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Post by fairyeyez on Sept 16, 2015 23:01:39 GMT
A bright ray of hope. That was how people on earth had talked about NASA's mission. Certainly, everyone had different reasons for joining the mission, but hope seemed to be a common theme. Hope for adventure, a hope for a better life, a hope for escape. For Blaine, he jumped at the chance to leave behind the place that's toxic air had poisoned his mother- the place that had killed something in his father long ago leaving a shell of a man behind. The mission was hope for something more.
A chance to focus so intensively on his obsession was exciting too. His fingers itched to get a chance to work with the bags and bags of seeds they had sent with him - and the only anxiety he felt about leaving Earth was in dealing with the others in the mission. He hadn't given them too much thought, grey faces in his mind - garbled voices that would impinge upon his space or interrupt his work but a haze of nerves followed him regarding them anyway. He didn't do well with.. people. Flora was much more his forte and quiet Fauna was allowed as well.
No, he didn't think much about the others on the mission, until that is a figure with pitch black hair and piercing brown eyes sat down across from him, his assigned shuttle and bunk mate for the journey ahead. His head lifted and traced his eyes over her face, down what he could see of old wounds, some older than others. It was evidence of years of abuse, layered one on another and Blaine's stomach tightened as it did from time to time, an echo of too many years without enough food, of weeks in the summers when he nearly starved to death. These weren't just scars though. The creature across from him wore them like armor, with a brazen intensity Blaine had never felt in himself, it scorched across the air in the shuttle, challenging.
His eyes returned to her face and he shook his hair out of his eyes, revealing the deep scar across his own cheek as he met her eyes and held them quietly, undemanding, unassuming. Something in him understood her without a word - in the way that only fellow survivors managed. He felt the haze of anxiety over the grey-faced "others" on this journey release just enough - and his lips curved up in a quiet but warm smile.
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Post by Lynn on Sept 17, 2015 1:51:27 GMT
Marielle was silent as she moved through the airport, looking around her calmly, cooly. She kept her distance from the others, just watching calmly, intently, judging their means, their methods, their choices. She could tell by looking which ones were going to the shuttle an which ones had been left out or were not going. The feeling that came off them was either hopeful or despairing, their eyes either glowing with excitement or dead with a lock of hope, dead with despair. Her heart went out to those poor souls, who just didn't have either the means or the skills to be useful colonists and had therefore been turned away to remain on this forsaken, war-torn planet. The children especially tore at her, and she had to look away, knowing that it just wasn't possible. As much as she might wish to bring them with her, to remove them, those who could be TAUGHT useful skills, from this planet, it just wasn't a viable option.
Sighing with relief as she reached the doors to the tarmac, where the shuttle waited, she looked back as she heard a commotion behind her, and winced as an older woman holding a child who couldn't have been more than 6 months at most was stopped from trying to going through the doors. "Please!" the woman begged. "Please, if not for me, then for my GRANDSON! He deserves a chance at a better life!" The guards kept refusing, and Mari felt tears stinging her eyes. No, she told herself. You can't. Cringing at her own enforced heartlessness, she went through the doors and almost ran for the shuttle, the woman's pleas ringing still in her ears. So many innocents, paying the price for the stupidity of adults, she thought mournfully, even as she climbed the steps, swiftly wiping at her eyes to hide the tears still threatening. Taking a deep breath, she looked down at the slips on her bag which had her seat number, the room number on the Aries and her shuttle and bunk mate's name. Blaine, it said. Blaine was a male name, she thought coldly, inwardly fuming that the idiots in the partnering office had placed her, a woman with a past of abuse by men, with a man.
She eyed him as she sat down, looking him over discreetly. Slender, but whipcord muscle, she thought. As he raised his head and his scar was revealed, she blinked. He had the eyes of a victim, she realized, looking into them boldly. Hidden thoughts, not QUITE meeting her gaze, not at first. Once he'd assessed HER, though, he did, and she knew he'd seen it, had read her past in the scars on her arms and hands, revealed by her short-sleeved pale blue cashmere sweater. His understanding smile, warm, quiet, and the slight lightening of the shadow in his eyes, also told her she had a fellow here, and she relaxed as well, returning his smile, though her's was a bit strained still. Better learn more about him, she thought, and rode with it. "Hello. You're Blaine right?"
