Kent/Feldspar

[videointhenoise]

"Just once more," they had said when Ellie's team petitioned for it. She was busy with Palmer, falling in love with science while he fell in love with God, and Kent was left to pick up the pieces. He wanted another damn go at it. The Machine had a pricetag in the billions; it was begging to be used again.

But they wouldn't let Ellie go. They wouldn't let just anyone go. They wanted someone who knew how it worked, who had been there from the beginning, but someone who isn't completely taken in by Ellie's words.

That leads them to a dozen people and they end up with Kent. He's blind, but that's not what decides it. They claim that he wouldn't hallucinate the way Ellie did. That he has a unique perspective.

And, he's already proven himself steady and loyal.

He experiences it all the way that Ellie does, but something goes wrong on the other end. Maybe another terrorist attack. Maybe not. All he knows is that he's in the sphere and then, suddenly, he's floating, unable to find his footing until a great crash and he slams into the bottom of the machine.

He groans, pulling his helmet on with a grunt and a wince.

"Fuck this," he mutters, finding the edge of the sphere with his hands. There was a door there somewhere. He just - has to find it.

Comments

[getfeldsparred]

Feldspar fights back tears as Lapis leaves them. They’re terrified for their young one, and so, so proud. They wait in the darkness with the dim light of their own lantern illuminating the space, occasionally prodding at what looks like some kind of telescope.

When the lift returns they try to scan Lapis’ face for any sort of hint of what occurred down there as they follow after them. During the ride down they don’t ask any questions - if Lapis wants to volunteer information then they will, but in the meantime their heart thunders in their chest.

[videointhenoise]

Lapis's hand in Feldspar's is tight and shaking, but they don't betray any worries otherwise.

Instead, they pull them inside where the Prisoner waits.

"Here," they say. "This...this is...them."

[getfeldsparred]

The ride down the lift is a long one, and Feldspar holds onto Lapis’ hand just as tightly as they step on through together.

The Prisoner is tall. Really tall. This shouldn’t be a surprise considering just about everything about the ship they built, but it’s one thing to see them in pictures and the echoes of them in furniture, but it’s another entirely to actually see them with their own four eyes. Feldspar cranes their neck up to meet their curious gaze with one of their own. What did Lapis tell them?

Their hands are slightly folded, their posture bent. Nothing about them seems intimidating beyond their size. Feldspar takes a step forward and extends their hand, unsure of how it would be met.

The Prisoner waits a beat, maybe pondering the gesture, before they take their massive hand in theirs and then cover it with the other. They’re warm. Feldspar smiles.

“Good to meet ‘cha. I’m Feldspar.”

This is absurdly cool.

[videointhenoise]

Lapis watches with wide, hopeful eyes. They don't know how this meeting is going to go, and nor do they want to make a guess. But when it goes perfectly, when those two hands join and another atop it, they nearly fall back against the wall.

"I told them...everything," they explain. "I told them that they can leave now if they want and no one will bother them."

[getfeldsparred]

“Everything’s pretty broad,” Feldspar says, voice full of awe. They glance over their shoulder towards Lapis, then again towards the very large alien in front of them. “Do they know you’re my hatchling?”