❪ introlog: #6 ❫ city of secrets

[natha]

You've spent the last few days on Thesa Station, taking in the knowledge that your world is no more. Now, the time to put all your survival training into practice has arrived: El Nysa needs you, and you're here to help the planet thrive. Are you ready? THE DESCENT     All refugees on the station are called to the hangar, where a large-scale teleporter awaits. Simply step onto the space between the arrays and wait; everyone will be sent down to the planet together. Before they depart, all refugees will be given a cold weather survival kit with warm clothing, rations, and bedding. The arrays build into a brilliant wash of light, creating a column that travels all the way from Thesa Station to the surface of El Nysa, teleporting the refugees to the planet on an aurora. Once on the planet's surface, refugees receive one last message from Darma. It has been a long, perilous year for you, refugees. And yet we must ask you to brave further peril. Within Nadril are the secrets to how poor Ysverai's revival was hidden from our sight and how this disaster has come to our star. Find the first refugee from beyond this planet, a man named Magda. He will not speak to us, for much has come between us, but to you… If you prove yourselves, he may be willing to answer your questions. We beseech you, for there is a veil over Nadril that hides all within from us. There may yet be more untold dangers waiting to befall this planet. For the good of all who make this world home, we ask you to lend us your aid. There is yet one more favor we would ask of you. In warding off the Storm's encroachment, the physical aspect of ourselves that you call Thesa Station was damaged. We must remain to continue repairs to El Nysa and to deal with Ysverai, but there should be suitable technology within Nadril that could be used for spare parts. If you have the chance to find it and can return it to us, it would hasten— Darma's message crackles with static, another image overlaying hers — her broadcast is cut off and replaced with another. A more sullen and alien voice takes Darma’s place, overlapping on itself in an ominous reveal. It has been a long, perilous year for you, refugees. And yet you’ve only just arrived here. To say I’m not disappointed in your… generation would be to lie, and I am nothing if not an honest creature. But I suppose these have been unusual circumstances. You must ask yourself this — are you only here as Darma's lapdogs? I can assure you, it's not worth being on the Natha's leash. With time, that will be something you'll have to learn for yourself. If you're so determined to come find Nadril, then follow the path north, and you'll find the border. What awaits you is revelation, if you're up to the challenge. A FROZEN LAND     The refugees land on a literally frozen world, both in temperature and time. Curls of icy wind hold swirls of snow aloft and an uncanny silence is broken only by the crunch of hoarfrost underfoot. Only Darma's protection allows the refugees to move through this frozen world — and movement is very necessary. Bitter cold sneaks through even the thickest clothing and without warning, a snowstorm rises: unnaturally quickly, a wall of white howls directly in the refugee's path. Bizarrely, the way back is perfectly calm; it's obvious that this storm is no product of nature. Magda's challenge becomes clear: the only way to Nadril lies through this storm. Visibility within the storm is near zero, the whiteout hiding any landmarks from view and making navigation near impossible. The only guidance refugees have is a sporadic path of faint, greenish lights, easily lost in the raging storm. Refugees need all the survival skills they practiced on Thesa Station to survive, for getting lost alone is a death sentence. Luckily, those separated from the group can happen upon guiding lights Magda has planted throughout the tundra. These blue-white sparks cause frostbite if handled recklessly, but they also serve as directional anchors, turning into ghostly flames that lead lost souls back to the path to Nadril. The trek through the storm will be no mean feat and will last for the better part of three days. By the time the refugees reach Nadril's gate, most will find themselves exhausted and running on fumes. As the snowstorm dies away and a gap in the glittering forcefield around the city opens to usher the refugees inside, it's clear that Nadril is a different beast. A WARM(?) WELCOME     I. Despite the unforgiving journey, entering Nadril is painless. Once inside, characters will be greeted by their predecessors: the original refugees who made this advanced city. They'll immediately be offered medical attention, as well as warm cider and blankets. But it's obvious that the Nadril citizens prefer higher tech to fend off the weather: they also offer wristlets and ear cuffs that that double as mittens and earmuffs by creating warm bubbles of air. The earrings also feature a few quality of life programs, such as timed alarms and thought-to-speech messaging. However, both programs are in beta stages so it's not unusual for a stray thought to accidentally slip through or an alarm to accidentally ring at an inopportune time. II. Refugees are offered free lodging in a large, crystalline building crafted from ice. Despite the coarse building material, the ice is unmelting and surprisingly well-insulated, and the beds are as warm and cozy. The rooms are, however, small. The sleeping