Cometofjustice:

cometofjustice​:

Duo felt an unpleasant sensation when she took the clamps out, but his arm didn’t hurt as much now that his tubing had been reconnected. The reduced pain allowed him a bit more mental clarity as well.

“Thank you. But… I admit there isn’t very much of a story to tell. The creators of my people disappeared so long ago that almost everything about them has been lost to time, but I have managed to piece together some of their history in my travels… According to my studies, they were once a sprawling, highly advanced spacefaring civilization that lived in perfect harmony with machines, but the invention of Justice & Evil Energy caused their entire nation to divide. The two sides then designed powerful robots using their respective energies, and waged war up until their mysterious disappearance. My people were created during this war to serve as a galactic police force, and to guard our creators’ star systems against invaders. Even after they were long gone, we continued to patrol their ancient boundaries. Although I am young, somewhere within I still know the outline of where their empire once stood…” He said, briefly gazing off in what was presumably the direction of his home. “…The fifteen-headed serpent who attacked you was also a remnant of the war. His name was Araxxus, and he was working against my efforts from the shadows. His kind were designed to oversee a variety of dark operations, but I think he may have been the last… Once I regain my strength, I’m going to gather up his remains and dispose of them in the nearest star. The secrets of this abhorrent technology must never be rediscovered…” He explained, his eyes narrowing slightly.

When Krigg would approach Duo’s wounded leg, he would remove the hand he had been using to suppress the bleeding. Liquid plasma dripped from his gloved fingertips and hit the floor with sharp hisses, causing him to flinch at the sound.

“Sorry.” He mumbled.

As promised, Krigg listened to Duo’s story with quiet attention, setting briefly down her tools and sitting cross-legged on the cool cargo bay flooring with a little thump, hands folded on her lap. Faint star-shaped pupils kept minutious track of the ancient being’s subtle facial expressions, antennae perked as could be without looking ridiculous.

Despite the little alien’s idle hands soon starting to drum on her thighs, she hushed the easily irked part of her that always seemed to chide her idle hands. He needed some time to get back the fuel flow to optimum in his arm, anyways - best not prod at him and overload his circuitry with the sensations of her operating on his leg in the meanwhile. She might as well pay attention while that resolved itself.

Her own face going from unabashed curiosity, and just a sprinkling of wonder, to a light concerned frown, to a thoughtful pinch of her cheeks, she eventually scoops herself back onto her feet as the story comes to an end, and pitters ‘round the large being, tools in hand. The wound is no less messy than the first one, burning lifeblood dripping and splattering onto the metal flooring from the hand once applying pressure, eating at the protective coating with a bubble and a hiss.

“Don’t mention it. Rather that flooring be burnt than you fixing this with one hand.” She huffs, almost a laugh, at the ancient being’s surprisingly sheepish apology, inspecting the wound. No severed cables, but scratched and punctured ones, and she’ll need to patch them up and bring back the clamps, which she does with a light pat on his armor as warning.

“Remind me NOT to ask how old you are, I’ve got a feeling the answer would scare me a little. Organic beings operate on rather tiny timetables on the scope of the universe..” She continues to muse, half-laughing and humming to herself as patches of flexible material are applied to the torn, frayed cables, providing temporary band-aids. “...I’m surprised that anyone would even CONSIDER using robots like that Araxxus guy for anything, really. Making artificial life is one thing - making it INTENTIONALLY cruel is a recipe for disaster. Then again... that thing packs more punch for its size than most anything around. Clearly, there’s something tempting about that kind of energy source.”

“...Doesn’t that feel off, though? Working from a framework made by people who no longer exist, for a purpose they can’t benefit from? Even if that purpose looks like it’s changed somewhat.”

the27percent​:

A small nod in response to Krigg’s acknowledgement. They had been starting to notice some of the patterns of how the trees seemed to interlock in some places. Looking at the branches and how some of them started to intertwine was something that had captured their attention for a little bit.

