#yggdrasilian as fuck

[rocksanddeadflowers]

It's the winter solstice today so I am again thinking about Lyfrassir celebrating Yule on the Aurora to try and keep Yggdrasilian traditions alive. Hanging up spmistletoe (space mistletoe) or spcedar (space cedar) etc to bring in greenery, or cooking a large traditional feast, maybe they request Marius and other willing mechs to preform Yule carols.

I think specifically Marius would have many feelings about Lyfrassir celebrating Yule, not just bc of the violinspector thing but bc the lore I picked up, Marius is Space German, so he presumably had a variation of Yule in his past. (Also the fanon(?) idea of Marius having written The Wassailant album in his universe, like the Kofi Young album, is chef's kiss btw.)

Just.... Lyf emotionally rambling on about the celebrations they grew up with while Marius teaches them to make Thomas Wheel breads bc he may block out much from his past but he somehow remembered this and it means so much to Lyf that he may as well.

I want the others trying to help the holiday spirit. I want Tim to tell Marius that this is just like Christmas and he should definitely kiss Lyf under the mistletoe bc it's tradition and he rants about Santa Clause bc what do you mean you guys didn't have that? I want Brian to bake gingerbread cookies shaped like octokittens. Raphaella flying around hanging up decor and occasionally scooping up Jonny and forcing him to help (he acts way more upset over it than he actually is). I want the Toy Soldier being compared to nutcrackers but it actually ends up playing Mari Lwyd which, while being mainly Welsh it's close enough and its absolutely lovingly terrifying. Ashes insists on a Yule Log that's an entire tree (Lyf explains that's just an exaggeration or myth but also won't kill their fun). Nastya and Aurora shift the day-night lighting cycles to feel as close to a Midgard winter as possible. Ivy is honestly the only one trying to find genuine traditional celebrations (both out of caring for Lyf and bc she needs this to be accurate period) to help Lyf with.

They pick a night to feast and drink, a few trading presents while they get drunk off of wassail or muled wine and singing different winter holidays carols from each cultural background that had them. Lyf is ever grateful for their newfound family. They're fucked up and frankly quite concerning, but it means the world to find that deep down, in their own way, they all truly care.

#genuinely concerned i left a mech out of this post bc once i have more than three characters to focus on at a time i lose track #but just. i celebrate yule so lyf celebrating yule means a lot ya know. #they're my silly little guy i love projecting #the mechanisms #the bifrost incident #lyfrassir edda #not tagging all the mechs for this post clearly lmao

[orchestrators]

The Second Farthest: Conclusion

Mara pulled up her starmap, and glanced about the region of space they were passing through. There seemed to be little to nothing out here in the deep sector. Apart from the relatively small black singularity which must have swallowed everything in the region a couple of billion years ago. Mara wondered why the Roverdendrom was even out here, and in studying its flight path she realized something. The Roverdendrom ship had traveled the farthest into the deep sector that a ship has ever flown. That excited Mara, and made her want to take it home even more. 

Mara must have dozed off, because normally her ships proximity alert didn’t make her jump out of her skin like this. She looked about the cockpit, and found Aaron attempting to climb into his seat. A red light was flashing on her HUD, and a similar light flicked on and off on every screen of the ship. Mara ran her fingers through her curly locks and tied her hair up into a tight bun before snatching her helmet from its compartment.

“What the hell?” She said out loud.

“Hey, can you stop messing around and flip this ship over? We need to get plugged in there’s something coming!” Aaron shouted.

“Oh you want me to flip the ship huh? Alright, your choice.” Mara said, she clipped her helmet on and activated the ships flight systems to sync with her controls. The entire ship rolled, and Aaron collapsed into his seat.

“You are an asshole, you could have warned me.” He said.

“Yeah whatever just get yourself strapped and shut up.” Mara ordered him, clipping herself into her harness.

The alert on her screen and HUD looked like a small attache of ships that were on an intercept course with the delta squadron. Mara wondered why a small band of ships was after a cruiser in the first place. But she didn’t want to think about the motivations of the Yggrasilians, nothing they did ever made sense to her anyway. She established a squadron wide comm link, and loaded the first set of tungsten rounds into her starboard and port cannons. The ship was fitted with 6 Electromagnetic Pulse Rods in the main railgun, and she had no problem using them to clean up shop. Mara focused her viewfinder and reached into her jumpsuit for something.

“Is that, a, a flask?” Aaron asked.

“You bet it is, New Botanica spiced rum, from Euroso. Brewed in port Frankford, smuggled by me.” Mara boasted.

“You can’t drink alcohol on a flight mission. That’s ridiculous.”

“Have you ever been in a space battle before?” Mara said before taking a swig of her drink, “it’s not going to be pretty, so just keep everything on the ship working and we’ll be fine.”

“Fine, but I want a swig of that.” Aaron said.

“Ooh being assertive, there he is, alright pal lets get it done. Squadron Delta falling out of interplanetary keep it loose and use your hearts not your head. Lets light the bastards up.”

