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Mermaids... IN SPACE -- Blue's intro, bis.
Second try at an intro for Blue... Telepathic Blue this time around. Same problems as the first, I can't remember how the hell you describe someone in deep POV like that. He's not going to think "Hmm, my black eyes and defined cheekbones look ravishing today." But he's getting called goddamn BLUE, there should be a way to slip why in the text. *grumbles* If you have suggestions, plz don't hesitate. Same if I made a typo or forgot a grammar rule or something, prettypleasethankyou ♥
Why do I like bitchy grumps so much. XD
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This was shaping up to be a bad day, and it had nothing to do with the fact that he was drifting the wrong way up in the middle of the cargo bay.
Blue's head hurt. It had been hurting when he woke up at the start of his shift -- before that, even, if he trusted the wisps of dream he still remembered. That was nothing extraordinary, though at least it wasn't yet what he would call common. He'd stepped in old, bunched-up overalls, and gone to work on that faulty hydroponics regulator right away, unwilling to brave the kitchen and its comings and goings, its morning greetings and morning grouchiness, and its too-large share of morning people who liked to laugh too loud as they stole your coffee.
Some of them even touched you. Blue didn't want coffee that badly.
Oriana and Dhaval were worried; Dhaval more than her, but from farther away. Blue closed his eyes against the red flickers of the warning light and waited. Someone would notice that no one was reestablishing the gravity soon enough -- ah, there went the crackle of the comm.
'Control to engine room, what the hell happened?'
Well, Blue hadn't been in there yet today, so, not a clue. His first guess would be prehistoric components deciding to shuffle off this mortal coil. His second guess, rats.
'Control to engine room, is there someone in there?'
If there wasn't, how would they respond? Or they could have knocked themselves unconscious, or lost their grip -- like Blue -- and ended up out of reach of the talk button on the comm. unit. For a pilot, Dhaval really fretted too much.
'Khiaw here, going to the machine room. Sevag, be there. Khiaw, over.'
And now the captain was calling him by his name. Great. Just great. Even better when Khiaw would have to look for Blue, since he wasn't even in the engine room in the first place. Fuck.
"Coming with you, captain!" a woman hollered cheerfully from a close-by corridor.
... Fuck, and fuck again. Alind was going to have a field day. Well, he might as well bite the bullet.
"I'm here," he called when the light echo of her leaps through the corridor grew close enough that he didn't have to yell. The hermetic door slid open with an enthusiastic woosh, and Blue crooked his neck to give the woman peeking through a weary look.
To her credit, she barely snickered; but it didn't matter much because he knew she was laughing herself breathless inside. "Hey there. Captain's looking for you, Sevie-dearie."
Blue narrowed his eyes, and twisted his body, kicking in the void, trying to flip over to face her. "Do you like having heat in your cabin?"
Pointy chin, strong, blade-like nose, narrow blue eyes; Alind wasn't pretty, per se -- she had the kind of face her mother would call 'distinctive,' her friends 'striking,' and everyone else 'You were Head Bitch in high school, weren't you.' The smirk on her thin lips didn't help softening it any. "Aw, come on, it's not that bad. Sev--"
"Don't even."
"Gee, it's only your name."
Only his name, and she'd only been told she could use any nickname she wanted, provided it didn't prompt him to violence, a total of twice a week for the last two years. "Sevag" wasn't one of the violence-free names, or not for her, at any rate.
The crew had gone through many variations on 'kid,' 'mechanic,' 'wrench-boy,' 'the tall one,' 'Marcelo,' 'Archibald,' 'Gunther,' 'Bob,' 'Rex,' and of course, 'hey, you,' before that fateful day where a practical joker got his or her hands on Oriana's discarded midnight-blue hair dye. The joke was on them; he liked it. Blue had been his name ever since. But if Alind didn't approve, she was free to go back to Rex.
Rolling her eyes, Alind kicked off from the door. She bounced a couple of times along the walls -- therefore leaving him still floating dumbly, ass over head -- and launched herself toward the other end of the cargo bay, where she clicked on the comm. button with more strength than it really needed. "Cargo bay to control and captain, I found our errant mechanic. He was just too busy learning to dogpaddle in G-zero to bother answering. Captain, I'm fishing him out and we're meeting you at the engine room. Alind, over."
