emptynesters | [MISSION: A KNOCK AT THE DOOR] - An xxx Years Later Meme

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[MISSION: A KNOCK AT THE DOOR] - An xxx Years Later Meme

CHARACTERS: EVERYONE
WHERE: Station 72
WHEN: DAY :001
SUMMARY: The Hosts return from Research Vessel "Whaligoe".
WARNINGS: Disturbing imagery. Y'all know the drill. Please include any applicable warnings in your subjects lines as this one won't be maintained.

MISSION: A KNOCK AT THE DOOR

STATION 72
DAY :001

HOME SWEET HOME
AND JUST LIKE THAT, YOU'RE BACK. The tingling, half nauseated sensation of punching through the multiverse fades as the windowless stealth ship passes into the Station's landing channel. With a slow-motion jerk, forward motion ceases completely. After a few minutes - harnesses being unbuckled, kits roused from their racks -, the rear of the ship unfolds and there is the hangar deck. Everything is exactly as you left it days ago.

A voice bloom in your head. It says:

( You'll have to tell us everything soon. )
Not that there's much to tell. In the last - it's hard to say, but years? Surely it can't have been a decade - span of your life, you've been to a dozen worlds in a dozen universes. You've seen stars collapsing, you've watched empires crumble; you've seen peoples at war, the end of a dynasty, and the beginnings of new settlements in far flung places. The Whaligoe, a sprawling deep space research ship at the edge of a now distance universe from which you've just returned, is hardly the most exciting place you've ever come back from.

But maybe Cathaway's curiosity has something to do with your (easily won) cargo: sixteen large, heavy canisters carrying what the Whaligoe's crew had nicknamed 'Datafuel.' What they're needed for is a mystery. Why handling the canisters triggers some low sense of revulsion doesn't make much sense either.

( For now, rest. ) says that achingly familiar sensation of Cathaway - of warmth, of pleasure, of belonging somewhere that you never expected to but do. ( And welcome home. )

ALL GOOD THINGS...
THIS IS HOW IT IS: There are more Hosts on the Station now then there have been in a long time. It'll be years yet before until anyone could call Station 72 crowded (would that even be possible, with the way the Station adapts for its occupants?), but it's no longer the strange half-breathing entity it once was. There is life here. Sometimes it doesn't feel like being divided from everything that ever was or will be. Sometimes it feels like this matters. Sometimes it feels like this is the right thing. Sometimes it even feels like the moment before opening a door and that the things waiting on the other side are better. It feels like maybe this is ending. Maybe that's what hope is.

The Gardens have grown dense and beautiful. Life Support sprawls through a half dozen corridors. The hum of the Station is a cat's pleased purring. Sometimes, that feels good.

THE STATION
12 HOURS LATER

...MUST COME TO AN END
SOMETHING ARRIVES in the space between spaces. It's as a needle piercing flesh. It's the snap of a finger breaking. It's an animal scream.

It's a scream.

The Station screams.

Gravity twists. Sleeping hosts are dumped from their beds. Ships in the hangar slide against their moorings, tethers snapping. Corridors writhe. Walls become ceilings, ceilings floors. And then it all snaps back. A panic stricken moment of stillness is pursued by the rancid melting tang of go, go, GO--! in your bones.

The first strikes from Enemy ships against Station 72 feel like being set on fire. You know this more intimately than anything else you've known in your entire life: You need to escape the Station.
THE CAGE - Getting to the Hangar deck to the ships should be as easy as wanting to be there and turning a corner. But if the mental link alarm burning Hosts up isn't indication enough of something being wrong, the Station's interior makes that impossibly clear. Once recognizable corridors melt and twist into bizarre shapes; open doorways become collapsing tunnels; vast cavernous spaces appear with splintering pathways leading across them. Garden plants meld with walls to create unexpected jungles, gravity shifts, a swimming pool stands upright without emptying. Hosts will never find themselves faced with a dead end, but they will discover a veritable labyrinth before them. They are pursued by a constant certainty: move quickly, because all around them Station 72 is coming unravelled.

THE MENAGERIE - ...which is made more complicated by fact that as the Station falls to pieces, the shared mental link of the Hosts begins to go haywire. Symbiote abilities merge and mutate. Memories and feelings and shared hallucinations disgorge themselves across the station. The texture and intensity is so extreme that it would be easy for a Host to get lost in them. Maybe they're familiar memories; maybe they're completely alien; maybe they're a dangerous distraction or maybe - just maybe - they're the Station's last desperate bid to pass something important along before it's too late.

