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Stardust
Topic Started: May 28 2012, 06:46 PM (37 Views)
Fran
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Posted by: Cosmo Oct 26 2011, 01:26 AM
((the app I used, posting it as a one-shot cause I thought I already had and I need it for refs! This is the story of Cosmo's arrival to the board- she lands in 'Wish on a Falling Star' in Starlight.))

Cosmo blinked awake, the ceiling blinking back at her lazily. The eye-lamps gave off a thick golden light, the Chrysalis not quite awake itself. Archangel had never been much of a morning person, not in her lifetime, and this early in the day the sleepy eyes gave off a softer, warmer glow. Tempting her to roll back up in her leaves and claim a few more minutes of sleep, just a few...

She rolled off of her shelf and her skirt petals flared, letting her drift past the four lower rows of bunks and land lightly on the floor without disturbing the other young seedrians. She pretended that she was being generous, letting them continue their sleep. But really she just didn't want Summer to snitch on her again to Galaxina for sneaking out before work hours.

Galaxina was proper and strict with everyone, but especially with Cosmo. Cosmo had always had enough chores for a whole season of seedrians, but as Xina would point out with a waving finger, Cosmo was a season of one and still had to pull the weight. Sometimes Cosmo had thought she did it to keep her out of trouble, sometimes she thought it was to get out of doing her own fair share of the ickiest chores. But just because Xina wanted all of HER waking time to be 'productive' time, Cosmo didn't see why she couldn't relax like normal seedrians without getting a scolding! Earthia's daughters or not, it was no fun.

Coaxing the door open was no problem. The ringed doors usually groaned when properly opened, but she knew where the wall was ticklish, the muscles contracting and then moving just enough for her to slip through. Not the most pleasant experience, but a morning of freedom was worth it!

The other sleeping cells of the seedrians were stacked one atop another in towering columns, lifts tethered by tendon-like cords drifting idly now, though soon enough the place would be filled with motion. More round doors in the far off ceiling and floor led to halls used more often by the Neophytes, who could scale the walls and ceilings of the Chrysalis as easily as walk across the ground. Cosmo slipped through one of these holes in the floor, a tooth-ringed mouth, and drifted many meters through the dark. The sound of the gills circulating the air through the living ship was in irregular rhythm of breathing. She did not know the massive engines of the lungs had begun to break down years ago. So long as Archangel didn't sneeze, it wouldn't matter much to her, however.

She lit on the floor and began running, her pace quick even in the dark. She'd taken this path before. A swarm of glowing waterflies bobbed past her, and she waved them away, her face briefly illuminated. More and more waterflies appeared as she ran, however, the little creatures busy with their work at all hours, circulating the liquids that were the blood and energy of Archangel.

Soon there were enough of them swarming for their faint light to give shape to the curving walls, to the massive lung-tanks pumping the ship's air through the networks of tubes and gills, to the far off ceiling where the eye-lamps weren't even open yet. At the end of the long chamber, another even wider room opened, the clouds of waterflies filling the air and reflected perfectly by the mirror-like floor.

Cosmo strode out onto the filmy lens that covered the water stored beneath, strong enough to hold her but thin enough for the flies' narrow beaks to pierce and drink and carry it elsewhere. Her footsteps sent small ripples fanning out behind her, and startled away a few of the flies resting on the surface. When she was far from the walls and surrounded by only the glow of waterflies above and below, she stopped and waited till the ripples stilled again, and imagined herself floating in space. Sky was something like this, the treedrians said. This was one of her favorite places, and for now, she had it all to herself.

"Cosmo!"

"AH! Xina?"

"What are doing here? You sprouts have washing to do today in seventh level. The Chosen are a lot less forgiving than the Neophytes!"

"It's not time yet!" Cosmo waved her arms, sending clouds of waterflies to swirling around her as she turned to defend herself. Galaxina's blue leaves lit so naturally in this light, it was like she was part of the place, and had camouflaged her from easy view. "I'm not going to- wait!" Cosmo said, hugging one arm back close and pointing the other accusingly. "What are YOU doing here?"

"I-! I'm, um," Galaxina blushed. There was no work for even grown seedrians here, the flies took care of all the water work!

