never draw an aimless breath
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ALTprofessional expeditioneer Red Rings, and her official portrait in the logbook
(via xivu-arath)
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Horizon Day of Service folks are going to get a nem who hasn’t written fiction in like two weeks and has read a mieville novel in between. I’m going to inject so much pent-up energy into these drabbles
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The ghosts are the original kids? On refreshing myself on how the first game went, it’s interesting that this isn’t confirmation of a “bad ending,” exactly. Instead, it’s a branch from one of the big choices, and an alternate ending where none of the endings happened, because time only looped once. Or at least, that’s my interpretation. Time is moving outward in a spiral, options flashing off at intervals, but the loop never completed.
Riley being pregnant is giving me flashbacks to HFW. They aren’t positive. I am starting to put together the pieces of what this game is saying about generational behavior patterns, though. It’s so much about her and her dad. Might as well also be about her and her kid. -
Just found out my facebook birding group is public because my cousin (a lawyer who is not into birds) casually said to me “saw you couldn’t identify a willet the other day… pretty embarrassing”
(via sleepnoises)
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The Tower is scintillant, so much that Ór has to squint as she walks out onto the Courtyard. Whites and golds blind her with reflected sunlight. Eva Levante is obscured entirely by the mass of Guardians surrounding her, but Ór squeezes through them, and when the tailoress finally notices her, her face lights up.
“My dear!” She extends both hands to Ór–reconsiders–whirs around and produces a pile of neatly folded ceremonial armour seemingly out of thin air and pushes it towards her. Ór doesn’t even manage to cough out a greeting before her arms are full of clothing. “I heard you’ve been to Titan.”
“I… Yes.” Ór fumbles with the mass of fabrics abruptly bestowed upon her. It is beautiful, like everything coming from under Eva’s hand: ashen fabric threaded with bronze, soft but sturdy under her touch. Runi flickers into being over her shoulder to have a look.
With one hand she manages to unfold the cloak; it spills towards the floor, ornaments flickering in the sunlight. The hood is wide, just as she likes it, and it has a double feather attached at the temples.
“My first Solstice cloak had a feather,” she doesn’t know why she says it out loud. Her voice quivers a little.
“Try it on,” Eva encourages. For a half-second Ór fears to look up and see grief in her eyes, but there is only warmth in them, her shining as if she herself were reflecting the sunlight. “It is a fine attire to conquer the EAZ, I reckon.”
Something cold drops in Ór’s stomach.
“I don’t want to go to the area this year,” she says. She doesn’t need Xivu Arath’s taunting in her head to think about violence-paths and rituals of war. There is no tangible shift in her perception, but the colours and lights of the Courtyard suddenly seem washed out.
“This is perfectly fine, my dear.” Eva doesn’t look at her with pity, and Ór is grateful for that. “If you’d like, you can help with gathering the leaves for the bonfire Commander Zavala will light up this evening down in the City.
"Wasn’t that Amanda’s job?” She can’t help herself. She is surprised Eva would arrange something like that–it feels cruel.
Now there is sorrow in Eva’s eyes, but it is gentle and dim, like a dying candle.
“He asked himself,” she says, and gives Ór a small smile.
Keeping her emotions in check has been tricky lately. She doesn’t want to cry out here, in full view of everyone.
“I…” She fumbles with the words and with the clothing. Eva just shakes her head, and the hand she places over Ór’s is so warm, making the fight to keep the tears at bay ever the harder.
“Happy Solstice, Guardian.”
Ór should turn around and take her leave right then, but another development as of late is that she has become her own worst enemy.
“How can we celebrate the Light now, without the Traveler?” She blurts out. What is up with her today?
Eva smiles at her again, and makes a motion with her chin at something behind Ór’s shoulder. The Hunter follows her gaze.
“Take a look.” Next to the landing pad, on the way to the Hangar, a Dreg clad in green is talking to a Cabal two and a half times his size. They seem to be communicating mostly through signs rather than in either language, but the Cabal’s rumbling laughter makes it all the way to Eva’s post. “Isn’t this the Light?”
The Ketches and Galliots and Interceptors filling the Traveler’s empty space above the City are all blurry as Eva hugs her tight. Over her shoulder, Ór stares at them for a long time.
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an (un?)comfortable realization from rereading the scar is that in my fascination for uther doul I entirely missed the fact that the rest of my fandom life would be shaped by betrayals and secret-keeping like what happens with bellis and silas. aloy/sylens is just “what if bellis and silas worked out,” a question in which bellis is entirely uninterested even before the actual betrayal. also I’d forgotten that silas becomes a feral little guy and pukes on people by the end
