mental link; it's a catbus!

[wille]

[ It's an ungodly hour of the night as these things go, with both Misato and Gildor's minds flickering to announce their presence to all. Forceful and unapologetic, for her part, while urgent and unsettling, for his part. They insist on your attention. ]

( Everyone. We found something out there beyond the barrier. It was too dark for us to see much-- )

(Or anything, for some of us, but-- )

( But it's massive-- )

(Big as the shuttles that brought us-- )

( And predatory. At least, it seemed pretty clear that it wanted to take a chunk out of us. Some of you found tracks the other day, right? Let's talk. )
 

Comments

[aluminumandash]

( That was me. ) [ "Asleep" for Rust isn't what it is for other people—wakefulness never entirely out of reach, the gun under the pillow. He's alert, receives Misato's voice like a siren and Gildor's like an intruder. ]

( Big as a shuttle, huh? You exercising a little poetic license there, bard? )

[wille]

( He's not. I saw it. )

[ It's probably bad manners on some planet somewhere to speak on another's behalf without being asked to. She claims urgency, and the fact that she can't even say "I saw it too." ]

( What were the tracks like? )

[perroquet]

( I realize it's not the loveliest of comparisons- )

[ He knows now, partly thanks to Rust, not everyone is going to understand the size of an adolescent dragon or a fully grown barghest. But the shuttles they took from the Station to here - they all had to have been in those at some point, and Misato backs him up. ]

( Did they have more than four legs, the tracks? )

[redheadcarrier]

( I've killed bigger. )

[earthborn]

( Are we gonna need to tangle with it? Is that the ultimate goal here? )

[Her tone is trying for the calm, slightly annoyed voice of a commander who's facing a challenge they'd rather avoid than engage. But the bigger part of Shepard is almost audibly counting the spare ammunition she brought along and coming up with a positively bloodthirsty answer. Does she want to fight a giant monster? Oh yes.]

( It's not like I haven't killed bigger, ) [Brief shadow of memory, the towering coils, acid smell of dissolving metal] ( ...But something that big, that's not quiet work. )

[sistershoggoth]

( Is that it? Is that what we were chasing before? )

[calhar]

( Then stay inside the bloody barrier. )

[ Shortness aside, the sentiment behind it's at least somewhat earnest. Avoiding fights is a valid tactic, thank you. ]

[aluminumandash]

( Wasn't your facility with language I was calling into question. ) [ Shithead.

The image is sharp, detailed down to the grain of the dirt: a rare clear track, too small and shallow to be made by a multiton monstrosity. Likely Rabadocean. ] ( Two legs. And no fucking way did they belong to something that size. )

[ Another, fainter impression lingering at the fringes of his thoughts, something he keeps coming back to. A circle burnt in the earth. ]

( What'd y'all smell? )

[perroquet]

( Quietly and covertly? )

[redheadcarrier]

( Oh, definitely not. You can't really kill things like that quietly, can you? )

[perroquet]

( Not typically, no. )

[ Likewise, Gildor has been running through his repertoire of spells since making it back to camp - spells he hasn't had to think of using in years. He's assisted in slaying many a monster, and while this is another area of expertise, bard magic is anything but quiet. ]

( I certainly hope not. If that barrier comes down, we will all in a great deal of danger. )

[perroquet]

( Chasing? You mean that night when we were still on the road? )

[ He'll defer this to Misato - the only thing he'd been chasing that night was the anxiety away with music. ]

[perroquet]

( Oh I promise you, I have no intention of going back! )

[ Gildor would rather make himself invisible for the rest of the mission, or bounce off to the shadow plane. Anything but go back in there, especially when he can only bring one other person. ]

( I'm more concerned about what will happen if the barrier comes down, exposing us all to that creature. )

[earthborn]

( That's the spirit. Keep it light and optimistic. )

[Well, now that someone used the word "if" to guarantee that this is absolutely happening... Shepard's just going to have to laugh.]

