r/DropPodGreen

Art by aceprikis

Discord link: https://discord.gg/jF7zgFGac
Audio link: https://youtu.be/N6IdxkyZXVA

Lirya’s eyes were wide open and mind awake as she rode shotgun in Liaison Carmine’s truck, her paw-boots happily tapping on the floor board.

In the back seat was Mohki, while on the opposite side of the floor board was the odd little cooler Carmine had stuck back there to make room for Lirya.

Mohki had smelled something odd from the cooler, as her nose could pick up cherry juice or something like it… but there was also an odd mineral smell that she couldn’t put her finger on.

The ride to the hospital was quick, and Lirya popped open the door with a giddy giggle once the Human had placed his truck into park.

Mohki didn’t have long to ponder the cooler before she had to quickly chase after Lirya, the two Kafya leaving the Human in the dust.

“Lirya, hold on!” Mohki called out, grabbing onto the back of Lirya’s shirt and hauling her just out of reach of the door handles. “We have to wait for Liaison Carmine!”

“But I know where to go!” Lirya whined, and she stomped her foot angrily as she rounded on Mohki. “You didn’t have to come anyway!”

Mohki let out an aggravated sigh. “I’m your bodyguard, remember? I have to go everywhere you go.”

The statement was annoyingly true, resulting in Lirya folding her arms in a pout as she waited for Carmine to stride across the parking lot.

Mohki had been wondering for ages why Lirya had been so eager to get back to the hospital. 

She hated the things, and Human hospitals were the worst; They smelled weird, were always bitterly cold, and there were these little shrines all over the place that gave her the heebie jeebies.

Carmine raised an eyebrow at the two Kafya, nodding to the shrines at the front of the doors before pushing the release bar. Lirya followed his eyes, and she squinted at the shrines.

To the left of the door was a shrine resembling a cragged mountain, a statue of Eir and her yarrow flower wrapped spear placed in the center. Eir was a minor Human Goddess that was of the Odinic Shieldwall, one of healing and mercy.

To he right sat Saint Dymphna, a woman revered by the Ashen Templars. Lirya did not know her story as easily as Eir, as she had been a royal Irish runaway that fled her father’s court. She knew the Human was a patron saint of one healing or another, judging by her being present at a hospital, and made a note to research it later.

The thought pressed to the rear of her mind as Carmine pushed the doors open and swept into the hospital, Lirya close to his heels and Mohki hot on hers.

Carmine, being well known enough, got Lirya quickly into an examination room and waiting to be seen, while he excused himself to go speak with someone about her paperwork.

With Mohki being asked to wait outside the examination room, Lirya happily kicked her feet back and forth on the examination table, ears perking at every noise that happened outside the door.

When the door finally opened, Lirya’s brightly flashing smile died on her lips as an older gentleman entered the room. He was humming to himself as he closed the door behind him, Lirya wagering with a silent growl that he must have been well into his 70’s.

“Good morning!” He said, adjusting his eyeglasses. “I’m Dr. Killjoy. Are you Lirya?”

“... Yeah.” Lirya said dourly, raising a white furred hand. “That’s me.”

“Ah, wonderful!” Dr. Killjoy exclaimed, pulling around a long stand of machines with halting, short steps. “I’ll have you in and out of here in no time!”

“... Okay.” Lirya sighed out quietly, holding up her arm when Dr. Killjoy motioned for it.

The old Human took her blood pressure, viewed inside her ears with an odd little device he looked into, asked her about her health, listened to her breathe with an odd-looking listening apparatus, then began slowly going over the paw pads of her hands and feet.

“It was quite a surprise getting a chance to use my old veterinary skills, when you Kafya first came here.” Dr. Killjoy quietly chuckled as he spread the toes of her foot. “I was an Army veterinarian in my youth, you see, but switched over to general medicine after I finished up my stint as a combat medic.”

Lirya tilted her head down at the old man’s bald head, watching him as he hummed to himself and inspected one of her old scars. “I got that after having to run barefoot through a lot of broken glass, I was outrunning a group of kids that wanted to beat me up.”

“Dreadfull.” Dr. Killjoy murmured, slowly shaking his head from side to side. “You weren’t able to walk well for a while, were you? I can tell just by the scar that the glass got up into your tendons.”

Lirya nodded. “I needed help getting around for a few weeks before my foot could bear weight. How did you become a medic, though? Did they teach you before sending you off?”

