well enough aware that she was in a mostly unoccupied portion of the vessel and unlikely to run into any bystanders who might witness the bizarre debacle. The pursuit did not last long. Danesh, breaking into a gaping sprint, came barreling around the corner, acquired his target, and fired the little mounted blowgun with startling precision. But with reflexes as enhanced as they were by her excessive cybernetics, Mackie whirled with almost inhuman speed, throwing out a hand as a matter of instinct to catch the projectile-
WIth a girlish yelp, the armourer froze, screwing her eyes shut as a projectile the size and shape of a thumbtack stuck out from the center of her palm. ”OW- owowowowow~”
Danesh approached with some haste as the woman tentatively opened one eye to look at her hand - immediately going pale, leaning away from the extended hand as though it were about to explode in her face and sounding out a tiny, squeaky little chant of ”Aaahhhg-getitoutgetitoutgetitoutgetitouuut~!
Danesh, with a gentleness one might not expect the clunky old machine to be capable of, took the woman’s hand in his own and plucked the little dart out, swiftly and softly placing a tiny, circular band-aid over the pinprick of blood. It took Mackie several long seconds more to again peek one eye open - at which point, seeing the little bandage in place of the object of her distress, she let out a breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding and gave the robot a tired, apologetic, but still slightly relieved smile. But when she saw what Danesh was holding out to her now, delicately held between two long fingers, that smile turned immediately into a much more familiar progression of giggling, then open laughter…
Dallen spent a long moment passing her doubtful scowl back and forth between the pair of dorks before giving an exaggerated huff, folding her arms and leaning on one hip with an equally dramatic roll of the eyes. ”Pfff. Well, ah guess jus’is once.” She said, cracking a grin that she was unable to hold at bay any longer. A lock of electric blue fell into her eyes and she shook her head once to flop it back into place.
For his part, Tsuan immediately threw his arms into the air and let out a whoop. Great how these things always seemed to work themselves out in the end...
It would be impossible to tell that Macks had undergone any kind of stressful endeavor by the time she appeared, strolling side-by-side with the ostrich-like Danesh, not far outside of the medical bay. Hands in pockets, she was the usual picture of laid-back ease, peering over her sunglasses as she sauntered along. The only difference was the presence of a loosely fitted, flowy pinkish shirt in place of her usual baggy hoodie - and the thin, white stick of a lollipop in place of her usual joint between her lips. It was actually a matter of pure coincidence that the pair had run into the Captain and Firth.
”Heyyy, just the man I-” Mackie began, before noticing the dire condition of Corporal Firth’s face and adopting immediately a look of genuine concern. ”@#$% Robbie, what happened? You okay?” A dumb question, but the best she could come up with at present.
Danesh, who had come plodding around the corner beside the stoner chick, reacted almost simultaneously by leaning in to closely examine the injured Corporal’s face with his huge, green lenses. ”OooOOOOo dear. Your face is moOOOoost unfortunate.” He said, oblivious to the less-than-stellar phrasing. ”Come come, we fix, very good, yes, thank you-”
Only then would Mackie return her attention to Kato, allowing the worry over Robbie to take a back seat to her usual, cool smile and generally chill demeanor. ”Hey so, like, you wanted to talk about something or whatever?”
Maybe it was the manic euphoria of coming down from great stress. Maybe it was the liberation from some past demon, the freedom to openly cling to her friend, go all-in - maybe it was something else. But whatever it was, Riley was giggling. Her eyes were still watery, she rubbed them on Ike’s shirt, but didn’t stop the bubbly little sound.
”Y-you’re ridiculous~” She stammered softly through the laughter.
Indeed, Ike having gone so hastily back to being so very excited over this silly errand after all that was what had her going. There was still no way she could hope to be even nearly as enthusiastic about this nonsense as Ike was, even having endeavored to act more interested and appreciative than she had at first.
Their embrace lasted quite a while longer - and when it ended, it was not with Riley backpedaling, yanking away or making excuses - she just let it come to an end. Taking a step back, she wiped at her eyes again, still with a lopsided grin brightening up her freckled face. Then, folding her arms and heavily slouching her weight onto one hip she shot the synth a positively sassy smirk as if to say ’what, you want me to go get it?’. She still didn’t hesitate to spin and proceed over to the cabinet below the indicated desk.
Glancing back to him with one more skeptical, but thoroughly cheeky look, the little engineer peered into the cabinet - looked for an instant as though she had just seen some kind of mutant with several heads too many, then looked back at Ike as if he were an absolute madman. But…Not necessarily in a bad way.
That was food. Real food. Real, honest-to-space, 100% genuine food. Had RIley known anything of the legendary ‘Ambrosia’, she would have likened it to this.
Real food was something that Rilynne had virtually no experience with. The nutrient slop vaguely disguised as food they served in the M’Draani bunkers and facilities didn’t count. The MREs were somewhat better, a real treat at the time. Even after the dismantlement of the perpetually warring nations, the year-and-change Riley had spent following her deportation had barely been living at all. The ones who had allowed her to live in their shop’s spare room under the condition that she work for them doing repairs had never actually paid Riley. And while they had never forced her to stay, she had been too afraid of the new, confusing outside world to ever venture even as far as the end of the street in that dingy little ‘city’. She had eaten what they had left over - mainly more MREs that had been shipped to the nearby military surplus store - in the same shipment that she had come in.
Not sure what else to say, Riley just gave Ike that incredulous smirk as she handed him his half of the food. Then, unable to restrain her curiosity, she peeked into the little bag and-
”W- oh no way-”
Black licorice - the treat she had offhandedly described at some point as ’’at black, ropey stuff wot taste like trees’.
”Din’t think I’d ev-...” Riley said softly, that low, lopsided grin returning as she shook the thought away. The last thing she wanted now was to go getting all sentimental...Ironic as that was. But it was hard not to be, given that the last time she had been offered the candy it had been some two years ago, maybe longer...
Plucking up the bag carefully, Riley kicked the cabinet closed and plodded back to where the two could sit side by side, flopping into the seat and curling up in it. That this whole ordeal was lining up to be strikingly similar to a date was a thought gone right over her head.
”A’ight then. Le’s chick out th’show’like.” Riley said, trying to act casual about the whole thing and not tear off the self-heatng wrapper with the ravenous hunger of a half-starved wolf and actually succeeding. Moderately.
Danesh rumbled. Afew soft beeping and clicking sounds emanated from deep within his rusty chassis before his arms raised in an approximation of an inconsequential shrug. He was just beginning to lope his way out when ANnag spoke again. Pausing, the old junker swung his great, bobbing head around to face the girl again. ”nOOoooOO thanks is narwhal.” He said, and gave the impression of a bright, friendly smile without actually having a face. ”Nor re-e-e-epayment no thank you.”
Danesh took several more steps toward the door, but then stopped, and took several steps back toward Annag. He rumbled, vibrated briefly, and then spat out a thin slip of paper from a hitherto unknown slot somewhere on his torso. It looked almost like a sales receipt. With two deft, tentacle-like fingers he plucked the paper from his chassis, long, spindly limb extending to hand it to Annag before proceeding at a goofy trot out of the armory. As he did, the bot fiddled with the syringe in his other hand, loading it into a little tube-like appendage that had extended from his chassis.
The note, in faded printer ink read ’Try to get her to sleep more. She doesn’t get enough rest.’
Once out in the hall, Danesh hastened his pace into a run, old lenses following the heat signature of the fleeing gunsmith which lingered in her wake. The chase was on.
Mackie, who had been speed-walking to begin with, had little trouble hearing the approaching robot given the ruckus he made with every movement and picked up the pace - not quite running, but still well enough aware that she was in a mostly unoccupied portion of the vessel and unlikely to run into any bystanders who might witness the bizarre debacle. The pursuit did not last long. Danesh, breaking into a gaping sprint, came barreling around the corner, acquired his target, and fired the little mounted blowgun with startling precision. But with reflexes as enhanced as they were by her excessive cybernetics, Mackie whirled with almost inhuman speed, throwing out a hand as a matter of instinct to catch the projectile-
WIth a girlish yelp, the armourer froze, screwing her eyes shut as a projectile the size and shape of a thumbtack stuck out from the center of her palm. ”OW- owowowowow~”
Danesh approached with some haste as the woman tentatively opened one eye to look at her hand - immediately going pale, leaning away from the extended hand as though it were about to explode in her face and sounding out a tiny, squeaky little chant of ”Aaahhhg-getitoutgetitoutgetitoutgetitouuut~!
Danesh, with a gentleness one might not expect the clunky old machine to be capable of, took the woman’s hand in his own and plucked the little dart out, swiftly and softly placing a tiny, circular band-aid over the pinprick of blood. It took Mackie several long seconds more to again peek one eye open - at which point, seeing the little bandage in place of the object of her distress, she let out a breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding and gave the robot a tired, apologetic, but still slightly relieved smile. But when she saw what Danesh was holding out to her now, delicately held between two long fingers, that smile turned immediately into a much more familiar progression of giggling, then open laughter…
Dallen spent a long moment passing her doubtful scowl back and forth between the pair of dorks before giving an exaggerated huff, folding her arms and leaning on one hip with an equally dramatic roll of the eyes. ”Pfff. Well, ah guess jus’is once.” She said, cracking a grin that she was unable to hold at bay any longer. A lock of electric blue fell into her eyes and she shook her head once to flop it back into place.
For his part, Tsuan immediately threw his arms into the air and let out a whoop. Great how these things always seemed to work themselves out in the end...
It would be impossible to tell that Macks had undergone any kind of stressful endeavor by the time she appeared, strolling side-by-side with the ostrich-like Danesh, not far outside of the medical bay. Hands in pockets, she was the usual picture of laid-back ease, peering over her sunglasses as she sauntered along. The only difference was the presence of a loosely fitted, flowy pinkish shirt in place of her usual baggy hoodie - and the thin, white stick of a lollipop in place of her usual joint between her lips. It was actually a matter of pure coincidence that the pair had run into the Captain and Firth.
”Heyyy, just the man I-” Mackie began, before noticing the dire condition of Corporal Firth’s face and adopting immediately a look of genuine concern. ”@#$% Robbie, what happened? You okay?” A dumb question, but the best she could come up with at present.
Danesh, who had come plodding around the corner beside the stoner chick, reacted almost simultaneously by leaning in to closely examine the injured Corporal’s face with his huge, green lenses. ”OooOOOOo dear. Your face is moOOOoost unfortunate.” He said, oblivious to the less-than-stellar phrasing. ”Come come, we fix, very good, yes, thank you-”
Only then would Mackie return her attention to Kato, allowing the worry over Robbie to take a back seat to her usual, cool smile and generally chill demeanor. ”Hey so, like, you wanted to talk about something or whatever?”
The corporal saw his friend, and the last time he saw her she was in his arms on the verge of death, and gave a fearful look just remembering it, until it cooled into a calmed face, and his high stringed posture loosened as he let out a sigh of pure relief, he’d been worrying about her. “Yeah, Danesh, Let’s get this #$&* patched up.” He said, moving towards the little robot.
This was where he was truly happy.
Despite everything that had just occurred aboard that little ship, the surprise, the standoff and then finally that giddying relief as Kato entered the room, Ike couldn’t have been happier. While he didn’t truly understand what had gone on in Riley’s head, or what those little steel eyes had seen that no one else had, the two of the were finally sharing their first hug.
They were together and he couldn’t have wished for it to be any other way.
Then a few moments after he had allowed the first wiggle of excitement to run through his body in that way that just encapsulated that bubbly little synth, he felt that first silent sob. In that instant, his limbs seemed to freeze, had he done something wrong by still being so excited? Was she that upset with him for pointing a gun at Robbie? Just what terrible vision had his best friend been so cruelly visited by?
Wait … his ear receptors honed in on the noise and even though the muffler that was his shirt, he picked that almost silent noise up properly. She was giggling? In response to her sudden and practically unexpected, but not unwelcome outburst he snuggled in all the tighter. Not even fussing once as she used his precious shirt as a towel, after all if it could provide her with that little bit more security he would gladly do it.
“Yeah … I guess I am …
In fact this seemed to be the start of a self-perpetuating cycle between the two of them, for as Ike realised that his sheer excitement was at the very least part of the reasoning behind his best friends mood swing. So being the bubbly little weirdo that he was this only ensured that he was enthused with even more happiness, bringing with it more happy snuggling.
When at last she stepped back, pulling away naturally like this embrace was one they’d shared many a time, Riley would be greeted with the beaming smile of her best friend. His artificial cheeks lighting up with sheer joy and excitement and of course, there were those tiny violet hearts springing up around his eyes, those little symbols of adoration which seemed to go utterly over her head.
With one hand on the controls almost absentmindedly plotting out the final last bit of their course, Ike was able to with the subtlety of a giant mech suit in a field of ankle-high grass, watch Riley approach the cupboard. Each time she’d turn to cast a gaze his way he’d respond with an even larger beam, to the point where it’d look like if she looked any more times he’d end up splitting his face in half.
Really there was a small bit of anxiety remaining in his stomach, a tiny fear that she might take a look at the whole display and decide that this new surprise clearly wasn’t worth the effort, or even be turned off by him trying “too hard”. Then when he saw that look which spoke of amazement over anything else his heart swelled with pride. He had managed to do something for her on this trip too.
While Ike didn’t know the extent of just how little real food Riley had managed to achieve over her life he had managed to gather that her dining had been of a significantly lower quality than his had been. So on their last shipment alongside the mass of junk food being shipped up for the cyborg family he had ordered his own little batch of food that he could ration out and share with her on moments like this when the already well-cooked food would taste just that bit better for the surroundings it was consumed in.
Her little Synth was practically aglow with a warm joy as he gratefully took his part of the meal. Everything was sliding into place now, aligning with the ideas that had rushed through his head each moment he’d spent setting this little trip up for the two of them.
All that was left was to press a few more buttons and then, he was done, all that was needed now was for the two of them to wait as the ship passed around the vast bulk of the ancient warship they called home.
Without a second's hesitation, he would bounce over to the seat next to Riley, practically propelled by his own ecstatic wiggles. After a few moments of squirming to find the most optimal comfy position, he gave up, deciding instead to just take comfort in the knowledge that Riley was next to him, but most importantly happy and safe.
“Hey Riles, we’ll be coming up on the Ringworld in a second, like so feel free to tuck into your meal! Do tell me if you like it!
The fact that this whole thing was aligning closely to a date hit Ike the second he finished the sentence, something he tried to hide by taking a big bite of the burger. It had been so long since he’d tasted proper food and the merest hint of the full rich flavour running down his artificial but no less working buds sent another shiver of pure excitement and joy down his spine.
Slowly on the monitor which acted as the ship's screen began to register a light growing up on the artificial horizon created by the last edge of the Last Light. Light dawning over the galactic horizon for the first time in thousands of years and then it would be there, the gigantic circular marvel, spinning slowly around the generator which had tamed the raw fury of a black hole. All in all it was probably the most impressive sight Ike had ever seen.
Him, Riley and exploring space, that Synth didn’t know what perfection was, but he was fairly certain this was what it should feel like.
Annag had been content to watch the spindly little bot skitter in its own unique way back towards the door, while it had saved her life and the one of the coolest of mums she still found it a little disconcerting. Though that wasn’t saying much, she found most robots slightly disconcerting, especially the ones on this ship with all of their rather unique personalities and methods of transport.
When it turned around to face her again, she returned its smile with a slightly nervous grin of her own. Not that she had any clue why she did it, it just seemed an appropriate reaction, what a creepy machine it really was. A creepiness for the teen which was only increased as she watched the tentacle-like appendage extends out to pass her that small scrap of paper. Had she known was a receipt was she would have likened it to that, but as it was until she read it, the whole thing looked like a strange gadget to her.
Slowly she read over the contents of the letter, reading had never been her strong suit, even without the complete lack of training which she’d received throughout her childhood she still have been quite slow, as it was she was positively glacial.
“H … How am I supposed to do that?”
By the time she’d call after the thing, it was already too far away to hear her. Well great, what was she supposed to do now … it seemed she had the run of the whole armory to herself. Which meant … she was in charge for the moment, wasn’t she?
Being in charge meant she could do what she wanted … right? So if she wanted to tinker with some of the stuff while listening to metal she could right? … Right!
Taking a few furtive glances around she began looking around and with a gleeful charge belted towards something she’d always wanted to build.
“Awh yeah! I told you that you deserved it!”
Zurha grinned before nudging her best friend in the ribs gently. “Now all you need to do is make a habit of saving the day and you can get out of more work that way! If you need it I’m sure I can always dig up some intel on wrongdoings
Despite everything she was just happy to have the three of them together after a while, considering the amount of time she’d spent with Kato listening to all of his memories she had a lot to tell them. That was alongside her little gift which she’d been given by him, something that she hurriedly pulled out now.
“An’ check this out! A proper functioning VR device! Kato gave it to me recently!
As Mackie hove into view it took a few seconds for Kato to actually register that she had actually appeared down the other end of the corridor. He’d been intending to look for her yes so theoretically the ancient captain should have been more alert, yet theory never seemed to work out so much in practice when it came to him.
This time it was the intended subject of the talk which he wanted to have which had distracted him so much, his eyes wandering off to stare into stars now extinguished. He remembered the first time he’d seen one of them up close, the sheer wonder he’d felt as he watched a flare burst into existence, all the other first times he’d seen then, again and again, attempting to complete the impossible of recording the data, the memories for all those he’d denied.
“Ah Mackie just the person ... “ The voice was light a clap of thunder, sudden booming and gone in a flash, fading away as he watched her exclaim with concern over their friend's condition.
Until everything there was sorted out the bulk almost blended into the wall, spacing out for practically the hundredth time that day. If it was possible for someone to space out of their daydream, Kato would be that human.
“Ah yes … I was thinking that after this attack, it might be nice if we took a break. Got down to the surface for a bit, most importantly though … to raise funds to take this old thing out to explore space for a bit. Out there we won’t be able to do much damage and maybe … we could find something to help us …
While it wasn’t a question, or even in the same ballpark as something that if squinted at might on a foggy day resemble one, Mackie would know the man well enough to know that when he rambled on like this before trailing off he was silently asking what she thought of the idea.
Despite everything that had just occurred aboard that little ship, the surprise, the standoff and then finally that giddying relief as Kato entered the room, Ike couldn’t have been happier. While he didn’t truly understand what had gone on in Riley’s head, or what those little steel eyes had seen that no one else had, the two of the were finally sharing their first hug.
They were together and he couldn’t have wished for it to be any other way.
Then a few moments after he had allowed the first wiggle of excitement to run through his body in that way that just encapsulated that bubbly little synth, he felt that first silent sob. In that instant, his limbs seemed to freeze, had he done something wrong by still being so excited? Was she that upset with him for pointing a gun at Robbie? Just what terrible vision had his best friend been so cruelly visited by?
Wait … his ear receptors honed in on the noise and even though the muffler that was his shirt, he picked that almost silent noise up properly. She was giggling? In response to her sudden and practically unexpected, but not unwelcome outburst he snuggled in all the tighter. Not even fussing once as she used his precious shirt as a towel, after all if it could provide her with that little bit more security he would gladly do it.
“Yeah … I guess I am …
In fact this seemed to be the start of a self-perpetuating cycle between the two of them, for as Ike realised that his sheer excitement was at the very least part of the reasoning behind his best friends mood swing. So being the bubbly little weirdo that he was this only ensured that he was enthused with even more happiness, bringing with it more happy snuggling.
When at last she stepped back, pulling away naturally like this embrace was one they’d shared many a time, Riley would be greeted with the beaming smile of her best friend. His artificial cheeks lighting up with sheer joy and excitement and of course, there were those tiny violet hearts springing up around his eyes, those little symbols of adoration which seemed to go utterly over her head.
