of those blackholes & revelations

[capemods]

WHO: All imPorts.
WHERE: Atropos.
WHEN: January 7th to January 14th.
WARNINGS: Death and destruction.
SUMMARY: Atropos has risen in the night, and the inevitable has come: with her jaws she shears away the City from Earth and swallows it whole.

But the City is not yet dead.
FORMAT: Whatever you please.



The formless mass of metal haunting above, hovering like a lunar tombstone, begins to take shape. Asteroids plummet into the cheeks, the eyes, carving out bone structure. Her features howl with fury, with triumph, as she stares down below, savoring her conquest. A cavity opens. Metal swoops to form jagged, angry shears. Her teeth are born.

She waits as the world rotates, its spin more wobbly than it used to be.

And then she leans down to feast, her bite vampiric. She takes the City and then some, and all that it encompasses, so that every single imPort is captured. She takes the time to drink in any stragglers, any imPorts elusive to the City's thrall.

She holds the City on her tongue as she draws back her fist to punch the world.

And then teeth close to the shuddering, glass shattering vibration of a cosmic laugh. The jaws close, and there is no light for about an hour -- until Atropos begins to siphon solar energy from the sun into her veins. She is dissatisfied with its dying tint, or perhaps she cannot stand the redness of color, so once she injects this energy into her her body (her most intimate domain), she turns it bright yellow again. The universe within her is illuminated.

The City is a floating chunk of broken skyscrapers and puckered asphalt streets. The trauma of consumption has wrecked the usual infrastructure: buildings are half collapses, or skeletal, vehicles are flipped and strewn across the layout. Whatever vegetation that is still clinging onto life has rejoiced under the return of normal sunlight.

You can breathe. It isn't too hot, or too cold -- it's unusually pleasant, in fact. The sunshine veins that light your world are not overwhelming. There is no blue sky to complement the atmosphere, and whatever water still in the City will be constrained to the bottled kind found in shops.

But there are other floating pieces of worlds, and they might have water. Or food.

If you live in the City, your possessions should still be in the City. While about 76% of the natives have fled the City (which had gotten the brunt of focus over the past week), there are still some natives who were too sick, too sentimental or too stubborn to leave.

You'll find that your powers work normally, though you can't teleport within Atropos. You probably wouldn't want to teleport outside of her, anyway.

She swallows, and the City gentle glides down a slick throat. Dust and particles create stunning visuals, like the aurora borealis, except in warmer colors. Light reflects so easily from solar veins and starstrewn flesh.

While you can breathe easily, gravity is fickle. Physics is often defied. Atropos was never one to play by the rules.

Comments

[slightlyoffchilt]

You were going to steal from me? Steal my water? [That stopped the man in his quiet tracks. Chilton was the sort who rarely enjoyed indignation, and so he utilized this moment to the fullest.

The fact that physics choose to play out absurdities now, in his explicit benefit, almost made him giddy. It was a lot of conflicting emotion, whirling around his heart.]

You wouldn't just ask if I'd let you have some?

[Not that he would, necessarily, but Chilton was riding a high horse.]

[crab]

I wasn't going to steal all of it. [ Karkat responds with his own indignation, face flushed with humiliation and chagrin, while he continues struggle to return to solid ground. ] I would have felt pretty guilty if I left some guy to shrivel up and die of dehydration to save my sorry skin. I'm not worth that much. I'm not worth much at all, actually.

[ This is quickly surpassing "slip of the tongue" territory and entering "wow did I hit my head harder than I thought". ]

[slightlyoffchilt]

You really haven't much self-esteem, do you? [He cocked his head to the side, his eyes narrowing with internal analysis. Internal soon to be exposed as external, thanks to their mutual circumstance.] I wonder, are you fighting your survivalist impulses even now? You know, surely, what a terrible death by dehydration would be... And yet. You have to argue with yourself upon how worthy, or unworthy, your life is in contrast.

[It had been a long time since he had the opportunity to indulge psychoanalysis. Now was good a time as any. Care to keep an acute distance (lest he get caught in that gravity-defying state), Chilton slowly meandered with calculated steps.]

What have you done, to be so down on yourself?

