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ximilia mods ([personal profile] ximilian) wrote in [community profile] ximilialog2023-06-01 06:40 pm

MISSION: THE AI AND THE COMMANDER

M I S S I O N   1 4 . 0

SOMEWHENPRESENT DAYFYI

// SOMEWHEN  


The hum of the teleportation platform is familiar, filling your ears as the bright light dissipates enough to safely open your eyes. You feel something solid beneath your feet, and the lack of scent from the asphalt and dirt in Nuhiri and Deumia marks a departure from anything resembling a planet, the space around you giving you no reason to think anything of it. You're on the Ximilia once again — finally. Another mission successfully accomplished, for whatever other hardships you and the rest of the team have endured. Hot food and hot showers await, and Newt will surely be scurrying off to prepare for the team’s usual post-mission movie night.

You’re back and you can’t wait for Viveca to greet you, and for Degar to take the orb away, back to the North Wing to join the other ones.

Except … the station’s walls appear to be peeling, and some of the equipment looks a little older and unpolished. There’s even a layer of space-dust on one of the control boards. And most importantly: no one is here to greet you. As you turn and look to your fellow crewmates in confusion, even now some of you might start to wonder at the change of routine. Ivy, who had just been handling the orb, will be empty-handed, but surely there’s nothing to worry about. The station is peaceful and still. Nothing feels amiss … yet. And then:

// 0-L1V-14
Oh, hello. You are not the team I know. Yet you are here for the orb … Good.

The sound of 0-L1V-14 — or 'Olivia' as many have come to call her — voice springs to life around you. She almost seems to sound confused for a moment, clearly recalibrating her systems for this strange occurrence, before the gentle tenor of her voice regains its composure and she recalls her mission directive. The lights in the teleportation platform seem to glow just a little brighter, as though the arrival of the crew has buoyed the AI's spirits.

// 0-L1V-14
I've located one within the station, but it seems to have fractured. The air around them appears to have some sort of temporal disturbance that I can't quite pin down. Be cautious, but bring them to me before anything happens.

Well? You heard the AI. Best to start looking.


1.0   The first thing you might think to do is return to the sleeping quarters, either to clean up and change into another set of clothes; or to take a much-deserved nap; or maybe you just need a moment to yourself to collect your thoughts. The doors to the sleeping quarters seem to stick for a moment, which isn’t worrying in and of itself, but as the doors slide open you realize that you’re looking into a dark and empty carved out space that resembles a place for storage more than anything else. The walls and doors that used to make up your individual rooms are absent, and the floors are stripped bare, with rows of perforated grates allowing the cavernous space to remain relatively well-ventilated. It’s clear that no one has visited this room in quite some time, and perhaps there had once been plans for it, now abandoned to hold a stock of random items in its place.

There are boxes stacked against the wall, and a shelving unit that holds miscellaneous supplies: cans and boxes, batteries and wires, old bound notebooks made of paper. Rolls of rough tarp are haphazardly leaning against the wall to one corner, and thermal blankets are scattered amongst scraps of loose-leaf, a sketch of a cluster of spherical shapes in different colours, and other foreign knick-knacks that seem to have no place on a space station. If you decide to explore this space you’ll have to provide your own source of light as none of the lighting above seem to work though the row of fixtures that you’re used to seem, at least, to have been installed. They’re just not currently online.

Investigating the room a little deeper might draw you to a simple metal box sitting in the middle shelf next to what looks like a half-broken lute, its strings missing. There is no lock on this box, as though it wants to be opened, and lifting the lid will reveal a bright rosy-coloured light. Reaching out towards the small sliver of light in the shape of an elongated teardrop will recall a memory of your childhood so vivid, you’ll think you were back in that time, in that exact moment, to relive it again. Whether it's a good memory or a tragic one is left up to random chance. Only someone entering the room to talk you through your memory will remind you that you aren’t actually a child any longer.


2.0   Perhaps you decide to forgo the sleeping quarters entirely, and want to revisit one of your favourite simulations in the simulation room. Familiar oceans, the futuristic bar, or the room filled with adorable puppies might be your first choice — but every preset you’re used to scrolling through seems to be different now. There are the standard, familiar pre-mission training simulations, and even the Lodgen Mountain Mines mission appears to be here, but everything else has either been deleted … or it was never here to begin with.

