Hello! I'm D. N. Christie (you can call me Donovyn or Don), and I'm a published writer in my early thirties. In this post I'll list all the projects that currently live rent-free in my mind.
If you'd like to see more than what's listed, feel free to visit my navigation page, keeping in mind that I'm working on filling the tag links as time goes on 👍🏽
The Darkspace Portent Series
M31 Arc (1–5)
The dramatic collision of Orthrive'poliea's vehicle with a nearby lake upends Warren Cougar's life more than he ever expected. Along with conspiracies, intergalactic war, and tumultuous dealings with interspace politics, he has to survive a hostile alien army and a semi-omnipotent sentient darkness doing everything in their power to destroy Earth and the rest of the Milky Way—and Thrive's native galaxy, Andromeda. Navigating their way through seemingly endless battle after seemingly endless battle, Warren and Thrive also find they must navigate themselves as well as their growing relationship with each other.
Genre(s): sci-fi, romance, thriller, sci-fi horror
Installments: five
Status: books one, two, and three published—four and five in progress
Representation: lgbtq+, neurodivergence, disability, mental illness, addiction/recovery
Main Tags: #Darkspace Portent, #M31 Arc, #M33 Arc
Link(s): buy the books here!
(M33 Arc pending)
WASTE
Guetry Sympa is a livewire and an adrenaline junkie, a musically talented hero with lawful blindness, so having a government-funded AI implanted in his brain to control most of his bodily systems after nearly dying isn't exactly an easy adjustment to make. Of course, there's no better way to cope with a hard breakup and recover from a five-month-long coma than by being forced by the Consortium to enlist a team of fellow contract agents for a covert operation to solve a centuries-old cold case involving the mysterious disappearance of the Milky Way's enigmatic savior.
Genre(s): sci-fi, cyberpunk
Installments: one (Darkspace Portent spin-off)
Status: in progress
Representation: lgbtq+, disability, mental illness, addiction/recovery, abuse survivor
Main Tags: #WASTE, #performed by Skywaste
Shadow Tamer
Gideon Mendel takes his daughter Warner to an animal-free circus for her birthday, where she's blown away by the magic acts and acrobatics that seem to overflow within the tent. Gideon's also impressed, and upon splurging a bit extra for Warner to meet the performers after the show, he forms an instant connection with Blake Bailey the Greatest—magician, clown, ringleader extraordinaire with a mysterious air as enigmatic as his true identity. There's something about the act, however...the lights, the illusions, the general dark undercurrent. Nothing sits right with Gideon. And digging deeper into the circus itself as well as Blake Bailey uncovers more magic than he ever expected...and places him directly into the line of unfathomable paranormal fire.
Genre(s): supernatural, horror, light fantasy
Installments: one
Status: in progress
Representation: lgbtq+, single parent, loss, found family
Main Tags: #Shadow Tamer
The Partners Trilogy
Reagan Gilmore and Ben Murray have been best friends since early childhood and singer/pianist duo Gilmore & Murray since their mid to late teens. Navigating their professional lives both together and apart throughout the 50s and 60s proves not be nearly as hard as navigating their suppressed feelings for each other over the course of four whole decades. And outside of involuntarily entangling with organized crime, living on separate continents, falling into the traps of depression and drug abuse, and taking their act all over the world, everything is just fine. It's fine!
Genre(s): historical fiction, general fiction
Installments: three
Status: all in progress
Representation: lgbtq+, neurodivergence, mental illness, addiction/recovery
Main Tags: #Partners, #PI, #PII, #PIII
Ballad of Kid Corduroy
The dusty town of Winslow, Nevada held their golden boy on a pedestal, singing Russell "Kid" Corduroy's praises and finding him every bit as charming as he was sweet. Until the eve of his twentieth birthday when a traumatic event causes him to pack his things and bolt away on horseback without a word, leaving his family, his friends, and his sweetheart behind for fifteen years. The whispers of the West question his motives, his whereabouts, and whether or not he’s even still alive; meanwhile, he finds much-needed companionship in the company of a band of outcasts operating under the careful leadership of one Jack Stranger. Their ideals clash but one thing they can agree on is that people need to know that someone cares. And perhaps, sometimes, people can care a little too much.
Genre(s): historical fiction, western
Installments: two
Status: all in progress
Representation: lgbtq+, PTSD, male SA survivor
Main Tags: #Ballad of Kid Corduroy, #TAtK, #TIoF
Silent Magnets
The telling of an alternate dimension; a "what if" story about a love that never was and couldn't be. A fictionalized tale bringing two souls separated by time and circumstance in the real world together as they should've been. Devin moves into the cabin community of Lakewood Forest with one thing in mind, and that's getting as far away from the tragic accident that took their friends as humanly possible. Living alone isn't all bad, and the neighbors are nice enough. One in particular, however, captures their spirit immediately and becomes a fast friend—Everett, another loner who does a rather impressive job of hiding his own tragedy behind a cheerful and warm exterior. We also leap all the way back into 1975, another life, another universe, where Devin and Everett are attempting to navigate the country in search of love and home…which could very well be with each other.
Genre(s): general fiction, historical fiction, romance
Status: in progress
Representation: lgbtq+, PTSD
Main Tags: #Silent Magnets, #SM20, #SM75
The Increasingly Disastrous Continued Existence of One Misfortunate Sol
Every living companion Solomon Maxwell Iron ever moved in with has died. The police can't figure it out, Detective Calvin Logan can't figure it out, and Sol certainly can't figure it out. So it's almost no wonder that upon taking a job at an opulent hotel in order to have room and board, the guests and staff are trapped in the hotel and begin to drop like flies. Poor misfortunate Sol is stuck with Detective Logan as the case continues to elude them, and the game is officially afoot or at hand or whatever body parts you choose to exploit.
Genre(s): historical fiction, murder mystery, thriller, comedy
Status: in progress
Representation: lgbtq+, polyamory
Main Tags: #Misfortunate Sol
(Triple Feature/Oh Warren Wants His Ass BEAT Edition)
(Includes Mature Content)
tagged by: @oh-no-another-idea!!
my words: queasy, queer, quay, quest, submerge, search, surface, steel, horizon, holy, hour, hallucinate
tagging: @space-writes, @pertinax--loculos, @zmwrites, @kingragnarok-writes, and OPEN TAG!
your words: proud, union, queen, ratio, train
queasy uncomfortable (Aurora)—
DeCosta cleared her throat. "However, what we could lose in silhou support, we are gaining in the graha. We're in talks now about a treaty absolving them of their responsibility for the Milky Way War due to the majority of them having been enslaved by the venevans. They've offered to fight alongside us on Torris in exchange for a clean slate."
"That's huge," Warren said. "That means in the future there's a possibility for them to join the Consortium, right?"
"Possibly. We're taking it one step at a time. If they join us, it could be a huge blow against the venevans and the Morrites, and we'd have to prepare for any retaliation to that effect. But for now, we've got an impressive arsenal against the Emmuli, and we're very comfortable about our odds."
The frown digging into Thrive's face indicated that he was, in fact, very uncomfortable about their odds, though he remained silent on that fact.
──────⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅──────
queer strange [I know, I know] (Meridian)—
Warren stood by the door of the med fac, hands in the pockets of his jeans as he watched Thrive's vitals monitors blip above the head of the bed. He'd stood there for long enough that everyone else on the ship had gone to sleep, and as he continued to stand and watch, he could feel the tendrils of exhaustion beginning to wrap themselves around his brain and attempt to coax him down with them.
