legionworld | getting used to the new environment

Entry tags:

getting used to the new environment

Who| Kozmotis, open!
What| New guy wandering aimlessly
Where| Various areas, observation deck
When| After the In Brightest Day plot
Warnings/Notes| n/a

Kozmotis didn't make a habit of waking up in places he didn't know, in realities he didn't know. The medics and officers had been kind enough to tell him where he was, that he was in another reality. The shape of the thoughts he had was unwelcoming, and he didn't know what he preferred.

Did he prefer to be a living relic of a Golden Age that had long since dissolved into ash and dust, so long ago now that no one recalled it?

Or did he prefer to be in a reality where the Empire he'd served so well for so long had never existed in the first place?

Stars, he didn't know.

Kozmotis drifted through the hallways in near silence, offering murmured greetings to the beings he passed by. He was caught up in his thoughts and in examining the technology that kept them here, drifting in the stars in an enclosed manner that he certainly wasn't used to. It was all so...clinical, cold. Nothing like the great golden sails of the galleons he was used to commanding.

His wandering feet took him eventually to the observation deck, and there he stayed for a while--the unobstructed view of the stars familiar and calming, even if he didn't know them yet from this angle.

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Newbies were weird about space. Some of them, anyway. Grif had done plenty of staring at it in his early days on Legion World too, but he liked to put that in a different mental category. Space was not new for him, it was just nice to look at it sometimes. Nothing weird about it.

"So, you been in space before or nah?" he asked, casually approaching the new guy.

Kozmotis glances back over his shoulder, a small amused smile on his face. Has he been in space? Of course he has--though he doesn't expect anyone to know it, especially a stranger.

"I have."

The stars are unfamiliar in their positions, but their light is still comforting.

"I shall have to find a star map if I wish to find my home. These constellations are unfamiliar."

On the one hand, he was looking forward to maybe explaining how cars worked to someone from ye olden King Arthur times again. On the other, that was a lot of work. Grif supposed he'd have won this one either way.

"You from the colonies or something, dude?" he asked. That's still the first thing he thinks of when someone basically declares that they're not from Earth.

That's not entirely inaccurate. Kozmotis is from a colony world, but not an Earth one.

"Yes, but despite appearances, I am not Human." He supposes. He doesn't know quite how similar they are, perhaps these Humans are far-flung remnants of his own people, with enough time passed that they didn't recall where they were from.

More likely that they're completely unrelated. The universe is a very large place, after all.

"My name is Kozmotis Pitchiner." He bows in greeting.

Yes, he does have ye olden King Arthur manners...

Grif doesn't bow, he nods a little awkwardly in response. That's kind of weird, dude.

"Grif," he replies in kind. "Just Grif's fine." A last name's easy, and he's not one for going by code names person to person like this.

"So, if you're not human, that makes you...?"

He goes right for the throat with that one. Subtlety and grace are not Grif traits.

He's from literally thousands of years ago, cut him some slack okay.

"Very well then." Kozmotis isn't going to argue what to call him at all. He tips his head to the side slightly--he doesn't expect that having a name to call what he is will mean terribly much, to people who've never heard of his species.

"Constellan. I don't suppose that means too incredibly much."

"Not really. But hey, if it makes you feel better, we've got a lot of aliens around here that look like humans too. You fit right in," he says, offering a shrug.

"It's pretty weird, but the whole thing's really freaking weird so I guess I can't bitch about the small things too much."

He can, and he does anyway.

"Wonderful. It gets rather tiring having people stare all the time."

Not that Kozmotis looks particularly strange, but the way that he says it with a straight face and a dull sort of sarcasm might imply otherwise?

People do--did--stare at him, though it was mostly for his infamy.

"I'd be more concerned if this was business as usual. Abducting people at random doesn't seem like the best plan for fighting a reality-ending horror."

Grif snorts. "You're telling me. I mean look at me, dude."

He takes a step back and gestures at himself. Grif likes to talk big shit about his own alleged excellence, but he knows he's out of his league and it's physically apparent. He does not have the body of a comic book super hero by a long shot.

"I'm wondering if the Time Trapper was drunk or something. Do you think he drinks? It'd humanize the guy a bit."

Kozmotis doesn't really, either. He obviously has some strength, from the fact that he wears heavy armor and wields a giant scythe, but he looks deceptively slight, with long arms and legs.

"I've not met the man to make any assumptions either way, I'm afraid. You'd know better than I."

Aka, if you want to believe he drinks, go ahead. Kozmotis isn't going to rain on that particular parade.

"How long, may I ask, have you been here?"

"A couple months," Grif says after a moment's thought. "A lot of stuff can happen in a couple months, apparently."

Psychotic AI adventures notwithstanding, his time on Legion World has been busier than the three entire years he spent in Blood Gulch.

"Really weird to be on this side looking down at Earth, right?"

Or it would be, if Shima ever assumed correctly that anyone besides himself wasn't used to the entire space thing. This wouldn't be his first visit to the observation deck, either, but he'd only been able to stand staring out into the stars for so long each time. There was something discomforting about it, although he figured that would fade in time.

Regardless, he was back and apparently not alone up here. That meant he'd stopped a reasonable distance from Kozmotis, finding another spot on the overlook's railing to hang out at, before even speaking up.

"For different reasons than one may think. I've never been to Earth before."

