futurology | text; un: Darc

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text; un: Darc

[In all honesty, getting used to his magitek jewelry has been one of the easier adjustments, something that fits into his schema of the world as he’d known it before this strange sideways stumble into an entirely different place. It’s just a form of magic he hasn't seen before, right? Like cursed jewelry back home, something belonging to some little-known tribe. What’s been harder is realising he's the only one from his world here, that he'd left at such an uncertain moment only to find himself among complete strangers in every sense of the word. There doesn't seem to be another Deimos among them.

It doesn't help that so many of you look so damned human.

Once again, his isolation weighs heavy on him, though in a different way than it had in his own world. The fact that he can't verbally communicate with anyone here only makes it worse, more intense. Perhaps one way of lessening the impact is to reach out to the rest of the 'team' via the jewelry, find out how many others there are who occupy a similar position to his own, if any at all.]

Well this is fun, eh? A bunch of people thrown together in a situation where we can't even talk to each other, and yet somehow we're supposed to be working as a team. What a worthless place this is shaping up to be.

Well, I have some questions for you, and if this is the only way to be understood then so be it. How many of you are the only ones from your world? More importantly, how many of you are something other than human? If I have to be stuck here then I wanna know that it's not just gonna be me amid a sea of overgrown monkeys.

[Because despite how rude he sounds, he doesn’t want to go through this this again. To be the only one who stands out as so obviously different on top of everything else. It's only just started to really sink in that he may be stuck here for a while.]

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Hello! Um, if it helps at all, communication was never really an issue until we got back here, and the bugs started... eating things...

[ she's not even entirely sure how it works. ~magic science~ is a bit beyond her. ]

But, um! I'm the only one from my world... And no one else's that I've met seem to come from anywhere similar...
I haven't been able to understand anybody since this all started.

My my, we have such the charmer here.

Far as I can figure so far, I'm the only one from my world here, and that fits me just fine. If it's any consolation, there seems to be plenty of non-humans here for your delicate sensitivities.

Oska may suffer its malfunctions, and the staff in charge of keeping its finer elements running may be lacking [In thumbs! take that, cats!] however it is a last line of defense between smoothly running worlds and an inert jumble of cosmic shards so hopelessly over your head you cannot imagine the complete devastation. If we have had the misfortune of adding you to our ranks, it means you've been mobilized to act. Destroy the repulsive bug creatures whenever you find them, or find someone who can do so for you if you possess no spine of your own.

[He means that metaphorically, but also possibly literally, given his ears were originally pricked, so to speak, when he'd noticed a message about non-humans. Almost as an afterthought, he adds] You will find little respite from the sea of flat-faced, beige-toned bipeds here. Even those who profess to share no origin with the species in question share most of their traits. Many of us are one, or two of a kind here. There may be more who share worlds, but you might consider praying for the world from which they arrived, if that is the case. It can only mean that rifts are consuming their place of origin.

But it's an issue now and that's what matters.

[He's been working on the bugs - may as well make himself useful - and evidently so have others, yet they're still here, making things needlessly complicated.

It's something, though, hearing that he's not alone in this situation, but--]

And what have you been doing since this started? Doesn't it piss you off?

I don't need to be charming, that's a human concept.

And it's perfectly reasonable to have concerns about being surrounded by a species that can't be trusted as far as you can throw them.

I beg to differ, your majesty.

Aw, we just can't help ourselves. Wicked to the bone, we are.

[As much as he dislikes the implication that the situation he's found himself in is somehow over his head, it's not something he can reasonably argue against-- he doesn't understand all this, not yet, not any of it. That there are worlds outside of his own - worlds in just as much disarray and perhaps even more danger - is so vast a concept that he is struggling with it, feels more than a little out of his depth. So he keeps quiet about that, but as for the rest--]

I have plenty of spine. The bugs won't be an issue for long, but I have my own concerns to get back to. My own world and people to defend. I don't have time for this.

[It's a concern though, isn't it? Does his being here mean that more rifts could be opening up in his own world, that it now faces a danger even larger and more nebulous than the one he and the others just put a stop to? It's not something he likes thinking about, and if it's the case that the more of his people end up here then the greater the danger his own world faces, then perhaps it's better to find himself here alone. Still--]

It's disconcerting to know there's so many of them about. Humans, that is. Though I'm not gonna pretend it's a surprise that their worlds are at risk-- they're a danger to themselves and everyone else.

And what about you, eh? What kind of people do you belong to?

[Perhaps it's sarcastic, but he'll just go ahead and accept that accolade. He is setting himself up to be the kind of the Deimos, after all.]

You can beg all you want, it's not gonna change anything.

And I'm not gonna argue with that.

Is everyone here so literal? Wait, don't answer that. You might tell me how you're unrelated to books or something.

Neither will I.

