Travelers (IC)

Gip

Gip had been about to nibble at Lexy’s fingers playfully when she jumped back and he was left leaning toward air. His attention, like Lexy’s, flitted to the floating sickle that had been complimenting his quacking. Completely unfazed by the thing’s appearance or volume, Gip quacked happily some more and listened to the thing talk. It had a harsh voice, he decided, and it was louder than the others. Naturally, Gip had to give it a try.

“Esat!” Gip shrieked in perfect imitation of the sickle’s voice. He then proceeded to switch between Lexy’s excited tones and the sickle’s harsh notes. “Esat—cute! Esat—cute!” Pleased, the feathers on his neck and head fluffed up.


Thray

Of course Thray noticed when the Avarrian female walked in to the cafeteria. Her appearance was unmistakable… While the odd furry female he’d seen with the group somewhat resembled a Ketan, this creature was definitely an Avarrian. In all truth, Thray wasn’t sure if he should be relieved that there was someone supposedly from his universe here. He didn’t have the greatest track record with Avarrians… In fact, the only one he’d bothered to talk to had attempted to crush his neck with one of her powerful feet. Obviously that hadn’t been fun.

Thray knew that it was very likely this Avarrian knew what he was. It was foolish to assume otherwise, though her continued presence in the cafeteria puzzled him. Frowning to himself, Thray elected to just sit tight and try not to make eye contact. Maybe if he didn’t do anything that could be perceived as aggressive, she’d stay away.

"Hah!" She let out a curt laugh at her question of fresh air, as if relieving a little weight from her shoulders. "No lungs... no need to breathe." It's a metaphor, Callisto - you just ruined it. She now almost wished she was not lucid, laying in her bed in the dormitory.

Just focus. Why can't I focus. This girl is not any different from any other empath.

Callisto was much too on edge today.

She crossed her arms, head now turned away from Riley. She was fairly certain at this point that Riley knew of Callisto's abilities as Callisto now knew of Riley's. Perhaps now was the proper time to get her message across. "And... If you don't read me like you just did in the future... I promise that I won't read you." As if to accentuate her point, she shuddered , crossing her arms in front of her chest. "It feels odd. Trust me." Riley would know if she ever became a wight.

Zefanyo didn't mind the silence, nor did she mind that the Kyrenien didn't acknowledge her presence. She was content with her tinkering for a while- at least until there was nothing to really tinker with. She finished tightening any bolts and began to fold up her tools, placing the parts and other belongings into her backpack once again.

Sighing, she propped her head up on one hand and glanced in his direction, noticing for the first time that she was actually kind of hungry. She seemed to regard him with nothing more than an honest curiosity. She'd never seen the likes of him before, at least, not in person. There weren't supposed to be any of them left, not since the end of the war. She'd also only read about the war- it had ended long before she was born.

"Hey." she suddenly said, definitely against her better judgment, seeing as his mood hadn't lightened. "I thought all the Kyreniens were dead."

A raised eyebrow and slight smile of tense amusement were Riley's initial response to Callisto, before she noticed the regret that followed. The fact that the statement of the knight being empty was rather surprising, but easily shrugged off due to the other travelers Riley had seen since her arrival. It was then that she cut to the chase with why she had approached Riley, and the statement was both reassuring and unnerving. She flinched and turned away with those words, making the situation even more awkward than it already was as the people involved were now facing opposite directions. To not be read was reassuring because Riley certainly didn't want anyone poking around in her thoughts, but by asking that she not use her own power was at the same time removing what sense of security she had.

"Asking me to do that is like asking me to not smell, see, or hear certain things. It's an extra sense; the only way I can avoid reading you is by completely avoiding you," Riley responded. She was silent a moment before adding to her earlier response, "And you probably recall me from the gym where I arrived yesterday. I remember that you were there." She felt a strong urge to turn around and face Callisto, but did not want to for the sake of her own inner thoughts being kept safe, in return. She didn't like her own internal actions being revealed, even if she did the same to everyone else.

What exactly could this Traveler "read," anyways? Her thoughts, powers, or something else, maybe?

"Callisto, you are a wight." Veil interjected. "I had suspected as much. Where do you come from?" He asked with surprising interest, though still in a muffled voice. Veil had heard about wights during his travels, and found them to be particularly interesting. He saw them almost as kin; they were wandering souls bound to a physical form, much as he felt himself to be. Veil looked at Riley. "And what are you?" He asked.

