tagged by both @thedahliafrog and @indecentpause so i'm gonna just combine the two into one 🤪
this is from the second draft of andromeda rogue. it's a bit spoilery so proceed with caution. also tw for injury and blood.
Sharp pain pierced through Petra’s side. She went down with a cry. The only thing she could register was pain. Her side, her legs, her head, her entire body, even her thoughts—all pain, pain, pain. But she forced herself to push through the pain and drag herself back to her feet. A hand clutched her side in a vain attempt to keep the blood from oozing out of the wound, yet it still found its way through the cracks between her fingers, coating her shirt with its warmth. She staggered into the trees, only vaguely aware of the direction she was headed in, hoping it would lead her back to the others.
tagging: @void-botanist @enchanted-lightning-aes @oh-no-another-idea @cherrybombfangirlwrites @violets-in-her-arms-writes @kaiusvnoir @klywrites and anyone else who wants to do it yeehawwww
for a bit of context: the gang have just landed on Mohani, the planet they've been tasked to explore.
in which Petra is a nerd, Finn doesn't know what dragonflies are, Azami is sunbathing, and Val is savage
“What,” Finneas began slowly, “in the galaxy… are those?”
He pointed to the skies, where two— no, three massive creatures with long, thin bodies circled over the water, their long, translucent wings buzzing loudly
“Anisoptera Magna,” Petra breathed. She had to shield her eyes from the glint of the sun against their shiny abdomens, which looked like they were coated in metal armour. “Which sounds fancy, but it’s really just a placeholder name while scientists work on establishing a classification system for the creatures on this planet. It basically just means ‘big dragonfly’.”
Finneas looked back at her, bewildered. “They don’t look anything like dragons.”
“No, dragonfly. It’s a type of insect that existed on Terra and is the closest thing that looks like these creatures.”
“Are they dangerous?” Azami asked with a concerned frown, peering up at Petra over her thin sunglasses from where she was lounging.
“Not if we leave them alone. And this is something you would know if you had read the documents,” Petra said pointedly.
This earned her an eye roll from Azami before she turned over on her stomach and rolled up her camisole to expose more of her skin to the sun.
“You probably shouldn’t do that, not without proper skin protection,” Petra advised. “The sun’s rays are pretty harsh on this planet and you don‘t know what—”
“Stars, Petra,” Valyan interrupted. “We just got here. Could you not make the stick up your ass everyone else’s problem for, like, a few minutes?”
On their second full day on Mohani, the team went into the forest for the first time.
Sunlight streamed through the blue trees towering over them as they sidestepped boulders and prickly bushes. Azami constantly cast glances around her at the slightest rustling of leaves that didn’t seem to come from anyone else on the team, vaguely remembering Petra having talked about massive creatures that could be found in these forests.
But as it turned out, it wasn’t the big creatures that caused the most trouble: it was the tiny ones, the pesky insects— although Petra insisted that the classification might be a little different on this planet, and calling them “insects” right away could be wrong— that buzzed around their heads, nipping at their ears and necks. The repellent spray from the cargo hold was of little help, and within hours everyone was covered in itchy welts.
Azami tried to keep her complaining to a minimum, but between the itching and the heat and the long hours of walking, it took a monumental effort. At least she wasn’t as bad as Finneas, who kept whining about a headache as they went deeper into the forest, to which Petra would curtly tell him to drink more water.
tagging: @aalinaaaaaaa @reneesbooks @artdecosupernova-writing @indecentpause @lena-rambles @albatris @kahvilahuhut and anyone else who wants an excuse to post some lines
Gently holding the leaf between her fingers, Petra slipped out a pair of scissors from the pouch hooked to her belt. “Sorry, buddy,” she said softly, bringing the blades to the base of the leaf’s stem. “This might pinch a bit.”
Wincing, she quickly snipped off the leaf. Sensing the trauma signals from the plant, her wristband let out a short, shrill beep, followed by a lower hum. It was the worst part of collecting samples—to Petra, it almost sounded like a cry of pain.