Atieno had even got close to a tree themself to trace some of the grooves of the tree that had been left behind. Remnants of the growth of the tree and how it demonstrated itself in the moment.

It was during this time that they had noticed that Krigg had climbed up the tree and so they could be looking up at her.

“Hm, and so the tables have turned.“ They spoke with a dry, somewhat amused tone to their voice.

“I mean.. yeah. It gets a bit repetitive from time to time. That’s when I tend to just disperse for a while until I feel like trying to engage with people for a moment. I take a lot of breaks over the years.“ That’s probably the main thing that has kept them ‘together’ after it all.

“People tend to find the patterns of behavior that work within a given civilization and rely on them. So they will try out everything they are familiar with and unless they have information from elsewhere, it may not immediately occur to them to try things differently unless.. really forced to do so.“

“I mean, I’ll be the first one to admit people can be smart, but boy - we’re not infallible.” Krigg hooked her legs to the branch, before slowly lowering herself over the other side of it - until she was effectively dangling by her legs in front of Atieno. Feeling her hat slip from between her antennae, she quickly moved to plant it back against her cranium, continuing to talk. “Sometimes, our squishy organic brains just refuse to give us the straightest answer to a problem, or they just take the outlandish route because we missed a detail.”

“Honestly, I love that part exclusively because it trips the ever living shit out of more efficient, synthetic minds.” Krigg grins, amusement beaming through her expression. “Five times out of ten, they can’t compute that we’d do something dumb because of a brainfart, or because the wind blew in the wrong direction-”

Growwwlllll- Krigg blinked slowly at the gurgle that emanated quite rudely from her stomach, prompting her to look to it with wide, almost offended eyes. “Or because THAT, I guess?” She reached her free hand up to the branch, digging her claws in before unhooking her legs from it in a careful uncurling motion. She dangled in place for a moment, before kicking her legs, allowing herself to sway gently until she finally let go - and landed on her feet with a muffled thud, on soft leaf litter.

She perked up, shooting a look over her shoulder to Atieno with a wide grin, pointing a thumb towards the city. “Yo, it was a nice conversation, but I’m getting peckish. I’m going to head out to the city. You fancy eating something too? I can pay your grub, if you wanna’ continue to wax poetics about the nature of mortal life.”

From {X}, @strebcr​

“...What.”

Of all the reactions - turn around, balk, scream, or just keep going as though nothing was wrong... THAT, she was not expecting. She was really starting to have a bad track record with getting caught out in the open by random people, but it seemed that this one specific time, the person involved was not acting like what he was seeing was anything out of the ordinary.

Just... a normal instance of someone skittering up a wall, getting ready to hide with a fresh stash of plundered sweets from the nearby shop’s discarded garbage? Or did they think she’d somehow acquired her loot in all legality - oh yeah, that probably was that, what with the whole advice on gummy worm availability. Did he know what he was looking at? Ah, whatever - best roll with it.

It then occured to Krigg that she was staring at the guy as though he’d grown a second head. The diminutive alien furiously shook her head with a “BRLRLRLLRLRLR-” noise, somehow without losing her hat in the process, and stared at the lollypop she was holding precariously in one hand. She considered what to do with it for a minute, before deciding to bring it up to her mouth, opening her fanged jaws wide and-

CRONCH.

The discarded stick, onto which clung a few bits of hard sugar, was shoved into a busy pocket as Krigg reassured her grip on the bricks, maintaining eye contact with the stranger.

“Thankch’, but nah’. Guy at’ the counter look’ch’ like he could use chom’ normal cuchtomers, ya’nno’, cho’ I didn’t wanna’ bother.” Krigg shrugged her shoulders, grinning through the crunchy sugary treat. “Ch’ not often ya’ see folks frequent the candy store often enough to know ‘bout ‘chales. Well, grown’acchh’ adults, anyways.”

cometofjustice​:

“No, no, - tourism is allowed in the Astrean Alliance’s space.” He said, briefly raising his right hand to reassure her. “It’s a hospitable area, though there are restricted zones around sensitive archeological sites.”

