GR RP "Adventures in Gunrunning" ACT 24
POSTED BY: CapnRahn
UPDATED: Thursday, December 23, 2004 18:03
VIEWED: 21598
PAGE 8 of 10
Slight's Move:
Slight slits his eyes. He can make him remember why he was such a surviver. This effort will make him weak, very weak, but he can't take much more of this mans foolery.
With a rush, Malachi has left the ship. He is now in Slight's world, the world of the mind.
Slights tattoo melts, becomes his Raven. Malachi has one mark on him-the mark of a barcode, symbolizing his self-induced expendability. His clothes are gray, reminiscent of a military uniform, but no particular allegiance is marked.
Before the both of them lies Arrielle, Malachis own sister. Slight purses his lips, the raven taking off. "She's still dying, Bobby." His voice is not his own, but the voice of Malachi's brother, Aron. "We need the mony for the treatment. She has the Daplong, and Bodens. She won't live unless we both help her. I can't pay for everything-she's not a dependant as the Alliance sees fit. I know you don't care about yourself-you never did. But we're all that's left, Bobby." He uses the name Malachi hates, the name that reminds him off his heritage, and the father who left him. "Pescalins' too expensive for me to do this on my own. I'm already in debt, to legal and illicet loan sharks. Please. Just do something to save Arielle."
Slight speaks with his own voice. "Neither of us care about ourselves. What we do, we do for others. It's not about us, anymore."
With a resounding boom, both are back in the obs craft. Slight falls back, leaning against a bulkhead as he gasps for air. He can see something shift. The empathic connection is so strong, he trembles as he pulls away a cigarette from the pack, lighting it desperately. In the strained atmo, he has to drag at it heavily to light it. The smoke hangs heavily.
"I'm done with threats. Unless you want to remember why humans hate pain, I suggest you do as I ask. This little trip-it's only the beginning of what I can do. I can make you relive your worst memories, make you remember your hydrophobia, remember the death of your twin siblings, dying one after another in your arms. I can raise the pain of that memory, to the point of which you will cry tears of blood. Believe me, I know the feeling. You think you can tolerate pain-you know nothing of pain. I can feel you're tired. Perhaps, after this, we can work something out." He suddenly remembers Thorne's words-
"You can't make it on your own. All this Lone wolf crap won't fly."
Slight swallows. He honestly couldn't wait to talk to him again. They had much to discuss.
EOM
Wizards Eighth Rule: Deserve Victory
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Xiang's Move:
LOCATION - ORBOROS: Tantalus Shipping Nexus
Quote:Staring down at the dishes on his tiny table, Xiang shakes his head.
"So is it too early for breakfast?"
Quote:Thinking of her now, he remembers her eyes, and how they would spark with green fire in moments of mischief and other pleasures.
FLASHBACK
Any meal was a good one so far as Damon was concerned. Xiang could put a raw block of protein down in front of the boy and he would eat it. He still sounded more like Oliver Twist asking, "Please sir, I want some more," but at least he knew to ask.
"I have heard it said that it is never too early for breakfast," Xiang replied, smiling slightly himself with that tiny reminiscence of Robert. He could eat eggs at any time of the day, kneeling down to declare Rowan a Goddess when…
Rowan. Just her name causes him to stop for a moment and remember what it was. To be a friend, husband and lover to such a beautiful creature seems near unfathomable now. Yet that was the joy of his life before. Before he was taken by the Alliance and all he knew was wrested from him. His life, his future, his identity and to the nearest extent, his very soul.
Realizing Damon is staring at him in confusion, Xiang turns and heads for the small kitchen unit to inspect the inventory. Finding what he needs, he begins to turn yellow-colored protein into something resembling scrambled eggs.
END FLASHBACK
EOM
Fans come and fans go...but zealots are with you until the bitter black end.
I draw...therefore I am. http://www.mnartists.org/artistHome.do?rid=7922
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Damon's turn:
LOCATION - SPARE DORM
Quote:
"I have heard it said that it is never too early for breakfast," Xiang replied, smiling slightly.
The change in Xiang's expression is subtle but Damon catches it- a brief flash of... something. He remembers seeing it several times before, while Xiang was cleaning him up on Dis. On most days, the long hours passed in silence, suppressed by dark thoughts and heavy emotions that neither wished to deal with during their precious time away from their enslavers. It was on days like those that Damon sometimes saw it, the distant look in Xiang's eyes. Damon can't put words to the look, but he knows the feeling- usually something that doesn't want to be discussed.
He follows Xiang to the kitchen and watches him pull things together for breakfast. Not knowing what else to do to help, Damon pulls a couple cups from the sink, fills them both with water and sets one down on the counter for Xiang.
"Here's to us, Xiang. To victory..."
