[plot] Invasion: Day 3.2

[theearth]

Who: EVERYONE + Returnees
What: Day 3.2 of the Invasion!
Where: UP INTO THE SKY AND BEYOND
When: ICLy: The 1st of May! OOCly: May 16th to May 21st!
Warnings: Please warn in your subject line if anything that deserves a warning occurs; this includes R-rated things as well as things worthy of a content warning/trigger warning.

The Central info post



Description: People will get to space either with a spaceship flown by one of the characters who were clued in by Badri (though they can of course pass their knowledge on further) OR by their own means - magical girls who are space compatible, someone's own starship, mechas, etc.

They will get to a place where they will encounter more enemies, so combat types must come along - but they are not the ones who will define how this turns out. Those who will define how this turns out are others. A number of other abilities need to be combined, and a number of people that may have combat powers but don't have to must combine their forces here:
- Any characters dare to talk to the Enemy peacefully and alone, though children, animals (or people with animal companions) or grandparent types have a bonus. Important is that these characters are not initially aggressive or condescending towards the Enemy.
- The Cures with their purification powers, and any character with similar powers.
- People who belong to one of the following groups and will tell of their "field": Gardeners or people who otherwise have a strong connection to earth and nature/environmentalists; artists (especially musicians); religious persons with an inclusive approach; people who feel a strong, healthy and friendly love for another person, be it romantic or otherwise.

What this day is for: Invading the aliens' home base. Everything else that happens on Day 3 should take place in the Day 3.1 post.


How this works:
- Day 3.2 continues what happened in Day 3.1 and the days before and includes the counterinvasion. If you have any questions, please as them here!
- There will be toplevels on this post for encounters with The Boy and for general alien territory exploration. Please start your own threads freely in reply to those toplevels or to the post, if your thread doesn't fit any toplevel! Please format the subject line like this: "Location(s)/Network | ota/closed/etc". Please keep in mind that each character may change location twice per day (= a maximum of three different locations) and that day 3.1 and 3.2 are the same day.
- Fighters whose muns aren't interested in the fight/explore option can go straight after the boy, too, if they can ICly justify their character doing that! But there are also chances for Boy encounters in the fight/explore option.
- This post can be used for both network and action threads.
- Keep in mind that returnee characters must have checked in and must request their echoes if they get any.
- Please direct all questions to this thread on the General Invasion Guide
- For the returnee registration, please go here.

Comments

[elfstoned]

"No; few people have," Aaron replies. "But I have found myself doing many things I had never done before since the first lights two years ago."

He considers pressing further, asking what the boy has to do with them, but this has the appearance and voice and bearing of a child. Better to take it slowly.

[espigeonage]

"It's new to me, too." Almost there... Julien starts carefully backwinging in a way that with somewhat more normal physics would land Aaron on a ring and leave him free to swing back around and land, himself. If the ring has 'gravity' maybe Aaron can pull him down so he skips the circling.

This place has its similarities to the Holiday Star. He remembers it now, the constructed worlds, the dead-egg prison, the road between starry souls. Yuuya had been cheerfully confrontational there, but Julien isn't Yuuya, and this is not, he dearly hopes, the king. "Is all this yours? It's beautiful."

[boychild]

The ring has barely any gravity, only enough to stabilize itself. Floating through it will send its particles into all directions very slowly, causing a rainbow cloud around the person hitting it.

"I like space. It is pretty and calm. Good when you need to think, because there aren't any people in it to distract you. ...But you are here anyway. Even though you shouldn't be." And that is quite a curious thing.

[elfstoned]

The ring isn't solid; Aaron can't quite land on it. He does, however, come to a stop with his feet sunk into it; the dust scatters, and it really is beautiful.

But more important is the child in front of him.

"And what do you have to think about, in space?" he asks. His tone is still mild, curious, carefully testing waters, trying to learn more.

[espigeonage]

Julien works out what he's doing. It's like and not like normal landing, but slowed down by a great deal. He fans out his great singed tail and backwings carefully trying to kill the little momentum he's built up. Here instead of whipping up a fierce, dramatic wind he generates the gentlest current as he reaches for the ring with his feet. They drift in without finding anything to grasp and so he keeps them splayed out as he folds his wings.

"We wanted to talk to you," he says, similarly cautious. "I'm Julien, that's Aaron."

[boychild]

"I think about a lot of things. There isn't much else to do." He crosses his arms behind his head and turns it into a position where he can better see them. "Why did you want to talk to me?"

[elfstoned]

"We wanted to know why you -- why all of you -- came to Earth." Among other things. What doesn't Aaron want to know from this child?

[espigeonage]

If he was alone Julien might have gone with building common ground and a connection. He's good at that, small talk and similarities and trying to make friends.

People are dying out there. Humanity is dying, and it's a far less complicated thing than what happened in Yuuya's future. He doesn't know if making nice would help his chances here, or even work. Also, he doesn't want to try and set up simultaneous conversations, those are distracting. Julien limits himself to tilting his head in a similar way, mirroring; he has nothing to add here.

