[Fanfiction] Wings

[Jeahanne]

This is something that started out on Of Ash and Fire, but is ending up so long (the longest single story arc I've ever written) I decided it might be nice to post it in its own thread and see if I could get any more feedback on it. I'll start with the first chapter here, and if it seems well received (and/or I feel like posting more), I'll begin putting up more of what I have.

 

Anyway, thanks to those reading this (and to everyone who has supported me in writing thus far) and I hope you enjoy it.

 

*edit: Story posts will be in spoilers so the thread is less messy.

 

 

 

Recollections of Light

What was a world without color or light? A world without sound; confined to memorization, limited to arm’s reach, bound by darkness, where even the faintest memory of light is so far away and faded by time and circumstance that it’s like looking back on the opening of a dark tunnel that becomes more distant with every passing glance?

 

Her world had always been confined such. She’d never known the impression of space or height except by the changes she could feel. The sharp drop-off of an edge, the cold drafts of air over a chasm, or the open, terrifying spaces that she could only vaguely sense that spoke of a place with nowhere to hide. She only knew faces by touch, recognizing the rough burr of an unshaven face against her skin, the delicate features of her mother under her fingers, or the long, leonine nose of a friend. Her only concept of light was conveyed in vague memories of brightness and blurred faces, kind smiles and soft, contented expressions, but they were all old and soft-edged in the way memories get as time passes, especially memories formed at a very young age as hers had been. Her recollections of light were short and few, and had ended when she was young enough to not remember the exact time in which they had stopped entirely. Since then her world had been dark, although not unpleasant. Her parents had taken good care of her, and the people who crewed the ship her family had lived on for most of her life had always good naturedly tolerated her eccentricities.

 

Unable to speak due to her inability to hear the spoken word, people who knew her quickly picked up her unique system of communication, imperfect as it was. As a small child, anyone she ran up to instantly learned to either kneel down to her level or pick her up, where she was within reach to touch their face. With her hands, she learned faces, and gradually a system evolved where she could at least vaguely understand those around her. By placing one hand on a person’s face, with her thumb resting on their lips and her other fingers resting along their jaw and throat, she could feel the vibrations of their voice box, feel the movement of their lips, and sense the patterns of air that they expelled past her fingers. She would then couple the nuances of those bits of information with more broadly defined hand gestures that she would simultaneously feel with her other hand. Most people only knew a few basic signs, such as, “Where are you parents?” but as she grew older she began to infer more and more about the world, and was generally able to understand a great deal if given the opportunity even if she often couldn’t make herself understood.

 

Despite the warmth and support of those around her, however, her challenges in communication isolated her, both socially and physically, and as she grew so did her isolation. She grew to fear anything different from normal, and any change in her environment inspired terror. She preferred places where she couldn’t be surprised easily, and would often be found wedged into small spaces like corners where walls and objects were in easy reach and people could only approach her from predictable directions. If she was pulled from her safe havens, she would be found fearfully clinging to a familiar person or nearby wall, especially in large open areas where she couldn’t tell what was going on. Even the slightest changes in the movement of the ship, such as normal shuddering or sudden acceleration or stops, could insight panic in her. So when she felt an enormous rumbling rock her home, her first action was to wedge herself into her favorite hiding place, make herself as small as possible, and hope the alarming movements would stop.

 

That day they didn’t.

 

She couldn’t hear the blaring alarms or see the flashing warning lights. All she could sense were the explosions that rocked the ship again and again, until she felt a change in the air as a slight cool draft wafted over her. The door to the room had opened. She placed her hand against the floor and felt the vibration of approaching footsteps, she instantly recognized the weight and rhythm, and as he bent closer to her she recognized his scent; it was her father. She reached out to him and he hastily put a finger against her lips, the universal sign for silence. She signed a question and felt the signed a response in return. <Hide.>

 

She didn’t notice when she made an anxious, fearful whimper until he pressed his finger against her lips again, urging her to make no sound. As another explosion rocked the vessel, she laid her hand in its usual place against his face and questioned again, <Why? I don’t understand. I’m afraid.>

 

He shook his head, <Not now. No time. Hide, quickly. I’ll come back. Wait for me.>

 

She protested slightly as he lifted her up, boosting her into an air vent near the ceiling. She was nearly grown and wasn’t small, but her father had always been strong. Within moments she had clambered in. She reached down towards him, signing again to express confusion and fear. All he did was press her hand reassuringly and sign again, <Go back in as far as you can. Don’t come out until I come back.> He carefully replaced the vent cover, and then he was gone.

 

Terrified, she shakily crawled deeper into the ventilation shaft, every hand placed carefully in front of her. She didn’t make it too far before she turned a corner and her hand encountered empty space. She reeled backwards away from the drop before huddling against one wall. The ship rocked more and more violently, and foul, unfamiliar smells eventually worked their way into the small space she cowered within. She couldn’t make sense of anything she could perceive except that none of it could be good. Something was very wrong. Strange and violent vibrations, amplified by the metal of the ventilation shaft, disoriented her, and only added to the bedlam the explosions already caused. Tears ran down her face as she tried to control her breathing, which was hiccupping and rough as she cried.

