thisavrou_ooc | ( tdm 9 )

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ABOARD THE MOIRA

Whether adjusting to space travel has been difficult or not, there is always something to be done. From working to leisure, the Moira offers a multitude of opportunities to get to know your crewmates a bit better. Exploration of the ship is highly encouraged, but as another planet grows closer to being docked, things start to get a little hectic. You'll notice a slight change in the artificial gravity as the Moira is pulled into a gravitational field; however, more noticeable changes can be found in the overall morale as you prepare to descend.

☄ on your own

There are plenty of other communal areas on the ship to explore! Pick a place, and see where it takes you. ( These scenarios can be used as in-game canon. )

C R O M I A

While exhibits or museums exist to commemorate people or objects, planets like this are designed as a memoriam for certain eras across the universe. Welcome to Cromia—a one-of-a-kind place set in medieval times. Sort of. Most technology on Cromia isn’t particularly advanced, and the fashion leaves little to be desired. However, one thing is very noticeable about this planet once you decide to explore: there are no organic people anywhere to be found. Cromia is inhabited by a race of intelligent, humanoid robots who tend to and care for the environment as well as live peacefully with one another. Yet, some have been programmed to show a certain disdain for those who are, in some way, living, and their hostility ranges between hurling insults and vegetables to reporting trespassers to the authorities. Besides that, all seems well and prosperous on Cromia.

☄ the emperor’s new servos
The Royal Family of Cromia has extended an invitation to join them for festivities, food, and drink beginning when the first sun sets. This night is a way to relax and perhaps romance that special someone in your life with a little song and dance. For those who sample certain drinks, they might find themselves doing just that without being able to help themselves. Or perhaps that delicious wine you've heard so much about is actually a very oily concoction meant for the robots of Cromia. For others, a little cheese or venison might instill the need for fisticuffs. Could the desserts hold the same sort of enchantment? Do you dare to find out?

☄ catch-a-riiiide
The fastest way to get around is via carriage in the city, and each city is pulled by a large insectoid cyborg. Their handlers assure you they’re quite tame, especially since their silly organic minds have been implanted with a control chip. They’ll take you to whatever destination you program in without a hiccup! What could go wrong? Except on the way, that ever-so-important control chip happens to malfunction. Your once docile bug-stallion is now running amok down the streets. Do you jump out before you meet a sticky end? Or do you take control and force it to stop? Either way, you aren’t likely to be getting your deposit back from this.

☄ taste the rainbow
Archery. Bugback riding. Jousting. These are the typical leisure activities suiting the time period you now find yourself in, which is what you might assume when you see the banners denoting a competition. Anyone can enter. Anyone can win the prizes. When you ask what sport you’ll have to play, they just say one word: skittles. Similar to bowling, this sport is played on a long, flattened field, and the point of it is to use the wooden ball to knock over the "skittles" that are set up in increasingly complex patterns for each round. These skittles are also made of wood, exactly ten feet high each, and the balls used vary from the size of a golf ball to a canon ball (dealer’s choice on ball size). People are usually split into teams, but for the sake of the competition, everyone plays alone. Whoever gets the most points moves forward in the competition, and hope that there are no accidents mid-throw!

OUT OF CHARACTER INFO

FAQ | LOCATIONS | RESERVES | APPLICATIONS | NAVIGATION
For mature or graphic content, please label. For questions, please direct them to the FAQ. As always, be kind and have fun!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You told them—? [ There was that sharp edge to her tone and question as she continued to stare up at him. Her hands find the crook of his elbows to hold, head leaning back like that information leaves her reeling. Those coordinates had been the one thing they'd had going for them, the one thing that kept them all ahead in the game against Marlowe and Talbot. But Elena has to remind herself that he'd been drugged, he would've had no control over what he was saying or doing at the time. Nathan couldn't be blamed when it had been against his own will.

Elena's not pulling away, she's not pushing his hands from her waist. She's just trying to put one and one together and then two and two— of course until he says the magic words 'Marlowe is dead' and she pulls in a quiet breath through her teeth, fingers squeezing at his arms. ]

What do you mean the Iram of the Pillars isn't an issue anymore? [ For now she's going to ignore the main crisis, which is that they've been— as he calls it— space kidnapped, and she's going to focus on getting the facts straight. It isn't like she can't not believe him, when he looks so serious and his usual joking attitude is nowhere to be seen. Everything he's been telling her has been a continuation from what she knows and includes a conclusion, the finish to the story they were set out on.

