#Orbits writing

[splashaxis]

Soulmate AU?

so I rebloged a post about soulmates recently and I was really interested in writing a story and incorporating some those ideas!

so a little bit of context for this AU:

soulmates are pretty much only for borrowers, as humans don’t have them. Also when you have a soulmate (since not every borrower has one but most do) their hand print will be place somewhere randomly on your body, and it might not be in the same place for a pairing (Ex. How Poc has Corbin’s hand print on her back and he had Poc’s hand print slightly off center on his wrist)

***

Humans don’t have soulmates. At least not in the way borrowers do. 

Borrowers have glowing hand prints somewhere on their body, and have the ability to write messages on their arms or to telepathically speak. 

Never have a human and a borrower been soulmates. Or have they?

Poc had been told that her soulmate was probably just younger than her or something, and that’s why her mark hadn’t shown up. 

But she was a borrower of science. Unlike most borrowers, she had conflicting traits and many problems. 

She was very creative for a borrower, which caused everyone to call her things like “bright” or “gifted” as a child. Now that she was older though, her creativity was seen as “reckless” and “childish”

She also believed in science, and learning about math and literature. She was lucky her parents had taught her how to read and write. Most borrowers didn’t get to learn the whole English language or care about science.

She also had health issues that worried her parents. She thought about things differently and had a hard time breathing sometimes. Being able to breathe is definitely important.

So she just thought she didn’t have a soulmate. Never in a million years did she even suspect that her soulmate could be human, that is until about half her body glowed with a large hand print. 

“Craters.” 

“Hello…?!” A male voice responded mildly alarmed, further showing that humans don’t get soulmates.

“Do you know what’s happening?” He asked again, this time more confidently.

She knew she probably shouldn’t respond, but she was so lonely, and maybe this could be a good way to gain information on human behavior! One of her friends studied humans in an effort to help borrowers predict them better. This insight could help him in that mission.

“Yes” she responded simply, still forming her thoughts and words.

He waited a few seconds before getting impatient “well…?”

“We’re soulmates, usually people don’t uhhhh have them?” Poc tried to keep her voice even but her words tumbled out in more of a questioning tone, like she herself didn’t quite know. Which to be fair wasn’t far from the truth.

“Oh” he replied simply again “does that mean we should try and meet-“ 

“No. I’m not going to meet you.” She interrupted. ‘I shouldn’t even be talking to you. It’s bad enough I have your big as the galaxy hand on me!’ She thought angrily 

“Uhm… ok…” he sounded a bit dejected 

She couldn’t believe she was offering this to him but she still piped up to mend his newly rejected self “We can still be friends though”

She could feel him beaming “Really?!” 

Poc sighed heavily “really” 

Following Corbin: 

He was honestly pretty freaked out when all the sudden it was like he was talking to a void through his thoughts. 

After his void in counter with Poc he noticed a small hand print on his wrist. Corbin had to wonder why it was so small, maybe it was to be desecrate. He guessed it had something to do with the soul mate thing. Poc had said that most people don’t have soulmates so he opted not to tell anyone, and just hoped he would meet her one day. 

They had their first interaction a few years ago, but had never met. Corbin kept trying to push the subject but every time Poc refused saying things like “it’s inconvenient” or “now’s not the time”

Poc had figured out on day one that he was human, so meeting him was never on her agenda, but today she felt like she needed to at least tell him that she’s a borrower. 

Now she wouldn’t have had this thought if it were normal circumstances, but she was sure she was going to die. She had been to reckless today and had gotten stuck in some wires under the humans desk. She was always interested in human tech and would go into the beans room whenever he was out at school or whatever he did all day, to look at his computer.

“Uhhh Corbin…?”

“Oh hey Pockie Stix!” He cheerfully greeted back with the nickname he picked up somewhere along the way of their friendship 

“I- I don’t think I’m gonna make it…” she took a shaky breath then continued “and I feel like I owe you the truth about why I don’t want to meet you…”

“Hey what’s wrong?! Are you ok? What do you mean you don’t think you’re going to make it?!”