 

Eventually, everything went calm, almost eerily so. She was tempted to emerge from hiding after awhile, but fear and her father’s words prevented her from moving. She waited on him to come back, but her apprehension only grew when he didn’t make himself known. She barely even shifted to make herself more comfortable as her wait stretched longer and longer.

 

And longer…

 

… And longer still.

 

After some time her terror gave way to exhaustion and she fell asleep in the vent. She wasn’t sure how long she was out before she felt more movement nearby. Snapping awake, she pulled her legs closer to her body, senses taught in fear. She could feel something or someone getting closer, and she tensed in anticipation. Perhaps her father had finally returned for her. Hope springing wildly up in her heart, she waited with baited breath for his signal; a specific order of taps that her parents often used to let her know that everything was ok and that she was safe. Seconds seemed like hours as she waited, senses straining. She could feel heavy footsteps as they echoed through the vent. They didn’t feel like her father’s.

 

Then she felt a lighter, second set of footsteps join the first. The nothing, until the grating rasp of the sound of metal screeching against metal transmitted itself to her through her fingers as it reverberated through the shaft; someone was pulling the cover off of the vent she was hiding in, and no reassuring rhythm made itself known. Whoever was coming for her wasn’t someone she knew. She gave a terrified shriek that she couldn’t hear, only feel through the instinctive expulsion of air from her lungs and vibration of her own voice box, and tried to crawl deeper into her hiding place, but there was nowhere to go. A short distance from the corner she was hiding around was the opening to the vent, and past her, deeper in, was a sharp drop-off into nothingness, with the other side of the drop too far for her to feel. There was no exit.

 

She began to cry as she futilely tried to make herself smaller. She could sense the thudding movements of someone else trying to enter her sanctuary. When she felt something brush against her, she lashed out instinctively, impotently flailing against whatever was near her. She felt some of her blows weakly connect, but it obviously didn’t affect them, because she immediately felt a hand clamp down firmly but not painfully around her arm and begin to drag her out. Biting, clawing, and otherwise resisting with all her might, she fought the gauntleted hand she could feel encircling her upper arm, but all too soon she felt herself slide over the edge of the vent opening and into unfamiliar arms. They tried to hold her, but she fought with a feral kind of panic, and they couldn’t stop all of her blows without harming her. As she began to get winded and her struggles began weakening, one of her hands impacted her captor’s head. Or it should have been a head. Her hands brushed across what should have been a face, but it had no recognizable features and felt entirely alien to her touch. Her scream hit a pitch so loud, she could feel intense pain in her throat as she forced air past her vocal cords at a punishing rate. Her terror intensified beyond rational thought at not just being captured, but being captured by these things, she lashed out more fiercely than ever until the arms holding her tightened and she felt pressure against a nerve cluster. Then, everything was gone, and she fell into senselessness.

Edited May 13, 2014 by Jeahanne

[bejuizb]

woot

 

First comment XD!

 

Eager to read moar!

[Spikey844]

As always with your stories Jea, I have but one request.

MOAR!!

[Kalenath]

NICE

[MegaSnail]

What? Wut?

Wat?

My thirst for more is intensified tenfold.

[SilverBones]

*steeples fingers*

 

Continue.... <_<

[Jeahanne]

*jumps up and down like a little girl and hugs everyone*

 

You have all made my day. Thank you so much! Honestly!

 

I'll post the second chapter "shortly" (maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow so I can pace myself), but once I'm caught up with what I currently have written, I can't guarantee how fast new chapters will be posted :x

 

Sorry.

Edited April 9, 2014 by Jeahanne

[MegaSnail]

*jumps up and down like a little girl and hugs everyone*

 

You have all made my day. Thank you so much! Honestly!

 

I'll post the second chapter "shortly" (maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow so I can pace myself), but once I'm caught up with what I currently have written, I can't guarantee how fast new chapters will be posted :x

 

Sorry.

As long as I get a dose of this stuff I'm happy.. even if you just post one a month at a time. 

[Jeahanne]

As long as I get a dose of this stuff I'm happy.. even if you just post one a month at a time. 

I'm glad you like it ^-^

 

Depending on the length of the post and how much I have going on in real life at the time (such as homework and suchlike), stories take me anywhere from a few hours to a few days to a couple of weeks to write and refine to a degree that I consider them at least decent enough to post (I'm never entirely pleased with what I write, but such is life lol). The post that took me longest to write was 18 pages in word and wrapped up something large in Of Ash and Fire, and that took me 3 weeks to finish, so one post a month is probably a bit on the long side with frequency of posts. I'll try to aim for at least one a week.

 

For now, here's the second chapter. I'll also try to get some writing done tonight to get more ahead too.

