december 2019. welcome to the void.

[modblob]

Who: Everyone in Anchor.
What: Sixth Introductory Mingle
When: The Month of December 2019
Where: Around and outside the city.
Warnings: Please add any warnings in the subject lines.

Redshift: Welcome to the v͖͕̺̲̘̱̜͎o̴̦̣̠̦̘̹͞i̯̖d̛̪̬͈̱̦̝͍̕.

Click here to read what characters will experience when arriving in Anchor.

a. the generic holiday cheer prompt.

It's a dark, quiet, uneventful night. Only those up and about in the wee hours will notice something odd starting in the park.

It's snowing.

The phenomenon seems to be coming from a small bank of unmoving clouds hanging suspended above the trees and lake. A cloud that, upon closer inspection by any scientists in the room, appears to be made of harmless nanites whose sole purpose is to unleash a cheery, blustery kind of weather that remains mostly contained to the park.

Some bots are out serving hot chocolate, cider, flavored snow cones, and other small baked treats. Others are building a solid-looking bit of scaffolding that the snow is rapidly turning into a sledding ramp. In fact, there are sleds ready and waiting at the foot of the slide. The smaller ponds have frozen over in a sharp cold snap that came with the nanites' release, and there are other bots handing out ice skates - careful, though, because one of them is a chef bot and he's made the blades of the skates ridiculously sharp. At least they'll glide well?

Around the middle of the day, the intercoms squeal loudly, crackle, and start pouring generic seasonal music out into the air. Is it for Hanukkah? Christmas? Kwanzaa? Some strange holiday no one has heard of? Who knows, since half of it is in alien languages, but man, it sure is peppy! And kind of annoying after a while! Maybe someone should hack the system and change the music up?

b. the body heat trope prompt.

As the day wears on toward evening, the nanite winter storm starts to gather a little more force, sending cold seeping through the halls of Anchor. There are pockets of warmth here and there - notably, for once, the agricultural areas are largely unaffected thanks to their temperature regulators--but most of Anchor has a wintery chill, and snow is starting to bluster across the levels from bottom to top. Temperatures continue to drop when the suns go down.

The bots are out being helpful, though they can't stop the storm. They're rolling around handing out blankets and thermoses of warm drinks. Unfortunately, it's one blanket and one thermos per two people. Better get cosy - it's going to be a long, cold night!

c. the terrifying monster attack prompt.

The cold has woken up some creatures that have been slumbering away in one of the sealed-off areas of the labs. They couldn't get through the door that kept them caged, but they sure could freeze the windows and escape that way when they got cold enough to break. The little critters make a beeline for the park, prepared to wreak havoc-

If eating snow and ice and rolling snow into tiny balls for meal stockpiles is havoc.

These little creatures look conspicuously like the western dragons of Earth, though most are no bigger than a person's forearm. Their wings - some strange shade of white that sparkles when they move - seem largely decorative. They use them to communicate, to posture, and to keep themselves balanced when they rear up on their hind legs, but none of them appear able to fly. They're a mix of colors, blue and silver and white, some of them with a variety of shades swirling down their bodies, others with one color on their bellies and contrasting colors on their back and head. Some have splotches, or speckles, or tiger stripes of blue. They breathe steam and can freeze things with their clawed forepaws.

Also, if you feed them a flavored snow cone, they will follow you forever. No, really. You'll have yourself an undyingly loyal new pet.

Navigation.

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[arcadedragon]

Genji is reminded of that day every time he looks at himself, every throw of shurikens dispensed from a mechanical arm, every phantom sensation from limbs that aren't there. He can only remember the agonizing pain giving way to total numbness, choking on blood gurgled up from a body that had been broken.

Bloodloss had forced him unconscious long before Hanzo left. He had no idea if Hanzo had knelt by his body and wept or smugly swept away to report a job well done. There'd been a brief moment that he'd caught his brother's eye and he seemed to have an expression something like shock, but Genji has convinced himself that it was wishful thinking.

He knows better than that.

It takes him a few tries to find his voice, which gives him time to bite down the bitter quip asking if Hanzo is here to finish the job.

His one failure.

Standing there, swords sheathed and visor in one hand, he suddenly feels very exposed. Like a child again who's going to be chided for transgressions. All that practice for this moment, and now he can only manage, "Not what you expected?"

[nockturnal]

His failure, yes. But not in the way Genji imagines.

Yet if it had been Genji as he remembered standing here, whole and himself, entirely human, Hanzo might have thought this all some mad dream or fantasy. This? No. His imagination could not have conjured this fate for his brother, terrible and alien, which means this is all very real.

Perhaps death would have been kinder.

