[Open] Calibrating To Earth Life

[kree_soldieress]

WHO: Lauri-Ell, Open
WHERE: Calibrations Room
WHAT: Calibrations Room
WHEN: Calibrations
WARNINGS: CW: Grief about a mother Lauri never knew

Calibrations Waiting Room

Here


Calibrations

The space is clearly an apartment of some sort. Comfortable and comfortably appointed. Some of the walls are bare bricks, or plastered walls painted in a similar color. One portion is clearly set up as a living room, with a green love seat oriented toward a flat screen television, and with a coffee table. On that table was a pile of pizza boxes, cans of sosa, bags of chips, and a remote control. It's perfectly set up for some television binging. Wonder what's on the tube.

Lauri-Ell herself is stretched out on one side of this loveseat, slouching and with one leg draped over the arm of the loveseat, an orange tabby cat sitting in her lap and purring as she pets it. Her attention is fully on the screen, as if she expects something of it, but she hasn't reached to turn it on.

Nearby is a bookshelf, atop which are two framed pictures. One displays a blonde woman who looks a bit like Lauri-Ell, smiling radiantly in the arms of a black man. Next to that is a photo of a younger version of the same blond woman, held in the arms of an older woman. There again is the familial resemblance, and there is more to Lauri-Ell and the older woman than there is to the blonde girl, especially since Lauri-Ell clearly has the woman's hair.

The room transitions into a kitchenette with only a bit of wall to mime at separation. There's no door, just an open space that is too wide for a door, too narrow for 'open plan' living. Near the far window, looking out on the streets of New York, is a kitchen table with a few chairs. Leaning against it rests Lauri-Ell's Hammer, begging for attention. Could it possibly be safely touched in this space, even if it can't in real life?

Finally the kitchen has pantries one can look in, which are mostly empty, and a fridge covered in photos. The place is rather empty, like the apartment exists for someone to live in, but that person isn't around as much as they could be. Perhaps that's exactly what it's like. But given nothing in here is of a scale suitable for Lauri-Ell, it's no doubt that this place isn't properly hers.

Comments

[orangewayfinder]

Terra is in the room but he's not touching anything because that's not who he is. However, he does happen to see the photo and walks over to it to look at it. He can definitely see the resemblance and thinks back to Master Eraqus and Aqua and home.

With a sigh, he turns to look at his friend and inclines his head towards the photo on the book shelf. "These people must be your family, right?"

[kree_soldieress]

Lauri-Ell looks up, and noticing what Terra's looking at, she smiles softly. But she doesn't rise from the couch.

"My sister, and my mother. Carol is a role model of mine. And our mother... She was a good woman."

[orangewayfinder]

It was nice to hear about other's families, because somehow it didn't make him feel so alone. "So she was a warrior like you and your sister?"

Being a warrior ran in the family, right?

[kree_soldieress]

"Yes, and a scientist," Lauri-Ell answered. "Mari-Ell, her name was. She never knew me."

And that earned a grieved look on her face.

[orangewayfinder]

"A scientist." Terra echoed softly. He half smiled when he heard the name, but it faded quickly when it was revealed that she never knew her daughter.

"Oh, I'm sorry."

[kree_soldieress]

Lauri-Ell rose and moved to look at the framed photograph.

"I was created after she passed away. I never had a chance. Carol thinks she would like me."

[orangewayfinder]

"I don't see why she wouldn't like you."

He recalled a brief story from her once about this and wasn't going to revisit it. But what parent wouldn't like their child? That line of thought made absolute zero sense to him.

[kree_soldieress]

"It is hard to be sure of something related to a person you don't know," She points out. But her sister believe it, and therefore Lauri did as well.

"She liked 'breakfast for dinner'. Carol told me that."

[orangewayfinder]

"Ya, guess you're right." Terra shrugged, not wanting to go over the darker thoughts in his mind.

"Breakfast for dinner. So that's like having eggs and things for dinner instead of what would traditionally be for the first thing in the morning." He paused a minute. "Doesn't sound like a bad idea."

[lionunchained]

Shiro was certainly surprised to suddenly find himself in this room after going to sleep. It was quiet and he couldn't help but wander the apartment to take a look at everything. It was hard not to want to see these things that others had, especially when it was something that no one could share any other way.

"Seems like a nice place. Can't say I don't miss it."

Not that he had ever really had a place like this in his life... but he always imagined it would be nice.

[kree_soldieress]

"It's my sister's," Lauri-Ell says, voice fond. "I have been here but a few days. It's about the only bit of Earth I have seen."

She rises from the couch and moves to stand near Shiro, intrigued to watch him study it.

"Is it like Earth as you know? You look human enough."

[lionunchained]

"Ah, I see. Not too much it then, but at least some of it."

He was currently looking at the picture younger blond girl. He glanced over as she came over to him.

"It seems like it. I lived in the Garrison most of my life, but before that and visiting family... yeah, definitely seems like the Earth that I know."

[kree_soldieress]

"I am told this is a place called The New York?"

Of course she doesn't know better about using the word 'the' there.

"It is the city Carol loves. The city of many Avengers."

