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"I'm sorry," she mumbled, backing away. "I'm just gonna... go."

Her foot hit the broken pieces of Gall's mace; she knelt and gingerly picked them up, repaired it with a quickly muttered spell, and held it out to Gall, still keeping her eyes on the floor.

Wait, crap. Was she getting blood on it? Maybe Gall wouldn't notice?

Her heart began thudding in her chest. First losing her temper and now this.

She looked on in horror at the ruin of her mace. "That wasn't a threat, yak-brain! You're like the one guy I literally couldn't threaten if I tried!"

Derik was taken aback, but unsure how to respond. On the one hand, Gall was attached to her weapon and was likely to mope and carry on about this until she could get Agent Brightbeard to repair it, possibly even after, and he couldn't help feeling a little sympathy for her. On the other hand, she did so richly deserve to be checked, even thus harshly. He settled for a muted "Steady, there," which might have been addressed to anyone. He did find himself awkwardly patting Thoth's pauldron, for all the effect that would have.

It was Jenni who jumped into the middle, putting out her hands and turning 'round to create a space between Gall, Thoth, and Ix. "Easy, everyone!" She then spoke to Gall: "You were asking for trouble, so hush, and keep your pointies to yourself next time." Then Thoth: "And you, you could have just taken it away, and I reckon we'd all have cheered you on. I know your universe doesn't leave much room for temperance, but work on it more, eh? You're not a child to break things in a fit of pique." She gazed steadily into his eyes, one immortal to another.

(( Hehehe. Sorry, Tom, nobody else is gonna just let that slide. Too many Neutral to Lawful Good types about.

(( FYI, I won't be able to respond as much as I have been going forward, at least not Tu, W, and F. My boss was on vacation last week, so I could have my laptop out at work without being accused of slacking off, but alas, that golden time is over. ))

Ix stepped forward, fists balling. "You can't just go around breaking people's stuff and then threatening to do the same to them!"

"Even casually, I would not suggest threatening me." His voice was low, and entirely calm. "That is one of approximately twelve ways I could have dealt with that scenario. The rest of them would have been far less pleasant for you. I hope that we understand one another."

Tom nodded to Gall, acting as if nothing had happened. "Well, it does go wrong occasionally. I did tell her not to touch that wire - had to go before the auditors for that..." He shivered visibly. "However, that means that we're more cautious than someone with an ordinary weapon is."

"Yeah, that sounds much safer. I'm sure that's never gotten horribly out of control. I, on the other hand, am in complete control of my weapon at all times." She showed this by extending her spiky mace like a sabre and poking it at Thoth's breastplate in what she fully realized was an absurd move, because she could.

Derik facepalmed, wobbling slightly.

Jenni watched warily, one arm around Ix's shoulders.

(( Thoth, you are invited to deal with Gall and her mace in whatever way you please, and I'll run with it. {= )

(( Jenni will be happy to help Ix with her hands if it comes to her attention, but I can't figure a way she'd notice yet with only normal perception. ))

"Must you all wield such dangerous weapons and scare people like that? I usually wield sinister demons from beyond this realm forced into service although they would love to break free and destroy me and anyone nearby. And I'm fine..."

Thoth looked unflinchingly at Gall. "Sheer bloody-mindedness can get you a reasonable distance in a fight. Although I have my own prefered means, of course..."

Her breathing started to drift towards hyperventilating, though, and she dug her nails into her palms until she bled. The pain helped her to think a little more clearly, and she sucked down several deep breaths. It helped, a little.

"Thank you," she murmured to Jenni.

"Less good, more brute strength and bloody-mindedness. When you can swing a twenty-pound sledgehammer like this guy, you don't really have to be good. Now, me, on the other hand..." She got up and hefted her mace, which she'd kept on her belt because it fit her costume and no amount of good sense could talk her into leaving it behind. "If me and Fellrazer had been there, we'd have wasted them!" She gave the mace a half-speed swing to demonstrate.

"Stop that, you barbarian!" Derik snapped at her. "You'll hit someone!"

Jenni edged further away from Gall and toward Ix. "May I suggest a couple of deep breaths? You're all right." She reached out to pat the kid on the shoulder.

(( Giving Ix the chance to flinch or roll with it there. ))

"I'll say. I've seen Thoth fight, and even so... That's impressive."

Thoth nodded. "Indeed. Were you born to another universe, you might have made a good Space Marine."

"Sorry," she stammered. "I wasn't—I was just—I'm sorry—won't mention it again—" She glanced around at the others as if hoping one of them would come to her rescue. "You, uh, you must be a really good fighter, then?" She cringed and ducked her head.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Could you be any more obvious you don't know how to carry on a conversation? Pathetic.

He had rather warmed to his performance as it went on, and this was not the reaction he'd hoped for. "What...? No, you've missed the point. That was the good part."

