hadriel_logs | stargazing, OTA

Who: Pell and Axton, but OTA!!!
What: cuddles and an artificial sky
Where: out by the lake
When: right now, during cheerytimes
Warnings: none as of yet

If Pell had to pick a place that the cave that housed Hadriel reminded him of, it would be Saltrock. The cats that have appeared and linger around him only strengthen that impression, and tonight he's feeling homesick. He's led Axton by the hand down to the lake and positioned him like a chair, snuggling back against him and leaning his head up to look at the top of the cave. This isn't his usual method of sharing images from home, but he wants to see if he can do it as much as anything else. And hey, maybe others can enjoy.

"I used to pick out constellations with my sister. Let's see what I remember." He lifts a hand and for a moment it's made of pure light, that then separates into dots that rise high into the cavern and settle into place. It's visible from basically anywhere, but they clearly come from the lake if someone wants to track down what the hell is going on.

One of the cats curls over Pell's feet and he smiles up at Axton. "What can you find?"

(( Pell is running it but if you want to talk to Axton he'll be here! ))

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Jo sees the sparkles of light from a distance and decides to head for them and see what's going on.

They might be part of the thing going on with the candy, right?

Oh, that's cute. Look at all those cats. The baby hippo snorts curiously and romps forward, stomping its feet gently.

"Star gazing?"

People are sure enjoying the candy, but Pell himself is kinda hoping for water again sometime soon...

He glances over at the sounds of Jo and her hippo, mouth curving into a smile. "As close as we can get to it. Do you want to sit, or will your little friend just try to get you to swim again?" A thought. "Have you named him?"

This whole low-key, casual affection thing was actually really stinking awesome. Sure, Axton is still restless as hell; there's just not going to be a solution for that until he's out of here entirely, he figures. Not a lot of places can really stack up to Pandora.

The stargazing almost manages it, though. He grunts in quiet, appreciative thought, the fingers of one hand drumming idly against Pell's upper arm.

"Man. Now I've got performance anxiety."

The casual affection thing has made Hadriel infinitely more bearable for Pell. It's still terrifying, but this month is better, and Axton contributes so that. He peers up at his friend, smirking.

"That's not the usual context, now is it? Come on, just look for the brightest ones. Before they all begin to fade."

"Hey, you can have performance anxiety in any context." It's a light and kind of playful dismissal, though, and it's clear that he's squinting in thought at the little fake sky now. "Uhh - up there, if you look at that really bright little cluster over here. I kind of see a cat? Or a dragon." Or a gun. He mostly sees guns.

A cat or a dragon. Hmm. "Close. It's supposed to be the great Lion, see the mane?"

He lifts a hand to draw it out, hitting on all the brightest stars.

"What are you really seeing?"

Axton squints again, the expression comically exaggerated - but the way Pell draws it out helps. He's pretty sure he can see the mane, spiking away from the outline.

"A lion, now. What - you don't believe me?"

"I believe you. I just think you bluffed first." He scruffs at Axton's chin, tilting his head. "How about over there?"

"No fair. You're not supposed to call me out on it." He bumps his chin against Pell's hand, before considering the indicated spot. "-- hrm. A spaceship. With a really pointy shuttle." At least he's being honest now.

With honesty comes things they don't have in Pell's world, even in fiction. "A spaceship? What's that?"

And that gets a startled little noise out of him. "Haven't you been to space?" His tone seems to suggest that this thought is foreign beyond belief, difficult to believe at all.

"Been there? The closest I've gotten is looking up at the stars." He sits up a little straighter, turning to see Axton better. His hair's rumpled where he was cuddled on his friend's shoulder. "You've been in space?"

"What? Yeah, of course. Like, all the time." He reaches up, smoothing down the rumpled hair with an amused little noise. "Well, not as much recently. But still."

There's a look of wonder on Pell's face, that of someone who knows next to no astronomy. "Where do you go?"

"Oh, uh, everywhere? I used to be in the military, so we went wherever we needed to go." The look of wonder on Pell's face actually embarrasses him a little; maybe he shouldn't be so cavalier and dismissive about this. "Other planets, mostly. People are all over the place where I'm from."

He hadn't realized how much he missed the stars until he saw them etched high above the buildings around him. Pausing for a moment in his work in the clinic yard, Simon takes a breath, stretches, acknowledges something like homesickness, deep inside. Had Serenity really become home? Close enough, he decides, but it's a thought he can't afford to have.

Another moment, and another, and he's wandering towards the lake himself, driven by impulses he doesn't understand, followed by a pink piglet wearing a necktie. When he reaches the banks, not far from the reclining couple, he stops and gazes upward, hands in his pockets.

"I never realized how dark this places gets at night. Without the stars, I mean." He's not sure who he's talking to. Anyone, he supposes. Or no one at all.

She laughs quietly and sits a bit away from Pell.

"I haven't figured out what to call him yet." He's a hippo, so she feels like it should be special.

"I think he gave up on me swimming though." As if to prove her point, the hippo flops over her legs and lays there quietly.

Hm? [ He glances up at the man that's approached them, offering a smile. ] That's just the nature of a cave, I guess. I do miss the sky, sometimes things like this make me feel a little less... I don't know. I'm still homesick, but it feels more normal.

I'm Pell, this is Axton.

[ And the little pig is precious, and Pell sits up from his Axton-chair to try and charm it over. ]

"If he responds to your voice you might never need name him." Pell leans over to pet the little hippo, one stroke over the top of his head and then he's back in Axton's arms, relaxing.

"I'm worried they'll all disappear soon, though, for how comfortable they make us."

Other planets??? That's really advanced travel, if you ask him, and Axton's talking about it like it's being from another town. "Do you still think about one another as aliens, or are people from other worlds similar enough that there's no need?"

Since the only alien he knows is Glacius and things didn't go too well for his icy friend.

"Someone else said these kind of things only happen for about a week. Have you noticed that?"

Jo hasn't been in the cave long enough to notice a pattern. She just arrived, mostly.

"A week when we're lucky, two if we're not." His smile turns to something that isn't at all happy. "That is to say if it's a bad thing, it lasts longer."

[Probably. Just the nature of a spaceship, too, though at least there he gets the occasional trip up to the flight deck to look out at the stars. Simon offers a small smile and a nod, and the tiny pig is easily charmed, waddling over for attention.]

Simon. It's nice to meet you. The pig is...Sebastian.

[Not his, he almost says, but that name just...slips out instead. Whoops.]

"Oh." Well, that's not fair. Jo shakes her head.

"What's happened while you've been here?"

stargazing, OTA

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