With one hand on the controls almost absentmindedly plotting out the final last bit of their course, Ike was able to with the subtlety of a giant mech suit in a field of ankle-high grass, watch Riley approach the cupboard. Each time she’d turn to cast a gaze his way he’d respond with an even larger beam, to the point where it’d look like if she looked any more times he’d end up splitting his face in half.
Really there was a small bit of anxiety remaining in his stomach, a tiny fear that she might take a look at the whole display and decide that this new surprise clearly wasn’t worth the effort, or even be turned off by him trying “too hard”. Then when he saw that look which spoke of amazement over anything else his heart swelled with pride. He had managed to do something for her on this trip too.
While Ike didn’t know the extent of just how little real food Riley had managed to achieve over her life he had managed to gather that her dining had been of a significantly lower quality than his had been. So on their last shipment alongside the mass of junk food being shipped up for the cyborg family he had ordered his own little batch of food that he could ration out and share with her on moments like this when the already well-cooked food would taste just that bit better for the surroundings it was consumed in.
Her little Synth was practically aglow with a warm joy as he gratefully took his part of the meal. Everything was sliding into place now, aligning with the ideas that had rushed through his head each moment he’d spent setting this little trip up for the two of them.
All that was left was to press a few more buttons and then, he was done, all that was needed now was for the two of them to wait as the ship passed around the vast bulk of the ancient warship they called home.
Without a second's hesitation, he would bounce over to the seat next to Riley, practically propelled by his own ecstatic wiggles. After a few moments of squirming to find the most optimal comfy position, he gave up, deciding instead to just take comfort in the knowledge that Riley was next to him, but most importantly happy and safe.
“Hey Riles, we’ll be coming up on the Ringworld in a second, like so feel free to tuck into your meal! Do tell me if you like it!
The fact that this whole thing was aligning closely to a date hit Ike the second he finished the sentence, something he tried to hide by taking a big bite of the burger. It had been so long since he’d tasted proper food and the merest hint of the full rich flavour running down his artificial but no less working buds sent another shiver of pure excitement and joy down his spine.
Slowly on the monitor which acted as the ship's screen began to register a light growing up on the artificial horizon created by the last edge of the Last Light. Light dawning over the galactic horizon for the first time in thousands of years and then it would be there, the gigantic circular marvel, spinning slowly around the generator which had tamed the raw fury of a black hole. All in all it was probably the most impressive sight Ike had ever seen.
Him, Riley and exploring space, that Synth didn’t know what perfection was, but he was fairly certain this was what it should feel like.
Annag had been content to watch the spindly little bot skitter in its own unique way back towards the door, while it had saved her life and the one of the coolest of mums she still found it a little disconcerting. Though that wasn’t saying much, she found most robots slightly disconcerting, especially the ones on this ship with all of their rather unique personalities and methods of transport.
When it turned around to face her again, she returned its smile with a slightly nervous grin of her own. Not that she had any clue why she did it, it just seemed an appropriate reaction, what a creepy machine it really was. A creepiness for the teen which was only increased as she watched the tentacle-like appendage extends out to pass her that small scrap of paper. Had she known was a receipt was she would have likened it to that, but as it was until she read it, the whole thing looked like a strange gadget to her.
Slowly she read over the contents of the letter, reading had never been her strong suit, even without the complete lack of training which she’d received throughout her childhood she still have been quite slow, as it was she was positively glacial.
“H … How am I supposed to do that?”
By the time she’d call after the thing, it was already too far away to hear her. Well great, what was she supposed to do now … it seemed she had the run of the whole armory to herself. Which meant … she was in charge for the moment, wasn’t she?
Being in charge meant she could do what she wanted … right? So if she wanted to tinker with some of the stuff while listening to metal she could right? … Right!
Taking a few furtive glances around she began looking around and with a gleeful charge belted towards something she’d always wanted to build.
“Awh yeah! I told you that you deserved it!”
Zurha grinned before nudging her best friend in the ribs gently. “Now all you need to do is make a habit of saving the day and you can get out of more work that way! If you need it I’m sure I can always dig up some intel on wrongdoings
Despite everything she was just happy to have the three of them together after a while, considering the amount of time she’d spent with Kato listening to all of his memories she had a lot to tell them. That was alongside her little gift which she’d been given by him, something that she hurriedly pulled out now.
“An’ check this out! A proper functioning VR device! Kato gave it to me recently!
As Mackie hove into view it took a few seconds for Kato to actually register that she had actually appeared down the other end of the corridor. He’d been intending to look for her yes so theoretically the ancient captain should have been more alert, yet theory never seemed to work out so much in practice when it came to him.
This time it was the intended subject of the talk which he wanted to have which had distracted him so much, his eyes wandering off to stare into stars now extinguished. He remembered the first time he’d seen one of them up close, the sheer wonder he’d felt as he watched a flare burst into existence, all the other first times he’d seen then, again and again, attempting to complete the impossible of recording the data, the memories for all those he’d denied.
“Ah Mackie just the person ... “ The voice was light a clap of thunder, sudden booming and gone in a flash, fading away as he watched her exclaim with concern over their friend's condition.
Until everything there was sorted out the bulk almost blended into the wall, spacing out for practically the hundredth time that day. If it was possible for someone to space out of their daydream, Kato would be that human.
“Ah yes … I was thinking that after this attack, it might be nice if we took a break. Got down to the surface for a bit, most importantly though … to raise funds to take this old thing out to explore space for a bit. Out there we won’t be able to do much damage and maybe … we could find something to help us …
While it wasn’t a question, or even in the same ballpark as something that if squinted at might on a foggy day resemble one, Mackie would know the man well enough to know that when he rambled on like this before trailing off he was silently asking what she thought of the idea.
Riley was just about to begin unwrapping her precious morsel when an idea occurred to her. Carefully, she set the still wrapped burger down somewhere safe and proceeded to practically flop over the arm of her seat, hair splaying wildly as she peered, upside down, under the chair. She spent several seconds looking about for something before - with a distinct lack of anything resembling grace - rolling bodily off the chair and scuttling under it. She fumbled through various pockets until producing a simple screwdriver, and went about tinkering with something.
Intimately familiar with such vessels as she was, Riley knew all sorts of little tricks and tips - one of which being that the pilot’s and auxiliary pilot’s chairs were not fixed to the floor. Instead, they were mounted on a thin rail - invisible to the naked eye only because it looked no different from the countless other lines and textured surfaces that made up the ship floor. It was meant for a single-pilot configuration which would allow the user to glide safely back and forth between the various controls that would be otherwise unreachable. But rather than removing the co-pilot’s seat, Riley had other plans - namely releasing the lock and hastily sliding the chair over to press it up side-by-side with Ike’s.
Ith another quick adjustment she was able to release the armrests, allowing them to be flippe up and out of the way - essentially turning the two chairs into something approximating a sort of loveseat.
Smiling with satisfied pride, Riley retrieved her burger and curled up cross-legged on her side of the two-seater sofa’, proceeding with fervently unwrapping the burger and chomping out the biggest mouthful she was physically capable of.
Immediately, the girl’s eyes widened in a distinct shock and awe overcame her. Freezing with the burger still at her mouth, she peere owlishly over at Ike as though she had just discovered some incredibly valuable, ancient relic deep within a forgotten alien tomb. As if she’d had some incredible revelation that would change the universe forever.
Riley said something, but her words were utterly unintelligible given that her mouth was stuffed with about a quarter of a burger. She was also too preoccupied with the whole thing to realize that she hadn’t gotten her message across, and made no attempt to repeat it - but it was most certainly some kind of exclamation of amazement or delight.
Logically, Riley knew she should be eating the gourmet food slowly, savoring it - but the animal part of her semi-feral brain simply wouldn’t allow it. While it was not a record-setting time, the girl had devoured it by the time Ike was barely halfway finished.
Riley found herself distracted from the licorice however, when the full breadth of RIngworld came into view. Freezing, steely eyes widened as the sheer scale of it all finally hit her. Like most folk on the Ring, Riley generally viewed the world with the same scale as ancient folk viewed the galaxy. It was incredibly vast, too vast to ever explore the whole thing in a lifetime. But seeing it from here reaffirmed that perception twice over. And the technical part of her brain was enraptured by the sheer engineering marvel that it really was. It was so easy to forget about all that when you were down on the surface, immersed in the day-to-day…
Though definitely impressed, Riley still was not quite as amped as Ike - so she tried to ramp up the ‘starry-eyed’ look just a bit, with moderate success. Several long moments of peaceful silence passed over the pair.
”’At thing’s @#$%in’ big.” Riley said quietly in a deliberately flat tone which suggested ’understatement of the year’. WIth that, she plucked up a strand of the bitter, ropey candy and considered it admiringly for a moment before taking a bite - seeming to melt a ittle in the process. ”Yp, jus’ like I ‘member it~” She said, having a much easier time savoring this than she did with the burger.
The minutes wafted lazily by, and it wasn’t long before Riley was tilted to the side, head resting casually on Ike’s shoulder.A black strand of candy stuck out of her mouth like a farmer chewing on a piece of straw. It bobbed softly each time it became a little shorter.
Riles had to admit - it certainly was peaceful. The Engineering Deck was usually a pretty chill place overall, but there was something about being out here that was strangely liberating. Even back in their quarters - a place where they both felt perfectly safe and at ease - it had never felt like trouble was so far away as it did now.
And so the two of them sat, and watched the Ring spin lazily on its’ black hole axis. Having never seen a spherical planet, Riley found it hard to imagine how complicated it must have been to achieve a stable day and night cycle. Here, the central light source simply shone on half the ring and spun in time. Having to rely on the whole thing orbiting that light and spinning the wrong way seemed unnecessarily complicated. It made the girl’s head spin trying to picture it. She imagined actually standing on such a world would be a harrowing experience, nothing above your head but open sky and the vastness of space, dependent on centrifugal gravity as it hugged you to the surface by force of sheer velocity…
Riley found herself wondering who had designed the continents, and didn’t even try to imagine the scale on which such a construction must have taken place.
”At’s Lisara, right?” Riley asked after a long, serene silence., pointing to a huge, blue-grey splotch that took up easily the area of a small continent on its own. ”Where you’s from’like.” She wondered if Ike still found it as hard to believe that she had never visited the grand, capitol city as he had when they first met. It wouldn’t have offended her if so, and she had told him so very little about her past before the Last Light that he had virtually nothing to work off of. It was for that reason that Riley surprised even herself somewhat with what she said next, several minutes later.
The Ring had spun enough that, on the opposite side of the world from mighty Lisara, where the continents looked comparatively wild and untamed, a small mountain had been revealed in its transition from night to dawn. Barely a pockmarked bump on the landscape compared to the rest of the world, but likely a formation of considerably imposing stature up close. The surrounding land was deep, verdant green, suggesting pine forests and fast swaths of untamed wilderness, with underdeveloped second and third-world civilizations that had not seen enough growth and development to make more than the faintest mark on the world from this lofty vantage point.
”’At’s whe’ I’m from. Mount Etna.” She said softly, not really sure why she was divulging this information. Regardless, the contrast could not have been more stark between the sprawling metropolis and the virtually untamed wilderness. If nothing else, she found that amusing…
”Other Rings.” Mackie replied casually, without skipping a beat - almost as if proceeding with a conversation already in progress. Folding her arms, she sucked thoughtfully at the little white stick. ”I mean, I’d, like assume there are others out there.” She went on, that ponderous, but level gaze settling on Kato’s own - she was happy to see that, for the moment at least, he appeared to be mostly in the present. With a half nod, she indicated as an afterthought that walking and talking was usually better than just standing around.
”We’d have to be prepared for, like, the possibility that whoever we find might not be friendly. Other settlements might not, like, be doing as well as we are.” And if a colony desperate for resources was suddenly given the location of a treasure trove of resources such as the Ringworld, the consequences could be dire.
Silly and lighthearted as Mackie was, the woman was easily among the most level-headed people on the ship, always taking care to consider the positives and negatives of every scenario. She had often served as the voice of reason during heated moments. ”I’d feel, like, a loooot better about it if we invested in some mondo-heavy stealth tech. Just to like, make sure we don’t leave a trail back here and help us skiddaddle if @#$% starts goin’ pear-shaped.”
The gunsmith went silent for a moment, spinning the pop between two fingers as she contemplated some other point. Appearing to come to a conclusion, the woman shrugged. ”But like, that aside, it’d be totally dope to go see what’s out there. And you’re right, taking the Light outta’ the picture for a while might help settle some of those bad vibes down there.” The ship had already proven itself to be a more than tempting target for factions looking to get a leg up on the competition - and the tumultuous political situation down Ring-side suggested that the attack that still weigh heavy on their memories might not be the last - or the worst.
The two of them were certainly a strange pair to be strolling side by side, the shaggy blonde woman sauntering along with thumbs hooked in the belt loops of her jeans and the hulking, ancient, battered war machine stomping with the sound of metal on metal at her side. At a glance, someone who did not know the two of them would have been baffled to hear that they shared any interests or ideals at all - let alone their extent. "It’ll be sweet to get back RIngside for a minute too. I got enough saved up I could like, stock up on some new toys for Boomtown so we’re all decked out in case of alien invaders or whatever.” Really, Mackie was just happy for an excuse to go out and buy more weapons - and there were a few arms dealers she was looking forward to paying a personal visit.
”We’ll wanna’ do some, like, spring cleaning, too. Give anyone who doesn’t wanna’ go a chance to bail and take on some, like, specialists or whatever. Damn, I don’t think I’ve, like, ever seen this boat fully staffed.”
For the next few minutes, the woman mused on various matters relating to the plans. THe stealth systems had been offline and broken down for long enough that it was going to take a team of engineers to get it all up and running in any reasonable amount of time. They would need to find a the best security programmer on the Ring and hire them to make sure the Light’s systems were all properly updated. She hadn’t the foggiest idea how Kato planned on raising the funds for all of this and could be of no help on that matter - but clearly Macks was enthusiastic about the idea of it all.
Some minutes later, the odd pair had aimlessly wandered to one of the lesser used corridors - somewhere that Mackie didn’t feel the need to continuously fist-bump passers-by. Somewhere the one thing that had been nagging her since the beginning could be allowed to see the light. A moment of idle silence had passed over them, during which Mackie grew curiously sober, contemplatively watching the floor as they walked along.
Something was on her mind. Something that, while it would not need to be pried out of her. she would keep to herself until prompted by the old man to speak. WHen she did, it was following a sigh and with a sober tone that gave the impression of carefully chosen phrasing.
”There’s just...If we do this, I want you to make me a promise.” She said, the now bare little white stick dangling loosely from her lips like a cigarette, She slowed to a stop. ”You know that there’s gonna’ be...memories waiting for you out there.” She didn’t need to clarify that they would be painful ones. Much of what remain outside the immediate domain of Ringworld would have remained stagnant in the millenia since the dying of the last stars, the exodus to the Ring - the end of Katolai’s atrocities. The megastructures rendered to molten slag and twisted steel would remain where they had been left, the fires cooled and debris dispersed but the haunting screams of the slaughtered masses still echoing through the void. Ghost ships left to drift endlessly through the inky depths. In many ways, delving into the lifeless remains of what had once been the galaxy would be a tour of regrets made flesh once more for the haunted warrior.
And the way Mackie was looking up at him, her blue-green eyes so startlingly identical to his own, told him that she was all too aware of the nightmare trials that would await him out there, where only ruins, ghosts, and lingering memories remained. Voices that had waited eons for the return of the one at whom they could loose their anguished cries.
”I can't-”
The woman was having a harder time of saying it than even she had expected, the words catching in her throat.
”I can’t watch them eat you alive.”
Briefly looking to the floor, Mackie reached out to softly grasp the captain’s remaining human fingers with both hands, letting them hang there ever so lightly.
”Just...When that happens, please-...”
Raising her eyes back up to meet his own, Kato would see a depth of earnest that was somehow heartbreaking in its weight. There was a pleading light that glistened within their aquamarine depths, that hue a mirror of Kato’s own crystalline pools.
And too, there was something in the woman’s stare that was utterly unfamiliar to the old ma, likely even to the point of proving wholly unidentifiable. Something mysterious and vaguely magical. A concern so deep, so vast and genuine that it may even have bordered on love.
”Promise me you won’t face it alone.”
Intimately familiar with such vessels as she was, Riley knew all sorts of little tricks and tips - one of which being that the pilot’s and auxiliary pilot’s chairs were not fixed to the floor. Instead, they were mounted on a thin rail - invisible to the naked eye only because it looked no different from the countless other lines and textured surfaces that made up the ship floor. It was meant for a single-pilot configuration which would allow the user to glide safely back and forth between the various controls that would be otherwise unreachable. But rather than removing the co-pilot’s seat, Riley had other plans - namely releasing the lock and hastily sliding the chair over to press it up side-by-side with Ike’s.
Ith another quick adjustment she was able to release the armrests, allowing them to be flippe up and out of the way - essentially turning the two chairs into something approximating a sort of loveseat.
Smiling with satisfied pride, Riley retrieved her burger and curled up cross-legged on her side of the two-seater sofa’, proceeding with fervently unwrapping the burger and chomping out the biggest mouthful she was physically capable of.
Immediately, the girl’s eyes widened in a distinct shock and awe overcame her. Freezing with the burger still at her mouth, she peere owlishly over at Ike as though she had just discovered some incredibly valuable, ancient relic deep within a forgotten alien tomb. As if she’d had some incredible revelation that would change the universe forever.
Riley said something, but her words were utterly unintelligible given that her mouth was stuffed with about a quarter of a burger. She was also too preoccupied with the whole thing to realize that she hadn’t gotten her message across, and made no attempt to repeat it - but it was most certainly some kind of exclamation of amazement or delight.
Logically, Riley knew she should be eating the gourmet food slowly, savoring it - but the animal part of her semi-feral brain simply wouldn’t allow it. While it was not a record-setting time, the girl had devoured it by the time Ike was barely halfway finished.
♫
Riley found herself distracted from the licorice however, when the full breadth of RIngworld came into view. Freezing, steely eyes widened as the sheer scale of it all finally hit her. Like most folk on the Ring, Riley generally viewed the world with the same scale as ancient folk viewed the galaxy. It was incredibly vast, too vast to ever explore the whole thing in a lifetime. But seeing it from here reaffirmed that perception twice over. And the technical part of her brain was enraptured by the sheer engineering marvel that it really was. It was so easy to forget about all that when you were down on the surface, immersed in the day-to-day…
Though definitely impressed, Riley still was not quite as amped as Ike - so she tried to ramp up the ‘starry-eyed’ look just a bit, with moderate success. Several long moments of peaceful silence passed over the pair.
”’At thing’s @#$%in’ big.” Riley said quietly in a deliberately flat tone which suggested ’understatement of the year’. WIth that, she plucked up a strand of the bitter, ropey candy and considered it admiringly for a moment before taking a bite - seeming to melt a ittle in the process. ”Yp, jus’ like I ‘member it~” She said, having a much easier time savoring this than she did with the burger.
The minutes wafted lazily by, and it wasn’t long before Riley was tilted to the side, head resting casually on Ike’s shoulder.A black strand of candy stuck out of her mouth like a farmer chewing on a piece of straw. It bobbed softly each time it became a little shorter.
Riles had to admit - it certainly was peaceful. The Engineering Deck was usually a pretty chill place overall, but there was something about being out here that was strangely liberating. Even back in their quarters - a place where they both felt perfectly safe and at ease - it had never felt like trouble was so far away as it did now.