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Post by fairyeyez on Sept 17, 2015 2:01:23 GMT
He liked that, how odd to find wariness appealing. The slight tick at the corner of her lips, the edge of tightness to an otherwise warm smile was more comforting then any pitying look from a sympathetic party could ever be. It was honest and and that alone was refreshing. He tilted his head as she spoke, pulling slowly from his thoughts as he continued to hold her eyes, analyzing quietly. "Yes," he said after a moment with a slight nod. He glanced down to the papers in his hand and caught sight of her name as well- he hadn't thought to pay any attention to it before. His eyes flicked back up to her, "Marielle?"
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Post by Lynn on Sept 17, 2015 2:09:18 GMT
"That'd be me," she said. Her accent indicated a life of Foreign background, hinting at both English and Spanish upbringing, and her appearance was distinctly Spanish, if with slightly paler skin than usual due to the living in the English city of London for the past 8 years. Her hand rose, a slight motion towards his cheek. "May I ask? Or would you rather not?" she asked gently, wanting to find out if their abuse had been similar or different. She didn't wish to tread on something that could rear up and bite her, after all. That could just cause so many dangerous problems, and she was expected to bunk with this man until they were put in Cryo-Sleep around Jupiter. The Aries was a swift, capable ship, with the most advanced technology used that could get them to Jupiter in perhaps a month to a month and a half, where before it would have taken YEARS.
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Post by fairyeyez on Sept 17, 2015 2:15:10 GMT
Blaine shifted reflexively, his head tilting so his hair moved back over his scar. It was a knee-jerk reaction and he shook it back off his face a moment later. Anyone else and it would have been a dig into way too personal, way too soon. But there was a kinship with survivors and he resisted the impulse to give one of the patented self-deprecating smiles.
Instead he dropped his gaze and took a calming breath before meeting her gaze again and giving the simplest version of the truth. "I looked just like my mom," he breathed, voice quiet but steady. "and he couldn't handle it, after she died."
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Post by Lynn on Sept 17, 2015 2:29:32 GMT
She listened carefully, and nodded when he gave her what she had asked for, surprised, and yet grateful he was willing to do so when they'd only just met. It warmed her towards him just a little tiny bit more. "That had to have been rough," she said quietly. "What happened to her?" The question was asked as gently as the first one, not wishing to pry, but oh so curious. She knew that lots of things killed people on this planet now a days, from the pollution to the war and fighting to just downright murder, and she wondered. She'd heard after she left that most of her six brothers had gone to fight in the wars and had been slain, and her father had been killed by one of her Uncles in a drunken rage. Her grandmother had died from old age, and her mother was still alive, but in a nursing home due to her pollution-caused illness. Of her other two Uncles she had no idea.
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Post by fairyeyez on Sept 17, 2015 2:42:09 GMT
Blaine swallowed a little and looked down at his hands. His father was easier to talk about then his mother. He understood his madness mostly, and he'd had years of living with him to grow accustomed to it, to settle with the broken trust in a father who nearly starved him to death while caught in the prison of his own mind and his neurosis. His mother though, she was taken from him, he'd had to watch her die slowly, fighting against an illness their planet had no cure for but was all too common on Earth. "The air killed her." He said simply, knowing she would understand - there were lots of ways it could happen, some faster than others but she wasn't the first to die that way.
His eyes flicked lightly down her arms again and back up, his gaze just analyzing and not in the way any normal male would, Blaine had never looked at anyone that way. Not that he'd hold too tightly with the males of the species anyway, gender was such a strange concept to hold so strictly too. "She had that same light" he lifted his hand, pointing vaguely toward her eyes. "Same.. fire.. All the way till the end."
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Post by Lynn on Sept 17, 2015 2:53:50 GMT
"You don't have to tell me if you'd rather not," she reassured him when he looked down, knowing it was probably painful, probably opening old wounds that were best left closed. She'd also learned in the past eight years though that sometimes it was better to talk about it than bottle it up. It allowed one to truly heal. When he finally answered, she smiled soothingly, gratefully. Yes, the air on this forsaken place killed in so many ways now, air that had once been the source of life here, now its silent killer. When he looked to her scars again, she expected her questions to be turned on her, but his comment surprised her, and she blinked. Fire? she wondered. "I'm not sure if I should be confused or flattered," she admitted, laughing slightly. She wasn't laughing at him, at his words, just because she WAS unsure.
