deercountry | the balance of complete and incomplete [open]

Entry tags:

the balance of complete and incomplete [open]

Who: Anna Amarande and you!
What: January event catchall
When: January
Where: The Snake Den and around Trench

Content Warnings: Eye trauma, blood, swearing, artful robot nudity, will add as they come in

a. i will trust the artist molding me [the snake den]

Anna doesn't really need much help right now cutting loose at the Snake Den. Madam G has been on her list of Pthumerians to check out for a while, and even if there had been some kind of reluctance to begin with, now that she's here mingling in a borrowed suit she feels downright comfortable. It's like she's ten years younger, and though her voice is still smoky and she's still missing an eye as far as physical age goes, socially she's just. Free, right now. It's nice.

It's nice enough that, when she's not striking up conversation with other people, she decides to indulge herself in the open mic. Borrowing an electric bass from backstage, she walks up, sits down, plugs in, and grabs the mic. "This is one from back home," she says, "By a band called Silversun Pickups. It's about finding freedom and acceptance and love in the places and with the people that everyone else tells you to stay away from. They'll say that the only way to be who you are is to file yourself off. That you need to hold yourself back to make other people comfortable without ever worrying if you're comfortable." She's talking very passionately for someone who doesn't think of herself as a motivational speaker. With a confident look, she finally leads into the song. "Let's bury that lie, Trench. This is called 'The Pit'."

And she starts playing, and she starts singing. And when she doesn't need to be playing and her hands are free, even she's not really sure how she does it, but she finds a way to channel her androidinous self to modify her own voice—just for a little bit, just to test it out. Just to see what happens, before she snaps back into the final lines of the song. And regardless of how it's received, once she's done, she puts the bass down and gently thanks the crowd. Her heart-simulacrum is pulsing faster than it should be as she gets off the stage, and she waits there in the wings in case she happened to inspire anyone with that performance.

b. the echo of what is and what will be [the shedding ceremony]

This is... not a good month for Anna outside of that, so far. For her time at the Snake Den, yes, she's still resonating with A2, and she's still who she thinks she is. But it never really takes long for her to start shedding her own skin again, and damn her brain but she can't stop fucking picking at it long enough to avoid the transformation.

The first time it happens, Anna emerges in a pure white dress that she's wasting no time in staining red. Her hair is longer, cleaner, and in lieu of a katana she's brandishing a blood-red shortsword in her battles with these beasts at the edge of the city. Taking zero precautions against pollution or corruption, she swings her blade right at the neck and lets the blood spray wash over her. When it stops, she hunches forward and shrieks out a strangely melodic note while the beast falls over dead. Her back straightens, and it's clear even from whatever distance anyone may be watching at that she's no longer entirely who people might know. The flower blossoming from her right eye is a good early warning sign, but you'd better act fast, because her good eye is a blazing red and she's rushing towards her spectator with that bloodblade at the ready.

The second time is much less interesting by comparison, but it's not doing her much good. Because the second time, she's just... a normal 29 year old. Both her eyes are fine, she's fully organic, and she doesn't know how to use a sword. In fact, she's taking her time and walking slowly through the streets of a town that she's starting to get to know better, wondering what her life even is anymore. Her Omni helps her keep connected with back home, sure, but nobody can get in touch with her no matter how hard she tries. And she woke up, for lack of a better word, with this katana that she's got on her back, and the first friendly-looking person she sees, she just asks outright, "Hey, uh. You have any idea why I would have a sword if I don't remember ever actually owning a sword?"

c. i am creation both haunted and holy [wildcard]

((got anything else you want to do? hit me up here or at

roseward!! also: source for the suit image and lyrics for the cover.))

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Lance blinks, taking in the explanation and then he grins slightly and crosses his arms, "Well, now that you explained it, I think it's a great joke and you totally gotta start sharing all your home bands' music with me so I can get the joke next time."

