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BLUE SUN ROOM FAN FICTION - DRAMA
Niflheim. The world collapsed into anarchy as nature betrayed it. Today, it gets more visitors than it knows what to do with, with a cargo-drop on one hand, and a desperate and dangerous fugitive on the other. Something is going to have to give, and the 'Verse help whoever it is that's to do the giving.
CATEGORY: FICTION TIMES READ: 2391 RATING: 0 SERIES: FIREFLY
First and foremost, I have to say Thank You to the illustrious writer Mal4Prez, who gave me the backdrop for the current arc, and the idea for the story I'm telling. You're a peach. That said, this story almost got munched a few sentences away from the finish, so it took some creative computering to get it here. Trust me, if I'd have had to rewrite it all, it'd never have gotten done. Sure this portion is going to be a tiny bit shorter than the last few, but consider that it's part of a three-episode arc that I have planned. The parts that don't make sense, or even actively contradict each other, are all part of my fiendish plan. Especially don't get thrown at the end. Trust me, it ends strange, and leaves you hanging. All part of the aforementioned fiendish plan. Finally, I'm hoping it won't be too long before I can showcase the second story in the arc "The Ecstacy, Part 1". With work rearing its ugly head, I don't have as much time to myself as I used to, but I'll get it done as soon as I can.
Serenity, and the 'Verse entire is Whedon's toy, Niflheim in particular is Mal4Prez's. What's left, well, that's mine, now ain't it?
Feedback is bliss. Give me bliss.
The Agony
The weights hit the floor as Sylvia let out a yelp. Sloppy, a little voice in her head chided at her. Trying too much, too soon. She almost heard the muscle tearing as the mass got away from her. Now, she was going to have to deal with the consequences. Which meant subjecting herself to Friday. “You should be more careful with that,” Zane said idly from the back of the Mule. “You could hurt yourself.” “Too late,” Sylvia muttered. Zane turned to her, holding his tool out over the edge of the massive, intimidating vehicle. A pale hand reached up and snagged it before vanishing back behind the Mule's bulk. “I wasn't just talking about the weights, Syl,” Zane pressed. “Where we're going, you're going to need to check that distraction you've been wandering around the last few days with.” Sylvia scowled. “People keep saying that.” “Why exactly are you people so afraid of this planet, anyway?” Fiona's voice came from the Mule's far side. The two of them had become thick as thieves in the month since she'd come aboard. It wasn't entirely unexpected; they both had similar mechanisms of thought, they both loved to tinker with things, and Zane was steadily increasing her vocabulary in a way that would make her father turn red with apoplexy. Sometimes, even Syl forgot that Fiona was technically royalty. “There's a lot of reasons for that, Fi,” Zane said tightly. “Amongst them, it's the only other planet in the 'Verse that reminds me of home.” Fiona's head popped around the corner, staring up at the mechanic. “Personally, I'd find that somewhat comforting,” she offered. Zane smiled, if hauntedly. “You've obviously never been to Paradise, sweetheart,” Zane answered her, his voice sotto. “That's the third non-answer I've gotten about Niflheim,” Sylvia complained. “Jacob keeps saying 'maybe later', and Anne just stares at me like she knows I'm carrying a transmittable disease,” not that she'd altered that habit in the slightest for a month, at least, “and everyone else doesn't even know what Niflheim is.” Zane took a deep, purging breath. “It's... hard to explain.” “Then try hard,” she ordered. Zane shook his head, then his glance strayed up to the catwalks. Jacob was standing almost directly overhead, which was disconcerting because she hadn't sensed him approaching in the slightest. Was he getting as quiet in her head as he was in his flesh? It was a disquieting notion. “Niflheim used to be a nice spot,” Jacob began, his voice flat. A smile lit upon his lips. “I used to go there with my family and the Baihu's, on our old ship.” She watched quietly as he began his slow descent down the stairs. His arms raised, almost a shrug. “It wasn't the finest spot, to be sure. It wasn't an Ariel, or even a Santo, but it was a nice spot. There were about ten million people living there, they could look to themselves, keep themselves without any help from above, generally make a good life for themselves. When I was a kid, there was this little watering hole we used to land next to, and I remember Uncle Yuan used to cannon-ball right off the ramp into the water, which was clear as glass...” Jacob trailed off, taking a seat on the bottom step, his eyes locked on some point beyond the mere confines of the cargo-hold. “If it was so nice...” Sylvia began, but Jacob suddenly picked up again. “Then came the Wither,” she could hear the capitalization in his usage. “About... fifteen? Has