Adia Costas (
chiron_survivor) wrote in
nexus_crossings2017-08-15 08:17 pm
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A reminder to not count your Earths before they've hatched.
It is not unusual to find Adia in the Plaza. She is there frequently enough, sitting in front of a Nexus terminal or fixing herself a cup of coffee. It is not even unusual to find her accompanied by pokémon. This time it's only one, a large bird that stands nearly as tall as she does. It stays close to her seat, keeping a watchful eye for suspicious characters.
What is unusual is the expression on her face.
Adia has come to the Nexus upset before, but this is different. All her nervous energy is gone, replaced with a washed-out, nearly lethargic appearance. She's holding a children's drawing in her hands, staring at it for long seconds before folding it along well-worn creases. She picks at a corner, staring into the distance, then unfolds it and starts the process all over again.
This goes on for several minutes until Bucky, wise bird that he is, gently nudges her with his beak. Coming back to herself, she blinks and looks around, remembering where she is.
"Something... something bad happened back home. A lot of people are... really upset. And losing hope. How do you come back from that?" She looks down at the picture and whispers, "How do you learn to hope again?"
What is unusual is the expression on her face.
Adia has come to the Nexus upset before, but this is different. All her nervous energy is gone, replaced with a washed-out, nearly lethargic appearance. She's holding a children's drawing in her hands, staring at it for long seconds before folding it along well-worn creases. She picks at a corner, staring into the distance, then unfolds it and starts the process all over again.
This goes on for several minutes until Bucky, wise bird that he is, gently nudges her with his beak. Coming back to herself, she blinks and looks around, remembering where she is.
"Something... something bad happened back home. A lot of people are... really upset. And losing hope. How do you come back from that?" She looks down at the picture and whispers, "How do you learn to hope again?"
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He's not worried about the ordeal where he tried to scare answers out of her, since he made sure to cover his identity very well. But he knows that if he has to speak, she's going to catch the discrepancy in his voice. Time to vanish...
The piercing gaze of Bucky the Braviary rests on him, causing Josh to pause and stare back at the bird. Oh. That's a problem, because the Pokemon is not letting him escape since he let his gaze rest on Adia for far too long. He's going to slowly try to back up, not wanting to upset the Pokemon any further. His chances of walking away are next to none, alas.
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Pulling up her gaze from the drawing, she looks at Bucky first, then at whoever has caught his unfriendly attention. Her eyes widen with recognition. Not from that horrible incident during Khan's invasion, of course, but from that video chat months ago. The one where a socially awkward but friendly young man showed her live images of an Earth that reminded her of home.
But what was he doing here?
"...Josh?" she asks. The surprise is enough to bring a little color back to her face. "Is that you?"
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Josh doesn't move a inch upon feeling Braviary's gaze burn, coupled by Adia's gentle voice calling to him. Running right now would look horribly suspicious, and to be fair, the bird would catch him in two seconds flat. He sighs, zipping up his hoodie, before walking over to her.
"...Yeah, it's me." He speaks quietly, full of nervous energy, while stuffing his hands into his jacket pocket. Josh is so hesitant to face Adia, that he can't even look her directly in the eyes, like a child who can't face their mother. Does he dare explain his voice first? No. He'll see what she says before responding.
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Her general demeanor is one of concern right now. And recently, after successfully acquiring a flash, Harley has alcohol to offer. She has grabbed two Styrofoam cups from the coffee area, and places them down in front of Adia. Then she pours half of a cup for both of them (it is whiskey that is in the flask tonight).
"What happened, sweetness?" Yes, Harley has given Adia a nickname.
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He does dig the colors, though. Red and blue are his jam.
Adia watches the other woman pour out the drinks with a somewhat blank expression on her face. It's not until Harley asks her what's wrong that she moves at all, and then it's only to refold her picture and tuck it into her messenger bag. Harley doesn't know anything about her situation. Starting an explanation from the beginning feels like an exhausting endeavor.
But the woman is concerned. And has her own wild, heart-breaking past. Adia's story can't be that crazy in comparison.
"We're at war, where I'm from, with genocidal robots called Cylons. They destroyed our twelve colonies, and we've been on the run from them for... gods, nearly three years. We had hoped to find Earth -- it was considered a myth for a long time, but we recently obtained the coordinates..."
