etraya | un: plushiewarrior | VIDEO (in which alex sends a really powerful radio signal into the night)

Entry tags:

un: plushiewarrior | VIDEO (in which alex sends a really powerful radio signal into the night)

( The wind's too loud to hear anything at first, catching the earpiece at exactly the wrong angle. Then Alex waves, smiling with that glassy eyed look that significantly tipsy people can end up wearing. It's dark behind her, but anyone very, very familiar with the skyscraper rooftops in Nova City will recognize she's on one of them. )

Hiii! Oh, it is... so not as cold up here as I expected!

( She laughs a little, throwing her hands up into the air and stumbling forward to likewise toss her arms around part of a metal structure, possibly a radio tower. Alex rests her head on it, her laughter trailing off as she smiles, a little bittersweet. )

I wanted to send a message. A big one! A big... message. So I thought, what if you had a lot... I mean a lot of power behind a radio signal? Won't that do something? We just want to be heard...

( Her eyes close, and it doesn't seem like she's doing anything. Then the tower starts to hum, lighting up with a soft sort of glow under her hands. Anyone tuned into its frequency will hear a humming too, almost like static feedback, that starts to sound more like a heartbeat. Hers. Then a clearer message with that beating in the background: Echo. Come in, Echo.

Then it really starts to glow, until the whole radio tower is a beacon of light. There is no way for the tower to handle that much energy for long. Alex's brow furrows as she's swallowed by the light, the overpowered radio signal shooting up a moment later, all the light abruptly going out as it fizzles upward, a misleading manifestation of what went without being visible to most eyes. Alex is left clinging to a partially melted structure, pushing herself away to stand, swaying. )

... Did that... oh. I don't... feel so good...

( Which is when she goes boneless, dropping out of frame to hit the rooftop in a muffled thud, close to passing out. Luckily her earpiece is still recording! ... About four feet higher than her current head level. Enjoy your scene of a warped radio tower and the otherwise unremarkable rooftop, Etraya. )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

( If the pain wasn't ramping up again, Alex would have told someone, the bots? Just to jab her, treat it like an epipen, not like an infusion, but she just doesn't have it in her to do more than concentrate fully on breathing. Not passing out either.

She briefly glances toward Kaeya with his question, but it's not until the bots set the injection down and look like they're about to set up a saline line for her that Alex rolls herself toward the tray, grabs the injection, and holds it over her own arm. Let it never be said Alex hesitates when it comes to injecting herself. She knows her own veins after years of hospital visits, just usually not from this particular angle.

Apologies to gathered bot and person audience, but Alex grunts a little in the spike of pain that moving and jabbing herself provides, depressing the full injection faster than perhaps necessary. It's too hard to regulate right now, and she's fully getting the painful sense of how stupid her extremes had been, versus if she'd done, say, a less drunk approach.

Black is threatening at the edges of her vision again as she flops back against the raised bed, but she fights it off through sheer willpower. Kaeya had asked a question. She needs to answer it. Doesn't she? Her heart rate is evening out, no longer beating erratically if still too fast, but even that is starting to slow down. )

Gah. I sent out a signal using the radio tower. I would have used a satellite, but I didn't see one when I was driving the islands...

( She exhales, making herself... tense to stay away. Even if the pain is much reduced by merit of the therapy that would, for most people, either only slow down their dying or help contribute to them becoming something else instead. )

Ugh. I used way too much power resonating with that tower. ( She finally glances between them, brow furrowed, but less from pain than earlier. ) Was it really melted?

Oh extremely. A Pyro Genshin couldn’t have done it better. [He knows the exact one he could think of to do it. Complete with casual treating himself harshly. He leans forward, studying her for a moment.

Workoholic or adventurer. Or both.] Are you going to be alright? You can take your time answering.

[Archons he hopes so. She was very pale when they brought her in.]

[ Setsu jumps a little seeing Alex inject herself. At first, they don't even know if she's capable of knowing what she's doing in her current state, but the entire process happens so quickly that, by the time Setsu snaps out of their shock, it's already done.

And she's talking again. ]

Just for that?

