A Grave for the Stars [Isaiah | GUIDE]

[Magdalena Lethe]

Atheema gave the man a small smirk as he snatched the clothes from her, "Unfortunately I have no control over the lights. You'll have to take that up with Captain Ra."

And good luck with that. The Felacatian was a stickler for militant, regimented crew. It was very likely Izzy had already experienced a few unpleasant run-ins with her in his years within GUIDE. Wolf - wildcat ... oil on water.

"Miss Lethe is a morning person, as I'm sure you know. She is awake and feeling better, her vitals are strong ... for now. I think we can even get you into the room today. If you were of the mind to impress upon her any thoughts or opinions on the future of GUIDE," folding her arms at the small of her back and taking a breath, she cast a glance around, "or any other futures of note, the earlier the better."

 

[Isaiah Dashiell]

An even more displeased groan. He wasn't even sure if Ra was still aboard, but of course they were.

"I'll skip that," he muttered, tossing the covers up and wrapping them around his waist. Ra and Izzy hadn't always seen eye to eye. In fact, they never did. He never understood what Mags saw in that karking cat. "If...I can actually go inside, I'd like to."

He wasn't sure what Atheema was hinting though. He didn't have any say in what happened with GUIDE, he was just a Pathfinder. He shrugged it off.

"Um...Can I get some privacy to change? I know I've probably said some things to you to make it seem like this would be an ideal situation, but it was all harmless flirting and this isn't exactly how I imagined being naked in front of you so..."

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

Her smirk may have grown faintly wider, thinly smug.

Harmless, he said. She wasn't so certain.

"Of course. I am a Companion Isaiah, not a succubus. Dignity is paramount," her footsteps sounded as she turned and headed out, "I will be sure we have a quarantine suit ready for you."


Said suit was fitted loosely enough to pull on overtop of his uniform. Atheema aided in the effort and explained the mechanics of the suit. How it was of utmost importance that he under no circumstances removed any portion. That any suit breech, like a tear or crack in his faceplate, be treated like an emergency.

​

"Any bacteria could prove fatal at this point," Atheema said as she locked the helmet into place, "we just don't know enough about the venom or what it's done to her body to take any chances. You have enough air for 90 minutes, this control panel here on your arm will alert at half an hour, then fifteen, then ten, and then every minute after. I will be out here working if you need me, this button will open a direct link to the comm suite."

She directed him into a sterilization chamber where an array of light blue beams washed over his figure before permitting him into the room.

Magda was sitting on the couch wearing her scrubs, sweater, and hood once again. She didn't look up.

"Atheema said you were coming in today..."

The GUIDE Founder sat hunched over a book in her lap, voice quiet.

 

[Isaiah Dashiell]

He nodded, fully aware that she wasn't looking at him. There was that voice again, the one that pulled at his heart. He took a tentative step towards the couch but then was reminded that she was the one in danger of dying and having everything she'd ever built fall apart. He needed to go at her pace.

"Do you mind if I sit next to you Mags?"

The answer, he guessed was no. She was so adamant about him not seeing her before that she was surprised that he was even inside to begin with. The silence along with the bright white of the room was beginning to make him feel like he was in an alternate dimension.

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

He wasn't the only one that felt like they were in a dfferent dimension. Magda had tried to convince herself this was all a dream since she woke up - that she hadn't actually woken up yet, that there was still a chance she'd wake up on the ship overlooking Ichor before the launch of the research team.

That she'd stick by her gut feeling that there was something wrong with that place.

There was a reason why that research station was abanadoned.

That they shouldn't land. They should go back and find another way.

Magda's head tilted just slightly at the question, chest growing tight with apprehension. She fought the urge to tell him no, recalling something Atheema said to her the night before, and slowly nodded her head.

"You can ... if you want."

 

[Isaiah Dashiell]

"Cool," he said as nonchalantly as he possibly could behind an industrial sterile life suit. His hands struggled to find pockets on his pants that did not exist and he walked over to the couch nervously and sat down. His eyes wandered towards her and looked her up and down in her hooded sweater and scrubs, being careful not to actually move his head so it wasn't obvious what he was doing. Granted, it was probably obvious anyways despite his efforts.

He sat in silence for a few moments before sighing.

"You know it took them a while to get rid of me," he started, trying to break the ice. "I kept telling them I wouldn't leave until you woke up."

