#muse: mathafew

[sundanceofapache]

Stoat when something requires braincells

Branson when he gets an idea

@mantleoflight

[sundanceofapache]

The trip back to the Leviathan had been awful--And Stoat had only been watching from the comm room on the HELM. He'd tucked himself in Theodore's shoulder several times, clenching his shell shut each time he heard Calus talk. The horrible guttural voice of the monster who did all this.

Still, he refused to let Mathafew go alone -- at least in spirit. There was no way he would be able to go back on the Leviathan. Not after what happened--what Calus did to them all. But even with radio contact, nobody was ready for Baribus. Nobody was ready for a guardian-turned-nightmare. When Stoat saw him in the video feed, he couldn't believe what he was looking at--His guardian caught and shifting through phases of rot and decay while smoldering like a corpse on a funeral pyre.

But what was worse was what he said, the warning he gave, the admission he gave...

It sent chills down Stoats circuits and guilt... terrible, gnawing guilt... if he were human, he would've cried. But he wasn't and he couldn't. Instead, he searched for the only one just as affected by all this as himself.

"Mathafew?" the ghost ventured as he approached Mathafew's door. "It's me... Stoat... can I come in please?"

@leerofthevinegaroons

He had messed up.

Mathafew wasn't used to failing at something, he wasn't used to being unable to protect himself - and he'd never had to protect himself from his own father before.

Entirely helpless, quailing under the onslaught and only living through the experience because Salem had swooped in to save his bacon from both Baribus and the nightmare-ghost of his own making - Ashven the dragon.

As soon as they made it back to the ship Mathafew had slunk to his own quarters. He didn't speak much out loud under the best of circumstances and since the experience had drawn entirely within his own mind to hide from the painful reality. The worst part was that 'his' quarters were really his and his father's quarters - spaceships only had so much room on them.

So withdrawn, he didn't realize the ghost was outside the door until Stoat was asking permission to come in. Mathafew peered out from under a pile of blankets - two of them were taken from Baribus' bunk, and stared through his blindfold at the door. He considered opening it but then simply rolled over to face away from the door.

[sundanceofapache]

@leerofthevinegaroons and @ashortdropandasuddenstop

Mathafew knelt atop a metal grate and peered down into the deep dry well below it. There he could see the two vampires that were furiously attempting to dig their way out.

Using a wooden stake no less. The boy lowered his bandana’s face close to the grating and knocked on the silver frame. “You guys look like a pair of moles.” He said and lay flat to observe them closer, recognizing his father and the dandy. Despite the joking words he wasn’t smiling.

[sundanceofapache]

@baronofhousespider

The small boy drummed his heels against the side of his father’s ship. He had been told, in very certain terms, that he was to ‘Stay right here, Mathafew. Stoat will be with you, I won’t be gone long.’ A stern narrow-eyed golden stare had accompanied the order and so for a time, it had been obeyed. After growing bored though the boy had wandered to the hatch and palmed the release to open it so he could sit on the ramp.

Stoat had fussed and hovered anxiously but Mathafew had silenced the ghost by promising that he was only going to sit and look at the view. After another moment of drumming his heels though the boy leaned out the hatch and looked first to the right, then left. “He’s been gone a long time. Stoat can you see if maybe dad sent a message?” Obligingly the ghost zipped back inside, and Mathafew made a run for it.

They were parked on the very edge of the city so he turned toward the vast wildlands outside and raced that direction. He had not a single idea where he was going or what lay out there but he figured it had to be far more interesting than the inside of a small starship. 

[sundanceofapache]

There was a lot of stimulation in the Tower. Too much. Too many guardians dealing with too many problems with the world, with command, and each other for Echo to even process what the heck she was hearing and feeling. Honestly, it was like being dragged into a maelstrom of feelings and very loud thoughts!

Fortunately, her Ghost was more than happy to take the lead and get the two of them on a ship and off to somewhere not nearly as crowded. That location? Mars. Nobody's on Mars except for Ikora and maybe a handful of the Hidden. Which was a perfect place for Echo to learn how to quiet her intruding thoughts.

Not that going to an actual Psion might've helped. Then again, neither of them was sure what Caiatl or her military would do if they did. So it was to meditation, mind-calming techniques, and the boring landscape of Mars. Or so they thought.

