#nova refuge

Oh this is VERY fun, thank you! I had a blast writing this! <3

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He was turning – mutating. Again.

The moment he’d woken up, it was so bad he already had a damn tail and three huge, clawed fingers and a carapace on his head. The meager clothes he had fallen asleep in, casual wear for moseying around on the ship, were all but in shreds.

John crashed out of bed in a panic, a guttural growl turning into a freakish hiss in his throat as he scrambled to his feet and toward the door. Why had he turned? He was taking the suppressants like they told him— this shouldn’t be happening, it couldn’t be happening.

First he found Rivers in the halls. Padding up behind him, John tried to speak, but all that came out was a wretched growl like something out of hell. Rivers turned, saw him, his eyes went wide— and he punched him. Maybe he had been aiming for his face, but it only came up to his ribs. Probably hurt him more than it hurt John, given his spiked carapace, but Rivers didn’t let it show.

Physically, anyway. John still cringed and recoiled, a decent amount of breath knocked from his lungs, but he still tried again to speak – but it still didn’t work.

“Get away from me!” Rivers shouted, kicking in his direction – it hit him in the knee, hard enough to make him snarl, but still not enough to do any real damage.

Then Rivers turned and ran. He took off down the halls, yelling for help. John ducked his head low and watched him go.

Next, John went to Henry. Henry would always help him – he was his best friend. Even when he couldn’t count on anyone else, for some reason he always knew he could count on Henry.

But when the door to Henry’s quarters slid open, Henry freaked out. Instantly. And of all things, he turned and hit John with a shoe he’d had in his hand. He hit him again and again, like he was trying to ward off some crazed killer. John put up an arm to block all the blows, blinking and giving off some kind of chittering purr instead of actual words.

“God, why do you always come to me!?” Henry shrieked, his voice a cracking mess of terror and hatred, dropping the shoe and retreating deeper into his room. “I hate it, I hate you!”

A horrid, deep, low moan like some giant dying animal filled the room, and it took a second before John realized that was him. He ducked his head even lower than before and turned, tail lashing in distress as he retreated back out into the hall.

Henry had never spoken to him that way before. Even in all their ribbing, even when they argued, even when they were shouting in each other’s faces about whatever, he’d never done anything like that.

In the hall, he found Andrea. But when he came up behind her and tried to speak, she whirled on him like someone ready for combat, a knife in her hand. And she cut him clean across the face, somehow piercing even the carapace – and he cried out, his voice a distorted sound like the roaring wail of a monster that had eaten a human still alive and screaming inside of it.

Then he woke up. Violently.

Jostling awake, he opened his eyes to find himself twisted in his own sweaty sheets. A tiny murring sort of noise alerted him to the presence of Henry’s black cat with her perfect white chest spot, who was in bed with him, her yellow eyes staring in alarm. His face stung a touch from where her claws had caught on his skin.

Slowly sitting up, John noticed the door to his room stood wide open. And Henry was there, dressed in his day-to-day uniform, apparently having barged into John’s room at some point while he was asleep.

“Sheesh, do you always flail around like some tortured movie character?” Henry sniped, snatching up his frightened cat and cradling her in his arms. The cat promptly started purring like a motor. “You scared her half to death. She was just trying to lick your face. If she scratched you it’s your fault.”

John didn’t speak. He swallowed loudly and sat up a little straighter – at least until he bent forward to bury his face in his hands.

“Um,” Henry started, but he hesitated the moment he did, shifting on the bed near him. “It’s not like you to oversleep, Atlas. You know we were supposed to be in a shuttle fifteen minutes ago. I thought you military types were always on time or you get bullwhipped or something.”

John didn’t move.

“Atlas,” Henry prompted again at length, “are… you okay?”

Finally, running his fingers through his eternally unruly hair of spikes, John sat up and took a deep breath, looking Henry in the face. And there was his best friend, staring at him in concern, curious cat in his arms.

Chapter 12: Kinderguardian Pickup

In which Nicole keeps fretting over a set of green eyes, Ghost outs himself as needing a little coaching on matters of privacy, and John gets his first shot at picking up a Kinderguardian.

