07. in a gadda da vida, honey

[anybodies]

CHARACTERS: Mystique, Harry Potter, William Tsang, & You
LOCATION: A JUNGLE ON A SEEMINGLY UNNAMED PLANET?????
WARNINGS: PG-13 for bad words, possibly hunting/animal death, more TBD
SUMMARY: Catch-all of the above 3 characters for September. The log area is empty! Threadstarters will be in comments, feel free to ask me for something!
NOTES:


EMPTY AS PROMISED, threadstarters to be in comments.

Comments

Closed to Emma Swan

[anybodies]

[Bang.

BANG. Bang. Shots fired. On the far side of the ship, in the shadow of its belly and overlooking the cliff, it seems relatively unlikely that anyone's going to be caught in the crossfire, but just as improbable that there's anything worth shooting out there, either. In reality, that's.

Entirely true.

Mystique is leaning against a turned-up boulder, her back braced against the stone, one leg tucked behind her, hidden in the long grass. The wind keeps snatching her blonde hair, but she doesn't change it. Her focus is narrow and hard like something somebody's tried to beat a weapon out of, and maybe that's true. Her hands are wrapped around a strange pistol, white and shiny, unmistakably plastic. Yet the bullets snapping out into the air count four, five. six. fourteen. too many to fit in its chamber, and there's something a little hinky, fractionally but dangerously off about the way they snake through the muzzle.

And further, they never hit the tree that she's aiming at, despite the solid line of her arm, her unswerving accuracy.

Maybe they're blanks, a spectator might think.

They aren't blanks.

But they are costing her. The seventeenth shot, and blood creaks out of her left nostril. Her right eye spills yellow into the sclera, involuntary.]

TWO WEEKS LATER

[uncurse]

You might wanna save your energy.

[ When Emma approaches, she's all Emma again. "Leia" is long gone, and Emma looks like the planetfall has been rough on her. Her eyes bear dark circles that tell stories of missed sleep, hours instead spent searching the reaches of the woods for Hook to no avail. If he was here, it wasn't anywhere she could find him. But she had managed to turn up Raven. ]

Doesn't seem like the crew's gotten any less restless.

it aged like fine wine <33

[anybodies]

[The moment Emma's voice breaches the air, Mystique turns, gun dropping, her head twisting away to hide her face for an instant. She reaches up to wipe her nose, her brow knitting in consternation. It's merely an instant.

Looking up again, her eyes find Emma pretty quick. A beat's pause, and she shifts her back against the ship's hull, her severed stump straightening to hide the point of amputation below the grass.] Crew, [she repeats.] Right. [The screaming deluded.] Yeah-- you should probably take some of your own advice. [The smile she puts on her face isn't the warmest effort, but it's not entirely insincere.]

You don't look like you could outrun anybody who really means it, right now. [Not that she's one to talk, really.]

x2

[uncurse]

At least I'd start by running. [ She nods her head towards the tree Raven had been aiming at, pristine as it had been before the ship ever touched down. Her eyebrows arch. ] If your plan when they show up is to go in guns blazing, you're gonna have to do better than that.

[anybodies]

[There's an ugly twist to Mystique's mouth after that, the word run cutting her to the quick. Abruptly, she safeties the gun, shoves it back into the holster shifted against her hip. Ignoring the smear of blood across her cheek, she stoops down and grabs something out of the grass. It's a little bulky, but not heavy in her hands.

A prosthetic foot. To replace the one she lost.

Only then does she lift her stump into view. Fastening the curving aluminium and its cuff back onto the amputated limb is a deft series of actions, herky-jerky, irritation manifest in her pale hands, even though she dedicated a life of training, even though her power, is disguise and deception.] Maybe I will, [she snaps. It'll take more than blonde hair to paint her as anything but frustrated. Perhaps a little lost.]

[uncurse]

[ That catches her off guard.

The attachment is so cool and collected, proceduralized, that there's no mistaking it for a new struggle. Raven, whatever's happened to her since the last time Emma spoke with her, has experience in doing this. Begrudging, embittered experience, but experience nonetheless.

It cools Emma's quipping down considerably and widens her eyes.

