Jack Frost (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
letskicksomeice) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
longestnight2024-04-27 09:51 pm
letskicksomeice) wrote in longestnight2024-04-27 09:51 pm
Entry tags:
Ice Dust
[cw: mild gore, death.]
Okay, guys, I think we're almost done here. Everyone's reported in that all the cell blocks are just about cleared. I'm checking one of the last sections.
[He flits towards one of the secure doors, casually tapping his staff against the security panel housing the ID reader and lock, freezing it until it fritzes out. He pushes through the doors and lands, anticipating that he might have to duck low behind something for cover.]
We've already overstayed our welcome and we shouldn't risk them bringing in backup from outside, so start snowglobing to the Po -
[What he sees on the other side of the door makes him freeze and stagger back as if shot to the chest. Most of the science labs had been emptied in the ruckus; the myths within were quickly dragged back to their cells. But with the base overrun, it looks like this lab was one of the ones quickly abandoned, without the scientists cleaning up after themselves.]
[It is a macabre tableau. On one giant examination table there is a vivisected unicorn, clearly dead, rainbow blood flowing over the sides of the table. It is an ugly sight, something so pure and beautiful, its white coat glossy like pearl, paired with such brutality.]
[But that's not what gives Jack pause and makes it look like he's been punched in the heart. What gives him pause is the other myth, strapped to a table, lots of painful-looking devices and tubes attached to her. The nymph is still an otherworldly beauty. Her skin is still a brilliant mix of blue and green and gray like the ocean meeting a stormy sky. Her face is delicate and her hair is a curly tangle of flowing vines. When she opens her eyes they look like blue marble, blended with cloudy white.]
[But she is dried out, skin cracking like tree bark in places, the leaves and flowers in her viney hair wilted and brown.]
[She is not meant to be dried out. Her skin is meant to glisten like it is perpetually sprinkled with drizzle. Every one of her movements is meant to scatter droplets over the woods like morning dew. She was one of the ones to bring gentle storms to the slopes of Mount Nysa, after all.]
[Seeing slight movement, Jack flies forward, placing his staff against the side of the bed. He starts pulling devices and straps off of her, careful to not yank anything that looks like it'll hurt if he pulls suddenly.]
Aesyle, Aesyle, it's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay.
["Jack Frost," she breathes it out in a relieved sigh. "I should have known the Guardians would come. We - we lost hope, many of us. That we would be found. But...but I am found." The relief and peace she feels at this flows from her expression and water pours from her eyes an unnatural flow, like exuding water is in her very nature.]
[Some of the devices give him trouble and has to dismantle them carefully, freezing components that need to be weakened and broken.]
You are. I found you. Are your sisters here?
["My sisters were here," she says, eyes closed. "But they walk with our brother Hyas now."]
[Agony falls over Jack's face. Devastation. In the space of a sentence, he has lost fifteen friends at once. His eyes temporarily squeeze shut but the tears stream out anyway, freezing on his cheeks in a fine smattering of ice dust.]
I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry we didn't get here sooner.
[He manages to fight past it and gets the last device undone. He quickly has a globe out, and whips out a portal to the Pole, all business despite the heartbreak. He hefts her up, staff grasped awkwardly in one hand.]
I've got you, though. [His voice cracks.] I'm taking you to the Pole, we can call Epione and her daughters -
[She suddenly reaches a hand up to his face holding it gently but tightly, commanding his attention. He stops flying, knowing, knowing with a sinking feeling, that it's too late. Knowing that she needs to be seen right now. She wanted to be found and she is; he can give her that at least, more of being found. He kneels with her on the floor as if the weight of her and what's about to happen are suddenly dragging him down.]
["You always made our rain so beautiful, turning it into snow, spreading your frost over the trees of Mt. Nysa." She locks eyes, expression filled with long-held longing, unspoken. "I wish...I wish we could've danced one last time, but my sisters...Hyas..." Her eyes gently drift shut. "Hyas waits for me."]
[He hand drops in a last caress, she breathes out a last breath that sounds like a breeze through the trees and finally fades from the world, her body suddenly melting into a gentle flow of water that passes uselessly through Jack's violently shaking hands. His body is so cold that some of it freezes there in a glaze over his fingers and palms. He holds his hands to his chin, bunched up, as if the touch of her essence there will somehow be taken inside himself, preserved.]
[Where his knees touch the puddle frost spreads out on the floor and there could be uglier things left in her place but at the very least the frost lines are beautiful, spiraling outward in an elegant pattern, vaguely shaped like a humanoid form, with spiraling lines where the vines of her hair had been. This brief memorial is ephemeral. It will be gone soon, melted and evaporated into the air. But for now, the place of her death is marked with something that's at least a fraction of how beautiful she'd been in life.]
[The tears on Jack's face will be there for longer, frozen in streaks. Shaking uncontrollably, his watery expression changes from agony to one of barely contained rage. The wind picks up in the room and ice starts to crystallize on every surface.]
