fleetlogs | => PHERES: Abscond.

When push comes to shove, Sipara is probably Pheres's favorite person on the entire planet.

He doesn't normally tell her that: when pushed, he'll express the opposite, his tone pointedly droll. She's crass and spiteful and she's as aggressive as an fertile male slinkbeast. When they were seven, she started a fight with an indigo to see if they'd bleed paint, and she's spent more time missing teeth than with them.

Her aggression would be appalling in a seadweller, and when someone gave her flowers, she ate them just for the reaction. She's terrible and appalling and cullbait in flaming red, and sometimes it's enough to make him hate her.

But the fact she's so easily detestable is why he pities her instead, and why she's his favorite, and sprawled across the cement, still smarting from his fuck-up with HH, it seems like an excellent time to tell her.

"Dude," she laughs, her voice staticky and rough through his huskphone's speakers, "you are so drunk. So, so, drunk. Holy shit. How many drinks did you have?"

He shrugs. "Only a few," he says, and it's not untrue: his glass was only empty a handful of times, and everyone knows refills don't count. "Not - not more than usual."

"Shit, man, that's like, not helpful at all?" She clucks, shaking her head. She looks exhausted, but true to her word, she's stayed up, even despite the threads of light shining in past her tattered curtains. "Whatever. Look, it's been like, two hours since this sparking shit started."

"And I thi~ink," she drawls, squinting, "it's hit the peak."

He can't feel the sparks: only a few unfortunate fellows actually can feel the affects of their psionics, and luckily, he's not one of them. But if he holds a hand under his bottom horns, as he does now, he can see the liquid drop of light fall onto his skin and scatter.

A few seconds after the first drop hits, a second falls. That's.. a little more than before.

"You see it." It's a statement, not a question, and Sipara doesn't wait for him to answer. "Okay, so, according to Troogle, and my own fine-ass library of medical feeds -"

So he interrupts instead. With anyone else, it'd be rude, but it's just a neccessary part of conversation with Sipara. "Your library?" he protests. "I found them for you, didn't I? I think - they should be - it's only fair to call them our library, don't you think?"

"No, that's why I said mine, duh," she says, crushingly. "Now hush. Okay, so, it looks like some asshole probs slipped you a honeypill. Now, those things are mostly sopor. Like, at least ninety percent?"

"But there's honey, too, which's causing your little lightshow. Shit's fine with flatscans, just makes us all compliant, but with psionics -"

She pauses, dramatically. It takes him a moment to realise she won't continue until he says something, and obligingly, he opens his mouth -

And she barrels on over him. He shuts it with a click of his teeth, wrinkling his nose, and she laughs. "It makes you all, you know, sparky," she says, snapping her fingers. "It should only last another hour or two, though. Some fuckers were saying it took six, but like..."

She shrugs, leans in close to the camera - too close, and for a moment, the screen is filled with the sight of her curled lip and filed sharp teeth. "That was just sparkplugs talking," she says, her voice drab and contemptuous. "Practically fucking flatscans. You burn faster than that."

She's close enough to the microphone that he can hear the rasp of her breath through the speakers. If he closed his eyes, he could pretend she was sitting next to him, claws working through the tangles in his hair, and they were talking about some mutual acquaintances, instead of faceless names on a screen.

"I think you've got an hour, maybe two." She straightens up, her voice lightening, and the illusion is shattered. He's long since moved away from the railing, which has gone ember-hot with the sun's light, and he's sprawled across the pavement instead. The cold, craggy stone under him is not her rough wooden floors, and the only thing in his hair is a particularly obtuse ladybug.

"Pheres? You still with me?"

"Yeah," he says, breathing out. "An hour. Okay. That's - haah - fine. I can do an hour. That's sixty minutes. Not very long at all."

"Right. So, like, don't fall asleep." Her voice is sharp. "C'mon, dude, you look like you're drowsing right now. Sit the fuck up."