If you believe this to be the worst of your trials to come, then perhaps it is best for you to lie down and wait for the end to find you instead. It would be faster.

What manner of alien are you, then?

Did I say anything about this being the worst of my trials? It's an annoyance, that's what it is.

And I'm Darc, he who will be king of the Deimos. That's all you need to know.

I know what sarcasm is, you fool. But if begging becomes you then who am I to disagree?

Then consider this fool a little underwhelmed and begging to be better impressed, princess?

Yes, um. I suppose that's one way to look at it...

[ olivia has to wonder about that, though. she doesn't know if she's ever been pissed off before. ]

And it is a little frustrating, yes... but.

[ and here is something she hasn't yet admitted out loud yet, as if ashamed of the sentiment. ]

But honestly it just makes me more lonely than mad...

[It's easier over text, to sympathize with the frustration of a newbie, but even if this had been a railing rant of the verbal variety it would have struck home. What if this had been his first introduction to his teammates? How awful would it have been to be dumped somewhere amidst such confusion?]

You've definitely gotten the short end of the stick in regards to arrivals; welcome to Oska, I promise we aren't usually an aspiring polyglot's nightmare. As for your question, I've been making a minor study of that. Most of us are in fact the only representatives of our worlds here, in the sense that none of us would have been liable to run into each other back home, but it's a little more complicated than that: our happenstance employers borrow people from multiple iterations of individual worlds. We have a large proportion of people from different versions of a world called Earth, and then a smaller minority of individuals from other worlds. Those from Earth don't always share a context, either, as some of us have been taken from vastly different locales and even time periods, I think spanning something like a thousand-year spread of time. Anyways, I think it's something like half again the number of Earth people as people from non-Earth worlds. Proportion of humans versus nonhumans, though... to be honest, I haven't looked into the numbers. You're not alone, though, and it may be something to consider that some of us who look human aren't. I can't speak for other iterations of Earth but on my own home world nobody who couldn't look human makes it very long.

[Sorry, Darc, you asked him about statistics.]

[Well, that's actually something he can understand down to the core of him, something he can genuinely sympathise with.]

Well, I guess that's understandable. It's no easy thing, being the only one of your kind.

[Princess...as an insult it's a little confusing, honestly, more like a case of mistaken identity? It's not as though the Deimos make any big distinctions between their males and their females.]

It's king, actually. And I don't especially feel any need to prove myself to a human.

How adorable. You sound a little more spoiled than I was expecting. Small kingdom, then?

No, I suppose you wouldn't.

At least you recognize as much.

That tells me nothing. I trust you don't expect to impress anyone that way.

[Well...it's a thorough explanation if nothing else, even if there are a couple of words in there that elude him. Deimos aren't exactly known for their wide and varied vocabularies, and they have no literature to speak of. Any words he doesn't entirely recognise he's just going to try and infer from the context though-- he wouldn't want to look unknowledgeable in front of someone he knows nothing about.]

So you're saying there are multiple versions of the same world? How is that even possible? As for the time anomalies...I suppose if the rifts appear at random then at least that makes a kind of sense. In a way.

And non-humans who look human...are you talking about similarities, or an exact likeness?

[It's another thing he can kind of understand...being part human himself. His 'human' looks have caused him a lot of trouble in the past. Though that's a source of contention for him and not something he's about to bring up outside of further questioning.]

And I suppose the humans of your world kill off anything that seems different from them, eh? If that's the case, it seems like they're the same no matter where they come from.

I don't feel any need to try and impress humans. Besides, actions speak louder than words ever could.

[And he thinks he probably has that covered, when the time comes for it.]

[Spoiled. That should be funny, but considering what he is and what he's endured because of it, it's a little difficult to see it that way.]

Humans are the only ones who have the luxury of leading spoiled, pampered lives. As for my kingdom, it's one that spans every continent of my world, one that that I fought for, not something that was given to me.

[Though in all honesty that kingdom of his is one that requires further work and effort to thoroughly establish...but there's no need to mention that just now, right?]

re: the apparent reality of the existence of multiple universes, I can't say, I can only theorize. I expect our employers have a greater understanding, though they haven't deigned to illuminate much. Similarities, or assimilation, or intentional likenesses as a chameleonic survival technique. Actually that question is much more context-dependent, and we'll all have different answers. In my instance it seems to be a case of the latter, although you'd have to ask my mother.

[He's gotten better at talking about his odd heritage in a place like this, but he still can't quite bring himself to come out and cop to being a halfbreed in so many words without equivocation first.]

Right.
Sounds like a very long, probably boring tale, but I appreciate the clarification, your kingliness.

Well, good. And I didn't have any intention of elaborating, anyway.

[Though this kind of interaction? The snipes and snarky comments? He honestly feels more comfortable with it than he would with someone who tried to pussyfoot around him.]

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