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

She was consciously making an effort not to look towards him, as much as she would have loved to see him in that ridiculous quarantine suit. Grateful for the hood of her sweater that obscured most of her face from view, Izzy might immediately note that there was a curious absence of unruly hair spilling out from it. Not even her characteristic braid.

The hands that held the book in her lap were an unnatural hue: ashy-grey with faint blueish veins just beneath the surface of the skin.

"You always did have a penchant for not following orders," Magda sniffed, "you won't have to worry about that anymore."

 

[Isaiah Dashiell]

It still stung whenever he was reminded that she was so seriously thinking of shutting down GUIDE. He wasn't sure if it was her supposed imminent mortality or if she really thought the organization really couldn't run on fumes until they picked up another sponsor. He didn't want to think about the first one.

He noted her lack of hair but what caught his eye were the blue veins that were so visible. Maybe it was because of the paleness of everything in the room, but colors really stood out here. His eyes narrowed as he attempted to think of something lighthearted to come back with.

"Did I ever have to worry about following orders?" He smiled behind his helmet, but he knew she wouldn't see it. She wouldn't look at him at all. His hand reached out to touch hers, hesitated, and then gingerly slipped under her palm and gave her a slight squeeze.

"You know you're not alone in this, right?"

 

[Isaiah Dashiell]

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

Magda wanted to laugh at the little joke he tried to make but ended up trying to swallow the knot in her throat instead. Her chest felt as though someone had taken her ribs and bent them together. It hurt ... being this scared of the future. The last time she remembered feeling this way was when she first woke up in the Magesteria all those years ago, stranded in the middle of nowhere.

Her eyes finally moved from the book in her lap to the gloved hand closing around her own. Magda swallowed, hard, and closed her eyes against the rising burn in her chest, forcing tears to fall upon the pages below.

"I'm scared Izzy. I don't want to die. I never found my way back home."

 

[Isaiah Dashiell]

"We'll find it," he said simply and determined. "However long it takes." Izzy gripped her hand tighter. Mags almost never called him Izzy, but the way she said it made his arm go numb.

"Listen, we'll find a way to fix this. You'll make it through this and you won't be alone." Izzy moved from the couch and took a knee before her and gave her leg a good pat. "Besides, I found this great place out in the Outer Rim, I think in Coalition Space. I think you'd like it, heard Jorus Merrill sometimes shows up." He gave her a wink, then remembered that she probably couldn't see his face because not only was she looking down at her book, but his hooded helmet's faceplate was a dark blue and difficult to see through.

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

She didn't see the wink but she was exceptionally aware of Isaiah's hand on her leg. Perhaps it was the cold of the chamber that made her hyper sensitive to the warmth of the gesture, or maybe it was a side effect of the venom. Magda couldn't bring herself to feel reassured even in the face of Izzy's pep talk.

Where did he get this wealth of confidence? She'd always envied him that.

Also, Jorus Merrill was dead and nothing short of a living, breathing, honest-to-goodness legit Jorus Merrill in-the-flesh would convince her otherwise.

Magda slowly looked up at him, exposing the view of her face for the first time. Her skin was now the color of ash, blue veins snaked around her eyes and neck, disappearing into the neckline of her sweater. The natural blue of her eyes had dulled to a murky grey. Most noticeably from where he kneeled he'd see the complete absence of the shadow that would have been her hair.

Her gaze was weary and confused.

"Why did you come back?"

 

[Isaiah Dashiell]

He tightened his jaw at the question, his heart sent into a frenzy. He looked away from her for a moment as if in thought before looking up at her, taking in her sickly features before sighing.

"Because you asked me to. And..." He muttered something under his breath before cursing softly. "Look, I care a lot about you and I feel like this is my fault. I should have killed that karking lizard when I had the chance and I felt like if I didn't I would never see you again."

Words were simply vomited from his mouth faster than he could think. Behind the mask he could feel the color rising to the tips of his ears.

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

He barely got the chance to finish explaining himself before he'd find himself fully ensnared in a hug. Magda's arms were thin and her strength wasn't really there, but they looped over his shoulders and drew him in with what might she could muster.

Truth be told Magda was certain that had it not been for Izzy then none of them would have made it off that planet. He could blame himself if he wanted, but she never would. In face of all the terrible things she couldn't get off her mind, he returned to the Beacon simply because she asked and because he cared. It meant more to her to hear those words than he'd ever know.

"...can I tell you a secret?"

