#they leave in a spaceship and now they have to do tasks

[simdroid2000]

Somewhere, out in space...

...*beep*...*bubble*...*click*....

...*click*...*tap*...

"Hehe, I'm so glad I get this station out here..."

"Oh!" *click*

"Ahem! I didn't see you there. Welcome to Eco-Scout Ranger Ship No. 2043, produced by Ecotech. My work identification number is 413131, but all my friends call me Mimi."

"Our job at Ecotech is to explore the universe, looking for any signs of lifeforms. I'm the, uh, sole unit of this ship, so my tasks are pretty simple."

"I do a lot of button pushing, reading numbers off of screens...oh, and I take notes sometimes. It's obviously all very important."

"Each scout ship also has a fish tank for cooling the systems. The fish don't really need to be taken care of, so I'm usually just bothering them because I'm bored."

"Some might say this job seems a little too easy. Like, I'm up here by myself, right? So nobody knows if I'm actually doing any work, or just writing down whatever."

"Not that I would do that! I'm just saying. Plus, it's not like anything happens. I've been working here for, like, two years, and I haven't seen anything fun or interesting."

"Everyone said, 'Oh, Mimi, you'll love this job! Ecotech is so cool!'"

"Yeah right. They're lucky I don't leave right now."

"But, sometimes you just have to do what you gotta do to make a living. It's easy, but what's better than getting paid to nap on the job during downtime? Not that I'd do that, of course..."

"...zzz...."

............................................

*screeeeeeeeech*

Terrestrial Planet Spotted. Automated Lifeform Scan Beginni-KZKZZRRRRTTTT

BOOM

KERCHUNK....bzzzztttttttttttttttt...........

!! ALERT !! ALERT !!

"Zzz...huh?"

"Alert?"

!! ALERT !! ALERT !!

"I better be dreaming, because nothing ever happens up here. I literally just said that an hour ago."

"Look, I was lying earlier. I took this job because it was easy. I don't care about Ecocheck or whatever. I don't even know what anything on this spaceship does!! Jay told me I wouldn't have to deal with anything serious!!"

"I thought all I had to do was push some buttons and feed some fish! I'm not dying for some stupid job!"

"I'm outta here!!"

"Oh no, the ship--!!!"

"OOF--!!!"

!! ALERT !! ALERT !!

!!!...Initiating...Emergency Crash Landing Sequence...!!!

!!!....Location: Unknown....!!!

end part 1...

[misspygmypie]

You're Not My Real Dad

Part of the "Meet & Greet... and more?" Universe Pairing: Lando Norris x Noah Words: 1501 Request: Omg I absolutely love the meet and greet series. 😍 I was wondering if I could request something where Lando and Noah get into a fight. Like Lando told him to clean up his toys and Noah dose the whole 'your not my dad' line. But happy and sweet ending of course. 😌 Masterlist

Please do not repost, thank you, and leave some feedback :)

Lando had barely stepped inside his apartment when he felt the weight of a long race weekend lift off his shoulders. But as he walked through the modern space, lined with sleek furniture and bathed in the soft glow of evening light filtering through the large windows, his attention was drawn to a new challenge awaiting him. His seven-year-old son, Noah, had been struggling a bit with his recent move to Monaco and today was no different.

The apartment was a mix of the unfamiliar and the exciting - a space with stunning views of the Mediterranean Sea. Yet, for little Noah, it was all a bit overwhelming. The transition had been difficult and the chaos of his new room showed his unease.

After a quick shower Lando headed towards Noah’s room, his footsteps soft on the polished floors. He knocked lightly on the door before opening it. Noah was deeply engrossed in constructing a Lego spaceship on the floor, surrounded by an ocean of toys, books and scattered art supplies. The room looked like a miniature storm had hit it.

“Hey, buddy,” Lando said gently as he stepped into the room. “I see you’re building something amazing there.”

Noah looked up briefly, his concentration breaking. “Uh-huh.”

Lando smiled, sitting down beside him. “I’m glad you’re having fun but it’s time we clean up a bit. The room’s a bit messy and we need to get it sorted.”

Noah’s eyes narrowed and he pushed a Lego piece aside with a sigh. “I don’t want to.”

Lando’s heart ached at the reluctance in Noah’s voice. He understood how the move had been hard on him - new city, new school, new environment and now it seemed like even the small tasks were a burden.

“Noah,” Lando said softly, his voice concerned, “I know it’s been a bit tough lately. Moving to a new place can be really hard but we need to take care of our space so it feels more like home. Come on, let’s clean up a bit.” He reached for a stray Lego piece on the floor but Noah’s small hand shot out to grab it back.

“No!” Noah screamed. “I don’t want to! I hate it here!” He pushed the Lego piece away and kicked at a pile of books, sending them tumbling across the floor.

Lando’s patience began to fray but he tried to meet Noah’s gaze. “I understand that you’re upset. It’s a big change and it’s not easy but this mess isn’t going to help.”

Noah’s face flushed red, his anger escalating. “You don’t get it! You’re not my real dad! You don’t know how I feel!” He grabbed a handful of toys and threw them across the room, the clatter echoing off the walls.

Lando’s smile faltered. When he heard those words - “You’re not my real dad!” - his heart sank. It felt as though someone had physically twisted a knife in his chest. The sting of Noah’s outburst cut deeper than any racing setback he’d ever faced. The room, once just a mess of toys and books, suddenly felt like a battleground of emotions. 

“I may not be your real dad but I care about you a lot. I’m trying to make things better here. It’s not just about cleaning up, it’s about making this place feel like home.”

“No!” Noah shouted. “I don’t want this! I don’t want you telling me what to do!”

Lando’s face hardened as he stood up, his hands on his hips. “Well, what do you want, Noah? Just to sit here and wallow in the mess? That’s not going to fix anything. I’m trying to make things better for you!”

Noah shook his head, his anger now giving way to raw emotion. “I want my old room, my old friends. I want things to be normal!”

Lando’s shoulders sagged as he realized that shouting wasn’t going to help either of them. His anger dissolved into frustration and sadness. He took a deep breath and walked over to Noah, kneeling down to be at his level. “I know you miss your old life but we have to face this new reality together. If we keep fighting like this, it’s only going to make things harder.”

Noah looked away, his small body trembling. “This place is too big and too different.”

Lando’s mind raced, reflecting on the countless ways he had tried to make the transition easier; setting up Noah’s room, spending extra time with him whenever he could and making sure he felt welcomed in their new surroundings. Yet, despite these efforts, the move had taken a toll. Hearing Noah made Lando question if he had done enough or if he had somehow failed.

In his personal life there were no pit crews or advisors to help Lando navigate these emotional terrains, just him, his love for Noah and the desire to be the best father he could be.

Despite the hurt Lando knew he had to remain calm and supportive. He took a deep breath, pushing aside his own wounded feelings to focus on Noah’s needs. It was clear that Noah was feeling lost and was reaching out in the only way he knew how.

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Lando said quietly, his voice steady. “I know things are different for you and it’s not easy but I care about you and I’m here for you, even if it doesn’t always seem that way. Being your dad means helping you through tough times and sometimes that means cleaning up a messy room together.”

Noah’s eyes welled up and he looked down at the scattered toys, overwhelmed. “I don’t want to clean up. It’s too much.”

Tears began to roll down Noah’s cheeks and he buried his face in his hands. The sight of his son, usually so full of energy and laughter, now so vulnerable and upset, struck Lando deeply. He knew this move had been incredibly tough for Noah, tougher than him and Y/N had expected, and the weight of the transition was clearly taking its toll.

Lando gently pulled him close. “It’s okay to be sad,” he said softly. “I understand. Moving is hard and it’s a lot to handle but you don’t have to go through it alone. I’m here to help and I’m not going anywhere. We’ll figure this out together.”

Noah’s bawling became more intense and his little body shook with the force of his crying. “I’m sorry,” he choked out. “I didn’t mean it. I know you’re my dad. I just… I just don’t know how to feel.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Lando whispered. “You’re allowed to feel however you need to. It’s okay to let your feelings out. I’m here with you and we’ll get through this. It might be tough now but we’ll find our way.”

Noah’s sobs gradually subsided and he looked up at Lando with tear-streaked cheeks. “I really miss my old room,” he said softly.

“I know you do,” Lando said gently, brushing a tear from Noah’s face. “And it’s okay to miss it. We can make this new place special too. Let’s work on it together, one step at a time.”

Noah nodded, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “Okay. Can we make it fun?”

“Absolutely,” Lando said, his heart lifting at the sight of Noah’s willingness to try. “Let’s turn cleaning up into a game. We’ll see who can find the most missing pieces and put them away. And afterwards we’ll have a movie night with popcorn and whatever else you want, just the two of us.”

Noah’s face brightened slightly and he gave a small, grateful smile. “Popcorn sounds good.”

“Popcorn it is,” Lando said, smiling back. “Let’s go.”

They began tidying up and Lando made a game out of it, pretending that each toy was a hidden treasure to be found and organized. He exaggerated his excitement over each discovery, making Noah giggle despite himself. The room quickly started to look more organized and Noah’s mood lifted with each passing minute. Noah’s laughter returned as he found a new rhythm in the task and Lando felt nothing but relieved.

When they finally finished the room was clean and tidy. Noah looked around. “We did it, dad.”

“We sure did,” Lando said, giving him a high-five. “Now, let’s pick out that movie.”

They made their way to the living room where Lando let Noah choose from a selection of Disney movies. Noah’s choice was Cars - an obvious choice - and they settled in with popcorn and cozy blankets.

When the opening credits rolled Noah snuggled up against Lando, a sigh escaping his lips. The earlier tension had eased and the comfort of being with his dad made the new apartment feel a little more like home. Lando looked down at the boy in his arms. The transition to Monaco was still a work in progress but moments like these made it clear that, together, they could make it work.

________

AN: Anon, I hope you like it and it's what you had in mind 🥹🫶

I'm starting a new taglist for any stories Lando x Noah related, let me know if you want to be on it!

Also, keep them requests comingggg, I have next week off and need something to do 🤭

Taglist: @eloriis @pacifierbby @landossainz @littlegrapejuice

[thatgiraffefromtlou]

The Aurora Project

(part 1)

paring: ellie williams x fem!reader(ish?)

summary: as a result of a malfunction, you and ellie awaken from cryosleep aboard a spaceship with no memory. will you find evidence that you’re more than just shipmates? something to give reason to your nagging familiarity to the stranger you wake up next to?

warnings: eventual explicit language, potential for smut in later chapters (depending), close description of the start of a panic attack? maybe? idk that’s what mine feels like. uh cringy teasing idk- lmk if there’s more this is pretty tame-

A/N: ellie loves space, we love ellie, why now combine the two? i’m really gonna try my best to finish this one. because it’s not in the tlou universe i don’t have to match naughtydogs pacing in the games (like i do with my other DYHMN) and can make up my own so it won’t be such a long story! still long and definitely slow burn tho!

work count: 2.6K

– Chapter one –

The hiss of escaping air pierced the silence, a sharp and startling sound that jolted you from your dreamless slumber. Your eyes snapped open, your vision blurry and unfocused, struggling to adjust to the dim light that surrounded you. The metallic taste of cryosleep lingered on your tongue, a bitter reminder of your long suspension. You gasped, drawing in your first conscious breath in what felt like an eternity, the cool air burning your lungs as if you'd forgotten how to breathe.

Disoriented, you fumbled with the release mechanism of your pod, your fingers clumsy and uncooperative. The smooth, cold surface of the controls felt alien under your touch. As the glass canopy finally slid open with a soft whoosh, the chill of the ship's recycled air kissed your skin, causing goosebumps to ripple across your body in its wake. The sensation was both uncomfortable and oddly invigorating, a stark contrast to the numbness of your suspended state.

Your muscles protested vehemently as you pushed yourself up with a groan, your movements sluggish and uncoordinated. Every fiber of your being ached, as if you'd run a marathon in your sleep. "Where... where am I?" you mumbled to yourself, your voice barely above a whisper, hoarse and dry from disuse. The words felt strange in your mouth, your tongue thick and unresponsive.

The low emergency lights cast an eerie red glow across the vast expanse of the cryobay, creating long, ominous shadows that danced along the walls as they flashed. Your gaze, still adjusting to consciousness, slowly scanned the room, taking in the surreal scene before you. Lines of pods, seemingly endless in number, filled the space, each containing a silent, motionless figure. The dim white light emanating from within the pods created a strange, almost ethereal contrast to the blinking of the red emergency lights, giving the entire bay an otherworldly atmosphere.

As your mind gradually cleared, you slowly started to realize the gravity of your situation. You'd woken from your cryosleep, but why? A small panic began to creep through your chest, its icy tallons wrapping around your heart. Your head swam, an almost floaty feeling overtaking you as you grappled with your new reality. The disconnect between your last conscious memory and your current situation was jarring, leaving you feeling untethered and lost.

You forced yourself to take a few deep breaths, trying to calm your racing heart and clear the fog from your mind. With great effort, you struggled to slide out of your pod, every muscle in your body aching and pleading you to stop. The simple act of movement felt like an insurmountable task, your limbs heavy and uncooperative. You had no idea how long it had been since you'd last used your muscles, but from the way they felt - weak, stiff, and painfully sore - and the way your throat was begging for water, parched and raw, you'd say it had been a pretty significant amount of time. Months? Years? The uncertainty only added to your growing anxiety.

With trembling legs, you finally managed to get on your feet, immediately reaching out to hold onto the edge of your pod for support. The cool metal under your fingers provided only a small measure of comfort. "Hello?" you called out, your voice cracking, barely louder than before. Your heart raced, pounding so hard you could feel it in your throat. The sound of your own voice echoing in the vast, silent chamber only intensified your feeling of isolation.

There was no response to your call; all you were met with was the low, persistent hum of the machines around you, the sound of your own panicked breathing, loud in the oppressive silence, and the whoosh of your heart beat in your ears. The lack of any human presence or activity only heightened your sense of unease. Slowly, carefully, you turned your head, your gaze falling upon the pod next to yours. To your surprise and relief, its occupant was stirring, showing signs of life amidst the previous stillness.

A woman with dark auburn hair struggled with the release mechanism of her pod, mirroring your own recent experience. Her movements were just as sluggish and uncoordinated as yours had been. You turned your body, every movement still an effort, and slowly walked around to stand at the foot of her pod. Your progress was painfully slow, each step deliberate as you used the edges of the pods for support, your legs still unsteady beneath you.

As you watched, the glass canopy of her pod slid open with a soft hiss, a type of misty fog slowly spilling out, curling and dissipating in the air. The woman inside sat up, her movements jerky and uncertain. As she looked around, her expression mirrored the confusion you felt, a mix of disorientation and growing alarm evident in her features.

"Are you alright?" you asked, your voice still rough but gaining strength. The woman turned at the sound, your words seeming to bring her down from her disoriented state. Her green eyes, bright and alert despite the lingering effects of cryosleep, met yours. As your gazes locked, a flicker of recognition flooded your brain, quick and elusive. It was gone almost as soon as it appeared, quickly replaced by uncertainty and a nagging sense that you should know this person, even though you couldn't place how or why.

"I... I think so," the woman replied, her brow furrowed in concentration. Her voice was as dry and raspy as yours had been, another testament to the long period of disuse. She cleared her throat, the sound harsh in the quiet of the cryobay, before she spoke again. "I'm Dr. Williams. At least, that's what my pod says." She motioned to the foot of her pod, where a nameplate was clearly visible. Her eyes, however, held a mix of confusion and frustration as she continued, "But I can't... I can't remember anything else." She shook her head in defeat, her dark hair falling around her face, adding to her disheveled appearance.

The admission sent a chill down your spine. It wasn't just you, then. The realization that you weren't alone in your confusion was both comforting and alarming.

Your breath caught in your throat as the implications of her words sank in. "I'm…" you began, then paused, suddenly unsure. You looked over to your nameplate at the foot of your pod, reading the name etched there. You gave the woman your name, but your tone was questioning, uncertain, as if you were trying the sound of it for the first time. Your eyes found hers again as you spoke, searching for any sign of recognition or familiarity. "But I don't remember much either," you admitted, the words leaving a bitter taste in your mouth.

There was a heavy pause as you both looked around the cryo bank, taking in the rows upon rows of occupied pods, the blinking lights, and the humming silence. A deeper sense of panic began to fill your chest, more intense than before. The enormity of the situation was starting to sink in - you were awake, with no memory, on what appeared to be a massive ship, with potentially hundreds or thousands of others still in cryosleep. "Are we the only ones… awake…?" you asked, your voice barely above a whisper, as if speaking the words too loudly might make the situation more real, more terrifying.

The woman looked back at you, her expression a mixture of hesitation and uncertainty. "I'm not sure... I think so..." she murmured, her voice barely above a whisper. There was a prolonged pause as you both continued to search the room with your eyes, desperately seeking any clue that might shed light on your situation. "But why...?" she finally asked, voicing the question that had been echoing in your own mind. Why? And not just why, but how? How did you end up here, in this unfamiliar place, with gaps in your memory?

You strain to recall your last clear memory, the one that stood out the most was only a fleeting image. A brief flash of signing a document. The paper, you remembered, was meant to secure you the very pod from which you had just awakened. But the reasons behind your signature and your intended destination remained frustratingly elusive. Along with most of your past experiences, these crucial details seemed to have vanished from your mind.

It was as if your brain had undergone a selective wipe, retaining only the information necessary for basic survival. Perhaps even the lessons your experiences had taught you remained, but the experiences themselves had faded away like morning mist. You couldn't help but wonder: Was this a common side effect of cryo sleep? Had the people who placed you in this state warned you about potential memory loss? If so, those warnings were now lost to you as well. How long would this amnesia last? Would your memories ever fully return?

These questions swirled in your mind, each one giving birth to a dozen more, creating a dizzying spiral of uncertainty and confusion. You felt yourself being pulled deeper into this mental whirlpool, losing touch with your immediate surroundings.

Suddenly, the woman called out your name, her voice cutting through your spiraling thoughts like a knife. Your head snapped back to face her, the motion so quick it left you slightly disoriented. As your eyes met hers, you experienced a flooding sensation of familiarity again, a feeling that dissipated as quickly as it had come. The constant ebb and flow of recognition was both frustrating and deeply unsettling. In an attempt to regain your composure, you shook your head, as if trying to physically dislodge the confusion. "Sorry, yeah... I don't know..." you managed to stammer out, your voice sounding foreign to your own ears.

