Indre: Indre is a name of french origin meaning ‘cave’ or ‘possessing drops of water.’ i thought it was fitting considering. well. The Caves In The Ocean.
Aimeir: aima is greek for blood. i just added more letters so her name wasn’t just straight up ‘cave blood.’ originally i tried to combine ‘aima’ and ‘oneiro,’ (oneiro is dream) but it felt weird. the remains are still there though i suppose, with the ‘-eir’ ending.
details:
34 years old (born in 343 EIC, current year 377 EIC. the quiet rapture occurred in 357 EIC, when Indre was 14).
she/they, transfem. aromantic. pansexual, but leans lesbian.
Autistic, fairly low-empathy, competitive. Incredibly strong moral compass, but no one knows what the fuck it is. She is almost constantly hopeful about her (and humanity’s, she guesses :/) future, though occasionally she will slip into a deep depression for a few weeks, in a way not dissimilar to bipolar disorder.
Highly religious, but not to any known gods. If asked to elaborate on her beliefs, she will just start going on tangents about a light, and destinies, and all sorts of things that she speaks far too quickly through for anyone else to really understand.
They worked as an engineer before being convicted, and then they continued working under close supervision afterwards due to their expertise.
Beneath the cut are more details, including some that are somewhat spoilery for the movie Iron Lung.
There are also themes of/references to sexual assault, transphobia, murder and violence, hallucinations, and cannibalism.
Please read at your own risk!
appearance / body notes
Her skin is medium-light. Her hair is wavy, light-medium brown, and cut fairly short except for the sections she’s kept long so she can have the raccoon stripes. She dyes it with the same pigments she uses for her ‘tattoos.’ Their eyes are frighteningly, horrifically pale blue. They have the definition of blue-eyed stare. Considering her tendency for nonstop eye contact, this can become unnerving for some who aren’t used to her. They find it funny.
She is approximately 6’4”, or 193cm. They typically weigh around 64-67kg, or 141-147lbs.
Though she is ambidextrous, her left arm does typically have a light tremor to it due to an electrical accident when she was 12. The nerve damage was mostly centred on her forearm, and as such they have difficulty telling when things are touching it if there’s not pain or pressure. Their left hand is also somewhat shaky as a result of the damage. When she’s particularly stressed or tired, the tremors are much stronger.
She tends to favor her left leg. When she was a kid, it wasn’t a problem, but as she grew older, it grew more and more painful to put her full weight on it. They often have a brace of sorts that they wear beneath their pants when they know they’ll be out or at work for a while with minimal breaks, made from - you guessed it! - scrap.
HRT doesn’t exist in the time after the Quiet Rapture; there’s not nearly enough resources to waste any on synthesizing estrogen. As such, Indre instead opts for the next most viable option: making and stuffing a bra with cloth and other such materials and using that to create the impression of having tits. They also express themselves with their fashion. Painted nails, a relatively femme haircut, and a (typically) fairly skintight shirt all make her feel nicely comfortable with herself.
Additionally, they have a small goatee, armpit hair, and a quite prominent ‘happy trail.’ She likes the confusion it brings to people sometimes. Plus, she also just generally likes having her ‘fluff.’ It’s comfortable.
general life:
The day the Quiet Rapture happened, Indre swore they saw a bright flash of light, a vision of eyes and teeth, and rumbling words they couldn’t make out at the time. Even now, she still doesn’t know what it said, but she’s been determined to find and know the god that sent her and everyone else here. They believe that they were all transported away from their known universe for a reason, and though they’re not sure what it is, they will find out.
Growing up on Filament Station wasn’t easy. Even before the Quiet Rapture, even though the station was the largest and easily most pleasant station to be on, Indre still had trouble. There was little to do besides work, and not too many children to interact with. Their autism and competitive personality made it hard to make friends without constantly monitoring herself, which she quickly decided was simply not worth the effort.
Despite this, she still was… lonely. Even burying themselves in study didn’t fully detract from their lack of social interaction and people skills.
Indre’s mother taught her the basics of engineering at a fairly young age, when she was around 8 years old. Almost everyone on the station was expected to have at the least a beginner’s understanding of how to operate, repair minor damages to, and troubleshoot issues with the most common machines on the station. Indre, despite not having a choice in the matter, found engineering to be rather interesting, and opted to continue her studies through the official routes. At the age of 16 (late 359 EIC. The station was attacked in early 362 EIC), she transferred to a different station (the one that’s eventually near AT-5) to assist in research and engineering (both on the station and with research materials). She eventually worked her way up to becoming one of the most experienced and useful engineers in the new location.
