Work Text:
It’s rare for the Mechanisms to end up on a planet with this many trees, even if most of them are dead, and Ivy can’t contain her awe. From above, the forest looks like a massive expanse of shifting shades of brown, but once the Aurora lands on the planet and they’re between the trunks, something quiet and reverent builds in the depth of Ivy’s chest until she’s rendered speechless and frozen.
Raphaella looks over and, on seeing Ivy’s face, breaks into an ecstatic grin. “What’s it like?” she asks.
“What, the forest?”
The science officer brushes a lock of scarlet hair from Ivy’s forehead, then kisses her nose. “Seeing it for the first time.”
Ivy beams back at her, startled as ever that her crew knows her enough, loves her enough, to try and understand the way she experiences the world. “It’s a lot,” she answers honestly. “It’s incredible, but I feel like I’m being… swallowed.”
“It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” Raphaella beams. “Brian said there’s a river to the east of here. Race me?”
Heart fluttering in her chest, Ivy takes off into the woods.
The trees around her are massive on a scale that’s hard for human brains to parse, at least according to the data in her own brain, but she has less trouble. She records calculations as she runs—diameters of 30 feet and more, with heights approaching 300, if her eyes are measuring correctly. That’s a big assumption, given that she can barely see the canopy through the dense shadows draping everything around her. In the distance, she picks out what her brain tells her is the sound of running water, and she heads in that direction, realizing belatedly that Raphaella has a distinct advantage in that she can fucking fly.
“Cheater,” Ivy mutters to herself.
The terrain grows rocky around her, ground sloping downward as she finds herself skidding across the fallen needles and grabbing at the unyielding trunks to slow her movement. As she takes a moment to gauge the valley she’s sliding into, she realizes that she’s level with the roots of the trees on one side and the understory on the other, with higher and higher levels stretching out as the trees continue down the hill. This, she realizes, is a perfect chance to observe the fauna of this planet! Her internal library informs her that many animals specialize in foraging at different levels of the forest, and therefore, she’s surrounded by all kinds of opportunities.
Ivy stops, cataloguing the way the heat of her racing heart tingles in her fingertips and swells in her chest. As she sinks to her knees in hopes of making herself small and unobtrusive to any potential wildlife, she hears the first tiny chip of a bird overhead.
It’s remarkable, she figures, that so many worlds can develop something as specific as a bird.
Her brain triangulates the direction from which she hired that first call, and within seconds, she finds it—tiny, small enough that she never would’ve seen it unless it made a sound, and moving so fast that she can hardly keep track. And, best of all, it’s blue! Certainly Ivy has never seen an animal so outlandishly blue. Well, her brain tells her that blue birds are actually black with structural pigments—she shakes that fact off. It is very blue. She can’t stop smiling.
Another half-dozen birds flit by on either side as Ivy sits and listens, memorizing the tiny differences in their sounds, their plumage, their behavior. She’s already starting to form a loose taxonomy based on common features when she hears the first crack ring out from downhill, closer to the river.
Oh, she was racing Raphaella, wasn’t she? It makes sense that her girlfriend would’ve gotten impatient and started shooting things by now. Ivy gets to her feet, brushing needles and dirt off her skirt, and starts making her way down the hill, slower this time.
That’s when she first smells smoke.
All at once, something cold and prickly washes over her, turning her head fever-numb and making her hands shake at her sides. She inhales again in hopes of being wrong—no, that’s definitely smoke. No olfactory bulb malfunctions. Then she hears another resounding crack, like something incomprehensibly huge snapping in half, and seconds later, the loudest crash her ears can hope to process. Down the hill, something glows between the trees, sweeping closer with every moment.
Ivy can’t move. She’s floating inside herself, limbs stuck in place and head full of fuzz that crams in around the corners of her mechanical brain and grinds its gears to a halt. Her hands feel cold. Her feet feel nothing. She looks up to see the flames already licking up the tree trunks on either side of her, and she’s not sure if they moved faster than she thought possible, or if she’s just losing chunks of time. Even the blistering heat on her face feels distant. Still, she can’t force herself to move.
Why the fuck is she reacting like this? Her brain informs her, at its usual speed, that she’s showing several signs of a panic attack, but that doesn’t make sense; her brain doesn’t have the wiring for that, as far as she knows. And besides, she doesn’t remember being afraid of fire. That seems like a pertinent fear to be aware of, given the proclivities of her crewmates. Nothing in her memory indicates anything that would lead to this bone-numbing, soul-deep fear, and yet.
Another tree comes crashing down, much closer to her this time. She needs to move. The sheer terror of being crushed by flame is enough to push her along, but with her lungs full of smoke and her vision too hazy to make sense of the forest around her, she can’t move very fast. There’s no way she can make it back to the ship before one of the trees falls on her. Will the crew even try to find her? How long will she lie there, burning and panicking and lost, before she can possibly hope to escape?
“Ivy!”
The voice reaches her, if barely. Ashes. She recognizes the softness of their vowels, the way they manage to bellow her name even through the choking inferno, and she can’t tell whether she’s relieved or even more terrified. Did they start this fire? Were they trying to burn her alive? They don’t usually do that to crewmates, but maybe—maybe she did something to hurt them without realizing, and now they’re… they’re clutching her shoulders with hands that are warm but, somehow, the coolest thing around her, and their eyes pierce dark and solid into the haze in Ivy’s mind. “Ivy,” they repeat. “We need to move. Can you run?”
She’s been trying to run, she thinks. But when she opens her mouth to say as much, nothing comes out.
“Come on.” Ashes opens their long coat and wraps it around Ivy, folding her into their embrace, and she stiffens until the fabric closes around her and she realizes that the smoke and the crackling and the horrible raging heat are muffled here. “I’ve got you,” they murmur, lips pressed to her ear. “You’re safe with me, okay? I’ll get you out of here.”
Ivy’s fingers curl without her input, grabbing handfuls of Ashes’ shirt. “Please,” she whispers.
“Can I pick you up, love?”
She nods, and they swing her gently off her feet and into their arms. The trees around them lurch past in unsteady movements as Ashes runs, while Ivy wraps her arms around their neck and holds on as tight as her trembling limbs can manage. Logically, Ivy’s brain records every detail along the way, but it still feels like her mind just checks out until she’s crouching on the floor of the Aurora, chest wracked with coughs and face wet with tears.
Cables emerge from the walls to stroke her hair, but Aurora’s attempts at comfort barely hold a candle to Ashes, who kneels in front of her and holds her face in their hands. “Ivy, we’re leaving,” they tell her, searching her face with gentle eyes. “It’s going to be okay. Are you hurt? I can get Marius—”
“The trees,” Ivy croaks. “The birds, the—the—it’s all gonna die?”
Ashes looks taken aback. “Well, uh, birds can fly, so I don’t think they’re doomed necessarily. And the trees—most of them were dead anyway, but it’s a big planet. There’ve gotta be others somewhere else, y’know?”
“So it wasn’t… you?”
Their eyes go wide, and they pull Ivy into their chest, squeezing her tight as if in apology. “No, love. I’d never do that to you. I’m so sorry.”
Ivy hides her tears of relief in Ashes’ shoulder.