driftfleet | Video/Optional Action

Who: Celeste Blackwell and anyone!
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: SS Golden, p much the most aimless of wandering
When: Day(?)break Jan 10

[Celeste's arrival a day earlier was essentially passed in a whirlwind of cold shock. Everything was so wrong, so alien, and she was already riding a wave of grief following her departure from Eudio; she expected to see her dorm room, the not exactly welcoming but familiar walls of BIAPA, and instead she found a bloody spaceship.

She also found the truth, thanks to it being broadcast in a loop until she could hear the sound ringing through her head even as she tried to sleep, but it wouldn't sink in. This was wrong. It was either a mistake or a betrayal. By the time she was being swept off once again, apparently assigned to a more permanent lodging, she'd come to a decision: Eudio had until the next morning to correct this. If she didn't wake up back in the city or in England, then she had been betrayed and used and lived over half a year of her life in service of a lie.

She woke up (apparently she did sleep, although it felt like it couldn't have been more than a minute or two) in space. And that's when she broke.

Fellow members of the SS Golden can find her wandering the ship, but she doesn't look like she's getting her bearings: her shuffling around is more ghostlike, lost and distant, eyes perpetually red and swollen whether she's crying in that exact moment or not. Sometimes she'll open her mouth as though she's about to start a rant, anger flashing across her face, but then she'll just look helpless again a second later. She's lost so much, two entire lives, for nothing, and now she honestly can't find her way into starting this one. She doesn't know what any of it means.]

[Eventually, Celeste finds her words and settles on an emotion to guide her as she addresses the entire fleet. Her eyes are still rimmed with red, her face a bit puffy from crying, but her expression is hard and ice cold and her stare is furious.]

I've got one thing to tell you lot, and one thing only. [A quiet voice accented with the sound of middle-class London, rubbed raw from crying but taut with rage yet to explode.] If you're ever approached by someone offering a wish - I don't care if a genie pops out of a bottle or a fairy godmother appears in a shower of sparkles or a star comes right out of the sky or it's just two civil servant sorts in smart suits, any sort of person - if they tell you that you can make things right, you can fix all your cock-ups and get your life on a proper track - even if there's a cost, no matter if the cost seems reasonable and this all feels like a very fair exchange -

[The icy mask over her features slips for a second, and it looks like she might be back on her way to tears, but then it's back.]

- no matter how bad it is, and how desperately you want to believe - trust your gut. Wishes like that don't come true. There's no correcting what's already happened. You don't get that sort of second chance, not from anyone, for anything.

It if sounds too good to be true, it is. Don't let any false promise convince you otherwise, or you deserve what you get.

[She sniffles, then looks rather annoyed with herself at having given away even that much and closes things off:]

That's it. That's all I have to say.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[He can see that, but he has so little patience for myopic 'the world is terrible and awful' thinking. She's distressed, yes, and has every right to be--but he can't let that kind of talk stand.]

A little fucking optimism helps, too.

[He gets this exact smile in return, in all its strained and absurdly fake glory.]

Is this better? Do I meet your standards yet?

I'm not looking to be impressed. Look: you're not where you thought you'd be. You thought you'd get what you wanted, and you didn't, and that's terrible. But the rest of us are just as stuck as you are, and most of us will be happy to support you.

You don't have to smile. But you don't have to resign yourself to nihilism, either.

[And there's a heavy dose of reality, with just enough kindness to get through to her and defuse any snappy response back. Instead, she feels dangerously close to falling apart all over again.]

I've lost everything. [Her voice has a little quaver to it now.] I had everything I'd ever wanted in Eudio, but I still wanted what I thought was rightfully mine as well. It's never enough.

[Oh, no. CELESTE. SWEETHEART.

Adra murmurs.]

There's the rub. We want good to be great, and then we want great to be perfect. And when it doesn't work out ... it's torturous.

[He knows that just as well as anyone. But he exhales, and his aggressive grin comes right on back.]

But you should know: your stay here isn't permanent. It might be quite some time, but you will find your way home again.