 

 

____________________

Understanding

She woke up in a bed, but it wasn’t her bed, she knew that much instantly. The room was cool, although not uncomfortably so, and she was covered in soft blankets, much softer and warmer than the smooth sheets she had at home or the old, well-worn covers she was used to. She could feel a draft against her face, and knew from the way the air was moving that there had to be a ventilation duct above her and slightly to her right. Shifting slightly, she found the edges of the bed, two sides ended against walls to her right and behind her head, and she felt open space  on the edges to her left and near her feet, with a small table near her head on the open side.

 

The nearby walls were cool and almost glassily smooth, obviously metal and nothing like the walls of her home. She whimpered in fear, reaching out around her in hopes of finding something familiar in this strange place, but her hands remained empty. She retreated backwards, pressing herself into the corner where the bed met the two walls, and drew herself up into a ball. Eventually, when nothing happened and she began to feel cramped, she uncurled herself and began to slowly learn the room. She paced around it, one hand always against a wall or object so she wouldn’t lose her way, and found it to be very small. There was a tiny side room that she discovered was a bathroom, but aside from that and the bed and table, nothing else, until she reached a door.

 

Sliding her fingers along the wall ahead of her with the rest of her almost pressed up completely against it as she cautiously moved, she felt the doorframe first. Then, moving forward slowly, the door sensed her and hissed open. She jumped back, startled, and froze until she was sure that nothing else was going to happen. When she’d gained back some small amount of confidence, she sidled forward again, and this time was less surprised when the door whispered open and a draft ghosted past her as it pushed against her to get out of the door. Curiosity overcoming her, she hesitantly stepped out of the small room and followed the draft of air into the hallway outside, her fingers brushing across solid surfaces reassuringly as she went. As she explored, always cautiously and slowly, she began to build up a mental map of her surroundings, which were far from anything she new. After a short time, she began to get anxious, worried that she would be found again by the horrible creatures she’d encountered before, and decided to look for a hiding place. She didn’t get far.

 

As she began her search for a safe place to hide, she felt footsteps nearing her from down the corridor, and felt panic shoot through her. Without thinking, she began to run the opposite direction down the hall until she encountered another door and threw herself through it. Panting for breath, she quickly followed another wall until she found a corner she could crawl into behind some boxes, and hastily worked to hide herself in it. However, unable to tell how far the boxes extended around her, she overshot the hidden section of the corner and before she could recover and get back behind them, she felt something fly towards her. Instinctively, she ducked, feeling something fly over her head, and shrieked as she scrambled towards the cover she missed in her previous haste.

 

Instants later, she felt heavy footsteps near her, and felt the things she was hiding behind shift away from her. She tried desperately to get away, but hands restrained her, hands strangely covered like the ones that had taken her had been. Shrieking incoherently, she struggled, and shuddered and cried even more when her hands brushed its alien “face”. Suddenly, one of the hands let her go, although she still couldn’t get away. After a few seconds, the hand that had let her go gently grabbed one of her hands and pulled it up and forwards. She already knew what would be there, the alien features that scared her so badly, and she struggled, but when her hand was pulled inexorably forwards what met her touch wasn’t the creepy and terrifying features she’d come to expect; it was a normal human’s face, a man’s.

 

She froze, completely startled, before shakily feeling out the face before her. He had broad, chiseled features, with a high, Romanesque nose and somewhat deep-set eyes, with a short beard covering the lower half of his face. His hair was short and somewhat messy, and felt damp, as if he’d just finished some kind of intense exercise. Feeling down his neck, she felt the same odd, armored covering that encased his hands, and she began shaking controllably, even as she stopped struggling.  As she stopped fighting the arms that held her, the man’s grip on her loosened, and she fell into a heap as he gently grabbed her other hand and guided it towards something between them on the floor. She gave a startled peep when she recognized it under her fingers. It was the alien “face” she’d felt before. Not allowing her to retreat in fear, he kept her hand on it as he lifted it, allowing her to explore it with her hands and realize what it was; a helmet.

 

He was a person, not a monster, what she had felt on his face before had been nothing but a mask. She placed her fingers carefully on his face again, not knowing if he would understand her, and attempted to sign a question. She felt his features form into an expression of confusion and she sighed, tears beginning to run down her face. <I want to go home,> she tried to tell him.

 

He didn’t seem to understand what she was trying to sign to him, but he seemed to understand the general idea. Murmuring words she could feel against her fingers, she knew he was saying things like, “It’ll be alright,” and trying to soothe her as he gathered her into his arms, pressing his helmet into her hands for her to hold as he carried her. He was a big man, and despite the fact that she wasn’t a small child, he lifted and carried her with ease. She wasn’t sure she knew what to think of him, but he was obviously kind, and she clung to him, despite his strange and terrifying armor, as the only thing in her recently changed world that she could understand and trust.

 

As they walked, she felt him say something she could understand, “What is your name?”

