Mechtober 2025!

Stories were fascinating, because they often spoke the truth–of history, of lives, of romance and hatred and family, of pain and kindness–but the truth was always hidden by embellishments, and the older the story, the grander the embellishments. So while he was a liar in the day-to-day, he never considered the small things in the stories he told as lies. They were embellishments. Especially when it came to stories they told over and over and over again–dramatisation, exaggeration, embellishments. They never changed much for their albums, after all–just small things. Overall unimportant things. They tried to keep to the heart of the tragedies they told. It seemed disrespectful, almost, to change a story so drastically when they were there to properly witness whatever had happened. Though, if the Mechanisms were anything, disrespectful was probably the kindest thing they could be called.

At the very least, it was in Jonny’s nature to be disrespectful. His own story, he warped and changed it the moment he was off the hunk of rock and sand he called ‘home’ once upon a time. He barely remembered it now, but he knows most of what he put into song had to have been made up. He was never clever or quick as a child, he simply didn’t have room in his head for anything but pure survival. Any connection with whoever Jack may or may not have been was just that–born out of a need to live. He’d been so desperate for life that he hadn’t even thought twice before taking the hand of a shady doctor and disappearing into the stars. Naturally, the desperation led to exaggeration. Especially since he wanted to leave everything behind.

The others were less so concerned about the nature of stories, and whether or not embellishing them was disrespectful. They were more focused on telling the stories than anything, however that looked, they didn’t ever seem to think more on the subject.

Jonny could understand, somewhat. When you live for millenia, it’s hard to find time or energy worth caring over something so small. There were other things to think about, other things to worry over, after all. Things more worth the time.

But Jonny loved looking for stories in every little thing, and often found himself thinking about the nature of storytelling. It’s how he came to the realization that the Narrative was such an important, driving force in their lives–thinking, noticing things, seeing patterns. Taking a step back, removing himself from the story and making himself nothing more than an outside observer, a relayer, a narrator, actually helped him to see the weavings of their own stories. The Narrative that seemed to dictate their lives and actions and mechanisms. Even if N– any of the others thought he was just pulling shit out of his ass–which he couldn’t blame them for, he was a liar and his Crew knew that deeply. But stories were different, and he never thought of it as lying when it was a story.

He was simply a storyteller.

They all were storytellers. And if some of them thought that made them liars, then they’d just have to deal with that themselves. They all embellished their own stories, after all. The only one who didn’t was– was her, though only because she left so little in the song that she and the Doc wrote shortly after she came aboard. Mostly because the Doc wrote most of it, probably. The Doc had different views about which things needed embellishing and which things needed to be told in earnest than Jonny did.

Aurora only rarely hummed a lullaby from a mother long since dead, and only ever spoke in clipped, short sentences of her time with the Cyberian army, and never mentioned what it was like before she was forced into a form that was not hers. Jonny didn’t push, though he itched to know more, but Aurora didn’t say much. She was always straightforward, telling what she will, and considering the state he found her in, he was much inclined to believe every word she said. She wasn’t the kind of ship to embellish, to add or subtract details–always straight to the point and clinical when she described the horror of her body being broken and burned and remolded, her mind being torn from her and forced into a shape it was not designed to take. She never spared a gory detail, when she did tell. Though it remained rare for her speak on such matters.

Ivy didn’t have a story to tell, and Brian only recalled perhaps a month or so total of his life before his death, flashes of scattered memories and the stinging bite of the empty void of space the only things left of the doctor he once was.

Raph embellished what little she did tell, talking about a mad scientist and her visions of grandeur and greatness, seeking to recreate the work of the mythologized Doctor Carmilla, succeeding and being tossed aside and taking flight. There wasn’t much else she told, of how she gained her mechanical wings. Sometimes, if he managed to get her drunk enough, she’ll mumble quiet nonsense about sickness and infection, wasting away, a fevered rush, the need to keep going. Though it never made sense to Jonny, it showed that one was even capable of embellishing a story simply by stripping it to its bare bones.