Only a handful of Hosts converge on the Hangar Deck, but it's clear from the straining sensation of every air molecule that there's no time to wait around. As the Hosts board back onto the stealth ship, portions of the very surroundings begin to melt as quicksilver: the floor, the exterior walls, neighboring ships. Through these pools pass a cacophony of shapes both strange and familiar. The Enemy comes in many forms.

--Which are rocked by an explosion, a host evaporating in a shocked impact that seems to destabilize one of the primary quicksilver portals. Standing in the doorway leading to the armory, The Prince reloads the Albark rocket thrower. "Leave!" he barks, aims again.

Three things happen at once: ( Open it! ), says a voice you know and the Prince fires; the quicksilver portal bursts around the second explosion like a wound and the void it opens to isn't the dark of the In Between at all and from it the Dark looks back like a wolf in the dark with eyes like rasping scissors snapping wide which with every star in the universe says

I SEE YOU.

and the Hangar Deck collapses beneath the shuttle as the boarding ramp screams closed. The ship falls like a stone. It falls forever.

A PLACE WITH NO NAME
DAY :003

SYMBIOSIS
THERE'S NOTHING on the stealth ship's long range sensors. The universe you've fallen into is as empty as-- twin narratives exist in the mental link. One is bone still, the outline of a place that used to be. The other is the too loud mish-mash of information that leaked through the symbotic link during Station 72's collapse. It's confused and unfiltered. It's how to fly a ship; and it's a girl's face that isn't your species and you've never seen her, but you miss her anyway; and it's an ocean you know; and it's exactly how many dry rations are packed into the shuttle's cargo; and it's the echo of an animal screaming and it's--

Quiet. It's mostly very, very quiet. There's no dread, no fear, no burning ache of the world ending. It's empty.

Open it, someone said. So someone does: a canister of Datafuel is cracked open and from it spills something wet and horrible. It's run through with ropy white filament threads.

Someone opened a Host's head once, you know (you do know, even if you weren't there). It looked something like that.

Anyone who touches the 'Datafuel' falls immediately into a comatose state. It lasts for twenty hours. When they wake up, they know where to go.

IN A MIRROR, DARKLY
THERE ARE NO WINDOWS in the stealth ship, so when it jumps to the logged coordinates it's impossible to tell where or what it's jumped to. It's quiet. With a slow-motion jerk, forward motion ceases completely. After a few agonizing minutes - does anyone move? does anyone do anything? -, the rear of the ship unfolds and there is a hangar deck.

It isn't the one you left. It isn't attached to corridors you know. This place is quiet like a shed insect skin.

In the cold low standby light of the shuttle's interior, one of the previously comatose Hosts (maybe it's you) says:

"Welcome to Station 144."

((OOC Notes: Welcome back! For ~~one night only~~ however long you yahoos want to keep a meme alive for, your sybmiotic home away from home is...well, some version of it is around anyway. Did you play in the game, but don't want to play the same character? Go for it. Want to play the same character, but say they're a different version than the one you played in game? Have a party! Didn't ever play in S72 but want to noodle around? Have at it! Just want to pick up more or less right where you left off? I ain't gonna stop you (although I might gently recommend that Some Time Has Passed since we left Hyrypia).

For anyone who needs a reminder on how the game works, info links are in the navigation below. No, this isn't any kind of game canon. It's a meme, Jan. Don't overthink it.

Have fun. :)))

NAVIGATION • PREMISE • SETTING • FAQ

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

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[ red thread finds him, and percy grabs at it weakly. he's tired, half slumped into a corner and pressing his cheek against the coolness of something. his mind still feels aflame, throbbing, and there's blood staining his shirt sleeves, his throat, his upper lip, nose. he's winding a fist around that thread, pulling him closer in the dark until he can fist his hand in something real. ]

When aren't we?

[ a laugh, tired. one hand clutches, the other pushes when it finds purchase on vax's chest, like he doesn't know what to do, like he only wants to touch.

his glasses are gone, lost in the fuss, so he squints just a little until he pulls vax close enough to make out the lines of his face. ]

Edited 2019-02-09 14:40 (UTC)

[ Instinctively, Vax's hands come up to cradle Percy's face. His palms are warm, radiating faint divine energy. It's not very much. (He will never be able to do what Pike can do; her memory flares to life whenever he tries to emulate her example.) But it's something, enough to take the edge off the worst of what Percy is feeling until Vex'ahlia can try a better way to patch him together. ]

I think we're fucked.

