rekindledtitan: (End of the day)
Blaze-37 ([personal profile] rekindledtitan) wrote2019-06-23 06:41 pm
Entry tags:

Excerpt 009: Unsettled (Open to All)

TYPE: Patrol log

LOCATION: The Nexus

PARTIES: Unconfirmed total [??]. One [1] Ghost-type, [1] Guardian-type, designate Blaze-37, Class Titan [[personal profile] rekindledtitan]

ASSOCIATIONS: Multiversal Nexus; Rogers, Steve; Blaze-37; Pelsor; House of Winter


By the time she returns, spring is rolling into summer. There’s a great deal she needs to catch up on – and serious work to be done. Ghost sends out a short message announcing their restoration to the friends they haven’t met with – Tina, Natasha, Adia, Katsuya, the handful of others whose PINpoint numbers they have. Then they report into the Tower, at their commander’s insistence. A very long debrief later, Blaze feels the need to go blow off some steam. When she does get back to the Nexus, it’s with a few new dents

Blaze has no time for standing around the Plaza asking questions, though given the circumstances she’s kind of obliged to show her face. So when she gets back, the first thing the armored Titan does is stride into the centre of the Plaza. She brings her hands together in a thunderclap and a flash of Arc Light, and announces as heads turn to her:

“The Fallen kept their word. The truce is sealed.”

It brings her little joy to do so, but it needs to be done. She doesn’t stand around, though. She needs to get to work. The Fallen presence and its consequences are her responsibility, and she has ground to make up. Anyone who wants to ask her questions will have to keep up as the Guardian heads out of the Nexus settlement.

From there on she can be encountered once more patrolling the Nexus streets and the Wilds, on the watch for any sign of trouble. There’s no more sitting around chatting or tweaking her weapons in plain view. Now she’s on duty at all times. She has patrol beacons to install and monitor, borders to watch over. Darkness to scout for. And the Exo never seems to sleep. Though she returns periodically to the informal Guardian outpost that Steve’s house has turned into, she doesn’t rest there. During noonday sun or gloomy night, her boots ring on the pavement or crunch through leaf litter, and those who want to find her have a good chance of succeeding.

And if not her, then it’s always possible to encounter one of the other Guardians either keeping watch at Steve’s house or roaming about the Nexus. Unlike Blaze, they’ll occasionally stop at a café or bar to sample the local fare, sometimes at peculiar hours. If there’s a ramen bar that stays open until dawn, they’re there.


(( This post is open to any characters from the Nexus who might run into her after her post-Winter resurrection. If you want your character to encounter a different Guardian in particular or set the thread in one of the settings above, just let me know where in narration and/or the header. :) ))
red_room: (Tired)

[personal profile] red_room 2019-09-05 08:51 pm (UTC)(link)
"I spent a long time asking myself the same thing. But the worst of it Was over, after that expedition. We made it out alive. More of us than should have, considering the reckless inexperienced sign-ons we had for a team. That was when we took a turn for the better."

There's no way of knowing if it was a lie. If it was just a test to see how high the mortal would jump if instructed to just right. But the timing of it keeps coming back to Natasha's mind. How hopeless their situation looked, to anyone working behind the scenes even a little. Natasha remembers Steve collapsing and not waking back up during one of his shifts clearing snow.

"I do. I think, whether it was Reynard we were appeasing or something else doesn't matter. A price needed to be paid. What it gains them I couldn't tell you. But I know what it cost."

It's something Natasha has to live with now. Something she can't blame Blaze or any of her comrades from holding against her until possibly long after she dies.
red_room: (Mistakes made)

[personal profile] red_room 2019-09-08 01:24 pm (UTC)(link)
Even with relief flooding her system Natasha doesn't smile. She's forgotten how to be happy. How to have hope. The wounds of her world bleed too freely yet for any kind of lighthearted banter.

Still.

With one less weight pressing so heavily on her slender shoulders Natasha stands a little taller. Less apt to collapse under everything she's taken on. Her gaze slides to Ghost before she reaches up with a hand to shake.

"Of course. I understand if Nike won't forgive me. Or you, Ghost." Steve treats the little bots as if they're people unto themselves. Has for years. Natasha doesn't know for sure but in the absence of half of everything she's been feeling lately like it's worth being possibly naive to treat them that way.
red_room: (Profile)

[personal profile] red_room 2019-09-10 10:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Natasha's grip isn't as strong as it once was. It could still be, possibly. But she doesn't have enough Heart to put it fully into anything anymore. Even when her relief and guilt are genuine they're numbed by the state of despondency that has become the status quo for her world these days.

"I tried to, at least." That much she can promise. Anything more than that is beyond her to know.

"I wish...there was more I could do to help." She barely has the energy to do what needs doing back home though. There's nothing left in her to give for anyone, anywhere, else.
red_room: (Eyebrows)

[personal profile] red_room 2019-09-22 07:55 pm (UTC)(link)
"Has he? Ghost probably talks to Steve more than I do, these days, then."

That stings to admit but Steve has taken their loss pretty hard. He isn't the same anymore. None of them are really but his grief has turned him in onto himself. Pulling away from the company of others. Not quite so bad as Thor, perhaps, but enough that Natasha doesn't speak with him unless there's something that needs doing.

"Tony's going to be a father. He's got himself a quiet home out of the city to settle down in with his--well, effectively his wife." Natasha's pretty sure Blaze never met Pepper so she doesn't bother to bring the woman up. "The rest of us...we do what we can. Whoever's left. Sometimes it feels like it's pointless, but I don't stop."