Now comes the hard part. Reba has no knowledge of telepathy save for the shared hallucinations she can sometimes effect, which she uses to communicate with those she's close to, such as, most notably, her mother. Emery, she's known only for a while, but he's on her mind heavily now, and Reba's focus is intense at the moment, her emergy all dedicated to finding the connections she needs, no matter across how many dimensions they're furled. She'd using brain coral for this readjustment, not her most common choice, but the coral-like source of her thoughts seemed to warrant it. As Reba twists around in the three-dimensional space of Purple World, as she knows this universe, for a moment she would appear to be shimmering and flat, a foil cutout set adrift. Then she's back, except that 'down' is now away from the Picadillo, aft and toward the place she hopes Emery must be if he's not safe. She imagines seeing him there in front of her...and soojn, in the drowning Emery's mind, the sight of Reba swimmi
ng toward him hopefully manifests. {Are you there? Is it you? Am I drowing myself for no one?}
Emery can barely concentrate on keeping his mouth closed and his lungs free of water, much less anything external. But somehow, somehow... a tugging is on the edge of his senses. Something keeps drifting in and out of sight, out... *that* way. He twists in the water, and suddenly things don't seem as painful anymore. He can feel something touch his mind, on the verge of his senses, and mindlessly yells into the void of his own mind. /For me! Drowning!/ is all he can think, but actually broadcasting is a somewhat remote possibility.
Aleyn lets out a sharp yip at the muffled report of the pistol, and snuggles up in Migo's arms. He finds comfort enough that he begins to make a sound not unlike purring, and he almost seems to be drifting off.
Reba doesn't hear what's in Emery's mind. She's not Jin; she can't do that. But, even though he's not in her legitimate range of sight, she can see him, flailing and drifting and losing the battle with water, like any element fierce in volume. And this is seawater, adding the insult of undrinkability, even if it does add buoyancy. Reba much prefers her own preferred VIP supply of water, which is expanding around her and moving with her, a cloud of strange stuff that's distressing what wildlife encounters it. Fish may not fare well in this stuff, but Reba doesn't care too much about the fish. She now knows that Emery is in great danger and that she must fall more quickly. Reba is now traveling through the water at the speed she would be falling were she still. She isn't really swimming, but coming toward Emery...and now, with her mind, she focuses the rift between here and the Funnel to point in the direction she senses--or 'hallucinates'--that Emery is. This travels much faster, a jet of pure, strangely oxygenated water, heading for the fox--neither warm nor cold, empty of minerals, which will reach him...now.
<OOC> Migo says, "Sounds pleasant
"
<OOC> Reba can send some your way for $29.95. Allow for some settling of contents.
Migo continues the cradle Aleyn as he falls asleep, the unusual 'purring' a strange but rather pleasant sound. Smiling, he pats Aleyn's head and settles down where he sits, the rocking motion of the ship making him feel rather comfortable...
Emery can feel something new embracing him. It's odd and terrifying given his situation, since it's just more water, but his body tells him this is different. He has no choice. Breathe, or die, or both. He sucks in a gulp, and immediately begins coughing to force the air out and let the water in. Strangely, his lungs seem to accomodate this new liquid. He suddenly feels heavier, harder to move, but now he's alive, and *breathing.* Emery's heard of such strange techniques, where such water can allow for new and odd scientific processes, but he's never experienced it. Utterly confused, he looks around for the source of this unexpected salvation, trying to follow the stream to its source, clinging to it like it was solid rope.
Reba is at the end of that rope. It takes a full minute for the two to reach each other, thanks to the zeal of the marines and mate of the Picadillo who kept her onboard too long and prevented her from jumping off at the stern as she wanted. But Reba can feel that she was in time, albeit barely. She has a sense of a living, confused and grateful Emery Wickliff, and if this sensation is so pervasive in her brain, it must be real somewhere close. Still a few fathoms underwater, Reba gradually falls toward him. She's now worrying a little about the people of the Funnel, who are losing a lot of water...but she knows that they can adapt, and hopes that they will forgive.
Confused doesn't begin to describe the arctic fox. When he sees Reba swimming... or, well, doing something close to swimming, towards him, he nearly panics again, wondering if he's not already dead. He's come into contact with the fantastical so often and in such a short amount of time, he wonders for a moment why this surprises him so much. Of course, all those other times, he wasn't *underwater* with his lungs full of *breathable liquid.* This just takes the cake. He has none of Reba's magical mushrooms, and so can only swim as best he can, which is hard in this water. He reaches out for Reba's hand, taking it if he can, a look of wonderment and admiration locked in his features. He's at a loss as where to go from here, and gestures this with an incredulous shrug. If she starts talking underwater too, he'll be that much more confident that he's just dead.
===
It's so nice to see Emery here. She felt him, she felt his thoughts in faint quantities, and she even hallucinated him. But now she can see him really and truly, and it's a reassuring feeling, like air after minutes without. She hovers closer and closer and at last, gladly, takes his hand. There can be no talking here, but there is a unique kind of connection. Reba squeezes Emery's hand affectionately, and, smiling at his, responds to the shrug with a one-shouldered shrug of her own. She points up with a humble finger.
Emery can't believe what's happening. All he can appreciate is that he isn't drowning, and Reba's here. She's come to save his life... the feeling is really quite extraordinary. He's saved many lives and had his saved many times, but it never fails to make that certain connection little else can. She's a comrade now. Part of his squadron, his psyche. He floats in front of her, holding her hand and staring at her appraisingly, considering the way the water moves her fur about. In that instant, the possibility of falling in love with her isn't too far from his mind. But now isn't the time to think about that. He follows her finger up to the surface, roiling and boiling as it is with the storm. He squeezes her hand again and begins the swim up, wondering if she has more of those teleporting mushrooms to get them out of this mess.