Blue gritted his teeth and braced himself for a touch on his bare arms as his crewmate kicked off the wall. Of course, Alind chose to aim for his leg instead, snagging a booted ankle on her way back to the door. He didn't know whether to be annoyed or grateful. Her trajectory missed the perfect axis that went through his center of gravity, though, so by the time they floated back toward the corridor's side, they had built up enough of a spin around each other that he was the one who touched the wall first.
"This is where I accidentally lose my boot and you get to float a bit," he commented, his fingers catching on the handhold that went around the door to pull his body toward the floor.
Alind snorted, and reached up his leg to get a solid hold on the back of his tool belt. "Not on your life, brat."
Nice ass, he caught, pity about the potato-bag-clothes/too-friggin-tall/personality, and almost kicked her off his back in reaction. "Hey!"
The annoying woman grabbed one of his shoulder straps, scaled his back to reach the door's control panel. Blue tried to shrug her off when the door opened and he rolled into the corridor, but Alind only smirked at him and used his shoulder as a launching pad.
Blue glared at her back as she bounced ahead. Her head was full of I win, I win, and assorted gloating amusement. Blue wanted to growl, "Like hell you win," and race her to the engine room -- and possibly step on her head as revenge; having her smooth, well-combed blond bob messed up would teach her -- but his head might split and fall off if he got within touching distance again. Besides, she would only sniff at him haughtily and ask him where he'd gotten the childish idea that they were competing in the first place.
Blue reached the engine room to see Alind's thin frame already bent over their captain's shoulder.
"You were supposed to finish your night two hours ago," Khiaw commented without even looking back at the newcomer. "Not in the cargo bay."
"I wasn't napping," Blue gritted out as he floated to the ceiling. He wedged the tip of his shoe over a lamp and bent backwards for a better overview of the faulty generator. There was nothing to see from there.
"Hm. Of course."
Khiaw, as always, was a smooth pool of blanked, deliberately neutral awareness, and the rare ripples on his surface didn't mean much of anything to Blue. His expression didn't say much either; heavy-lidded eyes reserved, elegantly arched eyebrows at rest. Whether the captain believed Blue or not was anyone's guess. Right now, it was kind of aggravating.
"Alind, get out," Blue growled without looking at her. "You're blocking the light."
Flipping over, he pulled himself between the watchers and the engine, and slipped his upper body between the generator and the floor, sticking a thin torch lamp between his teeth for a better look at the depths of the machine. Alind's irritation was distracting, though, and her moving back to float by the door didn't help much. Somewhere beyond, there was a sharp burst of frustration -- Darel -- and yet more of Dhaval's fretting, dead in space, how long, not enough air. Muttering swear words between his clenched teeth, Blue wrenched out a panel that wouldn't unscrew fast enough, throwing it down his body.
"Hey, careful," Alind said, nowhere near close to where the panel had bumped in the wall.
The captain's mind gave another of those strange ripples that meant he was paying attention, and meant exactly nothing else. Blue should have found soothing not to have a ton of thoughts, emotions, and everything else in between, forced on him. But knowing that the reaction was there in the first place was bothersome enough, and wondering what the hell it was about added insult to injury.
"Headache again?"
"It's nothing," Blue grumbled.
He wanted to answer 'It's none of your business,' but it was Khiaw's business. And if he'd noticed, it was because Blue was doing a shitty job of keeping it to himself. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and tried to ignore the few snatches of strangely romantic songs Vartan was singing to himself, a few doors down in the kitchen. Alind was thinking frosty thoughts that made him lift his knees a bit, in case she really did throw the panel right back at his groin. Darel was now down to swearing at some kind of computer program, with numbers and parentheses and weird symbols doing a twisty, highly regulated dance that meant jack shit to Blue but it still wouldn't stop, and his head, god, his head...
Khiaw's foot tapped against the sole of Blue's boot. "The generator, Sevag, if you please."
...Right. Metal, cold under his hand, soothing, quiet like the tomb. Nice metal. Plastic... Alimentation switch -- he flicked it off and unplugged, just in case. His head didn't hurt enough for him to forget that. He slid his hands inside again, slow, gentle, cautious. Panels and wires, a bit of rust, bolts and isolation foam and fur --
He had enough time for a resigned "Fuck" before the rat bit him.
