Lt. Cmdr. Lhandon Nilsen - I Love Rugby!

[Lhandon Nilsen]

((Level - 3, Kaelith’s Caverns, Central Subterranean Excavation, Marohu III))

They had been presented with a quartet of statues, the cool, gritty floor beneath their feet adding to the eerie, uncomfortable sense that accompanied the display. The two older statues were representations of the two officers, Nilsen and Richards, and the two younger statues depicted those same officers as children. It wasn't as if some time transporter had turned them into kids, but rather these statues were actual representations of who they had been when they were children.

Nilsen: So is this something literal? Do we have to offer what our kid self needed?

Richards appeared to be churning through an idea in his mind, and Lhandon looked towards him, perhaps willing Richards's brain to share some of its brain cells so that Lhandon could understand what was happening.

Richards: Wait… did you see that?

Nilsen: See wha…?

At first, Lhandon didn't see it, but then he took a closer look. Child Anton's face seemed to change.

Richards: Watch this…

Lhandon did just as Richards had asked and saw the security officer seem to focus on the child. Then Lhandon saw the statue of child Richards seem to blur, just for a moment, before the statue held an ice cream cone and the echo of a child's laughter played out across the hall, echoing off the walls.

Nilsen: How’d you do that?

Richards: You just gotta… I dunno… think it into existence.

Anton smirked, similar to what the kid statue of Anton had displayed.

Richards: Yup, simple as that.

Nilsen: So…just think it? Like with my mind palace stuff ::beat:: okay, I get it now.

o0 This will be easy 0o The thought came to him as he approached his own statue. There was a curious feeling for Lhandon; he wanted to project confidence. He wished he could kneel down and tell little 9-year-old Lhandon that it would be alright, that he'd grow up to be big and strong and have awesome adventures. He also felt the fear and worry that he had experienced when he was nine and overweight, with few friends who wanted to play with him. The kids who loved football, rugby, and sports never picked him; he wasn't nerdy enough for the geeks, and he wasn't geeky or smart enough for the nerds.

Nilsen: Hey, kiddo.

He said out loud as those feelings came rushing back to him. Rugby had always been there for Lhandon; he couldn't imagine his life without the sport, so Lhandon did what Anton did - he imagined. The rugby ball he used to have in his backyard came to mind, a white ball that had faded under the heat of the Gaultan star to be an off-white colour. Rugby brought Lhandon joy; it gave Lhandon a place where he was part of a team and a passion that had stuck with him.

The ball appeared, and Lhandon started to smile.

But the child didn't. His face wasn't happy; rather, it turned upside down and its fists clenched. The kid, Lhandon, looked like he was about to pull the biggest tantrum one could imagine.

And then the scream - not laughter, a scream, a loud, piercing scream followed by a "Noooooo!" The statue then seemed to emit a blast wave that, to Lhandon's surprise, sent him flying some twenty feet into the back wall.

He stumbled to his feet, and the statue returned to its previous position, waiting for the offering. Anton's statue, however, still had the ice cream.

Nilsen: Ow! ::standing up:: What gives? I love rugby!

Richards: Response

Lhandon, a little dusty and back a little sore, returned to the statues.

Nilsen: Rugby has been there for me, it's where I made some of my first friends, it's what turned me from that ::pointing to the child:: to me ::pointing to the older Lhandon statue:: It’s what he…

Lhandon had paused for a second, unconsciously, as his mind thought back to the schoolyard, the game of bulldog that had been played in the large concrete area outside the year three classrooms on a dark and grey day where the rain threatened to come, but didn't arrive. The Second Officer had hated that game as a child; he had always been the one stuck with everyone else charging at him, and his mind recalled how he had frozen up. Before he had known it, he had felt the scratchy, unforgiving scrape of the concrete as a stronger child collided with him, sending him flying onto the concrete ground. He looked down and saw that in the impact from the rejection of his offering, his knees had also been scraped, his trousers had a hole in each knee, and there was blood slipping out of the fresh wound.

There had been a slight tear in his eye; he saw it in the kid statue, too, through his own slightly blurry vision, which Lhandon cleared quickly with a blink and swift rubbing of his eye.

Nilsen: …needed.

Richards: Response

Then he turned to Richards, hoping that the security officer could give some insight.

Nilsen: You thought of Ice Cream…why that?

Richards: Response

Tags/TBC

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Lieutenant Commander Lhandon Joseph Nilsen

Second Officer & Senior Diplomatic Officer

USS Octavia E Butler

O240007LN1

He/Him/His (Both player and character)