“Don’t worry you won’t care afterwards” she let out a pained laugh

“Wha- of course I will still care!” He was honestly hurt at her lack of trust even through the years.

“Well…” she sniffled 

“Are you crying?!” At this moment he just wanted to hug her and tell her everything was gonna be ok but he didn’t know what the danger was

“I was so mad at first when I found out a human was my soulmate…”

“Wait you’re not human??” Corbin was growing more confused by the second

“No… I’m a borrower…” at his stunned silence she continued “I was so offended that your hand print took up so much of my body. I was livid when you kept asking to meet me. I hated that I started to enjoy and look forward to our talks. I’m sorry” 

“W- wait… so your like… small???” 

“…yes”

“Is that why your hand print is small? You said mine took up…” Corbin trailed off, putting the pieces together. it made sense she was small, she didn’t talk about things the same way that he did. or that she didn’t seem to talk about normal human girl things.

“…yeah… I’m sorry, you were so excited to talk to me… but I’ve just let you down”

“You didn’t let me down, and I don’t think of you in a different way, you’re still the same girl I met 2 years ago. But you said you didn’t think you’re going to make it?” His mind flooding with much worse things that could be happening now that he knew she could presumably fit in his hand.

“OH! Yeah, I’m tangled in some wires” she had mostly forgotten about her little predicament while she was working it out with Corbin about being a borrower. “I don’t have time to explain all about borrowers right now but this human guy will definitely be back soon. He always leaves for a few hours at this time doing whatever the flip humans do” she explained 

“Anything else you can tell me?” He was starting to panic more while she seemed to be giving up “hmmmm well he’s tall, not just by my standards but by human standards too! His friend came over the other day and he towered over this other guy” she recalled a similar incident that had happened to him earlier in the week “oh! And he has dark shaggy hair and wears a white bandanna thingy…? I’m not sure what else you want me to say” she laughed nervously.

‘That sounds a lot like… me!’ He was starting to strongly suspect it was him she was describing “Is he hot?” 

“Excuse me?!”

“Er… uh sorry…” he hadn’t meant to shout that out to her, it was probably the last thing on her mind if he was honest. He just wanted to know if she found him attractive since they were soulmates and he was kind of in love with her.

“Well I guess he kind of attractive but that’s not helping the fact that he’s gonna kill me ok?” She deadpanned 

“Hang on I might be able to help”

“Wait what?!!?” ‘What does that mean? What is this idiot doing?!’ She called out distressed 

He drove home as fast as he could. He had been running errands since that’s what he usually did on Saturdays, but he could fully disregard that if his suspicions were correct. And oh gosh was he hopping he was right.

“Corbin?” She called out. He had stopped talking after he proposed that he could help her, which she highly doubted. Soon she heard the dreaded sound of the door opening but instead of his rhythmic footsteps, he was running, straight towards the room she was in. She cursed under her breath as she fought harder to get unstuck before hyperventilating more. 

“Poc? Poc!” The human called out

‘Why does he know my name?!’ She gasped for air as the wires and her hysteria constricted her breathing even more

“Poc are you underneath the table?” He asked her mentally to which he got no response, he should have expected that. 

He checked anyway, and sure enough there was a small girl struggling to breath and tangled in cords. He slowly sat down under his desk by the wires “Hey it’s ok! I’m just here to help you, but I know you’re not a big fan of receiving help…” he gingerly reached down to her and unwrapped the wires that had latched around her. “Hey…!” She grumbled but she had given up struggling to save her energy. She knew she couldn’t fight him or even try to leave at this moment, she had to wait. 