Reba is quite a sight, light purple in the surrounding aquamarine light, nearly uniform, with the occasional shadow streaking the vista. There's lightning up there, by the look of it, but the sound is muffled of any thunder. The water around Emery and Reba is a different color than the rest. It's rushing fast, but it's not unpleasant, more like rushing down a slide at a water park. Reba seems to be very happy to see Emery, but the connection doesn't quite appear to be as serious for her. They rise, and the water stays temperatureless and breathable, but it's rocking a bit more. They pierce the surface...
And the water is surprisingly calm. Relatively speaking that is, at least compared to the last time Emery was above water. It's still rather hard to do anything except tread water and try to remain stationary. The Picadillo is... well, he *thinks* that's the Picadillo, way out there. But he doesn't want to run into another patrolling pirate ship. "I hope you have a plan," Emery confides to Reba, shouting above the storm even as it begins to recede. "Because I'm exhausted."
Reba's ears flare against the sound and in favor of her companion. She coughs up the water in her lungs rather sloppily, and as she stops chewing, the water rushing from...all around...seems to slake but not stop, causing a little mound of water to flow from around them, like a fountain in the desert...or an ocean. "Hi, Emerie!!" she yells over the tumult, the greeting apparently her first priority. She spots the ship...but isn't sure which one it is. "Sorry to hear that!" she yells, apparently not without cheer. But she frowns a moment later, recent event returning to haunt her. "Jin got captured. He got caught by some magic ropes and they took him away. I don't know what to do. Where do...where do you want to go?"
Emery isn't quite sure, but they do need to find a place to shelter from the storm. The Picadillo won't be able to pick them up until they get control of the ship and clear the bodies from their deck. Things look bad, especially with Jin captured. "How did-" he begins, but he decides he doesn't want to know and it won't help them survive. Magic ropes... why does the guy seem so powerful and so weak all at the same time? "That depends," he begins again, shaking his head as a wave smacks him in the face. "How did you get out here? More hopping? What are our options with that?" His lungs were still heaving and his legs were a little tired, but he hides it all behind his intiative to do something.
Reba tries to turn in the water away from the direction of the waves. She resumed chewing lightly, only now beginning to look a little worried. "No, I sank here. You know...like you sank into the ground that one time, only I was sinking toward you. I thought you might be in trouble. What are you doing out here, anyway, Em?" She shakes off a splash, looking disgruntled, and slowly unfastens her fanny pack, pulling it out of the water with some effort.
Emery sighs and shakes his head again, this time a melancholy motion more than anything else. "Sinking, but... in a bad way," he answers. "I tried to get off the pirate ship after we drove it away from the Picadillo. But Migo was captured too. I fought my way clear and jumped... while the storm was still going. Not one of my better ideas." He glances about again. They're in the middle of nowhere. "We should at least try to swim for the flotilla," he says. "But that'll waste a lot of energy. I doubt we'll get there." He curses under his breath. Glad as he is to see Reba, she shouldn't have come out here. Now they're *both* in danger. "Let's try and sink somewhere else. Anywhere is better than out here."
Reba nods. "I can't open my bag underwater," she explains, holding up hand for a moment to gain time from the understandably impatient fox. Water rages over and splashes Reba's bag, and she curses, trying to protect the contents. "You should know," she murmurs quietly without looking up, "I'm under the influences of blackies and some kind of amanita I haven't used before right now, so I'm probably a little weird and maybe I should be afraid now, but I'm not and I can't tell if I should be, because my fear's being suppressed...Do you think I should be afraid?" She holds out her drawstring bag of mushrooms and feels through it, not looking in to keep them from getting wet. "I'm pretty sure I've got one in here that'll let us walk on water..."
Emery finds that to be a very Good Thing. But how long will it last? "We'll get far, but once we drop back in..." he says in a silent warning. The first few waves will crush any distance they gain and they're back in the same spot unless they can get the attention of their ships. "Do you have anything that'll catch light? Or color the water, or something? We'll get nowhere if the Picadillo can't find us again!" He doesn't answer about the fear. He's just learned to deal with it. As long as he's calm, fear doesn't matter, even if he does feel it.
Reba blinks and looks up at Emery for a moment. "oh, don't worry about them finding us; if we want to go back there we can just go. Mpph!" Another wave hits her. "Okay, come on, let's get out of this stupid storm and then try the water walk. Just a mo'..." She's rather casual about this. "Ah, right! Phynodendricus! That's the stuff. Gotta counteract the base with something acidic...where did I put the..." The tension builds, and Reba seems to be getting a little tired, too, but eventually she pulls out a long squiggly green-white stem, flecked with shiny parts, and two tiny half-transparent crystaline minerals. She breaks the stem in half and gives one to Emery, along with a mineral chunk. "Put these in your mouth on opposite sides, but don't chew and don't let them touch." She does this easily, herself--she has a mouth built for that kind of thing, and is practised. Now she starts chewing again, and the nice, clean, breathable water gets higher around them...
Emery follows Reba's instructions and waits. There's little else to do, and then all of a sudden their circumstances change again. The water is rising around them, bubbling up in an almost panicky fashion. He stays calm and looks to Reba for guidance.
Reba, putting the pack around her waist, moves over to Emery and takes him in both arms, carefully, as water drips down everything. She sets her head on his shoulder and looks ahead. A bolt of lightning strikes the sea not far away. Reba shivers and sinks. "It's okay," she murmurs. "We don't have to talk. Let's just swim for a while."
Emery has to agree. The idea of walking around while the water is all smashy and loud isn't the best idea. And getting hit with lightning doesn't appeal much to him either. He takes Reba in his arms, keeping a tight hold on her lest they be inadvertantly separated, which would be even worse than what's going on now. "Sounds good," he says in a voice just above a whisper. "At least we won't get cold," he adds, even quieter. Not for a little while they won't, at least.