And so the two of them sat, and watched the Ring spin lazily on its’ black hole axis. Having never seen a spherical planet, Riley found it hard to imagine how complicated it must have been to achieve a stable day and night cycle. Here, the central light source simply shone on half the ring and spun in time. Having to rely on the whole thing orbiting that light and spinning the wrong way seemed unnecessarily complicated. It made the girl’s head spin trying to picture it. She imagined actually standing on such a world would be a harrowing experience, nothing above your head but open sky and the vastness of space, dependent on centrifugal gravity as it hugged you to the surface by force of sheer velocity…
Riley found herself wondering who had designed the continents, and didn’t even try to imagine the scale on which such a construction must have taken place.
”At’s Lisara, right?” Riley asked after a long, serene silence., pointing to a huge, blue-grey splotch that took up easily the area of a small continent on its own. ”Where you’s from’like.” She wondered if Ike still found it as hard to believe that she had never visited the grand, capitol city as he had when they first met. It wouldn’t have offended her if so, and she had told him so very little about her past before the Last Light that he had virtually nothing to work off of. It was for that reason that Riley surprised even herself somewhat with what she said next, several minutes later.
The Ring had spun enough that, on the opposite side of the world from mighty Lisara, where the continents looked comparatively wild and untamed, a small mountain had been revealed in its transition from night to dawn. Barely a pockmarked bump on the landscape compared to the rest of the world, but likely a formation of considerably imposing stature up close. The surrounding land was deep, verdant green, suggesting pine forests and fast swaths of untamed wilderness, with underdeveloped second and third-world civilizations that had not seen enough growth and development to make more than the faintest mark on the world from this lofty vantage point.
”’At’s whe’ I’m from. Mount Etna.” She said softly, not really sure why she was divulging this information. Regardless, the contrast could not have been more stark between the sprawling metropolis and the virtually untamed wilderness. If nothing else, she found that amusing…
”Other Rings.” Mackie replied casually, without skipping a beat - almost as if proceeding with a conversation already in progress. Folding her arms, she sucked thoughtfully at the little white stick. ”I mean, I’d, like assume there are others out there.” She went on, that ponderous, but level gaze settling on Kato’s own - she was happy to see that, for the moment at least, he appeared to be mostly in the present. With a half nod, she indicated as an afterthought that walking and talking was usually better than just standing around.
”We’d have to be prepared for, like, the possibility that whoever we find might not be friendly. Other settlements might not, like, be doing as well as we are.” And if a colony desperate for resources was suddenly given the location of a treasure trove of resources such as the Ringworld, the consequences could be dire.
Silly and lighthearted as Mackie was, the woman was easily among the most level-headed people on the ship, always taking care to consider the positives and negatives of every scenario. She had often served as the voice of reason during heated moments. ”I’d feel, like, a loooot better about it if we invested in some mondo-heavy stealth tech. Just to like, make sure we don’t leave a trail back here and help us skiddaddle if @#$% starts goin’ pear-shaped.”
The gunsmith went silent for a moment, spinning the pop between two fingers as she contemplated some other point. Appearing to come to a conclusion, the woman shrugged. ”But like, that aside, it’d be totally dope to go see what’s out there. And you’re right, taking the Light outta’ the picture for a while might help settle some of those bad vibes down there.” The ship had already proven itself to be a more than tempting target for factions looking to get a leg up on the competition - and the tumultuous political situation down Ring-side suggested that the attack that still weigh heavy on their memories might not be the last - or the worst.
The two of them were certainly a strange pair to be strolling side by side, the shaggy blonde woman sauntering along with thumbs hooked in the belt loops of her jeans and the hulking, ancient, battered war machine stomping with the sound of metal on metal at her side. At a glance, someone who did not know the two of them would have been baffled to hear that they shared any interests or ideals at all - let alone their extent. "It’ll be sweet to get back RIngside for a minute too. I got enough saved up I could like, stock up on some new toys for Boomtown so we’re all decked out in case of alien invaders or whatever.” Really, Mackie was just happy for an excuse to go out and buy more weapons - and there were a few arms dealers she was looking forward to paying a personal visit.
”We’ll wanna’ do some, like, spring cleaning, too. Give anyone who doesn’t wanna’ go a chance to bail and take on some, like, specialists or whatever. Damn, I don’t think I’ve, like, ever seen this boat fully staffed.”
For the next few minutes, the woman mused on various matters relating to the plans. THe stealth systems had been offline and broken down for long enough that it was going to take a team of engineers to get it all up and running in any reasonable amount of time. They would need to find a the best security programmer on the Ring and hire them to make sure the Light’s systems were all properly updated. She hadn’t the foggiest idea how Kato planned on raising the funds for all of this and could be of no help on that matter - but clearly Macks was enthusiastic about the idea of it all.
Some minutes later, the odd pair had aimlessly wandered to one of the lesser used corridors - somewhere that Mackie didn’t feel the need to continuously fist-bump passers-by. Somewhere the one thing that had been nagging her since the beginning could be allowed to see the light. A moment of idle silence had passed over them, during which Mackie grew curiously sober, contemplatively watching the floor as they walked along.
Something was on her mind. Something that, while it would not need to be pried out of her. she would keep to herself until prompted by the old man to speak. WHen she did, it was following a sigh and with a sober tone that gave the impression of carefully chosen phrasing.
”There’s just...If we do this, I want you to make me a promise.” She said, the now bare little white stick dangling loosely from her lips like a cigarette, She slowed to a stop. ”You know that there’s gonna’ be...memories waiting for you out there.” She didn’t need to clarify that they would be painful ones. Much of what remain outside the immediate domain of Ringworld would have remained stagnant in the millenia since the dying of the last stars, the exodus to the Ring - the end of Katolai’s atrocities. The megastructures rendered to molten slag and twisted steel would remain where they had been left, the fires cooled and debris dispersed but the haunting screams of the slaughtered masses still echoing through the void. Ghost ships left to drift endlessly through the inky depths. In many ways, delving into the lifeless remains of what had once been the galaxy would be a tour of regrets made flesh once more for the haunted warrior.
And the way Mackie was looking up at him, her blue-green eyes so startlingly identical to his own, told him that she was all too aware of the nightmare trials that would await him out there, where only ruins, ghosts, and lingering memories remained. Voices that had waited eons for the return of the one at whom they could loose their anguished cries.
”I can't-”
The woman was having a harder time of saying it than even she had expected, the words catching in her throat.
”I can’t watch them eat you alive.”
Briefly looking to the floor, Mackie reached out to softly grasp the captain’s remaining human fingers with both hands, letting them hang there ever so lightly.
”Just...When that happens, please-...”
Raising her eyes back up to meet his own, Kato would see a depth of earnest that was somehow heartbreaking in its weight. There was a pleading light that glistened within their aquamarine depths, that hue a mirror of Kato’s own crystalline pools.
And too, there was something in the woman’s stare that was utterly unfamiliar to the old ma, likely even to the point of proving wholly unidentifiable. Something mysterious and vaguely magical. A concern so deep, so vast and genuine that it may even have bordered on love.
”Promise me you won’t face it alone.”
Ike had been chewing away happily at his first mouthful of the burger, savouring every bit of that savoury taste he’d missed so much during his time aboard the Light, when he noticed his best friend peering over the side of the seat. Curiously he’d turn to watch her, almost half forgetting to actually swallow as almost in a state of shock he watched her flop off the seat and scuttle away under it like a hermit crab returning to its shell.
Once he’d actually remembered to get the food down his gullet, he’d flop over the edge of his seat, much in the same way Riley had done a few seconds earlier. For a few seconds he couldn’t understand what she was doing, to him it looked like she was just screwing away at the floor. Unlike Riley, he didn’t have an in-depth knowledge of how these ships worked, even though he knew exactly how to pilot one.
Only when he’d finally seen the rails did his eyes open wide in a form of understanding. Just for a second a flash of uncertainty bolted through his mind, worried that she was trying to move it away from him, a fear that was gone as quick as it had arrived. Instead something else had arrived on Ike’s face, that deep blush which he’d managed to keep buried for a while now returned with a vengeance.
When she removed the dividing barrier between the two he had to quickly turn away and bury his face in another mouthful of burger, his crimson cheeks still managing to peek out the sides.
Gently he’d slowly scoot over to be a bit closer, before settling in to watch the sunrise happening right before his eyes. Despite how artificial it was in nature, the fact that it was being produced by the bulk of the ship didn’t matter to him once bit, in that synthetic brain of his it was as real as anything could be. As real as the most amazing engineer he knew sitting right beside him devouring that burger like she’d never eaten before.
Despite Ike’s intentions of quickly glancing over to check on his best friend, he found his gaze lingering for much longer. The vision of her muddy red hair tufting out over the face he found so entrancing distracting him for far longer than he had originally anticipated it would. Seeing her turn to him and mumble something unintelligible through layers of food only served to cement such a distraction.
He was so distracted that by the time he’d realised that he was staring quite intensely at her and had been for a while, she had already polished off the last scraps of her meal.
Turning quickly, Ike just about managed to wrench his eyes away from Riley, just in time to see the bulk of the ringworld finally peak itself into view over that galactic dawn.
“Woah … that’s the ring huh?”
That note in the Synths voice spoke volumes without him even having to express it, even for him and that practically insatiable curiosity he was pretty much knocked speechless by the site. Despite the vast collections of knowledge he’d stored away in his memory, the knowledge of what something like this would need to be built, he was still stunned by the sheer technological marvel that reared up before him. The gigantic disc spinning infinitely away around its own private artificial star.
Were Riley to look over at him now, she’d be able to notice something that she would have almost never seen before. Ike was perfectly still, so enraptured by the display before him that he didn’t even have the leftover brainpower to wiggle away happily.
Spinning away before him, he was finally able to properly look down on the scale of the world and beyond that, the place of his birth. From up there he could look down on the vast swathes of emeralds which covered so much of the surface of the ringworld, the glittering ocean which sparkled in the rays of light cast down on their surface, long yellow fingers stretching out from the horizon. He could imagine himself down there, sitting on a sandy beach, feeling the water lapping at his ankles.
As he looked down and imagined the scene, he tried to decide how sand would feel beneath his feet, it was supposed to be soft, so would it feel more like a cushion or a rug, maybe like the very smooth gravel which paved some of the interiors of the Federal complexes. He’d never seen the stuff before, nor for that matter had he been anywhere near the oceans, he’d seen rivers yes, but they were always small ornamental things, kept far away from anywhere they could be a safety hazard.
Beside him would be another figure, a small redhead, chewing away on a stick of black licorice, slowly she’d lean over and rest her head on his shoulder … Ike snapped back to reality. The person in question really was leaning her head upon his shoulder, that stick of candy bobbing away in her mouth. None of this helped his furious blushing, but he didn’t really care anymore, everything was so peaceful and calm, he felt it would just work itself out. So with a contented grin, he allowed his head to gently lean down till it rested lightly atop hers, an arm gingerly moving out to wrap around her gently.
He’d have happily sat in silence with her for ages, contentedly resting up against her in their own peaceful, safe bubble had she not spoken up, pointing out the place of his birth to him.
“Yeah that’s Lisara alright, even up here your not able to miss that beast… Its a vast place once your down there, never seems to end really, stretching on in all directions, some places you can hardly see the sky. He trailed off slowly, grinning softly to himself. “Yeah that’s where I was born, right in the center, like. There are some buildings there which you’d think would reach right up into space all by themselves… you should visit sometime ... I could take you there?
Ike no longer found it that strange that Riley hadn’t ever been to visit the sprawling megalopolis which dominated the view of the continent it was situated on, the light pouring out of it like a giant torch. Like with many things in life Ike had simply accepted that that was how things were and there wasn’t anything he could do to question that.
“Mt Etna huh? What a place …” And he genuinely seemed to mean it, when his vision moved across over to the new feature just being pointed out to him on that gigantic disc his eyes seemed to look on with new clarity. The untamed wilderness grasping his attention far more than the swamp of blazing light ever did. It was the first real bit of knowledge that he’d ever properly learned about where Riley was from, despite how much his curiosity now raged at her to blurt out more questions, he decided against it. This was her information to give to him as she wanted to, he wouldn’t press her for anything that she was unwilling to give.
Instead, he allowed the silence to return, gently seeping back in on the comfortable little scene.
“Other rings …. Huh … He hadn’t actually said it himself, but the thought had been there, that lingering possibility that he might find other intact megastructures containing their own harvests of life. The chances were so high that humanity had survived their journey out into the space beyond the dead galaxy, there were so many of them … But then why couldn’t he properly remember all of it? Why were his memories of the journey out such a blurred mess that even he couldn’t untangle?
“If any one of the things we find out there, if we do actually find anything out there, we will simply avoid it. As long as they don’t spot us, then there should be no need for conflict, we are not out there to conquer anyone. We will not repeat the mistakes of the past.
There was a strange vehemence to his voice then, the strange captain suddenly and entirely there in spirit, almost more so than he had ever been before and there was a fire in his eyes too. The thought of fighting anything, being put in any situation where he might have to do the unthinkable almost making him wretch.
But you would do it, wouldn’t you?
“Yeah, I feel that stealth tech would be quite fitting given the situation, with some proper patching to the engine, then we should be able to drop in and out of galaxy quite stealthily. If I ever got the old flight computers and C.I.C working again the jumps should be able to be plotted quite easily. It seemed that despite how riled up he’d looked a few seconds ago it had given him enough of a jolt to wake up and almost fully enter reality.
In those few seconds Mackie would witness that practically hidden naive young captain he’d once been, so eager to be able to command a ship as his heroes had done. The rush he once used to feel in getting everything working and organized.
“I think it would be best for everyone if the Light took a little bit of a vacation from rusting on up here. Remove some of the temptations, if nothing else it means some of the fools down there can’t do so much damage.” Despite how much he wanted to believe that the attack had just been a one-off event, Kato knew better than most the lengths people would go to in order to try to hold onto the power they’d gained. Especially if that power came through force.
Kato really didn’t mind the almost complete and utter difference in appearance between the two of them, not that he actually saw it. He’d known too many humans, got to know too few, that in the end, their physical outer appearance had slowly just stopped mattering to him. “It would be good to get the old bird fully stocked up again, you could do with stocking up more on food too, what with your new daughter … how is she by the way? I haven’t heard much about the two of you … and well I was wondering if you were both happy?”
The question trailed away, he knew what he was doing, attempting poorly to disguise the attempts made in fishing for a positive response, to know that at some point in his life he had helped someone recover, rather than destroy their lives.
“A cleaning should be good too … a full body of staff eh? What a thought that would be. The corridors actually full of life for once … Just like old times …
For a dangerous moment, it looked as if the old man was going to trail away back into the endless dark of his own memories, sticking his legs back into the mire from which they had so briefly lifted. With great care he managed to step around the gap, narrowly avoiding being dragged back in.
Really though he didn’t have a clue how he was intending to achieve this, it had seemed so much more of a simpler plan when it had just been ‘1. Go to Lisara 2. Hire a crew 3. Explore space. The added complication of money hadn’t really factored into his thoughts until he properly put his mind to it. Now, all that he could really come up with was the vague hope that someone down there rich enough to fund the whole stupid venture would be dumb or eccentric enough to actually go along with such a plan.
Even for all of Kato’s practically eternal absentmindedness, he wasn’t blind to other people, especially not those few who’d he’d come to enjoy, or whatever approximation of that he ever achieved. The woman who was almost the dictionary definition of ‘laid-back chillness looked practically somber. “Well?” The ancient warrior gave her that small prompt, almost silently knowing what she was looking for.
For a while he listened in silence, the almost inert bulk hovering motionless as visions of what he might see swam in front of his eyes, the structures he’d burned, the irreversible damage he’d done to billions of lives. Then again he didn’t need to visit any of those things for the harrowing voices to catch up to him, they did almost every night. That was a race he’d lost a long time ago. There was so much out there for him to regret, so much that he had done for which he could never forgive himself. Yet … in a strange way he felt a need to see them, to visit the site of his crimes once more, to find some sort of … closure.
Are you looking for forgiveness?
Forgiveness? No, he couldn’t ever grant that to himself, instead, he was looking for an understanding. The ability to truly face up to what he’d done and accept it.
Gently his eyes locked onto hers, his undivided attention being brought back to the woman forcing out her desperate plea. “I … huh? For the first time in as long as he could remember, Kato registered surprise, an emotion weak from underuse, but still determined to take its time in the spotlight. The cause for such was obvious, the gentle warmth of her fingers taking hold of his own.
There was so much out there he still didn’t understand. Years upon years of life had granted him certain knowledge of the way things worked, but still, he couldn’t understand just how Mackie was able to contain such concern for others within her. That strange almost depthless passion for protecting others that he so admired, that he regretted he hadn’t met earlier.
“Don’t worry Macks, you have my promise.
Once he’d actually remembered to get the food down his gullet, he’d flop over the edge of his seat, much in the same way Riley had done a few seconds earlier. For a few seconds he couldn’t understand what she was doing, to him it looked like she was just screwing away at the floor. Unlike Riley, he didn’t have an in-depth knowledge of how these ships worked, even though he knew exactly how to pilot one.
Only when he’d finally seen the rails did his eyes open wide in a form of understanding. Just for a second a flash of uncertainty bolted through his mind, worried that she was trying to move it away from him, a fear that was gone as quick as it had arrived. Instead something else had arrived on Ike’s face, that deep blush which he’d managed to keep buried for a while now returned with a vengeance.
When she removed the dividing barrier between the two he had to quickly turn away and bury his face in another mouthful of burger, his crimson cheeks still managing to peek out the sides.
Gently he’d slowly scoot over to be a bit closer, before settling in to watch the sunrise happening right before his eyes. Despite how artificial it was in nature, the fact that it was being produced by the bulk of the ship didn’t matter to him once bit, in that synthetic brain of his it was as real as anything could be. As real as the most amazing engineer he knew sitting right beside him devouring that burger like she’d never eaten before.
Despite Ike’s intentions of quickly glancing over to check on his best friend, he found his gaze lingering for much longer. The vision of her muddy red hair tufting out over the face he found so entrancing distracting him for far longer than he had originally anticipated it would. Seeing her turn to him and mumble something unintelligible through layers of food only served to cement such a distraction.
He was so distracted that by the time he’d realised that he was staring quite intensely at her and had been for a while, she had already polished off the last scraps of her meal.
Turning quickly, Ike just about managed to wrench his eyes away from Riley, just in time to see the bulk of the ringworld finally peak itself into view over that galactic dawn.
“Woah … that’s the ring huh?”
That note in the Synths voice spoke volumes without him even having to express it, even for him and that practically insatiable curiosity he was pretty much knocked speechless by the site. Despite the vast collections of knowledge he’d stored away in his memory, the knowledge of what something like this would need to be built, he was still stunned by the sheer technological marvel that reared up before him. The gigantic disc spinning infinitely away around its own private artificial star.
Were Riley to look over at him now, she’d be able to notice something that she would have almost never seen before. Ike was perfectly still, so enraptured by the display before him that he didn’t even have the leftover brainpower to wiggle away happily.
Spinning away before him, he was finally able to properly look down on the scale of the world and beyond that, the place of his birth. From up there he could look down on the vast swathes of emeralds which covered so much of the surface of the ringworld, the glittering ocean which sparkled in the rays of light cast down on their surface, long yellow fingers stretching out from the horizon. He could imagine himself down there, sitting on a sandy beach, feeling the water lapping at his ankles.
As he looked down and imagined the scene, he tried to decide how sand would feel beneath his feet, it was supposed to be soft, so would it feel more like a cushion or a rug, maybe like the very smooth gravel which paved some of the interiors of the Federal complexes. He’d never seen the stuff before, nor for that matter had he been anywhere near the oceans, he’d seen rivers yes, but they were always small ornamental things, kept far away from anywhere they could be a safety hazard.
