2018-03-14: Isostasy

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  • Cutscene: Isostasy
  • Cast: Loren Voss
  • Where: The Tzadkiel
  • Date: March 14th, 2018
  • Summary: Loren considers recent events, and his thoughts.

Things had locked into a routine rather quickly after the crash. Those who had remained uninjured after the Tzadkiel's 'landing' had been assigned tasks in accordance with their roles. Medical and engineering had a lot of work ahead of them, for instance. With a few exceptions, that is.

A smaller number had been assigned 'leave' -- for what it was worth, whatever it was worth -- for a few days starting after the crash, Loren himself included. Which meant that someone had finally noticed exactly how many hours he'd been on active duty as well as the nature of that duty. Even only a couple days into it he still felt like he'd been left out in the sun too long.
But that was expected.
 
Still, no matter how exhausted or worn through he might have been (or still is), there's an upper limit to how long he can actually sleep, and there's little else to do on the ship at present. This is the reason why Loren has come to linger in one of the corridors stringing the ship, back against the wall, as he scrolls through reports and status updates on his tablet.

Naturally, they'd ended up on the Old Moon, of all places. Initial forays had pinned that one down quickly at least. Briefly, his gaze lifts from the screen.

There's a haze in the air. Literally so, though apparently most people on board don't see it at all -- he'd made the error of mentioning it to another officer, and it had in turn earned him a suggestion to get some more rest. Which, perhaps, helped answered the matter of what it was.
Answers a lot of questions about the origins of the stuff straight out, the more he thinks about it.

But it's the injury reports that -- even if he's been placed on leave -- draw his attention once he glances back down, particularly one specific name on the list.
His breathing shallows; it's hard to breathe at all now. He'd enabled this. He'd known perfectly well how bad it had gotten, but all he'd done was allow it to continue, longer that it should have. ...Higher rank or not.
The tape runs, playing back over that instant he was shot before him--
The hand holding the tablet shakes for a moment; his thumb hovers over that name.

Let's face it, you're better off not knowing how he's doing. Aren't you getting too attached, anyway?

He promptly skips about three-quarters of the way down the list instead, not even reading the names anymore.
Just forget about it. It doesn't mean anything. Don't think about it. Calm down. He tries to breathe normally.
It'll pass.

Unless... no, there was one other possibility for this feeling. Unbidden, the thought unwinds itself; his attention is anywhere but the screen now.

He might try and deny it, but a heretical idea crystallizes from the reaches of his mind nonetheless:

He had been -- perhaps, maybe -- almost begun to be at ease with work on the surface, even amidst a sea of ignorant Lambs. The longer he had been out of contact with his people, the less he felt like some sort of joke everyone whispered or laughed about as soon as he was out of earshot.
He couldn't call it ease, walking among such lesser creatures, but neither did he feel overwhelmed by their number or cast adrift from his home, not any longer.

And now, after all that is said and done, here he is again, stuck in here with people who tolerate him at best, and at worst--

In here with her, too. She'll kill you, you know speaks the thought.

He shakes his head as if to rattle the idea of it aside, drawing the attention of the pair of nearby crewmembers who quickly still their conversation. One of them almost looks concerned. As if caught in a snare, his gaze locks with theirs for an instant, then tears away.

Stop looking at me like that. There's nothing wrong with me.

He doesn't linger; he heads down the corridor of the ship, seeking what space and silence he can. Though there's only so far you can run when what hounds you isn't physical.

Stop thinking about it.

Just stop. Find something to occupy yourself -- that's always worked. Get away from here, and her, the impulse almost burning brightly for its intensity.
Loren comes to a stop; here he takes a breath. Deeply, as he could chain all stress to it and release it when he exhales.

He leans against the wall in the moments after as the shaking finally begins to settle, staring a touch blankly out through the glass into the forest in which the Tzadkiel had landed. The Old Moon. Of course, he's looked at the Old Moon before. But if someone had told him it had forests he would have told them they were an idiot. And yet, here they all are.

What can be seen can be deceptive after all. What a joke.

Is it morbid, perhaps, that his realization took place down where surface-dwellers stored their dead? But with any luck, nothing so grotesque will remain of his own body.
(This point of it is fine: this point he can accept, so long as he remain in a distant orbit around and away from the other section of the whole, the metaphorical planet he can't/won't acknowledge)
(But this, as it is now, is fine.)
(It's all fine. He's fine with that.)

But there's an additional layer to such an acknowledgement of finality, at times:

His gaze tracks upwards at the hazy blue sphere hanging in the sky -- taking up most of the sky above the ancient sea of trees -- broken only where the pane is seated into the frame of the Tzadkiel.

Home has become ever more distant. But not gone. Nothing ever really went away.