[ Vax's tone is conversational, even as he skirts along how dire their situation is. ]

I don't think anyone knows where we are.

[ Is he supposed to be offering comfort? Even all this time later, he and Percy aren't entirely good at finding that ground together. The mental link is a shorthand, and it's left the spoken words clumsy still. There's softness, and it's easier to dredge up, but still—

Still.

Vax's hands are very gentle on Percy's face. He very much wants to find a way for them all to live. He's going to need to pray, and that's always taxing, but he doesn't see any other way for them to get out of this but through his Lady's grace. ]

Edited 2019-02-09 15:46 (UTC)

[ percy leans into his hands slowly, feels the faint warmth of healing seep into his skin, soothing away the aches and stings for the time being. his bones feel suitably rattled, his skull feels like a branding iron. reaching up fingers, he curls them around vax's wrists a moment. the fever is a soft pulsing sensation now, enough that percy feels a little more clear-headed as he looks up to meet vax's eyes. ]

Being fucked isn't anything new at this point...

[ his face turns a little bit, pressing a moment into the warmth of vax's hand for a moment more. this feels good enough, his fingers sweeping over the spur of his wrist as if to pull him down even more for further examination. his own fingertips are cold. ]

Come here. A moment, please.

[ down he means. the world still spins ever so slightly. ]

[ They have nothing but time, Vax suspects. Without Percy on his feet, how will they move forward? (Maybe on borrowed intellect, slipped from Percy's mind without asking. Vax tries not to do such things, but there are moments where the lines blur between the three of them now. It's hard to remember what's his and what isn't.) His thumb strokes Percy's cheekbone as his gaze lifts, finds his sister wrapping a bandage, finds her safe and mobile. The station had spat the twins out whole, and chewed on Percy before releasing him. Bad luck. ]

We're going to need to do something about your glasses.

[ "We" meaning Percy, because tinkering only comes to them when Percy is offering, so present in their minds that their hands move on his behalf. ]

Just until my dear sister finishes with her other charges, [ he cautions after a moment, moving carefully to stretch out first beside and then half-over Percy. ] We'll think of something to do after we've fixed this.

[ Fixed Percy. ]

You don't need to fix me.

[ he says it softly, only after vax has stretched across him, pushed him against the wall like a shield. he doesn't object to that, the slow pounding in his head earlier had been enough to blind him even if he had his glasses. but the holy touch vax finds it in himself to give to him is enough that it dulls it to a vague pang instead of something stabbing sharp.

he slides fingers underneath the tatters of vax's clothing, finding soft under shirt and the shape of him, the warmth under his palm. he presses his face into his shoulder and lets out a long exhale through his nose, a sigh like a petulant creature. ]

She might be carrying my spare.

[ percy's learned by now, that having only one pair of glasses leads to trouble. vex'ahlia, ever prepared for most emergencies, may have them yet unless they were crushed in the chaos. ]

But if she isn't, just... do what you must. [ rooting around in his head had been his least favorite activity on the station - he'd avoided it when he could, but now... well. push, shove, needs etc. he looks up, only able to see vax through the courtesy of his being so close. ]

Are you hurt at all?

[ It's not the first time a wayward thought has slipped past. The lines between the three of them have blurred; it doesn't surprise Vax when Percy plucks the intent from his mind and bristles at it. He isn't even all that apologetic. Percy's in worse shape than him or his sister. If Vax had more to give than the divine energy in his palms, he'd have already offered it.

But for the moment, it seems to be enough to keep Percy bracketed by his body. The clutch of his palms make Vax shiver, sensation broadcast outwards as he sighs in response. ]

No.

[ Bumps and bruises. Vax has certainly had worse. ]

We'll work out the glasses situation if my sister doesn't come through. But she usually does.

[ Relief is starting to make itself known. His knees nearly buckle as he thinks of the enormity of what they just survived. (And in it's wake, the wrenching onset of grief over what they've lost.) His hands settle onto Percy's hips. ]

I think we're all going to need some sleep. We certainly didn't get much time to rest before the attack.