[His voice is as hollow as an empty tomb when he finally speaks to the team.]
Get the last of the myths out and get to the Pole. [The myths, not the staff of the Project, but they've already had plenty of time to run. Anyone left - anyone being sent in to try to retake the facility - has made a very serious mistake in not getting out while they could.] Tell me when you're done.
[The plan had just been to run after everyone was out. Jack could never be described as "prudent" in the past, but that was when he didn't have a whole team he was trying to keep alive while in deeply over his head. Many of them were powerful, but blowing that huge a facility on their own would've been a stretch and while there were some hefty power sources within in it, none of them were fully centralized, and some were on closed circuits. No easy way to just hack a bunch of power cells to overload.]
[But...the plan has now changed. Circumstances have changed. The wind briefly shrieks like its being murdered, and the doors Jack flew in through slam off their hinges so hard they embed themselves into the opposite wall.]
[The steel wall.]
[Around him, the metal hallway walls start to frost over, groan, and then crack. The irises of his eyes seem paler and almost lit from within.]
I'm bringing this entire place down.
Okay, guys, I think we're almost done here. Everyone's reported in that all the cell blocks are just about cleared. I'm checking one of the last sections.
[He flits towards one of the secure doors, casually tapping his staff against the security panel housing the ID reader and lock, freezing it until it fritzes out. He pushes through the doors and lands, anticipating that he might have to duck low behind something for cover.]
We've already overstayed our welcome and we shouldn't risk them bringing in backup from outside, so start snowglobing to the Po -
[What he sees on the other side of the door makes him freeze and stagger back as if shot to the chest. Most of the science labs had been emptied in the ruckus; the myths within were quickly dragged back to their cells. But with the base overrun, it looks like this lab was one of the ones quickly abandoned, without the scientists cleaning up after themselves.]
[It is a macabre tableau. On one giant examination table there is a vivisected unicorn, clearly dead, rainbow blood flowing over the sides of the table. It is an ugly sight, something so pure and beautiful, its white coat glossy like pearl, paired with such brutality.]
[But that's not what gives Jack pause and makes it look like he's been punched in the heart. What gives him pause is the other myth, strapped to a table, lots of painful-looking devices and tubes attached to her. The nymph is still an otherworldly beauty. Her skin is still a brilliant mix of blue and green and gray like the ocean meeting a stormy sky. Her face is delicate and her hair is a curly tangle of flowing vines. When she opens her eyes they look like blue marble, blended with cloudy white.]
[But she is dried out, skin cracking like tree bark in places, the leaves and flowers in her viney hair wilted and brown.]
[She is not meant to be dried out. Her skin is meant to glisten like it is perpetually sprinkled with drizzle. Every one of her movements is meant to scatter droplets over the woods like morning dew. She was one of the ones to bring gentle storms to the slopes of Mount Nysa, after all.]
[Seeing slight movement, Jack flies forward, placing his staff against the side of the bed. He starts pulling devices and straps off of her, careful to not yank anything that looks like it'll hurt if he pulls suddenly.]
Aesyle, Aesyle, it's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay.
["Jack Frost," she breathes it out in a relieved sigh. "I should have known the Guardians would come. We - we lost hope, many of us. That we would be found. But...but I am found." The relief and peace she feels at this flows from her expression and water pours from her eyes an unnatural flow, like exuding water is in her very nature.]
[Some of the devices give him trouble and has to dismantle them carefully, freezing components that need to be weakened and broken.]
You are. I found you. Are your sisters here?
["My sisters were here," she says, eyes closed. "But they walk with our brother Hyas now."]
[Agony falls over Jack's face. Devastation. In the space of a sentence, he has lost fifteen friends at once. His eyes temporarily squeeze shut but the tears stream out anyway, freezing on his cheeks in a fine smattering of ice dust.]
I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry we didn't get here sooner.
[He manages to fight past it and gets the last device undone. He quickly has a globe out, and whips out a portal to the Pole, all business despite the heartbreak. He hefts her up, staff grasped awkwardly in one hand.]
I've got you, though. [His voice cracks.] I'm taking you to the Pole, we can call Epione and her daughters -
[She suddenly reaches a hand up to his face holding it gently but tightly, commanding his attention. He stops flying, knowing, knowing with a sinking feeling, that it's too late. Knowing that she needs to be seen right now. She wanted to be found and she is; he can give her that at least, more of being found. He kneels with her on the floor as if the weight of her and what's about to happen are suddenly dragging him down.]
["You always made our rain so beautiful, turning it into snow, spreading your frost over the trees of Mt. Nysa." She locks eyes, expression filled with long-held longing, unspoken. "I wish...I wish we could've danced one last time, but my sisters...Hyas..." Her eyes gently drift shut. "Hyas waits for me."]
[He hand drops in a last caress, she breathes out a last breath that sounds like a breeze through the trees and finally fades from the world, her body suddenly melting into a gentle flow of water that passes uselessly through Jack's violently shaking hands. His body is so cold that some of it freezes there in a glaze over his fingers and palms. He holds his hands to his chin, bunched up, as if the touch of her essence there will somehow be taken inside himself, preserved.]
