#mossverse

Over his own screen, Antok watched Kolivan talk to their agents through the comm, their voice low enough that not even he could hear it. The light from the holoscreens illuminated them in color that Antok’s cone cells were unable to perceive, softening their figure into something celestial-like. Their hair was already unbraided, spilling over their shoulder — the strands seemed to reflect the light from the screens, making them seem to glow.

Kolivan was absolutely beautiful.

And Antok couldn’t resist teasing them. 

Bowing his head back onto the screen before him, he extended his tail under the table and fumbled around blindly — a satisfied smirk spreading upon his lips as he heard a surprised yelp coming from his mate.

“Um, Leader Kolivan—” the agent from the comm faltered from giving the report. Antok recognized the voice as Thace’s.

Kolivan gave Antok a silent glare. Antok returned it with an innocent smile.

They had to have picked up something out there-- the Universe was full of danger and disease. There was no way they could be prepared of what was lurking beyond the solar flare and the gravitational pull of the binary black holes.

The Blade of Marmora Headquarters was a closed community, so the most responsible thing to do was to prevent an endemic outbreak due to whatever illness they were carrying. They relegated the rest of their work to Antok and then locked themselves in their own quarter.

Antok probably noticed their odd behavior, but... whatever.

By the next varga, the shivers turned into a full shaking. They couldn’t pick up the water glass from their bedside table because their hand shook too much. Not wanting to risk wetting their nest bed, they gave up and flopped back to the bedding.

Another varga passed, and Kolivan’s entire body felt like burning and freezing at the same time. They tore off their sleeping robe, but immediately regretting it when their fur stood in the cold. Cursing, they quickly bundled themselves up in the blankets.

After that, Kolivan started to lose track of time, slipping in and out of consciousness. They probably had fallen asleep at one point, but they couldn’t be so sure. They weren’t sure if it was two varga later or a dral when the red alert blared throughout the Headquarters.

Fear unlike nothing before gripped them from the inside. They were in no condition to lead an evacuation procedure or fly an Arbalester to help distract the Empire forces. They doubted that they could make it out of their quarter.

However, stubbornness was what Kolivan had in abundance. They prided in it. They would keep pushing forward even if it meant death.

Still shaking as a newborn kit, they began to put on his armor. They met with Antok outside his quarter, grateful that they had put on their mask-- their mate surely would worry about their state if he could see their sickly parlor.

“Leader--” Antok began.

“Status report”, Kolivan cut him off, hoping that Antok wouldn’t notice their shaking voice.

“One Empire scout. Our tech is scrambling their scanner as we speak, but we’re going through the procedure just in case”, Antok answered without missing a beat.

Standing upright, Kolivan began to rush through the hallway, only to stumble when the base shook.

No-- it wasn’t the base. It was them.

“Kolivan!” they heard Antok call their name, catching them in his arms before their body met the floor. In another situation, Kolivan would’ve swooned being held in Antok’s embrace, but right now all they could do was whine miserably as they struggled to breathe.

Gently, Antok took off Kolivan’s mask. His worry was so palpable, that Kolivan could almost imagine it as vividly as ever.

“Take--” Kolivan paused as coughs rattled them to their cores. Dimly, they were aware of Antok’s large hand rubbing at their back, easing their pain even if only slightly. “Take command--”

“You could have said something, you silly mahler”, Antok shook his head. “Rest now, I’ll take it from here.”

Kolivan wanted to say something, anything, but then Antok passed them onto another Blade --Thace, judging from his scent.

“Take Leader to Chief Medical”, they heard Antok say. “Ulaz should be in one of the evacuation ships.”

“W-wait”, they gasped, hand reaching out to their mate. Antok held their wrist and pressed his forehead to Kolivan’s-- and Kolivan couldn’t resist from nuzzling him in return, feeling their shared bond envelop them with warmth and comfort.

“We’ll meet again, Love”, Antok promised, his voice warm and kind, and Kolivan believed it with their entire being.

