[Placeholder] (Complete) NaNoWriMo 2016

Out Of the Caves, For Realz

"They are leaving the caves today even if I have to literally write 'and they escaped somehow', said the Writer as she stomped into the faux-living room. "I want to win this tonight! I don't want to be counting on actually getting words in tomorrow because as soon as I do that Murphy's LAw is going to descend and ruin my Month End."

"Well, you aren't that far behind." The Muse said. "I guess." There was a pause. "I mean if you look at it in terms of other years where you wrote over 10k on the very last day, then this is nothing."

"Right, so we're off." The Writer picked up her pen, set the word sprint timer and got to work.

~*~*~*~*~

Ship had said something to Simon that upset the human, but Simon hadn't translated it for Cat and the feline was trying to figure out how to ask without making things worse. Then he remembered he was a cat and just went ahead and asked.

"Ship basically said we're never going home again."

"I know that," said Cat, confused. "So why has it upset you? Did you not know that?"

"I knew it, I just didn't know it," said Simon, which made even less sense to Cat. The feline had been getting better at figuring out how the humans thought, but sometimes Simon confused the heck out of him. How did you not know something you knew? Semantics!

"It is our life now to wander," Cat said without pity. "You need to know this, however you must. It is a truth." He looked out the translucent windows at Blue. "I thought I might stay here, when this was done, but I don't think they would make good packmates."

"They are a little different, aren't they." Simon looked over at Blue. "I wouldn't have thought those little guys were what Ship was built for originally.

"Hah, Ship has remade itself many times." Cat laughed. "You have seen the walls move and mend, what made you think it could not do more?"

"Oh!" Simon hadn't thought of that at all. He wasn't sure he liked the idea that Ship was much more fluid than he had expected. That could also mean it would be very easy to get rid of crewmembers it didn't like be venting them to space.

~*~*~*~*~

"And that's why Simon's a psychopath," said Ship dryly as the cast wandered into the living room from the story fog. "

"What, you thought it too!" Simon said.

"But I didn't say it." Ship was quite smug, but also safely hovering out of reach of retaliation.

"That doesn't count for anything." Simon as he got himself a drink and sat down to read. "And my character is such a mess right now, I refuse to lay claim to any character trait other than 'awesome'."

"Awesome isn't a trait," objected the Writer. "And you are all devolving into the same character again, which always happens to me."

"Up until you give us proper backstories, sketches, and a few dozen flash fiction adventures." Ship said, with a rather superior air. "Then we'll separate back out into voices you don't have to identify every single line in group conversation."

"Just because you're logical doesn't mean you're right."

"Do I get a sketch?" Asked Blue, who was so very very undefined that it actually hurt the Writer a bit to look directly at her. "Seriously, I have a rough size, a rough section of the animal kingdom, and a whole bunch of description of what I'm not."

"You're a warm blooded bird," countered the Writer, "And you are Blue. Beyond that I have no idea what you look like. But we'll hash that out later. Right now I have to get you out of the cave."