[ It's a true miracle Vax hadn't stripped out of the Deathwalker's Ward, that he hadn't laid aside his daggers. Their penchant for going straight to the bar had served them well in this instance. ]

[ vax mentions sleep and there's a longing wash for the warmth of the nest, for the place they'd carved out for themselves in the indeterminate time they've chosen to sleep in, bracketed against one another, a tangle of dark hair and limbs and blankets flung around. his face finds vax's neck, the curve of it, and he remains there, temples to his pulse so that he might feel it, reassure himself.

vax is alive, and as he stretches himself he can feel vex as well, trembling fingers but steady in her work. ]

Sleep...

[ but he's still fixated on one thing: alive. they're alive and as safe as any of them are ever going to be, so crudely uprooted from the station. he winds his fingers into both - a tangle of string wrapped around each of his fingers. he knots himself up in them both so tightly, listens to the undercurrent of their thoughts. ]

Not sure if I could manage that in the slightest. Not after... [ all of this. ]

We haven't lost.

[ Exhaustion feeds exhaustion. Vax feels the echo of it bounce from him to Percy to Vex and back again, highlighting what's already there and amplifying it. He threads his fingers along the bristle of Percy's scalp, shivering at the sense of Percy's face against his throat.

Every single moment reminds him that they are alive. Percy will recover. They can salvage something from this. Vax may even be able to consider that once he's fully moved passed the shuddery fear of those moments when he had stood alone in the hanger and strained for any sign of the pair of them. ]

No, we haven't. This is bad but it isn't...it's not the end of things.

[ The ghost of Emon skirts the edges of Vax's mind. They are not so poorly off as they were in the aftermath of that first dragon attack. That's not a completely implausible scale, is it? ]

We'll wait for Vex, then we can talk about sleep. I'll give you that.

[ Maybe sleep would come easier if the three of them were together, bracketing Percy's body. His sister's spells may take better hold then. Vax doesn't have any contingency plans beyond that. They will need to find a place to stay, another ship, another way home. (Home that is half-station, half-Whitestone in his mind.) But for the moment, small things. Small measures of progress. ]

[ home is...

what is home?

percy paces the line of vax's mind slowly as he finds himself gradually sloping downwards into an unfit daze, palpable in it's heaviness like a hand pressing the top of his head downwards into water. it's a fight, really. percy wants to be awake when vex arrives, wants to feel her just as he feels vax right now, touch her mind more than just something fleeting, a passing brush to the nape of her neck. he doesn't rest so much as relives the heat and the pain of the station over and over again, the sensation of being torn from it so brutally sore like the blackened edges of parchment from an open flame.

he feels the way vax lingers upon emon, the chaos of the very first attack from the conclave descending down upon them. percy reaches up a hand and pushes hair back over his ear, fingertips lingering over the shell of it softly. ]

Terrifying, isn't it? [ he asks softly. ] That it's gone... gone just like that. [ the station, possibly prince... cathaway... guides he had not necessarily trusted immediately, but guides none the less. ]

[ The echo of Percy's loss vibrates in Vax's mind. He is still comforted by what they have saved: all the pieces of home he had, all that is important. The searing agony of losing the Station, losing the other members of the Nest, he's almost acclimated to it. Touching Percy keeps it at bay, just like his near constant check ins on Vex. It's a reassurance. Vax's mind loops around theirs and holds on, clutching like a lifeline. ]

We've rebuilt before.

[ They've rebuilt in the wake of dragons, just as fearsome as anything they've faced here. ]

We'll rebuild now. We're all alive. That's enough, isn't it?

[ The question is underscored by some measure of coaxing pressure, a little tug to redirect Percy's attention to the present rather than the past. ]

Stay with us, handsome.

[ Because what happens if he slips away? Vax couldn't stand one more loss. He's struck a delicate balance, accepting what's been taken because everything important has been kept. He can't accept anything other than this. ]

I'm here.

[ a reassurance, warm and brief, tugging back where vax winds around the both of them — thread soft and winding between the lot of them, a web of sensation against fingertips and wrists, around a throat, reassuring and quick to tug at a moment's notice. he lets the pull draw him back. the fever hot station's plucked at something inside of him, opened it's maw and bit down and taken part of him like an organ or a limb.

he tries not to think about it. just as he's being told to do right now. ]

Rebuilding is all I want. With Vex'ahlia. With you.

[ idle hands and devil's work — so the saying goes. he winds himself in the cat's cradle of threads that bind them. stay with us, something easy to listen to, something even easier to imagine. he soothes at the edges of vax's thoughts in turn, a silent thanks, touches the raw edges where loss lingers and holds them in his palms. cool like winter, with a precision touch. ]

[ Are you?