Beside him would be another figure, a small redhead, chewing away on a stick of black licorice, slowly she’d lean over and rest her head on his shoulder … Ike snapped back to reality. The person in question really was leaning her head upon his shoulder, that stick of candy bobbing away in her mouth. None of this helped his furious blushing, but he didn’t really care anymore, everything was so peaceful and calm, he felt it would just work itself out. So with a contented grin, he allowed his head to gently lean down till it rested lightly atop hers, an arm gingerly moving out to wrap around her gently.
He’d have happily sat in silence with her for ages, contentedly resting up against her in their own peaceful, safe bubble had she not spoken up, pointing out the place of his birth to him.
“Yeah that’s Lisara alright, even up here your not able to miss that beast… Its a vast place once your down there, never seems to end really, stretching on in all directions, some places you can hardly see the sky. He trailed off slowly, grinning softly to himself. “Yeah that’s where I was born, right in the center, like. There are some buildings there which you’d think would reach right up into space all by themselves… you should visit sometime ... I could take you there?
Ike no longer found it that strange that Riley hadn’t ever been to visit the sprawling megalopolis which dominated the view of the continent it was situated on, the light pouring out of it like a giant torch. Like with many things in life Ike had simply accepted that that was how things were and there wasn’t anything he could do to question that.
“Mt Etna huh? What a place …” And he genuinely seemed to mean it, when his vision moved across over to the new feature just being pointed out to him on that gigantic disc his eyes seemed to look on with new clarity. The untamed wilderness grasping his attention far more than the swamp of blazing light ever did. It was the first real bit of knowledge that he’d ever properly learned about where Riley was from, despite how much his curiosity now raged at her to blurt out more questions, he decided against it. This was her information to give to him as she wanted to, he wouldn’t press her for anything that she was unwilling to give.
Instead, he allowed the silence to return, gently seeping back in on the comfortable little scene.
“Other rings …. Huh … He hadn’t actually said it himself, but the thought had been there, that lingering possibility that he might find other intact megastructures containing their own harvests of life. The chances were so high that humanity had survived their journey out into the space beyond the dead galaxy, there were so many of them … But then why couldn’t he properly remember all of it? Why were his memories of the journey out such a blurred mess that even he couldn’t untangle?
“If any one of the things we find out there, if we do actually find anything out there, we will simply avoid it. As long as they don’t spot us, then there should be no need for conflict, we are not out there to conquer anyone. We will not repeat the mistakes of the past.
There was a strange vehemence to his voice then, the strange captain suddenly and entirely there in spirit, almost more so than he had ever been before and there was a fire in his eyes too. The thought of fighting anything, being put in any situation where he might have to do the unthinkable almost making him wretch.
But you would do it, wouldn’t you?
“Yeah, I feel that stealth tech would be quite fitting given the situation, with some proper patching to the engine, then we should be able to drop in and out of galaxy quite stealthily. If I ever got the old flight computers and C.I.C working again the jumps should be able to be plotted quite easily. It seemed that despite how riled up he’d looked a few seconds ago it had given him enough of a jolt to wake up and almost fully enter reality.
In those few seconds Mackie would witness that practically hidden naive young captain he’d once been, so eager to be able to command a ship as his heroes had done. The rush he once used to feel in getting everything working and organized.
“I think it would be best for everyone if the Light took a little bit of a vacation from rusting on up here. Remove some of the temptations, if nothing else it means some of the fools down there can’t do so much damage.” Despite how much he wanted to believe that the attack had just been a one-off event, Kato knew better than most the lengths people would go to in order to try to hold onto the power they’d gained. Especially if that power came through force.
Kato really didn’t mind the almost complete and utter difference in appearance between the two of them, not that he actually saw it. He’d known too many humans, got to know too few, that in the end, their physical outer appearance had slowly just stopped mattering to him. “It would be good to get the old bird fully stocked up again, you could do with stocking up more on food too, what with your new daughter … how is she by the way? I haven’t heard much about the two of you … and well I was wondering if you were both happy?”
The question trailed away, he knew what he was doing, attempting poorly to disguise the attempts made in fishing for a positive response, to know that at some point in his life he had helped someone recover, rather than destroy their lives.
“A cleaning should be good too … a full body of staff eh? What a thought that would be. The corridors actually full of life for once … Just like old times …
For a dangerous moment, it looked as if the old man was going to trail away back into the endless dark of his own memories, sticking his legs back into the mire from which they had so briefly lifted. With great care he managed to step around the gap, narrowly avoiding being dragged back in.
Really though he didn’t have a clue how he was intending to achieve this, it had seemed so much more of a simpler plan when it had just been ‘1. Go to Lisara 2. Hire a crew 3. Explore space. The added complication of money hadn’t really factored into his thoughts until he properly put his mind to it. Now, all that he could really come up with was the vague hope that someone down there rich enough to fund the whole stupid venture would be dumb or eccentric enough to actually go along with such a plan.
Even for all of Kato’s practically eternal absentmindedness, he wasn’t blind to other people, especially not those few who’d he’d come to enjoy, or whatever approximation of that he ever achieved. The woman who was almost the dictionary definition of ‘laid-back chillness looked practically somber. “Well?” The ancient warrior gave her that small prompt, almost silently knowing what she was looking for.
For a while he listened in silence, the almost inert bulk hovering motionless as visions of what he might see swam in front of his eyes, the structures he’d burned, the irreversible damage he’d done to billions of lives. Then again he didn’t need to visit any of those things for the harrowing voices to catch up to him, they did almost every night. That was a race he’d lost a long time ago. There was so much out there for him to regret, so much that he had done for which he could never forgive himself. Yet … in a strange way he felt a need to see them, to visit the site of his crimes once more, to find some sort of … closure.
Are you looking for forgiveness?
Forgiveness? No, he couldn’t ever grant that to himself, instead, he was looking for an understanding. The ability to truly face up to what he’d done and accept it.
Gently his eyes locked onto hers, his undivided attention being brought back to the woman forcing out her desperate plea. “I … huh? For the first time in as long as he could remember, Kato registered surprise, an emotion weak from underuse, but still determined to take its time in the spotlight. The cause for such was obvious, the gentle warmth of her fingers taking hold of his own.
There was so much out there he still didn’t understand. Years upon years of life had granted him certain knowledge of the way things worked, but still, he couldn’t understand just how Mackie was able to contain such concern for others within her. That strange almost depthless passion for protecting others that he so admired, that he regretted he hadn’t met earlier.
“Don’t worry Macks, you have my promise.
It had been almost two years since she had seen it.
Two long, nightmarish years where time seemed to pass in a hazy blur, the days melting into one another as she slogged her way through a meaningless existence. Two years of grief that bordered on obsession, of confusion and fear and abject solitude. She had not been designed for this life. The ones who had loaded her into the ship along with the rest of the military surplus said things about ’freedom’, about how she would no longer be told where she could go or what she could do. How she was no longer a prisoner of a regime that forced her to train for a war she surely wanted no part in. They had told her that she was no longer a piece of property. She was no longer owned by the system which had been the sole reason for her birth. They told her that she wasn’t just an object to be used and discarded, even as she sat slouched atop a crate of munitions that would be shipped right alongside her.
But Rilynne had known from the start that they were wrong. Rilynne was a piece of property to be used and discarded. She was a disposable unit - she had known that intrinsically her entire life and not once had it ever bothered her. Not once had she felt like a prisoner, despite not being allowed to leave the Bunker. That great, underground Facility had been like a sprawling metropolitan city to her back then, with so many twisting and turning corridors, so many rooms and chambers that she surely could never have explored them all, even if she had been allowed to.
Rilynne did not have ‘parents’. She had been conceived and grown in the Facility just like everyone else. She existed only because the government had given her life, made her from scratch - so why shouldn’t she be ready and willing to fill the position she was made for? Why shouldn’t she be happy to follow the course she had been made specifically to follow?
This ‘gift’ of ‘freedom’ was worthless to Riley. What was she supposed to do with it? What was she supposed to do now that the literal reason for her existence had simply disappeared? Some of the other deportees would inevitably seek out and join up with other militaries, fight for other causes, give themselves meaning again. But she wouldn’t - and it had nothing to do with patriotism or nationalistic loyalty..Those things had always been useless to her.
The Facility had never operated with complete perfection. whether due to the limited technology or the administrators having some sense of what it meant to be human, there were differences. What was the point of winning a war if all that would remain in its wake were mindless drones? It was impossible to know how much of a person's personality was programmed into them and how much was just ’them’. Nobody was perfect.
RIley would not be the only displaced soldier to opt out of future military service, but her reasons were different. A portion of the deportees would go on to live relatively normal lives, make the most out of the time they had. Find new things to experience.
Milo would have been one of them.
Milo would have known what to do with that freedom. Milo had always known what to do. He had always been the one to get them in trouble for some dumb antics. Always the one who had something new to talk about, some new idea to ponder or debate. He had been the one who showed Riley what he could of life as lived through the eyes of someone less bound to their programming. He had helped the others tolerate her otherwise intolerable attitude. He was the reason she had first seen the sky. The reason why that day was one of her most cherished memories. Without Milo, her first time seeing the sky would have been on the day that still haunted her dreams. The day that life as she knew it was ripped from her grasp. The day she fell asleep and entered the nightmare from which she would never escape.
He was the reason that seeing the mountain from this new perspective, seeing what had once been her entire life - her entire universe - all wrapped up in such a tiny package didn’t stir up the bitter resentment she had been expecting out of herself.
He was the reason that now, curled up in a scout ship in a life stranger and better than she ever could have imagined, Riley could look down on that mountain with a soft smile on her lips. Wistful, melancholy - but real in a way that was totally new to her.
Milo was the reason why when Riley looked down upon Mount Etna from this lofty perch in the heavens what she saw was not pain - but two young soldiers looking back up at her and beaming like the Ringworld sun.
This was what life looked like from the other side of the sky.
The synth at her side would find the Riley reliving a good moment. Recalling a memory untainted by whatever demons stalked her from the shadows around every dark corner. Something pure and special.
And it was all thanks to Milo.
...Except that it wasn’t.
The realization came to Riley so suddenly and with such clarity that it was reflected on her face in real-time - taking the moment away from her but far from ruining it. The girl blinked, and at once appeared to be deep in thought. Still she watched the mountain, buta furrowed brow and curious look. As if she had only just noticed some hidden detail in the landscape and was trying to understand just what it was.
Riley did have Milo to thank. For so much. For sneaking out of the bunker and showing her the sky and setting the scene which would allow her to see it from the other side these two years later.
But Milo hadn’t brought her out here.
He would always be the one that had been there for her when life in the Bunker became too much to bear - who had shown her that precious glimpse of a different perspective, taught her so much about how to let herself be more than her job, been there when she was too hurt or lonesome or afraid to go on. And for that he would always be her hero.
But Milo was gone now - immortalized in her memories, - but not here anymore.
So then who was it that had tried to comfort her when she sat huddled in a storage room with knuckles bloodied from her own self-abuse, only to be callously shoved away? Who was it that held her when the loneliness and regret and emptiness had begun to crush her with the weight of the Ringworld’s black hole center? Made her new life aboard the ship of her dreams more than a hollow, meaningless existence? Who was so eager to work with her in Engineering when nobody else would have entertained the very notion? Who had been there every single @#$%ing time she needed someone? And who was it that had wanted to share with her of all people a new experience that meant so very much to him that he would go to virtually any lengths to achieve it?
She had to tell him.
She had to let him know, somehow, that he mattered. How much he mattered. She needed to make sure that she could never forget that. And for once it seemed obvious to Riley just how she could do that, because she needed it for herself as much as she hoped he would understand.
As the minutes crept by, Riley clearly occupied by what appeared to be some very confusing and slightly distressing problem, it might have seemed that she had merely lost interest in the Ring - which was not entirely untrue - but there was something about the way she remained with head resting on Ike’s shoulder which suggested that no, their time out here was not being ruined in any capacity.
Then, after what seemed a very long time, Riley huffed softly, as if benignly giving up on whatever problem she was trying to solve. Having cracked the silence, she decided to just go ahead and break it. ”Oi. Ike. Can you...can you do me a favor?” She asked hesitantly, voice low as if to break the silence into smooth edges rather than splintered shards. Sitting up and letting her feet dangle properly from the seat,(They almost touched the floor, dammit!) she was suddenly trying to keep her eyes averted from the synth, to not face him. It might have had something to with hiding the flush of pink about her nose that he probably saw anyway.
She knew that this was going to reveal a lot about her. More than she was comfortable with, if she was being honest. But that was just the sacrifice she was going to have to make.
”It’s- prolly’ kin’a weird’like, y-you- don’t gotta do it-, it’s just-...it…” The girl huffed again, this time sounding more legitimately frustrated with her inability to just blurt out a question that, objectively speaking, wasn’t even potentially awkward. She squirmed anxiously in her seat, kicking her legs back and forth just a little and seeming highly interested in a spot on the floor that was slightly to the side.
Then, with great care and no small show of trepidation, Riley removed her neck chain.
There were many things that Riley had never told Ike. Many things about her and her past that he simply did not, and could not know. Outside of when she first arrived on the Last Light the girl was a complete and utter mystery - and one facet of that was the thin, but sturdy iron-like chain she wore loosely around her neck. She had never once taken it off. Working, bathing, sleeping - that chain was as permanent a part of her as her bright red hair. She never mentioned it, never even really acknowledged its existence - but she never took it off. She had also never allowed the pendant which hung from it to be seen, always keeping it under her shirt and out of sight. Though a simple enough thing that it might be passively accepted as a trinket and forgotten about, whatever hung from that chain was, in fact, her absolute most prized possession. There was no doubting that if one actually thought about it. An item so valuable that she literally never separated from it.
Though a small thing, now that it was held in her hands the girl just simply didn’t look right without it - like the first time seeing someone without their glasses. Inconspicuous until it wasn’t there anymore. She kept it cupped between both hands for some time, toying with the chain and quite clearly trying to convince herself that it would be okay part with it for even a moment.
Then, turning shyly toward Ike and tilting her head to the side as though she were anticipating something painful or excessively difficult, she held out the precious trinket for Ike, letting the chain dangle limply from it.
In the quiet of that seldom-traveled corridor, Mackie smiled softly up at the old goliath - but there was a sadness that lingered there no matter how hard she tried to make it disappear. She didn’t want it to show, but there was no hiding that she was not convinced. And why should she hope to have been? What did she expect? The scale of destruction and terror that this man had wrought upon the universe was such that she could never hope to comprehend. There could be no forgiveness, no respite for this man.
Except that when Mackie looked up at him, she didn’t see the countless lives wasted at his command. She didn’t see the war crimes, the suffering he had caused. But a century and a half was more than enough time to learn that there was more to someone than they let on, and there was no way to remain under the misconception that she simply didn’t understand what he was. It was no simple matter of having not met the man earlier, of meeting a changed man.
Those unnatural, depthless eyes were a reflection of his own, so perfectly did the resplendent colors match. Maybe it was merely a matter of sharing the same model of cybernetics - but Mackie had a way of making things seem deeper or more profound than they really were. Maybe it was some penchant for romance, or her contemplative, philosophical nature.
That shadow of doubt which lingered in those eyes indeed spoke of a woman - enigma that she was - who did not quite believe that Kato’s promise had been genuine. But there was no frustration, no distrust - only a soft, reassuring glow that told him all he needed to know.
It was okay. He didn’t have to make promises he could not keep. She was not going to press the issue, try and force him - but neither was she going to stand idly by and watch the rising tide of ancient regrets tear him apart.
An enigma indeed. She knew he had murdered, but did not see a murderer.
”Okay.” Mackie said softly, tearing that complex gaze away from that of the warrior and nodding. ”Good.” She seemed to mean it, too - she would drop the subject and not let it hang over their heads. It was okay.
Then, with a half step forward, the strange woman proceeded to wrap her arms around what flesh of his own remained in an unconventional, but unmistakable hug. She leaned her temple on the cool metal, and somehow gave off the impression that it was she who sought comfort despite not being the case.
She stood there for a time that might have stretched on, or might have passed in a flash. And when she pulled away the smile on her face was brighter, the glint in her eye more familiar.
”You like, gotta’ come by and see her some time.” She said -
the act of returning to an earlier, more lighthearted conversation, picking up where they left off as if there had been no gap was a skill that came as naturally to Mackie as breathing. She was, of course, referring to her newly adopted daughter. ”She is a toootal sweetheart it’s adorable~”
Two long, nightmarish years where time seemed to pass in a hazy blur, the days melting into one another as she slogged her way through a meaningless existence. Two years of grief that bordered on obsession, of confusion and fear and abject solitude. She had not been designed for this life. The ones who had loaded her into the ship along with the rest of the military surplus said things about ’freedom’, about how she would no longer be told where she could go or what she could do. How she was no longer a prisoner of a regime that forced her to train for a war she surely wanted no part in. They had told her that she was no longer a piece of property. She was no longer owned by the system which had been the sole reason for her birth. They told her that she wasn’t just an object to be used and discarded, even as she sat slouched atop a crate of munitions that would be shipped right alongside her.
But Rilynne had known from the start that they were wrong. Rilynne was a piece of property to be used and discarded. She was a disposable unit - she had known that intrinsically her entire life and not once had it ever bothered her. Not once had she felt like a prisoner, despite not being allowed to leave the Bunker. That great, underground Facility had been like a sprawling metropolitan city to her back then, with so many twisting and turning corridors, so many rooms and chambers that she surely could never have explored them all, even if she had been allowed to.
Rilynne did not have ‘parents’. She had been conceived and grown in the Facility just like everyone else. She existed only because the government had given her life, made her from scratch - so why shouldn’t she be ready and willing to fill the position she was made for? Why shouldn’t she be happy to follow the course she had been made specifically to follow?
This ‘gift’ of ‘freedom’ was worthless to Riley. What was she supposed to do with it? What was she supposed to do now that the literal reason for her existence had simply disappeared? Some of the other deportees would inevitably seek out and join up with other militaries, fight for other causes, give themselves meaning again. But she wouldn’t - and it had nothing to do with patriotism or nationalistic loyalty..Those things had always been useless to her.
The Facility had never operated with complete perfection. whether due to the limited technology or the administrators having some sense of what it meant to be human, there were differences. What was the point of winning a war if all that would remain in its wake were mindless drones? It was impossible to know how much of a person's personality was programmed into them and how much was just ’them’. Nobody was perfect.
RIley would not be the only displaced soldier to opt out of future military service, but her reasons were different. A portion of the deportees would go on to live relatively normal lives, make the most out of the time they had. Find new things to experience.
Milo would have been one of them.
Milo would have known what to do with that freedom. Milo had always known what to do. He had always been the one to get them in trouble for some dumb antics. Always the one who had something new to talk about, some new idea to ponder or debate. He had been the one who showed Riley what he could of life as lived through the eyes of someone less bound to their programming. He had helped the others tolerate her otherwise intolerable attitude. He was the reason she had first seen the sky. The reason why that day was one of her most cherished memories. Without Milo, her first time seeing the sky would have been on the day that still haunted her dreams. The day that life as she knew it was ripped from her grasp. The day she fell asleep and entered the nightmare from which she would never escape.
He was the reason that seeing the mountain from this new perspective, seeing what had once been her entire life - her entire universe - all wrapped up in such a tiny package didn’t stir up the bitter resentment she had been expecting out of herself.
He was the reason that now, curled up in a scout ship in a life stranger and better than she ever could have imagined, Riley could look down on that mountain with a soft smile on her lips. Wistful, melancholy - but real in a way that was totally new to her.
Milo was the reason why when Riley looked down upon Mount Etna from this lofty perch in the heavens what she saw was not pain - but two young soldiers looking back up at her and beaming like the Ringworld sun.
This was what life looked like from the other side of the sky.
