Memories

[everythinglost]

[For Sweeney/open, just a day in the life]

comment

[For Flint/open, saving the world]

comment

[For Misty, cn messing with memories]

comment

[For Kirei, cn watching a love one dying]

comment

[For Tim/close CR; meeting his evil original self]

comment

[For Pagan, held up by a unicorn]

comment

[For Norton, cn just after he's been tortured, war crimes]

comment

[Open, early teenage memory, cn his mother's mental illness, bullying]

comment

[Open, no pain, no gain]

comment

[for Raylan, heroics the medium hard way]

comment

Comments

saving words against profit

[everythinglost]

You're at a point in time when the mining company is still using real guns - Compassion had always rolled her eyes when you said that but it's just easier than getting into ray gun terminology or whatever. It's lucky, in a way, a ray gun might have taken out you altogether or dissolved your arm (you've seen plenty of that, and 'cauterizing' probably wouldn't stop you from falling over, plus, who knows how long a new arm would take to get up to quality for playing) and you're not happy about having a chunk of your arm missing but the future bandage is enough to help you keep going, for now. For long enough, hopefully. You've never been great at hope, so you don't really know how you keep ending up in situations like this.

You give Yiv and Miriam the best smile you can manage at the moment. They don't look reassured which, fair. The mining companies' 'official security' had their fun throwing you out, bastards, and white with pain isn't the most appealing look. Probably more if you're used to blue-black scales, though you hope that makes it harder to read just how sick you feel. Someone has to pretend they know what they're doing, and you have the most experience there.

You'd pegged Yiv as the skeptical nun from the start. You get that, even though exposure to gods and monsters means she's not necessarily right. But where does belief get you. At least her god doesn't sound that they're usually particularly bad and 'nun' doesn't mean the same thing here. Anji had rolled her eyes at that, heading off to your rooms, but you'd say she has a narrower view on what's attractive. You hope she's okay.

Miriam had been excited to talk to an outsider, excited about her faith. Some sort of volcano god, you think, one that didn't demand sacrifices so alright with you. The Doctor had been muttering about the tremors and you can put unusual amount of earth quakes and mining corporations together to get four. You hadn't really gotten a chance to be smug about being right, when the Doctor had told you that the planet's set to blow. He's just gotten a chance to get the detector into your hand before he'd been dragged off. You'd prefer to try to get him out, even with the amount of real guns being waved around, but you three hours until the explosives are going to go off in a terminal way. For the planet and, much more importantly, everyone on it.

Yiv had been willing to lead you to 'sacred territory', even more ready once you'd disarmed the first bomb. Miriam's trailing, still shocked that anyone would abuse faith like this. Which might be better than the fact that her entire world and everyone on it except those who have a way on to the mining ships are going to be killed if you don't carry this off. You'd try to reassure the kid, but you don't have much time. Not that you're thinking about that. It can go with mental notes about there being a hole in your arm. Three down, four to go. You could wish that you haven't gone through this often enough that you're pretty certain you're unlikely to faint from pain until after, as long as you keep moving. At least the bullet didn't go through your leg.

A planet where rocks dance and the waters sing. A little exaggerated metaphor there, but just as beautiful as promised. All of it declared worthless because there's some metal at the core that will keep prices where people want them.

Yiv looks like she wants to ask if you can do this, but she knows that there's no choice. No point. You give her another smile. It comforts you, anyway. You can't think of Anji poking at figures or what they might be doing to the Doctor or a planet of people who might die - there's never certainty that they won't, you've seen planets destroyed before, in acid weapons from the stars and creeping shadow and devouring monsters and you can never forget. You raise the tracer. Four down, three to go.