She was especially valuable for the reason that almost all of her proper engineering experience occurred after the QR, and thus she was very efficient at using scrap, limited materials, and working with the minimal amount of resources required for her work to function well. They went to the AT-5 station because they had fewer individuals that they knew (and thus, fewer that they disliked), and found it was less of a habitation station and more of a work station, which was honestly perfect. She could learn and improve in peace. She could work without her family’s disapproving glances anytime she saw them, without having to constantly deal with people who she disliked, without having to hide.
the victims:
victim 1:
Aster Kasmene was a 52 year old woman on the filament station. Her death was… sort of an accident. Indre was barely 16. Aster’d been harassing Indre for months, trying to get them alone in a sort of ‘conversion therapy’ kind of situation. She wanted to ‘fix’ Indre’s transness. After all of her attempts at preaching at them didn’t work, she turned to violence. After that didn’t work, she decided that she would ‘prove’ that they were a man, via ‘having him exposed to straight sex.’ Indre hadn’t meant to kill her right then, but the pipe piece was right there and she was scared, and angry, and cornered, and so she swung, aiming for Aster’s arms but hitting her neck. It snapped instantly. They realised they didn’t care, and were actually rather happy about it. She ended up making it look like Aster had been fiddling with a system she shouldn’t have been fiddling with, and had paid the price. A few months later, in 359 EIC, Indre fled Filament Station, mostly out of pursuit of knowledge but also out of fear that somehow she’ll be caught.
victim 2:
Kirah Sorren was a 20 year old prisoner from Eden who was involved in the destruction of Filament Station (as a squad leader) and sent to the AT-5 station as part of the Convict Realisation program. Indre, 21 (364 EIC), was tasked with teaching them the required knowledge for repair of the system she tended to work on. Through a combination of fury at their involvement of the destruction of their home and jealousy (and fear. but she won’t think about that.) in regards to ‘being replaced,’ they killed Kirah. It was messier than she’d have liked, but oh well. They were also far more emotionally charged than they should have been. She salvaged what she could from the body, mostly cloth pieces and the like (she kept them in her personal tinkering scrap stash), and disposed of them as best she could. Later, Indre went up to the captain of the station, Ava, and asked if she’d seen their assigned convict; they never showed up for work today and they were concerned that the convict might be getting up to no good in the systems. Kirah was nowhere to be found. Eventually, they were declared missing and presumed dead. Indre resumed work as usual.
victim 3:
Vale Anixian was a 41 year old man. Indre was 29 when she killed him. He was a pessimistic Eden supporter until the very end despite the fact he worked for the COI as a fairly high-profile researcher. Combined with his general pretentiousness, he was guaranteed to constantly be getting on people’s nerves. It came to a head one day when he, horrifically insensitively, declared that Eden was justified in their attack on Filament station. That was the anniversary of the tragedy, and though Indre didn’t exactly have friends there, she still had respect for quite a few of the people who died. She quickly grew to resent his constant hopeless sort of approach to everything, and began trying to find a way to either shut him up or just kill him. With each passing day, she was leaning further and further towards killing him. In the end, she fabricated an accident. A loose ceiling panel unfortunately went unnoticed for a few days until it fell and landed on Vale. He didn’t die instantly, but the severe concussion combined with the fact his skull was hopelessly fractured guaranteed that he died quickly. Indre offered to replace the panel, saying she’d make sure it was secure this time. She continued work as usual afterwards.
victim 4:
Ferin Sovloch was a 30 year old woman at the time of death, transferred to the AT-5 station in 365 EIC when she was 21 and when Indre was 22. When she was killed, Indre was 31. She was part of the Convict Realisation program, and was unpredictable at best and downright feral at worst. She was sent to the AT-5 station because… well, honestly, it’s because no one else wanted her and the AT-5 station was the one with the fewest people, the fewest convicts to cause additional trouble, and the least amount of valuable resources that could be compromised. Indre tried to keep her patience. They tried to ignore the woman and do their work. Unfortunately, Ferin had developed some kind of attachment to Indre, most likely on account of their attempts at completely ignoring her (and thus not treating her badly). If they’d had any more sympathy for her situation, they might have been nicer. However, they didn’t. Her death was somewhat an accident, but also planned. It wasn’t supposed to happen so soon. Indre’d had a method in mind for quite a few months by that point, but Ferin had discovered their (incredibly not permitted) stash of personal-tinkering scrap, and threatened to inform the captain about it. So Indre ate her. She killed her first, and with a bit of framing, it looked like a suicide. Ferin was unstable enough that it was feasible. But then… they don’t know what came over them. They saw a flash of light, a whisper of a god, her god, (it’s time.), and suddenly there was blood on her teeth on her hands on her clothes and she couldn’t stop she didn’t want to stop she had to keep going she had to. Eventually, she was dragged away from the mangled body, and imprisoned.
the aftermath:
When Indre was imprisoned for the murder and cannibalism of Ferin, she’d come to the conclusion that her eating Ferin was what the light wanted, which is why it showed itself to her just before she began to feast. When Ava questioned them on why they did it, they told her about the light. She asked if there was anything else they wanted to say, and Indre explained their other kills (it was time. they needed to do this. it was required of them. perhaps it would get them closer to it, to the light, to the answers they’ve wanted all along.), even the one on Filament Station.
