orendalogs | IT'S YOUR DESTINY!!!

See, it was comments like that which could leave one wondering just how the train of Declan’s thoughts worked sometimes. A long enough discussion on one topic, and then bam, non sequitur. But it wasn’t bad, just…curious. Quirky.

He slowly nodded, thinking that yeah, that would have been nice. No war. No being raised from the dead over and over. Cramped conditions, turf wars, and an island you couldn’t leave, but—no Darkness. And maybe even the Traveler would visit in their time and render all the things that Aoba could complain about obsolete. If they were both in his time together, he wouldn’t know anything about the time of Darkness that he would never live to see.

Except if Declan wanted to say that being brought back by the Traveler was worthwhile just for the chance to meet him, then it was equally true that-

“Except, if you were, you wouldn’t be here to help me right now. You’d be stuck back home without me.”

"It seems I suffer misfortune and absence no matter the course," the Titan mused, smiling vaguely and tilting his head enough to look sidelong at Aoba before closing his eyes for a time, drifting in space and thought.

"But, in either scenario, I still get to welcome you back." Because they weren't going to consider that Aoba wouldn't be able to return. Positive energy into the void. That thought in mind, he reached out, gripping the edge of the grating and pulling himself out of his hammock.

"Hm. I'm going to turn the gravity back on and rest a while. If you're tired, you can go ahead and take the bunk and I'll rest in the cockpit. I want to make sure I get some sleep before I take over the controls. Navigating contested territory can't be done by the autopilot, and I took patrol assignments in all the locations we're visiting to make sure I'm relieving posts properly. Rest between will be more sketchy for me."

Aoba considered that, imitating Declan’s movements to squirm out of his hammock as well. No sense staying in it if the gravity was coming on, he’d just get slammed onto his head!

“If you need to sleep, you should take the bunk. I don’t want to think that you were sleeping upright in a chair when you could have gotten better quality rest than that.”

It hadn’t been all that long since he’d gotten up, technically, so Aoba wasn’t tired on any sense of it being late into the day, but…he didn’t feel too drained after the emotional turmoil of the night, either. And even if he did, Aoba was just a passenger. A weapons-carrier at best. Declan, the actual Guardian, had no business giving up the only proper bed to him.

“I’ll be fine. I’ll stay up with Ghost and Ren.”

"If you're sure?" he replied with a dubious tone, nodding once. "I have to go on patrol as soon as we arrive on Venus. It's for the best, anyways. I took the rotation around the academy so a group of us can clear it out before I take you there. I should ask where you'd like to land, actually," Declan mused as they made their way back up to the main deck.

"There's a few different places around the academy, but I want to land on a spot you'll enjoy looking out at while we're camped. So there's the The Cinders, The Endless Steps, and the Ishtar Cliffs. The Cinders are big steel gray rock formations and black-wood trees, and sulfur pools of gold and blue and green that look like gemstones scattered in the dark ground," he made a sprinkling motion with one hand.

"The Endless Steps are white stone monoliths and Vex ruins reaching out of a vast jungle, and the Ishtar Cliffs, on the Shattered Coast, are just outside the academy and look out across the sea at the volcanoes. They have blue flames," he added the last with a look, knowing Earth volcanoes weren't gaseous.

"We can visit every spot, of course, that's not an issue. But we shouldn't constantly relocate. It may disrupt the wildlife. Or draw unwanted attention," he pointed out, waving lightly to Ren and Ghost before floating over.

"Would you be alright with me holding you while we turn gravity back on?" he asked, holding his big hand out for the Allmate, his other hand gripping one of the ship frame beams as Ghost drifted over to the controls. Whether Aoba or Declan held the dog, a moment later the gravity was back on, their collective bodies all weighing down again. That was the strangest sensation of all, to the Titan. Being forced to recognize the great bulk of himself.

Declan had thrown Aoba for a loop again. At first it began with having to puzzle through what Declan meant by clearing out the academy—only to realize on his own that a patrol meant looking for enemies and routing them if necessary. He’d learned that well enough when Declan had been making his calls home, offering vague but nevertheless eye-opening descriptions of what it was he did out in space as a Guardian.