The synth at her side would find the Riley reliving a good moment. Recalling a memory untainted by whatever demons stalked her from the shadows around every dark corner. Something pure and special.
And it was all thanks to Milo.
♫
...Except that it wasn’t.
The realization came to Riley so suddenly and with such clarity that it was reflected on her face in real-time - taking the moment away from her but far from ruining it. The girl blinked, and at once appeared to be deep in thought. Still she watched the mountain, buta furrowed brow and curious look. As if she had only just noticed some hidden detail in the landscape and was trying to understand just what it was.
Riley did have Milo to thank. For so much. For sneaking out of the bunker and showing her the sky and setting the scene which would allow her to see it from the other side these two years later.
But Milo hadn’t brought her out here.
He would always be the one that had been there for her when life in the Bunker became too much to bear - who had shown her that precious glimpse of a different perspective, taught her so much about how to let herself be more than her job, been there when she was too hurt or lonesome or afraid to go on. And for that he would always be her hero.
But Milo was gone now - immortalized in her memories, - but not here anymore.
So then who was it that had tried to comfort her when she sat huddled in a storage room with knuckles bloodied from her own self-abuse, only to be callously shoved away? Who was it that held her when the loneliness and regret and emptiness had begun to crush her with the weight of the Ringworld’s black hole center? Made her new life aboard the ship of her dreams more than a hollow, meaningless existence? Who was so eager to work with her in Engineering when nobody else would have entertained the very notion? Who had been there every single @#$%ing time she needed someone? And who was it that had wanted to share with her of all people a new experience that meant so very much to him that he would go to virtually any lengths to achieve it?
It seemed so obvious now.
Milo had showed Riley the sky…
And Ike had flown her up to touch it.
And Ike had flown her up to touch it.
She had to tell him.
She had to let him know, somehow, that he mattered. How much he mattered. She needed to make sure that she could never forget that. And for once it seemed obvious to Riley just how she could do that, because she needed it for herself as much as she hoped he would understand.
As the minutes crept by, Riley clearly occupied by what appeared to be some very confusing and slightly distressing problem, it might have seemed that she had merely lost interest in the Ring - which was not entirely untrue - but there was something about the way she remained with head resting on Ike’s shoulder which suggested that no, their time out here was not being ruined in any capacity.
Then, after what seemed a very long time, Riley huffed softly, as if benignly giving up on whatever problem she was trying to solve. Having cracked the silence, she decided to just go ahead and break it. ”Oi. Ike. Can you...can you do me a favor?” She asked hesitantly, voice low as if to break the silence into smooth edges rather than splintered shards. Sitting up and letting her feet dangle properly from the seat,(They almost touched the floor, dammit!) she was suddenly trying to keep her eyes averted from the synth, to not face him. It might have had something to with hiding the flush of pink about her nose that he probably saw anyway.
She knew that this was going to reveal a lot about her. More than she was comfortable with, if she was being honest. But that was just the sacrifice she was going to have to make.
”It’s- prolly’ kin’a weird’like, y-you- don’t gotta do it-, it’s just-...it…” The girl huffed again, this time sounding more legitimately frustrated with her inability to just blurt out a question that, objectively speaking, wasn’t even potentially awkward. She squirmed anxiously in her seat, kicking her legs back and forth just a little and seeming highly interested in a spot on the floor that was slightly to the side.
Then, with great care and no small show of trepidation, Riley removed her neck chain.
There were many things that Riley had never told Ike. Many things about her and her past that he simply did not, and could not know. Outside of when she first arrived on the Last Light the girl was a complete and utter mystery - and one facet of that was the thin, but sturdy iron-like chain she wore loosely around her neck. She had never once taken it off. Working, bathing, sleeping - that chain was as permanent a part of her as her bright red hair. She never mentioned it, never even really acknowledged its existence - but she never took it off. She had also never allowed the pendant which hung from it to be seen, always keeping it under her shirt and out of sight. Though a simple enough thing that it might be passively accepted as a trinket and forgotten about, whatever hung from that chain was, in fact, her absolute most prized possession. There was no doubting that if one actually thought about it. An item so valuable that she literally never separated from it.
Though a small thing, now that it was held in her hands the girl just simply didn’t look right without it - like the first time seeing someone without their glasses. Inconspicuous until it wasn’t there anymore. She kept it cupped between both hands for some time, toying with the chain and quite clearly trying to convince herself that it would be okay part with it for even a moment.
Then, turning shyly toward Ike and tilting her head to the side as though she were anticipating something painful or excessively difficult, she held out the precious trinket for Ike, letting the chain dangle limply from it.
It was…
It was a dog tag. A military dog tag. The old-fashioned kind consisting of a simple, rounded rectangular plate with letters stamped into it. It was a little scuffed and scratched from two years of constant wear, mildly stained with a dark patina. But it was not the printed information that stood out. What stood out were the marks.
Six pairs of letters had been crudely scratched into the metal surface at odd angles, appearing to be more emphatically carved in ascending order. The ’AE’ at the bottom had been put on with minimal effort. The cluster in the middle, consisting of ’BV, RL, KJ and ’SD’ gave the impression of whoever had put them there wanting them to stay there. And toward the top, separate from the others, carved in boldly enough to stand out from the all rest; ’MT’.
The significance of these letters might have been easily lost on someone if only from the lack of context. The order in which they had been scratched on would easily go unnoticed as a minor detail. Maybe it was nothing.
Or maybe the implications that little trinket held with it could reveal more about Ike’s little redhead than words ever could.
Squirming anxiously, Riley held out the weird, precious scrap of metal with its weird, nonsensical etchings for Ike to take, holding it there persistently if he hesitated, still squirming imperceptibly and shyly averting her eyes.
”Could....c-could- you s-scratch your- name onna’ that…? R-right- there, a-at the t-top...?”
It was a dog tag. A military dog tag. The old-fashioned kind consisting of a simple, rounded rectangular plate with letters stamped into it. It was a little scuffed and scratched from two years of constant wear, mildly stained with a dark patina. But it was not the printed information that stood out. What stood out were the marks.Six pairs of letters had been crudely scratched into the metal surface at odd angles, appearing to be more emphatically carved in ascending order. The ’AE’ at the bottom had been put on with minimal effort. The cluster in the middle, consisting of ’BV, RL, KJ and ’SD’ gave the impression of whoever had put them there wanting them to stay there. And toward the top, separate from the others, carved in boldly enough to stand out from the all rest; ’MT’.
The significance of these letters might have been easily lost on someone if only from the lack of context. The order in which they had been scratched on would easily go unnoticed as a minor detail. Maybe it was nothing.
Or maybe the implications that little trinket held with it could reveal more about Ike’s little redhead than words ever could.
Squirming anxiously, Riley held out the weird, precious scrap of metal with its weird, nonsensical etchings for Ike to take, holding it there persistently if he hesitated, still squirming imperceptibly and shyly averting her eyes.
”Could....c-could- you s-scratch your- name onna’ that…? R-right- there, a-at the t-top...?”
In the quiet of that seldom-traveled corridor, Mackie smiled softly up at the old goliath - but there was a sadness that lingered there no matter how hard she tried to make it disappear. She didn’t want it to show, but there was no hiding that she was not convinced. And why should she hope to have been? What did she expect? The scale of destruction and terror that this man had wrought upon the universe was such that she could never hope to comprehend. There could be no forgiveness, no respite for this man.
Except that when Mackie looked up at him, she didn’t see the countless lives wasted at his command. She didn’t see the war crimes, the suffering he had caused. But a century and a half was more than enough time to learn that there was more to someone than they let on, and there was no way to remain under the misconception that she simply didn’t understand what he was. It was no simple matter of having not met the man earlier, of meeting a changed man.
Those unnatural, depthless eyes were a reflection of his own, so perfectly did the resplendent colors match. Maybe it was merely a matter of sharing the same model of cybernetics - but Mackie had a way of making things seem deeper or more profound than they really were. Maybe it was some penchant for romance, or her contemplative, philosophical nature.
That shadow of doubt which lingered in those eyes indeed spoke of a woman - enigma that she was - who did not quite believe that Kato’s promise had been genuine. But there was no frustration, no distrust - only a soft, reassuring glow that told him all he needed to know.
It was okay. He didn’t have to make promises he could not keep. She was not going to press the issue, try and force him - but neither was she going to stand idly by and watch the rising tide of ancient regrets tear him apart.
An enigma indeed. She knew he had murdered, but did not see a murderer.
”Okay.” Mackie said softly, tearing that complex gaze away from that of the warrior and nodding. ”Good.” She seemed to mean it, too - she would drop the subject and not let it hang over their heads. It was okay.
Then, with a half step forward, the strange woman proceeded to wrap her arms around what flesh of his own remained in an unconventional, but unmistakable hug. She leaned her temple on the cool metal, and somehow gave off the impression that it was she who sought comfort despite not being the case.
She stood there for a time that might have stretched on, or might have passed in a flash. And when she pulled away the smile on her face was brighter, the glint in her eye more familiar.
”You like, gotta’ come by and see her some time.” She said -
the act of returning to an earlier, more lighthearted conversation, picking up where they left off as if there had been no gap was a skill that came as naturally to Mackie as breathing. She was, of course, referring to her newly adopted daughter. ”She is a toootal sweetheart it’s adorable~”
It was funny really, despite how much more he’d been to on that Ringworld Ike had seen so much less of it than Riley.
That was to say that when he looked out over the Ringworld he had been to so many of the locations down there, yet all he could remember was the inside of the gigantic metropolis. He could only recover memories of his “creator”, of the time he spent wandering the complex that made up the Federal headquarters in that city, occasionally venturing so far out that he could almost imagine stepping outside the fake marble paths and gardens built around those spiralling pristine works of architecture.
Occasionally he’d dream of stepping out onto sandy beaches, maybe build a sandcastle or two, play around in the waves, it didn’t really matter. He’d roll around in the sand the entire time if that was all he was allowed to do, he just wanted one chance to experience it.
They’d told him so many times that he was precious, that he was top of the line machinery. Made by the greatest federal engineers and roboticists - A new breakthrough in synthetic lifeforms! The very same people that had come to Riley, told her she was no longer an object and gave her “freedom” were the ones who hid Ike away, denying him his.
Once he’d seen the outside of his chamber, plastered over the top in bright spotteles letting were two words: THE CURIOUS . What a cruel punishment that seemed to be, creating some desire embedded within him with the express intent of denying him it until a time had come for him to be useful to them.
He asked a few times of course, but each time he’d been given a slight rebuttal, the outside is too dangerous, he had a purpose beyond simply seeing the Ringworld, he was going to see the void. What a beautiful lie that had all turned out to be.
Yet in a strange way, Ike didn’t hate them for it, he certainly felt frustration for all the lies that’d been told to him, but he couldn’t bring himself to hate them. Maybe it was because they’d been the ones to bring him into existence in the first place, maybe it was because he simply was programmed to be unable to, really he didn’t care. Up here he had managed to achieve what he’d wanted on his own, he had taken that desire and made it his own. This was his now and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
So now that he looked down on the Ringworld, his eyes hardly even touched the massive flare of light that made up his birth place. Instead they roamed over the landscapes, features which despite how technologically backwards they were compared to Lisara, he found infinitely more interesting.
Features he’d only ever seen from the inside of his small VR chambers.
Occasionally, he wake for a few seconds from his revery to glance at the little redhead beside him, feeling her coarse hair tickle his cheek each time he did. Every time he’d find her lost in memories of her own and despite everything he knew of her, which was admittedly not much, they astoundingly seemed to be good ones.
Each time he beam just that little bit more before returning to his own silent watch.
In the end, it didn’t matter he’d been programmed to be curious about space, up here beside Riley was exactly where he belonged.
He blinked slightly.
There was something different about her manner this time he’d glanced over at her. Her head was still rested comfortingly on his shoulder, so everything was fine, they were still together. So what was it?
Perhaps she had simply seen her fill of the Ring, gone through all the memories that she wanted to. He knew that she did not share his passion for simply watching as time went by, drinking in the scenery around you, even if that scenery was comprised of a vast unending blackness. And that was okay, everything was good so long as they were together, if she just wanted to sit like this and relax, that was perfect too.
That was when she huffed, that little noise alerting Ike that perhaps there was something more to her changed expression than simply having gotten bored of watching that gigantic megastructure turn. In fact now that she’d properly sat up he recognised the look, it was that one she so typically used when there was something she wanted to say, or ask, but hadn’t yet summoned up the courage to vocalise it.
Those heartfelt lavender eyes turned to give her their full attention, more than they could ever give to the ring below or the void outside, for she was their world more than they could ever be. “O...of course Riles, what do you want me to do?” It was the answer she probably already knew was coming, but he had to say something, let her know for sure. It didn’t matter now that he’d spotted the corners of her pinky cheeks, knowing full well that his would be almost mirroring the fiery strands that made up her hair, she had something that she wanted him to do, he would be ready for it.
“Don’t worry, I’m sure whatever it is, I’ll be able to do it!” Despite how much he wanted to be able to get to it immediately, he held his excitement in, forcing it not to burst out in a torrent of questions. He knew if this meant a lot to her, he’d rather have her ask him, than for him to tease it out.
For a second he didn’t realise what she was doing, not until her hands were actually lifting that small chain from around her neck did he have a clue that she was taking it off. Despite how simple the action was, it felt so unnatural to him, that little chain was something she’d never taken off before, not even bringing it up once. Even after both of them had been made aware of their artificial nature and had allowed a renewed confidence in the other to shine through, this little trinket had never been mentioned.
Now she was showing it to him.
Somehow, despite all the evidence against this fact being possible, Ike felt himself being enamoured by this girl even more. She looked slightly less herself without that thing was on, it was true, but it also meant that she was willing to share this part of herself with him, that he had earned that honour to be allowed to see it.
Gingerly he held out a hand and took that most precious of trinkets from her, making completely sure that his delicate skin did nothing that could damage it in any way.
That was to say that when he looked out over the Ringworld he had been to so many of the locations down there, yet all he could remember was the inside of the gigantic metropolis. He could only recover memories of his “creator”, of the time he spent wandering the complex that made up the Federal headquarters in that city, occasionally venturing so far out that he could almost imagine stepping outside the fake marble paths and gardens built around those spiralling pristine works of architecture.
Occasionally he’d dream of stepping out onto sandy beaches, maybe build a sandcastle or two, play around in the waves, it didn’t really matter. He’d roll around in the sand the entire time if that was all he was allowed to do, he just wanted one chance to experience it.
They’d told him so many times that he was precious, that he was top of the line machinery. Made by the greatest federal engineers and roboticists - A new breakthrough in synthetic lifeforms! The very same people that had come to Riley, told her she was no longer an object and gave her “freedom” were the ones who hid Ike away, denying him his.
Once he’d seen the outside of his chamber, plastered over the top in bright spotteles letting were two words: THE CURIOUS . What a cruel punishment that seemed to be, creating some desire embedded within him with the express intent of denying him it until a time had come for him to be useful to them.
He asked a few times of course, but each time he’d been given a slight rebuttal, the outside is too dangerous, he had a purpose beyond simply seeing the Ringworld, he was going to see the void. What a beautiful lie that had all turned out to be.
Yet in a strange way, Ike didn’t hate them for it, he certainly felt frustration for all the lies that’d been told to him, but he couldn’t bring himself to hate them. Maybe it was because they’d been the ones to bring him into existence in the first place, maybe it was because he simply was programmed to be unable to, really he didn’t care. Up here he had managed to achieve what he’d wanted on his own, he had taken that desire and made it his own. This was his now and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
So now that he looked down on the Ringworld, his eyes hardly even touched the massive flare of light that made up his birth place. Instead they roamed over the landscapes, features which despite how technologically backwards they were compared to Lisara, he found infinitely more interesting.
Features he’d only ever seen from the inside of his small VR chambers.
Occasionally, he wake for a few seconds from his revery to glance at the little redhead beside him, feeling her coarse hair tickle his cheek each time he did. Every time he’d find her lost in memories of her own and despite everything he knew of her, which was admittedly not much, they astoundingly seemed to be good ones.
Each time he beam just that little bit more before returning to his own silent watch.
In the end, it didn’t matter he’d been programmed to be curious about space, up here beside Riley was exactly where he belonged.
♫
He blinked slightly.
There was something different about her manner this time he’d glanced over at her. Her head was still rested comfortingly on his shoulder, so everything was fine, they were still together. So what was it?
Perhaps she had simply seen her fill of the Ring, gone through all the memories that she wanted to. He knew that she did not share his passion for simply watching as time went by, drinking in the scenery around you, even if that scenery was comprised of a vast unending blackness. And that was okay, everything was good so long as they were together, if she just wanted to sit like this and relax, that was perfect too.
That was when she huffed, that little noise alerting Ike that perhaps there was something more to her changed expression than simply having gotten bored of watching that gigantic megastructure turn. In fact now that she’d properly sat up he recognised the look, it was that one she so typically used when there was something she wanted to say, or ask, but hadn’t yet summoned up the courage to vocalise it.
Those heartfelt lavender eyes turned to give her their full attention, more than they could ever give to the ring below or the void outside, for she was their world more than they could ever be. “O...of course Riles, what do you want me to do?” It was the answer she probably already knew was coming, but he had to say something, let her know for sure. It didn’t matter now that he’d spotted the corners of her pinky cheeks, knowing full well that his would be almost mirroring the fiery strands that made up her hair, she had something that she wanted him to do, he would be ready for it.
“Don’t worry, I’m sure whatever it is, I’ll be able to do it!” Despite how much he wanted to be able to get to it immediately, he held his excitement in, forcing it not to burst out in a torrent of questions. He knew if this meant a lot to her, he’d rather have her ask him, than for him to tease it out.
For a second he didn’t realise what she was doing, not until her hands were actually lifting that small chain from around her neck did he have a clue that she was taking it off. Despite how simple the action was, it felt so unnatural to him, that little chain was something she’d never taken off before, not even bringing it up once. Even after both of them had been made aware of their artificial nature and had allowed a renewed confidence in the other to shine through, this little trinket had never been mentioned.
Now she was showing it to him.
Somehow, despite all the evidence against this fact being possible, Ike felt himself being enamoured by this girl even more. She looked slightly less herself without that thing was on, it was true, but it also meant that she was willing to share this part of herself with him, that he had earned that honour to be allowed to see it.
Gingerly he held out a hand and took that most precious of trinkets from her, making completely sure that his delicate skin did nothing that could damage it in any way.
His eyes lingered on the small item for a long time.
Gently one finger traced over the printed lettering, it was the first thing he’d read yes and he was interested in it, but it was just a distraction. The moment he’d been able to hold it closely in his hands he noticed the small engraved letters, or more rather initials.
Slowly more and more about his favourite person was adding up, the small military dog tag, her designed existence, these six names and the six empty spaces next to her. It took an effort never before seen within that Synth to hold himself together, forcing himself to stay calm as he read those six initials back to himself.
Almost without thinking he allowed his finger to wander over the six pairs of letters, whoever they were, they had been something to Riley. I don’t know who you are, or what happened to you, but I promise to keep looking after Riles, don’t worry. It was a silly promise, he knew, but there was something about it that compelled him to do it anyway, to promise to these small engravings that he’d be the one to stay with her in spirit for all of them.
Then she asked the question and without even a single shred of hesitation he knew exactly what he was going to do.
“S...Sure … gimme a sec …
He turned his back slightly for a second and moments later she’d hear two small sounds of metal being dragged across metal, neither lasting for more than a few seconds. It took as long as the room needed for the small noises to finally fade away to silence before he turned back around again, his little eyes sparkling with joy. It would be very clear to Riley that the noises hadn’t been long enough for him to scratch his full name out there on that tag
Slowly he’d hold out one hand to present her the dog tag and it would be very clear why.