"You snuck out too?" Cosmo was shocked, Galaxina was never so irresponsible, and that was why it hadn't occurred to her sooner to ask.

"No, I have a reason to be here! You don't, so just go!"

"What kind of reason?" Cosmo asked, all youthful curiosity. Was there more to this pretty place than she knew, some secret her ever-so-proper big sister was keeping from her?

"Galaxina...?" A more distant voice echoed across the water, the soft rumble of a young male. Galaxina's face was practically black from blushing, answer still unformed on her lips, and Cosmo narrowed her eyes. "Hmmm? That's what's-his-name, isn't it?"

"Hyacinth," Galaxina answered crisply, then resumed her awkward silence.

"...I see." The unbloomed girl turned half away, hands clasped behind her back as she continued to watch her big sister squirm.

"Cosmo, I'll even pay quota for you tonight, just don't-"

"Xina!" his voice was closer, though he seemed to have as much trouble finding the blue seedrian in the waterfly cloud as Cosmo had.

She frowned a real frown at Galaxina. "No, I'll just go, don't want to be in your way or anything."

"You-"

Cosmo turned with a flip of her petals, chin high and with a lofty expression despite her smaller stature as she walked away. Yes, a rare opportunity to ask for almost any favor, but she was just too bothered to make use of it. Galaxina had scolded her when really all she wanted was to be alone with a boy! Cosmo had been guilted for nothing! Humph. So much for 'proper'.

Several steps away she slipped on the filmy floor and sprawled clumsily, but Galaxina didn't even see. "Hy! I'm coming!" The two seedrians ran lightly through the glowing waterfly cloud and embraced, sliding along the water in a twirl that came to a slow stop, the flies still swirling round them like a picture from a story.

Cosmo picked herself and rubbed her eyes with another huff, taking a last look at them and then running away.

She wandered the halls a little while, still with time to spare before the wash call but not with anywhere to spend it now. She walked without paying too much attention to where she was going, still stewing over the almost-fight with her big sister, when a sharp clack-clack in front brought her to a rigid stop.

A pair of Neophytes were walking down the wall, from the ceiling door to another in the floor, carrying harvest-sacks on their backs. Cosmo wasn't used to seeing them, young buds like her were kept away from the harvesting rooms, but she had heard of course. She was surprised to see them now, suddenly, and having wandered too close to the Masters, she had frozen to stare. Another pair of Neophytes emerged from the ceiling and one of them clacked at her, it's long barbed tongue whipping out to gesture noisily.

Cosmo, wide-eyed, backed away quickly and bowed, averting her eyes from the Masters in formal respect, but it was too late, they were all watching her now. Noisily clacking among themselves, their work interrupted. "I'm sorry, Masters!" she apologized, bowing more deeply, and fearfully stepping further back as they left the wall to fan out across the floor. "I'll remove myself," she curtsied and turned, almost bumping into a fifth Neophyte she hadn't seen arrive. It tilted its small head at her quizzically, it's slender wings vibrating. Neophytes didn't speak a language that the seedrians understood, but they gave simple commands that even the youngest of seedlings quickly learned. "I..." Cosmo was confused by the command to stay; she was wrong for coming too close to them to begin with. Not knowing what else to do, she curtsied again.

One of the Neophytes set down it's harvest sack and opened the membrane, a sour-sweet scent spilling out that caused Cosmo to fling her hands up over her mouth. "I'm too small," she said, not sure what they expected, nor sure how she could convince them this had all been a terrible mistake so she could just leave. She had a sudden terrible fear that they might stuff her into the gory harvest sack whole. Seedrians never got whole-harvested, but the way the Neophytes' buggy eyes pinched and their tongue-clacking turned amused, it wasn't hard to imagine. The cherry scent of her fear was almost as strong as that of the sap in the open sack.

"Oh great and terrible Masters!" the soft rumble came from behind them, and one by one the Neophytes lifted their heads to see who was addressing them. "You have caught our wayward sprout! How wise and compassionate you are, how swift to correct the mistakes of we short-sighted plantfolk." Cosmo blinked in just as much surprise as the Novax, for there was Hyacinth bowed across the floor, on hands and knees with head so low that the the ends of his horns brushed against the ground. A position usually reserved to honor the Chosen, and his words were laying it more than a little thickly, too.