Why do I like bitchy grumps so much. XD
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This was shaping up to be a bad day, and it had nothing to do with the fact that he was drifting the wrong way up in the middle of the cargo bay.
Blue's head hurt. It had been hurting when he woke up at the start of his shift -- before that, even, if he trusted the wisps of dream he still remembered. That was nothing extraordinary, though at least it wasn't yet what he would call common. He'd stepped in old, bunched-up overalls, and gone to work on that faulty hydroponics regulator right away, unwilling to brave the kitchen and its comings and goings, its morning greetings and morning grouchiness, and its too-large share of morning people who liked to laugh too loud as they stole your coffee.
Some of them even touched you. Blue didn't want coffee that badly.
Oriana and Dhaval were worried; Dhaval more than her, but from farther away. Blue closed his eyes against the red flickers of the warning light and waited. Someone would notice that no one was reestablishing the gravity soon enough -- ah, there went the crackle of the comm.
'Control to engine room, what the hell happened?'
Well, Blue hadn't been in there yet today, so, not a clue. His first guess would be prehistoric components deciding to shuffle off this mortal coil. His second guess, rats.
'Control to engine room, is there someone in there?'
If there wasn't, how would they respond? Or they could have knocked themselves unconscious, or lost their grip -- like Blue -- and ended up out of reach of the talk button on the comm. unit. For a pilot, Dhaval really fretted too much.
'Khiaw here, going to the machine room. Sevag, be there. Khiaw, over.'
And now the captain was calling him by his name. Great. Just great. Even better when Khiaw would have to look for Blue, since he wasn't even in the engine room in the first place. Fuck.
"Coming with you, captain!" a woman hollered cheerfully from a close-by corridor.
... Fuck, and fuck again. Alind was going to have a field day. Well, he might as well bite the bullet.
"I'm here," he called when the light echo of her leaps through the corridor grew close enough that he didn't have to yell. The hermetic door slid open with an enthusiastic woosh, and Blue crooked his neck to give the woman peeking through a weary look.
To her credit, she barely snickered; but it didn't matter much because he knew she was laughing herself breathless inside. "Hey there. Captain's looking for you, Sevie-dearie."
Blue narrowed his eyes, and twisted his body, kicking in the void, trying to flip over to face her. "Do you like having heat in your cabin?"
Pointy chin, strong, blade-like nose, narrow blue eyes; Alind wasn't pretty, per se -- she had the kind of face her mother would call 'distinctive,' her friends 'striking,' and everyone else 'You were Head Bitch in high school, weren't you.' The smirk on her thin lips didn't help softening it any. "Aw, come on, it's not that bad. Sev--"
"Don't even."
"Gee, it's only your name."
Only his name, and she'd only been told she could use any nickname she wanted, provided it didn't prompt him to violence, a total of twice a week for the last two years. "Sevag" wasn't one of the violence-free names, or not for her, at any rate.
The crew had gone through many variations on 'kid,' 'mechanic,' 'wrench-boy,' 'the tall one,' 'Marcelo,' 'Archibald,' 'Gunther,' 'Bob,' 'Rex,' and of course, 'hey, you,' before that fateful day where a practical joker got his or her hands on Oriana's discarded midnight-blue hair dye. The joke was on them; he liked it. Blue had been his name ever since. But if Alind didn't approve, she was free to go back to Rex.
Rolling her eyes, Alind kicked off from the door. She bounced a couple of times along the walls -- therefore leaving him still floating dumbly, ass over head -- and launched herself toward the other end of the cargo bay, where she clicked on the comm. button with more strength than it really needed. "Cargo bay to control and captain, I found our errant mechanic. He was just too busy learning to dogpaddle in G-zero to bother answering. Captain, I'm fishing him out and we're meeting you at the engine room. Alind, over."
Blue gritted his teeth and braced himself for a touch on his bare arms as his crewmate kicked off the wall. Of course, Alind chose to aim for his leg instead, snagging a booted ankle on her way back to the door. He didn't know whether to be annoyed or grateful. Her trajectory missed the perfect axis that went through his center of gravity, though, so by the time they floated back toward the corridor's side, they had built up enough of a spin around each other that he was the one who touched the wall first.
