| Autobiographies and Mental Scars | ||
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There are reasons for it. Chief among them being the secrecy that her entire race shares over their very private culture, and some questionable decisions that won't be public knowledge to the residents of Trillius Prime for at least another few centuries. Not that Yoiko has any part of that, nor an inkling that it exists. Right now what she knows is that recent events have made her realize the need for transparency, something that doesn't come easy to her. Luckily she can feel the weight of the importance of this on her shoulders and is using that as motivation. Leaning her arms on her knees, she rubs at her face and sighs, "Alright. So..." From the beginning Yoiko was fascinated by technology. She was that annoying child that took apart the television to see how all the parts worked, even if in this case it was a view screen. The only thing more interesting was finding out how to build something like that from scratch. Yoiko poured everything she had into the dream of becoming an engineer. Not just to build and repair, but to see the stars. To be important even if she wasn't always the one on an away mission. To make a difference in the universe, even if no one realized it was her turning the screws. Unfortunately she was never going to get that opportunity on her home planet. Not officially part of the Federation of Planets for a many more decades, and with an entire culture built around keeping their secrets, there was never going to be an opportunity for Yoiko to hone her craft without leaving. "I tried everything before actually leaving Trillius Prime. I even went to the Symbiosis Commission and tried to be joined with a Symbiont thinking it would either give me the knowledge to satisfy my need to travel the stars, or give me some kind of edge that would let me convince them to let me leave." Yoiko lets out a soft sigh, "Needless to say that didn't go over very well. Eventually I said my goodbyes to my friends and family, arranged passage on a cargo ship, and made my way to the Sol system convinced I was never going to be able to go back home."
So far, that draws a raised eyebrow from Liyara. She doesn't know a lot about this, obviously, with Yoiko being the first Trill she's met, but she knows that Yoiko is joined, both from discussion and that brief bit of firsthand observation. "You left without it? That's a twist. Somehow I was under the impression it was this integral part of your people's being..." Liyara waves a hand through the air, loftily indicating in a nebulous sense that she is waxing poetic. "...But then you have told me the selection process is rigorous, for a select few, so I suppose that was foolish of me."
There's a frown as she ponders the importance of everything, "The Symbionts are these depositories of so much knowledge and experience. There's so few of them, and even then most of our people aren't compatible. Being put in an incompatible host could be a death sentence. Once you're joined you can't be un-joined again. They have to be extra careful when it comes to getting approved." Yoiko pauses, placing a hand on her chest, "It eventually worked out, obviously, but it took a bit to get there..." At twenty she was able to start classes at the Star Fleet Academy, dumping all of her studies into Astrophysics, a little Xenobiology, and of course Advanced Warp Theory and System Repair. It was there that she met her eventual captain and close friend, Jonathon Munster. The two weren't exactly top of their class, but when they put their heads together they were able to do amazing things. Together they started work on a new design for the standard Warp Engine, pushing out a bit more output that paired with a better delivery system could make crossing vastness of space far easier. It didn't change the world, but it made a name for the two of them in the Engineering world. However, Jonathon went the command route and Yoiko... fell in with an Orion science major named Fiona Habilis, whom Yoiko affectionately nicknamed Flea. While they weren't dating yet, the two where joined at the hip even going so far as to get assigned to the USS Vesuvius together, forcing a reunion with the now Captain Munster. The blonde woman laughs happily as she thinks to her time with Fiona. "Flea was easily my best friend, and let me tell you hanging out with an Orion is a wild ride. Do you know anything about them? They're the ones with green skin you see in all the Star Trek stuff." She has looked into it after one too many comments about the Enterprise. "A lot of Orions are into some pretty shady stuff. Crime syndicates, drug trafficking, slavery - you name it. Their biggest thing to the rest of the galaxy are the Orion Slave girls. Picture someone very exotic, very versed in every sort of pleasuring you can imagine. They even produce this pheromone that makes men instantly fall in love with them." Yoiko lets out a laugh again, "Except the thing is, they're not slaves. They're in charge. They deliberately have their men 'sell' them to other races and when everyone's guard is down they rob them blind!" She openly giggles, "Except Flea. Flea wanted to go into counseling. She wanted to be a therapist and help people with all the trauma they're walking around with." Another giggle, "Only if she didn't constantly take a pheromone inhibiter, every male on deck would suddenly be following her around like little sad puppies." Her voice drops conspiratorially, "There may have been a time or two that she neglected to use it. Accidentally of course."
Liyara sees no reason to doubt Yoiko's recounting of events. Somehow this Mary Sue won't be solving Trillius Prime's bizarre machinations from a couch in a runabout. Shocking. "I caught an episode about them when I was trying to find information on your origins." Liyara casually admits, and then blinks and tucks her chin in, looking a bit defensive. She didn't mean to admit she went looking when Yoiko was gone. That's an awful lot like saying you miss someone. Is that even allowed? When Yoiko admits that Flea may have once or twice... neglected the use of pheremon suppressants, purely by accident Liyara chuckles. "Somehow, instead of accidentally, I had expected you to say 'For Science'."
She pauses again with a frown, "Don't get me wrong, Flea was amazing at what she did, and the people on that ship needed someone to dump all that isolation and overworking onto. But I kiiinda suspect that half the reason she was assigned to the Vesuvius was because there would be less men around for her to 'accidentally' sway." Yoiko stretches her legs out again before continuing the story. The Vesuvius was originally a training ship that had been rechristened as a test-bed for new technologies and existed with a skeleton crew of engineers and designers paving the way for what would become the Constitution Class Refit Program. Yoiko and Jon worked side by side on a new design for the Nacelles that would take advantage of a newly designed Warp Core, which had exceeded the expectations they'd had back when they were in the Academy. Following two years of hard work, Yoiko was promoted to the Chief Engineer of the Vesuvius, and another year later Yoiko and Fiona decided to try their hand at a serious relationship - only to be caught off guard by the Trill Symbiosis Commission contacting, and granting Yoiko to be joined with the Hax symbiont. Becoming joined was the highest honor amongst her people, so after a very awkward explanation, Yoiko went home and returned a new person. Sadly the strain proved to be too much, eventually pushing Fiona away and leaving the newly joined Engineer with nothing left but her work. The blonde woman lets out a heavy sigh as she gets to the end of Fiona's part in this story. "She had the patience of a saint, but I think the new me was a little too much. Every day I could see her getting more and more tired. I should have stayed on Trillius Prime longer. I mean, I would have if I'd known how it was going to affect me." Her eyes shimmer a little as she thinks back, "Eventually she told me it was over. She was going to ask to be reassigned to another ship and that was the end of it." Yoiko forces a weak smile, "It was for the best in the end, but it still hurts when I think about it too much." She sighs again, wiping her eyes a second before realizing she should probably reassure Liyara. "I don't miss that relationship. I miss my friend." She smiles again, more genuinely this time. "I'm much happier where I am now." Abruptly she pauses and gestures around herself, "Weird planetoids, gravitational pulls, and not-a-God Gods notwithstanding."
"You can have it both ways, Yoiko." Liyara says, sounding oddly insightful in this specific area. "You can miss how a person made you feel, and not want to return to that at the same time. People are complicated, and their feelings moreso." The dragoness reaches out and gives Yoiko's shoulder a soft squeeze. "For what it's worth, I understand why losing the Yoiko she knew would have been painful, but she missed out on an incredible person." Her smile could thaw a glacier. "I will agree with her though, proper mental health professionals seem like they would be desperately needed in deep space, with what Starfleet gets up to."
