I— i could promise you the moon brought down with a lasso ( the hallway feels unreal. it feels wrong. a sharp fragment of a memory from a life lived a full lifetime ago. luna-terra has been in space far too long, living in dwellings and vessels and piloting a Ship-Self made out of metals and plastics. they had always felt like toys, models and figurines meant to give the feeling of playing house and of fighting without the harsh reality of it. since when has she seen wood splinter and metal rust like this? it's been decades. it only looks like this under the oppressive weight of earth's gravity, and yet it isn't. it's off. it's wrong. she doesn't know. she can only do what she only ever does: soldier on. keep moving, keep acting, until something makes sense. or until it doesn't, or she can't.
what she can and does do is spill through the door and into the darkened radio station, landing on hands and knees. the floorboards skin her palms; physical damage is sharp and electric at the same time, a frightening thrill after years of metaphorical fighting against a fake threat and then play-fighting against other toy soldiers. she stands, taking note of everything in the room, eyes scanning the monitors with wariness mingling with confusion. it has to be earth. doesn't it? it looks alien to her, and having spent two decades in space, the only place that might look that way to her now would be earth itself.
there aren't any answers in here. only questions. so she does what is natural to her: act without thinking, exiting the room and into the moon-bleached streets of a reality cut in two. )
a |( on the moon side of the bifurcated reality, luna-terra is caught in the contradiction. there's no way a place like this could exist in space — there was too much implied history in all of these disparate buildings, piled into mountains of debris. but the gravity is wrong. she might not be able to read the narration of a place, of a person, of a conversation or of an altercation like pluto or saturn might, but she's felt the nagging tug of earth's gravity enough to know what it feels like. this place is twisted in a way that can only remind her of when she has felt spacetime twist. when you can't figure out when or where you are — when "up" is "then" and "here" is something that either is, was, about to be, or will be in a thousand years.
it's unsettling, and it crawls up the nape of her neck like a slow shudder. she's on edge. and so when she hears the clatter and clamor of someone — or something else — she disappears. luna-terra is known as the "ghost" for a reason; she's very good at making herself unseen when she needs to be, waiting until the ideal moment.
but the air hangs thick, tense, and heavy as the stranger approaches where she lies in wait. in a place where there doesn't appear to be anything living nearby, there is the distinct feeling of eyes, keenly trained upon each move. )
b | ( someone on the sun side might not be able to see luna-terra, but her presence can be sensed in other ways. ripples through a split in spacetime, manifesting as a ghost might. even though she felt as though she had entered a building tall as a skyscraper, she might as well be standing in a room more like a small and cramped convenience store. the shelves are crowded with goods either rotted or rusted or falling apart, and luna-terra rifles through them now. items on the shelves on the sun side appear to pick themselves up, turn themselves over, and then toss themselves to the floor, cracking and scattering across grimy, broken tiles.
somewhere nearby, a radio crackles. )It'd be too much to ask for anything useful, huh?( behind the counter, glass inset to several cabinets might have held more valuable items. here, they reflect like mirrors, and in those mirrors the tall woman can be seen, tossing several crumbling magazines over her shoulder. )Figures.
II— true dark. ( what she wouldn't give for a firearm. even if it was a real one, one that fired shards of lead at lethal velocity instead of bullets of hard light at an imagined one, it would be better than feeling completely exposed. as it is, luna-terra has equipped herself with a long, rusted length of pipe. it's close enough to the mare crisium's spear, give or take almost everything about it, and even though she's used to moving the body of her Ship-Self with the careful orchestration of its controls, she still knows the movements as if she had done them herself.
so she feels at least half-formidable, but when she turns down a long, winding avenue and finds herself face-to-face with — a shadow. it pulses, shifting and formless, and though that might not mean much to anyone else, luna-terra's eyes widen with shock and confusion as it brings back memories of fighting a war against an enemy that might or might not have actually existed.
well, this threat certainly exists, and it might not be just existential.