[ The words slip out automatically in response: A mix of disbelief and disappointment. There is so much they want to say to her at the moment, but now really isn't the time for it.

First, they want Alex to take her time recovering from whatever "resonating" does to her body. With how rapidly she declined, even if she answers that she's fine now, Setsu doesn't know if they'll be able to believe her. Nevertheless, they look back at her with concern and wait for her answer. ]

( For a moment, tired as she is, Alex looks struck. More by what Setsu's saying, but she turns wide eyes toward her friend, feeling suddenly very small. Just for that? Alex's voice and demeanour is subdued, having no ready answer for Kaeya. Just the smallness, and Setsu, and those three words. )

We're stuck here. Echo doesn't talk to us, Aurora can't talk to Echo for us, we have to get past here. Outside this bubble. And I don't know how else to do that except scream as loud as I can and hope someone, somewhere, hears me when I'm saying we're all here.

( Her voice gets progressively quieter, Alex drawing her legs up so she can wrap one arm around them. The other one's connected to too many wires. Her heart rate is dropping down into more normal ranges, still slightly elevated, but it beats steadily, no skips, no murmurs. That is what the injection did, along with cutting through the haze of the pain. Now it's just the aches that come after, and the slide off adrenaline and into the dark.

Alex feels her eyes burn, and she furrows her brow, blinking as furiously as she can manage. It's not all that fast. Evol exhaustion on top of what her protocores do when acting less stable means she's got very little energy left to burn, and her crashout is looming high and dark behind her eyes. Not quite ashamed of it, but definitely not happy with herself, Alex lets her head drop down onto her legs, voice muffled and small. She doesn't have the energy not to cry right now. She also doesn't have the energy to do more than feel the hot, wet trails it leaves coursing down her cheeks, coming under her chin and falling down onto her chest under the weight of their own gravity. )

I miss home. I miss my friends. I miss work. I miss knowing I'm helping make sure no one else goes through what I did. But I'm here, and so is everyone else, and Echo won't even talk with us. How are we supposed to work anything out if it won't talk with us?

[The man behind the forest of masks he calls a smile waits until quiet descends. Everything she’s saying ricochets around inside his heart. He shares those feelings. His voice is quiet and tired as a bit of the real Kaeya of clan Alberich slips out.] We can’t. And that’s the problem.

If someone doesn’t talk to us we can’t do anything to see if we’re being told the truth or not. It feels like running to someone else’s tune and for what?

It isn’t fair. [He gets up and quietly requests a box of tissues and some water from a bit. He pulls his chair closer to her bed. With him comes the sense of the sea. He dims it down to a low background as if they were not far from the sea shore.] But we have to be smart about how we rattle the bars. Stabbing ourselves with them isn’t going to return us to where we belong. And to the lives we were taken from.

When I get close to magic burn, I usually need to eat and rehydrate. Are you similar?

[ Setsu takes in a sharp, quiet breath, and they feel their chest begin to squeeze.

They're not sure if they've ever heard Kaeya sound quite like this. Or seen Alex be so hurt...

It hurts, to listen to her reveal her feelings like this. They get it. They get Alex's motives here, and they get what Kaeya is saying, too. They really, really get it. They just need a few moments, hanging back at the side, to let their heart relax a little.

It's great that Kaeya is taking the lead in looking after Alex, because the bots, without any direction at this point, busy themselves with retrieving a box of tissues from a nearby cupboard and leaving the room to bring in some water.

Setsu takes in another, measured breath with their hand curled in a loose fist at their chest. Alex and Kaeya are their friends, and they both have lives to return to—Setsu wants to protect that hope for them.

That's the thought they choose to hold onto to steady themself as they finally step to Alex's bedside, more withdrawn than before, and their voice softer. ]

I'm sorry. That was too harsh... I shouldn't have said that. You just wanted to try everything you could to change the situation, right? I understand that...

...But what Kaeya said is true, too. Hurting yourself in the process of trying everything is still hurting yourself. Next time, don't try to do it all alone. Okay?

