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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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."

"Well, sorry to disappoint you, but my hips have been known to lie a couple times," she fires back dryly. "I guess we are kind of living in this kind of power metal fantasy world now, huh. A bunch of people from all over stuck in a place where the gods have their own things to worry about and we're all caught in the middle of survival and divinity."

"Between survival and divinity" sounds fucking badass if she does say so herself, but she won't toot her own horn about it. "Eat your heart out, every fantasy author with two Rs in his initials. There really is way more to this place than you can see from the ground." She can't help but sound amazed at it all. And why wouldn't she be? As horrible as this place can be to people sometimes, it's still... gorgeous in exactly as many degrees as it is frightening. Maybe that's weird to think. Oh well.

He chuckles at that, "Well, your hips are kind of artificial."

A good natured tease. Then he hums thoughtfully looking down at the city to see if he thinks power metal when he looks down at it all. He can see it, but he can also see plenty of other kinds of music woven in the fabric of the city. Then he looks over his shoulder at her with a bit of a crooked smile.

"Hell yeah. Sounds like a good song title if you ask me." Then he looks up, "We're gonna pass through some clouds in a second, might be kinda damp."

God, the cloud cover. She's never seen that from the inside, and honestly it's pretty exciting that it's coming up even if she knows she's never gonna see anything.

"Here's to another first. Flying right through a cloud." She closes her eye and her mouth, though she's got a big anticipatory smile on her face as the wind whips through her hair. Madam G really does have her kindly fangs in deep on Anna's personality right now. "Full steam ahead. Or water vapor. Either way." All right, now there's no more talking. As they breach the clouds, Anna takes one hand and pumps her fist in the air in triumph, even though she's still not opening her eye or mouth just because it seems, uh, safest for the moment.

"You never forget your first," He says and then just silently lets her enjoy the experience. He chuckles a little as they get over to the other side and she fist bumps. The air is starting to get on the thinner side and the moon looks pretty fucking close now. Well, relative to before anyway.

"Think we're close enough? Or..."

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the balance of complete and incomplete [open]

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