Chapter Text
The Stellaron child suddenly bursts into the main train car and cries out in glee.
“Kafka’s propositions to Himeko have paid off! We can go somewhere together!”
March 7th has to stop herself from spitting out her juice.
“Could you stop saying it like that? It’s getting kind of creepy-” this kid’s vocabulary was somehow expansive and yet so limited.
A smooth gentle voice suddenly speaks from behind her.
“Hmm, so you know what it can mean?”
That’s it- March 7th shrieks as she spins around to bear witness to the hologram of a certain woman in sunglasses. In the process, she spills her glass.
“Noooooo- don’t scare me like that! Now I have to clean this up!”
The gray haired vessel quickly grabs a rag sitting on one of the tables and throws it at her, before grabbing another one and attempting to wipe up the spilled liquid. March 7th throws banter at Kafka for scaring her, to which she apologizes and promises to make it up.
She laughs, and agrees. The two have been going around shopping for new cosmetics and hanging out whenever they meet up. In truth, Kafka appreciates being able to access many stores and vendors she couldn’t buy from in the past due to the bounty the IPC placed on her. March 7th’s accounts are always in use, ordering parcels when they dock at any station. In fact, it’s not just them 2, Himeko and very occasionally Silver Wolf join them. Danheng and the Trailblazer spent many nights sorting through their bounties they brought into the express with overstuffed bags. Kafka thinks March 7th's unique confidence and beauty is something very special.
When done- well, to Pompom, it’s more an insult to cleanliness, but to them it's done, the star almost skips over to Kafka’s hologram. Through the transparent glitchy blue, they can see her smile. March 7th has scampered away in order to get more drinks from the canteen.
“It’s been awhile, how have you been?” she holds her hands out.
They try holding her hands, but as they pass through the simulation, the display warps slightly before returning to its translucent blue.
“Ah, sorry. I forgot we cannot make contact like this.”
They pout for a moment, to which Kafka reaches forward to stroke their cheek. There is no feeling, but at the same time there's a light pressure against their cheek that makes no sense.
“Don’t be disappointed, my little trailblazer, we will be boarding the express soon.”
Her eyes are no longer clouded by those contacts, and the fledgeling star can look her in the eyes.
“Has anything happened?”
Kafka gives a light giggle, covering her mouth slightly before answering.
“Oh, nothing of the sort, just greeting your express’s Himeko. It’s like a handshake, no? A proof of good will.”
The trailblazer nods. She continues,
“A world blessed by Yaoshi, who was also left desolate by Nanook’s creation. Quite the unique predicament, won’t you say? Himeko will give you more details before we set off.”
She spreads her hands out and takes a little bow, before the hologram display switches off and it flits away.
-
These creatures- there's so many- too many. Their titanic forms of metallic fur are terrifying and foreboding. The landscape has been destroyed, leaving it a barren wasteland. At the core of it all, a Stellaron twists the abundance into disease and famine, these creatures have eaten their fill of the original life here, and now they starve. They hunger for more, their great maws drip with old conquests and foul drool.
“Here! Come here- It’ll be safe for a little bit!” March 7th has created a wall of her 6 phase ice to smooth over the side of a cavern left in a mountain.
“To your right!” Welt was supposed to be the ‘supervisor’ of this group along with Kafka, but she never mentioned how Elio’s scripts could be this dangerous.
March 7th attempts to spin around and duck away from a great iron claw that swipes over and crushes away some of the rock. The Stellaron Vessel attempts to drag March and themself back into the cave, but they both fall down in the shower of tumbling stone. Welt stops the arc from smashing into her ice and throwing around any more debris by binding its arm.
“Quick!”
They raise their great fire lance in the air, and the light attracts the attention of the iron wolf.
March 7th is able to retreat further into the cave and aim her bow at the creature above them. Its single eye stares directly at the two of them , as large as her room is wide. It’s pupil reflects her own eyes and its so big and scary and why the fuck are these things on this planet it’s already dead there is nothing else here anymore-
She shoots, and it howls this great cry that makes the earth beneath them shake. It attempts to stumble away before falling over from its anchored paw. More frost is notched into her bowstring and she freezes the monster to the ground. It cannot move its other arm to swipe at Welt, and she is so glad that it cannot do anything for now. In her haste, the string struck her chest on the way but she couldn't even feel it. Reinforced padding on her side should be something to invest in.
“Mr. Yang- where are they?!”
Welt twists and looks behind him, and sees Danheng and Kafka framed in a great glowing flower of gold and turquoise. Before he can even call out to them, the bloom explodes into a shower of glittering water. What is he doing? No matter, he knows that Danheng can warp around the same way he can.