Look, he's a good social guy all about trying to make people happy and sometimes he's sickeningly nice. Especially if you're a girl, a cool girl like Anna. And with that he'll let the subject drop and is more than happy to talk about a full band and arrangements, "I have some of my own that are kind of personal too, I dunno that I could share them or anything, but I know how important that stuff can be. Like, you wanna get it juuuust right since it's kind of like a piece of yourself. And hey! I've actually heard of the Decemberists, listened to them too." Then he chuckles, "Oh, I'm versatile alright. No need to worry about that. And I dunno what could be better, we're kinda robots and I literally pilot a giant robot… hey, maybe BOTCEPTION? No… kinda lame. Oh! …No, nevermind…"

"Oh, shit yeah, okay, so I'm working on this cover of 'This is Why We Fight', you know, from that one folk album they did?" And her excitement is kind of getting the better of her as she talks, and she maybe lets slip a little more than she should, but it's fine. "Kind of needed the reminder lately, you know? Of the kind of stuff I'm fighting for. But, like, no worries or anything, I'm not going anywhere," she says by way of a sudden burst of deflection; no reason to get too caught up in it, even if she is cheerful about it.

"Anyway, like, we can workshop the name. It'll be good as hell whatever we come up with. Probably a lot of fertile ground with, like, robot, tech-sounding stuff. I'd say Machinae Supremacy but I'm pretty sure that one's taken too."

Well, he may not be an expert in the Decemberists enough to immediately know which song she's talking about, but it's always nice to see someone get excited about their passions. There's a little bemused smile on his face as he watches her go on about her cover that she's writing. And then his head tilts, his brows drawing together slightly when she lets that little something slip.

Well, he's let the robot thing slip, perhaps some subconscious part of his mind (code?) that wants her to know. But also doesn't want to get into it. Maybe it's the same for her, so he doesn't make it a big thing. "Yeah, I think I totally know what you mean. I don't think any of us are going anywhere any time soon anyway, haha."

He awkwardly rubs at the back of his neck and glances down and to the side, "Machinae Supremacy? …Is Machinae even a word?"

"Yeah, I think it's Latin or something?" She shrugs. "Not my language. We'd just call it Maschine in German, and then you'd get a syllable into the 'supremacy' part and everyone would tell you to shut the fuck up." That's clearly supposed to be a joke for her, but if he gets it even a little then she'll be happy with it.

"So how do you feel about that?" she asks, and for a second it's not clear what she means. She fixes him with a curious, if casual, look. "The idea that we're all gonna be stuck here for a while. 'Cause it's taking me a long time to turn around on it, personally."

"Oh. Yeah, I knew that," he flushes, rubbing the side of his neck, because he actually did know that, but sometimes he gets words mixed up and lost. Then he chuckles a little, "Yeah, what's the deal with all the super long angry sounding words in German?"

Not sure if that was the joke she meant, but that is the joke he got out of it. But he's immediately pulled into confusion about her follow up question. Until she clarifies. He looks down, visibly conflicted and unsure. It's a subject they covered when she made that post about funerals, but not to this extent.

"I dunno. I was trying not to think about it, and some recent stuff I learned kinda changed things too. But I dunno if that's even me, or if I'm just a shed and I'll stop existing when I shed again…"

Oh boy, that's a whole existential crisis that his processors are struggling to deal with and the look on his face reflects that overwhelmed wide-eyed, subtly panicked look.

Edited 2022-02-20 01:42 (UTC)

Anna nods, like she's trying to understand. Like she remembers someone else having a bit of a crisis like that recently. Like it might very well have been her. She's not sure how to reconcile it, because she does remember the time she spent as a version of her who had never encountered anything like what brought her here in the first place, but it's... god. It's hard to reconcile everything. That's fine.

"I don't know if you'll stop existing or just kind of get folded back into the 'main' one, whatever that ends up meaning. Depends on a lot of things, you know? But, like. I don't think you're going to go anywhere permanently. I don't think this place would do that."

She's guessing. She is guessing and has no way to know, same as when she claimed she was certain about alternate universes.