Kin stirred, flipping around in bed a few times. Then a few more, and once more for good measure. Comfort, as well as sleep, was escaping her. She coughed out a low, "Time?" to nothing in particular. Her cybernetic eye beeped, before flashing "5:37 AM" in short intervals. Great. Not only was she in some Grand Central Station of the universe, there were people outside jawing away at 5:37 in the morning? The Maker always taught patience, and patience she would have.

Throwing the thin covers off of her body, she arose to get dressed. Her mind wandered off while she groggily strapped on her armor pieces. A lot of fun had occurred the last few days, making the mistake of finding out what was on the other end of this portal in her ship, experiencing a lively terrorist attack, and being woken up before a rooster's crow the next day. As she strapped on her greaves, she made a mental note to buy the group that had fought back a beer or twelve. Bravery should always be rewarded.

She stood after tying on her maroon boots, and shuffling the maroon duster around her shoulders. Glancing at the small mirror on the wall, she checked that her equipment was all in order before placing her sword in its sheath upon her back. Missing the handle a couple times, she twisted it and stepped into the hallway before her with a yawn. Her eye settled upon what looked like a pair of humans. Her eye whirred a bit as she stared, "Uh, morning." she mumbled, shuffling towards the cafeteria.

As Goose flinched and complained about the screams from the flying farm tool with the visceral accompaniment, one side of Desin's mouth curled a little into a slight smile as he chuckled. His expression then resumed being serious as he nodded in response to the other man's question. "Yes I suppose we can go together. Perhaps they might have something worth while there, although judging from the look of the building, I doubt it"

As they walked, he thought about the mention of the duck-like gryphon. He had heard of some mythical creatures, but nothing like that. I suppose this shall be interesting to see if and when the thing comes to the dining hall. His thoughts then began to drift towards wondering what they would do today, and if it would actually be worthwhile or just boring.

"I-I-" the knight stuttered at Veil's verbal intrusion, clearly caught off-guard by his observation. Callisto had failed given him enough credit when she had first met him. Despite her own voice faltering almost comically, she quickly spoke back up, retrieving the broken shards of her focus. "...I am a wight. Yes." Glancing back at Veil briefly, she then spoke to Riley, "...I can't read much about you, truthfully. And I can't dictate if you should stifle one of your natural senses. I'm sorry." Once more, she was level and apathetic, her fumble now out of mind.

Callisto had offered Riley her brief apology while also pointedly ignoring Veil's followup question to her. There will always be a time for him later. She glanced down, noticing that her hands were nervously clasped together, fingers intertwined tightly. Quickly pulling her arms to her sides, her hands slipping free from one another, she looked back up to her two conversation partners. All stress was now expended, as Callisto had gotten over her not-so-secret being revealed quickly. To an empath, however, her more deeply-rooted anxiety about the situation was still detectable. One could only wonder why.

Riley jumped when she heard another voice pipe in on the conversation and quickly turned around. The bird-like Traveler had been so quiet that she hadn't paid him any mind, and now that he did speak up, his first words were rather blunt. While she had never heard of a "wight," Riley guessed from Callisto's response that he was more observant than most who had met the knight. Callisto's next words calmed Riley, and the Traveler responding in a reasonable, rather kind way to Riley's description of her own powers, though she did note that there was no response to the other Traveler's question regarding where Callisto was from; Riley noted that even with the slight change in the conversation's environment, there was still a sense of apprehension buried beneath all of the wight's other emotions.

"Thank you for the understanding," Riley responded, nodding her head slightly towards Callisto, her arms still folded as a sign of the wariness that remained with her due to the other Traveler's questions. She decided to stick with what she told Thray when explaining what she was, her voice remaining neutral as she repeated the summary of her abilities. "I'm a metahuman - a human with some sort of power. Mine is that I'm an empath."

Thray glanced up, frowning slightly as he realized the Avarrian was talking to him. Questioning him, no less. He narrowed his eyes at her. “What?” Her question confused him. Sure, a great number of Kyreniens were dead, but a great many more still remained locked in what seemed like eternal civil war. Alphas trying to out think Alphas. Betas thrown against each other like the cannon fodder they were. Pirates picking off ships and fleets as they could in an effort to restore galactic peace. It was an ongoing war, and occasionally Thray played a part in it… though he supposed it was his fault it existed in the first place. He didn’t regret starting the war. Not… not after what they’d done to him.