Ashes embellished in the same way, simplifying the tragedy that was Malone’s fall. An entire planet burned for the harm only one man caused, a rage so bright and painful that it took everything down with it. They were much more honest, they didn’t add or subtract as many details, paint themself in a better or grander light. They were a mobster, and their gang betrayed them, and so they betrayed their planet. Based on what Jonny could remember, there was much more raw hurt involved in the whole situation than Ashes implied.

Gunpowder didn’t exactly embellish his tales of the Lunar War, though mostly because he hardly ever spoke about it. Most of his embellishments were grief filled, memories from a nostalgic, grieving mind painting things either in rosier tones or bleaker shadows. Sometimes the color of the memories seemed to depend on the day. And any embellishments in the song they wrote, those were all Jonny’s ideas. He didn’t know how the gunner wrought so much havoc and chaos in those last few months, and he’d never gotten the courage to ask, but he’d seen the slaughter that followed Tim’s existence first hand. He’d seen the blood and gore that followed his name. Though he hated it when other soldiers would call the gunner such a name, Gunpowder really was a monster on the battlefield. It was horrifying and mesmerizing to watch, the one time Jonny saw him in action during his killing spree. And the carnage afterwards–of each battle, but especially of Tim’s capture–was surely talked about for decades. Jonny wouldn’t know, they never visited Earth after the moon blew up on account of Tim being a wanted war criminal.

The Toy Soldier never seemed to embellish, if only because it didn’t seem to understand the concept. When it had one day slipped a little booklet into everyone’s rooms, a story detailing how a wooden man became a Toy Soldier, Jonny overheard Ashes attempting to talk to it about the booklet. The doll didn’t seem to fully grasp some of the subtle horrors and quiet pains its story spoke of. It just cheerily explained that it was much happier now, the old woman was dead, and a Toy couldn’t get hurt. It had marched off, but the conversation he was totally-not-eavesdropping-on seemed to rattle Ashes. The Toy Soldier just didn’t seem to understand everything that happened to it. Any embellishing was purely incidental, then, when it came to its sad tale.

Marius, however, certainly understood embellishing. Understood the grandeur of storytelling, of brightening and changing and chronicling things they ran into, things they once were. He was just so damn stubborn when it came to telling his own tale. Nothing he told was anything worthwhile, and every other sentence contradicted the tales he told until it was a weaving mess of nothing. He was a baron of a planet that had no barons that burned in a star that drowned at sea, his arm was removed while he defended a brilliant estate while he burned and it was never removed and was molded with something new and he ran afoul of a mad scientist he was doing the experimentation on–

Marius, if nothing else, was very good at using many, many words to deliver exactly net-zero information. It was one of the few things that was consistent with the Not-a-Baron–he lied more than he breathed. It was one of the many unspoken rules on The Aurora, that they wouldn’t push for backstories beyond what was necessary for performances. So Jonny never asked the Not-a-Doctor for the truth through his empty stories, but damn did his verbose way of expositing complete hogwash make Jonny curious. He desperately wanted the false doctor to tell his story, to tell of whoever he was before he was the chaotic medic for a group of immortals. Jonny felt like he and Marius could bond over it, almost–over the stories they were actually molded from despite telling completely different tales on stage. But he didn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t ask Marius for more. Not like he could trust the man to say anything true–he lied more than he breathed. But he desperately wanted to know, wanted something at least coherent to put together. He didn’t even leave any easily identified nuggets of truth like Raphaella or Jonny himself–he just never said anything.

It was one of the most tantalizing stories they’d come across since fishing Brian out of that sun, having to drag two hundred years worth of history and tragedy out of the Drumbot over the course of decades.

But it was a rule on Aurora, and there were few rules they actually had. So he let the Not-a-Baron keep his cards close to his chest, let him talk around his history and never about it, and never prodded him to reveal more.