The bandages around Thrive's chest hiding a gaping wound, the dark circles around his eyes, the contusions all along his torso from being hooked up to the cables and tubes in the temple... such vulnerability was a strange costume Warren wasn't sure he could handle watching him wear.
Thrive's eyes opened with difficulty and found Warren. His exhaustion and pain palpable, it only just hid away the immense disappointment present in his stare since departing Meridian.
"Gotta get home, get that nanotech out of you," Warren said. "You need your abilities back."
Heaving a tortured sigh, Thrive let a little more of that disappointment peek through. "Help me understand."
"I'm tired." Warren let the words hang in the air, attaching a half-hearted shrug to them. "I got scared. What do you want me to say?"
"Nobody deserves to die for me."
"No. And you don't deserve to die for them."
Thrive shifted a bit in his bed, turned his head to see him clearer. "Where's your remorse?"
"A little surprising that you can't feel it through our connection." Warren's face went hot from his mounting ire. "I'm practically deep-throating it, actually."
──────⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅──────
quay dock (Meridian)—
Delegate Sinkship awaited Warren on the high-profile dock, ready to pounce as soon as he walked through the gate. There seemed to be military personnel in every corner now, standing guard to enforce the lockdown.
The Node felt… empty, even from the small area of it they could see. An off-putting phenomenon for the largest station in the Milky Way.
"We know Orthrive'poliea is missing," Sinkship muttered the moment Warren reached earshot.
"Excellent detective work, ma'am!" Warren barked, an unexpected verbal harpoon to some. To his surprise, Sinkship flinched. A brief ghost of an expression, but one nonetheless. "I was beginning to think this place was run by a fucking cavalcade of one-celled organisms!"
Sinkship exhaled slowly as he spoke, her hands folded in front of her. "That's entirely unnecessary."
Warren took almost no steps at all to appear within her personal space, leaning over to make his height advantage clear. "You wanna say that again, witch?" he demanded in a low, vitriolic growl, his eyes glittering a darker blue than they had ever been. "It sounded like you just tried to rebuke my righteous fury at a certain upper authority's audacity."
──────⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅──────
quest chase (Eternal)—
Thrive looked broken. He kept an eye on the sky, but Warren had never seen him so desolate, so defeated before. His stomach churned at the sight.
He didn't know how much time had passed, but before long, Thrive deemed it safe to continue, and they were off again. Hundreds of eliyi poured out of the remains and the rubble, aiming veteran rifles and firing after them while some gave chase.
"The Laiori R'si is here," Thrive called.
Warren looked up and spotted shuttles descending from the R'lisan ship in orbit. "Whoa—!"
They could eventually hear Guetry's gleeful yelling as he and Quincy shot down several eliyi at once while leaning out of the open door to their shuttle. "Your knights in shining armor have arrived!" he cheered as they zipped past overhead.
Another shuttle carrying Osillo and Emnophene flew by. "Warren, catch!" Emnophene shouted, tossing a rifle out to him.
He caught it, spinning around to catch a few Foremasters long-range while also fighting to breathe. Thrive turned some of his abilities onto the fray, cartwheeling to avoid being shot with veteran rifles and hauling a large stone directly at a Headmaster, cracking its armored skull wide open.
The fight went on for too long. Eventually Warren noticed an entire army cresting over a hill and he clutched Thrive's arm, doubled over once again.
"There are more coming," Thrive said, peering toward the hill. "I don't know if I can ——— and fend them off while still giving us enough time to get away."
Warren's grip on his arm slackened. "———."
Thrive turned to him, his eyes flying wide open.
"Do it," Warren murmured hoarsely. "You have to."
Thrive took a fraction of a pause, a particular brand of terror shadowing his face that Warren had only ever seen once before, in a time when Warren's own safety and continued existence wasn't guaranteed.
"I know, sweetheart," Warren whispered as the atmosphere of Zliyagi seemed to quieten in anticipation. He wasn't sure what else to do, what else to say, what could possibly make this moment anything less than the utter devastation it was about to become. "I know."
──────⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅──────
submerge drown (Dark Matter)—
The sound of bones crunching filled the air, the rumble of thunder in the distance casting an even more horrific sheen on the goings on in front of them. Warren found he'd lost the ability to speak, his eyes pinned to the blood being flung away from its source, the bits of skull, the brain, the eyes—
"Thrive," Warren finally said weakly. "Thrive..."
But Thrive continued to drive his fist into ———'s head, over and over, the visceral sounds canceling out all other thought. His manic grin stretched deeper across his face, and fairly soon he was just wailing into solid earth as there wasn't any flesh or bone left to demolish that wasn't ground into a gummy paste. His knuckles cracked and splintered, a crater forming in the dirt of his rebirth homeworld, and his breathing was labored, deep, noisy, and wrong.
As inhabitants began to funnel out into the street, taken aback by the exorbitant gore fanned out around Thrive, the general atmosphere sank into surreal darkness.
Though it can be argued that he never really did try, Warren gave up trying to stop him, and he watched with a heady, swirling concoction of revulsion, awe, and excitement. The energy of Tournaltis crackled with power, both ancient and recent, and it could be smelled more strongly with each moment of impact from Thrive's fist, and Warren wanted to drown in it.
──────⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅──────
search (Aurora)—
In the middle of an odd dream about obhelians building his cabin, a sinking in his stomach swelled to an unignorable level and a fine black mist draped itself over everything in sight. He tried to wake up and, discovering he couldn't, realized what was happening a second before it got so much worse.
Something yanked roughly on his ankle, dragged him down into a void that went on and on and on, sharp metal snaked up his side and pierced a vein in his arm, and he went spinning, crashing into a solid surface. He opened his eyes with a start and expected to see that perhaps he'd fallen out of bed, only to find nothing but stars. He couldn't move his head or any other part of him—just his eyes, which searched for something, anything among the darkness to no avail.
"Your nuisance will be extinguished. Fighting is death."
He wanted to tell it he wasn't scared of it, that he had confidence he didn't previously possess, but he couldn't take a breath to speak.
The stars began to go out en masse. Dread spat out of the closing abyss, smothering Warren.
"Our foreboding cannot be shrouded in your darkness. We smell it within your skin. I feed from your despair and you will sate my hunger for eternity."
Warren flinched as if he'd just been screamed at though the voice remained monotonous as always. His pulse skyrocketed, his fear increasing out of his control.
"Bleed." The Emmuli breathed onto the base of his throat, the tips of thousands of needlepoint teeth digging into his flesh. "I have already lashed you with our tongue."
Jolting upright, Warren let out a hoarse cry and threw his comforter off of himself, jumping further out of his skin when something moved in the corner of the dimly lit room.
"Warren?"
"Shit, Thrive," Warren hissed, clutching his chest. He became dizzy, dramatically holding onto the edge of the bed for support as the mattress threatened to tilt upward. "This is how I die. Who knew I'd be sent to the fucking dreamwade before you?"
──────⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅──────
surface (Asylum)—
Warren watched her. Noted the steadiness of her voice, her relaxed posture, her attentive eye contact. He tightened his jaw and shook his head.
Zaera nodded in turn. "You have no qualms with the events leading up to his arrest?"
In the following silence, Warren sat back, the pads of his fingers flush against the surface of the table. He frowned, a sliver of surprise creeping in alongside an unexpected sense of pride. "Thrive is calculating," he said carefully. "...Ninety-five times out of a hundred, he's several steps ahead. He's tenacious and he rarely misses a detail. And he's powerful. Too powerful to be treated the way the Consortium has treated him, far too powerful to allow the corruption that's gone on for this long.
