#sagan.

SAGAN ⋅𖥔⋅ 28, NB ⋅𖥔⋅ CONFIDENTIAL

trigger warnings: human experimentation, implied violence, gore

Running. You are always running. You run from a story that is faster than you. It nips at your heels, drags you off to sea — or maybe your body is the sea, and you're washed upon the shores of it. Crashing waves, bones bleached death-white, eyelids cut open until the world is nothing but a kaleidoscope of red, of pain — of your open mouth with no throat attached, trying to scream WHY, WHY. And only silence as an answer.

Endless time. White walls, white sheets, white pills. You remember nothing but this endless labyrinth. Some nights you swear that if you press your ear to the ground, you can hear the delicate breathing of the minotaur. SOME NIGHTS YOU SWEAR THAT IF YOU THINK JUST THINK HARD ENOUGH, YOU CAN REMEMBER THE SOUND OF YOUR OWN NAME. They call you by a string of numbers and letters here but you've long lost the combination.

Your ribs are full of rabbits and they've taught you how to hide. Not even in your dreams are you safe — your eyes sunken and set in an expression you don't recognize. Your hands upon cool metal, heart beating to a song on the speakers that plays over and over — there's a language to be learned somewhere in there, but your reflection in the mirror puts a finger over their mouth and grins, jaw opening like a snake about to swallow you whole. You alone the prey, the hunter, and the forest.

[ note: Sagan's history has been hidden for plot purposes. Players interested in this skeleton should contact the main for undisclosed details. ]

DYNAMICS

ATLAS  ⋅𖥔⋅ BLOOD DRIPS FROM YOUR CHIN & I KNOW IT IS MY OWN

Sometimes, you remember them. Peering at you through a glass window muscle memory tells you is thick to shatter with your bare fists. They have many faces, morphing into beasts; into sirens; into gods — but there is only one that has stuck with you. Sometimes, when you sit upon your bed and stare at the walls, their image comes back to you. Downturned mouth, furrowed brows — it's an expression you turn around and around in your mind until their eyes are nothing but the fragments of a tiered chandelier, crashing into your consciousness and cutting your chest open little by little, a thousand tiny paper cuts, raw and bloody until your organs peek through. In this dream, you laugh. Hurry, hurry, you whisper in a voice that you aren't sure belongs to you. Hurry and tell me what you've found inside.

NAIAD  ⋅𖥔⋅ I CLUNG TO YOUR HANDS SO THAT SOMETHING HUMAN MIGHT EXIST IN THE CHAOS

A lifetime ago — or maybe just yesterday — it doesn't matter, anyway; you escaped. For once, you stopped running. If only because the world around you was no longer white, no longer sterile — but rather, warm. Buildings steeped in the sun's blood; air that scratched at your lungs like flies buzzing to mangled flesh. They found you sprawled on the ground, watching the world as dust settled on rusted metal. They took you in — baptizing you with words; with stories — and for once, you felt your mind quiet. You wanted to stay in that haloed glow forever. You wanted to peel their skin away from its membrane, if only to live within them and know how it feels to be full. To have a beginning end. Is this another dream? you almost ask them, but before you can part your lips, you are staring back at the wall and tapping your feet together. Three clicks. JUST THREE CLICKS, AND MAYBE YOU CAN GO BACK.

VOYAGER  ⋅𖥔⋅ I DELVE INTO WORDS AS IF I WERE PAINTING NOT JUST AN OBJECT BUT ITS SHADOW

There are times when his voice escapes the crack between your door and the floor. Cheerful. Laughing. Far away somehow, as if transmitted through another world. You don't connect it to any of the faces that blend together in your memory. Not his voice — his voice can't belong to any of those cold eyes, analytical and disappointed. You've taught yourself to imitate him. To sound happy. To make jokes and laugh; use your fingers to curl the corners of your mouth upwards. It makes those other faces shift uncomfortably; to scurry away and leave you alone. But somehow, you are sure he won't. He's different. HE HAS TO BE.

WELCOME TO PROJECT ORPHEUS, TARYN! YOU HAVE BEEN ACCEPTED AS SAGAN

"I am a star. Five-point pieces of silver glass, hooked to that sky that sky that’s so black it’s thick that sky the kind you can chew that is velvet like the back of a dress that sky so dark you can push right through like a tack through a board like a butterfly to a wall, do you understand? I am not a butterfly on a wall, I am not the girl on the table I am the star, please remember, I am the shiniest one in the sky and there are many others but there is also me and I choose to be up there. And I look down on the world, which is bright, not too bright, it turns down its lights at night to see me, and I say ‘Hello, World,’ and it hears me and it looks back up and says to me, it says, ‘Hello, Star,’ and we look at each other a long time until it is time to go to sleep.

I am a girl in a white dress I am a hundred white horses I am the crest of a wave I am the foam on the banks the film in a child’s net the soap under their mother’s nails

 I disperse I disperse I disperse."

It was from your very explanation of what compelled you to choose Sagan that I knew you understood their story. Within the cast, Sagan is an enigma. To others — and to themselves. How many versions of them exist within their mind? Perhaps too many; perhaps none. But there's a visceral type of connection, regardless — a feeling of words being on the tip of the tongue, but not quite remembered. What Oryx brings to the table is not quantifiable skills or qualifiable explanations, but rather, herself. The unspoken and incalculable nature of what makes a person a person. You've delivered so beautifully and so thoughtfully; on their history, shaped like clay from the gods; on the one decision they finally make for themselves. Make no mistake, this is a love story — BUT DOES SHE REMEMBER TO WHOM IT IS FOR?

Sagan and Voyager's connection has two parts, dependent on the perspective:

From Voyager's point of view: At some point in time, Sagan was able to access technology that allowed them to enter one of the games Voyager was playing. It is implied that within the game, players are able to create their own world, and because of that, Voyager was able to gleam some of what goes on inside Sagan's mind. Sagan themselves may or may not remember this, due to their [REDACTED] being [REDACTED].

Some of Sagan's information is currently hidden (as stated in the skeleton, please contact the main for details if interested), so this may read like a MadLib:

The criteria for review of Sagan apps is a bit different from others because they are a more internally based skeleton. Their mind is fractured, experiencing many different [REDACTED] at the same time. Ideally, I'd like to see some sort of in-character narration that illustrates this. How do they reconcile the physical, outward world with the one going on within their mind? Are they able to tell the difference, or has it blended together completely?

What original [REDACTED] have been [REDACTED] and what has stayed? How does this affect their character now? You could do a before/after comparison here with in-character narration. Their mind before they were [REDACTED] and then their current mental state.

Are they trying to find answers, or have they resigned themselves to living within their current state?

Possibly as Sagan, though it would depend heavily on character interpretation.