As whisper knelt in the sand, her ship shading her from the sun, a faint familiar trail nettled her curious mind. With a glance at Whisper, Echo allowed her mind to follow that trail, her thoughts slipping into the strange, dream-like world of the mindscape as she did. Where it was, she had no idea. But it felt something like the Stasis Cruxes on Europa, putting her on high alert as she ventured into this strange, dark mindscape. — @mantleoflight

The young half-awoken was himself a bit stranded on Mars. Mathafew had thought to tag along with Salem, finding the warlock to be an interesting distraction after the episode on Europa. His father, Baribus had ordered him off the planet in a no-argument manner after he began exploring what the thresher in the garden had called his "birthright". The Darkness abilities were thrilling, if a little confusing and - to his father and Stoat - terrifying. So Mathafew was on Mars as he continued to explore what he could do, far from the tundra that increased the chill in his heart and the Cruxes that brought the cold voice to him.

He was inside an old Hab from the early exploration days of the Ares missions when a slight prickling, almost like a limb had fallen asleep, started nagging at him. At first Mathafew tried shaking out his arms, then one leg at a time as he tried to find where the odd feeling was coming from. He even went outside through what used to be an airlock and checked around out there. Slowly the sensation increased even as he tried to find the source until there was something whispering in his head. Mathafew stood straight, behind his blindfold his scarlet eyes darted side to side like he could spy the intruder here in the physical world.

Never before had someone come into his mind, and certainly never had he thought they could do so uninvited. There were a lot of 'firsts' happening recently. To get out of the glaring sun he returned to the Hab and sat down on one of the bunks. The young psychic sought out the sensation again, but this time mentally. He turned his awareness inward and walked along the paths of his own thoughts until finding the source. It was one of the Guardians.

They were always blindingly bright beacons, even in the physical world. Here in the mental realm she was like starting at a small sun. She wasn't any sort of giant or really remarkable looking at all, until he realized that it wasn't armor the psion was wearing - it was made of metal. After realizing the psion was also an exo, Mathafew also realized the glow coming from it was more than the Light that guardians always had radiating from them but was also the same power he'd seen with Ashven and the Dragon from the Dreaming City.

"It's you again." He said with narrowed suspicious eyes and crossed arms.

[sundanceofapache]

Mathafew

[sundanceofapache]

@mantleoflight

Mathafew nodded. His throat threatened to close back up and he forced himself to breathe though it. “He is. I visit his grave every year, and when I went to take care of him it had been dug up and he was stolen away.” He tried to maintain his deference, not to argue or insist, begging was already so difficult even though Mathafew knew he would happily do whatever the dragon wanted from him if only he could have his father back. Even Baribus being a guardian wouldn’t be so horrible, he could handle it, he would help his father on every mission if only the man wasn’t a stranger who looked at him and didn’t even remember the day he brought the boy home. 

When the ghost zipped in and began protesting Mathafew couldn’t bite his tongue any longer. He shot forward like he would grab the thing out of the air before recalling the promise not to harm anyone in the chamber, and stopped himself mid-reach. “I don’t care what the guardians forbid!” The young man thundered, “If I cared what they thought I wouldn’t be here! He isn’t a whole man without his past, nobody is!” Didn’t they get that? It’s bad enough to desecrate someone’s corpse, to steal them out of their graves and make them into soldiers- and to steal even their identities from them is abhorrent! 

“Please he’s my father. He served Ashven because that was the price the dragon demanded - he did it for me. Please.’ Mathafew’s glowing red eyes were even brighter as moisture gathered in them and he stared into the dragon’s when her head bent down to his level. “He needs to be whole. I need him to be whole, good and bad.” 

[sundanceofapache]

[You liked for an Orphaned Ghost in your askbox! Enjoy~ >B3c]

Stoat zigged and zagged through the air, less to dodge and more like lack of directional control. He landed with a grunt, skidding and rolling across the dirt, shards of his gold and brown shell missing or damaged. He let out a fizzled groan and noticed he'd landed by a boot. Blinking his cerulean eye, Stoat looked up and spotted the young man who claimed to be Baribus' son in another life.

"M-Mathafew?" he asked, his voice warbling as he spoke. "Oh.. thank the Traveler it's you. We've—we've got trouble..."

Mathafew watched the Ghost impassively as it crashed into the ground and rolled until bumping gently against his boot. The boy wasn't certain what he thought about the little thing. It had a mind that he could touch just like any person, and the way it felt nearly as familiar as his father - and just as much of the stranger that his father had become - made him equal parts curious and reserved.

He bent down and picked the little orb up and held it in both hands. " 'We' have trouble?" Automatically he reached for Baribus' mind. There were only the pieces of him that clung to Stoat, and the young man's brows pinched together. Mathafew tried to follow the connection and was coming up only with shadows that were so far away they were only echoes that were overshadowed by something else.

There was someone else there with long strings reaching down into those shadows and jerking them around. Mathafew's hand's clenched at Stoat and without thinking he shook the poor broken ghost, holding him up to eye level and shouting with an intensity he hadn't displayed since being a young boy. "Where is he?! Where's Father?!"