a mass which appears to be its head fixates on her, and then it lurches forward, lumbering on two pillar-like limbs. she holds the pipe out to her side like a polearm, but she's realizing just how foolish this decision was to begin with and just how fragile she really is, separated from her ship-self.
were she in her ship-self faced off against the existential threat, she would have done something stupid. but she's not. so she does something vaguely smart: she runs — and the creature chases. )
III— imagined voices creak and crack. ( outside, rainwater which had pooled into the streets after a sudden and violent deluge now begins to swirl and eddy up, reaching back into the sky like it was remembering the feeling of weightlessness before condensation and precipitation had brought it tumbling down in the grip of gravity. sometimes the wind picks up again and sends water and pieces of debris tumbling through the streets like they were an acceleration tunnel. inside this small room, which seems only equipped for people to wait in (crowded with long benches and chairs and nothing else), luna-terra sighs. moving forward in this situation is the only thing that keeps her sane. having to stay still like this is torture.
the natural-yet-unnatural sound of the odd weather outside is broken up by the sibilant crackle and sigh of a radio nearby. it's attached to the wall, and though it's more like something they'd give to the scouts back on earth, luna-terra is bored enough to try anything. she approaches, inspecting it, and then decides to just give it a shot. )
Hello? Europa. Do you read me, out there?( there's only the crackle of static, so luna-terra adds to it, sighing into the speaker. )You know, I do listen. Even when I don't follow your advice. Because I figure, if I do the wise thing, it wouldn't really be me. And even then, you guide me with the inverse of your words, just like you always have.
( it's lonely here. lonelier even than the depths of space. at least there, her ship-self let her communicate with the void, with the total lack of gravity and culture. but without that, here, with nothing but herself and this radio... it's almost suffocating.
well. it's a junkyard. luna-terra should've figured she'd end up in a place like that one day. )
IV— wildcard ( anything else! feel free to contact me at lycanthropic. also, I will conform to whatever tag style one chooses. )
luna-terra ♁ heaven will be mine | ota!
( the hallway feels unreal. it feels wrong. a sharp fragment of a memory from a life lived a full lifetime ago. luna-terra has been in space far too long, living in dwellings and vessels and piloting a Ship-Self made out of metals and plastics. they had always felt like toys, models and figurines meant to give the feeling of playing house and of fighting without the harsh reality of it. since when has she seen wood splinter and metal rust like this? it's been decades. it only looks like this under the oppressive weight of earth's gravity, and yet it isn't. it's off. it's wrong. she doesn't know. she can only do what she only ever does: soldier on. keep moving, keep acting, until something makes sense. or until it doesn't, or she can't.
what she can and does do is spill through the door and into the darkened radio station, landing on hands and knees. the floorboards skin her palms; physical damage is sharp and electric at the same time, a frightening thrill after years of metaphorical fighting against a fake threat and then play-fighting against other toy soldiers. she stands, taking note of everything in the room, eyes scanning the monitors with wariness mingling with confusion. it has to be earth. doesn't it? it looks alien to her, and having spent two decades in space, the only place that might look that way to her now would be earth itself.
there aren't any answers in here. only questions. so she does what is natural to her: act without thinking, exiting the room and into the moon-bleached streets of a reality cut in two. )
a | ( on the moon side of the bifurcated reality, luna-terra is caught in the contradiction. there's no way a place like this could exist in space — there was too much implied history in all of these disparate buildings, piled into mountains of debris. but the gravity is wrong. she might not be able to read the narration of a place, of a person, of a conversation or of an altercation like pluto or saturn might, but she's felt the nagging tug of earth's gravity enough to know what it feels like. this place is twisted in a way that can only remind her of when she has felt spacetime twist. when you can't figure out when or where you are — when "up" is "then" and "here" is something that either is, was, about to be, or will be in a thousand years.
