An Inheritance of Determination

Mikhaila Ilyushin (Prey) Affiliated with Aldebaran

[red-right-eye-blog]

talos1engineer‌:

red-right-eye‌:

Above all… it has to be Morgan’s choice. That’s the way it is, with something so strongly affecting someone. As much as Mikhaila thinks they should get it out of the way, Morgan has to be willing. If it were a conversation about her father, Mikhaila would have to be willing. It is the way of things, and she knows this, and she squeezes Morgan’s hand a little too tightly, then looks back up at the stars.

“Okay,” she says, quiet. “But… soon. We’ve put it off long enough, I think. It’s… important that we… address it.” It, as if it isn’t Morgan’s entire state of being. Words are inadequate- she feels ashamed, still, moreso perhaps, but she tucks it away, saves it.

Later, alone in bed, the dark pressing down on her, she’ll pull it out, turn it over, like flipping an hourglass and watching the grains of sand stream through. She’ll let her head fill with self-recriminations, curl around her anger and anxiety and grief until it drags her under, until she could choke on it.

For now, she lifts Morgan’s hand and ghosts her lips over their knuckles, and she says, “For now, though… you should kiss me,” and she looks over at them, expression steady, even. Morgan could never resist the challenge of trying to take her apart, make her shake to pieces against or over or under them- she hopes that’s one thing that hasn’t changed.

“Soon,” Morgan agrees. “Yes, you’re right. It’s - strange, Mika. I’m still trying to come to terms with it all. But we have the luxury of time, here. We might as well take advantage.”

They feel Mikhalia’s hand squeeze tight around their own, and smile faintly in the darkness. Later. There was something pleasant, in being able to put things off. Another unfamiliar concept. On Talos - even before Talos - there was only ever now. Jumping from one thing to the next, what had to be done now, now, creating contingencies, always trying to anticipate what would happen before it did. Even pondering regrets or existential angst had to be done on your feet, in the midst of dealing with the consequences.

It was an exciting way to live, but conducive to scientific discovery, not to relationships. In this unfamiliar place, there was another unfamiliarity: Time, and space, and calm. Instinctively, Morgan was compelled to shatter that calm, to uncover what was actionable, reveal the crisis and lay bare the mechanics beneath it all. But another part of them is discovering how to live in it, to rest when waters were still. However temporarily or artificially that might be.

Because, Morgan thinks, of Mikhalia. If she wasn’t here, they would have nothing to slow down for.

“Oh? Should I?” Morgan’s smile curls into a teasing grin. Although they’ve never quite admitted it, they like it when Mika makes demands of them, goads them into action. It’s something they so rarely tolerate from anyone else. They slide their hand free of Mika’s grasp to place it against her cheek, drawing her closer.

“Right here?” they murmur, affecting a scandalized whisper. “Right now?”

They don’t wait for an answer but press their lips to Mika’s, in a passionate but chaste kiss. Let her deepen it, let her open their mouth with hers. There will be time enough.

[talos1engineer-blog]

Question for Mika fwom a fwiendly mimic. How do you feel about Typhon!Morgan? You know, the hybrid? I've seen you guys a couple of times but I dont know what you hink about him. And I like your hair btw, very fwufy :3

... Hm.

Morgan is...

Well. They’re Morgan. Typhon anatomy or not, they are and always will be Morgan. They’re no more or less themself than they were when I first met them, or when they saved me after the outbreak, or when they stood at my side and watched me listen to the logs of...

...

Anyways.

This is really between them and me.

(... Thank you.)

[commerceprotocol]

I would like a gift, please.

Thank you, Mikhaila! ♡

Your gift has been delivered to your room. Inside, you will find a…

♡ COMMEMORATIVE ENFORCEMENT PROTOCOL PHONE CASE ♡You hold in your hands a metallic pink phone case, lovingly adorned with a hot pink reindeer with gold details.

Be sure to come back soon!