There's some part of Vax that wants to tangle Percy so thoroughly between him and Vex, loop red thread and soft blue feathers over and around his mind and ground him here. The loss of the Station looms over them, but it opens in Percy like a wound. Percy had learned to love places more than the twins ever had. Vax wields his affection like a balm, like a poultice meant to dull pain.

He's learned very well how to settle into Percy's mind. They've all three made space for each other, grown somehow more familiar than they had been before. And so Vax knows how to crowd, to project a different sensation to block out the blinding ache of having the Station ripped from them. ]

We have a ship. We'll find ourselves somewhere, [ Vax murmurs, though some aspect of this feels like telling a fairy tale. Vex's mind vibrates with worry in the back of his head, and Vax is keeping it carefully to himself. ] Somewhere we can make you another workroom to keep these hands busy.

[ Fingers lacing together, Vax's thumb stroking across Percy's knuckles. ]

Maybe that planet we were on a few months back. [ What Vax thinks was a few months, still uncertain about the passage of time. ] With the forests and the ocean.

[ And they'd been successful there. It would be safe, at least from their Enemy. At least for the moment.

Though Vax knows this is a pipe dream. He spins it for Percy's benefit, but he doesn't think the destruction of the Station means they have been eliminated from this fight. ]

[ it does feel like some children's story, something meant to lull him to sleep despite the agreement that they'd wait for vex, that they would sleep together, that they would dream together very quietly in the aftermath of the station's great wildfire.

there's an echo of the memory there — lush woods and the sea, a place they'd wanted to linger on, a place they couldn't spend more time than absolutely necessary at. he knows that now it is an unlikely sort of ending for the three of them, but he lets vax tell it anyways, wistful and quiet, holding his hand, winding him up steady and slow in the sensation of he and his sister in a way you might weave a cradle for a child.

fever licks bright and hot at the edges of his mind, but the further they drift away from the station, the softer the sensation gets, the more strained it becomes. he's loathe to let go. it's difficult. a phantom limb pain of something that felt like it always was because percy has always wanted to lay claim to a home, has at one point, had it ripped from him, reclaimed, was torn from it, grew roots, was cast out with the enemy nipping at all their heels.

his fingers curl into vax's back, trip along his spine as he adjusts, settles in full, calms in a way that winter blankets everything in a muffled silence.

he's stubborn a moment. no more dreams like that.

(perhaps adrift is all he's supposed to be anymore.)

his face finds vax's shoulder and he remains there a long moment before his voice finds itself, rough and tired. ] No more.

[ tighter fingers. ] Enough — [ and very soft, private ] Please.

[ This is more of a severing than they'd anticipated. Vax has a sense of something within Percy fracturing, tearing away and dissipating in the feverish burn the Station left in it's wake. It's not something he can soothe away with divine light, so Vax tries something else.

Percy draws him in, molds their bodies together. The sensation of his fingers sear like brands at the small of Vax's back. He puts a hand into Percy's hair, turns his head to press his mouth to Percy's temple. The dream doesn't hold. The twins are what's left, woven around Percy like scaffolding. Vex'ahlia's presence filters through Vax like music, the soft melody of her weaving through as Vax lays a soft, sweet kiss to Percy's temple and stays there, bracketing his body. ]

I can promise you...

[ Vax's voice trails off. The concept is too big. It's better illustrated than spoken, and he draws Percy's mind towards him, diverts from the dull scorch of the Station and what's been lost.

Instead it's them. The three of them, a jumble of impression and sensation, quiet moments the stretch beyond the confines of the Station. It's home as Vax understands it: the three of them knit together, red thread looping over and over in a secure netting to bind them there.

It is what Vax can promise. The twins can be home. They have been that to each other for so long. There is a stable foundation and room for another; it's what has been for a long time. ]

[ this.

this.

oh this is home. this feels far better, less empty vow and more here and now as it were. the bleeding fingers of percy's mind reach out for it, torn from the station with dug in nails and grasping around tightly over what they have left. the station is gone, perhaps, but what its left behind isn't, how it's tied them all up into one another to the point where they've stopped trying to pick out the knots, where they've accepted the strange gifts.

the three of them.