He’d only made a small change, but it would be as clear as day, etched in as deeply as the printed letters stood out from the trinket. At the very top, carved in with a permenance that showed this wasn’t going anywhere were two small lines, transforming the l in Miley to a k.
He’d mered their two names into one.
“There! Now we’ll be together forever!”
Gently one finger traced over the printed lettering, it was the first thing he’d read yes and he was interested in it, but it was just a distraction. The moment he’d been able to hold it closely in his hands he noticed the small engraved letters, or more rather initials.
Slowly more and more about his favourite person was adding up, the small military dog tag, her designed existence, these six names and the six empty spaces next to her. It took an effort never before seen within that Synth to hold himself together, forcing himself to stay calm as he read those six initials back to himself.
Almost without thinking he allowed his finger to wander over the six pairs of letters, whoever they were, they had been something to Riley. I don’t know who you are, or what happened to you, but I promise to keep looking after Riles, don’t worry. It was a silly promise, he knew, but there was something about it that compelled him to do it anyway, to promise to these small engravings that he’d be the one to stay with her in spirit for all of them.
Then she asked the question and without even a single shred of hesitation he knew exactly what he was going to do.
“S...Sure … gimme a sec …
He turned his back slightly for a second and moments later she’d hear two small sounds of metal being dragged across metal, neither lasting for more than a few seconds. It took as long as the room needed for the small noises to finally fade away to silence before he turned back around again, his little eyes sparkling with joy. It would be very clear to Riley that the noises hadn’t been long enough for him to scratch his full name out there on that tag
Slowly he’d hold out one hand to present her the dog tag and it would be very clear why.
He’d only made a small change, but it would be as clear as day, etched in as deeply as the printed letters stood out from the trinket. At the very top, carved in with a permenance that showed this wasn’t going anywhere were two small lines, transforming the l in Miley to a k.
He’d mered their two names into one.
“There! Now we’ll be together forever!”
He’d hold the small tag there until she took it back.
For a second he’d watch as she took it back, eyes sparkling with that unmistakable eagerness in life he seemed to take on, only when he was happy and around her. Yet … there seemed to be something of his own he wanted to say, some hidden sentence in that beet red face of his.
Much as RIley had gained a much greater understanding of how much she appreciated that loving little Synth, so too had he realised something. Something that had been so obvious before, such an unmistakable truth, that he knew now, knowing how just how much both meant to the other that it had to be said.
The second she took that small trinket from his hands, he’d reach out suddenly attempting to pull himself in close for a hug. Every part of his skin felt like it was burning with that one statement left unsaid, the words attempting to tear themselves out of his skin.
He needed to say this, he needed her to know.
“R ….”
“Riles …. “
“I love you.”
For a second he’d watch as she took it back, eyes sparkling with that unmistakable eagerness in life he seemed to take on, only when he was happy and around her. Yet … there seemed to be something of his own he wanted to say, some hidden sentence in that beet red face of his.
♫
Much as RIley had gained a much greater understanding of how much she appreciated that loving little Synth, so too had he realised something. Something that had been so obvious before, such an unmistakable truth, that he knew now, knowing how just how much both meant to the other that it had to be said.
The second she took that small trinket from his hands, he’d reach out suddenly attempting to pull himself in close for a hug. Every part of his skin felt like it was burning with that one statement left unsaid, the words attempting to tear themselves out of his skin.
He needed to say this, he needed her to know.
“R ….”
“Riles …. “
“I love you.”
♫
Riley had assumed that the instant Ike took the dogtag she would get a jolt of anxiety. She planned on fighting it of course, but still there had quite literally never been a moment since got it that it hadn’t been touching her skin in one way or another. Like losing a wedding ring.
But beyond a tenth of a second that she had to fight the instinct to snatch it back, there was nothing.
Not nothing. She was definitely uncomfortable not having it on her. She squirmed, keeping her eyes averted and trying to be patient as the seconds crawled by like hours. But there was no proper, gut-wrenching, spine-buzzing anxiety - and she knew exactly why; Ike had it. And he was presently engaged in using it to do something that meant the world to her.
When it was complete just a short moment later and held back out to her, the girl snatched it up eagerly holding it in both hands and looking over it with the subtle excitement of a kid on christmas.
She blinked, brow furrowing just for a second as she looked over it, trying to understand exactly what he had done. He hadn’t done what she asked - why had he just put two score marks in it? Why had he overwrote part of her name instead of using the perfectly good space in the upper right? She realized after several more seconds of befuddled scrutiny that he had turned the L in her last name into a K, but that was still wrong.
He had done it all wrong. That wasn’t how you were supposed to do it at all. I was a simple M’Draani tradition - on the day you earned your tags, you passed them around the group you had grown up with. Everyone scratched their initials into them - because even though they would be a single unit for the rest of their lives, it was well known that everyone died alone. This way, when the end did come, your brothers and sisters - your family - would all remain close to your heart.
It was perhaps an oddly sentimental tradition for such a utilitarian society, even a little campy - but they were all still human, and humans had a way of getting attached. It was why the formula had worked for so long - take a bunch of kids around the same age and put them together. Raise them together, train them together. They would live together, learn together, grow up together. And once their training was finished a new and highly official unit would have been produced. A unit that knew each other as they knew themselves, that could work as cohesively as possible. Many as one, one as many.
Gunner. Marine. Sniper. Demolitions. Medic. Tactician. Engineer.
To each other, they were the most important people in the world. The relationship dynamics differed from group to group, untouched by the powers that be and allowed to develop naturally. Parental figures, older or younger siblings, lovers. Even if they didn’t all get along, even if animosity remained, they were still family in one way or another whether through platonic love, intimacy or simple pack-bonding. Even if they didn’t like each other, they still loved each other, and they would still die for eachother.
As they had lived and breathed together, so would they fight and die together. It was the way.
And no matter what happened, there was one law above all others - none left behind. Even if it risked the mission, it was more important that the unit stay together as much as possible. Some would die - and the others would bring back their bodies or die trying. No exceptions.
And Riley couldn’t help feeling like she had been the one left behind.
She knew it wasn’t their fault. She knew they had done exactly what they were supposed to, even Aiden. But it was hard not to feel bitter when she was the last one left alive. It was wrong to have all those names of the dead scratched onto a heart that still beat…
This was supposed to have fixed that. And maybe she should have just been happy that he’d done something to it, but she wasn’t. He probably thought she was being stupid or weird. Usually she would have anticipated that by default, but she hadn’t expected from Ike. For some reason she’d gotten it in her head that she could trust someone with this most intimate of things, and of course se had been let down. She felt stupid for being surprised that Ike would-
Suddnely, like a hidden image coming into focus, she saw it; nd like the dawning of a new day, a big, thoroughly delighted grin overtook her face as she realized what Ike had done.
m IKE s
It stuck out like a beacon. It was all she could see. Suddenly it looked to her like three letters set between two vague symbols that seemed to imply that her surname was still there, but as an 'undercoat'.
Ike had done it wrong. Of course he had. She should have known he would find his own ridiculous, unconventional way of doing it. That was, to Riley’s mind, how Ike did everything. It was what she loved about him - the magical ability to see things that she was blind to. Think in ways she wasn’t equipped to. See light where she saw shadows, she a dozen different winding paths when she saw only a straight road. Of course he did it wrong. She wouldn’t have it any other way.
And, either through coincidence or evidence (she assumed the former because she was an idiot) he had even gotten the gist of the ‘unofficial’ aspect of that tradition - to have the initials of the one you shared the closest bond with writ closest to your name. Closest to her. And the weirdo had gone above and beyond, finding a new way to express the message...And what a message it was.
As that big grin came, so did a fit of giggling burble up from inside her - the girl was overcome with quiet, but persistent laughter, helpless to stop for a long while. Her steely eyes had already teared up at the sight of that ‘hidden gem’ that she now would never ‘un-see’, overwhelmed with joy over how very much it meant to her for Ike to do this - but she could pretend that she was just wiping away the tears that came with laughter as she calmed herself and rubbed at her eyes, sniffling just a little.
”T-thanks~” She squeaked eventually, that sunny grin still plastered on her face as she replaced the chain around her neck and tucked the tag into her shirt. She didn’t have any reason to hide it anymore now that she wasn’t the only living name upon it - that was just where it went. As close as possible.
A part of the girl was aware that she was making something of a fool of herself, but she also knew that Ike wouldn’t see it that way, what with his magic Ike-O-Vision™. It was enough to let her retain some good humor over the fact that maybe she was being a bit ridiculous too at the moment, and that was okay.
Riley had always been a difficult person to deal with. Always a bossy, temperamental brat who didn’t really get along with anyone. But she had been better when there were living names on that tag. Carrying it with her had never been an obligation. She loved that tag almost as she had once loved the names writ upon it. It was what she had to remember them by. But with that love came a sapping effect. It drained the life, the spirit out of her that her most prized and beloved possession was a memorial to the dead.
And now it wasn’t.
Now it was quite the opposite. A monument not only to the living, but to their commitment as well. Technically this little thing couldn’t stop Ike from one day growing sick of her - but if he really understood what this meant to her then she very seriously doubted that would ever happen. If he was willing to do this then he was, by some incredible act of chance, also willing to deal with her obnoxious ass.
Before she could say anything else - not that she had any idea what she could say now - Riley found herself suddenly wrapped up in Ike’s arms again - something she was really getting used to. And now that she hd learned from their earlier, harrowing experience that returning a hug didn’t mean that they were going to die several weeks later she found it much easier to return that affection. The girl didn’t hesitate to do just that, still with that sunny, almost comically crooked smile on her face. She squeezed him and nuzzled into the soft hollow of his shoulder.
TIme passed, the embrace lingering and RIley not minding that one bit. She waited patiently as it became apparent that Ike had something to say. If he had something to say, she would hear it. Of course she would. She was in a Unit again and that fact had her elated. She had forgotten what it felt like - that warm glow of satisfaction that came with knowing she was right where she was meant to be, with who she was meant to be with, doing what she was supposed to do. That what amounted to falling into line should be a comfort to someone as obstinate, oppositionally defiant and anti-authority as herself didn’t even occur to her as being strange.
Unit 113 was alive again. No longer a graveyard. Riley would already have done just about anything for Ike even before this, but now it was profoundly more true. It was okay that he didn’t have his own tag, he didn’t need one. The M’Draani government wouldn’t have recognized him as an official member of Capitol Bunker Unit 113 - , but the M’Draani government was also gone forever. ANd she didn’t particularly care about what the government would have thought regardless. Her Unit had not been important because of what they fought for - it had been important because it was her Unit. As far as Riley was concerned, Unit 113 was no longer attached to any government or military. It had been set free the day she was deported from her home in a shipping container. That meant she got to decide.
Ike may not have known it, but he was now cemented in Riley’s mind as an official member of Capitol Bunker Unit 113. And nothing could ever change that,
It seemed to Riley a very long time before Ike was able to squeeze out what he had been struggling to say.
A stressful moment passed between them. A brief silence that might have stretched out space itself if it went on for too long.
And then, with no warning, the little brat burst once more into an admittedly adorable, but still highly insensitive fit of laughter. Ike’s only comfort was that she in no way gave the impression of laughing at him. ”Yeeeah yeeeah~” She drawled with sarcastic dismissiveness, voice muffled as she kept her face buried in the synth’s shoulder. ”Wha’evs~, you too an’all ‘at, oi~” she continued through the giggles - that part, at least, did not sound sarcastic. Dismissive perhaps, but not sarcastic.
Either the little dope was taking it in the wrong context, or she thought he was just trying to get a laugh out of her.
But at least she wasn't upset. That was something.
The thing was that Kato really had meant the promise that he’d given to Mackie, he really didn’t intend on trying to deal with his problems alone, especially not when he had to face them up close. He already did that too much within the space off his own head and room and the crushing loneliness of shadows which crawled unbidden into his skin.
He tortured himself enough when he allowed those little monstered room to fester, silently watching as they seeped into his veins, poisoning each drop they touch. If he was actually going to face up to what he did in the name of peace and democracy then he was most certainly never doing it alone.
If he had anything to say about it, he would like nothing more than to do it with the people he trusted most at his side. There was something intrinsically comforting about the presence of someone who knew what he’d done and still saw past it, something that told him intrinsically he safe to venture out there with her.
Really he didn’t know what he’d find out there, it would be so hard to navigate that dead galaxy without the oh so familiar glow of starlight to keep him positioned.
This time there would be no comforting glow from Sirius, the light that spoke of the trillions he was fighting to protect. The uncountable waves of humanity who were all believing in his victories to keep them safe.
Now all he had was this ship, its crew and his memories. Yet in a way, that was enough for now. He still had people here to protect, he still had something keeping him going. Yes he’d committed war crimes so many times, but he couldn’t falter yet, not now.
Yet it was with the same faint surprise he’d shown earlier that he now properly regarded the strange woman standing by his side.
For a second he contemplated on the true enigma that she was, he didn’t know where she’d come from or really anything about her for that matter. Just who was she and why was she so determined to see the best in people?
A few moments later, that ancient warrior decided it didn’t really matter, not to him, if others wanted to go on questioning in that was their problem. For him, he was just glad that there truly were people as good as her that existed in this galaxy, it didn’t matter why she was there, so long as just simply was.
“I mean it Mackie, I don’t want to face what’s out there alone, I need someone there with me.
There was a strange light in his eyes as he felt his arm get pulled into a gentle hug, given to him by someone who was far more caring about him than he ever deserved and yet …
The solid bulk leant right back into the hug, not fully reciprocating, but doing the closest to that, that Kato had done for a long, long time. Despite everything he’d done, everything little detail which screamed out that he didn’t deserve this, Kato felt that just this once he could be forgiven for allowing himself to seek a bit of comfort from others. To admit, if just for a second, that the silent faraway captain was suffering inside.
When he looked back into her eyes, his own were filled with more sorrow than usual, however they felt more alive.
In some ways, it was a step forward.
“How about now? We can go and check on her and tell her about the trip down to the surface? I’m sure the two of you could enjoy some proper family time exploring Lisara eh?”
For half a second he allowed his shoulders to untense, to suck in a truly fresh gasp of air. The weight of millennia dropping for just an instant to the ground. “I’m glad she’s recovering well, she deserved some luck, though she couldn’t have asked for a better family.
As he handed the small little trinket back to Riley there was an expectant hopeful look plastered all over his ridiculous face. The Synth knew that what he’d just done was an important moment for the both of them and every fiber of Ike’s body waited expectantly for a response from Riley.
While he did not and could never understand the full significance of that little military tag which was kept so close to her heart he could grasp to a small shred of the overall tapestry. He understood that those names that were etched in alongside Rileys and now his own were people that had probably been dear to her. The small favour that she’d asked of him had confirmed that much about them.
Yet even as he’d made the promise to those six names he’d had a sinking feeling that it wasn’t one he’d ever be able to share with them. It was just a gut feeling, but from everything he knew about the girl that meant the world to him, none of them were ever coming back.
Those violet pricks desperately peered into her face as she examined the little tag and with an almost gut wrenching sense of fear Ike watched her furrow her brows and peer even closer at the small scrap of metal.
Had he done something wrong? Was writing over part of the name some sort of taboo that he’d just broken? Why couldn’t he have just etched in his name without trying to be clever?
For several horrible seconds, he considered apologising profusely, begging her to forgive him for whatever mistake he’d just unwittingly made. Do his best to explain to her that he’d meant no offense, that he was simply doing what he’d though had been a gesture of just how far his affection for her went, that by entwining their names he’d show her that he was intending to stay by her side forever.
While it was certainly true that the synth understood some length of how much this seemingly insignificant thing meant to Riley he hadn’t grasped the full meaning of it yet. He knew nothing of Unit 113, the war it had fought in, the intervention and the deportation. Facts such as those were ones hidden from the inquisitive little mind that inhabited Ike, they had all been deemed irrelevant, such small incidents that really would not be worthy of his notice in the slightest.
Yet … the product of all of them, Rilynne Miles now sitting there opposite him meant more to him than anything else in the world could do. She was his world more than the city he’d grown up in ever could be.
In the end though he couldn’t bring himself to say anything, if she was about to rebuke him for something he did wrong, then he would listen. He would give her as long as she needed and do whatever it took to make her feel better about it.
He could only wait.
Then when she smiled that big beaming grin of hers, his face lit up in return. If her smile was the dawning of a new day, then Ike’s was like the sunflowers who turn eagerly to greet that sun, basking in the warm glow.
He hadn’t messed things up after all.
With that smile came an overwhelming sense of relief, that his tiny gesture which was supposed to show in some small way, how much he cared for that redhead had been received happily. That he had been able to place his name on that tag and intertwine it with hers, much like he had decided that no matter what was going to happen, the two of them were going to stick together.
Unintentionally Ike had already dropped himself into the mentality of Unit 113, that no matter what was going to happen, he was never going to leave her behind. It didn’t matter what they had to face together, they were going to be there to face it as a duo.
It didn’t matter to that weird bubbly little Synth that others found her abrasive, that by picking this path he might be alienating himself from many that found her annoying. He was willing to face the entire world if needs be, if it meant sticking side by side with Riley. That said, he had no intentions of allowing things to ever come close to the dying part of the commitment.
And when he listened to her laugh, the sound felt more beautiful to him than anything he’d heard before. Everything about this little trip and the almost disaster it had gone through at the start seemed to heighten the enjoyment and comfort felt afterwards and right now Ike felt on top of the world.
Unit 113 had a tactician again.
“You’re welcome Riley.”
For that the hug, their second proper one felt all the more real for the knowledge that Ike had just performed her a service that meant so much to her and by extension of that, him. It was such a simple thing and yet that was part of what enamoured him about her, despite all the complexities of life she always seemed to have a simple answer to it, she had been the one to understand how to come to terms with their artificial nature and become something beyond that. She had known exactly how to help the ship when it was under attack.
Ike felt her arms pulling him closer and didn’t resist for a second, resting his head atop hers, the course crimson strands of hair tickling his face and filling his vision, not that he minded. He would have endured the worst of conditions if needed to be able to pull her into a hug like this one and that made it so much easier as these he felt were the best of conditions. Sitting there giving and receiving comfort from the person that mattered most to him.
And then after agonising seconds of feeling that one statement burning a hole through his lungs he placed it out in the open.
For a moment nothing was said, allowing silence to fall like a blanket, wrapping the little Synth up in a mixture of dread and hope. He knew the unspoken question attached to the end could cause some embarrassing moments if it was denied. Yet he felt like there was an intrinsic safety net, that the two of them meant too much to each other to ever let something like that come between them.
A least he hoped so.
Finally when she did at last respond, the only emotion it brought Ike was confusion. That part of it seemed dismissive felt hurtful in a way, but the way that so much of it seemed to be pervaded with no actual rebuttal or even any negativity towards him allowed him to recover quickly. For a moment he was glad his face was hidden, for its shading had almost completely turned fuschia.
Despite how bubbly and weird Ike was, he was most certainly not blind. He had known for a long time that his face, especially the eyes had been betraying enough hints that he was in love for a while now that it only really left two possibilities. Hen when added to the current events it brought him to a single conclusion, whether it was the right one or not, he wouldn't know, not unless he tried.
He tortured himself enough when he allowed those little monstered room to fester, silently watching as they seeped into his veins, poisoning each drop they touch. If he was actually going to face up to what he did in the name of peace and democracy then he was most certainly never doing it alone.
If he had anything to say about it, he would like nothing more than to do it with the people he trusted most at his side. There was something intrinsically comforting about the presence of someone who knew what he’d done and still saw past it, something that told him intrinsically he safe to venture out there with her.
Really he didn’t know what he’d find out there, it would be so hard to navigate that dead galaxy without the oh so familiar glow of starlight to keep him positioned.