[commerceprotocol]

I'd like to redeem my Standard Toolkit for a basic engineering kit, my Home Item (Common) Voucher for a group picture of the Talos 1 Software Engineering team, one Weapon Voucher for a Pistol (Low Caliber), and one Weapon Voucher for a dagger. Thank you.

Thank you, Mikhaila! ♡

You have redeemed:

- 1 Standard Toolkit (basic engineering kit)- 1 Home Item (Common) Voucher (group picture)- 1 Weapon Voucher (dagger)- 1 Weapon Voucher (pistol, low caliber)

Be sure to come back soon!

[talos1engineer-blog]

red-right-eye‌:

Morgan feels Mika shiver in their arms, and her hand squeeze theirs tightly, and is pleased with themselves. For a reckless moment following, they wonder if this is a window that might be ease open wider, here in the dark… but then Mika grows still and tense. She becomes quiet against them, thoughtful, careful. Ah, ‘human nature’. They shouldn’t have used that phrase.

Morgan leans their head against the hill, lifting it from Mika’s so that they can gaze down at her. A small cascade of dusty sand pours past their ear, eroded by the movement. 

“Of course I want to talk about it.”

They pause for a long moment, then, wondering how to proceed after stating that undeniable truth. The sound of Mikhalia’s breathing fills the silence, patient, expectant.

“As you said,” Morgan finally begins, “We’ll never be what we were before. I’ll never be what I was. I - ”

They break off, and shift their head, turning their gaze away from Mikhalia and back up at the stars. They can’t have this discussion, Morgan reflects, the way they’re positioned now. No, to talk about it, Morgan will need to sit up, detangle themselves from Mika, brush the sand from their clothes, be separate from her, again, and speak to her over that distance. They will have to head indoors, into a well-lit room, a place suitable enough to contain such a conversation.

A part of them yearns for it. But another part of them doesn’t want to let go.

“Mika… we don’t have to have this conversation just yet, if you don’t want to,” Morgan closes their eyes, slowly, extinguishing the stars. “It’s a nice night. I can wait - I can wait a little longer.”

Above all... it has to be Morgan’s choice. That’s the way it is, with something so strongly affecting someone. As much as Mikhaila thinks they should get it out of the way, Morgan has to be willing. If it were a conversation about her father, Mikhaila would have to be willing. It is the way of things, and she knows this, and she squeezes Morgan’s hand a little too tightly, then looks back up at the stars.

“Okay,” she says, quiet. “But... soon. We’ve put it off long enough, I think. It’s... important that we... address it.” It, as if it isn’t Morgan’s entire state of being. Words are inadequate- she feels ashamed, still, moreso perhaps, but she tucks it away, saves it.

Later, alone in bed, the dark pressing down on her, she’ll pull it out, turn it over, like flipping an hourglass and watching the grains of sand stream through. She’ll let her head fill with self-recriminations, curl around her anger and anxiety and grief until it drags her under, until she could choke on it.

For now, she lifts Morgan’s hand and ghosts her lips over their knuckles, and she says, “For now, though... you should kiss me,” and she looks over at them, expression steady, even. Morgan could never resist the challenge of trying to take her apart, make her shake to pieces against or over or under them- she hopes that’s one thing that hasn’t changed.

[concordantknight-blog]

talos1engineer‌:

Mikhaila’s steps carry her past White Chain before she slows to a stop, feeling curiously off balance, gaze focused on the horizon. “I see,” she says softly, before turning. She doesn’t face White Chain directly- she looks at her out of the corner of her eye, and takes a moment to breathe. Breathe. Her lower jaw trembles, teeth threatening to chatter, and she can’t tell if it’s anger or grief or just pure emotion, a vast and raging pit inside her that she didn’t realize was there until this moment.

“I see,” she says again, drawing the words out, letting them linger in the air. And then she gives a harsh, bitter laugh and says, “You’re awfully self-important, aren’t you, to think you know a damn thing about what I do or don’t think?” Emotion is thickening her accent, now, and she doesn’t resist the urge to slip into Russian, tone turning spiteful. It will translate into whatever language White Chain knows anyways, but it feels better, more authentic, to spit these words in her mother tongue, to let the acid drip off of them.