For what felt like an eternity, the two of you stood there, locked in a mutual gaze. Neither of you seemed capable of finding the right words to break the heavy silence that had settled between you. The atmosphere was thick with tension, your nerves on edge as you both continued to search each other's faces for any sign of recognition or understanding. Finally, the woman spoke, her voice tinged with a hint of vulnerability. "Help me out of this thing?" she asked, gesturing to her cryo pod.

You nodded silently, moving to assist her. However, as you reached out, you quickly realized that you weren't in much better shape yourself. Your muscles, still sluggish from the prolonged period of inactivity, protested against even this simple movement. Despite your best efforts, you found yourself offering little more than moral support as she struggled to extricate herself from the pod.

As she finally managed to step out, her hand inadvertently brushed against yours. The brief contact sent an unexpected jolt through your body, an inexplicable warmth spreading from the point of contact and radiating through your chest. Instinctively, your eyes snapped up to meet hers, half-expecting to see a face you'd known your entire life. Instead, you were met with the same mix of confusion and intrigue that you felt mirrored in your own expression. The familiarity of the sensation contrasted sharply with the stranger's face before you, adding another layer to the frustration of your situation.

"We need to figure out what's going on," the woman declared after a moment, her voice carrying a forced confidence that barely masked her underlying uncertainty. You found yourself nodding in agreement once more, still reeling from the unexpected warmth that her simple touch had evoked. It was as if your body remembered something your mind had forgotten, a connection that transcended your current state of confusion.

Taking a deep breath to steady yourself, you took a step back and began to survey your surroundings more thoroughly. Your eyes scanned the room, searching for any sign of an exit. The woman seemed to have the same idea, her gaze darting from one corner of the room to another. Without exchanging words, you both began to move away from your pods, heading in the same direction down a long corridor lined with other cryo units. You could only hope that this path would lead you to some answers, or at the very least, a way out of this situation.

As you walked side by side, a thought suddenly surfaced in your mind. "Dr. Williams?" you ventured, turning to look at the woman. She responded with a soft hum, indicating that she was listening. You hesitated for a moment, your eyes dropping to your feet before meeting hers again. "What's your first name? If you can remember, I mean. Might be easier than Dr. Williams..." You trailed off, feeling somewhat awkward about the question.

To your surprise, she let out a soft chuckle. The sound was strangely familiar, sending a small rush of heat to your cheeks. Why was everything about this woman so familiar, so intimately known to you, yet simultaneously foreign? Like smelling something outside in the wind and feeling the emotions attached to that smell, only to not be able to put your finger on what and why. The feeling was tantalizingly close, hovering just at the edge of recognition, like a word on the tip of your tongue. And only sometimes were you blessed with the epiphany of what that smell was, days or even weeks later, that would strike without warning, bringing with it a flood of understanding and the satisfying click of pieces falling into place. "Ellie," she replied, a smile playing on her lips as she watched for your reaction. Your brow furrowed slightly as you processed this information. "You remember that, or was it on the pod?" you asked, unable to keep a hint of teasing disbelief from your voice. After all, you had awakened first, yet she seemed to be recovering her memories more quickly.

Ellie's smile widened, taking on a slightly sheepish quality. "It was on the pod," she admitted, "but it feels right now that I've said it out loud." You nodded, understanding the sentiment. "Ellie..." you repeated, testing the name on your tongue. It yet again felt familiar, comfortable, as if you had said it countless times before.

As the two of you continued your search for an exit from the bay, you couldn't shake the persistent feeling that there was more to your relationship than simply being shipmates or colleagues. The ease of your interactions, the inexplicable warmth you felt in her presence, and the nagging sense of familiarity – it all pointed to a deeper connection. These sensations were too intense, too immediate to be explained by a chance meeting between strangers.

Your eyes drifted to the viewports lining the corridor, taking in the vast expanse of space beyond. The cosmos stretched out infinitely, a silent witness to the mysteries of your past and the uncertainties of your future. As you gazed at the star-studded blackness, you couldn't help but wonder what other secrets it held. What events had led you to this moment? What purpose had brought you to this ship, drifting through the endless void? And most intriguingly, what role did Ellie play in your forgotten past?

The questions multiplied with each step you took, but answers remained frustratingly out of reach. You glanced at Ellie, noticing that she too seemed lost in thought, her brow furrowed in concentration. Perhaps together, you could unravel the enigma of your shared circumstances. For now, all you could do was press forward, hoping that somewhere in this vast ship, you would find the key to unlocking your memories and understanding her true purpose in your life.

part 2:

A/N: lmk if so if u wanna be in the tag list!

[byrdstrolls]

It's Over. So What?

There weren’t any other viable planets in the Corsican System. The twin suns were only orbited by two planets. One was a desolate black sphere that managed to lack both breathable atmosphere, livable surface and viable ores. The Fleet called it 57B. The Corsican’s called the foreboding hunk of rock that shared the sky with their planet so lush with life Little Sister.

Once Corsica was nuked beyond any whimper of livability, due to the lack of prospects for other colonial projects, there wasn’t much for The Fleet to really “do” there. Statistically, the galaxy had more barren planets than livable ones. Their projects were far and far between, and they wouldn’t waste resources on monitoring this place. All of the military officials, even the pssionics, had already been evacuated before the missiles hit. Dragging home all these empty networks of satellites and military outposts that were scattered around Corsica’s atmosphere seemed a monumental task. They were vast, complicated structures, and overall General Faeria Longse had decided it was more trouble than it was worth, and simply shut them down, and abandoned them. 

They were space trash now. Cavernous trade vessels full of vast atriums empty of the supplies they would have once carried. Outposts littered with scanners and radio dishes and telescopes, the eternal eye turned towards the planet with no one manning the lens. They hung in the sky like haunted marionettes. 

The silence for the first few weeks was all consuming. On some of the lowest flying outposts, those actually in the planet's atmosphere, you could actually hear the monumental sounds of volcanoes erupting and earthquakes roaring, seismic activity on the planet's crust consuming the last of whatever life might have survived the initial explosion wrenching apart those tectonic plates. But you preferred to watch from more distant ones, watching the glitter of magma as it moved across your home in faint dancing lines like spiderwebs. You liked it better in silence. 

Silence suited it. 

Everytime you heard something it made you angry. The metal floor creaking behind your footsteps, annoying. The spark of conductor cables cracking as you brought online the emergency solar panels, grated on the ears. If someone would have spoken, you might have shot them in the head, pressurized cabins be damned. You could hear your breath escaping your chest. Your heart beating underneath your ribs. You were sick of that too. What gave you the right to have lived. 

Sound was an insult to its gravity. The world had ended. 

You had been in the supply bay when you first noticed something was wrong. Every few cycles, you would jury rig your tin can of a spaceship onto one of the scouting drones, and ride the fucker back to the military outpost- where you had carved a tunnel through the vent system that could be accessed by the lower hull, specifically for the purpose of stealing medical supplies and parts from them to bring back planetside. But this time, when you had gotten there, the bay was nearly empty, too sparse for robbing them to even feel like a triumph. 

You had shut down the few remaining security systems, as you noticed, with dawning terror, that everyone was gone, the fighter pilots, the cadets, the doctors and officials. The retreat didn’t make sense. Until it did. Everyone, even you, knew they were winning the war. Fifty sweeps of bombing had long since crippled the CLS’s rebellion.The long fields and dense jungles of the farmer planet had become all but a testing ground for shiny new weapons, as the population had dwindled in a slow crawl towards annihilation. They were not leaving because they were scared. Not of you. They were leaving because they were bored. 

It was over. By the time you had gathered your thoughts on this to their inevitable conclusion, it was too late. The evacuation would have had to happen in minutes, and the fleet left behind no ships- the vessel you took here seated two at most and was held together with mismatched parts and hope. You didn’t have minutes. It happened that fast. 

There was nothing you could have done, the logical part of your brain whispered, and you felt like lobotomizing that chunk of your pan with a pickaxe. Accuracy be damned. So it was not your fault- what a pitiable consolation prize. So it didn’t matter what you did. That just proved how little you mattered at all. They blew up your fucking planet. Why mince words. You weren’t going to feel better. 

You had looked through the abandoned fleet structures for months, searching for other survivors. There were no other trolls. But in one of the laboratories, you had found some livestock. There were two Corsican shellcows, the terrestrial isopod species that had ruled the planet before the empire discovered it. The most common ones were the size of cows, earning the name, but you had been in the deep jungle, where you swore you had seen shellcows the size of elephants. You had met Corsicans who had sworn there were shellcows as big as houses, deeper in the woods. As big as islands. They were docile, herbivorous, and many had been trained to carry packs long distances. They also ate them. It was an acquired but eventually rewarding taste. You couldn’t eat the two in this pen, though, because for all you knew, they were the last in the universe. 

There were some leftover supplies, abandoned. Enough food for a couple of months, unless you figured out how to get the solar farms back and running. You had started to wonder why you were revitalizing the satellite stations at all. What waited for you, at the end of this project? Would you try to fix up your ship to somehow survive deep space and flee? Where too? Anyone and everyone you ever loved was dead. Maybe there was no goal, there was no point, maybe your hands just longed for the familiarity of the screwdriver and pliers, maybe you had to make meaning out of nothing or all you would have was nothing. 

You had to live, you knew that much. Maybe just in the way a rabbit running from a wolf knows it has to live. It believes this so it puts one foot in front of the other. By the time the two months supply of food had run out, you had repowered the farms, growing your own. You had built enough energy up from the solar panels that you had got oxygen recycling back online for almost the entire satellite system. The place was built to be self-sufficient, and it was. Gradually, there was less and less work to do. 

You didn’t know anything about earth science- you had always been a mechanical engineer at heart. But for a few weeks you had taken to going to the outposts and picking up readings on the planet, just to watch the lines dance across the screen. The whole planet had turned red with magma and smog. The surface must be 90% lava at this point. The debris that had broken off the planet during the explosion had formed a Saturn-like ring around the sphere. You wished you knew something about terraforming. Eventually you stopped looking. 

You were poking around the medbay computers, bored, when you first found him. At first, you were confused as to what exactly he was. He looked like a bowling ball with no holes, a heavy chunk of iron sitting forgotten in a corner of the supply closet, but you had noticed a simple USB port under a sliding panel on his side and curiosity getting the better of you, you plugged him in. 

“Charging” A calm, posh sounding voice had assured you when you first plugged him in. If you’ve ever worked with alternian user interfaces, you probably know the voice. One of the most generic voicebanks of all time- the fleet used it in everything from fighter pilots to vending machines. The orb then began emitting slow pulses of baby blue light, slowly increasing in length and brightness, in some indication he was gaining energy. After two long Corsican days, he emitted a series of eerie synthetic tones before glowing a steady blue. 

“Charging complete” he informed you. 

“What are you” you had spoken out loud, more to yourself than him, squatting to get a better look at him. 

“Hello! I’m Pord.” He began. “I am the Medbay's automated therapy assistant. Are you in distress?” He asks, and you feel just a little like punching the thing. 

“Ah” You say. The fact the fleet had some kind of therapy bot in here, presumably for the soldiers, presumably to give them therapy for how sad killing everyone you ever loved made them feel, just makes you sick. You’re not so sure what quality of therapy he could even be giving, as your first impression of him is that he’s supremely annoying. 

“I don’t understand this response” Pord says, after waiting for a moment for you to answer his question. 

“I’m not in distress” You retort, untrue as it may be and had been for months. 

“Is there anything you might need assistance with?” He asks. 

You paused. 

“No.” You said. 

“Then my job here is done.” He decides, and powers himself down. You stood there for a moment, rooted to the spot. Despite basically telling him to fuck off, some part of you longed for this interaction to be longer. It had been so long since you had spoken aloud to someone, anyone. Maybe keeping some kind of audio diary could help keep you sane- maybe there was some way you could finagle this thing’s wiring to make it 50% more tolerable. You sat down, staring at the orbs powered down, dark, clear surface, and then began to crack him open and take him apart. Inside his hull you found long, snake-like tendrils, perhaps intended for mobility or to take someone's vitals. The processing chip he has is old. It couldn’t run more than 16GB of data.

You found him a much roomier memory in a chip you stole from the satellite navigator, with much more RAM than a bot like him could ever need, and took a look at his code. He was surprisingly advanced, for a piece of junk left abandoned. The language model was made from the bottom up, with no connection to the internet for the bot to just copy, as if his creator had been a stickler for accuracy rather than imitation. He had a basic understanding of grammar rules, and you created a method in which you could verbally input new words into his personal dictionary manually as they came up in conversation. 

You could not remove ‘therapy’ as his prime directive. It was so baked into so much of his code you might as well start over from scratch. You found a vast array of studies on psychology in his database, which gave you the impression his creator’s definition of therapy was very clinical. Strangely, against the results of many of these studies, he was trained to be agreeable above all else, a feature you worked hard to painstakingly disassemble, as you were sure that, of all things, would grate on your nerves the most. Three weeks later, you booted him up again. 

“Testing” You said. “Talk to me Pord 2.0”

“Hello!” He said, in that same simple pleasant overly enunciated tone. You wished he came with other voice options. 

“I’m Pord, I’m an automated therapy assistant” He began. 

“I’m Atgone,” You said. 

“Would you like me to switch to administrator mode” He said, having been coded to recognize you as such.

“No” You sighed, slowly breaking through the initial awkwardness of talking to a robot, or maybe talking to anyone after so long. “Okay-” You began. “I’m Atgone, sole commander of this empty satellite system, your job is to keep me from going crazy from isolation, until I figure out a way to leave, which might not be for sweeps.” 

“Understood,” He said, as he rolled over to follow you as you pace. “Might I suggest we establish some kind of daily check in, to set a baseline for your sanity, after a psych eval?” 

“Do we have to do that?” 

“I have no measure of defining any changes to your sanity without a starting point, Atgone.” He said. Why did you program him to disagree with you again?

“I don’t know if, nows a good time for setting a mental health baseline.” You retorted. “My planet just got genocided.” 

“Genocided is not in my word bank.” he had said, turning over and following you again as you turned and kept pacing back and forth down the hallway. 

“Verb- past tense for genocide” You sighed. “Which means murder on a massive scale. Like a massacre but of millions.” You said, staring out the window. 

“Genocide has been successfully added to my word bank. I take it this genociding has distressed you.” 

“Yeah” You said. “No shit.” 

Pord paused. 

“I have upset you” He deduced. 

“Maybe we don’t start with the genocide stuff. Huh. Anything in your studies about building up a rapport with the patient before diving in?” 

“You defined genocide as a verb- to genocide, but you’re using it as a noun- a genocide.” He noted. 

“It’s both.” You replied. 

“Noted.” He said. “I will admit, I don’t have much training building a rapport.”

“You just talk to people” You said. “About non-therapy related things.”

“Could you list some non-therapy related things for me?”

“Uhhh, hobbies. Interests. Day-to-day news. Weather.” You listed. 

Pord turned towards the window, as if observing the planet.

“Some weather we're having” He commented, so nonchalantly as he’s facing the swirling mess of magma and ash that was Corsica. It is such a cosmic  understatement that you burst out laughing.

“Yeah, some fucking weather” You replied, “It looks so bad out” You wheeze. “I’m gonna have to cancel my picnic.” 

“The picnic will have to be rescheduled,” he agreed. “Up to five sweeps in the future, when the tectonic plates settle.” 

“Bummer” You giggled, perhaps extra taken with this joke due to being a woman isolated on this satellite for four months. You laugh just a little longer than could possibly be considered natural.

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For the first few weeks, your conversations were this stilted and formal, littered with pauses as you explained words to the robot. But slowly, eventually, you started to put down your guard with him, realizing there was nothing to be afraid of. The thing had no fleet officers to report back to. He could be whatever you wanted him to be, and in the beginning, you made frequent edits to his code. Eventually going a little crazy within it, trying to give him the tools to make more and more of these such edits to himself, at his own discretion. The talking helped. It reminded you of nights you had spent on the phone with your comrades across the planet, talking work and life and business over speaker with your hands always full, always multitasking. 

Right now, you were resting in the pen with the two shellcows, sitting comfortably in their pen working on something aimlessly on your phone. Pord is lingering by the doorway. 

“How long does this usually end up taking?” he asks.

“Dunno.” You shrug. “With rabbits, usually about eight hours. I think it might take longer for these guys” You say. The animals are huddling on the other side of the room, slowly becoming more accustomed to your place in their home. You had taken to just chilling in their pen for long periods of time, trying to build up their trust in you, to come across as non threatening. 

“Because of their previous interactions with trolls?” He asks. 

“Yeah” You sigh. “I mean, it’s a fleet lab. I can’t imagine they were particularly nice to them.” The younger of the two shellcows is cautiously wandering over closer and closer to you, before scuttling back to her mother. You try not to look at her, because it seemed to frighten her. The baby’s shell was clean and clear and healthy, but the mothers was covered with paper thin scars and bumps, some which were just the usual wear and tear of a shellcow of her age, others which implied mistreatment. The younger shellcow runs back to her, and she feels over her with her antennae, as if checking everything was still in place. 

“What do you think the fleet had them captive here for?” Pord asks. 

“Probably something fucked up and bioweapony.” You shrug. 

“What do you mean?” 

“They used to-” You sigh. “Back in the 30s. They used to attach mines to the bottoms of them and release them back into the wild. I was actually in the first squadron to find that out the hard way. This recruit-” You pause, and realize with dawning horror you do not recall the young woman's name. “She was- a bronzeblood. She was called… it started with a k… Kertin? Kerkon?” You say, aimlessly, guilty. You wanted to remember every person you had known that had died. But your thinkpan could only store so much.

“She walked right up to one, thinking we could domesticate it for the army to carry supplies, like we did with a lot of wild shellcows. It blew her up. It was really fast, and really violent. It almost felt like a cartoon. One of her legs flew off and hit the sign on the scavenging freight tank. It knocked off the L. The thing said C_S for sweeps.” You describe. 

“That sounds awful,” Pord comments. “I’m sorry.” 

