(SE) when it lands

SUNJATA

the flood

Exhaustion lingers heavy in his shoulders, a walk past the Ahi Coast, heading back toward the Rainbow Road, a space to clear his head and try to relax a bit. It’s hard to do, you see, when just a few moments prior there’d been a shadow of a person, a person he’d left behind – one he’s had nightmares of again and again and again. He’d know that face anywhere, it haunts him still.

So he pauses by the Miana, jaw set tight, muscles feathering within as he focuses on distracting himself – a moment to peer into the pools with colorful stones in. Glancing around, he picks a purple stone, swallowing hard as he spins it in his palm. A quiet wish sent up of having not see his father again, hoping it was much like the previous ghost he’d seen, someone there but not entirely.

And he tosses the rock into the pool with a plunk.

did you get out all of that angry passion?
is it still formin'? Has it started to torture you?

JACK

"It doesn't grant miracles."

Jack's voice is gruff, and to the uninitiated his tone might suggest that he's hungover, but there's a different malady at play today. The captain is laying comfortably in the shade of low hanging palms, his shirt folded beneath his head like a pillow, leaving a body tanned and scarred and tattooed and pierced on display.

One arm is draped over his eyes, and though he's felt the Arbit-- Governor slide into range of his telepathy as a thorny mess of anxiety, it would be easy to imagine he spied him coming and hid his face away again. A face a shade paler than the rest of him. The migraine is mostly gone now, but it's left Jack irritable and exhausted.

"What'd you wish for?" he wants to know (and already does, in truth), not deigning to move just in case when he turns his head or moves his arm, his skull just falls off his body and rolls away.

SUNJATA

the flood

He hasn’t spied Jack on his approach – though to be honest, he wasn’t looking for the man. If anything, he’s become distracted, equally irritable, lip quirking in a slight sneer at the mention of it not granting miracles. He knows that, but it’s something to do, something to do with his hands – which brings another idea to the forefront of his mind. The rock plunks to the bottom of the pool while the Flood searches his pockets for his smokes, pulling one out and lighting it before he deigns to respond.

“If I tell you, it won’t come true, isn’t that how it works?” He asks, turning to lean against one of the rocks, his attention flickering back toward Jack through the sunlight. “You know, if you fall asleep and the sun moves, you’ll have quite the masked tan.” He points out, taking an inhale and exhaling the smoke slowly, considering offering one to the other man but refraining just yet.

did you get out all of that angry passion?
is it still formin'? Has it started to torture you?

JACK

"Who the fuck told you that? What a bullshit tradition that'd be," Jack mutters, and at the Flood's sass he moves his arm enough to glare across at the other man from the shade still provided by it, blue eyes squinting even at this much light. "Lucky for me, I wasn't plannin' on sleepin'," he grumbles, slowly shifting to rub at his eyes and let out a slow, deep breath. Sitting up is a challenge for a couple minutes' time - he doesn't feel like letting the Governor watch him throw up today.

When his hand drops away at last and he glances across at Sunjata again, strangely enough it's something beyond the Flood that catches his attention. He swears he sees her, just for a second, but it can't be true because she's dead. "Didn't realise you were one for makin' wishes anyway," Jack mutters, though it's obvious he's distracted.

SUNJATA

the flood

Well, it’s how it worked back home. Make a wish for your birthday (not like Sunjata had any of that in terms of traditions, not until he’d met Lusea at least), make a wish in a fountain, but the second you said what the wish was, it invalidated it. But he doesn’t air the words, simply shrugging his shoulders at Jack’s muttering, dragging on the cigarette with ease. “Did I interrupt your beauty sleep, then?” He asks instead, because it certainly seemed like he was either prepping for a nap or having just woken up.

For a second, he notices the way Jack seems distracted, a brow raising the words that leave him. And he approaches a bit closer to Jack, plopping down on the sand and stretching out long legs adorned with pink shark bite scars from where his pants rise up a bit. “Can’t hurt.” He rumbles offhandedly. He’d made plenty of wishes as a child, none of which came true, but he supposes things could change. In fact, a part of him still does. “Smoke?” He asks, lifting the pack and giving it a small wave.

did you get out all of that angry passion?
is it still formin'? Has it started to torture you?