[lionunchained]

"Hmm... I can't say that I've ever been there so I wouldn't know from this angle at least with no landmarks, but I think a lot of large cities in the world tend to look similar if you don't know where to look."

Well, she wasn't wrong? Technically it was the only one (as far as he was aware) so it was THE New York City.

"Is it? Many people you know from your world live in New York City then?"

Trying to be subtle and not outright saying what she said was incorrect.

[kree_soldieress]

"I only know a small handful of humans," Lauri-Ell admits. "The Emperor and Prince are from New York City, and Carol lived there."

But she didn't notice the correction. What a shame.

[lionunchained]

Well, even if she hadn't noticed it, she had copied it so as far as Shiro knew it had worked... at least for the moment.

"I see. Well, it is a large city there is a high likelihood of meeting someone from there or who has been there."

He glanced around at the objects in the room before reaching to touch the photo of the blond-haired woman.

sorry for long, it's a 'shorter' memory without good breaks

[kree_soldieress]

The room is gone, fading in mist and fog until instead they are out in a relatively open space. A grassy space that could never be mistaken for anything but a graveyard. There kneels Lauri-Ell before a grave stone, marked with an eight pointed star and the name 'Marie "Mari-Ell" Danvers'.

This other version of Lauri-Ell kneels before the stone is in fully covering armor, green metal over her arms and legs and the like, with a green cape. Her hammer rests across her legs. And near her, further back, is the blonde woman, who stands there in a blue jumpsuit with red boots and gloves, and a golden star that matches the one on the grave on her chest.

"It is perhaps presumptuous of me, Mari-Ell, to call you mother," the armored Lauri-Ell says to the stone. "You did not know me and I did not know you... but since the beginning, real or imagined, I felt a pull inside me that I somehow knew was you. Some call to greatness and perhaps... more than that, a call to goodness."

Tears were clearly already catching in the woman's eyes, starting to roll free.

"On many dark days I doubted the truth of that feeling, questioned where it came from. Until I met Carol. I will never doubt it again. She is you. And she is everything I always imagined you to be. I wish... I wish I had known your love. I need... I need to thank you for all you have given me, without even knowing it. And now, a sister, which is more than I ever dreamed I could have."

Lauri-Ell's head bends forward more and her fingers reach to touch the stone. A goodbye before she silently raises to her feet and the far smaller blonde woman breaks the lingering silence.

"You wanna eat her favorite dinner?" the woman said at last.

"Yes, please," Lauri-Ell agreed, and the two began walking toward the gate to head out. "I am excited."

"Well, lower your expectations. Mom loved doughnuts."

"I bet doughnuts are divine," Lauri-Ell insists, her voice still a bit tight from her grief.

"Sure, but they're hardly what I would call dinner. Mom loved 'breakfast for dinner'. Snuck it in every chance she could."

"Why must the foods be kept separate in the first place?"

"Heh, you sound just like her," Carol laughed. And then, with the women walking off, the space fades back to the apartment, where Lauri-Ell stands beside Shiro, looking sadly at the photo frame.

three weeks late with starbucks

[in_extremis]

Before Tony's eyes fully adjusted, his lashes fluttering in the transition between the dreamless void and the door closing behind him, he was struck by the familiarity of this place. Something in the smell, the air quality--something that made him frown thoughtfully as he glanced around, not actually recognizing the room, only Lauri-Ell in it. And she looked rather out of place. Did they ever run into each other in these things? It was when his gaze flitted across the window, sending him sauntering curiously toward it to confirm, that he went, "Oh," and remained there, forehead resting on the glass like he could press himself out of it and back home onto the streets of New York. His fingertips spread gingerly along the window, and he bit the inside of his cheek, telling himself he wasn't sentimental.

He was still there when he did finally greet Lauri-Ell, muttered into the glass, "When's the last time you were home, Caesar?" It must have been longer for her, as far as he understood, so he had no real reason to be miserable.

[kree_soldieress]

"As long as I was here, and longer. I did not have a home until the young Emperor chose me as his Accuser," Lauri-Ell pointed out. "Though Carol has said I might see this place as my home as well."

The sister he keeps acting like she doesn't have.

[in_extremis]

It took Tony a beat to extract himself from the window, when he finally processed that Lauri-Ell was suggesting that they were standing in Carol's home and he had to glance around again, searching the space for hints of her in it. It didn't have much in it, which did seem correct--she didn't hang onto much that would keep her weighed down to Earth.

"What do you mean--where did you live?" he pressed, not entirely engaged as he searched around the apartment. He wasn't under the impression that she was some freelance mercenary off of the street. It wasn't like she just found this hammer. He hadn't made it far from the window when he paused by the weapon, hand raised hesitantly over it. It did look more intimidating in Lauri-Ell's hand, but even here it made him anxious.

[kree_soldieress]

"I live on the Flagship, and will until such time as the young Emperor and his Consort choose what world shall serve as the throne of their empire. Before that I was stationed in K'in-Al, a planet that was the first to hold a city shared by Kree and Skrull. Before that my location varied greatly."