He raises his cup and takes a swallow.
I'm not broken, in my dream I win...
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Xiang's Move:
LOCATION - ORBOROS: Tantalus Shipping Nexus
Taking up his dishes, Xiang puts them in the tiny washing unit built in under the netro-wave oven. Holding the plastic cup in his hand, he watches the light gleam on the fluted features.
Quote:Rather like now. Events have been set into motion that he has no control over. Will he simply be able to watch them play out, or will he have to take part again? And if so, what more could he lose in the bargain? He isn't even sure his soul is intact.
"Here's to us, Xiang. To victory..."
Watching Damon drink from a dirty glass with flourish, Xiang cannot help but respond, He lifted the second glass and tapped it against Damon's as he lowered it from drinking, but did not drink himself. One of the cups had belonged to Templar, and considering his occupation, it would not be entirely beyond the realm of possibility that the cup would have some subversive kind of sedative coating adhered to it. Aside from that, who knew what new manner of diseases could have sprung in the past seven years?
Taking Damon's glass and the other one, he put them back in the sink and took down two new ones to fill, adding ice and processed lemon juice.
"You should think before you drink from a dirty glass, Damon. You never know where it's been."
Turning back to his pan, he finished up the eggs and piles all of it onto a plate, which he set in front of Damon. There was enough for two, but Xiang wasn't feeling hungry. It had struck him in the night - after being awakened by Damon's nightmare - that Robert would have to have a particular reason for sending someone after him now, after all the time that had passed. Robert never did anything for a reason. When he visited the campus on Osiris after being incommunicado for more than six years, he had a reason. When he took Xiang into that room where Ro...where SHE was sitting, he had a reason. When he came up with the plan to get her out of the complex should the Alliance finally invade, there was a reason attached to that too.
Something was about to happen. Xiang could feel it. And he didn't care for it one bit.
Quote:
"Victory," Xiang said, trying the sound of the word. "Yinge shengli."
It didn't sound any better in Chinese.
Not wanting to burst Damon's bubble, Xiang nodded. "That must explain why I'm so exhausted. It was a victory hard-won."
EOM
Yinge shengli = To win a victory
Fans come and fans go...but zealots are with you until the bitter black end.
I draw...therefore I am. http://www.mnartists.org/artistHome.do?rid=7922
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Damon's turn:
LOCATION - SPARE DORM
Quote:
Damon reluctantly releases his cup when Xiang takes it from him.
"You should think before you drink from a dirty glass, Damon. You never know where it's been."
A slight frown of confusion crosses Damon’s face. Are they dirty? He shrugs it off and accepts the new cup. A moment later, Xiang sets a plate of eggs in front of him.
Damon looks up. “You not eating?”
Xiang shakes his head so Damon picks up the plate, fairly convinced Xiang’s nuts for passing up food. Putting his back to the wall, Damon sits down, places his cup on the floor next to him and looks down at the chopsticks on his plate. He picks them up, clicking them together experimentally. It feels like forever since he last used them. But his interest in the chopsticks quickly fades and he sets to work with emptying his plate.
"Victory," Xiang says, trying the sound of the word. "Yinge shengli. That must explain why I'm so exhausted. It was a victory hard-won."
Damon grunts at the understatement and moves the eggs to the side of his mouth to speak. “Impossibly won…” He continues eating, thoughts of where he had been not even four days ago pulling him into silence. Five years- eight including the three at the factory. Even eight sounded so much shorter than he remembers it. But he did it. They did it.
He swallows the last of the eggs and leans back against the wall to look up at Xiang. “Xiang, did you ever…” He pauses, not sure if he even wants to ask. So many of them thought he was crazy for doing this. Just a silly boy with a naïve sense of hope. “Did you ever think about what you would do if you were free?”
I'm not broken, in my dream I win...
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ZOE'S MOVE
LOCATION - CREW QUARTERS HALLWAY
Internal musings... Just collatin' data, as they say... 
OOC: Just wanted to let folks know I'm still alive. I'll be moving Zoe to the galley shortly.
~Astriana~
~Mostly-Invisible Long-Winded Goddess of Inter-Board Communication and Diplomacy a/k/a El Jefe Magnifico's Mistress... of Communications and Harems~
...I'm still free,
You can't take the sky from me.
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Malachi's Move
Slight's ship.
The pain recedes slowly from his head. His head hangs limp against his chest, his breathing ragged. The colors of his induced vision fading to dull washed-out grey, then to blackness, and then the sudden starkness of the bridge of Slight's ship. He blinks his eyes against the sudden change and swallows back the metallic tang of blood in his mouth. "Whom do you serve?" he croaks out in a faint whisper.