***

ok so I know I have some mess ups and potential inconsistency’s but I did my best with the hour I was given to write

hope y’all enjoyed!! ✨

[ixylle-d-from-the-stars]

Deathworlders everywhere but in Space

This is sitting in my brain because I haven't seen anyone else do this, but take a second to think about this: There are other deathworlders in space, terrifying ones, huge monster orc things. They are massive and nightmarish and impossibly strong. So thats why humans stand out. Thats how we survive. Human's are terrifying because we aren't built for one biome, one climate or even one planet. We aren't necessarily the strongest or fastest or scariest looking, but we're built to survive fucking everything. What if other deathworlder's are almost always only made to survive in one climate? (similar to some of the most deadly predators on earth currently) All the other deathworlders are terrifying, yes, but the second they step off their planet they're weak. Massive aliens of hulking muscle but their planet's gravity is a lot lower than the standard, so they barely meet the average strength bar whenever they go outside their gravity zone. Aliens that have venomous spikes all over their body and look gnarly as shit but their venom has practically no effect on 99% of discovered intergalactic species. Deathworlders whose planet is the nether from minecraft IRl, but they can't survive in any other temperature for any amount of time because their body just can't handle the cold and regulate their temperate (or, vice versa for tundra species). Aquatic species that are kraken-like nightmares, giant sirens and deadly squid-like beings. But they can't leave their home at all, because theres a very specific chemical makeup of their water that isn't currently found within their life-span distance travel. Deathworlders that genuinely can barely survive off planet and are frail compared to even the most docile prey species whenever they have to travel. Their called deathworlders because going to their planet is certain death, but if they leave they'll be meeting death just as quickly. And then along come humans, and everyones like, oh, another deathworlder, nothing to worry abou- wait. These guys dont seem to loose any of their natural strength off planet... and their fast and strong... and- AND THEY CAN SURVIVE IN PRACTICALLY ANY CLIMATE IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE??? HELLO? Oh and of course their predators. Of course most of their planet is completely uninhabitable for most of us. Mhm, yep. thats fair. Totally Basically, deathworlders are a thing, the more common 'terrifying alien monster' type, but their harmless because they can't survive like everyone else. They can't thrive like humans can. It scares the shit out of everyone for a wholeeeeee while, after all, no one ever expected a deathworlder that doesn't die.

[forest-posts-and-reblogs]

@derinthescarletpescatarian Aspen is fuckimg awesome

[ffsg0jo]

Hii! For the event (star), can I request Gojo as a roommate having a crush on you please? Thank you! (hoping I made it before event is over lol)

warnings: slightly suggestive, bad dates, mentions of sex, first kiss, intentional gojo to satoru

fics4gaza :: jjk masterlist

Roommate! Gojo, who was just looking to fill the spare room he had in his apartment. He didn't really need a flatmate, and he could afford the rent by himself, but sometimes Gojo gets lonely, and he thinks seeing and talking to another human could remedy that. He'd gone through about 4 or 5 trials before he had found you, and you were perfect.

You didn't need to air your underwear with a fan in the living room, you didn't keep your dildo in the shared freezer, and thank the lord you didn't have a really really strange and dubious smell wafting from your room. You were suspiciously normal, but after being traumatised by previous roommates, you were a breath of fresh air.

Roommate! Gojo, who insists on going grocery shopping for you both. He doesn't ask you to chip in or anything because it's just food. He's more than okay to cover it all and knows you're not as fortunate as he is with funds. Just add what you want to the sticky note on the fridge, and Gojo will go get it.

Sometimes, you both go together, and a small part of his brain thinks he could get used to it. Him pushing the trolley while you went through the list and got extra little sweet treats for you both. Gojo loved that the most about you. You were always down for a sweet treat.

(At first, you starkly refused, not feeling comfortable relying on someone else, but Gojo was so insistent you had no choice but to say yes. To show your thanks, you offered to make dinner for you both, so it became a tradition for you to cook whilst Gojo watches you, rambling aimlessly about his day. You'd be lying if it didn't put a smile on your face, though. It was a nice way to end the day)

Roommate! Gojo, who would use any excuse to have you hang out with him and his friends. He has a really good feeling that you, Shoko, and Suguru would get along really well. So he coincidentally invites them around when he knows you're on your day off and gets you to join their movie night, too. Gojo revels in the fact that he was once again right, and by the end of the day, you had exchanged numbers with them and were well on your way to becoming good friends.