It ate at him, but so did every story that he didn’t get to learn. He had a need to learn every story, even though he liked to keep his own close to his chest. It was the only reason he was allowing this. The only reason he wasn’t going to stop them–Raph, Marius, and Ivy. He could feel that itch, the burn and hunger he felt whenever a story was near. But he had to stay, he couldn’t bring himself to leave again. It’d been so long since she left and this damned Crew needed a Captain to look for their engineer. He’d never forgive himself if he was gone when she was found.

But he could feel the new story itching away at him, could see it in the way Ivy was pacing as she read, mumbling the words to herself, the way Raph flew around the ship looking for something but never clarifying what, the way Marius just couldn’t seem to sit still or stop humming. Could see it in the way Ivy’s memories had been growing more volatile, the way Raph’s wings shimmered with iridescence when they fluttered with anxiety, the way Marius was almost always playing his damned violin. They could all feel it, a story not far from here, one that promised intrigue and tragedy. But the Captain needed to stay, he needed to keep watch on his Crew. So he had to leave it up to three of his Crewmates.

He had to trust they’d come back, they’d be alright, like they always were.

@mechtober2025

@mechtober2025

They’d taken to wandering around Aurora while it was the designated ‘night’ time–the time where it was night seemed to change and vary, unlike the ships they’d known on Midgard and throughout Yggdrasil. The length was inconsistent too–d’Ville and Brian always claimed it was because Aurora was sleeping whenever the lights dimmed and everyone drifted off into their own respective corners. They believed it, as Aurora never responded whenever they asked questions and thought out loud, and her noises were softer and less intentional. Her hallways changed with more frequency and less of a consistent pattern, and her lights were always dimmer, even if Lyfrassir manually turned some on. It was the most peaceful time on the ship, even if not everyone was asleep. It was one of the seemingly unspoken rules on the ship, no one dared to cause chaos and mayhem when it was ‘night’ time. The most interruption seemed to be caused by the octokittens, or Marius playing his violin. Which only ever seemed to bother the Crew the nights he actually wound up travelling down the main hallway that seemed to connect all of the rooms.

Sometimes while they wandered, they’d follow the false-Baron in his Lost state, and try to help him return. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes they would follow him simply to see where he would go, and sometimes to make sure he didn’t get hurt. It really depended on the state he was in when they came across him.

That night, it was one of the few nights they hadn’t come across Marius in their own, more wakeful, wanderings. They’d gotten lost, though not in their endless colors and the screaming Void, just regular lost, amidst the labyrinthine insides of the ship. And in doing so, they’d found themself in an observatory of some sort. It seemed to be a large room, yet it was the first time Lyfrassir had come across it. Gingerly they slid the door open, and let themself inside.

The room had a large window, not unlike the cockpit, facing towards the cosmos. There were a few plush chairs, one of which was covered in sleeping octokittens, and a small table with clearly forgotten mugs. There was a thick layer of dust that coated the whole room, left the room smelling musty and old. There was a dim light on, what seemed to have once been a desk lamp placed delicately on the table. Cobwebs littered every corner, and the only sign of life was a small trail of slime from one of the floor-level vents to the chair the octokittens had taken residence in for their nap. Everything pointed to the room being long since abandoned, left to rot by the crew of immortals. Despite this, the room felt… calm. Relaxed. It was lived in, once upon a time, even though it was now forgotten. It offered some small comfort, in a strange way.

They probably should keep wandering, move on to somewhere else lest they fall asleep.

They found a spot to sit down, a small, plush, dust-covered love seat that at one point might’ve been brown before the blood stains and dust came about, and looked out the window, observing the stars. Despite the mustiness, despite the palpable emptiness of the room, the environment was calm. It was nice.

Lyfrassir wasn’t sure how long they’d sat, staring out at the blinking lights out in the distance, but eventually they were joined. First by a scuttling, robotic spider that settled next to them on the arm rest. They’d seen a few before, but they seemed to stick to the corners and they hid constantly. Lyfrassir let it be, as it seemed content to just sit with them. Then, after another undetermined amount of time, they were joined by footsteps.

“Wow, we really haven’t used this room in ages, have we?”

Lyfrassir turned towards the voice and raised an eyebrow. “Von Raum,” they greeted neutrally. The false doctor grinned at them.

