voidtreckerexpress | (no subject)

Who: Sonya Blade and Open
Where: various carriages
When: mid/late period of Imagination
What: grab-bag of prompts
Warnings: References to death trauma in some prompts

Sleeper Carriages;

Not for the first time, Sonya wondered why she didn’t just sleep in the quiet coaches. While she never actually woke up screaming from a nightmare, there were nights when she could feel a scream just at the start of her throat, and for a brief few moments she’s back in that basement-crushed under those stones.

Such was one of those nights; another nightmare, another night of avoiding sleep like an illness.

She threw some clothes on and made her way through the sleeping carriages. There was no real destination in mind, only walking, and an attempt at trying to not wake up anyone who wasn’t plagued by nightmares or insomnia.

Training Gym

If there was any question of where Sonya Blade could be found, one of the best places to check was the training gym. Between her training, age, and weeks between missions, sessions in the gym were a daily occurrence. She might not be able to go as hard as she might’ve years ago, but like hell was she going to stop herself either.

She just had to be smart about it.

Some days it’s leg work, other days upper body. Some days it is a mix of both, with an emphasis on agility and flexibility. As of late though, she’s widening her experience with weapons, using a short sword or axe and weaving it in with skills she already possesses.

Music car

Anyone finding reason to go to the music car would hear someone on the piano, playing something along the lines of a tune. The song itself could be deemed either classical or jazz, but the way it’s being played is hesitant, like the person’s still trying to get a grasp on the song.

Sonya had been attempting to teach herself to play the piano for some months now. She never had the time or dedication to learn an instrument before arriving on the Train, and in truth it never occurred to her to learn at all, but she needed something..anything to keep herself busy that wasn’t training or reading; she always had a good ear for languages and other sounds, and learning to read music wasn’t that hard once she knew their placement.

With any luck, she might be able to play the entire piece without hesitating or missing chords.

Kitchen:

Anyone with a reason to enter the kitchen card (once meals were cleaned up of course) would likely catch the smell of beef being dried or being smoked in the oven, or the sight of Sonya pressing and straining bean curd or milk to form solids (the run off being drained into a large mixing bowl). Either way, she would be busy with something-or catching up on some reading while waiting for results.

She’d been experimenting with food preservation. So far on various missions, they’d been lucky, being called to destinations that were able to supply them with sufficient food and water for their missions, but who knew if such would be the case in the futre. Suppose they came to a place where the natives weren’t in a position to be that generous or were just keeping themselves a float. At the train meeting, she’d heard of people with the means to store supplies without added weight, but that still put pressure on them to make sure there was enough for everyone.

Perhaps it was too much of her own experience, but she felt easier knowing if there were means for people to carry atleast some of their own supplies

ooc: wildcard; any prompt or setting where you’d like to meet with Sonya? Hit me up on discord at Rschwartz501#6755 or plurk at Rschwartz501

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

To her credit, Sonya didn't cover her ears when she attempted scales, but she wondered if that could be attributed to some slow progressing hearing loss that came from one too many firefights. Even so, the pitch was so bad, Sonya couldn't stop herself from cringing.

"Cass...pumpkin," She said, wondering if it was just her imagination that her ears were ringing. "Never do that again. Your mom's reaching retirement age and I'd like to keep what remaining hearing I have left."

"A shame," Cassie says. "The world's just not ready to appreciate my instrument."

She pauses, trying to hold a straight face until failing so hard that she snickers instead.

"I think the Blade side of the family must be the musical one."

"You mean the world's not drunk enough for it." She baited, even as she knew that being drunk didn't really work on a person's hearing.

They both knew the other was joking of course, but even she wasn't beyond baiting her.

"Maybe.." She tried to think, but her own childhood was hardly stable. "I had a great aunt who kept an old piano, but I don't recall many of us having any real talent. For all we knew she just kept it as a family heirloom."

From a time before music could be streamed, downloaded, before it could be collected easily on vinyl. If a person could afford it, pianos were a form of entertainment. "The closest I took to actual music lessons was a short stint of choir at the Academy. Didn't really stick."

Well, the skill stuck, but the interest didn't.

"That'd still make your side the musical one," Cassie says. "There's a reason Dad doesn't do musicals."

Sonya held up her hand, her expression serious. "Not..entirely true." Honestly, it was just as well the paparazzi were scared of her-the amount of dirt she had on him could've earned a small fortune in bribes. "There was, when you were just a tiny baby, a period where he did attempt to break out into Broadway. It was a big thing at the time when a lot of celebrities were doing both."

The fact that it never turned to a big thing with him, that Cassie didn't even know about it. She felt that was enough to imply how that went.

"I guess it goes to show you how good a job he did bringing me up that I was able to forget all about it," Cassie says. "Helps that he never talks about it."

"You were only a year old at the time." She wouldn't even recall the fact that Sonya was still around at the time; her first year long deployment wasn't till Cassie turned four years old.

"Because in the end, he realized action films were just easier-relatively speaking." The work was grueling and if it was a location shot it could mean weeks of being away, but he knew how sets and film worked. Theater and drama acting required completely different skills. "Leave the stage for people who can actually act."

"And here's where Dad would point to his shelf full of People's Choice Awards."

Dry, with a smirk.

"And here's where, if one would look, they're all for action films...and the occasional action mini series." Perhaps she should be called out for pointing this out, but someone had to reign in the famous Cage ego; for the sake of his health or the universe to not implode.

"To be fair to him," She set the cover down over the keyboard. "He stuck to his guns and no one could fault him for that. Just like you won't see me perform on stage except at gun point."

Being on stage to present awards and promotions were one thing; she was just there to smile and act the rank, all of the attention would be on the other soldiers, but to be front and center, that many eyes on her.

Frankly, she'd rather go up against an army of demons geared only in her underwear and armed with a wooden spoon.

"And here's where he says it's the people who keep the dream factory churnin'," Cassie says. "He's the tentpole holding the whole thing up, history will be kind to him, et cetera.

"'Course these days he'd say it with that creaky voice he does when you know he's joking, so...y'know, progress."