(Before he left, Suguru pulled Gojo aside and told him not to mess it up. Gojo pretends like he doesn't understand what Suguru's on about and laughs it off, but deep down, he knows. He's already told himself the same thing a million times.)

Roommate! Gojo, who gets jealous when he hears you bringing guys/girls around after a night out. You've been living with him for 6 months now, and Gojo stopped sleeping with others at the 3 month mark. You were always respectful, though, making sure he knew beforehand when someone was over and always kept the noise to the minimum. Still, something in his heart would clench.

(You'd notice that the day after you'd bring someone around Gojo would be strangely unavailable and avoidant for the next two or three days. At first, when it happened, you assumed that he'd accidentally heard you, but after the second and third time this occurred, you thought maybe there was something else more to it? You didn't know what to think because he'd go straight back to normal afterwards anyways.)

Roommate! Gojo, who's always spoiling you whenever he goes travelling. There's always something that reminds him of you when he's away, and he just has to get it for you. You're always reluctant to accept, especially since he's always paying for you and getting you things, but he insists. In turn, you've started getting him little knick knacks, too. You once found a little rubber duckie with bright blue eyes, and you just had to get it for him. He still remembers the wide smile on your face when you presented it to him. The duck was admittedly a little creepy, but he kept it safe on his bedtime table.

(He'll take this to his grave, but he's never really felt homesick before you. He abroad, and all of a sudden, his heart aches for the smell of home, the smell of you. He misses you so much, and he can't help but see you in everything. If he could buy you the whole world, he would.)

Roommate! Gojo, who tries to take his mind off of you by trying to date other people, but it just never works. He starts talking to someone, and all of a sudden, they don't use emojis the way you use them. Their tone sounds completely off, and they don't appreciate the memes he sends like you would! He stops it before they can even ask for a first date, let alone a second.

He's realised you've completely ruined him. Gojo is besotted with you, to the point that no one else is attractive to him anymore. Except you. It's almost been more than a year since he last slept with someone, but he truly has no desire to sleep with anyone but you.

Roommate! Gojo, who's there for you after you come home from a bad date. You swore this one would be different. The conversations you had with them prior to the date made you think they could be the one. But meeting them in person was completely different. You came home in tears, thinking you truly weren't meant for long-term relationships. Maybe you were destined to be single forever.

Gojo offered to have a little pamper party for you and listened to all your rambles as you painted each other's nails. He even held you all night as you cried, the movie he put on in the background completely forgotten. Through the hiccups and tears you told Gojo, you wished you had someone like Gojo. 'Why not me', he whispered in response, a watery and uncertain smile on his face.

It was you who leaned in first, and albeit it a very watery and emotional first kiss, Satoru wouldn't change it for the world.

(You were surprised at Satoru's sudden confession. Over the past year and a half, you'd been living with him, and you'd gotten to know Satoru extremely well. And he was almost perfect. Never once did you think he'd be interested in you, so you took your chance and kissed him while you could. Even if it was for one night, Satoru was yours. When morning came, you'd have a serious conversation. But for now, you were each other's.)

Roommate! Boyfriend! Satoru who sneaked into your room almost every night because he claimed he 'couldn't sleep without your warmth'. He sleeped completely sprawled out, his limbs somehow taking up the entirety of the bed. You had no choice but to use him as a mattress and sleep on his chest. You complained often, but secretly, you loved it. His body was so comfortable to lay down on, and his arms wrapped around your frame made you feel warm and safe. The kisses he'd press to every inch of your face were also always welcome.

Boyfriend! Satoru, who talks about you moving in again, this time into his room (since it was the bigger room of the two), and using your room as extra storage space or an office. You were more than happy to agree with him, with you two sleeping together every single night for about 4 months now anyway.