"It would be in your best interest, Delegate," Warren continued, his voice dropping to a level murmur, "to let Thrive do whatever it is he needs to do. My mistake was thinking even for a moment that he wasn't going to handle this. My mistake was thinking there was a chasm between what I see as righteous and the ethics he will stop at nothing to uphold. He is a Protector who has fully realized he cannot protect everyone. If there's an inch of humanity in you, Delegate, you'll give him a wide berth… and let him do whatever it is he needs to do."
Zaera lifted her head and peered down her nose at him. "What would you do if you were in my shoes, Mr. Cougar?"
Warren bit his lip, his palms sweating. "Let him loose. Take off the leash and throw it the entire fuck away."
──────⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅──────
steel (Eternal)—
The room went silent. The Archmaster's frame settled, like old steel beams. He gave Thrive a long stare, and a jolt of dread nearly uprooted Warren from his place.
The Archmaster came back around to Thrive, and continued to stare him down. Neither of them moved otherwise, nor said a word, until the silence was abruptly broken by the Archmaster.
"Kill them."
Thrive's shield was up and blocking Warren from veteran rifle fire before the Archmaster finished speaking. "Don't do this," he pleaded over the barrage of yellow and noise. "Don't make me do this. I can help you."
"Your kind has bred our demise for long enough."
"Please!"
As startled as Warren was by the sudden break in Thrive's voice, he knew it was futile. He knew it, Thrive knew it, but the Archmaster was determined to end the conflict their way. Warren looked around at the different eliyi. They all had a chance. To be free from ———.
They'd all been too affected by ———. It left them with no choice but to fail.
He expected this.
"Thrive…"
"I can't do it." Thrive's breaths came out stuttered through the whine of the rifles. "Warren, I can't. Don't—"
"You don't have a choice—"
"Don't ask me to do this!!"
"You don't have a choice," Warren reiterated in a lower register, his breath hiccupping. He searched Thrive's face for his dismaying tells that another layer of paint had been stripped. He found every one. "If we're going to have any chance to erase the Emmuli, you know what has to be done. They're not going to let us progress without interference."
Thrive went still. The eliyi didn't let up their fire. The Archmaster took to screaming at his Headmasters, and they charged into the shield, bouncing off with no consequence to Thrive but a minor stumble backward. His carefully maintained eye contact with Warren seamlessly transitioned into a stare of abject horror, a stare of desperation for this to be a construct, a collective hallucination.
"I'm sorry," Warren said in anguish, his own voice wavering.
──────⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅──────
horizon (Aurora)—
Thrive went still, his wounds attempting to heal. The Emmuli continued their onslaught, lancing through his prone form and oozing into his nose and mouth, into his eyes, which found the horizon and grasped onto the false red sun as a lifeline. His wide eyes, veiled in fear, reflecting the dying star and swallowing the smoke. Emptying with each passing heartbeat.
"...Get up," Warren said, louder. He had no strength left to struggle; instead, he channeled whatever he could into Thrive. He inhaled as much air as his lungs would allow, pushing past his mental restraints to project his voice. "...Get up. Get... up!"
The light in Thrive's eyes shifted.
"...Get up! Get... get up!" Warren found himself shouting, hoarse, into the dusty atmosphere. His chest could've been ripped to shreds at any moment as his screams echoed, but he wouldn't give up. He couldn't give up. He needed to give Thrive everything he had, even if it meant he would die as a result. The overwhelming stench of iron-rich and alien blood running through the mud made it that much easier to ignore the lightning threading within the angry cumulonimbus, the horrifying view of the numerous bodies littered around the battlefield, the sounds of the last few members of their team to struggle against the psychological torture in the background. "Get up! GET UP!"
With every word, Thrive's muscles tensed and the ground began to vibrate. Soon, it was the only phrase Warren knew, the only phrase that mattered. Get up. Get up.
Thrive exerted himself to rise to his elbows. A spear impaled his shoulder and stuck into the ground, he skidded a few feet away. Get Up.
He lifted himself to his knee using the spear as leverage before it vanished. Tears like molten obsidian marred his dirt-smudged face, ran down his collar, untouched by the rain. As Warren continued to bellow at him, his pupils radiated intense amber. Get Up.
A subtle radiance enveloped him, mingled with the black mist. His eyes burned with fire, boiling the air. The smoke doubled in an effort to keep him down as he shakily got to his feet. Get Up.
Warren shouted at him, supplied him with his resolve, fed him every ounce of willpower he had left. Thrive took several deep breaths, planted firmly on the ground, bearing the worst of the Emmuli attacks. Stabs of impossibly sharp smoke into every inch of his skin. He held his trembling hands in front of his face, scrutinizing the mud and rain and perhaps the heat radiating off of him in visible waves, wore the sentient darkness like a weighted cloak, glowered at Torris' false sun, his eyes lanterns incensed in the eternal night, taking jab after jab into his torso, shoulders, waist, arms, legs.
He squared his shoulders.
Orthrive'poliea was suddenly the picture of terrifying power. Seeping with light and strength, the air crackled with energy, and the pang of ozone and burnt sulfur coated the scene. Still as stone, his focus lasered onto the vaporous void as if he were attempting to simply will it to concede its presence in this dimension.
And he had a dark look in his eyes that made that thought significantly less farfetched.
──────⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅──────
holy (Aurora)—
Thrive's fingers tightened on Warren's hips, his eyes widening, and an unfamiliar flush crept across his chest, warming onto his throat and dusting across the bridge of his nose. His natural body heat seemed to rise to severe fever levels, which would be urgently concerning for a human. As it was, Thrive had never reached that temperature before, especially not while in the current situation he was in.
Warren stilled. "You good?"
Thrive took a deep breath, his fingers twitching once against Warren's hips, a brief pressure that caused an ache in the bones. "...Please don't stop."
His utterly foreign tone of voice struck Warren with a fleeting sense of crushing dread. Before he could voice his thoughts, however, it all happened at once, like a lightning strike—euphoria doubled, a lustful haze clouded his brain, confusion and some fear cracked through his system, and he could feel every pulse of his own bodily electricity. Thrive's intense sensations bleeding into a psyche unequipped for any of this magnitude.
"...Oh, Thrive."
Thrive's arms were around Warren within the span of a thundering heartbeat. He twisted both of their bodies, pressing Warren into the mattress with his hips as a hand came up to grip the metal headboard so tightly that the alloy geometry audibly warped.
"I like this headboard," Warren admonished very unseriously.
"I cannot begin to adequately convey how much I don't give a fuck," Thrive growled, immediately taking over to grind into him with unrivaled determination.
Warren's breath punched out from the impact of the flagrant strangeness of both what was happening, and Thrive swearing in this context. Thrive's teeth found themselves buried into the flesh of his own bicep as he knocked the entire bedframe against the wall again and again and again, reining in half of what it was he'd been feeling for the last minute and a half.
Somehow finding enough air to breathe, Warren's nails sank into Thrive's back. "Don't you dare keep this from me," he snarled. "Ride into it. Let me in on this, baby."
He almost couldn't get the words out before he whited out in the literal sense of the term. His body didn't catch up with his brain until some seconds later, when the sound that left his chest reached a personal record decibel level. There was a possibility that even the technologically advanced soundproofing within the bulkheads wasn't enough to dampen his guttural wail of ecstasy.
It was then Warren realized he could feel… heat. Like molten gold. It warmed his lower abdomen in a borderline uncomfortable way, and he shivered deeply. He also realized that Thrive was still growling, a consistent note of gravel and smoke beside his ear—the slow petering out of a phenomenon evolved out of a species several hundred thousand years ago.