Yoiko actually blushes a bit from the compliment and nods slowly at the assessment of mental health. "Yeah, that's probably more true than anyone would ever give it credit for." She ponders a bit and gives a sigh knowing what comes next in the story. "After a while it became clear that Jonathon needed a permanent First Officer. The Star Fleet was willing to keep sending out temporary assignments for the position, since the smaller crew number meant there wasn't a lot of resource management for an XO to worry about. But with Outpost 17 being decommissioned -and- the V getting ready for her first big field test of the new engines, Jon was stretched pretty thin." She smiles a little at this part, "To my surprise, but apparently not to anyone else involved, I got the job. I'd run the ship when he was busy and spend the rest of the time either in Engineering or offering guidance - which I was pretty much already doing anyways." She sighs again, "There we were, working with a team from Leeding Engines Ltd on the prototype FWG-1 nacelles. It's the first major change in about fifty four years. We have the old FWF-1's removed, we have all the new systems online. This was going to be /epic/." She pauses long enough to chew her thumbnail nervously. "We get the green. Everything's good to go. All this work and effort, all these people involved. We were ready. ...or so we thought." Another soft sigh, "Soon as they start building up power, soon as the warp envelope starts to form around the ship... the struts holding the nacelles crumble." Yoiko's eyes begin to water as the moment replays vividly in her memory. "There was this awful noise like metal being ripped apart. The Engineering Hull buckled. Coolant, plasma, the main power supply... it all just starts spilling into the lower decks. The forcefields managed to keep oxygen from being sucked out of the ship, but that just made it worse because it helped ignite all those gasses. Warp Engineering went up in flames." The tears begin flowing freely at this point. Her hands clearly shaking. "Chief Medical Officer Saunders was on standby. We'd kept telling him everything was fine, but he insisted. When the flames got past the main bulkhead he just marches into the room like this was just a normal day. He started grabbing people two at a time, yelling at everyone who wasn't writhing in pain to make a break for it." She pauses to wipe her eyes, but when the tears don't stop, she just stares at her open palms. "I was in Impulse Engineering. On the saucer section. It's like the main part of the spine in a body, with Warp Engineering being it's belly. I managed to cut off the Warp Engines before everything backed up into the neck of the ship. Saunders got everyone to safety without any lives lost. I remember the sound of the alarms screaming and people shouting. Within a minute the entire ship smelled like burning flesh. We did everything we could to make sure everyone was going to make it, even as the nacelles tore themselves from the secondary hull." She takes a deep breath, "...and that's when the forcefields failed. Everyone had been evacuated from Warp Engineering except for CMO Saunders. We think he'd stayed behind to take one last look to make sure no one was left behind when the vacuum of space just hurled everything through the jagged metal like some kind of cheese grater..." Yoiko takes one more hitching breath, wiping her eyes again. "We have a plaque in Sickbay for him. When they went through his personal logs there was this one entry that detailed what it should say if anything ever happened to him." She makes an odd sound, almost like choking, but it's a laugh being choked out through the sorrow. "The plaque reads, 'In Memorium. Chief Medical Officer Caliga Saunders. Perished in the line of duty 2266' and under it this stupid quote, '...and I never even got my first paycheck!'"
Liyara makes the appropriate sympathetic faces when Yoiko begins to cry at the memories of what happened to her ship. To her medical officer. What nearly happened to the rest of them if it wasn't for his stalwart composure in that madness. She doesn't know him, and still finds it hard to fully empathize with a loss if she can't relate it to one of her own she's experienced, but she knows it hurt Yoiko, and that is good enough for the sympathy to be genuine. Her hand is on Yoiko's shoulder again, squeezing with reassurance. "He sounds like he died full of spite and right. Your Starfleet seems to produce a great number of such dedicated officers. Petty Officer Rebane notwithstanding." He's not a petty of-- ah... wordplay.
A laugh rings out again, this time a much more obvious one. Yoiko wipes her eyes and shakes her head. "Petty?" A brief snort. "He's pretty good in his own right, but.... yeah." She chuckles lightly before continuing on with the story. "It took about a year to repair the damages, get everything working properly again, and yes... transferring Dr. Rebane onto the ship as the 'Petty' Chief Medical Officer." Her eyes are still stinging a bit, but her mood has clearly improved. "We doubled down on reinforcing the nacelles and redesigned half the lower hull to make damn sure nothing like that ever happened again. There where months of testing; jumping here and there, looking for any local anomalies - all that sort of space exporery type of stuff. And that's when we found it. SEH-01, that giant black hole in space that hides Twisted. Some locals had referred to it as the Florpus Hole." "We'd fired one of our new probes into it and it came back with tons of data about a thriving planetoid slightly out of phase deep inside. Jon assumed it was a fluke, but the match checked out. Furthermore, parts of it where just stable enough to allow transport. We parked the ship over its gaping maw and the Captain and I beamed down along with Lieutenant Galpin, our best pilot. I assumed if nothing else if we could find a shuttle, he'd be able to get us back." She gives a shrug, "Obviously, that didn't quite happen." She shakes her head, "We beamed down, and only I materialized. I was stuck. I had no idea the ship was locked in a broken chroniton field, or that I'd be stuck here for the next year. Matter of fact the very first person I encountered was that goofy guy from the Devil May Cry commercial." Two days later, the Commander would encounter Mackenzie Mihangle (Kenzie for short), a prisoner who found themselves dumped onto Twisted and for some reason assigned a new gender. It would take months before Yoiko realized that the instability that kept her here was also affecting her Symbiont to give off an effect not unlike being drunk. Sadly that came with a few other questionable decisions, like dating Kenzie and disassembling her apartment - something that made the Telekinetic vanish in the night, leaving Yoiko alone again to obsess over the shuttle she'd eventually build. "...but with that, I finally come to the best part of the story. Meeting you." She smiles happily, both for the memory and to finally be at the end of her story so far. "Now, if you need me to break all this down even further, I could tell you about the first time I stubbed my toe, or the first time I ever kissed someone - but I don't think any of that is vital right now." Yoiko chuckles softly, "But there you go. I hope all of that helps in some way." She straightens up, sighing away the humor and says seriously, "I don't like talking about all of this, but if you ever feel like I'm not being open with you - please just ask. I'll probably get mad, or embarrassed, but you're worth all that." She adds mischievously, "For now."
A look of satisfaction crosses Liyara's face when Yoiko's mood has improved, and she nods, listening closely. She didn't get a ton of Yoiko's memories - it's not like Yoiko was able to rapid fire off 8 billion specific thoughts in a few seconds like some people. But she got enough that this all rather... coheres. It makes sense. The lizard gets it. Most of it. She doesn't fully understand Starfleet yet, but she's already referred to it with some respect once, which is... frankly more than she does of almost anyone she has spoken of or interacted with. Liyara is a judgmental creature, and this is not at all hidden from Yoiko. However, other things may have been. Some intentionally so, some not. "I could feel how difficult some of that was for you. Both now, and ... retroactively. Thank you for sharing your stories with me." The dragoness leans back a ways, looking imperiously across her own form at Yoiko now. "They are now eternal." ... Sure, whatever that means. Sounds very formal. Those emerald eyes just study Yoiko in silence for a few moments, and then the redhead quirks her lips into something that resembles a smile, but nearly crosses the line into a smirk. "I will reciprocate, but I am no bard. I answer questions." Her eyes glimmer, blaze brighter green than normal, and those slit pupils dilate a bit. "I... will withhold nothing in my answers." She shifts, very slightly, like the sentence made her uncomfortable.
The blonde woman lets out a laugh, "A bard? Like my ramblings where anything more than that?" She shakes her head at the very thought as she rises to her feet, stepping over to a small cooler where she was keeping a few drinks. Opening it up, and frowning at how warm they are now, she plucks a couple of cans out of the tepid water and returns, offering one to Liyara. "In hindsight I should have picked up a small refrigerator or something." The mostly room temperature can of soda she kept for herself is popped open with a crack and a hiss, and Yoiko takes a few drinks from it, sitting on the bed this time to stare at Liyara more comfortably. She points at the fire-haired woman on the couch, "You can withhold 'nothing' all you like, but I'll do my best not to ask too many mundane questions before you get to the end. Unless you want me interrupting you every few minutes to ask you how the politics and science works in each passing sentence." She grins and takes another drink before rolling over so she's laying across the bed on her stomach, ready to see what comes next.
Liyara reaches a hand out and takes the can of soda when it is offered. She looks at it for a moment, then sees Yoiko open it, and decides her first instinct, to carve it open with a ~~claw~~ nail, was perhaps excessive. She pops the top in the same way and takes a sip, then looking surprised. "...Ah, sparkling ale, portable. Delightful." She drains the rest of the can immediately and then her hand heats up hot enough to sublimate the can, taking it from solid to gas in a matter of moments, skipping right past that pesky liquid phase. Damn. "I appreciate your... restraint." She finally says and then gestures regally towards Yoiko, indicating she may ask her questions now. Why thank you, your majesty.
Yoiko simply raises a brow at the evaporating aluminum. "Y'know, we could plug you into a warp core and probably power a whole fleet of ships." She lets her voice drop conspiratorially. "Although I'd still rather keep you for myself. Maybe plug you into this shuttle somehow and use you like my own personal reactor? I bet you'd enjoy it." Teasing and flirting aside, she is simply distracting what might be an equally long story and knows it. So she takes another drink, setting her can on the floor. "But seriously, go on. I concede the floor to little Miss Furnace."
