Ashes and Ink

Spinal Corridor  -
 * This short, well-lit hallway has lighting fixtures set into its steel-plated ceiling and serves to connect the ship's various compartments. It is a bit on the narrow side, allowing maybe two humanoids to walk abreast with adequate room between them and the crash padding that runs the entire length of the wall. More light washes up from below, giving the impression that the gridded metal floor floats. Forward is the bridge, while starboard is the passage to the crew's commons. Portside is the private stateroom doubling as the ship's simple sickbay, while aft a pair of matching hatchways provide access to the engineering outriggers.

- The ship's interior lighting is set at its brightest level for the afternoon shift.

Mika's small, lanky frame is cast in an ominous blue from the strip-lighting which lines the ship's spine, giving her the look of an especially roguish specter. She's got an access panel open and is crouched beside it, with the holographic form of Ariel sitting on its haunches atop the hullplate.

Stepping down the small stairwell from the bridge, Vadim yawns and gives a stretch, looking like he's had his fill of puttering about up there. Mika does garner an amused glance from whatever it is that she's up to. "So, what was that meeting about?" he ponders stepping over towards the woman to peer at what exactly she's doing. "Would've shown up but...had shit to do. Figured you could handle it."

"So a Timonae, a Sivadian, an' an Ungstiri are talkin' r'ligion," Mika narrates, completely ignoring the question posed as she snoops around the interior wiring. "Th' Timonae says, 'surely Adam was Timonese. Look't 'ow 'e was shaggin' Eve.' Th' Sivadian disagrees, sayin', 'Adam was Sivadian. Look't 'ow 'e gave th' lady th' firs' bite o' th' apple.' But th' Ungstiri disagrees with 'em both. Says 'Adam was obviously Ungstiri,'" she turns a shit-eating grin on Vadim, "'who else woul' 'ave nothin' t'is name but a goddamned apple an' think 'e was in paradise?'"

At first, Vadim looks vaguely annoyed that his request has brushed aside as it was, but he does manage a snort a and a chuckle after hearing the punchline. "Da, but if that were true, he'd try making the apple into some kind of liquor, so he could get Eve trashed and have an easier time getting in the sack with her." he ventures, finding himself a good pace of bulkhead to lean against. "Nice one. Haven't heard it before."

Mika guffaws heartily and slaps her knee, her own biggest fan. "I am a riot," she declares. "Somebody lock me up." Her laughter trails off into hooting chuckles, wrapped up with a shake of her head. "Longtooth 'r wotever 'is name is needs me ta pull some political favors. Some cat-person 'r other's givin' 'im an' Silv some gray 'airs."

"Da, I think they're tried before a few times. Hoop, what the hell are doing out here? We could make a -killing- in the comedy club circuit." Vadim chortles, grinning at Mika's self-admiration. Though his grin is short lived, it turning into a slight frown. "Political favors? Like what? Somebody important need to be made to disappear or something like that?"

A very irritated-looking Ariel hops off of the faceplate when Mika grabs it in both hands, fitting it into the panel and holding it steady. "Who knows? I guess. 'e said 'e'd send me th' wot's-wot." She leaves it at that for a moment, just long enough to drill the bulkhead closed once more. "I know some folks over there. See wot I can do."

Theres a nod from Vadim at first, taking that all into account. "Alright. So...does that meant we're putting our little search on hold for and head to Demaria, since from the sounds of it that Longtooth wants to keep his contact with us at a minimum while you go about and do your thing." he replies, moving a hand to scratch the back of neck. "Oh, and we gonna do anything about that damn PDA? Personally I'd rather we just not seen the thing, but I doubt that'd be very smart."

"Ye do wotever ye jolly well want, mate," Mika replies, extending a hand Vadim's way in wordless cue that she needs help getting to her feet. "Jackals 'elp their own, an' th' Boss named nobody other than 'er Dead 'and."

Taking up Mika's hand in a solid grip, Vadim pulls her up with little to no trouble. "I won't let you see her alone. That your just going to have to deal with." he says in a tone bordering on finality, but with an ever so vague tinge of compassion mixed in. "Do that whenever you want. She didn't specify on a time when you had to show up."