That was when Aoba also realized that a patrol meant the Academy wasn’t what he’d envisioned at the word. They weren’t going to some outpost or far-flung place of learning tended secretly by the space equivalent of monks in the mountains. The City was The Last City. There were no other human settlements! Declan was taking him to do research in abandoned ruins. Why else the gear he was clad in? Why else the weapons for him to carry? God, what was Aoba, stupid? He kept being given pieces of information and failing to put them together into a meaningful whole!

So Aoba didn’t say anything sensible at all. He barely was able to register the way Ren kicked off his shelf and landed in Declan’s hand, looking like nothing so much as a tiny black puff in the Guardian’s safe grip. Instead, clever man that he was, Aoba blurted as gravity returned and he grabbed at his handholds:

“You have to patrol for hostile forces and you’re worried that camping might disrupt wildlife?”

What about battle, what about gunfire? But camping was disruptive??

He’d be touched as per usual by the Guardian’s gentle soul in a moment or five. Right now, it just sounded like absurd priorities.

"Well, yeah? When you fire a weapon you hit what you aim at, and they're low environmental impact. The hostiles don't care about the environment but I try to, and landing a ship can crush a lot of things. I landed on a bird nest once and wouldn't land for weeks after that. Ghost transmatted me to the surface every time. I still feel terrible when I think about it..." He shook his head, shoulders hunching a bit as he leaned and placed Ren gently on the floor. Ghost floated over to whisper to Aoba.

"He crushed some eggs and cried. I tried to tell him they were still in the nest because they were infertile, but it was the principle of it, he said."

"And food in some areas is scarce so it's hard to pick a nice-looking landing spot because if it looks nice it probably tastes nice for the local fauna," Declan added, pacing back and forth in the cockpit to check readouts, read through messages from the Vanguard, and review his bounties. It was highly unlikely other Guardians worried as much as he did. Particularly to being driven to tears over a smashed birdnest.

There it was. The foot-in-mouth moment. Silenced Aoba right quick.

Left standing awkwardly in the space behind the seats, Aoba spent the moments necessary to gather his thoughts in finger-combing his hair carefully back in place, ponytail split in its usual halves to either side of his neck. He couldn't imagine crying over crushed eggs, himself, but he didn't hesitate in thinking he'd most certainly feel bad if it happened.

"... You're too kind a soul for war," he thought, words voiced without real intention.

He stopped what he was doing, looking over his shoulder slowly to gaze at Aoba a moment, bright eyes blinking. After a second he smiled, shrugged, and looked away, heat creeping.

"War doesn't care who you are, just what you stand for," Declan replied quietly, tapping his finger on the ship screen before straightening and turning. He raised a hand, reached out almost to touch Aoba's face before looking at his fingertips like they were independent and out of their collective minds. Clearing his throat and smiling again, the Titan shook his head and moved past the trio of onlookers.

"It's sad, though, don't you think?" he asked, turning briefly on his way to the bunk room. "That the universe is so absent of people that think like me, that you think I'm special somehow? It shouldn't be so rare for someone to just...care."

…Again. There it happened again, and this time Aoba was more conscious of it. A hand extended, veering away. This time it even bubbled up in his thoughts to think, Declan wanted to touch him? But when he had before already, what was it about that particular reaching that Declan kept stopping for?

So tell him it’s okay to. It’s not that hard. came that background muttering, remarkably quiet for the last while but now stirred up again. But before Aoba could decide if he even had the courage to, the Guardian had moved past them. Right. He needed to sleep. Aoba didn’t need to be distracting him with his own idiocy right now. Besides, maybe he held back for more complicated reasons—like, you know, not being comfortable with how Aoba had acted the night before.

The other resident of his mind only snorted at his dig.

But Declan paused, Aoba listened, and in the words was something enough for him to respond to no matter the complications around everything else. Even if things had been one-hundred percent normal, their interactions untroubled by odd thoughts and alter-egos, it would have needed to be said.

“Even if the universe was full of people that think like you, you’d still be special.”