( Alex keeps her face buried in her legs, listening to the people around her move, to the click of the bots feet on the tile floor. She wants to close her eyes, knowing when she does the dark eating at their edges will engulf her. Will need to soon enough anyway, because how she heals is always with sleep and food and frustration at a limit she only recently learned can kill her — but can't keep her dead.

The scent and sensation of the sea when Kaeya moves his chair over to the bedside has her unconsciously tilting her body a touch his direction: she misses the sea, the shoreline that Linkon City shares with it, the white beaches and the rocky stretches and the endless familiarity of fifteen years of living within their reach.

Both what Kaeya and Setsu say is right. Alex knows that, even as her tired mind goes, I didn't mean to in a whine she won't voice, because intention is not the same as resulting effect. Her voice is still small, answering: )

Okay. ( And ) It's the same. For me. Drink water, eat something. I'll sleep too, if the adrenaline drops.

( If? It already has. She's pushed through the crashing before when it's been a matter of saving lives and pursuing the one responsible for killing patients with promises of immortalized hope. People who had protocore syndrome. Ones who were turning. People who never had a real chance, because the failure rate is so astoundingly high, and it was all being covered up, and...

And nothing. She knows why her thoughts are wandering, so Alex does what she can to rein them back in while she can still pull her focus. )

I just... I want us to be heard. Aurora can't fix that.

( Small as her voice is, on that note, she sounds sad. Unutterably sad over something that feels like a incontestable truth. And because she had not been thoughtful enough, had not planned at all, had not believed it would shake out like this, that she'd worry Setsu, or even Kaeya who doesn't know her from a frog on a log, she feels... guilty. Guilty and deeply regretful. (Gorgug, Dwayne, Julie...) )

I'm sorry.

[He gets up and snags another chair. He sets it in respectful distance from the bed and that sense of the sea dails up a bit. He saw that it helped. But his voice remains calm and soothing. He knows how to charm anyone but this is about helping.] I know. We’ll work on that.

[He signals to a bot and asks for some cheese and fruit to go with the water.] You’re right that she can’t help us with that. I think she’s bound by Rules. But we’ll talk about that in a bit. Let’s take care of you first.

[He thanks a bot as they bring in water and what looks like a charcuterie board on a small mobile table. He flicks down the lock the wheels with his foot.] We can plan later. They brought you well. Not what I asked for exactly but close enough. Will this work?

[ Setsu finally sits down. The sense of the sea that accompanies Kaeya is something Setsu associates only with Kaeya, but in that way, it is nice. A familiar sensation, here in this hospital room, where Alex is still curled into a ball and looks so small...

Now really isn't the time to discuss anything. By all accounts, the situation thus far has been so unchanging that, unless Alex's move just now had a dramatic and immediate effect on something other than her own body, they have all the time in the world to plan and allow Alex to recover. Setsu wonders if Alex had considered that there would be a personal aftermath to her actions...

But Setsu themself doesn't need to say anything. Kaeya has the situation handled easily, as always, though Setsu is still ready if needed. In case there is an immediate effect they don't yet know of.

The only thought Setsu chooses to voice: ] You don't need to say sorry. I'm happy you're okay...

( Kaeya setting the subject aside for now means Alex can too. She doesn't have enough lingering energy to properly talk about any of it, and only tries to eat because he brought the table of food nearby. Alex lifts her head, face tear-streaked and splotchy but also less pale than earlier. She's losing the energy to even cry right now.

She does manage to reach out and take a piece of cheese between her fingers, nibbling at it instead of eating it all at once. That, too, is deliberate and slow: she may not look like she's in the same pain as earlier, but she's definitely fading fast. )

Mm. When I wake up. ( Which she will. The problem is there is nothing she has to fight right now, nothing to keep her conscious and aware and pushing against the consuming dark. There's the sense of the sea now, too, cool and salt tinged; there's Setsu, who she thinks of as a friend and who she feels regret for worrying.

She may not even be finishing that piece of cheese before she's passing out. Her mouth almost feels too dry to swallow, but she manages, regardless. ) I might... pass out. Real soon.

Don’t fight it. We’ll be here when you wake up.

[He snags a bit of meat and cheese from the plate. Nothing big. She needs to rest more than anything else. She can rehydrate and all the necessary things after.