She smiles wryly. It looks all wrong on her normally innocent face. "Well, we found it. But it's completely destroyed. The thirteenth tribe had built their own Cylons over two thousand years ago, and the end result was a nuclear war." She sighs heavily. "It was our only hope. I don't know what we're going to do now..."
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"My first instinct is to tell you that you can't give up. Just because life screwed you over... it just means you have to fight harder."
"These awful things that happen can do one of two things. They can make you a better and stronger person. Or they can stomp all over you. And it really is only up to you how you react." And she nods slightly. She was bluntly honestly, but wasn't insulting or rude.
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"Do you really want an answer to that question? I mean, people as a general rule don't tend to like my answers."
Mostly because he's honest and truthful and rarely says what people want to hear. Though, often what they need to hear.
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The bird, however, doesn't seem to be agree. He's keeping a hard stare on the Doctor. He's not exactly sure why his companion is so sad, but he's sure as heck not going to let some random passer-by make her feel worse.
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"Well, on first observation, I would say you still have hope, or you wouldn't be so upset. That's the problem with hope. It's hard to resist."
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Well, emotionally, anyway. Jesse's clearly a member of the walking dead, his skin gone green and missing his nose and several teeth, eyes gone milky white. Jesse keeps a respectful distance for Adia, back in his habit of not forcing proximity to the living who might not care for it. But his expression is one of compassionate concern.
"It ain't easy, bouncin' back from a hard time. Gotta give people time t'mourn the lost hope, but don't let 'em dwell on it neither. If yer the leader, it's yer job t'find a NEW hope, a NEW reason to keep goin'. Ain't enough t'just survive or scratch out a livin'."
Jesse leans in a little, just enough that his body language speaks more of that concern and less about trying to get close. Again, not all living like being near him and he respects that. "Iffen y'all wanna talk about what happened, folks say I'm a good listener?"
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Bucky is not nearly as copacetic about this guy's face. He grumbles in Adia's ear, but she shushes him with a scratch of his under-the-chin feathers. "I'm not anybody's leader," she says quietly. "I know our president is having a horrible time with the news, but she's battling cancer, too, so..." Bad times all around.
Nodding numbly at his offer to listen, she carefully folds up the drawing in her hands. "S-sure. Thank you." She gestures to the chair next to her, the one on the other side of the giant wary bird. "It's kind of a long story."
wish i had paid time for the rest of his icons :arrgh:
you need space for a "youth counselor" icon
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So one short, busty woman of an enigmatic racial combination, wearing a mechanic's coverall and a pair of goggles perched on her forehead considers this.
"You don't learn. You find it. Hope is a devious thing. Sometimes it hides, but it never goes away." She gestures. "Someone where I used to come from caused a ...time-quake, I guess is the best way to put it. And I was in the Nexus at the time, and if I had gone back, I would have stopped existing and become someone else. I didn't want to do that. I stayed here. I lost my world." She pauses to let this sink in.
"And then I found friends, a love I never expected, a new world. I found hope again. It's not easy! I don't want you to think it's what I'm saying. It's hard. But it's worth doing, and sometimes you find more than just hope when you go looking at it. You find everything."
"And that said, how bad is it? I might have some ideas to fix it."
Because, again, Eiko Takashima, refiner of the PINpoint, non-evil mad scientist... that's what she does.
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Adia carefully refolds the picture in her hands while the other woman speaks. Despite her own deep sorrow, there's sympathy in her eyes; she knows all too well what it's like to lose a world, to be displaced from everything you found familiar. And like Eiko, she has found comfort in the Nexus. She has made friends, planned new projects...
But she is still only one person. There are nearly 40,000 other people in her Fleet, and they don't have the Nexus to fall back on.
"I've lost my world, too," she says softly. She worries at the corner of the paper before putting it in her messenger bag. "I, um... we're in the middle of a war, where I'm from. All twelve colonies were destroyed. The rest of us have been on the run from the enemy for... gods, almost three years now. We were looking for Earth -- a lost colony, in my universe."
Her mouth tightens. "Well, we found it. But the thirteenth tribe had a nuclear war of their own, over two thousand years ago. The planet is a wasteland."
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"It can be difficult, but not impossible, and it certainly won't come quick. The most important thing is to focus on what you still have left to fight for. The moment that last shred of hope fades for good, you may as well have relinquished all which you hold dear."