Well, Neophytes were never the brightest, and they wouldn't have known sarcasm if it came in the form of an angry lung-wasp. They rattled at him a little in confusion at first, then quieted as he got to his feet and made a second smaller bow, his bright red hair falling away and then forward again across his white shoulders, shadowing his dark eyes. He seemed like such a fool, tripping all over himself to flatter these lesser Masters, embarrassing the already frightened Cosmo. "You have let us trouble you too long. With all the thanks of our rooted ancestors, I thank you for finding this sprout before she found real trouble." Cosmo puffed out her cheeks at that, now he was just insulting! She'd made a mistake, she wasn't going to do worse than that! "We will-" he reached out for her wrist, still half-bowing, when one of the Neophytes clacked loudly, waving its tongue emphatically to drag the barbed tip across its ridged chest with a hollow scrape.

Hyacinth stood upright at last, mossy hair falling behind him. The lack of pruning gave him a bit of an unkempt look, just another laborer. He stepped past her and into the midst of the Novax, his white horns catching the light like a crown atop his head as she was pushed behind and away from them. He might almost be handsome, she thought. With his back to her, so she didn't have to see his goofy face, she hastily added to her thoughts. Aloud she whispered, "What are you doing?"

The Neophyte gestured a narrow pincer at the open harvest bag, then sharply back at the young seedrian standing behind the male. "What are you-" she repeated, but he turned his face to look at her over his shoulder. The clear look of total calm on his softly smiling face silenced her.

"Hurry home, Cosmo. Xina worries about you."

Cosmo's ribbon-shaped mouth trembled, but she didn't answer. Then, like a thread had snapped and turned her loose, she turned and fled back down the hall. All out ran, not taking a last respectful bow, not looking back to see what fate she might have left the older boy to. She fled up the ribbed stairs and past the puckered doors of the planting rooms and finally back to the cell towers, breathing heavily as she leapt inside her own bunk cell at last.

All the shelves were empty. Everyone was gone. She was late after all.



Galaxina was late. Many of the eyes had already closed, those still open giving off a tired green-yellow light that tasted sour. The other young seedrians had left to enjoy the evening hours before the call to sleep, socialize with the other cells or visit the lawns of the treedrians to play. Cosmo loved her idle afternoons as well, but until she saw her sister, she could not do anything but wait. When the daisy-crowned seedrian finally arrived, she moved a little stiffly, as if the day's work had been especially rigorous and it likely was, but also with an anger that kept her steps quick and her face as sour as the light. Cosmo ran to meet her, but Galaxina saw her coming and spoke first. Cosmo pulled up short, shifting anxiously from one slippered foot to the next.

"Cosmo, I don't know what got into your head today! Or maybe nothing is in there after all, and that's the problem!"

"Where's Hyacinth?"

"He's in the boys' cell, resting."

"He's okay?!"

Galaxina only now seemed to notice the tears that made her smaller sister's eyes shine and wobble so, the strain in her voice so close to a cry. Her own eyes got wide and her expression immediately softened. "Cosmo, what's wrong?"

"They didn't eat him?" One sweet tear rolled down her round face. "Not even an arm? Tell me the truth, Xina! He got hurt for protecting me."

The look of astonishment on Galaxina's face grew and grew until a loud laugh broke from her. "Oh, Cosmo!"

"Don't laugh!!" Cosmo shouted back, angry that the fear that had kept her on the edge of her cell all evening would just be laughed at now like it was a joke. Xina did try to stop laughing, but it took a while, and she had to hold one of her slender hands across her mouth to try and muffle the sound until she was calm enough to talk again. As frustrating as it was, the happy sound was also immediately comforting.

Xina took her hand and led her inside the empty cell, sitting down on a shelf and pulling Cosmo close beside her. "You silly sprout, you weren't in trouble. Those 'Phytes were just having fun with you, don't you know that?"

"No, no, they were going to put me in a harvest bag!"