Still, it was unusual that someone from his universe wouldn’t know about the war. And an Avarrian, no less. They were formidable soldiers from what he’d heard, though somehow the one sitting in the cafeteria with him didn’t seem so… threatening? Maybe she wasn’t from his universe. Maybe she wasn’t even an Avarrian. No… no… she’d recognized him as a Kyrenien. Parallels? He couldn’t say.

“…Well, that’s the end goal for the war,” he answered guardedly. “Last I checked there were still a few million too many.”

Blue eyes gazed at Thray in some confusion, but Zefanyo was quiet for a moment as she folded her arms, thinking. Her expression shifted subtly to amusement, however, and she laughed. "Well, I don't know what deserted planet you've been stuck on, but the war has been over for years," she said, giving him a smile. "I've never seen a Kyrenien before... at least not in the flesh."

She grabbed her bag and stood, hopping over to the table the Kyrenien was at and sat down opposite him. Offering her hand to him, she grinned. "I'm Zefanyo," she said. "Nice to meet you."

As Goose and Desin arrived at the cafeteria, Goose shouted out to no no one specific, "Is the food ready? I'm ****en starving!" He turned to Desin as he walked, "Heh, well actually, I can't starve." He glanced at the female alien and then back at Desin. "Eating is pretty fun though. You get to have all these great foods and it doesn't add on weight like it would to normal humans." He walked past Thray's table, bumping his arm into Thray as he passed. It wasn't on purpose, but he didn't seem to care enough to excuse himself or apologize.

Unsure of her intentions and questioning the state of her mental health, Thray hesitantly reached forward and took her hand, shaking politely. “Zefanyo,” he spoke, testing out her name. It was unusual, he thought, but pretty. Memorable too. “Nice to meet you. I’m Thray.” He withdrew her hand, half-surprised that she hadn’t attempted to suplex him. “Look,” he began, tapping his holowatch, “I have the statistics from two days ago, the last time I was connected to my ship’s database.” He brought up a little map of the galaxy detailing the most recent updates to enemy activity. Systems where Kyreniens still held power were marked with red borders. There was also a year indicator in the corner, detailing the time of the update at 13:03, day 4/10, cycle 5430.

Thray eyed Zefanyo warily, unsure of how she would react. Maybe she thought teasing him was funny. If so, he didn’t get the joke. Was she trying to imply she wanted him dead? Funny way of doing it, being so polite… It didn’t seem like false friendliness either. His thoughts were interrupted by Goose elbowing him and he flinched, eyes narrowing sharply as he watched the rude being walk away without so much as a backward glance. He might’ve said something if he weren’t preoccupied by the Avarrian in front of him, so he swallowed his irritation and just sighed, scooting away from the edge of the table so anyone passing by wouldn’t do the same thing, accidental or not.

"Good to meet you, Thray," Zefanyo hummed in return. Her ears twitched a little as Goose passed, and she didn't miss what he did to Thray, either. She frowned momentarily before turning back to the Kyrenien in front of her and regaining the friendly look on her face as she leaned toward him a bit to see his holowatch. She was silent for a moment, gaining a look of confusion as she slowly brought up her own holowatch, bringing up the time and date as well. "... It's been a few hundred years since then," she said, pointing. 15:12, day 8/10, and cycle 5635.

The Avarrian looked slightly concerned. "Are you sure you haven't been stuck on a deserted planet?"

Kin entered the cafeteria in a quiet silence, glancing around at it's inhabitants. She didn't like the loud one, much too early to be that loud. Oddly enough she didn't recognize just about any non human race in the room, but she attributed it to what sort of place she was in.

It was pretty easy to hide bewilderment behind her dead left eye and cybernetic right eye, which she was thankful in a room full of strangers. She figured now was a good of time to get friendly as any other, if she was going to be here for a while. She took a seat with the furry creature and the hooded figure, looking at her gesture towards a holowatch and talk to the figure about the possibility of being on a deserted planet.

She let her cybernetic eye bounce between them and beep for a minute before speaking, "Sorry, just didn't want sit with the loud ones." she said quietly.

“A few hundred—!” Thray breathed, barely able to keep himself from raising his voice. He did the calculation in his head. “Two hundred and five cycles?! That can’t— but it’s only been a day!” Was this some sort of galactic joke? Two hundred cycles couldn’t have passed in the day he’d been absent from his own dimension, could it? He hadn’t factored in any sort of time dilation. Quite rapidly Thray felt very ill. He glanced over at the other feline-esque creature that had sat down at their table, but said nothing to her, his mind on the edge of panic. “I don’t—that can’t be right,” he insisted, in complete denial.