Due to their expertise in engineering, the crew couldn’t kill them. Instead, they kept her working on projects, constantly monitored by at least two people. Who that was alternated each day. Ava didn’t want to risk a repeat of Ferin, so when it wasn’t actively time to eat, she was muzzled. The thing was made of scraps of metal and cloth, but worked.
the expedition and the SM-08
Eventually, she was chosen to enter the blood ocean for research purposes. The SM-08 was small, barely big enough for the three of them. It was sectioned into five areas; the primary piloting area, the terminal and camera area, and four small rooms. One room had three beds, stacked on top of each other with barely enough space on them to sit up straight. Another was a sort of storage room for parts and equipment, to be used for repairing the sub (and, later, potentially synthesizing food). There was also a decent stash of food and water, as well as a few backup oxygen tanks. The next room didn’t necessarily need to be on the sub, but the team agreed it could be necessary considering the plan was to send the crew (researcher, research assistant, and Indre as an engineer.) down into the ocean for a minimum of three days. It was mostly empty; all it had was a soft mat on the floor. It was mostly so that if any of them simply wanted to be alone for a bit (or if Indre started being threatening), they could go sit in there until needed again. In Indre’s case, it could also be used as a temporary holding cell, though she could also use it at her own leisure if she desired. Finally, of course, a bathroom at the very end of the submarine.
They did a few successful expeditions. Indre was proving themselves to be trustworthy in the ship, despite a few strange ‘visions’ that they’d told the crew about. Though they were cautious not to be too attentive to what she said, slowly they came to feel similarly. The crew almost began to crave being in the ocean.
Finally, on one expedition, in late 377 EIC, they didn’t come back. There were muffled, half-static screams transmitted through the radio for a moment, and then nothing.
-
They’d found the light. Indre knew it was down here. It had been a few days since they’d been lowered in, and the tests on the blood had come back. The researchers, foolish things, were frightened. They didn’t realise that this was a sign. They were meant to be here. The previous attempts at synthesizing food from the blood, or even just drinking it, were proven to be ‘horrible ideas.’
Lucy Salis, the head researcher, recorded a message. She spoke of the light; of what they saw, and felt, and learned. She spoke of the blood, of its dangers. Next to her, Anna, the assistant researcher, began to drink, and began to choke. Lucy devolved into desperation, screaming and crying, begging Ava to come down, to come see it. At this point, Indre stepped out to the pilot room. She broke the radio, leaving the crew on the surface to receive nothing but cut-off screams, the sound carrying over from the terminal room. Their words did not make it through the radio.
It’s best that way. They don’t need to know. they don’t get to know. It’s not meant for them. It’s meant for us. Just us. We need it, we need to see it again. There’s a god hiding there, and we need to find it. We will find it.
They returned to the light. The entire world shimmered and warbled around them, echoing.
The side of the ship exploded.
Everything felt slow. Rumbling voices echoed around her. Screams. Whispers. Promises and threats. Summons and desires. When she woke in the blood, she knew what she would find. They’d already seen it before, after all.
Indre looked up and saw her god, staring down at her. Layers of swirling blood and light and teeth and bones warped and shifted behind it. When the tendrils held onto her legs, climbed up her torso, wrapped around her arms and neck and face, she let it happen.
It was what was supposed to happen.
the collective:
Every so often, they feel a sliver of consciousness again. Voices, layering on each other, dragging someone else in. She plays her part; she is the voice of her god. They are the one who chooses who gets to know about the light.
She is the one who allows Lucy, who allows the Speaker, to feast upon those who do not deserve it.
[image description: a three panel comic of Pizza from Chicory. They are wearing a beanie, a scarf, a dark colored shirt and light colored shorts. In the first panel, they are receiving mail from the bug diplomants. They are visibly confused by the turn of events, and are saying, “... what?” In the second panel, they are looking down at the letter with a frown, muttering, “Uh...” The paper is very tattered, with crinkles and rips in it. The third panel shows the letter from their point of view as they are holding it. The letter is even more crumpled, with a variety of tears in the page. The text is jagged, barely legible, with multiple scribbles scratching out attempts at words. The letter reads:
Dear Wielder
The bugs of Feast (scribble) humbly (scribble) request your service. (Tear in the paper) Come find us deep in the Grub Caverns on the (scribble) outskirts of Dinners, the north city.
Sincerely,
Queen Drosera
There is a similarly jagged doodle of Queen Drosera’s face in the bottom right corner of the page. Pizza is even more confused than before, thinking, “... Cool...?” end image description]
rewatched some chicory content out of boredom and i had a thought