"Oh, Christ," Warren gasped into Thrive's shoulder as another unexpected wave rolled through him. He clutched Thrive, the only thing keeping him tethered to the starship at all. "Holy fuck."
──────⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅──────
hour (Eternal)—
Thrive's glare in Delegate DeCosta's office the next morning could've leveled a mountain. If she was fazed, she didn't show it. Warren occupied himself by standing at the window, looking out at the Centrum. The silence crawled up his spine and settled itself at the nape of his neck.
"I know you're unhappy with me," DeCosta said, and her voice was steady, focused. "But I have important information that will very likely be of interest to you."
"What information could possibly be more important than ensuring justice for one of my charges?" Thrive snipped.
"Project Ingress."
That caused a pause so curious that Warren turned around to see what had prevented Thrive from speaking for several seconds. Thrive, on the other hand, regarded DeCosta with raised brows and lips parted as if silenced mid-word, despite being unwilling to give her the satisfaction of winning that unborn argument.
"Has that been finished?"
"We're close. We're in the final stages of testing." DeCosta rose from her seat. "The reveal coincides with the end of Mr. Sympa's sentence. You and the other members of the Consortium are invited to watch Project Ingress unfold. It's an endeavor that spans a few centuries, countless human hours, several generations, and it will change the way of the galaxy as we know it. Mr. Cougar may accompany you if he signs a non-disclosure."
Thrive drew himself to his full height. "Bear in mind, I will be forced to uphold my oath if Guetry's SCOT is not returned to him once his sentence has been served."
"I haven't forgotten your threat, Orthrive'poliea," DeCosta said flatly. "I suppose we'll have no choice but to wait and see what happens, won't we?"
"I'd like to be on the same page as everyone here," Warren interjected with a wide, forced smile. "This is apparently a situation in which something was made to appear as if it holds more value than the other when, actually, the opposite is the case." He turned to Thrive, his hands together in somewhat of a mock prayer. "Did I read that right? You gave her what she wanted. Was that part of the plan I'm not privy to?"
"Mr. Cougar, it's not—"
Warren turned sharply. "I will regret this as soon as I say it, but Delegate, ma'am, I'm going to need you to STOP."
──────⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅──────
hallucinate imagine (Meridian)—
"I am so... cold."
"Cold how?"
Scot blinked again, mouth drawn to a tight line, and his expression alternated between surprise and deep concern each second before settling on mild doubt. "I am as though... I suppose it's akin to being a gutted building. Components are missing."
"You hollow in there or something?"
After a stretched silence, Scot moved his attention to one of the signs. "I was created to help a man stay alive. I fulfilled my purpose until I no longer could. And now... he is gone, and I remain. Why am I here, then?"
Warren sighed. "Guetry wanted you to have autonomy. He wanted you to be free and have your own life, because otherwise they would've decommissioned you since you were technically a prototype. He said you'd earned a life after being with him for so long."
Scot seemed to process this for a moment before holding out his hand to Warren. "Would you mind?"
Warren eyed his fingers. "No." He pushed his sleeve up to his elbow and leaned forward, holding his hand palm-up. He focused on Scot's face.
Scot brought his fingers up to Warren's palm, drawing a slow circle along his flesh. He was cold to the touch—not extraordinarily so, but cold for a human-presenting being. While his skin felt life-like enough that it wouldn't cause any initial alarm to anyone who didn't know it was artificial, it unearthed a gap between comforting, and touching for the sake of touching.
"I am... regretful, I think," Scot said softly, moving his hand to Warren's wrist. "I wish I could have touched him. Even once."
"Guetry?"
"Yes." Scot's face showed no emotion, though his eyebrows subtly pinched together. It wasn't clear if that was due to the strangeness of making facial expressions or if he'd hid his feelings on purpose. "I never imagined that I would be envious, let alone of living things, but I find myself... wishing. For time with him like this. Where I could touch him."
He trailed his fingers up Warren's arm, and even as the gesture evoked deep intimacy, Warren experienced no discomfort. Only empathy. And thinking of Guetry as he was forced to then, the grief began to solidify faster than he would have any control over within the next few seconds.
"I'm sorry you didn't get a chance to say goodbye," he murmured, a strain in his voice.
on the subject of my books, there is actually a lot I'm going to re-write. it may even count as a second edition, idk.
I'm going solely by gut instinct on this one. it's very rarely failed me, especially within the last year.
a few of the smaller things I'd been gently nudged to change by beta readers, etc., to change are giving me an icky feeling and I just... I want to be 100% happy with my books, or at least happier than I've been with them since publishing the first one.
and some things need to be changed because I made myself feel icky with them.
I'd been so wrapped up in the "well there's a handful of people who already paid for the books and you'll be upsetting them if you change things now!!!!!" of it all. okay but. But. what if I won't.
also. this is the series that's gonna catapult me into fame and launch a career and get me out of this fucking nightmare of a life*??? and I'm not 100% happy with it??!??!?!??!?!? I beg your absolute FINEST pardon??? no one is saying these things to me, I'm just hyping myself up at this point but anyway.
my mom is doing much better—she's actually doing some stuff for herself, now. she's able to walk with support.
I've been playing Minecraft like it's my job (and in a parallel universe, this is where I'd say real dramatically "because it IS!!" and reveal I'm a Minecraft YouTuber with millions of subscribers out of nowhere lol)
as far as writing goes... yeah. I'm not sure where that's going. I have not written anything substantial (this isn't self-deprecation, it's the only way my brain can currently think to describe it) since I published Rebirth, nor have I had the urge to. my goal is still to write all ten books, but despite my plea to the spirits for inspiration and motivation, like, a year ago (HAHA) it's taking its sweet-ass time.
I've been making Skywaste music!!!! I've posted a couple already. I have 4 total right now, but the two I haven't posted could be better, so I wanna fix those up real quick before I do post them.
we got a new washing machine!! the old one was literally so old it cracked, so the landlord splurged (?) on a nicer one, and since my main chore is laundry, because I ENJOY it, I am so happy 😂
my son is FIVE DAYS AWAY from finishing the 4th grade, and he turned ten on May 25th. I'm starting a petition to let me control time so I can shut that down real quick because I blinked when he turned one and here we are 😤
anyway. that's that. I'll try to do tag games... eventually. I know they're there. I'm keeping track lol
Tagged by @oh-no-another-idea! Thanks 😁
Tagging @space-writes, @pertinax--loculos, @zmwrites, and open tag! You'll be finding:
A line inspired by a song
A line you heard in real life
A line you hate (or your least favorite)
A line describing a terrible noise
✧₊˚.⋆☾☆ ✦ ☆☽⋆⁺₊✧
A line about the sea (Eternal)—
A thunderous shake of the ground, and the ocean erupted. Water touched the sky, pellets of droplets shot at the cliffside, and lightning arced through the clouds, illuminating the roiling, abyssal sea below them and the swelling crest in the distance. Warren was plunged into a cold snap, and he shuddered violently.
"Get to shelter," Thrive demanded of those not directly fighting. He hadn't had the mental capacity to keep himself from getting soaked by the rain. He swept his hands over the ground and fire belched from between his fingers, and he swiped viciously at the Emmuli figures around him and ———, his face glowing with the light from both the flames and his eyes. "Keep everyone safe!"
A sudden rogue wave rushed in from the ocean, taller than the cliff, barreling toward them at a discouragingly fast speed. Thrive planted himself at the edge of the cliff and shook one hand out, casting it upward to encompass everyone and everything on it, quintupling the strength, and he used his other hand to spread the shield behind him—more of the city, more of the residents.