You might decide to go ahead with one of the already existing simulations anyway, or you might want to start rewriting the one you’d come here for in the first place. It will depend on your luck, and it will depend on the success of your mission-training, but a small shard of bright, silvery coloured light may suddenly reveal itself to you. It appears like a thin tear-shape that hangs suspended in the air. The faintest whisper beckons you close; it’s familiar. Will you reach out to touch it? Doing so will colour the simulation room around you with a memory so real it might as well be — suddenly you might recall a happy moment in your life, or perhaps your greatest victory or adventure. This can be shared with whoever enters the simulation room with you or after you, and will fade when you manage to locate the right door and leave the room.


3.0   The sunlight room that you may have walked through on countless occasions is missing the familiar bridge, the river that runs beneath it, and trees that surround it. Instead, the vegetation around you appears to be far more deliberate and practical, thick foliage like bushes planted in rows, their large leaves covering most of the ground and soil. Several small metal boxes with wires and buttons can be found planted across the space, each with a thin rotating disc that whirs and spins quietly. Each of these boxes appears to give off readings, each screen displaying a continuous green wavy line scrolling across it and text that displays the quality of the air with a percentile grade, the amount of it being produced, and that particular box’s designation zone: Mess Hall, Storage, Living Quarters, and Teleportation Platform among others. This isn’t just a room that simulates nature, but if you were to approach any of the small bushes and saplings here, it’s clear that the plants here are real and they’re currently working to provide the rest of the station with oxygen.

Further to the back of the sunlight room, a bright sliver of colourful green light seems to glitter and glint between the leaves. It feels familiar in the way that it whispers faintly, and if you concentrate you can make out the sound of your name in a voice like that of someone from your past: a friend, perhaps, or a family member. Maybe a loved one or an enemy. Or perhaps it’s a voice you can’t actually recognize. It might compel you to reach out for the light, but will you listen? Or will you turn away?

If you embrace the light and call out in answer to the voice, you will re-experience the action, the conversation, or the thought that you attribute as being the reason you are who you are today with that most important person being the key piece in your memory.


4.0   Looking for your usual snacks? Feeling peckish for that bowl of instant spicy space-ramen you saved for post-mission? You might head into the kitchen expecting the familiar foodstuffs that you’re used to only to find that the room has been rearranged, with far fewer cupboards and appliances, and more of what looks like typical space-fare: freeze-fried items and nutrition-focused meals sealed into silver foiled bags. What ‘fresh’ ingredients exist are even less, and there are a stack of dirty plates and cutlery in the sink that don’t look like anything you or your crewmates might have used. You may already suspect that this whole station isn’t the one you’re used to, or you might still be in denial. Either way, you may find through your rummaging the call to a little sliver of coppery-coloured light located behind the freezer door.

If you decide to touch the fragment of light here, you’ll feel a ghostly burning as though the glint of the light has cut your skin, almost cold enough to feel sharp — but it’s just your imagination, isn’t it? What you remember now as it comes back to life around you (and the team member or members who may have joined you) is the best meal you’ve ever eaten, whether it is something you made for yourself, something made by your loved one, or the meal that leaves your heart feeling empty and aching.


5.0   You may have become so accustomed to seeing the North Wing doors sealed that it’s your curiosity that draws you forward to the wide expanse beyond the now open wing, your feet testing the threshold as if you’re expecting an invisible wall to keep you out. Nothing happens when you step into the North Wing, though you might immediately notice the large tank that holds all of the team’s successfully captured orbs is very clearly missing. And not only that but the space appears to be well lived in, a small cluster of worn chairs and a table set to one side, and data pads and drawings on white-boards in plain view. They don’t seem to be much more than a couple of crude strategy diagrams (and a couple of silly stick figures in one corner) and as you move towards the crew quarters, some of you might instantly recognize the familiar room with its rows of beds and a scattering of personal effects assigned to each bunk. Photos are pinned to walls of a twenty-person crew, pillows and blankets are left in disarray by unfinished knitting projects, a diary written in a language you can’t quite translate, and a stuffed elephant-shaped plush doll lies at the head of one of the beds in the middle of the room. By the door is a neatly made bed. An analogue paperback novel sits on the nightstand, a bookmark set in the middle to note its progress. On top of it is a well-kept watch stopped a little after the sixth hour and a medal of service in the now recognizable insignia of the Ndiera Complex’s Federation.