"Having read a brief synopsis of your warp travel, I am given to understand your anti-matter reactions make my pyrotechnics look quite tame." Liyara says, deflating the compliment, but also being quite visibly pleased by it. Her smile is warm, and it grants permission to overinflate her not-inconsiderable power whenever Yoiko pleases. "...Your civilizations were not stopped by an expanse of highly flammable liquid outside your solar systems, simply more wildspace. Which, I suppose, is dangerous enough for most lifeforms. But my solar system is contained within crystal spheres, surrounded by Phlogiston, a highly reactive material that would destroy your ships the moment they tried to go to impulse. Not because they are weak, but because it is everpresent." An odd explanation when trying to get to one's life, but Liyara will, perhaps, be forgiven for a slight tangent. "You may compare our solar containment to Dyson spheres; I have read enough since my arrival to understand they are similarly impressive, though the crystal spheres do not harvest energy or sustain life themselves, that is up to the planets within, carefully placed in curated locations to allow life by the ones that call themselves our gods." This explanation... makes sense, actually. "They are, of course, not gods, but sufficiently powerful enough creatures to present as such, even to powerful and educated mages." But not to her, is the obvious implication Liyara is putting out. "...And so a great skeptic was needed..."
In Another World. Another Time. In an Age of Wonder.
A misty rainbow ocean, The Flow, suffused all things, for it was the way of space to be filled, and the way of phlogiston to fill it. You think you know space, that black void you travel through by lashing bulkheads together around a billion billion explosions and calling it a ship. But your space is a dead and empty thing, and it gives you nothing but what you brought with you. Power-hungry CO2 scrubbers and industrial replicators the only thing between your crew and CO2 scrubbers. How crippled must you feel, trapped within the walls you built, knowing that a rend in that thin wall could spell your doom. How cramped and constrained, your hallways and your quarters. How... grey. How then would you feel, standing on the deck of a mighty ship of the line as it sailed the rainbow sea? Tides the color of your imagination swirling around your ship as you paced the deck, breathing the open air, hoisting the sails and letting the currents take you on your next voyage? A ship's plants constantly breathing oxygen back into your ship's gravitational bubble? Oh yes, these ships had sails, and their own gravitational field. For all mass has gravity, and all matter cannot help but be attracted. It was not a spell or a technology or a miracle, simply nature. The multi-hued phlogiston permeated all things to be certain, but you'd nothing to fear from it. It was falling overboard that was the danger, and even then, The Flow was kind. You would not suffocate if you fell out of your ship's air bubble. Rather, it would grip you tightly in stasis, until some traveler, perhaps your own crew doubling back for you, could fish you out, and it would release you gently back into life. If there is anything that could truly be said to be divine, it was The Flow. And within it, hung the crystal spheres. Massive, impossibly large spherical walls that blocked entry to the Phlogiston. Within them, without the flow, planets, stars, and moons spun in formations much like your own, carefully and strategically placed to allow life to bloom without the gentle stasis of The Flow.
"The Gods had us believe life was their gift. That they were the answer to why, and how." Liyara says, sighing and gesturing at nothing. "And none sought further. How comforting, an answer one could understand. Gods made it. Easy. Simple." She sounds... dismissive. "...None ever thought to ask how the Phlogiston came to be. Why the Gods could not travel through it. Why their powers diminished rapidly across the barrier of the Crystal Spheres until even their most ardent, powerful priests could not so much as be granted a cantrip. No, the Gods were the answer and they would have you stop looking any further, if they could."
She laughs, reaching for her can on the floor to finish it off the last little bit. She gestures towards the cooler as she sits the now empty can back down. "There's more if you want it, by the way." She twists onto her side, grabbing a pillow and holding it to her chest giving her the distinct look of a teen girl at a sleepover. "I do appreciate the extra background though. Thank you!"
"It's necessary." Liyara says, tucking her chin in. The redhead looks a little sheepish, but continues, not one to let something like hesitation derail her tale. "To understand who I am. What I am." She shifts, turning about on the couch, then spinning around and bringing a knee up to her chest in that way that looks comfortable and casual, but because of her dress, also looks risque and appealing. It's probably a move she's calculated the angles and ratios on a thousand times over to maximize its impact. "The Gods are liars. They are no moral authorities. No better or worse than us. I know that to be true..." She pauses for just a moment, furrowing her brows, taking a deep breath, and then looking Yoiko in the eyes and deflating just a little. She can't run from this. It has to happen sooner or later. "...Because my father is one." Come again? Liyara steamrolls over the idea of a question here, in spite of her promise to answer questions, perhaps hoping that providing context will satisfy without the pain of true illumination and introspection a smartly worded question might draw. "He wasn't when he and my mother conceived." That's even more confusing - God isn't just some temporary title. Right?
Long ago, but also a time achingly close, there was a murder. As is the way of any good and proper murder, it was a death with three parts. A jilted lover, a jealous rival, and the devil. Mystra, the goddess of magic, was loved by Cyric, the God of Lies. This love began before they had ascended to godhood, but as Mystra became enamored with another, Cyric's affection curdled, turning to rage. Unfortunately for Cyric, Mystra was far too powerful to be slain by his hand alone, and so entered our first accomplice.
Shar was the sister of Selune, of whom Mystra was an aspect. She was both Mystra's aunt and sister at once, for divinity is complicated, messy and makes the rules up after it has done what it willed. From the moment of Mystra's birth, Shar desired her complete control over Magic, her structural underpinning to The Weave. But so long as Mystra lived, Shar could do nothing to usurp her place. So long as she lived. A plan was formed. Shar would help Cyric murder Mystra, and the two of them would split the spoils of her divine spark and domain. Shar, of course, had no intention of sharing ultimate power, but ironically Cyric being the god of lies was blind to them himself. She planned to supplant Mystra's Weave with her own, the Shadow Weave, and become goddess of Magic and Darkness alike. She gave Cyric a cloak of purest shadow, devised to keep him invisible to Mystra's gaze as he glided unseen through her magical domain of Dweomerheart. And so they schemed. But they were both of them deceived.
For while Shar was told the Staff of Azuth would allow Cyric to unlock Mystra's defenses, and she distracted Azuth so that Cyric could steal it, Cyric was also given a black blade that could deal the final blow. And so it did, as he plunged it into Mystra's heart, but it did not simply kill the goddess. It detonated all the magic within her, rippling through the weave. A thousand different living wards upon Toril struggled valiantly against the surge, and all thousand fell at the exact same time. Coincidentally. Impossibly. Each killed in separate, unrelated events that had nothing to do, absolutely nothing at all, with this murder. An ancient druid burned down with her forest. A wizard that had lived a century longer than expected slipped and fell, cracking his skull. King Nasher of Neverwinter was assassinated in his throne room. And so the Weave collapsed. Dweomerheart exploded. A spellplague scoured the lands, and sorcerers and wizards alike were suddenly powerless for the first time since humanity's founding. Chaos reigned. Cyric was found guilty of murdering Mystra and imprisoned. Shar had successfully fled and was nowhere near the crime scene. And what of Azuth, the god of wizards, who lived in Dweomerheart? Why, in all the chaos, noone noticed him fall straight into the hells. Noone save one particular devil, who had been waiting to consume his Divine Spark, and did just that. So Cyric killed Mystra. Shar gave him the cloak and staff. And noone once thought to ask him who gave him the blade. Just as Asmodeus intended.
"My father is many things. A liar. A cheat. A fiend. But he has never been short-sighted. He gave Cyric that knife twenty years before Shar came up with her plan. Barely a week before I was conceived." Liyara hugs that knee to her a little closer. "...A coincidence, surely." ... What the hell?
Yoiko's eyes widen when Liyara first references her father and her eyes remain locked in from that point forward. When she pauses to hug her knee, Yoiko stands up, walks closer, and gives her a hug. "Hey, it's alright. You can't change where you came from and I'm not judging anything." When she finally stands up again, she glances around the room a moment before settling on a stack of papers and a pen. She marches over to pick them up and plops down beside Liyara on the couch. Each page is covered with scribbles and notes, mostly diagrams and mathematical formulas. She flips through until she finds a blank page. "If you're gonna keep talking about all these other people, I'm going to start making a flow chart." While she sounds as borderline sarcastic as always, there's no humor in her expression. She's serious. She jots down a few names, at the top. 'Syric, Mistra, Sharr' and draws lines between them, crossing out Mystra and adding 'Asmodeous' underneath with a dash and then 'Dad.' "Okay. Please go on!"
Liyara just stares at Yoiko as she pulls out diagrams, and then offers the weakest laugh and scoots over on the couch, then leans against Yoiko for comfort even as she corrects the Commander's spelling. "... I found this all out not long before I ended up here. It was the dead end in a long trail of bodies left in my wake. Most of them deserved to perish." She says, with utmost certainty. "...But not all."
