This is what it comes down to: Aloy left, and everything went on without her.
When Aloy reunites with Talanah in No Man's Land, she's forced to reckon with another consequence of having left.
This is what it comes down to: Aloy left, and everything went on without her.
When Aloy reunites with Talanah in No Man's Land, she's forced to reckon with another consequence of having left.
Weekly flash fic freewrite challenge courtesy of @flashfictionfridayofficial :)
Fandom: Control Pairing: Jesse/Emily
Emily's pretty excited when Jesse checks in about the mirror.
"Before my time, but a perfect reflector—no pun intended—of the rudimentary concepts of dualdimensional transplanarity." Her eyes gleam under the close narrow press of the Board Room's overhead light. "Imagine it like this."
She slides her clipboard in front of Jesse, finding a blank space on the top page to scratch two parallel lines with her carefully-brandless ballpoint.
"There's the dimension we're currently inhabiting, and the one propagated through the mirror. Synchronous, congruent, and—fittingly—diametrical to one another."
She taps the lines in turn, then caps each with an arrow at opposite ends. Her hand is quick and easy and slender, blue-veined through pale skin. Sway of kinesis. Jesse follows.
"Without influence, they'd just carry on forever in their respective directions, never intersecting. But add the mirror..." With a decisive flourish, she slashes a third line across the others. "And you have a way to travel between."
Jesse thinks of low-budget sci-fi movies watched after midnight on motel televisions in overlooked towns of the flyover states. "Kind of like a wormhole?"
Emily grins. In some intangible place near the base of Jesse's skull, Polaris shimmers the kind of shimmer Jesse can't interpret.
"Kind of like a wormhole," Emily repeats in confirmation, nodding. "Now, is the conduit the mirror itself, or something within the witness's perception? We don't know. Historically, testing it has been—ethically problematic."
Jesse leaps to fill the gap. "There was another me in there. She...wasn't the most welcoming. I think the Hiss got to her. Maybe she was different before." Another thought snags, and Jesse can't tell if Polaris pulses before or after it occurs. "Do you think there's another you in there, too?"
A weird opposite Emily sitting in a weird opposite Board Room. A place where weird opposite Jesse might have returned. Parallel and concurrent, just as here. One not without the other.
Emily smiles like she hadn't considered that herself.
doodles of my caitvi fankids through the years
Setting a new habit of doing one flash fic freewrite every Friday, following @flashfictionfridayofficial's prompts. Fandoms/ships/etc. will vary, but I'm gonna do my best to hold myself to it. :)
Fandom: Horizon Ship: Aloy/Talanah
Last night the arrows in this pile were half-made, bare-shafted. Now they're finished and ready. Talanah picks one up and inspects it, tracing her thumb along the fresh fletching. The feathers are well-set, well-vaned, trimmed in the angular Carja style rather than the rounded way Aloy usually shapes her own.
By way of morning greeting, Talanah asks, "You finished these for me?"
Aloy looks up from the arrowcraft in her lap. There's strand of sinew held between her teeth and she smiles around it—small, but fond. Her eyes smile, too, green to gold and back again. No shadows in the growing desert dawnlight. Nowhere to hide, and she knows. She's been sitting here, waiting for Talanah to wake, and she's letting it show.
"I was up first." An easy shrug. Delicately, she spits the binding away as Talanah comes to sit beside her at the low-burning cookfire. "And I know you don't really like fletching."
Talanah sets the arrow aside and gives her a silent look, bemused. Can't remember telling her that or grumbling any offhand mentions. Aloy's cheeks color under the scrutiny and she hastens to explain.
"It's the glue. You do this—this thing, with your fingers?" She demonstrates, rubbing her fingertips together and pantomiming a tight-lipped grimace. Talanah's fairly sure she's never made that particular face before, but. Details. "Whenever you touch it. I can tell the feeling bothers you. So I figured I'd just…"
It trails off. Her gaze dips, but she can't keep it away for long. When she glances up through her lashes, it makes Talanah feel like she drank the whole sunrise in one sweet, greedy swallow.
"You notice a lot," she says, softly, all gratitude let loose.
Another shrug and another crooked smile, shyer. Flush fills every space between Aloy's freckles. "Yeah, well."
In the knowing quiet that follows, Aloy pulls her attention back to her own half-fletched arrow. Talanah leaves a kiss on the corner of her shoulder before rising to tend the fire.
Setting a new habit of doing one flash fic freewrite every Friday, following @flashfictionfridayofficial's prompts. Fandoms/ships/etc. will vary, but I'm gonna do my best to hold myself to it. :)
Fandom: Horizon Ship: Aloy/Talanah
Last night the arrows in this pile were half-made, bare-shafted. Now they're finished and ready. Talanah picks one up and inspects it, tracing her thumb along the fresh fletching. The feathers are well-set, well-vaned, trimmed in the angular Carja style rather than the rounded way Aloy usually shapes her own.
By way of morning greeting, Talanah asks, "You finished these for me?"
Aloy looks up from the arrowcraft in her lap. There's strand of sinew held between her teeth and she smiles around it—small, but fond. Her eyes smile, too, green to gold and back again. No shadows in the growing desert dawnlight. Nowhere to hide, and she knows. She's been sitting here, waiting for Talanah to wake, and she's letting it show.
"I was up first." An easy shrug. Delicately, she spits the binding away as Talanah comes to sit beside her at the low-burning cookfire. "And I know you don't really like fletching."
Talanah sets the arrow aside and gives her a silent look, bemused. Can't remember telling her that or grumbling any offhand mentions. Aloy's cheeks color under the scrutiny and she hastens to explain.
"It's the glue. You do this—this thing, with your fingers?" She demonstrates, rubbing her fingertips together and pantomiming a tight-lipped grimace. Talanah's fairly sure she's never made that particular face before, but. Details. "Whenever you touch it. I can tell the feeling bothers you. So I figured I'd just…"
It trails off. Her gaze dips, but she can't keep it away for long. When she glances up through her lashes, it makes Talanah feel like she drank the whole sunrise in one sweet, greedy swallow.
"You notice a lot," she says, softly, all gratitude let loose.
Another shrug and another crooked smile, shyer. Flush fills every space between Aloy's freckles. "Yeah, well."
In the knowing quiet that follows, Aloy pulls her attention back to her own half-fletched arrow. Talanah leaves a kiss on the corner of her shoulder before rising to tend the fire.
Commission for @kyaasnow of Vi making a snow angel to match the art of Caitlyn from Riot!