And without a clue what this protocore business is, he can’t and won’t heal her. Better to let her recover naturally. For now.

He looks at Setsu. He is sure they want to remain and his vineyards have been tended to. He doesn’t have anywhere to be.] I’ll introduce myself when you do.

[ A small, grateful smile tugs at Setsu's lips when Kaeya says, "We'll be here." Even if he hadn't said it, Setsu would have stayed; waking up to your friends still at your side is easy to take for granted, until it's gone.

After all this, Setsu was sure the three of them were all friends—until introductions are brought up, and Setsu looks up at Kaeya like a deer in headlights, unsure of what to even say to that...and ultimately, they can only weakly chuckle in response. ]

Let's save that for later.

[ Alex is fading fast. As she wavers there, struggling to finish a single bite of food, the image of her collapsing on the rooftop looms in Setsu's mind. Wordlessly, they stand up and help ease her down onto her pillow. ]

Sleep well, okay? See you soon.

[ Since Alex broke down, Setsu's voice has become particularly gentle towards her. And seeing her tear-stained face, it's even harder not to be gentle and linger there.

It's after they step away from Alex's bedside that they turn to Kaeya again. ]

I had no idea you two didn't know each other. Alex...isn't usually like this...

[ Not that he seemed to look down on her, and Setsu won't try to justify her actions. ]

Anyway... Are you hungry?

[ Which feels like a random question, but when he mentioned "magic burn," they began to wonder. Kaeya's done all of this so smoothly, but they have no idea how he's feeling. ]

I am. I think we could both use something while we wait. [He stands up and stretches. There’s a satisfying pop from his back. Alex will sleep for a while. From personal experience…]

I already guessed she isn’t usually like this. That felt like hitting a limit. [His hasn’t been hit yet. But it is coming. The icy cage he stuffs a lot of emotions in has been rattling more often than not. He rubs the side of his neck and looks towards the hall.] I think we all will find ours along the way.

[He looks back at them, a tired little smile on his face. It doesn’t reach his eye.] I’ll tell you a story while we eat. I’m sure you would like to know what magic burn even is.

[ They'll all find their limits along the way... Setsu hums in response, unable to disagree but not entirely willing to accept it, either. No matter what, Setsu knows they need to be stronger, or they will reach that point, and if that happens, they won't be able to help anyone...

The pain in their chest has mostly subsided, leaving only a dull pressure that's easy to ignore. Seeing Kaeya smiling like that, though... They force a thin smile to their own face, like an acknowledgement that doesn't need any comment, and then let it drop. ]

... Yeah, I would like to know. It seems pretty serious...

[ Setsu gives Alex another look, pulls the sheet up over her shoulders, and turns back towards the door. If they're going to eat, it should definitely be now, so they can make sure they're back by the time she wakes up. ]

I'll let you pick what we have. To be honest, I'm not really that hungry right now...but I should eat.

Alright. Sandwiches, I think. [He turns to the bot hovering nearby and puts in the request. Then leans back, crossing one leg over the other.

This isn’t a great story. Most stories like this aren’t.] It can be serious. It depends on if you ignore it or you take some time to rest.

If you hit that limit in the middle of a fight and ignore it? Well. The results aren’t pretty. Early on in my captaincy before I became second to the acting Grand Master,

[He glosses right over his saying his rank out loud with a breezy tone.] My men and I were investigating a report of some activity in a ruins that was exposed due to a storm.

That happens sometimes. Teyvat is littered with the wreckage and bones of civilizations past. [The bot shuffles in with a few others leading a trolley. There is a plate of sandwiches stacked high. Some snacks, and mugs of hot chocolate. Apparently Alex crying may or may not have influenced them. Have to help.]

Within a lot of these are old machines. We can’t make those kind of things these days. The cataclysm five hundred years ago set everyone back. The machines…were once supposedly called Field Tillers for how they reaped the opposing side.

That’s a rather apt name. And to those without the technology to oppose them, more fitting yet. But most know them as Ruin guards, hunters, and the like. For good reason. One might argue, the same reason.