(Satoru's room was filled with your things before he asked you to officially relocate. Half of your clothes filled his wardrobe, your skincare and toiletries were in his en suite, your books had taken up quite a couple of shelves too. Him asking was just making it even more official.)

a/n: thank you so much for your request !! you were right on time, so don't worry about it boo and i really enjoyed writing this. i hope you enjoyed it too, and once again, thank you for your request <33

© ffsg0jo 2024 — do not plagiarise, repost, modify, or translate any of my work, in any way shape or form; i will piss in your cereal if you do. all work belongs to me and me only.

[jadity]

@derinthescarletpescatarian 👀 is everything normal and happy at the end?

[thelongestway]

woke up thinking several of my recent sci-fi favorites would have trouble with some of their characters' pronouns if they were to be translated into Ukrainian for a very funny reason

the thing is, "it" in casual use isn't primarily dehumanising/instrumentalising

it's affectionate, sort of a diminutive, used in a "not old enough to be gendered" way

so you have anglophone writers using "it" for their characters to underscore that they treat themselves or are treated by others as inhuman instruments

and with Ukrainian (and probably other Slavic languages) you immediately have to deal with that the most widespread use of "it" is for "small child" or "baby /affectionate"

воно таке мале й таке миле

this would be harder to translate for Derin's Public Universal Friends - there is this whole emphasis on how it is a choice to become one, and the vetting process is decades long. nobody calls a PUF cute; they're recognized as useful but slightly terrifying in the "I chose to make myself into an instrument" way

and for Martha Wells' Murderbot this could probably work out of the box, because a lot of the story hinges upon the different perceptions of itself that Murderbot has in comparison to its humans, and a lot of the storyline has humans adopting Murderbot the same way it adopts them. so here the child!it could probably work pretty well

speaking of which i need to get back on a translation project i've been procrastinating on

[lovesickeros]

popping in randomly after almost an entire month just to talk non stop about the tsaritsa again everyone sit down.

specifically just thinking about the implications of tsaritsa's ideals originally being about love + the abandonment of those ideals to complete her goal of, presumably, destroying Celestia or whatever she's cooking up. to the point even her people don't love her and I probably don't even remember a time her ideals were of love. now it's all just ice and snow and cold.

which makes romantic fics w her even funnier because she's purposely removed this part of herself and suddenly reader walks into teyvat like they own the place (they do) and I can only imagine her reaction. angry, probably. because why you? what are you doing to her that's caused her hundreds of years of strict adherence to rejecting "love" both from others and to others to just. collapse. absolute shattering of her world and you probably don't even know it bc if nothing else she's good at hiding it. a lot of denial. tries to pick you apart and see what's makes you so different.

and oh she just hates it. she loathes it.

basically one sided enemies to lover trope because she can't stand you for a while but if you stick around she starts warming up to you and it makes it WORSE. so much worse. tries to distance herself but your just everywhere and it gets on her nerves because why does she love you? she isn't capable of love, not anymore. she thought she was.

g-d forbid one of the harbingers or PIERRO notices she'd never live it down. might even consider the implications of just killing you (she doesnt). worse if you know about it and act like a brat she will lose her damn mind

just the tsaritsa being an absolutely horrible mess internally.

[songofsoma]

can’t believe i never posted the commission i got of karlach and daefina from the talented @b0zart i’m still so in love with it

[sarahreesbrennan]

Goodbye, September!

Being Barnes & Noble’s SFF Book of the Month meant getting to sign piles of books wherever I went, having LONG LIVE EVIL in windows, seeing cool displays and my fabulous poster, having a wonderful event with the lovely Rachel Gillig, seeing other books on my Evil Table - it was especially thrilling when I saw books that were inspirations for LONG LIVE EVIL (shouted out in my acknowledgments!) like Scott Lynch’s Lies of Locke Lamora, anything Leigh Bardugo, Spinning Silver and THE PRINCESS BRIDE ON MY TABLE DO YOU SEE IT.

I’m mostly a text girl on my tumblr, but it was a wonderful time. Overwhelming (I was a slug with the amnesia for a week there) but wonderful. I was really sure, after cancer and losing many professional friends and contacts and after people in publishing TOLD me I was done, that I was done. I am so grateful to see Evil being embraced, to my publisher and my readers for giving me a chance. Publishing is a strange game, and it’s early days yet. This could all fall through. Sometimes you go into strange worlds for one brief adventure and sometimes they become home. But I want to be very joyful, even if just for a moment.

