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[aurable]

CHARACTERS: Drift and YOU
LOCATION: Various—Infirmary, Sunlight Room primarily with individual prompts in other locations
DATE: Dec. 1-5th
CONTENT: Several people have told Drift to remain in the infirmary for a few days after SEAL Team Hot Girl Shit fed the orb. Spoiler: He does not do this.
WARNINGS: description of (robot) severed limbs + odds-on mentions of suicide and substance abuse

INFIRMARY

The last thing Drift wanted to do now was dream— every memory or random sensation his subconscious attempted to catalog and make sense was a deafening echo chamber and the last place he wanted to be. Pulling himself out of the shallow grave of an artificially sedated rest made his vision blur. Everything he saw was like photographs burned with double exposure; the real overlayed with the imaginary. He thinks there was a hand over his chest—he imagines a voice over the drowned-out words of whoever was really at his bedside. ("You can't keep doing this to yourself, kid")

Only one person ever called him that, and they were long gone. That sharp pang of reality made Drift redouble his efforts to make sense of the oily stains that made up for the outlines of people moving around—rousing himself until he was pushing himself upright. His greatsword was propped against the wall at his (comically large) bedside. The amber siphoning gemstone inlaid at the hilt was visibly cracked—nearly cloven in two and only held together by the handle itself. His already aching spark stuttered at the sight of it.

(Take care of her.)

Drift frowned as he recalled Remi's words—drawn up at the sight of what it cost to bring the orb back. Drift was a mess. His color was dull, and his eyes barely a flickering blue light as he took stock of what damage he had taken by feeling alone. Some of his injuries were internal, but most had been just exhaustion from the strain.

Turning to the first person he sees, Drift voices the only question on his mind: "Is everyone okay?"

SUNLIGHT ROOM

Popular opinion was that a holoform was only a means of subterfuge—play-acting at being something more palatable for the sake of others. Drift saw the logic there but disagreed and found the idea limiting. Here, on a station designed with a crew manned by organics in mind, a holorform was just convenient. Drift took a more metaphysical approach to the whole concept of his human guise. Some of his fellow 'bots likened it to piloting a tiny suit, others to sleepwalking without real sensation. Drift, on the other hand, felt himself wholly like this. As close to a human as he could be, he was unburdened by the constraints of his massive frame still laid up and healing.

At least here, Drift could stand by the brook and feel the artificially winter-chilled water just starting to frost at the shoreline flow over his fingertips. Anyone who had met Drift before like this would note his appearance was more drawn with an impressive landscape of unkempt stubble on his face. He rises from the brook and sits back on a large boulder—idly twirling a sheathed sword by its hilt in his hand with its end poking into the frosted grass.

"Nice, isn't it?"

WILDCARD

( ooc: please feel free to hmu at bretons or bitchard#0228 for starters )