A sad look crossed her big sister's eyes, but her smile wasn't subdued. Cosmo felt embarrassed, the fear sounding somehow sillier when spoken aloud, and to Xina. "You're too small for that yet, aren't you? I guess they might have mistaken you for an adult, you are finally starting to bloom." She brushed her fingers lightly across the soft ruffling edges of the flower buds on Cosmo's head.

The younger girl waved her hands away, because it always tickled so very terribly when she did that. "You say that every season!"

"I mean it this time!"

"...I'm a late bloomer, that's why I'm scared all the time."

"Are you really that scared?"

"...Yes."

They were both quiet a minute, then Xina set her down at her knee and pulled out a clipcomb, straightening Cosmo's leaves and pruning the edges. She hadn't done that for many seasons now, not since Cosmo was old enough to do it for herself. "Being a late bloomer doesn't mean you aren't a strong seedrian, Cosmo. You're just waiting for the right moment to blossom. You're going to live as long as Earthia, stubborn as I know you are. You are her daughter, too."

Cosmo wasn't comforted, but she wouldn't dwell on it. "Hey, Xina, if Hyacinth isn't hurt, then why were you so mad? Ouch!"

The clipcomb tugged tight and her sister nodded. "Well, just because he didn't lose a limb for you, doesn't mean you weren't a hassle. After you ran off, he saw you go, and he was worried about what mischief you might get up to alone! We couldn't enjoy the time we had, and had to cut our date short, he was worried so much! Then he found you with a pack of Neophytes, and was late to planting! He went out of his way for you. You should thank him when he's rested."

That wasn't what he had said. He had said Xina was worried, and it was much easier to believe a near-stranger than it was to believe her big sister about that. She knew that those two had had no eyes for anyone but each other in the water room, so no way had he noticed Cosmo run off. But even if Xina had been worried enough to cut their private moment short, he'd still come looking for the lost sprout, and smiled so kindly at her. Worse... A sprout could go late to work and receive a scolding, but the adults would be sapped. Though Xina hadn't admitted it, the fact that Hyacinth was resting, and that she was late and looked so drained too, and that the two of them couldn't have been any less late than Cosmo had been... "...I'm sorry I'm so much trouble."

"It's fine, Cosmo."

"Really?"

"Besides, we're used to that sort of clumsiness from you by now."

Cosmo puffed out her cheeks in frustration, and Galaxina tried not to laugh.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------


All of the Novax were singing, even the voiceless Neophytes. It was a disturbing sound, worse on the psionic level than even the physical, and leaves were falling from the treedrians in bushels. Cosmo ran across the knotty lawn surrounding silent Earthia, running even faster when she saw Galaxina there at the base of the trunk through the rain of dying leaves. The older girl stood with her eyes closed, palm flat against the old, scarred bark. "Everyone is waiting for you, Xina!"

For days, she'd been too busy to even see Cosmo; all the adults were busy, despite there being no chores anymore. Cosmo was still among the seedlings, but even the seedlings had to be ready now. As if she were waking up, Galaxina turned and nodded, stepping down off of the old tree's roots. The large red crystal called Demetre's Amber was at her throat. "They've been singing for nine days now, haven't they? We must be close."

"Do you really believe that? It's just a story! Even the treedrians don't really believe in it."

"They do, and you should as well, Cosmo. Time makes us-"

"-Makes us doubt, and doubt allows us to forget. Never forget. But, Xina-"

"We were never a part of the Chosen's plan for landing. They've carried us this far, but they won't need us anymore if they've finally found the Overlord."

"He's real, too?"

"Their hope is our hope, but we have to hope that they are wrong. If he is truly Lord Over All, then he'll grant as haven here too. We just have to survive the fall."

"How can we?" How could an entire Chrysalis fall? Space was too vast to imagine a bottom!

"We're going to fall on a planet. You've heard the stories, it's like a much much bigger Chrysalis, with water and whole forests of trees." The leaves continued to rain around them, and a tear crawled down her cheek. "Thorn has already rallied the men. I'm just waiting for Hyacinth. The Novax sealed us off when the singing began, they haven't even tried to communicate with us, no orders or chores. They even ignore their duties to Archangel, and she's already old and wearing out. The journey can't last much longer whether we've arrived at our destination or not. But, the escape-pods are all in Novaxian levels of the ship. We'll be buried with Archangel if we don't break through." Her wistful look hardened. "They ignore us, think us weak."

