[ti]Ep 3[/ti]Why so serious? (Nokta, closed for now)
Nov 11, 2023 11:58:30 GMT -5
Post by Nokta on Nov 11, 2023 11:58:30 GMT -5
“You know Seekers. Easier to manage when we’re looking our best.”
Nokta had planted a spindly hand on the lip of the doorway. Not to brace a portion of his weight, as he stood tall on two peds, but merely to clutch and hang onto the doorframe– as if part of himself were physically hanging on to the conversation. To engage in it just a little bit longer, for whatever reason that feeling had been provoked. At face value, the seeker had some depth to him, and that was something most he’d spoken to at this posting lacked in spades.
"Hmph," He hummed at Starkrieger’s dual sided response, whether it was meant to be self-deprecating or something else, it was amusing all the same. "I’ll have to keep that in mind." He spoke as if he were returning a polite formality– although an upturned lip hinted at something more there– sarcasm. Subtle, but it was there. Starkrieger was not the first seeker he’d dealt with, not by a long shot.
“Give them hell.”
He had to exhale yet another soft puff of air from his olfactory vents as he reached out to brace against the doorway. He was only going to see Vega, as far as he knew she hadn’t done anything warranted of giving hell. At least, not Nokta’s version of it. But the thought was comical as it stood. He forced his mouth into a thinner line so as not to lose the impenetrable armor of professionalism he was expected to carry on himself the moment he walked through that doorway. His hand held a sturdy grip on the doorframe as his grip shifted, almost as if clawing to keep himself in place here.
For one more moment he clutched onto the silica laden rock– holding onto the one spare conversation he’d granted himself since arriving to Blackridge that had actually left him with some modicum of a feeling of normalcy amongst the chaos.
Then, with a few pats of his servo against the rocky wall he’d been clutching onto, he departed.
"And you, Starkrieger."
And with that, the wraith disappeared from the space, diving back into the rotten guts of Blackridge Hold that called for him.
He could not know then that the conversation he’d, on a whim, indulged in with that lone seeker would likely be the last ‘good’ thing to happen to him for some time. That the casual decency the other mech had shown him for even those spare few moments in the form of something that lacked the pretense or expectation of duty had been well needed, and would not be lost on him as the days went on. As things got more bleak, as he began to realize just how hollow he’d become, as a bitter and violent past he’d lost control of came back not just to haunt him but threatened to destroy him entirely.
As something darker stirred beneath the surface of what so many others saw as a quiet and lonesome mech, biding its time, waiting until the lieutenant had lost enough and bent enough that he threatened to break completely.
Many things had been forgotten. Today would not be one of them.
-Fin-
Nokta had planted a spindly hand on the lip of the doorway. Not to brace a portion of his weight, as he stood tall on two peds, but merely to clutch and hang onto the doorframe– as if part of himself were physically hanging on to the conversation. To engage in it just a little bit longer, for whatever reason that feeling had been provoked. At face value, the seeker had some depth to him, and that was something most he’d spoken to at this posting lacked in spades.
"Hmph," He hummed at Starkrieger’s dual sided response, whether it was meant to be self-deprecating or something else, it was amusing all the same. "I’ll have to keep that in mind." He spoke as if he were returning a polite formality– although an upturned lip hinted at something more there– sarcasm. Subtle, but it was there. Starkrieger was not the first seeker he’d dealt with, not by a long shot.
“Give them hell.”
He had to exhale yet another soft puff of air from his olfactory vents as he reached out to brace against the doorway. He was only going to see Vega, as far as he knew she hadn’t done anything warranted of giving hell. At least, not Nokta’s version of it. But the thought was comical as it stood. He forced his mouth into a thinner line so as not to lose the impenetrable armor of professionalism he was expected to carry on himself the moment he walked through that doorway. His hand held a sturdy grip on the doorframe as his grip shifted, almost as if clawing to keep himself in place here.
For one more moment he clutched onto the silica laden rock– holding onto the one spare conversation he’d granted himself since arriving to Blackridge that had actually left him with some modicum of a feeling of normalcy amongst the chaos.
Then, with a few pats of his servo against the rocky wall he’d been clutching onto, he departed.
"And you, Starkrieger."
And with that, the wraith disappeared from the space, diving back into the rotten guts of Blackridge Hold that called for him.
He could not know then that the conversation he’d, on a whim, indulged in with that lone seeker would likely be the last ‘good’ thing to happen to him for some time. That the casual decency the other mech had shown him for even those spare few moments in the form of something that lacked the pretense or expectation of duty had been well needed, and would not be lost on him as the days went on. As things got more bleak, as he began to realize just how hollow he’d become, as a bitter and violent past he’d lost control of came back not just to haunt him but threatened to destroy him entirely.
As something darker stirred beneath the surface of what so many others saw as a quiet and lonesome mech, biding its time, waiting until the lieutenant had lost enough and bent enough that he threatened to break completely.
Many things had been forgotten. Today would not be one of them.
-Fin-