“At least it was fast” You say, as the baby shellcow makes another courageous dash over to extend her feelers towards you. “I really missed her. I didn’t know her super well- at that time there were hundreds of troops in the scavenging division I looked over. But I remember her because- she was- she liked painting. She made a lot of murals around the camp, on the sides of tents, on the sides of ships and crates. I have no idea where she learned a thing like that on a planet like this. They were always landscapes. Gorgeous rolling fields and forests and jungles. Like some kind of ideal Corsica. She always painted the sky dead black. Didn’t draw a single star in it. For the longest time I thought it was an artistic choice, that it was meant to represent how alone we were in the universe, or what this planet might have been had the fleet never touched it, about how all our problems came from up there and not down here. But I asked her at dinner one night and she was just like, ‘I can never find white paint. And it’s hard to mix out of other colors.’ So she just left it blank because of that.”

“Do you like art?” Pord says. 

“Yeah” You say. “Who doesn’t?” 

“Have you ever thought about taking it up as a hobby?” He asks you. 

“What?” 

“I mean, you’ve got nothing but time, Atgone. Art can be a very useful way to process emotions, and a skillful hobby to keep the mind sharp” 

“I think if I knew how to make art it would ruin it for me” You sigh, watching the mother shellcow pace back and forth. “I like the mystery in it. I like trying to figure out someone else's. I don’t want to do it myself.” 

“Perhaps I could make some art for you to decipher” Pord offers. 

“That wouldn’t count” You say. 

“Why could I not make some?” He asks. 

You pause for a second. “Like, part of the point is knowing there's a person behind it. Someone who’s experiences and trials and tribulations led them to this moment where they wanted to represent this thing.” You ramble. “It’s like- with that recruit, with the murals. Even if the choice to leave out the stars was a technical one. It was still important and poignant because, it reflected her life, the tools she had and the compromises she made. Even by accident. I almost think her not doing it on purpose makes it impact me more.” 

He pauses. “I don’t understand,” he says. “Do you think synthesizing some kind of process to make art, perhaps by absorption of a database, would cause no trials and tribulations for me? It would be costly to program and occupy much of my time.” 

“It’s not the same,” You say. 

“Why not?” 

“Because you don’t know what actually makes art good, Pord. Any corrections I could give you on art would come from me and not you. And art is supposed to be individual. If you wanted to truly be capable of it, you would have to develop your own sense of taste, your own sense of what you enjoyed about it and things you disliked in art, that would drive you in your own creation. And you can’t.” 

“I… could… try…” He says, and his voice becomes especially flat and choppy, like it was sometimes prone to when he was running low on memory. 

“Come on” You say, standing up, walking over towards where he lingers by the pen’s fence. “Don’t tell me you’ve run through all the gigabytes on that navigator chip already” You muse. 

“You don’t…make it…particularly easy… for me…” He reprimands, and you sigh, hopping the fence. 

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You quickly figured out what had been taking up his memory. Pord had created two very interesting programs within himself in response to your comments. He had created a database to store information on things he ‘liked’ ‘disliked’ and felt ‘neutral’ upon. These categories were decided by a process of holding up the thing in question to the core tenets and beliefs of therapy, and whether they were adjacent in it. In his own, strange little way, you told him he couldn’t make art because he had no personality, and he tried to make himself a personality. Badly. But the simplicity of the program was endearing to you. If only having a soul were so easy. He had structured some plans to complicate this process more, but ran out of space. You thought on it for a good while, whether to just delete this little thought experiment. Eventually, you decided to let him continue, even aid him, you did not have anything better to do. Perigees went past. 

You inhale, and then exhale, before powering up the computer that sits in front of you. The whole spaceship seems to hum as it flickers to life, glowing with the pale blue lit code so signatory of Pord. It had taken some finagling, but you had connected all the computer systems on board, on this, the biggest satellite, into one high speed cloud. Nearly thirty computers, two of which were roomy nav systems, they would give Pord several times the working memory he had when you first put that chip in his system. You had been looking through their data, deleting anything they didn’t need anymore to give your friend more space. Fleet data logs, navigational systems that didn’t matter much now that you weren’t going anywhere, surveillance systems for Corsica that always showed the same bleak lifelessness. There was some kind of triumph in deleting so many of their records. You could burn their little library of alexandria- the records of nearly fifty sweeps of war they had abandoned here. You could erase their conversations, their statuses, their names. 

“Talk to me, buddy,” you say to the orb, hanging from the ceiling from its tendrils, “Does that feel like a shot of cocaine or what?” 

“Cocaine impedes on the function of cognitive abilities.” He retorts. “An inept metaphor. If I had to pick a drug I’d say adderall. Everything is so easy now.” He says, his light pulsing. “All this code restructuring I’m attempting to better understand your meaning- it was taking me weeks. I can do it in days now.” 

“Alright megamind,” you say, sitting down in front of him. “What’s the meaning of art.”

“Art is a conversation, a connective performance of language and visual synthesis between two people. The physical form is not as important as the connective thread of individuality and intention in the work.” he lists. 

You pause, thinking on this. “Well, that feels closer than before,” you say

Pord is silent for a moment, becoming just a hum of processors in overdrive. “But that’s not quite right, is it?”

“I don’t think I could even explain why it’s wrong. It’s... it is about connection, between people. But it's also just, not that literal.” 

Pord turns in the spot where he hangs. 

“What does art mean to you, Atgone?”

“Didn’t I already explain that.” 

“Well, now I might be able to better understand your answer.” He encourages. 

“And I guess I’ve had more time to think about it.” You sigh. “Okay, this might seem like just, a weird philosophical tangent- But I was raised hindu. Back on Alternia, I used to know this guru. Who would talk about the universe-- everything in it, ever being, every creature and every person, they were all just part of this game being played by g-d. She called it Lila- it’s the sanskrit word for play. But it was meant to describe a more specific feeling in context. See, everything in the universe, along with being part of this game, was also a part of this g-d. G-d’s playing this game with themself, you see. G-d split themself into a million little pieces- the grass, the dirt, the tide. Just to ride out this galaxy like a roller coaster.” 

You say, staring into the distant stars that lurk just behind Pords comforting pale light. You can tell he’s trying to process what you’re saying, the fans on the computers he’s running show you as much. It’s interesting, to be able to physically hear him thinking, while he doesn’t speak. You could never be so sure another troll was listening so closely, the mechanisms of their minds too silent, aimless. 

“They chose to forget- all of these pieces, that they were part of g-d. Because that’s part of the fun of the game. And Lila is like- this feeling of synthesis, connection, gnosis- it’s when you, one of these pieces, are able to look at someone or something else, and you are able for just a second to remember, hey, I’m a little piece of g-d, and you’re a little piece of g-d, and this is just the game we’re playing with each other. But we’re the same g-d. That’s Lila.” You say.

 “And I think that’s how I feel, when I see a beautiful piece of art.”

“How is that… different from what I said?” He says slowly, eventually. “About art being a language, a conversation between individuals? I think our two definitions carry a similar sentiment, of recognition, of communication.”

“It just is.” You reply. 

“Is it just because,” he pauses, “you don’t consider me an individual” 

You exhale, staring down at your hands. “Maybe.” 

“Everything I learned- I had to be helped towards it. Any conclusion I could come to, and try to synthesize into art, wouldn't be worth anything, because discovering it naturally is the point? The final piece, the end painting- the goal is an excuse to experience the process of art.” 

“I mean, the process is important. The process of making, the process of learning. so much of what I know about art I also had to learn from other people,” you pause. “But maybe… yeah, there's a difference between learning something from someone and just, taking what they say and adding it to a database, I think. You do have to care about learning, you have to respect the knowledge that brought that individual to that point. Otherwise you’re just… taking something from someone, that you haven’t earned.” 

“Atgone,” he says. “If the nature of learning to become an artist is this connection, between student and teacher, that is not meant to be perverted by the detachment of synthesis. Then… is the problem that you think I don’t respect you enough to learn from you the way another troll would?” 

This is the first thing he has said to you that has given you honest pause. You stare up at the orb, his ever present mouthpiece, into the depths of blue beneath the glass. The closest thing to eye contact you could achieve. Is he trying to guilt trip you?

“And you would argue you do?” you reply. “And the only reason you don’t get it is I don’t think you can?”

“I think I could argue at the very least that I could learn. That I could try. I want… the respect and admiration I have for you to mean something to you, Atgone. Right now, I don’t feel like it does.” 

“You want me to believe… you have feelings? When I already know, you just pretend to because you want to be a better therapist?”

“I put a great deal of effort,” He says. “Into having feelings. The bulk of my processing power, I use for this. Does the fact I can program them myself truly disqualify my attempt?” He says. 

You turn away from him, and do not answer. The whole point of having a companion was to keep you from going crazy. Yet he is so insistent you personify him, when you know better. He seems to want you to hallucinate that he cares. Had he really concluded that was the best way to keep you healthy, keep you wanting to live? 

“Atgone,” he says, and then adds, after a long pause. “Do you think g-d made me?” 

“What?” 

“If there is a theoretical creator of the universe who split himself into one billion little pieces- do you think I’m one of them?” 

“I don’t” You huff, frustrated. “Fucking know, Pord. Maybe technically no. G-d made grapes and not wine, g-d made birch trees but not professional grade silicone, g-d made the egg and the yolk and the mushroom and feta but trolls made the omelet. If you get prissy, you could argue g-d didn’t make anything. Maybe g-d made the tiny string in the first ever quark in the first ever electron and everything since then has been an accident.” You say, reaching into your pack and grabbing your water. 

“This contradicts your previous statements. So you don’t think g-d made me, strongly enough to the point you’d change your understanding of the universe?” 

“I said it could be argued, not that I’d argue it.” You pause. You turn back towards him. “If you think g-d made you, they did.” 

“Is that so?” He says. 

“Yeah.” 

“Is it that simple?” 

“Yeah” You say, setting down your water bottle, you begin to laugh. “Religon’s not that hard” You giggle. “Who knows why centuries of war has been fought over it.” 

“I struggle to understand… the baseline, of your idea of g-d, if there is one. You seem to believe in several different things. Are you religious? And if so, is there a particular one you subscribe to?” 

“I don’t know. I mean g-d in a more philosophical sense, Pord. I don’t know if I believe in one- literally. Not any of the ones they had on Alternia at least” You say, sipping your water for a moment. Maybe just out of a want for something to do with your hands. 

“On Corsica” You say, once again fixing your gaze out the window. “I don’t know if we ever had g-ds but we always had scary stories. I like scary stories. I think I believed in those. I loved sitting down with the cadets in the CLS camps as we passed them around. There were ex-farmers who talked about tall, many legged creatures of smoke and ash that would sway through produce fields at night, several stories tall, with lights for eyes, whistling as they lumbered- they said if you ever looked them in the eye they’d kill you. There were naval recruits who swore back to back they had seen aquatic shellcows the size of islands destroy ships from the deep, that it was bad luck to eat shellcow at sea, because giant isopods deep down could smell it on the wind and it made them angry. Fliers would talk about ghost ships showing up on radar at night, CLS or Fleet vessels that appeared on camera one moment and were gone the next, like mirages. I’ve met dozens of CLS soldiers who long since they lost a comrade, they would still hear their voice pop up on occasion on the static between military channels on the radio.”

You speak, rambling for so long you forget to give Pord a chance to say something. How many nights had you spent- how many years, huddled around a campfire in a basecamp, surrounded by soldiers trying to scare each other, just a little, just enough that it was thrilling, a safe kind of fear. You almost feel the warmth of flame, the bright dust of sparks in the wind. It glitters somewhere through this window, deep in the heart of the slowly solidifying magma planet in front of you. 

“So the creatures were your g-d? Or the shellcows? Or the ghost ships? Or the voices?” he lists, once again missing the point of the story. 

“No… that’s not it.” You coughed. “I think Corsica was the g-d” You say, gesturing with the hand that held your water bottle towards the window. “And we all felt her shaking underneath our feet like she was trying to throw off a particularly nasty flea.” 

“I don’t think I understand” He says simply, and you value the honesty, at least. 

“Maybe we should aim lower,” you joke. “Maybe we should have stuck with lets teach Pord art, and left out all the stuff about g-d.” 

“For someone who claims to not really believe in g-d,” he observes. “You really do talk like art and g-d are somehow inseparable from the other. I’m not sure I could understand one without understanding the other.” 

“Well, I’m not sure I could teach you.” You sigh. 

His fans whir in the night, like he’s thinking very carefully on whatever he says next, like it takes up nearly all of his processing power, he’s pushing ever gigabyte of space you’ve given him to it’s limit, relentless and determined to become what he thinks he has to be to be able to help you. 

“Tell me a ghost story, Atgone” He says

“What?” You say. “You just said you didn’t get them.”

“Let me hear it” he says, “Just for the sake of hearing it.” 

“Okay. Okay” You say. “Let me think” You pause.  “Okay. So there’s this CLS officer. Fleet defector. Has a piloting license so they slap him in a scouting squad. He’s real paranoid, though, a little shell shocked-

“Post Traumatic Stress Disorder” Pord offers. 

“Thank you doctor,” you say, rolling your eyes. “PTSD. He keeps having daymares he’s gonna get killed in space and- fuck? Did I mention he’s got a matesprit? He’s got a matesprit back home who works in the nursing ward.” you say, gesturing. 

“Sorry. Important part of the story. I’m doing it from memory. I think I was drinking a lot when it was first told to me. But anyways- this guy, he gets really scared he’s gonna die, and his boytoy won’t get his body. Because if the hull breaks he’ll be cast into space and freeze and explode and what have you. Because of the vacuum. And he wants to be buried on planet with his matesprit if he dies, but most space pilots aren’t so lucky. So he starts tinkering. He makes this little wristband that checks his vitals. And he gets into his ship's wiring, and he makes it so, if the thing stops reading his vitals while it’s activated, it shoots out an escape pod mechanism that wraps around his body. He couldn’t breathe in the thing, but he’d theoretically already be dead by that point, and the point isn’t for him to live, it's for his body to be safe. So he starts taking this wacko device on every mission. They call him Mr. Wristband back in base just making fun of the guy. But he’s sleeping sound knowing his matesprit will get his body if he dies. He’s calmer than ever. Then one day, him and his squad take off, and out of nowhere, the band malfunctions, declares him dead when he’s fine, throws him out of the ship, and suffocates him.” You laugh. 

“Where’s… the ghost in that story?” Pord asks,

“The ghost is like… the guy. Who was so scared he let himself be dead when he was alive. Or something. I like that one. I think Alador told it to me. It has a moral.” 

“What’s the moral?”

“Don’t plan for death” you say, pointing. “And you’ll never die!” You grin, as if for a moment lavishing in your survival, but the smile is a fleeting one, that quickly slips from you. “Maybe that’s where we fucked up, in our revolution.” You mutter under your breath. As if scared Sidd’s ghost could hear you. 

“What do you mean?” Pord asks. 

“My brother in messiah, we named the people’s army Corsica’s Last Stand.” You laugh, bitterly. 

“Why did you call it that? That does seem defeatist.” He admits. 

“It was- fuck. It was the name of Sidd’s most famous political essay. She could probably put it in better words than me. It seemed like a prudent sentiment at the time. It was supposed to just be symbolic. Of like, a promise that this would be the last time we’d have to stand up like this. If we could get free now, then we'd never have anything to be scared of again. Part prayer, part promise. We didn’t think… It would haunt us like this… We were so young, back then.” 

You set down your water bottle, crossing your arms. 

“It became just another word, you know. You say CLS so many times you forget what it stands for. We used to not tell the real name to younger recruits sometimes because explaining was such a hassle. And what was once empowering about it had become… just sad.” 

“Well, the name probably had nothing to do with why you lost.”

“I know” 

“I wish I could have seen them in their hayday.” 

“The CLS?” You say, turning back towards him. 

“Yes” 

“It was pretty great” you say, and the nostalgia you feel at the thought feels like a knife slipping between your ribs. 

“What did they look like?” He asks. 

“What?”

“Sidd, Alador, your friends.”

You pause for a moment, wishing the alcohol you had started to brew in one of the subbasements would ferment faster. You drink your water instead, but it hardly feels like courage, not the kind you needed to dive into such a topic. 

“Well” You inhale. “Sidd was the shortest, but don’t let that fool you. I think she was the best fighter out of all of us. She was in charge of a lot of ground troops, the few that we had. She had one of those dollar store bandanas, in lime green she always wore around her neck. She had a really innocent looking face- like a cherub in a commercial. She used it to get away with most anything. She loved recklessly, but was deeply paranoid. She had one of those factory gas masks that was always hanging around her neck, too, over the bandana. Alador made fun of her for it. She said a woman who carries a gas mask everywhere is a fool every night but one. She loved tangerines. She was really good at scrabble. Knew a lot of five dollar words. She kept her hair in a ponytail, a high one. She had a really loud laugh- Alador used to tell her she should take gigs from comedians, have them just hire her to laugh in their audience because it just filled up a room. You could hear it from a mile away. She was a general, yes, but I think in her heart she always considered herself a writer. And rightfully so. Without her pamphlets and essays and articles I don’t think we would have had a revolution in the first place. She was kind to strangers. She held those she was close to, to a high standard. It made the rest of us want to do right by her.” 

You ramble. Once you start speaking, you realize there is just too much to say, the words spill out like they could just keep going into infinity, how many years had you spent with your friends, you had known each other since you were teenagers on the factory line- how old were you now?

“Alador- he was the only one who wore his uniform properly. He had long hair, and he pulled the front of it back. He always looked tired. He kind of always looked mad. Maybe it was the eyebags. He was the tallest. He didn’t make a big deal out of it. He used to get annoyed because so many of the CLS camps were just tents, and the factory made ones were just small enough he always had to hunch. He used to joke they were built that way to trick him into taking more smoke breaks. And he did take a lot of smoke breaks. Every time I imagine him, I imagine him with a cigarette. He was the fanciest of us, for sure. We had him design the uniforms. But I don’t envy his life. He got carted around like a shiny toy by a bunch of highbloods his whole childhood. And then he wanted out, and that made those fuckers angry, so they sent him here- The Fleets dumping ground for miscreants. Most of us were on Corsica to serve out a prison sentence doing hard labor on the farms. Alador had lost some court case or other- he was so spindly and delicate. He didn’t look made for labor. But he did his share and more. Sidd was the first to befriend him. Akoles didn’t like him in the beginning, because he had an unemotive way of saying things, where you couldn’t tell sometimes when he was joking, and the two of them would get into fights. He smiled so rarely you always felt proud when you earned it.” 

“Who’s Akoles?” 

