#seyss

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Zeph’s garage is attached to their house so sometimes Seyss doesn’t get much sleep

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“Well, look who decided to come crawling back.”

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Not yet finished and I don’t have time or energy to work on the line art, but I guess I wanted to share the lineup of Dusts characters so far and how wildly different they can be.

I didn’t realize how absurdly tall I intended Zeph to be until I had to draw her next to everyone else @_@

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Finished the Dusts cast!

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I like to think that all the Scavengers have nicknames they earned over the years to make themselves sound more badass. The frequency of how these nicknames are used vary from Scav to Scav. e.g.:

Seyss has earned the nickname Wasp for the color of her hoverbike and her sheer ruthlessness. Many of the people who are close to her call her Seyss, but many others call her Wasp in whispers out of respect for the sheer human hurricane she can be.

Zeph was given the nickname Firefly since she’s always carrying around her communications tablet or some other sort of glowing tech on her. Few actually call her Firefly, though, besides people who have never met her. Anyone who has spoken to her in person calls her Zeph since she’s doesn’t mind the familiarity with using a real name. However, only Seyss is allowed to call her Zee.

Camille is known better as Cherry, but the full nickname is Cherry Bomb. She’s been dubbed this for her preference of sharp, sudden action instead of talking (as well as her tiny stature). Most people just refer to her as Cherry since few people know her real name—and even fewer are allowed to call her Cammy.

Fella’s legal name is Hortense, but there was a brief amount of time where he forgot his name. Due to his lack of a title and wild encounters, many just spoke of “that fella,” and he took on Fella as his own name. No one calls him Hortense but Theo. Everyone else knows him as Fella.

Wicker isn’t a Scav, but he spends so much time around them that he’s been given an honorary nickname. His actual name is Chadwick but prefers not to be called that. He earned the nickname Wicker after being struck by lightning on one occasion and set on fire during another, giving people the impression that he was a living candle wick and it was bound to happen. Only people in his workplace call him Chadwick; he’s Wicker to everyone else.

Agnes got her name from the android ID imprinted on the back of her neck—AGN-E5, or translated, Automated General Nurse, Edition Five. Although her personality chip and processors have developed enough for her to come across as human, her basic programming to care for others has led her to be one of the few medics in the Dusts. For this, she is simply known as Doc. Many folks who are close to her simply call her Agnes (with Fella dubbing her Aggie), but many of her regular patients call her Doc out of respect.

Theo isn’t a Scav and keeps minimal contact with them. His full name is Theopolis (the name of some great city on one of his ancestor’s home planets, apparently) and he insists he be called as such, but no one appreciates his prudishness and just calls him Theo.

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A bit from a short story I hope to write about Seyss and Zeph! It contains some grumpy stuff but also a little fluff between these two ladies. Fluff isn’t really something I’m used to writing, so though I’ll take criticism on any aspect of this, I’m especially looking for advice concerning how their softer moments played out.

Seyss could already see the look of unadulterated horror on Zeph’s face as she rode her hoverbike into the garage. It was an utter wreck compared to the neatness of the garage, with all its organized toolboxes and motors propped on the walls. All Seyss could offer was a shrug of apology as one of the bike’s wrenched-open panels coughed out a few sparks. Then the bike died and collapsed onto the concrete floor.

“Sey!” Zeph burst. She slammed shut the hood of the maglev car she was working on, every muscle of her immense figure tense with stress. “What in the stars did you do to the bike?”

“I ran into a Firecrawler on my way back from a mineral deposit,” Seyss began, throwing her legs over the side of the bike to dismount. Her metal leg might have rubbed up against one of the burning panels, but the prosthetic didn’t have the nerves programmed to feel it. “Apparently the deposit had grown over the hellscape that thing calls an abode and I was impeding on its territory, so it did the damn well reasonable thing and started shooting acid at me.”

“You could’ve gotten yourself killed!” Zeph burst, running her gloved hands through emerald and ash hair.