quarters house two people, and are some cross between an igloo and a capsule hotel. Though built for efficiency over comfort, all rooms are also outfitted with the latest Nadril AI, RoboAlfred, or Ralf for short. This helpful program is installed in practically all the furnishings: the closet tells guests to bundle up, the bathroom sink reminds them to brush their teeth, and the mirror offers helpful fashion tips. Ralf's personality matrix still needs polish, though: it may very well insult your clothes and passively-aggressively question your lifestyle choices for the entire stay. III. Though not as advanced as Thesa Station, the colony has technology far beyond the rest of the continent, such as rudimentary AIs and mechanical transportation. Nadril's skyline is a point of pride — refugees can take a (literal) lightrail that gives an aerial view of the colony, which is hewn almost entirely from ice and rock. Despite its tech, Nadril is much more sparsely populated than Olympia and Wyver, and its residents stay near a central hub: a Natha refugee drop ship, Central, which has crashed and long embedded itself into the earth. Central is similar to an older, smaller, grounded model of Thesa Station, in functional order with round-the-clock solar power. Within Central are lounges similar to ones on the Station, though many of the damaged areas have been converted. They include repair stations, different wings dedicated to science, botany, astrology, and mechanics, and a research and history facility, which has a smattering of technology from planets beyond El Nysa — including your own. The staff here don't mind if anything is sampled and studied, but objects cannot be taken from the labs. IV. On the outskirts of the central hub, many will find several curious looking bots with insect-like wings perched about high traffic walkways. Simply passing the bots will cause a dizzying flash before a series of photos print out. Upon closer inspection, people will find that these images reflect stills taken from their home worlds as they remember it. Unfortunately, these photos only last a couple of hours at best. At that time, they will revert back to regular pictures of the refugees. People will be encouraged to share these images of their worlds. The residents of Nadril comprehend the value of remembering one's origins, and will be pleased to see that people still hold memories of old homes close to them. RECREATION IN NADRIL     I. Small, mechanical creatures scampering through the city are a common sight. Ask anyone, and they’ll tell you that they come from a shop called Paws About Town. They’re very useful, as companions, gophers, and couriers (though the more mischievous will note that they’re just small enough to keep tabs on people without being noticed). Premade robotic pets are available on display inside the shop. They come in all shapes, but small sizes; one may be able to find robots that even look like miniature creatures from their homeworld. These are a part of a new, highly customizable line with programmable personalities. Customers have the chance to take pets for a one-day trial run. Those who don’t know how to program may want to enlist more knowledgeable aid, but the pets come with instructional pamphlets for basic personality traits such as obedience, helpfulness, playfulness, and bloodthirst. For returns, the switch to wipe the robot's personality to a blank slate is on the back of its neck, right between a switch to invert all traits, and a switch to have them learn by observing. Try not to press the wrong switch — you might wind up with a pet with a mind of its own! II. A. The Frosty Tap Cantina is a thriving hub of activity, but one of the major draws is the self-service bar: molecular mixology is wildly popular here. Playing with drink compositions can be a game in and of itself, and newcomers to the cantina will find that the bartender — a cheerful woman with lilac skin and three eyes — is always happy to give them a few tips on how to use the wide array of tools within reach of the barstools. All manner of drinks are possible — from glowing, layered cocktails, to clear drinks with colored, spherical bubbles and vividly-colored shots that give off their own smoke. There's a nightly contest in the cantina for the most creative drink created by a team — this may be as good a time as any to partner up with someone and see what can you come up with. Winner gets all their drinks for the night free! And, hey, even if you don't win, you get to drink whatever you make. The well-lubricated patrons of the bar are eager to challenge anyone nearby to a different sort of drinking game… Just how well can you hold your liquor? B. Holo-screens in the cantina are nearly always broadcasting some match or another of a game that looks very much like hockey, albeit played with sticks that light up and a puck that changes shape from time to time. Colonists here merely refer to the game as "the sport," and one of their favored pastimes is betting. However, they don't use currency — they wager dares. Nadril colonists are a tough, weathered lot, and they prefer to speak with actions over silver. Colonists will urge the refugees to take part as well. Common dares range from the ridiculous (lead a sing-a-long, attempt to make someone with a poker face smile) to the suggestive (kiss the person in the cantina you find most attractive, strip off a piece of clothing), to the outright reckless (venture out into the snow for