By the far wall of these sleeping quarters is a bright golden starlight that seems to illuminate that side of the room as though someone had turned on a torchlight to the highest setting; it’s almost blinding. Moving closer to it, you’ll find that it’s like all the other slivers of light scattered across the station — a broken shard, like a piece of a large puzzle. Touching it may pull you — and whoever might be in the room with you — into a memory from your time with the Ximilia crew, whether it happened over a year ago, or it happened only on the last mission. It might be a happy memory, or it might be something you regret, which is poignant considering your initial raison d’etre for being here at all. It’s a vision that appears from your perspective and while you relive it, you feel outside of yourself.


6.0   The rest of the station still appears to be intact, with the infirmary, the training room, and the armoury in the same locations that you remember. Those of you who have been here for quite some time, you’ll find your way around by muscle memory alone; but even if you’re a newer member of the crew you’ll have wandered the halls enough to know what feels familiar to you … and what doesn’t.

The infirmary looks to be a little out of date, though it looks as if it’s seen its fair share of use. And it’s smaller too, the more recent addition and surgical area missing from the cozy space. The training room and the armoury share similar qualities of seeming a little older, a little more lived in, and with well-used equipment and weapons to boot. The training room is still padded with firm padded flooring and benches for sitting. Some of the racks and hooks (all empty) that had been against the wall have fallen now, and similar to the teleportation room, you’ll find that some of the paneling in this room has since peeled away, revealing some of the bare structure behind them. In the armoury, you won’t find your favourite knife or preferred staff but there are still a few choices in weaponry to arm yourself with.

Wherever you decide to explore, you might once more happen upon a bright bluish light that seems to whisper and call to you in soft, hushed tones. No specific words can be picked out through the murmurs but the feeling is all the same — it draws you forward like a moth to flame, but whether you decide to reach a hand out to touch the sliver of light that hangs suspended in the air is entirely your choice. If you do, you might succumb to a vivid memory of a significant injury you or someone important to you had suffered once, reliving that moment with too sharp clarity. Those feelings of fear or threat or maybe even satisfaction seem to come to you again as though you were there again — only this time you may not be alone as you witness this memory, and someone else has entered the room with you.

Present Day.

The teleportation platform hums quietly in a clean, well-maintained room. No walls or floors appear to be even the least bit dented, and now the Commander of the Ximilia stands behind the control board, staring at the screen as though doing so will bring their crew back by some wild form of magic. Degar knows magic — he’d come from a world so full of it. This, however, is something different.

Beside him, Viveca scans through the data that had sent the crew into the Ndiera Complex, as it should have brought them back the same way, with the orb in tow.

// VIVECA
“I don’t know how it happened… they should have arrived here. Everything seemed normal! But I’ll figure it out. We’ll figure it out.”

// DEGAR
“They could be anywhere, right? Except we can’t even help them if we don’t know where that might be.”

// VIVECA
“I know. The strange thing is that it seems that we’ve located another orb… only, it states that it’s here. On the station. So even if the platform sent them straight to it… why aren’t they here?”

The Commander and the AI both turn their gaze towards the still empty teleportation platform before exchanging worried glances with each other. Degar finally heaves an exhale but the frown in his features deepens.

// DEGAR
“Keep working at it. I’m going to see what I can figure out in the station’s systems. Maybe we can trace back to the team somewhere. Or somewhen.”

Viveca nods, her voice sounding complicated when she responds next.

// VIVECA
“Yeah. We’ll find them.”

TOP


F Y I

The events in this log take place during the first two weeks of June.

For this mission, we have decided to run the search request mechanic a little differently. Depending on whether your character decides to touch or grasp one or any of the slivers of coloured light that can be found throughout the station, you will have the opportunity to participate in a search request. More on this is explained HERE.

If you have questions about any of the prompts or the mission in general, please direct them HERE.

Any in-character questions to 0-L1V-14 can be asked HERE.

And finally, your soundtrack for this log:

TOP


NAV

doooooog: (g)

[personal profile] doooooog 2023-06-14 04:15 am (UTC)(link)
[ There's another pause, the tinkling of suzu playing over the silence in a way that almost sounded like laughter. ]

That's sweet of you. Really. [ The voice if kind, if halting. As if he knows he's about to disappoint. ] But you can't change what's already happened. That's just not your job here, man.

