legionmissions | TO HAVE AND TO HOLD [modplot]

Entry tags:

TO HAVE AND TO HOLD [modplot]

Who| Anyone who wants in
What| "To Have and to Hold" plot
Where| The planet Olum, Matihara Temple
When| Set vaguely the same time as "Gods Among Us" and "Other Mother"
Warnings/Notes| N/A

The planet Olum is a genuinely welcoming place. While the clothes they have to wear for the rituals are a bit...odd (provided they don't opt for coverups), they are comfortable, especially with such a balmy climate. Despite the Olumites allowing outsiders into their ceremonies, there's a distinct lack of tourist-ey elements; no gift shops, no merchants selling anything, just a spirit of genuine unity and celebration. The Olumite marriage guides seem to genuinely care about helping people with their relationships, and seem happy to share their cultural traditions with other species.

As far as missions go, it's definitely a nice vacation from the usual life or death struggles.

It means the Legionnaires have no distractions. They have to settle in and try to navigate this while faking sincerity as best as they can.

[ooc: All information about the setting can be found on the infopost.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Nah." He waves dismissively. "Only doin' fer it right now is ta wait it out."

It's not like more sleep would help at all. In fact, it's bad enough that it guarantees that he wouldn't get back to sleep anyway, even if he wanted to.

"Don't worry about me. Coupl'a minutes and a bit of food and I'll be back in action before ya wake up."

He gives her a weak but well-intentioned thumbs up.

"Alright, but don't hesitate to wake me if you need me."

With his encouragement, she settles down on her side facing the fire, loosely curled. The little cavern has warmed up nicely, and it's not long before she dozes off into a light sleep.

"Will do."

There is no reason to, really, because there's nothing she can do to fix or help what's wrong within his body, but if it makes her rest easier, he'll make it seem like there would be.

It takes about an hour until he's in the shape where he can take on food, so he does, and that takes care of most of the nausea before he's able to gently nudge the rest of it out of his body with some stretches that might remind Fareeha of yoga if she'd been conscious to witness it.

It takes up the better part of two hours, and Junkrat wishes he had something to work on for the rest of the time. Instead, he settles for walking around, not straying far from the cave, and eventually climbs a taller tree so that he can get to the top of it and watch the sun rise in the distance. It's quite pretty, and the warm colors manage to calm him down for a couple more minutes.

While he managed to get up the tree just fine, however, getting back down is another story. He manages okay for the majority of it, and while he does manage to get a solid branch to plant his peg leg into, it catches on the bark and peels it off from the tree, making him slip and sending him plummeting into the ground. Thankfully it's not more than a few feet, but the fall is accompanied by a heavy THUD and a hearty "FUCK!"

That wakes her up, and she's up and grabbing a flaming branch from the fire and out into the sunlight before she's really registered what's going on. She stands at the entrance - hair mussed and half-covered in dirt and leaves, holding onto a flaming stick and looking intent as a provoked bull.

Her eyes land on Junkrat and she finally relaxes, taking a breath and letting it out in a huff. She's clearly not angry, although mildly annoyed could certainly apply.

"Feeling better, I see?"

Ugh, he really didn't intend to wake her up. Junkrat lets out an irritated, groaning sigh at himself as he lays prone against the ground, knees bent at an awkward angle that'll be a fight just to get upright with. The tree is right where he needs to get them if he's to get up on his own.

He holds his arm up in silent request for him to help him back up.

"I was," he answers.

She walks over and grasps his arm to help pull him up, the other hand holding the flaming stick out to the side because she doesn't want to inadvertently cause a forest fire by setting it down in the wrong place.

"Dare I even ask what you were up to?"

His grip on her hand is tight and firm, not shy at all with pulling as much as he needs to get himself upright. Which isn't a whole lot, because despite his height he's practically a twig.

"Was watchin' the sunrise," he answers honestly. "Was comin' back down from that."

"I hope it was worth the experience?" She doesn't sound like she thinks it was a wasted trip, though. Once he's back on his feet, she's heading into the cave to deposit her flaming stick and see about working up some breakfast.

"The climb? Yeah. Could've done without the fall though." The side of his mouth hitches into a smirk, accompanied by a throaty chuckle as he follows her back to their cave.

He has the same idea as she does, going to his own food sack to get something more substantial on his stomach. It's over where he was resting against the wall earlier, so his back exposes itself to Fareeha. There's a nasty abrasion on one side of his back, across his shoulder blade, from landing on the branch he slipped on. He either doesn't know it's there, or at the very least doesn't seem to mind it, because he's not trying to tend to it at all.

She sees that (it's kind of hard not to, with how little these clothes cover, and with how little Junkrat normally wears). She sets aside the breakfast she'd been gathering and digs around her own bag for some first aid. She pulls out a salve, and then heads over to him.

"Hold still for a moment. I've got something for that scrape."

"Scrape?"

He looks over at her curiously, then follows her eyes to--oh, well, he's not going to get a decent view of it anyway, if it's where she's looking.

"Ah. Nicked meself on the way down, did I?"

Consider him still enough to apply said salve.

"Something like that. It's a pretty decent beauty mark."

She squats down behind him and unscrews the top, scooping out a large dollop and setting the rest aside. Then, she sets her free hand on his good shoulder to help keep herself still. "It'll be cold, might sting a little."

Warning given, she gently smears the salve against the wound, using the fat of her fingertips to smooth it out until it overs the whole area, pausing once to scoop out a little more to ensure she's got all the way to the edges. "Maybe next time, take some rope?"