a certain amount of time, and no one will judge if you find some company to keep warm). The colonists are unfazed by even the most insane or tawdry of dares — but you'll certainly be called a killjoy for refusing too often! Why not grab a friend and give it a whirl, or challenge a rival to a dare yourself? THE MISSION     I. On the outskirts of Nadril is the communications tower of the old refugees. This is where Magda resides, monitoring Nadril's technological protections, the extent of the Natha’s influence, and running his own personal projects for El Nysa’s technological advancement. It is isolated, filled with research labs and relics of the past refugees who have come to El Nysa — a living mausoleum of worlds swallowed up by the Storm whose peoples have refused to forget where they came from. Crew photos line the walls of the tower: pictures of alien families and friends, the refugees who came to Nadril before you. Each group of photos gradually becomes smaller in number, and the most recent of the pictures are from half a century ago. Magda's picture can be found among the first group of refugees, an unusually small cluster of photos dating back centuries in El Nysa's past. I have been on this planet for nearly two centuries. Life has come, evolved, and collided in an ever expanding culture. But Darma fears interference, and made this place a prison, with she our warden, stifling the growth of the creatures native to this world rather than encouraging them to flourish. She sent you here for answers in her stead because she knows I'll spurn her, and after seeing what that fool Raysc has wrought, I'll give you them — not for Darma's sake, but because I trust after all the Natha have done to you, you'll understand my decision. Mistakes were made, and I won't hide them. You've made it here so there's some mettle to you, and unlike the Orbiters, I'm not interested in hiding the secrets of the dangers we face. I gave Raysc what he needed to keep his actions hidden from Darma's eyes — what he needed to advance the primitive magics the Natha had doomed him to. It was old Natha tech, Darma's very own used against her. Hilarious, isn't it? Raysc learned of Nadril, and like you, braved the snow to find his way here. He proved his worth and his determination, and he spoke of a brighter future, El Nysa coming into its own, its people realizing their true potential, unhindered by the shackles that had been put upon them. I believed him. He had vision — or so I thought. In truth, he was a fool. A madman. He wasted the opportunity I gave him on his petty vengeance. But not everyone on this planet is such an idiot. Surely you lot aren't. The Natha are hiding things from us — about the Storm, about everything. And here in Nadril, we're going to find all those secrets. What's it going to be? Will you help us, or are you going to stay obedient dogs on Darma's leash? Magda isn't too talkative yet; after all, the new flock of refugees may just be here as eyes and ears for the Orbiters. But what he has said leaves you with plenty to talk about, and if you can earn his trust by helping out around Nadril, he doubtless has a great deal more to reveal. II. Central isn't the only Natha ship that made its way to El Nysa — another, crashed just outside Nadril's borders, is little more than a junk heap. It's here that you'll find the spare parts Darma asked you to retrieve for Thesa Station. What remains of the ship's hull serves as a windbreak, and snow has built up against it, turning the piles of old Natha tech inside into something of a snowy morass. Holes in the deck offer would-be scavengers passage to the ship's innards, barely illuminated with flickering lights — the tech is old, but hardy enough to withstand a crash landing, the severe weather, and the passage of centuries. Deep in the wreck are the remains of living quarters, research labs, VR arenas, mecha bays, cafeterias, and a host of other rooms, many of which may seem familiar from Thesa Station, albeit with a decidedly older feel to what remains of the smooth curves and sleek surfaces of the Natha architecture. Most of the ship's systems are damaged and the technology is nonfunctional, but that just means there's plenty of spare parts to be found. The wreck isn't in the best shape, its structural integrity damaged, and the drifting snow threatens to block off exit routes. Be careful while exploring and be sure to bring a partner. As it turns out, Darma isn't the only one interested in the wreck — Magda is also eager to get his hands on Natha technology. In his own way of taking some responsibility for Raysc, he's asking scavengers to bring him parts, muttering about seeing what he can do about Ysverai's curse. Bring him anything that looks useful, and he may have a chance to succeed, though whether he'll be more effective than the Natha Orbiters is up for debate... FINAL OOC NOTES     An AC-eligible thread with a new character as a participant for 2 NADRIL REP POINTS may be submitted from this log. SUBMIT THE THREAD HERE BY AUGUST 5TH, 11:59 PM EST. As always, feel free to create your own prompts and explore the Nadril location page! There are a variety of activities made available, including fishing and cave exploration! Please direct questions to the questions thread below! Thank you! QUICK NAV premise ● faq ● lore ● map ● npcs taken ● atp/emp ● application ● rep/acp calendar ● hiatus/drops ● modbox [ FULL NAVIGATION ] elnysa nysalogs nysaisles nysaooc elnyan