"God, wish I could just jump back to goofing on German after that," she says with a sigh. It's not like the mood is soured or anything, it's just hard to jump backwards now.

Lance thinks that this place absolutely would do that, and he agrees on the German jokes. He shifts his stance a bit awkwardly and then takes a chance, reaches out for her hand and squeezes, offering a bit of a smile and there's a daring look in his eyes.

"Wanna take a ride on my sentient robot lion space ship and just talk about songs?" Ever since he's shed, he's been able to connect with the Red Lion like he hasn't for a long time. Not that he currently remembers that the main version of himself was having trouble. he lets go of her hand and awkwardly rubs at the side of his neck, "I mean, I figure whatever the truth is, maybe we should just have fun with the time we have right now, y'know? I don't know if we're permanently stuck here or not or if I'm gonna stop existing, but for now in this moment… maybe it's just not worth giving a shit about when there's so much good stuff we can do."

See, she could decide to stick here, but she's done her song. And she'd be an idiot to pass up on this kind of experience. That's the kind of thing that changed her life in the first place—just hanging out with someone and doing something brand new with them, and seeing what the experience brings. So she straightens her back, cracks her neck by turning it just a little sharply, and looks at him with the promise of a new adventure on her face.

"I've heard a lot about your sentient robot lion spaceship, but never actually seen it. Let's do it." And she pauses, and she can't just leave it at that when the opening is that huge. Besides, maybe making that kind of joke will help ease the tension. "But if that's a euphemism, I'm gonna fold it up into a new shape."

He pumps his fists, "Yesss! You're gonna love her, I promise. It feels like forever since I've flown with her too."

Perhaps part of his motive to jump right into that along with the fact that she reminds him a lot of an old friend he misses and would share stuff like this with. He's just instantly comfortable diving into spontaneous adventure rides. He starts towards the exit, very excited about this because it just feels like everything stops being a problem when he's flying, and he likes sharing that, "I get all my best inspiration for songs when I'm flying, and-"

He blinks, the euphemism comment hitting him belatedly, then he flushes and awkward laughs and waves his hand dismissively, "Nah, I can tell you're not into that. This is a hundred percent sincere robot lion ride in the sky. Though… she's kind of smaller than usual, so don't mention it, I think she's kind of sensitive about it."

Edited 2022-02-24 04:45 (UTC)

Anna snickers playfully, glad that the joke actually hit, but she's thrilled to hear this level of excitement either way. "I get the same way," she says, following him and knowing that her bass is going to be safe here. She can trust Madam G. "First time I flew on my own, like, not in a plane or anything like that, it opened my eyes. The world looked different for the first time."

She could recount that story beat for beat if she wanted to. Right now, it's right on the tip of her tongue, and she doesn't even feel embarrassed thinking about it. "A friend of mine got a ring that gave her the power of flight. She let me try it on, and I floated forty feet in the air. It was the first thing that taught me that the world was bigger than everything I thought I knew." She's smiling as she recounts it. Kara had better be doing okay without her. "Changed the way I lived."

He raises his brows when he hears that story and he can sense the elation at the memory coming from her. He grins and pushes the doors to The Red open, and lo and behold there's Red, the lion flying in at his mental summons.

"If you think floating was fun, wait until you're riding at super speeds on a super advanced war machine!" He chuckles as he pats the metal cat's nose as she lands. She's about the size of a large horse so he has to reach up, "It sounds like an amazing memory, though."

Okay. This rules. She cannot deny the objective fact that this super, super rules. Anna's okay enough with animals, but robot animals who are mindlinked to their pilots is something new. She extends her hand up carefully, curling her fingers and putting the back of it close to the lion's nose so it can get her scent. Do robots worry about that? She's not sure. Anna knows she'd think it would be a little weird if someone did that to her, but that's no different from human-to-human contact, really.

