returnjourney: (Default)
The Return Journey ([personal profile] returnjourney) wrote in [community profile] returnjourneylogs2022-03-09 07:18 pm

MINI-EVENT: RENDEZVOUS



MINI-EVENT: RENDEZVOUS



March 9th, 2022

Tasked with picking up some emergency botanical supplies, the Peregrine stopped in Meodriotope in February and is now making haste towards another ship, for a rendezvous and hand-off of the supplies. In late morning, the view out of the windows on one side of the Peregrine will be blocked almost entirely by another ship — the Feather, also from the Admiralty's fleet. The hand-off will take place here, between two ships.

In the afternoon (local Peregrine time), a mini transport from the other ship docks in the Peregrine's loading bay. Three passengers disembark to assist in the loading, have some brief conversations, and then be on their way.

If you have any questions about the event, please ask here.



1. Observing the Feather

The Feather is one of the oldest ships in the Admiralty's fleet, a fact that is perhaps less known than intuited, simply by looking at it. While the Peregrine's sleek helices and centre spire move through space like some deep-sea organism, the Feather is a great drifting whale, its broad and boxy body speckled with simple portholes. The sides are painted with murals — abstract swirls of colour, flowers the size of houses, massive birds flitting between them. There's text that must have taken quite the ladder to paint: "Hope is a thing with feathers!" The murals are patchy and worn, but there's a lot of love there.

But despite how massive it is, it floats weightless in space. It comes so close to the Peregrine's side that it almost seems like they could brush, and the ships' respective force-fields thrum as they "merge", blending into one large bubble. In the distance, one can see quite a number of passengers on an outside deck, gathered at the railings to watch. Too far to shout across, but certainly close enough to see tiny limbs waving hello!

In the observatory, the computer monologues:

"The Feather. Currently on the 18th year of its current mission. Current population consists of 295 wardens, 306 inmates, 5 graduates in-transition and 53 supporting staff. Most passengers are from Earth Variants. The Feather is currently headed by Navarch Margaret "Old Lady" Lloyd, a Navarch with 45 years of experience..."


2. Loading the Materials

Want to lend a hand? The more the merrier. The crates of Lover's Kiss must be brought to the loading bay, checked and then loaded into the waiting transport ship. Caution is a must; we can't have the flowers crushed or damaged when they're sorely needed for medicines at their final destination.

Helping, of course, are the representatives from the Feather: two wardens and an inmate. (They'll have their own top levels below!)


3. Rewards

Passengers identified to the Navarch as having assisted in the gathering efforts will have a delivery bot stop by with a clear plastic container fogged over by steam. The container is warm to the touch, and opening it reveals a lusciously greasy cheeseburger with all the fixings, a mound of thick-cut salted french fries, and the fattest, cheesiest, richest-looking slice of pizza known to mankind. The food is cradled by red food-wrapping sheets with a white PIZZA PLANET logo. Enjoy!

(Or kill someone for a french fry after weeks or months of eating processed food substitutes. You do you.)


4. Oops, Caught Red-Handed!

So there was that thing the Navarch said — the flowers are fragile and must be handled with care, as they are only useful intact. And sure enough, on the surface of Meodriotope, dutiful flower-pickers had discovered that if you plucked them too roughly, they'd explode, leaving red stains that take weeks to wear off skin, even with dutiful scrubbing. It's been weeks and they're just starting to fade, fortunately, but there's a second phase.

Passengers stained red might discover they're having trouble sleeping. The redder they are, the longer their minds refuse to rest. In severe cases, this results full-blown insomnia. In mild cases, the body may shut down while the mind remains completely alert. These effects could last anywhere between a few days to a full week.

Good luck!


studyofchange: (Default)

[personal profile] studyofchange 2022-03-16 11:31 pm (UTC)(link)
For a time, he isn't paying attention at all. There's something to be done, and inmates are largely the same, whether it's this ship or another: there's little to be gained by violence in the open, surrounded by wardens. Far more common for cowards to creep around like rats, leaping for each others' throats the moment backs are turned, meaningless jabs at each others throats. Space travel used to be reserved for the best and the brightest. Sad, isn't it?

But he does see her, and when he abruptly turns and catches her gaze for an instant, he feels as though he's been stared at. A frown deepens the lines of his face.

"What?" he asks.
goty: injury. weapon. angry. (each time things start to happen again)

[personal profile] goty 2022-03-16 11:41 pm (UTC)(link)
"I'm not fucking mangled-" Ellie snaps back immediately. Though she is now cradling her bad hand out of some subconscious need for defense. Her sunburnt face begins to prickle with a deeper redness, anger snapping old synapses in her mind. If Ellie had hackles, they'd be raised. "And I don't fight fucking old people."