There are many schools of the arcane in Toril. Schools of evocation, schools of transmutation, and schools of illusion or enchantment. Relatively few schools of necromancy, yet they existed all the same. The Tolarian Academy for the Arcane Arts was general purpose, which you may be forgiven for believing was a varied and diverse curriculum. But that general purpose was god-slaying. This was, of course, not advertised on the syllabus, but its Headmistress directed the content courses almost as surely as if she was teaching them herself.
Her name was Liyara, daughter of Lux, and many other titles besides. Nestled comfortably within the nation of Amn, the Academy was the only place licensed for free practice of magic anywhere in the country. To say that Amn was a mercantile nation is to say that Klingons are obstinate. It is true, but the full scope of the greed is not easily understood. Practice of unlicensed spellcraft was illegal in Amn, and Liyara had to perform quite a sizable service to gain an exemption for an entire school. However, this was hardly an inconvenience. It just so happened that by the time Amn become aware of Liyara's presence, it also became aware of a Cowled Wizard that ran an extremely illegal child-soldier program, creating expendable mages, under the cover of the Council's blessing. Liyara was able to prove this because she had been one such child-soldier, but no longer. They trained her, Hoshimaru, and the others to destabilize entire governments covertly, and they were very good at it. By the time Liyara made Amn aware it was in her debt, it was not a request for forgiveness for killing a Cowled Wizard. It was an invoice for services rendered. Under the cover of the Headmistress of the Tolarian Academy, she traveled the continents for her... research. Found people she was looking for, tortured information out of them, and killed them, unless they were more useful to her alive. Most weren't. She was seeking those responsible for an attack on Mount Hotenow decades prior. The humans she tracked down first, for they were short lived and she would be damned if any of them would die of natural causes. She would be damned if they didn't, too.
"When I killed the King of Neverwinter, I had thought I was closing the loop. He had ordered the attack, he had financed everything. But it was worse than I'd feared. He did not order the attacks out of vanity or fear, but duty." Liyara brings her other leg up, hugging both knees together now. "...He had done it to stop my father's plans, believing that Father's corruption could not be allowed to spread. I chastised him as I cut him down, proclaiming that I was more than that monster's twisted schemes. Yet even as I protested, when I struck him down, I felt it. The weave surged. The king fell, and with him, another living ward entrusted to bear the load should anything happen to Mystra." Her eyes start to glass over a bit, and she bites her lip. "Of course... What was one ward? There were thousands. And who could even hurt Mystra in the first place?" Magma wells up slightly where she bit her lip too hard. It's as beautiful as it is dangerous to touch, ruby lips indented only for brilliant orange to glow and pool in that dent. "...I was naive. In my quest for vengeance, I had enabled my father's ascent. He was now forever out of my reach." ... Vengeance?
The blonde woman taps her pencil against the page filled with notes and at least one doodle of a chibi Liyara breathing fire. "Wait, back up. I thought Mystra was already dead? I thought Cyric killed her?" She continues tapping a moment as she thinks, "Or is this one of those 'someone new becomes them'/reincarnation-type situations?" It takes her a full minute to back out of 'study mode' and go back to addressing the emotions on display. "Crap. I'm sorry, I got a little too into that." She places a hand on Liyara's cheek, being very careful to avoid the searing trickle of heat on her lip, and tilts her face towards her to look into her eyes. "We don't have to do all this right now." Yoiko glances down at her page of notes and shakes her head, "I'm not going to judge you for things that happened before I met you, and I'm not going to think any less of you if you leave this story unfinished." At that she puts her hands in her own lap because dangit, the urge to wipe that 'blood' away is strong and she enjoys having thumbs.
Liyara looks into Yoiko's eyes like the blonde has just asked her if water is a liquid or a solid. "...I was explaining my part in Mystra's death. This happened concurrently to Cyric stabbing her with the black blade, and is why the weave could not survive her death." She frowns a little, and then tosses a hand off to one side. "You see? I am no bard. I am telling you everything backwards. Let me explain from my beginning. That will be easier." She breaks their locked gaze after a moment, and takes a deep breath, beginning again.
In Realmspace, for that is what we call the crystal sphere containing Toril, there are many dragons. Chromatic dragons of many hues, Metallic Dragons of many casts, and even Gem dragons of many facets. Now it so happens that Chromatic dragons are evil. This is not a slight or a judgement upon them, it is an inherent magical law of their being in the same way that all Metallic dragons are good. Neither choose this for themselves, it is chosen for them before they are born, and none have ever noticed the yoke, let alone chafed under it.
Red dragons are some of the most evil of all, but for one, an unusual exception. Lux, daughter of Hoondarrh, the Red Rage of Mintarn. Unusually bright for a Red, Lux took in her youth to wearing human shapes and toying with mortals, finding them pleasant company and pleasant snacks. Her mortal guise pretended to be caring and kind, and so it was a great surprise to everyone involved when a trickster placed a Helm of Opposite Alignment upon her head. Such a thing is normally a brainwashing, yet for a Chromatic dragon, it had to be more, for her alignment was decided magically, not by choice like mortals. She became good in every way, the very thing she had merely pretended to be to lure travelers to their demise. Her entire magical structure was re-written, and she became a staunch ally of the righteous, even if she had to do it from the shadows. If Lux was to sire children, they would likewise turn out as her, kind and virtuous, a true anomaly in the world of Red dragons. But Lux's secret was not so secret; one creature, one devil, had sussed out the truth of her, and had a delicious idea, more of a whim, really. The world's first and only clutch of good Red dragons was all well and fine, but what if they carried the taint of the hells within them? What delicious corruption - what a delightful back and forth as their nature forced them to be one thing, while the darkness in their hearts forced them to be another? This was the kind of thing he lived for, and his name was Asmodeus. So he appeared to Lux as a handsome and beguiling Red Dragon with a story, a perfect lie. A dragon who had walked amongst humans and grown fond of them, had freed himself from Tiamat's shackles and was becoming something... more. Not Good, necessarily, but neutral, his own dragon. It was the perfect bait. Lux believed she could help him come to the light, and they shared a night of passion before her charming suitor disappeared into the black, never to be seen again. She soon found she was pregnant with a clutch of his children. But she did not know what she truly carried.
"...I never knew any of this part growing up. I would learn it later with scrying magics, legend-lore, spells that let me observe the past as if it was happening in the present." Liyara admits, and shrugs a bit. She reaches up and wipes her own orange-hot blood away from her lip absent-mindedly. There, taken care of. Now she just has this slightly glowing stain across the lips. It's fine.
Yoiko had gone back to furiously scribbling notes as the red haired woman continued. Eventually she holds the page at arm's length, turns it sideways, then slowly shakes her head. "You're not telling it backwards. Not everything can be understood chronologically." She finally turns the page, starting with a clean slate, and then thoughtfully chews on her pencil. "You know, if nothing else you could probably sell this as a TV series." Looking up with a wide grin, Yoiko then turns to face Liyara, pulling up her knees to angle the paper like an easel. "Okay, so Asmodeus is a bit of a jerk - no offense intended. He manipulates your Mom, plays a long con for power, and you get saddled with being a weapon while you're stuck in Magic Academy because teachers seem to suck in every reality." There's something scribbled on the new sheet of paper before she looks over the page and asks, "Totally off topic, but did you ever listen to the Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin? Earth song, mid-twentieth century? I've got this hunch it'd be up your alley." She grins like this was meant to be funny, but doesn't elaborate further.
"The... immigrant song?" Liyara blinks at that, then shakes her head. She doesn't have to do her 'reading in her memory' thing to know she's never heard that. "No. What is that? Do you have it?" The dragoness actually drops the thread, pulled out of her thoughts. She looks curious, which is better than pensive, probably. Yoiko is very good at that.
The Commander jumps up to her feet, walking over to the desk across from them. She knocks taps a few buttons on the small keyboard there (with keycaps that look like cats playing) and the monitor on the wall above blinks to life. "Old Earth music is kinda my favorite. It's got an edge to it that you don't really hear anywhere else. The Klingons have their big sweeping operas, but the humans.... they have this sound they call 'rock' that I just absolutely love." She's opening apps as she's speaking, searching through some kind of music player branded with the Canarybox logo. What won't they stream to people? "Here it is!" A loud guitar riff echoed by drums comes out of speakers hidden around the small quarters. The music gallops like a steed charging into battle. "This is something to do with these nomadic people in Earth's past. Vikings, I think they're called? Really doesn't matter." A voice cries out under the music screaming a melodic 'AAAAAA' that shifts pitch. We come from the land of the ice and snow/From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow We come from the land of the ice and snow/From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins! For peace and trust can win the day, despite of all your losing!! The remainder of the song trails off with soft 'ooooo'ing. Yoiko shrugs as the song slowly comes to a close, "I did say it was totally off-topic." When it finally fades out she turns it off, returning again to the couch. "Sorry, something about the story just made it click and it suddenly felt very you."