[Yes, he's got it right on the nose. She left so much behind for her own life, the life she'd earned, the life Caleb said shouldn't have to wait on what she had there. But what more could it offer?]

I couldn't have stayed there forever, either, if I'm honest. And what I had wouldn't have stayed even if I could. The only step you've missed in the whole process is wanting perfect to be permanent.

[And now she'll be told that nothing is. But will she really hear it yet? Who's to say?]

You're - [And she finally finds her way to a smile.] - well, I was going to say you're being kinder than I deserve, but we've already covered that one, haven't we?

Well, if you'll permit an old man to amend himself, kindness is something everyone deserves.

[He'd tell her that nothing is forever, but he's still alive, so who knows?]

[There we go. Now he's getting a real smile.]

Along with every possible chance to amend themselves, I'd say, but I was also born with my foot already in my mouth. That may give me a certain bias.

[That's an explanation as much as an apology for how rude she was earlier - rudeness comes more naturally than she'd always like, but she knows that doesn't make it fair.]

I'm Celeste, by the way. Celeste Blackwell.

Fairly sure I was so curled up into myself that the healers had to take extra time to unfurl me properly.

[He nods in acknowledgment.]

Adrasteius Anor'thalion. Adra does fine, though.

Good lord, that's quite a name. Adra it is, then.

[She thinks about making a joke about nicknames in return, how some people called her Cel when there's really no need to shorten Celeste, but it only makes her think about the people who did. Mostly Caleb, her boyfriend. And then she thinks of Eddie calling her Princess and she needs to take a moment, just breathing in and out with her eyes closed.]

It's still - I imagine it'll do this for awhile, won't it. It'll come in waves. I'm quite alright now, though. [No she's not.] What sort of place do you come from?

[He absolutely does not buy that she's 'all right', but he'll let it go for the present.]

I'm an elf. We go big with names.

[He shrugs.]

Azeroth. Big planet. Beautiful, terrifying. Like most other planets.

An elf. I heard of a few different sorts of elves in Eudio, and they're - well, I suppose you're all over the fiction where I come from. One of those universal things that really is universal.

["What are you" is a question she's always avoided, since it was thrown at her in several different variations as a biracial girl in England, but she does like to know. You just don't ask people that way.

(It's something she likes about these multiverse situations, the fact that she doesn't stand out in the slightest because everyone does in their own way.)]

I don't know if Earth is terrifying... there are natural disasters, earthquakes, volcanoes, typhoons, that sort of - [Her brow slowly furrows, deeper and deeper.] - well, when you think of all together, it is rather terrifying. I thought you said you were an optimist.

I am. But I'm not an idiot.

[He frowns a little, raising a long, owlish eyebrow.]

Obviously not fictional, either.

Well, no, you're not. Not here. Eudio sort of blew my perception of what "fictional" even means wide open -

[And here she pauses again, thinking about Eddie. Ramse. So many people. And her face twists between the emotion that wants to come out and anger at herself for the way she keeps crumbling.]

I'm sorry, I - this is absurd, it's pathetic. I've got to get on somehow.

You can, and you will. But if you want to be upset right now, there's nothing wrong with that. It's not weakness--or pathetic--to let yourself feel what you're feeling.

[She takes in a hitching breath and tries to laugh, but instead it comes out a half a sob.]

My phone doesn't even work. I suppose it worked on their cuddle power as well. I can't even look at photos.

[WHAT'S A PHONE. But he knows what a photo is, at least, and from there, her meaning.]

It's not easy to have that access denied. A photo can sustain a memory for a long time.

I should've printed them, blast it, I had photos printed up for him - why didn't I do it for myself? Fuck!

[He did give her permission to be upset, after all, and she's doing it. The quick swings between blaming others, blaming herself, and just dissolving into tears are pretty standard for this sort of outburst.]

I'll never forget him. I don't need photos for that. But... this may have been the only way I could see his face again.

[Caleb said he'd find her, but she never made any mention of being in space. Sure, she'll get out of here, but all the time she's here is time in which he could be looking and not finding.]

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