Squander Not Thy Joys

[Weapon]

Bellamy heard the familiar voice and more pointedly its tone—a distant, far-off thing, many degrees separated from their inner world. Yet it was still potent enough to rouse the young Legionnaire, if only for the reason that unlike the cool grass and evening birdsong, it did not belong.

Bellamy sat up slowly, noticing the eerie stillness that had overtaken the world around them. The breeze had stopped. The birdsong had ceased. Even the distant sound of Aunt Lorna's voice had faded to nothing. They did not recognize the figure stood to their left, but her song was unmistakable—something ancient and otherworldly humming just beneath the surface of perception.

"I know your voice," Bellamy said softly, rotating while still sat in the wet ground to fully face her. Both palms dug into the earth, ready to spring backwards at any moment. Their eyes were wide with both fear and curiosity as they came to terms with just who had confronted them. "How?"

There was nothing terribly alien about the woman who stood there. Deep blue dyed hair framed a soft face, one eye covered with a butterfly wing eyepatch, the other hazel and relaxed. Her freckled face smiled softly. The slightly pudgy girl wore a faded purple sundress that billowed in the summer wind as she came to sit cross-legged in front of Bellamy, her hands playing with the grass.

"Well, this sort of place is where we live. These dreams and stuff. It's the place we're most comfortable. And when you're stuck for so long in one, well..." She smiled, a touch impish. "I got a little curious~"

For some eldritch being, the entity acted more like a dreamy college student or one of Bellamy's peers.

The Legionnaire laughed nervously, clenching the grass with one small hand and outstretching their other in alarm, flexing their digits. "But that means..."

Bellamy tilted their head to the east, watching the faint glitter of Firelance and Collapser batteries winking between the stars like distant fireflies. A reactor went critical somewhere in high orbit, flaring in its death throes before bursting into god-light in the night sky. The battle was beautiful and terrible all at once.

They shook their head, steeling themself to look her in the eyes. "You won't take my home from me again!" Bellamy screamed, their young voice impetulant and full of doubt.

The girl frowned, sighing. Her one visible eye glinted in the fires climbing in the sky. She looked at Bellamy with a degree of pity.

"Your heart remains here, doesn't it? Like a cord, pulled taut."

Bellamy glared at her before shutting their eyes. To Psyche's bemusement, a breeze once again swept over the landscape—gentler this time, but undeniably present. Bellamy steadied themselves, slow, disciplined breathing clear through the methodical rise and fall of their chest.

The battle in the sky blinked out ship by ship, not in the great flashes of reactor failures or magazine detonations, but out of existence entirely. The chirping of insects and low rumbles of frogs returned to the forest around the meadow, and even a small herd of deer passed by, stopping at a safe distance to observe the intruder curiously.

Bellamy opened their eyes, meeting Psyche's gaze with firmness and resolve. "I already told you. This is my home."

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Recruitment | Task Force Prometheus | ICN FIRESTORM