Doesn't make it any less confusing, however. ]

What did you and Sully do? [ More like what did Nate do is more like what she means. ]

[Nate winces at her reaction, inevitable and understandable as it is. He'd have the same one if he were on the other side, if he hadn't sat across the table from Marlowe, groggy and weak, and known that every impossible thing she said was true. Even now, he's not sure whether it's a blessing or a curse that he doesn't remember telling them or how easy it was for them to get the information out of him.

Doesn't matter now. Sully's safe, probably back on Earth where he belongs, and Elena needs to be filled in on...too much. Far too much.]

I mean it's gone. We bl—okay, we didn't blow up the lost city, exactly, but it's a sinkhole in the desert. It can stay lost forever as far as I'm concerned.

[This probably doesn't help her confusion, considering how he'd laughed at the idea of quitting when she'd last asked him to, but he can't even pretend to give a damn. He saw Sully die there, and even if it was all a hallucination, nothing that can cause that kind of horror should be released into the world. Francis Drake had been right.]

I just wanted to get him out of there. It's Marlowe who wanted to take the secret of Iram for herself, and she paid for that with her life.

You blew it up—? [ Elena cuts in after she hears the words 'blow up', now stepping back out of his hold to stare with her brows deeply furrowed, and then he keeps talking. Okay so...not blown up, it's now a sunken lost city. Totally lost. No means of retrieving it.

This is making her head hurt.

She steps back another step, hand to her temple, and kind of falls into pacing a few steps with the skirts moving around her legs. Thankfully she doesn't trip. Sully was safe, that was all that should've mattered here. She hadn't been joking around when she said that that man would follow Nate to the ends of the earth, and now in some sense the same could've been applied to Nate in the steps he'd taken to rescuing the older man and friend. ]

I should've gone with you. You shouldn't have had to go on your own, it was too dangerous. [ Here she stops to look at him. She couldn't give a flying fuck about Marlowe at this point. ] What if you didn't come back? What if the two of you had gone down with Marlowe and Iram?

[ While Elena had been alone for months now after their separation, some small part of her had been okay with that, living her life, doing what she always did— Nate was alive then, that was easy. Thinking that she could've been left alone without either him or Sully, their deaths would've taken a chunk out of her life that she wouldn't know what to replace it with. That's the thought that flickers in her eyes— this lifestyle of theirs, it was far too dangerous, that was why she'd pulled out when she did. Elena knew of the risks and that the losses would become too great for her to bear.

This feels like deja vu, like they've already gone through the motions of this discussion.

'What was I supposed to do then?' is the question she leaves to hang unspoken between them. ]

No!

[He lets her go, but as soon as she suggests that she should have accompanied him, he's stepping forward again, reaching out for her arm. It's ridiculous—even if it hasn't happened yet for her, Nate knows how things will go, knows she'll back down when he pleads for her to take the car and go. But just the thought that it could go otherwise has him scared and sick.]

Of course you say that, it's what you said then—but you don't understand. It was too dangerous, and that's exactly why you couldn't come with me.

[It's a bright day and the streets of this alien city are lively with people, human or otherwise, but for a few seconds it's dark and they're on an empty airstrip and Nate is looking at her, knowing it might be the last time he ever sees her face.]

They had Sully on a convoy going into the desert, days ahead of us. I snuck onto a plane they were going to use for a supply drop, but it—it crashed. [Yeah. Crashed all on its own, nothing to do with him.] I spent three days walking the dunes of the Rub' al Khali. I almost died. You would have.

[And god, he can imagine that so clearly even though he doesn't want to. Whatever Elena might think he feels or doesn't feel for her after so much time apart, the terror of that untaken path is naked on his face.]

I had to go after him. And we didn't go down with Iram, we both made it out. We came back to you.