Seyss only shrugged again. “It seems you have a habit of stating the obvious.” She walked over to one of the counters Zeph had tools set up on and sat down. Even sitting a few feet up, Seyss was hardly at eye-level with the mechanic. But all she cared about was getting a seat. After navigating the Dusts all day, Seyss’s upper leg hurt like hell from hauling the metal prosthetic around.

Zeph slumped over, rosy eyes wide and lips pouting. “C’mon, Sey, can’t you take it a little more seriously?”

“I took it seriously enough to make it out alive,” Seyss insisted. She reached over and unhooked her prosthetic from the bolts driven into her living leg, just above where her knee should’ve been. She sighed in relief when she felt the weight drop and heard it clang to the floor.

Zeph stared at the prosthetic for a few moments. She let out her own response sigh before meeting Seyss at the counter and deciding, “I guess you did make it out alive.” She gingerly pecked Seyss on the cheek before looking back to the hunk of twisted and charred metal they now called a hoverbike. “I just don’t know what I’m going to do with the bike.”

“Fix it,” Seyss offered. “Like you always do.”

Zeph laughed, a melodious sound that filled up the garage and rattled what hung on the walls. “You hold too much faith in me.”

“Then stop giving me reasons to have faith. The rest of this people in this stars-damned excuse for a planet have given me an excuse to give up.” Seyss leaned back and kicked her amputated leg. “Zee, do me a favor and prop me up in front of the sink? There’s just some grime I want to get off.” She ran her hand through her charcoal-and-honey hair to find pieces of debris. “Really want to get off.”

“Of course,” Zeph agreed. She slipped her powerful arms under Seyss’s torso and hauled her up without much of a complaint and went to open the door in the back of the garage.

Admittedly, the garage was the nicest part of their living situation. The interior was closer to an overgrown room, with a sparse kitchen in the front and recreational space in the back—if recreation included sleeping. Zeph propped Seyss on a counter to the left of the room, beside the sink.

Seyss turned on the tap. Zeph circled the couch and pushed the quilt messily draped over it aside, sitting down and snatching a small control. She pressed a button. A screen hung on the back wall flickered to life.

“Is it cool if I go check on the bike?” Zeph asked.

Seyss waved casually with one hand while the other grabbed a bar of soap on the either side of the sink. “Go see what the damage is. Just don’t tell me if it’s more than a hundred units.”

“I think a hundred units is the minimum,” Zeph sighed, but she headed back out for the garage.

Seyss got her hands covered in suds and gingerly started brushing them over the dirt. Nothing hurt enough to say that she’d been hit with any sort of acid. It became a mindless process. She’d find some bit of her skin that felt grimy and she’d start washing it off, half-conscious as she watched the screen.

It was one of the dumbass city nobles again. Probably appointed by the Empire or whatever name it liked to go by these days, given the symbol pinned to the lapel of his white jacket. His platinum hair was insufferably impeccable, dumb smile and piercing violet eyes not giving away a single emotion other than smugness.

Viscount—that’s what his name was. Or at least his title. Seyss wasn’t sure she cared either way at this point. He was jabbering on about his usual crap about the Scavengers that had been hired out and their safety. It was all useless bullcrap.

If Viscount had ever cared about the Scavengers a single day in his life, the rivalries would be over. The room Seyss and Zeph called a house wouldn’t be the best living condition they’d had yet. Seyss would have a new leg with actual neurological connections. They’d be off this hellscape planet.

Seyss suddenly found much more interest in washing off the last specks of dirt.

The garage door swung open, Zeph scratching the back of her head with a wrench. Her shirt was already covered in more dirt; she’d checked out the bike rather quickly. Seyss opened her mouth to ask how much it would cost.

But she shut up as soon as Zeph went to the opposite side of the room, to the rickety old wooden table where two jars sat between, each halfway-filled with folded paper bills.

Seyss had only assumed it would dry out the money they’d set out for spendings. But now they’d have to cough up their savings. She sighed, already feeling a phantom weight at the stump of her leg.