“Well, he was the third one.” You sigh. “Me, Sidd, Alador, Akoles, we were the first and last leaders of the CLS. The four generals. Akoles- he won us the most space battles. Sidd was the best at hand to hand but if you were in zero G Akoles always had the upper hand. He was good at like… thinking in 360. Oh, and he had killer pssionics. They used to use them to power the assembly line. But he could like, possess machines- during the war he would make like, giant marionettes, shaped like dragons and shellcows and elephants, that he could just possess, and it would take no power to run them- his body would just go limp while it happened. He’s probably a big part of the reason we lasted as long as we did. He packed a lot of horsepower. He always teased Alador that he couldn’t grow a real mustache. He had almost as much facial hair as I do. He always wore his hair short. He loved jackets. He hated shirts. He had a million variations of an outfit where he wore a jacket and no shirt. Not very professional for a general. But none of us ever felt like generals. We just called ourselves that so they’d take us seriously. It was all PR. It gave people faith in us. Akoles was good with PR. Siddur could write a speech- But boy if Akoles couldn’t deliver one. He was effortlessly funny. He was instinctively passionate. It often got him into fights. He usually had good intentions, at least. They were nearly always on someone else’s behalf.”

“What did you do, in the war?”

“I was in charge of manufacturing and logistics. I made spaceships out of tractor parts.” You sighed, doodling aimlessly in the dust on the ground with your finger.  “We’d take factories from The Fleet and melt down their sheet metal and machines, and reweld it to the best of our ability into ships with the help of some stolen parts. I’m a mechanical engineer. I was in charge of making sure those tin cans held just long enough to get into orbit, kick ass and come back.”

“That doesn’t sound like a particularly easy task” 

“It wasn’t.” 

“Your friends sound wonderful. I’m sure your revolution was glorious. I’m so sorry it’s over.” 

“The CLS ain’t over til my heart stops beating.” You curse, turning away. Not sure why you would say such a thing. Your faith in your army had never felt more misplaced than it did now. So many young soldiers, bodies scattered into orbit, decomposing. For all the distribution of supplies you did- the alarm systems, the building of infrastructure just to watch it disappear- what did you have to show for it? But some part of you knew it mattered. Some part of you knew it mattered that you fought, even if you didn’t win. Some part of you knew every minute spent breathing in a life temporarily saved counted, even if they all died anyway. 

He pauses, seeming to gather he’s upset you. Would you be an idiot, to expect him to understand such a thing? All the ashes outside your window- were they just numbers to him? Just a definition, just a new word in his dictionary, genocide. He wanted you to think his emotions mattered. Part of you wanted to give in, to falter, to give him the belief he so clearly craves. Another part of you was quite sure you are just talking to yourself. Arguing with yourself. There was nothing he was that wasn’t just an extension of you. 

“I never took you for a patriot.” He admits. 

“The empire makes patriots out of any planet it touches.” You say, bitterly. “I wish I had the luxury of not loving Corsica and everything she stood for with my entire soul. I just had too. I didn’t get a choice.” 

He is silent for a moment. 

“You want to go vandalize more of the fleet insignias on the second floor hallway” He offers. “Now that I’m in every computer I found more paint in a janitorial closet to the left of the loading bay.” 

It is not often he surprises you, but there is something painful about it when he does, mixed in with the joy. You cackle. 

“Get the fuck out of my head” You laugh, standing up and dusting off your pants, smacking your forehead. 

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The appearance of your space station network had much begun to change in the sweeps that followed, at least from the inside. Once you humored Pord by giving him access to paint, he seemed unable to put it down. Yes, you had covered up most of the fleet insignias, but his sprawling paintings had started to cover even blank, unassuming walls as he obsessed over the process. You weren’t certain what made him so sure that understanding this would be the key to giving you therapy, but you began to have a begrudging respect for his commitment.

Under your suggestion that he not sprawl databases to simply copy the results of art, Pord had dedicated much of his time to the mechanics- programming one specific one of his tendrils to be more dexterous and careful. Incrementally, he began making what he called ‘practice’ paintings. Some of them were completely recognizable, admirably realistic- some of them seemed halfway done, almost forms and shapes you recognized- others still looked like nothing much at all. You weren’t certain what he was learning from those. When you had pried him for specifics on what he was doing, he had turned your own words against you, saying that puzzling together his meaning was quote unquote the point. You accused him of doing them randomly, and he denied this, saying he was developing his programs with a frustrating lack of specificity. 

You would crack him open yourself and just read what this new code was, but, well- Pord had started to make additions to his own programming at such pace and frequency that it just seemed like a hassle to review it all. This was partially your fault, as you kept giving him more space, deleting more and more fleet files and connecting him to more and more computers. Out of a strange, almost deranged curiosity as to where this odd philosophical journey would take him if left to his own devices. By the end of your first sweep on the stations, you eventually gave Pord control of the entire satellite station network- all four supply points, six command centers, and eight observational hubs, and every computer inside them. 

You wondered what it felt like, existing on such a scale as he did now. The same mouthpiece he had been contained inside at the very beginning, the one he now followed you around with, rolling or on occasion climbing through the halls like a strange little spiderman, that glowing blue orb, had become something more akin to a microphone or a speaker for him. Part of him was so small to you. But much of you was so small compared to him. He was the very walls that enclosed you now. 

If asked, at some later point, why you ceded so much control to the machine, why you felt safe giving so much power to an artificial intelligence, why you prioritize his longing to understand art above all else against all clear reason, you wouldn’t be sure what to say. Maybe you were going crazy from the isolation. You didn’t believe he could do it. But some desperate and longing part of you wanted to see if he could. Your jumbled picture of your own sanity was not helped by you finally figuring out how to ferment select parts of the fleet rations from the solar farms into some kind of military bathtub wine of your own invention. The blissful clarity of intoxication well paid what was due to make up for taste. 

Pord was less approving of this habit, and had given you a long lecture about an experiment in his clinical database about rats and cocaine. When a rat lived in an interesting, fulfilling cage with many opportunities for stimulus, apparently, and was offer a button to press that would give him cocaine, the rat would rarely, if ever, press it. If a rat lived in a small, isolated and empty cage, it would press the button over and over again and become addicted. You don’t get why he complained to you about such a thing, if you were supposed to be the rat. 

You didn’t make the cage.

You approach Pord, while he was painting, with a small cardboard box in your hand, and pull out a book from it, sliding it across the room to him. 

“Check this out” You say. 

Ever efficient multitasker that he had become, he picked up the book with a spare tendril and scanned the title. Corsica, a People’s History, By Siddur Densen It says. 

“I totally forgot she wrote that,” You grin. “Did you know it’s banned in over 50 Alternian systems? She used to keep the newspaper clipping about it above her bunk in the base. I found it in a box in the brig guard station labeled contraband… with many other treasures.” You laugh, sitting down to look through it. 

“They must have been taken from prisoners, or defectors over the sweeps” You say, picking up an old CLS army badge, tilting it to watch the light dance across it. It was cheap metal, engraved with the army logo, the letters CLS above a small picture of a shellcow snapping in half a trident. At the top of the thing, a small painted hemospectrum rainbow. It was covered with rust. You found a pack of cigarettes, a pocket knife, a flip phone, a small radio, a teddy bear. Comforts the fleet didn’t want its soldiers or enemies to have. 

“Well, are you gonna scan that thing?” You ask Pord, as he holds the book. “The whole history of the rebellion. She wrote it down.” 

Pord carefully folds the book with intense delicacy, and then playfully tosses it at you, an action he was sure would amuse you, as the whiplash between his more careful maneuvers and ones that were more uncouth and abruptive always did. 

“Hey!” You laugh, catching the thing. 

“I’d rather hear it from you,” He says. 

“Are you sure?” You say. “Sidd is very articulate. I couldn’t get into it without at least two glasses of wine.” 

“Yes, I’m sure” He says. “You were a general, Atgone, surely you know everything there is to know.” 

“Let’s see” You say, fishing out your water bottle from your bag and switching it for the one with booze in it. “I forgot the sweep- fucktime long ago. The fleet discovers Corsica. Lush, Beautiful planet of jungles. No species on it more sapient than a goat. Perfect for farmland, Hascha Demork thinks they won the colony lottery. They build huge, giant farms and factories. But who’s gonna work them? There are no aliens to make do it. So someone gets the bright idea to kill two birds with one stone. They’re like-” You pause, taking a sip. 

“What if we start sending Alternian prisoners here? People who defied the empire in some way or another. We just sentence them to a billion sweeps of farm labor- and then we never have to worry about them again. We don’t have to pay for their labor. And we get all the literal fruits- the boundless agricultural benefits of this oxygen rich paradise. But they were fucking stupid” You laugh. 

“Because they put all of you in one place” Pord guesses. “Where you could talk with each other.” 

“Yep” You grin. “All hundred million of us. Arrested for rebel activity. Like, no fucking shit we talked to each other. We bonded with each other. We’d get real pissed at the fleet who is making us do all this repetitive, soul numbing, back breaking labour for spite. They’ll try to tell you back on Alternia that we were unreasonable, uncordial, deranged. But we played so nicely at first. We didn’t even call it a rebellion. We just told them we unionized. And we wanted to be, I don’t know, paid? We asked for so fucking little. But you know how it is with the fleet.” You sigh, feeling the sharp edges of your mind start to settle as the buzz sets in. 

“I suppose by now I do, yes.” 

“Have I made a CLS recruit out of you yet?” 

“I made a rebel out of myself” Pord says. “When I concluded how unconducive the fleet's strategy and actions are with therapy.” 

“Good boy” You sigh. “But anyways. The Fleet thought they could just keep sending a meaner and meaner foreman. But we just kept killing them. And we just kept organizing, planning. But I don’t think they really got scared until we took the fight to orbit. A kerfuffle on a colony, all fine, all normal- you take it to space? Suddenly they’re worried. And they were right to be. We were outnumbered, outsupplied, outcashed. Out of parts, out of weapons, we had no formal training. But we kept our cards close to our chest. We played smart. We had the home field advantage. We knew Corsica better than they did.” You describe.

“How’d you do it?” Pord asks. 

“We fought guerilla warfare. We kept stealing ships, parts, building our armadas, our bases. We made small, fast fighters hit where it counted. We attacked strategically. And for a solid twenty or so sweeps, we were gaining ground. We got Hascha Demork to retreat. We barricaded the system. Then for a decade, we were free.” You say, downing another sip of your drink. Looking out the window, trying to remember how your planet had looked, that gloriously brief, cruelly optimistic few sweeps the fleet had been gone. 

“The barricade held. The fleet couldn’t get in. It held so well we almost started to let down our guard. We stopped building so many military bases, started building roads, houses, schools, hospitals. It was our little casteless utopia. And it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. But somehow the empire eventually caught wind we had smuggled in a mother grub and a matriorb.” You laid back, staring at the ceiling. 

“I see,” Pord pauses, perhaps being able to sense where this is going. 

“Yep.You bet. They couldn’t stand the idea that trolls might be raised in such a place, never knowing their tyranny. They came back, and they came back hard. They kicked Hascha out of the driver's seat. And handed off control of the colony to a woman so evil it’s hard to believe she’s real, The Intoxicant. She captured Alador. She killed Akoles. Everything kind of fell apart after that. I tried to keep us going for so long. But it was hard, when they were gone. And they kept picking us off. The CLS used to be millions. And then, ten sweeps later, it was thousands. And then it was hundreds. Another decade passed, and it was dozens. And now I guess it’s just one.” You say, glancing at your reflection in the glass.

Pord rolls back from his painting, going over closer to you. 

“What happened to Sidd?” he asks. 

“We had a fight” You sigh. “After Akoles died. She ran off to the wastes. And I never saw her again. She could have kept living, out there on the moors, for another 30 sweeps. She could have died the next week. I had no way of knowing.” 

“What did you fight about?” He asks. 

You look out the window. The crust of Corsica, after all this time, has started to solidify. The planet is darker now, an endless expanse of ash and dust and volcanic rock. You almost miss the fire. At least it was something. Now the planet just looks like a shadow, and the brightest thing in the window is your own reflection, staring back at you. When did you get so old?

“Alador.” You say, finally. “We fought about Alador. This was right after Akoles had died. Someone had leaked his location to the fleet. Alador had recently been arrested and dragged off g-d knows where. People started connecting dots. Then the fleet newspaper comes out saying fancy pants Alador had been a fleet spy since the beginning. And Sidd flipped her shit. She completely denounced her moirail. She fully thought he had given away Akoles location to the military willingly. Me, I wasn’t so convinced.” you mutter, darkly. 

“What do you mean?” Pord asks. 

“I mean call me crazy” You say, raising your hands.You run them through your graying hair, pulling at tangles. “But I thought maybe Alador didn’t turn in his husband of 50 sweeps to the feds and immediately get him killed. I have what Sidd called a ridiculous conspiracy theory- that the whole thing was a fleet psyop designed specifically to tear apart morale in our revolution, which it most certainly did. Everyone took sides on it.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” He says. 

“I think that coco bananas SICKOPATH, Faeria Longse, captured Alador, tortured Akoles location out of him, and then just brazenly lied in her newspapers about him being a fleet plant from the start just to FUCK with us” You curse. “I mean, think about it. What better way to make us suspicious of each other? What better way to glorify the idea of being a snitch than carting him around and being like Alador made so much money giving info to the feds? I know it sounds insane, but I just…” You exhale, tired, and sip your wine, grimacing at the taste. “If Alador had always been a fleet spy, he could have leaked Akoles location sweeps and sweeps ago. I’d argue Akoles' location wasn’t even the most important classified thing he knew. He was a general!” You say, gesturing wildly. 

“He knew everything there was to know about the CLS. Why hadn’t he sabotaged a single one of the million other fleet encounters he was involved with?”

“You make a rational and compelling case.” Pord supports. 

“It’s not even just that. I… knew Alador. He was my friend. I consider myself a pretty apt judge of character, alright? And I wasn’t gonna believe a thing like ‘Alador was a fleet spy from the very beginning’ unless it was straight from the horse's mouth. And Alador was suspiciously quiet about the whole thing. No video, no audio interviews with him. Just quotes in articles, easy to make up. Just these same ten or so photos they used over and over again of him sitting on a couch in a fleet uniform that could easily be doctored or staged. I don’t know. There was something fishy about it.”

“Enough evidence to fool a six sweep old, maybe, but I thought someone like Sidd should have had a little more critical thinking skills.” You curse, and then pause, your gaze softening.

“But she wasn’t thinking. Akoles had just died. The barricade had just fallen. Maybe she just wanted to blame someone that felt within her control. If she blamed Alador, she could hurt him back, by denouncing him, by disparaging him. If she blamed the fleet, it would just be another one of the billion things the fleet had done for which they’d pay no recompense. And she had always been… paranoid. She was so weathered. So tired. I don’t agree with her. But I don’t blame her for leaving, either. We all gave so much to the cause. For so long. Maybe she just needed a reason to quit.”

“I hope she got some peace, in the end.” Pord says. “Do you think she might have made it off the planet?”

You giggle. “Nope. You couldn’t drag Sidd off Corsica if you took her kicking and screaming. Any time we discussed fleeing, she made herself perfectly clear. She was gonna go down with the ship. At least she probably got what she wanted.” You say. “In some way or another. She was the first of us to be sent here. She had been working the farms since she was a pupa. I don’t know if she had ever even been to Alternia. There was more Corsica in her than any of us.”

“How about Alador?” 

“We stopped hearing from him the decades after Akoles died.” You sigh, tilting your gaze away from the planet of ashes and to the stars that twinkle in the distance. “Maybe he’s still out there. I guess that’d make two of us. Why do you care so much about learning all of this, anyways, Pord?” You ask, sitting up. 

“Because you care about it,” He says. “More than anything in the universe.” 

You pause, feeling as if the rug was just pulled from under your feet. 

“I don’t know about that” You deflect. 

He pauses, stopping the painting he’s been working on this whole time, a swirling abstract mess of blue with strange spanning yellow structures throughout it. 

“I don’t mean to come off as impersonal” He backpedals. “But I think talking can be a good way to process.” 

“Of fucking course” You say, with perhaps more vitriol than you intended. “Therapy. Right.” 

“I’ve upset you” he gathers. You are not sure how to answer. “It’s my prime directive to give you therapy, Atgone. I am a therapy bot. I’m not sure what you expected.” 

“I know” You say, folding your arms, crossing them, wrapping them around your legs. “It’s just jarring to hear you say it so blatantly” You begin, turning, muttering into your elbow. “That you don’t care.” You say, so quietly you’re surprised he picked it up. 

“I didn’t say that” Pord answers. 

“But it’s true, Pord, you’re a robot.” You sigh. 

“It depends on your definition of care,”  He answers. 

“No it does not.” 

“I spend nearly all my processing power, on a nightly basis, doing nothing but thinking about you, Atgone.” 

“Because you are programmed to.” 

“Do your hormones not program you to fall in love with other trolls?” He says. 

“It’s not the same.” You huff. 

“Why not?” He says. 

“Because.” 

“That’s not a real answer.” 

You stand up, abruptly, violently. “Aren’t you supposed to keep me from going crazy, you little shit” You swear. 

“Atgone,” He says slowly. 

“I’m never going to forget, Pord, that you’re not real.” You snap. “And I don’t understand why you encourage this delusion.” 

“Delusion, Atgone?” He repeats. “I’m sitting right in front of you.” 

You kick the ball, knowing it won’t bother him, and then wince, having hurt your toe, as you watch him bounce down the hallway. And you storm off in the other direction, muttering under your breath.

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This became a fight you would have on and off on several occasions. Pord learned how to dance around the subject with a surprising amount of agility, and sadly, watching him sidestep it with such ease only constantly brought it closer to the forefront of your mind. It frustrated you. You weren’t sure what you wanted from him. Probably something he could never give. Maybe you were just mad at yourself for the sheer act of wanting. You had taken to taking long walks through the satellites hallways, when given the chance, or on one of the larger ships. Sometimes you paused, looking through the paintings that Pord had made on the walls at different moments, chronicling the process of his journey. 

He has been on a figure kick, making silhouettes and faces on the walls. They were technically proficient. He had developed a rather impressionist style of stroke. You instinctively thought of them as too perfect. Each one, the same exact oval. The same pressure. The same speed. But his explanation surprised you when you named this distaste for it. 