JACK

It's still a bullshit tradition, Jack wants to say, though of course he doesn't - can't - so he lets Sunjata keep his stupid birthday fountain wish memories in peace. "You interrupted the tail end of a headache," he informs the other man; they've been through a little too much shit and Jata's husband has beat him up a little too often to be bothered with lies. And besides, Sunjata is the gOvErNoR now, which means he and Jack should be rubbing elbows a lot more than they currently are, if the Flood has any interest of keeping the status quo.

And does he have any interest in that? Questions for when his head is clearer. It's a slow transition from laying down to sitting one that has Jack bracing his forearms against his knees and glaring out at the Miana Pool through hooded eyes. He scoffs at the other man's remark, though he grunts an affirmative and reaches out to snag a cigarette from the pack. "Won't come true, however little it hurts," he mumbles around the smoke, taking a matchbook from his pocket to spark up.

SUNJATA

the flood

“Ah.” Sunjata rumbles, thankful that he doesn’t fall prey to those. It’s a miracle, really, given his multitude of other issues. So instead, he sits along the sand, offering the pack of smokes to Jack, withdrawing the pack when he snags one and Sunjata tosses the box of matches to him before he finds Jack pulling out his own box, so the governor puts his away, leaning back against the rock. “A little bit of faith never hurts.” He rumbles, a bit put off, a  slight frown gracing along his face.

It doesn’t do well though, not as he looks away from Jack to the beach again. He spies another shadow, another shade off in the distance, and his heart lurches into his throat – sucking in a breath of the cigarette that chokes him, leaving him coughing. “What the fuck is happening.” He says flatly, coughing, the urge to flee hitting him stronger and stronger to the point that sitting in the sand no longer works.

did you get out all of that angry passion?
is it still formin'? Has it started to torture you?

JACK

"Mm, I'll give you that much," Jack mutters around the smoke, though it's a very begrudging agreement. The captain is as close to a faithless heathen as it gets, but even he gives his dues to Rae when he leaves port, praying for good weather and lucky turns. Maybe it's testament to his tongue-in-cheek attitude that he's encountered nothing but trouble out at sea lately.

Then Sunjata looks away and sees something, because the reaction slams into Jack's magic with enough force to have the cigarette slipping from between his fingers before he can so much as take a drag. "What?" he wants to know, his tone tight and clipped as he forces mental walls into place, the smuggler recovering the smoke with trembling hands and taking a deep drag on it, as if to calm suddenly frayed nerves.

And he sees the shadow as well, scowling out along the beach. "The fuck is that?" he asks.

SUNJATA

the flood

Faith was a lot, it meant a lot to people. And it was that thought alone that begins to sink in, especially as he drags from the cigarette, stares off and away from Jack, spying the shadowed figure once again and feeling his heart rise in his chest, his jaw clenching hard, the urge to flee and not remain in the sand far outweighing any other sense of rational. He ignores Jack’s question, the first one at least, eyes trained on the shadowed figure that steps perhaps an inch closer – armor of his dragon shift interlocking down his skin, his chest, his neck until it ends and his fingers turn to claws.

The cigarette is forgotten, stamped out in the sand, finally turning to look toward Jack with a hard set jaw. “You see it too?” He asks, though his teeth grind against each other, sharpening to points – but he makes no move to follow. He prays and prays that it’s not real – anger and fear coursing through him at the sight of the ghost – too many memories of bruises adorning his skin from a young age, a brief flash of his father holding the knife to Lusea’s throat, slicing it open with a cruel smile. “If… If it’s real, we need to go.” Sunjata manages, tearing his gaze away from the figure to look back at Jack, a sense of urgency in his tone and the poise of his body.

did you get out all of that angry passion?
is it still formin'? Has it started to torture you?

JACK

He's not in an ideal position right now, to test his mental barriers against the onslaught of fear and trauma that pours out of Sunjata, and it seeps into Jack like a poison that has his pulse rising and a cold sweat trickling down the back of his neck. Luckily he doesn't have to hide that he knows the other man is on edge - it erupts out of the Flood in the form of sharpened teeth and armoured scales, leaving the captain reeling in his own fight to keep his wits. It will be their undoing in the end, and so Jack doesn't coax calm from the other man - he demands it.

"Governor," he grates out, his voice a gruff warning. "I'm gonna pretend this ain't weakness you're showin' me. 'Cuz if you show this to the rest of Torchline, they'll lynch your sorry ass. You're too strong to be a loose cannon - so you're gonna explain to me what's happenin', and we're gonna fix it. Deal?"

