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 Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 9:05 pm
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Posted: Sun Dec 10, 2017 8:18 pm
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There was a certain tension and distress that bubbled in Nictor’s gut, one he didn’t want to feel again, one that called up some of the worst feelings he’d ever had. It wasn’t quite so bad as when he though for a minute that Kolako was dead and her blood smeared on every leaf and tree trunk in the vicinity, but it was definitely a relative. That same churning uprooted feeling, that tremor of panic.
With the missions out to the Battleship Condescension over, there wasn’t much else happening. Volunteers were starting to close work off, no new missions were going out, likely they’d be released from temporary duty and sent home soon.
Nictor hadn’t been feeling too great since, since all of this had started really. He should have paid more attention when he was signing up, should have given more effort to getting reassigned, probably should have just stayed home. It was too late though, fair far too late and the consequences were something that had been gnawing at him. Gnawing and gnawing but not sinking teeth in and biting just yet. Taunting and testing the frailty of his skin, but then letting him sit there on the edge wondering when it would tear into him.
It almost did, it started too, but now it was just sitting there, idle, harder to grasp or catch than it had been this whole time.
What he’d seen and done and been a part of, it wasn’t something he was okay with. He didn’t know what to think about it, didn’t know how to, he could hardly grasp it sometimes even though it was there. He was tired. He wanted to go home.
Nictor’s head sort of hurt and the fog was there worse than ever and it was when he was sitting uselessly in the volunteer bunks that he heard some other trolls chattering about the trolls that had to go to medbay. How the place was packed with trolls in various state of injury. It made him feel sort of sick.
Maybe a lot sick.
He didn’t want to hear this.
But that’s when he caught wind of a Sergeant Hemera Moachm being laid up amongst the rest. That’s when the feeling started. A slow worming through the fog, a slow processing of what he was hearing and why it unsettled him, why he was pulling himself to his feet and walking out of the temporary barracks. As he fast walked through the hall, neraling running into more than one troll, the sinking understanding permated the haze in his brain. He just needed to check. He didn’t hear what had happened to her, didn’t know how bad it was, just that she was in medbay and it could be anything. She’d made him go there and all he had were scratches. Maybe it’s just scratches? He hoped it was scratches.
He just wanted his friends to stop getting hurt.
By the time he made it there, the normal signs of distress were shining through, could feel energy he didn’t have draining even more with. Nictor just needed to see that she was okay then he could awkwardly shuffle away like he did at Superstar and it’d be fine.
He managed to ask a nurse which room he could find her in and he was off, stumbling to a halt outside the door, feeling the tension stretch and stretch. She’d be fine, right? She’d be fine. Kolako had been not fine exactly but not dead and Mahmud had apparently had most of his body broken and it, just, please let her be fine?
Nictor shuffled into the room.
“H-Hem---er-” He started but choked on the last syllable of her name, caught once again with his think pan sluggishly firing off and trying to process.
Gl!tch~ i don't know what he's actually looking at like, is it obvious her legs gone or is this a thing of there seems to be shapes under those sheets that should be there but aren't and it'll take a hot second to sink in
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Posted: Sun Dec 17, 2017 5:34 pm
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They'd done it. Well, from what she heard. Done enough, anyway. Maybe not an absolute success, but the threat passed. No other great tragedies to deal with, no more casualties. Besides perhaps the remaining undead. At least they would be coming home. Not every body would get to return to the planet, including those she took out herself. Good news. Stabilizing news. A distraction, but only for so long. There was plenty to the results: partial success, a winner for the so-called contest, and on and on. Honestly, staring up at the ceiling, Hemera found that she didn't care. She couldn't even force a passing interest. Relief that the ship wasn't going to crash, but everything else... Nothing to say.
She found herself in something of a numb blur. Leeroi hadn't abandoned her, no one did, but she'd had difficulty dragging up the emotions she was supposed to feel, if not project. She was supposed to be happy to be alive, happy to be part of a successful run, happy to be going somewhere positive with Leeroi. Among other things. But all she'd been able to do lately was stare (squint) at the television, stare at the wall, or try to do sudoku.
Mera didn't know how to explain it, and she wasn't sure if she cared to try to figure it out right now.
As her visitor came in, the tealblood was in a similar state: existing, but not living. Easily noticeable from the lack of hair care and how she had been idly just staring up at an occasionally-blinking light, counting out the seconds between a spasm.
She had to squint when the troll came in, yellow Afryse? on their uniform. The voice would be enough to confirm the identity if nothing else did. "Nictor."
Still on his feet, everything considered. Odd how such things panned out.
Hemera pushed herself into sitting up. During the night they had her on this lounging mechanism, and during the day a recuperacoon. Right now her main issues were better taken care of while she was awake and not covered in sopor slime.
They'd already done what they could for...
Well. The reason why her entertainment options were so limited.
"I'm happy to see you. You should probably sit down."
Puffy-eyed without makeup, she went to work trying to tie her hair up with the company. Unfortunately, she soon lost her balance and fell back onto the pillow. The new weight distribution...would have some getting used to.
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Posted: Tue Dec 26, 2017 9:14 pm
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Whatever thoughts that had been strumming the tightly wound chords of his brain grew still. He wouldn’t have heard the notes anyway with how his hearing grew fuzzy, a buzz drowning out anything else. He stared. He stared and stared and the sight was trying to penetrate the thick haze that was trying desperately to protect his from this reality but it wouldn’t last. Couldn’t. There was no denying what he was seeing right in front of him.
And yet his think pan tried. Stumbled to a complete halt to try to delay the inevitable.
It just didn’t make sense. It wasn’t right. Was he just not seeing them, was he imagining it, had something rattled loose from the stress and he was terribly mistaken? Hemera’s legs couldn’t actually be missing, right? His staring yielded no change though. Where legs should have stood out through the contour of the sheets, he saw flat mattress. He saw where the shapes should have started but instead petered off far, far too early, much too close to the body.
He was imagining it right?
Even as the image started to grow blurry, his eyes burning and watering, the smars did not magically morph to reveal the mass he was somehow overlooking. There was just. Nothing there.
He heard the greeting, wanted to say something back, should respond, do something, something-
His breath hitched, realizing belatedly he’d frozen in more than one way with how his lungs scuked air in. Blinked rapidly as he forced himself to look at Hemera’s face, a blurry grey and black and orange, tears spilling over and making it hard to see her clearly but she looked less put together than Nictor could remember ever seeing her. He started forward slightly as she slipped, eyes darting back to that space under the sheets where limbs that should helped balance.
He couldn’t stop the small sob that slipped out, didn’t even try, honestly.
All he wanted was for his friends to be okay.
But Hemera’s legs were gone.
That’s not really okay.
He knew it, he knew that those ships were awful, thought about awful things happening, but the reality of it felt much worse.
Sitting down was probably a good idea, his knees felt weak. Nictor stifled another sad noise and shuffled to the visitor’s chair unsteadily, watery vision wanting to remain hooked on Hemera’s lack of appendages despite wishing he wasn’t seeing it.
“I-I-hhh- ‘m s-s-sorr---y,” Nictor stuttered out as he tried to quiet himself, tried to look at her face, anything but the legs, tried to wrangle the awful feelings roiling around inside him, felt the weight of exhaustion already pressing down to numb the outburst, felt the fog reaching out to take hold of this too. He sat there, breath stuttering and pressing palms into into his eyes until the whining hums petered off into slightly shaky breaths. He felt awful He was sure Hemera felt worse. “S-sorry. I-I…’m uh. G-glad i-it’s n---ot, ah, w-worse.”
What do you even say to someone who just lost their legs.
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