[ His outburst takes her by surprise and she stares up at him with her brows raised, not moving out of the way when he grabs for her arm. She darts her gaze down to where she feels his fingers digging in and then back up to the look on his face. Elena doesn't know what to say, she can only stare back at him. Had it really been that bad?

Talk about a brief moment of whiplash when he tells her she'd said the exact same thing then as she was saying now. Sounds like something she'd say, he was right. ]

But I— [ She tries to interject but he carries on to explain while she's left to stand there and watch him, stuck listening. Elena closes her jaw and sets it. Just because he'd nearly died didn't mean she would've. She wasn't weak, he had to know that. Hadn't she proven that each time they went out together on some dumb adventure? Dehydration couldn't keep her down. ] You can't know that, Nate. You can't know that I would've died. I could've come out of there just the same as you— alive.

[ The rest of her argument fizzles away then at the fear in his expression. It had to have been one hell of a journey, a dangerous one at that, if he was looking at her the way he was. Fearing for her life before she even had the chance to experience it. Elena's shoulders drop and she reaches up to press a hand over his chest in a means to soothe him, a nurturing trait she defaults to when anyone is in need of reassurance, the beat of his heart hard and steady against her palm, reassuring her. ]

It's all right. You're alive and I'm here. We're going to be okay. We'll figure something out, even if nothing is making sense and you're from...the future and I'm— I don't know— stuck in the past or something like it's Back to the Future and you're Emmett Brown and I'm Marty McFly.

[He's all set to argue that yes, she would have—she's a small person, and even if she's tough, she doesn't have certain reserves of strength, and wouldn't the two of them worrying about each other have slowed them down, maybe kept them from ever reaching the abandoned town where Salim had picked him up...but then she stops, and his fear slowly begins to fall.

It'll be all right. She won't stubbornly charge forward after getting a glimpse of her own future and change everything. On the other end of this, somewhere, they'll both be alive.]

Thank you.

[He's not even sure what he's thanking her for. Listening to him now? Easing his fears? Not charging after him in Yemen, when Yemen's not even on this planet?]

I can't be Doc Brown, though. [And now it's safe to joke, putting his raw emotions away behind a cheeky smile.] I don't have a cool car like he does. Find me a DeLorean and I'll consider it.

[He's still a little rattled, though, and he doesn't want her to step away, so he takes the hand on his chest with his left one, squeezing gently.]

For what..?

[ Even she's questioning why he would be thanking her. Was it because she was being supportive and reassuring him? That she was alive and they were together again? The meaning behind his thanks is lost on her when usually Elena's able to read him and figure out what he's up to without needing more than a simple little clue.

And there he goes, falling back into old ways of hiding his emotions behind that smile and his jokes although she'd been the one to mention Back to the Future in the first place. ]

What does not having a cool car have anything to do with— [ The warmth of his hand covering hers draws her attention down; it's one thing for her to get touchy with him, but as soon as he's getting his hands on her after everything with those small gestures, she's always finding herself pausing to look and consider them. Like the need to see for herself that it's real and not just a figment of her imagination. Of course her first reaction to seeing the metal band around his ring finger is a dismissive one, until she double takes and looks back down—

What? What?

Elena's mouth opens. Nate can bet his ass she would have something to say about that, and after he'd been a bit of an ass about her still supposedly wearing hers, but she suddenly pulls away, like his touch had burned her, a sharp breath sucked in. ]

—what is that?

[A cool car has everything to do it. Can't be a mad scientist without crazy hair, can't be Doc Brown without an awesome car to make into a time machine. He opens his mouth to tell her exactly that, but then she does an incredible double take and it doesn't occur to him why.]

What's what—

[Then it hits him. Oh. Oh. In the short time Nate's had since Sully presented him with his not-so-lost-after-all ring, it's become second nature to put it on each morning, just like before. Even when he'd thought he was alone here. He doesn't even notice it now.

But of course it stands out to her, especially after he'd pretty much mocked her for still wearing hers. Nate swallows hard before answering.]

It's...my wedding ring.

[Obviously. Even if it weren't on that significant finger, Elena had helped pick it out and then put it on him for the first time. Smooth titanium, tough enough to stand up to the hard knocks he'd inevitably put it through. They'd laughed about that at the time.