This time there would be no comforting glow from Sirius, the light that spoke of the trillions he was fighting to protect. The uncountable waves of humanity who were all believing in his victories to keep them safe.
Now all he had was this ship, its crew and his memories. Yet in a way, that was enough for now. He still had people here to protect, he still had something keeping him going. Yes he’d committed war crimes so many times, but he couldn’t falter yet, not now.
Yet it was with the same faint surprise he’d shown earlier that he now properly regarded the strange woman standing by his side.
For a second he contemplated on the true enigma that she was, he didn’t know where she’d come from or really anything about her for that matter. Just who was she and why was she so determined to see the best in people?
A few moments later, that ancient warrior decided it didn’t really matter, not to him, if others wanted to go on questioning in that was their problem. For him, he was just glad that there truly were people as good as her that existed in this galaxy, it didn’t matter why she was there, so long as just simply was.
“I mean it Mackie, I don’t want to face what’s out there alone, I need someone there with me.
There was a strange light in his eyes as he felt his arm get pulled into a gentle hug, given to him by someone who was far more caring about him than he ever deserved and yet …
The solid bulk leant right back into the hug, not fully reciprocating, but doing the closest to that, that Kato had done for a long, long time. Despite everything he’d done, everything little detail which screamed out that he didn’t deserve this, Kato felt that just this once he could be forgiven for allowing himself to seek a bit of comfort from others. To admit, if just for a second, that the silent faraway captain was suffering inside.
When he looked back into her eyes, his own were filled with more sorrow than usual, however they felt more alive.
In some ways, it was a step forward.
“How about now? We can go and check on her and tell her about the trip down to the surface? I’m sure the two of you could enjoy some proper family time exploring Lisara eh?”
For half a second he allowed his shoulders to untense, to suck in a truly fresh gasp of air. The weight of millennia dropping for just an instant to the ground. “I’m glad she’s recovering well, she deserved some luck, though she couldn’t have asked for a better family.
As he handed the small little trinket back to Riley there was an expectant hopeful look plastered all over his ridiculous face. The Synth knew that what he’d just done was an important moment for the both of them and every fiber of Ike’s body waited expectantly for a response from Riley.
While he did not and could never understand the full significance of that little military tag which was kept so close to her heart he could grasp to a small shred of the overall tapestry. He understood that those names that were etched in alongside Rileys and now his own were people that had probably been dear to her. The small favour that she’d asked of him had confirmed that much about them.
Yet even as he’d made the promise to those six names he’d had a sinking feeling that it wasn’t one he’d ever be able to share with them. It was just a gut feeling, but from everything he knew about the girl that meant the world to him, none of them were ever coming back.
Those violet pricks desperately peered into her face as she examined the little tag and with an almost gut wrenching sense of fear Ike watched her furrow her brows and peer even closer at the small scrap of metal.
Had he done something wrong? Was writing over part of the name some sort of taboo that he’d just broken? Why couldn’t he have just etched in his name without trying to be clever?
For several horrible seconds, he considered apologising profusely, begging her to forgive him for whatever mistake he’d just unwittingly made. Do his best to explain to her that he’d meant no offense, that he was simply doing what he’d though had been a gesture of just how far his affection for her went, that by entwining their names he’d show her that he was intending to stay by her side forever.
While it was certainly true that the synth understood some length of how much this seemingly insignificant thing meant to Riley he hadn’t grasped the full meaning of it yet. He knew nothing of Unit 113, the war it had fought in, the intervention and the deportation. Facts such as those were ones hidden from the inquisitive little mind that inhabited Ike, they had all been deemed irrelevant, such small incidents that really would not be worthy of his notice in the slightest.
Yet … the product of all of them, Rilynne Miles now sitting there opposite him meant more to him than anything else in the world could do. She was his world more than the city he’d grown up in ever could be.
In the end though he couldn’t bring himself to say anything, if she was about to rebuke him for something he did wrong, then he would listen. He would give her as long as she needed and do whatever it took to make her feel better about it.
He could only wait.
Then when she smiled that big beaming grin of hers, his face lit up in return. If her smile was the dawning of a new day, then Ike’s was like the sunflowers who turn eagerly to greet that sun, basking in the warm glow.
He hadn’t messed things up after all.
♫
With that smile came an overwhelming sense of relief, that his tiny gesture which was supposed to show in some small way, how much he cared for that redhead had been received happily. That he had been able to place his name on that tag and intertwine it with hers, much like he had decided that no matter what was going to happen, the two of them were going to stick together.
Unintentionally Ike had already dropped himself into the mentality of Unit 113, that no matter what was going to happen, he was never going to leave her behind. It didn’t matter what they had to face together, they were going to be there to face it as a duo.
It didn’t matter to that weird bubbly little Synth that others found her abrasive, that by picking this path he might be alienating himself from many that found her annoying. He was willing to face the entire world if needs be, if it meant sticking side by side with Riley. That said, he had no intentions of allowing things to ever come close to the dying part of the commitment.
And when he listened to her laugh, the sound felt more beautiful to him than anything he’d heard before. Everything about this little trip and the almost disaster it had gone through at the start seemed to heighten the enjoyment and comfort felt afterwards and right now Ike felt on top of the world.
Unit 113 had a tactician again.
“You’re welcome Riley.”
For that the hug, their second proper one felt all the more real for the knowledge that Ike had just performed her a service that meant so much to her and by extension of that, him. It was such a simple thing and yet that was part of what enamoured him about her, despite all the complexities of life she always seemed to have a simple answer to it, she had been the one to understand how to come to terms with their artificial nature and become something beyond that. She had known exactly how to help the ship when it was under attack.
Ike felt her arms pulling him closer and didn’t resist for a second, resting his head atop hers, the course crimson strands of hair tickling his face and filling his vision, not that he minded. He would have endured the worst of conditions if needed to be able to pull her into a hug like this one and that made it so much easier as these he felt were the best of conditions. Sitting there giving and receiving comfort from the person that mattered most to him.
And then after agonising seconds of feeling that one statement burning a hole through his lungs he placed it out in the open.
For a moment nothing was said, allowing silence to fall like a blanket, wrapping the little Synth up in a mixture of dread and hope. He knew the unspoken question attached to the end could cause some embarrassing moments if it was denied. Yet he felt like there was an intrinsic safety net, that the two of them meant too much to each other to ever let something like that come between them.
A least he hoped so.
Finally when she did at last respond, the only emotion it brought Ike was confusion. That part of it seemed dismissive felt hurtful in a way, but the way that so much of it seemed to be pervaded with no actual rebuttal or even any negativity towards him allowed him to recover quickly. For a moment he was glad his face was hidden, for its shading had almost completely turned fuschia.
Despite how bubbly and weird Ike was, he was most certainly not blind. He had known for a long time that his face, especially the eyes had been betraying enough hints that he was in love for a while now that it only really left two possibilities. Hen when added to the current events it brought him to a single conclusion, whether it was the right one or not, he wouldn't know, not unless he tried.
Ike leaned back for a second
He didn’t give himself time to think, knowing that if he did, he would never get the chance again.
Ike leant forwards and kissed Riley.
The contact would barely last a second, which was the exact time needed for his brain to catch up with his heart. As he pulled himself backwards Riley would be able to see it practically transforming into one big blush, his entire face seeming to mirror the color of her hair perfectly.
What had he just done?
That thought reverberated around the circuits which made up Ike’s brain, he’d made his feelings irreversibly clear, but what if she got angry at him for it? felt disgusted? Horrified at the thought? Had he just ruined the best day of his life by being overly emotional, allowed love to get in the way of what should have been a moment of growing trust and bonding.
What if he’d just destroyed that trust?
“Ummm, I’m sorry I … pleasedon’tgetangryatme, Ijustneededtodothatonce, justtoshowyouthatIdoreallyloveyou …
It was pointless stammering, but he felt he needed to say something, to justify his sudden action.
Once again Riley would be presented by a blushing and stuttering Ike, having confessed twice to her in a day, mixing between hopeful bursts and general writing at what an idiot he’d just been to have done something so brash and forward.
Yet the message was there. He loved her.
He didn’t give himself time to think, knowing that if he did, he would never get the chance again.
Ike leant forwards and kissed Riley.
The contact would barely last a second, which was the exact time needed for his brain to catch up with his heart. As he pulled himself backwards Riley would be able to see it practically transforming into one big blush, his entire face seeming to mirror the color of her hair perfectly.
What had he just done?
That thought reverberated around the circuits which made up Ike’s brain, he’d made his feelings irreversibly clear, but what if she got angry at him for it? felt disgusted? Horrified at the thought? Had he just ruined the best day of his life by being overly emotional, allowed love to get in the way of what should have been a moment of growing trust and bonding.
What if he’d just destroyed that trust?
“Ummm, I’m sorry I … pleasedon’tgetangryatme, Ijustneededtodothatonce, justtoshowyouthatIdoreallyloveyou …
It was pointless stammering, but he felt he needed to say something, to justify his sudden action.
Once again Riley would be presented by a blushing and stuttering Ike, having confessed twice to her in a day, mixing between hopeful bursts and general writing at what an idiot he’d just been to have done something so brash and forward.
Yet the message was there. He loved her.
He quietly listened to his peers talk to each other, he didn’t want to interrupt, he really couldn’t, but when he saw his small opening he took it, “Yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask her a few questions for a while, if it’s alright, something just hasn’t been sitting right.” He said, scratching the back of his head, awkwardly smiling, as he slowly followed them, telling Danesh, “sorry doc, gonna have to reschedule the dentistry.”
It was a well known M’Draani saying that ’Raun tween’oys wot’git’ye’. A favorite among children, it was one of those phrases that followed a M’Draani through their life. It was convenient in that it was easy to say in that it was only six syllables, and so could be used as an argument even when severely intoxicated by the commonly consumed concoction of motor oil, arsenic and a local carcinogenic fungus that the M’Draani call ’beer’. As with most phases and idioms passed down from time immemorial, the meaning was often left up to interpretation - as such the phrase could be used as anything from ’You just don’t understand!’ to ’What a fool I was!’ - the basis stemming off the typically M’draani observation that a bullet between the eyes, while quite devastating, is not something that one is actually capable of seeing.
Put simply, something very, very obvious that the most affected party is, against all odds, unaware of.
It was also more than merely a charming and whimsical coincidence that the expression on someone’s face for the nanosecond which remained of their rapidly dwindling life immediately following being shot between the eyes was that of anything from mild discomfort to utter shock - which just so happened to be the approximate range of expressions displayed by people for whom the phrase could be applied.
As such, the phrase could have quite easily been used to describe Riley Miles, given her wide, thunderstruck eyes that stared unblinkingly at, and through her synthetic companion. The primary difference between her and someone under the associated literal description was that her face had gone to a shade of crimson not previously thought possible. Also she wasn’t literally dying from a bullet wound to the brain, which was nice.
For a long time, the girl just sat there, abjectly stunned as her brain tried and failed several times over to reboot itself into safe mode. Pure awestruck shock rapidly shifted into absolute confusion. No less stricken for it and quite unable to produce words, the befuddled Riley setted for pointing at herself, quirking a brow and looking at him as though she were rather doubting his sanity - even while she was the one clearly acting….strange. It was a look and gesture which came together to say ’what, me? ME? Seriously? Me! Are you insane? You see who I am, right? Me!’
As if somehow Ike had perhaps kissed the wrong person. Or accidentally confessed his undying love.
Riley could hardly comprehend it. Her? Her of all people! It didn’t make sense. Ike had lost his mind. That they were friends she knew - hard to believe as it may be it was all too obvious - but this? This was madness. She simply wasn’t the kind of person people fell in love with. She was not ‘attractive’. She was the very embodiment of unpleasantness. She was an impossible brat who treated everyone like garbage - Ike included. She was simply incompatible with these kinds of feelings. Yes, her whole perspective on what constituted ‘reality’ had been rapidly shifting over the weeks she had spent aboard the Light. Yes, a number of things that she had previously thought to be purely impossible had happened - everything from saving the day to making a friend. But this was just-
What followed the girl’s long, stunned silence (during which she pointed back and forth between herself and Ike several times, confirming and reconfirming that it was, in fact, her that Ike was having these improbable feelings toward. He was mad, surely.) was, by far, the single most incomprehensible string of frantically babbled M’Draani dialect that Ike had ever the misfortune to have chucked at him.
Trying to understand what she was saying would prove an utterly fruitless endeavor. Frankly it was inconceivable that there was once a whole nation of people who actually used this ridiculous excuse for language as an effective means of communication. If a word could be made out in the horrendous slew of slurried syllables and…sounds it was so out of context to the point that any given word could have literally any given meaning. Schrodinger’s Language - words that simultaneously meant everything and nothing.
What could be determined was the overall feel of what point she was trying to get across. Specifically, she looked like an utter madwoman frantically ranting and raving as she tried in futile desperation to convince her executioner of the global conspiracy that had endeavored to frame her for the crime, all while with equal desperation and dwindling success to refrain from both offending and infuriating the one with the gun.
Though to say that literally no word made sense was, admittedly, something of an exaggeration - a few could be made out, the meanings of which were pretty bog-standard across the board. A lot of I don’t and ’not like that- and ’I mean-’ and ’but like’ and so on, with several such memorable snippets as ”’I don’t care - I mean I do but-” and ”Y’can’t just- I mean ‘can but-” and ”It jus’ didn’t- I hadn’t- y’don’t- but see- I mean- an’ like-”
She did not seem angry. Upset, definitely. Addled to her very core - probably not excessively promising in the synth’s fearful boon of not screwing everything up. He most certainly had screwed everything up, if how tragically poorly the events playing out were any indication. But at least he knew well what an angry Riley was like, and this wasn’t it. Whatever it was approximately just as stressful - but it wasn’t rage, nor hate.
It didn’t help that even Riley wasn’t quite sure what the hell she was trying to say. Emphatically flailing about in gestures that approximated frantic body language without actually serving any other purpose or deeper, implied meaning.
Essentially, it seemed that Ike had just short circuited Riley. Which was ironic.
Then, abruptly, much of the energy seemed to leave the girl. Her face fell in frustration and exhaustion from the strenuous and futile task of trying to explain herself - a task at which she had failed even more tragically than Ike had.
She couldn’t do this.
WIth a great, dejected sounding sigh, the little engineer’s hands fell limply into her lap. She slumped, grey eyes watching the floor as she contemplated the whole thing, struggling in silence to trawl the place where scattered thoughts went in a hopeless effort to gather them all up again and put together the jumbled shards.
There had to be a way to explain this. Had to be something she could say that might bring this to an end in a favorable fashion for the both of them. She didn’t want to let him down, of course, but-
She had to break it. Cut this off before it got any worse than she was already making it. It wasn’t fair to Ike, for her to ruin his special moment like this. Sure, Ike probably figured it was his own fault, but that only made Riley feel even worse about it. It wasn’t fair - she had to fix this.
Riley had always seen the natural way straight through things, as Ike had observed privately. No matter how complex the problem, Riley always had a simple answer. The girl practically was Occam’s razor. It seemed only natural that the same tendency to break problems down into their fundamental parts should apply now - and yet here she was babbling like an idiot and then going silent in shame, all while glowing like a signal flare.
And there was a simple answer, she realized.
She needed to explain this, to clear this all up, and the only way she could think of was the simplest, most direct, and most brutally honest fashion possible. The details could come later. For now she just needed this moment to go right.
Or, at least, as right as she could make it.
Put simply, something very, very obvious that the most affected party is, against all odds, unaware of.
It was also more than merely a charming and whimsical coincidence that the expression on someone’s face for the nanosecond which remained of their rapidly dwindling life immediately following being shot between the eyes was that of anything from mild discomfort to utter shock - which just so happened to be the approximate range of expressions displayed by people for whom the phrase could be applied.
As such, the phrase could have quite easily been used to describe Riley Miles, given her wide, thunderstruck eyes that stared unblinkingly at, and through her synthetic companion. The primary difference between her and someone under the associated literal description was that her face had gone to a shade of crimson not previously thought possible. Also she wasn’t literally dying from a bullet wound to the brain, which was nice.
For a long time, the girl just sat there, abjectly stunned as her brain tried and failed several times over to reboot itself into safe mode. Pure awestruck shock rapidly shifted into absolute confusion. No less stricken for it and quite unable to produce words, the befuddled Riley setted for pointing at herself, quirking a brow and looking at him as though she were rather doubting his sanity - even while she was the one clearly acting….strange. It was a look and gesture which came together to say ’what, me? ME? Seriously? Me! Are you insane? You see who I am, right? Me!’As if somehow Ike had perhaps kissed the wrong person. Or accidentally confessed his undying love.
Riley could hardly comprehend it. Her? Her of all people! It didn’t make sense. Ike had lost his mind. That they were friends she knew - hard to believe as it may be it was all too obvious - but this? This was madness. She simply wasn’t the kind of person people fell in love with. She was not ‘attractive’. She was the very embodiment of unpleasantness. She was an impossible brat who treated everyone like garbage - Ike included. She was simply incompatible with these kinds of feelings. Yes, her whole perspective on what constituted ‘reality’ had been rapidly shifting over the weeks she had spent aboard the Light. Yes, a number of things that she had previously thought to be purely impossible had happened - everything from saving the day to making a friend. But this was just-
What followed the girl’s long, stunned silence (during which she pointed back and forth between herself and Ike several times, confirming and reconfirming that it was, in fact, her that Ike was having these improbable feelings toward. He was mad, surely.) was, by far, the single most incomprehensible string of frantically babbled M’Draani dialect that Ike had ever the misfortune to have chucked at him.
Trying to understand what she was saying would prove an utterly fruitless endeavor. Frankly it was inconceivable that there was once a whole nation of people who actually used this ridiculous excuse for language as an effective means of communication. If a word could be made out in the horrendous slew of slurried syllables and…sounds it was so out of context to the point that any given word could have literally any given meaning. Schrodinger’s Language - words that simultaneously meant everything and nothing.
What could be determined was the overall feel of what point she was trying to get across. Specifically, she looked like an utter madwoman frantically ranting and raving as she tried in futile desperation to convince her executioner of the global conspiracy that had endeavored to frame her for the crime, all while with equal desperation and dwindling success to refrain from both offending and infuriating the one with the gun.
Though to say that literally no word made sense was, admittedly, something of an exaggeration - a few could be made out, the meanings of which were pretty bog-standard across the board. A lot of I don’t and ’not like that- and ’I mean-’ and ’but like’ and so on, with several such memorable snippets as ”’I don’t care - I mean I do but-” and ”Y’can’t just- I mean ‘can but-” and ”It jus’ didn’t- I hadn’t- y’don’t- but see- I mean- an’ like-”
She did not seem angry. Upset, definitely. Addled to her very core - probably not excessively promising in the synth’s fearful boon of not screwing everything up. He most certainly had screwed everything up, if how tragically poorly the events playing out were any indication. But at least he knew well what an angry Riley was like, and this wasn’t it. Whatever it was approximately just as stressful - but it wasn’t rage, nor hate.
It didn’t help that even Riley wasn’t quite sure what the hell she was trying to say. Emphatically flailing about in gestures that approximated frantic body language without actually serving any other purpose or deeper, implied meaning.
Essentially, it seemed that Ike had just short circuited Riley. Which was ironic.
Then, abruptly, much of the energy seemed to leave the girl. Her face fell in frustration and exhaustion from the strenuous and futile task of trying to explain herself - a task at which she had failed even more tragically than Ike had.
She couldn’t do this.
WIth a great, dejected sounding sigh, the little engineer’s hands fell limply into her lap. She slumped, grey eyes watching the floor as she contemplated the whole thing, struggling in silence to trawl the place where scattered thoughts went in a hopeless effort to gather them all up again and put together the jumbled shards.