The bleeding lights around the cockpit began to shorten and wide, until eventually the ship came to a halt. Aaron craned his neck to see if he could find anything, but all he could see were distant and dim lights of stars. There was a reason this area of space was called the deep, very little light penetrated it. Every star was millions of lightyears away, and not a single solid object lay in the deep, apart from the Delta squadron, the Roverdendrom, and the Yggrasilians they were about to fight. A mechanical whirring noise began to vibrate to Aaron's right, and the starboard cannon launched a tungsten pellet the size of a cigarette out into the vacuum. Aaron could see the other ships around the Raptor’s Claw, including the sister ship, all firing into the distance. But he didn’t see any indication that anything had stuck anything else.

“What now?” Aaron asked.

“Give it a minute.” Mara whispered.

The silence was uncomfortable, the only thing making noise was Aaron, his breathing became heavy and he could feel the sweat building up on his forehead. Mara tried to ignore him, and focused on her targeting and motion sensor systems. She kept the tip of her finger on the control stick below her right hand, and kept her left thumb on the trigger of her port cannon. She was ready for what was coming, or at least she was as ready as she would ever be. She waited for the right moment, but it took longer than expected. A loud snap to her right sent a shockwave through Mara’s ears, she glanced over to see a crack in the glass. Then it clicked, Mara was no longer a person, she was the ship, and they had just hurt her. Without thinking, she bobbed the ship as a rain of pellets began to snap and crack off of the hull of the ship. Mara returned fire in short bursts, all while attempting to dodge the rounds fired at her. As quickly as it began, it had all stopped, the loud cracks dissipated and Mara pulled the ship still again.

Another long pause, and Mara knew she had hit at least two of them, her sensors detected that seventy seven of her one hundred and forty seven rounds had landed. She let a grin cross her cheeks, she was already winning. They were only a few lightyears from the accretion disk and the Roverdendrom, so Mara called for the squadron to start moving. The battle had been drawn out, and Mara felt they must be nearly finished, the Yggdrasilians were vicious, but not tactically smart. There were too many openings for Mara and the rest of her ships to land solid hits across the hulls of enemy ships. They were finished, she thought, the fight was over. That was until Aaron raised his voice.

“Something incoming on our position three Kilometers!” He shouted.

Mara spun the Raptor’s Claw about, and saw something massive in the distance, it looked like a large flat plate, with a pointed edge curving on the front and back. She couldn’t make out what kind of ship it was, she had never seen anything like it before. It was coming in quickly, and Mara acted with extreme prejudice. She ordered every fighter in the squadron to fire upon the ship, but it was already too late. The titan had already arrived, and began smashing into the other ships around Mara and Aaron. It ploughed its way through the squadron, not even taking a dent from any of the rounds fired into it. Its hull must have been incredibly dense, because nothing Mara did could stop it. She soon realized that she had to get away from here, away from that ship. She called all remaining fighters to follow her, and Mara pushed the ship farther into the deep.

“”What the fuck was that?” She said aloud.

“I, I don’t know, I don’t know.” Aaron stuttered.

“Your an engineer, figure it out, what could make a hull so thick it could do that?” Mara asked.

“I don’t know, I don’t know.” Aaron said again and again.

He was tripping over his own thoughts, it was horrific, the huge faceless monster appeared out of nowhere, and eviscerated everything. He could still see it in his mind's eye, the inconsiderate, unforgiving machine that nearly killed him. He swigged the Rum in his hands, spilling it down his chin. He was shaking, unable to wrap his head around what he just saw.

“How did it get so close to us?” Mara asked.

“What?” He said.

“God damn it are you even listening to me where did it come from how come we didn’t see it or hear it?” Mara asked.

“Th-the accretion disk, the black hole, its close. It could have used the hole to bend it’s interplanetary path directly to us w-without us seeing it.” Aaron said.

“Gog damn, get it together, we’re low on fuel, we have to regroup with the rest of the squadron.”

“M-mara, there is no squadron.”

“What?” Mara said, turning around to him. She looked into his eyes for the first time since this all began, she had hardwood brown eyes, he had only noticed now.

“They’re gone, there isn’t an interplanetary stream near us. They’re gone.”

Mara unbuckled from her seat and ran past Aaron to the aft of the ship, she was mumbling across multiple comm links, trying to establish contact with anyone. She threw herself to the engineering desk, and began composing a long range distress signal, acting on muscle memory alone. Aaron unclipped his harness, and shakily he stood, looking out at the stretched stars. He tried counting to ten, picking a color, or naming things in the cockpit alphabetically. None of it worked, he was still panicking. Where or how could the Yggdrasilians have built such a monster. What powered it? How did it function? All the things he wanted to know but couldn't ever learn, not that he was out here, on a simple rescue mission that failed.