[Where his knees touch the puddle frost spreads out on the floor and there could be uglier things left in her place but at the very least the frost lines are beautiful, spiraling outward in an elegant pattern, vaguely shaped like a humanoid form, with spiraling lines where the vines of her hair had been. This brief memorial is ephemeral. It will be gone soon, melted and evaporated into the air. But for now, the place of her death is marked with something that's at least a fraction of how beautiful she'd been in life.]
[The tears on Jack's face will be there for longer, frozen in streaks. Shaking uncontrollably, his watery expression changes from agony to one of barely contained rage. The wind picks up in the room and ice starts to crystallize on every surface.]
[His voice is as hollow as an empty tomb when he finally speaks to the team.]
Get the last of the myths out and get to the Pole. [The myths, not the staff of the Project, but they've already had plenty of time to run. Anyone left - anyone being sent in to try to retake the facility - has made a very serious mistake in not getting out while they could.] Tell me when you're done.
[The plan had just been to run after everyone was out. Jack could never be described as "prudent" in the past, but that was when he didn't have a whole team he was trying to keep alive while in deeply over his head. Many of them were powerful, but blowing that huge a facility on their own would've been a stretch and while there were some hefty power sources within in it, none of them were fully centralized, and some were on closed circuits. No easy way to just hack a bunch of power cells to overload.]
[But...the plan has now changed. Circumstances have changed. The wind briefly shrieks like its being murdered, and the doors Jack flew in through slam off their hinges so hard they embed themselves into the opposite wall.]
[The steel wall.]
[Around him, the metal hallway walls start to frost over, groan, and then crack. The irises of his eyes seem paler and almost lit from within.]
I'm bringing this entire place down.
star trek speech incoming i am so so sorry
[Boimler is setting up some of what they need in the infirmary. Only a few people on the team have medical skills but the Federation's first aid training is solid and he does have a basic medkit. He has to help there where he can.]
In my world, millions of people died over the course of a century. Society collapsed. The worst parts of humanity took hold of the world. There were instances of slavery, nuclear wars, genocides.
You could look at that and think that that's what we'd always be. That we'd broken so much that we'd always be monsters, with people causing suffering to each other, until we completely destroyed ourselves.
But that's not what happened. We made first contact with another species from the stars. We realized there was so much more...out there.
The universe opened up and we changed. We stopped fighting and rebuilt. We started to explore and learn about the universe instead of destroying things. We learned to live in peace and started to make peaceful contact with other species, sharing things with each other and helping each other. We bettered ourselves and still keep trying to be better.
People can choose to be better. Even if they're awful, they can choose to do better and do good in the world. And they can't do it if they're dead.
They deserve consequences [he has to emphasize that, because it's important there's some form of justice for the suffering they caused] so if we can get them arrested for something else, we should. But we also don't know what they could be if they have time to think about what they've done - and time to think about the fact they were spared by the same type of people they were hurting.
Think of the good that could be done if any of them flip and turn against the organization.
no subject
[It's...idealistic, maybe? He sees it as a tad idealistic and perhaps naive. But also it makes him laugh in a way that's not really all that mocking. This kind of thing said at him is...baffling, especially because it keeps happening. How does anyone come up with this kind of thing on the fly. How do they all manage to say it all without feeling self-conscious about it.
Maybe it's because anyone who goes like this does mean it? Is that it?]
...you really hope someone will turn against them. Dunno if that's hoping too much. I knew a whole group who was all about making others suffer and none of them would have helped in any way just because the ones they were tormenting tried to help.
[...mostly because Garurumon was the one who turned against said group -- probably because he was never into the group's beliefs and goals so he doesn't consider himself truly one of them, but yeah, generally speaking Garurumon did more or less what Boimler argues and Garurumon himself doesn't realize it.
He's the proof Boimler isn't all wrong and yet he lacks the self-awareness to notice that]
But fine. The snowy kid doesn't get to destroy them all, I guess. It's not like I'm going to go behind your backs later and tell him that actually he should go wreck this place up. I get it. We came here to get myths out first and foremost, anyway.
[At the very least it's acceptance! Garurumon might not be into the thought of Jack taking revenge being wrong because by extension it'd mean he was wrong, but at the very least he's not trying to bend the issue]
no subject
[Sometimes it wasn't about swaying someone to the same side. Just being able to meet in the middle and agree on a course of action, that was important.]
[That's enough.]
[He accidentally does a bit of a captain voice. Unconsciously. His own, not an imitation of someone else. So it sounds far more natural than when he's trying too hard.]
We don't have to believe in the same things, just figure out how to agree on what to do.
Sounds like we're on the same page on that. You're right, the trapped myths come first.
[And it deserved some acknowledgement, Garurumon putting focus on saving the victims. It means he has the same priorities - the ones they all should have.]