 

Loosening her death grip on him and his helmet slightly, she made the sign back to him for her name, but he didn’t understand, so she tried as best as she could to replicate the mouth movements and other nuances that she knew as speech among other people. A puckering of the lips, with a quick expulsion of air, along with the hand-sign for the letter “p”, followed by her best approximation of “e” and its hand-sign, and then the rolling vibration of “r” and an “i” that had mouth movements more akin to “y” and their signs; “Peri”. She grimaced, knowing that she was nearly never understood when she tried to speak like other people usually did, and she wilted slightly with hopeless embarrassment at what she was sure was a horrendous mangling of the spoken word.

 

She froze when they stopped immediately after that exchange, and she took her hand away from his face so she could cling more tightly around his neck. She could feel him speaking to someone, although she wasn’t sure who, and after a few moments they were moving again. A few steps later, she felt him bend down and lay her on a bed in the same room she had come out of before. She cried out slightly as he gently pried her off of him, he was the only thing even somewhat familiar that she had, and she was petrified of what would happen if she was left alone again. He seemed to understand that she was afraid, and after gently extricating himself from her clinging, he held on to one of her hands while she sat, tense and terrified, on the bed. She cried out, alarmed, when she felt someone else hold her other arm, stretching it out, but he held her steady until she felt a slight sting, and she fell asleep once again.

 

_____________________________

 

“How’d she get into the training hall, Kyoko. You know it’s not safe for anyone to be there untrained, especially a child in her condition, whatever that condition may be.” The Rhino’s voice was low and somewhat rough, but not unkind as he spoke to the head medical officer of his dojo. They were standing not far from the bed where a girl lay sleeping, sedated by the woman standing next to him so that the she could rest without fear.

 

“I… I couldn’t lock her in here, Isaac. I just couldn’t, not after all she’s been through. I was only leaving the room for a few minutes, just long enough to get the results of the tests we ran when she was brought in. I didn’t think she’d leave, even if she did wake. I’m sorry.” The woman, wearing something akin to medical scrubs, looked down at her feet. “Regardless, the results are in.”

 

“The look on your face has me worried.”

 

She sighed, “It’s a genetic problem, a rare variation of a rare condition called Usher Syndrome, which is why it took me so long to diagnose. She can’t see or hear us, Isaac. She likely hasn’t been able to use either of those senses since birth or shortly thereafter. That’s why she didn’t respond when we found her; she didn’t know we were trying to communicate.”

 

He nodded, “So what now? When does she go in for treatment?”

 

“Isaac, she’s not our problem, you know that. I’ve already been in contact with the Lotus, and she’s working to find a suitable colony to send her to…”

 

He made an impatient gesture to cut her off, “Can we treat her Kyoko?”

 

“Yes, but…”

 

He interrupted her again, “And will a colony have the resources to treat her?”

 

“It’s unlikely, but…”

 

“Then we help her. I don’t care if she isn’t our ‘responsibility’, she’s a human being who’s hurting and we’re in a position to help her hurt less.” His tone was soft, but like iron.

 

The woman, Kyoko, frowned as she confronted him, “She’s functional Isaac, even you saw that. I didn’t understand how she communicates until I saw her with you and knew her diagnosis, but now it’s obvious that she is coping, and coping amazingly well. That system she uses for understanding speech, it’s called Todoma, and it hasn’t been used since Pre-Orokin, and even then the amount of people who managed to learn to use it as effectively as she has were less than fifty people in the world. She’s obviously smart, brilliant even, but restoring senses that she likely hasn’t ever experienced in her life might just confuse her. Her condition was eradicated by the time a cure for it existed, so there are no records for how people handled regaining those senses that they didn’t ever have access to. It could be bad for her, psychologically.

 

“Besides, I don’t know that I can fix all of the damage. Her hearing is fairly simple to repair, but her sight? That’s degenerative. Even if I could bring it back temporarily, and I’m not sure that I could, her body could simply keep re-doing the damage she’s already suffering from and cause her to go blind again. She’d likely go blind again fast too, if I’m any judge of how fast her sight probably left her the first time.” Her voice was coldly professional, seemingly unswayable.

 

“And if she was your kid? We did some digging you know; her mother was a geneticist and was researching a cure for her and her father was an engineer that specialized in building the equipment that her mother used for her research. Her parents might be gone now, but it was obvious they were doing what they could, limited as their situation was, to help her. We have the ability to do what they couldn’t. So I’ll ask you again, if she was your child, could you leave her like this knowing you could do something about it?” He stood looking at the girl in question as he spoke, his low, deep voice unyielding.

 

Kyoko looked down, defeat written all over her face, “You win, I’ll do what I can. But don’t get attached. She’s not Tenno, Isaac, she can’t stay.”

 

As she turned away and left the small room, Isaac just smiled before bending down and ruffling the sleeping girl’s hair. “Don’t let her gruff attitude worry you. She’ll come around, just you wait.”

Edited May 13, 2014 by Jeahanne

[ensignvidiot]

I WANT MOAAAARRRRRR

 

 

 

 

[size=2]Riveting read, m'lady. Quite.[/size]

[Kalenath]

*jumps up and down like a little girl and hugs everyone*

 

You have all made my day. Thank you so much! Honestly!

