insertmeathere | Friday Meme Light: Cause It's A Bittersweet Victory (Ten Years Later Thread)

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Friday Meme Light: Cause It's A Bittersweet Victory (Ten Years Later Thread)

The clock continues to turn on the ship.

The last years have been of turbulence, surprises and great fights, but eventually, five years ago, the Ohm were defeated and slowly, peace was restored to the entire multiverse. The crisis was averted! Congratulations!

...However rebuilding universes takes time. Energy. Power. It still might be years off before you'll get to go home, and Stacy is truly saddened about that. Call it catch 22 if you will, but at least the life on the ship is a lot more peaceful now. The farms have grown, and now there's enough in-house grown food to feed everyone who doesn't feel like eating slop or eating slop in the sensoriums every day. That's a small comfort, right? Oh sure, there's still the surprise or two on it, but now there's slowly more places to stop, and Stacy has been a lot more lenient about people getting their shots...

As they sometimes say, life will find a way to flourish, anywhere it can. My, there's a lot more bellies around the ship than before...

And maybe. One day. Far off future. You'll get to go home. But that's not now.

Ten years is a lot of time for people to grow, personalities to change and emotions to emerge. How have your characters turned out of it?

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Ten years.

How time flies when you're fighting a never ending war.

Very little had changed for River Song. If anything, her life had settled back on the track it she should have had in the first place. A linear relationship with the Doctor. It hadn't taken very long for her secrets to be revealed. Her status as a human equivalent of a Time Lady. Her sacrifice of all her regenerations to save the Doctor's life. Everything came out in the end.

Like most people who had been on Stacy for the long haul, River had settled down ~~again~~ and had a family. One curly haired little girl who had her mother's penchant for getting into trouble and drove her grandfather up a wall just keeping her from wasting away her regenerations with her crazy stunts. The apple of her father's eye and River Song's darling little girl.

Ten years... the passing time had been both good and bad for Mami.

After ten years, she's a bit more open. She has friends, people outside of those from her home world she trusts and enjoys the company of. Her emotional barriers are (willingly) weak now, though they're not completely gone. She never quite grew out of her Big Sis attitude, though at the age of twenty-five, it's become more of a motherly attitude; she still takes care of the younger kids on board, whether they be from the pods or the children of her fellow crewmates. She's a kind, caring woman, her genuine personality much like the one she used to hide behind.

But all is not well with the puella magi. She's had an ongoing on-again-off-again relationship with Homura, ever since that first time Madoka was podded... she cares for the other woman, she really does, but the fact that she's not the most important person in Mami's heart - and the feeling is mutual - has lead to much depression. It was almost certain that they'd break apart when the ship returned Madoka to them, only to steal her away not long after and leaving them to pick up the pieces yet again. It would be much healthier for the both of them to just call it off for good, but Mami at least is still unable to go long without needing that emotional bond.

Other than that, not much has changed. Aside from the physical changes that normally occur over the span of such a long time, the only change to Mami's appearance was her hair: instead of her signature corkscrew curls, she now wears her hair in a long braid down her back.

Ten years is a long time.

Homura is world weary. She is tired of life; the endless resetting of timelines in her past and the endless combat she engages in on behalf of the ship, against the Ohm. It's tiring. The girl she fights for appearing intermittently, like flashes of lightning or wisps of smoke, never helped her weariness.

There was very little besides fighting for such a very long time. Fighting witches on board the ship and fighting the Ohm off board; it was nonstop. Just as they return from a mission the color of her soul gem darkens and with the other girls she had to fight again. It's a fate of combat she was willing to take on for Madoka's sake, but she never expected it to drag like this. She had hoped for a resolution while she was still in her teens.

It came, but not how she expected. It came, but with time.

Waiting, and waiting, and waiting. Five years passes in the blink of an eye, and so it's been five years since she saw Madoka's face last. Homura has given up on ever seeing her again. All things came to an end eventually, and the same can be said of Homura's hope.

In these ten years, her personality has darkened in places and softened in others. Homura is coarse and sarcastic, far more blunt than she ever was as a girl. She allows very few people to see her inner, more gentle self and Mami remains the only one who knows what she's done for Madoka.

Recovery might have been possible had she been dumped somewhere with the girl she loved most, somewhere calm and peaceful, but in a place full of strife, of stress... It did nothing but make things worse for Homura.

But while Homura waits for the end, there are things that give her joy.

They are calm moments in the morning, in the city of Stacy's belly; they are times like now, spent with Mami in silence and warmth, their hands entwined and their bodies close. She cares about this woman, even if her love for Madoka is greater. Sitting up, she tucks her hair behind her own ears and smiles down at Mami. It's all one length now, and her hair dips just below her knees. She usually keeps it in a low ponytail, but it's loose right now.