EM
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Xiang's Move:
LOCATION - ORBOROS: Tantalus Shipping Nexus
Quote:Hearing her voice in his head causes Xiang's breath catch in his throat, even now.
Watching Damon wolf down the eggs, it was obvious the boy was preoccupied with something. More than once he looked up thoughtfully and seemed to have an entire conversation in his head, only to return his attention to his plate. Xiang was about to ask what was on his mind when Damon finally came out and said it.
“Did you ever think about what you would do if you were free?”
Free. What did that word mean? When he was sixteen, it meant eventually leaving home and never having to listen to another row between his parents. When he was twenty-three, it meant being able to take the job at the university in Osiris without having to uproot a family to do it. On his wedding day... well, that meant something else entirely.
"I have wondered if there is such a thing," Xiang replied. He had spoken without thinking about it. "To be free. My condition before we met rendered me unable to recall my past, or to see a future--I was simply Chen. It was you, actually, who started the process that freed me from my conditioning. I saw you fighting the guards and the look in your eyes reminded me... it reminded me of the fire I thought I had lost. Of the will to think on my own. We would still be there and you would likely be dead now if I had not been dusting the paintings in the hallway that day."
The fire had actually brought HER image to the forefront of his mind, but Xiang chose to leave that part out. Instead he lifted a chain from under the collar of his sweater. With it came a silver pendant of the yin yang symbol.
"They let me keep this. I did not know what it was, I only knew I had to wear it. It was given to me by someone... very special. Before I saw you, if my conditioning began to fail, I was programmed to look at it and my condition would be restored. Now I look at it and remember... what was before."
"Yin and yang, darkness and light, female and male, me and you."
Quote:EOM
"I am not quite free yet. But when I am, I will find the one who gave this to me and hope I will not end up dead when I do."
OOC: I need to start writing Rowan again. This is starting to get confuzzling.
Fans come and fans go...but zealots are with you until the bitter black end.
I draw...therefore I am. http://www.mnartists.org/artistHome.do?rid=7922
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Slights move:
Slight shakes his head. How could this man understand?
Helsing stand before him, regal and green from the Davis treatments. The screen is man sized-Helsing liked to be intimidating.
"You have not reported for several months, Brink. In fact, the reports concerning yourself have been very disturbing. Whom do you serve, Brink Helsing?"
Slight has audio, but no visual feed. The First Power can only hear him. Brink is shirtless, all of his tattoos finished healing. He is waiting till the right time to reveal his rebellion.
Slight snorts to himself. What is he, some teenager?
"Redemption, father. I am serving whatever can take you down. Destroying your little mom and pop store, and freeing all those poor children you've enslaved. That is my purpose now."
"And this Coyote? He's going to help you?" Helsing looks incredulous.
"The three Critters, as they're called-Coyote, Lizard and Badger-are a means to an end. They are the bottom of the rung, and if you want to topple an empire, you start at the bottom."
We are the same, you and I. We both fight for family. Mine is larger than you could ever know. From your clothes to your weapon, to the very structure of the Core. I won't win. You can save her now, mercenary. I will pay for the genetic treatment necessary to cure her. You could rest, if you wanted. I know you won't, but I also know you will sleep better at night, knowing your mei-mei is safe. And we are wasting time.
Slight moves to the consol within Malachi's ship (Now that he's inside, he identifies the ship as a Neon-class.) and links into the Cortex. He waves Serenity within moments, and waits for the response.
Onboard Serenity, a blue light begins to flash, as a synthetic chime informs the helm of the incoming message.
Slight turns to see Malachi come in, as if in a trance. He blinks for a few minutes, dropping his eyes. I wish this could have been easier for you, I honestly do.
Wizards Eighth Rule: Deserve Victory
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Rowan's Move
LOCATION: The Galley (where else?)
Her offer of the second half of the sampled bao is met with several reactions. Jayne's usual convolution of answers, Merz with her uber-quantifying, which Rowan now understands is her own way of collating all the unfamiliar data she's trying to absorb. Then there's the simple look of outright yearning from River that reminds Rowan of the eyes of a begging cat.
Small wonder as to who wins.
Rowan holds the other half of the bao out to River.
ROWAN: "Never could resist the look."
Beaming, the girl takes it gingerly and licks her fingers when some of the sauce oozes out.
Knowing full well Jayne will keep an eye on the girl just to make sure there isn't anything in the sauce that ought not be there, Rowan takes another from the plate and cuts that one in half as well. Turning around, she holds one half out to Merz, and one to Inara.
ROWAN: "For my intrepid assistants."
EOM
Fans come and fans go...but zealots are with you until the bitter black end.
I draw...therefore I am. http://www.mnartists.org/artistHome.do?rid=7922
Minnesota Meetup - join us! http://firefly.meetup.com/45/
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