World Tree MUSH

THe Platinum Star.

Ash chuckled at the new livery applied to the space station. "Ordis," He spoke as his orbiter moved to dock with the station proper, "Some of those ship designs look unfamiliar."

"Correct Operator," Ordis started listing names, "THe Wayward Son, Vas-Ictomi, Gon, ISS Fairview..." Ordis lsted ship names. All come here under a banner of comerce, or at least to negociate for rights to use the statin to sell their wares.

"Docking initiated," A calm fimanine voice entoned. "Welcome to the traveling commerce station Platinum Star. Please observe our rules concerning regulated personal defense items both mundane and magical, restricted foods, and any declarations of business. If there are any problems please consult with either our head of business Gius Shld, or our head of security."

There was the hiss of air as docking completed. "We thank you for your patronage."

Ash wandered onto the station proper without his warframe. It would send all sorts of Not Nice signals to all sorts of people if he showed up looking like he was ready for a fight to this...

Huh.... For all the activity outside with strange ships showing up, corpus and grineer shuttles ferrying folk from the local variant of earth, and the grand talk of being a commerce station there wasa lot of empty room and not a lot of crowd.

Picture your average mall complete with central courtyard area with spokes branching off lined with storefronts.Stack that five high with a touch of polished and etched flooring, splashes of rosegold for accenting, holographic art across walls portraying everything from historical works of art to moving imagesthat served as billboards.

Now picture this plae practically empty, a commerce space fit for hundreds if not more with only a couple dozen people scattered here and about and most of those being large brown armored Grineer acting as internal security.

"Huh... seems kinda empty." Ash's words were directed at nobody in particular as he wandered towards the nearest food court.

"Judging by comms traffic," Ordis's cracked glass hologram hovered just over Ash's right shoulder, "This is what GIus is calling a 'soft' opening, drum up interest, test systems, but withhold the pomp and flair for when so-called anchor businesses set up shop."

The place isn't completely devoid of those who don't work here, however; there's a golden-furred catlike figure perched on one of the handrails overlooking the main lobby. Spiral turns at the sound of the new arrivals. "Hey, Ash!" she says, and rises up off the ground. "How's it going?"

And then she pauses, and looks somewhat serious. "... Anna's been meaning to get in touch with you, so I decided to cut out the middleman," she says delicately. "She's over in that one unused mess hall with the big bay window overlooking the planet."

Ash smiled at the sight of Spiral. "How'd the trip up go?" Anna had been here before, but now with it looking more like an actual place you'd go rather than some abandoned.... space-apartment.

He waved to one of the Grineer who had stopped his patrole to give Spiral a somewhat quizzical look. Trueth be told they seemed to adjust reasonably well to their newrole. They didn't have great people skills for the most part, but having two and a half meter tall power armor wearing goons as your security cut down on fights, making their nee to speak fairly irrelevant.

"Observation deck huh?" Ash walked towards the central feature of the level, a large water-fountain like object displaying a series of soft lights bending and contorting in geometric shapes before looking up. "HUH Seems they turned the central elevator shaft hollow." It gave a hole about four meters wide, plenty of room for Ash to dash up. Granted he had to stop at each new level to catch his breath, but he figured it would be faster this way.

Eventually he would be on the observation deck. There were food vendors nearby, but a large section of this level's outermost ring was given over to large 'windows.' Technically they were simply displays fitted into the wall piping in feeds from outside rather than true windows, but with the view just as good why quibble or spoil some of the magic?

"Strange findinga girl like you in a place like this." Ash's head shook even as he approached Anna, that line was cheese even by his standards. "Spiral said you wanted to talk?"

Spiral nods. "Yeah, I wasn't sure if it had that official name yet." She perches on his shoulder for the trip, but she floats off when he pauses to catch his breath; her weight is relatively negligible, but it's the thought that counts.

Anna is leaning against the wall, staring listlessly out the window-display. She doesn't actually seem to notice Ash and Spiral's arrival until Ash speaks up, and she blinks, jerking her head around. "... Hi, Ash," she says; her voice is a couple more shades towards androgyny than usual, and she doesn't even react to the joke. "Yeah. Uh ..." She stops. Now that Ash is actually here, she's having trouble finding her words. She looks helplessly to Spiral.

"She hasn't been able to transform since the Grendel," Spiral says softly.

Anna looks back to the window. The view really is gorgeous. "It's not even the first time I've felt like I failed," she says. "There was this kingdom called Elisa that got attacked by ... a few different sides. We were just overwhelmed." She shrugs. "... But there's a difference between that and ... and pulling the trigger myself."

Grendel... Grendel... Ash frowned at the name. 

Then he remembered, news that it had at some point in time been human and they'd killed it. His tone became more somber, the joy starting to leech out of his face as his expression lowered. "It is," He admitted. "Even when the person was a complete monster by every definition of the word, ther'es a diffrence between brainwashed fanatics, vat grone clones, mindless beasts.. and... People." His mind flashed back to something as he put himself beside Anna, "When I was fairly new here to the whole tree of worlds... thing? There were these kids," 

Spiral could probably feel a swirl of emotions ranging from regret, aggrivation, anger and a whole heap of guilt. "You've been to Alola right? Nice place, sits about where Hawaii does on your world. These kids show up and start attacking Miwa, admit their reasons are to kidnap and slaveher out. To me that put them as no diffrant than the banker cultists back home."

Nevermind a shipload of those 'cultists' were working the more technical and administrative positions of the station they were in now.

