Logs:Holes in the Dykes
| Holes in the Dykes | |
|---|---|
| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia | 2024-09-28 "{In some ways it is neater.}" |
| Location
<MOJ> Brotherhood House - Mojoverse | |
This is a largish house that has been very unevenly appointed, its decorator gone somewhat heavy-handed with red and purple color theming in all the decor. The ground floor has a spacious kitchen that is nearly empty of any equipment or food. The adjacent sitting room has a very comfortable eclectic range of seating, though no tables; there is a truly enormous television setup taking up the entirety of one wall that plays nothing but Mojo's own baffling network all day. There is an extremely well furnished gym on the basement level, as well as a small library that is entirely stocked with hundreds of copies of "The Pop-Up Book of Phobias", except for one singular copy of the NFT Guide to Manhattan. There's a small yard tucked out behind the basement door. There are enough bedrooms split across the top two levels for everyone to pair up, though they haven't been "furnished" so much as someone has hastily chucked mattresses and bedding into them. The sheets and blankets are extremely soft and comfortable, at least. Though there are two bathrooms on each level with excessively luxurious soaking tubs and capacious showers, there do not seem to be toilets in any of them. It might be late or it might be early -- it's an hour, anyway, that most of the house who tend to aim for some regular amount of sleep are solidly there right now, a good while yet until the next lottery for the day's Games. Mystique is filthy as she drags herself and her wife back into the house, though bedraggled as she looks she does not seem all that run down. She's quiet enough as they ascend the stairs, though the CLUNK of the oxygen canister she drops into the corner is still heavy. Only once the door is closed behind them and the water running in a bathtub does she sink down against the edge of the tub, a noticeable drag now visible in her shoulders. Her brows pinch, and almost like it is an annoyance, she reaches down -- the flesh of her leg shifts, and she plucks a fairly sizable chunk of serrated bone from her calf, flicking it distastefully into a wastebin. Even with the assistance of extra oxygen and a wife who can adapt herself to the alien environment of Mojoworld, Destiny does look all that run down. She steps out of her filthy clothes and tips Mystique's chin up to kiss her, then eases herself down into the tub with a relieved sigh. "{It's full of holes,}" she says at length, in Mandarin. "{Time, out there. Beyond every door is a different field of time that fills one hole.}" She shakes her head slowly, and closes her dark, dark eyes. "{In some ways it is neater. It's certainly very fascinating, but very disorienting, too.}" "{I can only imagine. Time isn't meant to be neat. Encapsulated. Boxed off into tidy little packages.}" Mystique switches the water to a handheld showerhead, tipping Destiny's head back so that she can begin rinsing away the worst of the alien grime. "{-- Is it the time that's full of holes? Or the dams these hideous slugs have built to try and contain it?}" "Mmm." Destiny's brows furrow in thought, then smooth back out. "{I suppose it is more like the dams themselves.}" She moves her hands through the water, slow and meditative, cupping it to let it run down over her skin. "{This civilization has incredibly advanced technology for spatial manipulation, but I do not think they have the same kind of grasp on time. At least not anywhere I have been.}" She opens her eyes and "looks" up at her wife's face, though of course she cannot really focus them on her. "{If I could find some key to accessing the timelines behind each door without physically passing through, it will make our search more tenable}" "{Oh, is that all?}" A low amusement rings in Mystique's voice as she gives some consideration to this difficulty. "{B might be able to engineer you something useful in that direction. Splice that intangible brat into a gateway, it could open up all kinds of exciting new branches of interdimensional entanglement.}" Her fingers comb slowly down through Destiny's hair. "{We are getting closer.}" Destiny smiles the kind of smile she does when most people would give an ironic laugh. "{We might sidestep finding the key to their dimensional technology entirely, if she could make teleportation powers interface with a gateway.}" Her eyes flutter shut again. "{It is hard for me to tell, with my sight as fractured as it is in the hub dimension}" She probably does not need to clarify her faith in Mystique's conviction, but these are strange times, and she adds, "{But, we are.}" There's a slowing, here. Gradual. Mystique is taking her time with rinsing away the grit, with watching it swirl off down the drain. "{These parasites have spent long enough hidden away in their pockets of time, leeching off the blood and toil of their superiors. They don't deserve this safety. I don't want to sidestep finding it. How many slaves have we seen now from how many different worlds? I expect there are a good many out there, by now, who would be happy enough to find this hellhole.}" Destiny is in no hurry, either. Possibly she is too weak from the expedition to hurry even if she wanted to, but it isn't her way, anyhow. She hums quietly as she rinses her face. "{Once we find the relevant machinery, that may turn out easier than using their technology to get out.}" She tips her head back farther and lifts a hand to read Mystique's expression with her fingertips, her smile warm with admiration. "{We don't need to learn how they build their dams to break one.}" | |