The boom of the torrent impacting against Thrive's shield was colossal and made Warren wince, and he reached up to cover his ears to find they'd been burned to the layer of skin beneath. Thrive almost buckled, but he dug his feet into the dirt to stabilize. White water, dark water, the speed twice that of a raging river over everyone's heads.
This continued for minutes. The light in Thrive's eyes rose until it all but provided those shielded with plenty of it to see the black fog settling on the ground.
Just when Warren began to doubt that and the pain would ever end, the water streamed away, revealing the ocean and the dark clouds once more. The rain had stopped, and Thrive dropped the shield and staggered, breathing hard. Steam rose from his body, the water clinging to his form boiling away.
✧₊˚.⋆☾☆ ✦ ☆☽⋆⁺₊✧
A line with the color yellow (Warpath)—
Thrive swiped his initial message away and pulled up another window, typing so fast his hands were almost a blur. "There's a presence in the world of hacking, one I've heard about in my search for ———. Somewhat the exact antithesis of FaiTh. They may have similar mission statements in that they wish to take control away from the Consortium—and possibly me—but their approaches couldn't be more different."
Warren glanced down at the desk.
"The Encryptic," Thrive continued, zooming in on a logo—an elongated rhombus of gold circuitry, with an "E" of negative space in the center. "I don't know their true identity, but I'm certain that Scot can help you find it."
"The Encryptic," Warren echoed. "Yeah… I think I've heard of them. But wait, if they want to take control away from you, how do I know they'd be willing to help me?"
"If they have any morals at all, they'll be on board with taking FaiTh down a peg." Thrive laced his fingers together under his chin and gave the desk a thoughtful look.
"What's up?" Warren asked.
"Oh, it's nothing. It's… been a while since we've done something like this."
"Putting together a task group? Yeah." Warren hung his head, laughing softly. "How d'you think Guetry would've reacted to me suing the Consortium?"
Thrive's expression turned wistful. "He probably would've named himself a key witness immediately."
✧₊˚.⋆☾☆ ✦ ☆☽⋆⁺₊✧
A line featuring a weapon (Aurora)—
His door slid open and Mercury stood in the corridor, an arrow nocked and aimed right at Thrive's back, the neon glow of the LEDs in his bow practically blinding in the darkness. "Warren...!"
"No, don't," Warren shouted, but Thrive had already whipped around to blast Mercury across the hall in an explosion of shadow and slunk after him. "Stop!"
Guetry burst around the corner of the hall, armed and peering down the sight of his rifle, as Warren leaped out of bed. "Warren," he called, his aim snapping to Thrive. He sounded strained, his voice fraught with fear as Thrive turned his dark attention to him. "Warren, be smart."
"Guetry, he's in there."
"Can you reach him?"
"I can. I can! Don't fucking shoot him!"
"Sure, big boy," Guetry muttered gravely to Thrive inching his way in his direction, a predator catching the scent of prey. He chanced a quick glance at Mercury to make sure he was okay at face value, then met the obhelian's eyes again. "It'd only be a pinprick to you anyway, wouldn't it?"
"Thrive!" Warren roared.
Thrive halted without hesitation, a half a foot away at most from the tip of Guetry's weapon.
Guetry watched him, intensity in his bedrock gaze, rifle aim true at the center of Thrive's chest, and he trembled but drew no attention to it. Squeezing that trigger would've been the worst thing he'd ever done.
"You can hear me," Warren said, moving to Thrive after carefully making sure Mercury wasn't too hurt. "I know you can hear me. I know you're still in there." He swallowed. "Hey, sweetheart, I'm gonna need you to fight a little harder, okay? We… we're in dire straits here and we need your help. You can't let them keep you. That's not how this works."
✧₊˚.⋆☾☆ ✦ ☆☽⋆⁺₊✧
A line about an injury (Meridian)—
Warren stood by the door of the med fac, hands in the pockets of his jeans as he watched Thrive's vitals monitors blip above the head of the bed. He'd stood there for long enough that everyone else on the ship had gone to sleep, and as he continued to stand and watch, he could feel the tendrils of exhaustion beginning to wrap themselves around his brain and attempt to coax him down with them.
The bandages around Thrive's chest hiding a gaping wound, the dark circles around his eyes, the contusions all along his torso from being hooked up to the cables and tubes in the temple... such vulnerability was a strange costume Warren wasn't sure he could handle watching him wear.
Thrive's eyes opened with difficulty and found Warren. His exhaustion and pain palpable, it only just hid away the immense disappointment present in his stare since departing ———.
"Gotta get home, get that ——— out of you," Warren said. "You need your abilities back."
Heaving a tortured sigh, Thrive allowed a little more of that disappointment to peek through. "Help me understand."
"I'm tired." Warren let the words hang in the air, attaching a half-hearted shrug to them. "I got scared. What do you want me to say?"
"Nobody deserves to die for me."
"No. And you don't deserve to die for them."
Thrive shifted a bit in his bed, turned his head to see him clearer. "Where's your remorse?"
"A little surprising that you can't feel it through our connection." Warren's face went hot from his mounting ire. "I'm practically deep-throating it, actually."
✧₊˚.⋆☾☆ ✦ ☆☽⋆⁺₊✧
A line featuring baking/baked goods (Aurora)—
A little while later found Warren in the dining section of the vessel, picking through a dish similar to the one he'd had on their last visit to R'lis. Thrive entered the room, which had gone dim due to common evening, and straddled the bench beside Warren, staring aimlessly at the plate.
"Want some?" Warren offered a piece of the meat.
Thrive took it and chewed slowly. "It's not happening yet."
"I know it's not happening yet," Warren said, his tone somewhat clipped as he stuck his utensils into his food to spear another bite. "But I'm allowed to pre-grieve over this."
"Time you're spending 'pre-grieving' is time that could be spent taking full advantage of my remaining presence."
"I know." Warren managed another swallowful of starch. He lowered his voice to a near-whisper. "But it's so fucking hard to watch you try to hide the fact that you're terrified out of your mind."
Thrive grimaced, but it was quick and Warren almost missed it. "That's a strong assessment of my feelings."
"Your feelings that I can feel without even having to be close to you, now."
There was a pause. "We always knew, in a way, that this would happen. We've always felt it. We couldn't put a name or a face to it, but my eventual loss was something we both expected."
Warren dropped his utensils with a sharp clatter and folded his hands together. "You cannot be serious," he snapped.
Thrive, unflinching, shook his head. "You knew that ———, Warren. You knew from the minute I ———, but you didn't allow your brain to make the connection because you didn't want to face what your grief could possibly mean."
"And how the fuck would you know that?" Warren whipped his head around to face Thrive, nostrils flared and eyes wild.
Thrive searched those eyes, his soft gaze roaming over his face in the stinging silence that followed his outburst. Reverence and adoration comprised his expression, the ghost of a smile reaching his own eyes. "Because I think I know who you are, now."
Warren's lip quivered but he swallowed his emotion back. His fingers twisted within and around themselves. "Okay," he said, a bitter smile cracking through his façade. "Am I an alien? Am I some kind of god or a demon or something?"
Thrive placed a hand over Warren's joined ones, curling his fingers into his palms. "You're Warren Cougar," he murmured. It was simultaneously not the answer at all... and the answer to everything. "And I love you very much."
tagged by: @oh-no-another-idea!!
my words: thank, think, thwart, time, unreadable, unwilling, ultimate, under, shame, slice, steer, speed, linger, luxurious, accept, advice
tagging: @space-writes, @zmwrites, @kingragnarok-writes, @pertinax--loculos, and OPEN TAG!
your words: ghost, piece, blank, cheat, kneel
thank (Eternal)—
[Yara] guided Thrive in the direction of the trams, and Warren stayed behind a moment to observe DeCosta. She had recovered her professional demeanor though the shine in her eyes remained, and when her hands slid into the pockets of her dress slacks, Warren's stomach started to slowly sink.