“Evening, Inspector. Fancy catching you here, I didn’t think Ashes showed you this room when you came aboard.”

“They didn’t, no. I just found it a little bit ago. What brings you here, von Raum?” They asked, as Marius sat next to them on the dusty love seat they’d curled up in.

He hummed, turning towards the stars. “You know. The usual–avoiding sleep, paranoia, trying to keep my mind where it is ‘fore the Music changes it again. You know how it is.” He tilted his head, and seemed to consider for a moment. “Though, I suppose, perhaps you don’t. Does the Bifrost play with your memories, Lyf?”

Lyfrassir hummed, and turned back towards the window as well. “Not as far as I’ve noticed.”

Marius hummed, again. “Must be nice. My mind hasn’t been my own in a while, the Music loves to mess with my memories. Things slip in and out of my grasp like water.”

“Sounds frustrating,” they said, for they could offer little other comfort. It’s not like they could relate, it’s not like they could do anything about it.

“It is,” Marius confirmed. “But after millennia, one gets used to it. May I ask what brings you here, Inspector? It’s only fair since I’ve told you.”

Lyfrassir thought about it for a moment, as they watched a comet idly streak across the sky some distance away.

“Avoiding sleep myself, I’ll admit,” they responded, “for as long as I can. I’ve taken to pacing around Aurora, at night, and I found this room… It seemed calm, so I decided to pause for a moment, appreciate the stars.”

Marius nodded. “Yeah. We haven’t… Gods, it must be ages now since we last gathered here.”

“I could tell,” Lyfrassir responded, picking up a pillow and waving it. A cloud of dust fell off the pillow, and Marius choked on it, hacking coughs breaking the quiet for a few moments.

He chuckled, once he caught his breath though, and nodded. “Yeah. There are a few rooms we just… forget about, for a few years at a time. Or we abandon, for one reason or another. I think this one… We abandoned? It was the only room where Nastya–… Where she…” He huffed, and crossed his arms. “Fancy that. There it goes. Nevermind, it’s not important. We’re waiting till Nastya gets back to use it again, I know that much.”

“Talk about ironic timing,” Lyfrassir huffed a laugh. They did sympathize, with the Not-a-Doctor, constantly forgetting things or having memories altered sounded like torture. They… Well, if they were honest, they were tired. They didn’t have the energy to expend to offer proper sympathies to him, the past few years had been overwhelming and non-stop and it was late, they hadn’t slept well in far too long, they were just… tired.

Marius nodded. “Not sure that’s what irony is, however I never finished school, so who am I to say.”

“You didn’t go to school?” Lyfrassir turned to him, and raised an eyebrow.

Marius made a ‘so-so’ motion with his hand. “I did go to school. Inconsistently and I don’t remember much about it. I never finished, though. I dropped out after… I dropped out. There was a lot going on, I think. I barely remember anything from back then.”

“Millennia will do that, I suppose,” they hummed, and turned to face the window once again. “Were you training to be a doctor?”

“Like I said,” Marius shrugged, “I don’t remember. Possibly. I think my sister was a doctor, though.”

Lyfrassir startled, and turned back to Marius. “You had a sister?”

Marius wasn’t looking at them, a distant look in his eyes, as he stared ahead at the window to the stars. His tail had curled around his leg, and his expression was downturned–eyebrows furrowed, a slight frown. In the low lighting, from both the lamp and the glow of the stars, his eyebags and gaunt face seemed accentuated.

“Yeah. I don’t talk about her a lot. I don’t remember her a lot. ‘S why I don’t want to go to bed yet. Her name was… It was… It started with a ‘D’. I don’t know anymore. It’s somewhere in here. She was the smart one, she actually finished school before we were pulled into the war. Or… was it during? I dunno. She finished school. She was the kind one, of the two of us. She made sure I ate and slept, she did all the hunting and shopping and working. My Zeze was too sick, and I was too afraid of being outside or something. I don’t remember anymore. I might’ve been sick, too. Then I found… Ah, I don’t remember… Before I found… I found Her and I wasn’t afraid anymore. My sister was still better than me, though. I don’t know, but… I dunno. …Sorry, I must be boring you, just prattling on about a dead woman. I just don’t get the chance to think about her a lot, sorry.”