Read it on Ao3! :D

I am joined by @maverick-werewolf​ and Nicole gets to meet her fantastic John. Click here if you want to know more about him.

“John Shephard,” the man with wolves howling at each other on his breastplate introduced himself.

“Nicole Brennan,” she replied in an instant, more on instinct than anything. But it took her a moment to notice how he’d extended his hand and how it hovered there, leisurely. Patiently waiting for her to shake it. A moment which she spent choking down the flutter of dusty, dry moth wings.

She didn’t. Couldn’t.

All she could do was stand there, her eyes locked on him and a noose snaring her chest together tight. It wasn’t even that he looked threatening, the rifle on the strap and armour notwithstanding. The opposite, really. He held his head slightly cocked, curiously so, and yet all she wanted to do was turn around and be elsewhere again. Not in front of him, surrounded by dead things.

A recurring thing, that.

Read it on Ao3! :D

Oh, and here’s John, The Young Wolf. Drawn by @saph-y​ who you should totally check out and support cause omg.

If your oc could say any one thing to any character, with no consequences, what would it be? Is there a reason? What's their relationship? Has it ever changed? How long have they known each other?

Bless you, OC ask ghosts, and your blog; you are doing wonderful work. :D

I’m going to answer this one with John Atlas and Henry Darrow, from my sci-fi universe of Nova Refuge and the upcoming series Song of the Stars (hopefully it will be around by Q4 2022!). Here’s art of John, at least - art of Darrow is on the way.

(John art by the incredible @saph-y)

John and Henry have a... unique relationship, at least among their own relationship experience. They bicker. They banter. They fuss and fret like an old married couple. On the outside, to the unexperienced observer, they might look like they hate each other. That couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Initially, yeah, they didn’t get along. Henry rubs everyone the wrong way, coming across as a narcissistic loner too proud and too honest to be either manipulative or obedient. Henry saw John, meanwhile, as a cocky, womanizing hotshot pilot who wanted little more than to go fast, get the best adrenaline rush he can from any source, and blow things up, only taking breaks to drink, play his guitar, and sing. But they learned a lot more than that about each other merely over the course of a few truly turbulent and life-changing weeks for them, and they’ll continue learning more in the coming years.

So, in this case, let’s say Henry could say any one thing to John, with no consequences. What would it be?

“You’re the only person I’ve ever really cared about, and I would go to the ends of the galaxy for you.”

Why wouldn’t he say it? He’s not that kind of person. Will something ever push him to that point?

Why thank you. Poor John. He'll forgive you, don't worry! He's nice like that. :D

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The moment Henry rounded the corner – while they were busy fleeing for their lives from the Helexith enslavement camp – he knew he had taken a wrong turn.

An enormous Slashrim Buyok, or “ogres” as Humans had so charmingly termed them quite a while ago, stood there between them and the door. Henry almost tripped over his own feet trying to stop his wild, winded run, sputtering in panic all the while.

“Oh God, oh this is bad— Atlas—” he finally managed to stop and turned in a full circle looking for some other way out that wasn’t the passage they had just been down.

Then John Atlas came loping out of said passage, saying, “I think we lost them.”

“We didn’t,” Henry blurted, and Atlas finally turned to see the hulking Slashrim in all his dinosaur-lizard-semi-humanoid glory, if anyone could ever call it that, staring both of them down as if they didn’t even worry him at all.

“Oh crap,” Atlas said under his breath.

“That’s the understatement of the century – why isn’t he trying to kill us? Should I not move? Is their vision based on movement? Is he just dumb, maybe he’s… he’s… blind!?”

“Henry, shut up,” Atlas hissed, as if that made a difference.

“’Shut up?’ You don’t get to tell me to shut up after that kamikaze stunt you pulled, Atlas—”

Well, the Slashrim moved. And, as it turned out, he had something in his hands that Henry hadn’t even taken notice of before. It rattled deafeningly as he hefted it – and started barreling toward them.

“Is that a chain?” Henry asked aloud in outrage, and for no good reason, before he yelped and froze. He could have run and hid like a child but instead he just froze. Uselessly. As he did on rare occasion; something he was working on.

Atlas, however, didn’t freeze.