"Mr. Sympa will be docking via prison transport in a few hours," DeCosta said, her voice steady as ever. "Thank you both for coming to greet [Guetry]. His family is scheduled to arrive at various times over the next few days, but unfortunately no one could be here on time."
"Delegate…"
"I don't have the answers you're going to want, Mr. Cougar." DeCosta's face changed, here. She frowned, the corners of her mouth down-turning in such a way that formed a lump in Warren's throat, and her voice became quiet, almost as if lost in a trying memory. "Guetry's a good man, but I've known better ones. And some of them aren't here right now. I'd consider asking him why that is."
･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･
think (Aurora)—
"I think we should work on that today, then," Lisus smiled and stood back. "There's water everywhere in the universe. Well... almost."
Thrive flexed his fingers. "What is the percentage of water vapor in the air of this location?"
"Hmm. I'd say anywhere from one to two percent. It's a cold day, especially here."
Holding his hand out and curling his fingers upward, a concentrated frown developed on Thrive's face. "It's a matter of... locating the water molecules and separating them from the others."
Lisus nodded. "Right. It's more precise than I'm sure you're used to, but..."
Thrive took a deep breath, his eyes shifting out of focus and he stared at his hand. "Gather them together... and... it's not much different than atomizing an eliyi warship."
Warren wanted to point out that he'd hoped it'd be on a smaller scale than that, but the slight glow at the center of Thrive's pupils completely distracted him. He watched in awe as a small droplet of dew began to form over his outstretched palm, steadily growing in size until he had about a grape's worth.
"Beautiful," Lisus said. "Look at that! That is stunning!"
Warren stood from the bench and walked to the window. The sweat on Thrive's forehead began to dry up, and the drop of water increased in size. The glow, while not nearly as bright as he'd seen before, followed his eyes as he seemed to see every water molecule he needed to see in the air in front of him. Soon the ball of water reached the size of his entire palm, and the glow went away.
Thrive levitated it in the air between himself and Lisus. "...Decent."
･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･
thwart prevent (Aurora)—
Sig stood at the viewscreen and glanced around at the members of the crew piloting the ship. "People are going to die," they muttered.
Thrive exhaled, his hands clasped in front of himself. "That's unfortunately inevitable. And it's equally unfortunate that it's going to be at the hands of an entity that can make it as excruciating and horrifying as possible. But... our goal is to prevent it from wiping out the universe."
"At least we're taking them somewhat by surprise."
Warren winced. "Wouldn't count on that, either. Had an encounter with it just a few hours ago. They know we're coming."
The trio stood in silence for a bleak moment before Sig walked over to a panel in the wall and touched a button, spinning another finger on a flat dial. They leaned in.
"This is Commander Sig Libra. We will be embarking on our mission shortly." They hesitated. "Speaking as a resident of the Milky Way and a human being, I want to take a second and thank each and every one of you for being with us. Whether you're here out of necessity, out of a sense of duty to your fellow Milky Way natives and families, or any other reason, I am thankful to you. And I will make sure you aren't forgotten no matter the outcome of this."
They ended their speech by banging the bulkhead twice with the underside of their fist, and in an amazing display of camaraderie and unity, everyone on the bridge banged twice on whatever they could reach with whatever they could use—fists on consoles, feet on the floor, elbows on the bulkhead. It could be heard ringing throughout the ship, as well, everyone stomping twice, pounding twice. A symbol of deep togetherness the likes of which Warren had never witnessed before.
Warren looked at Thrive, who lowered his gaze to the floor.
･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･
time (Asylum)—
"The era of sitting by patiently while injustices are forced on me, while I'm forced to watch them happen, is over." Though it was dark, Thrive's scowl was prominent and visible. Suddenly, though, a crash of emotion audibly stole his breath, and he spoke with unwavering desperation. "I know I've had too many chances. And I know I've lost you already."
Warren inhaled sharply. "Damn it, Thrive," he rasped.
"I can't walk away from this." Thrive moved even closer, trying to reclaim whatever was left of his composure. "Don't ask me to walk away from this."
"I can't ask you to do anything anymore," Warren whispered. "I can't…I can't even talk to you anymore."
"This is what I'd been afraid of, all this time." Thrive swallowed. "You'd see who I really am, and you'd be forced to leave."
"This isn't who you really are, though."
Thrive seemed unaffected, and his eyebrows lifted. "It is. It's who I, as an obhelian Protector, have been this whole time. I've done unforgivable things in my pursuit of justice, some of which have given me great satisfaction. I have moral ambiguity at times. I am not a saint. You and I had been together for several hundred years… I'm not sure how that slipped by you."
"It didn't." Warren shook his head. "I knew."
They stood in silence for several seconds, and Warren could feel his heart solidifying with each one that passed.
･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･
unreadable (Aurora)—
Sussa walked up to the glass as well. "Surely it has to be some kind of defense mechanism."
Thrive moved his head in a slow shake. "No. Not defense. Just... the wrong physiology."
Sussa looked at him. "How do you figure?"
Pointing to text Lilori had brought up, Thrive's brow creased. "The hemorrhaging started at their audio-sensory cortex and branched out from there. It reads like a very, very extreme exaggeration of what happens when a th'crode is directly forced upon someone who isn't an obhelian."
"How often has that ever happened?" Warren asked, immediately concerned.
"In the millions of years th'crodes have been a valuable asset in our culture, you could count on four human hands the number of times it's happened." Thrive folded his arms again. "I don't think this obelisk was intended to cause so much damage. The Ammathu likely left this for someone to find, but didn't anticipate there being people who couldn't do what they could do, or at least people who couldn't operate the technology like we could."
Everyone went silent, eyes all falling onto Thrive, who seemed to realize what was happening a second too late. He looked at Warren for a moment, face unreadable.
･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･
unwilling (Meridian)—
Warren looked at Scot, who seemed surprised but unwilling to protest. "There's plenty of uninhabited space on Tournaltis," Warren told the venevan dignitary. "This city is the only place with civilization. You could live here, under Thrive's protection until you find somewhere else to go. Or... maybe live here permanently, depending on the circumstance."
"Do you think he would allow it?"
"There would be laws by which you'd have to abide, and your existence here has to be peaceful." Warren shrugged. "Otherwise, I don't see why not. It'd benefit you all in the long run, I think."
The dignitary was quiet for a while. "I'll have to talk to the other leaders. But there may be something beneficial to this."
After the call, Warren stood with Scot in the hallway, rubbing his hands over his face and sighing dramatically. "I hate intergalactic politics."
"The downside of being royalty, I suppose."
Warren peered at him through his fingers. "Yeah, man, that's the only shitty thing about it."
･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･
ultimate (Eternal)—
"Hmm." Warren reached out to run the tips of his fingers along the three rows of small braids against the side of [Guetry's] scalp. "Wanna give me a quick rundown about how and why you've been using again?"
This time Guetry stopped fully, gazing into the mirror before lifting his eyes to meet Warren's from his outside seat in front of a pickup restaurant. The harsh violet glow of the triangular scar in his temple didn't do anything to offset the fear and shame crossing his features as he made sure no one within ten feet was listening. "How the hell would you know about that?"
