[Open] Love, Blood, and Rhetoric

[hellonspectacles]

Who: Palamedes Sextus and you!
What: Blood science!!
When: Early February
Where: The infirmary, or anywhere you feel like finding Pal
Warnings: As you might have guessed, there's blood.



[I. He Blinded Me With Science]

For months now, anyone who enters the Serena Eterna infirmary would have noticed the set of test tubes and petri dishes lined up in one corner of the room’s counter, and labeled with a large note:

Property of Palamedes Sextus, Room 105. DO NOT TOUCH. I will know if you do.

The test tubes each contain a sample of blood taken from a ship-board volunteer: young and old, human and non-human, alive and dead. The petri dishes are for his various experiments. Once upon a time, his question had been simple, or so he thought: could you tell if someone had died, either on the ship or before arriving, by studying their blood chemistry? But like so many matters about, things have gotten much more complicated since those early days.

And they are about to get more complicated still.

Pal spends most Saturday afternoons in his makeshift lab, and today is no exception. Back in January, he had started an experiment regarding the rate of cell decay. Everyone knew that the food on the ship didn’t rot. Everyone knew that people who died returned to life—usually. But what happened to the living on a cellular level? And could that affect be manipulated to guarantee resurrection upon death?

Humming tunelessly to himself, Palamedes inspects each sample in the petri dish, visions of cell clusters dancing in his head. Each time, he notes the thanergy and thalergy levels. Each time, he counts the number of living blood cells. He double-checks the numbers, triple-checks them, quadruple-checks them.

There’s no getting around it: after a month, absolutely no cell death has occurred.

Pal takes his handkerchief from his pocket and wipes a sheen of blood sweat off his forehead.

“Well, fuck me.”

[II. Wildcard!]

Want to hang with Pal, but don’t have a reason to visit him in the infirmary? I welcome your prompts! Pal is often in the library or drinking tea in Sand Dollars, or curled up in a chair in the lounge. Gimme what you got, or hmu on Plurk

Comments

He blinded me with science (because his blood is glowing now)

[neverleave]

Natsuno finally feels better enough to get out of bed and shuffle around the ship. He isn't fully recovered though, so he sticks to short walks and no strenuous effort.

He almost never visits the infirmary, but today he's here to see Palamedes. An accidental paper cut resulted in an... interesting revelation he needs to share.

Natsuno picks up the scent of blood sweat the moment he steps out of the elevator. More necromancy, then.

"What's wrong?"

[hellonspectacles]

“Nothing at all.” Palamedes looks up from his work, beaming. “Quite the opposite, in fact: I’ve just discovered something absolutely fascinating. Some might say it isn’t particularly surprising, given what we know about the relative age of most everything onboard, but it does offer us a more precise understanding of the mechanics of the Serena Eterna’s cellular preservation methods and is the first concrete evidence that said preservation is truly universal.”

Somehow, Palamedes manages to say all of this in one breath, because of course he does.

He slips his handkerchief back in his pocket and adjusts his glasses. "How are you feeling?"

[neverleave]

"Better. Fever's down and I stopped burping out flares." He still glows occasionally, which is quite annoying. There's a newly white streak in his hair, and he wants to ask Palamedes to check if nothing else got permanently messed up, but first thing first.

"You mean you found out why stuff don't change?"

Smaller words, Palamedes, please.

[hellonspectacles]

Palamedes snaps his fingers and nods enthusiastically. “Yes, precisely! There’s no cellular decay. Most interesting of all, the rule seems to apply to living cells as well as dead ones. In a sense, you could say that none of us are aging.” Given his present company, he adds a bit wryly, “Even those of us who are supposed to be.”

[neverleave]

"Huh. So theoretically we can all exist here forever as long as the captain doesn't decide to get rid of us?"

What a terrifying thought. This pocket dimension truly exists outside everything.

"What do you think happened on the salamander island, then? Did everyone's cells start decaying again while we were off the ship?"

[hellonspectacles]

“Theoretically, yes. But let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” Palamedes doesn’t relish the idea of spending eternity in this place, either—not as ghost or as a tormented passenger.

“That is an excellent question. I would hypothesize that yes, our bodies began to decay as usual once we left the Captain’s pocket universe. But I have no way to know for sure, unfortunately.”

[neverleave]

"Yeah, not until we get to another reality like that."

Natsuno makes a face - who knows when they'll get another opportunity like that, if they get one at all. He then pauses for a moment, listening to make sure no one's passing by.

"I guess he needs to be suspended in time," he continues in a lower tone. "From what I've gathered, genies aren't immortal."

[hellonspectacles]

"Mm." Palamedes purses his lips, his own thoughts following a similar track. Damn it all, if only he had thought to check on cell decay sooner! Sometimes, lying awake at night, Palamedes kicks himself for all the time he spent in those early days, asking the wrong questions, traveling headlong into dead ends. Scientific discovery requires detours, of course, but with so much on the line, each one poses terrible dangers.

Natsuno's next statement catches his attention, pulling him out of his reverie. "Genie?"

[neverleave]

Seems like Pal is unfamiliar with the word. Hmm. He's heard about vampires (well, the sexy kind), but maybe not all myths survived so far into the future.

"Legendary Earth creature. They're spirits of fire and air that live in deserts. There are stories about humans who control genies to make them grant wishes," Natsuno explains. "I've been reading a lot trying to figure out what kind of creature the captain is and I'm pretty sure he's a genie."