He opens his mouth to explain further but realizes he has no idea what to say.]

I... [ Elena's lost on what to say, her eyes stuck on the metal secured around his finger. ] I can see that.

You weren't wearing it before. Nate, you mocked me for still wearing mine. And you can't tell me that wearing it here of all places helps somehow.

[ It looks exactly the same as she remembered it. Frankly, she'd thought he had lost it, or at least put it somewhere where he couldn't. The sight of it on his hand leaves a slightly haunted look in her eyes and she has to glance away, but then she looks at him again. ]

...what happened? I mean, what happened that would make you put it back on?

[There is nothing he can say in his defense. She's right. He'd been shitty, and saying 'oh, I did that because I didn't know what it meant that you were still wearing it, and I was scared to think about what I wanted it to mean, so I acted like a dickhead to cover it up' is unlikely to make her feel better about it.

Still, he frowns a little as he looks down at his hand, holding it out slightly like he doesn't know what to do with it. It's not lost on him that this is what it was probably like for her.]

I didn't start wearing it here, I started wearing it—

[He stops himself when a pair of strangers walks by, not that close but enough to remind him that they're still in a very public place, and updating his wife on the status of their marriage, from his perspective at least, is not something he wants to do with an audience. Even if the audience doesn't actually give a shit.]

Look, can we find a place to sit and talk? I don't know, a bench or something?

[ Oh Lord. The ring on his finger had to somehow fall in the cracks somewhere he'd been filling in for her. Elena didn't know if that was a good thing or not. She glances sharply at the pair as they casually stroll by, caught by the unintentional interruption and then, again, she looks at him.

Numbly, she nods. Her voice comes out low, hesitant. ]

Yeah... Yeah, I think I remember seeing one just...over there. [ One more side glance drops to his left hand and she moves past him to lead. It shouldn't bother her as much as it does but— it does. Dammit, it does. ] By the way, try not to step on the dress. I don't want to find out the hard way how much it cost.

[ A tiny effort to lighten whatever tension was struggling between them, Elena looks out from the edge of her hood and offers a smile. There wasn't exactly any treasure they could attempt to steal and sell for coin here, not that she knew of. She hopes he doesn't try it, either. Her reputation wouldn't be a free Get Out of Jail card, unfortunately. ]

[Joke's on her, he's already stolen several things he could get some money for. Okay, not anything as high-value as treasure, but it made him feel better. Sharing this information is not gonna improve her disposition toward him, though, so he'll just sit on it.

Nate manages to give her a weak smile back, but his heart isn't in it, though he rallies enough to try and tease.]

Didn't know you were into this kind of stuff. Next you'll be telling me you're a secret renfaire fan.

[Not that he's lacking in garb, but it's different for him. He's got to blend in to be a successful thief. Totally not the same.

Once they find a bench, he plops down in his seat and stares at the ground for a long moment, half hoping she'll say something first, before sacking up and re-starting the conversation.]

So...this is really weird. Just to get that out of the way.

I'm not. I would gladly exchange this get up for a good pair of pants.

[ Elena is dying to get out of the gown, the hood carrying some weight atop her head so it won't fall back on its own. She can't stand the way the skirts drag whenever she walks, missing the freedom that comes with wearing her khakis.

He sits and she joins him, an absent gesture of running her hands over the skirts on her lap following, as if she's stalling on getting things going. Where do they start? Right, the ring business. She eyes his left hand— it's a little strange for her to see it after going so long without. Would it be all right to completely skip over it and go straight into a discussion about this world and what comes next? Thankfully he's the one who goes first and Elena glances over. ]

Yeah... You could say that again.

[That sounds about right. She's always been happier in clothing she can move around in, even though she looks damn good in a dress. Were they here under different circumstances, in a different time, he'd have shared a joking-not-joking idea about how she could get out of the dress, complete with suggestive eyebrow waggle.

No eyebrow waggles now, just an expression of faint unhappiness and the sensation of something thick and heavy in the pit of his stomach.]

No, I mean—I get that it's weird for you too, getting a vision from the future and all. But it's weird for me because I feel like this is stuff you already know and I'm not sure how to explain it now that it turns out you don't.