With a huff, he obliges, pulling himself up on an elbow, and then pushing himself up the rest of the way. Or at least, he starts to: halfway up, still slouched, his head cants to the side, and his horns strike something that definitely wasn't there a moment ago.

Edited 2014-11-30 17:03 (UTC)

They can only catch snippets of conversation: the huskphone's volume is dialled low, and the maroonblood's voice is only just above a whisper. It doesn't matter. The bits that are coherent aren't interesting at all, and neither is standing here, waiting to be noticed.

They do enough of that at fucking church.

The conversation is low enough that RS's movement comes as a surprise. He straightens up, and there's no where to step as his head sweeps out, and those oversized rostal horns club straight into their knees.

They don't buckle. For one, the railing's right there, and he's not moving that fast: the sheer size is what makes their knees shake, not the impact. Still, it's instinct that one hand snatches hold of the railing, and the other grabs one of the offending horns and yanks.

They're big horns, and even crumpled on the ground, RS looks small as fuck. Snatching him straight up seems viable - and if not, well, OA's going to fucking try.

"Sup, chump."

Pheres is sitting up, and then the next thing she knows, there's an oomph - and a black-gloved hand hauling him up by a horn.

Sipara snarls, but the camera screen won't move. The huskphone is still propped up on the ground, and she can't see, but she doesn't need to in order to recognise the dry rasp of OA's voice, even distorted by the speakers.

Goddamnit. Where the fuck is Marduk?

"Pheres," she hisses, "Pheres, don't you leave your fucking phone!"

Whatever he hits is soft, and that's about all he has time to think before there's fingers wrapping around his horn and hauling him up. It's not hard: he is a fairly small troll, even by redblood standards, and although even the ribbed edges of his horns don't allow for enough grip to take him off the ground, it's easy to jerk him to his feet.

He can't feel the grip on his horn as anything more than an irritant: only the red velvet at the base has real sensation, and their grip is firmly on the yellow-orange border. The sense of panic bubbling up in his chest has nothing to do with the discomfort of being man-handled, though, and more with the pulsing fear of why.

Their back is to the sun, and he lost his glasses, along with his lense and cloak, somewhere inside. Still.. when he squints, pale eyes reduced to slivers, he can make out the oversized swoop of their horns, and it triggers a flash of recognition. They gave him a picture, hadn't they? OA. This is OA.

Heavens above, he hopes he's right.

Sipara's saying something, her voice a hiss of static and rage, but he ignores it for now. "Hello," he says with a nervous laugh. His hands are up, grasping the air in front of him, but he can't bring himself to try and wrest them off of his horn: instead, he ducks his head, twists it gently to try and twist it free from their grip. "OA, right? It's, ahhh... good to see you?"

Edited 2014-11-30 17:22 (UTC)

RS is on his feet, and.. they had assumed he was flirting online, painting a picture of docility to make himself nice and pitiable, but no. They've got a hand on his horn and he's pattering off niceties even as he tries, nice as a baby baabeast, to pull free.

Using claws would be pointless, all decked up in cloth as they are, but he isn't even trying: the clench of his graspfronds in front of him is all toothless appeasement, the curl of his fronds speaking more of paps than swipes.

Hilarious.

They release the horn and drape an arm around his shoulders instead. Kids tiny, but shit, they forgot how fucking small lowbloods get: years spent in Carnival have left them feeling perfectly average, but RS's horns reach their shoulders. Shit is fucking absurd.

"Good to see you too, my ruddy-faced brother," they drawl. The huskphone on the ground is chirping away, and they can see the gray smudge and black cloud of curls that marks Sipara's face. The sharp, toothy smile - more of a sneer, really - is just for her. "You ready to walk?"

Edited 2014-11-30 17:35 (UTC)

Pheres doesn't like being touched, normally: it's too much, the way other trolls like to press in close, leaving no space to escape if things turn to violence. How people can tolerate it is a mystery.

