text;

[bloodbathing]

Here 6 weeks.

[ Not that Maine's counting the days or anything. Nope. Certainly not.

(He totally is.) ]

Longest time? Average? [ Then: ] You?

Comments

text;

[bloodbathing]

Agreed.

[ Way too long, especially with no known end in sight. ]

Shit to do.

[ Back home, he means. ]

[volitaunt]

same here. battles to fight, wars to win, that kind of thing.

want to hear something ironic?

[bloodbathing]

[ All very familiar things. The same things that Maine needs to get back and do. ]

Likewise.

?

[ That punctuation would be him saying, "Sure, what?" Only without words. ]

[volitaunt]

me and my buddy finn aren't supposed to be here. we were in another universe before this one, a different universe, one that wasn't home either. there for almost a year, and they promised us, SWORE that they'd put us right back where and when we started.

instead we landed here.

[bloodbathing]

[ Well. Shit. ]

Sucks.

[ Which is an understatement, but it does suck. Maine tries to imagine it — and immediately, he just starts getting pissed off. ]

Mistake? Lie?

[volitaunt]

not sure. they seemed confident. and they'd done it for other people. maybe we're just very unlucky bastards.

[bloodbathing]

Maybe.

[ Or... ]

Proof it'd worked?

[ For other people, he means. ]

[volitaunt]

we had people leave and come back. they got dropped right back in the moment they were taken from. but hell if i know how their portal works.

[bloodbathing]

[ In that case: ]

Shit luck.

[ Again: an understatement. ]

[volitaunt]

no kidding.

so you're new to this whole world-hopping thing?

[bloodbathing]

Used to starships. This bullshit? New.

[volitaunt]

[ That gets Poe to sit up and take notice, as it were. ]

you've got interstellar travel where you're from?

[bloodbathing]

Yeah. You?

[volitaunt]

yeah. kind of surprising how few universes seem to have it.

[bloodbathing]

It's rare?

[ That's news to him. ]

[volitaunt]

a lot of the people i met before this didn't have it in their universes. not sure how many have it here. we've had it for... i'm not good enough at history to know how long we've had it for.

[bloodbathing]

200 years. Ish.

[ For his universe, of course. ]

Still refining tech.

[volitaunt]

Our refinements are mostly about speed and accuracy these days. You do a lot of traveling yourself?

[bloodbathing]

Marine.

[ He says it like it explains everything. In his mind, it does. ]

You?

[ Whether he's asking if Poe is enlisted or if he travels a lot isn't clear. Might be both. ]

[volitaunt]

Navy pilot, at first. But we travel between planets all the time, for trade, or just to visit. Didn't do it much as a kid, but there are people who spent most of their lives out in the stars.

[bloodbathing]

[ "Navy," Poe says, and now it's Maine's turn to sit up and take notice. ]

Familiar.

Planets colonized?

[volitaunt]

Yeah, some. I live on a colony moon. But there's thousands of sentient species across the galaxy, with hundreds of home planets.

[bloodbathing]

[ That gives Maine pause. Causes him to sit there blinking for a moment before asking: ]

They're not hostile?

[ Because the aliens in his universe sure as fuck are. ]

[volitaunt]

I mean, some of them are. That's only to be expected in a galaxy as big as ours. But mostly no. Why?

[bloodbathing]

My universe's are.

[ All of them, as far as Maine knows. And "hostile" is putting it lightly. ]