Honey, Scylla, & Edward
 
In spite of every attempt Honey made to keep an aura of seriousness about herself, the duck-griffin creature, with its capacity to switch between Du-Gant and Lexy’s voices, was so dramatic—so ridiculous—that she could not help but laugh at it. She shook her head and began laughing hysterically, and if she had been human, she probably would have been red-faced by the end of it.
 
Scylla looked at Honey, perplexed, “Why are you laughing?”
 
“…Don’t….don’t ask!” Honey could barely speak, and only laughed harder with Scylla asking.
 
 
Meanwhile, Edward stared at this bizarre spectacle with a completely neutral expression on his face. “I was partly wondering if I had been dreaming….” He mused aloud, “…But this proves that if I am not dreaming, I have gone mad and so has the rest of the world with me.”
 
 
Konrad
 
Konrad slowly proceeded outside with Thukr, ignoring the chaos in the halls, and quietly noted the crowd of people gathered near the door, “Excuse us,” He said politely, as he passed through the group. “We need to get through, pardon.” He lightly moved through the group, mildly warning against staying too close to the door, as Thukr passed through it. Nobody would want to touch a creature that petrified the ground it stood on into limestone.
 
When the two were far enough away from the door and a decent distance into the parking lot, Konrad looked at Thukr, “Now…I will likely suffer some form of backlash given there are people out here if I use fire magic on you…so…in the circumstance that someone becomes upset, please let them know that this was intentional.”
 
It did not occur to Konrad that he could warn people of what he was about to do ahead of time.

Callisto, who was standing nearest to the door, gingerly stepped aside as the two monstrosities passed by - a beast of fur and a tall, tree-mammal hybrid creature that slithered along the ground. Well, they were monstrosities to her, at least. Not unlike herself. It was likely best to be polite - not that Callisto was bothered by this in the slightest.

She seemed to notice that her conversation with Riley and Veil had taken a short pause as the monster duo continued onward. The wight watched on as they moved a short distance away before stopping, hollow helm instilling no judgement unto them apart from her curious gaze. She was about to turn back to Riley and continue her conversation before she heard the tall, furry beast speak to the tree-beast.

"Hey, watch," Callisto urged gently, her hand gesturing to the two strangers. This should be good for a few moments of entertainment. Surely a soul as emotionally damaged as Riley's, and as travel-hardened as Veil's, would be able to handle such a sight as what they were about to see.

The spell worked, sparking a flame upon Thukr's being. She spoke while burning alive, calm as ever, "Thank you Konrad. I have not felt this warm since the bushil's embrace." The fire looked dirty almost. There was a brown hue about it. As the fire crackled, there were quiet, almost inaudible screams coming from her mound. Her face slowly melted along with the rest of her skin, dripping onto the ground and burning up into nothing but ash. The fire, now dying down, left only her mound and skeletal remains, devoid of nearly all flesh. There was a small whimper from the mound, as a very small creature broke out of it. It was bald, bony, and what skin was on it was dry to the point where it was almost crispy. It was only three feet tall and had the same face that Thukr had. It looked up at the one that burned it's former self, "Hello. I am still Thukr." The creature that claimed to be Thukr had a much higher voice and it was much less raspy. She then began vomit out the scarf that she preserved from the fire, and cleaned it by rolling in it, absorbing all the stomach fluids back into her skin, being sure not to waste anything.

As she picked herself up, she seemed much more energetic and playful. She barked at Konrad, "I am now reborn! This is my favorite part of living outside of Scccr. It is the part where I am young again." She slid quick circles around Konrad, not leaving any limestone behind. She would be energized for quite a while now. The smell of rotten eggs wouldn't be a problem anymore either.

***

Du-Gant's senses were suddenly assaulted by Gip's perfect impression of his screams. He screamed in panic, "NAKAT! THAT ESAT VERY LOUD." It was the perfect example of not being able to hurt one's own ears by screaming but having others able to pierce the eardrums of said person. "ESAT DO NOT LIKE IT. PLEASE DON'T DO THAT."

Zefanyo's ears laid back just a little further, blue eyes wide now. "Are- are you going to be alright?" she asked with a slight grimace. "I didn't mean to... well I don't know what I did, but I didn't mean to upset you." She sat back down properly and the screen on her holowatch flickered off. She looked a little upset now. "I know I'm not mistaken," she murmured.

Kin awkwardly stared between the two of them, the hooded one's temper reasonably flaring. She wondered how she'd feel in a situation like that. She clicked her tongue during the silence.

