GRATIA // PSL

[skeletoncity]

So, here's what Irahl knows.

He's alone in a dark, cold cave. He has most, if not all, of his gear. No one is guarding his location. As he heads away from the spot where he came to consciousness, no one tries to stop him, and no one gets in his way. The few people he finds down there seem human, and not about to approach the nearly-seven-foot man that comes stalking out of the lower tunnels. Honestly, everyone here seems a surprised and a little astonished about his... Entire scene.

There is a way up. It's a maze of twisting corridors and confusing passageways, half of which feel too small for him. It's bigger and bigger groups of people, some of which scatter like schools of fish, and some of which have to be pushed through to get anywhere. It's climbing up into streets lit with dingy lights, graffiti-covered hallways, warehouses, weird holes in stone walls that may or may not be windows. It's alarm bells, it's people yelling at each other down the street. It's just an absurd number of stairs. A couple of people make an attempt to stop him somewhere, and it goes poorly for them.

Elsewhere, events are being set in motion where Irahl cannot see. But he's on his way out.

Eventually, more people try to stop him. At the end of another long stretch of Underground city, a group of official-looking folks are putting a real effort into blocking off the obvious exit, and some of them have weapons.

Down a side alley, into another tunnel, and then the space opens up into a... Plaza, of some sort? The floor is made of stone. The buildings surrounding it are made of stone and are hard to distinguish from one another. At at least the ceiling (also made of stone) is a lot higher than before. Cavernous. There's some kind of sculpture in the middle of it, some impressive feat of geometric stonework that gives the illusion of defying gravity despite weighing literal tons.

This is where someone finally catches him. Sounds have been echoing unhelpfully down every passageway, making it hard to tell if people are coming or going - but this series of quick footsteps comes from an upward direction before someone hits the ground about five feet in front of Irahl.

His clothes are different. His hair is better-kept. Maybe if the situation wasn't quite so tense, there'd be time to see the ways in which his face is different, the way his eyes don't have quite as vicious and sharp a gleam as they used to. But whatever Irahl can take in of him, there is Robin, having hopped down from a rooftop to put himself between him and the exit again.

"...Holy shit."

Kind of weird that he looks absolutely shocked to see the person in front of him, though.

Comments

[indigochild]

Irahl snorts under his breath, but it's hard to tell if he is actually offended or if he finds their near-demise kind of funny. It's probably both.

"There was some coolant circulating. Kept the system patched up." Possibly with space-tape. "Lucky we had a star pilot who quickly figured out how aim-and-coast. Got where we needed to go. Just took a minute."

He returns Vincent's shove with a sardonic shoulder-pat. It has not escaped him that they really shouldn't have survived the ordeal, and only part of it had been due to raiders.

[birdsbirdsbirds]

"He was the--" Robin asks into his hands, exasperated, before abruptly cutting himself off. He the lowers his hands to look flatly at the both of them. "Gods, of course he was. Of course it's still tacky enough to make the blind man the pilot."

"Hey, I did okay," Vincent defends himself, briefly batting at Irahl's fingers just to see if he needs to grab something, "We're fine an' here now, so don't worry 'bout it."

Robin sighs, begrudgingly, and gestures to Irahl. "And what were you, a ship counselor?"

You know, if he had to guess based on the pattern he's observed so far.

[indigochild]

Irahl's brow lowers briefly as he can't tell if that's a real thing, or if Robin is just taking a dig at him.

"Security. And emergency repairman."

Because of course the powers-that-be wouldn't have given them something they really'd needed, like an engineer or even a medic. Just a guy with guns who could paste the ship back together enough to limp along through space.

[birdsbirdsbirds]

While Irahl's augment was not the joke he was half-expecting, his expression doesn't get any less disappointed. Imagining his blind friend flying a plane and the guy who fixes motorbikes trying to keep the ship from blowing up...

"Of course you were. Well..."

With another sigh, Robin tries to do as Vincent suggested and pretend he isn't kind of upset to learn he had no idea how much danger they'd both been in. He slumps forward a little, throwing in a little something to explain why he seems so bothered.

"I think the real irony is that I got the engineering augment when I was there."

"...Seriously?" Vincent responds, a little incredulous. It's not clear whether it's because he can't believe Robin would have been exactly what they needed, or because he can't imagine Robin sitting still long enough to fix something.

"Seriously," Robin frowns, "So I know how bad it gets if the coolant is off."

[indigochild]

Despite this revelation, Irahl still seems unconcerned, and he demonstrates this lack of concern by bracing one hand back to lean more lazily where he's sitting. Now that he's no longer in space, he's free to downplay the danger all he wants.

"Nothing was in the red." As far as he's concerned, keeping everything in orange (and a few green!) is a passing grade, and it's an achievement they worked for. "Scavenged parts from the other wrecks enough to keep us afloat. And we parked in town as soon as it opened, anyway."

[birdsbirdsbirds]

"I'm tellin' you, it's fine..." Vincent says, backing up Irahl's lack of concern with his own laissez-faire shrug into his blankets, "We ain't dead an' that's what matters."

"You two are..." Robin starts, though his sentence wanders away from him as he tries to actually describe the two of them, sitting there, almost defiantly unconcerned about what could have been a fiery death in the middle of space. He supposes it's a little hypocritical of him to be so concerned about someone else's safety when he barely thinks about his own, but most people don't, you know, regenerate like he does.

In the end, he can only shake his head a little. Is that a fond smile? Hard to tell in the gloom, really. Maybe it's just a smirk that looks a little softer than he meant.

"Unfortunately, I'm starting to see why you two get along so well."