Kolivan hated that term with every part of their being. It made them sound... weak. 

Growing up in an Empire colony, there was no helping the Imperium doctrines and propaganda seeping into their internal musings-- this, they knew. And they tried, by the stars, they did try not to think of themself that way. That disease was not a weakness and the disease of the mind did not define them as a being.

“Brain is an organ”, they remembered Ulaz had told him. “Mental illness is the disease of the brain. We treat it just like how we treat diseases of other organs.”

“With the healing pods?” Kolivan had been hopeful then, that it would be as easy as healing broken bones or Exter infection.

But the path to recovery wasn’t that simple. They had to take therapies and medications. There were times when they were unfit to lead their fellow Blades-- again, this didn’t reduce their capability to lead when they were actually capable to lead.

They remembered that particular conversation with Antok when Kolivan had expressed their doubt-- that maybe the organization should vote for a new Leader of the Blade, to replace them with someone less... unstable.

“Remember when you were down with Trillian coughs for ten dral and I had to fill you in? This is no different from that.”

There was still a small part of them that still made them doubt themself, though. This was also something that they couldn’t help-- they knew this.

Kolivan shook their head and took a turn to the left. It was only then they realized when their legs had carried them: Slav’s workshop.

The genius Bytor had his own workshop separate to the Axocarian Maestro and other engineers in the Headquarters. This arrangement was mostly for everyone’s sanity, since Slav had an obsession to micromanage every single damn thing.

He also had another kind of illness that stemmed from the same root as Kolivan’s own illness: trauma.

“Oh, there you are!” Slav chirped as if he was expecting them. “Here, hold this for a par-tick!”

Before they knew it, he already shoved a smooth metal... tubing thing as he scampered off into some kind of a gutted out machinery. Wires hung out of it like intestines with engine fluids dripping like blood. It was morbidly fascinating, in a way.

So it seemed they were acting as Slav’s assistant for the night-cycle. Again. Not that Kolivan minded. Slav’s work was extremely important to the Blade of Marmora; he designed all their security system.

And to be truth? Kolivan felt even more secure knowing that their security systems were designed by someone just like them, someone who checked everything a hundred times over just to make sure that everything worked without a glitch.

Kolivan took another deep breath, letting the smell of grease and engine oil soothe their nerves.

Working together with Slav like this made them lose track of time and it was... cathartic, in a way. Slav had skittered around the workshop, bossing them around to hold things for him, hand things over to him, lift several heavy things, and operate the workshop machinery. Whatever Slav was working on, it didn’t look like anything they had seen before.

“What is this actually?” they eventually asked, unable to hold back the curiosity tickling at the back of their mind. 

“t’s supposed to be the new solar barrier... I think”, Slav rubbed his chin, smearing purplish grease there.

“You think?” Kolivan blinked.

“Well, this is purely experimental, but if we can harness the energy from the binary black holes, we can probably generate a solar barrier strong enough to fight the gravitational pull from the binary black holes for another...” Slav muttered something under his breath, before continuing. “... fifty dralsa, if my math is correct.”

The downside to build their Headquarters between the binary black holes: there was a time limit to their operation-- one hundred dralsa, if Slav’s calculations were correct. Eventually, the black holes would tear the blue supergiant star apart and the small asteroid where the Headquarters was built would be pulled into one of the black holes.

Taking down the Galra Empire that had been spreading into every crevice of the Universe for the last ten thousand dralsa was a long, grueling work. That was why they needed to push back the time limit by prolonging the blue supergiant star’s life.

“That’s not enough time. I need more time”, Kolivan insisted. “And what if your math is incorrect?”

A dark look passed over Slav’s face. Kolivan knew then that they overstepped a line.

Worry gnawed in their mind once again, but before they could say anything, Slav already went back into the generator, muttering up a storm while he worked. Kolivan’s ears caught glimpses of rapid-fire calculations and somewhat, it eased them if only for a bit.