Comments

[summertimeblues]

[He goes very, very quiet. Listens with rapt attention and mounting bile, breath eerily even.

At last, he weighs in with a low chuckle.]

They made no effort to weed out the waste, did they now?

[Disgusting. Absolutely...god. He'd done his fair share of wandering the pods, doing sight-seeing and searching for those that recently fell back asleep. And though there were some ugly fucks, you couldn't know what you were looking at unless someone was there to tell you or the bastard woke up and started resuming business before your dumbfounded eyes. How many more monsters lay in wait? What were the Orbiters looking for? They seemed to only pick and choose the people that had something important to do, but why was that not exclusive to the ones who might do good with it?]

Are any of the other kids awake with you?

[godslay]

No. I'm the only one.

[ She says it with a tight jaw, a small clench of her fingers around the pieces of the photo. She's at least found Nebula in the pods – but she's also found the more unwelcome members of her twisted little "family." ]

Most are still loyal to him, so the longer they stay in stasis, the better it will be for us all.

[ If the Black Order happened to be wandering around... life would become much more difficult. ]

[summertimeblues]

How can anyone stay loyal to a baby butcher?

[Of course they could. Even as the words leave his mouth he knows he's got his answer already. Cultish devotion made people excuse the strangest things. Love and authority and admiration concocted excuses for even the worst atrocities. Still, thinking that any thinking person could fall under that sway was beyond his understanding.

Gamora got out. And she's safe. At least for now. All it would take is another wave of newbies to flip the situation.]

You said you couldn't take him. Do you think there's anyone here that could?

[A wild guess, but with the mishmash of superpowers and alien races there could be a trump card. If it's alien might and biology she's talking, then maybe a wizardish swish and flick could turn the tables.]

[godslay]

[ His question earns a flat look, because she could say so much. Fear is a bigger motivator than she would ever like to admit, and a sense of helplessness, of dependency, will force people to stay in line.

(But she knows some of her siblings believed in Thanos without a hint of remorse. There was no resentment, but instead, reverence. Where Gamora committed atrocities to survive, some of the Children of Thanos did so for the joy of the massacre.

"A mercy," they would have called it. "Salvation.")

But in order to survive... to thrive, to live, sometimes she had to tell herself that she was devoted to Thanos. That she would serve him and his cause, because otherwise...

She hated herself. She hated what she did for him. In his name.

The blood on her hands will never be so easily washed away. ]

I don't know if he can die. Not by my hand, not—

[ She stops short, shaking her head, forcing herself to look away from Richie.

Maybe it would be different here. The Natha are powerful, and Thanos doesn't have his resources and armies. Maybe he could be stopped.

But putting stock in a "maybe" is a risk that Gamora doesn't know she wants to take. ]

I don't know, Rich.

[summertimeblues]

[It might help if she did. Richie isn't unintelligent but he is rash, and has the unfortunate tendency to spout off before he thinks.

Her prognosis instills some sense of the bigger picture in him. He's difficult to kill because he's something more than mortal. Look at that! Just when you thought you'd never have something in common.]

Most things can. [He says this with such surety that for once, he doesn't need his vocal elastics to sound like an entirely different person.] The rules of the world you used to live in don't have to apply here. I don't believe in guarantees, but I don't believe in immortality either. Even that fucking dragon that came back from the dead. If it was impossible to take down when it's all rotted out, it must have been worse at its prime. But it did die. Everything has to. That's the rule.

[Staying dead, on the other hand...Well, let's not dwell on it.]

[godslay]

[ It's the change in how level his voice is, how confident, that gets Gamora to look back at him. She considers him in silence as he makes an arguably excellent point about El Nysa's most recent terror, but— ]

But not every death is permanent. Not everything can be conquered; sometimes the only thing you can do is slow it down. Put— some hurdle in front of it to keep it at bay.

[ That's what destroying the map to the Soul Stone was. Keeping it hidden, keeping its location in her mind alone—

That was a stopgap. Maybe she couldn't kill Thanos, maybe no one could, maybe nothing would stop him from rising and taking El Nysa like he had so many worlds for so many years.