She doesn't remark, though, not immediately. It was no accident, she has to guess, that she didn't realize it until just now, or that Raven didn't explain in hasty correction of Emma's uncouth remark. ]

Practice makes better. [ She chimes, but the words feel cheap out of her mouth. ]

I DID NOT NOTICE this got marked done in my inbox IM HERE NOW zoomed

[anybodies]

[It's almost uncharacteristic, the frypan flash of anger that suddenly heats Mystique's face. Hell, her cheeks even turn pink despite that her whole complexion, as it is, is a lie to begin with. She stops short, a jolt of narrow shoulders, the gun shaking in her fist for an instant, jaw clenching visibly, despite the distance between the two of them. An unknowing onlooker might think that maybe Emma is in some small measure of danger, really: because Mystique isn't her best self, that she's armed.

But frankly, it'd take even more than an aggressive, psychotic break to kill somebody with bullets that phase out of existence in less than half the distance.]

Do you remember what you were doing, when Van Rijn came out of space and tried to rain fire on our ship? [There's a grossly uncharacteristic, snide quality to that snap; defensive the way people get when they forget, for a moment, to think better. Mystique stares at the other woman with hard eyes, and tries to ignore the headache throbbing behind her temples.]

Closed to Takeshi

[dogbane]

[They've been walking for thirty minutes.

Well, technically, it's William who been walking for thirty minutes. It's easy going, mostly; flat terrain along the high plateau, the claustraphobic press of twiggy boughs and flowering underbrush easy enough to get used to if you mark the trees. However, considering Takeshi has a broken fucking leg-- that provided a fine and convincing excuse for William to transform into the great metal golem of stone and clay and derelict armor, and put the small boy on his shoulder. It meant, too, that preparations went off fairly easily. Takeshi wasn't there when William slapped up the sheet of paper on the triage tent, scrawled with]

DEFER TO MCCOY/CLARKE UNDERSTUDY

[and that Takeshi didn't see him put supplies into the wide, empty mid-torso compartment of his hulking form.

Most people would be creeped out by his green face, lacquered like a Peking opera mask, its stark red eyebrows and the slit-pupiled acknowledgment of yellow reptiles eyes. But Takeshi could only find the familiar in it.

It's something like noon now. The sun rakes down through the jungle canopy in warm god-fingers. They passed by a squirming drove of winged lizards garlanded around a viney tree not long ago, and William asked Takeshi to count them, as high as he could go. His voice booms and cracks like you'd imagine if thunder was trapped inside of a bell. He steps across a narrow stream, bridging the silvery thread of acid in a single slow stride.] If you could have a garden, [he asks, a pensive rumble.] What would you have in it? [A beat. He tries to remember what Takeshi's parents were growing.] Please tell me you've got no clue what pot is.

[He might be seventy-four percent fail at parenting, but the remaining twenty-six percent knows Takeshi's a bit young for that, at least in conventional standards.]

[throwsdown]

[Takeshi shifts slightly, pleased with himself as he sits. So far, he hasn't quite gotten the memo, regarding William's plan. Sure, he knows he's going out into the wilderness and assumes maybe they'll just camp out for a while, but he hasn't considered much else. Truth be told, he's been in a sad mood since remembering the physical loss of his mother and father, and it's been a heavy weight that makes his smiles come a little less easier. Now, though, he is at least in better spirits with the passing scenery to keep him occupied.

Small favors.]

Um... Pot's those leaves. I don't - I didn't never touch 'em!

[Please, his dad was Ned. Of course he knew about pot.]

Can I have nashi in my garden? Like from home... And I want watermelon....!

In trees. Trees with strong branches.

[dogbane]

[His dad was Ned. Of course Takeshi knew about pot. Though William's mask face isn't very flexible, there's a vague creak of wood and a shift in painted lines, his mouth bending upward at the corners.] Ace, [he says. It's a little incongruous, his big metal self saying something like, Ace as they lumber through the irregularity of trees.] Maybe in twelve years.

[The trees are growing slightly sporadic now, giving way to the edge of a river fed by any number of the streams they'd crossed earlier. The flow combines into clear rivulets, running up over brown stones. Not much sediment today, but that will change after another hard week's rain. William stops once he reaches the edge of the water, well aware by now that the lovely clarity nonetheless holds the kind of acid that will melt the skin off your foot in a minute. He rocks his big, helmeted head back to look at the narrow gap of sky. He doesn't mark a tree this time. The river is landmark enough.]

I've never had nashi, [he says.] But watermelon's fucking delicious. I'll check and see what our chances are when I get back in. When we get back in. [He corrects himself without making a big deal out of it, leaning down with a rusty scrape click turning sound of parts to set Takeshi on the ground, his huge mechanical hands very careful.] Listen, [his earthquake-voice says, as gently as an earthquake can.]

