Before he was handed the keys to a collapsing kingdom by one Vida Mehr, Lucas had his own plans to climb as many ranks as he could. The sacrifices made along the way couldn't have mattered more than taking upper echelon positions...could they?
In the aftermath of their alliance, Lucas wonders what he will need to do to both keep from stepping into his former commander's footsteps and keep his own medical condition from damaging the progress this truce has made.
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Sequel to Uncomfortably Numb
CW for non-consensual implications, specifically in being coerced into activities without being informed of full risks.
Don't expect this to make any technological or magical sense
(The title is a reference to the Pink Floyd song 'wish you were here', the rights of which go to them and not me)
Originally posted on 2021-03-11, on AO3.
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The day things upturned had been harshly sunny and blisteringly hot.
Lucas wondered, in hindsight, why it could not have been stormy and dark. Why there could not have been more warnings, more chances to back away in unease.
At the time, he'd merely been sent to help recover someone who had reached out to the faction. A single person would hardly have gained Eyler's attention under most circumstances, even when they were being offered in exchange for rare supplies.
The Axai were not most circumstances.
Their team had brought the woman back from the wastelands the Axai had last pinged them from. She'd been on the ground by the time their skiff reached her and sunburns and dehydration had kept her out of the count the entire drive back to the Eyler's territory. Her clothing was alien, her arms lined with surface level cracks, her hair long (he rarely saw hair grown out, not when so much had to be shaved for implants and so much water was needed to keep hair cleaned; Eyler was one of the few to display any and it was more of a status symbol than anything else). It'd been fascinating. Everything about her was.
She'd come out from the Axai, though she was a human rather than one of those creatures. Curiosity had propelled him nearer when the others were treating her. There was a sense of adventure to getting close to an Axai experiment and he was irresistibly curious about experiencing that adventure. Curiosity and revulsion. Not for her, but for the damage and the reality that the Axai had dealt it all. There was nothing to do to make her feel better. Was there? Lucas couldn't know. He could look, though.
He waited outside the hospital stall they'd thrown her into. Waited until he was told that the inhabitant beyond the curtain had woken up, heard she had a visitor, and decided to let him in.
Lucas went into that stall with a straight back and no clear reasoning to explain his presence with.
But as it turned out, the human didn't care that he was unsure. She was confused too. Confused at being away from the Axai. Confused at her medical surroundings. Alright with being confused. She smiled at him, he smiled at her; neither knowing what was happening, but willing to try to say a few words to make the pain of confusion go numb for a bit.
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Her name was Rusa Wilson. Lucas had told her that it wasn't a type of name he'd heard before. She'd laughed, said everything about her was unique.
Funny, then.
He didn't know then how serious she was being, so why wouldn't he laugh alongside her?
Eyler liked Rusa. They held their meetings and occasionally Lucas would cross paths with Rusa when he was heading to one office or other and she was leaving Eyler's.
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Echoes
Science FictionVida Mehr has killed her employer after years spent under his control and, with his death, established safety for those in her territory. It's only when someone she doesn't particularly want to help asks for safety that she questions how much of her...
