marco (
brightline) wrote in
riverviewlogs2018-01-29 09:14 pm
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Entry tags:
[open] there's a million, billion, trillion stars
who: marco & YOU
what: catch-all post; some open starters (Perimeter Guard training ground; dreamshare)
when: late Jan and Feb
where: all around the Quarantine
warnings: gore/violence in threads from the nightmare prompt; possible descriptions of morphing (body horror) in any thread - let me know in a subject line if you don't want me to go into gory detail about the not-so-magical-girl transformation sequence
i. the guard
what: catch-all post; some open starters (Perimeter Guard training ground; dreamshare)
when: late Jan and Feb
where: all around the Quarantine
warnings: gore/violence in threads from the nightmare prompt; possible descriptions of morphing (body horror) in any thread - let me know in a subject line if you don't want me to go into gory detail about the not-so-magical-girl transformation sequence
i. the guard
[Thanks to his two week boot camp experience, which was probably one of the worst things he's ever endured, including some of the more nasty battles during the war, Marco's learned one very important lesson - it's totally worth it to have some hand-to-hand training. Chyler had said it herself, technique is important no matter what shape he's in. Besides, he'd spent most of boot camp getting his butt handed to him by an ever-changing round of cadets because he wasn't allowed to morph in training.ii. dream a little dream
So here he is, at the Perimeter Guard training ground, totally rocking a pair of purple camo BDU pants and a T-shirt, with absolutely zero idea where to start.]
Man, this is way harder than it looks in the martial arts movies.
[Marco's never been one to say no to a trend, so of course he'd checked out the crystal caves. Once he'd taken a stroll through, he'd been really glad he had, too, because the whole thing had been super cool. That had been a few days ago, and after hanging up a nice little collage of some of the photos he'd taken over the mantle in one of the sitting rooms, he'd pretty much been over it.iii. the nightmare after war (violence/gore)
And then the dreams begin. There's a lot of them. A lot of them are things he'd experienced as a human at home, pleasant things that twist all together - being on TV in front of all the cameras and a live audience, grinning and feeling like the center of attention; hanging out in his pool drinking a Diet Coke with the sun shining down on his face and body, feeling like he hasn't got a care in the world; the sensation of absolute relief when it had really, really sunk in that the war was over, that he didn't have to fight anymore.
Other ones are less distinctly human in nature - soaring through a blue sky, lifting off on osprey wings in the warm updraft of a good thermal, with vision so good he could see a mouse squeaking through the grass hundreds of feet below; being a dolphin leaping joyfully through the waves, with miles and miles of ocean all around, full of joy and freedom; the strength and confidence that come with being a gorilla, massive and proud and able to bench-press a small bus.
Care to join him?]
[Some of the dreams aren't quite so pleasant. While most of what his mind comes up with, for a blessed few nights, is good, relaxing, even fun, he's not really destined to only have good dreams. In fact, having good dreams is nowhere near as common as the bad ones.
When Marco has bad dreams, they're terrible. All violence and gore and fear and pain, his nightmares are full of the screams of animals in his ears and his friends in his head - teenagers who hadn't deserved being thrown into a war they weren't prepared to fight. The bad ones are like a camera roll of all the worst times he's almost died in morph, the feeling of his own guts in his hands, of having his face torn off, being bitten almost in half by a shark; of watching his friends get hurt, a wolf dragging her hind legs, paralyzed, a bear beating an alien with her own severed arm, a tiger leaving bloody footprints in the snow as its feet freeze to the ground over and over with every step.
The worse dreams are all about the terrible choices he's had to make. The times he'd had to fool the Yeerk controlling his own mother and lead her to what he'd been sure was her death, having to choose to save his father at the expense of his closest friends and allies. Every bad dream leaves him waking up in a panic, gasping and sweating and crying out. Some things...well, he wouldn't choose to share, but he doesn't always have a choice.]
no subject
Sounds like mine. Rachel was a total psycho, she'd fight her own shadow and she used to call me terrible names all the time. Ax was so uptight and kind of an idiot at the same time, how does that even happen? Tobias...I just never understood him. Cassie and I never saw eye to eye, she was a complete tree hugger pacifist. The only thing we ever agreed on was making sure Jake was okay.
[A long pause, and he looks straight ahead, shakes his head.]
I'd have died for any of them.
[He takes a deep breath, not looking at her just yet.]
We lost two of the six of us. Two and a half, maybe, if you count Tobias disappearing basically off the face of the Earth. I guess we did better than you.
[When she says that last part, he glances up at her, studying her face.]
It sucks, losing people. [A pause, and then.] Injured, huh?
no subject
She's not ready yet to talk about hers in more than a general way. She's not ready to say how Vickers was hotheaded, mulish, as willing to pick a fight as talk to someone. Junjie's shyness and nerves. Sully's stupid jokes and constant troublemaking. Dima, the youngest of them, privileged and lonely and more than willing to rub one of those things in the faces of anyone who crossed her. April, the Robot, who drilled them until they could survive what happened. Shere and Kaye, never apart, probably more to each other than either one would admit.
Tom.
She bites her lip, half-lost in her own thoughts.
Injured, huh?
Chyler blinks, tension clamping down around her. ]
Yes. [ It comes out like a challenge. She glances away, then focuses back on Marco's face. She's not afraid to look him in the eye. She isn't. ] I took a shot to the gut. They cleaned me up when I got here.
no subject
So once she's done, he's quiet, just lets her mull things over, figure out what she wants to say or if she's going to say anything at all. Sitting still, he keeps dragging his fingernails over the texture of his jeans.
It's when she goes tense that he realizes he's struck a nerve. Marco is instantly aware of the way her body fills with nervous energy, the way she holds herself tight, the way she responds with her voice challenging and cagey like that. When she looks back at him, he keeps his expression carefully neutral, but his eyes are sharp as he watches, trying to see if she gives anything away.
A shot to the gut.
Marco actually winces at that.]
Gut wounds are awful. I remember one time I got disemboweled, in gorilla form. I'm pretty sure it killed me, but my friend managed to revive me in time to morph back. Was it really bad?
[The words are carefully chosen, as neutral as he can be but with enough leading, suggestive words that might trigger something deeper, if she wants it.]
no subject
How did you survive?
[ She touches her abdomen, just above the scar that Riverview's doctors left her with. A reminder every time she changes clothes, every time she bumps toughened skin. ]
It was bad.