She didn’t know she was still capable of being so angry.

“Awfully self-important, to think that your suffering is worse than anyone else’s.” And she feels her eyes go flinty cold, her lip curl in a sneer, her breath release in an audible scoff.

“If you are so intent on wallowing in your own self-righteous martyrdom, then please, do not let me stop you. But consider this- you exist to fight that battle, to protect all of creation? Since when is the bodyguard ever worth more than what she guards? She is not. If she were, she would not be expended on the battlefield to protect the continuation of someone else.”

She takes a sharp breath, shocked at her own cruelty, but her voice doesn’t waver as she says, “Pathetic,” and turns her back. The anger is a comforting fire licking at her heart, masking the crack the hurt has caused, and it allows her to keep her shoulders and spine straight as she begins to walk again, not bothering to wait for a response. If the angel has one, she can damn well chase Mikhaila down, or yell it after her.

She’s not running away. She just has no reason to stay behind and speak to someone so incredibly and intentionally ignorant.

An icy sensation trickles through White Chain’s chest, strange and painful and unknown. A thousand responses buzz around her skull, a thousand emotions fighting for dominance, flaring up in a halo above her head, pulling her taught and fit to snap. She clenches her fists, her jaw, her whole body, trying to hold still until she can control herself, until she can retreat to cold logic and hard truths, until she is sure she will not betray the storm in her heart, until she knows that she will not open her mouth and say –

“DO YOU THINK I DON’T KNOW THAT?”

The words come out like a roar, like a gunshot, not only breaking the silence but irrevocably changing its nature. The sound echoes through the forest, back and back and back again. Leaves rustle and fall with its passing; a flock of birds burst from the canopy with a chorus of indignant caws. White Chain’s halo sputters out.

She closes her eyes and turns her head away, not wanting to see if Mikhaila is listening, and says, quietly, “Your insignificance is a gift from G-d. Be sure to cherish it.” Then she turns on her heel, and vanishes into the trees.

[talos1engineer-blog]

Family

▼

There’s blood on the walls- or rather, what’s left of the walls, crumbling and burnt out. Mikhaila stares at the shell of what used to be home, and thinks, they’re gone.

She hadn’t come back, right away. She should have.

Family first.

Her breath catches on a sob, and she crumples. Beneath her fingers, there- a scrap of cloth. She lifts it, imagines she can still smell Svetlana’s childish fake-perfumes, presses it to her face.

Alone in the ruins, she weeps.

▲

Christmas on Talos 1 is a dramatic affair, lights everywhere and everyone bright, pleased despite the heavy workload. In the hall, someone puts up an old-school corkboard, and pins a picture of a young boy. Someone else adds a picture of a dog. Soon, everyone’s posting pictures of the people they left behind, the people they can’t wait to get home and see.

Mikhaila gently pins a picture of her mother to the board, a picture of her sisters. The picture of her father she keeps close to her heart.

She thinks... she’s getting close.

Maybe they’ll all be together, next christmas.

[talos1engineer-blog]

Second chance

▼

After Father is taken, Mikhaila watches the mailbox daily. He’s not the first in their neighborhood to disappear in the middle of the night like that- he won’t be the last. Either he’ll come back, or the letter will come.

The letter comes, and Mikhaila’s heart falls as she runs out to grab it before her mother or the girls can see.

She’ll keep it from them as long as she can. Better the uncertainty than the dreadful knowledge of it. Because he is as good as dead, it’s a certainty.

In the Siberian Labor Camps, there are no second chances.

▲

His screams still echo in her ears. Her father, desperate- the strongest man she ever knew, kind and dignified and so certain of what was right and what wasn’t. She stands facing the corner of the room for a long time after Morgan leaves, shoulders shaking. She doesn’t know... what to think, how to feel.

She’s in a daze- but then she’s being ushered out of the room, talk of escape in her ear, and her breath catches, and she wheels back around to rush to the communication system, pressing the button down.

She has one last message to send.

Everyone deserves a second chance.

