#openxstrings

“No, you’re not getting your shirt back, Herc. You forgot it, it became forfeit. It’s now my favorite sleep shirt.”

She was in fact wearing the shirt in question just then, sipping her morning tea with a far too amused look on her face. In truth, one could make a lot of assumptions based off this conversation if they heard it.

Something was bothering Lucky, a feeling in her processor of something familiar but something she couldn’t place. Memories that had been pushed deep and forgotten threatening to resurface. Lucky grumbled and sat up, she had been relaxing on a beach, a devastated city from one of the kaiju attacks met the coast, skeletal reminders of the terror the Earth endured. She had been sure the place was abandoned but her on board proximity sensors were alerting her to movement, something was approaching her and it was smaller then any kaiju she knew of.

With a cheery chirr announcing her arrival, Mothra landed before Herc with a great gust of wind. She crouched down, and carefully nuzzled him with her fluff. It was the only way for her to emulate a human hug.

“Well, aside from the fact that they are dead — along with aeveryone else in my species —there is not much I can say without ‘aving te explain a lot o’ things about my species,” Nicholas answered with a sigh. He brought a hand up to rest his chin in the palm. Black digits tipped with curved talons framed his horribly scarred face. “So ‘ere is wot I can say.”

The shapeshifter leaned back a bit in his scavenged office chair. A second set of arms just below and slightly behind the first pair and stretched out to the sides.

“My mum was an herbavor, so she only had her true form. Also hermaphrodite, since being an herbavor meant she could not ‘ave the same coming o’ age ceremony. Water based. She worked in agriculture, but used te travel up until she received an injury that made it difficult te swim as far.” Nicholas faintly smiled as he spoke about the aquatic beast. “Fierce, protective, and highly honorable. She loved ‘earing about pirates from this world.”

“And then there is my father. Carnivore, bone based. A “Healer” like myself. Or a combination o’ surgeon and genetic researcher as ye humans would be more familiar with. Blue blood, so he also had a higher social status than my mum and I. He trained my brother and I in the field personally.

[Two hit combo because @openxstrings Liked THIS, and continued from THIS]

For just a moment, Deianira was distracted. Verify had given her the file on Riddick, the Last known Furyan, and she knew about his eyes. But this was the first time she’d seen them since they’d met on that nightmare of a planet he’d helped her escape.

She wasn’t a romantic type, but suddenly the phrase ‘eyes you could lose yourself in’ had context.

Send 💭 for a thought my muse has had about yours

Herc’s kind of an anomaly.

I mean, he’s just a guy. A good guy. A soldier, a veteran, who fought and won a war against the kind of monsters Lovecraft might’ve dreamed up during a particularly bad acid trip. But he’s not exactly from around here.

Look, I’m a huge sci fi nerd, and I read voraciously. Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein, Dick, the works. I’m familiar with the Many Worlds Interpretation, the concept of parallel universes, all that jazz. And the sixth Law of Magic, the one that talks about swimming against the currents of time-- well, that ties into the whole parallel reality thing, all nice and neat. See, when someone goes back and throws a wrench into the timeline, all sorts of branches start to sprout. You get whole new realities out of it, some that may be only subtly different, some that are vastly different-- and others that might make H.R. Giger’s worst nightmares look tame.

I wonder, considering these Kaiju that Herc and his army buddies were fighting could essentially be called Outsiders (or maybe some distant or not-so-distant relation to the Outsiders), who or what may have thrown a wrench into the timeline. Or maybe alternate realities exist whether people fuck with things or not. Maybe it’s just a thing. I don’t know. I’m not a quantum physicist, just a blue-collar wizard trying to clean up other peoples’ messes in aisle 6 for way too little pay and even less recognition.

But yeah. Like I said, Herc’s an anomaly. He literally dropped into this universe and got trapped here. I think he may still wonder if he’ll ever find a place to belong, a place to call home. I offered him a place to stay way back when, and we never actually bothered to change that. It gets a little cramped sometimes, but we make it work. But does he really feel like he’s home, or is he just there because he has nowhere else to go?

@openxstrings

It had taken Margaery a surprising number of connections to figure out how to meet with Edward. They hadn’t actually exchanged numbers in her first few days on campus. Eventually she’d discovered he was renting office space and made an appointment. Admittedly, she hadn’t used her name for the appointment for fear he wouldn’t see her. Admittedly, “Rosaline Cerulean” wasn’t the best alias, but she’d improvised on the phone.

Now she sat  in the office, waiting, dressed and groomed considerably better then the last time they’d crossed paths. She donned an emerald green pencil skirt and a pale gold blouse. Her hands were crossed in her lap, and a purse was beneath her chair. She’d put on make up-elegant instead of sexy. She wanted to appear professional young woman-as a contrast to drunken confused girl.whose world had been turned on it’s head.

The door opened and she turned, not sure he’d seen her yet. But he spoke right away, before he could retreat.