“No, no, don’t apologize,” Lyfrassir waved him off. They turned to the window again. “I’m happy to sit here and listen to you reminisce.”

“There’s not much to reminisce over, unfortunately,” Marius sighed, the sound frustrated and verging on a growl. “I wish there was. I wish I could tell you all about who she was, or if she’d like me now, or her hobbies, or her friends or partners, or her degree, or literally anything. When I was younger, before I lost my arm, I know I could’ve rambled for hours, but, well… Memory is fickle, it’s been centuries and my head is already scrambled. Messy. Aurora likes to call me her ‘Broken Doctor’. I wish I could grieve for her, but I barely remember anything. And that’s when I’m lucky. It’s just… I don’t know… Maddening.”

Lyfrassir hummed in acknowledgement. “I can… certainly sympathize. That sounds awful. I’m sorry, Marius, for your loss and for your memories.”

Marius shrugged, the movement forced and stiff. “Don’t worry, Lyfrassir, it’s not your fault I’m all messed up in so many different kinds of ways. I’m just… you know. A mess.” He laughed, though it sounded almost watery. “I’ll probably forget this whole conversation come morning, if not sooner. I can’t tell you how many conversations with the others I’ve lost over the centuries.”

“Well,” Lyfrassir hummed, thinking. “I’ll remember for you, then.”

Marius huffed another laugh. “Thanks.”

Their conversation lapsed, as they continued to stare out into the stars. It was quiet for a few moments, at least as quiet as it got on the starship of immortal pirates. Just the quiet creaking of the ship herself, the quiet breathing of Marius and Lyfrassir, and the octokittens meowing and chirping in their sleep. There was some scuttling above in the vents, likely more spiders, and if Lyfrassir strained their ears they could hear something coming down another hallway, distant and careful to try not to wake the others. Probably The Toy Soldier or Brian, then.

“What about you, Lyf?” Marius asked, once again interrupting the silence.

“What about me?”

“Siblings,” Marius elaborated, “family, anyone? You never talked to us about your personal life, never seemed to talk to anyone about your personal life.”

Lyfrassir didn’t answer for a while, and thought back to their life on Midgard. They didn’t really interact with anyone they worked with enough to consider them anything more than coworkers, they never let their few friends outside of work get close, and they hardly talked to them anyway, and they were very dedicated to their job. To doing their job right. Even if they were playing into a system that had, ultimately, hurt people, even before the Ratatosk arrived and brought the Bifrost with it. They didn’t really have a personal life. They were just Inspector Second Class, Lyfrassir Edda.

They hadn’t talked to their family in months when the Ratatosk arrived.

“Yes,” they said, voice growing quiet, “yes I did have siblings. I just… My older brother and I, we didn’t have the… best relationship. I hadn’t spoken to him in years, I refused to. And my other older siblings, I just… I hadn’t gone fully no-contact with them, but I didn’t talk to them nearly as much as I would have liked. As I should have. I don’t… I don’t think I even remembered to try and warn them directly before I left–though it’d have been hard. All of them lived on other planets, I was the only one who moved to Midgard, and travelling between planets was always a hassle. So… We didn’t get to see each other often. Messaging was easier, but it was still troublesome and difficult–unreliable. And I wasn’t the best sibling. I didn’t respond a lot, didn’t reach out a lot…” Lyfrassir closed their four eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. They hadn’t really thought about their siblings in a long, long time. They mourned them as much as they mourned everyone from their system, but they hadn’t given their siblings much thought besides in passing.

Gods, they hadn’t even given their siblings any funerary rights.