Reba shivers again, as if in defiance of this pronunciation. Yet, it's true that they don't feel cold, exactly. The pool of water that's streaming--from where? Reba shivers again, as if in defiance of this pronunciation. yet, it's true that they don't feel cold, exactly. The pool of water that's streaming--from where? Reba's head?--is refreshing. They sink a few fathoms under again, and take breaths of water that shock the system but don't cause any harm. Reba, surprisingly, sneezes. Fortunately, she keeps her goodies in place. Imagine if she lost her mouthful. She half-swims, half-sideways-sinks with Emery, and the time seems hard to measure...it's almost relaxing. Is this the chosen honeymoon for this pair of oddballs? No...no, of course not.
Emery glances up and around at the odd stream of water that encircles them both. He'd rather they stay down here where it's safe and somewhat relaxed. He doesn't have to swim very much, just fall all around with Reba. If it weren't for the life threatening nature of their circumstances, he could even fall asleep right here. Everything else feels so distant right now. Every time he's alone with this woman something worthy of wonder happens. As long as the water never stops coming and they remember to stay afloat, they should be fine.
And then...in the midst of that peace...comes silt. The water gets cloudy. Reba coughs, and then she pulls back, her eyes wide. She tries to form words, then remembers not to. She looks panicky and brings one hand to her bag, but back again, remembering that she can't open it underwater.
Oh no this is bad. Breathing in here would be very bad. Emery grabs onto Reba to keep her from thrashing around. That'll just make it all worse. He holds his breath and looks up again, towards the light. The surface is still somewhat visible, and he hasn't been turned around. He knows how to keep his orientation in the middle of something dark and confusing. The first rule is to keep calm. Then get still. Next try to figure out which way is up. Depending on how Reba reacts, it won't be all that difficult as long as more of this blasted silt doesn't come up. Where did it *come* from, anyway?
Reba is still breathing in...but only through her nose, and only a little at a time. She accepts Emery's decision to rise in good grace, allowing him to hold her tight. She looks up and kicks her legs, and subtly changes the way her versatile mouth is working. Right now, the two of them are together and have to work as a team.. The silt grows cloudier and begins to swirl. It's gold and umber, and now the particles are getting bigger. And, once again, the duo surfaces...
What is going on here? This isn't right. The silt is... not quite silt. It's all wrong again. Are they somewhere else? The surface seems strange, calmer now that the storm powers have receded almost fully from the area. Emery doesn't see the Picadillo anywhere up here, or perhaps he just hasn't seen it quite yet. "What... what's this place?" he wonders aloud, dipping a hand in the water to try and grab some of this strange dirt.
Reba lets water drench her chest, pouring out her mouth. She heaves, and coughs badly, and treads water for a while, looking hurt and helpless. At least the storm is gone. That's a big boon. "I don't know," she whimpers, and coughs again. When she gets a hold of herself, she starts to straighten the fur on her head. "I guess the pure water ran out. Started getting the messy stuff. I'm...I'm wondering if maybe...maybe someone's out of clean stuff now in the Eternal Funnel...I hope I didn't...make a mermaid drown." She's holding back a tear, and takes a handful of the umber powder and throws it sulkily away.
"Mermaid?" Emery asks distractedly, trying to figure out where they are exactly in relation to the flotilla. A little closer, a little farther. He's not entirely sure. "Well," he says calmly. "I think it seems like we're able to walk now." That seems like a good idea. They'll get a little higher up and be able to see more of the horizon. He doesn't ask about the funnel.
"Oh hey!" This fact seems to have completely slipped Reba's mind. She wipes away her tears, slowly lets go of Emery,and, working to tread water, gets to work. Mushrooms go out of her mouth, the bag gets shaken, the smallwrinkled one Reba showed Emery before comes out and into her hand. She now orients herself in what the two of them agree is probably the best direction. "Okay...you still have the bits in your mouth? Crunch that crystal, but don't swallow...let it mix with the phynodendricus. And chew it slowly...slowly...last part, and here's the bit I'm proud of finding...let it glide under your tongue. Just let the chewed up stem roil under your tongue, like it's floating..." She squinches her face and works her jaws, and flops up...a few false steps make her look ridiculous, but she eventually grabs onto a piece of the water like it's the skin of pudding...and hoists herself up. She rolls on the surface, sinking in a bit, but then finds her footing. The spray continues to coat her toes.
"Wow...it always blows my mind when I do that."
===
Glide under his tongue? That's interesting. Emery can't help but follow directions, since his survival depends on it, and because he's a soldier and is used to it. And now it's time for a new wonder. As he mimics Reba's actions, he finds the ater getting more and more solid, until he's finally up above the surface. He glances around at his new surroundings, remaining on his hands and knees. "Wow..." He says. "Reba... you are amazing." He very slowly begins to push himself up onto two feet. "This... is probably... the weirdest thing I've done today."
Reba favors Emery with a happy, knowing look. Her fur is getting curly, the solid chalky tone of purple a strong contrast against the water's surface. "Careful now." Her voice is a little constrained, a little funny. "The key's to pretend your tongue's the real boat, and keep it floating over the stem of the phyno. Don't work too hard at it, just let it lie there and glide...gotta keep that tongue moving. If you talk, be careful you don't lose the pressure, or you could fall through." She seems to be bobbing a little on the surface, and her feet are sliding slightly, like it's slippery--made of gelatin, perhaps. "It's a case of scale projection. Don't give *me* the credit, though! Thank Nature for making such awesome fungi." She starts slip-sliding along, as if walking carefully on ice.
Emery has no idea what scale projection is. But he does have Reba's instructions, and keeps his tongue "gliding" as best he can over the stems. And his feet keep slipping and sliding along with the movements of said tongue. "I, um..." he says, keeping his mouth from moving as much as possible, making his voice something of a mutter. "This... this isn't really... what I'm used to..." He understands the movement is something like what the skating his people sometimes do on their homeworld, but he never partook of it.
"You're kidding!" exclaims Reba, looking back with a big grin. "I assumed you did this all the time back home." She's a little better at handling her speech while controting her togue--comes with practice, perhaps.