But at least, back in her now-ravaged world, the Soul Stone never found a place in Thanos's grasp.

And now, with the Storm, she could only hope that every one of the Infinity Stones were beyond his reach. ]

[summertimeblues]

I know that. [He returns to his usual brash American yammer now. That deadly seriousness will dip back in when the time is right, but he's a better nuisance than he is a voice of reason.] Even so, it doesn't mean throwing your hands in the air and calling it quits. Think about what I said, all right? Maybe there is someone here who could help you if the time comes. I'd offer but hey, unless he's got a great sense of humor and a weakness for American Rock-n-Roll I can't sway him for shit.

[Then a flash strikes. Soft clicks, and this time it's Richie blinking away spots as the camera drone putters out three new pictures.]

Oh, hell, ask first, you goddamn pest!

[Richie gives it a swat and it flies off screeching. He watches it in his aggravation. Not thinking twice about what had happened moments before.

The photos lay at Gamora's feet. Two face down, one coming to fruition. The image is...strange.

It's a picture of a picture, which lies inside an album. You can see the corner sticker holding it in place and the pink flesh of the thumb holding the page down.

The nested photois in sepia and greys. A street by a canal, from a town sometime in the 1930s. Gamora may not know the signs of the era but perhaps the antiquity can be implied by the style, or the lack of color in the photograph itself. There are two small boys, one in knickers and a cap with big glasses and bigger front teeth (something familiar, maybe), and the other is wearing a sailor suit.

The latter's been snatched at the neck by a jarring figure. Popping over the ledge from the water below is a clown - but the face has been replaced with that of a six-year-old boy's. Still slathered in greasepaint to suit the costume. Ragged black sockets stand where his eyes ought to be. A child's head on a man's body, done up like a party clown.

Both boys are screaming. The clown is lifts its prize with an ecstatic grin.]

[godslay]

[ As quickly as it arrives, the tone is gone, and Gamora recognizes the jabbering in an instant.

Think about it, he says. And he's not the only one who has, and she is thinking about it. That's probably the frustrating thing: she's always thinking about it.

She wants to say something – a counter or placation, she hasn't decided – but an annoyingly familiar bot has arrived again, and just like Gamora's unfortunate encounter, it graces Richie with three photographs. They fall to the ground before either of them can catch them, and Gamora sees—

She doesn't know what she's looking at, in all honesty. Clowns she's encountered in space don't resemble ones from Earth, so she has no contextual clues to even begin to identify the twisted creature. ]

Rich...?

[ Her voice is stilted, questioning, and just as Richie had reached for her photos, Gamora bends down to scoop up his.

(For being so aggravated by him helping himself to her photograph, she seems to have no trouble doing the same.) ]

[summertimeblues]

Yeah? [Richie turns back with a furrow between his brows. He sees her stooping, collecting more pictures.

The one that's facing upright—]

Don't!

[He thrusts out an arm to push her away, purely on instinct. If he'd had a second to think he'd know he's likely to lose that arm or get countered with Bruce Lee's deadly precision. But the last time he'd seen that picture, putting your fingers on it meant you might lose them. Bill nearly had. They'd sunk right in and turned cream-colored, and when Richie pulled them out they'd been slashed deep through where the flesh had met the plastic and paper.]

[godslay]

[ Instinct makes Gamora's arm snap out, and she grabs Richie's wrist, yanking him close, her other hand coming up to brace on his shoulder. She could dislocate it with the smallest shove, the barest pressure (by her standards), but— she doesn't. She doesn't seem to realize she's acted on impulse until they're dramatically closer, faces inches apart as she holds him in an arrested lock.

However, the action causes her to drop the pieces of her picture and the other two she'd been clutching. They flutter to the ground to join Richie's; the photo of her with Peter lands face down, but the one of her and Nebula lands right next to the image of the clown.

She's stopped breathing for that instant, her eyes (just a little wider with deadly focus) fixed on his face. ]

... Hypocrite.

[ She says it on an exhale, not letting him go yet. ]

[summertimeblues]

[How absolutely predictable. Richie twists, tries to fight the closeness. It was one thing when they were dancing, quite another when the circumstances are so precipitous.

Also, her grip is like iron manacles.]

Ow! Fuck! Lemme go! You want my second-hand smoke so bad, just lay a wet one on me!