"Wake up," she murmurs. "It's morning."

The war has made Mami quite the light sleeper. When things started nearing their end, when they were alerted at all hours of the day (or whatever passed for day on the ship), she was pulled from sleep frequently on emergency deploys. Even after it ended, she couldn't go back to a normal sleep schedule; the long stretches of peace, interrupted only by the released witches, made her restless, and it still effected her sleep to this day.

But just because it was easy to wake her up doesn't mean she liked it. She rolled over, burying her face in her pillow. "And it was a late night, so please give me a few more minutes..."

Apparently, Stacy didn't feel like cutting them a break whenever she released a witch. Even though they weren't that tough, she seemed to enjoy releasing them at the worst times. Like right in the dead of night.

Homura laughs a little and flops down on the bed as well, closing her eyes. "Alright." She's never been good at sleeping, and along with Mami her sleep has only gotten more full of holes as time passed. Even being next to someone she cares about doesn't help very much; it does ease her stiff body but it doesn't let her drift off.

... at least now there's someone to spend the sleepless nights with. It made them easier to bear with.

The witches are hard to deal with, but both of their soul gems shine brightly this morning; a result of their hard work. Homura palms her own, looking it over.

It isn't that much longer before Mami rolls over again, eyes half open and still a bit bleary-looking. But she's smiling, proof that she wasn't really annoyed at being woken up.

"You seem to be in a good mood today."

She's a little surprised, and it shows up on her face. "Do I...?" Homura props herself up with her elbows. "... I guess that isn't untrue. It's a nice morning."

Ildraniath, being a virtually ageless Eldar, looks very much the same as the first day she ever set slime-covered foot on Stacy. However, there are new scars. One of her eyes has been replaced by a cloned copy after she lost it in a particularly vicious fight. The scar remains and the eye i slightly off-color when compared with the other. She still walks with grace and moves with the same easy motion as ever.

She's a bit warmer, these days, but not by much. But going from "ice water in her veins" to merely "frigid" means a lot when it comes to her.

Over the years, Zouichi has made it a point to stop and visit with Ildraniath often, especially during the period of time she was recovering from her injury. He hadn't been on the mission in which she'd lost her eye, but they have had more than a few chances to work with each other after that rather inauspicious mission to Galilee.

As he spotted her in the distance, he called out in greeting, dodging a group of loud, laughing children that were probably on their way to class. "You're looking well this morning."

Ildraniath gave the group of children a long, stern look. Not that they really paid her any mind at the moment. She could've snapped at them And really made them jump, but that hardly seemed worth the effort at the moment. The fact that the mon-keigh were starting to reproduce aboard this ship did not sit well with her - they were already in the majority, why did they feel the need to add more of their horrid, squalling little spawn?

Her expression softened slightly as she turned her attention back to Zouichi, "Thank you, Zouichi. You seem to be as healthy as ever - not that you ever fall ill, I imagine."

It figured that Ildraniath didn't like children. Well, human children, anyway.

Zouichi smiled in response. "Not without outside intervention, anyway. I heard they finished reconstructing another universe. That only leaves a couple million more. I'm sure they'll be getting to ours any day now."

Actually, he was starting to wonder if people who had been present on the day the war ended would even live to see the revival of their worlds. Or how many people would choose to return, considering that they now had friends and family elsewhere.

"At the rate they're going, I will probably be dead before they've finished. Even Eldar are not immortal," Ildraniath replied. It was actually a rather depressing thought - but if it meant the Eldar would survive, she would continue to aid the effort as best she could.

"Otherwise, I find myself with little to do these days. The war is over. All I can do is wander the ship."

Zouichi nodded slightly. "I have to admit to feeling a little... tethered by the situation. I can't resume my mission, and I can't leave the ship. I'd have appreciate it if they'd bothered telling us how long this would take beforehand." He wasn't overly eager to see his friends grow old and die, either. Even if it was perfectly normal for them.

"I suppose there's still the odd conflict we run into, but..." he shrugged. "I guess waiting isn't really my strong point."

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futureisclear.livejournal.com - 2011-09-10 16:18 (UTC) - Expand

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zouichi.livejournal.com - 2011-09-10 16:36 (UTC) - Expand

Jake is still very much a brooding, quiet, intelligent young man - although now he's almost in his thirties. The wonderful powers of morphing mean he doesn't have any scars to show. Physical ones, anyway. Another five years of war have taken their psychological toll on him and despite the fact that he's mostly succeeded in his self-appointed penance - saving the ones he couldn't save before - he's still haunted by war and conflict.