SUNJATA

the flood

He could demand all he wanted, whether or not he receives it is another story. And as the figure slowly begins to dissipate in the distance, briefly, Sunjata’s sure it’ll be back. His gaze tears to the Captain, a sneer growing on his lips. “I’m not.” He snarls back at the other man. He hasn’t even done anything aside from the armor protecting his arms. He doesn’t even know if he could given the chance – sure having a zoo under his skin was beneficial, but Sunjata’s father struck a different sort of fear within him, a freezing fear, a fear that manifests in a multitude of ways.

Mostly, the predatory stillness he encompasses, glancing back toward the space the figure had disappeared, not seeing it, and grinding his teeth in his frustration. “I don’t know what is happening, Jack. But that man that was just over there? I cannot be near him.” That was the easiest way to say that Sunjata couldn’t afford to get closer to his horrible, terrible father. The inky black of fear spiraling through his bones, coiling like his snake shift, ready to disappear.

did you get out all of that angry passion?
is it still formin'? Has it started to torture you?

JACK

In different circumstances, Jack might have balked against the whiplash answers, the way that, despite his assertions otherwise, the Flood is certainly acting like a loose cannon. But as his telepathy has grown it has started to latch onto emotions, something the smuggler has only recently gotten a taste of, and so the onslaught of cold, black fear is harder to shift than it might be given enough time and a better headspace. So Jack presses his eyes closed and pinches at the bridge of his nose, taking a slow breath and letting it out again before raising his eyes to the beach where the figure has disappeared once more.

And Sunjata does offer a surprising amount of insight, given that he might have said nothing at all, and so Jack jerks his head in a nod. "I saw someone who was dead, a couple of minutes ago," he tells Jata. "And I know they can't have been real, but they were there anyways. It possible that it's the same deal with whoever you saw? Or is this a current problem?" A subtle way of trying to get the other man to say it - because Jack knows it's his father Sunjata has seen.

SUNJATA

the flood

His words leave him in a hiss, muscles bunched and ready to leave when Jack’s words hit him – filter through his mind in a rampage of varying options. His jaw feathers, swallowing hard against the nausea inducing fear that oils his spine and coils in his mind. “I don’t know.” He admits, turning his attention back to the space the figure had been.

“He’s not dead.” As far as Sunjata knows, but when had that stopped anything? He had watched and held Lusea as his father slit her throat. And she had stumbled into the spire, dropped into Caido as if nothing had ever happened. Was it the same for his father? He shakes his head after a brief moment, stepping back so his back hits the edge of one of the taller rocks. “He’s… From where I’m from.” Korofi, the city of flooding, of nightmares, of so much pain.

He remembers getting shoved off the edge of a bridge, landing with a splash in frigid waters. He remembers being thrown into a pit with nothing but a dagger in hand and a dozen other boys his age going for the kill. And all the while, his father had smiled on, that cruel horrible man was pleased. “Someone else from there arrived here… A while ago. I don’t know, maybe it is him maybe it isn’t.” That seed of possibilities has begun to take root in his mind.

did you get out all of that angry passion?
is it still formin'? Has it started to torture you?

JACK

Jack can feel nausea rising again too, but he's not sure whether or not it's his own. It's either a side effect from Sunjata or it's the residual migraine mingling with the raising of his mental defences - either way, Jack is not here for it, and he lets out a long breath before rolling to force himself to stand. His cigarette is put out against the trunk of a palm tree, the smuggler straightening up and closing his eyes for a second, as if he's got vertigo. He doesn't, but it buys him enough of an excuse to stretch the fingers of his telepath to its limits.

And he hears nothing out of the ordinary, nothing beyond the expected. And he's about to say as much when he's assaulted by a fresh barrage of whatever the fuck it is that the Governor keeps thinking about, and shrugging it off is a mental effort that has the smuggler's jaw clenching. "Well," he supposes in a tight voice, "if it's enough to have you fuckin' rattled, that's a problem."

Eyes snapping back open, he glances at the Governor. "Have you got people to check the perimeter, or are we usin' mine?" he wants to know, the implication clear - the Governor's problems are Torchline's problems, so they'll be dealt with accordingly.