[ both of those things are true, actually! haha!!! its fine!!!! ]
...About fifteen years, give or take. [ he rubs a little bit at the inside of his arm, a little sheepish as the images finally settle. ] I looked like a mess, huh?
[ lbx :handshake: thancred, hands overflowing with uno cards after "confess to an emotion or draw 25"]
You looked like you'd been dragged through all seven hells and back again for good measure. But I'm not about to be hasty to judge, lest these screens pull up some sordid memory of the time I spent a few moons surviving in the open wilderness. You look like a bouquet of roses, there, by comparison.
[He shrugs, smiling faintly.]
Fifteen years — those children are all grown, then, by now. What became of them?
[ yeah!!! see you can get him to make you talk about all your feelings but you want him to talk about crippling grief! forget about it!!
but he smiles a little at that. ]
Mmm. Aging for us works a little differently. They're still pretty young, by our standards, but...
[ ...his remaining eye crinkles a little at the corner, warming his face. ]
...Huang Jiangshu is an incredibly capable pilot in our mech forces. Mint is the head of our wormhole science program, who tirelessly run tests to navigate the Heart of the Rose, the wormhole at the edge of our galaxy. White is a mechanical engineer, like me. And Rickhead... [ a pause. he huffs a laugh, here, fond.. ] Rickhead is in the Eighth Galaxy's Defense Force. He was never very good at math.
[ his BABIES ] When I first met the four of them, they were delinquents. How things changed.
And what standards are those, exactly? By way of comparison, the most long-lived race I've yet encountered on my own star lives around three hundred years. I'm curious how they'd measure up to you and yours.
[At that latter part, though, his smile widens, and turns a little more knowing.]
Funny, that — the way delinquents have a habit of making something of themselves, when given a chance by someone who believes in them.
[ so not that different! humans but like Space Humans.
and. ah, yeah. he smiles for real now, ducking his head - a little modestly, a little embarrassed. ]
That's the hope. [ ... ] The four of them didn't have much choice but to grow up fast - when their home planet was destroyed, they lost everything. We all did. They've been with me ever since, all because the four of them tried to steal a mech and fly off planet and I had to chase them down before they got themselves killed.
[ but thancred's right. they have come so far. watching that little scene, he's just reminded, achingly, of how much they'd done. how far they'd come since they sobbed into the front of his shirt watching their lives turned around. how far they'd come since they had to learn how to be adults far, far too fast.
and the only thing more valuable than knowledge is the starry sky above us. it had been such a cheesy motto, then, but thinking about the world that he'd asked them to look up to even from the pits of their despair turned out to be the same lesson that they taught him, when his entire world went dark makes him softer than ever. ]
...They're my pride and joy. [ lu bixing admits. ] And they saved me.
[Space Humans are more like Eorzean rabbit people than ones like Thancred, but two fifty is right in line with what he'd expect of a variety of people, so he nods.
But there's one thing a little more pressing there to follow up on, so — ]
...Beijing Beta - the planet where all of us lived - was the second casualty in a war that was started by a madman against the Eighth Galaxy named Ares Von. He used his fleets to annihilate Cayley, the capital planet of the galaxy, where I grew up, and then turned them on Beijing Beta, and annihilated it in a second.
[ ... ]
There was no rhyme or reason as to why he chose it short of the fact that it was there. Millions of lives snuffed out in a second.
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no subject
...About fifteen years, give or take. [ he rubs a little bit at the inside of his arm, a little sheepish as the images finally settle. ] I looked like a mess, huh?
no subject
You looked like you'd been dragged through all seven hells and back again for good measure. But I'm not about to be hasty to judge, lest these screens pull up some sordid memory of the time I spent a few moons surviving in the open wilderness. You look like a bouquet of roses, there, by comparison.
[He shrugs, smiling faintly.]
Fifteen years — those children are all grown, then, by now. What became of them?
no subject
but he smiles a little at that. ]
Mmm. Aging for us works a little differently. They're still pretty young, by our standards, but...
[ ...his remaining eye crinkles a little at the corner, warming his face. ]
...Huang Jiangshu is an incredibly capable pilot in our mech forces. Mint is the head of our wormhole science program, who tirelessly run tests to navigate the Heart of the Rose, the wormhole at the edge of our galaxy. White is a mechanical engineer, like me. And Rickhead... [ a pause. he huffs a laugh, here, fond.. ] Rickhead is in the Eighth Galaxy's Defense Force. He was never very good at math.
[ his BABIES ] When I first met the four of them, they were delinquents. How things changed.
no subject
[At that latter part, though, his smile widens, and turns a little more knowing.]
Funny, that — the way delinquents have a habit of making something of themselves, when given a chance by someone who believes in them.
no subject
[ so not that different! humans but like Space Humans.
and. ah, yeah. he smiles for real now, ducking his head - a little modestly, a little embarrassed. ]
That's the hope. [ ... ] The four of them didn't have much choice but to grow up fast - when their home planet was destroyed, they lost everything. We all did. They've been with me ever since, all because the four of them tried to steal a mech and fly off planet and I had to chase them down before they got themselves killed.
[ but thancred's right. they have come so far. watching that little scene, he's just reminded, achingly, of how much they'd done. how far they'd come since they sobbed into the front of his shirt watching their lives turned around. how far they'd come since they had to learn how to be adults far, far too fast.
and the only thing more valuable than knowledge is the starry sky above us. it had been such a cheesy motto, then, but thinking about the world that he'd asked them to look up to even from the pits of their despair turned out to be the same lesson that they taught him, when his entire world went dark makes him softer than ever. ]
...They're my pride and joy. [ lu bixing admits. ] And they saved me.
no subject
But there's one thing a little more pressing there to follow up on, so — ]
Destroyed? How?
no subject
[ ... ]
There was no rhyme or reason as to why he chose it short of the fact that it was there. Millions of lives snuffed out in a second.