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

[ Ino listens closely as she speaks, looking thoughtful for a moment before she replies. This is a pretty unusual first post, after all ... ]

Is that what you think got you here?

I was meant to be going home. [Her voice is still terse, but getting shaky.] That's the only reason I left, because... it was coming eventually, we all had to go home one day, and it was childish to delay the inevitable. I had my own life to start.

This isn't my life. They lied. They used me, like everyone else.

[ Hmm. She's quiet again for a moment. ]

I don't know. They might have been lying, I couldn't say, but I don't think this place necessarily has anything to do with them. I was somewhere else besides home before this, too, but so far there doesn't seem to be any actual connection -- just coincidence that we got shuffled from one to the other.

[It takes her a moment to process that, but when she does, she looks a bit incredulous.]

Do you mean to say - if Eudio didn't - does no one choose to come here? Or know how they got here at all? Is this some bizarre intergalactic kidnapping ring?

I guess that's one way of putting it, yeah. Nobody here wanted to be here, we just kinda showed up.

That...

[She claps a hand over her forehead, massages her temples for a moment before looking back at the pretty girl who really does seem to be trying her best in the face of Celeste's alarm. It's enough to convince her to take a deep breath and try to look at this sensibly.]

Do you know, that's par for the course with my bloody life. There's really no point in pretending otherwise now. Go in with good intentions and everything turns into a cock-up so massive that there must be a higher power guiding me toward failure.

[Siiiiigh.]

You're quite calm about it, though. Have you been here very long? Does it... I mean to say... how do you get it straight in your head, what's happened? How do you live with it?

[ She can sympathize, for sure. Ending up here was pretty par for the course for her luck, too. ]

I've been here for over a year, now. Before that, I was in a similar place for seven years. So ... yeah, I guess you could say I've been around the track once or twice.

[ As for how she deals with it ... ]

At this point, it's just kind of become the new normal.

Seven years... and did you never go back in between? Were you taken right from the other place?

[Celeste is nothing if not self-absorbed, but she's got the capacity to appreciate and acknowledge a worse story than hers. And this could be one hell of a worse story.]

[ She looks a little sheepish. It's sort of hard to explain, but ... ]

Uh ... I sort of did? It's a little complicated. There were a few times where I sort of ... fell asleep and felt like I went home and other things happened, but my body stayed there.

But yeah, I actually thought this was the other place for awhile. Turns out it was just a whole different place.

Good lord. Prescient visions, you mean, or...

[She laughs quietly and shakes her head.] Actually, never mind that. I'd wager it made about as much sense as this does.

And I can understand, sort of. I - well, as much as I'd love to say lost, it isn't the entire truth. I gave up six years of my life to people who said that it was worth it and everything would be perfect when they were done. That's why this is such bollocks, because I thought I was fixing one stupid mistake, but it turns out I just made another.

[After a moment of silence, lips sucked between her teeth, she shakes her head again.]

Or maybe not. This may sound strange, but kidnapping is actually better news than what I thought had happened, so thank you for clarifying that.

[ She has to laugh just a little. ]

It does sound a little odd, but I get what you mean.

I don't think it's your fault you're here, though, for sure. Atroma probably just thought it would be funny to make your life more difficult. That's how these people -- or things, I guess, we aren't exactly sure -- tend to operate, anyways.

Oh, good, at least they've got a sense of humour.

[She's the living embodiment of Done when she says that, sarcasm dripping from her voice. But the more she considers this situation as a cosmic prank, the more it makes sense.]

So - we're really being watched. We're some sort of program that people use for entertainment. Because that is bloody funny, even if it's the furthest thing from ha-ha funny.

Well ... kind of. That's what they say, but we have yet to find any person who's ever heard of or watched the alleged show we're on.

[ She shrugs ]

Atroma themselves are definitely watching us, in some capacity. But the whole reality show thing could be fake, or not. We don't know.

You've been here a year and never met an actual fan, or even someone who knows it exists.

[That's not questioning or dubious - she's taking it in, really mulling it over. Eudio was something she jumped into headlong and trusted implicitly, even if it was because she didn't have much left to believe in, but this is different. This is suspicious right from the off, and only getting more so.]

It's completely absurd as a cover story, but I suppose potential fame would be enough to mollify a certain sort. [Her being among that sort at one time, which only shows in a slight narrowing of her eyes.] And I can't deny that it's creative. Have you found anything else - I don't even know what I'm asking, any other reason they could have for all this?

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