Satellite: Seek. Report. Serve.

She seems offended. “Um! I don’t hide! I lie in wait. Get it right.”

“Oh, um, okay.” She casts a backwards glance through the darkened room, eyeing the clutter with newfound suspicion. Being able to tell if she was intoxicated or on some sort of drug was difficult sometimes, but Maria blinks back with searching eyes. 

‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒ He supposed being ‘afraid to die’ was a moot point in a career like this. Pain, death, and resurrection was a commonplace thing in the life of a TF Industries mercenary. 

       Or was it? Maybe the original Pyro was gone and he was just some cloned replicant with all the memories of the original Pyro. In that case, would it matter then, if he was the original one; if the soul was real, would it be a simple transfer to another body, or was he just some soulless abomination of science that thought he was real?

          He was getting way too ahead of himself, maybe he shouldn’t think too hard about that kind of thing. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder that, perhaps, if all the killing and dying he did was all there was to his life. The mercenary wasn’t really sure what he’d really want to do with his life, but this… wasn’t really it.

      “ Wh͞át ͟di̷d̛ y̶ou ̨w͠ant̢ to͜ ̴be ̨ẁhen ҉y͞o҉u̶ ͘w͡ȩre͡ ̸a ̢ki͘d?͢ ͘ “ He asked. “ ͢Wha̡t̸ ̷did͜ ͞y͝o͏u w̵ant ́to ̕b̡e ̢w̴he͏n y̧ou grew̷ ͟ųp,͢ ҉Į me͞a̕n.͠ “

Sometimes there are whispers about how Pyro’s are unsettling. Satellite never takes part-- the thought of inspiring anyone’s ire for something as avoidable as gossip... She’s vulnerable enough, with her lack of combat training. But it’s something she can’t help from agreeing in the privacy of her mind, the small stretch of silence as the other seems to think fuel for her anxieties. 

She fears pain, if not death. 

Relief, then confusion as the muffled voice returns. Memories flit past. A dozen children screaming for attention, the bustle of an understaffed kitchen, dough and powdered laxatives at her fingertips. An orphanage wasn’t the best place to foster future ambitions.

     EYES SQUEEZED SHUT, HANDS OVER MASKED EARS– SEE NO EVIL, HEAR NO EVIL. Flames burning high, high– higher still, the smell of burning and charred flesh filling his nose, cries echoing, screaming in his ears.

     Head twitching, jerking to the side, a growl forming in his throat, drowned out by the thundering of his heart. Stay in control– stay in control, you fool ! But he couldn’t, not like this, not with fire blazing around him, filling his senses. He doubled over, forehead pressing into gravel– the closer one gets to fire, the more likely they were to get burned.

She nearly misses him, from behind the smoke. The odd corpse on the field was commonplace and it was surprising she’d noticed it moving at all-- perhaps because it was a Spy. Noticing Spies often meant life or death.

Something in her flickers in response to the claim, the wish. It feels a little like disquiet. Death is quiet, but dying is getting shot, stabbed, burned until there is too little of you to continue. It’s waking up in a too-familiar white room and telling yourself it was a dream so you can walk outside and do it again.

    Wrong was she to think this would be a mercy. Eyes widen a fraction as lips pull back in a blood stained snarl at the intrusion of something slipping sloppily between ribs. Pain is kept locked behind perfectly gore stained teeth, released only in a hiss of air the most flecking the air with petals of red as ichor blooms steady at his side. Death cools the desert air with its chill, even as beads of perspiration gather on forehead but neither death herself or pain is enough rip away the veil of semi-consciousness but Satellite’s voice, shrill and grating pitched by way of pathetic. Neither her throat or the the bone saw hanging from trouser belt does he reach for to retaliate but Satallite’s own offending hands. 

   Gloved hands made slick with carmine enclose around her own as if to beckon her near. He holds tight to her enough that shrapnel grind into the other’s flesh. Digits that sculpt the flesh, rend bone, slice with delicate precision and she his assistant, and canvas. Steady so steady are his hands, surgical in their precision yet he can feel it every tremor of her weakness tearing nerves, scraping and caressing bones should bring him to knee but it doesn’t. Her blood threads alongside his, paints ragged edges into glass–  red, red, red –  that ripped into his flesh. There is something that flutters within the Doctor’s chest after all.

   He draws close, words nearly lost beneath the din of ongoing gunfire were in it not hissed into ear. Wintry hues narrow never leaving hers as he tightens his grip around her hand, tighter, tighter still.

     “No.” Slowly he drags himself up on stubborn feet, fingers enclosed around hers in a vice. Flesh torn in ragged precision, generously sharing a fraction pain with her. “I won’t.”

The flies descend on the dead, both the more fully formed bodies and unidentifiable viscera alike. They seem to materialize from nothing on hot days like these, hungry and ever-increasing. This is how she finds him, flies hovering like inevitability.

The gore paints his white coat, spills down his side like in a way that makes her heart sink. There’s too much. She’s uneducated in the specifics, but surely no one could lose that amount of insides and still live long. Surely. Surely.