(Also yes I stole a book trolley and ran around B&N Union Square. That’s not important at this time.)

LONG LIVE EVIL has been on US bestseller lists for 4 weeks.

Farewell, September. Farewell, Evil Tables. You were a hell of a birthday month. I’ll miss you. I’m happy you happened.

[trippygalaxy]

Can you imagine how sorrowful the kokiri were after Link disappeared? Can you imagine their heartbreak after loosing two loved ones in the same ‘day?’ Their protector, gone and dead, even with the seedling left behind it did not help with mending their broken hearts. Neither did loosing the child the spirits helped raise. He had swore to do right by the Deku Tree and do right by Hyrule, leaving all that he knew behind. The boy, their boy, was just 10 when Hyrule was forced on his shoulders. He was just 10 when he doing a job only elders could truly comprehend.

…

When Link comes back to kokiri forest after the 7 year slumber, a slumber that would forever change his tired mind, he finds somewhere in the forest a small pile of rocks and sticks. Its a grave, on that he had never seen before nor remembered being so close to his home. A grave that had all sorts of flowers, freshly craved ocarinas and little toys scattered about it. Childish objects, ones that once had his face splitting with a smile to see. But as he admired the small grave, on one of the biggest stones a simple engraving stood out amongst the rubble.

“Always a hero, never a child.”

‘- Our Link’

[inbabylontheywept]

Someone had to go first.

In an odd first, I forgot to post this HFY story here until after it was voiced by BirbletonVA. Their channel actually did such an insanely good job that I would actually strongly recommend listening to it over reading it. Nonetheless, the text is provided below.

Please like and subscribe to their channel if you like their work.

The first ship that arrived was pretty matter of fact about its fate. The pilot introduced himself as Eric, and told us he was part of the first sublight resupply attempt in modern history. He then gave me and the ground control team his bad news.

“So,” he said. “Without real time telemetry, we weren’t even sure which half of your orbit you’d be in. That’s half a solar system’s worth of wiggle room. Decelerating enough to survive contact with your low orbit would take me two weeks, which, you know, it looks like we don’t have. That means that in order to get the second ship in before you lose orbital control to the Kresh, I’m gonna have to make a sacrificial flyby. Ten to the negative four torr is good enough for a lot of things, but at point-seven c it’s gonna be like sandblasting a soup cracker. Good news is that all the expensive toys are in the next ship, so this really ain’t costing you more than a ship and a pilot.”

“You knew,” I said. If they put the expensive toys in the second ship, they knew that the first was likely a sacrifice. No one smart enough to handle orbital physics would miss that.

“I did,” he said. “But someone had to go first.”

That was, of course, a lie. No one had to go first. No else had had, at least. When our connection to the FTL network was lost, we’d understood that as the end of our reinforcements. Doing resupplies via sublight was just too risky. It was a testament to Earth that it had accepted the risk and continued anyway.

“Is there anything we can do for you?” I asked. This man had come here to die for us. I wasn’t sure how much I could give, but what I had was his.

“I do have a few requests,” he said. “First up, I need as much high-orbital data as you got. The whole lot.”

I began directing tightbeam resources to him immediately. It was an easy resource to exchange - it wasn’t like there was anyone else out to talk to anymore. When we lost FTL, we found ourselves very, very alone.

“Second,” he said. “Right, I know I’m gonna sound like a princess right now, but I have been stuck in this stupid tin-can for almost two-years now, and I seriously overestimated how much I like synth music. If you have anything that’s analog - I don’t care what kind of string or drum or brass you play, but I’d kill to hear something without a beep in it.”

I jumped my own queue in the tightbeam, and added a short playlist that I ripped from the local web. Human Music, it was labeled. 3 Terabytes. I prayed there was something on it that he’d like.