With the war mostly over, he's gone back to solitude and quiet reflection, sitting on his own most of the time. He'll spend hours simply staring into space, lost in thought and his own memories. He rarely, if ever, morphs. He rarely talks to anyone outside of his small circle of friends.

It's like part of him never truly came back from some of the combat they'd been in.

Ten years? Ten years is nothing to an Eldar. You can say not much has changed about her. There's probably a few spots where scars remain unseen and her armor has been patched up a multitude of times but she still moves and reacts unimpeded.

The memory of what humans were doing to her Craftworld haven't been lost but she has moved past that, already having previous centuries dealing with humans in her past. She still rarely smiles at anyone who isn't the same race as her and her tongue is as sharp as ever.

Zouichi talked to Alendian often enough, sharp tongue notwithstanding. He mostly just let the excess anger roll off, anyway.

"Hello, Alendian. You know, you had me worried for a second during that last mission."

"And why, exactly?" Choose your words carefully, Zouichi. Or there just might be excess anger to roll off.

"Because I'd miss you if you were gone."

"The fact is, I will not die." As in she had no other option. Too little Eldar existed as is.

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zouichi.livejournal.com - 2011-09-11 00:50 (UTC) - Expand

For Reimi, things had changed in ways she hadn't expected. Having her relationship with Tsunami had obviously affected her, and the young woman at a stunning age of twenty nine was now the captain of several vessels docked in Stacy's hangar. Time and effort had unlocked more vehicles from her own homeworld, and she had seen to commissioning a vast crew for each and every one of them.

She still wore her armor during ceremony, but instead of her usual bow, she wore a real one, fashioned of wood. It was a gift from her girlfriend when she had lost the original bow in a mission and just as accurate and deadly as her original.

She spends her time also caring for children, having found a bit of a niche. Her family of sisters continues to grow every day, and Reimi is just as happy to spend time with them as she is with loved ones.

The five years of peace had done Cassie some good, more good then all the years of war at least. Now twenty-six, she'd found a place for herself aboard Stacy, although she still very much looked forward to returning to her home when the time came, but she'd accepted that she'd have to wait for that. Her life would never be what it was, but she had known that would be true even before Stacy. War had that effect on a person. Still, she was determined to make the most of what she had left and rebuild from there.

She'd stayed close to her friends from home, or as close as was possible under the circumstances, but she also opened herself up to new friendships. And little by little, the old paranoia had begun to fade some. She suspected that it would never truly be gone, but at least she no longer saw potential enemies everywhere. She still struggled with some of the things that she'd done in both wars and the nightmares persisted, but that was to be expected. The old scars remained and, to an extent, probably always would. Perhaps they'd fade some more with time. Cassie only hoped that the peace would last for them all and that the pain of war was a thing of the past.

Edited 2011-09-17 04:52 (UTC)

Eventually Stacy had released Ash's entire roster of Pokemon to him, even ones he had formally released, such as Butterfree. With that came female Pokemon, with female Pokemon came breeding pairs, and with breeding pairs came eggs. The first of which Ash was helping to care for now.

"Cassie! Charizard and Charla's egg! It's getting ready to hatch!"

Cassie smiled at Ash's cry, quickly rushing towards the area where the Pokemon egg was being kept.

"Really?" Her eyes sparkled excitedly as she skidded to a stop in front of Ash. She'd never seen a Pokemon hatch before and she'd been looking forward to the experience. Cassie couldn't wait to meet the baby Charizard. "Do you, Charizard, and Charla have a name picked out for the baby?"

Edited 2011-09-18 02:43 (UTC)

It was a enclosure of rock on the land of Professor Oak's lab, While a wild pair of Charizard would probably be firing flamethrowers in order to drive the two humans off, the two tamed ones graciously allowed them inside.

"Nah. I've never really given any of my team names, and Pokemon don't really have names like we do. Every Pokemon I've been able to understand," Which was quite a few now thanks to his aura ability letting him communicate with Pokemon, "kinda just calls themselves by what kind of Pokemon they are. Charla got hers from her trainer."

Cassie nodded as she followed Ash inside slowly, not wanting to risk startling the two Charizards. "That makes sense." She paused a moment and glanced at Ash. "And they're okay with us being here?" During the years, she'd grown more comfortable around the pokemon, but her ability to understand them was still often quite shaky, relying mostly on body language and the tone in their vocalizations. Right now, she couldn't get a reading off the two Charizards, but anyone who worked with animals knew how sensitive breeding pairs could be when their young were close to being born. She didn't want to risk having anything go wrong.

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shallturnto.livejournal.com - 2011-09-19 00:55 (UTC) - Expand

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caringcassie.livejournal.com - 2011-09-22 02:23 (UTC) - Expand

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