Cosmo trembled, her rustling lost in the rustle of Earthia's leaves. Fighting back against the Novax like this was madness, attacking Archangel itself, but then, that was because the Chrysalis was their home, their food and air and shelter, there was nowhere else to go. If there was a world waiting without Novax, and if they were going to die anyway, then they had to fight now. This was the moment to be free, while the Novax drowned in their own songs! Only... Cosmo couldn't imagine it. The stories she'd been told were still only that, stories, and they didn't feel any more real now than they used to. The roots underfoot, the blinking eye-lamps in the ceiling, the rhythm of the gills still pulsing on the walls, these things were real! But this growing sense of... something, something! The thing the Novax sang for, the hope that had sharpened wall-bones into weapons hidden beneath the bunks of the seedrians and now placed them in their hands, this was real too. They were all swept up in the current, whether it would lead to hope or to death, they couldn't stop now. Cosmo gulped and nodded.

Silently, Galaxina said goodbye to the old tree. "I can't wait any longer. I'll meet up with him later, I have to let the ladies know their places. Seventh level and the forward heart, those are where the walls are thinnest and farthest from the soldiers now." She continued to speak aloud as she and Cosmo hurried from the lawn and back into the halls of the Chrysalis. Speaking to herself more than to Cosmo, it seemed, since Cosmo could barely comprehend what they were attempting. "Meteora should be back from crawling through the gills by now, once we have the stations confirmed we can move on our marks in the morning. Lotus should know his job whether or not I tell him again," she muttered, worry coloring her words despite her level tone.

Cosmo gulped and just nodded, feeling dizzy.

There was a sudden jerk and the floor beneath their feet buckled, tossing them into the air. A muffled explosion was heard from somewhere many levels forward. Archangel shuddered, it's whole body tensing in reaction to whatever had pierced its star-tanned shoulders and driven deep into its bowels. The gills all fluttered along the walls, the eyes blinked through a dozen confused colors. Knocked out of its rotation, the Chrysalis's makeshift gravity almost vanished, and the seedrians were set adrift.

Cosmo screamed. Slightly more articulate, Xina shouted, "What's happening?" The Novax did not teach the slaves about such things as the nature of space and the Chrysalis's unique adaptions to it as a home. Several more explosions followed, each larger than the first, and the Chrysalis and all its inhabitants began to freefall as the struggling wreck of the wounded monster came in reach of the gravity of a new world.

"It's too soon! We have to go NOW!" Galaxina shouted.

Galaxina quickly reoriented and fluttered the rest of the way down the hall, Cosmo bumbling behind at a bounce-crawl. Back among the cells, Xina rallied the panicking seedrians around her. Even the elders listened to the blue girls' confident voice as she spoke above the frightened cries and distant rumblings, and a slightly less panicking migration began towards the seventh level. "Xina!"

"Cosmo, keep the seedlings following and stay away if a fight breaks out! We'll open a path!"

She was being left behind with the children; she couldn't keep up with Galaxina. The older girl quickly vanished, taking a side hall to reach another cell and help get the remaining slaves moving as orderly as possible. The seedlings clung to the skirts of a few elders while the armed adults pushed ahead of the group. Cosmo drifted behind like seedfluff, hearing what the others were doing in the halls ahead before before coming near enough to see. Terrible sounds. She did not want to see what made them.

The seedrians carved through the bloody wall rimming the level, and a horde of terrified Neophytes came spilling through, screaming and as panicked as the seedrians had been. The disorganized insects fought a ready resistance but still clawed deep into the press of soft plant bodies, until an odd blue light crackled through the hall, paralyzing most of the bugs while barely warming the leaves of the seedrians. Blood and sap hung like amber beads in the air, smearing across the leaves and petals of those who drifted through the sprays to keep pressing forward, unquestioning of whatever miracle had opened the way. Cosmo saw Hyacinth briefly, stabbing through the slender necks of the remaining Novax and setting their heads adrift. Then he was gone again in the turmoil. The fighting went on and she slipped past mutely. Always, the lights continued to shudder and shift color, the eyes of Archangel sightless and dying as its body was ripped away piece by piece from without.