But an arm around his shoulders is better than a hand on his horn, and besides, it's a different story entirely when he's drunk. Alcohol makes his temperature spike to burn off the perceived toxins, and, well, who can be concerned about getting hurt when other people's skin feels is so comfortably cool?

OA is covered in what must be yards of fabric, heated by the sun and their own temperature, but even the marginal warmth feels tolerable.

"I have a name, you know," he laughs. Their posts have always looked absurd online, and spoken aloud, they're not much better. "And yes, of course! Ahh.. I don't suppose you brought a cloak for me?"

"Mine is inside," he adds, a little sheepish. "I -- don't exactly know where."

Edited 2014-11-30 18:07 (UTC)

Shit, what was his fucking name? They only wrenched it from him to upset Sipara in the first place, and it takes a moment to dredge it up. It's not Fairy, though that'd be one hell of a joke. It's..

"Fereez, right," they say, stretching out the word. "That's what you calling yourself?"

They don't have a cloak for him, but that's alright: there's a hive full of cloaks right in front of them. They'll handle that in a minute.

The way they say his name makes it sound like they're gargling rocks, and his smile falters. Well! It's not the easiest word to pronounce, he supposes, especially for a troll who sounds like they've only ever spoken standard.

"Pheres," he corrects, and then he draws it out for their benefit, stretching the vowels: "Fair-ease."

Was that too terse? He shifts, shoulder bumping into their ribs, and tilts to peer up at them. They are absurdly tall, and he has to angle his head back to meet their eyes. They're psionic bright, the pupils obscured by the aura's haze, and...

They're practically cerulean.

He's distantly aware that the symbol on their cloak is yellow, but that doesn't help the way his breath stops. They've got blue eyes, blue as the sky outside, dangerously blue, and that's - that's -

That's hilarious, he decides abruptly, ignoring the way that his skin is pinpricking with fear, and he laughs, because it's either that, or recoil away from them and the arm that's resting too heavily on his shoulders.

"What.. what are you calling yourself?" He tries to mimic their cadence, deliberately teasing, and maybe if he forces it, they won't hear the unease trying to close his throat. "I can't just call you OA."

Edited 2014-11-30 18:42 (UTC)

It's hard not to think of Pheres as a kid, even knowing he's nine, when he's so short and cowed. Good thing they were selected for the Imperial Trainee Program early, before the effects of low feed and low allowance could really set in: being stunted like that would've fucking sucked.

He angles his head back to peer up at them, his weird, mismatched eyes skimming across their face like he's searching for something. Whatever he finds, he evidently doesn't like: his face blanches, the skin pulling tight, and just as they're getting ready to ask what the fuck he's looking at, he laughs.

"What... what are you calling yourself?" the little redblood asks, imitating their cadence, and they arch their eyebrows. It's impossible to tell if the playful lilt is mockery, or teasing, or both. "I can't just call you OA."

"Sure you can." They're not entirely sure why he laughed, and the uncertainty makes their words sharp: there's nothing worse than being left out of a joke. "The fuck is wrong with OA?"

Edited 2014-11-30 18:52 (UTC)

Their words are sharp, and the arm around his shoulder feels like an implicit threat. His mouth is dry and he swallows hard, keeping the smile in place through sheer force of will. "Um!" he says eloquently. "There's nothing precisely wrong with it, haaah, just --"

If the sparks were hard to see through the static of his screen, then they're proving more difficult to see in the blinding light of the day. Still, even Pheres notices when they start increasing, little flashes of white dancing at the edges of his vision.

It's blurring his already bad vision, and that does nothing to help his growing agitation. Worse yet, the sparks seem to worsen after he notices them, and when he spots one drifting towards OA's gloved hand, he uses the opportunity to duck free from their loose hold, hopefully before they notice.

Could the spark sting even through fabric? Probably not, but judging by the way they snatch their hand away, startled --

"Sorry," he says, backing up towards his phone, and he can't help the appeasing chirp that escapes between words. "I - sorry! OA is fine."