"This is where I accidentally lose my boot and you get to float a bit," he commented, his fingers catching on the handhold that went around the door to pull his body toward the floor.
Alind snorted, and reached up his leg to get a solid hold on the back of his tool belt. "Not on your life, brat."
Nice ass, he caught, pity about the potato-bag-clothes/too-friggin-tall/personality, and almost kicked her off his back in reaction. "Hey!"
The annoying woman grabbed one of his shoulder straps, scaled his back to reach the door's control panel. Blue tried to shrug her off when the door opened and he rolled into the corridor, but Alind only smirked at him and used his shoulder as a launching pad.
Blue glared at her back as she bounced ahead. Her head was full of I win, I win, and assorted gloating amusement. Blue wanted to growl, "Like hell you win," and race her to the engine room -- and possibly step on her head as revenge; having her smooth, well-combed blond bob messed up would teach her -- but his head might split and fall off if he got within touching distance again. Besides, she would only sniff at him haughtily and ask him where he'd gotten the childish idea that they were competing in the first place.
Blue reached the engine room to see Alind's thin frame already bent over their captain's shoulder.
"You were supposed to finish your night two hours ago," Khiaw commented without even looking back at the newcomer. "Not in the cargo bay."
"I wasn't napping," Blue gritted out as he floated to the ceiling. He wedged the tip of his shoe over a lamp and bent backwards for a better overview of the faulty generator. There was nothing to see from there.
"Hm. Of course."
Khiaw, as always, was a smooth pool of blanked, deliberately neutral awareness, and the rare ripples on his surface didn't mean much of anything to Blue. His expression didn't say much either; heavy-lidded eyes reserved, elegantly arched eyebrows at rest. Whether the captain believed Blue or not was anyone's guess. Right now, it was kind of aggravating.
"Alind, get out," Blue growled without looking at her. "You're blocking the light."
Flipping over, he pulled himself between the watchers and the engine, and slipped his upper body between the generator and the floor, sticking a thin torch lamp between his teeth for a better look at the depths of the machine. Alind's irritation was distracting, though, and her moving back to float by the door didn't help much. Somewhere beyond, there was a sharp burst of frustration -- Darel -- and yet more of Dhaval's fretting, dead in space, how long, not enough air. Muttering swear words between his clenched teeth, Blue wrenched out a panel that wouldn't unscrew fast enough, throwing it down his body.
"Hey, careful," Alind said, nowhere near close to where the panel had bumped in the wall.
The captain's mind gave another of those strange ripples that meant he was paying attention, and meant exactly nothing else. Blue should have found soothing not to have a ton of thoughts, emotions, and everything else in between, forced on him. But knowing that the reaction was there in the first place was bothersome enough, and wondering what the hell it was about added insult to injury.
"Headache again?"
"It's nothing," Blue grumbled.
He wanted to answer 'It's none of your business,' but it was Khiaw's business. And if he'd noticed, it was because Blue was doing a shitty job of keeping it to himself. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and tried to ignore the few snatches of strangely romantic songs Vartan was singing to himself, a few doors down in the kitchen. Alind was thinking frosty thoughts that made him lift his knees a bit, in case she really did throw the panel right back at his groin. Darel was now down to swearing at some kind of computer program, with numbers and parentheses and weird symbols doing a twisty, highly regulated dance that meant jack shit to Blue but it still wouldn't stop, and his head, god, his head...
Khiaw's foot tapped against the sole of Blue's boot. "The generator, Sevag, if you please."
...Right. Metal, cold under his hand, soothing, quiet like the tomb. Nice metal. Plastic... Alimentation switch -- he flicked it off and unplugged, just in case. His head didn't hurt enough for him to forget that. He slid his hands inside again, slow, gentle, cautious. Panels and wires, a bit of rust, bolts and isolation foam and fur --
He had enough time for a resigned "Fuck" before the rat bit him.
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Only one thing leapt out at me:
"Her trajectory missed the perfect axe that went through his center of gravity"
I got stuck on why an axe would be flowing around unsecured and why it would be a bad thing to miss colliding with a sharp object. I think you were looking for "axis".