“Oh.” Was Krigg’s summary, yet doubtlessly relieved response to Duo’s reassurances, accompanied by a light quirk of her antennae. “Good to know.”

The diminutive alien quickly found new ways to make herself busy by putting away her tools back whence they came, somewhat glad for the lack of sticky grease and other unsavory fluids normally found in synthetic life forms. At least she wouldn’t have to mop her floors thwice in a row for the stupid thing to leave - at least plasma had the decency to evaporate.

“A’ight, I’ve got a ship to put back into the stars! Or, at least good enough to haul ass to the nearest void station.” Krigg huffed, sounding oddly jovial for someone who had a LOT of repairs to get through. “Just sit tight for a while, let your systems finish the job. I’ll pop on by when I’m through. If you need me just...”

Krigg paused to rustle into the pockets of her jacket, fishing out a small, circular device with a large touch dial in the center, that she proceeded to flick with a thumb at Duo. The item landed on his chestplate, somewhat off-center, sticking itself on with a light clang that sounded rather magnetic in nature. “That’s a radio. It goes both ways - if you need anything, just holler.”

cometofjustice​:

Duo had almost raised his left arm to catch the coin-like object, but the soreness sharply reminded him to keep still. He curiously peered over his breastplate at the device as he listened to Krigg explain its purpose.

“Alright.” He said with a nod.

Just as she was about to leave, Duo remembered that he had something more to say.

“Krigg-” He spoke up. “…Thank you.”

Krigg froze in the middle of her departure with one foot up in the air, comically enough, before shooting a small look of surprise over her shoulder. She slowly placed her foot back down, shuffling to face the ancient being, only for a sheepish grin to creep up onto her face, skin darkening subtly. She reached up to nervously paw at the skin behind her neck, antennae rubbing together.

“Bah, it’s nothin’ much.” She chuckles nervously, tone dismissive as her free hand is waved into the air for emphasis. “You saved my bones, it’s only fair I return the favor. ‘sides, between travellers, it’s common courtesy to help one another when you can. Survival in the void doesn’t hold onto much - every bit of aid counts.”

“ ‘sides. I’m not the superstitious type that thinks it’s conducive to souls drifting forever in limbo, but it’s not right to leave injured people out voidside. Your life shouldn’t end in the cold dead space between stars... even if I don’t think you were anywhere close to kicking the bucket.” Krigg added after a pause, snappily turning around and pittering away from view, affixing her own end of the radio to the collar of her jacket.

A minute or two later, a voice crackled from Duo’s own receptor. “Yep, works just fine!“

cometofjustice​:

“Alright.” Duo acknowledged quietly, having listened to her words attentively.

“…I do hear those sorts of questions from nearly every life form I contact, but I don’t mind answering them. I’m often the only one who can.” He said, tensing slightly in anticipation of Krigg removing the clamps. “Your assumptions were actually correct though…” He mused.

“...Speaking from experience, the universe is big and full of dead things that stopped working long before my specie evolved sentience. If it’s weird, hard to explain, and behaves like something out of a myth, a lost civillization is probably to blame for it being there.” Krigg hummed thoughtfully, moving to grab hold of the welder once again and tugging lightly on the clamped fuel lines to begin reconnecting the delicate tubing, patching them where the ends were too frayed to be put back together. No use removing the clamps then - that’d only result in messier, plasma-spewing lines and gloves catching on fire every other second.

Not that she didn’t need to occasionally put them out by whacking them casually against the nearest hard surface when the clamps let through a few drops of the burning substance. But Krigg showed little care in that factoid.

Only when the lines were securely patched, did she remove the clamps, wincing in anticipation for what had to be the worst feeling of pins and needles imaginable.

“...I’ll check your leg. And be quiet. I’ve got a feeling that not many people get to hear that story and... things that were forgotten by a lot of people don’t need to be forgotten more. It’s not right by them. I’ll just listen.”