Unless they start it. But he hasn't, so whatever.
goty: static. (emotions i can barely afford.)

[personal profile] goty 2022-03-16 11:44 pm (UTC)(link)
It's the intimacy. Ellie has been alone for so long, dreaming of someone to forgive her, as she sunk deeper and deeper into the mire of her own faults. Being touched is so-

Ellie steals a thin breath. "How'd you die?"
dealwiththe: (027)

[personal profile] dealwiththe 2022-03-17 12:06 am (UTC)(link)
"They're safe, on Earth," Lucifer says after a moment. "As happy as they can be." He knows Chloe misses him almost as much as he misses her, and he knows that Rory will grow up feeling as though he left a hole in her life, and she will fill that hole with anger for a long time, but other than that, he has it on good authority that they'll be fine.

"But I made a promise to them. Keeping it means I won't be seeing them for - a long time," he finishes quietly.

He hasn't told anyone else that.
goty: confus. sad. (anymore?)

[personal profile] goty 2022-03-17 12:18 am (UTC)(link)
That hits close to home. She hasn't thought about Dina or JJ since she left Jackson, months and months spent carefully keeping them pinned far back in her mind, deeper and darker than Joel. Joel's death, she can almost nearly breathe over the top of. Ruining things with Dina and the potato...

It's there, and it's gone, consigned once more into the darkness of her secret thoughts. Secret even from herself, until late at night, when the dark weight of death slithers up to sit on her chest.

"What was the promise?" Was it worth it?
dealwiththe: (126)

[personal profile] dealwiththe 2022-03-17 12:28 am (UTC)(link)
That, weirdly, makes Lucifer huff a quiet laugh. "It's complicated. It involves time travel, and the need to preserve a time loop to make sure things turn out for the best, for everyone involved."

Hence, the laugh. Because it sounds ridiculous, and he knows it. "But it amounts to the fact that my daughter asked me to stay away, for her, for us, and I'd do far worse for her."
oinks: (born babe)

[personal profile] oinks 2022-03-17 12:38 am (UTC)(link)
Her other hand joins the first, and she cradles her face in her palms. There's something about this girl that feels familiar. Vulnerability dipped in strength, and determination.

"I got shot in the throat." She swallows deliberately. "Didn't die right away. I felt all of it."

Amanda used to find death so peaceful, but only because it wasn't happening to her. "Do you think you'll die, if nobody comes?"
rank1: (Knife Fight - Lemon Demon)

[personal profile] rank1 2022-03-17 12:44 am (UTC)(link)
A good chunk of it.

[He's sizing her up as he speaks. Gauging how athletic she is, how she carries herself. It adds up]

So what's your preferred lifestyle?
goty: sad. static. correct haircut. (i wish they could.)

[personal profile] goty 2022-03-17 12:50 am (UTC)(link)
Ellie lets her, because-- she tells herself-- she hasn't the strength to fight her off. Asking doesn't occur to her.

"Fuck," Ellie says. "Maybe they can't fix that. I think I just... almost died."

She doesn't remember it, of course, and for that she's grateful. It's more than she deserves.
goty: confus. sad. (anymore?)

[personal profile] goty 2022-03-17 12:52 am (UTC)(link)
Of course he's a dad. There's always a dad out there somewhere.

Ellie ignores the bit about the time loop-- well, that's not true. She files it away for later like a pressed flower, to be taken out at another time and held up to the light. For now, it's best stowed away. The meaning is in the why, not the how.

Ellie relaxes on her seat, letting herself sprawl backward, forcing the tension out of her. "But you'll see her again, right? You're going back."
smugreport: (2494377 (11))

[personal profile] smugreport 2022-03-17 01:04 am (UTC)(link)
So you were a guard?

[ He's gonna take his arm back now, but he studies it for a second, thinking about where he could fit hidden compartments. ]

That's usually what pockets are for, but I guess having it in the arm would add an element of surprise.
goty: static. (explain)

[personal profile] goty 2022-03-17 01:18 am (UTC)(link)
No, I- [She's not explaining her job, it's not even her job anymore. She shakes her head and tries again with the actually important thing--] You'd be able to hide it from wardens, c'mon.
dealwiththe: (163)

[personal profile] dealwiththe 2022-03-17 01:26 am (UTC)(link)
"I'll see her again, someday. Her and her mother, both," he agrees. It'll be a long time in the future, and nebulous - he's not sure exactly when. But yes, he does at least have the assurance that he'll be reunited with his family - something Ellie doesn't have.

"What happened to Joel?" he asks. Fair is fair, after all.
oinks: (sweating)

[personal profile] oinks 2022-03-17 01:27 am (UTC)(link)
If it's any consolation, had she been anybody else, Amanda's thumbs would have pressed down heavily into her eye sockets long before now.