With a sigh, Seyss ordered, “Take it from the prosthetic fund—”

“We’re going to get you that new leg,” Zeph interrupted. Her voice held command to it, but nothing mean. The kind of command a parent used when trying to tell a child what they were doing was stupid and they cared enough to tell them as such. “We can get off this planet later, but you need that leg first.”

“I won’t be able to get a new prosthetic until we get our asses of this dust storm of a planet,” Seyss argued. She gestured to the job offers tacked to the walls, the pages of math done to figure out how much money Seyss was owed for her scavenging, the parts Zeph would need to fix a client’s vehicle. “We have all this money but it keeps flying away from us. Don’t you want a better life than this?”

Zeph smiled. “I’m happy enough, Seyss. I just want to make sure you’re happy.”

Seyss kept her mouth shut. She had wanted a new prosthetic since she got the clunky metal excuse for a leg. It hadn’t a single wire to connect to her nerves, nothing to tell her if it was burning or freezing, how much pressure she was using. That wasn’t even mentioning the burning pain she got from it by its weight alone.

“I’m going to use our travel fund, okay?” Zeph noted. But at this point, it was for more of a reassurance. Seyss knew that she couldn’t argue with Zeph’s logic, as much as she hated it.

Seyss just nodded. She turned away as Zeph overturned the travel fund jar and all the little bills came tumbling out, unfolding and flashing in dulled colors after changing countless hands. And they were changing hands yet again.

“Why the hell is it going to be so expensive to fix?” Seyss pondered.

Zeph thumbed through the bills—Seyss mentally counting them up—as the mechanic explained, “Honestly, most of the damage was cosmetic, and that’s a relatively easy fix if I can find the right screws and metal. The major issue was the engine and electronics in the front end of the bike.”  Zeph shoved the bills in her back pocket and started gesturing back and forth, giving Seyss a rough idea of where she was talking about. “There was minor damage to the back, where the tank and exhaust is. If any acid damaged those areas, well…” Zeph gritted her teeth. “You would be in a lot of tiny pieces right now.”

“Thanks for that imagery,” Seyss sighed. She grabbed a hand towel off the counter and started wiping down the droplets that hadn’t soaked into her pores. “Well, what about the engine?”

“The acid corroded through the hood and through the engine, so it’s a miracle it held up until you got home.” Zeph grabbed a slip of paper off the wall, ran over to snatch a pencil from the sink’s counter, and started writing down numbers and lists. “Your bike is an older model, so the engine is going to be a bit hard to find on the market.” Snorting through her nose, she added, “And I’ll be lucky if I can buy it off a professional and not one of those tech collector dorks.”

“Great,” Seyss muttered. “Peachy.”

A silence settled between them, both of them knowing what came next. They’d have to find some transport down to the major cities, since no one with any sort of money lived on the surface of the planet; that was asking for death. Anyone with spare units and dignity to their name lived in the underground cities. That meant the judgmental looks of nobles, Zeph having to fight off the urchins who were too weak to live on the surface, Seyss having to keep her leg from getting turned into scrap metal.

The cities didn’t have scorching ground and wealth was common, but there were still the shadow of its prosperity. At least on the surface, there was distance between desperate scavengers.

Zeph pursed her lips. “I see that look on your face.”

“What look?” Seyss spat.

“Your pissy look,” Zeph chimed. Rolling her eyes, Seyss crossed her arms as Zeph rushed over to haul her off the counter. Seyss tried to bat off Zeph, but she just held her at arms length and made her way for the couch. “Nope. Not today. You’re not allowed to be pissy in this house.”

Seyss let out a small gasp of anger as her shoulder rose and a stream of curses escaped her mind. Zeph remained entirely unphased. She simply slid her toe under a switch on the side of the couch and the footrest sprung up. After laying Seyss down (still sputtering profanities), Zeph walked to the other side of the couch and laid down beside Seyss, tall enough that her legs fell over the edge.