“There, it’s all over,” she whispered, rapidly placing the leaf into a small container so she could take out a vial of clear liquid from her pouch. With the swab attached to the vial’s cap, she gingerly applied the salve to the plant’s open wound to accelerate the healing process.
The hum of her wristband gradually subsided.
Petra ran her hand through the plant’s lush foliage one last time, cooing, “That’s my perfect boy.”
andromeda rogue character edits [1/4] - petra eulie lacroye, the botanist
in celebration of reaching 40K on this draft, here is an excerpt that also includes another little song i wrote for this wip! this is from Finneas’ POV for some reason, but he’s not the star of this scene.
EDIT: i ended up changing the company’s name from “Hiudra” to “Aquadae”, but i’m too lazy to change everything in this post.
words: 936
andromeda rogue wip intro ☆ read the other excerpts here
Masking his annoyance at his failure to sway the security guards, Finneas snaked his way through crowded tables back to the bar, where Valyan had taken a seat on one of the stools and was swinging their legs back and forth, while Petra, still standing, cocked an eyebrow at him.
“Let me guess,” Petra taunted. “Your ‘charm’ didn’t work.”
“We’re gonna need some sort of distraction,” Finneas said, ignoring her. “Anything to get the guards away from that doorway long enough for us to slip past them.”
His eyes scanned the bar in search of ideas. He could instigate a brawl, but then he would have to be able to leave the fight before the guards got there, and he ran the risk of getting hurt. He considered bribing one of the waiters to call the guards to the entrance, but then he remembered he didn’t have any money. Or maybe he could—
“What kind of people come here?” Valyan asked.
“Oh, you know. Smugglers. Traffickers. Ex-convicts. A lot of Hiudra delivery people in between shipments,” Finneas listed off. “Not a lot of tourists, though. It’s a bit too grimy to be a hotspot for vacationers.”
Valyan cocked their head. “Hiudra delivery people, huh,” they echoed, then turned to stare at something at the other side of the room.
Finneas followed their gaze. At the end of the bar was a simple stage bathed in purple light, on which a single microphone stand leaned precariously against the wall.
Petra must have noticed it too, because she groaned. “Please don’t tell me you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking.”
“I’m thinking exactly what you think I’m thinking.” Valyan grinned and cracked their knuckles. “It’s my time to shine.”
Finneas turned to Petra, bewildered. “What are they thinking?” he demanded.
Before he could even register that Valyan was no longer on the stool, screeching feedback filled the room as they leapt onto the stage and grabbed the mic.
“Hey guys!” they chirped, giving the room a wave. “How’s everyone doing tonight?”
A few of the patrons glanced up, only to return, disinterested, to their drinks. Most people ignored them.
“It’s kinda quiet in here,” Valyan went on over the rowdy chatter. “How about we liven things up with a song, huh? Anyone here know ‘Old Man Greed’? I heard a lot of you work for Hiudra and probably have a lot of pent up rage.”
Aside from a few grunts and murmurs from the crowd, no one seemed to pay attention.
“Whatever they’re trying to do,” Finneas hissed, “I don’t think it’ll work. This seems like a tough crowd to crack.”
“You’d be surprised at what Val can do,” Petra whispered back, anxiously keeping her eyes on the stage.
Unwavering, Valyan began to stomp on the stage with their foot, creating a steady thump, thump, barely audible over the clatter of the bar. They opened their mouth to sing, and the clearest voice Finneas had ever heard rang through the room.
“Oh I have been out in the stars for so long
With no single planet to which i belong
To carry a box for a greedy old man
Who pulls all the strings on his greedy old plan”
A couple of curious heads were now turned towards the stage, intrigued by this tiny kid and the sound they were able to produce from their mouth. Sensing the shift in the room, Valyan launched into the second verse with even more energy.
“I have not seen nor the ground nor the sky
Through ast'roids and warp holes and stardust I fly
And yet at the end of my perilous trip
I'm barely paid to get fuel for my ship”
By now, several more feet joined in the stomping, and fists pounded the tables. Finneas was stunned to see the amount of lips moving around him, singing along, with some even adding harmonies and counter-melodies. Some people at the back of the room even stood up on their chairs to get a better look. By the time Valyan led them into a third verse, not a single pair of eyes was on anything else but them.
