driftfleet | (no subject)

Who: Makie and you guys
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: Marsiva
When: This evening

[Makie wakes feeling more relaxed and a lot clearer than she has in a long time. It's enough that, for a time, she just stays in bed. An odd bed, a very soft one. Given she'd spent a year sleeping on the floor-- and her last memories-- it's a luxury she indulges in.

She knows this is an unfamiliar place. She just doesn't care.

Eventually she pushes the coverlet back and stands, collects her shawl from the stand nearby and settles it across her shoulders. Her clothes are clean and in good repair. That's interesting. The shamisen is there and she picks it up, freezing for a moment as she registers the difference in weight. Notes it, dismisses it. She doesn't...need it here, does she?

It's not until she explores that she begins to feel the first confusion. This is not at all what she would have expected, alien and unfamiliar walls and machinery. Not only that, the more she exerts herself the more the heaviness in her lungs becomes more pronounced, and eventually she sinks into a nearby chair to get her breath back. She's better than she was by far, but she's still sick. She shouldn't still be sick. Surely.

All right, then.

After a while, unnerved by the silence and emptiness of the place, she begins playing her shamisen. If she'd explored a little more, she might have found others, but she's tired. If there are others, they can come to her instead.]

---------

[Eventually, a broadcast. It's short and to the point and delivered in a thin, tired voice by a Japanese woman in a kimono with exceedingly pale skin.]

I understand this is no longer Adstringendum. [She still stumbles over that name, even after a year. Too many damn consonants. And then her tone turns wry.] It is also very clearly not the land of the dead, and this communicator is... familiar.

I apologise as you've no doubt heard these questions many times before, but I should like to know where I am and why.

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Me too, I was glad to leave.

[ sokka and katara, he's sure, were unhappy about it, but. ]

Maybe a beach. A warm one.

[Screw Sokka and Katara they have no taste.]

A beach sounds lovely. With a light breeze.

And access to sunlight.

[ that's, really, zuko's largest issue. ]

[Well, that goes without saying. But it makes her curious.]

Do you need access for any particular reason?

No.

{ yes ]

I'm just tired of being stuck on a ship. It gets claustrophobic.

I understand. To be trapped indoors for long periods of time is not for everyone.

[ especially when you're a fire bender ]

Adstringendum was a prison, but at least it had fresh air.

It didn't, at the end.

Everything was poisoned.

[ . . . right.

there's a pause. ]

Guess it's good that I got out early.

[That's what she said.]

I suppose you could count that as a blessing. By that time, there weren't many people left... I suspect most you knew would also have returned home. [If not all of them.]

Edited 2016-01-28 08:38 (UTC)

I've found one or two here, but they have no memory of Adstringendum.

[ so. ]

But it sounds like I left way before any of that happened.

I'm sorry you lost touch with your friends.

Would you return to Adstringendum if you'd had the choice? If it was still... the way you remembered it.

[ there's a silence ]

... no.

[ finally. ]

I need to be home -- that's where I'm meant to be. And if I'm here, then I'm supposed to be here for a reason.

[ even with all that he lost in adstringendum, he knows he needs to let go. even if it's hard. ]

That's a good way of looking at it. [The most practical way. She supposes if Castiel were here, he could arrange for Zuko to revisit the place from what she's heard, but time has passed. It wouldn't be the same.]

This place seems to be drawing in people from such places, however. You may get to see the people you knew from there again.

[She can hope. She's thinking of Lilly.]

I've got some people from home here, and some people that look familiar from Adstringendum, but some of them don't remember who I am... from there, anyway.

[ allen knows who zuko is, but doesn't know him from adstringendum. shit is weird. ]

So I assume these are versions who never made it to Adstringendum. Or have lost their memories of the place.

That sounds... complex. And rough.

A lot of the people here.

[ he pauses ]

It is complicated, but it's better than never seeing them again at all.

I suppose that's true. [She's unsure on that. But until it happens to her, she can't really tell either way.] At least you have the option of building a relationship with them again.

Right.

[ for the most part, anyway ]

And for some people, worlds like these are better than their own at home. It's not always a bad thing.

No, I agree. Either here or Adstringendum... I far prefer these worlds over my own.

... I'm sorry to hear that, then.

[ because it sounds like adstringendum had devolved into a disaster, and if her world was worse than that... ]

I don't have to go home again, it seems, so it's all right.

[She smiles faintly.] My world is certainly more beautiful. But its people are not as accepting as those I've found in other places.

[She'll take a bunch of ragtag people yelling at each other across PCDs over strict castes and rules, man. They suck.]

-- you don't have to?

[ he knows that the people in adstringendum seem to have broken out, but that's still... ]

... most of the people I've met while traveling seem to be accepting, too. I guess people who are shoved together really have no choice, though. It's get along and survive or not.

It's... complicated. [A few minutes ago she thought she was dead. But from the sounds of things, Sam says otherwise. Either way, she doesn't have to go home, either because she can't or she can make a choice to go elsewhere.]

That's the nature of these places, I suppose. It's encouraging that we would rather work together than tear one another apart.

How complicated can it be?

[ he wants to know woman >:c ]

[Video]

therewerefifty - 2016-02-16 01:49 (UTC) - Expand