Zeph pulled up the quilt across their torsos, and upon seeing the spite seething in Seyss’s expression at Viscount, she grabbed the remote and flipped through channels to some fluff-filled, mindless flick.

The two remained silent for a while. The dialogue from the screen was cute at best, and poorly written to any critic that it concerned. Though neither really cared about the quality of the content at that point. Once Seyss’s breathing slowed, Zeph tossed an arm about her shoulders, heavy and comforting as a weighted blanket.

“The book was better,” Seyss muttered.

“The book wasn’t good to begin with,” Zeph insisted.

Seyss snorted. “Any of this crap ends up poorly written.”

Another moment and they finally turned to each other. Seyss wasn’t sure why she had always preferred sitting on the couch until she realized she was finally at eye-level with Zeph. Although the mechanic’s face was usually smudged somewhere, her eyes were always warm.

“Y’know, I guess I’m happy enough, too.” Seyss shrugged. “I’ve got you.”

Zeph smirked just the tiniest bit. “Then my job is done here.”

Seyss stuck her tongue out, mimicking spitting across  the room. “We sound as bad as this dumb movie.”

And as much as Seyss hated to admit it, she was still watching it by the time Zeph started snoring, just if she could get a grasp on what the world would be like if they ever got out of here.

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Zeph gives good hugs.

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The beginning of some very self-indulgent fluff of Zeph and Seyss.

Seyss forgot how disgustingly cold it could get in the Dusts at night. After spending so much time in the city and acclimating to its controlled climate, it was second nature to assume she could wander around without a jacket. But damn, did she wish she had her coat on her. A heavy blanket and a scalding cup of hot chocolate would help, especially since she’d bought some nice cocoa mix in the city.

Urban life was making her soft.

Being a few good hours away from home, Seyss drove the hoverbike slowly and kept pressed to its front hood as closely as she could, thriving in the heat of the motor. The steady beat of the bike’s systems was soothing enough to send her to sleep.

“No sleeping on the job, Sey,” Zeph chimed from the back of the back.

Seyss shot a glance over her shoulder. Zeph was sitting upright on the backseat and looked remarkably warm despite her sleeveless shirt, not a shiver or chattering tooth in sight. In fact she had a solid smile.

She hated that dumb grin. It was always so warm and happy and content.

It somehow put a similar dumb smirk on her own face. It was Zeph’s dumbass grin, after all—everything about that girl was going to be unbearably perfect.

“This bike’s survived several thousand near-death experiences, thank you very much,” Seyss grumbled. She idly lifted and lowered her metal foot from the pedal, unsure how much pressure she was putting on it. “I think it could last if I wanted to take a damn nap.”

There was a brief silence between them, barely filled by the desert cicadas and the brush of sand that the bike kicked up. Finally, Zeph suggested, “I could drive us back home. It’s not like there’s anything to rush to tonight.”

Seyss laughed boldly, no one around for miles to pay hear. “No one drives my baby but me. Nice try, though.”

“Sey,” Zeph insisted quietly.

Damnit, why was Zeph so soft about everything? She was built like a brick wall and hauled around heavy mechanics all day, easily able to crack bones over her knee or bend metal in her bare hands. But she was always capable of being soft. Seyss never let herself be weak.

With Zeph, though, she felt obligated to be weak for just the tiniest bit. The mechanic may have worked in a harsh environment and accompanied Seyss to the Dusts, but she was amiable.

With a sigh, Seyss powered down the bike. The air grew increasingly frigid around them as it settled to the ground with little sound. Sliding her legs off the seat, Seyss murmured, “You better not get a single damn scratch on this thing, Stars help you.”

“Sure, Sey,” Zeph snorted. She rolled her eyes and flung Seyss over her shoulder before any arguments could be made. Tapping gently on the pedal, the bike was already starting up again. In a few moments, they were off, underneath the silver moon and deep blue sky with its tiny, glittering stars.

Seyss hadn’t realized how warm Zeph was.