*wonders why the hell Firefox and LiveJournal think "leapt" is not a word, has she discovered yet another "archaic" word in her vocabulary?*
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oops, thanks! *fixes* ♥
... b-but I like "leapt"... ;__;
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*pets her "archaic" words; bets if she used forasmuch and heretofore more often she could collapse the internet*
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Is it my imagination, or did the crew increase since last time?
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Nope, but the last time I only mentioned the three who had some relevance at the time, the captain (Khiaw) and the hacker (Darel) but there have always been eight total, counting Blue.
BTW I've decided that the scale for human powers goes from 0 to 10, and your power is only workable if you reach a 2, but most people are between 1 and 2. (But the baseline is actually closer to 3 if they come from an ex-evil reign world, so having half of the people on board with a subtle gift is par for the course.)
-Blue -- Kem Sevag. (M, mechanic -- motors --, fighter) [wary, grouchy asshole, receptive empath, 4,5/10]
-Lujayn (Arabic: silver) Aswad (Arabic: Black)(F, weapons specialist, fighter, astronaut) [cold badass bitch, 0,5/10]
-Dhaval (Sanskrit: White, pure) (M, pilot, astronaut) [serene at the commands, rest of the time frets, 1,2/10] (ferret handler)
-Alind (Albanian: Gold) (F, navigator, computer tech) [smug, shallow. 1,7/10]
-Khiaw (Thai : green) (M, captain, strategist, fighter, secondary mechanic -- life supports) [traits a little too sharp to be handsome, but striking regardless. smirky mastermind. trust meee~projective empathy, 3,6/10]
-Vartan (Armenian: Rose) (M, cook, fighter) [big guy, looks solemn and somber, likes romance novels and love ballads, 1,3/10]
-Oriana (Spanish: gold) (F, spy, contact, learned aeroponics) [dyes her hair a different color every month, green-hand ability, 3/10](cat handler)
-Darel (Aboriginal : blue sky) (M, communications, hacker, conman) [inane babble, computer-affinity, 2,5/10]
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... well that just takes me back to Kaa, in Disney's version of the Jungle Book. XD
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Also, poor Blue. *offers him tea and some ibuprofen for the headache*
*snuggle*
XD He does need it, the poor dear.
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This sounds a bit strange to me for some reason... "stepped into" maybe?
Hmmm, maybe the metal of the generator is really shiny and he catches an exasperated glimpse of himself as the rat bites him or something? I dunno. >__o
Oh, and by the way...
GLEE.
I love this story lots and am glad it's coming a bit easier with the introduction of the whole telepathy concept.
...And is it weird that when you were talking about the whole mad-scientist-mutation shtick, I totally saw a vegeta-look-alike in my head hanging by his tail on some random planet completely enveloped by forest? xD; Geeze, it's been ages since I've even thought about that series. Mmm but the possibilities... especially now that you've added more of a supernatural element. ;D
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*^________^* thank you -- OH MY GOD I CAN SEE IT TOO. MERMAIDS VS TOO-STRONG MONKEY-GUYS. ahahahahaha. Oh yeeeeah baby. Crossover me. :3
... saiyans are telepaths too, aren't they? at least a little bit. ... hohohohohohohohoho. >D
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YEY I'M NOT CRAZY! :D
or at least crazy alone... <3I believe they are, at least with each other. And since they have a bit originally, you can always warp things a little and smack an "ARTISTIC(authors?) LICENSE LAWL" sticker on it. xD
((repost because my use of teh shifty eyes makes the html go all wonky >__o ))
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(Anonymous) 2007-09-25 09:06 am (UTC)(link)Otherwise I'm really liking this! It's so brilliant and I can't wait for more!
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Blue should have found soothing not to have a ton of thoughts, emotions, and everything else in between, forced on him.
...should have found -it- soothing...
Also, the last comma is unnecessary and confuses the sentence a bit- I'd leave it off.
Everything else looks great.
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Alind was just plain annoying, but you seem to want her to be so. Anyway, back to Blue, he finally got a distinct voice, and the snarky personality matches it quite well. This reads quite smoothly. :)
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*Has nothing really useful to add*
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