It’s The End of the World as We Know It

[redlightgreenlight]

Who: Tiamat(Valdis), Clarke, The Captain and Skulduggery
What: The Beginning of the End Part 2
When: February
Where: The Bridge at Dawn
Warnings: Potential violence



After all that, waiting until dawn seems like little consequence. But wait she does, though she can’t help but send a little taunt to a particular party before making her way up to the bridge. The sun rises just over the edge of the water, the stars beginning to fade from view. She can sense Clarke not far behind, and the Skeleton must be here somewhere, though maybe they will get lucky and he’s elsewhere. Tiamat leans against the railing to look out over the realm a scared little child created, musing over the various outcomes of what is about to happen. Even if the Captain knows who she is, he’d entertained her before, there’s no reason to suspect he won’t now.

“Oh, Captain,” she says, still watching the sun come up. “Care to watch the sunrise with me?”

Comments

[angrycrabnoises]

A loud voice screeches from back on the deck, “NIMONA, GET BACK HERE! WE DON’T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK THAT THING IS!”

Karkat is gripping the railing and looking a bit pale. He mumbles to himself, “I AM NOT LOSING ANOTHER FUCKING FRIEND TODAY.”

[nepetaleijon]

"It's another ship!"

Nepeta is at the railing beside Karkat; no telling when she got there.

"Is she attacking it all by herself?"

[configuration_birdwatcher]

Bastion rushes toward the shout of their friend's name, not in time to stop Nimona but in time to see a swift pink shape in the water absconding off toward the horizon. They grip the railing with their single hand.

// What's happening?!

They're helpless here; they can't swim or fly after her.

[yournewsidekick]

The speck of pink vanishes into the distance. Time passes.

Above the freighter, there's a sudden explosion of water, like a localized rainstorm, that vanishes within seconds.

-- And then the speck of pink's returning, growing larger, moving at an uncannily fast rate, before Nimona surfaces alongside the Serena Eterna. En route, she decided whale was the better way to go, so it's a pretty impressive surfacing.

"Okay, so, good news, nobody stabbed me," she says, her voice a rumbling bass that ripples the ocean. "Bad news, uh... there's a bunch of creepy guys onboard who can control the weather?"

[angrycrabnoises]

Karkat visibly sighs in relief when he sees her.

“NEXT TIME, DON’T IMPULSIVELY JUMP OVER TO A SHIP FULL OF ASSHOLES WHEN WE DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY’RE CAPABLE OF,” he chides.

“DO YOU KNOW WHAT THEY WANT? OR WHAT EXACTLY THAT WEATHER POWER DOES?”

[yournewsidekick]

Nimona likes Karkat, and like she said to Dimitri once, it's still kind of a novelty for people to worry about her... which is why when she blows a whale-sized raspberry at Karkat, it only last a second and a half and doesn't fling too much whale spit everywhere.

See? Friendship!

"I'm fine," she emphasizes, before sobering a little. "But -- I dunno. They didn't say anything. Two of them messed with the currents and dumped a bunch of rain on me so I couldn't get too close. And when I stopped trying to get at the boat, they just walked away."

She grimaces.

"There's something wrong with their eyes."

[angrycrabnoises]

Karkat glowers as he wipes off the whale spit. “I KNOW YOU CAN FEND FOR YOURSELF,” he says sternly.

“I JUST. .. I’VE SEEN A LOT OF FRIENDS WHO WERE JUST AS BATTLE-HARDENED END UP DEAD IN RIDICULOUSLY STUPID WAYS. IF WE TAKE JUST A SECOND TO TALK IT OUT BEFORE JUMPING ASS FIRST INTO THINGS, WE COULD FORMULATE A PLAN AND YOU COULD HAVE BACKUP.”

[yournewsidekick]

Oh. Yeah. Nimona guesses that's the flipside of people worrying about you. (Of being a sidekick, part of a team; of actually having friends.) You have to have boring stuff like a plan because you can't just go it alone.

It's not the worst compromise, even if it does kinda make her want to blow another raspberry at Karkat.

Instead, unsuccessfully stifling a guilty little wince, she drops her whale shape -- the water crashes in to fill the sudden gap -- and swirls up to the deck, reforming as a human en route. "Ugh, okay," she says, but the ugh is perfunctory at best. "No more jumping without talking. Sorry."

[angrycrabnoises]

“THANK FUCK,” he says, looking relieved.