 

I'll post the second chapter "shortly" (maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow so I can pace myself), but once I'm caught up with what I currently have written, I can't guarantee how fast new chapters will be posted :x

 

Sorry.

 

It will come when it comes. Doing what I do (did before work went nuts anyway) is HARD work. 3000 words a day may not seem like much, but it is.

 

Write as you can. We will be waiting. (Impatiently mind you... :D)

[ensignvidiot]

It will come when it comes. Doing what I do (did before work went nuts anyway) is HARD work. 3000 words a day may not seem like much, but it is.

 

Write as you can. We will be waiting. (Impatiently mind you... :D)

 

I really think you just love playing the part of the fanboy for once

[Kalenath]

I really think you just love playing the part of the fanboy for once

 

True.

 

But I am also operating on about 4 hours of sleep a night and have been for the last seven days. Not great for writing. Well, writing coherent sentences anyway.

[Jeahanne]

True.

 

But I am also operating on about 4 hours of sleep a night and have been for the last seven days. Not great for writing. Well, writing coherent sentences anyway.

Ouch. Go sleep  then! Shoo! lol

[Jeahanne]

Ok sorry for the double post, but it's a story, so I hope that helps make up for it. The next post will likely be a bit slower in coming, it's still a work-in-progress and I have class tonight, so I don't think it'll be finished tonight. Sorry :x

 

____________________________

The Unknown

Everything was still fuddled and confused, but even before she opened her eyes and woke up fully she could tell something fundamental had changed. There was something… new. She didn’t know what it was. She didn’t panic at first, her senses still too dulled by the drug that had put her to sleep for her to feel that emotion, but she felt confused. Her hands curled slightly around the blankets she was covered in and she froze as something she’d never experienced before washed over her. With recognition of that new thing, she became aware of others connected to that sensation. Her breathing and pulse sped up, increasing the new awareness, and she held her breath. When she did, part of that sense stopped, then resumed when she started breathing again. She could sense the inrush and outflow of air through her lungs in another way aside from just feel. What was this?

 

She lay there, unmoving and bewildered, until something new happened. She didn’t understand what was going on until a hand gently took hers. She reached out with her other hand and felt a familiar face; the man from before.

 

She gently felt for his expression as he spoke. “Easy, Peri, easy.” She recoiled slightly, shocked. She could feel his lips move, his voice box vibrate, but she could sense it in another way too, like she could understand and feel the very air around her transmitting vibrations. That was what this new sense was, wasn’t it? It was her sensing the very air’s vibrations. She couldn’t understand them yet, but she could at least still understand his words by using the methods she already knew. “Here,” he told her as he pressed what felt like a flat screened device into her hands, “I’ve been learning things while you were asleep. Can you read this?”

 

She took the screen and ran her fingers over it, smiling when she recognized the pattern of what felt like raised bumps on the display. The raised bumps she felt under her fingers weren’t actually there. Instead, the illusion of depth was achieved by clever programming that varied the electrical charge that moved through sections of the screen. The varied charges resulted in different amounts of friction on different parts of the screen, creating the illusion that some parts were smoother, rougher, or more raised than others. Since the changes in resistance weren’t something that could visually be seen, it was easy for Isaac to look under her fingers and see the normal letters displayed underneath as the girl typed: “Where am I? What’s going on?”

 

He took the pad from her and typed his own response before handing it back, “You are at my home and the home of my Clan mates. We found you and brought you here to try to help you. You’ve already noticed the results of the treatment we’ve done?”

 

She nodded as she “read” the last lines, “I don’t understand this…”her fingers paused for a long moment as she searched her mind for the words to describe the sensation she couldn’t understand, “… this new way of feeling?”

 

His features softened into something akin to pity as he tried to think of a way to explain, in simple terms, the procedure that had been done to her to restore her hearing; a sense she’d never before experienced and had no way to comprehend. He sighed before he began to type, “It’s called ‘hearing’, a sense most people have but you didn’t have access to because of a condition you were born with. We know your parents were trying to restore your hearing, and since we had the technology to do it for them, we healed you as best as we are able.”

 

Her brow furrowed in confusion as she thought about this new sense, “hearing”, which she had only before understood as being synonymous with “understanding” or “paying attention”, but was apparently an entirely different sense, like touch, smell, or taste. “You know my parents?” She asked, “Where are they? Father never came back for me. He said he would, but he didn’t. The whole ship was rocking, there were bad smells, and I was afraid, but I waited for him and he never came back… Did he send you to get me?” She looked up in his general direction with fear and hope both equally displayed on her face, and Isaac felt his heart give a painful squeeze.

 

“No, I don’t know your parents, and your father didn’t send us to get you. We found where you lived because we heard of an attack by the Grineer.” The Rhino didn’t have the heart to tell her any details and the harsh truth; that the only thing they found alive on the ship was her, likely because of how she was hidden, and if her parents had been alive after the attack they were in Grineer custody now.