“Oh, goodness no.” Dr. Killjoy chuckled, placing her foot back down and then checking the other. “Stopping the bleeding on any creature is the same, but I did get better toys to play with while on the battlefield. My nickname was Grandpa Mocambre, and most of them feared to see me coming during the war against the Ur Soldiers. They always said I handled them like dogs, but that’s not quite true.”

When Lirya raised her eyebrows in question, Dr. Killjoy winked up at her as he set her other foot back down.

“I gave the dogs treats.”

Lirya giggled down at Dr. Killjoy as he laughed, wiggling her legs with gentle hands as he watched her knees.

“Good mobility, and I don’t hear any clicking like mine do. I’d dare say you are free to go about your new duties, Miss Lirya.” Dr. Killjoy said, dusting his hands and sitting back on his little stool. “Everything else is up to you, now.”

Lirya smiled, putting her paw boots back on  and sliding off the examination table. “Thank you!”

Dr. Killjoy just smiled an old man’s smile, then gestured towards the door.

Lirya walked out of the examination room, Mohki jumping to her feet with a smile and taking stride at Lirya’s side.

“How did it go?” Mohki asked, opening the door for the two of them in a connecting hallway.

Lirya shrugged. “I’m all good to go I guess.”

Mohki could sense that something was off, rubbing the nails of her padded thumbs together in thought. She could sense that Lirya was obviously stressed, or perhaps feeling the pressure of her new duties, and Mohki needed to figure out a way to get her to cheer up.

A thought struck her, and Mohki looped her arm through Lirya’s.

“What are you-” Lirya began, but was carried along by Mohki as she rapidly tapped on a small data-slate in her other hand.

Mohki steered them through a side door, Lirya leaning backwards and looking back down the main hallway.

“What about Carmine?!” Lirya called out, confused.

“I’ve already told him where we’re going.” Mohki said confidently, striding forward towards a rapidly arriving tarry-lift.

Lirya looked at the lift, to Mohki, then back at the hospital. “But where are we going?!”

“To let you have some fun, come on.” Mohki laughed, then hucked Lirya bodily into the back of the tarry-lift before getting in herself.

Lirya, bewildered, let out a string of spitting curses as Mohki pulled open the hem of her shirt and whipped it over Lirya’s head, blinding her to the world with the only thing in sight being Mohki’s straining bra.

Despite the protests of Lirya, as well as her thrashing, Mohki’s muscle kept her in place and their destination hidden from sight all the way into the parking lot.

When Mohki finally pulled her shirt off from around Lirya’s head, Lirya sat up with a spitting of her lips, looking around with hair wild and eyes wild.

She looked out the window, then back to Mohki.

“The mall?” Lirya asked, and was suddenly rather aggravated. “You trapped me in your boob sweat for an entire car ride just to hide the mall?!”

Mohki chuckled, opening the door and stepping out. “You haven't been outside in weeks, and I didn’t want any of the posters to spoil the surprise.”

“What surprise?” Lirya asked, stepping out of the tarry-left with an angry swish of her tail.

Mohki pointed, and Lirya looked.

The mall had a new roof, now domed out in the middle in a huge oval, and there were signs everywhere for a new “parachute experience”. Posters and signs showed Human teenagers floating down on chutes of army green nylon, boasting that the indoor towers were “nearly as tall as the ones of old!”

“And I just paid for ten drops, all for you!” Mohki said happily, showing Lirya her little travel data-slate. “See? That way you get to have some fun and forget about all your troubles for a little while!”

Lirya would have rather gone home and pouted, especially having to endure the musk of Mohki’s chest fur, but she had seen the price of each drop.

The fact that Mohki had paid for ten, meant that the brown furred Kafya had used up a sizeable portion of her monthly pay for Lirya to enjoy herself.

Plus, she guessed she could use something that could get her blood pumping. It had been a rather dreary month, after all.

“Alright, let’s do it!” Lirya called out, looping her arm around Mohki’s this time. “But I’m not doing all ten, you have to do some too.”

“What?!” Mohki cried out as Lirya jerked her forward. “I don’t want to do any of these things, that’s insane!”

Lirya shook her head. “Nope! You’re my bodyguard, remember? Where I go,” She grinned at Mohki smugly, “You go!”

Mohki groaned as Lirya frog marched her inside the mall, though the two were taken aback by the brand new jump towers that loomed above them, fitting tightly to the new dome.