Liyara listens to the song intently from the first "Aaaaaaaa", and her slit pupils dilate. She looks kind of enraptured, and then she grins midway through the song, starting to enjoy it. She looks very impressed. But she doesn't speak up until after the song is over. "...This is very impressive music. The bards who made it should be very proud, and well-rewarded." Well, Yoiko did say it was old earth music, but ... that could mean a lot of things. "It makes me think of the Eddas from the north." It would.
The blonde woman chuckles at the reaction but insists on apologizing again. "I didn't mean to derail everything, but you know how it goes once an idea pops in there..." She laughs again as she tries to get comfortable. "So, y'know. Now that the theme is set, I guess. Shall we continue?"
"No, it was... good." Liyara admits when Yoiko apologizes, and there's a nod of her head. "Music is one of the things these human worlds have in impossible abundance. Best to partake." The dragoness takes a deep, steadying breath, and then nods a second time, this time giving herself permission to continue. "Lux was a good mother, not that I have much to compare her to. She was kind, she loved us, and she never let us doubt that." Running a hand slowly through her own hair, Liyara's eyes take on a distant look, remembering. "I would later learn not all mothers could manage that."
In the land of Faerun, in the world of Toril, in the sphere of Realmspace, there was a queen. Her name was Lux, and she was powerful, for she was a red dragon, and they are never weak. She was beautiful, for all dragons are beautiful in their own way, but also because of her heart. Unlike other red dragons, she was good and kind. This marked her as unique amongst her kin, and the country that she ruled over was one of magic and adventure. Under her protection, mortal cities flourished, and those that would prey on them withered. Her children were many, having laid nine eggs in total, a number that would have given her pause if she'd had cause to contemplate the reason.
The first to hatch was Liyara, a full three days before the others. To Lux, she was a miracle - bright, earnest, and observant. Her brilliant green eyes took in everything, and she took her first human shape on her first birthday, a full hundred years ahead of schedule. The other eight children were equally brilliant, but Liyara was given to be the favorite. Having the advantage of an early hatching, she was the clear firstborn, and as much as a bunch of unruly children can be said to be "led", Liyara led them. Lux taught them all about the world outside Mount Hotenow, and the mortals that lived there, and after Liyara's first transformation, all of the children were eager to learn more about how mortals lived and what it was like to walk amongst them. Lux urged caution, because mortals, and humans in particular, came in all varieties. Kind, cruel, smart, vapid, pious and covetous. That was a word she did not have to teach them - covetous. While Lux's nature had been re-written, dragons will still be dragons, and each of them had something they collected and squirreled away to roost on, without really even needing to understand why. For Liyara, it was gold, truly she was the most like the red dragons of old, but for Lisan, it was tomes. He slept on them with care, arranging them just so, for he could not bear the thought of his weight crinkling a single page. He was the smartest of the children, for he was more well read than any of them, and dragons do not forget. Liandrin hoarded swords, and his scales naturally toughened to be able to roost upon even enchanted ones without discomfort. Liyara leaned on him to help teach them all how to fight in their human forms, which all of them managed within a week of their first birthday. It was understood they would one day go amongst the mortals and be ambassadors for their new Dragonflight. For that, Liyara learned much from her sister Lila, who gathered works of mortal art. There was much you could learn about people through their art, she would insist at length, and the firstborn agreed, for the artistic wyrmling espoused insights that surprised even Lux with their veracity. And Lucian, cunning Lucian with his invisible hoard. He collected debts, favors owed, promises made, because he said what better hoard than the one people cannot see, and cannot take from you? Lux was impressed with his pragmatism. She was far less impressed with Lena's hoard, if only for the difficulties it caused. Lena chose to make her metaphorical nest atop piles of clothing, claiming that garments were the key to identity, and that if one controlled how the world saw them, they controlled who they were in the world. Lux was less certain about this, but Liyara believed her sister was onto something, and would praise Lena while gently prying her own outfits free of the child's hoard. Not so, with Lon, however. Liyara's youngest brother was given to collecting explosives, sleeping on them every night and occasionally waking himself (and everyone else) when an errant snort set them off. He would always be found laughing amidst the smoldering ruins of his room, charred from head to foot but elsewise hardly damaged. He claimed that there was no such thing as too much fire, and Liyara just couldn't make herself see things his way. Lux, of course, had her favorites beside Liyara, and it was the second and third oldest that held those spots, though she would never tell this to the others. Second born, Landon collected animals. Beasts, magical creatures, prey, predator, it did not matter, he gathered them and he slept in a giant pile with them. He had an incredible knack for taming and befriending the creatures, and he always explained that friends and allies that trusted you, and could be trusted in turn, were more valuable than any gold or art or clothing. While she saw the wisdom in his words, Liyara found she just did not have his easygoing knack for friendship. She got along much better with her own personal favorite, the thirdborn - Luna. Named after Selune and nearly as beautiful, Luna hoarded magical scrolls, artifacts, and tomes, the last of which she generously shared with Lisan, lest he come up short in magical knowledge, which would be a shame. Luna studied magic lustfully and with great passion. Before the age of four, she had already learned how to convince magical items that she was of the appropriate skill, experience, and alignment to use them. Liyara loved her, and if there was one sibling she could have chosen to be, it would have been Luna.
Yoiko nods her head at the statement about other mothers not being so kind and gives a knowing sigh. She's had a few lifetimes and known a number of people. "A shame kindness isn't quite so universal as it should be..." As the story carries on Yoiko goes back to her notebook. A few sketches of eggs in a nest with names written across each one. Admittedly she aww's at the idea of baby Liyara. There's a few notes she makes at the bottom of the page to ask when there's a more natural pause in the story. At the explanations about their various hordes, Yoiko quickly scribbles into the margins, *Buy gold sheets* with several underlines. This does get another question for later though, which she'll ask in just a moment. When Liyara gives her *the look* Yoiko giggles, deciding this is the time to start with more questions. "Okay, couple of things. When you took your first forms, where they already adult, or did you have to grow into them?" She adds quietly, mostly under her breath, "I kinda wanna see a cute tiny you..." She'll wait until some sort of answer is given before moving on to the next question. "Alright, secondly: The hordes? Is it the physical presence of the objects, or the knowledge of its existence? Lucian makes it sound like it's more about the existence." There's no mockery in her tone. She's genuinely curious and wanting to learn more about it assuming Liyara is willing to explain.
"The first one I took was who I felt like inside. I believe humans would view it as an eight year old girl. She grew with me." Liyara answers softly, smiling at Yoiko. "...You're looking at a version of her now." So... while her base form is a dragon, this is who Liyara identifies as? Best not to call the dragon form her true form, then. She stands from the couch, giving Yoiko an affectionate head bop first, and then takes a breath, spinning slowly, just enough for the skirt of her dress to flare out, and it flares out more dramatically than usual, covering her from view completely for a fraction of a second, and then it comes back down, and the dress is different. White, linen, simple, with gold laces in the front that don't really need to be there, and a tiny little redheaded girl with soft, cherubic cheeks and brilliant, piercing green eyes is staring at Yoiko. Short, stubby little horns and wings so tiny they make Adult Liyara's mostly ornamental wings look strong and powerful. She smiles, and it's a devastating, adorable thing that makes a heart ache. "It's normally..." The tiny voice that comes out is so cute it actually hurts, and the little girl winces. She throws an arm up, and a capelet that she wasn't wearing a moment ago swirls through the air, and when it passes, the form of Liyara that Yoiko is used to appears again, crouched down to make the transition more... geometrically probable. "...it's normally the physical collection. The things you have and therefore noone else can have them. But Lucian was a very special child." She stands to her full height again, and takes a little breath. She makes a small gesture, and flames flicker to life in the air, resolving into the surprisingly clear shape of a young boy. He wears a smug smile, has eyebrows that are a little too arched, and has the easy bearing of someone that's going to grow up to break every heart. "He was his father's son. Always violating the spirit of the law, never the form."