[ Before Yujin's feet, the grass in front of him starts to turn brown and die. Below it, the cubes from before can be seen beneath it. ]

You see that? All of this is as real as it needs to be. Including me, I guess. Time is a lot less of a straight line than you singulars seem to think it is. I mean, look at you.

[ If Yujin does look at his hand now, he'll find it somehow looks both young and old at once. Past and present, layered over each other like contrasting patterns on two sheets of cellophane. ]

Maybe instead of asking how you can help me, you should ask me why you're here.
softshoes: (👞 17)

[personal profile] softshoes 2023-06-14 05:05 am (UTC)(link)


[The grass withers and loses its color; the cubes shift. Yujin raises the hand that does not hold the coin and flexes his fingers, vainly trying to make sense of this double vision of old and young.]

どうしてですか...?
Why...?

[Yujin asks, the voice in his throat speaking in two octaves and two languages at once--]

ごめんなさい。
I'm sorry.

[He shakes his head, shuts his eyes tight, and focuses. But even when he opens his eyes and tries again, he's still not entirely sure what language he's using.]

Well, I'd deduce this place is trying to tell me something about myself.
doooooog: (g)

[personal profile] doooooog 2023-06-14 05:29 am (UTC)(link)
Doesn't every experience tell you something about yourself?

[ Yujin isn't the only one coming apart. The voice, so out of place before in the maze of nostalgia and metaphor, was suddenly starting to tug at the corners of Yujin's mind. Both were there at once somehow, clouding his ability to place it. ]

You're still not asking me, man.
.uɐɯ ,ǝɯ ᵷuᴉʞsɐ ʇou ʅʅᴉʇs ǝɹ'no⅄
softshoes: (🌸 35)

[personal profile] softshoes 2023-06-14 05:58 am (UTC)(link)


Oh. I didn't think that was a literal request. Please, let me try again.

[Do they-- he?-- sound familiar? It's impossible to tell, not when holding onto his awareness here is hard enough. The coin, between his fingers, now serves as a tether to some semblance of reality.

It doesn't work. His head spins as he rises again, dizzy and out of his own body.
]



Why am I here?
doooooog: (g)

[personal profile] doooooog 2023-07-02 08:29 am (UTC)(link)
[ There's a long pause, leaves rustling all around them. The air was crisp with the smell of tree flowers, strangely more and more potent the longer Yujin lingered there. It was a unique moment of stillness, the scent and the weight in his obi suddenly threatening to tug him forward somehow.

When the voice suddenly does speak, it's not with words. It's with a laugh. ]


Ha! How should I know, man?
¿uɐɯ 'ʍouʞ I plnoɥs ʍoH ¡ɐH

[ There was something in the immediate teasing reversal that spikes whatever familiarity Yujin noticed before, pinging a distinct sense of deja vu. ] Maybe you should focus a little less on solving all this and a little more on just... walking, for a while. You'll find The Way.

[ The way. Not your way. A trail through the woods opens up at the base of the hill. Will Yujin take it? ]
softshoes: art by <user name=lemon__wedges site=twitter.com> (👞 73)

[personal profile] softshoes 2023-07-03 05:31 am (UTC)(link)


[The sweet, fragrant air, the white-noise hush of the wind through the trees. Cradled within its reassurance, Yujin nonetheless feels stifled: a child swaddled in too many warm, soft blankets, comfortable and safe but with his hands tied. At least it seems to have brought him back to himself, banishing that odd dissociative feeling even if he's still seeing double.

He knows it before the voice speaks. He can't stay here. He has to move.
]

All right. [Whether it's the familiarity, the conversation, or his instincts, Yujin trusts the voice this time. And this time, he speaks in Japanese, and Japanese alone. Tucking the coin back into his obi, he turns his eyes toward the trail as it reveals itself to him.] Thank you for speaking to me, my friend.

[Grass crunches underfoot as he walks onward.]
doooooog: (g)

[personal profile] doooooog 2023-07-03 11:08 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Yujin walks for a long, long time. Longer than linear time could measure, sun fixed firmly in the sky with unnatural stillness even as the world continued to sway with life. Animals scuttled from branch to branch overhead, the twinkling sound of songbirds overhead. It was achingly familiar, in a way that felt more and more real with each step forward.