Jenni had to laugh, a small, contained chuckle. "Oh, Derik. What about the part after that, where you battled your way back to FicPsych, terrified poor Elms, and proceeded to muscle your way through a heavy dose of fellis juice in order to help us fight off the Mary Sue invasion?"

"You shouldn't have dosed me," he muttered mulishly.

"You were falling-down exhausted and shouldn't have been moving, let alone running around fighting Sues! He did, though," she told the others. "I wasn't there—I thought I'd left him safely asleep and had gone to help in Medical—but I'm told it was impressive."

"Right! It was!" Derik held up his cup to her. "So please stop pitying me, for the Egg's sake!"

(( You can pity him if you want. He's still a hot mess. {= ) BTW, all the events he's told of were originally written in this mission and this story, if you wanna get the details. It was fun retelling it all as Derik, though, so thank you for indulging me. ˆ_ˆ ))

"That... that's awful. I'm sorry, Derik. I... That..." He trailed off. What else was there to say?

Thoth merely sat there. He was watching Derik closely, but the expression on his face was difficult to discern.

Ix looked down at the ground, twisting the stem of her rose until it began to split. "About your eye, and, and your friend. My, uh, my mum read the books to me. And... I don't think the words did it justice, describing what that felt like. I can't even imagine..."

She resisted the urge to stare, instead keeping her eyes on the ground. He looked... almost the same as her. A mirror image. It was more than a little unsettling.

And suddenly all eyes were on him again. "Right." He took a preparatory drink of water. It was good, and he did need it; he'd have to remember to say something nice to Jenni later. But now, he had said he would do this, and whatever else he was, he was a man who upheld his commitments. "Where was I...?"

"Awake in FicPsych, about to give me conniptions," Jenni said with a half-smile.

"Right," he said again. "Erik, the original Erik, had just left me with his injunction to live ringing in my ears. I wasn't thinking clearly, but I got up and found my few belongings—my boots, my belt, my flight jacket—and I started walking. If you've lived in Headquarters for any amount of time, you know it's nearly impossible to get where you're going if you think about it, but it's equally impossible to get anywhere if you're as empty of purpose and drive as I was. I went on in that fugue state for some time, I don't know how long. At times I slept, and then I would get up and go on again. I saw no one, or if I did, I don't recall... but I felt as though someone, or something, was watching me, guiding my steps.

"I had gone by many doors, all the same, and taken no heed of them, but finally I came to one I could not pass by. This portal that loomed up before me was different from the others. It was large, and I could feel the heaviness of its metal. Something ominous was on the other side, but I wasn't afraid—I was still numb. With no thought of any direction but forward in my mind, I turned its great wheel and stepped inside.

"The door slammed shut behind me, and I was in total darkness. Robbed of vision, I stopped.

"But something could see me. This presence was not sapient, I think, but it had logic and a purpose with me. Everything I was, had been, and might have been was laid bare to it, as though I were as insubstantial as the spoken word. First it looked at me and through me, and then it began to change me."

He had to pause for another sip of water.

"The first thing I knew differently was knowing. Whereas before all I could hold in my mind was my half-life with Alanna in our narrow, ill-begotten mockery of Pern, now I knew my world as it really is. And I knew my real place in it. Not as a Weyrleader, because the leadership of all the Weyrs is well known, but yet a bronzerider, one who chose a life in the untamed Southern Continent during the Ninth Pass. Before that, a harper, and a headstrong, reckless young man."

He shook his head ruefully. "I said I would tell you how I lost my eye twice in one day, and now we come to the point. You've seen my face." He took off the green domino mask so they could get another look. The right side was covered in a sunken, sinusoidal pattern of scars. They extended down the side of his neck, down into his unitard. They'd cut through part of his right eyebrow and left his hairline ragged. They had caused muscle damage and distortion that left the right side of his mouth permanently stretched to the side and unable to properly pull up in a smile. And they had taken the sight from his right eye. "This is Threadscar. This is the hazard we face on Pern, and it is what dragonriders exist to combat. I remember when I got this.

"It was our first Threadfall. No more were Skepnadth and I confined to the ground. At last, we were in the air, where we were meant to be! Our job was to carry firestone to the fighting wings—firestone is the substance that gives a dragon his flame. We had practiced our throw over and over, and we were good at it. We were strong, our power boundless, and our joy fierce. ... Every man thinks he's immortal at nineteen. A Fall lasts four hours, and I began to tire of the heavy goggles on my face. I was hot; sweat dripped into my eyes, and I could hardly see. So, fool that I was, I took them off. Just for a little while, I thought. We were such excellent flyers, what could possibly go wrong?

"A thick tangle of Thread. A gust of wind. Both of us screaming, the sound swallowed in cold between as Skepnadth jumped to safety. We were lucky to live."