[crab]

[ He tries not to answer. He really does. He tries to keep his mouth closed, despite how much he'd like to tell Chilton what he's going to do to him once he manages to get down. ]

I let them die. [ It comes out a gasp. ] I couldn't stop him from murdering them. I couldn't stop any of them from murdering each other. I was supposed to be their leader, but I let my friends die.

[slightlyoffchilt]

[Well.

Chilton wasn't quite expecting that gravity.]

Who fitted you with the responsibility to stop an apparent homicidal maniac? [It was a question that lacked judgment or concern -- it was objective, clinical. Curious. Chilton, by his occupational hazard, wasn't unnerved by murder and death.

But it was highly unusual data, from a young person's perspective, and one he personally had no experience with. After all, he never had the pleasure of meeting Abigail Hobbs.]

[crab]

I did. [ Another answer that all but has to claw its way out his throat. He speaks through gritted teeth, twisting and turning in the air. So far all he's managed to do is propel himself a further two feet higher, maybe a couple of inches forward. ] I wanted to be their leader. I wanted them to respect me as one. I just didn't factor in how hard leadership would be. I didn't realize how many responsibilities it came with, or how difficult it would be to uphold them. I let everyone down, and there's no one to blame for any of their deaths but me.

[slightlyoffchilt]

That is an unusual burden to heave.

[Fascinated, he hazard a few steps closer, his eyes still skyward at Karkat as the Alternian shifted like a constellation above.]

I assume you suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, though I've never treated it in an adolescent. Not really my forte. [He speaks as if treatment is something that surely must happen, since he's listening now.] Alana Bloom would have more academic experience on such maladies, but she's long gone.

[Never again would he admit Bloom had more experience in something than he did.]

How long have you been living with this... Guilt? Suffering from this situation?

[crab]

I've felt guilty for as long as I can remember. I feel guilty for existing. [ Stop. Talking. He lets out a wordless, furious growl -- an actual growl, like an angry dog, from deep in his chest. ]

[slightlyoffchilt]

Guilt often incorporates shame, a sense of personal failing manifested along with empathy. [A beat, and he crosses his arms, his gaze upwards at the other imPort was something purely analytical. Karkat was a subject to him now, an avenue to hone the familiar. And deconstructing people via their psyches was Chilton's most familiar habit.]

What made you believe you needed to led them? To protect them? Were you, in fact, their best shot?

[crab]

No. [ He tries to contain as much loathing in that single syllable as is conceptually possible. ] No, I wasn't. Terezi was the leader before I was, and she would have been assloads better at it than I was. She should never have given me that chance. She should never have trusted me. None of them should have.

[ He lets out a long-suffering sigh, and quite suddenly, stops struggling. He hangs in midair, glaring down at Chilton with the most baleful expression he can put together, comforting himself with imaginings of punching the man square in that smug, awful mouth. If he does get down, he is taking all of his water, guilty conscience be damned. ]

I wanted to lead them because I thought that if I could prove myself to them, if I was this bigshot hero they all looked up to and respected, they might not leave me when they found out about my mutation. No one in their right mind would like me enough to stick around, once they found out what a revolting insult against nature my existence is. Respect is superior. You can hate someone, but still respect them.

[slightlyoffchilt]

[It was convenient, having Karkat locked upwards thanks to the irrepressibly illogical paradox of this new gravity. More convenient than huddling a patient in a straitjacket, at any rate.

Not that Karkat was Chilton's patient, of course. But maybe he should have been someone's, thought the psychiatrist -- a bit smugly, too. Smug thoughts to match a smug mouth (and one just waiting to be punched).]

Ah. You were trying to overcome what sounds like the seedlings of an inferiority complex, what with needing to prove yourself.

[Perhaps a healthier and more beneficial shrink would have inquired as to why Karkat thought respect trumped the apparent con of being hated -- but truthfully, Chilton was in full agreement there.]

But you never attained that, did you? The respect you craved.

[crab]

I did.

[ He corrects him, snarl growing ever more predatory. ]

For a while, I did. I led us to victory, they all knew about my blood color, and we were going to claim our prize, but I fucked it up. I blew it. I was too goddamn reckless, too impulsive, and everyone had to pay the price. We never would have ended up trapped on that awful space rock if it weren't for me. No one would have died if I had done my job right.