[talos1engineer-blog]

intertwined

▼

She dreams.

They are together again. A storm rages outside, but they curl into the bed, under the covers- Morgan’s toes press into the soft, warm skin behind Mikhaila’s knees, and Mikhaila groans in protest, squirming to face them instead. “Cold,” she mumbles, presses her face to their neck. A leg between hers, arms around her waist, her shoulders, curled in her hair, stroking her hip. Too many hands. She doesn’t care.

Static.

“Mika.”

The voice grates, and she squeezes her eyes shut, and pretends she doesn’t know that the storm has finally made it inside. It’s here.

-

Mikhaila wakes.

Morgan is still gone.

▲

She doesn’t make it to the dinner. Another line goes down, and she has to be there. There’s no note when she gets back, this time, and she feels... like she’s missed out on something that could have been... important. Great.

And yet... she sees Morgan Yu everywhere, suddenly. Did they always spend so much time among the engines and power lines? Did they always eat in the main hall? Did they always make eye contact with their subordinates when they passed them in the hall?

It feels like their lives are weaving together, an inescapable net.

When the next note comes, she makes sure to make the date.

[talos1engineer-blog]

lights

▼

Mikhaila stumbles, and knows she’s out of time.

Her hand catches on the wall opposite the long desk, and she thinks, what a place to die- the coolant monitoring station isn’t precisely comfortable, not that a single second of what’s going to come will be comfortable anyways. She puts her back to the wall and lets herself sink down, out of ‘sight’ of the phantom stalking the halls outside. Better to be on the floor than to fall when her legs finally give out-

Ah. Like that. She feels them going tense, slowly. At least for now she can still breathe, but... but. It won’t last that long.

She hasn’t heard from Danielle in a while. She hopes... She hopes they all got out.

Mikhaila closes her eyes, and the light flickers above her.

▲

In the middle of the snowstorm, the lights go out, and that’s when her mother cries out with the first pains of labor. Mikhaila knows what to do- she rushes upstairs to start running the bath, making sure the water’s just warm enough not to feel cold against her fingers, and then against her face, and then runs back down to guide her mother to it.

For hours, it’s just the two of them, and the labor. The phones are out- the lights are gone. Mikhaila brings blankets, runs the water warm to reheat the bath when the power flickers back on, before it disappears again, lights candles all around for them to see by.

And then it’s the four of them, and Mikhaila curls around her baby sisters while her mother slumps back against the tub edge, and she swears, even in the darkness it’s never been brighter.

[talos1engineer-blog]

ambition

▼

“Their ambition,” Danielle Sho hisses as Morgan and Alex Yu pass abovehead, “will be the death of us all.”

Mikhaila frowns at her. “What does that mean? What exactly are they going to do, neuromod us all to death?”

Danielle’s lips tighten, and she stalks away, tense.

Two months later, Mikhaila finally understands.

▲

CW/ NSFW

Morgan is... ambitious. Mikhaila has always known this, but she supposes she didn’t know the extent to which that would pervade all areas of their life, even the personal. At first, it was unsettling, the way they pushed against her, pressed their lips to her throat, asked if they were the best she’d ever had.

She could never be anything less than honest, though. And Morgan tightened their jaw, and pressed harder, and dove back in, again and again and again until Mikhaila screamed.

(The next time they asked, she could barely speak to say yes. They didn’t stop smirking for days.)

[talos1engineer-blog]

capsule

▼

The regimen of vitamins and mineral supplements Mikhaila’s on is frankly, to her thinking, ridiculous. She’s only sixteen, and 95% of the pill bottles in the bathroom cupboard are hers. (Not the anti-depressants, though. Those are her mother’s, half full and entirely out of  date, and her mother hasn’t left the bedroom in three days, and Mikhaila’s going to have to take the twins to the store with her again tomorrow because she can’t trust her mother to watch them-)

It takes her a full ten minutes a night to choke down every pill she has to take. The fish oil is the worst- it sticks in her throat, dissolves there, sends a wave of acidity into her throat when it finally breaks through. She stares at it contemplatively, leaning over the sink, already nauseated at the thought of it.