Silence reigned in the tiny space for a moment, Ghost's big blue eye flicking back and forth between the two as Declan stood there, staring at Aoba. It wasn't a hard gaze, but soft. Moved. His large lips parted, pinched, parted again, the bottom compressed a moment in attempt to form a word and ultimately failing. He blinked, shaking his head slightly, as though taking himself out of some trance before inhaling deeply and uttering a notably tremulous sigh.

"If you say so, it must be true," the Titan murmured, cheeks colored and eyes glittering with more than their usual shimmer. Swallowing and puffing a little sigh, he reached up, patting the frame over his head with a few echoing slaps, trying to start his motor again before retreating to the bunk. In the other room he stood in front of the little bed with it's army green blanket, staring through everything. A few seconds ticked by and he slowly lurched forward, collapsing face down into the bed, hands tugging the pillow down to cram his face into it, trying to banish the burning in his skin.

He was going to have a very hard time getting to sleep.

Edited 2018-10-31 22:35 (UTC)

Aoba didn’t even know how to take that reaction. It didn’t feel bad, but it did feel…complicated. Aoba stood in place for a little while after the Guardian had gone out of sight into the bunkroom, squeezing his hands in troubled fists. There was a dead-eyed stare being leveled at him from the back of his thoughts. Funny how he could tell it was so, despite there being no true sight involved. Power of a shared imagination?

Ren sat at his feet, looking up at him with a steady expression. After a sigh of his own, Aoba picked him up and returned to the cockpit, sitting back in the seat which he presumed would have been the co-pilot’s, had someone of the appropriate skills been present. There were those bolted seats by the kitchen area, sure, but this one had the better view.

“I don’t know if I’m an idiot or what,” he murmured to his companion, fingers buried in dark fur.

After a low sigh of his own, Ren answered, “I do not believe ‘idiocy’ is the problem in any way, but I do believe this is proof that it is unwise to let your other side control your actions without mediation. Desires are not meant to be freely indulged. Now you are dealing with the consequences of such.”

And here we go again, went the background mutterings.

Declan only slept for a few hours, leaving Aoba to his own devices in that time. Fortunately Ghost was always awake and more than happy to explain things on the ship to Ren and Aoba both. He showed them the food and the look induction cooktop, showed then the control options in the cockpit that were easy to play with and not relevant to the ship operations. They could play music if they liked, and place calls as well. He also showed them how to access ship logs, listen to anything Declan had previously recorded, record things themselves, explore the vanguard repository of knowledge accessible from the ship and view starmaps. Plenty to stay occupied long enough for the Titan to rest.

Eventually he woke, wandering out groggily with mussed hair, never the best at sleeping in his gear. He didn't strictly have to, but he preferred being in a constant state of preparedness.

Lurching out of the bunkroom and looking around bleary-eyed, Declan offered a vague smile and wave.

"Hungry?"

Alas, or perhaps just ironically enough, the question fell on deaf ears. Ghost’s little tour hadn’t taken all that long compared to how long Declan needed to nap, and Aoba found himself neither particularly in need of ‘staying occupied’ nor even able to compel himself to do so in the form of ‘staying distracted’.

He was roused from the copilot seat long enough to follow Ghost’s tour, but then returned right back to it. Staring out the windows, the slow shift of the stars was soothing, almost hypnotic. He’d professed no need for sleep, but forgot who he was. The zero-G hammocks had been infinitely more comfortable, but it was quiet and comparatively dark. Probably helped that his gear wasn’t nearly so cumbersome as Declan’s own, too.

Declan addressed a dozer, Aoba slumped in his seat in such a way that his shoulder was his pillow, the hood of his Hunter gear pulled up over his head to shade his eyes from what light there was.

Blinking at the lack of reply and squinting, he realized Aoba was asleep, not simply reclining. Snorting softly and wandering over to the seat, he leaned in, eyes roaming Aoba's sleeping face as they'd done in the past. Smiling to himself and looking back over his shoulder at the open bunkroom, he made his decision, gently reaching into the bucket curve of the seat.

He was extremely patient and careful, using his knee to nudge the seat out of it's lean and tilt Aoba just enough to get his hands in there. Any time Aoba stirred, he waited, then went back to work until he had the man lifted up. The Titan princess-carried the other man easily, quietly making his way across the small open space and side-ways through the door to lay Aoba on the bed. Huffing a sigh, satisfied, he tucked the man in snugly before heading back out to go over diagnostics and calibrations on the ship before tucking in at the mess table to read a while, content in the occupied silence.