Last I saw you, we were on the same page about things, but we didn't exactly have the chance to talk through it all with Sully right there. I figured we would when we got to Lisbon, but then...space happened.

[ If she's going to look good in a dress then it's not going to be what she's draped in right now. Something more skin tight, something that shows her guns and her legs, maybe a tiny bit of cleavage and dips past her shoulder blades. Sexy, classy, provocative. Though she supposes this could fall in that category— back in the far, far day. ]

Lisbon..? Why Lisbon? What did we have there going for us? What 'things' are you talking about?

[ Elena asks this as she looks between him and his wedding ring. The ring had to fall in with said 'things', somehow. If it did, then why did he look unhappy? ]

It's probably easier if you stop trying to act like you're gently breaking the world's biggest new story and just tell me.

[He sighs, but—she has a point. As usual. It's stupid to draw it out more than necessary, because she can see right through him and he's not actually upset about the story itself.]

We were going to Lisbon because it's as far west as we could get before stopping to refuel Sully's plane and sleep for the night. We were going—home.

[His voice just barely cracks on the last word.]

Together. You and me.

[Like, together-together.]

[ Elena stares at him— what? That can't be right. All of this was making her head hurt. But...she'd asked for it, she had wanted the truth, wanted him to spit it out...and he had. Her breath gets pulled in and held— home. It has so many meanings behind that singular word but if what he's saying is true and it was them, together, and going back to America...

Slowly she reaches up to pull the hood back as she shifts on the bench, gaze only breaking when she blinks. You and me. Did she dare to hope? ]

Like— together-together— you and me. I don't...get it. [ What the hell was so hard about this that she couldn't grasp? She adds then on a soft murmur, throat going tight, ] —why?

[ A harsh swallow. ]

What changed your mind? Wait— [ This is the worst time for this but: ] I don't get hit with another grenade do I?

[Nate winces a little when she says she doesn't get it, but that's not fair to her. What's to get? Well, a lot of things, from her perspective.]

No. [He sits up straight, looking a little disturbed at the idea. Even with all that's happened recently, Flynn's grenade is one of his very least favorite memories from an adventure.] No, no grenade. You're fine. Everyone's fine.

[Except for him, but he'd been alive, and that was enough. The injuries would heal. And then he'd been space kidnapped and they were healed. But she didn't ask about that, and she's still giving him the most gobsmacked look, so...

Fuck it. He'll stick to being direct.]

It's because I love you. I never stopped. And it's because you are way too forgiving and have terrible taste in romantic partners, not that I'm complaining.

Turns out that a lot can happen in a week to get someone to yank their head out of their ass.

A week? [ She stares at him. He's nuts. Of course he always has been, since she first met him, but now he really and truly is out of his mind. ] My God, you're right— I am too forgiving. I don't know what the future me is thinking...

[ Was that sarcasm? Was she agreeing with him? The weight of her ring brings her focus away from him, lowering down to her hand as his words weigh on her. A deep sorrow sweeps through her, fingers splaying as she looks over her wedding band. How long has she been waiting to hear him say that? ]

But it wasn't enough... [ That's what didn't make sense. If he had loved her like he said he did— or does— then why did he feel the need to walk out on their marriage? On her? All this time the nagging thought that she'd done something wrong or hadn't done enough was at the back of her mind like a dark, heavy cloud, something she couldn't ask when he was never around. ]

[A week is in fact a very short time to come so far, after months of separation and also considering how very firmly wedged his head had been in his posterior, but a lot had happened during that week. And it had been long overdue.]

I'm a shitty liar to everyone but me, apparently, and I got really good at telling myself what was important. I thought this—[He bats at his chest, where Drake's ring used to hang, a scornful expression on his face.]—was important.

Then I woke up tied to a chair in a shipyard because Marlowe's hired pirate decided to gun for Iram himself, and I went after his ship because he said he had Sully as leverage. It was just a con. After the ship went down [because of course it did] I just kept thinking that I was going to drown there and I'd never see you again, never...

[He drifts off for a moment, visibly unsettled.]

Washed up on the shore. Made it to your place, where I found out they had nabbed Sully but you had a plan. Then came the plane and the desert and Iram.