“Come here! Danheng! Kaf-”
The water droplets in the air fly towards him and he catches their trajectory with a wisp of red void. Danheng and Kafka materialize before him, he carries their weight on his shoulders to enter the cavern. Looking back outside, he notes something about what Danheng did.
‘Quite the diversion you made. The rest won’t be able to see for a while.’
The hulking figures in the distance are all shambling around, wiping away at the air and their faces.
He better get a move on, the dripping red on the floor is certainly not from him or the beasts.
…
“No no no nonono- stop it- stop it!”
March 7th is trying to freeze the inside of a large gash in Kafka’s thigh.
“Haha- it’s ok. It was bound to- hah… happen in this script. I’ll be fine, little March.” Kafka runs a hand through March 7th’s wet hair.
Welt is synthesizing various tools to work on her and Danheng. He is very relieved that Himeko trained the kids in first aid and emergency surgery. He hands her a small kit that includes everything she may need. He instructs her to locate any other spouts of blood as he sticks various needles and tubes into both their arms.
The trailblazer is running around between them, passing around materials and gauze that Welt creates. They would try to help more, but, as they put it,
“I don’t know how to do anything like this…”
Danheng is silent as Welt wipes a small cloth across the edges of his wound. The drops of alcohol that merges into his blood make him grit his teeth. He can hear the joints of his jaw crack and pop. This kind of injury is all too familiar, and it makes him want to break his teeth off to forget about the similarities-
“Don’t do that- Here, bite this.”
Welt holds up another piece of cloth that looks like it’s soaked in something. He holds it up to Danheng’s mouth and he bites it so hard they hear the cloth crunch and tear under his fangs.
“Thamkmm-mou-”
Welt smooths his hand over Danheng’s jaw.
“It’s ok Danheng, alright? Just let me do this and the anesthetic will kick in soon.”
He regrets that he cannot use the core’s power fully, but the fact he still has it is enough to make him happy. Bronya- well, ‘that’ Bronya, who was the third, had returned it to him after becoming ‘Truth’, making him the second and final Herrscher of Reason. The only line for humanity… he hopes to exist long enough to continue fighting.
“March, the arteries are closed?”
March 7th’s face is covered in a light sheen of sweat, and Welt can see on her face she is absolutely torn at the current state of their friends.
“Yeah- yeah, there’s no more fast bleeding. Is there a specific kind of string I have to use?”
Welt shakes his head. She gets right to work lifting Kafka’s leg up and stringing the needle, the little bits of ice has been frozen into place in her thigh as she does this.
“No, the spools are all the same kind.”
He’s currently assessing if Danheng has any organ damage. Major arteries in the abdomen run along the spine, so the next most severe is venous bleeding and any capillaries inside his organs. The size of the gash in Danheng’s side makes the act of stemming bleeding quite difficult, but Welt isn’t going to back away from this. The biggest problem is if his intestines or stomach were perforated.
His knowledge stems from the thousands of souls stored in the core he remade his body from. It’s a little morbid, but he is glad he knows how to navigate these issues. This expertise was not originally his, but taken from the lives lost in Berlin that day…
Danheng looks like he’s about to fall unconscious, which, in a normal emergency situation could be fatal. Welt knows that the anesthetic is just doing its job.
“Ok, March, give the red container to me, help stop Danheng’s bleeding. I’ll do the arterial repair.”
…
“Hey, we need another blood bag.”
…
“Hey, Danheng, are you up for it?”
…
“You’re still awake?”
Kafka is a bit loopy, but she is still awake. She did not lose much blood despite the nature of her injury, thanks to March 7th and Danheng. March 7th wraps frozen gauze around her upper thigh, and hauls her leg up onto some padded rock.
“How did you 2 get hit?”
Kafka seems to be quite calm despite the sure pain of her wound.
“Well, he was bound to get slashed at, but- ah, it’s not his time to go through… molting rebirth yet. I stayed to make sure- make sure of it.”
“Really? Couldn’t you have like- predicted the whole fight entirely and avoided it somehow?” So she actually saved him first. March 7th is just about done with her wound. She can move on to the various smaller cuts and scratches they both sustained.
“Haha, that's not how Elio’s scripts work, but I guess… I could have been more careful.”
It’s like having another little sister to dote on, sometimes Kafka wishes she was able to be on friendly terms with the express sooner.
“Yes, I was also injured trying to get him out of the way. If A-Ren was here… he could have protected his scales better, but,”
These creatures are… haha, from his childhood… but they don’t need to know that.
“This place isn’t somewhere he can go.”
Kafka squishes March 7th’s cheek.
“Hey! Keep doing that and you’ll regret it!” March 7th retaliates by doing the same thing back. She smiles.
