#waywardfeathered

@waywardfeathered

The forest was buzzing with life awakening in the spreading dark. Crickets and frogs harmonizing, bats swooping low to snatch the mosquitos swarming the healer. The sounds were familiar. Calming. But, there was no chance for her to rest and enjoy them... there would be no campfire tonight. No rest. A far too close call still had adrenaline surging, sweat dampening clothes, and wings curled tightly to her back, and kept any hope of sleep far from her.

Then, across the glade came a noise. Like footfalls... not of any animal, but human. And maybe she was mistaken. Maybe it'd been nothing more than a deer venturing through. But, already frayed nerves snapped. And Mahia ran. Branches and brambles snagged at skin and fabric. Pitfalls only narrowly avoided by racing steps.

The crack of metal met her before the pain. Rusted iron jaws biting into her foot in a blink, sending her tripping forward... a scream ripping from her throat as skin scraped on mossy ground, and the burning agony blazed up her shin.

Old chain clinked when her leg jolted, frantic fingers clawed at the trap now holding her. Air refused to remain in her lungs, panted out in short gasps, yelps, gritted teeth muffled cries, and pleas, and prayers. The springs did not give. Nothing gained but bloodied and lacerated hands. And in this awful moment, only came worse... approaching footsteps she was certain, now, were indeed human. Light growing nearer, brighter, blinding her. Arm raised to shield her eyes from the glare, other still working feverishly in hopes of prying those jaws open.

   ⬐ @waywardfeathered ⬎

❝  you’re doing well.  you’re just discouraged and tired.  ❞

Discouraged and tired, huh? Talk about putting things mildly. Very mildly, she might add. She’d spent the last few days scouring the extranet, reaching out to contacts, and doing her damnedest to be quiet about it in the process. But she’d found nothing so far on where her sister had gone. The last she’d known, Oriana was attending school to pursue the violin professionally, with a secondary degree in theatre with the idea in mind that she could be a professional comedian… and perhaps blend the two. A wild idea, of course, but one that Miranda had supported—so long as Oriana was smart enough to ensure she had a fallback in case things didn’t work out.

But so far, she hadn’t found enough. Much of that had been sleepless nights, with the lack of sleep making her irritable, pacing, even jumpy. Even the slightest noise in the apartment next door, out in the hall, any of it was enough to make her tense up. After all, she was practically surrounded by people who would be obligated to arrest if not kill her for her association with Cerberus. Being left alone while he ran errands was even worse. Alone, she paced. Alone, it was all she focused on.

'calm down, you are safe'

" - & how the fuck am I suupose to do that?!"

She's shuffling with feet planted on the ground, kicking until she's slid back into the corner of the room, back colliding with the wall with a dull THUD as chestnut gaze stays focused on the unknown stranger. Today was just getting more strange each second. . .

"What's going - the hell happened?!"

general sentence starters @waywardfeathered​ said: “I got this.” / for riley

@waywardfeathered asked:

“people think i’m weird.”

Alisa had done as much as she could to ensure her new crew member felt like he was welcome, but it was... a difficult situation. It wasn't that her crew was unwelcoming; it was that adding a new person meant understanding the reality of someone they'd lost in the process. Their last... operation hadn't gone very well, and they'd lost all but their captain in the ground team. Alisa was the only one who walked out alive; she was the only reason the mission succeeded.

"Ah, yeah, that's... not quite what they mean." She could see some of the looks that her crew had been giving him, and weird... wasn't exactly what the issue was. Not exactly, anyway. "It's not that they think you're weird, I mean. They're--used to weird. They're used to their Captain juggling spoons in the mess with her biotics because she's bored." Alisa had a few very clear rules on her ship: biotics were respected, no question. If you couldn't respect biotic talent--human or otherwise--then you were not welcome, and she would see to it that they were redeployed.

A zero-tolerance policy for hate, that was for sure.

Helping herself to a cup of coffee, she poured a second one out for Cas, setting it in front of the cream and sugar for him to make as he pleased. She, of course, added more cream and sugar that many might consider it "You're the new guy to them, that's what it is. It's been... a while since we had anybody rotated or added to the crew. They don't mean any harm by it. We're just--kind of a tight-knit group. Between flying in the first wave at the Battle of the Citadel, being part of the Skyllian Blitz, a lot of us have been through a lot of our careers together." She knew her crew meant no harm by it; they just weren't used to having someone new around.

Head cants curiously at the standing body before her, just about ready to unlock the entrance to the clinic when she took notice of him standing there. Defense is swift to arise, gaze flickering over him in the darkness of the night.

“-Can I help you?”