I want to set up home out here. I've got a bad feeling about the camp and all those thrashing wankers from the old crew running 'round.

[throwsdown]

[But twelve years is such a long time!

Hold on a second, though. He looks down, frowning a bit more deeply as he's sat down gingerly to the earth once again. He's learned, very distinctly, not to touch the water. Water's not good. Thinning his lips, he looks a bit worried by the plan.]

I guess... but don't we got friends there, too? We should be there to help them...

[dogbane]

[Bit by bit, the hulking metal thing that William has become starts to settle down too. Joints flattening, overlapping segments sinking, weight buckling down on weight, arm and concealed mechanics. William is by no means a quiet creature, even when he weighs a fraction of his current poundage in ceramic-and-metal; he's quite loud now.

But eventually, he sits down on the grass besides the boy. A massive, boot-like appendage clunks down four feet in front of him, and then the other one. He doesn't notice the big, slow shapes moving downstream toward them, even though his strange green face is turned toward it.] They're doing all right, [the earthquake-voice answers, slowly, as carefully but thoughtfully as he can.] They're already building. Little homes and water systems. And we can go back a lot-- that's why I marked the way. [He gestures back over his shoulder. His massive arms move much faster than his legs.

He'd carved x's into the trees. The raw markings look more altogether alive than, frankly, William's mask-face does at the moment, very still, despite their bright colors and the voice emanating from inside.] Besides, most of them have still got their friends and family. And we have. I'll be honest with you, mate; I could use some space right now.

[throwsdown]

[Takeshi looks at William with a silent and studious way about him. He... thinks he understands. He's had a really hard time with people lately, too, but it's not their fault. Takeshi's just been so sad, he doesn't know how to be Takeshi around them, because they're here and mom and dad and Hoi Hoi's not, and seeing that just reminds him over and over again. But —

He feels like it's his job. Making sure people'll okay.

He stares at the water, his hands on his knees.]

Y... yeah... Guess so...

You don't like being around lots of people? Or... are you — worried more people's gonna disappear, and you don't wanna see them disappear, too?

Closed to Hermione Granger

[bespectacle]

We can go up tomorrow, if you like.

[Harry's voice is wry. Despite that he hasn't flown the broom for weeks, his hair is still sticking up wildly, maybe more wildly than usual. Rough, outdoorsy living he's hacked before, and Hermione was there for that; the jungle humidity though, is a whole other factor heretofore unknown to his Potter coiff. He has both hands balanced on the end of his broom, the bristles pointed down between his boots. But there's no heat in his voice or his eyes. He's happy for her. More happy than he'd let on, when he'd initially dumped the creature unceremoniously on her lap near the smoking remnants of campfire.

So is Crookshanks, who is meowing and smushing his pre-smushed face up under her chin, his orange body corkscrewing around in her narrow arms in a way that promises she'll be taking plenty of cat hair up this afternoon if she goes. His claws occasionally nick on the extended bag she has hanging over her wrist. He's a huge cat, but he manages to balance gracefully on her thin limbs. On some level, the cat might miss his previous mistress, the girl, Cat. Hermione, though, is the perfect solace for that sort of feline grief.]

He's all right-- right? Professor Snape was a bit cross about the prospect of Muggle care, but...

[Crookshanks begins to vibrate, lovingly. He doesn't know they have cartography on their agenda for the day.]

[frizzard]

He's beautiful.

[ Not literally. He's actually quite ugly, but he's in beautiful shape, apparently completely healthy and content in spite of the grime he's managed to collect. Hermione juggles him with tactile familiarity, one hand digging up under his chin to scritch at his fur.

She's pleased enough with the reunion that she forgets what they're here for, if only for a second, but it comes back to her with the usual schooled solemnity: her smile sobers up, expression growing a bit more serious as she demotes doting on Crookshanks to idle petting. ]

Of course we're still going up today, Harry. The weather's too unreliable to take any chances. [ Was he joking? If he was, she missed it, though her answer's only a little bit chastising. ]

[bespectacle]

[Harry laughs-- not loud enough to be actually rude. A different sound, though; he's had a kind of gloomy few weeks, since Elizabeth disappeared from the campgrounds.] All right, all right, [he says, straightening, lifting his broom off the ground. It's a soundless command for him, when he raises his hand in the air: Up!