[Richie grits his teeth and glances back down. There's a new shot next to his own nightmare. Gamora as a kid again, and another, a blue child, falling (thrown) from a tree.

Alarming, but he has to make sure. He toes that one away with the edge of his boot and watches the picture-in-picture. Silent. Breathless.

Waiting.

It doesn't move. Air jets from his mouth in a misty puff as he closes his eyes in relief.]

Gamora. Let me take it. Please.

[godslay]

[ He twists, but Gamora's grip stays firm, unyielding.

(She can't help how sharp her senses are, how adrenaline kicks up her awareness because she can smell that smoke on his breath, can hear his heart hammering in her ears, the sound of each inhale, exhale—)

But he stops, and so does Gamora, going impossibly still to watch him move the picture with his boot. She's staring like she's prepared to throw him if he tries to go for hers, but to her relief, he's... testing? Nothing happens in the airless silence, and she doesn't breathe until Richie is sighing with relief.

Her hold eases by increments, until she finally drops her hand from his shoulder, releasing his wrist.

She takes one step back, intent on recovering the photographs she abandoned. And though Gamora can be cruel (she can be cold and remorseless), she doesn't try to swipe up Richie's photographs before he can. She bends to retrieve her own, and doesn't reach for his. ]

tw: suicide

[summertimeblues]

[It's slow going, but she relents. There were some sharp seconds in the pause where he sensed impending pain, and he cracked one eye open to keep locked on hers, ready to brace for it. Yet she's giving him the kindness of keeping his bones unbroken, his feet on the ground, and the photographs to his little old self.

Richie inhales thinly, and joins her in fetching them back up. He plucks up the clown picture like he might a spider. Quickly, before the courage fails him. He shoves it into his coat pocket without a second look. Good riddance, bad rubbish, all that jazz.

He can't help the second glance he gives to hers. Why was she throwing this other kid around? Was that part of her purple-man's cruel orders? Was this a first kill?

Shivers wriggle down his spine at the thought, and he lowers his eyes in shame. She hadn't asked for any of that, but it was frightening to imagine all the same.

He peels up a corner of the remainders. Blackness. Pitch black. Richie frowns, lifting further, and as he looks he remembers the moment with the same fogginess as it came to him in dreams.

Seven muddied, bloodied children in the bowels of a sewage labyrinth. Bill is striking a match, lighting them up in slivers. Their backs and legs and the world behind them melts into the sludgey black, but their faces are white-lit and terrified. There is an eighth child ahead of them, but this one sits limp in the muck. Body bloated from rot and water, face half eaten from a tag team of galactic abomination and the rats seen skittering away in the picture, their tails tiny whips of light against the water and stone. His schoolbooks sit equally fattened and moldy to his side like squishy accordians, soaking up Derry's piss and shit for the month or so before Richie and pals found him. Goodnight to Patrick Hockstetter, adieu, adieu.

He doesn't remember what happened in the sewers. Nothing useful. This much had come back to him in dreams, but that was all she wrote.

Richie pries it off the ground with care, and then takes a peek at the last.

His stern face falls. His eyes go watery and an ugly choke gurgles out of him.]

Oh God no...

[Richie pulls it up and off the snow, unable to take his eyes from it. It shakes with him as he huffs and seethes and tries to hold it in, even as his eyes bulge from the horror of the sight.

This is a grown man in a tub (they have the same hair, don't they? The same nose, even if the crows's feet are new and the squiggles of chest hair is alien to Richie). His head lolls back not in peace, but in a desiccated fear. The water has turned pink from the crosses cut into his wrists. On the wall, painted by fingers in slippery blood, is one word:

"IT"]

[godslay]

[ Gamora should likely be more respectful than she is in that moment; while she doesn't take the pictures, she looks over to see what Richie reveals. The second makes as little sense to her as the first, but she does recognize a dead, rotted body (the size of a child, surrounded by children).

(Standing over bodies just as small as her own, pools of blood that soak her bare feet, yellow and blue on her knife and her hands, finding them days later when the jungle heat has bloated the flesh eroded away by the alien maggots burrowed into their skin, and that was her, this was all her, she did this—)

She snaps to attention with the third photograph. She sees the image of the man in the tub, his wrists slashed open, and— is this worse? Better? How does this horror stand up against the scenes in Richie's other photos? Gamora remembers in her childhood, there were some children discovered in similar positions, because some couldn't handle the fear and pain, and rather than wait to be picked off, they—

It's Richie's reaction that alarms her the most, how he can't tear his eyes from the gore, and he chokes on his own air, his own words. ]

Rich.