The bow lowers further still, arrow still in place but no longer in danger of flying true and striking him down where he stands. Instead he takes him in, trying to process what he's seeing and what it means. It means Genji has been alive all this time, in hiding somewhere. He had to have known Hanzo was out there, and yet for whatever reason he had not seen fit to hunt him down and take his revenge, as one might expect.

"How is this possible?" The words slip free, quiet. Uncertain even now what to do with this. With him.

[arcadedragon]

There are many days that Genji thinks the same thing. Maybe it would have been better had he died. Less painful both emotionally and physically, and certainly easier. But that's not what happened and no amount of second guessing would change the past. Time flowed ever forward, whether they wished it to or not.

"Overwatch." He looks down at the visor in his hand, metal thumb running over the edges. "Their cyberneticists .. enhanced me. What was left of me."

Sure he'd agreed to it, but when the choice is to never walk again or have a whole bunch of prosthetics and an exoskeleton to keep him mobile - of course he chose the option that let him walk. He's not doing it now though, hesitant to move either closer or away, as if there was some tenuous string holding them in place and any motion may break it and cause one or both to resume the fight.

"This is a better version than the original. It has lights."

Leave it to Genji to care about the aesthetics more than the fact he'd become a cyborg.

[nockturnal]

The poorly-timed joke doesn't even garner a response.

Overwatch. The ones his brother had betrayed the clan for in the first place. The reason all of this had to happen the way it did. They were the ones that did this to him. Hanzo would not deny his own part in this of course, but...this was monstrous. Did anything remain of him at all, or was it flesh, puppeted by circuits and wires in a macabre simulacrum? A programmed estimation of what Genji would have been like? The thought is a sickening one.

And of course, Hanzo had his own share of guilt in allowing this to happen. He can feel it rising like bile in the back of his throat as he takes a step back. And as he does, his foot catches against the incense stand, sending it in a brief wobble across the ground.

[arcadedragon]

He winces at the noise as the stand skitters a short distance away. It ups the tension rather than breaking it and Genji retreats a few more steps before reaching up to slide his helmet and visor back into place.

It's familiar now, a way to hide what he is, what he has become. He'd rather look at that lighted visor than his actual face. He can only assume Hanzo feels the same.

"I wanted to be able to walk again. This was the way." But the tone of his voice sounds like he still might be trying to convince himself rather than his brother.

Eyes catching the forgotten container of soup he stiffly wanders over to retrieve it, rolling it in his hands to have something to do. Nothing about this encounter went the way he'd imagined and he feels adrift.

"I am sorry about your arrow. I was not thinking."

[nockturnal]

Before, he had not thought to listen too closely...but he can hear it now, in his voice. Despite the synthetic tone, there's the familiar cadence of his brother's voice beneath it all. How strange. He should have taken notice before.

There are a great many things he should have done.

"You are sorry?" The words, when they finally come, are incredulous. "You appear after all these years as this, and you..."

That he had attacked him on sight is in fact the only part of this that makes any sense to him at all. And surely if any man alive had a right to put him to the sword, it would be Genji.

[arcadedragon]

Suddenly he's nine years old again and about to be scolded by his older brother for something and he can't remember which thing he did was the bad thing. He stares at Hanzo, unsure what to say or do.

"I do not know where you can get more arrows." He explains as if that's what Hanzo is talking about. Not that Genji is here and part machine, but that one of his arrows is now broken.

While Genji has had over a decade to adjust to this new body and new experience, his brother has had about fifteen minutes, and Genji keeps needing to remind himself of that.

"This is not how I envisioned this reunion going. I wanted to talk to you, but now I do not know what to say."

[nockturnal]

"Don't be foolish," he snaps almost on impulse, when Genji's attention seemingly falls back to the arrows. The actual tangible thing that could be fixed, as insignificant as it now seemed in the scope of things.

He seems to realize it as soon as the words escape him, and contrition tightens his expression as he looks sharply away. A deep breath and he feels no steadier, no more certain of what to do. Instead, he leans down to gather the fallen items and the torn bag. It would need to be mended.

Now who was focusing on foolish things?

His thumb smooths the edge of the wooden incense stand in his hand, minding that no chips have formed. It is doubtful he will ever have another. "What is there to say?" Dark eyes flit towards his brother's frame once more. "I know what I did to you was--"

Reprehensible.

Brutal.

Unforgivable.

"--something that cannot be undone."

[arcadedragon]

"Is foolish not what I am best at?" The quip is out of his mouth before he realizes and he scowls at himself. Of all the lessons Hanzo had tried to teach him, the one about biting his tongue and staying silent might have been the least effective.