 

[Isaiah Dashiell]

"I-" The hug was sudden and surprising. She'd never been overly physical with him besides the occasional ear pull or the one time she had his hair done for an event and since he'd returned she'd been even more distant. His arms sort of hung in the air behind her for a moment before wrapping around her frail frame.

"Y-yeah. Sure..." He wasn't sure what else to say. He was still in a state of shock from the hug.

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

It felt good to hug someone again and to be embraced in return. Her brother may have been far more lackadaisical about the laws regarding their arrival here, but Magda had not. No attachments meant no complications. She could focus on their objective of finding their way home ... but Gabriel had strayed from their path some time ago. As Magda sat there in silence drinking in the feeling of affection, she began to realize why.

Her heart ached for home, but it also skipped a beat for the moment.

"You have to promise not to tell anyone and ... not to think I'm crazy."

Magda's arms slowly slid free of him as she leaned back into the couch, waiting for him to confirm.

"My brother and I, we're ... not from this time. We're ... from the future."

 

[Isaiah Dashiell]

Izzy blinked once. Then twice.

The future?

Had the venom really done that much damage? He didn't know what to say to her or what to say at all. How was something like that even possible? If she was from the future then she could have stopped so many wars, GUIDE would still be floating fine. He'd given her his word, but still....

"What...what do you mean...the future?"

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

Magda visibly frowned.

He didn't believe her. He thought she was crazy.

But she was willing to give it one more try before calling it quits. Isaiah was the only person she'd met that she felt comfortable enough with to share.

"I realize it sounds crazy. I'm not crazy, Izzy, I swear to you. If my brother were here he would back me up..." but the truth of the matter is she didn't know where her brother was. Last she knew he was in Coalition territory, and then off to travel. He'd stopped sending messages some time ago and it made her worry. Should she have gone looking for him?

"I ... " it was difficult to know where to begin, how much background to tell. Would more information make it seem crazier? Was this a case of less-is-more? Maybe. "Four years ago my brother and I were traveling from home in our time. My ship, the Magesteria, got pulled into a wormhole and spat us out ... somewhere completely different, over 20 years into the past."

"Spacetime disruptions and dilations aren't unheard of. I've done a lot of research and they exist in various points around the galaxy. My Uncle used one in the Chiloon Rift in order to study. He spent just a handful of years there but when he came out he'd aged ten times that many because time moved more quickly there. There's another instance in the Cularin system where a hyperspace wormhole was created by the ancient Sith artifact called the Darkstaff that transported..." Magda paused, she was getting on a tangent.

"The point is that this is not some made-up tale. It was real and it really happened to us. I am not even born yet, I won't be for another year. I can tell you exactly where my parents are right now, living with their first born son, my brother, of only 3 years of age. If you don't believe me, go check the manufacture data on my ship."

 

[Isaiah Dashiell]

She really wasn't backing down from this time travel stuff. Izzy swallowed hard behind his mask and sighed, taking a seat next to her on the couch again.

"So," he started, "You got sucked in a weird timey wimey wobly worm hole and got thrown back nearly two decades," he took a breath, "And you can't believe me when I say I met Jorus Merrill at the bazzarr?" This was the most talkative she'd been since she'd gotten sick, and even if the topic was supposed to be somewhat serious he wanted it to retain some lightness.

He sighed,

"I guess I can believe you..."

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

Weird timey wimey wobbly wormhole...?

Magda's expression soured momentarily. This was science, this was serious, this was not some made-up mumbo-jumbo like Jorus Merrill being alive.

"I guess I can believe you."

Well, that wasn't fair. She frowned, trying to work her way around the point he'd just made. Perhaps she was being a little too stubborn about the whole Jorus thing. Or maybe she just didn't have enough faith in Izzy, which also wasn't fair. Or was it? Out of the two of them, Izzy was the only one with a history of lying. Magda sighed.

"That's fair..." a faint, guilty smirk pressed into her lips, "I guess I can believe you, too. If I live through this ... I'd really like to meet him."


"These are my parents," Magda reached to pull a datapad from a side table over and brought up a picture of a man with long, disheveled hair and a scruffy beard, dressed in forger's garb and covered in dirt and soot hugging a smaller, primly dressed, bemused looking woman wiping at dirt on her cheek.

"My father is an Alchemist and a Professor. My mother was a professional Ballerina ... now she teaches, too. Or at least, she began teaching after having my youngest brother," her brows pressed inwards, a frown following shortly after, "You know I realize now I've never asked you about your family. Or much of anything really. You've saved my life at least a dozen times and I barely know a thing about you."