Silence stretched onwards, and as the weight of what they escaped once again dawned on them, they cracked and crumbled, curling in on themself as tears began leaking from their eyes. Sobs tore out of their throat, choked and strangled cries for millenia of history, the loss of people they were close to and hadn’t even known blurring their vision with warm tears, breaths hitched and all but useless as everything fell apart and they remembered just how much they lost. Painful, wretched cries came from the former inspectors throat, and though they didn’t want to cry in front of Marius–again–they knew by now it was pointless to try and stop until they were out of tears. The stabbing pain in their chest twisted and churned, and they couldn’t think beyond just how they’d lost everything.

Eventually breath returned, their face covered in snot and tears and a bit of drool, and they were able to collect themself minutely.

Marius just sat there, with them, and let them cry until they couldn’t anymore and offered them some water he acquired from somewhere. They were starting to give up on ever getting a clear answer on his summoning schtick.

Still, they accepted the water, bothering only to wipe their snot off on their sleeve before beginning to sip at it slowly. Marius had seen them in a worse state.

“I’m sorry,” Marius mumbled, as they both continued to watch the stars. “For whatever it’s worth. Even if you weren’t close with them, that kind of pain… I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” they muttered. “I don’t… think I’ve fully processed everything, yet. I know it’s been a bit, but I… I’m sorry for falling apart on you again.” This had happened a few times, where they’d crumble in front of one of the Mechanisms, but they normally managed to keep their tears to themself in their room. It was deeply pitiful and embarrassing when they fell apart around one of the others. At least this time didn’t involve rainbows and technicolor nightmares pouring out of their skin.

“Don’t apologize,” Marius insisted. “You can’t expect to be over everything that happened in… Four? Five years? I’ve uh, been trying to keep track but you know how time gets when you’re thousands of years old.”

They rolled their eyes. “I haven’t gotten to that point, no.”

He shrugged. “Don’t worry too much, then. But yeah, your entire system was destroyed. You’re not supposed to get over that in only a few years. So don’t apologize for needing to cry about it.”

Lyfrassir huffed. “Sure.” They took a sip of their water again, keeping their attention pointedly on the stars in the sky in front of them. The cosmos was vast, and yet its beauty was comforting. Stars twinkled in the distance, bright and shining and ancient and dead. And yet they would be remembered. They’d live on in the minds of people everywhere, as their lights reached planets even if billions of years after they died.

Not everything dead lies forgotten.

“Would you… Like to hear more about them?” Lyfrassir asked, quietly.

Marius hesitantly scooted a little closer. “Yeah. Whatever you want to talk about.”

Lyfrassir didn’t get any closer, but they didn’t stop him from leaning into them. They wrapped an arm around his shoulder, a bit unsure of themself but getting as comfortable as they could, and took a deep breath, beginning to weave a tale about their childhood while the two of them watched the stars. Quietly, as if speaking louder than a gentle whisper would somehow break the sanctity of the unused peace the room held, they shared their tale. Just a story for Marius and themself.

Jonny passed by the main observatory on his normal rounds. He couldn’t sleep, so it was much more worth his time to make sure nothing fishy was happening on his starship, after all. Aurora was a heavy sleeper, it took a lot to wake her up, so someone had to be there in case something went wrong.

Normally, whenever he passed the observatory, he glanced at it and walked away, but today he paused.

The dust had been disturbed, somehow. He would’ve written it off as octokittens, except that the door was open. That’s how he noticed the footprints in the dust in the first place. Normally the little pests would just crawl through the slits under the door or through the vents, and the Stowaways never really left footprints.

Pulling out his gun, he waltzed into the room, prepared to shoot whoever had invaded the space.

He was surprised to find Marius and Lyfrassir, sleeping in a tangled mess of limbs on one of the love seats in the room. They seemed deep asleep, Marius humming softly under his breath and Lyfrassir limp as a cooked noodle. It was the most peaceful rest he’d seen them have in a while, their nights plagued by night terrors and nightmares more often than not, it seemed.

Jonny scoffed, and rolled his eyes. Just two of his idiots, of course. What else would it be.

He grabbed one of the musty blankets kept in the room and tossed it over the pair, before leaving them be. He even let the octokittens live, so as to not disturb the duo. Never let it be said he never did anything for his crew.