He paused. The memory was strong, painful in many ways. But he'd indulged himself in grief quite sufficiently for one night.

"I remember when I got this," he said again, indicating his scars with a nod and a raised cup. "I was standing in the dark with a face belonging to another man. But something looked at me, and saw a dragonman, not a Phantom. It changed me. I felt the sting of something superficial sinking deep into my flesh... and when the door to the Reality Room opened again, I was half-blind, who had been twice blinded. ... And lucky to live."

(( Disclaimer: Derik might be exaggerating about the Reality Room just a tad for poetic effect. But don't go in there if you're at all impossible. ))

"I'm sure she's very nice. I'm happy for you, Ix."

He turned to Derik. "Of course. If you want, continue."

Thoth simply nodded his assent at that last statement.

She quailed under Gall's glare and forced herself to focus on Tom. "She's a Twilight vampire... she came as Christine today... um..." She swallowed again and glanced at Derik. "Sorry. Um. Continue, please?"

((If Ix knew Gall thought she was going after Derik, she'd probably cry. :P))

Barring all the other excellent reasons he was no good for anyone, he was surely too old for Ix, and he suddenly regretted his choice of a skin-tight costume that might tend to attract attention to his physique. He glanced at Gall, who tended to have one of two reactions to other girls noticing him: jovial agreement or bitter enmity, with scant middle ground.

In this instance, her eyes had narrowed at Ix, but once she mentioned her girlfriend, the Viking relaxed again. She left Ix and Tom to it and turned to her partner. "So are you gonna finish the story, or what?"

(( Derik (and I) are really waiting for an invitation to go on. Or a clear sign that he/I shouldn't. As the case may be. ))

"Feels like it lasted for days."

"You have a girlfriend? That's fantastic, Ix! Who is it?"

Thoth did not respond significantly to the hand upon his pauldron. But there might have been a hint of a smile on his face.

((Yes, Tom doesn't know Ix has a girlfriend. IIRC, he may not have even met Charlotte.))

They all stood in a large room. On the far left, there was an assortment of masks, and a seemingly random collection of sports supplies, implements of nonlethal injury, and other, similar, items. An astounding collection of boxes, arrows, and circles have been drawn across the floor.

"All right! Agents! We've all prepared for this day. DoSAT and Medical are on standby. Get your masks ready. You know the rules. You know the stakes. You know what is about to happen."

"There will be two teams. Which team you are on will be self-selected. Names for the teams will also be self-selected. Teams will be formed after the game has started, so work quickly. Oh. And if any of the flowers ask what we're doing, make a dash for it."

"Without further ado, let the HQ Calvinball tournament... BEGIN!"

((Yes, that's right. We've got a Calvinball tournament now. You know the rules. Or you don't. It's probably not incredibly relevant. If you REALLY want to know, and you don't already, just look it up. Join in, and contribute to the madness, please.))

Ix bit her lip. "It's just, you don't look so... good. Right now, at this moment. I'm sure you look quite nice normally. Not that I'd think you look nice—I mean—I do—I mean—I have a girlfriend," she mumbled, face bright red.

She could never help being irritated when prevented from doing her work.

"It's all right for now," Derik said. "But thank you... brother." He nodded and laid his free hand on Thoth's wolf-painted pauldron. In addition to being a companionable gesture, it helped him stay upright, since Gall hadn't seen fit to give up the chair and he didn't want to start a fresh fight about it.

(( Yup, visible if you're looking. Was also banking on Space Marine senses to help engineer this really delightful moment. ˆ_ˆ Assuming in turn that Thoth is siting on the floor, based on this post.))

"You need not leave if you do not wish to do so, brother." Thoth noticed Derik's injury. "Your hand has been injured. Do you wish me to attempt to repair it?"

Tom stared at his partner as if the marine had sprouted an extra head.

((I am assuming that Derik's hand is visible...))

"I dunno if it was scary," Gall said, looking at Ix closely. "The weird shadow thing, though... is it a Phantom thing? Does it come with the mask and stuff? Cuz—oh, hey, One-eye. Totally not talking about your weirdness behind your back!" She grinned.

Derik rolled his eye(s).

[Ix] swallowed when the others returned to the group. "I'm sorry," she said again to Derik.

"No, I'm the one who must apologize. To everyone," he answered, looking around to include Thoth and Tom (and probably even Gall). "My behavior has been atrocious, and I can only hope for your forbearance. ... If you'll permit me, I would like to deliver the part of the tale that I promised, and then I'll go."

(( ... Doesn't Ix + Gall = Thoth's worst nightmare? Okay, maybe not worst, but... I thought it was amusing. ))

Ix glanced around and swallowed. "Just fine. What did I do that was scary? I won't do it again, I'm sorry..."