Now, Genshin like me are rare. We are at best. 1-2% of the population. We had one when we went in. In reality we needed at least three. Two experienced, plus their captain the one recovering from another skirmish who hadn’t been one that long.

Ideally not recovering. My hindsight on this one is quite clear.

[ It's times like this where Setsu leans towards believing that the bots do have the capacity to think and feel. Setsu takes a mug of hot chocolate before sitting down, and just lets the warmth permeate through their gloves as they listen to Kaeya's story.

As they listen, their face is carefully focused as they note a few things: First is that Kaeya is a captain and has been for some time; second is that the machines in ruins he had made mention of during the last mission are significantly larger threats than Setsu had believed; and third is, above all, that this is a story about him.

Their brows knit. Despite how firm they want to appear, they can't help the way their expression grows downcast as they realize that. More than simply telling them about magic burn, he's telling them about himself—himself, his men, and a battle where they were almost guaranteed to fail. And they feel like this isn't going to be a story of Kaeya recognizing his own condition, seeing the odds stacked against them, wisely making a strategic retreat... Thinking of that, even though the Kaeya before them is alive and well, they feel anxious.

(And how old was Kaeya when this occurred? He doesn't look that that much older than them, but he was already a captain with others under his command, so... No, that's not the thing to focus on right now.)

This story, the set up already feels unfair to those involved. But, they guess, that's just how it is for those that have to protect others, in every world. ]

Ideally, I imagine a lot of things should have been different there... It sounds like an impossible situation to be put into. How did you choose to proceed...?

[He picks up a sandwich and takes a bite. He can remember the whole thing like it was yesterday.] We entered. At the time, there had been reports of activity from a few things we didn’t want getting their hands on a possible Ruin machine factory.

It would have shattered the peace we have had compared to other nations. If Grand Master Varka and our older knights were still around it wouldn’t have been a problem either. As it was. I made the call. It was routine for a while. We determined it wasn’t a factory. However.

[The rest of his sandwich is gone. He picks up a mug. He takes a swig.] A lot of ruins have defenses. We accidentally tripped one of them while we were deep inside. It wasn’t ruin guards. It was automated defenses and I didn’t think.

I acted. I had never used magic that fast and that much at once. It was a thick ice dome that blocked anything coming at us. But I wasn’t seeing anything. Magic spent that fast makes you feel light headed.

Draining too much like that is…I was dizzy. I had never used so much even in previous fights. I hadn’t needed to. That’s of course when the ruin guard in that area woke up. It was recognized I couldn’t move on my own.

They pulled me into a side area and again. I sealed it with ice. Ruin Guardians are set to patrol a specific area…usually. We got lucky. [He takes a sip of his cocoa.] Which is a good thing. I had saved their lives. We would have been done if it had pursued. Instead. The men got a rest and I passed out. My ice remains unless I die. It was a decent barrier.

[ So, in the end, this was entirely his call. Hindsight really is clearer than being in the moment... Setsu sips at their cocoa as they listen, and eventually grabs a packet of dried fruit snacks to go with it.

They can't really blame him, here. Those weren't the wisest choices, but when he really gave his all, beyond even his own limits...Setsu can't make themself criticize him.

He saved a lot of people. As captain, he had to think of their survival and his own. That's probably what he was thinking of when he wasn't thinking and created that first barrier, Setsu guesses. How drained was he when he chose to create a second barrier after the first one left him disoriented? They imagine him collapsing, like Alex had.

With a powerful enemy nearby, unable to protect himself or his subordinates, unable to even remain conscious... They were all really lucky that the guard didn't pursue them. A "decent barrier" is still only a barrier, so...

Setsu still feels uneasy. ]

So you completely drained yourself...? Was sleep even enough to recover from something like that?

[There's an embarrassed little pause; he sips his cocoa to hide it.] No. My fellow captain came to our aid. She is my superior now, and was my senior then. Her magic is a supportive wind.

She, another captain, and her squad dealt with the Ruin Guard and the defenses. They found us, and I woke up in the church healing ward. [Embarrassing.]