Edited 2014-11-30 20:47 (UTC)

He's cowed, but evidently not helpless. He moves to tug his shoulder free, his grin now more of a grimace, and he tenses like he's about to bolt. "There's nothing wrong with it," he says hesitantly, "just--"

If he says something else, OA doesn't notice, because something else has attracted their attention. At first, they'd thought the little pinpricks of light drifting around were dust, or sunspots: sometimes that shit happens, when you're out in the day. But they're increasing, and they watch, eyebrows furrowed, as one drifts down onto their gloved hand.

As soon as it touches the glove, it becomes obvious it's not a fucking dustmite.

"Fuck!" It stings like they've just been burnt, and it's shock more than pain that has them snatching their hand back. Pheres watches, wide-eyed, says something, and then he fucking chirps at you, voice pitched in a wriggler's appeal.

When they look at him, it becomes obvious why. Hidden deeper in the shade of the awning, they can actually see the way his fucking horns are sparking at them, little bursts of psionic aura pulsing from the bottom all the way to the top. His eyes are trying to do it, and it's fucking unpleasant to look at, the way the colour tries and fails to pulse around the remaining lense.

"What the fuck did you drink," they demand, incredulous. "Straight honey?"

Edited 2014-11-30 22:07 (UTC)

What did Sipara say? He's close enough to the phone to snatch it up, and he types in her number even as he keeps talking. "I didn't drink honey," he protests, "here - ask Sipara --"

The sudden movement has left his head spinning, and the spike of adrenaline is not playing nice with his system: instead of leaving him clear-headed, it's just making him nauseous and sweaty-palmed. It's sheer luck that he doesn't drop the phone.

Thank heavens for moirails. Sipara picks up after the first ring, still miraculously awake, and he hisses at her, frantic as he stabs the speaker button: "Explain why I'm sparking!"

Edited 2014-11-30 22:29 (UTC)

Eventually, she'd let the call drop.

There'd been a purpose behind that: she figured she'd hang up, and then call back, until Pheres remembered to get his goddamn phone. What she hadn't anticipated was the fact he left his phone on silent, the better to ignore any unwanted calls, and it was only the second time she hit his voice-mail that it struck her.

("Hello! This is Pheres Dysseu speaking, book repairer and vendor of antiques -- if this is an emergency, please call my moirail, at...")

So she'd broken a few glasses, left a few nasty messages, and sat down to stew. He'd remember to his phone eventually, and call back, shamefaced and apologetic. She'd been expecting thirty, forty minutes: she was pleasantly surprised when he called back in less than ten.

She could've done without the frantic tone, though.

"Whoa, babe," she says, alarmed. Her voice comes back tinny. Did he put her on fucking speaker? "Calm the fuck down, okay? Shit. Okay. Um. Sparking."

"Someone slipped you a honey pill. It's not fucking contagious, so if OA's giving you shit, tell them to cram it up their nook." Wait, fuck: she can hear her own goddamned voice, and it strikes her, too late, she's probably on speaker.

Strike that. Of course he'd put her on fucking speaker. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Every time Pheres gets agitated, the sparks increase exponentially, little rivulets of energy crackling across his horns. Now that they're not in the danger zone, OA has to admit: it's kind of cool to watch.

Especially when he jabs a button on his shitty little device and Sipara's rough-ass voice comes pouring out. For a moirail, she's doing a real shit job of calming him down: the way he sparks when she mentions nooks sends them shooting far enough to zap OA.

They shift out of the way just in time, and watch as it hits the ground and dissipates.

"Whoa, Nzinga," they say, amused, "keep it in your fucking pants. Your moirail's present." They waggle their eyebrows at him, but he doesn't seem game for the joke: he averts his eyes without even a flash of teeth. "So baby boy here's been huffing honey. Alright. Schoolfeed me: is this shit gonna wear off?"