"You think I can't find this stuff out in my line of work?"
The device strapped to Guetry's wrist lit up with Scotty's orb avatar, wiry rings spinning leisurely around an undulating nucleus. "I apologize for interrupting, but the Consortium is ready for the unveiling. It is imperative that you be prompt."
Guetry turned a suspicious stare up to Warren. He took a long moment to assess his demeanor and the way he held himself. "Do we have a problem?"
Warren narrowed his eyes into the distance, in the general direction of the trams. He took a moment to compose himself and decide whether or not he was going to drop the bombshell now or later.
"Later," he ultimately said for Guetry and himself.
They took the tram in uncomfortable silence; Warren figured Guetry would talk about it when and if he was ever ready. He didn't feel any sort of animosity or even disappointment—as he watched Guetry's profile silhouetted against the streaking lights through the tram window, all Warren felt was deep regret that he wasn't able to be a better friend. As the gesture had been offered to him not that long prior, he held out a hand.
Guetry laced their fingers together after some hesitation.
･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･
under (Warpath)—
Warren stole another glance at Thrive. As he leaned back on the bench, he watched the proceedings with a peculiar expression, one ankle perched over the other knee, and his fingers laced and thumbs tapping lightly against one another on his lap. He seemed engrossed… almost oddly so. When his attention slid to the Consortium, the whisper of an anticipatory grin cocked the corner of his mouth, but Warren was under the impression that he was the only one who could've seen that at all.
Sinkship inhaled, deep and purposeful. She folded her hands together on top of the table. "The decision was made nearly a hundred years ago," she said. "The Consortium that deliberated and accepted said decision is long gone. If it were up to me…"
All of the lawyers on their side shifted uncomfortably. "Ma'am," one of them said in warning.
Warren, suddenly very interested, perked up at this. "...No, finish the thought," he said. "If it were up to you… what? If it were up to you, Thrive would go back to being a regular citizen much easier for you to control, is that right?"
"Those were not the words that left Delegate Sinkship's mouth, for the record," one of her snottier lawyers said.
"But it's what you were thinking." Warren leaned forward in his seat, and he could feel Thrive's eyes on him. "He would have to abide by every one of your arbitrary rules and the idea of him rebelling would have been a distant sparkle in the collective consciousness."
Sinkship leveled him with a dark glare. "Some would say that's somewhat been the experience for a handful of decades, now."
Warren did smile, then. He slowly got to his feet. "I think it's only been one decade, actually."
One of the Consortium lawyers sighed. "Please clarify for the court, Your Highness."
"Gladly." Warren braced his hands on the table. "Thrive's had virtually no issue being king until Delegate Sinkship took office, or, more accurately, all of the pushback he'd received had been resolved with a conversation or a compromise. Interestingly, that leads me to a pretty fun question…" He lifted his gaze to her, then to the other delegates in the room. "Why does the human delegate suddenly have such sway over every single one of you?"
･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･
shame (Meridian)—
"I... remember." [Scotty] clenched his fists and the lights in the seams of his face began to flicker, gently at first, but then more and more erratically as he spoke. "I... am without... purpose. I have no... purpose. I have no purpose. I have no purpose. I—"
He shot out of his seat and lunged forward. Thrive was there before his own guards could react; he threw an arm into the chest of the chassis and backed him into the wall to pin him with minimal restraint as programmers rushed to the terminals.
Warren got to his feet. "Be careful," he said quickly to Thrive. "We've got a backup of him in a server, but right now he's physically irreplaceable."
"I have no purpose," Scotty said over and over, staring into the distance. He repeated this with identical inflection for a whole minute as Thrive held him to the wall until he suddenly looked up at him, his facial lines holding a steady violet. "Who... am I?"
Thrive's face contorted into shame and grief before he turned it away from view.
"Is he repressing memories?" Warren asked anyone.
"No," the team lead said. "Recollection is functioning normally."
Warren's heart twisted, and he took a deep breath. "Who do you want to be?"
The chassis looked at him. "Want…?"
"We've been calling you Scotty because your designation is SCOT, and that was Guetry's nickname for you. You can choose any name you want, now. You can be whoever you want to be. And I know it's hard, I know you're having a tough time coming to terms with being your own person, but it's all very new right now. If you want, we can help. We can help you adjust to autonomy, to being a person."
The chassis blinked, his face blank. "I…" His mouth opened and closed a few times before the facial lights ceased and Thrive carefully turned to meet his eyes once again. "I am... Scot. It's... it's a pleasure to see you, Warren. Orthrive'poliea."
"Scot," Warren repeated, smiling warmly despite the feeling of wanting to crumble into pieces. "...I told you I'd see you on the other side."
･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･
slice (Aurora)—
Osillo paused in their fire and ducked a spear. "There is a possibility that we're fighting nothing."
"Then what the HELL is THAT?!" Varussa bellowed suddenly, pointing out the window.
Warren whipped around to stare through the viewscreen as a ball of black smoke much larger than them swept through the fleet, through the ships, swallowing a lenayan battlecruiser whole and leaving no trace. His heart sank, eyes wide, sweat forming on his forehead as he felt his blood pressure start to collapse.
Guetry threw a wild look at Osillo, who watched the battlecruiser disappear, completely frozen in place. The horror—a horror no one present had ever seen before on Osillo—dropping their face, their guard instantly down, their sniper rifle lowered as they stared at the void where their people had once been.
Warren pivoted, his emotions strangling him, as a spear exploded through Osillo's chest from behind.
Dazia sliced a massive knife through the Emmuli but it faded out before she could do any damage. The rest of the shadows faded away, leaving them alone on the bridge once more.
Warren watched the rest of the fleet firing their ships' weapons at the entity as everyone on the bridge tended to Osillo behind him.
Things were catastrophically wrong, and they hadn't even officially reached Torris yet.
･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･
steer (Eternal)—
They were steered into the dark, damp building, and as Warren glanced up, he realized that the part of the base he had seen from the outside was hollow, and the actual operations were run inside the mountain. The ceiling was as dark as night, broken up only by dull sunlight pouring in beams through the narrow windows placed at various intervals in the walls.
As they were paraded through the base, a few eliyi bystanders growled and snapped at them. Warren became more irritated at each one that did; he also started to develop a headache from not being able to breathe properly.
"Thrive—"
"Don't talk," he urged as they all turned a corner and started down a long corridor. "Conserve your breath."
Warren shook his head and realized he was slowing down, limbs growing numb. "…I'm gonna pass out."
The eliyi behind him shoved him, and he stumbled.
Thrive turned to the Foremaster that shoved Warren. "He needs oxygen. I can give it to him," he told them. They replied with a grating tone and he frowned, turning his head even more to face them directly and to impress a hardened stare onto them, a warning and a promise in his darkening eyes. "If he asphyxiates, so do you."
The Foremaster exchanged glances with the one restraining Thrive and nodded. They released him, and Thrive moved to place his own bleeding hands on Warren's chest, which was pockmarked with inflammation from the snow.
"This will be over soon," he murmured.
Warren, relishing the warmth of his palms and the rush of oxygen to his brain, didn't feel the need to point out how rattled he sounded.
･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･
speed (Aurora)—
At first, nothing else happened. The silence crawled onto the bridge and seemed to even stifle the engines' hum in the floor. Everyone's eyes pinned to the starless void, ready to take action, on edge and alert.
Something hit the viewscreen and bounced away.
"What the fuck was that?" Dazia murmured hoarsely.
"Debris?" Emnophene suggested. "I'm not picking anything up on the sensors."