The smaller towers were still there, and were in use by children, but the taller towers supported teenagers and adults, able to drop four parachutes at a time. Situated in a newly carved out slot in the middle of the walkways, the areas where a chute could get stuck or swing into the promenades was walled off by mesh netting, making sure all chutes made their way towards the cushioned landing areas around the towers.

“Holy shit.” Mohki gasped out, craning her neck to stare up at the very top of the drop tower where a little aircraft fuselage was. “... Uh, you know. I’m not really feeling all that well on the drive over, and I think maybe I caught something at the hospi-wah!”

Mohki barked out a curse as Lirya jerked her forward, the white fur’s black eyes locked on the larger drop towers and desiring the challenge.

In spite of Mohki’s declaring that no harness could fit her, her ears pinned back in terror when there was, in fact, a perfectly fitting harness. With the fitting area at the top of the towers in an adjacent room, Mohki was shaking like a leaf in the wind as she was fitted into her jump harness.

Lirya was humming happily to herself as she clicked hers into place herself, tightening straps with cheerful high notes in her throat.

Mohki was making another kind of sound, but it was more akin to terrified moaning, the sound being constant background noise as they were instructed on how to land.

They were both walked out to a loading gangway with safety clips on their harnesses attached to a rail, their chute lines hanging above them in a high-tech hoop that arranged and spread the new production, retro-green parachutes.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck fuck fuck…” Mohki hissed past her teeth as she looked straight down through the gangway’s metal grid flooring to the ground below.

Lirya leaned out over the rails gamely, her tail wagging back and forth behind her. “Wow! This is way higher than the kid ones!”

“About as high as we could legally get.” One of the workers said, reaching up and waving to the AI controlling the hoops. “We’re still way short of the actual drop towers, but its high enough for some serious hang time. Bring ‘em down, Juke!”

“Hoops descending.” Juke called out through their speaker, the AI lowering the bloomed chutes so the lines hung down near the assembly areas. “The brown one looks faintish, Larry.”

Lirya looked back at Mohki and saw that the proud Blackmoon warrior was staring straight ahead with wide eyes, her tail tucked between her thighs.

“You doing alright, Mohki?” Lirya asked with false, sarcastic concern, at ease with being this high in the air.

She knew Mohki wasn’t, and it was payback time for her always trying to huddle in on her plans.

Mohki narrowed her eyes at Lirya, and frankly hated that the smaller white fur had such little fear in her.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks for asking.” Mohki growled, now letting the anger inside her try and push away the fear as Larry clipped everything into place on her harness.

Larry gestured at Lirya with a beckoning hand, and the white fur hopped over to the man with skipping kicks of her feet.

Larry laughed as Lirya bounced into place inside her white circle, and clicked her chute into onto the rings of her harness. “Girl, with all them scars I ain’t surprised you are showing no fear of a little ol’ jump.”

“I’ve been up against worse.” Lirya said with a grin, making Larry laugh again as he rattled her lines to make sure they were snug.

With a few testing jerks of the harness and the lines, he nodded, coming around to the edge of the gangway and clipping his own safety harness to the rail. “If you feel like it, we have an extreme variation that happens at the very tippy top of the tower! You’ll get to feel some free fall too!”

“We’d love to!” Lirya replied, Mohki’s head snapping up and around to the pair.

“We?!” Mohki screamed, now looking all around her in alarm as the gangway gave a shudder, and a recording began to play from the tower on speakers. “Whadd’ya mean we!?”

“One, minute!”

Above them, pistons hissed, and the chutes were raised so the lines were taught and just every so slightly pulling Lirya and Mohki’s harnesses.

“Get, ready!”

Above them, a great red light glared to life.

“Stand, up!”

The speakers began to play the sounds of aircraft engines, thrumming and roaring above them.

“Hook, up!”

The chutes raised up a little higher, removing Lirya and Mohki’s feet from the gangway. Another hiss hit the air and the gangway slowly swept out of the way, Larry waving at them with a bright smile as he was swung away.

“Check, line! Check, equipment!”

Multiple cameras on mechanical arms swept down and around both Lirya and Mohki, visually checking their harnesses while little mechanical arms lightly tugged at their lines. Above them, the speakers played the sounds of an entire stick of paratroopers calling out their numbers above the roar of the engines.

Once they were all clear, the little mechanical arms removed their final safety line, dragging them out of the way.

