MSNPC Aleatoranna “Tori” Semara - The Ghosts of Future's Past
Max
(( OOC: Apparently, in a total coincidence, today (10/8 here, still) is world octopus day. ))
(( Flashback - Sometime in the Future’s Past, Semara Quarters ))
If any evidence was required to prove Tori was her mother’s daughter, it would have been easily found in the little girl’s frustratingly precocious energy.
But where her mother could spend all that energy tearing around outside running, climbing, and generally doing whatever wherever the whims took her, little Tori’s indoor restriction thanks to her mother's postings had lead to a habit of tearing apart the furniture in mom’s starship quarters and starbase apartments and arranging them into castles and villas and other grand scenes upon which to enact epic dramas and love stories for the ages with her toys. While normally mom played along and laughed that summer-day laugh of hers that made everything seem perfect, every once in a while she uttered the dreaded words:
Time to clean up!
Every time, Tori moped when it was time to put everything away - even when she knew it meant company. Especially when she knew it meant company. She just knew uncle Ra-Ra and aunty Ta-Ta and her best buddy Kael would love to see the latest production she’d come up with. Uncle Co-Nuh would probably have some way to make the sets even better.
Of course, those were the dimly-remembered days when there still were quarters to clean up. The days when the Lattice Alliance were still words fearfully whispered in the next room over while she and Kael played together, and not fully the living nightmare they’d become. The days before the first of her extended multi-species family started to disappear or die one-by-one.
This day, however, was almost perfectly remembered. Partly because it was time to clean up, and Tori didn’t understand why. She threw a fit, one that rose and grew out of all proportion just because the world didn’t make sense. She didn’t know why Ra-Ra couldn’t come over tonight like he usually did on many week-nights - mom tried explaining, but Tori didn’t understand the words she was using. Why did they have to clean up at all if he wasn’t coming? In the end, she expelled the rage by making her best impression of a Kaiju rampaging through her own blanket-and-pillow and cardboard construction projects, simply unable to come to terms with the unfair impingements of Sencha radiation on the edges of her young life.
The real reason she remembered, however, was not the fit, but what came after.
After she finished wailing her little heart out in the patient comfort of mom’s arms, and after sulkily putting enough of the main room back together to be passable, she finally discovered what all the fuss was about.
She sat still on the couch, and the glittering light of a transporter beam left behind the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen against the wall.
In the water tank, a strange, colorful, ghostly creature peaked out from behind a bit of rock, one, then two, then four, then eight appendages wibbly-wobbling awkwardly around in the water as if just as stunned by the suddenness of its new surroundings as Tori was by the creature in her space. She lit up, pointing at it with a tiny finger.
Tori: Mamma! Look!
Mom laughed a soft spring shower that washed away all the fury Tori felt earlier.
Amelia: :: A big smile :: Yes, my heart, I know!
Tori felt her mom pick her up so she could see better the weird little alien inhabiting their space. She looked into the tank, transfixed. It was probably the most still she'd sat in her entire waking life, just watching the thing float around.
Amelia: Can you say Baba Yaga?
Tori: :: Tentatively :: Ba-ba Ba-ba!
Mom laughed again, hugging Tori tightly against her.
Amelia: Would you like Baba Yaga to stay with us for a while?
Tori: :: Enthusiastically :: Ba-ba Ba-ba!
An emphatic yes.
The little aquatic ghost whooshed behind the rock at the sound, and Tori looked up at her mom with huge eyes.
Amelia: :: A chuckle :: Hush! Softly, my heart.
Tori: :: Softer :: Ba-ba Ba-ba?
The creature crept back out, one colorful little dextrous arm at a time, and Tori was mesmerized to silence by the otherworldly, rippling movements it made. She'd never been so willing to sit so still for anyone or anything else. The sensation of her mother's smile draped over her like a warm, fuzzy blanket.
Amelia: Someday, I'll teach you how to feel everything they feel. To understand the world as they do. Would you like that?
Tori just nodded, her eyes never leaving the mercurial little creature staring back at her with curious black eyes, drawing a little path of bubbles.
And someday, mom did.
Ra-Ra / Matthews: Response
Ta-Ta: Also get me two un.....dical kit, third cabinet on the left. Unless Ras moved it. Tori? It's m.....stable.