ic contact

[14thcommander]

It's Hange, Hange, Hange! Were you looking for me? I'll get back to you posthaste. Or when it's convenient.

[ communicator & actionspam it's all good ]

Comments

[beejfu]

She was more like a snake than a worm. Biologically speaking. A real man-eater.

[14thcommander]

Alright, that's it, I have to start doing room inspections.

[beejfu]

I need you to bring her back, Hange!

[14thcommander]

The thirty-foot-long capable-of-devouring-humans snake.

[beejfu]

She had a name! I raised her. She used to try and murder me whenever I fell asleep within grabbing range of her tongue. It was adorable.

[14thcommander]

I.

Will ask the Admiral.

But I will also ask him to shrink her.

[beejfu]

What?

Why?!

[14thcommander]

[DEEP BREATH. FIND THE CALM. INJECT THE WARMTH IN THE TONE.]

Betelgeuse, I approve of your care for this... housemate. It's a beautiful, wonderful thing! But what wouldn't be a beautiful, wonderful thing, is if you set her loose on the barge, to eat people.

[beejfu]

You don't think I've already tried that?!

She didn't fit through the cabin door!

[14thcommander]

Well, if she's small enough to fit through the door, she'll be small enough to carry around and show her off!

[beejfu]

Ugh. Fine.

Just.

Just please bring her back, all right? Her self esteem is going to be aching enough as it is from being murdered and then shrunk and I just. The corpse smell in here is starting to make my eyes water.

[He sniffles. this is an outrageous lie]

1/2

[14thcommander]

Ho ho ho, I know that's a lie, because your smell doesn't make your eyes water. I know you're sad about your roommate!

[14thcommander]

The secret dies with me.

[beejfu]

Okay literally the only reason I'm not murdering you for putting me on blast in that way is that you're right and I'm sad and this SUCKS and if you tell anyone I got sad over something dying then the deal is off.

Now would you please just bring her back?

[14thcommander]

Keep your scalp on, I'm asking.

[beejfu]

Okay. Okay.

I'm fine. I'll just be pacing in front of the corpse of a friend and running my hands through my hair in a desperate attempt to keep it all together.

[14thcommander]

I wanna come over and see this, actually.

The snake, not you pacing.

[beejfu]

Yeah. Yeah, okay.

I'm having a funeral party for her now.

[14thcommander]

[In a couple minutes: knock knock.

I don't think she's ever been in Betelgeuse's rooms before!]

[beejfu]

[There may in fact be a good reason for that. Because BJ's rooms are a completely redone old Connecticut home that was once charming and oldfashioned and now have hideous black and white striped layout with neon purple blacklights everywhere.

Spikes decorate the furniture in uncomfortable places. A few cockroaches skitter by. The floor is inexplicably painted black. There's a couch, featured prominently by itself, that has a trampoline in its cushions.

And behind the couch is a rotting corpse of an enormous snake, sticking half out of a back door. She's been stinking up the place the last few days; her head is half open to spy the second, smaller head inside, fangs loose and tongue lolling out.

She seems to be surrounded by candles which only add to the eerie, melancholy lighting structure.

It is this scene that greets Hange's eyes and nostrils when BJ opens the doors to his home]

Hey Hange. C'mon in. Make yourself at home.

[BJ sniffles, turning on his heel to walk back and plop down next to Big Sandy's corpse. It gets a sympathetic pat]

[14thcommander]

Wow!

[Holy shit that is an astonishingly large snake. Hange scoots right over to inspect Big Sandy. :0]

Bill killed this? How the fuck did he manage that? Is that her baby in there, does she carry her child around in her mouth? Is that also... her?

[beejfu]

[He gives a watery, proud pat to Sandy's side, looking despondent]

Teleported his cane right through her skull. Poor old girl.

Sandworms have two heads, Hange - one inside the other. If you were gonna try and kill her from the outside, give her a fighting chance, she could slither out of her outer body to go underground for protection and keep on living in her inner one.

[14thcommander]

He can... do that?

[Should that be allowed? HANGE THINKS OF THAT TIME HE TELEPORTED ON DECK TO JOIN THEM IN BAND NAME BRAINSTORMING. What the fucky.

Anyway. This is fascinating though.]

Would she grow a new... inner body and the small one would become the outer one?

[beejfu]

Saw it with my own pathetic unenhanced human eyes.

[a low sigh]

It might take her a couple of centuries to do so but yeah. You got it.

[14thcommander]

What a fascinating beast.

[Hange loves it. OK, Big Sandy must live again, albeit smaller. She goes over to pry the big jaws open further.]

Are these things local to your world?