“Oh I have a babe on the orb I call home
And while I’m star skippin’ my babe’s all alone
I fear by the time I return to my bed
My babe would have found someone richer instead”
The crowd was getting rowdier by the minute, whooping and yelling and maintaining the beat as Valyan paused between verses to do a little dance. Petra rolled her eyes at her sibling’s antics, but couldn’t resist a smile.
Whirling around to face the crowd after a move, Valyan locked eyes with Finneas across the room and, grinning, gave him a wink.
He glanced at the veiled doorway. Both guards had abandoned their post to keep an eye on the riled up crowd.
“Let’s go,” he hissed, giving Petra’s sleeve a tug, then started towards the doorway. She cast a final look at her sibling before hurrying after him. Making sure the guards weren’t paying attention, he quickly shoved aside the curtain and ducked inside the darkened hallway, holding it up for Petra to pass as well, as the fourth verse filled the bar.
“While I am out here, Old Man Greed’s on his throne
While he’s in his castle I’m out on my own
If I weren’t trying to keep food on my shelf
I’d send Old Man Greed to the slicer myself!”
Finneas let the curtain fall, and the music in the main room was muffled abruptly as the two were plunged into obscurity.
time for some ✨behind the scenes lore✨
i had been trying to figure out how to write this thing for about a month, and then it all came together suddenly while i was in the shower. i was partially inspired by the sea shanty trend, of course, but i was MOSTLY inspired by union work songs like this one.
melody-wise, it kind of ended up being a ~dark~ version of “Fathoms below” from The Little Mermaid lmao, and then i got a little carried away (as i always do) and added counter-melodies because i gotta put my degree in music to SOME use god dammit
in the AR universe, Hiudra (i’m not completely satisfied with the name, i might change it) is the biggest interplanetary shipping company in the sector. think Space Amazon. Hiudra delivery people would have to travel long journeys through space to make deliveries, which were often lonely and sometimes dangerous, only to get paid pennies. “Old Man Greed” refers to the billionaire CEO, of course.
there are three other verses of an alternate version, but those are somewhat spoilery to someone’s backstory, so i won’t be sharing them here.
OOF OKAY thanks for reading all of that! lmk if you want to be added to the taglist 🥰
-
please note that i’ve moved blogs. for more recent updates on this wip you can find me here: @chayscribbles
Valyan paused at their sister’s voice behind them. When they turned around, Petra was wringing her hands, pursing her lips slightly.
“I, uh…” she began tentatively. “I think I owe you an apology.” She shifted her weight, and her words picked up speed as she went on. “I should have listened to you, I shouldn’t have yelled at you the other day, I should have—if I had only—”
Valyan cut her off with a tight hug, and if they hadn’t cried so much already that day, they knew they would have been bawling into Petra’s neck. She stiffened at first, then gingerly wrapped her arms around their shoulders.
“At least now we know the truth,” Valyan whispered.
i recently hit 50K on this draft so i figured it was time to drop another longer excerpt!
for context: the gang has landed on a little-explored alien planet and are trekking through a tropical forest. i needed them to face some sort of Obstacle and was at a bit of a loss as to what they could encounter or how to make the scene exciting, so i grabbed some dice and played a little game of DnD with myself. see if you can spot the dice rolls 😉
(you may also be asking yourself, why is Azami at the top of a cliff? don’t worry about it.)
words: 1540
warnings: brief morbid/graphic description? idk what to call it, it’s like one sentence but better safe than sorry
andromeda rogue wip intro ☆ read the other excerpts here
Valyan only barely managed to register Azami’s screamed warning and leap out of the way of the incoming vine before it could fling itself around their waist. They rolled onto the muddy ground and blindly scrambled away from the vine’s point of origin to take cover behind a boulder at the foot of the cliff.
