ataraxionlogs | here lies the abyss

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here lies the abyss

CHARACTERS: OPEN.
LOCATION: Science labs, Level Two.
WARNINGS: Black, eternal nothingness.
SUMMARY: To congratulate Xenogen on the appearance of their new endless void. And their new nanite research and storage facility. That's probably important too.
NOTES: Consolidated post for abyss and nanite-room gaping, gazing, and experimentation.

There are greater tragedies than their ruined map, it turns out. Missing people. Dead people. So while Remus and Sirius notice the change nearly straight away, checking in on the map out of miserable habit--like poking a bruise to confirm that it still hurts--the appearance of a fully-functional display of the science department isn't enough to take precedence over other things, such as drinking and kicking walls and sorting through what the departed left behind.

But they do, eventually, sit down to study it. The inky walls are mostly where they're meant to be, and the Homonculous Charm is working again, displaying a half-dozen lonely dots labelled as science department members scurrying in and out of view. (It isn't spying if you don't know or care what anyone is doing.) Even this one department is massive, their attention to detail both a blessing and a difficult-to-process curse, so combing over it takes time. And assistance, courtesy of Kate. And also, importantly, alcohol. It's two return visits before one of them says, probably with a mouthful of terrible whisky, "I don't think that was there before."

That: a small room across from the containment chambers, labelled nanite storage and research. And a second that, discovered soon afterwards: a new corridor, leading away from the department and toward the centre of the ship, with an adjacent Lab E.

It isn't a personal slight against anyone in particular (or only very small slight against Xenogen, which still has Severus Snape's fingerprints everywhere) that they go to have a look on their own. It's just that they're Gryffindors. You understand.

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"Bossy," Remus accuses, but at the same time he's shuffling obediently to the side, back to the panel beside the doors. He doesn't know what the flat part is for, but the keypad is pretty self-explanatory. He starts pressing in his crew number (nothing could possibly go wrong), one-fingered and slow, like somebody's grandfather, while Sirius sees to the door and Remus returns to the very important topic at hand:

"She is nice to look at—"

Priorities.

"—and good about boggarts. We can try her first. But Charles was nice about the map, wasn't he? I think you'd like each other if Severus hadn't gotten to him first."

That is probably not true. And the keypad doesn't like his crew number. He gives up and moves to squint at the crack between the doors from behind Sirius.

"Doubt it."

That's in answer to the bit about liking Charles--which might be unfair. Sirius considers this, and discards it. His prejudice is too strong to allow for any hypothetical scenarios. It's all tainted, thanks to Snivellus.

"And even if that were true, he's still not half as nice to look at. It's the beard," he confides, dryly, as he peers in between the doors, "such a turn-off."

It's a pretty good effort at a jocular tilt of conversation, one of his better in recent days. It helps that the darkness beyond the doors is interesting enough to fix his thoughts on, a brief respite from miserable angry depression. The light from his wand does nothing. It's like shining it on a thick velvet drape. The light is totally absorbed; the wand stands out, stark, like the darkness is a backdrop. Sirius frowns a little, and squints up one eye.

"What the hell is this," he says, as he leans back and lifts his wand a bit higher. It makes no difference. There's no dimension to the darkness, no shadow--no nothing. "Come on, let's pry 'em open. Nox," as an afterthought, and the pale wandlight snuffs out. "Did you learn any good prying spells second term of seventh year?"

Remus smiles a little behind Sirius' back, and not because he endorses making fun of Charles Xavier or his beard, but the smile is gone—off his face, well out of his voice—before they move on. Drawing attention to tiny signs of recovery might chase them back into their holes for another week.

"Dark," he repeats, tone a little lofty told you so-y, despite knowing that that's a rhetorical question. Stunning observation indeed. He jostles in close long enough to get a better look at the wand and its useless light, then steps back to examine the doors.

They've gone funny. Warped. Like something blew up behind them, maybe, and tried pushing them out of the doorway.

"Not in seventh year," he says, "but Alastor Moody—here."

He recovers his wand from his pocket and snaps the tip at the doors, and they make a good effort at getting out of the way: they're too bent to slide back easily into the walls, and there's a horrible groaning and screeching noise, but they manage to part enough to allow a person to pass through them. A Remus-shaped person, anyhow. Anyone with broader shoulders might have to turn sideways.

