Excerpt 003: Ship’s Cradle

[rekindledtitan]

TYPE: Personal log

LOCATION: Orbit, Earth

PARTIES: Three [3]. One [1] Ghost-type, [1] Guardian-type, designate Blaze-37, Class Titan [rekindledtitan], One [1] Unconfirmed, designate Hughes, Maes [bestdadinamestris]


ASSOCIATIONS: Multiversal Nexus; Maes Hughes; Earth; Multiversal Phenomena; Blaze-37; Amestris; Dr. Hill; Deep Stone Crypt; [REDACTED]




Blaze should have figured the warning signs for what they were. When the senses slow and the body insists on sinking into the nearest furniture, it ought to be a clue. But she has no memory of fatigue, no sense of whether her body is just complaining or injured or seriously needs to rest. So it’s not until their meeting at the Harp sees her stuffed with food and forced to actually sit down for a while that the torpor kicks in.

She’d like to shake it off, but the more level (and more inorganic) heads around her are able to point out that that’s not how human biology works.

She’s yawning uncontrollably when they materialize aboard her one-room jumpship. It wakes up for them with a soft hum, lights revealing a cabin just big enough for both she and Hughes to move around. Every inch of the clean metal plating looks like it’s part of some compartment or pull-out section, and that includes the floor. To sharp Exo senses it might look a bit patchwork, too: different panels have subtly different finishes; signs of repair are everywhere. There’s little sign of home comforts: just one cushy pilot’s chair, Blaze’s helmet clipped alongside it.

“I’m… going to power up the life-support systems,” the Ghost says, swooping over to the controls.

Blaze tries to talk through her next yawn. “Oh… yyyeah. Good thinking. Uh.” She looks up at Hughes and waves a hand toward the star-speckled view up front. “Welcome to Earth orbit.”

Comments

[rekindledtitan]

"Yeah, it's sorta like that." She shrugs. "I don't know what other dreams are like. Mine are always this way." She yawns. "Guess I'll get more of the same when I go back to sleep. How long was I out? I, uh. I can't tell."

"A little over five and a half."

[bestdadinamestris]

Again with the desire to frown. This time Hughes crosses his arms in front of his chest to emphasize his point. "If it's going to happen again, you're going to feel even more like hell tomorrow. You need some actual rest if we're going to have any chance of functioning properly tomorrow. Is there something we can do to prevent this from happening again?"

[rekindledtitan]

She looks up at him blankly. "Stop dreaming? Didn't know you could. I just sleep right through them. It's normally fine when I wake- but then no-one ever woke me early before."

"Perhaps your- um." The Ghost looks up at Hughes. "Your body will adjust in time. At least... I hope so."

[bestdadinamestris]

Hey, it was worth a shot. Sure, it was a complete shot in the dark, but you can't know if you don't ask, right?

"I guess we don't have much of a choice, do we?" He sighs heavily and nods. "You should try and get more sleep, then, but if it looks bad again for my body, I'm going to wake you up." Because he likes his body, damn it.

[rekindledtitan]

"You keep making me start again, the whole thing's just gonna take longer," she points out with something that might have been a sigh but just turns into another yawn.

It's actually kind of hard to consider sleeping now, but better get it over with. If Hughes isn't going to stop her, she'll haul herself right back over and slump down against the wall again.

[bestdadinamestris]

"You need the rest." Otherwise she's going to fall asleep on her feet tomorrow. Probably literally.

Once Blaze is settled again, Hughes will go back to reading, though he'll be keeping a much closer watch on his friend this time. If it gets bad again, he'll wake her up, but he's really hoping to avoid that. The more rest she can get naturally, the better.

[rekindledtitan]

Blaze shrugs and settles back to try and sleep again. When she does sleep… well, again, after an hour or so the dreams return. From her vital signs, they seem to come in short bursts within the dream phases, getting more prolonged as she keeps sleeping. If Hughes lets her, though, she’ll eventually push through them.

