exnihilo | 3 - open spam, gift list

[Open spam]

[Mira spends a lot of time in the greenhouse. She's barefoot, shoes dangling from magnetic straps from two fingers, enjoying the organic feeling of soil beneath her soles. She is so bored, and so still. She doesn't know if she wants it to stop or not.]

[Private to the Admiral]

This isn't my tradition.

Fine.

For Iris, if there’s anything she’d want to remember, all things considered, if she knew she’d forgotten it – don’t tell her. Just…give her a clue, so she can be her own puzzle.

Please give Harvey a white poppy boutonniere. It's a sign of peace.

...what the hell. Give Two-Face a carnival mirror. Really warped. The right thickness to shatter in a satisfying way, if that's how he takes it.

Wherever there are public religions, there are people that mock them, loudly or quietly. If you would, please give Arthas a collection of satirical jokes made by people in his world about any gods he believes wronged him.

Give Cassel a conductor’s hat and a train whistle.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Jean hasn't visited the greenhouse since she came back. But she's been out of her room a lot more, lately, and it's only natural she'd be drawn to the quietly blooming life of it.

Her steps are light and careful, as she winds through the leaves, taking in the sight and scent of new plants. Some of them she can even feel, in the back of her mind.

She feels Mira's presence before she sees her - it's like a blade through the bushes - but she doesn't hurry, toward or away. They meet in their own time, and Jean smiles.]

It's nice, isn't it?

It's got weeds, and ants, and thorns.

It's cultivated, obviously. But much less so, than I'm used to.

[She speaks mildly, but for someone paying attention, it's clear that she likes the difference.]

[Jean was always good at spotting fondness, of catching subtle glints of happiness.

So she's smiling, a little, as she nods.]

It's close. [And it reminds her of the mansion's greenhouse, high and open and sunlit. It reminds her of Ororo, cradling flowers in her fingers.]

Have you been to the CES?

[Mira has never, so far as she knows, been anywhere truly wild. She thinks maybe it's the sort of thing that doesn't exist at all anymore; or rather, humans have their own wildness, which they have brought through the stars with them. It is hers to prune it, here and there. But the lack of polish, of monitors and nanowire interface scaffolds and genetically engineered microecologies, is rough and charming.]

Not yet.

[There's a trick to spending your whole life floating from cruise to cruise without going completely mad: never try out an amenity just because it's there, or you'll never care. Each excursion must be an event unto itself, shared or stolen.]

It's amazing. It's not - it can't be real, but it feels like it. [And that means something, when you can feel the world itself pulsing around you.] It can be anywhere, anywhere natural any of us has ever been.

[There's a flare of emotion from Mira, a warped surge of hope/hunger/bitterness. It doesn't show on her face.]

Can you choose where?

[She expects nothing. She isn't sure what she'd want if did - but she doesn't. It's just a question.]

Not exactly. [Her brow furrows, a bit.] But it - we shape it, I think, with our minds.

What do you shape?

[A sad, soft smile.] The grounds. At home, I lived in - a mansion, a school. And we had acres of just - trees and flowers and sunlight.

You're from Earth, right? So many people here are.

Yes. It's strange, isn't it? The universe is... [Her gaze goes distant, for a moment.] Not limitless, not really, but... [She shakes her head; it's hard to put into words.]

Where are you from?

[There's a psychic flinch, like pressing on an old bruise, like putting weight on a twisted ankle. There's emptiness there, something broken and wrong, and it doesn't - hold. But outwardly she just shakes her head.]

I traveled a lot.

[Jean feels it, of course, but she's good at not reacting to things unsaid; her expression doesn't change as she nods.]

It must be strange, then, being stuck in one place.

Not yet. I spent a lot of time on spaceships.

Maybe it will feel strange, after a few more ports. Coming back to the same one, with the same people.

[It's not that Iris hasn't been keeping an eye on Mira; but she feels that it might do the girl a disservice to take up too much of her time. Mira has her own adventuring to do and the Barge is a good place to learn her wings.

But she does see her around. She makes a point of it. Today, ostensibly bringing her dogs to sniff and scratch and pee in the gardens, she catches Mira's eye through the greenhouse glass and offers her luminous, delighted smile.]

[She drifts in closer - not something she'd do for many people, still a little averse to the burdens of confined sociality, but for Iris, she comes. Mira has never, in her recollection, spent any time with dogs, but she crouches a little anyway, offers a hand to a curious nose.]

Yours?

[Iris can never see Mira without wanting to hug her, but she hangs back, instead allowing Elvis and Solace to express her visceral surge of affection for her. Elvis presses his head into Mira's thighs while Solace smiles up into her face, tongue lolling happily and tail wagging his entire back end.]

Aye. We rescued 'em, a friend and me. They were killed in their own timeline, for being accessories to murder. 'E unhappened the murder and I brought 'em back 'ere. I'd just lost me bus and I needed minds like these around me. I don't do well isolated in me own 'ead, me.

You findng your feet 'ere, my love?

I think I am, yes.

[Her head is another matter. But she lands on her feet more often than not.]

Bus?

My timeship. I sort of lost 'er for a while.

[Iris is getting better at stating this matter-of-factly, and she's progressing towards cheerful; it's the dogs that give her away. Both of them grow still, Solace trying to hide his head in Mira's legs and Elvis raising his muzzle to make a low, melodious whining sound. Iris' mouth purses.]

Shiteballs. It's all right, my loves, I'm sorry.

[She crouches to console them with dried venison sticks and ear rubbing, and continues speaking to Mira in a low-pitched voice, soothing for the dogs.]

I can get 'er back. I just 'ave to graduate Victor. Or, you know, motivate 'im to graduate 'imself. That's really the only way it ever works. You met 'im yet?

[She rubs a pair of furry ears soothingly. Her tone is not dissimilar.]

I'm glad you're not alone in your head.

3 - open spam, gift list

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