"Dianogus," he tells Sirius after the fact, in case he ever needs it.

"Brilliant," Sirius compliments, in answer. Having just stepped aside from the doors in time to watch the force of the spell at work, his focus is still fixed there, admiring the spellwork and the spell itself. But he turns a grin on Remus--quick and fleeting, still mostly bright. So, you know. All is not lost. He can still mock bad beards and appreciate bombastic spells that bend back doors. "Remind me to drink a toast to Alastor Moody later for that one."

Now that there's more space, the sensible thing to do would be to try light again--and then maybe move on to some other subtler trials. But there's only a tiny bit of room for sense here, because in the end it comes down to very broad strokes. Two Gryffindors versus the unknown. Sirius steps close to the space between the doors, studying their bent shape, tapping his wand against his thigh, a sure sign of his pensiveness.

Then he sticks his left hand into the black space beyond. Of course.

"Merlin." Incredulous, he laughs--and then a frown tugs immediately at his mouth, more puzzled than displeased. He does not pull his hand back. "You've got to try this."

"Have I," Remus says, mostly for show. Of course Sirius stuck his hand into the emptiness. Of course Remus is hovering just a step behind him, those few degrees more cautious, eyeing Sirius' hand. It looks like a painting—a hand painted stark and unshadowed onto a solid black background. But it hasn't turned itself inside out, and there aren't any monster noises out in the darkness, and Sirius isn't screaming in pain. Remus doesn't see what's so fascinating about it.

He moves his wand to his left hand and sticks out his right. (Losing his wand would be worse than losing his hand.)

And he says, "Oh." Not because anything happens; because absolutely nothing happens. There's no airflow. No temperature change—no temperature to change, it feels like. As if his hand had gone completely numb, except when he wiggles his fingers, he can feel them brushing together. "Merlin."

"Yeah," Sirius agrees, and his frown gives entirely to a grin, despite himself,"Merlin." Leave it to intangible mysterious darkness to cheer him. He wiggles his fingers as well, marveling at the lack of sensation. "It's like it's fallen asleep, isn't it."

As a parting remark, he manipulates his fingers to make a rude gesture into (or possibly at) the void, then withdraws his hand and shakes it out. The touch of cool recycled air against his skin is surprisingly noticeable after all that nothing. A grin tugs at the corners of his mouth again. Mental.

He leans forward, peering toward the edge of the floor. It looks like an edge, like the dark space beyond is a chasm. Thoughtfully, Sirius edges the toe of his boot toward it. If there was a rock to kick in right now, he would do it. "How far down d'you think it goes?"

That's also, maybe, what she said, if he changed the inflection. The joke occurs to him but goes by unsaid. Not quite back together yet.

"Let's jump in and find out," Remus says.

He rests his hand, the one gripping his wand, on top of Sirius' shoulder, just in case it isn't clear that he's joking. Obviously Sirius is smart enough to know that and to stay this side of the line between reckless and moronic, but—habit. And Remus has an eye on that boot toe.

His other hand is still wiggling in the darkness. He turns it over and fills his palm with a ball of blue fire—one of the handful of spells he has down both wandless and wordless, mostly because it was a cool way to light cigarettes—and turns his hand sideways to drop it.

It falls up.

"What—" Remus tilts forward, just enough to keep an eye on the flame while it goes, and goes. And goes. And goes and goes. For a second it's a pinprick in the distance, and then it's so small that it can't be seen at all.

What indeed, and Sirius leans forward right along with Remus, mirroring him with just a few second's delay. His attentiveness has something slightly canine to it--perhaps in his sharp focus, sharp enough to suggest pricked ears and bright eyes and stick-straight spine.

There's a few beats of silence, as the fire keeps on falling up. It looks like a paper puppet on a stick, like some great unseen hand has hold of it and is guiding it along a flat backdrop instead of some opposite force of gravity working on it. And then it's gone, obscured by sheer distance. Sirius barks a laugh, breaking the silence, amused and uncertain all at once. He doesn't lean away, but he doesn't lean forward, either.

"What the hell. What is this?"

"I have no idea," Remus says. Unnecessarily. They didn't study seemingly endless, empty voids in the second half of Seventh Year, either. Moody never had anything to say about them. But right now he would probably have something to say about them sticking their noses—very literally—into the unknown.