 

Her face crumpled at the news, and hot tears began to run down her face as she started to cry. The noises she made as she began to sob were entirely new and frightening to her even though she now knew what they were, but all of the fear and other emotions were swept aside in an onrushing tide of grief that built as she wrote. “Grineer? They took them didn’t they? Mom told me about them, that they’re why we didn’t see anyone outside of the crew… she said that they’d hurt us if they found us, just like the Corpus would.” She dropped the pad, now dotted with small beads of moisture along with her latest message, onto the bed as she curled up into a small ball and wept. She felt warm, strong arms go around her as Isaac pulled her close and let her cry into his shoulder, where his robes were quickly wet with her tears.

 

When she’d calmed down somewhat, he let her go and gently handed the small screen back with a message written on it. “I promise that whatever happened to them won’t happen to you. We’re looking for them, but the Grineer are ruthless. If we can find them we will, but if we can’t, this can be your home if you chose for it to be. If not, then we will still make sure you’re safe, wherever you decide to go.”

 

She sniffled and wiped her eyes on the corner of a blanket. “I want to go home,” she typed with shaking fingers, “I can’t, can I?”

 

Isaac shook his head, “No, you can’t. I’m sorry, truly,” he told her, as he held her again while she cried, her body shaking as she was wracked with uncontrollable sobs; completely overcome with grief and fear of the unknown.

Edited May 13, 2014 by Jeahanne

[ensignvidiot]

That was a very interesting way of showing us how someone without the ability to hear would react to it.

 

below is my reaction to the rest.

 

 

    

Edited April 9, 2014 by ensignvidiot

[MegaSnail]

Just gonna sit here and wait for more.. and also wait for Melee 2.0

[Jeahanne]

Just posting an update.

 

Today, after having been sick since last Sunday, I was finally starting to feel better and thought it a good time to continue my latest chapter... only to reread what I was working on, decide it was more suited to the garbage bin than the forums, and tossing it out so I could begin to start over. Apparently, stomach pain and nausea do not make good writing partners, and I strongly disliked everything I had put on the page while feeling ill. That said, the good new is, I only had like 600 words done in the first place, so it's not like I'm losing a lot. The bad news is, that still means a lot of work for me to do (and redo) before you all get a story again. (Sorry! >.<: )

 

SO ANYWAY! I just wanted to let everyone know that I am working on more for this thread, and things are coming along despite everything, but it will still be a day or two at least before I have anything post-worthy to show you all. I'm sorry, and thanks for your patience guys.

Edited April 13, 2014 by Jeahanne

[Spikey844]

No worries Jea. You get better soon.

[Jeahanne]

Finally! I've got this finished! I will not go into why exactly this was so long in coming in order to spare you all my complaints and excuses, but I do apologize for the wait. I hope this is a decent enough chapter to at least make up a little bit for my negligence. Thank you all again for your patience, I really do appreciate it, and I hope you all enjoy!

 

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Beginnings

 

Peregrine loved sound. She hadn’t at first, when it had been so new and terrifying, but once she’d become adapted to it the freedom it had given her had become intoxicating. She still had to memorize her physical world, like the layout of the small, but comfortable room she’d been assigned to stay in, or the various twists and turns of the Dojo’s halls, but she could understand so much more about the world around her now than she had ever been able to by touch alone. She could hear the buzz of the intercom when someone, usually Kyoko or Isaac, were asking to come in. She could hear footsteps, and the low, indistinct murmur of conversation as Tenno walked past her room down the hallway… or the pursuing strides of her current partner in tag.

 

Peri squealed in delight as she rocketed around a corner in the dojo, sliding her fingers across the walls as a guide and giggling excitedly as she evaded her “pursuer” for the umpteenth time. She didn’t need to peek around a corner to know that her reluctant playmate wasn’t far behind her; her ears told her everything she needed to know in place of her still blind eyes.

 

“Stop!” Kyoko yelled from behind her, trying to catch up. “Peri! Peregrine!” The healer, had she been in her warframe, could easily have caught up, but the child was fast, and the Tenno was getting winded trying to keep up with her boundless energy. “This isn’t a game… How the Warlord talked me into letting you stay here with me as your baby sitter I will never know!”

 

The healer turned a corner, running almost at a full sprint, and was just in time to see a somewhat small figure with a shock of short, blonde hair, bolt through a cross connecting corridor and disappear around another bend in the hallway, her laughter echoing off of the pristine white walls. The Tenno put on a burst of speed as she pursued her quarry, only to turn the same bend and nearly run face first into a large, armored form. Hiding behind him, with a large grin plastered all over her face, was Peri, her grey eyes bright with mirth and mischief as she clung to her protector.

 

“Well, hello there Kyoko,” Isaac’s voice rumbled, a grin hidden under his helmet, “I see you’re getting your exercise.” Absently, the Rhino reached down and hefted the girl onto his shoulders, where she giggled as she clung to him.