Then Galaxina was back and somehow, Cosmo found herself at the end of one of the long escape halls, the walls lined with thin hatches like eggshell which the seedrians punched through. The openings would snap shut behind them as the pods sealed and released themselves. "Galaxina! This is it!" Cosmo shouted shrilly, watching as cousins continued to fight off the remaining Neophytes and allow others time to slip away. Bodies, so many, everywhere. "Let's go too, Xina!" Her sister was looking in the other direction. "Galaxina?"

Her sister finally seemed to hear her, turning with her sad smile, tears threatening to join the sap already misting the air. "I'm waiting for Hyacinth."

"I saw him!" Cosmo said, pointing back the way they'd come, towards the wall that once divided the levels and now was just a gaping wound, dead or dying Neophytes and seedrian limbs bumping against the floors. "He's gone ahead, we have to go too!"

"No, he hasn't," Xina said quietly, still smiling so sadly. "He's still fighting. I have to go find him."

"No you don't! He'll follow us, with the others! You can't go back just for him, everyone is waiting for you!"

Her big sister pushed off gently from the wall, tumbling towards Cosmo and catching her in a tight and unexpected hug. Briefly, the whole world narrowed to the quiet space between them. They drifted, locked together, their petals and leaves brushing around each other, and her sister's apple-blossom scent surrounded her. "You're still such a late bloomer," she chided quietly. "Someday you'll understand."

She was gone just as suddenly, flying like a waterfly between the bodies and out of sight. The small, frozen moment was lost, shattered like ice as the noise of the dying Archangel came crashing back down. Old Anise, carrying a seedling in each arm, motioned to the last few pods.

"I'll wait for them!" Cosmo said. "I'll wait for Hy and Xina, you go ahead!" Anise frowned, her grayed petals torn and fluttering as she carried the seedlings out of sight. More and more of her people flooded past, then a trickle, and in another minute there was no one left but Cosmo and the dead.

The noise was still unbearable. Archangel seemed to have found a voice at last, a rasping hiss as all its air began rushing out. The eyes had stopped flickering, only afterglow lighting them. Cosmo waited in the bloody near-darkness still. Her skin felt like it was on fire, but there was no other light.

No more, she couldn't wait! She pushed against the wall and flew back towards the home cells. She'd find her family and bring them back, before it was too late.

A blue halo appeared and caught her up, and she swam madly backwards, recognizing the light of the Chosen. They appeared in this hazy light to speak, projecting their images with their minds while their grotesque bodies never left their nests, giving out orders to the Neophytes or to seedrian heads like Xina. But the outline that appeared was not of one of her ugly Masters, it was more familiar.

"Galaxina!!! Where are you!?"

The silhouette grew clearer, and the seedrian looked older, far older than her sister, and the gown of her petals was shaped so slightly different. Even as Cosmo watched, leaves were shedding from her head and shoulders, petals wilting from her crown. "Cosmo, my child. You must leave."

"Who are you? Where's Galaxina?"

"I am Earthia."

"M-mother?" Cosmo shook. She had never heard her mother's voice before.

"Archangel is dying, and I die with her. I have finally learned how to speak through her as the Chosen do, to hinder them and to help you escape." Though only an image, Earthia's ghostly hands clasped over the girl's, and when they moved away, the bright red amber that Galaxina had been wearing was left behind. Why wasn't it with Xina? Her fingers clutched it tightly. "Cosmo, all that is left to me is to tell you to go. Now. Take the remaining pod, and fly."

The blue image of a flame licked at Earthia's feet, quickly climbing up her skirt and waving across her like a cloak. The image shuddered. "Mother!"

Through the flames that were consuming the body of the Chrysalis and the bodies of the treedrians, Earthia wore only a clear look of total calm on her softly smiling face. The form of her projected mind began to dissolve in a spray of light, but already Cosmo had turned to flee. She planted herself in the darkness, and the pod lurched and launched her blind, one more seed in the fiery fields of the sky.
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