"Almost," she echoes. That's unsatisfying. "If you could choose how to die, how would you?"
goty: sad. injury. (what they want)

[personal profile] goty 2022-03-17 01:32 am (UTC)(link)
Ellie hopes he sees them again. There's never any guarantee, of course, but he clearly wants to. And he's a warden, so he probably deserves to.

"Some bitch beat him to death in front of me."

The answer spills from her without warning, like a soap bubble popping. She isn't a good liar, not really, not anymore. It just happened. She was focusing on him, and it just happened.
goty: sad. happy. static. (i cannot)

[personal profile] goty 2022-03-17 01:35 am (UTC)(link)
It's not a strange thing to ask. Ellie's thought about it lots of times. She discussed it with Kat and Jesse more than once. Less so with Dina. There's still so much she wants to say to Dina.

This girl's hands aren't like Dina's. There's threadbare quality to them, bony and sinuous.

"In my sleep," Ellie says, her eyes closed. "Duh."
dealwiththe: (029)

[personal profile] dealwiththe 2022-03-17 01:41 am (UTC)(link)
It's abrupt, and it immediately brings to mind a cavernous old warehouse, the image of his daughter in chains, the shiny red of her feathers dripping with red blood, laid out on a table next to her. The way she'd screamed as he'd knelt, a willing sacrifice.

What Ellie tells him is probably nothing like that, but it's what he thinks about anyway. He has no idea what sort of man this Joel was, but he suspects he couldn't have been all bad, if he was willing to give up his life for her.

But it raises one question for him.

"Did you kill her?"

It's neither accusatory, nor bloodthirsty. It's a neutral question, probing for more information. Ellie, he remembers vaguely, is an inmate, after all.
smugreport: (2494377 (2))

[personal profile] smugreport 2022-03-17 01:48 am (UTC)(link)
Oh.

I'm not really a

[ He makes a stabbing motion. ]

kinda guy. Not in the physical sense, anyways.
oinks: (hidden in)

[personal profile] oinks 2022-03-17 01:56 am (UTC)(link)
That she closes her eyes is fucking fascinating to Amanda. It's not the first time somebody has mistaken her for being harmless, but the rush is the same. There is a heady kind of power in realising you've been misjudged.

The girl has scars on her face. Amanda touches them with her thumbs, rubbing over them. Her tone is almost conversational.

"And you think you deserve that?"
Edited 2022-03-17 01:56 (UTC)
nineteenfortyfive: (RAISED)

[personal profile] nineteenfortyfive 2022-03-17 02:19 am (UTC)(link)
[Her brow lifts.]

Are you in the habit of lying to people you've just met?

[She'll just call bullshit right now.]
goty: sad. static. correct haircut. (i wish they could.)

[personal profile] goty 2022-03-17 02:25 am (UTC)(link)
That drags up more shame than she'd expected. She doesn't regret letting Abby go, because someone's gotta take care of that kid. She does regret it, because it's not fucking over. It'll never be over. She doesn't, because Joel. She does, because...

Ellie has been in enough foxholes to know atheists are everywhere. But in the darkness of a lonely night, her lungs don't exhale contrition.

"No," she says. "Let her go after she bit off my fingers."

The lives of all her friends and dear ones, well, she still doesn't want to think about that, about the shape of one's stomach, full with the failed promise of life.
oinks: (square in)

[personal profile] oinks 2022-03-17 02:30 am (UTC)(link)
Only the uptight ones.

(but still go get some aspirin for her please)
goty: static. sad. 1/2. (you know what it means.)

[personal profile] goty 2022-03-17 02:31 am (UTC)(link)
[Squinting judgmentally,] There's another sense?
goty: static. (and you don't want)

[personal profile] goty 2022-03-17 02:36 am (UTC)(link)
Not quite a laugh collapses out of her mouth. "No. I'm here, aren't I?"

It hasn't yet occurred to Ellie that a person might disagree with the ship's judgements.
dealwiththe: (084)

[personal profile] dealwiththe 2022-03-17 02:38 am (UTC)(link)
Lucifer nods, wondering - probably for the millionth time - what might've happened if Rory hadn't escaped her shackles when she did. If he'd been killed. If his daughter would've gone down a darker road.

So many what-ifs, and that's precisely why he made his promise. None of those what-ifs will come true, because he is preserving the time loop, exactly as it happened, as it will happen. Rory will be fine.

He shakes himself out of that thought. Focuses instead on the young woman actually sitting next to him.

"Sometimes there aren't really any good choices," he says thoughtfully. "We do the best we can in the moment. I'm sorry about Joel, though."

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