(no subject)

[theguidinghand]

CHARACTERS: "Todd"/Guide, James T. Kirk, and all volunteers
LOCATION: Medical Bay
WARNINGS: Extensive description of the Wraith feeding process, and internalized self-loathing. Possible profanity.
SUMMARY: You can never win, you can only break even. With a Wraith, you can't break even - even if you are one.


He's growing used to the fire in his bones, and the thought disgusts him more than he would dare to admit. This repetition of siphoning off a bit of life and then slowly starving again is not the way of a Queen's man. It is short-sighted - but the kine are a short-lived species, as it should only be that they cannot imagine so far into the future. Yet he has agreed to this deal, and their short-sightedness is his own. It will not be long before he starves again, and then more humans will have to sacrifice themselves to him. So this vicious cycle will begin anew.

He kneads the dark vein that winds itself abound his wrist so that it does not swell with enzyme, but he closes his fist as he does so. He can grow used to the fire in his bones, but never shall he look upon a hungry hand without shame.

Guide waits in the medical bay, squinting at the too-bright lights. When he has the strength to do so, he stands; when he hasn't, he rests, sitting as regally as one can in torn leathers.

Comments

[goldshirt]

Not everyone was keen to wording, but from the look Batman gives him, Kirk knows his phrasing doesn't fly under his radar. Well, he wouldn't really have expected much less from this guy, if he was who he appeared to be. But anyone else would have to put a hell of a lot of work into a get up like this from materials on the Tranquility.

His jaw flexes, just briefly, a tightening in the muscles. It's something Kirk has been avoiding saying, unless asked directly, and with Hayley at his side-

there's no avoiding it. People deserve to know what they could be losing, but in the same breath how many would recede their offer? Is a year or two worth starving someone to death? Jim's hands lift, come to rest on his hips.

"Yes, we have." A beat, "Long term effects can be the literal shortening of one's life span. It's why we aren't allowing people to volunteer more than once." Unless they know the consequences and accept them.

And that, if nothing else, explains why Kirk looks curiously older than his twenty five years.

[chiroptophobic]

His stare doesn't waver for a few long seconds after Kirk has finished speaking, and then the chill of it simply drops away, turning back toward the rest of the bay. Everything seems remarkably still, all of this done with an ordered dignity, despite it being literally the forces of life and death at work here.

"If you'd said anything else I wouldn't have believed you. The only thing worse than the truth when people are already afraid is a lie." Kirk hadn't lied, but he'd seen his jaw work, known he was chewing over the admission. Even so, he knows he sounds like a book of grim morals, and that everything he is is at war with the sterile environment. He silences anything else he had to say about nothing being given without sacrifice. He hasn't left yet, surely that makes his intentions clear. A few words solidify them.

"Some of us don't expect long to begin with. I'm not planning for my retirement." What he did was dangerous, and he knew the same went for Kirk. What did a year or two from the end of his life mean to him? Besides which, a flash of grey might make him look distinguished.