revivalproject | Beyond the Boundaries

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Beyond the Boundaries

WHO: Dustin, Felwinter and Link
WHERE: Westward, ho!
WHAT: Felwinter finds himself in...interesting company as he finally sets out for a long put off expedition beyond Temba's city limits.
WHEN: Later this month
WARNINGS: N/A

Organic beings needed preparations, supplies, for a trip. Felwinter remembered these things when he contacted Dustin. 'Star roof', probably wasn't much of a message, but he knew Dustin would understand. He left a more detailed message there, penned and folded under a rock: 'I plan to set out in five days' time. If you wish to join me then pack accordingly and comm your confirmation. Several days out and then back, unless we find any reason to extend our venture. If you have anyone you trust to come along, then so be it.'

He wondered if he was being too generous.

Link would once again find himself under much scrutiny by the helmet-wearing warlord. This time they're at least not on a rooftop, but the mood is probably very much the same. Again, there are questions, and again, Felwinter isn't certain where to even begin. Or rather, he knows what to ask, but he has a feeling that he's better off not knowing. That unseen gaze shifts to Dustin with the impending sense of a query and yet none forthcoming.

And then finally, Felwinter turns, shouldering his pack as he starts on towards the city's outskirts, pausing to cast an expectant look at the two as it seems he's going to accept this extra company after all.

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As Link cooks, he occasionally glances over at Dustin's lean-to building with some curiosity. It's actually not something he ever thought to do while out in the wilds - usually, if he doesn't make his way back to a stable or village, Link just sleeps in trees or on the ground. Not a bad idea, though.

He turns his attention back to his cooking, only to find when he's done that Duston's fallen asleep. Well, he can't let anyone miss dinner. So he gets up, and grabs two bowls of the stew. Walks over to Dustin. Nudges him gently with one foot, to wake him up.

As he does so, he looks over to Felwinter and holds out one of the two bowls. Because obviously, Felwinter's got to eat too.

"--Ngh!" Dustin jolts awake with a flinch, blinking rapidly. Shit he hadn't meant to fall asleep, fuck, did everyone see that? A paranoid glance around suggests that they definitely did. Blushing furiously, Dustin sullenly wipes away the bit of drool crusted at the corner of his mouth and curls in on himself, glaring ahead.

Naturally, his eyes quickly find the bowl of steaming stew in Link's other hand. It's no wonder he'd been drooling in his sleep - exhaustion had won out over hunger half an hour ago, but now that he's too embarrassed to sleep again, the latter is definitely pulling ahead. Dustin swallows thickly, trying not to look too eager.

"You tested it yet?" he asks, as if he's not going to just dunk an entire bowl in his mouth as soon as he gets one.

Felwinter raises his helmet slightly at the bowl being offered him, almost surprised, it seems. He looks from Link to the bowl there in his hand, and then over towards Dustin once the boy has woken up.

"I have no need for it," he says, shaking his head as he returns his attention to Link. "You need not worry about providing food for me."

Has Link tested it? If by this, Dustin means, 'has Link tasted it'...yes, absolutely. At multiple stages of the cooking process.

Really, being able to take little tastes as he cooked was one of the best parts.

But while Dustin gets an enthusiastic nod - Felwinter gets a blank, uncomprehending stare.

"You...don't want it?"

But it's food.

And it's delicious.

That's really all the confirmation Dustin needs - he's too hungry to split hairs on the potential hazards of their eating situation. Having assumed that the other bowl in Link's hands is for himself, Dustin twists around to his backpack (left unclasped from before he dozed off) to grab his own small bowl and spoon, but slows a little as his traveling companions get into discussion.

"...You don't need it?" he asks, almost a mirror to Link's question in its incredulousness. He knows roughly what their resident Exos are, insomuch as they're mostly (or entirely) inorganic, but he's watched Cayde eat before. Surely he wouldn't have done that if he didn't get anything out of it. "How do you power yourself?"

Again Felwinter shakes his head in response to Link before turning his unseen gaze towards Dustin.

"No," he replies simply, as though surprised to even have the teenager questioning him on this matter. He might be. Dustin's always been perceptive. He'd figured the boy knew what he was by now.

"That...I cannot accurately answer," he admits then, even as he reaches up to remove his helmet. Has either of them ever seen him without? He knows for certain Link has not, even as he's mindful not to leave his helmet somewhere the other might just decide to walk off with it. The firelight might make his visage more eerie, a black metal skull with optics burning like the embers themselves. It's almost devoid of expression and that's only because if one's even had a glimpse of Cayde they'd be able to tell the immediate difference, the warmth that radiates from the Hunter's personality.

"Self-sufficient. I cannot even properly explain how an Exo functions. Those are secrets lost in the Collapse."

Link blinks.

Wait, what?

