[Semi-Open, Arrival] Dreaming Wide Awake

[oyedeng]

WHO: Naomi Nagata, James Holden, Amos Burton, a Rescue Crew and OPEN
WHAT: A woman falls out of space and onto Thedas. Some damage is incurred, some recovery time is needed, some reunions are happening. Also: Space resident's first exposure to snow.
WHEN: Covering arrival, quarantine/recovery and first steps in a snowy Kirkwall
WHERE: Wounded Coast, Riftwatch Infirmary, Kirkwall
NOTES: If you want to continue any CWs for description of/discussion of injuries sustained, pain suffered, Holden being a sap

At first, there is nothing. She floats, as she has done all her life, when the ring gate decelerates everything in an instant, and Naomi is knocked out cold.

Her dream is a simple thing. To stand aboard the Rocinante, to hug Alex, to touch her forehead to Amos', to hold Holden close. To tell them all she has to say, and to be welcomed back.

Instead, she comes to when she falls, thin body impacting on hard ground, vision flooding with flickering green, and beyond... the horrifying sight not of metal, not even of the darkness between stars... but of a grey, cloudy sky.

[ ooc: Closed and Open Prompts in comments below. If you'd like to do something else or discuss handwaving/continuing TDM threads, feel free to shoot me a message: inkcharm or Discord: inkcharm#4573.

Please also take a gander at Naomi's Permissions/CWs/Opt-Outs as well as her Info post. ]

Comments

[innerharbor]

Amos is scooping and packing another snowball as he speaks. "This? Shit, boss, it's snow. When it's too cold for rain."

With his free hand, he points upward. "Something about the atmosphere hitting right temperature for water to freeze. I dunno that kinda math." Where on Earth (or Thedas, or space) would he have ever had need to learn geosciences?

[oyedeng]

Naomi follows his gaze for a moment, trying to do the math - it's just she doesn't know enough about geoscience either. Why would a Belter need to learn about geoscience, either?

And it's nice, in a way. She's able to quantify and pick apart many thing, calculate her way through existence in space in ways few others can. There's something oddly satisfying about a harmless phenomenon her brain can't quite map out. Like the years of her youth, when that one kibble peddler kept conjuring a button from behind her ear before she got old enough and smart enough to realize his sleight of hand, dispelling the delight.

Naomi watches Amos, and mimics the way he packs the snow together to form a ball that doesn't fall apart. "Frozen rain..." So they get it on Earth, too, or so she assumes. Snow. "So it's just... more water?" So much of it. Surrounding them, falling from the sky, or drifting from it now.

Though... if it's just water...

Naomi looks at the white ball in her hand, then glances up again and frowns at the sky as if it's a big puzzle, before sticking her tonue out to let a snowflake land on it.

[innerharbor]

He tosses his snowball from hand to hand. "It's- you know water. Liquid, solid, gas? Solid form."

He holds up the snowball as an example. Some of the melted ice has already begin to trickle down his wrist. He hefts the snowball before it goes completely soggy, and aims it to just catch the side of Naomi's shoulder. Gentle. But still annoying.

[oyedeng]

Disappointingly, snow... doesn't taste much different than if you scrape ice off a pipe to hydrate. Go figure. Perhaps Holden had a point when he told Miller rain just tastes like water, even if Miller might have been looking for a different answer.

Still - it's something else to see water drift from the sky in lazy, fluffy little flakes that can be balled up and--

"Hey!"

No heat behind it, though the bemused surprise is obvious on Naomi's face.

"Do you throw ice balls at everyone, or am I just special?"

And before she can contemplate if he'll make her regret it later, Naomi gently lobs her own snow ball back at Amos. It was much more poorly constructed and comes apart before it has much of a chance to impact.

[innerharbor]

Amos picks up more snow, making a slightly more obvious show of how to pack it into a ball correctly. "No, iceballs, I throw at people I don't like. This? Is a snowball."

He knows how. He's thrown snowballs with rocks in them, for chrissakes. Not that there's any need to bring that knowledge up. They both know how lethal Amos can be when motivated.

The thought flickers through his mind like it always does, a catalogue of terror to be inflicted. It flickers out as well, like it always does around people like the Boss and the Cap. That's why they are those things.

He throws the snowball high, so it mostly gets in Naomi's familiar-strange hair. "You don't got an excuse."

[oyedeng]

Snowball.

