[center][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/630508873102655513/735007391581732914/kon1.png[/img] [img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/630508873102655513/732382304319832175/konstantin.png[/img][/center] [hr] [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TSrUrFAyfY]It was a clear day.[/url] Amidst an endless expanse of wheat, the figure of a tall man clad in a dusty bomber jacket loomed high, a lone spot of brown against the amber waves tossed by a gentle wind. His face, normally composed of firm, resolute lines, had long relaxed into something much more placid as his eyes slid across the field. Honestly, it was a little stroke of luck that his blonde hair was a touch off the color of the grain— at least whenever it blew in front of his face, it served to break the monotony. He had been here an unthinkable amount of time. Most definitely not a short while, yet simultaneously impossible to truly perceive as long; it was unthinkable in the truest sense. A long and continued stretch of the present moment. He had just gotten here, yet he had always been here. Somehow, it did not in the slightest feel strange— rather, it was akin to the simple acceptance that this was the state of things being carried on the rays of the sun high above. If there were anything to pique one's actual interest, it would be the blurred figures that appeared in the distance, every so often. No scheduling to it that he could discern, so clearly they weren't military. Rather, they were by all accounts a well-off family of civilians— one appearance would be a boy and a girl chasing after an excitable Labrador. The next, a man and woman gathered around a table, three seats going empty. The boy and the father looming imperiously over a chessboard, Knight pinned by Queen and Bishop while Rook threatened Check in one. The girl and her mother, learning to ride on horseback, not quite understanding how to swing herself up onto the stirrup yet. He knew these people. Even with their ephemeral presence and form, the feeling of familiarity was inescapable when it washed over him, every time they appeared. He did not have the presence of mind to question how he knew, even when they were at the far reaches of his vision. He simply did. By the time they had drawn close enough for him to start trying in earnest to make out the faces, he had long known what just clicked when voices came to his ears on an errant gust of wind. [i]"Konstanin! Konstantin! Have a look!"[/i] someone called. He could hardly place who if he thought about it— it was as if a ghost's. The memory of a certain cadence and tone, carried through an old and crackly radio. He tried half-heartedly, but seemed to intrinsically understand the effort was futile. Instead, he focused on where the small silhouettes— No. Where [i]he and she[/i] were pointing. He knew. His eyes swept up from the golden waves, and into the sky. High above, impossibly dwarfing the wheat that he already thought to be infinite, was a cloudless sapphire sea. A true abyss of blue, enough to swallow the whole world and be lost forever within. He vaguely felt the edges of his mouth prick upward into a smile, familiar lightness entering his chest. Pride. Elation. Awe. Freedom. More than anything, that endless expanse was [i]freedom[/i]. The deep dark blue that eventually gave way to the stars... He looked at it and saw a home. A place where a man like him was at his most primal, at his purest, drawing dancing lines of white contrail as he pleased. A painter against the azure canvas, he vaguely began to note his perspective matching that of an old plane their fingers had been following, climbing higher and higher into the blue as two roaring engines pushed further upward. Maybe he could simply picture it from here on the ground. Maybe he was really up there this whole time. He did not know, nor did he care, his emotions windswept by breaking the sound barrier all over again. As he climbed, the blue grew deeper and darker until it bordered on black, even the burning white sun unable to pierce the depths of stratosphere—or beyond, above him. [i]"Isn't it beautiful, Kon?"[/i] the girl asked, seamlessly returning him to the ground. Yeah. It was the most beautiful thing a man could ever see, short of maybe one other contender. He hoped dearly that one day, he could show the both of them just how right they were. They had no idea. He looked down for a moment as the wind picked up— but when his eyes had returned to the ground, his brother and sister had faded again. Shame. He had so much of his world to share. He looked up again, a downburst forcing fresh air into his nostrils as the distant rush of wind rang in his ear. Squinting, he could just barely make out the craft as it ascended still, his mind's eye beginning to make out stars. It pushed higher and higher, further and further, greedily drinking in all the beauty of the wide blue sky as it screamed towards unending opportunity and wonder. Far higher than it was probably ever meant to go, heedless of anything beyond its own wish to [i]keep going[/i]. He reached upward, tracking it with a hand, and for a brief moment broke through the Kármán Line. Space. Then, the burning sun grew too harsh to make out anything more. [hr] "...peat, all crew proceed from cryostasis chambers to ready stations. Pandora will reach orbit in one hour. Follow the post-hibernation routine and proceed to your station by then. I repeat…” The florescent overhead greeted him in white. He had slept in both extremes of condition, from the lap of luxury to inexcusable squalor. As with most things given such a wide range to work within, he found the experience of waking up from cryo to be... [color=f26522]"Urgh."[/color] Eh, middling. He'd logged a few naps before— "Rise and shine, big guy." a technician chuckled, his humor evident behind the facemask as he began to guide the impossibly rusted joints within Konstantin's torso upward. "Welcome to fifteen years from yesterday." But never so long as this one. It came with the territory of being a pioneer, apparently, to feel like you'd been coated in molasses and clogged like a miner's lungs. Commiserations to anyone who'd pushed west into the New World, centuries ago. The first swig of Rakia would be to them, and the second to the warm shower that he vaguely remembered was coming. [color=f26522]"Well, no wonder I feel middle-aged."[/color] he replied blandly, working his muscles to reintroduce circulation and remove the feeling of static. [color=f26522]"I spent the past decade and a half dreaming about missed opportunities." [/color] [i]"Grim."[/i] [color=f26522]"I'm due a crisis, just for the record."[/color] Rolling his shoulders proved fruitful, as did tensing his thighs. For a big long nap like this, it was natural to assume everything would take a moment or two to come online— but this thirty-second conversation proved his wits to be more or less back. Therefore, the rest of him was probably close enough. Couldn't waste time forever. He rose, taking a moment to lean on the pod as his balance finished calibrating... And began to slowly walk towards the reheating treatment, each step a little less unsure. It was pretty uneventful from there, a brief glance in the mirror prior to stripping down and entering the pleasant warmth reminding him that his hair had been growing out, and that he'd let a short beard grace his jaw. His flight suit fit mostly well, if a little loose— almost being like he'd remembered it, were it not for how he'd gone a bit thin after fifteen years without a meal. Luckily, there was plenty of signage to help him out for that. Refreshed and awake, he was quick to snatch out an MRE (Beef Goulash and Liver Pate, if it made any difference.) and seat himself in the mess, bluntly dropping in across from a woman with hair of ice. Volana Jacira, if he remembered right— the pilots had all gotten more or less familiar with each other before the Pandora expedition had launched proper— at least, enough to avoid introductions and confusion regarding combat roles. [color=f26522]"[i]Zdravo.[/i]"[/color] he said, greeting her in his native tongue as he bit into the dense cinnamon-and-nutmeg-tinted sweetness of a fruitcake.