Emery shakes his head. "No, I... I barely had much time to spend on Home." He manages to get upright, and begins a slow, easy skating movement. "Not... not that bad..." he says carefully. "Not bad at all..."
Reba divides her attention between the horizon, where the flicker of a ship may or may not be visible, her feet, and Emery. "I was just kidding," she confesses. "You actually...you actually call your home planet Home? I guess that makes sense. You're only the second alien I ever met. The weirdness of it is still sinking in, since I do so many things...this is really kind of normal for me, even though I'm really psyched that I learned a new trick. Extra weirdness on top of the normal weirdness is hard to detect." She licks the inside of her cheek.
Emery nods knowingly. "Yeah, ah... yeah. Well, don't let it overwhelm you. Once we get back to my home universe, you'll have plenty more weirdness to look foward to." He begins scanning the horizon for any sign of the ships of their colors. "It might be a bit before we can spot something. We need to go... huh. Um... which way was our fleet supposed to be headed again?"
Reba frowns. She slows, but doesn't stop. Stopping is a problem in this paradigm. "I...I don't know. I thought you knew which way we were going. Didn't...didn't you say you saw something over this way?" And the waves roll like lullabies in the distance.
<OOC> You say, "Who's got the map?!? Jin, have you got the map?"
<OOC> Jin says, "I have milkshakes."
<OOC> Reba will settle.
Emery nods and stands still. "Yes," he says, agreeing, but remaining silent. "All right... we were heading..." He looks in one direction, and then up to the sun. "Right. And we swam this way... so that means we need to head... this way," he says, pointing to the direction he last saw the ship in. Who knew ships with sails could go so far in such a short time? But as long as they keep heading in that direction, they're sure to spot something... assuming the flotilla actually stayed behind after the battle.
Reba nods hesitatantly, peering after and following Emery's glances, and then nods again, definitively. She glides on, gaining speed. The waves look a little rougher in the distance. "I'm glad one of us has a good sense of direction."
<OOC> Jin says, "One has mushrooms, the other a good sense of direction. But there's no rum."
<OOC> You say, "What's the show called?"
<OOC> Jin says, "Rumless"
Emery shrugs, not speaking as he's attempting more to maintain his balance. "You have to, in my line of work," he murmurs. "It's like space, you know... no reference points... nothing except a couple familiar marks, oh!" He almost slips and falls back into the water, working his tongue to get the walking effect going again. This is harder than he first thought...
Reba listens, her ears directed politely back...and when Emery slips, she scoots around to try and catch him. She takes his hands, stabilizing him. "No harm done," she says, looking into his face. "Emery...why is the universe made of mostly empty space? Why not...something else? Water, maybe?"
{Yet another Reba-Jevorak parallel here--Jevorak once said to a journalist: "Space has altogether too little water in it. I wouldn't mind if it were water the whole way through, myself."}
Emery remains still for a moment, staring contemplatively back at the raccoon before him. "Well... I'm not sure," he says quietly. "You'd have to ask God or... somebody. Maybe it's empty because... if it was full... there'd... be... no more room for the stuff that we're supposed to live on?"
Reba scrunches her face at that explanation. "There's always room for more!" she singsongs. "From outer space to ocean's floor..." She now separates from Emery, but keeps holding him by the hand. This seems to be safer. And on they skate. "Do you believe in God, Emery?"
"Uh, yeah," Emery says a little sharply, keeping a sharp eye on any waves that might reach higher than the knees, keeping up with Reba as best he can. "I said that before, a while ago. Ahh... He's got a funny way of repaying devotion, huh? Throwing me into this whole mess without even a spit of warning... course, I never would've met you or anyone else... that's a bonus."
"You were going into battle against the ultimate destroyers," says Reba without looking over. Her hand tightens its grip for a moment, though. "They'd killed everyone they'd gone up against...and you didn't even know how to fight them, did you? You were just hoping to destroy their gate." She's silent for a few moments. "Emery...what did you expect? You must have been prepared for death."
Emery nods. He seems rather ambivalent about the issue now, perhaps because he's trying to hide how frustrated he really is with the entire scenario. "I was," he says bluntly. "Pretty much everyone who went on the mission knew our chances of coming back were... next to nothing. At best. We brought their whole damn fleet on top of us," he continues, sounding as if he were speaking over evening tea. "I think... for the first time since the war started... we surprised them. Made them afraid, for just the tiniest moment, that we could actually set their plans back. They even threw the Jormungandr at us. But..." He shakes his head, almost missing a step. "I dunno if it really worked. I never will until I can go back."
Reba almost misses the same step. She stumbles, and guides Emery back into the pattern they're finding together. "That's awful," she acknowledges softly. The raccoon makes a little breathing noise like a sniff. "I hope you did. But...if you knew it was next to nothing...then it was a suicide mission. Em--you're a suicide!" says Reba, turning to look at him in a new light.
Emery doesn't look back to Reba, instead staring over the waters before them. The wind in his fur feels very nice. "Probably," he answers. "But I'm still alive. That's a big difference between me and suicide." He skates in silence, closing his eyes as he finds a nice rhythm to move along to... and then he starts humming another melody, and soon his lips part in a nearly whispered song as he stares at the distant horizon line. "To the one that I love... my journey has begun. When our eyes meet once more there will be peace. The taste of your lips, the warmth of your touch! Again, forever, two souls as one... Seems like forever that my eyes have been denied... home, I'm dreamin' of home! I've been twenty years away from all I ever knew... to return would make my dreams... come true..."
Reba murrs. Her body answers the emotional expression from deep within, raccoon-style. The walking is feeling something like subdued dancing now...or roller skating, maybe, making this afternoon less unpleasant than being alone at sea ought to be. "You're aliiiiive," harmonizes Reba, smiling at her companion. Was he nearly drowning when she found him? She can't tell. "Seasons of sorrow have stolen all my years," hums Reba. "I miss the rugged hills of Indiana. I've been through battles--and cried a sea of tears...but the tide is...changing...and with it all my..." Reba's eyes get wider. The tide--or ocean swells, as one might put it this far from land, is indeed changing. And the blackie suppressing Reba's fears looks finally to be wearing off.