The wood promptly spins up, flattens, parallel to the damp earth.] I've been giving it some thought, [he says, ignoring the suspicious look that Crookshanks gives the broom's antics. Sometimes, wizards and witches have a tendency to leave when messing around with this kind of equipment, and as far as the cat is concerned. they only just reunited.] I've never seen anybody try and piece together photos from a wizard camera. Since we've never enchanted a quill before, [and have yet to hunt down a creature that could produce a feather, as far as he knows,] maybe we should give that a go first.

I think Muggles do that kind of thing quite often. What do you think?

flIES BACK FROM GEORGIA

[frizzard]

Are you asking me to make a wizard scrapbook?

[ She knows he isn't. That much is made obvious by the playful narrowing of her eyes, and the joke's as good as agreement. Her parents had done enough papercrafts for her to catch his meaning, even if the world of Photoshop is still completely foreign to the both of them.

Still, she's a little reluctant to part with Crookshanks. He seems equally reluctant, though it's expressed more by way of sitting like a log in her arms rather than a show of excessive affection. ]

Should we take turns?

[ Flying, she means. Though after another second's thought: ] Or would that be too dangerous, trying to manage the broom and make observations all at once?

[bespectacle]

[Harry cranes his head back to look at the sky for a moment, and then rights it out to look at Hermione again. And the log formerly known as Crookshanks.] A highly useful, tactical wizard scrapbook, [he says. But if this happens now, several selfies are inevitable.]

I think it'd be better for one of us to steer and the other one to do the camera work. We only know a bit about the creatures out here, and having a lookout could be important. [Harry grins when Crookshanks' stubby orange legs start to appear below the level of Hermione's arms, so that he isn't even pretending to stand on her, at least, on his own power anymore. His belly props comfortably on her wrist. Cat lyfe.] He's very self-sufficient, [he offers, trying to be encouraging but not. you know. naggy.]

Remember the last time he got to the bottom of a murder mystery almost a whole school year before the whole Ministry of Magic did? [Crookshanks' chin tanks last.]

[frizzard]

[ Subtle. Hermione appreciates his efforts to appease Crookshanks even if the feline is too busy melting to care, and there's a glint of amusement in her eye as she listens to the flattery. ]

It's a bit difficult to forget, honestly. [ Which is only a little bit of a lie. They've all been too busy lately for nostalgia — it's more that the Ministry's incompetence is difficult to forget. Crookshanks cracks an eye open in complaint when Hermione gives him a light squeeze of affection, then she's leaning over to place him on the ground. He rallies faster than she gets the chance to, though, springing from her arms to wander off towards the tents. He doesn't bother to look back, which she interprets as intentionally spiteful. ]

Right. I think you should take care of the broom, then. I'll take care of the pictures.

Closed to One Etrepa Seven

[anybodies]

[Mystique's stump hurts. She is wordlessly and impotently furious at it, and despite her propensity for deception, she's not doing a very good job of hiding it.

She's stumbled twice in the mud, absurdly, the narrow, curving bar of metal that is her prosthetic failing to find purchase in the slick substrate, just as she knew it would. What business has she trying to walk in it then, you ask. It's the principle of the matter. She should be able to walk on whatever the fuck she wants; she has the balance and dexterity to shame the Olympic gymnastic team of any European country who'd dare to challenge her.

Had.

Her other boot winds up taking the brunt of her weight, bearing it down, down, until the knee of her jeans mashes attractively in the muck. Her hair swings and bangs against her cheeks, a nest of blond flyways which is, uncharacteristically also, a mutiny of weather rather than her own design. She takes a moment to breathe, but not actually long enough to catch her breath, fed up with the heat growing under her face and the remote chatter of muddy villagers no doubt pretending not to have noticed.

She puts her hand out to grab at the nearby jut of stone, turned up jagged from the Tranquility's recent warp and fractional descent and wet already from the humidity. Her prosthetic threatens to give again; her other arm snaps, flails idiotically, grabbing at—]

Re: Closed to One Etrepa Seven

[corpse_soldier]

[ Of the strangeness that has surrounded Etrepa Seven since her awakening aboard the wreck of the Tranquility the most persistent - the hardest to come to terms with - is all the hands. Hands grasping, hands groping, hands gesticulating and gesturing- and almost all of them bare. The impropriety of it shocks and appalls her, and while of course this emotion is never betrayed on her lone segment's features, it is an ever-present reminder of just how far she is from civilization, how far from home.

Imagine, then, her feelings upon being directly grappled by one such obscenely bare hand. If she was prone to making involuntary facial expressions, Etrepa Seven would look horrified. It is one thing to be treated like this by her crew - lieutenants sometimes took liberties with their ship's ancillaries - but by an uncivilized stranger?