Naomi tries to picture it, as she copies Amos again, how people came to do this. To see their free water drift from the sky in frozen tufts, and find it can be balled up and tossed, harmless and cold. This time she packs the snow more tightly, and tucks the implicit 'I like you' into the curves of her smile. Her hands shake briefly, in ways that have nothing to do with the cold or her body's fight with gravity.

It has everything to do with hearing the implicit confirmation, after weeks of being iced out, and months away from the Roci and her family. It feels like a forgiveness she has every intention of earning. For now, though...

She still yelps a little when Amos gets snow in her hair. "Alright, fine, my turn."

And this time, the snowball doesn't come apart, but hits Amos on the upper thigh, Naomi's aim imperfect and unpracticed.

Still, she counts the victory, and cannot help the laugh of delight bubbling up in her chest, or the way her smile goes bright and open - lighter than she's felt in months.

[innerharbor]

It must be weird, Amos thinks, not having to account for artificial orbital gravity. Can that throw your aim off? Well, everything can, really. He'll never get it, but that's fine. It's not his to get.

He whistles low, something kids used to do under harbors and on top of vans, good throw, good throw.

"Try this." And with his newest snowball, he winds it up slow, like a baseball pitch, and throws long. The snowball sails over Naomi, hitting a nearby tree, and it occurs to Amos that this is a skill Naomi should learn. There's a war on, after all. It's not all nightmares.

[oyedeng]

It still throws her off, same as the horizon, the vast streth of sky when she's outside, the sheer amounts of water surrounding the gallows. Sometimes, vertigo still catches her off guard.

Naomi watches Amos carefully, then shapes her own next snowball and attempts to imitate Amos' stance and the way he wound the throw up.

"Like this?"

[innerharbor]

"Yeah," he says, then more quietly, "kinda."

He packs up a bit of snow, trying to show her. "You're trying to account for stational orbit with your throws. You don't gotta."

[oyedeng]

Amos is right - and that comes as little surprise. Naomi always hates when people dismiss him as 'simple' or 'slow' just because he's a big man with big arms - he's a genius-level mechanic, for one.

It's a math problem, and a problem of muscle memory, even with as little muscle mass as she has. There may have been an incident or two where Naomi let go of a cup mid-air, brain knowing full well that was a bad idea, but the rest of her body still caught up on 'no thrust, no gravity'.

"The horizon still makes me a little dizzy sometimes," Naomi admits. She's with the dwarves on the sky, too - there's just way too much of it for comfort. The only thing keeping air around her is gravity, too - nothing she can actually control.

And with her brain circling lazily around guesstimated mass, gravity, angles, speed, her throw still isn't as good or solid as Amos', but the improvement is noticable.

[innerharbor]

"I mean, it's kinda a big fucking deal." He gestures to it, the overwhelming skyline, impossible to shut out with a closed window. The sky is white with snow; even closing your eyes doesn't shut it out. "Try'n think on your feet. Just listen to what being grounded tells you."

[oyedeng]

"I feel like it's telling me to just lie down on the floor all the time," Naomi muses, though it's in jest. Her expression is more serious than her tone, as she's trying to figure out how to follow that advice. "What does it feel like to you, compared to being in space?"

[innerharbor]

"Like I don't gotta keep a look out, question everything, have four planes of direction in my head all the time. Up is up, down is down, it's the same for everybody."

[oyedeng]

It's a fair point. On Tycho Station you might walk down a corridor and have other people "above" you, and still others at a 90 degree angle, walking alongside what equals 'wall' to you. On any ship not under thrust, direction loses all meaning except in how it correlates to where the furniture is.

She's had great conversations with Jim while floating upside down to his position.

"I guess I never thought what a shift that must be for any Inner," Naomi muses. Her next snow ball thumps against Amos' shoulder and she beams. Take that, gravity. "Remember when Alex' mag boots failed?"

[innerharbor]

Amos' grin is a flicker of casual brightness, collected and assembled out of the smiles of those he's observed with less than casual eyes. There is no warmth to it, though it is meant to convey such pleasantries.

"Fuck yeah, I remember. Like a chicken trying to fly. Which is something neither of you have fucking seen."

[oyedeng]

"Or tasted."

Her own smile comes more naturally, mirrors Amos' copied one with something tinged warm and a little softer.

Naomi's never had real chicken. How close vat grown meat comes, she has no idea.

"Probably. I've grown a bit tired of asking about every little thing they serve here. So live chickens... flail and screech a lot, then?"