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Sad. So sad.

Sword of Cup stared out of the small window of his Quarters at New York's sky, the few stars he could make out past the city lights. Heart of Heart's thoughts were very distant right now, and the man was effectively alone in his head for once. For only the third time since the crimson light had crashed down from the sky onto the Duende household and destroyed his life forever. What little life he'd had left.

He stared at the stars, trying to remember what the sky over home had even looked like. He remembered nothing, nothing but the name of the city. Lviv. One faded glimpse of his mother and one of his older sisters at Easter, baking, past pysanky that he was working on at the table. That was all he could remember of his real home, and tears like black blood rolled down his cheeks.

He stared, and nothing stared back at him, here in a dungeon that was not a dungeon. What was his name? He couldn't remember. The Duendes had called him 'Russkie', but that wasn't his name. He knew that much. Who had he been, before? Before he was a slave here in America? Gone. It was all gone. Burned away by Heart of Heart's dreadful light making him a slave in his own body.

He stared at the stars, through the immaterial and unseen matrix of other peoples' creative works that surrounded him like a strangely crystalline cage. Instances shifted before his tearful eyes, bringing one in his native language before him. A music video, the song beautiful but dreadfully sad as it played in his ears. An actor dressed as the last Tsar went through portrayal of a fantasized version of the Russian monarch's final day.

As the actor in the video started to dance, Sword of Cup took up the motions with him, mimicking the dance in his cell. The last dance of a character who knew that he was going to the guillotine that day. The man called Bloodrager wanted the freedom to die.

Heart of Heart watched this from afar, having deliberately pulled away from the one Russian unit it had assimilated to see how the human would react when unsupervised. The hive mind from beyond time and space was puzzled how anyone would want to truly end their own existence. Unlike Sword of Cup, it remembered the original designation, the name that 'Russkie' had had for himself before it had so casually erased it to make him Sword of Cup. Now, now that it knew that each of the units it had taken ownership of and inhabited had been a person rather than just a unit, it wondered. Who had Mykhaylo Chornovil been, and what imagination, what seeds of new art had it wiped away with him?
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:13, Mon 30 July 2018.

Maria had realized that it was too late to have Bloodrager accompany Doc And AI so she went to see Bloodrager herself.
Bloodrager or Sword… she wasn’t sure what to call him anymore, Had her a little concerned, When they met he seemed to think everyone was part of a hive mentality. He had gone from lack of emotions to sudden concern and confusion.
He was going to be an interesting individual but not for Maria. She wanted Agent Octavius to  study him and see what they would be able to find out.

She knocked on the door to his closed quarters.
Sword? It’s Director Hill. May I come in?

The dancing barbarian heard her, and reacted like the actor in the video would/did/had when the actress playing his wife entered. He stopped dancing, and stood straight and tall.

"Yes. You are entering," he replied aloud, the previously-quiescent ring on his finger flaring with crimson light as the clarity of being alone was ruthlessly swept away by Heart of Heart's return to direct control of the unit-not-a-unit. The flow of tears that the Ukrainian man's emotions had been shedding shut off abruptly.

Maria opened the door and entered, His permission caused her to shake her head.
she gave a small smile but when he turned to face her she saw the red rimmed eyes.

Is everything ok?

"Ok?" he echoed, his affect flat and emotionless. A pregnant pause of a few seconds, the ring's glow shifting and spitting minute sparks as the hive mind looked up the term in various instances to be sure (it hoped) that it understood the question correctly this time. It still wasn't sure as it answered through Sword of Cup's lips. "No. Things are not 'ok' Director Hill. Why will Sword of Cup wish to cease?"

Maria looked at him with confusion. uhm, no one is ceasing anything. she said asking him to follow.
I have a friend that may be able to help you sort out some of your questions. She said giving Sword a small smile.
at least I think he can help. But in order to do that we need to move you somewhere else.

"Of course."

The muscular, red-skinned barbarian followed obligingly, not bothering to pick up anything from the room they were departing from. Inwardly, he wondered why the journey between waypoints was never as uneventful as the texts in his skeletons said they were supposed to be, but that was a minor curiosity that he/they had gotten used to very quickly. There was so much in this strange world that made little or no sense to Heart of Heart, but clearly made sense to the local humans. Therefore, by its' reasoning, as it was their world their logic was to be preferred over its' own ways of doing things. It had made far too many mistakes already, serious, major mistakes that it needed to make amends for.

Maria escorted Sword to a hanger on the lower level of the hellicarrier.  There was a small shuttle like craft with a  Pilot already inside waiting. She gestured for the big man to have a seat.
William will be waiting for him at the Whitehall sector. Use entrance 3 She directed the pilot.

He nodded and turned back to the controls. The hangar door opened to let in the sunlight. The pilot lowered his Visor and the jet started moving forward with a small rumble. It was soon out the hangar door and off to it’s destination.

TBC in the gathering thread…

The big man looked at the shuttle. Heart of Heart still wasn't sure how to classify these things. Were they flying chariots, some form of car, draconic golems, physical embodiments of journey...? It didn't know, and the idea of asking the unit's own mind as a separate being had never occurred to the hive mind even after coming to the realization that they were distinct individuals. For his part, Sword of Cup viewed it as being a small, private airplane.

Sitting down as directed, he buckled himself in. The idea of seatbelts was a good one, even if they were not featured much in human art. And waited through the journey to the waypoint which Director Hill was sending him to.

The glow of the ring dimmed as the jet took off, Heart of Heart's presence lessening for the time being. Just the rune/symbol on it continued to glow. For Sword of Cup, being able to control which way he was looking again was a pleasure, and one that he used to watch things out the window. Neither of them said a word to the pilot.


-------> The Gathering