“All okay, Jumpmaster!” The speaker boomed.

“Stand, by!” Larry called out, looking down at the bottom of the landing area over the rails.

Out of nowhere, the light above them turned from red, to green, and the AI released the chutes.

Mohki, a bloodcurdling scream ripping out of her mouth as soon as she dropped, was a stark contrast to Lirya. Lirya let out a loud, gleeful giggle as she felt her stomach lurch at the sudden drop, leaning her head back with laughter as she began to float down.

When she looked over to Mohki, the brown furred Kafya had shrunk up into a ball, clinging to her harness for dear life as she continued to scream. This only caused Lirya to laugh more, hanging loose and comfortable in her harness as they drifted down pass multiple outdoor seating sections of the restaurant level.

Lirya sighed out happily as she looked down, watching the ground slowly grow closer and closer, all while Mohki still screeched from some feet away.

Since the chutes were designed for a soft landing, and the padding for a softer first touch, Lirya managed to stay completely standing as she puffed down onto the ground with a light bounce.

Mohki came in like a dropped meatball.

“Fuck!” Mohki screeched, thudding down to the pads on her ass and bouncing onto her side, the chute falling down around her in an embarrassing shroud as she continued to scream.

Lirya, rolling her eyes, detached her chute and stepped over to the brown fur, lifting up her chute as the Humans laughed or chortled around her.

“Mohki.”

“I’m dead!”

“Mohki.”

“How many bones did I break?!”

“Mohki get up!”

“Is there a doctor out there?!”

Lirya let out a gruff grunt as she ducked under the chute, dragging Mohki out as she continued to prattle on in her panic attack. It was difficult for Lirya, as Mohki weighed far more than her due to the amount of muscle she had, but she managed to pull the wailing brown fur from under her chute.

Shaking so hard that Lirya was surprised she couldn’t hear her bones rattling, Mohki stood up and dragged air into her lungs, her tail brush bottled and hair poofed out in stress.

Lirya sniggered and ruefully chuckled as she helped Mohki out of her lines, the attendants down below taking the chutes away from re-rigging and post-fall checks.

Normally reserved for children, Mohki was given a bottle of chocolate milk and a pack of cookies to calm down. Lirya burned the scene into her memory for later enjoyment, Mohki sitting there in her harness on a little chair while sipping on her chocolate milk with shaking hands.

It was safe to say that Mohki was not up for another jump, so Lirya went up seven more times on her own.

With herself and sometimes other jumpers, she was able to enjoy the quiet fall of the chute and the trickling of the air past her fur, closing her eyes and letting herself enjoy the moment. The sounds of the chute above her was oddly calming, and she could see why the Humans of old loved to jump out of their airplanes with these things strapped to them.

On her final jump, she walked up to Larry and pointed up towards the top of the towers. 

“Let’s make this last one the big one.” Lirya said with a fanged smile, and Larry nodded to her with a wink.

Unlike the other drops, Larry took her to the very top of the towers where a small room lay, set up much in the way of an actual training tower. These training towers mimicked the doorway and rails of an actual jump aircraft, and here the speakers were far more impactful.

Her ears twitched to the recording of wind whipping past the door and the thrum of engines, so deep that the metal of the room vibrated under her feet.

In this room was another man, another older Human that wore a severely short cut to his gray hair, and an intensely square jaw.

“Welcome to the Box Car!” He yelled out over the noise, and Lirya could hear that they were simulating wind rushing by the opening she was supposed to jump out of. 

There was a gate in the way, but it made it feel a whole lot more real.

“I am Jump Master Carrington!” The Human yelled to her ears, his safety harness jangling behind him. “I will get you set up!”

Lirya was fitted into an actual parachute bag, complete with a vibrantly yellow static line and hook.

After Jump Master Carrington double and triple checked her harness, as well as her chute and static line, he had her take a seat on the bench along the wall. When he saw that she was ready to go, he reached up and slapped a button on the roof.

The vibrations of the room doubled, as well as the sound of the engines, and suddenly she was filled with the vocal ghosts of other airborne troopers around her.

Lirya’s ears twitched back and forth as she heard the chatter, and she could understand actual words.

This wasn’t some random recording… this was a battle recording.