With a brief nod Yoiko acknowledges Liyara's description, understanding the mental image of one's self better than most. But when she stands and bops her in the head, Yoiko shakes her head in disbelief. She barely manages a "What are you-?" before the transformation takes her breath away. It makes her heart melt a little at first, but when the little voice speaks up the Trill woman's maternal instincts kick in and it takes all she has not to wrap her up in her arms and vow to protect her forever. Luckily that heavy dose of Linda's influence gets to take a back seat when Liyara shifts back to normal, but it doesn't stop a brief sound of disappointment from being muttered unconsciously. "...that would be such a dangerous ability with a Symbiont. I don't even want to think what that'd do to me." She takes in the rest of the answers to her question with another nod, but her mind is still reeling from the transformation she'd witnessed. "...does it hurt to do that?"
That question draws an eyebrow arch from Liyara, and then she shakes her head slowly. "No. I can be anyone, as long as they're me." She delivers the statement rote, her bog-standard confession to two dozen close friends and lovers, before she tucks her chin in and looks closer into Yoiko's eyes. "...I must keep one of the wings, the tail, or the horns. And my hair will always be red. Feathers if I turn into a bird, and I have, and it was strangely comfortable and I do not wish to examine that." The woman looks thoughtful, and then manages to look a little guilty. "...That was a lie. I'm sorry, it's a force of habit. These are rules about who I am, but who I am can be shifted, these rules are not hard and fast, and I have impersonated other specific people that are very much not me."
Yoiko tilts her head to the side and nods at the confession. "Hey... It's okay." She gestures around at everything around them, "Look. I know what it's like. You should see some of the things I've had to say to get out of doing a physical. Think about what other cultures would do if they knew they could have immortality given to them and potentially infinite knowledge just for having a Symbiont inside them?" She puts a hand to her side where they had to cut her open to allow it to bond with her. "It doesn't matter that only about 10% of our population is even compatible. They'd find out and the Klingons, the Romulans, and who knows what else would descend on Trillius Prime to raid the Caves of Mak'ala. The Symbionts would be taken, dissected, and our history and legacy would be destroyed." "If it hadn't been for Twisted making me feel like I'm constantly a little drunk, I probably wouldn't have even told you." She sighs, "It's not anything personal, but that's a lot of trust." Yoiko frowns just thinking about everything she's admitted. "I'm not saying that my secrets and yours are any more or less important. But I know the feeling. It becomes an automatic response that never wants to go fade away." She looks up at Liyara and gives a weak smile, "...and I think that means we've come full circle already." If allowed, she'll reach out and grab Liyara's hand, her own shaking slightly. "Nothing we say leaves this shuttle. I promise."
"Ah..." Liyara looks surprised at Yoiko's declaration about the risk of other races finding out, and then her eyes widen. She understands this threat very well, and she is frankly surprised she didn't consider it. "I... think I understand." The redhead bites her lip again, and then nods. "...Mother always told us, people's envy is the most dangerous thing. They hate, fear, and desire what they don't understand, sometimes all in equal measure." Well, yes, that's true. But it does seem like perhaps she might have learned that from her own experiences, not just what she was told. "...I've always understood that. I'm sorry I didn't think of it, but I won't make that mistake again. Noone else will learn it from me." She swears to Yoiko, and she seems... unusually earnest? Genuine. It's a little unlike her, letting the distance evaporate from between her mistakes and her accountability. Maybe that's special for Yoiko.
For no easily explainable reason Yoiko's mind suddenly conjures up the two of them in chibi form fist bumping suddenly, and it unexpectantly causes her to snort and start doodling exactly that. "Sorry, not the best timing." She's blushing a little, but she holds up the sketch a moment later - revealing that Yoiko was never the best artist, but it's clear what she was going for. She grins, looks at the page, frowns, tries to grin again. It'd be more comical if she wasn't so sure she just ruined a genuine moment between them. She sets the page down and brushes some of her hair out of her face. "I believe you. I trust you. I wouldn't have told you, well, any of this otherwise." She adds after a moment of thought about how Twisted affects her, "...most likely." Yoiko tries to play that last part off as a joke, but she's actually worried about it now that she's had a moment to think. "Note to self, no more away missions to weird gravitational paradoxes without some sort of inhibiter." She frowns again. Realizing she's still probably coming off like she's downplaying the moment, Yoiko gives a weak smile, "I'm sorry. I'm going off on a tangent again." She rises up and puts an arm around Liyara's shoulders. "But again, I promise I won't breathe a word of this to anyone." She tilts her head from side to side in an extra moment of thought, "...but if held at gunpoint I'm going to gush about how cute little you was." A sage nod is given. "I'll have to return that favor with some old photos next time I'm back on the station."
There's a tiny laugh at that, Liyara smiling at the idea. "As if I'd let anyone hold you at gunpoint." There's that possessiveness again. She relaxes visibly, and takes a slow, deep breath, straightening out her clothes. It's ritualistic, of course. Her githweave adjusts in any way she wants, no touch needed. But running her hands down her sides fills space in the conversation and draws attention to her silhouette. Everything always has to be just so. "Yes, let's avoid jumping into any more black holes unexplored. In my world, we would send a scrying sensor first. Or some other form of remote detection." Well. Her world can't be THAT backward if they actually take safety precautions. That's one thing she and Starfleet often have in common. ... But wait, is she saying they have a protocol, or this is just... something people know to do? When Yoiko apologizes, Liyara shakes her head. "It's good. Tangents are good. Memories are... hard." Are they? Liyara hasn't really given the impression that anything is hard for her, save perhaps considering other people's feelings. In fact, she routinely denies it. Hmm.
Yoiko gives a bit of mock offense to the very idea, "We sent sensor probes first! It's not like anyone on the ship would have known to calibrate it to a Trill's Symbiont's physiology before we beamed down." She shrugs playfully, holding up her hands in defeat. "Y'know, 'cause of all the other things we've just talked about." Sitting back on the couch again, Yoiko curls up against the armrest and lowers her voice a little. "Soooo... speaking of. Federation transporters like the one we used earlier have a filter built into them that identifies any foreign bodies and removes them during transport. It's a safety function to prevent beaming up from a planet where a viral outbreak might contaminate the ship and kill everyone." She gives another light shrug, "It happens, maybe not to that extent, but you get the idea..." She taps her chest, "...and then we introduce the best kept secret of my race." She lets out a long, slow sigh. "Talking to you about all this is one thing. Having to explain to Jon that the transporter could literally kill me because of a safety measure was not a fun conversation when I hadn't even told him what a Symbiont was." She pauses and counts on her fingers, "So you are the fifth person I've told about the Symbiont, you know. Two where because I had to - because I needed to be able to disable the biofilters without getting court martialed. One because she was there to help me when I was joined, one because she had to teach me about Star Trek because one of the first things she did was ask if I was a Joined Trill..." She adds under her breath, "...stupid Twisted." And then with a smile, "And you. Because I trust you, and I don't want to have to keep secrets from you. Especially those that might hurt you somehow." Yoiko bites her lip thoughtfully a moment and then taps her notes. "I've derailed everything again, haven't I?" She shoo's Liyara. "Back to your story! Stop letting me ramble!"
"Wouldn't... that have killed you?" Liyara immediately makes the connection about the transporter filter, because of course she does. But then a moment later. "...You have to manually program it to not kill you?!" Aaaand there it is. She's righteously indignant again. "How did you know I didn't have a magical symbiote that would kill me?" She looks like she's going to get all worked up again, and then she laughs and runs a hand through her hair, sighing. It's already done, isn't it? She didn't die, and now they're back. "Your derailing is much more entertaining than..." Liyara trails off, her eyes losing focus, glassing over. She shivers, just a little. Easy to miss. And then tiny little magma pearls bead around her tear ducts and her face twists up, unhappy. "...This." She waves at her face like she make it stop doing this treasonous, leaking thing. She brushes the irridescent, molten tears away and shakes her head. "Sorry. I'm not... it's not like the way you remember." How would she kn-- oh, right, she actually would know how Yoiko remembers, specifically. "I'm here, with you, but I'm also standing there, five years old, and it's... I don't normally do this." She swallows, and sweat beads on her forehead.
