( open ) i'll fly you to the moon and back

[initiates]

Date & Time: September 21st - September 30th, 11:59 PM
Location: The Hold, the Moon Base
Characters: Any/all.
Summary: The Transports are evacuating to the Moon Base. Those on the Moon Base try to settle in and figure out their next move. Setting info can be found here.
Warnings: Talk of nuclear warheads and reference to immense loss of life. Please contact the mods should any individual thread get graphically violent or anything else of the sort.
Note: Use date and location tags in your subject headlines! Such as "On the moon, 23rd onward" or "On the spaceship, 25th" or "down at the Hold, 29th."

The Hold is a flurry of activity, grim faced members of the Initiative group directing supplies and people with the subdued air of people facing their own doom, and wondering at how to process the knowledge. None of the Initiative appears unaware of what will happen; their eyes linger on the Transports, expressions pleading, hopeful, doubtful, or immeasurably sad in turn.

Every eight hours, the space ship is sent back up with a load of people and supplies. The pilots are worked until they can't; the AI stolen ages ago by the Initiative greets and corrals people and supplies at both ends, and in the middle step between.

The network continues to broadcast on narrow channels between the Moon Base and Exsilium, up until the time that all connections are lost, with the carrier located en route to Exsilium. The first airship will pass by without dropping anything, but it's too early to celebrate. At a six hour delay from behind, the second airship arrives, and with it, the dark promise of the Black Code's nuclear weaponry.

The six hour window allows for time for those left behind, either by choice or circumstance, to be pulled to the Moon Base with the successful activation of the Transport Pad. New characters will ultimately arrive with the remainder of those not yet on the Moon Base, all in time to witness the explosive contact of the nuclear warhead with the ground of Exsilium live on satellite.

But until then, there's only the hurry, the silence, and the potential for full out rioting should the Transports spread word to the Exiles inevitably left behind to face this fate.

Comments

[lucency]

[ mentioned, yes, and she remembers, and for a moment, she goes still. she stares up at him, somewhat disbelieving, caught off-guard, but she shakes her head. ]

That wasn't your fault. You didn't know. You couldn't've known.

[bumbles]

I should h-- have.

( She'd been picking his brain apart for as long as he could remember, memories bleeding into nightmares and back. He has other people's thoughts and their lives bastardised and stitched into his head, he has demons wound around his spine. )

What? Fif--fifteen years of c-clues and I n-never figured it out? ( And Max had worked it out so quickly. He hates this. He hates every layer of skin that he peels back to find out more corruption within himself, things threatening to collapse inward. His jaw twists. )

F-forget it. ( This is stupid. He is stupid. )

[lucency]

She was your sister.

[ belle knows the feeling. her family isn't made up of demons, perhaps, but her sisters aren't exactly paragons of virtue despite their names. belle knows the need and the desire and the instinct to turn a blind eye, because it doesn't affect her.

they've never hurt anyone. not physically. there's nothing nightmarish. but very few families are perfect. ]

There's nothing for you to run from. And you can't blame yourself.

[bumbles]

Is.

( She's not dead (yet, not yet) and he still loves her so much that it makes all of this worse. Does he love her of his own will? Did she manipulate him into that, as well? )

I w-want to-- save her.

( But there's nothing to save, is there? He can't even save his own family, so what hope did Exsilium have? )

[lucency]

[ there's no more harshness in belle's look. ]

And you can. She can't wreak anymore havoc while you're apart.

You're going to have time to do that.

[ really, it's one of the thoughts that belle clings to, one of the things that she has to accept instead of kicking and screaming and tearing her own portal back home. if everything pauses, she still has time to save storybrooke. ]

[bumbles]

Yeah.

( time freezes, but he sounds flat again. He can't save Asteria, not really. He can destroy himself to take her attention away from Max or he can destroy Asteria. She's selfish, she enjoys inflicting pain, relishes it. The most complete solution is that they're destroyed together, and that way they'll both be erased from Max's life.

She hadn't talked about needing him or being his before Exsilium, or him being hers. This place had made things even worse for her. That was the only way she had ever started to talk about him so intimately. That had been the worst realisation he'd had for a long time.

Donny shrugs.)

[lucency]

[ she watches him, not saying another word for a long moment. points of moodiness, dreariness - it's more than that, she knows, and while she can't exactly relate entirely, she can put herself in his shoes. perhaps more than that: the man she loves more than anything was (is, she reminds herself, but she pushes the thought away because she's working on it) one of the most feared men in her home world. the one they turned to when they had nothing left to lose.

she knows what it's like to want to save someone from themselves. ]

You don't believe me.

[bumbles]

The only-- w-way to stop her is, um. W-when we b-both die.

( Quietly, watching the stars through the window rather than looking to Belle. )

Max d-doesn't know that, yet. ( It was obvious, logical, but Max hadn't figured that out yet, or if she had, she'd be in denial about it because somehow she's gotten the idea that she needs him in her head, and that's not right. )

I have t-to, um. That's the only w-way.