it been that long?” Zane nodded. “Fifteen or so years ago, something screwed up on Niflheim. The air went from warm and damp, to hot and dry. Everything went dry. Plants died; near all of them did, in point of fact. The world lost its water, and then it lost its crops. People started to starve. Millions died in the first years. You see, the folk living on the ground are practically owned by the cartels which claimed Niflheim as their own, so they couldn't just move somewhere better when the going got tough. They had to stick it out, with dying crops and disease flying on the baking air. I don't think I need to clarify how exactly that went.” “For clarity's sake, would you?” Sylvia asked. Jacob looked up, and she could see a ghost in his eyes. It was the ghost of a childhood memory that had been brutally murdered, and its corpse displayed on his dinner table. “At first, we were transporting lumber away from Niflheim, and crops and whatnot,” Jacob pressed on. “When the Wither hit, we didn't know about it. We just didn't get called to Niflheim for a few years. Then, we get the call, and we're transporting emergency rations to the planetary capital. I didn't understand. Why would Niflheim need emergency food? Well, then I saw the planet as we drew close. Now, seeing Niflheim, having seen it Before,” Sylvia again heard the capitalization, “it was a nightmare sculpted on a planetary scale. There was a family that my father did business with, fairly regularly. We tried to hunt him down, but we learned that his wife had during the Wither, and he'd gone to the city, trying to survive with his son. While we tried to find Roy, or even Bucky, who'd know where he was, the riots came through. They knew we had food, you cotton? And they were all manner of desperate to get their hands on it,” Jacob sighed, his chin dropping to his knuckles. “That was when Julie got shot. It was the first time I saw somebody get shot before. They gave me a bad cut, too,” he gestured vaguely to his right side, “somewhere hereabouts. It would have left a wicked scar... I'd never been around people so desperate that they'd go, as a unit, violent. Reavers weren't even stories, back then, you know? So this was something I hadn't prepared for. We ended up ditching the food and taking a loss, and went back into the black to lick our wounds.” Sylvia waited for him to continue. She didn't want to read him, because, first of all, she was afraid of something that would make him feel that much raw, unprocessed pain. She couldn't see how bad that was. She'd been around desperate people back on Silverhold, particularly when the Fires went through and scorched the plains black. It couldn't possibly... “And on the way back...” Jacob continued, voice again flat, “...that's when the fire happened.” “Oh, my god,” Sylvia whispered. Jacob gave a sharp look, but it softened quickly when his conscious mind realized who he was targeting. At least, thats what she hoped was the process. “I'm convinced that's why Julie didn't get away from the blast. 'Cause she was barely able to walk, you know? Only Manny got out of the riots unscathed. And me...” He held up his right hand, for some reason, but didn't say another word on that track. Instead, he moved onto another one, his voice regaining some of its life, if not pleasantly. “I guess now, I just sort of equate Niflheim with what happened after. But still, I haven't ever shook that look I'd seen in their faces. That need. That frantic rage. Sometimes, I can still see it when I'm having a nightmare.” “That makes sense,” she whispered, tensing her soar arms. “As dire as it was, back then, it's gonna be all-gorramn-hell more nasty when we touch down in the evening,” Jacob said, rising to his feet and striking the dust from his pants. Not that there was any, but he did it nonetheless. “We're going in there, fully kitted up, spend as little time as we possibly can, and get out before the horde finds us. And they will. Pretty much everybody who's left on Niflheim is living within five miles of our drop-site.” Sylvia frowned a moment. “What about those people? What do we do about them?” she asked. Jacob scowled, reaching for the pack of cigarettes she now knew rested in his pocket. He lit one up almost mechanically. “Not a damn thing,” he responded, voice empty. “There's nothing we can do. Get in, get out, and hope like hell they don't see us coming until we're on our way the hell out of dodge. The Cartels don't like private interplanetaries, and they're willing to sell a ship out to the mob for a bent nickel if the mood hits them,” Jacob exhaled a broad cloud of grey smoke. “Keep your eyes peeled, your head down, and shoot anybody you see running toward you.” Sylvia recoiled at that last part, but she could tell, both by his face before he turned and walked back up the stairs, and by the sensation that ran through the bundle of his emotions nestled in the back of her psyche, that he was deadly serious.
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