Emery doesn't seem to be in as dire straits as the raccoon. "Stay calm," he says, tightening his grip on her hand, trying to pull her a little closer without compromising their balance. "It's probably just still excited from the weather manipulation earlier." Indeed, the clouds are not as black and terrifying as they could be... but stuck and exposed as they are, Emery can't help but worry a tiny bit. What if this is a *real* storm that's just begun to start churning? It hasn't been long enough since the battle, though.
Reba watches as the first of the larger waves comes their way. It's at a bit of an angle, coming slightly from the right, Reba's side. "We can take it," she says, though not terribly convincingly. "Rhythm. Pattern." She starts to sway in a little circle, rolling her tongue, presumably on beat. Forward motion has almost ceased. "I used to ride rivers. I can handle rough water." Rivers aren't nearly this wide, though, and rapids behave a lot differently than this.
Simply dodging the waves for now does seem like a good strategy. "We *will* take it," Emery advises. "You think rivers are bad? Try dodging explosions or flying debris. Or entering atmosphere at the wrong angle..." He smiles, looking rather rogueish and devil-may-care about this whole business. "Far as I'm concerned, this'll just be keeping me sharp for the real thing."
In comes the swell. The two of them climb it slowly at an angle, minimizing the impact of the incline. Reba's teeth are chattering--better than clenching in a situation like this. "I hope it's a long, long time bef-fore I'm a sp-p-pace p-pilot,' she says. She pushes against the spongy water with her right foot, and slides forward a few meters, before attempting to repeat on Emery's side.
Emery hmms quietly, the sound a deep, reverberating one in his chest. Almost like a purr, if canines were capable of such a thing. "I think we almost got it," he says confidently. As long as he puts his foot *here*, a little out front, draw it in just before the incline, then push out a little for extra momentum... the next swell clinches it. "Okay. Just hold on, and follow my lead," he says, speaking like an instructor would to a new pilot, completely in control of the situation. Or at least sounding like it. "Don't close your eyes. Just focus on where we need to put ourselves. It all becomes routine."
Reba feels like *she's* the instructor...but if there were ever a good place to roll with the circumstances, this is it. She doesn't close her eyes...but telling Reba not to close her eyes is a good way to get her to blink. A lot. She twists her hand a little further up Emery's wrist. "i see a nice...soft...stretch, all cerulean and warm...head up that hump inch by inch, preparing for the storm..." it may be not apparent at first, but this is a chant. Reba starts repeating it in regular time, and it makes things easier for her. There are dark clouds in the sky...but they're off to the left, not too close.
Emery listens to Reba's chant, focusing on it as they bob and weave among the waves. Tacking and yawing like tiny boats of their own. Emery doesn't have any chants to help him with his fear, but really, the effect of learning something new, guiding and being guided through it, was a chant for him in and of itself. The nearby clouds sincerely worry him. He's not sure what they'll do if they don't find the Picadillo before then. Oddly enough, all he can think about at the moment is what it would feel like to sleep on water like this.
"Seems like forever that my eyes have been denied...Hoooome, I'm dreaming of home... Twenty-three years, I've been roaming ever further...to return would make my dream...come true..."
===
Emery hums along with the tune as Reba sings, and adds a few verses of his own as they skate between the waves, curving around the ones too large to simply move right over. "Onward we ride - nine days we brave her might we, are coming home..." He reconsiders that. "I doubt we'll be out here more than a few hours," he whispers as an aside.
It does seem fortunate. The ominous clouds are far away to the left, and getting thinner. There isn't much threat left, now that they've learned how to foot-surf. Reba is zipping around the crests like a pro, patient and determined, her ears stopped and knees bent. "It's not so bad, then," she says, cheerfully. "I'll have to get a second dose of the phynodenricus ready before too long. Hey, Emery!" A thought seems to have just occurred to her. "Have you got a girlfriend?"
Emery's ears perk at Reba's question. "Huh?" he answers at first, confused. As a military man, he doesn't speak much of his private life, which *was* the military. "I, uh... I used to. I mean I do," he says. "I had a couple before. They were... they were nice. But they didn't last. They're not dead, just... the first one was us being foolish, and the second... she... moved on. Pressure from the war and different professions, distance. Now, um... I suppose... Vas," he admits quietly. "We shared a couple quiet moments at Harim. Although I wonder if that wasn't a mistake born of wanting something that wasn't there."
"Glad to hear they're not dead," says Reba a little sourly. Maybe she doesn't like talking about death. She skates on passionately, stepping over a random breaker. "So. Vas. Do you know anything about her yet? Like, where she was born? What she cares about? Remember her full name?" Man, where did all this bitterness come from?
If Emery hears the bite in Reba's voice, he doesn't seem to take much note of it. Perhaps he's trying to avoid it for his own feelings. "She was born in the Empire that Jin used to live in... she's been a soldier most of her life. She cares..." He stops there, blinking several times. As a soldier... what *did* she care about? Besides fulfilling that same duty day after day? "She cares about... the same thing I do, I suppose," he goes on quietly. "But I never really heard her say the same about *me*." No, the moment they shared, it wasn't exactly "romantic," he realizes. It was passion more than anything else, promises in the heat of the moment. "Remember when I said I felt... empty? Out of fuel?" he adds. "The war, it... it's consumed everything I am. I wanted... I want... what normal people can get. But too badly for me to... think."
Reba is listening, and not out of spite. She gives a friendly twitch of her nose when she next looks at the fox. "Too badly to think? You mean, you're so out of fuel, you can't even put into words what you want anymore?" She takes his hand again...well, his wrist. "You can ditch it all, you know. Now that you're here. I know you don't want to, you'd rather die than...but I'm just saying, if you wanted...you could ditch it all." Her fur gets shorter, cuter for a second. She moves an eyelid. "But instead, you fall in love with another soldier."
