driftfleet | (no subject)

Who: Nel
Broadcast: Open; video
Action: Planetside
When: Nighttime, end of the month

[whether or not he admits it to himself, Nel knows that the Marsiva will be leaving the planet's range soon. he doesn't know what will happen once it does--whether it will take him with or leave him behind. maybe something bad will happen. maybe nothing at all.

either way, after the sun goes down on one of those mysterious few days when the Marsiva could be leaving the planet's range at any time (maybe a few hours? maybe another day or two?) Nel is still bumming around on the planet.

he almost looks like he belongs there; he's even got shady company. sitting against the wall of some building downtown, he's right in the middle of a small gathering of other adolescent derelicts, laughing stupidly and passing around a bottle of something they're all probably too young for. the thing that really sets him apart from the others are the two neon-colored feathered boas and matching dangly feather earrings he's got from recent shopping trips on the way-stations.

anyone still lingering nearby on the planet has a high likelihood of getting jeered and catcalled by him and the other teenagers. otherwise, there's a transmission that picks up in the middle of the camera spinning and jostling.]

--me that! I said it's not a toy. You're going to get snow in all its... parts...

[and then the camera is righted and centers on his face, slightly fogged by the smoke from his cigarette... and then smudged by fingerprints as he tries to clean it off.]

Oops, you turned it on. ...See? It's like a phone, kind of... [the camera then turns so a couple of young, local faces can peer into it]

Say hi!

[and on cue, they all wave! ...and then start making every obscene gesture they can think of. happy new year's eve, Fleet!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[when someone starts answering over his communicator, he scoots over and turns the others out of its view, so he can properly answer]

On my ship?

[like she could have possibly meant something else.]

[She waves a little once he's in the view, smiling amiably.]

That's right. Wouldn't want you getting left in the backwash, you know.

Do you think I'd really get stuck here?

[and then he dinks the mouth of the bottle he's holding against the edge of his communicator]

Hey, what if this is the last real city we find? Wouldn't that be terrible?

[he's laughing about it though, like none of this actually has any weight to him.]

I'm not sure what'd happen. I would rather you not be the first experiment though!

[Her own tone is light but she is feeling mildly concerned for the little guy. Someone needs to be supervising him a little tighter, clearly. She's not too eager to take a sad prostitute under her wing. Is Robin close to him? Where is Robin?]

I doubt it's the last one we'll find. We have an entire universe, after all... do you know where your crew is, kiddo?

[She can already guess the answer...]

[babysitting Nel would sadly be a full-time job. he's too domesticated for anything less.]

They're around, I think. [he avoids truth like breathing] And... what if the other places are worse than this? Like, what if there aren't anymore of those birds after this, and we don't get meat anymore?

[Yeah, she's beginning to see that. Mmm.]

I doubt that'll be the case. In the next planets we visit, I'm sure there'll be new and interesting things to see. Why would they be recording it otherwise?

It would be boring to show our audience the same thing again and again.

No, like... you know how in stories things get better for a little bit? And you think things are changing, but then it turns out that it's just so something worse can happen?

It's like that.

I doubt that, kiddo. Even if things get tough for a while, you'll have your crew. We aren't staying in one place long enough for things to be so consistently terrible.

Okay.

[he absorbs the reassurance as much as he ever does, and takes one more big breath to burn his cigarette all the way down to the filter, before he squishes it out on the wall behind him. he kind of breathes smoke all over the communicator when he talks next, but it's probably an accident.]

I was just wondering what if.

Life's not really a story that can be predicted like that.

I thought that's what this was, though.

They're fooling themselves. Even if they're trying to script things for us, there'll be ways to get around that.

How do you know?

Because if you decide to work at it, you can change the way things are going.

[Not that she expects he'll be that helpful with that, but.]

[yeah that's pretty much outside of his realm of capability.]

...Like... staying behind on a planet when they tell you not to?

[he might be missing the point, yeah]

Nope.

[Sigh.]

Oh.

...Then, like what?

Working to improve things on your ship, working to keep your crew safe... [None of which are really things that Nel can do, she admits to herself. Well, he might be able to try and increase morale... but that could be humiliating for all involved.]

Staying on planet is just gonna maroon you far away from home and your friends.

[yeah, most of those suggestions are going in one ear and dismissed right out the other.]

I don't think I'm going to go home anyway, so...

[he shrugs a little] Maybe it wouldn't be so bad?

Wouldn't you miss your friends?

Yeah...

[but that's complicated. friends go away anyway. and he smiles after that--more of a facial reflex than an actual expression--and nods off toward where the local youths are still being noisy in the background.]

But I can always make more friends.

Stick with the ones you have, kiddo. Grow them more.

What do you mean?

[because it's honestly not a piece of advice he's really been given before.]

Your friends that you have around now know you and care about you already, right? Prioritize the friends you have, pay attention to them.