Though Aoba had most certainly not been moved in such a way since he was very small, Declan’s patience and care served their purpose. The man in his arms wasn’t disturbed even the smallest bit. His midday nap continued on, all the way to being laid down and tucked in to pre-warmed blankets. There was a bit of sound from him at that point, but it was only a contented sleep-murmuring as his head sunk into the pillow.

It wasn’t his proper trundle bed, but it was better than a couch, definitely better than a cockpit seat.

Ren watched all of this, naturally, but instead of remaining with Aoba he followed Declan back out and stayed near the Guardian, perhaps offering his own quiet companionship in place of Aoba’s. Of course, a lap was the most opportune position for such a thing, provided Declan was willing to pick him up.

It was roughly an hour more before Aoba came to again, slowly, getting all the way through a stretch and a yawn before becoming aware of his surroundings enough to fail to recognize them. Bleary confusion faded into understanding when he realized he saw the bunkroom from an angle he hadn’t up until now. Well, there were a couple ways he could have gotten here, but—

Wasn’t me, cut in a yawn. Which meant Declan. Aoba couldn’t remember dozing off—who ever did, anyway?—but it was obvious enough that he must have.

It felt weird, getting out of bed in full gear, but up he got again with rustling blankets and clinking gear-buckles giving away his return to alertness before he himself emerged from the little room, a little disoriented but still hazel-eyed.

“…Fair warning,” he decided on saying, hoping to defuse his own potential embarrassment with a joke. “I will totally turn off the gravity and drag you to the bunk if I ever find you asleep in the cockpit, too.”

"Hm?" Declan hummed, looking up from where he was holding a battered paperback open with one hand, the other busy petting Ren tucked in the crook of his propped up leg. He had absently picked the Allmate up when he was nearby underfoot, spacing out entirely as he slowly made his way through East of Eden.

"And I'll be grateful for your thoughtfulness," he replied with a vague smirk, closing the book and setting it down to focus all of his attention on Aoba.

"I hope you don't mind. You were just...The bed was open, so I thought you should be there."

Finally noticing where Ren was gave Aoba a bit of a start, meeting the Allmate’s dark gaze. He looked as content as he ever did, though. His tongue was sticking out and everything. Suddenly it reminded Aoba of any time he walked out onto his veranda and Koujaku would already be there, with Ren cuddled up in his arms.

To Aoba it said that despite the things that were going wrong or that Ren didn’t approve of, Declan himself was not one of them. Ren would not have allowed the Guardian to hold him so, otherwise.

“Ah.” He refocused on Declan as the other spoke, a little late to his chuff of laughter but still meaning it genuinely. “No, I don’t mind. But at this rate we’re going to have to figure out some kind of rotation, if neither one of us wants to tolerate the other not sleeping in a proper bed.”

Sharing’s always an option. So what if it’s narrow, just get good and cozy and-

Aoba refused acknowledgement.

"...I would offer to share but I imagine it wouldn't be comfortable. I'm very large and take up much space, and my gear is..." He shook his head slightly, ignoring the minor flutter of horror at mentioning the possibility in favor of focusing on the practicality and sensibility.

"And I'd say we could sleep in the hammocks, but zero G isn't good for you for long periods of tiem if you're not accustomed to it. I don't think we'd be in it long enough for you to suffer any bone density problems, but you're not yet fully adapted and treated with our medicine so you may be at greater risk. I'm not a doctor...so...I don't really know." He frowned in consternation, hand stilling in it's rhythmic petting, just his thumb moving, rubbing behind Ren's ear.

"I should have bought a larger ship, I'm sorry Aoba."

"It's fine, it's fine. We're only taking the long way across space because it was my request, right? I don't think a sleep rotation is too big a price to pay. Also, the thought of moving a big guy like you all on my own, zero gravity or not, is pretty funny. I'll make sure Ren and Ghost get recordings."