There was something about whatever memory that powered this place that was stronger than a single memory alone. There were two minds at work here, painting in broad strokes of rich color.

All around him, the cherry blossom trunks became more slender. Greener. Their shady bows flattened and extended outward until Yujin could see little more than bright sunshine through the canopy of... of clovers.

From the strange texture of too-large soil under his feet to the smell of now-vanished plants in his nostrils, there was no mistaking it. Yujin was back on Ciraiwei, to a place he'd seen with only one other person. ]


You getting it now? [ The friendly stranger's voice chuckled from nowhere and everywhere. ] Wɐʎqǝ ʎon sɥonlp ʇɹʎ ƃǝʇʇᴉuƃ ɐ qǝʇʇǝɹ ʌᴉǝʍ˙
softshoes: (👞 46)

[personal profile] softshoes 2023-07-04 05:36 am (UTC)(link)
[It's a long walk. A long, long walk, but like no time at all, too-- his perception in this world's still all askew, but even if it's not something he's used to, he can roll with the punches by now just fine. The further he goes, the more that his younger self melts away, sublimating into himself as if his vision's correcting itself.

The trees grow thinner. The sights, the sounds, the aromas of microscopic flora and fauna that don't exist anymore... Yujin's eyes widen as the realization sets in, and he walks faster now, at last breaking into a run as he makes for a little clearing he'd only visited once months before.

The man stops to catch his breath atop a small hill. The truth's as clear to him now as the bright blue of this dead world's sky: it's enough that he cannot help but to smile.
]

Jake! This is your memory!

[calls Yujin, breathlessly. Sunshine streams through the green canopy of clover above, dappling him in warm brushstrokes of light. From his vantage point, he should be able to see the spot where they'd stopped. But where on Earth is the dog himself?]
doooooog: (xxxxxx)

[personal profile] doooooog 2023-07-08 09:44 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Elsewhere, far away and yet so close, Jake was in a mindmaze of his own. The memory wasn't one he recognized any longer, half awake as the persistent prickle of something wrong followed him through each winding corridor and brightly colored hallway.

He was here to find Prismo. Except, he already had found Prismo, he had become Prismo. The dueling perspectives of a Jake that used to be and a Jake that was left him feeling strange in his own skin. As if one wrong step might scatter his earthly body into a million particles of life and leave him scattered across thousands of worlds.

Which like, would be pretty awesome? But not what he was here to do.

But what was he here to do? It was questions like this that defined most of his time here. Tedious did not even begin to describe it.

Which makes it all the more noticeable when his ear lifts at a distant cry. ]


Uh, hello? [ There it came again. His name, shouted, full of bright relief that warming the edges of age around the familiar voice. ] Wait up, who--

[ Another noise. Jake was listening more carefully now, following the instinctual quirk of his ear towards its direction: down. going down on all fours, Jake paws at the hard cube, frustration building inside him. ]

Yujin! [ He shouts, the name coming immediately. He shouldn't know it, and yet he does. The man's face was an inky black spot in his scattered memory, but Jake knew the character of him without that. He knew that he was steadfast and stuffy and sweet and the best straight man a dog could ask for. Yujin was a new but dear friend.

And he was in the freaking floor, apparently. Jake struck at it again with his paw to no avail, hackles rising in frustration. ]
Buddy, where the heck are you? How'd you get in there!?
Edited 2023-07-08 21:45 (UTC)
softshoes: (👞 11)

[personal profile] softshoes 2023-07-08 10:14 pm (UTC)(link)
[Above ground, at least from his perspective, Yujin stops dead. There's a wonderful second where he recognizes his friend's voice, hears it nearby--]

There you-- are?

[and then, in the next, realizes its source is nowhere to be seen. At the top of that familiar hill, surrounded by that verdant hill of soft clover, he is alone and yet not alone. His shoulders slump, confusion etching itself upon his features.

Then Jake speaks again. This time, Yujin's listening carefully; somehow, Jake's voice is coming from beneath his feet.
]

What...