“Welcome to the interior of Regina’s Witches!” Jump Master Carrington yelled out, a red light coming on near the jump door. “This is the actual interior of a jump-steed of an all female parachute regiment, salvaged from their final grand jump during the Great Witch Hunt!” He gestured around Lirya, and the room. “Here, you are with them! Here, their spirits are around you! Close your eyes, and listen!”

Lirya, now visibly shaken, closed her eyes as she held onto her harness. She exhaled out past her lips…and calmed herself, focusing on the words around her. She remembered something in the old texts about breathing exercises before meditation that her people would do, so she began to slowly breath out and in through her mouth.

She let her blood calm within her veins, her mind relax, and tried to imagine all of her muscles releasing their tension.

It took a few minutes, but Lirya felt something… odd, happen, as if her ears had popped due to pressure, and she tasted something sweet on her tongue.

Instantly, something felt wrong, and Lirya snapped her eyes open.

She did not see Jump Master Carrington, and it was not as bright as it was before.

It was dark within the interior of the room, but it no longer felt like a room. 

The tremble and shudder was too real.

Lirya could smell the fumes of the engine, the scent of sweat, flesh, and hot breath around her. She could smell the oil of weapons, that tang of leather boots, and so many perfumes that it made her eyes water.

Lirya whipped her head back and forth, and quickly understood that she was surrounded by female Humans. They were all lean, muscular, and dangerous looking, decked out to the gills with knives, hammers, shivs, daggers, and short swords. Some wore fatigues, others tactical clothing, while some of the Humans wore nothing but their lined jump harnesses and parachutes, their naked flesh adorned with paint, piercings, or tattoos.

“What the hell…?!” Lirya squeaked, but no one could hear her above the roar of the engines. 

A loud bang erupted outside and the aircraft shook and shuddered, rattling Lirya hard as it banked hard left, then right.

“We’re coming up to the drop zone under heavy anti-air!” A crewman screamed out, Australian if Lirya had to guess by the accent, and gestured to the fully nude Jump Master that had a giant bear tattooed on her breasts. “Get your girls up! It’s going to be hot!”

“Get ready!” She roared, hooking herself into place on the static line. The entire aircraft repeated the order, their voices piercing, and angry. She nodded, holding up her arms “Outbound personnel, stand up!”

Lirya’s eyes went wide as everyone stood, and she quickly got to her feet as the women around her began sliding fighting daggers into scabbards.

One naked woman, obviously having been a mother of multiple children judging by her stomach’s stretch marks, was right in front of her. Across her tan skin she had painted on vibrant sugar skulls, crosses, and bones, her hips adorned with kitchen knives in scabbards made from ruined leather boots.

 Another order was called, Lirya suddenly finding it rather hard to breathe from how many women were pressing in around her, and she had to fight to hear the next order.

“Hook up!”

Lirya looked to her hand, still holding her modernized static line hook, and quickly reached up to snap it onto the jangling steel cable.

“Check static lines!”

Lirya checked her line, made sure it wasn’t twisted, and saw that many of the lines around her were dirty, muddled, while some had actual damage to the fibers.

“Check Equipment!”

Lirya felt someone behind her jostle her bag, felt hands run down her harness and into some rather private places, and it spooked her something terrible. The woman behind her said something about “padding”, and shoved something into the space between her thigh and harness.

Her hands now shaking, she checked the parachute bag of the woman in front of her… and she somehow knew what to do.

She checked the woman’s harness, made sure her static line wasn’t tangled, checked the D-rings, and made sure nothing else was hanging down.

“Ooh! Why are your hands so cold, girl?” The woman laughed out.

Lirya stammered something out in rapid stutters, having brushed a few places with her hands that were normally covered by clothing.

“Sound off for equipment check!” The woman with the bear tattoo roared, the aircraft now buffeting and jostling as if it were trying to fly through a wind storm.

“Ten okay!” Lirya called out, the number that was to be hers, and her heart was thudding in her chest with such force thats she could feel it moving the fur on her throat. 

She wasn’t sure if she was excited, or terrified, but the booms and cracks from outside the wall of the aircraft made her lean more towards terrified.

“Stand by!”

The woman with the bear tattoo then opened the door, wind rushing into the compartment and ripping through Lirya’s fur.

She could smell fires, burning, and the overwhelming scent of war.

Lirya stood on her toes, watching the naked woman lean out the door, check it for anything sharp, then duck back inside with her hair wild.

She nodded to the man in the flight suit, then turned her back to the stick, waiting to be the first out the door.

As soon as she settled, the light turned green.