Felwinter is...a machine? Like the Guardians, but...shaped less like an upside-down pot with spider legs, and more like a person?

Link looks from Felwinter to Dustin, and then back to Felwinter again - his head snapping back and forth so fast he near might give himself whiplash. It's clear that while Dustin might have managed to work out some of Felwinter's nature already, Link absolutely has not.

"An...Exo?" he says. He's not met Cayde. For this, Link has no other point of reference.

Dustin has not seen Felwinter without his helmet on, though he's significantly less surprised by the outcome than Link appears to be - not only because the idea of artificial life is old news for him at this point, but also because he has Cayde as a palate cleanser. The differences between them are stark, insomuch as one human can have an especially expressive face while another can look dour and severe. Dustin focuses in more on the similarities, and on the questions he still has.

"How could you not..." The teen trails off, then gives up with a shake of his head. Plenty of humans don't know how their own bodies work, and aren't really in a position to find out, either. If there was some kind of loss of Exo medical texts during this 'Collapse,' that would explain some of the confusion.

Instead, he finishes gathering up his eating utensils and rocks to his feet, groaning quietly at how his legs already ache. "...Never mind," Dustin sighs. "I guess it doesn't hurt you to eat things anyway? Unless Cayde's metabolism works differently than yours."

Felwinter nods at Link, his amber optics flicking towards the pointy-eared humanoid before looking at Dustin. He tilts his head slightly, the barest suggestion of a question.

...but it seems Dustin's worked out some kind of answer for himself. He appreciates that about the kid. It cuts out a lot of unnecessary conversation that would likely just get nowhere.

"I think Cayde's practice has more to do with habit than an actual metabolism."

Link's still out of his depth. It's clear that the nature of what Felwinter is and his history is something Dustin understands a lot more than he does. Link is, quite frankly, a bit lost.

But he doesn't interrupt, or ask more questions. Not that he knows which questions to ask. He just stays quiet, and listens - eyes flicking between the two as he tries to make sense of the conversation.

He does, however, quietly eat his own dinner as he listens. Maybe Felwinter doesn't want to eat (a concept he still finds utterly baffling) - but Link certainly doesn't.

Dustin hums in acknowledgement. That's a satisfactory enough answer; Cayde strikes him as the kind of person to just eat for the sake of eating, especially if he's taken it upon himself to run a bar. Appearances, or whatever.

There's a minute of silence as Dustin spoons himself a bowl of soup - heaping, considering that Felwinter has forfeited his share - and settles into his spot next to his backpack, although he doesn't wait to sit before tentatively sipping at his meal. It's still quite hot, but Dustin's hungry enough to risk a burnt tongue.

Then, once he's satisfied with the taste, he returns to other topics. "--The Funfronds," Dustin announces without preamble. "I spoke with them. You wanted to hear about it?"

There was perhaps the slightest hint of a tension in the air that only begins to dissipate once the subject shifts, and Felwinter eases back against the tree he'd sat himself against. He'd been anticipating more questions and quite frankly wasn't sure that he wanted to answer them. But then people here have been strange, accepting. There's also the fact that they seem to have some preconceived notion about robots that perhaps his unique situation is actually more normal in contrast to Cayde's.

He busies himself with checking his shotgun while the two eat, but when Dustin speaks up again, he looks over, with a brief glance cast towards Link before he nods.

"Please," he prompts. Strangely named as they are, he suspects they hold some importance if they had been depicted on that strange mural they'd found.

Link will also spoon himself extra soup. Although this isn't really Felwinter's share - Link had already known he'd wanted to eat more, and so had made more in the first place.

"Funfronds?" he says, as the other two start to talk. But for the moment part, he stays quiet and listens.

Dustin nods. "Basic descriptions for them are in the 'Dictionary,'" he explains with a dismissive wave of his hand; no use wasting his breath on a primer when one is readily available on the network. "That was enough to establish a line of communication with them."

Well, that and obtaining the Communications expertise - but Dustin conveniently glosses over that detail.

"I made contact with one that seems to act as a scientist for their colony--very curious about us, from an experimental point of view. The Funfronds view 'animals' as inherently unintelligent since we normally can't understand their language." He pauses to sneak in a spoonful of soup, since is mouth is starting to water so much that he's having a hard time speaking. "There's still aspects of it that are difficult to replicate without some kind of...sensory enhancer, that can translate their spores. Like trying to understand pheromones. Work in process."

"Interesting," Felwinter muses. "They are open to communicating? From what I've seen, they take care to avoid us, although perhaps for good reason." They are quite small by comparison, after all.

He looks over at Link. "It has only been a recent revelation that these...Funfronds are more than just local fauna. There is an old image depicting them however, suggesting they have been here for some time."