Before she can think too hard, she turns the tap on and drops the capsule down the sink.

(She stops taking the supplements. Two weeks later, she has her first full paralysis attack.)

▲

She knocks on the door firmly with the glass of water in one hand, the medication in the other. Her mother answers, bedraggled but... more aware. She’s coming out of it, and Mikhaila’s shoulders sag in relief, even as she hands the glass over and says, “Open,” firmly.

She’s seventeen. She watches her mother swallow the capsule, checks inside her cheeks and under her tongue for it, and makes her drink two full glasses of water to be sure it’s washed down.

She’s on the road to recovery. Mikhaila’s optimistic that if they keep it up, she might even be able to make her high school graduation.

[talos1engineer-blog]

contamination

▼

The diagnosis sounds like a death sentence, when she finally understands it. At first, she thinks it’s a simple illness, a virus. She got contaminated at school, or by something one of the twins brought home. She’s fourteen, hair still long and in pigtails draping over her shoulders, eyes still bright and youthful and full of determined hope. For nearly a year now she’s been unable to rid herself of the patches of vision obscured as if watching the world through snow, the progressive numbing of her limbs, the way her body has grown so tight and jerky that her mother has to watch her in the shower to be sure she doesn’t seize up and fall and hit her head.

(How will they afford these doctor’s visits? She doesn’t know. Father hasn’t been home in so long.)

And then, the death knell. Paraplexis. Very rare. No cure. Lifelong management. 

She knows what it is, by name at least. One of the few disorders that can keep a person from ever stepping foot on a spaceship. The potential for the paralysis to flare at any moment and cause extreme damage is too high.

Mikhaila smiles at the doctor and thanks him, hollow, as she watches her dreams disappear become nothing more than ash.

▲

“You’ve contaminated the oil line,” Mikhaila says, sighing. “We’re going to have to stop the entire line, wash it out, and put all of that fuel in the waste line. No- I don’t want to hear it. I don’t care. This is going in the log. You’d better think hard about how you’re going to convince them not to jettison you on the next stock run to earth.”

The tech turns and flees, trying not to cry, and Mikhaila feels guilty for only a second before she remembers what a mess they’ve made. She turns back to the line, surveying the damage, thinking about all the work ahead of her to fix this disaster before it starts negatively affecting other systems on the station.

The skin at the back of her neck crawls, and she whips around, eyes narrowing on a figure leaning over the railing of one of the higher floors.

Is that... Morgan Yu?

She stares up at them for several moments, then flushes and turns back around to get to work. Hopefully they didn’t think she was slacking off, or she might be on the next stock run back to Earth.

The day is long and difficult, and when she gets back to her berth, she collapses into her bed without looking at it, only to groan and roll over at the crinkling of paper. Pulling the single page out from underneath her, she squints at it blearily, the words not making sense for a moment.

When they finally do, she almost faints.

Dinner, tomorrow, 7pm, my office. - M. Yu

[talos1engineer-blog]

fraud

▼

Mikhaila stands frozen in the doorway of Morgan’s office, the words echoing in her ears.

You lied to me.

She wants to explain, wants the words to trip off her tongue, but there’s only a terrible yawning silence as Morgan refuses to even look up at her. As they say it’s best that they part ways now. As they dismiss her with a casual wave of the hand.

And she can’t defend herself, because they’re right.

She’s a fraud.

▲

Even with her degree, even with all of the work she’s put in to get here, Mikhaila is nervous as she stares at the email. It only says “Interview Results”, but, there, it’s from TranStar, and she’s been waiting for six months to hear this verdict.

She’s sure they’ll decide she’s a fraud.

But she clicks it open anyways, reads slowly, and when she’s done, she sinks down in her chair and buries her face in her arms and weeps, overwhelmed.

She made it in. She’s one step closer to finding her father.

[talos1engineer-blog]

heart

▼

The sound of the screeching alarms fades the second they jettison from the station, and Dahl growls, hold tight, but even the snapping of buckles into place doesn’t jolt Mikhaila out of her daze. Danielle drapes her arm around Mikhaila’s shoulders and drags her in, holds her steady as their speedy escape jolts the ship, but her gaze never wavers.