Poking lighthearted fun seemed a working tactic for now, so as he passed behind Declan en route to the cockpit again, he made a point of reaching out to give his hair a tousling. Seeing as this is Aoba we're talking about, it wasn't particularly vigorous so that he didn't tug the Guardian's hair at all, but it was casual and playful just the same. No serious thoughts. Just silliness. Just defuse that unnecessarily apologetic look on Declan's face, that was all.

Squinting a bit at having his hair ruffled, the Titan shifted to gently place Ren on the floor, following Aoba into the Cockpit.

"Well, if you're feeling up to it, we can jump now and shave a day off the trip. We'll stay in orbit while I go on patrol, then Ghost can land the ship and we can camp and start researching. It's up to you how long the travel is. The trip can be dragged out without losing anything."

"You could put the bed on the floor since it's two stacked mattresses," Ghost offered nonchalantly. Declan looked over at the construct, blank and not comprehending at first.

"Side by side. If you put the mattresses on the floor you double the space. Single to double. Or if you insist on sleeping separately, one in the bunk and one in the mess or down in observation. Either way, you two can sleep at the same time. Together or not. There's extra blankets in the overhead."

A pause, the Titan staring as it processed before he glanced to Aoba and shrugged, leaving it up to him. Either way, Declan didn't mind. If he were honest with himself, he'd admit to being pleased by the suggestion. Even if Ghost seemed a little smug for his taste.

And then there was Aoba, suddenly wondering why he was being given the choice at all. He regarding the Guardian curiously, just a touch uncertain. Did offering to jump now mean it was what Declan would have preferred? Maybe they wouldn’t lose anything with the longer trip, but was there something to be gained by shortening it?

Spreading out the mattresses would solve the sleep problem, but so would getting planetside. Aoba rubbed at the side of his neck, unsure of what to pick now that his assumption of how things would go had become a choice of options. But then again, he didn’t want to inconvenience anything….

“Well…I suppose I only asked for the ‘scenic route’ before because I was afraid of the space jumps, but nothing’s been anywhere near as scary as I thought it might be. It would be more efficient to get there quickly, so….”

So they might as well go ahead and jump.

"It's up to you, Aoba. I want you to enjoy yourself, and feel safe. If these things are compromised by haste, then it isn't worth it. The sleeping arrangements were something I thought about in passing but assumed rotation would be fine. I would rather be awake when you are, though. To spend as much time with you as I can before you're gone," Declan reasoned, sliding into the pilot seat and leaning back a bit.

"I'm happy to accommodate you in any way possible."

And with those words, Declan hit upon a perfect combination to silence Aoba in a hurry. Not that last sentence, but the one before.

He sighed quietly, looking down at the Guardian. Though Aoba had moved up front, it was only to be in view of the windows. His hand was up on an overhead support and he hung into it a little. The only solid complaint he could have made was as to how limited the views outside rather were. He wondered if this was comparable to being in a submarine, in a way. Rather than being completely afraid of the vastness of space outside the vessel, it was like his mind interpreted it as just a dark night sky and it was good to be able to see it.

“Scenic route it is, then,” he answered. If Declan wanted as much time with him as possible, then it was only fair, since Aoba wanted much the same of Declan.

Smiling slowly and arching a brow as he looked up, the Titan nodded, content. He would have to try to get Aoba out of the ship at some point, though he was fine with waiting until they went to the Reef. It was a prettier float, at any rate.

"So all we have to do is figure out the sleeping arrangements. I defer to your judgment there as well," Declan stated, leaning forward to scroll through the updated bounty boards again, wondering if there was anything to take Aoba on safely. A few scouting missions...those were usually safe so far as being non-engagement assignments. He was trying to find ways to avoid Aoba having to handle weapons at all. Then man was so against the idea that Declan didn't even want it to be an issue any longer.

What was there to figure out? Aoba blinked, only to realize oh, right. Assumptions weren’t getting him anywhere lately. He’d have to make an effort not to be vague. He didn’t really like being the one to make all the decisions, given that it felt lopsided to do so, but Declan was just as he said: accommodating. Almost unbelievably so.

“Just split the mattresses apart, since that’s an option. Like you said, we’ll lose out on time together if we’re sleeping in shifts.”

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