[He drops down to his knees, too, searching around, brushing away dirt and grasses with his hands. It feels very silly, but hasn't this entire experience followed its own logic? Maybe there'll be a trap door, or Jake will be buried under here-- the dog himself, where a dog might have buried a bone. But try as he might, the dirt on his knees, under his nails, there's no sign of his own steadfast friend anywhere.]

I should be asking you the same question!
doooooog: (ii)

[personal profile] doooooog 2023-07-08 11:42 pm (UTC)(link)
What?! [ Jake's voice echoes, sounding deeply confused and a little affronted. If there is any doubt this was the real Jake, the complete lack of philosophical quandary in his exclamation should be the end of it. ] What the heck does that mean?

[ The more Yujin runs his hand over the earth, the stranger it will start to feel. The too-large clumps of soil, trademark of the Ciraiwei landscape, seemed to break apart too easily. It is as if the earth in this particular spot was loosened from recent effort; a freshly tilled plot that showed no sign of it from the greenery that grew deep above it. ]
softshoes: art by <user name=neriart site=twitter.com> (👞 76)

[personal profile] softshoes 2023-07-09 12:54 am (UTC)(link)
It means-- [demands Yujin, his fingers sifting more insistently through the strange soft earth,] --that I'm in the middle of unearthing you, how the the deuce did you bury yourself so deeply?!

[Movable as the soil is, however, he's still digging with his bare hands. He only manages a few inches down before he pauses to brush the dirt off on his pants. He has to rethink his strategy or he'll never get all the way down to Jake.

...Hold on. His pants?

Yujin's brows raise as he glances down at his outfit. A dress shirt; his tie, pulled slightly loose; his blazer off but folded neatly beside him as if he'd done it himself. Just as he'd been dressed on Ciraiwei, and he hadn't even felt the shift.

Compelled, suddenly, he snatches up his blazer, searching through its pockets. There was something else with him. If everything else is intact, it must still be in his possession... Right? Was he supposed to hold onto that for a reason?

Sure enough, his fingers brush something flat and round in his blazer's breast pocket: the coin he'd tucked safely into his obi is still here. He reaches his hand in for it with no further hesitation.
]
doooooog: (hhhh)

[personal profile] doooooog 2023-07-09 03:31 am (UTC)(link)
[ The coin, once copper and embossed with the face of a regal woman Yujin couldn't recognize, was so clear against the pads of his fingers when he first finds it. It couldn't have been anything else, and moreover it would require an alarming amount of forethought to assume it wouldn't be that very same coin once he pulled it from the dark pocket.

Then again, expectations were cheap here.

What Yujin pulls from the pocket defies the laws of physics, bearing an incongruous heft the instant he pulls it out into the sun dappled field. shining metal was replaced with rich burgundy wood, hitting Yujin with yet another memory that made him feel both young and old at once.

A violin. Herlock's violin. ]
softshoes: art by <user name=lemon__wedges site=twitter.com> (👞 73)

[personal profile] softshoes 2023-07-09 05:02 am (UTC)(link)
[Almost to the moment that the finely-hewn instrument is in his hands, Mikotoba knows. The dark shine of the polished wood; every nick and dent in its surface, perceptible only to the flatmate who'd seen six years of it dropped, tripped over, stacked recklessly on and under piles of evidence; the cushioned edge that he can see tucked under his friend's chin now.

There's no mistaking it. This is Herlock Sholmes' Stradivarius.

The sight stops him short. He's speechless, adjusting his grasp to cradle the violin almost reverently. In his hands, the violin's strings hum faintly, just barely disturbed by the breeze and the motion of the whole instrument being lifted.

It's been about half a year now since Mikotoba arrived on the Ximilia: longer, if one counts the three extra months on Ndeira. Half a year and a day or two, since he and Sholmes parted again by the docks, stealing a last few minutes of conversation before sailing back to Japan. Maybe, they'd said, in a year or two, Sholmes and Iris could visit-- and in the meantime, that regular correspondence between them would, as it had this last decade and change, continue, the connection between the two partners unbroken over miles and oceans and country lines.

Half a year. Nearly a full one. Meanwhile, Sholmes waits in London, frozen in time. But to Mikotoba, his greatest friend is always a little frozen in time, no matter how many years pass or how the two of them both grow into lives together-but-apart. Forever in 1885, forever young with him, chasing adventure after adventure and coming home, as always, to the hearth of 221B Baker Street.