Mika dusts her jeans, turning an unhappy countenance on the captain. "That's real white-knight o' ye, mate, but it's really best if'n I go 'lone," she counters, before striding past him toward engineering. Stopping before the door, she keys in the code to cycle the hatch and disappears inside.

"I have my moments, as rare as they are." Vadim replies following suit. "And how exactly if its better that you go by yourself, besides the obvious. You just said Jackals help their own. What do you think I'm doing?" he points out, sliding in past the engineering hatch before it closes shut.

By the time Vadim enters, Mika has threaded her way down and around to the utility locker, which hangs open while she stows the drill away. And then the words sink in, and an utterly dumbfounded expression crosses her face. She stares at the man.

Apparently, these are just things Vadim doesn't want to deal with. Or maybe he doesn't have the patience for it. Or maybe he knows what happened to his friend the last time he wasn't around. He shakes his head, just as quickly as he enters, re-enters the code to re-open the hatch. "You know what? Forget about it. Go see Cabbie and do what you gotta do, ain't gonna stop you. Know you well know that I couldn't even if I wanted to." he says turning about and saying over his shoulders. "But you got forty-eight hours. If I don't hear from you, I will come start looking." And just as quickly as he enters, he leaves.

''~*~ Later... ~*~ ''

Ether its a mixture to get some well needed practice in, or perhaps just get out some long drawn out frustration about everything that makes Vadim 'Vadim', he's decided to have a rather physical conversation with the heavy bag. Which is more or less spoken in heavy thudding of fists. The heavy bag, while not the greatest conversationalist in the world, it is a fantastic listener and doesn't mind being roughed up by the pummeling its proceeding to receive.

Dressed in his usual dark, oil stained pants and boots, for once the man is minus his jacket, flak, and shirt, deciding on sport dark blue undershirt, more commonly known as a 'wife beater'. Music loudly plays in the corner wheres he's working out, a jazzy upbeat sort of rock''technoish mixture. Might not be his personal choice, he just started playing what was last being pumped over the speakers. Its also apparent he's been there for quite some time, the man's visible skin covered in a thin layer of sweat.

Having been gone the majority of the evening to God only knows where, Mika suddenly appears on the other side of the threshold when the hatchway cycles open. Ignoring every last variable in the situation -- the angry rock music, the bag-beating, et cetera -- save for the fact that Vadim is present, she arrows directly for him, reaching to grab his shirt by the back of his collar and drag him along with her.

Being grabbed in mid-strike is never a wise thing to do, and only someone looking for a sucker punch would be smart enough to do so. Vadim, tense enough as he is, instinctively redirects the swing to whatever or whoever might tugging at the back of shirt. Its only when he realizes who's pulling at him is he able let the kinetic energy from fist dissipate and making his arm go slack. That doesn't however, take the look the surprise and shock away from his features. "The fuck?!" is all he can manage out.

"Shut up an' walk," Mika instructs, frogmarching the Ungstiri back toward the corridor. "We're goin' somewhere, you an' me."

New Chapin Road  -
 * Yellow dust perpetually hangs over the hard-packed dirt of this main thoroughfare. Adobe style buildings sit in a tight, blocky row near the street. In the distance, jagged mountain peaks split a sky that is the color of corn stalks.

- Stars twinkle in the dark atmosphere above as the night sky stretches to all horizons.

Atsehi Mesa is virtually empty, this late.

Nevertheless, this is where Mika has led Vadim, offering nothing to any questions posed other than "shut up," "ye'll see," or "keep walking," and tuning out any chatter he may offer with self-absorbed disinterest. Her stride is quick, purposeful. And her eyes are forward, ever ahead.

The breeze kicks up when they reach their destination, a midsized adobe establishment no different than any other on this particular street save for a hand-painted sign reading "Ahanu Redfox, Artist." It is decorated with a charming likeness of the animal from which his surname is derived, and the building's interior is dimly lit.