As she continues in her commentary, Kafka can only let out a deep breath. Not of relief, for she feels no fear, but she is quite tired right now. Such is the life working under Destiny’s Slave… nothing more, nothing less. She supposedly has unwavering faith, but when will their promises be fulfilled?
Looking over her shoulder she sees Welt propping Danheng’s body up on some kind of object to inspect his tail. He seems to be awake again, and is telling Welt how to deal with wounds on the scaled surface.
“If you need to… cut into anything… uh- follow the- the skin in between. Between the scales.” Welt is aware of how reptile surgeries work, but this is a little new. In any case, there shouldn’t be any reason to cut into anything, just closing wounds.
“Why would we need to do tha- “ as he’s running his hand down the azure scales, he feels a bump and realizes there's a large object lodged inside. What an oversight! He’s mentally facepalming hard enough to redden his skin, but in reality all he can do is let out a quiet,
“Oh.”
Maybe he couldn’t notice because of how much creation can tire him… He can’t pull this thing out, it’s one of the hooked spikes on the mechanical beasts outside.
Well… technically he could leave it in, but it’s not like they are going to any hospital anytime soon, and ‘Welt’ is just the collection of thousands of different people’s lives. He knows what to do.
“Ok… Danheng, I’m going to cut along the edge of this to make it easier to pull out, is that alright?” Welt straightens his back, but glances down to gadge Danheng’s reaction.
“If you think you can’t handle it I’ll figure out a way to break this into smaller pieces and remove it that way.”
In a normal situation the second option would be favored, but considering he’s seen these spikes run across solid rock and come out unscratched, it would take awhile to learn how to break it.
Danheng slowly nods in approval.
Welt materializes a scalpel into his hand, and sets up a little table with some other instruments and materials to prepare for this operation
…
The trailblazer is currently sat next to Kafka and March 7th.
They are very pleased with the relics they forced everyone to carry. The others may not understand their purpose, but they and Silver Wolf certainly do.
They whisper to March 7th,
“I feel a little bad.”
“Why?”
They shrug slightly,
“I haven’t really helped with the EMT operation here” They gesture to Kafka and Danheng, who is still getting the weird claw thing cut out of him.
“I mean- It’s alright. We didn’t give you the lessons yet so it’s not your fault. Annnnd, this was too serious for any on field learning.” she pats their back,
“Besides, the most I can do is stop bleeding and sew stuff up, I don’t know how Mr. Yang does the whole fixing veins thing”
March 7th is seemingly back to her normal self. She glances down at her skirt and jacket, fiddling with some tears in the fabric. She mumbles about needing to fix the rips.
Kafka laughs. It’s a sound that has a slight quality to it. If you asked her about it directly, it falls short of the mark that is humanity’s language.
In this reality March 7th is fussing over her clothing, in another she is sobbing at the loss of her Vidyadhara friend, who tried to push away everyone in a last shower of gold. In this reality Kafka, and Welt Yang's cohort ensure this world will be free from the influence that keeps her little child alive, in another, they and the planet are no more.
“Hm, we can always just ask Ren to help with that.”
March 7th glances sideways before replying,
“Yeah? I guess he could, but wouldn’t it be weird for someone like him to fix up my style? You know him, always silent and brooding ‘n whatnaught.”
Kafka’s lips curl at the edges. She sees the little family the express has created and just can’t help but smile. One time, March 7th compared her to Himeko. At the time, it was because the 3 of them all had some revelation about their opulence, but now she thinks about it a bit more.
Is she a parent? That's a funny word. She carries the will of the script, she's a hunter, she speaks the language of the hanging gardens… She is a human that bleeds something a little different than red. She brought the Trailblazer into existence, but they don’t remember any of it. She’s a mother only in the way a scientist holding a test tube with an embryo inside is one. That must be why they, March and Danheng get along so well, parentless, the three of them. Unable to trace their history until now, created from forces beyond the veil.
The Stellaron child sits next to her. She ruffles their gray hair, and the grin that appears on their face makes this internal debate worthwhile.
…
The trailblazer looks towards the entrance. If they can’t really help with anything else, might as well get a scope of what's going on outside, right? These weird robot things kind of remind them of the one on Jarilo-VI. Maybe if one tries hard enough, running along their arm is possible...
No, those spiky things are too freaky looking.
The lance’s light has proven to be a way to attract their attention, so they don’t hold it when stepping near the entrance.
The weird machines are still where they were earlier. The one that March 7th subdued is motionless on the ground. The ones in the distance are back to their usual processes, scrounging around for any flesh to feed upon.
“Man, can’t these things die already?”