“And third,” he said. “Third. The uh, next pilot is pretty mad at me. Turns out this will just be one of those things left unfinished. That’s all death really is, I guess - a lot of unfinished things. Let him know that he was right: He is a better pilot than me. But tell him that wouldn’t have made a difference here. Bad luck beats skill, and this luck was shit.”

I promised, and he went silent after that. We could see what data he was analyzing, and the short answer was all of it - everything from atmospheric density to troop positions and his own ship’s blueprints. He knew he had one shot at this, and that if the price wasn’t paid here, it would be paid by whoever came next.

---

Ground control didn’t get a verbal warning that he’d entered atmosphere. Just a ping. A little here-I-am, whispered in the dark.

After that, we could keep track with visuals alone.

He hit the outskirts of the exoatmosphere in his first pass, burning bright enough to be seen with the naked eye. He caught the sparse particles like a kite, trying to shed enough speed to hit actual low orbit. Automatic telemetry updates gave us the grim news for the ship: Thermals were holding up decently, but the ablative was wearing out fast.

The entire descent brought us more than two hour’s reprieve. The Kresh hadn’t expected to see a resupply, but they knew what one meant: Get it now, get it fast, or deal with a stream of new troops. They could buy themselves ten days' time by shooting this one ship down now. That was an eternity during a siege.

The first loop lowered the speed by about a twentieth of light. The pilot responded by pulling the ship in tighter, burning trying to preserve more ablative plating by trading off with thermal. Seven fighters were close enough to fire off heat seekers. I don’t think the Kresh had ever anticipated shooting down a craft coming in that hot - the missile's decoy avoidance countermeasure actually made it steer around the thing, chasing down loose pieces of shrapnel. Cooled fragments, still hotter than an engine, should be at full blast. The simple mistakes bought it enough time to enter pre-orbit, and the fighters had to stop their pursuit. They weren’t willing to die to stop the ship.

Our man, on the other hand, was already committed to that course.

A third loop followed a fourth. Ablative coating went from 65% integrity, to 30%, to 5%. Telemetry scans were exceptionally detailed - the pilot was making the flyby count. The last message we got from him was simple:

Are you EMP shielded? he asked, not even bothering to encrypt the text stream. He didn’t have time to process more than that.

Yes, we replied. We knew what he was thinking, but it was still a shock to see it. The fusion torch flared hot, burning through the nozzle and feeding directly into the craft’s dueterium supply. The reaction went super critical, and the resulting neutron pulse set off everything in the ship with a z-count higher than iron. Three continuous seconds of EM interference screamed through the comms as the hulk burned through orbit.

The explosion itself wasn’t powerful enough to kill the Kresh ships still in high orbit, but it made enough broadband radiation to blind both sides LADAR. The man must have been a hell of a pilot - half the shrapnel went down and got burned up as it entered the standard atmosphere, traded as the cost of moving the other half past lagrange. Standard evasion would’ve made the pieces easy to dodge, but with LADAR down, all the Kresh could do was sit still and cower as the wrath of a dead man riddled them full of holes. Our best ace had managed to shoot down seven ships before this before getting shot down himself. The wreckage of the freighter took down six.

---

The second ship came in stealth. One second, we were holding attrition in high orbit, the next, something the size of a small station came ripping through the atmosphere.

It did the same trick as the former - swapping between ablative and thermal loads, coming down at a speed that the Kresh fighters didn’t even try to match. Armies could be built in years, but skills like this took decades.

Telemetry connection was established almost as an afterthought. The way the ship casually ate through ablative armoring made my eyes water, but the pilot himself seemed pretty non-plussed.

“You’re down to fifteen percent coverage. You need-

“What I need,” he said, “is to see the previous ship’s telemetry. If there’s one thing you can trust, it’s that this bird is going to come down gentle.”

He cut off my chance to reply by flicking the channel off. We watched, and we wrang our hands, but sure enough he came in six minutes later with 4% of the ablative left.