A week like that...it puts things in perspective really clearly.

Edited (double dashes instead of emdashes just bug me) 2016-04-24 18:28 (UTC)

Never...?

[ Did she even want to know the answer to that? There was too much meaning behind that one word trailing off; never hold her, never get to kiss her, never get to tell her that he...loved her. Elena's hand reaches for his then as the one thought that had always plagued her thoughts and haunted her dreams returns— no, she wouldn't lose him, she was always so sure she wouldn't in spite of the fear that frazzled her nerves when putting him and any danger together. ]

See, that sounds more like me, setting up a plan to rescue Sully. Even if I had to do it on my own, I would've done whatever it took to get him back. And you... I would've...

[ Elena would've gone to the ends of the earth to get him back, the both of them. The thought of losing them, her fingers tighten in response, brows coming together. ]

...I would do the same.

Edited (i can html i can i know i can) 2016-04-25 05:58 (UTC)

[Regardless of how uncertain he is about their relationship now that different points in time have given them equally different perspectives on it, Nate's fingers close around hers when she takes his hand. He doesn't even have to think about it.]

I know you would. I'm just glad you didn't have to.

[As frightening as he knows it must have been—will be—for her to watch him go up in Marlowe's plane alone without any way to know whether he'd succeed, he still believes with every part of him that asking her to stay behind was the right thing. She stayed safe and he survived, and they have a future now, even if it's an uncertain one.

Twisting in his seat to face her, Nate looks her in the eye, his gaze intense and unblinking.]

Elena, I don't know what was going to happen next for us, but I know I was going to do everything I could to make things up to you. I didn't expect to end up in space, but you know me, I'm adaptable.

I know what I want now, here or back home. I want you; I want a life with you. If you just give me one more chance...please.

[ Elena stares at him, silent. She's taking in what he's saying, what he's asking. He's got to be serious about this, that's what she thinks as she lowers her eyes from his to the ring that's been put back where it should've never left in the first place.

Still quiet, her eyes lift back up to search his. Like she'll find any doubt in them for her to latch on to and give her reason to refuse his request. To not believe him. He'd been the to walk away from her and leave the life they'd begun behind. And now he wanted back in. She'll need to choose her words and weigh them carefully. ]

How can I believe that, Nate?

[ Pain and uncertainty— each emotion is carefully laced between each word and syllable. Elena watches him, hand squeezing his. ]

How can I trust you? That you aren't going to jump ship at the first chance you get with some exotic treasure hot under your nose?

[Every second that goes by feels like a year, and he's aging with each one that passes, more and more certain that he'll be living that time without her. When she finally speaks and doesn't forgive him, doesn't take him back, it's almost a relief.

She hasn't walked away, though. She's still holding his hand, and that has to mean something.]

I don't know.

[His voice is so small and sad even to his own ears, but Nate can't make it sound any different.]

I don't know how to fix this—what I broke.

[He'd spent so long acting like he was the only one hurting, like he was the only one whose feelings mattered at all. But everything he ever did to hurt her is clear now, and he can't see anything else.]

I just know that I love you and I want to prove that you can. Here or back home, I don't care. I'll do it one day at a time, for years, if that's what it takes.

[ It breaks her heart just a little more to hear him say that. He can't expect her to know how to fix this, either; what he had decided wasn't good enough that he couldn't stay to try to work it out with her before making any rash decisions, it wasn't up to her.

Their marriage, it was broken. It was a hard given fact. But he was here now and he was more than willing to do whatever it took to make things right. They'd agreed that— for better or for worse— they would weather through whatever storm came their way, Elena just hadn't expected it to be this. Or to feel like it was coming so soon.

He'd hurt her a lot. He also loved her a lot. What was it with people hurting those they loved the most? He was admitting to his mistakes and while she wouldn't consider this him begging, he sounded like he would go above and beyond to prove that that she could come to put all of her faith back in him again. She could be the bigger person here, she could forgive him, she could take him back.

Elena truly did love him, so... ]

All right... [ Her voice was just a tiny bit uneven, she had to clear her throat before asking. ] What would be your first step? I somehow doubt they have marriage counseling up in space.

So, what do we do?

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