<OOC> Emery says, "what's she mean by ditch it all?"
<OOC> You say, "What do you think she means?
"
<OOC> Emery says, "What, like... just settle down somewhere?"
Emery seems to understand what Reba's saying, but it's unclear whether or not he really likes that. "We've had this discussion before, Reba," he says. "And it feels less like love now. I'm just..." He shakes his head, his arm hanging limply in Reba's grasp as he focuses on maintaining balance. "I just wanted to lose myself in something, I guess," he admits, sounding ashamed of saying it. "And with soldiers, well... every soldier has his struggles with what they want to 'lose themselves' in, if you catch my drift. I... I need to pray about it," he tells himself. "Too dedicated to let go, and too tired to keep going. Even when I try to ditch it, I just stumble right back into its arms. I guess this is what the vets feel like."
Reba grabs that arm higher up, fuzzles and squeezes it. Around a bend they go, the water crashing behind them. "You're never gonna be a happy traveler, are you? "You'll always be looking over your shoulder. Always thinking of the danger you can't see, but that almost killed you." She takes a deep, quick breath. "What if the war is won? What if? Then you go home...you rest at home...you take your well-earned lifetime's rest, and you never need to...to get away again. Because you've got what you want, right there." Her narrow, dark eyes aimed at Emery challenge him to contradict her.
"I'd like that," is Emery's prompt response. "I'd love it. And you're right. If the war's over, I take my commission and retire with it on a Major's pay, and I spend the rest of my life flying parades and hunting pirates. And when I get old, I bounce grandkids on my knee and tell them what I did during the big war." He doesn't sound happy as he says all this. "But I doubt it, Reba. I do. I... I don't want to get my hopes up. The Surtr... have a way of crushing hope. I was... I was wrong to want to get involved with Vas. With anyone, really. My life is too far from straightened out."
Reba's fur is getting bluer...like the water. Her feet are beginning to sink a little bit too far with each step...this surface is sagging and getting brittle. She slows her pace to dig out a new half-stem and trigger crystal for each of them. "Where there's life there's hope," says Reba perfunctorily, handing Emery his portion. She swievls her hips to keep moving while she chews and begins the gliding process with a fresh piece of phyno. "Hunting pirates, though! That's something! That's exciting. Your grandkids'll beg to go along on that."
Emery takes it with an air of melancholy, the mood apparently ruined for him. "Not too exciting," he says. "I don't want excitement, Reba. I don't want big or loud or anything. When I get back... if the war is over... I'm going to make things as quiet as I can for me. I've had my fill of exciting." He shakes his head sadly. "I'm barely thirty and I call the guys I command kids, you know that? I've seen my fair share of guys who wanted adventure and excitement. Half of them dead before they could even register their ship was blowing up." He runs a hand over his head. "I need to get back into the swing of things. I'm slowing down too much out here," he declares.
Reba's eyelids are low. She wipes her face, her whiskers sagging. "You call this slowing down?" She waves a hand. "We're walking on fricking water, Emery. And you nearly drowned a little while ago, didn't you? Well, maybe this will get your blood moving again--the one person who might be able to personally stand up to the Surtr, turn the tide and save your world, is somewhere I don't know where, against his will. Maybe dead. Maybe dying. Once we're someplace dry I intend to try and get in touch with him. Which is going to be hard, because I'm no telepath. Are you sped up yet?"
Emery takes a deep breath as Reba's words enter his words. He seems to straighten up a little right there. That's it... he's a soldier, after all. Treat him like one. "Yes ma'am," he says out of reflex. Although getting somewhere dry seems out of the question at the moment, and the flotilla is still nowhere in sight. It seems they still have a ways to go.
Reba's no soldier in any sense, though. And she can't keep from chuckling as they pick up their pace again, the rubbery wet floor hardening under them once more. "I'm three years older, not married, and you call me 'ma'am'," she observes. "Oh, Emery." A sigh follows, and a few swivel-thrusts of silence. "I respect you," she says eventually. "Everyone needs wild times and quiet times in their life. It's not your fault if you were forced to blow all your wild times at once. Just tough luck. But if you and I outlast this war...I wouldn't mind coming to you for my quiet times, when I need them."
Emery seems genuinely surprised that Reba would say such a thing. Even out here in the vast, quiet blue, where's he's spilled a bit of his soul, he was probably expecting something a little more neutral than that. But Reba was always full of surprises. "Well, I'd be careful, holding myself to that if I were you," he says with a vague hint of a smile, tail straight out behind him as he gets a little more aerodynamic. "I might have to run off under orders in some terribly tragic and theatric fashion." He pulls ahead of Reba and spins so that he's facing her, letting his momentum slow and carry him past her again. "What about Jin?" he asks as he goes by. "It seems a guy like him would have a lot of quiet time on his hands."
"That's why I say 'if!'" Reba responds, forming her movements in kind, and now fairly skiing along. Her fur is getting less shaggy, right down to her now semi-pointed tail. She seems to be glad that she's made Emery cheerful for a while--it's so understandably easy to get him down. Oops--now he's confronting her. "I feel like he doesn't enjoy the quiet time so much," she says, not breaking stride. "I think he likes to be alone when things are quiet. But in any case...I may be marrying him, but damned if I'm going to stick at his side my whole life. I get to have my own friends. That's part of the deal and he can take it or leave it."
Emery seems to become even more cheered by her answer, for whatever private reason that is, and lets out a short, gay laugh. "Reba..." he begins, obviously about to say something profound or affectionate, but he holds it back, instead shaking his head and jetting forward with some powerful leg movements. He twists around, nearly losing his balance, but manages to shout back, "He and Vas are immortal, you know. Or close to it. Would you join 'em if he asked? You'd be hard pressed to keep finding new friends." It sounds almost rhetorical, his own negative answer contained in the way the question is phrased and spoken.