Instinctively Yoiko leaps forward to try and comfort her, but... obviously that might be more dangerous than the unmodified transporter. She hesitates at the last second, remembering hot=bad and decides to try and help in a different direction. "Hey-heeeeey! Listen to my voice. Focus on my words. Liyara, this moment. Right now. Not any of those other ones. You're sitting with me in my little crappy ship that I made in my apartment. We're telling stories and not thinking about all those scary things going on we have no control over yet." Yet is the important thing to remember. Maybe distracting is the right thing to do? "And I knew you'd be okay because Jon had already made sure my changes were made on the station. Anything larger than a microbe is automatically ignored. We're talking things smaller than a grain of sand." She huffs a bit, "Not like I'm going to let some crappy future tech break my favorite person!" Well, it feels like future tech on Twisted at least, and she knows it. Especially to Liyara. Not sure if it's working or not, she goes back to her first efforts to get through. "Look, we have to have a whole thing with guided meditations to merge the voices of our past Hosts into the background of our lives, but that said it's still totally possible for an unfocused mind to be taken over by them - especially if they have a very loud and dominate personality. It sounds like that's what you're going through right now. Just ignore all that other stuff and focus on now. This moment is the most important one at the moment. Not your past. Not your future. Those things can come bother you in their own time."
"It wasn't that crappy." Liyara admits in a small voice, almost like she's afraid someone will hear her and never let her live that admission down. She takes a deep breath, and tries again. There's a moment where her breath is unsteady, and she opens her mouth to speak, and then the tears come again and she wipes them away furiously. She laughs, trying to deflect the embarrassment, but what she's embarrassed for is anyone's guess. Crying? Everybody cries. Crying in front of Yoiko maybe? "It all happens at once. It's not like... I can fully control it." It seems an awful lot like she's skirting around some serious trauma, which... Yeah, people have described PTSD before as being unable to turn a memory off. Is it worse with magical, eidetic memory?
Yoiko has to correct her, make her focus on the now. "It *isn't* that crappy. Not *wasn't* that crappy." She places a hand on Liyara's shoulder and squeezes gently. "Yeah, I completely get it. It's like living the entire lives of three different people. No idea what that's like, babe." She smiles playfully and tries to keep Liyara's eyes focused on her. "C'mon. If you don't come back to this moment, you're going to miss out on whatever I might do next." She gestures wildly with her free hand. "I've told you all these dark secrets, maybe I'm going to show you where all my spots are next." She wiggles her eyebrows at the idea and smirks. "Pretty sure you've not seen them under proper lighting, y'know. They actually go down to my little toes." She reaches up and tugs the collar of her shirt. "I can't show that to some five year old, y'know - and I'm not going to show them to someone who I haven't met yet. So get it together, girl." Hey, if nothing else has worked. May as well try this approach. "Did you know I'm totally going against my people having crawled in a bed with you?" She grins, "We're supposed to be better than that. 'Intimacy is for procreation, not entertainment.' It's all about expanding your mind and becoming a better being." She squeezes Liyara's shoulder again, "I make exceptions for you. But only if you're gonna come back to me in the here and now." She then lowers her head, almost close enough to touch foreheads together but not enough to start burning. "You can do this. I believe in you. Don't make a liar out of me."
"I'll try." Liyara says, and she sniffs and she smiles and she makes another face. "...This is absolutely unacceptable, I look like a troll." No, even when trying to hold in tears and grimacing, she's gorgeous. The lighting always hits right, the dress always sits perfect, and the occasional glowing trail leaking from an eye is like the heavenly ichor. "I can... Maybe I can show you?" Liyara says, and then she takes some of those tears, gently brushing them onto her fingertips, and begins tracing. Sigil-work. Rituals to make the magic believe it is powered by the weave, and not her elemental essence. She learned this long ago. "It will likely be easier." Her voice is steadying again, finding her composure. Whether it's the embarrassment or simply to spite her treasonous body, she's locking it down. A complex mandala of burning sigils bleed off her finger, painted into the air with fire and magic, essence and will. And sure enough, after a moment, she waves a hand at the barest section of bulkhead wall. It almost doesn't matter if it's actually bare. Much like a projector it will display over whatever is there regardless. But it's less distracting if there aren't other things to see at the same time. The image flickers to life. Brilliant colors that are more vivid than the most brilliant display. The interior of a keep buried in a mountain, which should be drab and brown and gray, but somehow it is vibrant. The browns have more color, and everything has some kind of... Aura?
The Trill woman can't help but laugh at the comment about looking like a troll, barely getting a chance to shake her head in objection before Liyara starts working her craft. She backs up enough to get out of her way, and her eyes go wide as another world suddenly projects itself above her desk. She's about to comment on the aura when she sniffs the air, realizing that she smells something burning. Something other than Liyara's sweat - or whatever you call it. With a little flailing she dashes out of the room and into the tiny bathroom adjacent the room they came in from. Water can be heard flowing suddenly and a second later Yoiko comes back with her hair wet. One tiny strand of hair is singed above her left eye. "Shit." She huffs and flops back onto the couch with her arms crossed. "We've gotta work on personal space." This is a joke. A bad one. "Clearly I don't know to keep my distance when you're all hot and bothered like that." And now a pun or two. She huffs a bit and settles in to see whatever the magic has been crafted to share.
"I told you I'm smoking." Liyara says, her voice quietly amused, but at the same time, there's an effort, a strain to it that isn't normally there. She is forcing herself composed. It is a struggle. It is hard. The image above Yoiko's desk bobs about, the view of someone walking down the gray and brown halls. It's more than just the vivid colors; everything has some sort of faint glow surrounding it. The glows remind vaguely of heat maps; the stronger and more colorful the glow, the more magical the item - this is immediately apparent as the viewer looks from a bare wooden table to an ancient suit of armor standing guard over the hallway. The former has an incredibly faint green glow, barely enchanted at all, whereas the armor has the bright golden nimbus of transmutation magic infusing it. "I did it." The voice is small, hushed, and awed. It came from Liyara, but it almost sounds like it could have been that tiny version of herself from earlier. "I cast 'Detect Magic'. Luna was right. Of course she was." The voice sounds as unsurprised that Luna was right as it sounds envious. The image jumps, it blurs. The memory is perfectly clear, probably clearer than it would have seemed to most people while it was happening, but the way her mind winds through it isn't linear, not chronological, it's thought to thought, memory to memory. The image jumps to a new one, with no magical auras displayed, though the colors that are shown remain too-vibrant. There is now a small girl, who looks a little older than that tiny Liyara from before. She has long and lustrous black hair with red streaks running through it, and she is slowly running a brush down the length while looking at a tome in front of her. She is studying the book closely, and not looking at the viewer at all. She is abstractly beautiful in that very specific way that some children can be - clearly hinting at the person they'll become, but still small and evoking the need to be protected. This girl has no horns, and her wings are folded elegantly down the small of her back. While she appears to be about ten years old, she has none of those awkwardly sized features or nervous tics associated with a child still growing and learning. No, she looks like a woman writ small. Without turning, the girl, Luna probably, tells the viewer in a voice sounding like bells ringing in the new year, that it isn't going to work if she simply tries to force it. The trick is to emulate what the spell gets from the weave. Remember that our blood is stronger than the ambient magic in the air, you have to dilute it, it's about precision. You'll get it soon enough, the girl assures the viewer, and then she finally spares a glance their way, and her expression softens. The image flickers back to the hallway with the suit of armor, auras jumping back into view, and Liyara takes a deep breath, looking away from the image as if it isn't coming from her own head anyway. With careful control, the image pulls away from the hallways of the keep, showing a montage now of her world.
There are rules for all things, and while some are flexible, meant to be teased and cajoled, others are rigid and immutable. In the year 1359, the Time of Troubles, every single one of these rules was being tested. Gods fell, and their replacements walked among men. The weave was in turmoil, and paranoia was rampant. Rumors abounded that Asmodeus was growing a small army of corrupted dragons to blight and scour the land, and were believed as a manner of course. For if there was one rule everyone could agree on, it was that Asmodeus is cruel, and his cunning without limit.
Yoiko can't help but snicker at Liyara's joke, but she stays quiet - especially as voices begin to call out from the moving images being displayed. She tilts her head as she watches, trying to figure out the context, but casting an occasional side glance at Liyara worried about how much she seems to be straining. Still, the fact that she was able to play around is a good sign. Maybe she's not quite as lost as she seemed to have been getting. There was a moment where Yoiko almost asked what the point of being shown this was, but as the story continues she slides over to her notebook and starts taking notes again. Her eyes constantly flickering back up to the memory being presented.
The images show kingdoms, armies, a whole host of visual effects that don't quite make sense - fiery explosions that don't ignite vegetation - lightning that springs from fingertips rather than arcing from ground to sky - crowds of people. Eventually they settle back on a mountain. A child. A child that Yoiko recognizes because she was just standing in her runabout minutes ago. But in spite of the rumors, none knew where to look for these dragons, and for years Lux's anti-scrying magic kept it that way. Noone in Toril could find them.