Mika's headscarf flaps in the wind as she stands before the doorway, peering inside with a furrowed brow.

Realizing a long time ago, that when Mika decides to not divulge whatever she's thinking about or plotting, its better to just go with the flow, its easier on Vadim's stress-levels. He stopped asking where the hell they were going about half down the Raider's ramp and has since done away with any needless banter. So he'll occupy himself with the burning cigarette planted between the man's lips.

Glancing up at the sign once they've arrived to their destination leaves particular quizzical look of confusion on his face, his only question being posed in an odd look Mika's way. Nevertheless, he keeps going with the way things are.

"In," Mika directs, grabbing at the Ungstiri's sleeve to yank him past her, effectively flinging him through the door.

Should she be successful, what he sees is a small room cast in ambient violet-blue light. Its source would appear to be an otherworldly azure flame conjured up in the center of a hand-dug firepit. It produces no smoke. Generates no heat. It merely burns, and sheds light.

All manner of artwork decorates the walls and shelving, though most of it is folkish and tribal in nature, painted clay pots or Quaquani coat-of-arms or scenes of great hunts or archaic symbols. But those are hardly the focal point of the room. Hardly what draws the eye. No, it is the fire, and the withered old grayhair sitting cross-legged behind it.

Ahanu smiles toothlessly.

The man stumbles inward from the shove, not exactly the most gracious way to enter any building, but Vadim does have enough control over his body to not be ragdolled inside, picking up his coordination back off the floor to try and retrain some kind of dignity. Theres a slow glance around to make sure that, yes, this really is some kind art shop. Which only furthers his perplexity. He returns Ahanu's smile with a polite nod and loose wave, before turning half way back to face Mika.

"You gonna tell me why we're here?" he asks, the first words out of his mouth since leaving the ship. "Or you gonna keep playing silent taskmaster and leave me in the dark?"

Shadows have nearly swallowed the lanky figure Mika cuts, moonlight slicing across the left side of her body to illuminate one green eye, the scars at her neck, and the kevlar-armored relic of her first and only encounter with the Vorra Sect. "Ye said ye were a Jackal," she replies.

"Twilight animal, carrion-feeder," intones Ahanu in a tongue flavored with the spices of the desert world.

"Are ye?" the rogue goes on, as if oblivious to the unusual echo.

"I have been many things." Vadim intones with sound that could border on reminiscence, as one of his own deep green eyes tracks Mika's movements. Or long seeded dread. "You said that 'Jackals looked out for another'." he echoes of their earlier conversation. "I didn't mean to imply that..." He doesn't finished that thought, simply shaking his head and sucking off his cigarette, and begins to take in the affair in an entirely different light...or shadow. Depends on how one would view it, one would guess.

"Hoop." he grunts, clearly not having been expected to of been asked such a thing, but he nods. "Da. What do you want from me then? What do I got to prove?"

"Pack-runner," drones Ahanu, his gnarled featured cloaked in ghostly blue light. "Night-singer."

Only the corner of Mika's mouth is visible, but that is enough. Enough to see the glint of pearly white when that familiar, crooked grin snakes its slithery way across her face.

"Jus' sit," she tells him, indicating a hide-covered cushion beside the old Qua.

"Predator," the old man goes on, "scavenger."

Theres a bit of trepidation from Vadim only just at first. I could be Mika's grin or the possible creepiness from the old man's goings on about that certain animal, though its not his place to ask whether or not he's an expect at such things. Best guess would say he is. Learned awhile back to usually listen to old Qua men, they're pretty smart. Nodding and blowing a cobalt gray plume of smoke out the nearby window he does as instructed, moving over to lower himself down into that cushion.

Huh. He smells of patchouli. Imagine that. He makes a half-grin at Mika. "Your enjoying this, aren't you?"

But when Mika detaches herself from the blackness, there is madness in her eyes. Madness, and the reflected cerulean glow from the firepit. She is smiling.

"Jeff Ryan showed me one o' these fires, once," she tells him. "Said ye coul' see yerself in 'em. Th' future, too. I didn't b'lieve 'im, 'til 'e broke me 'eart an' died on me." Her gaze flicks sideways, to the blaze in question. "Like I saw in there."

