#which further festers into imposter syndrome and deep embarrassment and unidentified self loathing

[the-valiant-valkyrie]

jotting down a couple of my solaris post death engine headcanons. hospitalization and mental decline is discussed, although not in all too thorough detail, so i suppose that's a cw?

saying that the medical team didn't consider solaris worth saving wouldn't exactly be accurate. but her condition seemed bleak, and her survival chance was incredibly slim

physical injuries aside, her radiation poisoning was the worst of it. when she was initially brought in after the crash, she wasn't expected to last even a handful of hours as a result of her exposure

said radiation also got all over her clothes, which- when you factor in that patches of them were melded onto her skin due to the sheer heat of the crash- certainly did not help matters much when it came to mitigating further exposure.

thankfully she survived the three hour grace period for severe radiation poisoning. then the three day grace period for moderate radiation poisoning. and then the two week grace period for 'mild' radiation poisoning… the treatments helped, of course, but her immune system hardly escaped unscathed. nor did her stamina, pain tolerance, hair, or the majority of her muscle mass

getting such a traumatic injury immediately after spending an extended amount of time in zero gravity wasn't exactly great for solaris' physical strength. once she was allowed to leave her cot she found it very difficult to support herself without the temporary use of axillary crutches.

she… did not like them. and accidentally made herself worse for a time by purposefully forgoing them. but it didn't take her too long to learn it was less miserable to use them than it was to collapse in the hallway in front of her coworkers.

the fabricator's company especially helped during that period… having designed her own prosthetic after losing her arm, there was little concern fabby would think her any weaker for relying on a mobility aid

the incident… really changed solaris' perspective on a lot of things. grappling with your potentially-rapidly-approaching death will do that to you. she was always a bit of a perfectionist, but going forward she started to cling to her mistakes with a lot more self-directed hostility. after all, it was, ultimately, her fault the death engine project failed to begin with

she also struggles with regret a lot more- mainly in regards to time, and the ways in which she 'wastes' it. another consequence of watching it slip between her fingers, half certain she would be spending the remainder of her life in a hospital cot.

she tries not to make either of these facts too obvious to her coworkers. the fabricator can tell rather easily, though. but that isn't the worst thing in the world. at least she won't weaponize any of it.

the day after she was let out of the hospital was the day she drafted her resignation letter from zoraxis. but she was too scared to do anything with it, or act on the urge to quit beyond that… it was a miracle she even survived to begin with. zor could kill her with a flick of their wrist if they wanted to. and it isn't as if she and the doctor were ever on the best of terms- especially not after her catastrophic failure. she… didn't want to tempt fate until it proved absolutely necessary.

she threw herself into building her imposing figure and nature back up almost as soon as she physically could. and while she inevitably became just as powerful as she was before the incident strength wise, her constitution leaves much to be desired. functionally, she's a glass canon. thankfully, she doesn't look like one- which is a fact that she uses to her advantage when necessary.