#buckets on.

[nullclass]

Cryptic message. B')

Considerate of you to put Pr’ika’s mind at ease and make him feel less singled out.

[nullclass]

"The cost of preparedness measured now in creds, later in blood."

[nullclass]

❝ There’s something you’re not telling me. ❞

;silence of the lambs

“There’s always something I’m not telling you.” He glanced at her over his shoulder—physically looked, as being out of armor necessitated. “I would’ve thought you’d have figured that by now.”

He hopped over a fallen trunk taking its time to decompose and threaded his way through the trees. Decade and a half, more, since he was here. Grayer now. Visibly older, much like the forest, though neither of them changed as much as expected.

He still recognized the trees, the rocky outcrops, the fog. The fearful and awed in him said the fog recognized him too.

“I didn’t tell you I fought in the Clone Wars. And when I did, finally, I didn’t tell you the Clone Wars are named after me. I didn’t tell you I married, then I left out the part that I’m arguably divorced—and even then, I still left out that my technically-ex-wife is my unit co-commander.”

The forest was thinning. They weren’t far now.

“If there isn’t an operational need to tell you, I don’t. It’s how I do things.”

The timberline broke, and the trees bowed to a basin. Over the years, the copious rainstorms this planet saw collected in the basin until together they formed a ghostly reservoir. At this distance, through the fog, the spires rising from the waters looked like rock towers. He knew the towers weren’t rock at all. It was all sharp metal, twisted into vengeful knives as the city collapsed under its own weight, weight which created the basin to begin with.

“Welcome, Shara Bey,” he spread his arms wide, gesturing to his handiwork, “to the ruins of N’dian.”

[nullclass]

*gives ordo A Look, because karé has brought out that kriffing flamer again*

“Has she set your stuff on fire? No? Then I don’t see what the problem is.”

[nullclass]

"vehicular arson is not the answer"

;keaton st. james sentences

“Red is a fire color. Why’d he get it in red if I’m not supposed to set it on fire?” Ordo studied the car through Mereel’s binoculars, purchased for hiking trips, not for spying on the neighbors. “Besides, I can’t get it towed. It’s legally parked, surprisingly.”

The car wasn’t a neighbor’s, however. It was his father’s. A pricey luxury model vehicle that screamed mid-life crisis. Complete in an obnoxious shade of solid cherry red, visible even from two blocks away.

“It’s definitely his. I recognize the plate number.” He offered the binoculars to Etain. The car blazed, figuratively, ruining the otherwise uneventful view from his balcony—a warning.

He chewed his lip.

“You don’t think he’s figured out Mereel and I live here, do you?”

[nullclass]

@rapiertwo liked the thing

“Ah, don’t worry, Genet’s too dull to bite at strangers.” The strill lay curled up in the middle of the path through the room, nesting in a shaped pile of flimsi. Even fully grown by some years now, Genet was still so small, no bigger than a human toddler.

Still big enough to block the way. Ordo prodded the pile of wrinkly gray fur with his foot. “Ara’novo goyust’ika. Ke’shaadla.” Genet stretched and let out one, high sleepy whine—but remained stubbornly planted.

“Poor idiot’s too friendly. Just step over.” Genet’s tail thumped the side of Ordo’s desk. “Mind the tail.”

[nullclass]

“Sometimes tracking a flitnat isn’t all that hard, ‘specially when the bloodsucking thing isn’t making an effort to fly under the radar.

“Metaphorically a flitnat. Well, maybe the bloodsucking part isn’t so figurative.”