[lucency]

What?

[ it sets off her warning bells. she turns, full bodied, to face him, eyes wide and wild and no, that isn't an option. there's a way out. there has to be; such things are made up by the cruelest, most bloodthirsty people and belle has never seen such a thing played out, but there's another solution. there has to be. ]

Who told you that?! Why?!

[bumbles]

Asteria-- she l-likes c-controlling people.

( calmly, if that's the word for it. Maybe just flatly. There's been so much death, and there's so much of it impending, that maybe he'd just numb to it. )

N-no one told me. B-but-- it's the only w-way to stop her. And-- she's m-my sister. She shouldn't, um. Have to face d-death alone.

( He hates her, and he adores her, and he desperately wants to die. )

[lucency]

How do you know? [ of course he would know; it's his world. but she doesn't operate like that. she doesn't take such assumptions - because that's all they are, they are not facts - lightly. ] No. that's not - there has to be another way.

[ he's not going anywhere. not right now, not while she's there to watch him. but she's prepared to drag him back to shore anyway. ]

[bumbles]

W-what-- do you know about um, G-Greek myths? Adonis, and stuff?

( he's going somewhere with this )

[lucency]

Not much, I'm afraid. [ said slightly regretfully. really, she should know more about this. this is her forte, after all, but greece didn't exist in the enchanted forest, and by the time she'd made it to storybrooke and seen all the other books, well -

look, adonis' story wasn't in the first half of the library's anthology, okay. ]

I know a few of them, but that name isn't familiar to me.

[bumbles]

That's m-my given-- given name. Adonis. He was-- the l-lover of um, Aphrodite.

( quickly because that part doesn't matter, that he was meant to be beautiful, be adored.)

Adonis symbolises, um. D-death and-- renewal.

[lucency]

And you think, because of the myth -

[ belle cuts herself off and shuts her mouth, face twisting into a knowing expression. names don't mean anything (and then she remembers regina and queen and the names they were given in storybrooke. correlations, nothing more. certainly nothing that ultimately defined their destinies. ]

That doesn't mean anything. You know that, right?

[bumbles]

I think sometimes-- l-living can be too hard. And-- I c-can't. I just n-need-- need to stop Asteria.

( a smile, sad and apologetic. )

Forget it. It's-- d-don't worry.

[lucency]

[ don't worry.

she stares blankly, jaw set and don't worry.

living is too hard, but belle isn't supposed to worry.

she doesn't bother to force back any emotion as she steps forward, reaching out, grabbing donny by the forearms. she doesn't shake him, but her grasp is firm. ]

There's another way. There's another way to stop her, and there's another way out of this. And you'll find it.

[bumbles]

( his expression is gentle behind his mask, drawing his arms from her grip to catch her wrists instead, holding them carefully.)

How d-do-- do you stop someone you c-can-- invade d-dreams? And-- t-twists your subconscious against you?

( his smile is sad, but sympathetic.)

It's o-okay.

[lucency]

Is that what she's done?

[ is that where he got this idea? the idea that he has to die to save her and no - no - she shakes her head because it's not true. none of it's true, and it isn't okay. ]

Donny, it's not real. You have to remember that.

SORRY I WANTED TO ADD MORE STUFF

[bumbles]

N-no, it-- she's-- she t-takes other p-peoples memories and t-twists them. She--

( a little shrug )

It's real. I'm-- it's n-not something I j-just decided. ( licking his lips, trying to work out-- what to say, how to say it. ) She's too d-dangerous, and I'm just-- it's j-just what I need to do.

no bella that's not allowed

[lucency]

That's not - [ she looks away from him, at the floor, out of frustration. she's used to stubbornness. she's used to people wallowing in their wrongdoings, refusing to see it any other way.

she's not used to explaining away powers that she has no experience with. ]

It's not what you need to do. You need to remember she's manipulating you, remember the way things were.

:c but ALSO WOW I THOUGHT I HIT POST COMMENT HOURS AGO I'M SORRY

[bumbles]

It's always been this way.

( Gently, because he can't imagine how weird and twisted it sounds from the outside. )

She d-doesn't-- she c-can't touch m-my dreams, while she's not here. This is as-- as c-clear as it gets. I've had a l-lot-- lot of t-time to um, to think about it.

( It's okay, and he rests his hands on her shoulders. )

WOW BELLA WOW

[lucency]

Then you can come up with some way to control it. A precaution, for if she does wind up here. Or you wind up back home, or -

[ no. it's not okay. there's a long, long road before that will even be considered okay, even if he doesn't die, or even if he doesn't go back home or she doesn't come here. ]

:C

[bumbles]

Belle.

( Steady, more steady than he's felt for the rest of this conversation. )

I've-- I shouldn't have t-told you. I'm s-sorry. That-- w-wasn't fair.