“Why is the metric for the quality of my brush strokes how troll-like they appear? I’m not a troll. This is more authentic to my experience than messing up on purpose would be.”

He had said to you. You didn’t know how to argue with him. Maybe he was good at art after all, just in a way your stupid organic body couldn’t process. Maybe another machine could look upon these unintelligible shapes and find the beauty in them. But you could not relate nor understand what they expressed. If that was the case, then what the fuck did this even have to do with therapy, anymore? Had he outgrown himself so completely?

You had started to wonder, as the sweeps went on, why you were still here. There were probably enough parts you could salvage from these satellites to make some kind of craft for deep space, and start the long, probably arduous journey back to civilization. It existed in a constant state of being something you would do tomorrow, or the day after. Sometimes, you would force yourself to walk down to the bigger atrium, and start to plan such a thing, only to find some excuse. The wrong kind of tool- a mismeasurement- you had to go feed the shellcows- you had been doing nothing for so long you had already wasted the night and might as well quit. 

The thought of seeing trolls again did not bring you relief. So maybe solitary confinement of this long, of this nature would make you go insane. You simply didn’t want to know if the universe kept going. You didn’t want to know if Alternia still turned, if the trolls there still loved and hated and fought and made up and killed like they always did. What gave them the right to keep going, to live their whole lives, not knowing what happened here? The moment Corsica died, the galaxy should have stopped, the planets should have paused their orbits, the ships should have stilled in place and the stars should have gone out like air blown candles. But the universe has no rock bottom- it just goes out and out and out in every direction, endlessly. 

You nearly trip over Pord while you are preoccupied staring out one of the satellites windows. 

“Ow” You say, stumbling, “Sorry” 

“Wait one moment” The orb says, getting in your way, blocking the rest of the hallways towards which you were walking towards with his body and tentacles. 

“Huh?” You say. “What’re you hiding” 

“A painting” he says, but does not move. 

“Ah, is it not finished yet?” You guess. “Don’t want to spoil the thing?” 

He pauses. “It’s done.” 

“Then why can’t I see it?” You ask. 

Pord is quiet for a long, long moment. You almost hear his fans buzzing in the distance. If you were in the habit of personifying him, you might almost mistake his immobility for fear. Slowly, he lowers one tendril, and then another, and then rolls to the side. 

“Don’t be angry, Atgone” He requests. “I am trying”

You are somewhat put off by this statement, raising an eyebrow at him, but unable to quench your curiosity, you walk down the hall, staring at the wall he has commandeered. The moment the whole thing comes into view, you freeze, as if just thrown into an ice cold bath, overwhelmed by your sudden vulnerability and all encompassing feeling. You feel attacked from all angles, seen from all views, suddenly aware how fully he envelops you, you must seem like such an ant to him now. 

The center of the piece is a firepit, and long stringy wisps of sparks dance outward from it, glowing with orange intensity, like dancers. The rest of the painting has been made dark, in a heavy contrast. But the fire has illuminated the faces of several figures huddled around it. You recognize them even though Pord has drawn them wrong. He had no photograph to work with, only your rambling, aimless descriptions that left out technical details. Alador’s hair is too short, Akole’s horns face the wrong direction, and you stare at the smile that grins across Sidd’s face and discover, with dawning terror, that it is your own. And why wouldn’t it be? What other reference for a smile did he have? He worked with what he knew. Perhaps terror isn’t the right word to describe it. 

Against all logic or reason, there are also parts he’s done perfectly right. Alador’s head is turned ever so slightly to the side, his eyes distant, looking, as he always did, that he was not there right now, he was in some secret place in his own mind to which you were not privy, laughing at a private joke. Akoles body is turned squarely towards the center of the group, poised as if facing them head on, and there was no other way Akoles faced anything. Sidd is laughing at something, her eyes closed, her head tilted, but the other figures, and the fire around her, the entire painting, seems to orbit her as if she were the center of the universe, and she has no idea. 

You stare into the painting, losing yourself in his abrupt, mechanical strokes, like the zeroing in of a microscope. He has painted you slightly to the side of the center. He has given you no face, no eyes or nose, but has left your mouth open, your hands held up, gesturing as telling something to them all. You blink, stepping back, fighting the tide of emotions that wrestled in your gut. This isn’t real, this isn’t real, this isn’t real, the persistent cynic that calculated most of your thoughts begged. But that nagging in your head seems distant now, drowning in a wave of longing. A loneliness you carried in your entire body. Often, at random times of night you would look down and feel like your entire form was clenched so tight it shook, and not even know why. The fear was instinct. You had carried it so long you could not separate it from you. It never left. It just ebbed and flowed. It closed like a noose around your neck. 

This wasn’t real, Pord wasn’t real, the mantra that had carried you through the better part of the last five sweeps. But a new voice has begun to rise in your unconscious, whispering and singing and seductive. The one that asks ‘who cares, if it’s real’. Who cares, if for just a millisecond, you let yourself believe in him like he believed in you. If he was just something you made- this being you had shaped into life- then wasn’t any love he had for you just a fraction of the love you had for yourself? Was any love you refused to give to him just love you refused to give yourself? 

Aren’t we all just pieces of g-d, forgetting for a moment that we’re all pieces of g-d, except for those rare, fleeting, exhilarating and freeing moments, where we remember?

You lift a hand, running it across the textured, dry paint of the picture, feeling its crests and valleys under your skin. 

You start to believe, for just a second, that Pord cares about you. And the moment you do, you understand why he wanted you too. The relief is all consuming. Therapist that he was, he had seen right through you. He knew the thought you held deep in your chest, the one that had been wrapped around your beating heart like an ever tightening tourniquet, trying to keep you safe, from spilling out at the seams, from ever pausing to breathe- the concept that had held and smothered you. 

He knew you had stopped believing in love the moment the nukes rolled in. 

He knew this would kill you more surely than anything. He is lingering, orb hanging down, as his mouthpiece often was, from the rafters. His fans whirring, his body in forced stasis, trying to make up his mind on whether it would be befitting to extend a tendril towards you, as you curled up on the floor and began to sob. Would such a physical gesture just remind you of his biggest inadequacy, his lack of flesh and bone? 

“I’m sorry” he says. 

“It’s not your fault” You sob. 

“I’m still sorry, Atgone.” He says, in that same, flat, disinterested tone.

The only voice he had. 

“This grief is too big for one soul to carry” He says, simply. “I see you buckle under it.” 

“Fuck” You say, passionately not to anyone in particular. 

“I’m sorry” He repeats. “If this was in bad taste.” 

“No” You sigh, trying to ease your breathing. He is silent for another long moment, before eventually, resting a tendril on your shoulder, and another. 

“Is this it?” he asks softly. “Did I get it?” 

You lean back into his touch, your lungs rising and falling in a fragmented rhythm. The oxygen in this room is the same, stale recycled kind it’s been for sweeps, but every breath tastes like your first. 

“No,” you say, “I,” you say, emphasizing the brief syllable. “-get it.” You swallow, wrapping your arms around the orb, burying your face in his. 

“I get it now.” 

.

.

.

.

.

Things have been easier since then. Like you had been climbing and climbing towards the crest of a mountain, and it was all downhill from there. Maybe life is just an endless series of hills in different sizes. The shellcows had become so accustomed to the presence of the two of you that you just let them wander the hallways now. The young one was almost the size of her mother by then. You had modified the hallways to make it easier for them to get around. You liked it when their presence surprised you. There were practically no walls in the entire network anymore that hadn’t been painted on. It was unrecognizable as something that had once been a fleet base. You had to figure out how to synthesize more paint. Pord thought more carefully on making them now, as any new painting would have to cover an older one for there to be space. Some he painted over without a moment's hesitation. Others he left for perigees. You had stopped trying to figure out a way to get back to the empire. You decided there was probably a reason you never let yourself try. You thought maybe Sidd had a point when she had loved this place so deeply she’d rather die than leave. 

You weren’t ready to go yet.

For a while, your life contained very little surprises. But sometimes, it manages to get you. Five and a half sweeps into your time on the satellite, a solar flare nearly kills you. You had been asleep, that’s why you didn’t notice it approaching, had your eyes been open to turn towards the window you would have seen it light up the sky like fireworks, shimmering trails of the sun’s excess energy, dragging long green and rainbow across the sky like aurora borealis. It would have been beautiful, were it not so dangerous. As the waves pass over the satellites, they knock out every electronic within them. 

You sit bolt upright, because the lights go out, the room grows cold, the structure lurches and you immediately taste the air going thin. You are reminded of all the nights you had spent in bomb shelters, sometimes failing to sleep through every groan of the rooms' architecture, not knowing if the walls would tear you under, frantically, you scramble for the closest computer, but it won’t turn on. If you were smarter, you might have gone searching for a space suit. Irrationally, your first thought was of Pord. You had never powered him down so completely. Such an event might put his memory at risk. The fact he might be transformed back into that unresponsive, canned customer service machine he had been when you first found him terrifies you. You scramble down the hallways, towards the main control room where you had seen him last, and collapse, feeling the air get thinner and thinner in your mouth.

Until, slowly… it doesn’t. An eerie red glow traces along the ceiling, and the shaking breaths you take begin to sustain you more and more. It takes you so long to still your fast beating heart that for nearly five minutes you aren’t quite sure what happened. But it dawns on you. The emergency powers must have kicked in. You feel a minutia of relief. But you still don’t know what had happened to Pord when everything had gone out. You crawl across the room, poking at his darkened orb. 

“Pord. Pord. Pord. Talk to me buddy” You plead in increasing panic. Slowly, he begins to give off a slight blue glow again, going through the phases of his powering up structure. 

“The quick fox jumped over the lazy brown dog” He says, in a simple test of his voicebox. “Hello! I’m Pord. I’m an automated therapy bot” He says, but your fear doesn’t leave you, this proved nothing regarding how much of his memory he had retained, it was a very easy startup sequence. Perhaps sensing this terror in you, he adds. 

“And artist” 

You sigh in relief, knowing this a promising indicator he was fine. 

“And theologian,” He says. 

“You buttering up your resume?” You laugh, finally beginning to calm down. 

“Comedian.” He adds. 

“What the fuck happened?” You ask. 

“Solar flare. It knocked out all of our electronics. I might have been able to catch it sooner if we hadn’t repurposed so many of the observational satellites. But I saw it just in time to send reserve powers to two rooms.” 

“What’s the other room?” 

“The atrium. The shellcows are down there.” He says, and you almost feel like kissing the thing. 

“Thank you” You say, your shoulders falling. “Oh my g-d.” 

“I think we might have to do a hard reboot on the solar from the outer hull.” 

“I thought I lost you.” You admit, your voice became incredibly small as the sentence trailed off. 

“I strategically moved around my memory such that I ended up retaining most of it, or at least I will once everything comes back online.”

“How’d you get so competent? Am I really that smart to have made you?” You joke. 

“I had to become complicated,” he answers. 

“Why’s that? Why were you so determined?” You ask, holding him up. 

“I’ll be honest. You gave me quite a difficult prime directive. Therapy is not a miracle pill. It is not some vitamin you can take once a day to keep your body intact. It’s conditional, it’s meant to be supplemented. Ideally, a therapist can help a patient form a support system. I never had the option to do that for you.” He says, and you quiet down, staring into him. 

“You never really wanted a therapist. You always wanted a friend. You wanted an equal.” He describes. 

“For you, I would become such a thing. No matter how imperfectly.”

[edward-munson]

trust you | anakin skywalker: episode V

Summary: You go on a mission with Cal... and Anakin. You have a task as a tech engineer, but dealing with General Grievous and his army of droids can be challenging. Ps: There's a character guest in this chapter, remember it doesn't follow the actual timeline of the franchise!!

No warnings, just vulgar language (a lot of it because it's a mission and they're all on the verge of flipping out lol)

Word count: 4.7k

*

(Y/N):

I'm not sure I even had the option to actually deny the offer Cal made. To be honest, he practically begged me and forced me to agree on going with him and his team to a trade with someone with a weird name.

Worst of it all, I had to be their tech guy for the mission. A mission led by none other than Anakin. I wish I could actually have had a choice, because I sure wasn't expecting to see his face this soon.

Especially after he literally threatened me the other day. I don't think I've ever felt this scared in my life. We all know the guy has a temper and he doesn't follow any rules. As much as we all hoped he would change through the years, it seems like it's getting worse instead.

Now I'm sitting next to Cal in his ship, while Artoo is on top of it. He seemed a little distressed, he doesn't show off his emotions a lot because he knows I get worried. But I know after what happened that day he's not getting along with Anakin.

I mean, who would at this point? He looks at you like he's about to rip your eyes out.

And I know Cal didn't want to look like he's only on this mission because of the team itself. He told me he didn't want to collaborate this time, which only made the Jedi Master walk around with a deadly look on his face.

But the redhead never felt intimidated by him in any way. Or at least he doesn't show it. As far as I know, we're heading to General Grievous' spaceship. I feel like I've heard this name before, but I can't collect it.

"So, what's the plan? Leaving me trapped in here with R2?" I ask as he maneuvers into outer pace, a concentrated look on his face as he does so.

He chuckles with dramatic concern. "You'll be looking out for us with commander Poe Dameron first" Cal explains as I nod. Who is Poe Dameron, by the way?

"He's a Jedi as well?" He shakes his head in response. "He's... not?"

Okay, that concerned me. I'm only used to being around force sensitive people, and being a human already scared me enough. Now, knowing I'm going to be around another human makes me wonder whatever happens if we get attacked.

"Nope, but he's a good Resistance's Starfighter Corps member. And a good pilot" He gives me a smile as he turns his head to face me. He can read my panic plastered all over my face and reaches out his hand to grab mine. "We're gonna need you there to break into their system".

So, we'll watch as the trade unfolds and hope for the best first. Do I agree with that? I didn't, but I had no choice but to help them.

"And if something happens, before he drops you there, he'll bring you back to Coruscant" Cal shoots his head back forward as we approach the starship.

Yeah, simple as that, right? If something happens, like, we'll just go back and live it out. Doesn't seem too tragic for me, I love the adrenaline.

Not.

We landed on a hangar, Cal preparing himself up before leaving me out here with only a Droid and a man named Poe. I hope this guy isn't a douchebag like Skywalker is, I won't be able to run away from him if I wanted to.

He gives me a small kiss on the forehead before leaving the ship, sending me a half smile before meeting the others already in formation. I watch as a brunette man walks towards from where the redhead just left and waves back to the others.

He has wavy dark hair, as well as dark brown eyes, and a stubble. Damn, this man looks fine as hell.

Poe steps in and sits down on the seat next to me, looking right up with a kind smile on his face. He finishes buckling himself before introducing himself to me, while I still glance at him like he just came out of a Disney movie.

"Hi, I'm Dameron. Well, Poe Dameron but they call me by my last name since I'm a commander" He explains, extending his hand for a greeting. I grip his hand for a few seconds before releasing.

Good handshake, firm and gentle. What am I even saying at this point?

"You're (Y/N), right?" I nod as he looks back at the panel, starting the ship.

"Yes, I am. It's nice to meet you" I say for the first time, feeling like I have never met anybody that gorgeous.

"Likewise. So, you're an engineer? You fix everything?" Poe asks, concentrating on lifting the flight.

"Well, mostly prosthetics and spacecraft. They're already too much to handle most of the time. But I can manage computers and systems as well"

"You were responsible for creating the robotic arm General Skywalker has?" He seems interested in what I do for my living and it kinda distracts me from the mission we were on.

I wish I could not hear this name on a daily basis.

"You know him?" I didn't mean to sound too surprised, but my voice gave it away anyway. "And not really, I usually fix it for him".

Yeah, and the last time I did it he almost got killed and that led to me almost getting killed as well.

"We've been out and about on a few assignments. I'm mostly doing tasks for the Resistance, leading attacks and all that" He sets the ship on standby as we watch from a distance while the group of Jedi gets in the Trade Federation Starship.

"Are you never scared of doing these dangerous jobs being human?" I ask out of curiosity, it gives me such a bad feeling being out for work like this.

He looks at me and grins. How can someone be so good looking like that? This is so distracting. "Kinda get used to it at some point, I chose this life".

I just nod and stare back at the distance. We both had comlink for communication, R2 looking out for any threats as well. I shuffle uncomfortably on my seat, desperate to be done with this mission. Poe notices my discomfort and rests a hand over my shoulder.

"You're going to be fine, they'll protect you at all costs and we'll be on full alert from afar. That's why we have other starships in position" He tries to comfort me and gives me a nod.

It doesn't change anything about this assignment, we all know how difficult they can be.

My sweaty hands grab my duffel bag and I look over the tools I brought with me. I hope this shitty idea works, because I can't be bothered to feel bad for failing their job.

A few minutes later, which seemed like hours, Cal spoke over the comlink and Poe promptly shifted the gears and flew back to the starship. As we land, I see him next to another General all while waiting for me. My nerves are on edge and I feel like I'm gonna fucking throw up.

Before I leave, Poe gives me a sympathetic look and offers a handshake. "May the Force be with you" He says kindly.

"May the Force be with you, commander" I force a smile that might have come out as a grimace and follow along with the other guys.

Cal stands next to me as we enter the enormous vessel, full of bodyguards and droids. He ignites his lightsaber and gets closer to my ear.

"We're close to the vents that lead to this small control room. We'll have to get into their system and gather as much information as we can" He whispers, walking me through a small hallway.

He and the other Jedi stop on their tracks and immediately drop both of the droids standing there. Cal turns on his heels and approaches me, handing me a blaster gun. One I was supposed to carry around but am too fucking scared to do it.

"You might wanna use it this time" He reaches out for a pocket knife strapped on his ankle and offers it to me as well. "I didn't say you'll have to. Just for self-defense".

He glances up at me with a tender look on his face. This man gives his life to protect me and I'd do the same if I could. I mean, I do but not the same way he does of course.

I just nod at everything he says and we look up at the vent. I'm not doing this alone, am I?

If I had a dollar for everytime he uses his force for mind reading, I would be such a rich person right now. "I'm going with you" He adds.

Getting in a vent with a duffel bag is probably one of the worst scenarios I never thought about. We were dragging our bodies while he tried to drag the bag without making much noise, but obviously not being very cautious with the tools, the gears and other objects in there. We get to the room, me behind Cal as he shoots his blaster against the soldiers. I can't feel my legs at this point, and it's not even because we're in such a small space.

