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It’s fridges still but his coat cuts the cold. He stares up at the night sky in solitude on an empty planet. Stars pepper the sky, thick straight above but fall away in entropy as his eyes drift downward to the horizon of treetops. As he speaks in soft whispers to himself reminessing a song he used to play, his breath billows out like dragon smoke. It sinks past his feet, dissipating long before it reaches the forest floor.

“Long black nights, morning frost... I’m still here,” he pauses, before saying the last of it. What used to be a musical tune now comes from his lips as dull and sorrow filled as the dark bag under his remaining eye.

“ But all is lost..”

Even as hopeless as he feels, he still doesn’t want to end up like the man named in that song. He never betrayed Meg, but the guilt of leaving in his selfish emotion and getting trapped here has him thinking, he could have died in the ship crash... that’s how he could have ended his story.

After long pondering, he finally decided, he still has hope. This place that he’s seen as his fall and cage, was actually his new granted freedom.

He assures himself. “I’m still here.. Hope isn’t lost.” He lifts his gaze high in the star filled sky once again, “I’ll find the way to go too and from here soon..”

bnmxfld

“But I must admit I miss you terribly. The world is too quiet without you nearby.”

— Lemony Snicket / The Beatrice Letters (via bnmxfld)

estivalphoenix

the only piece ˛

Summer’s at one of her many computers deep in the belly of the Haven, watching the giant screen on the wall as her fingers dance tirelessly over the backlit, liquid-glass keyboard. Nebula had informed her during Scrum that their systems had developed perilous loopholes after a manual security update; they had not been compromised as of yet, but cyber attacks happen thousands of times an hour. It needed immediate attention.

Astra enters, the Summer from F-999, her strawberry hair pulled into a tight bun at the nape of her neck. The black uniform they wear hides what Summer knows to be rock-hard muscles to go along with her delightful prowess with free-running and tricking that is quickly approaching even her mastery of it.

“Incoming assignment, Lieutenant.”

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reticent-morty

Reti wakes in the cockpit of his x-wing that’s half buried in the forest floor and partially overgrown. Stretching his upper body, he twists his shoulders away from eachother and reaches his arms above his head, trying to release some of the soreness in his muscles. This seat isn’t the most comfortable place to sleep.

He wipes the sleep from his eye reaches into his coat pocket and finds a small note book. Always brings it with himself to be safe, he doesn’t want to eat something that could be poisonous. 2 years out here, he doesn’t want to end in some McCandless. Lucky he even has this book that he made over the first few weeks of his arival here, he still had some power in his portal gun. He had souped that thing up with all sorts of tasks to perform.

He wandered the forest looking for vegetation that seemed to produce some fruit or have thick roots, he even resorted to scanning grasses and tree leaves. The portal gun had the ability to scan mater with an advanced censor on the front. It would read of to him the properties of what it scanned. With this he ended up createing a detailed Analysis of the local plant life. His book has small pictures of each plant he drew himself, he had one pencil. Diagrams show edible parts or point out dangers, some plants have interestingly helpful properties, if it were earth he could class some as medicinal or herb. He noted where seeds are produced on different plants, and how to collect them.

Reti was able to class insects and small animals as well. With what was left of his pencil he depicted small crab like creatures on the creeks and streams that cut through the forest. Theres squirrel like creatures and strange birds, that look more like feathered lizards than birds. He will occasionally hunt these animals, but conservatively. He doesn’t want to impact the life here too much. He’s already done some clearing of plant life, taking trees that had fell and large branches that met a similar fate. He’s uprooted plants to make trails, and to make space to plant seeds from plants of his choice. He tried to blend these small “crops” into the forest floor, so onlookers wouldn’t notice rows of vegetation, but someone with keen eyes might notice these scattered plants are in fact organized in a pattern and look more lush and cared for than the rest of the plant life. Tall stocks with large flower buds on top that haven’t blumed yet almost like an artichoke. Thick leaves that grow tall from a massive tap root, like kale on a huge radish, the plants here are strange, but there’s a wide verity of things to eat, enough to keep it from being boring.

Without much hesitation he dons his mask and exits the ship. It’s time to go collect breakfast. Those tall stocks with the large flower are on his mind, the petles of the flower have lots of flesh to eat, he can’t wait to get one in the pot. Reti climbs up a tree that he fashioned branches into as pegs to climb. He used a makeshift drill to tap holes into the tree and pounded branches in the holes. They look like they are the trees, but placed in a way that lets him climb up with ease.