It only takes a single glance, however, for Etrepa to realize that this is not some egregious personal assault, but rather an act of simple kinetic desperation. Either way she is stalk still and remarkably stable, her arm as rigid and resolute as a steel bar, as firm a handhold as a jut of stone but without risk of laceration. ]

Do you require assistance, honored? [ is said with a spirit of irony that is virtually invisible behind her nearly-affectless voice. ]

[anybodies]

Are you trying to be an asshole?

[She's beauty, she's grace, she'll scream obscenities in your face.

To be honest, this kind of behavior is below Mystique in her right mind; she just isn't, right now. She digs her fingers into Etrepa's arm, shifting herself off the thin metal strut and the riven muck underneath it. Etrepa finds a perhaps problematic amount of weight directed onto her arm and shoulder-- Mystique is far more solidly built than her her current narrow shape would suggest-- as she digs her boot down. With some effort, and more frustration than anything, she starts to haul herself back upright.

It's not until she's mouth-breathing mutant hatred across Etrepa's shoulder that she cares to glance at the face of the woman providing this assistance. Something about her dead-eyed humor is irritating, and Mystique is somewhat too much in the thick of things herself, internally, to recognize that it is far more tolerable to dewy-eyed compassion. Her face goes rigid.]

[corpse_soldier]

[ It doesn't take augmented perception to discern the source of Mystique's troubles, but Etrepa does a quick scan of the person dangling from her arm all the same. The missing foot appears to be all that's awry, but that's enough to be getting on with. She really ought to get it regrown, rather than using such a clumsy prosthetic, but Etrepa must assume that this forsaken place lacks either the necessary equipment, or a Medic of sufficient skill. Both, she guesses; Etrepa reminds herself to be cautious with the segment she has- one of many adjustments she must make to her self-perception. She can no longer swap bodies with the ease that one might swap hands. ]

Please be still, [ she requests, in the same flat tone. And, rather than risk being groped further, Etrepa Seven stoops, slipping her other arm under the wounded person, and lifts her up with an ease that seems totally incongruous with her proportions. This is not the sort of thing she should be doing if she wants to pass as human. But considering the cast of characters she has seen milling about this miserable little camp, it's clear that 'humanity' - and with it, personhood - is a less strictly policed definition out here beyond the reach of civilization. ]

You might prefer firmer ground, [ Etrepa suggests. Whether or not Mystique agrees, Etrepa begins to make her way to dryer climes, boots squelching with each step, the crippled person slung over her shoulders in a fireman's carry. ]

[anybodies]

[Ahhhhhhhhhhhh

ahhhh ahhhhhhhhhh what the fucking fuck. Mind you, Mystique is highly suspicious of what's in progress the moment she receives instruction, which then solidifies into the alarm of total certainty the moment Etrepa passes her arm around.] Are you fucking ser, [she says, but she's not fighting it, even as she tips upside-down over the narrow peak of Etrepa's shoulder. She watches the jungle flip upside-down on her and her hair drop like the final curtain call, etc., etc. expanded metaphor to some other feeble and slightly petty manifestation of her frustration with everything.

She can also see the tip of her prosthetic foot from here. It's clotted with mud. It would be perfectly serviceable on dryer land, of course; Etrepa is entirely correct about that, and Erik had been remarkably talented in his innovation.

Ever the charitable one, she doesn't try and dig the thin metal strut into anything that looks fleshy from her current perspective.] You should ask permission, [she says to the woman's narrow butt.]

[corpse_soldier]

[ Oh, that is just rich. The barbarian with the bare, grabby hands is trying to point out the finer points of propriety to Sword of Nathtas, who has a thousand years of experience tending to the needs of the scions of the most exquisitely civilized houses. And now, of all times, when she sought only to benefit someone to whom she owes nothing- less than nothing.

The injustice of this rankles her profoundly, to an extent that surprises Etrepa Seven. When she had many, many segments, the irritation of one could easily be drowned out by the serenity of the collective; when she was a ship, this feeling would have been as easy to ignore as a momentary ache in one's knuckle- easier, even.

Now, with just the one body, the anger hits her square in the chest. She stops in her tracks, next to a particularly foul looking pool of water, and swings Mystique forward, sending that lovely head of hair a-tumbling until its flaxen tips graze the murky surface. ]

Shall I leave you to your own devices- [ still tonally affectless, the pause before the respect-title does the work of conveying a withering sarcasm, ] -honored?