Pulling out a small flask, she takes a sip, eying the folded, worn and weathered paper in the girl's hands.
"I've suffered much loss throughout my lifetime. If it's not too much to ask, I'd like to know what happened. Perhaps I can help in some way."
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"There's plenty left worth fighting for," she says quietly. She sounds exhausted. "That's the problem. Finding Earth was our last hope..."
But she's getting ahead of herself. This woman is lending a kind ear, the least she can do is tell her story in a coherent manner. "There's a war where I'm from. Our colonies were destroyed, and we've been on the run ever since. We were looking for a lost colony called Earth, hoping the humans there could help us..."
She sighs and drops her gaze. "They had their own war over two thousand years ago. Everything was destroyed. We're truly the last of the humans in our universe."
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Sometimes, you don't come back from that.
He can't say it, even if that's how he's lived. His gaze falls to his hands and the dark marks he's dug into them just to keep centered during his episodes. If Hannah were asking. If Beth were asking.
How would he reply then?
"You..." Josh startles himself when he speaks up finally, but presses on before he loses his nerve. "You gotta let yourself mourn or grieve, first. Telling yourself it's fine when it isn't won't be real hope. I...I'm really sorry, Adia."
For whatever it is that's struck a blow against her and her people this time.
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Wordlessly, she stands up. She takes one of Josh's hands, the other still holding onto the colorful children's drawing. "We found Earth," she tells him finally. Every word is a struggle. "But... there was a nuclear war there, too, a long time ago. The thirteenth tribe is gone."
Bucky hops forward anxiously. Hey, hey. This guy has a really weird aura, Adia. Be careful.
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Ghost's first to ask the question, zipping up close to peer up at her, since he guesses her avian companion will be more willing to let him approach than Blaze. "
Adia... what happened?
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Ghost is a very wise little bot. Bucky pays him no mind, and though he's staring intently at Blaze, it's without malice. He knows that she's no threat to Adia. (Just don't try to pet him again.)
"Hi, Ghost." Her voice comes out as a scratchy whisper, and she clears her throat before continuing. "It's pretty bad," she prefaces. "We found Earth, but the thirteenth tribe is dead. They had their own Cylon rebellion. A nuclear war destroyed everything... it happened over two thousand years ago. We never had a chance of meeting them."
There is an expression of profound loss on her face, but there is guilt, too. Or possibly shame. She can barely look Ghost in his glowing robotic eye. "I don't know how we're going to move forward... or if we should even bother, if we're going to keep making the same stupid mistakes..."
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He pads forward on all four paws, slow enough that hopefully the guardian creature will not see him as a threat. "Hope may be a difficult companion to keep at your side. It must be fed often, or attract a new hope to take its place." He can't make the type of sympathetic facial expressions she's probably used to, so he tries to make it come across vocally instead. "Adia Costas, what has happened?"
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"I think this hope has been starved out," she laments quietly before bringing her gaze up to the friendly alien she spoke with not too long ago. "We found Earth, but it's a dead planet. They had a nuclear war two thousand years ago that destroyed everything...."
She feels like she ought to say more, but what else is there to say? He'll understand, perhaps more than anyone else she has met in the Nexus.
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She makes a slow approach, so as not to upset the large creature sitting next to Adia, and then takes a knee in front of the woman. Her lips draw into a thin line as she looks up at her friend, and then she slowly offers a hand for Adia to hold, if she wants.
"Sometimes you don't. Sometimes it's best to accept the loss for what it is and find another reason to go on." It's a struggle she knows intimately, one she still feels more often than not. Finding a new reason is difficult, time-consuming, and often soul-crushing in the interim. "The best thing you can do for now is to be there for one another, to mourn for what you've lost, and to keep moving forward together."
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It takes Adia a moment to draw her gaze up from the children's drawing in her hands. She takes her friend's hand, and a soft look of gratitude filters into her sad, tired eyes. Amelia would understand what it means to give up hope better than most. She certainly does not fault her friend for the honest, unvarnished truth.
"We found Earth," she tells her. "There was a war over two thousand years ago, and the thirteenth tribe perished. Earth itself is uninhabitable." She sighs shakily. "I know we need to find a way to move forward. It's not like we don't have a reason to keep trying. But what that is, I don't know yet."
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Have a pretty picture of a place I've been! :D
it's so beautiful! Where is it?
Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens :3
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