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keysmasht
@keysmasht

Flash fiction I wrote for @lavenderskies Mothership Safira setting :3

For context, Willow is a former human who was transported to the kobolds’ universe/transformed into a bobold herself by multiversal social magic; the first two days of her arrival on Safira are primarily spent doing medical check-ups and trying to work out what happened to her, and on the third day multiversal researcher Clover and psychologist Marigold decide to show her around the ship. On day four they continue the tour and meet up with Fennel, a mech pilot and close friend of Marigold’s, so they can introduce and explain their ongoing battle against the Nightmare to reclaim and protect the cosmos.

Living things in this universe are bio-immortal and cannot be killed. Humans are not, and can. Neither party is initially aware of the relative mortality of the other.

(p.s. please forgive my lack of mecha knowledge tyyy)


INT. MECH HANGER - NIGHT CYCLE

CLOVER, WILLOW, FENNEL and MARIGOLD walk along the mech hanger balcony. The massive draconic mechs loom like mountains yet are indisputably adorable; engineers hover in the surrounding netting like honeybees, their tools buzzing. Fennel is in the middle of an impassioned speech about mech construction and piloting, one she’s clearly given several times in the past whenever she gets a chance.

FENNEL:
These newer models have vastly improved acceleration times: a pilot can fly at full speed and pivot repeatedly in any direction without feeling the G-force.

MARIGOLD:
Is that ever necessary?

FENNEL:
It’s not as important as cognitive shielding or high MSP, but it still makes a major difference. I was targeted by a Nightmare distortion recently that only worked while it could predict my movements; if it weren’t for this new tech, I would’ve lost myself.

CLOVER:
How common are distortions like those?

FENNEL:
I deal with at least one or two a day, personally.

MARIGOLD:
(smiling)
You’re exaggerating to look cool for the new girl.

FENNEL:
(laughing)
I wish I was.

WILLOW:
What’s the fatality rate?

CLOVER:
I’m sorry?

Willow turns away from the mech to find the other three kobolds looking at her. They don’t appear angry— just a mixture of shock and confusion. Her confidence wanes the longer she speaks.

WILLOW:
What’s… Like, how often do pilots die? Y’know, fighting Nightmares?

What she’s saying begins to click for them, but not in the way Willow expected. Marigold looks horrified and Fennel is still confused. Clover’s expression turns grim; when she speaks it is slow and careful, like she’s trying not to make a child cry.

CLOVER:
Willow… did people die, where you came from?

The question catches Willow off guard. Her familiar instinct wants to laugh at the absurdity of the question, but when she reaches for the comfort of humor all she finds is a strange, alien dread.

WILLOW:
I… Yes? We all did, eventually.

Silence. Fennel pales, her usual confidence vanishing. She briefly looks to Marigold and Clover before quietly averting her gaze and leaving for the mech platform. This sort of conversation isn’t her strong suit.

Marigold, one hand over her mouth in shock, looks to Clover for help. Clover’s gaze is piercing; her lips shift soundlessly as she tries and fails to find an easy and adequate response.

CLOVER:
…You should sit.

Willow doesn’t ask why. Clover gestures to a nearby couch; she and Marigold sit first and Willow sits across from them.

Several seconds pass as Clover carefully chooses her words.

CLOVER:
Nobody dies here. Not just from age, but from injury and illness as well. In this universe, death doesn’t exist.

Her face twists with frustration, her hands micro-gesturing without direction. That answer isn’t good enough.

CLOVER:
Not even that, exactly, it just… It isn’t real. Batteries die, not people. The only reason we recognize death and its means as a concept at all is because we’ve witnessed it, in Nightmare reality distortions.

Willow doesn’t respond immediately. She tries to process this; it’s harder than she would’ve expected. For the first time in days she feels alone, but doesn’t understand why.

WILLOW:
How old are you?

CLOVER:
Two thousand four hundred and thirty three. Marigold is nine hundred and twelve and Fenn is at least in her three thousands.

Gently, she adds:

CLOVER:
You don’t have to share your age if you don’t want to.

Willow nods. She doesn’t know what she’s supposed to say, what they want to hear. In her previous life she knew grief, and she knew fear, but death was death— even if she hated it. It simply was. Her attention wanders awkwardly as she fails to come up with a response, and it’s Marigold who eventually breaks the quiet.

MARIGOLD:
You don’t need to talk about it right now. We’ll get you set up with a therapist who can help you—

WILLOW:
(interrupting)
I don’t need a therapist.

MARIGOLD:
But—

WILLOW:
It’s not a big deal, really.

She laughs, but it feels wrong.

WILLOW:
Plenty of us reached one hundred, we hardly knew what to—

MARIGOLD:
One hundred?!

Marigold jumps forward in her seat involuntarily, like she’s trying to catch a tipped vase or a kitten that’s fallen out of a tree. Clover barely manages to hold her back. Willow doesn’t feel anything.

CLOVER:
Mari, it’s alright—

WILLOW:
Back home, death is… I dunno, it’s normal.

CLOVER:
(serious)
It’s not. It’s not normal, Willow.

There’s a moment of stunned silence. She said it a little too loud, a little too aggressively, and she knows. She leans back and tries to relax her posture before continuing.

CLOVER:
If I’m understanding you correctly, in your original world, you knew you were going to die almost immediately after you were born.

WILLOW:
From your perspective, maybe.

CLOVER:
Yes, and from our perspective you were practically smothered in the crib. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Nobody should be dying after only a single century— nobody should be dying at all!
Watching your loved ones die around you, helpless to do anything; having to come to terms with your own death the closer you get; none of that should be normal for you. None of that is normal!

Too forward, yet not forward enough. How do you explain something like this? How do you cross this sort of cultural boundary: one world grieving for the other’s suffering and the other grieving for its own, yet barely able to comprehend the incalculable loss?

Clover takes a deep breath.

CLOVER:
I can understand treating it as normal in order to cope with it. I can. But what you experienced was traumatic. It just was.

There’s a long pause.

WILLOW:
Will it… hurt people? That trauma? Because I’m part of the group mind now?

MARIGOLD:
No, no— Honey, it’s not going to hurt anyone. Not anymore. But it’s already hurt you, and the longer you’re here with us, the more you’ll begin to understand it, to feel it. That’s why you need us with you. We won’t let you go through that grief alone.

There’s nothing left to say. Clover and Marigold begin discussing the next point on the tour. Willow searches inside herself, through her many memories of grief for what they’re describing, but finds nothing. The hole death has left in her heart doesn’t appear to have a bottom.


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