Flash fiction I wrote for @lavenderskies Mothership Safira setting :3
For context, Willow is a former human who was transported to the koboldsâ 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 Marigoldâs, 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 sheâs 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:
Itâs 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 werenât for this new tech, I wouldâve lost myself.
CLOVER:
How common are distortions like those?
FENNEL:
I deal with at least one or two a day, personally.
MARIGOLD:
(smiling)
Youâre exaggerating to look cool for the new girl.
FENNEL:
(laughing)
I wish I was.
WILLOW:
Whatâs the fatality rate?
CLOVER:
Iâm sorry?
Willow turns away from the mech to find the other three kobolds looking at her. They donât appear angryâ just a mixture of shock and confusion. Her confidence wanes the longer she speaks.
WILLOW:
Whatâs⌠Like, how often do pilots die? Yâknow, fighting Nightmares?
What sheâs saying begins to click for them, but not in the way Willow expected. Marigold looks horrified and Fennel is still confused. Cloverâs expression turns grim; when she speaks it is slow and careful, like sheâs 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 isnât her strong suit.
Marigold, one hand over her mouth in shock, looks to Clover for help. Cloverâs gaze is piercing; her lips shift soundlessly as she tries and fails to find an easy and adequate response.
CLOVER:
âŚYou should sit.
Willow doesnât 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 doesnât exist.
Her face twists with frustration, her hands micro-gesturing without direction. That answer isnât good enough.
CLOVER:
Not even that, exactly, it just⌠It isnât real. Batteries die, not people. The only reason we recognize death and its means as a concept at all is because weâve witnessed it, in Nightmare reality distortions.
Willow doesnât respond immediately. She tries to process this; itâs harder than she wouldâve expected. For the first time in days she feels alone, but doesnât 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 donât have to share your age if you donât want to.
Willow nods. She doesnât know what sheâs supposed to say, what they want to hear. In her previous life she knew grief, and she knew fear, but death was deathâ even if she hated it. It simply was. Her attention wanders awkwardly as she fails to come up with a response, and itâs Marigold who eventually breaks the quiet.
MARIGOLD:
You donât need to talk about it right now. Weâll get you set up with a therapist who can help youâ
WILLOW:
(interrupting)
I donât need a therapist.
MARIGOLD:
Butâ
WILLOW:
Itâs not a big deal, really.
She laughs, but it feels wrong.
WILLOW:
Plenty of us reached one hundred, we hardly knew what toâ
MARIGOLD:
One hundred?!
Marigold jumps forward in her seat involuntarily, like sheâs trying to catch a tipped vase or a kitten thatâs fallen out of a tree. Clover barely manages to hold her back. Willow doesnât feel anything.
CLOVER:
Mari, itâs alrightâ
WILLOW:
Back home, death is⌠I dunno, itâs normal.
CLOVER:
(serious)
Itâs not. Itâs not normal, Willow.
Thereâs 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 Iâm 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. Thatâs what Iâm trying to tell you. Nobody should be dying after only a single centuryâ 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 otherâs 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.
Thereâs a long pause.
WILLOW:
Will it⌠hurt people? That trauma? Because Iâm part of the group mind now?
MARIGOLD:
No, noâ Honey, itâs not going to hurt anyone. Not anymore. But itâs already hurt you, and the longer youâre here with us, the more youâll begin to understand it, to feel it. Thatâs why you need us with you. We wonât let you go through that grief alone.
Thereâs 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 theyâre describing, but finds nothing. The hole death has left in her heart doesnât appear to have a bottom.