[ She doesn't say it with the same edge of before, and she doesn't reach out to snatch away the photo; she sets a hand at his forearm, tries to push it down, to break that invisible string tying Richie's eyes to the bloodied corpse. ]

[summertimeblues]

[Gamora's touch draws him out of the shock. It doesn't go away though, it sits high in his throat with a devil's tail tied around his lungs. His eyes meet hers and lock there. His upper lip twitches through the open gape it lies in.

She pushes the picture down. It hardly matters. The pale form is hovering over her face like a fuzzed projection. A voice comes to save him — Johnny Carson. He even paints on a smile and wrestles back the sob that almost came instead. That gets swallowed down. Talking through a break in face usually mends it before the cracks start spreading.]

Well it's been a night, wouldn't you say, Miss Gamora? Time to tuck the kids in, kiss the missus and tell the smoker's lung, "Not today, fella!" Goodnight all, and thanks for tuning in!

[He gives a little laugh. Johnny's, not his own. Then he makes to turn. Gotta get out of dodge.]

[godslay]

[ It's a joke. A deflection. It takes her by surprise, leaves her blinking at him, but she realizes what he's doing as he babbles; that smile feels as thin as the paper Gamora tore to shreds that she's abandoned on the ground.

Her hand clamps down on his forearm – not hard, but firm. She's not interested in harming him, but she plants her feet in the snow and holds fast. ]

Rich.

[ Again, but pointed. ]

[summertimeblues]

[No such luck, my man.

That frail grin only grows broader. As if eating more of his face might make it more true. He giggles again, shaking his head as he keeps his gaze low, away from her.]

What? What do you want me to say?

[godslay]

[ That giggle is unsettling, unnerving – if only because this kind of defense is so foreign to Gamora. She's seen Peter try to laugh things off, but it's not this.

What does she want him to say? ]

... Give me the photographs.

[summertimeblues]

[The smile closes. A grimace succeeds it, ugly, angry, pressing back against his teeth like it means to bend them inwards.]

I saw yours by accident.

[godslay]

I know.

[ And there's no venom in her voice now. It's not hard and snappish, no bristling in her posture. ]

I don't want to look at them.

[ ... But she doesn't want him to see them, either.

With the hand not holding onto his forearm, she extends an open palm. ]

[summertimeblues]

[He holds for a moment.

She's a hard woman. A dangerous one. But not to him. Never once has she given him reason to doubt her intentions. And what is there to be gained?

He never wants to see Stan like this again. He never got to see him as a grown man, and now he has and wants to vomit. Richie takes his time but the two pictures do press into Gamora's palm. The first remains stowed in his pocket.]

[godslay]

[ She waits. She doesn't press again or make more demands (yet?), and she gives him that moment to stand there with whatever mess must be twisting him up into knots.

(Because she's right there with him, all tangled and full of a pain she'd thought didn't haunt her step so heavily.)

The photos are set into her palm, and it almost surprises her. Instead of commenting on that itself, she folds the images over – back facing out, concealing the horror inside. And then—

She rips them into half. And then quarters. She clenches the pile of glossy prints in her fist until the shreds are practically indistinguishable from any scrap of trash one might find on the street. ]

The one in your pocket.

[summertimeblues]

[The shreds fall just as prettily as snow. She does a more thorough job now than she'd made of her first attempt, fettered with rage it had been. Richie's eyes follow each flutter of paper. So long, flash of rats, scared kids and long shadows. Adios, ceramic tile and waxen skin, water run rosey and wrists undone. He doesn't breathe much easier, but it helps. A kind gesture to be sure.

She asks for the last photo standing. To this, Richie shakes his head. Illogical, but he can't allow it.]

I can't let you touch it.

[godslay]

[ That's confusing more than it is aggravating. ]

Why?

[ Touch it, rather than see it.

What makes this one different? ]

[summertimeblues]

[His lips fold in, pensive.]

The last time...ah. [He breaks into a smile, just as false as the last, and wipes at his forehead.] You see, no matter how I slice it it's not going to make sense, so will you please humor me and let me burn it myself? I'm taking my zippo to it soon as I've got a good garbage bin to light a fire in.