"Truth," Ahanu insists, cupping his hands around a wooden bowl and hefting it to chest height. Tipping his head back, he hauls a greedy gulp, then passes it Vadim's way. His stare could pierce a spindrive field.

Vadim has never been one for the dramatic. The man has lost too much. Too much guilt, too much pain, too much loss that to this day hangs over the Ungstiri much like very shadows that are thrown across the room. What can he say? What is there to say? He has never compared his own bad luck to others. Loss varies from person to person and he'l be damned if comes off like some crybaby about it, lamenting about everything horrible thats ever happened to him. He's still alive, for however good or bad that may seem.

But anyone who can't see how weighs Vadim down is outright blind. He may never speak of it, but its evident in his eyes. It always has been and he's always been aware of that he was the catalyst of so many tragic things to happen to people he valued as friends, maybe even family. But upon accepting that bowl, he drink from it, regardless of whatever its contents may be. Giving it back only one word escapes him; a word that for a very long time has hung over him.

"Nadia."

For some time, there is nothing. Nothing but the sound of the crickets outside, and the old artist's wailing.

"A girl," he chants, "a girl, a girl, a girl."

And suddenly, as Vadim's head begins to swim and the colors in the room warp, there is a girl. A beautiful girl -- younger? Older? Her beauty is timeless, in the mind's eye -- swirls up as if a firedancer, her lithe body swaying with the flicker of the flames. Dancing. And suddenly, it's just her eyes that are blue, blue eyes and pale face, pale face and raven-black hair, black hair and an argent-white sundress.

Nadia extends her arms to her brother, reaching for him, reaching for him. She is there. She is there. She is there, Vadim, why don't you see her?

"Nadia," cries Ahanu, "Nadia, Nadia."

She twirls away, laughing, a merry game of chase. The plains of ancient Youngster spread before them, littered with roaming laaskavolk and glowing blue flowers. Above, the sky is scattered with stars, each of them as beautiful as the girl racing across the plain below.

To his left, an animal darts past the pilot, in hot pursuit. To his right, another. Then another. Another still. Four-legged, fox-like animals, too large to be a common dog, too small to be a wolf. They yap to one another, a high-pitched yelping cry that revels in the hunt. And they beckon Vadim to follow.

When he looks down, the Ungstiri is Ungstiri no more. He is one of them, fur-covered and quadruped.

Oh, how long has it been since Vadim's truly tripped out? Far too long is best guess, as his eyes seem to roll to the back of his head, eyelids flickering. Its amazing how quickly whatever it was he drank to take effect, usually he's more on the hardy side with things like this, though this is a new beast altogether. But to Vadim, she is really there, and he..he is another place in another time. "Nadia...Nadia!" he cries out, reaching out for something that isn't that, fingerless gloved hands grasping at dead air. "Don't leave me! Please!" He gives suit in across the invisible plain that only he can see, so determined, so defiant. "Not again...-not again-! I won't abandon you."

He can smell the flowers, taste their fragrance, feel the tall strands of grass pass between his fingers and -see- the home that he has never known as he runs, running after her. Relentless. He won't lose her again. He won't fail her. The only person who ever believed him. Believed -in- him. "Forgive me...I let you die. I couldn't help it. I couldn't stop it. Nadia! Forgive me!"

The creatures, the black canine figures now running with him only furthers his drive. He will catch he. He will keep her safe. He will do what he could not. She trusted him, and he failed her.

"I see 't," comes a voice, a dockside drawl, Sivadian.

"I see it," comes another, fragile with age.

As the canines gallop across the damp grass, the earth shifts and shakes beneath them, fragmenting into great chunks of rock and dirt. War has come to Youngster. It spits white light and red death, shattering stone as if cutting butter, and blackness yawns further and further between where Nadia stands, dancing and laughing, and where the animals are, charging forward in predatory instinct.

Vadim, so intent on the girl, pleading for her forgiveness, lunges over the brink. Into nothingness. Into emptiness. Into the void. And it is there he hangs, trapped in darkness, four legs pumping as if oblivious to his lack of progress.