[ Setsu exhales a sigh of relief, finally leaning back in their chair. ]

Then you made it back okay? You said before that you'd need at least three "Genshin" to deal with something like that, right? In that case, it's good that she came for you...

[ Maybe Setsu is too used to seeing the worst case scenario, but they can't help but be grateful that someone came for him - and his men - before anything worse could happen. If he can be embarrassed about it, they hope it really wasn't much worse.

Focusing on all of that is probably even more embarrassing, though. ]

How was your recovery?

[This time, he laughs. It is a lot less embarrassing to talk about magic burn. He reaches for another sandwich.] Slower than I like. It’s like having a hangover while you feel too weak to do much about it.

You sleep a lot. I was assigned light duties and desk work once I was well enough to move. It took about two days to get to that. A week to be back on field duty. Two weeks before I was back to normal.

[He snorts,] Because of it, I practice daily. Now, I can throw up a shield like that without draining myself. I did that twice when Verso and I met in the arena. I can do far more than that these days. Dragons have much higher reserves.

Think of it as I’m used to a river to budget. Now I have a deep ocean. And judging but how melted that tower is. Alex has deep reserves too.

Healing fixes the body and only the body. Best thing for her is a lot of naps and big meals.

[ ... Yeah, that sounds like a really boring recovery process. Setsu finally starts on their baggie of dried fruit, thinking that they, too, would train daily after being out for so long, and they nod in sympathy—though it's still there, in the back of their mind, that it's not simply the long recovery process that made Kaeya work harder. There wasn't any part of that they imagine he wants to re-experience, so he had to become stronger. Strong enough that he could do the same tasks that knocked him out before with ease. All of that was like a hard-learned lesson that Kaeya took seriously. The process of practicing daily was probably exhausting in its own right...

It's easier to just think that he's strong now. If their positions were reversed, Setsu would prefer that. And he is strong now. The extent of Kaeya's power back then can't be compared to now...or even to the Kaeya from before the two of them met.

(They wonder if it's weird, that the limits he worked hard to train before were overshadowed in an instant when he became a dragon. Then he had something entirely new to learn and practice instead...)

Kaeya's last comments derail that train of thought expertly, however, and the faraway look in their eyes is gone again, blinked out of existence. Alex's magic(?) reserves are on par with that of Kaeya as a dragon? Setsu pauses mid-chew as they try to comprehend that. It's a dizzying thought, actually. Dragons are mythical beings, so for Alex to be similar, what's going on with her?

Setsu finishes the food in their mouth before trying to talk again. ]

Right, I'll make sure she gets rest and eats well in order to recover... [ and carry her home, if she'll be bedridden for days? ] I hope that her recovery goes as smoothly; I don't think anything can make her take it easy for a full three weeks.

[ They take a sip of cocoa, considering. ] How is your training going these days? Are you still practicing daily?

Oh, of course. [He leans back in his chair and drinks more cocoa.] You can’t let the skills get rusty. And now I have so much more to practice.

And a wonderful training ground for it. [He polishes off another sandwich.] My training is going quite well. Thankfully some of it is easier than I thought it would be.

Some of it…a little harder. But the challenge makes it fun. [He eyes the dark chocolate pastry. It smells minty. He reaches out and snags it. One bite. He sighs. Yes, mint. Perfect.] It fills some of the time while we’re waiting.

Edited 2025-09-10 21:48 (UTC)

[ In the back of their mind, Setsu thinks that it was wise of the bots to bring such a large volume of food, as they finally grab a sandwich for themself. ]

Yeah... I can get that. A challenge makes practice feel more worthwhile. Even more so now with the different things you can experiment with. [ The tone of their voice is almost nostalgic - and less tense than it was just a moment ago. They start in on their sandwich, thinking... ]

Waiting? Waiting for what?

[ ?? He can't mean while Alex recovers? ]

Edited 2025-09-12 21:30 (UTC)

Next mission. Cooling my heels between them just isn’t in me. [He takes another bite of the pastry. He is almost full. The pastry is just so nice and perfect. He would have to try to recreate it some time.] What kind of practice are you used to?

(no subject)

backtostart - 2025-09-18 18:24 (UTC) - Expand

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only