 

“Easy for you to say, you’re not the one chasing her through the hallways and trying to make her stay in one place for longer than a minute. How can I teach her to talk when she won’t sit still?”  She shot a hassled look at the source of her frustration which was gleefully ignored by both the blind and sighted alike.

 

“Then maybe we need a different approach, and an outlet for all of her energy perhaps,” the Rhino’s voice was flawlessly innocent, almost suspiciously so, as he stood stoically in the hallway despite the impishly smiling girl on his shoulders.

 

Kyoko glared at him. “No. I know what you’re thinking, Isaac, and it’s not a good idea.”

 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he told her blithely, brushing past her as he walked down the hallway, “What do you think Peri? Want to go have some fun?”

 

“Fun?” a small voice asked him, testing the word out as she said it, and using one hand to sign what she thought it meant.

 

He nodded awkwardly, trying not to dislodge his small companion with the movement, “Yes, exactly. Fun. Let’s go!” Gripping her legs tightly so she wouldn’t fall, he jogged down the hallway and out of sight, with Peri’s squeals of delight lingering long after the two were gone.

 

By the time the healer stood before the door to the small Dojo’s training hall, the large, bulky warrior, helmetless so he could better be understood by his pupil, was leading the petite girl along the racks of weapons and various other objects scattered around the room. When he found one of the less dangerous items, like the Bo Staff the girl was holding awkwardly at that moment, he would kneel down to her level, state its name, and have her repeat it back to him several times until she had it right before moving on to something else.

 

Peregrine herself was more than happy to comply with the lessons, and far preferred them to the ones where she was stuck sitting a chair with nothing to do but kick her heels against her seat and repeat back the words she was shown in Braille on a tablet. Here she happily parroted back anything told to her as she skipped around the room, following her teacher around with something akin to hero-worship and dancing around giddily whenever she got something right.

 

The girl had no way of knowing the healer’s appreciation for how quickly she learned, despite not wanting to sit still long enough to study. She had blossomed remarkably in the short time she’d been in the dojo, her newfound hearing and growing familiarity with both her surroundings and the people in them leading her to new and greater feelings of freedom and confidence than she’d ever known previously in her life. Added to that the fact that she was picking up the spoken word with astonishing rapidity, and most Tenno in the small clan she resided with quickly forgot about her disability and began to treat her the same way they would any other child who had managed to worm their way into their hearts; by spoiling her rotten.

 

The clan’s cook had quickly discovered the girl’s sweet tooth, was always slipping her small dainties, much to the child’s glee and her caretaker’s chagrin, as the sugar only added to her hyperactive nature. He so enjoyed her delight at his creations that he had recently gone so far as to research old recipes to find more things that she liked. His most recent concoction was something called “cheesecake”, which didn’t sound appetizing but ended up being delicious. No one quite knew what the ingredients for it were, or were sure that they wanted to ask, but the old Tenno always smiled an indulgent smile and ensured at least one sweet thing was on the menu specifically for Peri, regardless of how much else he had to do. Despite Kyoko’s protests, there were also those that taught the girl off-the-curriculum lessons whenever they got the chance; such as how to properly throw a kunai knife, where the best places in the dojo were to hide, and Grineer swear words, among other things.

 

She’d also already had to confiscate at least one “pet” sentinel that had been toted around by the girl for a week before Kyoko had been able to catch up with her long enough to nab it. By then, the girl had already named it “Jay” and wreaked an enormous amount of mischief without even realizing that she’d become invisible thanks to her new friend. The healer strongly suspected Birch, the resident Foundry master and Loki of the clan, for being responsible for giving it to her. Trying to find the girl normally was a nightmare, and giving her a Shade that cloaked her whenever people got near only increased her already expansive talent at hiding to a point that was simply evil. It would be very much the kind of thing typical of the outwardly sober and responsible Tenno, especially now that he and practically the rest of the clan were wrapped around the little girl’s finger.

 

And yet, of all of the people that indulged and spoiled the child, Isaac was, by far, the worst. Anything the girl wanted that he could provide for her, she received, and the Rhino was smart enough to come up with very good sounding reasons for all of it. A great example was the “lesson” he was giving her in the dojo’s training room. Despite the fact that anyone could tell he had ulterior motives for taking Peri there, if Kyoko had bothered to confront him about his actions he would only have glibly explained how the exercises were a great way to increase the girl’s vocabulary and encourage her enthusiasm for learning speech. However, no matter how much the healer tried to maintain a stoic demeanor (since no one else in the clan seemed to want to), as the lesson progressed from words and moved to the center of the room in a sparring area, even Kyoko couldn’t hold back laughter.

 

“No don’t hit me! Ah!” Isaac said, quailing with faux sincerity as a small figure chased him around with a Bo staff larger than she was, whacking him with all the force, aggression, and efficacy of a kitten attacking a Great Dane. “I swear! I didn’t mean to insult Jay’s honor! I swear! Mercy!”

 

“Mercy! Mercy!” she parroted him, still thwacking him.