The Slashrim gripped a chain in his very alien hands: an enormous, long chain, one end of which was actually fitted to a collar around his own neck. That didn’t seem to deter him at all from using it as a weapon, given he hefted it and brought it around like the galaxy’s heaviest-duty whip to probably break every bone in Henry’s body.

Except Atlas hadn’t frozen.

Charging, he slammed right into Henry and sent him sprawling with a shriek halfway across the room, just in time to land in a heap before he heard a terrible, meaty impact – and Atlas cried out. Scrambling, Henry turned just barely in time to witness Atlas land flat on his side, pain written across the grimace on his face.

Clumsily, Atlas tried to stand. Again the Slashrim raised the chain and brought it down, right across Atlas’s front this time. He crashed to his back with a terrible, cut-off sort of sound like Henry never wanted to hear again – just like he never wanted to hear the sound of that metal hitting… meat. And bone. Especially given that organic impact was Atlas.

“John?” Henry squeaked. Useless – again.

And again the chain came down. Atlas cringed and yelled as it beat him again, down again on his side on the ground, but now he curled inward upon himself with a wheeze, arms trying uselessly to protect his ribs and his head all at once.

So Henry fumbled around the room looking for something, anything, to help. He found… a rock.

Luckily for him, his act of heroism never occurred – just as he set his jaw and prepared to throw the stone at the Slashrim’s big ugly head, where it would undoubtedly bounce off with absolutely zero effect at all, his and Atlas’s captors burst into the room: a red-skinned Mahlok, another of the galaxy’s Native species like the Slashrim, and his several Slashrim guards. Despite their species having no mouth, the Mahlok immediately barked in their Mahlo-Slashrim language – Henry caught something about not beating the slaves without permission – and Henry took the opportunity to dart across the room and rejoin Atlas.

They were officially enslaved again, anyway, so…

“John?” Henry said again, but then he caught himself. “Atlas, you alright?”

Atlas still lay there twisted up on the floor, face set in pain, brow furrowed, his shirt torn in more than one place. By morning, he would undoubtedly be a giant walking bruise. Henry, in overwhelming concern, touched him on the shoulder anyway, trying to rouse him.

Instantly, Atlas gave an awful moan and squirmed vaguely, mumbling, “Pleasedon’ttouchmebuddy.”

Henry retracted his hand. “Sorry – sorry, sorry.”

Oh dear, poor Henry. Under the right circumstances, he jumps at his own shadow. 19. Do they check behind the shower curtain when using the bathroom, just in case? Yes. Henry is paranoid on steroids. You never know if there's something behind the shower curtain. It doesn't hurt to be sure.

16. What was the scariest situation they have ever been through?

There are lots of those. His scariest easily hasn't happened yet...

But, so far? Defecting from Xarkon, arguably Terra Nova's largest military superpower, rivaled only by Victory. Sneaking out of the military program where he used to work, taking secrets with him, and escaping to Victory. But he made it. Now he just has to make sure they never find him.

1. What is their biggest fear?

He has at least a dozen that qualify. But one would definitely be catching a horrible, incurable disease and wasting away. Another would be suffocating in the icy blackness of space. Another is being caught by Xarkon and having his brain prodded around in. Later, he's also pretty terrified of being eaten by John... yeahhh...

The Patreon Loot Bag exclusive minifigs for the last few months! These are Ryan Arkanian and Lashnar the Slashrim from Nova Refuge, and Aderyn “Redfeather” the wood elf from Wulfgard. The sticker sets for these are coming soon to my website shop.

Thank you so much for asking! 😊

What's the most time you've ever spent on one WIP? 

Oh goodness, this is such a long answer for me. I mean, technically? I’ve spent all my life working on the settings of Wulfgard (fantasy) and Nova Refuge (sci-fi) with my big brother.

But for an actual specific story... I have worked on my main Wulfgard series, The Prophecy of the Six, all my life. Literally I started writing it at age 6, my first iteration of it. I have 27 full, completed - and many of them edited - drafts of the first novel, which ultimately is named Knightfall. I published it in 2015 - but I’m planning to publish a second edition soon (I hope next year at the latest...) that’s revised and better reflects my current writing style, with a few other edits here and there.