[boychild]

"I came from Earth." He rolls his eyes. "A long time ago, into the future. Do you think you humans," he's addressing Aaron here, leaving Julien out of it for the moment, "would look so much like me and my people if I wasn't from Earth, too?"

And then he turns his attention to Julien. "What kind of bird are you?"

[elfstoned]

Aaron's face says ah, I thought so. That explains one mystery. He's about to follow up with a question when the boy goes and asks Julien that.

His eyebrows go up.

However, he's not going to speak for Julien, not yet. The look on his face as he looks from the boy to Julien is just as expressive as the last look: are you going to take that?

[espigeonage]

...okay that had been a theory but damn it he'd been hoping for Contact-style incomprehensible-aliens-taking-human-form. Huh.

Julien's changed a great deal since Aaron took him aside in the clinic and said your changes are avian. He handles the topic with greater ease now, rarely showing that it bothers him. Julien's pupils pin a little, and he independently swivels one eye to glance unreadably over at Aaron, and he forgoes even the resignation he usually brings to the topic and says in a straightforwards fashion, "I'm not actually a bird. I'm human, but Yuuya's a fantail pigeon, so that's what I look like."

[boychild]

"You look like a bird, though." ....reaching out to pet Julien, yup, and inexplicably suddenly close enough to do that. "How is a fantail pigeon different from other fantails and pigeons?

[elfstoned]

And now?

Aaron still won't step in: this is Julien's conversation and Julien's issues, and it's up to Julien to set boundaries in this conversation. He's paying close attention, and his muscles tense when space warps and the boy is suddenly in a different place, but otherwise, he makes no move.

[espigeonage]

"I know, but-"

Julien cringes, visible in the flattening of his feathers against his body - making him seem smaller, protecting him with many layers of slicky-soft smooth keratin, and in his pupils adjusting, and the sepia-tinted inner eyelids shutting over his eyes, leaving them greenish and darker. He'd step back if he was at all sure of his footing, as is his head draws back.

He has to tailor his response every time this happens. This isn't a time to get indignant or outraged, he can take some humiliation if he has to. Especially if somehow it means saving the goddamn world. But he can't just let this pass. "Please don't do that," he says softly. "You have to ask first."

[boychild]

The boy looks genuinely surprised by that request. It's not something that he considered - not out of any disregard for Julien, but because he hasn't had to ask for permission in millions of years. The concept has become one that is so far away that he doesn't even remembers it. "Why?"

[elfstoned]

"Because it is rude, and more than rude," says Aaron, finally speaking up, "to try to touch someone without their permission -- no matter what they look like."

It's a lesson a lot of humans could stand to learn.

[espigeonage]

Glancing back at Aaron, Julien rallies a little. It looks like an honest misunderstanding, at least he'll interpret it like that.

"If it's not an accident or like to save them, it's disrespectful, almost an ownership thing. The whole thing's complicated, there are times and reasons and weird ways to give permission, and... it's patronizing."

"I give most people permission if they ask." Even being asked makes part of him want to curl up and despair, sometimes; he likes the feeling of being touched but is only completely content with it when he starts it, when he says you can touch me. "Asking shows more respect for me and what I want."

[boychild]

"...That really does sound complicated." He chews on his lip and leans back, in a way - rotating backwards ever so slightly.

"Why can't you make it easier?"

[elfstoned]

"If asking permission is too complicated," says Aaron matter-of-factly, "then don't touch him in the first place." His shoulders are squared; his manner isn't angry, but it is pointed, and a little protective.

"You have a right not to be touched, if you don't want to be: so does he."

[espigeonage]

"It's a complicated subject," Julien adds, both glad of Aaron's treatment of it and hoping that it won't tank... whatever they're trying to do. "It takes a while to understand. Touch is important. People need it, but if it's not on their own terms, it's... it feels wrong. It's a connection for everyone involved, it should be a willing one."

[boychild]

"And you can't want something if you aren't asked if you do?" He is clearly trying to grasp this, but also a bit unclear on the how to do so.

[elfstoned]

"You can want whatever you like," says Aaron swiftly. "But acting on that want when what you want belongs to someone else -- that, you should not do. Every person belongs to him- or herself."

[espigeonage]

The song comes to mind. Julien pushes past that.

"People shouldn't always get what they want. There's a saying - something like you're free to swing your fists, but you're not free to swing them into people. Sometimes doing what you want upsets people, or hurts them."

[boychild]

He worries his lip, pondering.

"But you came to my home even though I didn't ask you to."

[elfstoned]

"We came to your home because you came to ours," Aaron replies, his tone even but serious. "A lot of damage has been done to it already. We want that to stop."

His mother is dead because of that damage. The pain of that is still fresh, still recent; it hasn't even begun to fade. It leaves Aaron unwilling to treat this lightly, unable to keep his words light.