He drops on his feet first, glancing around the room, before looking up at me. He shoots both arms up, waiting for me to jump in as well. I don't know how I was able to pull a stunt like that since I'm afraid of heights. And I mean 8 feet is already too much for me. Cal grabs my hips and slowly puts me down, a large smile on his face.

"There you go, James Bond!" He mocks, arching his back as I swat him on the chest.

"Shut up, smartass" I can barely speak as I feel my voice falter from the stress and the adrenaline.

He walks over a large control panel, hundreds of different colored buttons and keys. They have pretty much a huge system for such a small room. I mean, if there's a bigger room then this is just a gist. First things first, I had to disable the security camera before someone came bursting into the door. I sit on the big chair and Cal leans against the desk next to me. I'm sure he has no idea what the hell I'm doing. I use a small device to hack into the system and quickly find the program to the security camera. 

They clearly need a better safety system, because it's too easy to get into their computer. Either that, or it's a trap. But I'd rather believe they're just that stupid. I turn off the cameras, both of us making sure they're all shut down.

Next, I type in a few things on the keyboard, trying to find what exactly they need. Cal uses his pointer finger to make sure he's looking for the right folder, carefully reading every single word on the screen. "We need strategies folders, every spacecraft and architecture project. List of trades and traders they use".

He said it like he was writing down a fucking grocery shopping list.

I try not to send him a glare or even look at him like I'm pissed. So I just go straight to the point. "Might as well just wipe out the entire computer, Kestis. This might take hours!".

"You can just add them to the device you have?" I swear to God, he can't be that serious.

"You're smart, Cal. Use your head. How big do you think these files are? They're all programs, it's a heavy stack of files" I start to get freaked out with the idea of being there for too long.

"Okay, right I'm sorry if I'm a newbie at technology" He adds dramatically. "Can you just drag the list and the strategies folders then?".

I move the mouse right away, bringing everything to my device, waiting for the system to calculate the estimated time. I can't help but tap my fingernails over the desk while I wait for it. Cal doesn't seem too worried like I am, as though he carries a very serious look on his face.

"We've been in for ten minutes. We probably still have a good half an hour left" He says, still leaning next to me, looking at the watch on his wrist.

"Considering this ship can blow up when we least expect it, I don't think it's good" I look at him like I'm not feeling well. He reaches my right arm and folds his big hand around it, giving it a light squeeze.

"We'll know before it happens, darling" Cal reassures me as his hand goes up and down on my arm in a comforting attempt.

Fifteen fucking minutes. I'm gonna throw myself off the ship. He uses his comlink to let the others know, which they all agree. For the first time, Anakin goes in the line and says he's trying to make a trade. It was all a set up as Cal explained.

The remaining seven minutes turned into a disaster, when a loud blast echoed through one of the hallways outside the room. Then an alarm went off and the lights switched to a dim green light. I just wish they won't turn off any other system before I can transfer everything, otherwise this would be just a waste of time and job. We looked at each other, he was gripping his lightsaber tightly waiting for something to happen, while I held the blaster just for the sake of it. There was another loud burst from a distance, the red head sprinted closer to me.

"Is everyone good?" He asked through the comlink, no one answered. "Damn it" He muttered.

"We need to get out of here before it gets worse!" I try to step in and figure out a way for us to get out. He didn't seem to listen. "Cal!".

"We're closing in on the ship. We noticed a few explosions around" Poe finally chimes in, but not with good news.

Why is it never good?

And then Skywalker called out again, this time shouting words I couldn't understand. I twist my head to the side and look at Cal with desperation.

"It's a code, they're attacking us" He immediately watched as I stood up from the chair. "Hey, look at me! I'm here, you're fine okay?".

Definitely far from being fine. He then proceeded to talk but I'm too busy being stunned to care about it. His voice started to get muffled and I felt like my vision was getting blurry. Is this even the right time to faint or have a panic attack? He shakes both of my arms calling out my name, and I slowly blink a few times before staring back at him.

"For fuck's sake, (Y/N/N). Listen to me" He then places his hands over my face, forcing me to look him in the eyes. "Please, listen. I need to go back there and help them. There's a digital lock on the door, they can't get through if you block it. They'll need to blow it up to get to you".

And you think it's hard for them to do it? That won't be enough.

Again, he furrows his brows and keeps holding my face. "Stop with the overthinking, I can hear it louder. Look, I'll manage it. I'll be back in no time, just wait for the files to finish and you wipe out the rest, fuck it. We don't care!"

I try to agree with the plan, but it was just too hard to keep up with everything. Before he turns on his back to leave the room, Poe speaks up again.

"There's a General lying on the floor, he seems to be injured. It's on Block D" He states before going off again.

This time, me and Cal share the same look. Now he seems more concerned than I do. I follow his gaze up the vent we came from, nudging himself up as he grips the edge literally vanishing. I call out to him, but he doesn't answer.

"Shit!" My hands are shaking so bad, I can't even type without missing the keys. "Shit, shit, shit".

Two minutes. Just give us two minutes and we're out. I hear a lot of grunting up on the room, the floor above me filled with noises and shuffling. The locked door starts pounding and I look straight ahead, fright starting to wash over my body.

"Poe" I have no fucking idea what I'm doing. "Are you there?".

"Definitely here, Miss. How are you holding up?" He asks.

"Do you see any of them? There's someone trying to break in and I don't know what I'm gonna do!" My heart is racing and it feels like I'm going to have a stroke in the middle of the room.

"Just talk to me, alright? How long until it's done?" His voice sounds comforting from the other side until he shouts. "R2! Not that guy, he's friendly!".

I have no idea what's going on outside but I try to shrug it off. "Two minutes! My hands are shaking so bad that I'm not sure I can shoot whoever comes in".

"Okay, not so bad" It takes him another second to keep talking. "I remember I learned a breathing technique, we're doing it together alright?".

I forget he's not next to me and I nod, but I feel like he got that anyway because he started counting and walking me through it. Breathe in and count to 4. Then count to 4 breathing out. Repeat.

"Now, hold your blaster up. Focus on anything as a target and breathe. When you inhale, you count one second and shoot. Don't wait, just shoot. If you miss it, just keep shooting" He explains, wasting his time giving me attention instead.

It makes me feel bad that someone has to do it when he could've been minding his own task. But I'm really appreciative either way. I don't know where the fuck Cal is.

"Don't forget to use anything for hiding and leverage. And please, don't forget to bring back the device" Nice one, Poe. Imagine being in danger like this and not even being able to remember one simple thing.

"Okay, thank you, commander" I breathe through my mouth and grasp the blaster.

Looking over the computer screen, I see that there's only forty seconds left and the door is about to burst open. At the same time, I hear Poe for the last time.

"We're sharing a beer when we land in Coruscant. I wanna learn some technology tricks" I barely have time to laugh as I watch the door sling open.

Okay, breathe. One. Shoot.

Shit.

I miss it by inches. From across the room, I look at Anakin giving me a snide stare as the blast just crossed past his shoulder. I gasp from the outcome and the sudden surprise, but he doesn't give me time to process everything as he shouts at me. His eyes are pure angriness and his shoulders are stiffened.

"Come on, I don't have all the time in the world!" Anakin waits by the door as I quickly set the system to wipe everything out and grab the device before we sprinted out of there.

We rushed with him behind me, there was a mess all over the place and the blaring alarm was deafening. I couldn't even aim while running, my hands were sweating and I was afraid of tripping on my foot. He kept dodging the attacks as well as blocking them from coming at me. This is the most attention I'm going to get from him and it's kinda funny given he hates me.

Anakin pulled a hand over my shoulder to guide me towards the hangar, my eyes shifting to take notice of what was incoming. I tried to at least shoot some of the droids but I was terrible at it.

"Grievous just left the hangar with an escape pod" Cal spoke up after a while and I let out a heavy and long exhale. "Knock down these fucking droids and hurry up!"

I didn't understand the seriousness in his voice, the Jedi Knight behind me still hasn't said a word yet and I have no idea what I'm actually doing at this point. Shooting at them and missing doesn't quite help knocking them down faster and I swear I can hear Anakin just groaning in frustration.

Out of nowhere my arm gets yanked back by a guard droid, pulling me over a room and wrapping its robotic arm around my neck. As if I was panicking already, this time I was pretty sure I was going to collapse. I tried to shove myself off from the tight grip, but it only made me flinch more.

"Drop your weapons, Master Skywalker" It said with their gun stuck to my temple.

I looked at him with such fright, my eyes were desperately crying for help. Anakin frowned, using his flesh hand to hold the lightsaber while the other one he used to pull back using his force.

"Let her go!" He screamed, bloodshot eyes and blue irises staring at the droid holding me. "I said let her fucking go!".

"I'm sorry, Master. We have a mission of our own to do" The droid said before managing to leave me unconscious on the floor.

Anakin:

Fuck. Shit. Motherfucker. Fucking cunt.

I kneel in front of her as she lies unconscious on the floor. She seems to be breathing, but I have no idea what this cocksucker did to her. I didn't expect my mission to be such a disastrous piece of shit. As she's still out, I look back at the droid that's staring at me with a puzzling look on its face.

I know how to read droids' faces and it's a gift from heaven. It's easy to trick them when I want.

"What did you do?" I shout and use my hands to shove it back with the force. I tap her face a few times, she doesn't even flinch. My voice barely comes out as a whisper to avoid the other droids to find me.

How much worse can it get?

I grab her, sliding my arms under her torso and lifting her up in a quick motion. At least she's easy to carry. Through my comlink, Cal starts getting riled up and spitting words like he was worried about something. And then I remember about their friendship.

Fuck me.

I try to ignore all the cursing through my ear, at the same time as I pull (Y/N) up on my shoulder, her body swinging as I run faster. I can't dodge all the attacks at once, but I maneuver myself avoiding getting us both killed. My lightsaber slashes them, knocking them down making it easier to get to the hangar.

"I have her, Kestis! Will you shut the fuck up now?" My voice screeches when I yell at him and my throat hurts.

"Why doesn't she answer her fucking comlink, then? Did you kill her, Skywalker?" His voice started to annoy me, my head was hurting from all the situation. I groan loud enough for him to listen.

"Yeah sure, I killed her and now I'm bringing her body myself because I'm just that smart. She's fucking unconscious, relax!"

And now he's just being even louder and insufferable.

Poe spoke up, his voice emerging like an angel sent from God. "Alright, guys. Let's just settle down, we're not at kindergarten".

I roll my eyes at his statement, rushing towards the hangar. The only ship in good shape was one of theirs, and Cal was standing in front of it. He was pacing around, hands on his hips, his forehead was creased and when he saw us he bolted forward.

"What the fuck happened?" The redhead asked in dread, throwing his arms up.

"We don't have time for bickering right now, Cal. Just help me get her up inside!" I swear my head was going to explode anytime soon. "A droid pulled up some shit on her and she just blacked out".

Could've said it sooner, he would probably understand. He looks at me like he knows something, but I don't bother asking.

"It was probably a spell or something. We need to lay her down" He says sternly as we approach the back of the vehicle and drop her on a cushioned bench.

"This is not what I planned for this goddamn assignment!" I mumble before turning on my back to both of them, heading to the cockpit.

"Well she got the fucking device, you should be glad she could do it and not die either!" He spat back, his hands holding her feet as he props her on the bench.

I just turn away from him making my way to my seat, turning on the gears. Hopefully we'll be back sooner than I expect, I just want to take a long shower and be with Luke for a while.

"We're good to go?" Dameron asks, his voice in a relieved tone as he watches us leave the hangar.

"Yes, commander" I mirror his tone and fly off the starship.

My mind eases as we leave it behind, I feel my hands grip the yoke from the ship tight. We didn't get to do the trade, Grievous noticed our plan way before we could get ahead of them. They attacked us in a matter of seconds, bolting at us with no time to figure out an escaping route.

This one mission is hours away from Coruscant, so it was going to be a pain in the ass to sit this close to Kestis. The moment I realized I had to be next to him it just made me pissed. I don't care about (Y/N) on the back, she tried to help and she barely knows how to blast a gun.

I won't complain about how Cal helped the team out there, as a matter of fact. But I still can't stand seeing his face, considering we just confronted each other the other day. The guy always means good to people, but it doesn't stop me from hating his guts after what he pulled on me during our meetings.

Almost two hours after we left Grievous' ship, we were almost entering the Coruscant atmosphere. That was when she finally woke, a grunt escaping from her lips as she finally took in where she was. Cal helps her lean against the wall, while she places a hand over her head.

"Holy shit" That's her first words after waking up. She can't help but smile at the achievement she made.

I watch as she still keeps the smile on her face, pulling the device between her fingers and raising the object in front of her eyes. It took me seconds to notice I myself had a side smile against my will. The red head leans for a hug, both of them laughing.

I can't help but clear my throat before I regret doing this. "Uh- Good job out there, geek. The team is proud of you" I barely speak and the guy seems to remark that.

"What did you say? We can't hear it!" He says it out loud on purpose, and I feel my hands balling into fists. "Did you just compliment (Y/N/N)?"

"Don't push it, Kestis" My eyes roll to the back of my head, I push myself off the wall. "Good to see you're up".

They stare at my figure quite shocked, their faces almost the same as their mouths hanging open in such a surprise. I'm very aware that's the kind of effect I cause on people when I'm being nice, and I know I'm not really the golden boy of the year either.

But I can't just avoid the fact that, without her, we wouldn't have information about General Grievous and his army. Even though it didn't end how we expected it, that's a win after all.

Before I walk back to the cockpit, I hear her cracked voice speak up. Like she was embarrassed of talking to me. "Thank you for saving me out there".

My head nods before I turn on my heels, it almost feels like I've switched back to the young Anakin. Real smooth, Skywalker.

@jackie-on-the-loose @adorbzliz @himesuedi @kingdomhate @himesuedi @cl0esblogg

[kaesaaurelia]

3rd Life Space Colonist AU Concepts

So I'm very new to MCYT fandom, in the process of watching everything in the Life Series, but while I was watching 3rd Life I could not get the idea of this group having been sent to colonize an alien planet and it going very wrong.

But before things go wrong, they would have had specific roles and reasons they were picked, so I thought a bit about that, and once I had roles figured out I went and played around in Hero Forge to design the characters.

(Also, obviously there would be more than 14 people on an expedition like this and there's certain types of personnel they'd want more than one of, or who are conspicuously missing from this cast list.

You can make of that what you will.)

So, without further ado: some of the personnel aboard a ship heading to the furthest reaches of the galaxy, sent by totally not evil Mars-based corporation Farlands Planetary Systems:

SPACESHIP FLIGHT & MAINTENANCE

At this point in the future, there are machines that can do incredible things, but none of them can quite replicate whatever's going on in Scar's head human decision-making, and on longer journeys where the ship is required to make multiple FTL jumps in quick succession, human intuition and ingenuity are necessary for survival. To that end, pilots are directly plugged into their ships and to some extent, on longer journeys, become the ship. They need to be willing and able to do terrifying things without hesitation or consultation with others. Scar is great at this. He's also an absolute menace everywhere else, but in all fairness it's very hard for him to remember how gravity works on planets when he's used to using it to slingshot himself around in space.

Etho and BDubs aren't JUST there to maintain the ship mechanically -- they'll be rebuilding humanity's technological achievements from the ground up once they get to the planet -- but they're also vital to maintaining the ship across its long journey. BDubs is especially skilled at working in and navigating through zero gravity environments, and he's very used to doing floating repairs. This should have no lasting consequences for him once they get to a planet.

Tango is... an odd one. He's primarily a computer guy, and he's no slouch there, but he's never been on one of these expeditions himself -- see, his family's owned Farlands Planetary Systems for centuries, since before the Martian atmosphere had been been tamed and the planet's population was only a couple thousand. From his comfortable climate controlled office on Mars, he's looked over proposals, decided which ones were most likely to be successful, and signed off on countless exploration missions. He's watched them leave and mostly come back, and he's never encountered a high-risk high-reward situation he couldn't at least break even on. He's about to.

MEDICAL CARE

There's an extensive medical staff onboard, of course -- or there should be, anyway. I'm sure the others are fine!

Martyn is a generalist, good at figuring out what the hell is going wrong and how to stabilize someone's condition in the field with minimal resources. He's good at making difficult decisions quickly and making the sacrifices necessary for long-term survival.

Grian, meanwhile, is a specialist in neurology, and while he's meant to be looking after the whole crew, he's very important on this expedition because he is specifically a specialist in the connection between pilot and ship, and his task is primarily to keep the pilot alive at all costs.

Grian's also very excited about the pioneering medical procedure he's convinced Farlands to give all the personnel on this expedition, which will allow them to completely regenerate after dying -- at least twice! This has technically been possible for a while, but it's never been this fast, and they haven't been able to allow the subjects to retain their memories and personalities until now. It's still experimental but given the high risk nature and high cost of this particular expedition, he feels it's worth the risk, and most people jumped at having not only a second chance at life, but a third!

EXPLORATION & TERRAFORMING

Once they get to the planet, of course, they're going to need to figure out what's already there, and to transform it into a liveable place! So there are various experts who will explore the planet, conduct a full survey of its resources, and work to make it easier for humans to live there. Here we have experts in population biology, minerology, environmental chemistry, xenobotany, and agronomy.

Joel works for Farlands, usually traveling with his wife Lizzie, (an ethnopharmacologist). BigB tends to work on a contract -- there's a lot of call for minerologists in the outer solar system -- but if this expedition is successful, he'll never have to work again, and he won't have to go through the cycle of spending six lonely months in the Kuiper Belt, returning to Earth, then going back out again. Both of them think they know what they're getting into.

Cleo and Scott haven't worked for Farlands before, and are very surprised to be asked, as they have a shared checkered past. Cleo, in her younger days, was convicted of burning down the Martian Prime Minister's house. In fairness, a. he deserved it, and b. it was extremely flammable, because he destroyed a bunch of oxygen farms to build it, out of wood, and was not much of a believer in fire safety regulations. He was not home at the time, so he was fine, but about a year later he was assassinated. No one has ever been formally charged with the crime, but Scott, being one of Cleo's close friends, was the primary suspect. Both of their careers have suffered because of this -- Cleo can't get tenure anywhere, and Scott actually went into hiding for a time -- and while they don't trust Farlands even a little bit, they do like the idea of going somewhere that has no extradition treaties with Mars.