Link nods at Felwinter's explanation - before turning back to Dustin. He tilts his head to one side, a silent but expectant look. Is Dustin going to tell them what these Funfronds had to say?

Dustin nods again, even as he shovels more soup into his mouth. It's...really fucking delicious, actually, which is especially impressive given that it's made from spontaneously foraged and hunted materials. He has to exercise a nontrivial amount of self-control to stop himself from just ending the conversation here so he can inhale the rest.

After a couple seconds of hurried chewing, Dustin (reluctantly) continues. "Same way we would avoid large, stupid animals," he points out, unintentionally mirroring Felwinter's thoughts. "Once I was able to prove that I wasn't a threat and could understand them, though, they seemed to warm up a little. I told them about the mural and the storms, and they seemed eager to assist in dealing with them--or I guess, eager to have me assist them in dealing with the consequences, from their perspective. That's when they told me about the plants and how they react to the storms."

Dustin pauses for another spoonful of soup, prepared and hovering next to his face for a chance to eat it.

"They release a particular type of spore that seems to reverse the effects," he explains, mumbling around a chunk of meat in his teeth. "They've been treating the soil and plants for as long as foreign species have been present in Temba, but there's just not enough of them - not enough production. So, I offered to synthesize an alternative."

The warlord strokes his chin thoughtfully at that. "...have the plants always responded so? To my knowledge the only time things got truly out of hand was when we returned from offworld." That had been a particularly exhausting problem to deal with.

"How much of the plantlife is foreign? ...is that perhaps why the gradual change, the farther we have gone from the city? We have reached a point where Agra Ten's natural wildlife flourishes, unaffected by whatever my influence Temba."

"The plants react to the storms?" Link repeats, unsure that he follows exactly what Dustin is saying.

Though it doesn't help that, as yet, he hasn't actually seen any of the storms for himself. Heard of them, yes. Learned that they are the whole reason the Agrii have summoned them here. But he hasn't experienced them - or what they might do to the plant life.

Dustin hums the affirmative to both of them. "To a lesser degree, but yeah. Apparently even before the storms," he amends with a pointed jab of his spoon. "Simply being on-planet causes them to slowly mutate. The storms just make those mutations worse. The one last year was exceptionally bad; the Funfronds mentioned that it set progress back on 'treating' the plants by entire generations."

There's a longer pause after that while Felwinter asks his follow-up question, which Dustin uses as an excuse to pick out the last bits of solid food from his soup.

"A decent amount," he eventually answers. "Numbers unclear. The difference in flora between Temba and Sh'Ka is a good indicator, but not good enough. I plan to get a better estimate after we have a chance to observe the ecosystem in other biomes, as a baseline."

That sounds reasonable. There's really no telling how plant or even animal life will react on a given planet. That this place has breathable atmosphere for a range of organic life has been an overlooked convenience.

"Strange that storms have such an effect. Or perhaps not, given how they affect us." Although in that it still makes no sense in some ways. He and Cayde aren't organic, after all.

"Something I want to look into more," Dustin admits, then breaks to tip the bowl of soup back, guzzling the flavorful broth away in several deep gulps.

"--Anyway," he continues, quickly wiping a sleeve across his mouth. "I got some samples of the spores the Funfronds use for treatment, and confirmation that the mural you found was something they created. They treat it like a sacred monument of their history - rare, considering that they don't have a written language - but they couldn't tell me how it was broken, or why we found all of those pieces of it off-planet. Might have happened when the Agrii evacuated, while the Funfronds were mostly driven underground by the chaos of the storms."

"Someone does not wish us to know something," Felwinter concludes. "Or we are being toyed with. It seems too convenient to have found those missing pieces- most of them, on one particular world." But then the possibility of being toyed with probably isn't much of a surprise given things he's heard.

"Do the storms affect them too? Outside of environmental damage." It seems a fair thing to ask. From what Dustin's been saying, the storm seems to only have an affect on outsiders, non-natives of Temba. That...is an interesting point.

Dustin hums unhappily. Being toyed with is definitely the angle he's leaning towards, given what he's learned recently about the Atroma and their history.

"Unclear - I didn't ask - but doubtful," he answers. Dustin's gaze drifts towards the pot of remaining stew, then he decides that it probably wouldn't hurt to get a second helping, so, he wobbles to his feet to grab one. "As natives of the planet, they are likely unaffected outside of the obvious collateral damage. I should ask them how the storms interact with their technology, though - would be interesting to see if their tech fails just like Agrii and Atroma tech does."

That's a piece of information the Exo picks up immediately, those burning embers set in that black metal skull seeming to brighten in intensity as they fixate upon Dustin.

"They possess their own technology?" he asks. That's certainly news to him. "That would be interesting information to learn. And curious that the storm so specifically affects non-natives when it is questionable whether the storm itself is actually natural or something created."

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