And so in the dormant volcano of Mount Hotenow, a family grew. Exceptional. Brilliant. Happy. Safe. Until the humans came. Until the day I--
Five people in medieval garb, striding down the keep hall. Two women, three men, in silhouette. The auras surrounding them are blinding, incredibly potent and varied, the mix of colors indistinguishable with the amount of magical artifacts they carry. This is an adventuring party. This is the adventuring party. "--I... Until the day I lost everything." Her register changes, that dramatic high cant narrative collapsing into a first person accounting. Her voice trembles once, then grows still. Interesting, because she won't stop shaking. "I often dream of that moment." The room gets colder as Liyara's warmth retreats from it. The dragon's eyes focus somewhere beyond the runabout walls. She's in that mountain, a hundred years ago. It's happening now. "If I had made a different choice..." A five year old girl is afraid. She is told to get her siblings and run. She hides. She's never been afraid before. It's just until she gets her fear under control. "...If I'd found you sooner..." It was only a few minutes. "...If you had been the ones to survive that day." If she'd done something, anything. If she'd been brave. "You would be far more impressive than I am now." A small, horned girl counts eight dead children on the ground. She watches a great dragon's head roll slowly towards her. Her mother's gaze finds her as it goes dark. The girl takes them with her. "She still carries them now."
At some point, Yoiko had dropped what was in her hands. The notepad had ended up on the floor and the pen rolling somewhere on the ground beside it. Right now she's watching wide-eyed with her hands clamped over her mouth. It takes her a long moment of silence before she can react and when she does that protective instinct hits her at full force. Yoiko practically tackles Liyara, wrapping her up in her arms and holding tightly. It doesn't matter that this is an adult woman she's been running around with non-stop for what feels like years. Right now all Yoiko can see is the pain she must be holding inside and she wants to do everything she can to hug it away. Liyara will likely feel the Trill woman's own tears falling on her as well as hearing an odd, instinctive shushing sound. Unless pushed away, Yoiko will likely continue to hold her like that, rocking her gently for at least a few moments before she'll even realize she's doing it. When she comes back to her senses, she'll wipe her own eyes and let Liyara mostly go save for an arm kept around her shoulders. "That's too much to deal with at that age. I don't know how you survived it."
When Yoiko tackle-hugs Liyara, there is no give. The skin is soft but the muscles underneath are rigid, unmoving, like they've frozen in place to brace for pain they must've known was coming. Golden scales have crept up around her throat and eyes, her signature invulnerability evocation, inherited from Liandrin, doing absolutely nothing to protect her from this. The dragon's eyes - Liyara's eyes - shift back from one time to this one, and they fall on Yoiko. The muscles relax, the scales recede, and the room grows warmer once again. Yoiko brought her back. Because of course Yoiko brought her back. The others--
"...The others didn't, so I had to." Her voice is small, quiet, without the imperious sense she usually layers over it. Just a woman, in this moment. Nothing more. "Have to. Present tense." She corrects herself quietly, and then slowly wraps an arm around Yoiko's waist to match the Trill's arm around her shoulders.
There's a soft sigh of relief when the room begins to warm again, and not just because Yoiko is always cold, but because it seems to be working. She squeezes the poor woman's shoulder once more before gently rubbing circles on Liyara's back. She wants to tell her everything will be alright. She wants to give her hope - they are in a very obvious multiverse setting, after all. Infinite worlds, infinite possibilities, so maybe they're all still alive out there somewhere? But she doesn't, because that would be cruel. Almost more cruel than that original act itself. Instead Yoiko literally bites her lip and sighs, "If nothing else, I'm here. You can lean on me all you need. I don't plan on going anywhere. I'm not going to judge. I'm not going to belittle you." She tries to give Liyara a warm smile despite the awful things she'd just witnessed. "I'm just here. For you. Right now." Yoiko leans over and kisses Liyara's temple, just to make damn sure she realizes she's here. She lets the moment hang in the air for a long, quiet while. But now she has to know, what happened to the people who did this to her? Surely they're not still alive somewhere out there? If the information isn't offered she'll eventually ask, but at least she knows better than to do so before Liyara is ready to talk about it again.
Liyara's eyes shimmer as they hold Yoiko's, and Yoiko can see in them something she's never seen on Liyara before. Genuine fear. Not of what she just went through. Of Yoiko. Of what Yoiko will say. Judgement? Maybe. "...Thank you." She finally says, and holds Yoiko close, as much for comfort as for that possessive instinct. "For not trying to make it ok." Ah, she knew. That's what she was afraid of. Not the judgement. The kindness. The kind of thoughtless kindness that could kill a woman who can't be hurt. The dragon is more than content to wait in silence, so when Yoiko finally asks, she nods slowly. "Talbot and Nea Uskevren. I killed them with my bare hands. They were the hardest - Nea was remorseful when she realized who I was. She didn't ask for forgiveness. She just said they were sorry. She apologized while her husband lay dead and she was bleeding to death. She meant it. The other three were..." Liyara tucks in her chin, closing her eyes. "...considerably easier." After a long moment, she opens those eyes again. "...I found the one who sent them, the Xanathar, a beholder crime-lord that runs the city of Waterdeep. And found that he was simply a middle-man, given the quest by the king of neverwinter himself. Nasher Alagondar. I let the Xanathar... live." That word is doing some impressive lifting in that sentence, as is the pause before it.
True to her word, Yoiko doesn't judge, but she nods knowing that revenge would have been first on her own priority list as well. Yes, her training forces her to remember that these where people with lives, families, and children. But sometimes retribution is just as valid as preserving life. "I'm not sure how I would react in that situation." Oh, yes she does. Daemon would have slaughtered them without hesitation. Linda would have found a way to crawl through hell if something had happened to her children. Yoiko would probably steal the ship if it meant making things right even if it meant a court-martial. The look in her eyes probably sells that better than her instinctive urge to play dumb. She hears the description of Xanathar with a raised brow, not quite understanding the term 'beholder' in this context, but definitely understanding the rest of the implication. "So, I imagine the King was the next person you sought out?" 'Sought out' sounded so much better than murdered.
Liyara looks Yoiko over, seeing that look in Yoiko's eyes, and nods slowly. "...It turns out I am very sure how I would react." She closes her eyes again, and takes a deep breath. There's another tremble, but it's calming. The breath is to help work that out. "He was, and you already know what happened to him. How my killing him played into my father's plans. How it may have been the entire reason my father sired us. I don't know. It is hard to tell how his mind works. For all our strengths, none of us were our father, not even Lucian." She opens her eyes, wondering, not for the first time, if her brother would have been able to figure the plot out. Or Luna. Or Lisan. Any of the smart ones, and not just... her.
Yoiko grabs the hand around her own waist and guides it from her back onto her knee and holds it tightly, locking their fingers together. She tries to think of the best way to react to that, but decides against tact and goes for lightening the mood instead, "I guess Father's Day is not your favorite holiday?" Wait, did they even have a 'fathers day' where Liyara comes from? Welp, too late to take it back now. "I think after all of this we need to put our plans on hold. Trying to bring down everything half-cocked has kinda lost its momentum in light of all of this." She gives a weak smile and sighs, "Let's put the world on hold and find some place to let off some steam. Maybe grab a bite to eat?" She adds after a moment's thought, "Something positively neutral. No adventures. No drama." She gives a weak grin again, "And no bookstores. I promise."
"Father's day?" Liyara looks aghast at the question - both never having heard of it and finding it repellent in the same moment. Mission accomplished. "Why would anyone?" Right, because... fathers are not historically her favorite, as surmised. When Yoiko suggests they put their plans on hold, Liyara furrows her brow. "...I'm not afraid of them, Yoiko." Well, no, but that's kind of the problem, isn't it? Liyara doesn't do afraid anymore. Not anywhere except in this room, in this moment, where it's safe and it didn't cost the world entire. Her stomach rumbles immediately, though, betraying her. "Apparently I am hungry though."
Before Liyara can comment on whether or not she was afraid, Yoiko interrupts to explain. "Father's Day. It's an Earth holiday. There's a Mother's Day too." She shakes her head softly, "Humans like having excuses to have holidays, I guess." Of course she knows Liyara isn't afraid of anyone. She could see that in everything she's been told. So instead of responding, she raises an eyebrow, ready to argue that no one was calling her afraid. Until that low grumble distracts them both. "AH-HAH!" As if she knew this somehow. "See? It was a good plan after all. The plan is not to have a plan!" She adds after a moment of thought, "Have you had pizza yet?" | |
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