So her hands hover uselessly over him, the ghost of helpful intentions. But oh, even now he is terrifying. Even obviously gravely injured, she nearly screams at the sudden movement and pain that follows. It must be nothing, compared to what he’s got. Still her bones creak beneath his hold, jagged bits of metal clamped between digits digging into her and joining their pain. 

The smell of festering blood and iron scrapes at the back of her throat. She doesn’t dare contradict him when he hauls himself up, doesn’t dare complain at the strain and torment that goes singing through her hand. Seek, Report, Serve. With a movement practiced intermittently through the months, Satellite shifts to be used as a crutch to lean on. She waits for the warmth of gore to settle against her and blinks away a fly that tries to land no her face.

@violetviolxnce​:

“And it wasn’t good enough. Was it?”

She wipes the blood from her hairline with the back of her hand, fuzzily aware that there was some sort of injury happening above. Something more serious beyond the obvious scraped off skin from her legs. Falling from the sky was never a fun experience. This part of the ditch had walls over six feet wide, and she doesn’t know if she had enough strength in her to climb it’s sides. They’re steep enough to be a wall, and on the best of times it would’ve been a struggle to find purchase in the packed dirt. If her board hadn’t gone flying out from under her it wouldn’t be a problem at all.

She’s tired.

The truth tastes like ashes in her mouth and refuse to be voiced aloud.

The crack of a gunshot whips by. It hurts your ears. Your vision is clear, but perception of the world seems to waver anyhow, bending under what must be stress. It must be that, but it’s hard to feel. There’s no panic. The only easily understandable things are physical, the shifting board beneath your feet and marker in your hands grounding in their weight. Your surroundings are identifiable, and that’s all you need right now.

Breathe. There is danger everywhere. Underneath are enemies who were colleagues only hours ago, setting up for the next onslaught of combat. Underneath there are allies, faces blurring in their glee for violence.

It’s not what you need to see. You only need their words. Steal muttered plans of attack like a thief in the night, bring them to RED BLU RED BLU RED BLU RED BLU RED BLU RED BLU RED BLU RED BLU RED BLU RED BLU RED BLU RED BLU RED BLU RED BLU RED BLU RED BLU RED BLU RED BLU RED BLU RED BLU RED BLU RED BLU RED BLU RED BLU RED BLU RED BLU RED BLU

The trick obviously being, when they’re being listened for. Looking for the distraction of explosions and gunfire or just talking was a good time to move as quietly as possible. If you’re lucky and out of the line of sight, it’s usually enough. That being said, for those that are already looking for you there is no such thing as a silent footstep, and staying in one position is simply inviting eventual discovery. However, Satellite is gifted with having no footsteps.

Owing to this there are a fair number of situations she can get in and out of despite lacking the powers of invisibility. Surely only occasional glances backwards were necessary, and your ears could be trusted for any passerby? Surely you’d hear if someone clambered up to the second floor through the window and was now listening in from the next room? 

1. Growing Old on Beecker Street - AJR No point in dreaming if you're alone No point in walking without the road No point in crying without that someone there beside you Saying it will be OK

2. Just One Yesterday - Fall Out Boy/Foxes Anything you say can and will be held against you So only say my name

3. I Wish I Knew How It Would - John Legend/The Roots I wish I could share, all the love, that's in my heart Remove all the bars, that keep, us apart And I wish you could know, what it means, to be me

4. Paper Throne - Phum Viphurit No I don't need your paper throne Oh I know the fall won't break my fragile bones Even the fools know nothing is forever

5. Someday - Michael Buble/Meghan Trainor And I'll admit that I miss you But only if you do 'Cause you know that I'm shy

7. Helpless (Hamilton the Musical) Laughin’ at my sister as she’s dazzling the room Then you walked in and my heart went “Boom!”

8. Baby Driver - Simon and Garfunkel Scoot down the road What's my number I wonder how your engines feel

9. The Greatest Show - Panic! At the Disco So tell me do you wanna go? Where it's covered in all the colored lights Where the runaways are running the night

10. Sidoine - On Ne Vit Qu'Une Fois Courir après l'infini,  ( Running after infinity, ) Vu que tout s'arrête un jour,  ( Seeing that everything will end one day, ) Et qu'avec le temps tout s'oublie...  ( And that with time everything is forgotten.. )

Tagged by:  @zweiherzen ayyyyy thx my dude

@refiinedrogue || Deity AU

“Oh?” Pecking away at a scratched on epithet, her voice comes out as a chirp to nearby mortals. She wonders if they’ll ever learn to stop vandalizing her shrines. It was only going to get them killed- though maybe this was why she’d been finding more recently. It was a little irritating having to fix it, but Penna didn’t mind much. It was practically an invitation for retribution after all, and she has years of that to catch up on.

Giving up on the mark for now, she flutters down to her friend’s spot next to the wall to land unceremoniously on his back.

Though through the years she’s learned to tone down this particular brand of anxiety so she doesn’t run herself into the ground, but there are still times where particularly intimidating co-workers and managers cause this behavior.

The first day or so of the gravel war was this way, as she was in an unfamiliar and frightening setting. There was more needless back and forth in the field, more deaths from being spotted. However the physical exhaustion quickly set in, and she simply didn’t have the energy to maintain such high activity. That and Maria isn’t stupid enough to not realize she was dying often.