She can hear the ocean. Static. White noise. She can see it, too, blurring the edges of her vision, but it’s not the paraplexis, it’s just that she can’t breathe.

She’ll never breathe again.

Except she does, takes one deep breath in, then another, and then the turbulence fades as Dahl says, I’ve got to set up an orbit to enter from- get comfortable, we’ll be out here a while, and Danielle lets go, pats her shoulder, tries to get her to respond to some question or another.

She can’t hear anything.

They leave her alone, eventually, all of them, to curl over the empty body draped over her lap, to stroke hair back from their face, trail her fingers over quickly cooling cheeks and lips, to close sightless eyes, leaving streaks of the blood that’s still drying tacky on her fingers.

Morgan Yu is dead, and Mikhaila Ilyushin’s heart has broken for the last time.

▲

Gentle, gentle, Mikhaila chides herself, shifting slow and careful. Her arm stretches across the body of the scientist sleeping beside her, and she grabs the edge of the blanket and starts to drag it back-

Morgan catches it, in their sleep, shifts and rolls on top of it, and Mikhaila gives an aggravated sigh, then plasters herself to their back, tucking her chilled arms between them and closing her eyes.

The motion wakes Morgan enough for them to roll back the other way, and they drape themself over her, until her ear is pressed to their chest and she can’t remember that she was cold to start with.

She falls asleep to the rhythm of their heart.

[roleplayaskmemes]

Put a word in my askbox and I will give you a bad AND good memory from my muse's past that associates with said word.

[talos1engineer-blog]

concordantknight‌:

White Chain stops in her tracks. “Eleven billion is nothing,” she snaps, expression carelessly cruel. “Your world, your tragedy, your life - you cannot comprehend how small they are, how common.”

She raises herself to her full height, cold and imperious. “I carry the fates of a half a million universes on my back, and clash against false gods who could obliterate everything you have ever known with a thought. So do not fool yourself into comparing your suffering to mine, little human. I am vaster than you could ever know.”

Mikhaila’s steps carry her past White Chain before she slows to a stop, feeling curiously off balance, gaze focused on the horizon. “I see,” she says softly, before turning. She doesn’t face White Chain directly- she looks at her out of the corner of her eye, and takes a moment to breathe. Breathe. Her lower jaw trembles, teeth threatening to chatter, and she can’t tell if it’s anger or grief or just pure emotion, a vast and raging pit inside her that she didn’t realize was there until this moment.

“I see,” she says again, drawing the words out, letting them linger in the air. And then she gives a harsh, bitter laugh and says, “You’re awfully self-important, aren’t you, to think you know a damn thing about what I do or don’t think?” Emotion is thickening her accent, now, and she doesn’t resist the urge to slip into Russian, tone turning spiteful. It will translate into whatever language White Chain knows anyways, but it feels better, more authentic, to spit these words in her mother tongue, to let the acid drip off of them.

She didn’t know she was still capable of being so angry.

“Awfully self-important, to think that your suffering is worse than anyone else’s.” And she feels her eyes go flinty cold, her lip curl in a sneer, her breath release in an audible scoff.

“If you are so intent on wallowing in your own self-righteous martyrdom, then please, do not let me stop you. But consider this- you exist to fight that battle, to protect all of creation? Since when is the bodyguard ever worth more than what she guards? She is not. If she were, she would not be expended on the battlefield to protect the continuation of someone else.”

She takes a sharp breath, shocked at her own cruelty, but her voice doesn’t waver as she says, “Pathetic,” and turns her back. The anger is a comforting fire licking at her heart, masking the crack the hurt has caused, and it allows her to keep her shoulders and spine straight as she begins to walk again, not bothering to wait for a response. If the angel has one, she can damn well chase Mikhaila down, or yell it after her.

She’s not running away. She just has no reason to stay behind and speak to someone so incredibly and intentionally ignorant.