poll_the_stars | You know honestly I can't say I expected this

Inavet hisses a creative curseword, and slams the door shut, and reaches for her magic. The door to the building she's hiding in becomes to all appearances an ordinary wall. It'll take her pursuers time to find it - none of their arcanists are any good at crystal craft, from what she can tell. It won't buy her enough time, but it'll buy her some, and every second counts.

She starts trying to patch herself up while she looks for an escape route they're not covering. Blood craft's not her best, but she's gotten a lot of practice at it, lately. Enough to stop herself from bleeding out from the wound in her side (because of course it's deep) and keep herself from collapsing from exhaustion. Too slow - one of these days it'll kill her.

But not yet, she thinks, as she spots a window to an alley. Out go her magic senses - no one's alive and breathing in that alley but a cat rummaging through the garbage.

She dumps an illusion over the alley, to appear exactly as it was before she entered it. She can't get the cat right in a rush, but she doesn't need this to hold out for very long. Just long enough to get away. Song disguises the sound of the window opening and her scrambling out of it. She's conscientious enough to close it behind her. Easier than another illusion. Maybe they won't notice the blood.

Which way? Mm. One that way, two to her left, three are - oh look they found the door, she needs to hurry. She takes a right, and runs.

And comes face to face with - a snake? With a mirror for a head? What, how in the -

It's very fast. She was not expecting it. She didn't even sense it, like it appeared from nowhere, she raises her knife but she's not fast enough -

And then there is darkness.

Darkness and pain.

She'd scream, but the air's sucked out of her lungs in a whoosh. She snaps her mouth shut and flails, lashing out with something, anything - but she feels nothing around her. Nothing at all. Not even air. It's like a pressure, on all of her, but instead of pressing in it's pulling out -

Is this how she's going to die? Some Ministry snake monster thing?

Not. Likely.

She isn't the best at blood craft, but she knows enough to keep herself alive. She knows enough to snap her eyes shut and cover her nose and mouth and push magic at herself so her body doesn't shut down. It's hard - there's so much to monitor, she has no air... But she can keep herself alive. If she doesn't move and she focuses near entirely on self preservation. For - for a little while, anyway. Not forever.

Time crunch, then. Well. She was always good at those.

Her lesser crafts won't do her any good here. No way to make sound with song, no air to ignite in fire with heat, no time for aura anything, nothing to move and change with breath. Forget stone and metal, even when she's not in a crisis she's awful with both, not to mention there's nothing around for either.

But she is good at crystal, and crystal deals in light.

If she's not the brightest fucking beacon the world has ever seen, it won't be for lack of trying.

Maybe someone will find her. Or maybe she'll blind the bastards who put her here. Either way, it won't hurt to try.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

poll_the_stars

That's. Definitely a thing. Okay, she can roll with it.

She taps her ear (pointed differently), then points at herself, and says the word for her species. Might as well be tidy.

From:

warpfairy

The not-elf briefly borrows the rectangle, repeats that word, and taps it and then gives it back.

From:

poll_the_stars

Works for her.

She goes back to saying words. Exciting stuff.

From:

warpfairy

Very exciting.

Not-elf gets some food for herself, too.

The device eventually manages to get across that it wants to learn to talk about people being able to talk without making sound.

From:

poll_the_stars

Slightly confused peering.

"... Telepathy?"

From:

warpfairy

When she has told it this word, the air speaks to the not-elf, who then speaks back, and then the air says awkwardly in Inavet's language:

"If the person puts hand on face then telepathy. Yes or no?"

From:

poll_the_stars

Well, she asked permission first, and it's likely to help with language learning. If she hadn't of asked and saved her life, the answer would be no, but in this case...

"Yes," she says.

From:

warpfairy

The air translates this for the not-elf, who smiles and gets out of her chair and goes over to Inavet and offers her hand in the general direction of Inavet's face.

From:

poll_the_stars

Nod, nod. Though she will let the not-elf initiate the touching, she doesn't actually know how this works.

From:

warpfairy

Touch.

This should be faster, but I didn't want to do it without asking, at least not while things were calm and I thought I could get the computer translation software to learn how to ask you.

From:

poll_the_stars

Sure, she replies. Thank you for asking first, anyway. And for the life saving.

There is a vague knowledge that she is way out of her depth, and also - she has a lot of sensory information. Senses like, 'there is vacuum outside of this place' and 'the general temperature of the room' and it feels like there's a lot more but that information isn't caught.

From:

warpfairy

What are you and where are you from?

From:

poll_the_stars

I'm an elf, my name's Inavet, and um. The Sunrise Empire? (Vague knowledge that that is likely not enough.) Um. Tervinia? (That is the planet.)

From:

warpfairy

I'm a half-Vulcan, half-human, and we're currently near Ferengi space in the Alpha Quadrant of the Milky Way Galaxy. How did you come to be floating in vacuum?

From:

poll_the_stars

I was eaten by a mirror snake thing. It - did something, and then I was in vacuum. (She knows it sounds crazy. But it's true.)

From:

warpfairy

How did you glow?

From:

poll_the_stars

Well. Tempting as it is to lie, it - seems like it's a bad idea. And she doesn't know enough of what she's dealing with to craft a lie that makes sense. Best to go with the truth, she thinks.

Magic. I'm an arcanist - do you know what that is?

From:

warpfairy

Let's go with no.

From:

poll_the_stars

Okay. I am an individual who has done a fancy ritual which has had the effect of giving me a ton of extra senses with which to observe the world, and the ability to affect it in certain ways. For example: glowing, healing myself, not dying in a vacuum. A number of other things, with varying degrees of ability and talent.

From:

warpfairy

That explains a lot. And... is unprecedented to the best of my knowledge, as is snakes that can teleport you into interplanetary space by eating you.

From:

poll_the_stars

That about makes us even, this is all extremely unprecedented to me, too. Also kind of terrifying, but I'll cope.

From:

warpfairy

Do you think you might know enough about the stars around your planet for me to take you home?

From:

poll_the_stars

Maybe? Pause. I don't - um. Could you assume that I have never heard anything about space travel but some likely wildly inaccurate movies and then explain this all to me from there?

From:

warpfairy

... We're on my ship, the Prometheus, which I use to fly from star to star and see what's around them so that an organization called Starfleet will know the general layout of the area. If you had a sufficiently detailed understanding of what the sun and constellations look like from your home I might be able to find exactly where you came from.

From:

poll_the_stars

Thank you. Then comes a pretty decent knowledge of constellations, along with a basic understanding of what the sun looks like. She throws in other celestial bodies, just for good measure - her planet has a moon.

... They are recognizable. As Earth's.