She spoke up, her voice cracking, "Well, this place does have some mysteries, could she have simply transported from a different dimension to here?" she said plainly. She let her eye focus on the hooded figure, to the furry creature and back. She used the time to give an introduction, "Oh, I'm Kin." she muttered.

Thray

Thray looked over at the newly-introduced Kin, trying to process what she’d said. “A different— you mean like time?” That suggested Zefanyo was simply from a different time, and not necessarily that two hundred cycles had passed since his departure. “Oh,” he breathed, unsure if he should be relieved. “That could be the case, I suppose.” It seemed illogical, but so did the possibility that so much time had passed in what had only been a day for him. Sighing, Thray figured he’d just have to get home to find out for sure. All the more reason to get moving… yet here he sat, waiting for breakfast and surrounded by aliens. Increasingly distressed, he stared down at the table with his hands on his head.


Gip

“NAKAT!” Gip repeated after Du-Gant. He then echoed Honey’s laugh for a solid ten seconds before promptly closing his beak and falling silent. Though it was impossible for him to smile, he gave off the distinct impression that he was grinning like a mischievous child. He liked these new people, he decided, even if they were funny looking and definitely weren’t ducks. They made neat sounds that he could add to his ever-expanding collection, and they seemed happy. His tail wagged like an excited puppy’s as he waited for them to do something, anything more.

Riley
-
Riley's eyes followed Thukr and Konrad for a moment and was about to shrug it off when she sensed something off that made her do a double take. Deeply rooted in Thukr’s emotions was something almost… primitive. The emotions were faint; reading them was like looking at someone with blurred vision, and it was almost impossible to focus on them. Yes, them – there were multiples of whatever it was. Riley shrugged it off as something weird with the Traveler and turned back to Callisto and the bandaged, bird-like traveler, but Callisto's words urged her to look back as Konrad… caught Thukr on fire.

Her mouth slid open for a moment of shock. What was even more confusing was the emotions; with how hard it was to detect the strange, prehistoric emotions from Thukr’s figure earlier, now she couldn’t sense them, at all, and was only able to make out some of the more basic emotions of Thukr and Konrad, who were totally calm about the situation. The fire was a disgusting color, and Riley’s face twisted into one of slight repulsion as a smaller Thukr emerged. Her expression remained like this for a few seconds after the event had passed before she began to laugh and turned away, trying to stifle the laughter.

“That was so ridiculous,” she quietly managed, one hand covering her mouth as her shoulders shook with suppressed laughter. She wasn’t going to get used to other Travelers when it came to things like this.

-
Lexy
-

The noise coming from the cute creature became overwhelming, and Lexy flinched as she covered her ears – until Honey began to laugh, that is. Then her eyes brightened and she looked back at Gip, who was now imitating the laughter. “Does he maybe have a name?” she wondered aloud before looking back at Honey and Scylla, “And Scylla! How’s it been?” She grinned, “We came out of our room originally looking for you.”

Desin shrugged at Goose's comment, electing to have some food as it wouldn't harm him. Perhaps it might even be good he thought, less amused by the man's carelessness when passing the tall green being that had arrived with them.
While Goose was entertaining at times, and seemed to have the right idea when it came to getting stuff done, he definitely was a lot more loudmouthed than Desin would've preferred. However as Desin didn't have that high an opinion of a lot of the other travelers with them, he was definitely going to be hanging out with Goose for the time being.

Veil's head tilted slightly in response to Riley's monotone answer. "Humanoid. I'm aware of the term. Even been described as humanoid. But I am not properly acquainted with its derivative. What is a human?"

Before Riley had an opportunity to answer the question, the group's attention was transferred to Thukr's startling change.

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Veil's body language gave no hint of discomfort or repulsion.  After the ordeal had finished, he remarked in his usual muffled tone, "An interesting metamorphosis. Likely scares away predators."  Veil felt very little concern for the gaudy display of alteration, and wanted to find out where he could be helped to get back home.

Home.

That was worth being concerned for. His attention had been dulled by a monotonous journey to the Central, yet another lethal situation, his roommate, and now these strange distractions that seemed better suited to a circus. To him, these beings were more concerned with social interaction than with the objective that he assumed they all shared: Finding home.  Where were the staff now? He needed to find someone to speak with.  Perhaps some of the higher-ups had gotten their act together and posted some guards at the entrance.  Still, he had been patient for so many years. What were a few more hours?

Veil turned back to Riley, wondering if she would remember to answer his question.*




*Original post: Veil said no more, but walked briskly away, hand on the hilt of his sword.