Inaugural post- welcome aboard!

[pfsb_cam]

First, there was NOTHING.

Then, it EXPLODED.

And then, there was a PARTY.


... essentially, the Big Bang has just come to pass, and there is already a place with a dance floor and music and a number of roving robotic waiters, and complicated mazes of pipes and bars overhead for flying and arboreal daemons to perch on, and an area with a swimming pool lit by multicolored pulsating lights for those with aquatic daemons, and... well, you get the idea. Welcome to the beginning of everything. Everyone and his/her/its daemon is welcome so long as they behave themselves. Enjoy!

Comments

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Saoshyant leans forward from his perch, whiskers stirring curiously. Ellen just nods. "The Texas oil fields run dry by 2052," she says, "and the Middle Eastern ones not long after that, and China invades Alaska in 2067 to get at the last reliable oil fields on the planet- so if you can come up with and popularize alternative energy sources very, very widely before then, you have a good chance of heading it off."

[toblameforit]

Harpax flexes her talons again.

"Thanks," Tony repeats. "Yeah. I think maybe... yeah."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"You're welcome," Ellen says. "In the meantime, how did you get here, exactly? I just walked out the door and, well...."

[toblameforit]

"That's even weirder than how I did it. I was actually supposed to end up in the first place capable of sustainably supporting human life, so... I guess it worked?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Looks like it," Ellen says. "At least it doesn't seem to have been an abduction, for me. I checked the door already and it looks like it goes right back to the factory. I'm not sure how that works, but after last night, I'm not arguing."

[toblameforit]

"...I kind of want to check my recall function now, but I also kind of want to stick around in case this is the only shot I get," he says.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"I can understand that," Ellen says. "This place is kind of incredible, isn't it? No matter where you came from."

[toblameforit]

"Seriously!" he agrees, grinning.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"So what else do you think they have here?" Ellen says. "This is way nicer than any of the pictures we have back home of what the city used to look like."

"It's probably huge," says Saoshyant. "I can hear all kinds of feet upstairs. And in the walls- like there are maintenance passages."

[toblameforit]

"It's bigger than my old house," Tony agrees. And that's saying something. "Pax, what's the ceiling like? Can you even fit up there?"

"One way to find out," she says sunnily. He braces; she launches from his shoulder and circles up, beating her massive wings. Tony cranes his neck to follow her flight.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen reflexively puts one hand up; usually if something is winged and this close to her back home, it's trying to bite her face off. She'll just stare for a bit as Harpax takes off properly, though.

"That is one heck of a distance she can manage from you," Ellen says. "I'm impressed."

[toblameforit]

"We're long-distance," he says, glancing away. "It's... a story."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen can't do the one eyebrow trick, and doesn't try. Still, there's curiosity to her tone as she says, "One I probably shouldn't ask about, I guess?"

[toblameforit]

"I dunno, there's not much to it," he says. "I got kidnapped. She got left."

That's what happens when you take captured humans to hell.

"There's a lot of nasty details but they aren't really relevant."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen blanches. Saoshyant lets out a trill at a pitch almost too high for humans to hear. "I'm sorry," she says, and reaches up to run a finger over the mouse daemon's head. "And... suddenly really grateful that Saoshyant's as small as he is, now that I think about it."

[toblameforit]

Harpax circles investigatively above them.

Tony decides not to mention that it wouldn't have helped.

"Yeah," he says. "Thanks. Sorry."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"It's all right," says Ellen. "I shouldn't have been nosy."

Vault privacy consisted mainly of not asking for more information than people volunteered. It wasn't as if there were anywhere physical to withdraw to. And she was thinking of a different kind of abduction; they either didn't notice Saoshyant or didn't care about him when they took her on board the ship.

It's a thing.

"Anyway. Is there anything interesting to be seen?"

[toblameforit]

"No big deal," he assures her. "It's not a secret or anything; it was on the news back home."

Harpax flaps back down to land on his other shoulder, for which he braces absently, then reaches up to give her scritches. "Well? What's it like up there?"

"Fascinating," she says in a fairly bad English accent. Tony giggles. She drops the impression. "Lots of good perches, and it goes up. You could probably climb it if you could get that high in the first place. I saw a few windows, too. Disco swimming pool sound good to any of you featherless freaks?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

".... disco?" says Ellen blankly. "What?"

[toblameforit]

"Lots of coloured lights," Harpax elaborates.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Oh. Huh," says Ellen. "Is it a big swimming pool? I learned to swim in the Vault's therapy pool- other than that the only time I've ever had to swim was in the Potomac."

[toblameforit]

"Pretty big, yep," says Harpax, flaring her wings as though to demonstrate size.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"That might be worth seeing," Ellen says. "Saoshyant, would you be okay with that?"

"Just as long as you don't jump in without me."

[toblameforit]

"That way," Harpax says cheerfully with a jerk of her head; Tony turns in the appropriate direction and starts walking.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"I wonder if they ever had anything at all like this at home," Ellen says as they head along. "Maybe somewhere else, other than DC. I don't remember running into any buildings in the ruins that could've housed a complex like this."