I met him on the landing pad. Under normal circumstances, we’d have needed twenty-four hours for the craft to cool enough to even approach, but we’d had cryo ready just in case. Three tankers of nitrogen, and the loading area, at least, was cool enough to touch. Safety would have to take a backseat to speed here - we needed the supplies fast.

But those both would take a backseat to a promised conversation with the second pilot. He was out of the craft as soon as the air was cool enough to avoid scalding his lungs, picking through the workers to try and find who had the telemetry data.

I found him first. The drive went into his hands, but I needed to keep my promise with Eric before letting go.

“You’re better than the first pilot,” I said, and I wasn’t lying. If the previous flier had been a saint, this one was a god. “But you wouldn’t have been able to manage the landing either. There just wasn’t time.”

“Let me see,” he said, tugging on the drive. “Just let me see. I have to know I couldn’t do it either. I have to know that someone had to die.”

I let go of the drive and he stalked back into his ship. I didn’t follow. I figured I’d pushed things far enough as it was.

---

The second pilot left the ship six hours later. He looked bleary in a way that put me at ease. I’d been up the last six hours directing supplies from the ship. Everything from ground-to-orbit rails to AGI targeting systems was inside, and to say it was gamechanging would be an understatement. It was good work, but I was tired, and I didn’t want to have to pretend otherwise. Seeing the other man with bags under his eyes meant we could just be frank with each other.

“I couldn’t have managed it,” he said, half-ashamed, half-relieved.

“It just wasn’t possible,” I agreed.

We sat there a moment longer. I didn’t mind the break. This was time well spent.

“Did it hurt?” he asked finally.

“Ablative failed before heating,” I said, which was the technical way of saying no. “He overloaded the reactor before the ship actually broke up and did some kind of slingshot maneuver - hit the main body of the Kresh fleet with half a space station’s worth of shrapnel.”

“Good,” he said.

I knew the signs. The tremor in his cheek, the way his jaw clenched - it wasn’t professional, but I hugged him anyway. Let him have the dignity of choosing to weep instead of having it wrenched out of him.

It was a gift we’d all been given at some point in this war. At least now, there was the hope it could be over soon.

[splashaxis]

Bottoms Up Borrower 🥂 3

I have way to much time right now but since my classes haven’t started up yet here’s a little bit more of BUBAU also I’m so sorry for how unthought out this story is, it started out as a blurb

edit: I accidentally posted the wrong chapter so I will be giving y’all part 2 and finished part 3 later

***

Remember when Santi thought everything was going great? Yeah it’s not going great anymore.

George’s class had ended early when Santi went into his room to borrower some more fabric.

He hid behind the sewing machine, but he knew his cover wouldn’t last. He needed to get to the exit in the walls, unfortunately that was located on top of a shelf he couldn’t get to with out alerting the human to his presence.

George would definitely see him if he left right now. George was currently sitting on his bed finishing an assignment so he could start sewing. 

Which means he would use the very sewing machine that concealed, albeit poorly, the little borrower.

‘Shit shit shit!’ he thought to himself over and over. The longer he waited the more likely that George would find him while he was sewing, and the more likely that he would die.

Every borrower knew, from the day they could form a coherent thought, that humans would kill on sight. No matter how nice or sweet they were to their peers or how kind they looked, that humans were merciless creatures who were to big for their own good.

***

Sorry it’s so short, I wrote this in the middle of my break lol

I hope y’all enjoyed ✨

edit: I posted the wrong part of the story so none of this makes sense lol

also I deleted the chapter so…

[reverie-quotes]

What can we do in our abandoned solitude but gaze at ourselves? Examine ourselves in endless bouts of fascinated distraction, fall in love and hate with ourselves, make a theatre, myth and cult of ourselves. Because what else is there?

— Samantha Harvey, Orbital

[puppyeared]

object permanence so bad I have to reread old messages for my brain to go ‘oh yeahhhh I care them’

[darkwindowofdreams]

me after realizing why Pepper chose that as her name

[beesgav]

Since he built the Arcadia seemingly from nothing I think it stands to reason that Tochiro also programmed its operating system