He shifts his weight back onto his heels. To be safe.

"Do you have anything heavy?" he asks; and disposable is implied.

Sirius--still staring into the unknown with a particular rapt attention reserved normally for very select things--and truthfully, the same sort of rapt attention that, as a dog, would have him staring fixedly at a squirrel romping in the grass, or a bee zipping through the air--fishes in his pocket without articulating a proper answer. Or at least, not an answer that he speaks aloud, but that's all right. Just as the and disposable is implied, so is his yes of course I have got what a question.

Without any particular ceremony, he produces a dog biscuit--slightly crumbly, definitely space manufactured, and taps it with his wand. Weight charm, easy enough--too easy; immediately he stumbles forward a step, as the suddenly heavy biscuit drags his arm down almost to the floor. Wizard slapstick.

"Merlin." Somewhat ruefully, Sirius grins, with a glance toward Remus. "Too good."

Stooped, he cups his hand in his other hand, for the purposes of extra strength--and, with a grunt of effort, heaves the suddenly weighty biscuit toward the door to the void. It lands just short, with a heavy and slightly metallic THUD--and rather than continue to exert physical effort, Sirius gets out his wand, and gives it a magical push over the threshold.

And that's where the dog biscuit stays. Not suspended in midair, exactly--that would imply some action, like hovering, something that would cast a shadow behind it. Instead the biscuit just-- is.

Sirius laughs, again. "This is brilliant."

"Mad," Remus agrees from slightly behind him--the magical push having spared Sirius the worst of any alarmed hovering or preparations to snatch him back from the edge if his fifty-pound biscuit threatened to pull him over, but there's still plenty of evidence of concern, wide eyes and ready hands and a tone more relieved than wondering.

But it passes. He edges closer again, close enough to grip one of the damaged doors with one hand for balance and stick his foot in to nudge the biscuit down and out with his toes. There's no resistance--no floor, apparently, masked by the uniform blackness of it all, nothing at all--but it doesn't go flying off into the distance, either.

He looks back up for any sign of his flame.

"It can't go on forever," he says. It is hard for something to be impossibly big to wizard sensibilities--the room is clearly larger than the space assigned to it on their map or the space allowed for it in the ship's design, but so's the inside of that bag Hermione carried around while she was here.

"'Course it can't." But even his agreement is thoughtful, as he studies the biscuit's distinct lack of reaction--and then up as well, mirroring Remus, searching for the flame. There is no sign of it. The weighty biscuit remains, sunk slightly down but not in a way that suggests weight or rest. Totally mad.

"Maybe it goes somewhere. Like a very big vanishing cabinet." The suggestion, tendered aloud, is really more of a joke. No way this is space's version of a vanishing cabinet. Vanishing cabinets vanish things, without discrimination. They don't vanish some things and leave others hanging in space like bizarre appliques on a very large bit of felt.

Sirius pushes his foot toward the edge, a little thoughtful in that, too--but mostly decisive. He makes up his mind quickly, in all things. "We should go in."

"Should we," Remus says, flat as the look he angles over. "What if we go flying off into the distance? It might go on for miles."

And they don't have brooms. But he already knows this is headed toward ropes or something. Probably toward Sirius jumping in while Remus holds the end of something and worries, enough to turn another hair gray but not enough to actually say no, as is his way.

"Maybe we ought to make sure it's survivable first." He sticks his hand in again, this time to wave it like a fan, searching for any sense of—anything. But especially oxygen. "If there's no air there's nothing to breathe."

"Tethers." Predictable. Sirius gestures to simulate, sort of--twisty fingers twisting a rope, then a tug to tie it, firm, in a knot, somewhere around his torso. "You hold one end, I'll jump. Or you can jump if you like."

True generosity, with a guess that Remus might well not like--though it isn't that Remus is any sort of coward, not in the least. Here he is, sticking his hand into the void again. Sirius leans forward to study his skin, wrist, fingernails. No severing of the hand and watching it fly off for miles. Just a nice hand, in still silhouette.

Mental.

"All right," he agrees, gamely, to that suggestion, and bends to unlace his boot. A few seconds of tugging and he has the lace free of the holes, ready to hand over to Remus. "Do a snake, you're good at shoelace-to-snake."

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here lies the abyss

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