The last 3 pages in his book contain small maps of his trails and of his planted areas. He barely needs to reference them at this point, he knows this forest almost as well as he knows his own scars. He doesn’t move with the same swiftness he does when he heads in for the night, the large predators don’t come out in the day, it’s a safe haven when the sun shines; from mindless animals that is. People are the biggest threat he faces in the day time. He feels a sense of ease this morning, so he walks across his beams, in no rush. The sun feels particularly nice today, he soaks up every ray that hits him through the tree tops.

Reticent has come to like this moon, he’s home sick for sure, but he’s close to feeling at home here. Though he resents how wild and dirty he must be, he feels free for the first time in ages. No one demanding anything of him. No one emotionally destroying him, no one needing his help. He can just feel close to the universe, the only man alive. He feels like the universe loves him, to let him land in a place that protects him and feeds him, he could have hit an ice moon or a dead and dusty one, but he landed in this green place that goes through seasons and sings proudly with life. He wonders if he’d be able to go back to a life where he’s got walls and windows in them to worry about, with roads and crime to fret over, with fear and treachery to steer clear of.

He ponders the thought of himself walking through the haven, after making his escape, he thinks about this as he climbs down another tree with the pegs in it. Decending to the plants he’s cultivated so he can feed himself. He knows people enter the haven in all sorts of conditions, so no one would look twice at him making his way toward the poppies intake facility.

With his knife he slices off one of the green flowers that’s closed tightly. It’s firm and the cut stallk has an earthy tea like smell. A little further ahead is a plant with many small round leaves curling up through a brittle and dead bush. An herb that has a surprisingly high protein content, it makes the water that the flower is boiled in flavorful and replenishing to drink. Another plant near by is a starchy root that he can boil in the same water he’ll boils the flower in, it turns into the consistency of mashed potatoes, but has a lovely floral aroma and tastes like a butternut squash.

He’s definitely not starving to death out here, he’s nearly past the point of mealrly surviving. He never would have thought he was so resourceful, he’s proved himself wrong in that department. Parts from his ship became tools to create other things. Some parts from the motor could be fashioned into different likes of hammer, some into knives or saws. Sheets of metal from the outside he was able to clang and beat into new shapes. Pots so he can cook over a fire, traps to catch squirrels and fish. He was able to make with parts form his ship. The ship itself looks scrapped. He’s taken a lot out of it, but he left the cocpit secure for storms and other things.

He tucks the ingredients of his breakfast into a large pocket inside his coat. The place he makes fires to eat by is up the next ridge, a rocky outcrop within a hill that shields the smoke from peering eyes and keeps the flames far from the tender forest. He located a cave in the rock with a draft sweeping into the cave for some reason he hasn’t deciphered. A strange phenomena where the smoke sucks deeper into the cave and excites somewhere unknown.

As he draws near the hill and the edge of this forest, the trees start to get shorter and his path of tree limbs angles down slightly in places or steps down like stairs. His calm, peacful morning stroll is stopped suddenly when he sees a flash of red light near his fire pit cave. He whines to himself, wishing he could just continue on with his plans and eat peacully.

estivalphoenix

Summer moves calmly through the brush at a leisurely pace, preparing her ODMG by twining the wire into place and warming the hand grips with her gloved palms. She doesn’t think that her quarry would be anywhere near where she portaled in, giving her time to acclimate herself to the space.

The trees haunt her. God, they haunt her. Some tower over her and some, younger, are oppressively low, threatening to swallow her whole. Very few things truly unnerve Summer Sanchez, but forests are one of them.

“What are you thinking, Meg?” Her cold voice is gentle.

“I’m disappointed… in you…” He lowers his chin so it’s level, and he felt like he couldn’t breathe. Chest tight, mouth dry… but as much as it hurt to say it to her, it was the truth.

She’s silent, stunned, for several long seconds. Her entire body starts to shake, unaware that this moment had been her nightmare, her greatest fear, the entire time. “What did you say?” she whispers, praying she’d misheard him.

Summer gives her head a little shake, flicking the memory away towards the back of her mind where all of the distracting memories go. An assignment’s not the time to emotionally explore what it felt like to literally die and be sent to a cold tortuous forest where she found her lover who came back to life with her only to go behind her back with another woman and have children and then die again.