 

“No Peri, it’s ‘No mercy,’ not ‘Mercy’,” Kyoko corrected the girl, cracking a smile.

 

“No mercy?” the elfin child asked, turning to face the healer and temporarily pausing in her merciless hunt; the Bo staff still held comically and somewhat awkwardly over her head as she paused mid-blow.

 

“That’s right, no mercy! Get him!” The healer grinned wider as the girl gave a gleeful cackle and continued her hunt.

 

“No mercy! No mercy! No mercy!” Peregrine chanted, warming to the sentiment as she chased her quarry and battered him with blows that carried all the menace and threat of a pillow.

 

Eventually, the Rhino, still in his warframe, slowly and theatrically collapsed to the floor, making ridiculously absurd death noises as he fell clutching his “injuries”.  

 

“This is it, I see the light… it’s all over!” He yelled out, struggling to hide his grin as Peri continued to giggle, poking him with one end of staff as he lay splayed out ludicrously on the floor, still making farcical noises between lines as he “died”.

 

As the Rhino made the last of his dramatic end, another door leading into the training room opened and a Tenno in a Loki warframe walked in. “I see the great Isaac has fallen. What did he do to incur the almighty wrath of Peregrine this time?”

 

At the sound of the Loki’s voice, Peri’s eyes lit up and she instantly dropped the heavy staff on the floor with a loud clack and clatter. “Birch!” she chirruped loudly, taking off and making it halfway across the room to cling to the soldier, signing wildly, before the staff had even come to rest.

 

“I insulted Jay’s honor,” Isaac explained, agilely springing back up to his feet, “And slow down kid, you know that he doesn’t know too many signs yet.” The girl’s hands stopped fluttering crazily at his words as she checked herself, and she politely clasped them in front of her to let the warriors talk.

 

“Well no wonder I found the little guy moping, then,” the Foundry Master retorted as the Rhino made his way to stand nearby, “And you know I don’t mind you talking Peri, you just have to slow down. Now, I think this little guy missed you.”

 

Peregrine cocked her head to one side, listening, as a Sprite model Shade sentinel hovered into view from behind the Loki. It burbled in a manner that sounded happy when it caught site of her, and descended to the girl’s level before promptly plopping itself down on her head, radiating an aura of possessive contentment.

 

Kyoko groaned as she made her own way from the doorway she’d been standing near to the others, “Birch, please tell me that you at least disabled its cloaking precepts?” At her approach, the sentinel made a noise halfway between contempt and an objection before both it and the girl winked out of sight. “Oh no you don’t,” Kyoko muttered as she plucked the machine off of the oblivious child’s head, causing both of them to instantly reappear in the visual spectrum. It made noises of alarm and protest as it struggled futilely in the healer’s hands.

 

“Why would I inflict that upon the poor thing?” Birch asked, the picture of innocence, “I did tweak his programming though; he should act as a better navigator for her now when she needs to get around unfamiliar sections of the Dojo, and he can even act as a locator if necessary. Now let him go or you’ll give him a complex.” Birch looked mildly at Kyoko and she released the small machine, which quickly plopped itself back onto its charge’s head to be received with a contented pat. If the sentinel could have purred, he would have at that moment, sitting there looking for all the world like a self-satisfied cat atop its favorite perch.

 

“It better have a locator, or I’m locating you to run after her next time.”

 

The Loki just grinned, “Sure you will. Speaking of locating things; Isaac, that stuff you requested is done building. You can drop by the foundry any time to pick it up.”

 

“Things?” Peregrine asked, looking up at the group of Tenno.

 

“What kind of things, Isaac?” Kyoko glared at the Rhino suspiciously.

 

“Oh nothing too important,” he waved one hand dismissively, “We simply had some leftover materials sitting around that I put to use to make some new items for Peri. She doesn’t have much you know, considering how she got here and all.”

 

“For me?” the girl asked, her grey eyes wide.

 

“Of course, little bird,” he ruffled her hair affectionately, a mischievous smile on his lips, “Considering you’re living with Tenno, it only makes sense that you’d get some of our toys, right?”

 

As the girl jumped up and down and clapped her hands in delight, the sentinel wobbling dangerously on her head as he resisted being thrown off, one word echoed through the halls of the Dojo in an exasperated female voice, “ISAAC!”

Edited May 13, 2014 by Jeahanne

[Kalenath]

Uh... oh...

 

Now what could Isaac POSSIBLY be planning here?

 

I don't think Kyoko is going to like this... PERI will I bet, but Kyoko? Not so much.

[bejuizb]

Absolutely loved it Jea!!!

[Jeahanne]

Thank you guys ^-^

 

And also, what Isaac is up to? Toys. Tenno toys :3

 

Peri will definitely love it, but Kyko is going to have a fit. Trying to be the responsible one in this little Dojo is a pain. I pity the woman xD

[bejuizb]

I wish I could be there lol

[MegaSnail]

It was only a matter of time until this happened, I'm not too surprised of course. I really do hope this becomes something that I could look back on in my later years, keep up the good work!