“Delta squadron respond, delta squadron this is operation leader please respond.” Mara continued to repeat herself over and over, with the same confidence. “Delta squadron can anyone respond, making our way to the rescue sight please respond.”#

Aaron felt her voice drown into the background hum of the ship’s engines, and in an attempt to not disturb her, he sat back in his seat and remained silent. Mara’s demanding and authoritative voice boomed through the silence of the deep sector, calling for any and all that were left. But she heard nothing back, no one responded. It had been over an hour, and the ship’s reactor core was burning fuel faster than Aaron could compensate. So he powered the reactor down, and focused his energy on maintaining the ships life support and flight capability systems. Just in case they needed it, he also allocated power to a single EMP Rod on the belly of the ship, should the Monster of the Deep return. Aaron didn’t pay attention to Mara’s pointless transmissions, until he heard her voice crack. He glanced around his chair to see her, and her head was in her hands.

“Mike… Michael… please…” Mara said. She was crying.

“Mara, I think you should maybe rest, we don't know if Mike can h-”

“You shut it.” She yelled back at him, “This is my ship, I say what we do not you. He can hear me, I know he can hear me. So shut up.”

Aaron didn’t know what to say, it seemed that nothing could dissuade her from calling on all frequencies. Over time the ships lights began to flicker, and the engine powered down. The stars fell back to their original shape, and the ship slowly glided out of interplanetary. The autopilot flight stabilizers slowed the ship to a dead stop and the HUD in Aaron’s eye displayed a message:

Error Systems Critical

Arrived at destination

Fuel Critical

Engine Failure 

Weapons Failure

Manual Controls Failure

Gravity Well Failure

Autopilot Failure

System Failure

Error__

_Error--

Er__or

E__-

E

The ship's computer blinked and the screen fell blank before him. The only thing displaying any information was Aarons HUD, but it was useless without the ship to interface with. He ripped the cables from the sockets behind his ears, and leaned forward, cupping his face in his hands. He pushed his thumbs into his eyes, and rubbed them as hard as he could. They had been in this ship for hours, and he had already been awake all day. It was a trivial thing to be annoyed about considering the situation he was in. He stood up, and sat at the window, leaning against the pillar of the cockpit. He listened to Mara’s voice become shaky and withered while she begged Mike to answer her. But no message came back. Aaron looked out at the accretion disk, where the cruiser was meant to be, they had made it, but there was nothing here. The event horizon was a few kilometers ahead, and there was no sign a ship was ever here. He didn't know what convinced him to do it, but he had a feeling. He pulled up an emergency propulsion lever in the captain's chair, causing the ship to shake and rumble as a small jet of energy expelled from the starboard side. The ship spun around to look away from the black hole before them, and trying his best to look through the confusing bends of light and space around him, Aaron saw it.

“Mara, Mara look.” He whispered.

Mara lifted her head from the table and fixed herself. She knew he had already seen her cry, but that didn’t mean she would leave any evidence of it on her face. She pulled her hair back behind her ears, and wiped her wet nostrils. Mara stepped over the now dead ship and looked through the cockpit window to see it. A long formidable space cruiser, with a reflective silver coat of paint, and the name printed in pearl white across the port side. It floated ominously, and had a ghostly presence. There were no lights coming from its windows, no flashes from its exhaust ports. The Rovendendrom was dead. Aaron and Mara couldn’t take their eyes off of the wreck, because it didn’t look wrecked at all, the ship didn’t seem to have any damage, any signs of fighting. Not even a scratch or a plate removed. It just stayed there, in a gentle spin, orbetting with them around one of the largest objects known to man in the immediate universe. The ship began to heat up, and Mara gave up on sending messages.

“We found it, at least we can say that.” Aaron said.

“Yeah, we found it alright.” Mara said.

“Do you think they’ll find us out here?” Aaron asked, already knowing the answer.

“No, they won’t. We have no way to leave a beacon. The only hope we had was if we could reach that ship, but we overshot the damn thing.”

Aaron paused, not knowing what to say next. Nothing really came to mind but one thing that he knew he shouldn't say, but he needed to say it.

“So is this it? We die here?” he asked.

“I guess so, but I’m okay with it if you are.” Mara said, her voice for once sounded soft.

“Yeah, I’m okay with it.”

Mara sat on the opposite side of the pillar to him mumbling about the heat in the cockpit. Aaron for some reason wanted to see his mission log one last time, and delete some of the notes for his after action report. He wiped out the negative things he had to say about Mara, there was no point in throwing her under the disciplinary bus anymore. Instead he just wiped the report from his memory, and glanced over the briefing again.

“Hey, did you notice the report said that the Roverdendrom has now officially traveled the farthest that any vessel has gone in space?” Aaron said.

“Yeah? So?” Mara droned.

“Well if I’m not mistaken, we passed the Roverdendrom, placing us further in the accretion disk, and closer to the event horizon.” Aaron said cheerfully.

“So we actually traveled the farthest?” Mara asked.

“Yeah we did. Looks like that cruiser there didn't make the cut. They’re second place.” Aaron joked.

“Ha, your right, idiots couldn't even make it this far into space. Ha ha.”

“Farthest ship my ass.” Aaron said.

“Yeah, more like the second farthest.” Mara laughed.

#short story #fiction #science fiction #sci-fi #sci fi & fantasy #writing #writer #writeblr #story #characters #character creating #character development #space #spaceship #Art #Drawing