She was truly a Kree soldier, and he really needed to understand that. Of course some of her truths might make more sense now, as the room around them changes, but only in that another image of Lauri-Ell appears, wearing the same clothes and standing by the table the hammer is somehow now leaning against. Beyond them in the living room area awaits a trio of costumed heroes, all in their uniforms but all colored in traditional Kree military colors. It perhaps looks best on Spider Woman and the younger woman at her side. War Machine's armor didn't really work well with the color shift.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen with the memory of Lauri-Ell, stood Carol Danvers in a blue-green body suit with a silver, eight-point star on her chest. And look, her suit actually covered her arms and legs, and was far more evocative of Mar-Vell's uniform than of her Ms. Marvel days.

"Must you take the hammer?" the memory of Lauri-Ell says, her form a bit less substantial perhaps because she is but a memory of herself.

"What?" Carol asks.

"I... I am not sure I trust it."

"Is that- what does that mean? Why wouldn't you trust it? The hammer saved you by showing me who you were... are?"

Carol seemed a bit exasperated by this decision, and the Lauri-Ell shakes her head at that. "I know. I just... Do you not sense something from it?"

"Yes. I do when I pick it up. Have you ever picked it up?"

There Lauri-Ell seemed to hesitate.

"... No."

"Should you?"

"... No."

"Okay," the woman said before picking up the hammer and moving away into the living room, and thus she missed the whisper of Lauri-Ell, her expression dark as she looked away.

"But I can hear it sing."

And, just as abruptly as the flicker of memory came, it faded away once more.

[in_extremis]

The casual suggestion that little bright-eyed Hulkling and Wiccan were choosing a planet to colonize like a summer home already had Tony reeling, so he probably shouldn't have closed the gap to impulsively poke the hammer now that it was within reach and just sitting there. He would have to worry about the empire later, struck now by the image of his friends, which was about a thousand times worse than the vague concept of New York City outside the window. Even if they did look ridiculous.

He almost missed the conversation, gravitating immediately toward Carol closest to him, muttering to himself as they spoke past him like he was the ghost, "Hey, Carebear, god, you look good, you look--" Older, he realized, with a pinch of concern between his brow for how much he didn't understand, how out of his control this advancement felt.

He couldn't linger long, though, his gaze already flitting toward the group behind Carol, drawn to them in the same magnetic way. Still he greeted, "Jessie--" hands raised like he was prepared to hug her, only hesitating as his focus skipped over the totally unfamiliar hero like he didn't want to make such a display in front of her. He forgot his reservations, as much as he didn't notice how wide and wet his eyes already were when he went, "Jim," and this time found that he couldn't really touch them anyway. "What did you do to my suit?" he grumbled as his hands passed through the helmet, fingers curled like he would tear it off. It was this barrier that broke his orbit, letting him turn on his heel and back toward the sound of the women's voices, head cocked curiously, gaze still distant and shining.

"What did you--did you steal it?" he managed to ask as the image faded, leaving his hands frustratingly empty and forced to dig his fingers into his chest instead, blinking quickly back into focus. "I thought you were one of them." They hadn't made it sound like the Accuser's hammer belonged to Lauri-Ell.

[kree_soldieress]

Don't be silly. Lauri-Ell sighs and takes the hammer away from where Tony can touch it.

"No, I did not steal it. But it is not my will that chooses to take the weapon or not. It is given, not taken. I had no right to take it, even though I took it up in our fight against the Cotati. Later the Emperor bestowed the title upon me. If you want a more accurate statement of someone stealing it, then you should look to the other there. Jessica and Jennifer and Rhodey."

But their 'taking' was because Carol had gone to a wizard or something to mess with the hammer. She was lucky that no Kree beyond herself and the Emperor had known.

[in_extremis]

That did not clarify anything, leaving Tony staring dumbly back at Lauri-Ell, like the clarification might still come, then swinging around like he might still see Rhodey and Jess and they could explain in terms he understood. Both hands up toward Lauri-Ell, Tony tried for himself, "You didn't steal it, you just took it." He supposed the difference must have been whether or not the king decided you should have the thing in the end. With that sorted, Tony quickly powered on, "None of these people are Kree where I'm from, by the way, this is--they never took Earth, or whatever," not sure how else to interpret the uniforms, and figuring Lauri-Ell's stories about Carol's mother made a lot more sense in this context.

[kree_soldieress]

"You have surely taken up weapons in the heat of battle to save your allies, yes? That is how I first held the weapon. When the battle was over I returned it to Carol, who the Emperor had chosen as his Accuser. At the wedding he chose me to remain his Accuser."

Really she doesn't get how Tony fails to understand all of this.

"And Carol remains half-Kree, by the blood of our mother Mari-Ell. The others, however, wear the colors for Carol went to a Sorcerer to divide the power of the Weapon by magic, giving her a team. Those three are those she called to the duty with her. She was lucky only the Emperor knew. Our people would not have been happy. I think it suited Jessica best. I liked her. She complimented my arms many times."

Lauri-Ell, Accuser of the Alliance, sister of Carol Danvers, and holder of a crush on Jessica Drew.