it's unsettling, and it crawls up the nape of her neck like a slow shudder. she's on edge. and so when she hears the clatter and clamor of someone — or something else — she disappears. luna-terra is known as the "ghost" for a reason; she's very good at making herself unseen when she needs to be, waiting until the ideal moment.
but the air hangs thick, tense, and heavy as the stranger approaches where she lies in wait. in a place where there doesn't appear to be anything living nearby, there is the distinct feeling of eyes, keenly trained upon each move. )
b | ( someone on the sun side might not be able to see luna-terra, but her presence can be sensed in other ways. ripples through a split in spacetime, manifesting as a ghost might. even though she felt as though she had entered a building tall as a skyscraper, she might as well be standing in a room more like a small and cramped convenience store. the shelves are crowded with goods either rotted or rusted or falling apart, and luna-terra rifles through them now. items on the shelves on the sun side appear to pick themselves up, turn themselves over, and then toss themselves to the floor, cracking and scattering across grimy, broken tiles.
somewhere nearby, a radio crackles. ) It'd be too much to ask for anything useful, huh? ( behind the counter, glass inset to several cabinets might have held more valuable items. here, they reflect like mirrors, and in those mirrors the tall woman can be seen, tossing several crumbling magazines over her shoulder. ) Figures.
II— true dark.
( what she wouldn't give for a firearm. even if it was a real one, one that fired shards of lead at lethal velocity instead of bullets of hard light at an imagined one, it would be better than feeling completely exposed. as it is, luna-terra has equipped herself with a long, rusted length of pipe. it's close enough to the mare crisium's spear, give or take almost everything about it, and even though she's used to moving the body of her Ship-Self with the careful orchestration of its controls, she still knows the movements as if she had done them herself.
so she feels at least half-formidable, but when she turns down a long, winding avenue and finds herself face-to-face with — a shadow. it pulses, shifting and formless, and though that might not mean much to anyone else, luna-terra's eyes widen with shock and confusion as it brings back memories of fighting a war against an enemy that might or might not have actually existed.
well, this threat certainly exists, and it might not be just existential.
a mass which appears to be its head fixates on her, and then it lurches forward, lumbering on two pillar-like limbs. she holds the pipe out to her side like a polearm, but she's realizing just how foolish this decision was to begin with and just how fragile she really is, separated from her ship-self.
were she in her ship-self faced off against the existential threat, she would have done something stupid. but she's not. so she does something vaguely smart: she runs — and the creature chases. )
III— imagined voices creak and crack.
( outside, rainwater which had pooled into the streets after a sudden and violent deluge now begins to swirl and eddy up, reaching back into the sky like it was remembering the feeling of weightlessness before condensation and precipitation had brought it tumbling down in the grip of gravity. sometimes the wind picks up again and sends water and pieces of debris tumbling through the streets like they were an acceleration tunnel. inside this small room, which seems only equipped for people to wait in (crowded with long benches and chairs and nothing else), luna-terra sighs. moving forward in this situation is the only thing that keeps her sane. having to stay still like this is torture.
the natural-yet-unnatural sound of the odd weather outside is broken up by the sibilant crackle and sigh of a radio nearby. it's attached to the wall, and though it's more like something they'd give to the scouts back on earth, luna-terra is bored enough to try anything. she approaches, inspecting it, and then decides to just give it a shot. )
Hello? Europa. Do you read me, out there? ( there's only the crackle of static, so luna-terra adds to it, sighing into the speaker. ) You know, I do listen. Even when I don't follow your advice. Because I figure, if I do the wise thing, it wouldn't really be me. And even then, you guide me with the inverse of your words, just like you always have.
( it's lonely here. lonelier even than the depths of space. at least there, her ship-self let her communicate with the void, with the total lack of gravity and culture. but without that, here, with nothing but herself and this radio... it's almost suffocating.
well. it's a junkyard. luna-terra should've figured she'd end up in a place like that one day. )
IV— wildcard
( anything else! feel free to contact me at