[hellonspectacles]

In case you required any additional evidence that John Gaius is The Worst: it seems that he managed to preserve the cultural memory of Twilight, but not Disney's Aladdin.

Palamedes frowns faintly, knitting his brows together. "Interesting. This is based on his seeming obsession with control?"

[neverleave]

"That's a part of it, yeah. Also the way he's bound by rules and exact words - there are a lot stories about wishes going wrong because the person didn't word it properly. At first I thought he could be a demon, but the captain was taken from his village. Demons are usually summoned from another plane, while genies live in the same world as humans."

[hellonspectacles]

"Interesting, particularly given that some passengers say he never lies in the conventional sense. He is certainly happy to mislead us, though, even while technically telling the truth--that would certainly fit the temperament of a being whose actions rely on precision of language."

He absently drums his fingers against the counter. "Are genies usually..." such big bags of dicks, "inclined towards violence? Are they feared?"

[neverleave]

"It varies," Natsuno replies. "A lot of stories have them trapped or enslaved, but those who are free are usually feared and respected. Some are violent or outright evil, but... they're a lot like humans, honestly, with different personalities and vices. I don't know how much of the captain is his species and how much is things he experienced or lost over the years."

[hellonspectacles]

“Point taken.” Palamedes looks thoughtful, processing this information. The notion that the Captain could be something called a genie doesn’t give him much to grasp onto, given how unfamiliar he is with the concept, but it’s something. “Are there special tricks to subduing a genie? Or outsmarting one?”

[neverleave]

"Sometimes they're tied to an object like a lamp or a ring, and anyone who has the object can control the genie. As for outsmarting them... mostly being cunning and clever with your words. You know, folk tales heros stuff."

He huffs, frustrated. It's just like Ava said - he found answers, but not solutions.

"That's the trouble with the only research material being fiction. There's no way of knowing where the myth end and the truth starts, and I'm not sure how to test that without him realizing that we know."

[hellonspectacles]

“Hm.” Palamedes takes off his glasses and taps one of the arms against his chin. “That’s an interesting observation, Yuuki, about cleverness and care with words. It implies that we don’t need overwhelming strength or multiverse-breaking magic to beat him. We just need to pay attention, and to choose our moment carefully. Perhaps there’s a way to get him to reveal more about himself without him realizing that he’s done it.”

[neverleave]

"...you've got a point. I'd rather leave that to you, though. I know how to be blunt, but... I'm not so good at cunning interrogation. Not with eldritch powerful creatures, at least."

Winning a battle of wits against other teenagers hardly prepares you to cheating a genie, even if said genie is a childish coward.

[hellonspectacles]

Palamedes smiles faintly and doesn't argue with Natsuno's self-assessment. For all his many assets, subtlety is not his strong suit.

"...I may have some related experience, when you put it that way," he confesses. Pal has tried to speak with the Captain on a number of occasions without success, but maybe it's time to try again.

[neverleave]

Natsuno's starting to reach out for a scalpel. He came here to ask Pal to check something, after all - but his friend's words grabs his attention enough for the hand to drop.

"What, with eldritch creatures? Like something you summoned?"

[hellonspectacles]

“I don’t know if I would say eldritch,” says Pal, though given some of what Gideon has told him of Cytherea’s state after his explosion, maybe the descriptor isn’t too far off. “But I’ve had experience with what one might call the cunning interrogation of a powerful and ostensibly immortal creature. I met her whilst she was pretending to be someone else. We had a rather intense confrontation about it.”

Pal squints at the middle distance. “It’s a long story.”

A crazy all-powerful necromancer killed my girlfriend and a bunch of other nice people because she was mad at God, so I blew her up, is not actually that long of a story.

[neverleave]

"I've got time, if you want to share." He'll back off if Pal doesn't want to elaborate and we want Natsuno unspoiled for the explosion. "I actually came because I wanted you to check something."

This time he does pick up the scalpel. "I already gave you a blood sample, but I got a paper cut today and - "

Natsuno slices his forearm without as much as a wince. His pain tolerance had gone significantly higher over the last year. The blood flow stops almost as soon as it starts and the incision closes as usual, but the color? Glowing.

[hellonspectacles]

Palamedes is more than happy to let Natsuno change the subject, and when that glowing blood blooms over his skin, Pal nearly forgets what they had been speaking about entirely. That eerie sheen is terribly familiar; it’s not so different from the color Natsuno’s veins had been after he had taken the sun solution.

“Do you have any other lingering symptoms? Fatigue, nausea?”

[neverleave]

"Some fatigue, but it's getting better every day. I don't feel any different, but I'm worried something got - permanently messed up inside."

[hellonspectacles]

“Something may have permanently changed,” Palamedes concedes. “But that doesn’t mean it’s messed up. May I?” The last he asks as he reaches for Natsuno’s wrist. Assuming his friend doesn’t object, he’ll take his pulse and test his blood pressure.

“Your vitals seem normal, but I’d like to take another blood sample if you don’t mind. Something has obviously changed about its chemical makeup, and even if it is having no effect on you, we should still know what it is.”

[neverleave]

"Sure. Take what you need."

He holds out an arm readily.

"Ava thinks I might've turned into some sort of sun freak," he says, making a face. "Like Ebalon was a moo freak."