[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

[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?"