Reba kind of wishes that Emery had finished his first thought...but that's all right. There's no shortage of thoughts to be had. The brain never runs out. "Emery? You kidding?" Reba skates ahead, trying to get back her ground. Oddly, the more the two compete, the more easily they seem to navigate the perils of the sea. "Can you keep a secret, Em?"
Emery's only answer this time is a nod, a very short and simple action. It's decisive and confident. Yes, he can keep a secret. He remains still, allowing Reba to get closer. Because really that's supposed to be how secrets are shared, right?
Reba's next to Emery again. Her hand touches his arm, but they don't need to hold each other any more. Because this trip is getting smoother, and they're getting better at traveling this way. "The number one reason I'm marrying Jin is on the chance I *become* immortal," she almost whispers.
Emery goes through several stages on hearing that. At first he seems shocked, then just surprised, followed by mildly amused. Then he seems thoughtful, disgusted, and then maybe a little in agreement. And then he seems rather depressed, followed quickly by a wry shrug. "Secret's safe with me," he says, and means it fully, and lets silence fall for a few minutes before speaking again. "I, um... I don't think I would," he says, just as a point of conversation.
Reba watches Emery as he passed through his stages of judgment. Her face betrays deep interest, and her color returns to its normal medium purple, but she says nothing during the silence. Another crest falls to their agile legs. When he talks, she looks over sharply, but her own expression softens. "Well, of course not," she murmurs. "You have a god you think you know and you were ready to die for your people." There's a sharp flick of her ears, there.
"Mm-hmm," Emery says, perhaps a bit noncommittantly. "But, you know, also... I dunno. It just seems like it'd get boring, you know? I mean, I was taught that when we die, we... get fulfilled. In a manner of speaking. We don't really need anything anymore. We're content with the way things are and there's no such thing as boredom or anything. Just... happiness." He shrugs. "Maybe we want that more than ever because of all the changes we've had to go through. Staying here, in a place filled with creatures like the Surtr, all anger and death... and guys like Jin, who you never really know if you can trust to not get you killed... and relationships that never placate you really deep down? And... and goals you can never reach," he adds, with a sideways glance at Reba. He shrugs again, crossing his arms, an odd feat with how he's moving. "I guess I could try it for a few thousand years... then when I get tired of it all I go find another race like the Surtr and go out in a blaze of glory or something."
Reba's frowning, but the chemicals she's emitting are probably hard to catch given the spray and the speed they're moving at. She nods to Emery as he talks, with reservation. Then she says, "I guess as a race,your people all got the same shaft you got. Life's a fireball, on to the next life, it's made of...water..." She rolls her tongue and licks her palate, staring. And then: "Emery, even before I realized what the universe really is--not that I know even now, not the half of it--before I even did my first magic, I never thought to myself I might get bored with life. I can get broed--sure. Who can't?" She spreads her arms rather than shrugs, to keep balance. "But then you just do something new. Meet someone new. Go to a new place. I don't want my desire sto go away. I don't want someone to touch me and say, 'My child Reba, you are fulfilled. -Ding!-" She shakes her head. "I'd want to keep living..." Heliotrope eyes, this creature's got now. Set on her dreams.
Emery watches Reba closely out of the corner of his eyes, and a kind of resignation seems to fall over him. A kind of acceptance. She's got her own life, just like everyone else. Whether he might be a part of it isn't really up to him at all. "Sounds... Heavenly," he says, and suddenly smiles, then laughs, not in any ironic kind of way. Just a genuine laugh. Which soon fades away. "How long would you miss me?" he asks, sounding genuinely curious.
Reba has picked up on the resignation. She wonders, with a tension in her back and shoulders, what it signifies...but doesn't ask. "Are you being sarcastic?" she asks in response to the word 'heavenly'. The laugh cheers her, as well it ought. "How long would...what, if I become immortal and you live a normal life and die? How would I know, Emery? That's a lifetime away!" She chuckles lightly, though she tries to keep it in.
===
Emery smiles and turns away again, shaking his head. "I'd bet... oh... I think I'm worth at *least* five hundred years," he says, a smile playing around his lips. "I mean you'd have to at least remember how I look doing *this*," he says, spinning around on the water, arms out as he gets a little more decorative with his moves. "Come on, gimme a guess. Pick a number, any number."
Reba lets go of Emery's hand and dodges away, her feet splashing even while they remain above the bulk of the water. She waves her arms as if she can slow Emery down that way. "Careful! Hah, Emery, if we keep knowing each other, and if things go as well as we can hope for...then I'll never forget you." She wrinkles her nose. Unless I run out of spac i my brain and I need to dump some, and I'm sure I'd keep most of my memories of you for...oh, I don't know, like a hundred thousand years." One ear dips down and up again.
Emery laughs and looks up at the sky, looking free and relaxed. "'Like' a hundred thousand, huh?" he repeats with a short giggle. "Oh, man. That's nice. A hundred thousand is a good, even number." He doesn't seem to be taking the conversation very seriously no matter what Reba would say. "I think we might have some time until we find the flotilla again," he says a little redundantly. "Got anything, ah... whimsical on your mind?"
Reba's color heads toward violet. She buckles down, getting ahead of Emery for a while. A high wave comes, and she calmly zips to the right to avoid the brunt of it. "Well, yeah," she says in the tone of, well duh, when don't I? Her spiteful eyes flicker over. "You don't think it's going to work, do you? Jin making me immortal. You think something's bound to go wrong."