Something above catches him by the scruff of the neck. White teeth snap into soft fur and tough flesh, lifting him as if he were but a newborn pup, blind to the world and incapable of locomotion. It lifts him, lifts him, lifts him, back to solid ground... solid ground... solid...

When Vadim, the Ungstiri and survivor of the Phyrrian holocaust, comes to, he is slumped backward. His only support, the only thing keeping him from falling, is Mika Tachyon. She is crouched behind him, arms wrapped lightly about his chest, holding him upright. Her eyes are on Ahanu.

If Vadim could run forever, he would. If it meant chasing his sister to ends of universe itself. Then?

Shattering.

Sundering.

The death of his planet, beautiful as it is horrifying. Chunks of dirt and stone the size of basketballs to mountains fly past, the infernal fire of sanguine, the darkening gray of smoke and shadow. He can taste the dirt, smell the smoke, heedless of it all. But yet he still runs, even when the dark swallows him whole. He does not care. He would chase after Nadia into any void, to any depth, no matter what became of him. No cost is too great. It doesn't matter, none of it.

Scrambling against the force that hold him still, wrenching himself against it, no matter how in vain, he can't stop. He won't stop. Until something grabs him. Takes him up, pulling him, dragging him away. He struggles. "No! NO! DON'T!" he pleads.

There is one more wrenching struggle, only this time it jerks him back to whatever reality he was in and back to his, physically trying to reach out once more, before slumping back into Mika. "She was there....I could almost...Nadia."

"Ye weren't goin' nowhere," Mika assures him, her voice quiet in his ear. "Ye were fallin'. I caught ye." She nods her head toward the old artist, who sits precisely as he was before Vadim's vision, smiling just as if nothing had happened. Except somewhere in the interim, he has fetched a tray covered in great bowls full of colored ink. It lays across his knees.

"Give 'im yer 'and, mate," insists the rogue.

If Vadim was confused before, now would be considered an understatement. Mentally, physically, and spiritually exhausted, all he can do is offer up his hand to the old Qua. He looks almost at a loss for words, the Ungstiri clenching his jaw, trying to fight back the blowback of emotions from what he witnessed in his mind. "It was her. I couldn't reach her. Just like before. I failed her." he's able to get out numbly, quite unaware of the few stray tears falling down his cheeks, finding their way through that dark facial stubble of his.

It appears that even he, someone who hasn't shed tears in time too long to count, can sometimes be human.

Ahanu turns over Vadim's left wrist, dabbing a thin, strawlike instrument in one of the inky pools. Humming to himself, he begins to trace patterns onto the pale skin.

Dog's master gets shot," Mika remarks, reaching her good hand around to thumb away one of the salty trails from the Ungstiri's stubble. "Dog isn't gonna live too long on 'is jolly well own, is 'e? Naw."

Dab, draw. Dab, draw. Dab, draw...

"Dog needsa find other dogs, wot've been kicked an' beat up an' abandoned..."

Dab, draw...

"... 'e won't survive on 'is own, y'know? An' neither will they. They need each other."

Dab, draw...

"So they form a pack, an' they stick t'gether."

That grizzled old painter leans in, blowing gently on the site of his skin art, and lifts his gaze to Vadim, beaming.

"I'm sorry I fergot that," Mika confesses, genuine regret entering her tone. "Maybe I've been fergettin' 't. Fer too long."

"Theres nothing to be sorry about. We're both far from perfect." Vadim replies quietly, and not to mention weakly. Its easy to see that nothing in his life has effected the man in the way this has, even as he listens quietly to Mika's voice. And its obvious that he doesn't even notice the drawing going about his wrist. He takes a long moment to examine the work done on his limb, and with a good amount of effort, he forces a real smile.

"I like it. Think its fitting in a way."

"Jackal!" booms Ahanu, lifting his voice to the heavens. "Hunter, scavenger, brother of Isis, son of Ra, King of the Underworld!"

"King of the Underworld, King of the Underworld!"