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Post by fairyeyez on Sept 17, 2015 2:58:32 GMT
Blaine huffed a short laugh at that and quirked a little grin up at her. "Sorry," he breathed, settling back heavily in his seat. "You have the fighter spirit too. It's in your eyes." He paused for a moment before he nodded down at her scars. "Do you mind if I ask where yours come from?"
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Post by Lynn on Sept 17, 2015 3:07:44 GMT
"Don't be sorry," she said lightly. Then came the expected question, and she looked down at her scars, examining them dispassionately, even going so far as the trace one then poke the center of it. "The men of my family saw females as lesser beings. Independence, strength of will, any of those things being displayed necessitated a beating in their eyes. And if I cried, they only beat me more." She considered the scars again, then touched one lightly. "My scars are a testament to who I am, what made me, ME. Without them, I would not be. I would be someone else." She looked up at him. "Sometimes I wonder who she would have been. Who I would have been, if I had been born into one of these families who actually cared about their children, all of them, who see all people as equals." She then shrugged. "And sometimes I don't. I know who I am. And I know how I got here. That's enough."
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Post by fairyeyez on Sept 17, 2015 3:17:05 GMT
Blaine was quiet as she spoke, the information confirming the opinion he was forming of her character. A fighter for sure who wore her scars like armor. He mulled over the information, shaking his head. "Gender bias makes no sense to me." He breathed out, pushing his hair back off his face and behind his ear. "Reproductive features don't define a person - and there's plenty of people who exist with both anyway. People should be judged on who they choose to be, not what parts they have." He looked back over to her. "I'm sorry that was done to you, I only had one person to lose faith in, it must have been much harder to have many."
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Post by Lynn on Sept 17, 2015 3:26:02 GMT
"It was just a part of my life," she said mildly, motioning to her leg. "I actually have one around my ankle from when they started chaining me to a wall at night after finding out I was sneaking out to go to one of my teacher's houses after they withdrew me from school."She smiled wryly. "They beat me because I had the nerve to desire to be EDUCATED." She chuckled softly. "Not that it did them much good in the end. As for losing faith in them? I never had any to begin with. My mother fell ill when I was five and I became her replacement, with all that entailed." Shrugging, she leaned back in her seat once again. "It's part of my past. Most of them are dead now anyways due to these stupid resource wars and one was murdered by his own brother. I'm not sorry for their loss."
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Post by fairyeyez on Sept 17, 2015 3:31:40 GMT
He gave a quiet nod for that and took her at her word regarding her relatives and how she felt about them. "After my mother died I nearly starved to death during the summers. He wouldn't allow much food into the house, and typically what he did, was for him. I think most of the time, he forgot I was there. When I could get food at school it was better that he forgot about me - noticing me reminded him of my mom and well, this was the worst one obviously." He gestured to his cheek. "Right before I was old enough to leave."
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Post by Lynn on Sept 17, 2015 3:56:42 GMT
She cringed when he mentioned nearly starving to death. She'd always been fed at the very least, because otherwise the menfolk would have HAD to care for themselves and lower themselves to doing women's work. And they were far too selfish to do that. "I can't say I've ever known that feeling," she admitted. "The men always at least made sure I was fed and watered, if not much. Otherwise they would have had to lower themselves to doing women's work. So entirely ulterior on their part, but hey." She gave him a gentle smile. "But you did leave. You got out, and made yourself better. I know that, because otherwise you wouldn't be here."
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Post by fairyeyez on Sept 17, 2015 4:02:46 GMT
A soft smile touched his lips for that and he nodded, thinking fondly of the teacher that had started him down his path. "Yes," he breathed. "And now, escaping to even further away." He looked around the shuttle they were in.
He was quiet for a moment after that before he blinked as information finished processing in the background of his thoughts. "Oh," he looked back to Marielle. "Right, I'm a boy," it was stated nearly like an after thought as he had only just remembered he was. "Is that okay? If you want to switch I understand. I mean I don't really think of myself that way so I just didn't.. that would be hard to live with right?"
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