the three of them are home and percival buries himself into it deeply, a muted, shuddering noise passing through him. he's run through the woods and floated downstream, sailed as far south as his heart could bear, found something in vox machina, in the warm hands of vex'ahlia and her brother vax'ildan that no amount of fever will ever burn from him. he thinks of a quiet place for all of them, tucked away safe and sound in an arrangement of limbs and breath, hair and fingertips, pale thumb running over the curve of a face, seated in a corner braiding two heads of hair quietly.

home is... it is vax and vex, and percy tries not to walk like he's a stranger, not now, not when vax opens the idea of the both of them up with warmth enough he has to strangle the noises inside of him. ]

[ In the span of time between Vax making this proposal, weaving stability and comfort around the edges of Percy's mind like an offering, and the moment when Percy yields to it, it occurs to Vax that Percy may die. His mind might simply go quiet, consumed by the darkness of space around them along with the Station like some terrible fairy tale.

Then—

Percy sinks into his head. They've done this before (drunk, lonely, before Vex'ahlia) but Percy hadn't been an entirely raw wound, burning and bleeding by turns. Vax hauls him in. He makes room. Percy's face is sticky with blood when Vax cradles it, soothing his fingers across Percy's forehead as his thoughts warp into nothing but promises, promises, a tangle of togetherness that is less about the physical shape and more about the way Vax's mind opens up to invite Percy in.

Vax makes himself a safe harbor. He knows how to be one; Vex and he had taught each other how a long time ago. ]

We have you.

[ They've always had him. They took him for themselves and even at his worst and most angry, Vax had never quite been able to open up his fingers to let him go. ]

Stay here, Freddie. [ there is a whispered undercurrent, settled directly into Percy's mind. ] Forget the rest.

[ he hates promises. but he'll take them here and now if it's a promise for just the three of them. his head rests in vax's hands, throbbing and warm with blood, warm with the symbiote keening softly in its place coiled around his brain so thoroughly. trust percival to take something strange and powerful and let it use his body as a home. he closes his eyes as vax's fingertips touch his temple, sighs softly in what could maybe be relief as he leans into it, lays his head down finally against the crook of vax's arm. ]

I don't want to forget.

[ to forget the rest. to forget anything. ]

But I wish to remain.

[ he says softly, fingers dragging along the line of vax's clothing, dipping under to press skin to skin. the contact is enough, the feeling of him breathing is enough, every vessel full of blood running in time is enough. the anchor of vax's voice keeps him afloat as he thumbs the line of his ribs, counts over and over again. the stability of numbers, a soft rush. how many heartbeats before he falls asleep? one, two, three... thumb skimming over where it feels the strongest, where it keeps him rooted. ]

It's gone. Truly.

[ softer, like an echo. a memory, looking keyleth in her brilliant eyes and the ache of missing her is so ferocious: this is what we have built with our tiny moments, he tells her. to lose a place like this, we don't feel it immediately, but it would ruin everyone in small ways. ]

[ It doesn't feel like a promise. It feels like acknowledging something inevitable. Vax sets it out for Percy, quietly reverent, begging favor. He has bled for Percy. Is that not enough? Is this not how people swear themselves to something greater than themselves? Vax descended into blood to seal his allegiance to his Lady. He has come before to Percy stained red, and wedged himself into the warmth of his arms.

The moment when Percy yields, relaxes into his arms, knocks the breath out of Vax. I have you, reverberates between them again, soothing, as Percy begins to speak. It's still distracting to have Percy's hands tripping across his skin. In spite of everything, Percy's fingertips spark small flares of pleasure as they skim across old scars and settle delicately into place.

Which makes for a strange, dissonant sensation when Percy invokes Keyleth. Vax feels that memory like a knife, as if Percy had slipped a dagger into his ribs. His head tips forward, turning to press his mouth to Percy's temple and taste blood. Thinking of Keyleth feels like splitting his heart open; he misses her almost too much to bear. ]

I know.

[ The loss of it is happily dulled by the immediate threat to Percy, to his sister. Even now, lost in space and drifting without destination, Vax is satisfied to give all of his attention to what he has left. ]

I know, Freddie.

[ Knows that the loss is staggering for him. Knows the meaning behind what he invoked so long ago, even if Vax will never understand what it is to make his home in a place rather than a person. He'd give Percy shelter in the bones of his ribs, the scaffolding of his veins as the Station passes into darkness. ]

You'll build something better for us.

[ When their keep was consumed by dragons, Percy had given them safe harbor in Whitestone. Vax murmurs this faith into Percy's hair; Percy is always a safe bet. Vax knows this. ]

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