[ It isn't that he anticipates a more equivalent forum for sharing if he offers up one of the many near-disasters of his last real 'job,' but opening the floor by being the first volunteer is better than being dragged kicking and screaming into being a victim. Besides, he has the feeling Stephen has seen scarier stuff than what they've encountered here, and it would be nice to meet somewhere in the zone of commiseration, even if they're just waving at each other from passing ships. ]
It was a few years back. I was working on something in Yemen that was pointing out into the middle of the Rub' al Khali. The competition comes in, kidnaps my partner thinking he's gonna have an idea of where the target is, they fly off into the desert. My-
[ Wife. Elena. He can't touch that. He can't go there. Nate doesn't trip over the thought and carries on without missing a beat. ]
Friend finds out they're planning on a long expedition, so they've got additional cargo planes going out there for scheduled drops. So the idea was: sneak onto the plane, hide with the cargo, ride one down, right? Piece of cake.
[ The competition, my partner, the target. Stephen's smile, losing its sheen, takes on the looser quirk of genuinely rapt interest. He leans over his lap to rest his elbow on his thigh, closing slight distance, getting into the story. ]
Right. Climb in through the forward retracting wheel, hang out in the fuselage, climb through the ventilation shaft to the cargo hold.
[ A totally simple, easily executable plan that ultimately required an assist when the plane started to take off and he wasn't even on-board. To anyone else Nate would never recommend surfing the hood of a Jeep to leap on the landing gear before lift off. ]
Except some big idiot opens the vent, drags me out, and tries to toss me off the loading ramp while we're at-altitude over the desert.
[ Eyebrows: up. Smile: bemused. The reality of the story isn't funny at all but context changes the flavor, gives it shine. Or maybe it's just the temperament of the audience. Either way, Nate's playing to a crowd of one, but it's still storytime over drinks. ]
So when you say "fell out of a plane", this is after attempts were made to bodily launch you out.
[ He reasons by way of explanation, thumbing the side of his glass and lifting his shoulders in a vague little shrug.
It's odd to think about this after the fact when he was running on pure reactionary instinct at the time, frantically pulling parachute cords and clambering up the mesh while a bunch of assholes tried to turn him into Swiss cheese. ]
He hits me, I hit him, and I thought releasing some of the cargo might knock him off so he doesn't break my collarbone with his bare hands? Only whoever lashed this crap together did it a little too well, or not well enough, so crates and trucks and humvees just start sliding out the back. Which is when the rest of the crew realizes I'm there and starts shooting.
[ His brows are rising steadily higher as the story progresses. This is, dare he even think it, some Avengers style shit. The trials and tribulations of an action adventure hero, he will never know them. But it's very nearly a relief to finally be told them by the man who parkoured himself to avoiding death by vampire. ]
There are at least three looming death sentences in this story so far. Impeccable, carry on.
[ If he'd known he was to be so thoroughly treated he'd have bought Nate a gift. ]
[ Drink neglected, fully in story mode, Nate's use of his hands in the description becomes wider, animated, and much more frequent. ]
Okay, so. They're shooting around all this moving crap and one of them hits something important. It blows a hole in the side of the plane and it lists to the side, 'cause it took out half a wing in the process and we start tanking, hard.
[ Maybe they hit a fuel line, maybe it was an electrical main, Nate never stopped to ask when the whole thing shifted and every one of Marlowe's men began to slip out of the tear in the cargo cabin. ]
I try to grab a strap and I get sucked out. So I'm just- falling, in the middle of Yemen's Empty Quarter, and then I slam into a cargo box wrapped in mesh and pull the paracord. It floats me all the way down to the wreckage and then I realize I'm in the middle of the world's largest contiguous desert and I've got nothing but the clothes on my back.
[ Ridiculous as his life might be, this is on a whole other level. When you're a sorcerer, the entirely unfathomable is standard practice - he lives a fantasy life, he knows that. Normal, human peril, this kind of peril, is something he'll never encounter.
He'd get out of it the same way he got out of dying of exposure on Mt. Everest. A sling ring, easy. But Nate is no magic-user. He's a man who, and this is becoming a notable pattern now, has just survived the highly improbable, only to find himself facing a slow demise at the hands of Mother Nature.
That this man lived long enough to make it to his second cross-universal abduction is honestly astounding.
In spite of the dire situation, Nate's telling of the story is animated and engaging. He shoves a wedge between the tale and the gravity required of considering reality in the way that all good storytellers can. Stephen doesn't feel the need to keep the obvious rapt enjoyment out of his expression. ]
Okay, Bear Grylls. How did you make it through that one?
I can see where you're going with that, so let me be the first to reassure you that I didn't resort to drinking my own piss.
[ Seriously, even Bear Grylls should know better. There isn't enough legitimately helpful water content to do anything more than dehydrate you further, and by that point you should either accept your inevitable death or walk until you can't walk anymore.
