forum Another 'Pass the Story!' Have fun!

Started January 15, 2018 by @Astrid

tune

Pass the Story

As the sun set, fiery colors streaked across the sky like trails trodden by blazing wildlife, warming the tips of my face even as the cold of night began to nip at my back.

I hadn't previously known that my face had tips, but as they had been warmed I assumed that meant it did.

I felt something behind me, and turned to see a figure standing a few feet away.

"If you're going to try and kill me, it may not work out in your favour." I smirked, turning back to face the sun.

"Who said I was trying to kill you?" A familiar voice asked.

"Past experience," I said, ignoring the figure as he sat down beside me.

"Everyone changes." His tendrils rustled as he settled into place, the tips of his second face warming to mimic the streaks of light above.

Apparently this other man also had tips to his face but I didn't care right now as I was ignoring him.

One eye stalk turned to look at me, with something that would have passed for amusement in another world, another time. "Well…perhaps not everyone, it seems."

I gave up on ignoring him—I've never been able to for long—and hummed noncommittally.

The stalk swiveled, turning back towards the streaks of light crossing the deepening twilight. His lower tendrils twitched, their movement signifying apology. "I hadn't really thought it would all come to this, you know."

I let out a startled bark of a laugh. "You didn't? Then what, pray tell, did you think was going to happen?"

Tendrils heaved, their moss sighing into the chill night air. "Oh, I don't know, the usual saving the world, that sort of thing?"

"'that sort of thing', he says. Does 'that sort of thing' usually include abandoning your partner on a space station?"

The appendages that still pass for hands spread themselves wide, encompassing many things: the streaks across the sky still burning, the whole of himself lit in their unflattering light, a sense of regret. "I had a bit of complication, as you can see. And, well, you seemed capable of taking care of yourself…?"

"Yes, capable of taking care of myself, sure, sure. Only, taking care of myself got just a bit harder when you then blew up the space station after you left." I glare at my hands fisted in my lap. The light of the setting sun is a melting gold-orange and so, so bright. It stabs at my eyes painfully.

"Seriously?" I stood up in anger and disbelief, and looked down at him.

"I was trapped by a group of agents, weaponless and about to die, and you just vanished!" I shouted.

I took a breath, and my shoulders slouched. "I… I thought you were dead!"

All five of the stalks twist; it's unclear whether in surprise or affront, in this body still so alien. "Oh, so I blew up the space station." The sarcasm, however, is crystal clear.

A pause. "…if it makes you feel better, I might as well be dead."

My boots scuffed against the ground as I turned away so I didn't have the look at him. I crossed my arms and huffed. I refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing me admit that this was all my fault.

Not that it mattered: he'd turned away himself, staring down the weeping sunset. I'd never seen him so quiet or so still, his tendrils flattened to the bare earth.

We were quiet for a long moment. "Look, I'm sorry, okay?" I said. My fists clenched tighter.

If I hadn't been so frustrated with him, I would have been worried. I glanced down at him, and decided to break the silence. I had come out here for peace and quiet to ease my headache, but apparently it was too much to ask for. "Why are you here, Faodail?" I asked him.

A flutter of tendrils, so minute in nature that for a second, I mistook it as the wind shuddering through the tiny sensory buds. Then they rippled again, that motion suggesting a sigh, an exhale cut short by his words. "…I've been asking that myself. I really should have left. But… Maybe I'm…look, I'm sorry about the space station. I know it meant a lot to you." An eye stalk turned, followed by the others as he waited for my reaction.

I was tempted to shout, "so you admit that it wasn't me!' but I held back. We were both in pain, and I didn't need to set the both of us off at each other's neck again. "It's okay," I answered, unable to meet his gaze.

(I'm about to call it an evening, but this has been delightful. Thanks for writing with me and my strange sir of five eye stalks and two faces and somewhat a pair of handlike things and multiple tendrils that exhale and at least one major unspoken emotional turmoil…. I look forward to seeing how he handles himself in your lovely human hands.

Feel free to hit me up if anyone ever wants to do another or something more in the lines of post-style writing, I do enjoy that so.

Be well!-m)