( So, let's think about our worst-case scenario. Say the barrier comes down. What's our priority? Because I can kill it, no problem. Cathaway and Prince might not see it my way if we blow cover and scuttle the mission goal. )

[Whatever that even is, honestly.]

( ...Assuming we have a favorite faction among all these jackasses yet, I mean. )

[perroquet]

[ Whatever Rust was calling into question goes willfully flying over Gildor's head. He's a little too preoccupied with what he and Misato just found to worry about much else. He'll leave interpreting Rust's image-memories of sand to her, their details lost on him. The smell though- ]

( The scent from the barrier was distractingly heavy, like clean air after a thunderstorm. Otherwise, it wasn't much different from being in any other part of this bloody desert. )

[ The scent-memory fills his mind and spreads over the connection - ozone and chlorine, and a hint something else he identifies as the magical side of the technomagical barrier. Wet earth in an otherwise dry landscape. ]

[shri]

( Are you both alright? )

[ Snatched wretched concern. The press up on her toes, the twitch of her fingers. The pair of them, taking off like that - ]

[perroquet]

[ He's quick to reach back out, easing off the volume of the dreadful music his mind is still reeling with. ]

( Yes Rani, we're fine. A bit spooked is all. )

[ His cot was left cold beside hers, and there's no shortage of guilt for that. But he and Misato are nearly back to their respective tents now, and Lakshmi will be able to look him over herself. ]

[shri]

[ She replaces with her own - she cannot offer him images, she knows that is too much. But she takes that discord series of notes and replaces with steadier, flat drums. The ones she counts her steps too. She has fought creatures so often it does not consider it very much, but this will be calmer. ]

( Then hurry up, do not leave yourself exposed for too long.)

[ because she doesn't care, obviously. ]

[perroquet]

( We are making haste. )

[ There's a bit of resistance to the sound of soothing drums, his emotional mind unconsciously fighting her rational request. By the time he's parting the flaps in the tent, his thoughts are a confused combination of organ, drum, too many voices, and a looming sense of dread that paces like a lion in its cage.

His movements are measured and careful as he picks his way back across the cots and scattered pillows, though he nearly trips over the long robes of his own disguise, too distracted in his own mind to think of taking it off. ]

[cognitived]

[ A snap to attention, sniper's focus. ]

( Are you back behind the barrier? )

[ Quick sitrep, even if any notion of safety is an illusion here. ]

[deployed]

( You don't think it belongs to someone else here? )

[ Or native to the planet itself? Bellamy's thoughts, even jarred from sleep, are spinning back to all that he's picked up. None of the facts from the dossier or the gossip and chatter he's been privy to detail the kind of creature he can glean from Misato and Gildor's description. ]

[wrackful]

( So the big magic wall's there to keep something big out. Big surprise. )

[Absolutely unimpressed, but it's pretty clear that's directed at Misato, and Gildor's just caught by association.]

[ryohji]

( Nothing like what's familiar. So, what are you going to do? )

[aluminumandash]

[ And for that moment, Rust's mind goes still. He absorbs the scents, attaching names to them last of all.

His thinking picks back up, swift and logical, a pen poised to strike something from a list. ] ( How'd it move? ) [ The question reverberates with his memory of Gildor's perceptions, that spider-webbed sense of sound and motion. ] ( Built for speed, built for endurance? Did it remind you of anything? )

[shri]

[ She takes one look, one feel of his mind as he comes closer, that she closes the distance, rising to meet him from where she had awoken before and found him - gone. Gone from her side and out of where she can be his eyes for him. Misato had best been -

- she doesn't know. This concern is not hers, she insists as she takes his hands without pause, this worry has no place to someone who was not so long ago a stranger, as she guides him back to her. Stopping his tumble from going any further as she begins to pull back his layers for him. Her fingers greedy in their need for reassurance. Grasping things, that have no mercy to them as she pulls them back to check - him, his features, like she expects to find proof. Taking care of that which he cannot in the moment.

Here now, she says and does not. Fingers to his jaw, her breath low against his skin. You are here now, I will not let it touch you. ]