Her Ghost doesn’t leave her side this time, silently watching to make sure her vitals don’t show dangerous signs of physiological stress.

[bestdadinamestris]

If Ghost doesn't get excited like before, Hughes won't wake Blaze this time around. Even if she feels like hell in the morning, getting some amount of sleep is good for her. It would be better if she weren't so mentally stressed, but there's nothing that can be done about that.

Watching the sun rise over the earth when the time comes will be a great distraction from the sleeping Blaze. It's a sight he's only going to be able to enjoy once and he's taking full advantage of that.

[rekindledtitan]

It makes quite a sight up here, with no atmosphere to smear the light. Whatever the viewscreen's composed of, it automatically modulates that view of the sun to prevent blinding the pilot, but the light is still brilliant and sharp against the void, lighting up the swirling clouds below them and mingling with the gentler light of the Traveler's silver sphere.

It also wakes Blaze from her uneasy sleep. This time it's far more natural, a quiet shift in her breathing as she stirs and blinks at the deck-plates. She feels... better. Almost peaceful. Naturally she pulls herself onto her feet, shivering a bit. She doesn't keep this place warm (it's much warmer than the Nexus, of course) but somehow it feels even colder after she's been asleep so long.

"Hey." Her voice is rough, a little groggy, but she's steadier on her feet as she moves up alongside Hughes. The Ghost is floating around her attentively, getting her to reach up and give it an affectionate touch. "I miss anything good?"

[bestdadinamestris]

"Hell of a sunrise, but nothing else." No need to bring up the ruffled sleep cycles, considering she didn't do nearly as bad this time around. "Feeling better after a little more sleep?"

[rekindledtitan]

"...Yeah. Better than I figured on." She leans over to access the environment controls and dial the temperature up about ten degrees. "Kinda cold and... nnh. Stiff. Is it supposed to hurt when you're stiff?" She flexes her shoulders with a small grimace.

[bestdadinamestris]

"The cold thing is normal. Your body heats up when you sleep so the air feels extra cold right after you wake up. It's probably worse because of the cool temperature of the ship, too." Hughes can't really be certain, given his current body, but that seems like a good guess.

"Being stiff comes from the cold and the hard sleeping surface. It'll get better as you get up and start moving around." There's no way getting around that one in a place like this. And given how much Hughes has beat the shit out of his body over the years. For a man so young, you'd think he'd be able to recover better after a a single night on a rough bed. Sorry, Blaze.

[rekindledtitan]

"Always better when you're on the move." That's one piece of advice she's more than willing to take. She's moving right now, going to put that gun back in safe storage. "Uh. Sorry if the body's still sore when we get restored. Not sure I could've slept that much on a bed." She does care if her friends have to suffer the fallout from her habits, she just doesn't see much way around it.

She takes a minute to watch the view when she comes back: it's different, with these eyes, but it's still wonderful, still awesomely vast and serenely beautiful. A thought occurs to her, and she lets out a low 'heh', chewing it over before she changes course again and looks at Hughes.

"How are you holding up? My body doesn't have many needs, but, uh. It's still different."

[bestdadinamestris]

He shrugs at the concern. "I've got some ideas that should help." A few stretches, a hot bath, a glass or two of whiskey... All useful in different ways, and each with their own set of pros and cons.

"It's... different, but I guess I'm okay? I don't really know how to know if something's wrong." He awkwardly rubs the back of his neck, a bit embarrassed. "Reading didn't help much with that either. Anything I should be watching out for?"

[rekindledtitan]

She grunts, her gaze dropping for a minute as she considers what to ask. Senses shouldn't be an issue. No pain since he hasn't been injured, no fatigue as a matter of course...

"I don't know. How's your memory?" she asks offhandedly. It's usually perfect, at least... for her most recent life. But she wonders. Wonders if he feels the same flashes of the past flickering in, fragments of mostly-forgotten memories jarred loose and slipping into his perceptions.

Reincarnation does funny things to the mind. But Hughes ought to be more stable, she hopes. His mind is young. Less clutter from past lives.