Petra and Finneas weren't as lucky as them, Valyan realized with dismay, as they peered out from behind the rock to find the plant had taken them captive. Petra desperately held on to her glasses with one hand while the other clutched the vine wrapped around her chest to keep herself from going flying as the plant attempted to toss her against the rocks. Meanwhile, Finneas, dangling by his legs as multiple vines held him up, strained to reach the tool pouch that had somehow gotten entangled in the leaves above him, but only managed to graze the strap with the tips of his fingers.
I can’t just watch helplessly, Valyan thought, gripping the boulder giving them cover. But if they walked back into that clearing to help the others, there were a dozen more vines waiting to snatch them up.
“Petra!” they called. “Is there anything in that nerd brain of yours that might help us defeat this plant?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Petra wailed, struggling to keep her glasses from sliding off her nose as the plant brandished her around. “I did read something about a plant the early explorers called the Strangler that would snatch up potential threats, but they described it as only being about as tall as the average adult, and, um, something about the way it does photosynthesis is special because—”
“I don’t think the way it does photosynthesis is important right now!”
“But that’s all I remember,” Petra whimpered.
“You have to thi—”
Their sentence cut off with a squeal as the plant suddenly lunged at them, stopping just short of their face.
“Lacroye,” Finneas grunted, now hanging limply upside-down to give his core muscles a break. He gestured towards the plant’s thick stalk, at the other edge of the clearing. “What the hell is that weird bowl thing?”
Sure enough, nestled amongst the tangled vines emerging from the ground was a large, burgundy growth shaped like a wide vase, it’s glistening rim curled outwards like puckered rouge-coated lips waiting to be kissed.
Petra squinted at it. “That’s, uh, I think that’s the plant’s flower,” she said. “That's what it’s trying to protect. It also contains incredibly toxic substances that can digest a living thing within minutes, and the remains mix together and gives the plant energy which is what allows it to—oh.”
“Oh?” Valyan repeated, ducking again as the plant once more tried to reach them. “What’s ‘oh’?”
“If we empty the flower of its contents, the plant wouldn’t have any energy left to keep attacking us!”
“How are we supposed to do that?” Finneas demanded. “Drink it?”
He hoisted himself up one more time and made another grab for the leaves above. His fingers finally grasped the tool pouch’s strap, allowing him to fish out a small knife.
“Stab it!” Azami screamed down from the cliff. “Stab it and get out of the way!”
“Great! Only one problem,” he retorted, swinging at the vines with the blade. While he succeeded to slice off a few stray leaves, each and every single one of the vines holding him managed to evade him. “This thing doesn’t seem too eager to let us pass.”
“Could you—” Valyan began, but screeched and ducked as the plant whacked their boulder. “Why does this thing always try to attack me whenever I talk?” they cried. “Does it hate the sound of my voice that much?”
“To be fair,” Petra said amidst futile attempts to pry the vines off her chest, “you are very annoying.”
Valyan perked up, an idea hitting them. “Wait,” they said. “You’re right.”
Without thinking, they leapt back into the clearing, wildly waving their hands over their head.
“Hey!” they yelled at the plant. “Over here!”
“What are you doing?” Petra cried.
“Distracting the plant,” Valyan explained, now jumping frantically to get the plant’s attention.
“It’ll grab you too!”
As expected, a vine flung itself at them. They waited until it was close enough, then hopped out of the way. A loud crack filled the clearing as the vine made a grab for them, and, only meeting air, spiraled back in on itself.
Valyan whirled around to once again face the plant and grinned in defiance. “It sure as hell can try.”
They dove aside to avoid two more vines making swipes. Daring to cast a glance over their shoulder, they were delighted to find that the plant, now more interested in this new, noisy threat, seemed to have loosened its grip on its two prisoners.
But it still wasn’t enough for it to release them.
“Watch out!”
Azami’s shout came mere seconds before a large object came hurtling over the cliff. Valyan ducked at the last minute to avoid the—
They had to do a double take.
Is that a… boot?
They barely had time to recognize the object as the oversized, muddy boot smacked right into the vine holding onto Petra. It jerked back and unravelled, dropping the shrieking Petra. As she plummeted to the ground and landed on her stomach, her glasses slipped off her nose and vanished into the carpet of dead leaves and mud that cushioned her fall.