"Beauty mark?" Junkrat asks incredulously, looking over her shoulder. "Then it sure as hell doesn't belong on me," he jests, hoping his self-deprecatory humor will be appreciated.

He's still as she works on him, and all she gets out of him during the process is a throaty little groan of protest at the sting.

"Even if I remembered ta bring it, doesn't guarantee I'd remember ta use it."

At least he's honest.

"You haven't heard that before? 'A bruise is a warrior's beauty mark'?" Because not all beauty is about traditional physical attributes. As someone who's pretty stoic herself, she can appreciate his ability to get up and keep going without even noticing a big scrape like that.

"Well, at least you didn't break anything." She finishes and gives his good shoulder a pat, then takes the salve back to her bag as she screws the cap on. "If it starts itching later let me know, I'll put on another layer."

"Never," he admits. "Dunno if ya noticed, but I ain't the most well-read bloke."

He's more well-read than most Junkers, but on the global scale, he's not.

"Thanks mate," he says when she finishes, scooping out his desired foodstuffs and settling in place beside the fire. "By the way, foot of the mount is a lot closer than it seemed last night. Two k's give'r'take," he explains, punctuating his speech by stuffing his face.

"Well then; you've learned something new today." She joins him by the fire with her own breakfast, and nods at his assessment of the upcoming trek.

"We'll be there in no time at all."

"Wouldn't be able ta call it a day without doin' that!"

Ever the optimist. After breakfast and a short walk later, they'll meet a cliff that isn't exactly sheer, but definitely too steep to actually walk on. Good thing he got warmed up with climbing that tree.

Rock climbing isn't exactly something he has a whole lot of experience with, but he certainly has the upper body strength to handle the majority of the climb without much trouble. Like the incident with the tree, though, he's having a hard time getting the right traction with it -- and it starts getting to him.

"Coulda brought me own, damn it..."

Don't mind him as he has some colorful commentary for the rock face. At least he's gotten a pattern down so he can test the traction before actually putting his weight on it.

Fareeha may seem like she's lagging, but with each step and handhold she's trying to position herself underneath him in case he stumbles.

She's not a devoted mountaineer by any stretch of the imagination, but rock climbing is a hobby she's indulged in from time to time. The grade itself seemed enough to give them a challenge without creating a serious obstacle.

For now, at least.

"You're looking fine from down here." watching him chooses his hand and footholds, as it were.

"I am fine," he hisses.

A good call to keep her distance--the last thing either of them want is the business end of a peg leg in her eyeball.

"Just would be done with this a lot sooner if this damn thing knew how ta grip worth--"

As if to spite him, it slips off the rock he was trying to get purchase on, and it's a good thing that his knee is missing too or else he would've skinned it against the rock face. Junkrat lets out a frustrated growl and starts beating his forehead against the cliff.

No skinned knees. His face might be another issue.

For what it's worth, he's not mad at Fareeha; he's just starting to lose his patience.

Fareeha can account for a lot, but Junkrat is so far removed from anyone she's dealt with in the fast he's always dealing her curveballs. Frustration she can get, but this catches her heart in her throat,

"Hey hey hey -" She pulls herself up as swiftly as she safely can until she's by his side, then gripping the rock face with one hand, she reaches the other out to fit between his head and the rocks. She grits her teeth for what she's expecting to be a painful impact for her, but if she can stop him from harming himself any further it's worth it. "It is going to be alright. So your leg slips, you've still made it this far up."

It is a pretty hard strike, sandwiching her hand between his forehead and the rock face--she'd be able to feel the scuffed-up skin on his forehead, and the sweat on her hand makes it sting to him. But it's enough to get him to stop, and he opens his eyes to look up at her hand.

After a beat, he sighs.

"Need ta take a breather..." he says quietly, then brings down his left arm to rest his forearm against a crag so he can flex the cramp out of his hand. His fake arm is doing just fine, shoulder used to hauling around both his heavy prosthetic and frag launcher, but his real arm and leg are having to pick up the slack from a leg that almost literally can't pull its own weight.

All this for something they really don't need to do. He could just blow it all up to hell, but...Junkrat glances at Fareeha out of the corner of his eye.

He'll see her take her hand back and give it a couple small shakes because, yeah, that hurt, and there'd probably be a pretty sizable bruise. She doesn't comment, though, letting him take his moment without judgement. She hangs about where she is, looking up across the remainder of the way and trying to see if there are any crags that would make better footholds for him.

Then, she gets another idea, and a little, crooked grin crosses her face.

"I have an idea, if you want an easier way up."

He may have just been looking at her through his periphery but the expression that grows on her face makes Junkrat bring his full attention to her. What about rock climbing tricks could possibly have someone make a face like that?

Whatever it is, he's interested.

"I'm listenin'."

"What if ..." She stops for a moment, still grinning, as she works out the details, "What would you think about me initiating my power? I could carry you on my back the rest of the way up the cliff."

She hasn't had a chance to use her powers in the field, to start, and it'd be helpful here with her increased strength and dexterity; he'd be hardly any weight on her back and she could take the incline at ease.

But she wasn't going to assume; some people liked doing things themselves for the challenge (herself included), so she wanted to float the idea to him first before jumping right in.

Huh. Not a bad idea....

"I'll admit, I'm torn between insistin' that I gotta do it myself and seein' ya pull it off."

It helps that it's not an offer made through pity, but because she actually wants to help for the sake of helping. He debates it for a few seconds, glancing up at their destination.

"Yeah," he finally says. "Alright. Let's do this then."

He shifts his weight on his good side, clinging on by just that side so she can get a little closer for ease of transfer for him onto her back.

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