He isn't the sort to spark, usually: it takes a special kind of agitation to do that, and he doesn't let himself get into those sorts of situations. But the alcohol has made him volatile and the honey has loosened his already unsteady control, and try as he might, right now, he can't fucking stop.

It's making his eyes hurt, and while Sipara and OA talk, he fumbles to remove his contact. He pokes himself in the eye, but he manages it, finally, and he flicks the freed contact onto the ground, next to the shredded braids. (Someone will be very confused in the evening.)

He blinks rapidly, and then scrubs at his eyes. They're still sparking, the flickers of light bright enough to wash out everything else, but without the contact to reflect off of it, it's marginally better.

Goddamnit, are they trying to flirt with her?

It's hard to tell which outrages her more: that, or the way they're calling Pheres baby boy, like he's theirs. (PC once said that OA could incite her by reading a grocery list. That's a bit far, but - it's not exactly untrue.)

(They are the fucking worst.)

"An hour," she says, keeping her voice pointedly flat. OA will jump on any fucking thing they can, so she just won't give them anything. "Maybe two? If you'd just stop being a -"

No, no, now she needs to shut the fuck up. It strikes her that Pheres is quiet as the dead in the background, and she knows how fucked up OA is: she doesn't want that little thought to become literal, because OA decides a dead moirail is the best pitch solicitation. "If he's calm, he should stop sparking," she says instead. "As much. Shit isn't gonna stop completely for awhile."

Edited 2014-11-30 23:08 (UTC)

Baiting Sipara is like playing Catch the Faithless at Carnival: it's easy as fuck, and no matter what line they put out, they always get results.

Except for now, apparently. She's not biting, and they don't know why. Girl ain't exactly the calmest motherfucker around: usually, that sort of a comment would get them locking horns for awhile, but right now, she's acting like she just doesn't even give a shit.

It's irritating as fuck. The fact they're wasting their time talking to a shitblood like Sipara, with her worthless blood and her worthless face, is something she should be grateful for. But whatever. They aren't going to jump for her fucking attention.

"Then I suggest you fucking calm him," they say, dismissing her, and they turn away from the phone. Pheres is scrubbing at his eyes for some fucking reason, but right now, they don't care. "'cause right now, he's a flashing bullseye for every finface with an engine kink, and yeah, not going to fucking deal with that."

If they're going to haul him back hive, then he'll need a cloak: he's small enough he could just tuck under theirs, and that had been their original plan, but that seems like a great way to get fried. They'll just grab some shit from inside, instead.

They start to step inside, and then look back. He's moved his hands away from his face, and -- the white eyes, staring psionic bright from the dusky skin, are creepy as fuck. Maybe they'll grab him some glasses, too.

Edited 2014-11-30 23:35 (UTC)

There's a creak that she doesn't recognise, but the sound of a door slamming shut is obvious enough. Sipara waits a moment, holding her breath, but it seems like OA headed inside.

They're still at the fucking hivestem? Well. At least that'll give Marduk some time to arrive, and then maybe OA will just go and fuck off.

Pheres is quiet, and although his has a camera, hers doesn't even allow pictures. It's still the same piece of shit she was assigned by the Empire, eight sweeps ago, and spending caegars on it always seemed wasteful as fuck - but yeah, now she's kind of regretting it. What the fuck is he doing?

"Pheres," she says carefully. "You cool?"

He's a flashing bullseye for every finface with an engine kink. Well! Isn't that a fucking awful thought.

Sun exposure seemed a melodramatic way to go, earlier, but now he's considering it. Or maybe crawling into that closet and seeing if he can't hide under the pile of coats. The moirails are probably sleeping: they wouldn't notice.

But Sipara's voice distracts him from his melodramatic thoughts, and he startles back to reality. He can't go and die, right. She'd kill him.

"Yeah," he says. His voice is raspy and dry. He has been out in the day for far too long. "I mean - yes. I'm alright."

"I can't stop sparking, though." He pulls a face, for all that no one can see him, and shakes his head, just to see. Sure enough, the gesture still leaves a spray of light all around him. This is awful. "Do you suppose -- should I just go back inside, and sleep it off?"