"I can't wait. I know I'm made of pretty advanced tech, but this is wilder than most things I've seen. We never had anything like this back home." She looks from the robot to Lance and fixes him with a challenge of a smirk. "And me without my leather jacket and biker helmet." That she totally doesn't actually own. "Let's see how far she takes us, huh? Could probably punch straight across to the other side of the world."

The Red Lion doesn't seem at all bothered by her hand being there, in fact, she doesn't seem to really understand the gesture at all. Lance nods when Anna talks about how advanced she is.

"She's even got her own life force, and I guess she's what reminds me I'm real and alive y'know? Because I wouldn't be able to connect with her if I didn't have one too," then he grins, "She's also the fastest lion in Voltron, she can reach the edge of the solar system in a few minutes, but uh… we'd have to be inside her cockpit to survive that. But it also means we can totally stop by your place real quick if you wanna pick up our jacket and helmet."

With that, he jumps up onto the lion's back and holds out a hand to help her up behind him if she needs it.

Anna laughs. "Well, the helmet was a joke, but I'm good either way." She follows Lance up, taking his hand and pulling herself up on the lion's back. "The edge of the solar system, huh? So does that still count Pluto where you're from, or did you guys demote it too?"

It's a dumb question that matters very little, but she's still kind of interested in the answer. She rests her hand on the lion's body, tries to feel that life energy thrumming through it. It's close to her own situation, right? Connected to something alive and mechanical, and the connection proves that Lance is alive, too. It's not a hard parallel to draw.

"We don't have to head that far either way. We could just take her for a spin around the wilderness and see if any of the beasts out there are looking bad enough to need hunting, or something."

"Oh we totally demoted it… but then we had to promote it again after we got some satellites out there and saw how pretty she actually was." He's joking, but also completely serious. Pluto's got some sexy geological activity going on, and that threw everyone's thoughts on it out of whack for a while.

Once she's on, the Lion starts to lift up into the sky. He'd love to take her around the sky at high speeds, but being out on her back like this, they gotta play it safe.

"Oh yeah, we can totally do that. Buuut, we can also get some inspiration for some songs for our awesome future band by doing a moon flyby, maybe say hi to Cynthia if she's around. Though, I guess hunting's pretty song inspiring too…"

Both? Both. Both is good.

"No, hold on, holy shit," she says like the idea never even crossed her mind—but that's the thing, right? First time she gets a taste of solar system travel, she still can't think of it as a real thing that they can do, just because her brain hasn't been opened to that possibility. But she grabs his arm gently and there's some serious adventure in her eye.

"I've wanted to go up there and find a way to commune with her for weeks now. But I still had no idea how to even do it until you suggested it right now. Let's see how she's doing." What's she gonna do when she gets up there? Hard to tell. Doesn't matter. "I want to know if she's okay."

Lance raises his brows and looks up at the moon as they continue to rise above the buildings of Cellar Door. He's seen Moon Presence here and there since arriving, but never in a capacity where he could talk to her. It's a good idea and he really wants to see how she is after… well, he had a heavy moment with her toward the end there. But he's not sure how safe it is.

"Well, I dunno if we can get all the way to the moon but we can probably get as high into the atmosphere as we can and see how it goes from there. Unless you don't need to breathe, then maybe we can go farther… wait, do I need to breathe?"

His eyes go wide, he'd never… really thought about it since he found out. Which, to be fair was pretty recent from his perspective.

"I... huh."

No, she's still pretty sure she has to breathe. Dirk took a look inside her and there's something at least similar to lungs in there, and her human brain still definitely needs oxygen to survive. "I think I still need air, so we can't go all the way up there unless we climb inside her or something, but, I mean. No reason we can't get pretty close, right?" It'd be the record for her, at least for, uh, vessel-less flight. "Let's go for it. Once the air starts getting thin, we can stop, but, like. No reason we can't buzz Trench airspace a little even if we don't find her."

He swallows thick and shelves his mini crisis about his lung status and nods, okay, that's clear enough. She needs to breathe, so for now he's going to act like they both do. Probably.