This world, he was fairly certain, was in uncharted space as far as he and his people were concerned. He didn't know how long it had been, though he did know as much as the Empire had never made contact with this pretty little blue gem of a world--whether it had existed in this reality or not.

Kozmotis had looked over the Earth a few times, true, but for a while now he had been staring out at the stars.

"What? Seriously?"

Shima turned to give Kozmotis a closer look. He sure didn't seem like an alien, but with how many bizarre things he'd seen in the short time he's been here, maybe that wasn't so weird. He eyed the man for another second or two, then let out a quiet, almost disbelieving laugh before turning back to the expanse of space around the deck.

"Geez, I'm starting to think I'm the only person from there hanging out up here."

"Indeed."

He really doesn't look like an alien at first glance. Or even second. He just looks like a middle aged man--which is accurate enough, he is middle aged for his species, it's just that his species has a lifespan of thousands of years.

"Likely not. After all, we're far closer to Earth than to my homeworld. Presumably. I'm not quite sure where we are in relation, after all."

"Only if you'd call 21st century Earth and 31st century Earth the same place," Shima couldn't help the hint of doubt in his voice. "That's like... what? Ten centuries? Uh. I guess that's just a thousand or something, but--"

Man, figuring that out required math. Time to skip over that part.

"So, alright. Not from Earth. Does that mean not human, either?"

"A thousand years is well within the time my people live, so not much would change were I to find myself a thousand years in the future."

That should sufficiently answer the human-or-not question, too.

"We call ourselves Constellans."

"Geez, that's old. Humans kind of cut out around ninety if you're lucky."

Although now he had to wonder if Constellans were more immortals or simply long-lived. If they weren't demons, which he would have to guess most aliens weren't going to be, probably the latter.

"And it's just a real big coincidence Constellans look human?"

The answer to that question is just incredibly long-lived. If not functionally immortal. Most of them either decide they've had enough and just kicked the bucket, or died in battle.

"Depending on your perspective, it could be a 'real big coincidence' that Humans look Constellan. But yes, I suppose that it is that, either way."

"Ah... ha, yeah, I guess that's true, ain't it? Maybe the two are related?"

How, Shima sure wouldn't be able to guess. Enough of the other aliens seemed humanoid enough that maybe it didn't even matter. So, he just shrugs some after posing the question.

"Or the universe is just really that bizarre. Wouldn't have minded the entire 'live longer than a thousand' thing, though, so I guess I missed out."

"Possible, I suppose. I've not any idea, I was never a scientist, nor a philosopher."

He's honestly not even sure if he's in the future, or the past. They measured their time completely differently, in the Lunanoff Empire.

"However, I do know that the universe is simply a rather large and strange place, so it is rather safe to simply say that it is an odd coincidence."

"Guess life in general is a series of those, huh?"

Or not. Shima was hardly a philosopher, either. He glances back down at the planet briefly, then breathes out another quiet laugh before turning around, leaning his back against the railing instead so that he's free to cross his arms.

"Still really weird. Uh, so, hi. I'm Renzo, Renzo Shima," he adds a lazy little wave in lieu of any formal kind of greeting. "You as new here as I am?"

"Certainly one way to look at it." Though the idea that they're masters of their own fates is a more calming one, at least.

"Kozmotis Pitchiner." He cants his head in acknowledgement--it feels odd to him, leaving out the bow, but judging from some prior reactions it's a bit antiquated, and Kozmotis is nothing if not adaptable.

"That I am."

So Jack may have been following Pitch for a little while. Or, at least, the guy looked like Pitch. Just more peachy colored the last time he saw the guy. And, well, okay so he didn't look much like Pitch Black but he certainly resembled the Boogey Man close enough to make Jack suspicious! The face, the nose, the cheekbones... it was all very familiar.

But this man didn't do much else aside from wander around and then stare off into the stars. He huffed softly to himself, gripping his staff to work up the nerve, and stepped forward and jump onto the rail. Even without the wind, Jack always had impeccable balance. He tapped his staff onto the metal, giving it a light sheen of frost.

"There's not much to see, y'know."

Kozmotis wasn't exactly unaware of the slight boy following him. He's been a soldier for far too long, fighting far too elusive and strange an enemy to not know when someone is following him, watching him.

He doesn't feel threatened by it. The boy isn't a Fearling, nor a Dream Pirate, and he could probably lose his spritely shadow if he wished to.

But he finds himself rather curious as to why he's being followed in the first place.

"I'd beg to differ. Stars, planets, nebulae, entire galaxies, great storms and solar winds...you could wander the universe for a hundred thousand lifetimes and never see even a fraction of what it has to offer."

Jack nodded and shrugged. "I've read about it. Very big, with a lot more things than most can comprehend. But I think I prefer planet Earth. Been all over it and I still feel like I don't know every it has to offer."

But the moon is gone too and, if Manny was ever in this place, he may be gone. That didn't make Jack any more inclined to look toward the rest of the universe for beauty.

"I'm Jack Frost."

It's strange, that. Ever since he lost his family, Kozmotis has thought that all the beauty in the world had faded save for what was out there amongst the stars.

He's a bit melancholy, don't mind him.

"I've never been, myself." He'd say that perhaps Jack could show him around, but somehow he gets the feeling that wouldn't be a welcome suggestion.

"Well-met, Jack Frost. I am Kozmotis Pitchiner."

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getting used to the new environment

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