There had to be a way to explain this. Had to be something she could say that might bring this to an end in a favorable fashion for the both of them. She didn’t want to let him down, of course, but-
♫
She had to break it. Cut this off before it got any worse than she was already making it. It wasn’t fair to Ike, for her to ruin his special moment like this. Sure, Ike probably figured it was his own fault, but that only made Riley feel even worse about it. It wasn’t fair - she had to fix this.
Riley had always seen the natural way straight through things, as Ike had observed privately. No matter how complex the problem, Riley always had a simple answer. The girl practically was Occam’s razor. It seemed only natural that the same tendency to break problems down into their fundamental parts should apply now - and yet here she was babbling like an idiot and then going silent in shame, all while glowing like a signal flare.
And there was a simple answer, she realized.
She needed to explain this, to clear this all up, and the only way she could think of was the simplest, most direct, and most brutally honest fashion possible. The details could come later. For now she just needed this moment to go right.
Or, at least, as right as she could make it.
Riley gave a sigh, steeling herself to make that tough call...
And pounced.
In a single, swift motion - swift enough that she could not allow herself the time to further doubt her actions - Riley appeared before Ike as if surfacing from some invisible lake, popping up in his personal space like the little undersized critter she was. The suddenness and momentum as she planted her hands on his shoulders pressed him clumsily into the back and arm of the seat, but the travel-size girl fit comfortably in the synth’s lap. Looking as though she knew only to an extent exactly what the hell she was doing, Riley pressed parted lips to Ike’s in an amateurish, slightly awkward, but two-fold-impassioned kiss - likely interrupting any sound he might have been making or word uttering - and just stayed there, lip-locked and wide-eyed, for a very long while.
Eyes like the steely mist that rose from the foothills of the mountain, enigmatic, mysterious and undeniably earnest looked owlishly into his own. Vaguely confused, somehow curious, but unwavering in their certainty as the impenetrable mists which would not be dissipated by any earthly force. They had met in the heat of the forge, she had bored those steely eyes into his own, alloy-solid and immovable. Now did they linger in those misty depths together, lost within one another, a shroud both loving and indestructible.
Indeed, Riley was surprised with herself - but it was only her boldness in reciprocating that really startled the girl now. Now that she had more or less come to terms with the obvious that had been staring her in the face for weeks. She was not surprised to find herself sharing that depthless attraction, since sure as the fog rides the wind had she known all the while what passions lie in waiting within her little heart. Incapable of being loved, and so naturally incapable of loving, so her poisoned mind had insisted - but the heart knew better, the heart with its saintly patience, knowing all the while that all would turn out as it should. Knowing even when the mind refused to acknowledge the little things - the way she looked at him, the way she thought about him. Not to mention the fashion in which her sidelong glance had lingered that one time she had lent him one of her larger, dirty white shirts after his own had gotten soaked in a burst of machine oil.
Still the poisons lingered deep within the tainted depths of Riley’s mind, irreparable damage done by men and time and pain and sorrow - but bring the mists the water that lets life anew grow up upon the ruins of the fertile decayed.
Long and long the lovers, both awed by one another in that mythical fashion that only young love could encapsulate. This new intimacy, unfamiliar ground to tread softly upon yet every step falling precisely where it was always meant to land. When at long last RIley pulled back there was a wide, lopsided grin on her face that was downright silly, yet all too charming. She blinked, a few low giggles bubbling up from her throat before leaning in for another, quicker (and equally inexperienced) kiss. Then another, as she more comfortably settled into Ike’s lap, giddy with that electric moment of their first contact lingering, the sparks still crackling softly about in the air around them.
It took several undoubtedly blissful minutes for Riley to bring her sporadic, but wholly enthusiastic shows of romantic affection to a gradual refrain. Snuggling into Ike’s shoulder and still grinning like an idiot in love, the warmth of her breath could be felt on the nape of Ike’s neck as she spoke with that simplistic, factual, profoundly earnest tone - softly, intimately, yet as real and as solid and as true as the sun-kissed Ringworld sky.
”I...I love you too, Ike.”
And pounced.
In a single, swift motion - swift enough that she could not allow herself the time to further doubt her actions - Riley appeared before Ike as if surfacing from some invisible lake, popping up in his personal space like the little undersized critter she was. The suddenness and momentum as she planted her hands on his shoulders pressed him clumsily into the back and arm of the seat, but the travel-size girl fit comfortably in the synth’s lap. Looking as though she knew only to an extent exactly what the hell she was doing, Riley pressed parted lips to Ike’s in an amateurish, slightly awkward, but two-fold-impassioned kiss - likely interrupting any sound he might have been making or word uttering - and just stayed there, lip-locked and wide-eyed, for a very long while.
Eyes like the steely mist that rose from the foothills of the mountain, enigmatic, mysterious and undeniably earnest looked owlishly into his own. Vaguely confused, somehow curious, but unwavering in their certainty as the impenetrable mists which would not be dissipated by any earthly force. They had met in the heat of the forge, she had bored those steely eyes into his own, alloy-solid and immovable. Now did they linger in those misty depths together, lost within one another, a shroud both loving and indestructible.
Indeed, Riley was surprised with herself - but it was only her boldness in reciprocating that really startled the girl now. Now that she had more or less come to terms with the obvious that had been staring her in the face for weeks. She was not surprised to find herself sharing that depthless attraction, since sure as the fog rides the wind had she known all the while what passions lie in waiting within her little heart. Incapable of being loved, and so naturally incapable of loving, so her poisoned mind had insisted - but the heart knew better, the heart with its saintly patience, knowing all the while that all would turn out as it should. Knowing even when the mind refused to acknowledge the little things - the way she looked at him, the way she thought about him. Not to mention the fashion in which her sidelong glance had lingered that one time she had lent him one of her larger, dirty white shirts after his own had gotten soaked in a burst of machine oil.
Still the poisons lingered deep within the tainted depths of Riley’s mind, irreparable damage done by men and time and pain and sorrow - but bring the mists the water that lets life anew grow up upon the ruins of the fertile decayed.
Long and long the lovers, both awed by one another in that mythical fashion that only young love could encapsulate. This new intimacy, unfamiliar ground to tread softly upon yet every step falling precisely where it was always meant to land. When at long last RIley pulled back there was a wide, lopsided grin on her face that was downright silly, yet all too charming. She blinked, a few low giggles bubbling up from her throat before leaning in for another, quicker (and equally inexperienced) kiss. Then another, as she more comfortably settled into Ike’s lap, giddy with that electric moment of their first contact lingering, the sparks still crackling softly about in the air around them.
It took several undoubtedly blissful minutes for Riley to bring her sporadic, but wholly enthusiastic shows of romantic affection to a gradual refrain. Snuggling into Ike’s shoulder and still grinning like an idiot in love, the warmth of her breath could be felt on the nape of Ike’s neck as she spoke with that simplistic, factual, profoundly earnest tone - softly, intimately, yet as real and as solid and as true as the sun-kissed Ringworld sky.
”I...I love you too, Ike.”
He was a total *@%*ing moron.
Had Ike been given more time, he might have come up with a more elaborate summary of the situation, something more poetic, with little flowery extras about the bitterness of fate or the tragedy of loving someone who won’t love you back.
Yeah that sounded about right for the situation, some very cruel joke at his expense. A joke that was made all the more bitter by that thunderstruck expression lining her still amazing face. It didn’t help that she seemed to partly see through him, her eyes flickering half off into some alternate dimension, no doubt attempting to escape even having to see such a wretched creature like the one that was curled up in front of her.
What a pinnacle of technology he was, all the gadgets in the ringworld could be stuffed inside of him and yet it wouldn’t change the simple fact that he was still a screwup. He’d managed to build the most amazing, wonderful friendship he’d ever known, then just as she had begun to properly open up to him, finally displaying that layer of trust which like an addict waiting at the end of a very long line he’d been so desperately craving.
Then like an addict, once more connected up to their own life support he’d been emboldened. He’d taken that one step too far, confessed a depth of feeling for his best friend and now … well now he was sitting here watching his entire life fall apart.
She looked like she’d just been shot and Ike had been her executioner.
Even if it was just for a second another image overlayed the one currently captured in that invisible but wonderfully sophisticated camera known as the eye. A flawed invention yes, a picture taken in it would fade with time, becoming more smudged as the fingers of neglect rubbed it between the vice like grasp, sometimes it might miss details altogether and yet it was still detailed enough to capture every horrific detail of this little moment. No matter how much Ike wished that it couldn’t.
Riley would never know what that second image was, but in that moment it had chilled him to his very … well metal endoskeleton. Or well it felt like it, but that was all just imaginary wasn’t it? He didn’t actually feel chilled, it was just his circuits lying to him, giving him feelings which never were actually real, all just a shallow pretense of being alive. Inside he was still no better than a walking toaster wasn’t he? A war machine which had failed its purpose.
Except as those crushed and powdered dots of lavender looked up at now completely red-headed girl that last bastion of reason knew without a single hint of doubt that his feelings for her, were real. That despite everything she was the one he was willing to spend eternity with,
It was such a simple feeling, one that didn’t care that Riley seemed to be wildly wagging a finger between the two of them as if there merest thought of the idea appalled her. Maybe it did, maybe it really was a silly, almost fantastic notion that he’d maintained in the days since meeting her, a little fantasy to help him sleep at night and yet …
Yet Ike didn’t stop feeling the way he did. If she really was to reject him and whatever frankly mad notions he’d been entertaining then he was going to wait for the hammer’s strike. He wasn’t going to back down, not that he could if he tried, his body was already half pressed against the back of the little chair, locked rigidly in place through sheer stubbornness and a lack of absolutely anywhere else to go. The two chairs which constituted their impromptu sofa were firmly pressed against each other and yet for Ike it felt like she’d pulled hers as far away as possible, an insurmountable gap rearing up between the two of them.
For now all he could do was sit there and be the target dummy for the machine gun barrage of incomprehensible madness that babbled forth like a mountain spring, eager to share themselves all at once. Words upon words tumbling over each other, mixing and changing in their own little way until the results flowing down the rapids was barely comparable to what they’d been before.
Occasionally during the onslaught those violet pricks of light would flicker from side to side as if by looking everywhere at once he’d be able to finally grasp the whole picture of whatever she was trying and failing to say. It really was a language that could mean anything, so Ike gave it a meaning: Rejection.
Admittedly it was a meaning clouded by the ever growing fogs of despair and hope, twin notions though they were, the two were also binary opposites and the clash inside Ike’s mind only further sunk it into an inky depth. Why did he have to open his stupid mouth?
He would have sunk further, arms desperately grasping at ropes to pull him, only to have them latch on and drag him further down into that endless void ….
Void … perhaps … NO! He wouldn’t, not again, even if he had screwed everything up to the degree only he seemed to be able to do then he would still stay by her side. He’d promised those people that he would keep her safe and nothing, no force imaginable in this whole stupid dead galaxy was going to keep him from doing that.
“Riles … I … you do-”
Had Ike been given more time, he might have come up with a more elaborate summary of the situation, something more poetic, with little flowery extras about the bitterness of fate or the tragedy of loving someone who won’t love you back.
Yeah that sounded about right for the situation, some very cruel joke at his expense. A joke that was made all the more bitter by that thunderstruck expression lining her still amazing face. It didn’t help that she seemed to partly see through him, her eyes flickering half off into some alternate dimension, no doubt attempting to escape even having to see such a wretched creature like the one that was curled up in front of her.
What a pinnacle of technology he was, all the gadgets in the ringworld could be stuffed inside of him and yet it wouldn’t change the simple fact that he was still a screwup. He’d managed to build the most amazing, wonderful friendship he’d ever known, then just as she had begun to properly open up to him, finally displaying that layer of trust which like an addict waiting at the end of a very long line he’d been so desperately craving.
Then like an addict, once more connected up to their own life support he’d been emboldened. He’d taken that one step too far, confessed a depth of feeling for his best friend and now … well now he was sitting here watching his entire life fall apart.
She looked like she’d just been shot and Ike had been her executioner.
Even if it was just for a second another image overlayed the one currently captured in that invisible but wonderfully sophisticated camera known as the eye. A flawed invention yes, a picture taken in it would fade with time, becoming more smudged as the fingers of neglect rubbed it between the vice like grasp, sometimes it might miss details altogether and yet it was still detailed enough to capture every horrific detail of this little moment. No matter how much Ike wished that it couldn’t.
Riley would never know what that second image was, but in that moment it had chilled him to his very … well metal endoskeleton. Or well it felt like it, but that was all just imaginary wasn’t it? He didn’t actually feel chilled, it was just his circuits lying to him, giving him feelings which never were actually real, all just a shallow pretense of being alive. Inside he was still no better than a walking toaster wasn’t he? A war machine which had failed its purpose.
Except as those crushed and powdered dots of lavender looked up at now completely red-headed girl that last bastion of reason knew without a single hint of doubt that his feelings for her, were real. That despite everything she was the one he was willing to spend eternity with,
It was such a simple feeling, one that didn’t care that Riley seemed to be wildly wagging a finger between the two of them as if there merest thought of the idea appalled her. Maybe it did, maybe it really was a silly, almost fantastic notion that he’d maintained in the days since meeting her, a little fantasy to help him sleep at night and yet …
Yet Ike didn’t stop feeling the way he did. If she really was to reject him and whatever frankly mad notions he’d been entertaining then he was going to wait for the hammer’s strike. He wasn’t going to back down, not that he could if he tried, his body was already half pressed against the back of the little chair, locked rigidly in place through sheer stubbornness and a lack of absolutely anywhere else to go. The two chairs which constituted their impromptu sofa were firmly pressed against each other and yet for Ike it felt like she’d pulled hers as far away as possible, an insurmountable gap rearing up between the two of them.
For now all he could do was sit there and be the target dummy for the machine gun barrage of incomprehensible madness that babbled forth like a mountain spring, eager to share themselves all at once. Words upon words tumbling over each other, mixing and changing in their own little way until the results flowing down the rapids was barely comparable to what they’d been before.
Occasionally during the onslaught those violet pricks of light would flicker from side to side as if by looking everywhere at once he’d be able to finally grasp the whole picture of whatever she was trying and failing to say. It really was a language that could mean anything, so Ike gave it a meaning: Rejection.
Admittedly it was a meaning clouded by the ever growing fogs of despair and hope, twin notions though they were, the two were also binary opposites and the clash inside Ike’s mind only further sunk it into an inky depth. Why did he have to open his stupid mouth?
He would have sunk further, arms desperately grasping at ropes to pull him, only to have them latch on and drag him further down into that endless void ….
Void … perhaps … NO! He wouldn’t, not again, even if he had screwed everything up to the degree only he seemed to be able to do then he would still stay by her side. He’d promised those people that he would keep her safe and nothing, no force imaginable in this whole stupid dead galaxy was going to keep him from doing that.
“Riles … I … you do-”
Ike never finished whatever he was trying to say.
Instead he found himself toppling backwards, his lips forced apart by the most unexpected of gifts. For a single moment he went rigid with shock, the simple momentum of these startling movements pushing him back into the chair and then …
Then the moment of surprise was over, whatever he’d been thinking about before, it didn’t matter, in fact, nothing else mattered, only this moment. Only the small red headed girl who like the final piece of a puzzle had splotted themselves perfectly into his lap. He wasn’t thinking, that would get in the way of the moment, instead he simply locked eyes, welding the second half of their unspoken, immovable link shut. Arms like the chains of love wrapped themselves around her, pulling her in, pulling the two of them closer, he didn’t know what he was doing either, all he knew is that he wanted her close to him.
Gently at first, but with increasing assurance every second he pressed his lips more firmly into hers, the rosy cheeks glowing with the same ferocity as her hair and for one glorious moment it would appear like the two heads had simply merged into one. Two heads so full of mutual love and adoration for the other that nothing would ever be able to break it apart, a matter so dense that if anything had even tried to get between the depthless lavender and indestructible steel they’d simply have been repelled.
Ike didn’t care that he’d been this close to accepting that this moment was never coming to pass, those thoughts had been vaporised the moment the light, that solid beacon of hope and comfort she cast chose to shine down on him. She would always be there when worries about life threatened to swallow him up, she would always be there to help and when those specters from her past tried to drag her back, he’d be there to fight them with her. They both had each other now, this pillar holding up their lives that stood locked into the firmest foundations.
Ike would use the chance as she pulled away to gaze, not with a new light, for he’d always known she was this adorably cute, but with a sheer ecstatic joy. The grin practically splitting his face in two allowing breathless laughter to escape, moments before it was silenced once again by another passionate, if clumsy kiss. One hand traveled its way up to her hair, gently petting it as that loving Synth brought them both in for another display of youthful but wholly devoted love.
As the minutes drifted by the two lovers would seem to become even more entangled in each others arms, Ike doing his to make sure that separation would be impossible. In the end after the initial displays of tender, loving passion had subsided into a simple and yet equally affectionate simple joy in each others presence Ike stole one little glance at the ring below.
Despite everything that had happened to them there, whether he knew it or not, he concluded that it was a good place. It had allowed the two of them to come into being and find each other, if nothing else it did resulted in anything marvelous Ike wouldn’t care, it had already done the best thing it could ever do for him.
He didn’t have any words to say, then again, nothing he could say would complete this scene any more that it already was. Except …
“Boop”
Instead he found himself toppling backwards, his lips forced apart by the most unexpected of gifts. For a single moment he went rigid with shock, the simple momentum of these startling movements pushing him back into the chair and then …
Then the moment of surprise was over, whatever he’d been thinking about before, it didn’t matter, in fact, nothing else mattered, only this moment. Only the small red headed girl who like the final piece of a puzzle had splotted themselves perfectly into his lap. He wasn’t thinking, that would get in the way of the moment, instead he simply locked eyes, welding the second half of their unspoken, immovable link shut. Arms like the chains of love wrapped themselves around her, pulling her in, pulling the two of them closer, he didn’t know what he was doing either, all he knew is that he wanted her close to him.
Gently at first, but with increasing assurance every second he pressed his lips more firmly into hers, the rosy cheeks glowing with the same ferocity as her hair and for one glorious moment it would appear like the two heads had simply merged into one. Two heads so full of mutual love and adoration for the other that nothing would ever be able to break it apart, a matter so dense that if anything had even tried to get between the depthless lavender and indestructible steel they’d simply have been repelled.
Ike didn’t care that he’d been this close to accepting that this moment was never coming to pass, those thoughts had been vaporised the moment the light, that solid beacon of hope and comfort she cast chose to shine down on him. She would always be there when worries about life threatened to swallow him up, she would always be there to help and when those specters from her past tried to drag her back, he’d be there to fight them with her. They both had each other now, this pillar holding up their lives that stood locked into the firmest foundations.
Ike would use the chance as she pulled away to gaze, not with a new light, for he’d always known she was this adorably cute, but with a sheer ecstatic joy. The grin practically splitting his face in two allowing breathless laughter to escape, moments before it was silenced once again by another passionate, if clumsy kiss. One hand traveled its way up to her hair, gently petting it as that loving Synth brought them both in for another display of youthful but wholly devoted love.
As the minutes drifted by the two lovers would seem to become even more entangled in each others arms, Ike doing his to make sure that separation would be impossible. In the end after the initial displays of tender, loving passion had subsided into a simple and yet equally affectionate simple joy in each others presence Ike stole one little glance at the ring below.
Despite everything that had happened to them there, whether he knew it or not, he concluded that it was a good place. It had allowed the two of them to come into being and find each other, if nothing else it did resulted in anything marvelous Ike wouldn’t care, it had already done the best thing it could ever do for him.
He didn’t have any words to say, then again, nothing he could say would complete this scene any more that it already was. Except …
“Boop”
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