[bestdadinamestris]

"Memory?" That seems like an odd question. "Can you elaborate?"

He's now trying to index everything that's happened in the last day or so since the start of this whole body swapping thing began. The swap itself, the subsequent freak out, the flyers in the Forum, the meet up at the Harp... Everything seems to be there, so what is Blaze worried about?

[rekindledtitan]

"Just... wondering if everything's coming back when it should. You know. Probably nothing to worry about." She pauses and adds, attempting to act casual, "You have a family, right?"

Subtle, Blaze. Even her Ghost is blinking at her.

[bestdadinamestris]

Hughes blinks. "Are you serious? Of course I have a family. The pictures are in your pocket for fuck's sake! Or, at least, they were." Beat. "...you didn't lose my wallet, did you?"

It's not like he can't replace everything in said wallet, but damn. This was quite the shit to drop on him without warning.

[rekindledtitan]

"Huh? Don't think so." She pats herself to check which pocket he's talking about. She didn't exactly empty them out, so his wallet should still be there, and she pulls it out after a minute. "This thing?"

[bestdadinamestris]

"Yes, that." He takes it from Blaze and pulls it open, heaving a sigh of relief when all of his pictures are still there. "I'm so glad these are here. I just had a few of these printed last week. My daughter gets more adorable with each passing day." Cue the flipping around of the photo in his hand to show to Blaze. A little four-year-old girl with pigtails playing with a doll out in the snow, where the two of them appear to be making a snowman. "Isn't she adorable?!"

Thank goodness he's not in his body or he would be making all kinds of faces right now. Blaze doesn't really need to see that so soon after waking up.

[rekindledtitan]

She's still a little sleepy; it doesn't fully register what he's doing until he flips the photo round to show her. Blaze catches a glimpse of the child before she flinches, dropping her gaze down to the deck. The controls. Anywhere else.

"I- I'm sorry." This must look weird. Maybe insulting. She knows that. "I can't. I bet she's a sweet kid and all, it's just- weird. Right now."

That's a terrible excuse, but evasiveness never suited her. She rubs her ear, trying to think of a subject change. "I don't know much about kids. Guessing she's, what- five, six?"

[bestdadinamestris]

Hughes is frowning so hard right now, somewhere in that exo body he's currently residing in. But not the angry or hurt kind of frown he usually pulls with Roy when the Flame Alchemist pushes off his pictures. No, this is the kind he reserves when something's terribly wrong and no one will tell him what it is.

"She's four," he says with a nod. "But... are you okay? It's okay if you don't like kids, but that kind of reaction... it gets a guy worrying." Dad Mode is back in full swing, it seems.

[rekindledtitan]

"Nothing wrong with kids." She doesn't know how to explain convincingly without it getting ugly. "Just... uh. I'm wearing your body right now. Seems weird."

It seems wrong, and Hughes might agree with her if he had any way to grasp what the hell she's on about.

Ghost attempts to come to her rescue. "Long-term memory can interact strangely with a new body. I think Blaze is primarily concerned with whether you can access your memories as you normally would. When you wish to."

[bestdadinamestris]

"But... she's adorable either way." Okay, he told himself he wouldn't come down on Blaze about the subject like that, but come on. She's the most adorable thing in the multiverse!

That gets him to blink. That is terrifying. "What do you mean 'new body'? Are you suggesting you get more than one?" Because that's not something he's ever heard of before. Yes, even in the Nexus.

[rekindledtitan]

"Yeah. I bet she is." She's not being sarcastic in the slightest. But she's not sure how little it takes for her memory to latch onto someone, and dreaming of another child - a friend's child, seen through her father's eyes - is more than she can accept.

She dives into the subject she'd prefer to explain. "Kinda. Ghosts can resurrect us even when we've been blasted into dust. When you come back, especially the first time, it- yeah. It can mess with your head some. Things get, uh, stirred up.

"...I'm not so good with faces, right now. You could tell me about your daughter?"