"Ended up the kid I went after was alright. Think he went straight but is in therapy." There was a humorless laugh, "I didn't even realize I'd done anything wrong til I talked to Miwa after since all I'd really done was bang the kid up and scare him but.... well."

Spiral or any other empaths would feel a guilt spike, along with shame. "I'll never forget how she looked at me after. That cold empty pit straight down the middle. I imagine that's how you feel right now isn't it? Like your'e in this dark holethat ther'es no climbing out of."

Anna does her best to listen to his story, and she nods, but she's clearly somewhat distracted and unsure ... right up until Ash's conclusion. "Yeah, kinda," she says softly. "I, uh ... I almost managed to pull myself out while ... Luke and I were visiting this small village a couple days later, and this frumpy sort of 'Demon Queen' named Daria attacked. I ... sort of had a breakdown, too." She shrugs. "It turned out not to be necessary, though." She shakes her head. "Sorry, I was kind of rambling there. But ... uh ... yeah, that is kind of how I feel, I guess."

Spiral, meanwhile, almost doesn't seem to be paying attention to Ash. Her focus is almost entirely on Anna.

Ash put a hand on Anna's shoulder, "The floor is yours. Ramble all you like." Admittedly he was curious about this 'demon queen' since in his estimation Anna wouldn't be nearly so casual about a literal 'demon' if it were anything like when Raven decided to stop playing nice. 

"I just wanted you to know I know how it feels," Ash's voice was soft as he looked Anna over. "I also know me telling you it's going to be alright and you did the right thing isn't going to make it feel less bad." He walked over to grab a chair for Anna. Mostly it was to try stalling for time since, to put blunt this wasthe Opposite of what he was good at. "I could tell you of a lot of things, but that'd all be me trying to end a sick heart, and that isn't how these things work."

There was more confidence in his voice ashe reached over to Annato make sure she was looking at him. His touch was gentle, easy to resist, but if Anna let him she would look into jade green eyes that flicked prismaticly. Maybe it was a trick of the light, or it could be whatever weird voodoo was going on with ash. "Instead I will ask you a question and I want you to think on it before answering. What could you have done diffrantly? I don't mean 'pull a deus ex machina out of the void. Not some power you've never known or been told about to erase the evil from the Grendel's soul. I am asking what You, Anna Freeman, could have done diffrantly."

Anna shrugs, unresisting as she moves to sit in the offered seat. She looks into his eyes, and it takes her a few moments before she responds to the question, and she briefly sniffles and rubs her eyes for a moment.

Finally, she shakes her head and looks up at Ash. "With the information I had available, there wasn't anything I could've known to do differently," she says. "And the way Valis was talking, I don't think there was anything left to do, by the time we got there." She lets out a mirthless chuckle. "Spiral's been saying that practically daily. But it's ... nice, hearing it from ... uh ..." She shrugs. "From an expert, I guess."

"I've been having trouble internalizing it myself, really," says Spiral. "My training was for situations where we took too long defeating a threat-level five Curse Phantom, not 'pulling the trigger' as Anna said."

"Finding creative solutions is, well it's something you seem to be good at." Ash stood beside Anna, "look at Raven for example. Her people wanted to either lock her away... or kill her because of some horrible demony thing." He had suspicions based on details Anna wouldn't know and unless Raven felt like sharing he wasn't going to be the one to say. "Instead you literally punched the emo out of her. that sort of 'try to find the option where everyone wins' is your greatest strength."

then he looked from Anna to Spiral, "So I guess what I'm trying ot say is maybe you and Spiral need to do some homework, see if you can figure something out since there're sogt to be something. Maybe not something that works for everything since maybe whoever you Bright Slap has to still have some want to be something other than a monster but..."

He shrugged as he trailed off. Honestly? He felt like he was preaching, talking more hoping eventually the right words fall out than drawing on that experiance he supposedly had. Then again when he thought back on his own experiance he had flashes of The Lotus trying to be overly motherly and keeping him and the other Tenno in the dark while they did her dirty work. "Better to go forward with eys open."

Anna shrugs. "Well, whoever that sorcerer was who transformed Valis and the Grendel ... I don't know if ..." She stops for a moment, then shakes her head. "I mean ..." Her voice trails off.

"Anna?" says Spiral.

Anna shrugs again. "Y'know what, Ash, you're probably right." She manages a weak smile. "I guess I ... well, I don't even know. But." She turns back towards the window. "I do think you're right. I have no idea what's going to happen next. And I know the rest of the World Tree doesn't have some kind of force making sure hope always wins in the end." She takes a deep breath. "But I ... am pretty sure that in the end, I'll be able to handle it."

She shoots Ash a lopsided grin. "Also, for the record, it's 'Windy Punch', not 'Bright Slap'."

Ash gave a soft snort at Anna's correction. "Even if you can't win all of 'em you're better equipped than I am for this kind of work." He looked at the 'window' showing th earth below. "Speaking of third options in a coin flip I like what theyv'e done with the place, you?"

Anna shrugs. "I dunno, we both have our strengths and weaknesses." She turns to look out the window-display. "And, yeah," she adds. "Just the view from up here ..." She shrugs again. "It's the most calming thing I've ever seen. Really puts everything in perspective." A perspective which, all things considered, was jostled closer to an ideal position by Ash just now. "Especially considering how things were the first time I was here," she adds dryly.

She slowly turns her gaze back to Ash. "Thanks," she says, after another pause. And then she has a more genuine grin as she adds, "No hetero."