Nate did the latter. ]
Couldn't get much from the wreckage so I just...walked. For days. Realized I looped back around to the same empty well twice. Hallucinated a little.
[ The last person he ever wanted to hear talking to him in the waste land was Katherine Marlowe, all petty derision and wicked laughter and annoyingly apt T.S. Eliot references. It was her, then Sully. Sun-baked red rocks. Small wonder they call the Rub al' Khali the sun's anvil. ]
Came across a ghost town and thought I might find something there, ended up running into the same damn mercenaries who had been trying to kill me this whole time. [ Nate waves his hand. ] Gunfight, armed trucks, rocket launchers. I think it was the explosions that attracted the attention of the local Bedouin. Saved my ass and took me to their oasis.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
It was a few years back. I was working on something in Yemen that was pointing out into the middle of the Rub' al Khali. The competition comes in, kidnaps my partner thinking he's gonna have an idea of where the target is, they fly off into the desert. My-
[ Wife. Elena. He can't touch that. He can't go there. Nate doesn't trip over the thought and carries on without missing a beat. ]
Friend finds out they're planning on a long expedition, so they've got additional cargo planes going out there for scheduled drops. So the idea was: sneak onto the plane, hide with the cargo, ride one down, right? Piece of cake.
no subject
Easy as pie.
[ Or not, as the case quite obviously is. ]
no subject
[ A totally simple, easily executable plan that ultimately required an assist when the plane started to take off and he wasn't even on-board. To anyone else Nate would never recommend surfing the hood of a Jeep to leap on the landing gear before lift off. ]
Except some big idiot opens the vent, drags me out, and tries to toss me off the loading ramp while we're at-altitude over the desert.
no subject
So when you say "fell out of a plane", this is after attempts were made to bodily launch you out.
[ And into the desert. Incredible. ]
I'd have included that in the pitch.
[ Do go on. ]
no subject
[ He reasons by way of explanation, thumbing the side of his glass and lifting his shoulders in a vague little shrug.
It's odd to think about this after the fact when he was running on pure reactionary instinct at the time, frantically pulling parachute cords and clambering up the mesh while a bunch of assholes tried to turn him into Swiss cheese. ]
He hits me, I hit him, and I thought releasing some of the cargo might knock him off so he doesn't break my collarbone with his bare hands? Only whoever lashed this crap together did it a little too well, or not well enough, so crates and trucks and humvees just start sliding out the back. Which is when the rest of the crew realizes I'm there and starts shooting.
no subject
There are at least three looming death sentences in this story so far. Impeccable, carry on.
[ If he'd known he was to be so thoroughly treated he'd have bought Nate a gift. ]
no subject
Okay, so. They're shooting around all this moving crap and one of them hits something important. It blows a hole in the side of the plane and it lists to the side, 'cause it took out half a wing in the process and we start tanking, hard.
[ Maybe they hit a fuel line, maybe it was an electrical main, Nate never stopped to ask when the whole thing shifted and every one of Marlowe's men began to slip out of the tear in the cargo cabin. ]
I try to grab a strap and I get sucked out. So I'm just- falling, in the middle of Yemen's Empty Quarter, and then I slam into a cargo box wrapped in mesh and pull the paracord. It floats me all the way down to the wreckage and then I realize I'm in the middle of the world's largest contiguous desert and I've got nothing but the clothes on my back.
no subject
He'd get out of it the same way he got out of dying of exposure on Mt. Everest. A sling ring, easy. But Nate is no magic-user. He's a man who, and this is becoming a notable pattern now, has just survived the highly improbable, only to find himself facing a slow demise at the hands of Mother Nature.
That this man lived long enough to make it to his second cross-universal abduction is honestly astounding.
In spite of the dire situation, Nate's telling of the story is animated and engaging. He shoves a wedge between the tale and the gravity required of considering reality in the way that all good storytellers can. Stephen doesn't feel the need to keep the obvious rapt enjoyment out of his expression. ]
Okay, Bear Grylls. How did you make it through that one?
no subject
[ Seriously, even Bear Grylls should know better. There isn't enough legitimately helpful water content to do anything more than dehydrate you further, and by that point you should either accept your inevitable death or walk until you can't walk anymore.
Nate did the latter. ]
Couldn't get much from the wreckage so I just...walked. For days. Realized I looped back around to the same empty well twice. Hallucinated a little.
[ The last person he ever wanted to hear talking to him in the waste land was Katherine Marlowe, all petty derision and wicked laughter and annoyingly apt T.S. Eliot references. It was her, then Sully. Sun-baked red rocks. Small wonder they call the Rub al' Khali the sun's anvil. ]
Came across a ghost town and thought I might find something there, ended up running into the same damn mercenaries who had been trying to kill me this whole time. [ Nate waves his hand. ] Gunfight, armed trucks, rocket launchers. I think it was the explosions that attracted the attention of the local Bedouin. Saved my ass and took me to their oasis.