"Yeah, totally. We'll have to ascend on the slow side so we don't faint from the atmosphere shift. But a slow ride can be as fun as a fast one when you've got a good view."

Speaking of view, they are now pretty high up and able to see most of the city lit up by lunar orbs and lanterns.

"God."

It's all she can say for a moment. This is a new place for her to see from this high, and she feels almost like she's sandwiched between two planes of stars as she climbs up this high. The next place she visits, if it's not Recollé, is gonna have a lot to live up to.

"Can you believe this is what Trench looks like when we're not stuck down there in the streets? Fighting for our lives?" Snow and blood crystals and all of that stuff, that's for the earthbound to handle. Right now, all she can see is white dotted with red, the lunar energy, the town itself and the people still milling about in this weather, and it's just. It's something special.

"I wonder if this is what the gods see when they look down at us, too."

"Yeah, seems like it'd be hard to see all the fighting and dying from this vantage point… which kiiind of explains a lot."

He snort-laughs at his own observation delivered with the flat aloofness of a dark joke. Because why not? This is their lives now, might as well find ways to laugh about it, otherwise they'll really lose their collective minds. It is extremely pretty, though.

"Now that's got the makings of a good song in it. Maybe we can workshop it and sing it to Cynthia when we get up there." He's sort of laughing as he says it, but he's also totally serious.

"Maybe we can," she agrees, and while they cruise she's trying to idly hum out a melody. It's not great, and after a minute she gives up, but like. She at least tries.

"And maybe we can bring her down closer with us. I think she might be interested in getting a closer look at the way people are living underneath her." Maybe she's imprinting a little much on the Moon Presence—Cynthia, she corrects herself. MP has a name. "I don't know what she's like, or what Cynthia was like. I don't know how she acted back in the Dream." She's pretty sure she has an idea of what's going on here, at least from a mythological standpoint.

"Did you know her any better than me? I think I remember someone saying that she's motivated by compassion and love."

He drums a casual little beat to her humming on the metal of the Red Lion's neck in front of him. Then he looks over his shoulder at her suggestion to bring her down closer to the earth. He looks down at said Earth which is getting pretty small now and then thinks about the question.

"The dream was a long time ago for her, so she could've changed… but I saw a lot of memories about her, and I… talked to her at the end. She was compassionate and loving from what I saw, but she suffered a lot too." He heaves a breath, as he thinks back to how he and Bella came upon her in that field and he's pretty sure it was the only time any of them were able to interact with her directly… "I dunno if she'd come down with us. She might already know what we deal with and just does what she can."

"Yeah... if she was someone that you could actually talk to, then I think she probably knows what we're like pretty well. As humans."

That's a little sad, honestly. In the end, Cynthia still suffered, no matter how much love she poured into the world. That's always how it was, right? But she still loved, damn it. She still is loving, probably, as far as anyone here knows. No matter how much pain it causes her. It's sad, yes, but it's hard not to be inspired by it.

"Then maybe she can stay up here, watching over us." Anna hums out along to that melody again. "The watcher in the sky is shining bright over the world..." Something like that. She was never great at lyrics, but she'd figure it out later, she thinks with a shrug. "Don't judge me, I always thought I'd write pop punk songs. This whole thing sounds more like power metal."

"She married a human, actually. So I'd say she totally gets us better than most. Though… her husband did try to kill us a few times, so I dunno if he was what you'd call a shining example of humanity."

He says that last part with a dry flatness to it, but there's conflict there too. He has some complicated feelings about Roderick. A figure that was always a source of pain and contention for them, in the end turned out to be a grieving father in denial of what he'd helped happen to his little girl. Then he hums, looking up at the moon as he continues to take the lion up in a slow spiral upwards.

"Why would I judge? I listen to all kinds of music, Shakira's totally on my most frequently played," he says it easily and with absolutely no shame or concern about it, then he heaves a breath and adds after a moment, "Besides, I think that sounds pretty perfect for this."

the balance of complete and incomplete [open]

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