The hair on the back on Warren's neck stood on end and he squinted, attempting to get a better look at whatever was in the darkness. Another object hit the viewscreen and he flinched, but it was gone in another instant.
Something felt familiar about this. A chill ran down his spine, followed by a sprouting of goosebumps all over his arms.
The things hitting the viewscreen began to pick up speed, bouncing off one by one until several of them began to plant themselves against the glass, and it became abundantly clear what was going on when a pair of eyes peered inside the bridge after their body slammed full-force at the center of the screen.
The bridge fell abruptly silent. The temperature of the air plummeted.
Warren took a horrified step back and bile rose in his throat. He couldn't find words intelligible enough to say, and he couldn't peel his gaze away from the dead obhelian sliding up the glass, glittery black eyes staring with lifeless terror right at him as it tumbled away and into space.
More and more of them sticking to the glass and falling away, until the glass was fuchsia with blood and Warren physically couldn't watch anymore or he'd pass out.
･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･
linger (Meridian)—
"How is she?" Warren asked after a generous gulp of his smoothie.
"She's being strong. Some days appear to be worse than others, but she's taking the loss remarkably well."
"Speaking for me again?" Angelina said, suddenly at the door. She greeted Warren and Thrive with a melancholic smile and two gracious hugs, lingering on Warren possibly due to knowing how much he was beating himself up. "Come in, I've just put on a pot of for'tau broth to go with some breakfast sandwiches, if you'd like."
"I'm surprised," Thrive said, following Warren into the house. "But I suppose I'm not. You've had an affinity for for'tau since you were a child, and it has always baffled me."
"Slodian cuisine is perfect for human kids," she explained, guiding them into the kitchen. "Especially those with food hangups like I had growing up. Though Ataneq had the same problem, didn't he?"
"Oh, yeah," Warren muttered, sitting across from Thrive at the beautiful wood table near the kitchen wall. "He was the pickiest eater I'd ever known. He'd eat nothing but for'tau for a good three years, with the occasional supplement thrown in to make sure I didn't get child services called on me."
Angelina chuckled, stirring the pot on the stove, the heat of which had been regulated by Scot. "It's funny, in a way... we became accustomed to Slodian food, and His Majesty over there fell in love with cheeseburgers out of all things."
"I still stop by the most well-rated burger shop on the Node on the very rare occasion," Thrive said. "I'd go more often if I were permitted."
･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･
luxurious (Meridian)—
The water had gotten cold already, but Warren didn't care. The concavity of the bathtub cradled himself and Thrive just so, and resting as he was with his back against Thrive's chest, his natural body heat warmed him sufficiently. They relaxed in silence, Warren occasionally falling into shallow sleep as Thrive dragged his fingers lazily through his hair, up and down his arms, across his chest with soothing intent.
The luxurious bathroom had very recently been installed in the capital house on Tournaltis, attached to ———'s bedroom—now an obhelian nursery—and it took Thrive some time to set foot inside of it as he only hesitantly accepted the idea to begin with.
As Warren withdrew a deep breath, filling his lungs with Thrive's scent and the vaguely perfumed air of the bathroom, the control panel by the door flashed before automatically connecting to an internal call. The jarring series of beeps jolted him awake, sending the water splashing around them and into his own face.
"Morning," a melodic and singsong voice carried around the room.
"Good morning, Corin," Thrive sighed, his hand falling from Warren's chest into the water. His knees lifted to cage him, almost stopping him from moving. "How can I help you…?"
"Thoeala'laris is throwing a massive tantrum and refusing to eat her breakfast. She ate a pancake and then threw the rest of the food at Plio. It happened a few minutes ago but I only stopped laughing now."
･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･
accept (Meridian)—
"How much more time?"
"Maybe…" Corin tapped his long fingers against the machine in an otherwise unheard rhythm. "...Maybe five months. I can—I can do this, I know I can, dammit."
Warren slid down the wall, passing a hand through his hair. "Five months. That's... not bad. You think it'll work?"
"Look, don't ask me if it's gonna fucking work," Corin snapped, jabbing a finger Warren. "I am the greatest scientist this galaxy has ever known. I've cured a ten thousand year old virus, I've brought thirteen species back from the brink of extinction, including my own, and I've invented a new fucking method of immunization against five thousand types of diseases. It's gonna work, or I'm never setting foot in this lab again."
"Atta boy," Warren said, his lips curling into a subdued grin. "Thrive's gonna be stoked."
"Well... that may be reaching." Corin aimed a pointed look at Warren, his voice lowering to something uncharacteristically serious. "He's never liked surprises, and this particular type of surprise…"
Warren ran his bottom lip between his teeth. "I've sacrificed everything for him."
Corin closed his mouth and tipped his head toward the floor. "Yes, you have."
"I deserve this."
"Yes, you do."
"I love him," Warren said firmly. "And I don't regret anything that's happened in our joint past. But if he can't accept that this is something I want, that it's something I need... I don't know what'll happen. But it won't be good."
Corin took a deep, slow breath. "You're gonna need him to be on board if you want him to be a part of it."
"I know. And I'll get him on board. You just make sure it can be done, first. I'll take care of the rest."
"Copy that," Corin sighed, and Warren hung up the call.
･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･
advice (Meridian)—
Over the next while, Scot laid out different items of clothing on his bed, picking Warren's brain for tips and advice. He seemed particularly attached to a purple beanie hat and a blousy see-through black shirt.
"It's hard to differentiate between what I like and what I'm accustomed to," Scot said, draping a shimmering emerald jacket over a white crop-top across his bedspread. "I think it may take me some time to figure it out, and I'm not used to that, either."
Warren shrugged, dropping a pair of wide slacks onto the bed. "I've been wearing the same funky bullshit I'd had back in the 2040s. I don't even know what modern style I'd be into."
Scot looked at him, his head cocked to one side. "I'd like to get your opinion on the direction I'm considering taking my new life."
"Hit me."
"While I've had time to acclimate to my extended being, I do feel as though I am without a purpose," Scot said, his pillowy voice much clearer than it ever had been when he was just an AI. "I was developed to be a tactical operator. I was considering lending my services to a search and rescue program operating on Earth. I feel that I could be a valuable asset to them."
Warren sat on the bed, thoughtful. "Okay. That's pretty altruistic of you."
The way Scot stood so utterly still on the other side of the bed could've been considered creepy by most. "One of the things I admired about Guetry was his altruism. I... loved him for it." He glanced away, as if unsure that he had the right to use the word. "I like to think he would approve of me helping people in any way that I can."
Warren narrowed his eyes. "...What do you think about the fact that he gave you a chance to live?"
Scot didn't move or emote in any way, but the seams on his face glowed faint, indicating he was processing. "I resent him."
Though jarring, the statement made unexpected sense. Guetry forced him to live an existence without him, and if Warren were in his shoes—if Thrive forced him to live without him—he'd resent him as well.
I have a day to breathe for the first time in weeks, and I'm working on getting caught up on tag games, and I'm very high, but I think I thought up a good writing exercise.
It's better to have someone else help you, as I'm not sure yet how you could do it alone—the exercise hinges on a blind aspect of itself.
You find an object in the house or online, without telling or showing the other person what it is, and you describe its appearance in writing. Just how you normally would, run-of-the-mill writing, and I guess try not to give it away right off the bat. To the best of your ability. Then, you let the other person read your description and try to see if they can determine what it is from the picture your description paints for them. If they can't do it, then you should rethink how you're describing it.
If this is a bad idea, or it's fairly fucking common, Donovyn, then I request privacy in this difficult time, and it would be best if you didn't tell me that for another... six hours.