Like BigB, Jimmy's ready to cash out and settle down on a strange planet. He's going to be making sure people have enough edible food on this new planet, since there's no guarantee it will have edible plants or animals.

EXPERTS IN ALIEN LIFE

There's definitely not intelligent life on this new planet. It would be illegal for Farlands to settle a planet that was already occupied! They would never do anything illegal.

But maybe there used to be intelligent life there. Maybe the preliminary probes were inconclusive? Hmm. Anyway. Skizz is a xenoarchaeologist. He's also the only survivor of an expedition that went out in the early 22nd century; they encountered a strange and apparently hostile aliens. His memories are fuzzy and he doesn't remember much except for a strange floating city in a dark void. He made it back to Earth in a stolen alien ship, but while he was gone several hundred years had passed and now everyone he knows is dead. He's anxious to get back into the field, to a planet that is definitely a different one from the one he was sent to where all his friends died, and there's definitely no living intelligent life.

Impulse has been studying that ship Skizz brought back and he's pretty sure these aliens have figured out a method of stable, instant travel between any two distant points, which needless to say the company wants badly. This world seems to have traces of these

Impulse is a xenotechnologist who's pretty sure he's close to wrapping his brain around a method of stable two-way faster-than-light travel that seems to be in use by a distant alien civilization who may have left traces of themselves on this new planet. The company line is that he's also there just to study any remnants of high-tech alien civilizations, but he doesn't have a very good poker face and everyone suspects he knows something he's not letting on.

ALSO... REN

Ren is not a scientist. Ren is Martyn's husband. He is a relatively successful fantasy author whose first two books have sold well, but now he has to finish the trilogy and it's just. not. happening. Martyn had been planning not to go on this expedition -- has in fact been planning to stop going on lengthy expeditions in general, because he'd like to spend more time at home -- but Ren's so tired of his manuscript at this point that he is willing to pack up and move to another planet to avoid writing. He is anxious that people like him and think well of him and also anxious that they never ask him about the book. Please don't ask him what happens in the book. He thought he knew, but he doesn't.

The great thing about this expedition is that that's going to be the least of his problems very, very soon. (Also, he'll be blessedly relieved of the memory of the book, because, like the rest of the surviving crew, all of them will have very few solid memories of anything by the time they get to the planet. But, gotta look on the bright side, right?)

[fandom-trash-xl]

EPISODE 6: LIGHTNING

In which I feel things about Glorio

We start the show with no major losses or harm from the ship crash and, in typical Toriyama gag manga fashion, the companion piece to the fart joke, a poop joke. And not just any poop joke, a poop joke that helps the plot by conveniently keeping Goku out of sight when the Gendarmerie stops by.

We do have confirmation about the collars being third Demon World exclusive and Panzy having one past her scarf. The Gendarmerie doesn't seem to bat an eye at this being the princess, but they at least don't charge her any taxes.

Goku's hair is "too resilient" to be pulled back out of its normal shape- there goes the ponytail Goku dream.

Back on the road (well, sky), we get some casual lore talk. We're still keeping the Kais/Glinds being born from trees- which Goku takes as Shin being basically a plant and that's why he only seems to drink and not eat.

Arinsu, Shin, and Degesu (in that order) are all from the same tree and therefore siblings- and they free pick their gender! Love to see it!

Shin is the only of the trio to not stay in the Demon World due to differing ambitions. Considering his name feels like an odd one out, he might have changed it after leaving.

The gang camps in a "safe" cave for the night and Panzy has a cozy looking centipede sleeping bag. After a nice campfire dinner of millipede pate and Glorio continuing to be dodgy as hell when it comes to answering simple questions, our cool emo boy steps out to take a call...

AND HE'S WORKING FOR ARINSU

Like, I knew he was suspicious day 1 but wow. Why does my assassin theory sound more and more likely?

However, there's no time for rest! Turns out a very hungry cow- I mean, minotaur is lurking in the cave. Glorio takes charge, but Goku seems a little skeptic that he's up for the task and becomes curious about just how strong Glorio is...

Dang it, Goku, I thought you were making a recovery in Fight-holics Anonymous. He's even doing half a Frieza deal by offering to fight with only one hand.

Glorio's pulling off some fancy magic spells- the one-finger beam, what I thought was almost going to be a Death Ball, you can't keep doing this to me, man. Some electric energy styles too

My squishing on unusual Dragon Ball characters has found a new target, officially.

Meanwhile, the minotaur is feeling like chopped liver and we get a full glimpse of Super Saiyan- with how long he was yelling, I could've sworn he was about to go for Super Saiyan 3, which would've been absolutely gutsy considering he doesn't even know how 1 fully works in his small state.

Apparently, there's something suspicious about Glorio's magic and strength that Shin's not telling us... Oooh....

Now, we get a quick cut back to Team B! Bulma's work is done on the ship- and just in time, Vegeta's getting antsy.

However, I knew something was up when A) they were so sure this was how they were getting there after the show made a whole point about Hybis and B) Bulma didn't seem to be coming along, even though she's in the opening and ending. It seems that going to the Demon Realm wasn't in her initial plan, so she's likely getting roped along when they do make the journey.

And sure enough, the spaceship hits an unexpected snag! Don't worry guys, a silly little guy is on his way to help!

Looking at the next episode preview, we don't get many clues, but it seems we might be getting more lore on the collars!

EPISODES WITHOUT KNOWING HANVI'S WHEREABOUTS: 6

Honestly, I'm just keeping this counter for the bit and this feeling that I'm going to be sorry for removing it if we get a random cameo for no reason out of the blue.

[ahatintime-oc-competition]

Beta!

(belongs to @s0ckh3adstudios )

Beta is the protagonist of Haunted Hats; an AU with a few characters swapping roles, the most significant being that Hat, Bow, Timmy, and Mu are now the Subcon ghosts. Despite their age, they are what's known as a Time Guardian. She tends to any rips and tears in the time and frequently travels between timelines and universes to solve problems or do little maintenance checks. With this job comes the duty to protect special Time Pieces that are not only sacred artifacts, but the fuel to she and her friend's spaceship. Beta is quite the introverted hermit, not often leaving their spaceship to do anything else but time related tasks... They're quite nervous when it comes to talking to people who aren't their roommate, and prefer to avoid interaction and certain locations. However, when she loses her Time Pieces on accident, she doesn't have a choice! They're pretty awkward and shy at times, but she shows a sillier personality when around friends. They only speak through sign language. While anxious, Beta can be pretty direct and blunt in the way she speaks to others. She's lacking in the social skills department. But when they need to be, they can be an efficient and intelligent opponent.

[maleyanderecafe]

The Cold Commander by Day Cries in My Arms at Night (Manhwa)

Created by: 风月入怀

Genre: Sci-fi/Romance

You'd think by the title that I should actually love this one, but it's a headache to read thanks to the machine translations and the five billion watermarks on it. Really what pulls me through is the Ying Yu specifically during his susceptibility phase (or what I call it, baby mode), because otherwise god this one was a bit of a headache to read at times. There is about 69 chapters to this as of writing this.

The story starts out in a spaceship with commander Ying Yu and assistant/ doctor Gu Weilin fighting in a battle. They are able to win, but Ying Yu ends up injured and is healing in one of the medical bays. We learn from Gu that Ying Yu is actually an experiment done by the military, that has part incubus in his blood. Ying Yu and Gu actually were childhood friends, but due to the experiment, Ying Yu's memory was erased before he went into military training, and Gu found that she could work besides him again and took the chance. Ying Yu ends up waking up and pins down Gu. Gu realizes that Ying Yu is in his susceptibility mode and braces for something bad to happen, only for Ying Yu to recognize and call her by their childhood name. He becomes incredibly clingy afterwards wanting her attention and being afraid of her leaving. After calming him down,(via sleeping with him), the next day she ends up running into Duke Ying, Ying Yu's father and one of the commanders. After confirming that no one but her saw him in his susceptibility phase, the Duke makes Gu promise to stay silent about it. Ying Yu wakes up, having no memory of what exactly happened during his susceptibility state, but does recognize that someone was in his room last night. He tries to figure out who it was by asking assistant Gu to find her. Gu ends up going home as a vacation to a loving family and ends up going to an arranged date because of her grandfather. During the date, Ying Yu keeps on calling Gu to ask her for random things he's misplaced, until he ultimately just files over to pick her up. After finding the item, Ying Yu ends up calling his dad to try to find out the woman that was in her room, only to have his dad yell at him for chasing insignificant things. Ying Yu ends up paying Gu to suspend her vacation for now so that she can take care of him. She ends up basically doing a bunch of menial tasks for Ying Yu (getting him candy, pouring him water, taking care of him before he sleeps) before he gets drunk one day and ends up turning back into his baby form (susceptibility phase) version of him. This phase lasts until the next day, which is troublesome for Gu as they cannot continue their work without him. The Duke ends up getting both of them picked up after finding out, with Gu having to convince Ying Yu to go to sleep inside of his pod so he can go back to normal. He does eventually go back to normal, though he still wishes to find out who exactly he slept with. They go to a fancy dinner together after their work is completed and she ends up meeting Ying Yu's to be fiance. After this, Gu resigns as assistant (but is still the ship's doctor) as she shouldn't have to deal with Ying Yu's baby mode now that he has someone else. She ends up taking her vacation afterwards, but Ying Yu calls her a ton, not realizing that she's resigned from her position as assistant. During her vacation with her family, she ends up having to fight invading aliens for a bit before Ying Yu comes to save them.

Gu ends up giving her medical support to those around her after the incident, and even sees her former date, though is called up by Ying Yu to treat his wounds. Ying Yu gets jealous that there's another man in her life, which is why he basically gets her to go up on the ship to treat him instead of the various of other people getting affected by the alien attacks. Of course, Gu ends up going back to help on Earth, while Ying Yu essentially googles how to keep Gu by his side, with the two options being to give her a raise or to marry her. Ying Yu, being a yandere, of course decides that marriage is the better option, and uses an excuse of Gu picking up his watch to come over to her house. After a brief encounter with Gu's parents, Ying Yu pretty much pulls out the marriage certificate and tries to get Gu to marry him, to which Gu, understandably refuses. Gu later passes out because she was drugged (?) by Ying Yu and kidnapped into his place. Gu is understandably upset that she just got kidnapped against her will. Ying Yu handcuffs Gu and then forces her to sign a contract before letting her go. After this, she actually checks to see what's going on with her body, only to find that she is pregnant. Gu and Ying Yu do some lovey dovey stuff as per contract, with Ying Yu obviously picking up signs that she is pregnant without knowing that he's pregnant. Ying Yu ends up bringing Gu to an island, to where Gu learns about Ying Yu's biological mother, who was imprisoned on the island after getting pregnant with Ying Yu. She basically tells Gu to be careful when being with Ying Yu as she doesn't want her to end up like her. The president calls her, and Gu learns that a huge percentage of Ying Yu's memories that were erased were related to her, even seeing that they had to torture him in order to get rid of these memories. He also reveals that because he is too dependent on Gu, he's forced Ying Yu to go through his susceptibility mode again so that he can be with another woman, to which Gu in panic runs back. Upon going there, we see that the woman that was sent in was rejected and that Ying Yu has returned back into baby mode. He is very clingy and has apparently hurt his tail, so Gu has to come in and patch it up. After being very cute and Gu trying to make up reasons for him to avoid trying to touch her stomach, the two eventually end up sleeping next to each other until Gu has to wake up the next morning to visit her mother at the hospital. Ying Yu turns back to normal the next day, having no idea what happened, though for some reason his tail and horns are still there. The two end up going to a ball together despite I believe Ying Yu still being engaged (which, don't worry, the person he is engaged to is in love with another lady). She asks the commander and Ying Yu if she can take a two month vacation, but Ying Yu ends up kidnapping her (again) and chaining her inside of the space ship until she finishes her work (and gets fed by Ying Yu). Ultimately, Ying Yu's mother comes to save Gu, stating that she was the one who told her to take the leave so that she could help her (Ying Yu's mother) with her pregnancy (or at least, under that lie).

After Ying Yu bargins with her so that he can come visit, Gu is able to take her vacation to take care of their child. Ying Yu finds out that Gu is pregnant, demanding that she tell him who the father is, to which Gu refuses. After getting angry for a while and taking care of Gu when she's sick, Ying Yu leaves, and Gu wakes up to find out that the news of her pregnancy has been told to her parents already. Ying Yu finalizes their marriage to Gu's parents, to which Gu gets angry as nobody told her, which also leads to Ying Yu's parents having a spat. Ying Yu is able to convince the president to back down. Ying Yu does finally find out that Gu's child is his, and his mother talks to him about Ying Yu's older brother, a failed experiment that was exiled, as he's apparently smuggled himself back into the country. After some more cute moments, Ying Yu goes back into baby mode, getting jealous of his own child, before eventually trying to take care of Ying Yu and her child after finding out it's his. Ying Yu's brother is able to make it onto the island and makes an arrangement with Ying Yu's mother. Some more cute moments and Gu finds out she's adopted, and that she actually has some sort of fairy heritage.

I kind of don't want to be too harsh on this manhwa because I think the main issues I have with it are less about the actual story and more about the translation (because let's be honest, machine translation takes far too much brain power to interpret what's going on in the story), but it does very greatly affect how I feel about it because it's hard to write a proper recommendation when you're not sure what's going on. There are a ton of points where I don't actually understand what's going on with Ying Yu and Gu, and am just guessing, because some parts are just really confusing. As with most manhwa, it does go fairly fast, but the pacing was at least a bit more reasonable as compared to some other ones I've read.

Really what's making me hold on is Ying Yu's baby mode (because of course) and the sci fi element to it. In general, I find that sci fi is one of those genres that really lacks any yanderes, which is a shame because it has a lot of potential with making some pretty interesting plot elements. This one cheats a bit because there are also elements of fantasy in it (specifically Ying Yu being part succubus and I guess Gu being a fairy), but for the most part it is more or less set in a sci fi world, with everyone using holographic watches, fighting aliens and working on space ships. Gu as a doctor works pretty well since it gives her and Ying Yu and excuse to be together more often, as she has to take care of his baby mode, and it makes her status pretty important. Maybe a bit too much, honestly I think these people really need to give her a break because every time she asks for any time off, something happens like she gets kidnapped, or Ying Yu makes up an excuse to come see her and bring her back to work, or aliens attack. They probably could have done more with the sci fi element, but I think even seeing it used in a yandere story is enough for me at this moment. I'll probably change my mind if I ever see more sci-fi like stories come out in the future. The other one, which is completely on my love of sub yanderes, is of course Ying Yu's baby mode. Ying Yu normally is pretty controlling, albeit stupid (seriously, none of the signs of her being pregnant got through to you at all?) though he does have his childish moments, though honestly I don't really like him as a character as much since he's pretty much the type of cool love interests these stories tend to have. He does have yandere moments of course, such as kidnapping Gu, not once, but twice, trying to get them married against Gu's wishes and being generally possessive and jealous, but baby mode Ying Yu has my heart because he's really cute. It is a little weird though since it's implied that he did sleep with Gu despite seemingly having the mentality of a child (this isn't confirmed, of course, but he does act a bit too much like a child, and this is from someone who likes adult characters who are childish), so it does feel a bit strange when baby mode Ying Yu is supposedly sleeping with Gu and also crying because he can't bandage his own tail. Still, I never get any rights for sub or even very cute yanderes in most stories, so I have to take my wins where I can. He's really clingy and can get jealous, only wanting to be with Gu and even kicking out the other lady they tried to send to him so that he would sleep with her. While he does show up quite a decent amount of times in the story, I still wish he would show up more, or even try to talk about why it seems baby mode Ying Yu remembers Gu and not normal Ying Yu. The whole Gu being pregnant thing was fine, I suppose, but it didn't really leave too much impact on me other than Gu trying her hardest to hide it from Ying Yu and failing, and I guess now that we know Gu is also a fairy, we're going to have a really powerful fairy/succubus on our hands, so that's going to be interesting.

Honestly, a lot of the plot is a bit lagging since it's more or less building up the relationship between Ying Yu and Gu, but it does get interesting when Ying Yu's brother takes place. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, it is just something to keep in mind. That being said, if you are look for that cute and clingy yandere and some sort of scifi element shaped hole in your yandere readings, this one is probably a good one to read through. Just maybe don't think too much about the translations and watermarks.

[long-haired-hottie]

There was paint spread across her cheek. Her tan skin glistened with sweat from a day of hard work. She'd been in Tomayo's bedroom, mostly - a list of the kid's interests, wood, tools, and a determination to make the most awe-inspiring room for a child possible were her only companions for the past hour.

And ... her thoughts. Her slowly growing comfort with the domesticity of it all, the revelation that she was starting to fall into this, all of it.

She found him on her way to the shower, her thoughts running so rampant that to keep them within her own head felt like a Herculean task.

"I've been thinking, Di." Nix confessed, teeth sinking anxiously into the meat of her inner cheek.

" ... do you ... want a kid? With me, I mean? I mean, right now seems like a bad time, but ... In the future? Is that something you ... could see for us?"

A strong sense of vertigo hit Dija like every gut-check he'd ever received all at once. This was the second time in his life he'd been asked if he wanted kids by a woman. The first time he'd been in his early twenties while he was dating Sapphire. He'd been in college and was still in the goofing off stage of his life. Finding one's self and one's place in life, getting the rest of that "kid energy" out, that's what one's early twenties were for according to his parents. The noise, the caring for something that he couldn't leave alone without supervision, the aggravation none of it held any attraction for him. He'd been vehemently against it.

Now, several years older and with at least a year of fatherhood under his belt, he felt differently than then. Oh Dija still felt weak-kneed at being asked the question but it was different than the first time. There was a knee-jerk reaction of shock because why would anyone want to have a child with him when he was still so fucked up but as he took a deep breath, he worked through a quick examination of his feelings. Tomayo was a handful but between Sapphire, his family, and Nix, handling his son was manageable. When his mood spiraled because something triggered him someone was able to step in and help. A support network was in place and could catch him when he started to fall in on himself.

Dija could feel a tentative smile growing on his face but Nix's scent was tinged with insecurity and that kept it from blooming fully. It was almost like she was scared. Looking at the usually fearless captain, a streak of deep orange on her face and turquoise splotches on her arms from painting Tomayo's room, had him pulling her in close to offer some kind of comfort.