As a matter of fact, no time is that time.

She sighs and stops walking, pulling her EM glasses out and setting them to infrared, to see if she could pick up a heat signature anywhere nearby. If this thing is the only large thing out here, it shouldn’t be too hard to pick up.

She slides them onto her nose and settles the temples over her ears, looking around in a slow circle.

reticent-morty

A shadowy figure moves away from the hill and down into the brush. Whoever it is is moving into the forest and looking for him. He can’t see the figure clearly from this distance, but that’s good, less likely for him to be detected. Maybe he can get ahead of this person and scare them off. He’s not even sure why some of them attempt to get him when they run back home after a couple tricks.

He weighs his options as he watches them walk deeper into the forest toward his left. He can hear the birds making alarm calls where the being is. They do that whenever a new or threatening creature is amongst their trees.

Ret decides to move in the same direction as the newcomer, back the way he came. He doesn’t want them finding the ship. They may bet too much information there.

He moves swiftly through the tree tops, getting ahead of the intruder. Time to set traps and diversions. Some are already set, others need attention.

An old burrow of a large animal under a big bush provides a safe spot to decent from the trees into. Once inside, he pulls a hardly visible wire tight. It laid slack across the trail, not now sits taut at the ready to trip up this person. He knows the trail they took will lead them right past this bunch, so he sets the line on the other side of it as well. This is a small cross roads. His plants are nearby as well. Hopefully this one isn’t too smart.

Just as soon as he slipped into the hidden hole, he climbs out again and up the tree. Back onto his lofted trail of beams. He can get a birds eye view of the forest floor far below. Still more traps to set. He hopes he is predicting movements well, no one has gotten the best of him yet.

He dashed off further ahead yet. Readying a pit fall cover and slipping into another burrow, he decides to wait here. He can get a stun shot off from this distance. Sadly all his crystals are capable off is electric pulses. He lacks the resources to make much more than non lethal. Which is where blades come in, if nessecary.

estivalphoenix

Summer raises her hood and clips it into place, looking with narrowed eyes up at the birds as they squawk and call at one another.

Ugh, wildlife, she thinks with disgust. She’s never been a fan of animals; their movements and sounds make it difficult for her to detect her quarry.

She walks slowly down the trail, with a confidence that only comes from doing this a thousand times. Summer looks around with her infrared glasses, trying to detect any smidgeon of warmth that might indicate the presence of her target. Birds, birds, birds…. some kind of vermin… Suddenly, she spots a large smear of red, indicating a large mammal of some kind. Summer pockets her glasses quickly and quietly takes off running in that direction; she didn’t see it sidle up the tree, so she assumes it’s still on the ground. She darts around trees, using branches to leap over tall rocks and free-running down a clear path—

Suddenly her shin catches on a sharp wire that bites through her pants, nearly cutting through bone. Summer goes flying face-first into the dirt, skinning her cheek on briars and rocks.

“God damn it.”

She just lays there fore a minute, frustrated. This happens so often that it’s almost become a joke, to those brave enough to make jokes about her. Trip-wires. She’s more or less helpless in the face of them, for no discernible reason.

Slowly, she gets back to her feet, checks to see that the damage is just a deep flesh wound, and looks around. Anything would have heard that and scattered.

The assassin begins to examine the wire itself, noticing that it can’t have been made from anything on this undeveloped world. Not only is this creature armed with a frontal cortex developed enough to lay traps, but it’s got real materials, which makes it ten times as dangerous as some humanoid primate jumping around in the trees.

Summer stands right in the open and puts on her infrared glasses again, looking around for any sign of the shithead.

reticent-morty

As he waits, he hears a thud in the direction the intruder was. Reti takes a moment to make sure his things are secure in their pockets then he scales a tree beside his hiding place. He returns to the place where his trip line was, assuming that maybe what the sound was.

From far above in the trees, he stares down as a shadowy bird faced figure, trying to get a better look at the hooded figure bellow. It’s seems the trip line had caught this antagonist up. The figure is almost androgenis but has a feminine flare to the design of its apearal. From this top down view he mostly sees the persons shoulders and partially down their back. The lines on the uniform are familiar, he thinks. Then he notices the glasses as the figure turns, heat sense? information about me has been collected and related, He smiles slightly and crouches in a position he can move from quickly to keep the chase going.