It's hard to help it when he's in such an uncomfortable and awkward situation. He doesn't know what he wants from Hanzo. An apology would not be welcome nor helpful, and they cannot simply go back to acting how they did as boys. That part of their lives is behind them. They can only move forward.

"No. But it can be repaired." he takes a half step closer then stops, pausing to give Hanzo room to move away if he wishes. Being reminded of what he'd done to Genji in such a visceral way can't be pleasant, and much as he'd like to shove it in his face and make him understand even a tenth of the agony he'd been put through, he won't do that.

It won't make him feel better but for a minor satisfaction in Hanzo suffering as he has.

Long term it will only make things worse. A more mature outlook than the Genji his brother probably remembers. Zenyatta's teachings made their mark.

[nockturnal]

The effect is subtly jarring. When a person dies, there is an image of them that crystallizes in your mind. The condensed version of all the things you remember most about them, frozen in time, never changing.

This...this does not feel like having his brother back. It is a stranger pieced together with what was left of him, anger and foolishness as well. He speaks with some semblance of his voice, but his words don't make sense. He speaks of repairing ties with the brother who betrayed him, who would intended to end his life on the clan's say-so.

Somehow that is less believable than his survival, after all this time.

"Why would you wish such a thing?" he can't help but ask, eyes narrowing in disbelief. Genji moves closer, and he can feel the tension returning, shoulders held taut as his bowstring.

[arcadedragon]

There's that feeling again. He's done something wrong and he's not sure what. He concentrates on the soup, reading the words on the lid saying the container is dishwasher safe instead of looking at Hanzo.

It's a good question. One that he doesn't have a ready answer for because he'd envisioned this going an entirely different way where he wouldn't have to explain why he wanted anything to do with the man who murdered him. Especially when he's not sure himself.

What he wants is but a memory; them as children when they got along and before the rigors of their upbringing set them down different paths and strained their relationship until it broke. While he knows it's an impossibility there's a part of him clinging stubbornly to what Hanzo had been, when he'd maybe enjoyed Genji's company. Tolerated him at least.

Didn't think he was a failure that was better off dead because he wasn't going along with the clan's wishes.

Genji is the disappointment in the family and he knows it, for as much as he'd been Sojiro's favorite.

"I don't know." Honest, if not exactly helpful. "But I do not wish to live in bitterness forever. I have spent so much time in agony over the past - I refuse to let that be my future as well."

[nockturnal]

He says that. And yet Genji's body language speaks of wishing to retreat. To not have to lay eyes on him. Who could blame him for such a thing? The sight of his brother must repulse him, if his first impulse upon seeing him again was to reach for his sword.

No. What existed before is broken forever. Genji is his brother, and would always be, but the trust that was once there has long ago been shattered to pieces. Is it even worth it to rebuild such a thing, knowing it will never be the same again? Surely not, when seeing Genji standing there was a reminder of Hanzo's failure, not just to the clan but as a person. Failure and guilt that he's carried for years.

There had only ever been one fitting answer to that question.

"Then you should finish what we started. Not this fumbling attempt at reconciliation." Hanzo's eyes narrow, finding hold of some sense of resolve. "Your body might be stronger now...but you are just as weak as you were then."

In other words, it would be simpler if Genji hated him instead. If he sought to end this in the only proper way, and took recompense for the life stolen from him. There would be no peace for either of them, otherwise.

What other answer was there?

[arcadedragon]

"Oh."

A single syllable but its all he can manage. Hanzo's words are crushing and he feels himself mentally shattering. He doesn't know what to do, least of all what to say.

Hanzo still hates him. Still thinks he's weak and a disappointment.

Decades later and there was still a part of him that wanted his big brothers approval. Or anyone's approval for that matter. Something that made all the suffering and the struggle worthwhile.

Instead he feels utterly numb, as they stand there regarding each other as strangers. There really is nothing else to say and he visibly slumps, defeated again by his brother.

Smoke swirls around him and he disappears, a pathetic figure hunched over a container of soup wanting to be anywhere but there.

Another feather flutters to the ground for Hanzo's collection.

[nockturnal]

Only now does he advance, in an attempt to stop him from disappearing. "Genji!"

It's far too late. He knows before the smoke fades that his brother will be gone, and any sense of resolution will have vanished along with him.

Hanzo's jaw works tightly for a moment as he stares at that feather left in his brother's stead. This isn't how it was meant to be. Didn't Genji understand that? Had he learned nothing from the lessons they'd been taught as children? Or was there even enough of him left to remember? There could only be one answer for the crimes committed against him.

This foolish sentimentality had no place in the world they'd come from.

Scowling heavily he takes a knee to collect the feather, delicately placing it with the other he's kept all these years. The bag is wrapped around the items, to compensate for the tear, and...

He walks on. What else is there to do?