Confluence
"Tell paranoid basket-case that he might want to avoid the bathing room for a while. a*****e came back from recon on the 'Mura. Empty but hostile as ********, apparently. He loved it. Killed just about everything and came back covered in gore. Don't need Smokey the Bear having a panic attack. Let the Circs take care of it."
Pale blue looks up, but razor sharp green is focused on the french toast she's tossing together. Naminé finds herself biting her lower lip out of habit; she's long since grown used to the crew of Desunt Cetera, with all their quirks. Ienzo is all anxiety and stuttering nervousness, a soft presence despite being a Heartless and hopelessly mad. When his ever-present partner manifests herself, Zila is growling animal at worst and smooth like velvet against Naminé's fingers and on her paper. Ienzo's other ever-present partner is worse in that he rarely has to do anything because his mere existence is too sharp: too sharp teeth in a slasher smile, too sharp of a shine as light reflects off his glasses, cutting through the air as he stalks possessively and protectively by his 'king's' side, even if his words are blunt and light, although rather vulgar. (Luxord and Zexion, she thinks, would be horrified at the words and strange metaphors she has learned in Voxden's presence. )
There are the others, the ones who followed her here in terms of joining: Somnam, stiff morals and so many panic buttons, and Jackie with his tired hell-and-back smile that radiates a certain warmth nonetheless, just like his worn jacket.
Xandra has her quirks as well, but hers are distant, building up walls and locked doors that never budge. There isn't any warmth to Xandra. At least, that's what it seems like to Naminé, but she has not had nearly as much time to spend around the engineer as much as she had with the others. Sometimes...
"I'll make sure to tell him," she says, swirling her spoon throughout the milk of her cereal and proud how sturdy her own voice has become. "It's nice that you care about him, Xandra. But..." She trails off.
The 'Bishop' doesn't seem to mind. She just hands the plate of french toast to a nearby circuit and let's it roll away to the rest of the ship. "Plan on getting to the finish line with that sentence?"
"Sometimes I think... Somnam doesn't realize that. He doesn't have a high image of himself, you know, being... ill, and not thinking himself attractive. Things like that."
Xandra doesn't respond, busy with cleaning up after herself. It's only when the pale little Nobody vanishes into the depths of Desunt Cetera once more does she look up, a faint frown on her painted lips. In seconds, a plan is established. Minutes, and she's on one of the trams, racing along tunnels that are woven throughout the heap of metal that floats through space.
First stop: Medical Bay.
It's a familiar place if only because she's had to traverse these halls dozens of times before. Voxden, somehow, is actually a brilliant surgeon; it helps that he has to know every single little working of the human body in order not to ******** himself up when using his abilities. With his ******** with the body and Ienzo's skilled technological hands, they keep her going. That's usually all she's come here for, however. Not this time.
For some ******** up reason she'll never understand, Voxden had made his bedroom in the morgue. She can see the dark black of the opaque operating room glass walls behind him, but then he's grinning at her with that douchebag grin of his. For assholes like Voxden, it's probably a ********' art. "Why yes," he drawls with a few sharp rolls and nods of his head accompanying his words, "I was masturbating, thank you for asking, Xandra. How can I help you today?"
"...Direct me to drugs that can make a person numb all over but still conscious. You ain't touch jack s**t with those hands."
Second stop: Hydroponics. Connecting with the online system has already assured her that is where Somnam is, in his little garden they gave him. Some place where he can go to shut up; Xandra can tune out a lot of s**t, but there is a limit. Besides, she needs some kind of break... Even if it's just to think of what else to say. The tram ride there is filled with a lot of thinking.
The Vegetation Growth Chambers, aka the place where they grow all their s**t, always has a faint green glow to it, even in the dim light. 'Zo is always telling her its calming, although she never can see how. Doesn't matter right now anyway. Somnam is not too far ahead, straightening up as he notices her presence. He's already saying something, but Xandra just tunes that out; instead, she unholsters a gun at her side, aims, and shoots a tranquilizer into his neck. Seconds later, and he's collapsed on the floor. Coolly, Xandra walks over to him and nudges him upright so that he's leaning against one of the large cylinders that houses a tall plant. The only response he's capable of is an indignant glare, tempered by something else she doesn't try to think about.
"Right," she begins, tucking away her gun. "Did that because you're just as bad of a ******** as Doc Douche in terms of never shutting up. Unfortunately, I can't use tranqs against that a*****e because he just forces his body to adapt to foreign chemicals." She sits across from him, leaning across another towering cylinder with her legs crossed. "Wanted to get my own words in."
A pause, and she runs a hand through her hair. "You know, you're kind of a crazy p***k, and annoying as ********, but that's half a requirement on here, I figure, considering Parasite Lad could fuel a ******** sun if he tried with his assholery. By this point, I don't give half a ********. But someone told me that, for some stupid reason, you think I do. So. Figured I'd straighten that up.
"I don't know if you were dense enough to miss this, but I'm not exactly the dictionary definition of sane either, dumbass. I..."
Radio static screams. Lights reflecting on her face. Nothing nothing nothing.
"No one ********' asks me, but I used to be the original head engineer of this ship. It was from a place called Coruscant. They discovered what Gummi blocks could do and decided to build a big ship and see what was out there. I was smart, even back then. They chose me right out of the academy. Problem was, I had issues feeling back then, too. 'Zo could babble to you about that; he knows more about it then me, or at least has better theories. Long story short, I ended up killing the entire crew and lost my heart in the process."
She looks up towards the ceiling. "It's not that hard, at least when you're on a ship you know better than anything.
"I thought it would help, or at least do something, but it only attracted the attention of the Heartless and bam, heart's gone. Not that it did me any good in the first place.
"For those first few hours, it was quieter than you'd ever believe. There was nothing. No sound except for me. Everything ******** echoed. If it was someone else, they probably would have lost it, but I was already ********. All I knew, even without my heart, was that the silent emptiness really blew.
"...I really ******** hate that silence. But I like you, even if your jaw is too ******** loose to be possible. Are you sure it's not unhinged?"
"Anyway. Few hours after, and 'Zo finds me with his b***h tagging along. They end up staying, ********. D.C. has never been silent since then; there's always something. Skyboys back home used to say that you could tell a flyer by her ship, so, yeah. Since they were here, I've never been empty either.
"... I wonder if I'd kill another shipful of people if D.C. ever got quiet again? But anyway.
"The kid figures that since no one's really had a case like mine before, it ain't too far a stretch to say that when my heart left, this hollow spiritual bullshit hole in me was freed up, leaving something like a cavern. Others could project emotions into me, and sometimes I'd reflect them like an echo, or keep them for myself to at least help the pretend bullshit that I could feel. Who knows; it's a theory, and for all we know, it's probably ******** wrong.
"Anyway, for a long while, I just had those two to echo it with. 'Zo usually gives off stronger echoes because he's the only one who can actually feel between all three of us and I've been with him longer.
"But you can do it too. You make the ship a lot less empty.
"So if you keep emoing about stupid s**t, I will get annoyed enough to sock you in the face." She pushes herself up onto her feet and dusts herself off. "All I wanted to say. The sedative should wear off in a couple of hours." Walking past ice-green glowing and dim light, she waves over her shoulder.
"Thanks for the talk, Somnam."