It’s ok, this whole mission will be like a… a stealth game! Just sneak around the mountains, avoid life threatening encounters and attempt to find the ruins where the Stellaron is… yeah.
The glowing remnants of Danheng’s spell thing are still in the air, and the majority of the monsters are gathered around there.
…
“Recovery can take at least 8 weeks in ideal circumstances, we’ll have to stay here until then. Splitting up is not worth it.”
“Okayyyyy, that would be ok-ish, but what are we going to eat if we run out of the preserved stuff?”
“We have the rations for a reason, it should be fine, right?”
Welt hums,
“Recovering from injury can change the amount of food one needs to consume. Danheng’s already pretty weakened from using Cloudhymn, and so am I.”
He leans back to rest on a rock.
“Again, In ideal circumstances recovery is around 8 weeks, but in this place it will probably take longer. That isn't even taking into account the rest of the time we’ll be here looking around. Of course, Danheng could speed up the recovery process, but he’s one of the injured… I’m not sure if he could do it. ”
March 7th and the Stellaron Child look at each other nervously. Welt doesn’t want them to worry too much, but all factors that contribute to survival need to be laid out right now.
Everyone shuffles around their various food and drinks. Kafka is still unnervingly calm about it all. Danheng is asleep, but Welt watches the Stellaron Child get some cloth and pack up a few different items, moving to set it next to him. On the way, they ask Welt if anything that grows on this planet is edible. Welt can only lift his palms,
“I don’t know... Sleep on it. It’s been too long… We’ll figure something out, just not right now.”
…
Sleep on it they did. Danheng woke up in the middle of it all, and he sees the rest lounging about on various rocks and sheets they laid out. He tries to stand up, but stumbles back down at the pain he feels in his side. He mentally scolds himself,
‘Why did I even expect to be able to move around after that?”
He heard their debate about food and resources here. He can provide water, and he can accelerate physical healing, but that's at the cost of his own energy. Because of his own injuries the pool of qi he can draw upon is weakened.
He, very slowly, pushes himself back to his little spot. The blood dripped onto the rock still drying and- oh- ok, don’t lift the right arm, that does not feel good.
When he rests his head back, his horns brush against something and it makes a rustling sound. He tries to turn around one way, but forgets that side can’t move that much. Twisting the other way makes his arm bump into a little cloth bag next to him.
It’s the food set aside for him. When he looks up he sees the thing he touched was a plant growing on the side of the wall. Kind of looks like a succulent with how thick its leaves are, but they’re super tiny… he rips off a piece with his good arm. There is a great expanse of this thick vine across the whole edge between the wall and floor, and his eyes follow the field to the entrance of the cave and beyond. There’s plenty of this stuff.
He has the sudden urge to laugh, but any tenseing of his abdominal muscles is agonizing. This is pretty recognizable if Ren’s endless descriptions and his inherited memory served him right.
This plant should be a classic herb found in a few different worlds and used for local dishes on some of the Xianzhou ships.
He bites one of the leaves, a slightly tart, lemony flavor bursts onto his tongue.
“Ah- it really is.”
It was brought to the Xianzhou Alliance from a certain planet that the Zhuming had harbored refugees from. It spread across to the Luofu when… Yingxing and a few other craftsmen transferred to further their mastership. They brought with them quite a few different things from the Zhuming.
A lot of them were different species of plants, interestingly enough. Some of them contributed to the growth of starskriff seeds, some of their wood was very durable. In Yingxing’s case, he specialized in metalworking, but still brought some organic matter with him.
Danheng’s urge to laugh takes him over, and he deals with the consequences of forcefully pushing air out his lungs when he lurches over in pain. This coincidence is just too convenient, there's no way, absolutely no way-
The reason he brought their seeds to propagate on the Luofu was because he just liked eating it, there's no other purpose. In the customs he had to lie and say the acidic quality of this herb contributed to his coworker’s projects in starskriff growth.
It hurts so much tears come to his eyes. The sewing near his guts reminds him to stop, but at least he has a little solution for the group’s problem. Trying to only use his left arm to pull his weight, he repositions himself to rip more of the plant off the walls and dirt lined rocks. He hears a rock roll onto the ground and snaps his head to the side to see what did it.
Kafka has this smile on her face, and does a little wave.
"..."
Danheng doesn't know what to say, so he just mumbles something unintelligible and leans back to rest. The handfull of vine drops to his side near his food.
Ren never did tell him the name of his homeworld, but he did say many things about it before it became the wasteland it is now.
Maybe the flavor won’t be agreeable to the rest, but at least he knows it's good for the body. Besides, what else is there on this hellscape? The soups this can make are pretty good, at least he remembers them being so.