Emery is quiet, and the smile on his face suddenly becomes a little hollow looking. "I... I think he could," he says finally. "I think he *will.* If he's immortal, but he's still... well... *mortal*... it can't be impossible to make others the same way somehow. But, um... I just don't think it'll work for me." He straightens up and crosses his arms again, looking thoughtful as he skids along. "It's just not *for* some people, you know? That's why Jin's one of the only ones around who is like that. You know something, Reba?" he says, sounding a little forlorn again. "I feel like I'm running parallel to everything else. Everything here seems like it's... I dunno, supposed to happen. And I'm just bouncing off the side... even Vas is beyond me. She always will be. I got here by accident, but you all came here and found a purpose. Even Migo and his crew, they're... all part of the story. And here you are talking about immortality, and I just want to go home. I feel disconnected."
Reba slows down. She doesn't lift her feet very high now, but merely skates along, raising a low skid behind her, with a quiet hiss. "You know, that makes sense. You got blown here. When I go to new worlds, there usually *is* some purpose to it. The Folds are rampant and crazy, but they're not...random...you know, I worked out I think I came to *this* world because it has purple fruits called 'purples' in it, and I'm Purpletouched, and there's the connection. Jin thinks someone *decided* to bring me here. I don't know about that...I mean I think it's a natural process...but then, there was that weird voice, when we were falling through that leftover gate...and you said that was the same voice that talked to you after your explosion? Some person who brought you here? So I don't know what to think. They must've had some reason to bring you here, whoever they are."
Emery isn't sure what to say about that. "Well, I haven't really found that reason quite yet," he says quietly. "Am I being kept away from something? Kept away from my home for whatever reason? Maybe... whoever brought me here *wants* me to forget." He throws his arms in the air. "Ha, after all, even when we got to Harim, what's the first thing Jin does? Kowtow to his master and toss us right back out here! Never mind that an entire *galaxy* needs saving right *now*, oh, no, we have to go fight pirates!" He spits out the last word, suddenly seeming to have a temper spike. "If I am here, what for, Reba? Why do I have to sit here and be tormented by hearing of you doing something I'll never be a part of? Am I just going to leave when this is all over? Is this all supposed to be some kind of... enforced vacation or something?"
Reba shuts her mouth. If Emery doesn't want to hear about her plans, or her thoughts...well then, he doesn't have to. She skates in silence for a while. Then she looks up. An albatross passes overhead.
Emery is silent as well, his mood ruined all over again. He's confused and desperate for answers. He's glad he's made friends, but at the same time he wishes he never came here at all. "So, what, you don't have any ideas about it?" he asks after a while passes. "Because I sure don't."
Reba tears her attention away from the bird. She notes the direction it came from--a little to their left. "Maybe we should go more this way," she suggests, quietly changing course. "Well, I don't have much of an idea, Emery. Maybe you really did die. Maybe this is your afterlife. Maybe it's a punishment of quiet torture--tropical breezes, oceans and beaches, and..." She shakes her fur. "Colorful characters to entertain you, exciting challenges to overcome...but all the while that gnawing, ravenous feeling, that all your loved ones are perishing without you...and you're trying to help, but like in a dream nothing goes right, you just run slower and slower..." She glances over to the fox. "I never thought I'd wind up as part of someone else's afterlife."
Emery snorts condescendingly when he hears all that. "In that case, the universe sucks," he says shortly. "*All* of them do. And you should have just let me drown." He moves a little further off. "At least then I'd have gotten a change of scenery... can you tell me, Reba, why it is that whenever I start feeling close to someone here, I'm reminded that I can only get *that* close?" He spreads his arms. "And people wonder why it's so hard to have a military relationship, huh?"
Reba holds back, her fur curving suspiciously but her hand reaching out to take Emery's again, feeling that he needs it. "I'm glad you didn't drown," she says. Sometimes the most obvious statements can be the most sincere, especially when Reba says them. "Well, Emery, if it's true you can only get that close, then the truth itself is why you're reminded. No one hates you or wants you to feel alien. If I made you feel that way...I'm sorry then." She gives her head a darling shake, looking down. "You're a fox, but you're not like foxes I knew. You're more like a human. And that...well, you ought to be able to get along with the people here, even if you don't get so close to me or Jin. I mean, our friends on the Picadillo are living the military life, too."
Emery stares down at Reba's hand with a mixture of longing and disgust. He's never sure what to think about moments like this. "But that's all I'll ever do," he laments quietly. "Just... get along. Just... coast until I'm back where I belong. May or may not face extinction when I get back. Then I'll die come what may and... this'll all just be a funny memory, won't it? To all the guys on the Picadillo, eventually, to Jin too. Like I just flew in, bounced off a guard rail, and flew back."
Reba shakes her head, finding it easy to be solemn now. "You may be a memory to me in the end, but you won't be a funny memory. Your story is real and it's big. It matters to me now, believe me. Trust me. I think of the universe differently ever since Jin told me we have souls and I think of it differently because of you...too." She holds more tightly, feeling Emery's pulse. "And you won't be *just* a memory. As if a memory is *just* something." Her voice is as soft as her gliding footsteps.
Emery looks down at the hands joining them, and holds hers in both of his. He seems to take a few minutes to consider something, and comes back to the one thing he wanted to say before but never got to. "Reba. I'd..." He closes his eyes and pushes out the rest. "I'd want to fall in love with you. Given time," he blurts out. "At least I would have, or will, or... whatever. Yes, I'd like to be in love with you, whether or not it can or will happen. I think you'd be worth it. I don't... I don't know if that really means anything to you, specifically, but... I just wanted to say it."
The grip joining them seems about perfect. It's what's needed for good stability while skating like this in dangerous waters, enough to make the extraordinary and perilous fun. She's closer to the red end of the spectrum than she's been in Emery's presence so far--almost crimson in places. "So that's what you wanted," she says. "You weren't happy with just coasting because you want to fall in love. So that's that." She smiles and skids ahead, cresting a wave competently. You need time to think about this, after all, and time they have. "Well, Emery, you can go ahead...I'm not stopping you. Foxes don't mate for life any more than raccoons do...at least, the ones I know don't. And I...well, don't worry about running me out of love," she says wryly. "I've got plenty of love to spare."
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