He's a patient man. He's one of love, and of loyalty. Subsisting for a decade on letters and sparse telegrams, never hearing the man's voice, was doable, so long as he could read his words and hear them in his head clearly as if they'd been spoken. This half a year-- nearly a full one-- is the longest Mikotoba has gone without them. Across the better part of twenty years, he and Herlock Sholmes have shared their lives. They are partners. They will never not be, so long as they both walk the earth, and well after one or both are gone.

Grief twists like a knife in his chest. His words still fail him, but he knows, the pain blooming vividly in his heart, that he misses him. Mikotoba-- 27 and 33 and 43 in a single instant-- squeezes his eyes shut and clutches the violin to his body, grateful to have seen it for a moment. Grateful, even, for the pain, because it reminds him so keenly of the love on the other side of the coin.
]

This is a dream. [he whispers, taking a shaky breath.] This isn't really here.

[Yujin opens his eyes, bringing his voice back up to its normal volume.]

But you are, Jake. [His fingers grip the violin harder. There is a solution here, and it isn't one he likes.] Do I...

[Hoarsely:] Do I need to break you out?
doooooog: (q)

every icon i pick from here on out is what jake is doing in the hole

[personal profile] doooooog 2023-07-09 06:22 am (UTC)(link)
[ A voice answers, but it's not Jake's. Perhaps he was drowned out, perhaps he was merely listening, but the dog's muffled confusion was gone as quickly as it came. Yujin was alone, a warm breeze ruffling through his hair almost like someone threading their long fingers through it after a longer day.

The sun dappling through the clovers warms a spot against his cheek, as if an ungloved palm was held fast against it. The sense memory was confident and ebullient, as if the energy he carried inside its owner couldn't be contained in one man's body. ]


It's really been too long, hasn't it, old friend?
softshoes: (👞 46)

[personal profile] softshoes 2023-07-09 06:50 am (UTC)(link)
Far too long, Sholmes. It's good to hear your voice again. [Mikotoba replies. With a sigh, he tilts his head upward, and as his eyes search through the gaps in the canopy, he cants his head very slightly to the side, leaning into a touch that is and is not there.]

I shouldn't have called you an old softy, you know. [A bittersweet chuckle.] That was me all along.

I'm starting to get tired of saying goodbye to you.
doooooog: (dd)

[personal profile] doooooog 2023-07-15 01:46 am (UTC)(link)
[ A hand reaches out, invisible and yet as tangible as if he were right there, threading fingers with Yujin's. ]

So... would you care to join me for a dance?

[ The grip around his fingers tightens, pulling Yujin to his feet with the strength of confidence that so often exemplified his partner. Barging in without thinking, or maybe thinking too much. Mind running through everything and anything, except how much torque to apply to the other man when it came to pulling him close.

Or maybe that was all he was thinking of? It was always a back and forth dance with Sholmes, even when they weren't pressed chest to chest. ]


A dance of my inimitable logic and reasoning, that is.
softshoes: art by <user name=lemon__wedges site=twitter.com> (🔎 71)

[personal profile] softshoes 2023-07-15 02:17 am (UTC)(link)
[Falling into this dance is as simple as taking that hand, as natural as breathing. The reliable tap-steps of Mikotoba's feet anchor Sholmes' leaps of logic down to earth, and yet they are never entirely immovable: Mikotoba, dancing always to match him, improvises, pulled free of the limits of routine. A call and response. A duet. He can almost feel the myriad of old scars and marks on his old friend's hands, remnants of old cases, countless experiments and inventions.]

Yes. I would like nothing more.

[Mikotoba answers. Already, there is a lightness in his step as he rises to his feet.]

Lead the way, Sholmes-- how shall we free my dear friend Jake?
doooooog: (hhhhh)

[personal profile] doooooog 2023-07-15 03:21 am (UTC)(link)
We have but minutes until the [memory] begins to [fracture]. No games now, my dear Mikotoba.

[ Mikotoba is twirled, once, then twice -- a box step. The kind Sholmes would sweep him up into within the silence of their parlor, impatient for attention after an afternoon of Mikotoba choosing work over him. ]

First, let's review the facts. The mise en scène we find ourselves in now, it is a pasticcio, no? In this positively strophic setting, you and I are merely refrains from a very old play. Rife with appoggiatura, wouldn't you say?