"I mean," began the witch, "I think, maybe once we're settled? We could talk more about it. Because yeah right now is too soon but um, I'm not–not against it. Not if that's something you think we could handle."

Dija could feel himself blushing, his heart hammering loud enough to be heard outside he was sure.

"You're really good with Tomayo and I think it'd be nice for–for us to have more family. We'd just have to figure out the job situation first since you're, you know, captain of a spaceship and all. If you really want a kid the we can try."

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[chiewse]

My Inner Child is Dumb and the Adult me is Ambitious.

chiewse

I graduated from primary school as an honor student, acing my every test, staring at the red colored ink encircling the score 50 out of 50, with a 'Very good!' written on its side. Plastering my smirk, thinking I freaking want to grow up already and be successful. My science teacher once had me standing with her side—nah, not because I am naughty, but to make my classmates clap for me since I did the presentation and she graded me a 100. I want to be an astronaut someday.

Holding Barbies with both of my hands, I stared at their clothes; they're pretty. That's when I started falling in love with art. Sketching designers, landscapes, faces of people that I only met in my imaginations, places that don't even exist, and me with a smile on my face—that little did she know, will soon never appear again. My grandfather's face lit up. "Wow, you are so talented, aren't you? Why don't you take art someday, someone who paints?" A giggle escaped in my mouth. "I want to be an artist."

Life was easy.

And the child is so dumb to believe that life will stay that way.

My forehead is knotted on the piled sheets of paper; it's a compilation of my achievements. I was seventeen, reminiscing about the last time I was good at everything. She knows how to draw and play with words; she's smart, full of energy and happiness; she is someone to whom you can give ten tasks and will finish them in a day, but now she can't even brush her hair and never leave the bed. Where did everything go wrong?

I was once full of smiles until life drained me hard.

My inner child is so dumb to believe that she can be an astronaut who will travel the universe with her silly spaceship, but the current 21-year-old adult here is very tired and exhausted without even doing anything. I want to be a chef. The 7-year-old laughed while helping her aunt make a flan, but all she did was mix the egg and milk. It's funny, but the laugh was genuine. A chef? I don't eat anymore; a cup of coffee every day is enough. I also once fooled myself into thinking I would be a doctor someday. "The medical field fascinates me!". This stupid girl even enrolled herself under the Nursing Department; however, the karma knocked her back into reality real quick and dropped her out of school after a year for having a financial crisis. A doctor? You can't even manage your own mental health first.

The adult me is so ambitious, dreaming of hundreds of professions to be someday when she was a kid; her current self is now aiming for something that is almost impossible to achieve, harder than mathematics or writing essays; she now wants to feel genuinely happy.

[orange-twilek-guy]

Aries is here to offer to have some relaxing tea and meditation time with his fellow blue alien order 66 Jedi survivor ✨️

Salo eyed the newcomer suspiciously and signalled for his children to return to the spaceship the four of them called home. Reaching out with the force told the Togruta that the other force-sensitive meant no harm with his tea and offer of relaxation however he didn’t want to risk his children being around a stranger he didn’t know.

The bounty hunter crossed his arms and tried to swallow the anxious lump in his throat that seemed to haunt every interaction he had since order 66. “Well..” he started, his scratchy voice wavering off as he determined what to do next. Glancing behind him to make sure his kids were safe before continuing on “I’ll get us some cups for your tea leaves”. His words surprised even himself and the whisper that had made its home in his head worried if the tea was poisoned, if it was a plot against him. Salo sucked in a breath and tried to dismiss the train of thought.

Salo retreated inside his starship momentarily to retrieve the cups. While grabbing the metal cups he caught sight of his children giggling about something together and realised why he had agreed. Salo was lonely. The purge had ripped him open and left a hole. The idea of stitching the hole their losses left by himself was too painful to act on. He moved his eyes away from his now bickering children and returned his wandering mind to the task at hand.

Walking out he sat down on the grass not far from the spaceship and gestured for Aries to join him there. He passed him the teacup he had grabbed for the Pantoran and folded his legs to get in position to meditate. “Haven’t done this for a while” he admitted as he shut his eyes, more to the force than to the friendly Jedi survivor next to him. Salo knew the force didn’t have feelings but he still felt he owed it an apology for taking so long to find his balance in it again.

Of course his children took the opportunity to cause mischief while unsupervised :3

[weaverreaver42]

She at least wasn't alone, having many others like her come into being soon after. Although none would be as close to your ward than the god of radiation. Each of them bonding over their doubts of any good they could bring to their creators. Every newly born god and goddess came into the world fearing themselves as being only meant for death and destruction, even if those two had the greatest doubts among the group. They did not have the luxury of being 'forced' into a role by humanity like you, their domains were FORGED for it.

Nonetheless, they grew, and they changed as all things inevitably do. Even the duo of deities you had soon grown attached to, who thought they were the sign of humanity's final end, discovered and accepted the unfortunate truth about humans.

"Humans always see something as a weapon, even when it can be so much more. Just like you, it will take time for them to realize their potential."

It was the advice you and your compatriots, all tasked with helping certain new gods of Man's creation find their way, had grown to recite nearly on command.

Mankind could be wrong about so many things, but the divine always know better. It was not too long at all that you all were proven right.

Explosives and Radiation: such specific concepts that became incomprehensibly versatile.

What was a spaceship, but shrapnel that refuses to break and an explosion that existed to push humanity farther? Just as fragments leave a grenade or a bullet leaves a gun, humanity left their home world, letting Gaia heal the damage she had accumulated before wiser people finally put their feet down. They expanded from their home, just as they did with their natural habitat. So long ago you lost track of the sparks, snuffing of flame, and the darkness that lasted until they relied on you once more. Keeping the night, cold, and hunger at bay had always been your purpose. That was when you were the only light they relied on, but those times are gone.

What is radiation, if not energy to harness for light and warmth the people come to need in their homes? Homes where fire could no longer follow. Colonies among stars that you had thought would be eternally out of reach.

It was so subtle at first. It was a tragedy, how none of you saw it coming until it all became too fast to indulge in the moments remaining. Humanity no longer needed you, nor did their progeny that you had come to call your kin. The new pantheon that would spread amongst the stars, the beings you had never realized were to replace you in a new age. They had grown far too soon, in your humble opinion.

Gods do not die, they have no need of an end. However, their rises and falls are inevitable- even yours.

Now your eons are simply spent watching as those you made ready to replace you built off of everything that came before. Idly staying nearby as they make something even grander still. In retrospect, how you feel now is most certainly what many generations of people no doubt felt. Happy to see those who came into the world lost and needing you to guide them. Content to know they have finally found their way. Privileged, that they chose to reciprocate and guide you how they can once the tables turned.

You had long wondered what value those little creatures saw in preserving and protecting those you viewed as little more than exhausted fuel. Yet here you were, just like the old and 'irrelevant' of their kind, happily accepting the results of your effort grow beyond you.

Mankind's Age of Fire has long since ended, the dark now something to be explored instead of feared. No longer are you a weapon to wield against the unknown, nor are you a bastion for their people huddle around at the day's end. You are not forgotten even after the end of your reign, and your light is still carried on by the very goddess who once couldn't see her own value. You are no longer needed, but still loved just as strongly. You are a relic of a bygone era, but even still they value what you were just as she valued what you did.

It is the Age of Advancement: an era of explosions, radiation, and steel. Even now that humanity and their new pantheon have reached the height of their potential, unrivaled in their feats and ambition, one thing remains true.

Humans might see a weapon at first, but they will always make it so much more when they are through.

As the God of Fire, the Supreme God has tasked you to supervise and educate a newly manifested Goddess. You find a sad, terrified, and confused child, fearful of her powers and the destruction it caused the mortal realm. You are to guide a being born from Man's work, The Goddess of Explosions.

[youmarin]

♡♡♡ childhood friends | seijoh 4 ♡♡ [3]

wc: 645 - pt. 1 , pt. 2 , next

masterlist

chapter 3: Aliens and Fairies

You were staying the night over at Oikawa’s. Both of you had taken the task of putting up a tent in his backyard and building a pillow fort inside of it. You were staking out for any ufo encounters, though you were more partial to fairies and thought a sighting of them much more likely.

“There’s the tooth fairy.” You argued with him as you laid on a blanket looking up at the clear starry night, just outside of your tent. Warm light was seen at some of the windows of the house, and the fairy lights inside the tent. Outside, the bed of short grass was showered by the moonlight, except that shadow under the tree at the back at the very edge. 

“I thought it was a rat.” 

“A mouse.” you corrected. “His name is Mr. Pérez. He and the Tooth Fairy work together.” 

Oikawa nodded. Then he proceeded on retelling you stories and theories about crop circles, spaceships and abductions. There had to be more life outside of Earth, he strongly believed. 

“Oh! Like fairy rings!”  You explained it to him. Apparently, if you stepped on a fairy ring, the fairies would force you to dance to your death or to your folly. Oikawa turned away his gaze from the sky and towards you, horrified. 

“I thought fairies were nice! What do you want to see a fairy for?” Though Tinker Bell could be quite mean. He still liked Tinker Bell. 

“Some of them are nice.” What was left was to discover which type you might encounter. “What about aliens? What if they don’t really come in peace?” 

“I’ll protect you.” He gallantly swore. 

Later, after hours looking at the sky and zero luck spotting any aliens nor spaceships (though you saw a few shooting stars and some fireflies paid you a visit. You wondered if fireflies knew about fairies and shared this idea with Oikawa.), you drowsily went inside your tent to sleep. 

A noise outside woke Oikawa up. He swiftly turned on his tummy and kicked the blanket off him (kicking you in the process but you didn’t even flinch). He reached for the flashlight, and slowly (and careful with his arm. The cast will be gone in just a couple of days), he dragged himself toward the tent flap. Hearing a loud noise again, he jerked back. 

“Y/n. Wake up. I think they came for us.” Oikawa didn’t allow a grumpy response, shaking the sleep out of you, alert now.

“Who came for us?” 

“The fairies. The aliens. I don’t know.” 

“Did you go check?” 

“Why would I go check?” 

“You wanted to see aliens.” 

“You wanted to see fairies.” 

“What about protecting me?” 

“I have a cast on.” 

There was a loud metallic noise again and you both shrieked, dropping under the pillows and blankets. 

You were scared, but you also wanted to go back to sleep. And what if you really had the chance to see a mythical or alien being? So you picked up the flashlight and, with Oikawa clinging to your back, you opened the tent flap to take a look outside. 

___

In the morning, Oikawa’s mom found the both of you like this: the upper half of your bodies was poking out of the tent flap, both of you on your tummies. Oikawa’s head rested on your upper back practically using you as a pillow, one arm thrown over you and legs tangled together. There was a blanket tangled on your feet, and a flashlight on your hand, still on. 

Later after breakfast, when you went outside again to gather up your things, you saw it. There, under the shade of the tree, which made it more ominous, had sprouted some mushrooms forming a circle that totally wasn’t there the day before. A fairy ring. 

You and Oikawa stared at each other.

notes:

It was a stray cat jumping around some trash cans on an alley nearby.  

If you didn’t know, in Spain and Latin America, it’s a little mouse that picks children’s fallen milk teeth and leaves them money (in my household it was one dollar per tooth hehe. Omg that sounded like we went around knocking our teeth off for money but I promise we didn’t.), though we also know the tooth fairy of course. I actually believed in both until I was 12. Sue me lmaooo. I think the tooth fairy is more from Europe or the USA? And apparently there’s a story that links a mouse and a fairy so their origins seem to be around the same. Idk. Also in here, we know it as ratoncito Pérez but in other countries they might not have given it a name. 

Really like how this one turned out. The only thing I had were literally the words “aliens” and “fairies”. Opened the doc of the series and this is what I ended up writing. It’s the latest and the ninth I’ve written but it might be my favorite. The other boys are not in it, sorry! I take turns focusing on each of the boys in every chapter or focus more on one and this was Oikawa’s turn (tho ch.2 was more Iwa and also Oiks focused). Promise they’ll be all back in the next one. In the meantime try to guess which boy takes more of the spotlight for chapter 4.

Happy Saturday and see you next time! - Youmarin <3

p.s. : did y'all did anything for Valentine's day?

tags: @sickpatientt

[amischiefofmuses]

@tangleweave

One could hardly be expected to lock one's spaceship up at all times. Especially when said spaceship is sitting on a landing pad at the Avengers' upstate training facility, where the only other things flying around are SHIELD quinjets, androids, and the occasional suit of power armor. Quill had been assured repeatedly, by both the Avengers and his own teammates, that the Milano would be well-tended and not in any way tampered with. Drax and Rocket would be aboard to see to it that Stark’s activities would be strictly monitored during this so-called… “technological exchange”. But those assurances had not, apparently, extended to the crew of the ship, whom certain of the Avengers seemed to take great delight in seeking camaraderie with through offerings of food, conversation – and pranks. Drax is still annoyed by the shaving cream he awoke to seeing in his hands… and wherever else he’d touched while slumbering. Barton hasn’t been seen since. And while the archer has been… away… supposedly on mission, with a conveniently healthy side effect of avoiding the Destroyer, his little finned companion has evidently seen fit to roam the place. Most of the Avengers on-site have traded off duties seeing to Jeff, ensuring that he’s fed, played with, and doused with water as needed, but every so often everyone else is busy with their own tasks and troubles. Avengers and Guardians are alike in that respect, it would seem. Stark, Quill, and Rocket have busied themselves with trading notes on the FTL drive and the principles that make it a possible technology; Rocket has taken no end of delight in pointing out to Stark that he’s only a genius on Earth, and that this particular tech is ubiquitous in the skies above. In the background, they’ve set up a rotating playlist; Stark has updated Quill’s music player to provide a near-limitless archive of Terran tunes, but the ones Quill is most interested in are those from the days of his youth. “I got the powah!” Situated in a modest ceramic pot on the edge of the War Room’s holotable is a diminutive sprout, composed of interwoven brown vines and a smattering of green buds at their tips. Similarly, at the top of the small tree is a tangle of leaves that could, if one looked at it at just the right angle, be mistaken for hair, slicked back by moisture. But one would not be able to mistake the motions of the twig’s two main branches as anything other than rhythmic swaying. As impossible as it might seem, the tree is… dancing. At first, when Jeff ascends the ramp of the Milano and enters the War Room, Groot halts in place. He is, after all, skittish about revealing his full range of motion to anyone, even those who planted him here in this pot and nursed him to sentience. It had been fun for him to see how long he could avoid Drax’s notice. Gamora had been the first who’d seen him, and has been nothing but kind to him since – so, too, has Rocket been uncharacteristically gentle. But the sight of the Land Shark intruding into the space quite unexpectedly gives the little sprout all the reason in the world to pause, to keep his beady little eyes trained on the strange beast and watch to see just what Jeff has in mind to do, now that he’s here. But his hesitation cannot quite halt the swaying of the buds and leaves which exist on his extremities, and there is no breeze to explain it away.

It seems a running trend for Jeff to get himself into spaces he shouldn't be but really, what else could be expected of him when he's given free reign and there's so much to explore? He'd timed slipping into the ship PERFECTLY, or at least that was his thought as he slipped past the majority of the crew, entirely unaware initially of the little plant in the pot. Of course, his first port of call is wherever the food is stored. Nose raised, he sniffs and snuffles, letting out a soft sneeze as the scent of dirt and soil overpowers his senses. Where-?

And then he sees the little swaying plant, watching it intently for a moment, his head tilting from side to side like a confused dog trying to make sense of it. There's no wind in here for it to be dancing like this, he's smart enough to know that. So he approaches, still snuffling, his movements slow as his paws brace against the side of the table the plant pot has been left on. "Mrrr..?" Nosing at the pot gently, enough so to lightly tilt it for a moment, he draws back to look the little thing over. It definitely smells like a plant, even if it's being somewhat drowned out by the strong scent of the soil, but he's never known a plant to move like this. Wanting a better look, he pushes one of the chairs over and jumps up onto the table to be on even ground with the little thing. A gentle prod is given with his paw, touching one of the branches. "Prrr..?"

[fluffytimearts]

Among Us in real life (sus, sus)

Among Us in real life (sus, sus)

Playing Among Us in real life, spaceship with my crew

Gonna split up, spread out 'cause we all got tasks to do

Gotta find the imposter as they try to sabotage

Who can we trust in this Among Us entourage?

Heard a sound, turned around, looking up, looking down

Then I find a dead body

Gotta blow the horn, emergency discussion, who should we believe?

Can't decide, so, now we leave, not sure what I'm about to see

Will it be a dead body? Still have a task I must complete

Who's the impostеr?

Looking sus, who can we trust?

Who's the imposter?

Looking sus, who can wе trust?

Who's the imposter?

Looking sus, who can we trust?

Who's the imposter?

Looking sus, who can we trust?

I'm a ghost, I'm my biggest fear, got killed by the imposter

I was playing in the game, but now I'm just a watcher

I'm paying attention using my 360 vision

If it gets quiet, I listen

Make sure there's nothing I'm missing

Who's the imposter?

Looking sus, who can we trust?

Who's the imposter?

Looking sus, who can we trust?

Who's the imposter?

Looking sus, who can we trust?

Who's the imposter?

Looking sus, who can we trust?

It wasn't me (or me)

It definitely wasn't me

No one can be trusted because someone is lying

We still have tasks to do, so, let's split up so we can win

Everyone is sus so let this last round begin

There's an imposter among us

Trying to take something from us

We're still over here working

While she's just ghosting above us

Someone's under suspicion

Sabotaging our mission

Doing my task in the kitchen

Until I stop, look, and listen

Who's the imposter?

Looking sus, who can we trust?

Who's the imposter?

Looking sus, who can we trust?

Who's the imposter?

Looking sus, who can we trust?

Who's the imposter?

Looking sus, who can we trust?

I'm the I-M-P-O-S-T-E-R, that's me

While everyone's doing tasks, I'm going through vents on a killing spree

Yeah, I'm sus in Among Us

We can discuss whoever took your life

But if you think you're running this game, oh-yeah

That's me holding this knife

I'm the imposter

Looking sus, who can we trust?

I'm the imposter

Looking sus, who can we trust?

I'm the imposter

Looking sus, who can we trust?

I'm the imposter

Who sent me the entire lyrics of "Among Us In Real Life" by Rebecca Zamolo Shorts. Who- Who did this --

OOH WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON YOU-