"They're greenbloods, mostly," he adds. "Maybe someone just - didn't realise I had psionics, and put the honey in on accident."

"Fuck that and fuck you, dude," she snaps. "That's a terrible idea. Sit your ass dow- no, wait, don't do that, just. Lean against the wall or something."

And then she flounders, because - she fucking sucks at pacifying. She's better than she used to be, at least: how many sweeps has it been since she marked up his face in one of her snitfits? But as far as bars go, 'no longer a risk of physical maiming' is a pretty low, shitty one for diamonds.

But she can't succeed if she doesn't try, and he does need to cool it with the lightshow. Sparky psionics are the ones that end up in kids bootlegged ships, or dead because some dumb finface thinks eating a psionic brain will get them powers.

"Midbloods parties suck, anyway." She leans forward on the nutrition mesa, raps her claws against the edges. "They're always so fucking cold. Iunno why you're constantly shilling for them, anyway."

"You're the one that told me -" How did he phrase it? Oh, right. Their pitches aren't too different, when it comes down to it, but she exaggerates her words, stretches the vowels until it matches his fakey-fake highblood cadence. "Midbloods are acceptable, not good. And most of them are barely that. Why, and heavens strike me if I am wrong, once I saw a teal wearing surplus goods--"

Edited 2014-12-01 00:04 (UTC)

"Rude! I don't - I'm not shilling for greenbloods," he says, appalled and laughing despite that. "What does that even mean?"

He leans against the wall - not because she told him to, but because he feels like he's going to fall over, and he'd rather OA not come out to him sprawled on the pavement. He can't read them very well, but he suspects they'd probably just leave him.

She's mocking him, and he's not really offended - fear is a thing that can cut through his foggy pan, evidently, but not real offense - but it's a familiar game, and an easy role to fall into. "I don't sound like that," he sniffs. "And - and - you're making it sound terrible, but it's not like it's untrue, is it? They're -"

Shit. He can't remember if you're meant to count your own caste, or not. He pauses, and then gives up. "Well! They're only three or four castes above us. And you've said worse! Besides, you can't talk about me and my parties, unless," he says, teasing, "we're still pretending you're not - haah - fooling around with poor Boopis?"

Edited 2014-12-01 00:13 (UTC)

"Don't you poor Boopis me," she retorts. He sounds calmer. Good! "And I'm not fooling around with her. Rude. I already dumped her once, remember?"

She glances around, but - of course, her manager's in her own hive tonight. Good. Talking shit about poor Boopis is always hilarious, but the snitfits are distinctly not. "Which, like, don't get off topic. I guess it's better that you're chasing greenbloods for your fun instead of like, teals."

She snorts. "Don't fuck teals," she advises. "Might as well go fuck a pail. It's probs warmer."

Oh my god.

He laughs, mortified, and buries his face behind an arm. "Stop! Stop, oh my god -"

Or at least, that's what he tries to say, but once he's started laughing, it's hard to stop. He manages to catch his breath - and then the image of some poor troll, and icecubes, and a pail strikes him, and he dissolves into laughter all over again.

Oh, no, she broke him.

"Come on, dude," she laughs, because fuck it, it's almost two in the fucking evening and she is exhausted, "calm the fuck down! It's not like I said don't fuck indigoes, it'll give you frostbite - even though it will, actually, write that down, I'm not fucking joking --"

Just as he's calming down, she comes out with that, and Pheres dissolves into embarrassed laughter all over again.

"Stop, stop," he manages, finally, gasping for breath, "my pumpbiscuit is going to explode, and it'll be all your fault, you - you horrible person -"

He doesn't hear the door open behind him. Probably for the best: his face is currently buried behind an arm, and he's wheezing for breath. His pumpbiscuit exploding from sheer stress might actually be a legitimate possibility.

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[sipara is officially That Asshole]

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