[ On the word appoggiatura, Yujin feels himself dipped, a warm chuckle rumbling just under his jaw. ]
softshoes: (👞 38)

[personal profile] softshoes 2023-07-15 06:27 am (UTC)(link)
[The words are a familiar, although not entirely accurate, echo of their last adventure together. Just as Yujin's contemplating what that might mean, he's spinned. A fond smile tugs at his lips as he follows his partner's lead, making an instinctive series of forward-side-together after Sholmes. Ten years ago, it might've tempted him into a break.]

I sense a distinctly musical theme to this deduction. It is-- ah!

[Yujin laughs fondly. Though one of his hands still holds the Stradivarius, he reaches toward his neck with the other: expecting, maybe, to feel his fingers card through the mess of Sholmes' blonde curls. There and yet not there. Instead, his fingertips find his own throat.]

It's apt, you know. [A note that hangs-- waiting, wanting. Voice wistful, he replies:] The violin isn't here, and neither are you. The two of us are a tune played back by a gramophone.
doooooog: (g)

[personal profile] doooooog 2023-07-18 03:17 am (UTC)(link)
Always so quick to put my phrases together, dear Mikotoba. [ There's a ghost of a touch against Yujin's cheek, less a kiss as it was the brush of lips as he speaks. ] It's a wonder the world has yet to realize what a sham I am without you.

[ There's too much amusement in his voice to believe the modesty is anything more than playfulness, the tickle at his cheek moving closer to his ear as the violin is pressed into Yujin's chest. ]

Then again, perhaps incompetence is instrumental to this in-deavor, hm?
softshoes: art by <user name=usaalock site=twitter.com> (🌱 66)

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[personal profile] softshoes 2023-07-18 04:14 am (UTC)(link)
Oh.

[For a split-second, Yujin flickers where he stands. Flustered by the attention and the flattery, he's made young again in that instant, the sound of his heartbeat loud in his ears as he holds the precious violin close to his chest.]
softshoes: (🌸 18)

[personal profile] softshoes 2023-07-18 04:19 am (UTC)(link)
[But those ten years return to him before Mikotoba even realizes they'd disappeared in the first place.]

Instrumental... [he mutters, the pad of his thumb tracing his cheek,] incompetence?

What-- I'm to play it badly, Sholmes? Are you sure?

[This from a man who'd volunteered to break it a moment ago. Somehow, this seems like it'd be more offensive to him...]
doooooog: (g)

[personal profile] doooooog 2023-07-23 05:06 am (UTC)(link)
[ The temporal glitch warms the air around him, as if wrapping him up in a memory so tantalizingly real the crackling of the hearth in their study was practically popping in Yujin's ears. ]

Were my cochlea real, I'd never allow it. But here, in this state? [ The bow is in Yujin's hand now, violin in the other. When they'd gotten there wasn't entirely clear. ] I don't see what other choice we have.
softshoes: art by <user name=lemon__wedges site=twitter.com> (🔎 71)

[personal profile] softshoes 2023-07-26 05:06 am (UTC)(link)
[Although Ciraiwei had always been a warm world (ever warmer, until its end), that slip in time warms him: the glow of an open fire, a refuge in the middle of a bitter London winter. Mikotoba can even smell the logs burning in the grate.

Yet bringing the dear Stradivarius to rest under his chin is bittersweet. He, of all people, knows best that, when Sholmes is on his mark, he is really on his mark. If this works... the memory will end, and this dream-Sholmes will disappear. A final decrescendo to another short-lived reunion.

Yujin thinks, once more: I really am so very tired of saying goodbye to you.
]

I've seen and done so much here, Herlock. There's so much I wish I could tell you.

[He raises the bow, holding the hairs a centimeter above the violin's strings. It's pointless, trying to say anything of import to a mere record of his partner. All this echo of Herlock Sholmes can do is spin, spin, spin, played back for him whenever he misses the real man sharply enough. He's held onto him this way even before this strange vision had brought him to the forefront, and he can do so again until the universe sees fit to bring them together once more.

Yujin Mikotoba is a patient man. Full of love, loyalty. He has waited this long: he can be patient for a little while longer.
]

Until we meet again, partner.

[For a split-second he hesitates, sadness etched across his features. And then, resolute, he plays a first and last errant note.]
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