Moments later, a second boot came flying down. It largely missed the vine that clutched Finneas, and Valyan had to wonder if Azami had done that on purpose.
"Finneas!" Valyan yelled. "Give me the knife so I can stab the flower!"
Abandoning his futile quest to chop off every vine in his vicinity, he blindly tossed it in Valyan’s direction.
It landed several feet away.
Groaning, Valyan pounced on the knife, expertly dodging more swipes from vicious branches. As one grazed the top of their puffy ponytail, they thanked the stars they weren’t any taller. They skidded through the mud to seize the weapon, then whirled around and retreated to the foot of the cliff to catch their breath and figure out their next move.
Even with all their dodging, they mused, ducking once again behind their rock, if they made it to the flower, the vines, with their attention fully focused on them, wouldn’t hesitate to grab them once they stopped moving.
They stole a glance at their sister. The plant largely ignored her as she groped the ground on her hands and knees in search of her glasses.
They let out a sigh. "Petch, you're gonna have to get the knife from me and stab the plant yourself."
“I can't see shit, Valyan,” Petra snapped.
“Just trust me!” Valyan insisted. They slid the knife at her on the floor. It rolled several times through the leaves before coming to a stop, just barely nudging Petra’s knee. As she fumbled to pick it up, Valyan sprung into the clearing, rounding the stalk to the other side of the flower. “Follow my voice!”
Petra scrambled to her feet and, after taking a second to orient herself, made a dash towards the flower, guided by Valyan’s yelling. But as soon as the vines abandoned Petra, they closed in on Valyan. One of them finally seized their wrist. They let out a shriek as it firmly gripped them, nearly cutting off their circulation.
"Val!" Petra screamed as the plant effortlessly lifted them off the ground.
"Keep going," they cried, dangling, struggling to free themselves. “You’re almost there!”
With a determined stride, Petra closed the last few feet to the flower and raised the knife above her head.
“Let go of my sibling,” she screeched, “and give me back my pilot!”
She took a violent hack at the flower.
A thick, brownish green liquid gushed out from the slash in the plant’s fleshy side. Petra managed to dart out of the way just in time for the oozing substance to miss the tip of her boots. Depleted of its fuel, the plant gave a violent shudder, then the vines went limp, their writhing slowly subsiding as they released their prey as they collapsed onto the ground.
The moment their feet touched the ground, Valyan tore off the vine around their wrist and ran to their sister. They leapt over the murky puddle and threw themselves right into Petra’s arms.
“That was badass,” they gushed as Petra tightly gripped them back.
“Couldn’t have done it without you,” Petra replied with a shaky laugh. “Looks like your talent for being noisy paid off.”
By then, Azami had somehow managed to scramble back down the side of the cliff in her socks and tiptoed over downed vines to join them. Valyan let go of Petra to turn to her, grinning.
“And you,” they said. “That throw? Iconic.”
Azami beamed, and maybe it was from the effort of climbing down a cliff, but Valyan could have sworn that the rose tint on her cheeks was brighter than usual.
From where he was still entangled in the now inert vines on the ground, Finneas loudly cleared his throat. “Um, a little help here, maybe?”
please note that i’ve moved blogs. for more recent updates on this wip you can find me here: @chayscribbles
The ship was unlike anything Finneas had ever piloted before. He had hijacked all kinds of spacecraft, from cargo ships he’d smuggle parts in, to smaller private ships great for making quick getaways, to a decommissioned cruise ship, massive in size and filled with frivolous features. But this ship was on a whole other level. He had been told that the AES Andromeda was a few years old, but none of the technology was older than a few months, at least, meaning it was being regularly refitted with the latest innovations, some of which he had smuggled himself and was dying to be able to try out.
But just as he was about to catch himself getting attached, he would feel an itch at the back of his neck and remember that this wasn’t his dream ship.
It was his prison.
andromeda rogue character edits [2/4] - finneas becker, the pilot
