driftfleet | video; optional action

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video; optional action

Who: Celeste Blackwell and the fleet
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: Can be found sulking around the SS Golden kitchen
When: Feb 6, evening

[The last time this girl appeared on the network, she was in quite a hot rage, so it might be odd to see her looking quiet and pensive now. Sad, despite a slight smile, to those who really look closely.]

I've been away for awhile - don't ask, I don't quite understand it myself - but apparently I've come back just in time for Valentine's Day to be around the corner. And normally I'd be the last person to bring up something like this, but...

[But what? She doesn't say, just asks her question.]

... have you ever been in love? What were they like? What really made you think "My god, this is the one" when there are so many other people out there who might've been just as good? And I mean, if you're in love right now and you still want to answer, it needn't be past tense. I suppose - I just don't quite understand this either, I never have, but that doesn't stop it from happening.

[She appears to be at a loss for a moment, before shaking her head and chuckling to herself.]

My mates would laugh themselves sick if they could hear me now.

[And that's all.]

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[That's a careful answer. She keeps her own response light, since this is a potential minefield of misunderstandings:]

Is it a more casual thing, then, just a lark? There's a lot to be said for that sort of dating, or so I've heard - I leapt right into the deep end with both feet, but I've always been horrible at doing anything halfway.

No... not a lark. I want to go to his world after all of this.

[ she's having trouble articulating... a lot about this situation. she looks like she might regret responding to this but she's already committed so... ]

You haven't been in love?

[Oh. That was - a possibility in Eudio, one she heard others discuss, but Caleb never brought it up. It was always he and Nico coming to her when the time was right.

She hasn't realized that the absence of an offer sort of hurt, and still hurts, until now.]

That's about as serious as it gets, isn't it. My misunderstanding. [She gives an apologetic little shrug, unable to meet the young woman's eyes through the feed.] I have, yes. I am. We can't be together again for awhile yet, I don't really know how long.

Oh.

Sorry. [ she realizes where she mistook the comment ]

You just haven't understood it ever?

I know, it doesn't sound like it should make sense... but it's not something I decided on, it's something that happened to me. The more I tried to sort it out with people, the more they told me to stop overthinking and just do what felt right. Which worked wonderfully while I was with him, but now I'm alone and there's nothing to do but think.

[Sighing, she finally looks back into the video feed.]

Think or hurt, I suppose. And thinking is at least the easier of those two.

Hold on.

[ switches the feed to private ]

How do you know?

[The problem with communicating with terse people when you're Celeste is that you say a lot, all the time, and it's not always easy to pick out where you tripped someone up in all those extraneous words.]

How do I know which part, sorry?

Sorry. I— Sorry.

[ and Nova is kind of stressed out about this topic so she's being somehow both more stoic and more awkward. she takes a moment to breathe and think, turning her face away from the camera for a moment before returning ]

How did you know you were in love?

[Yeah, Celeste can tell. Takes one to know one, maybe - it doesn't present the same way in her, but she can still tell. It makes her a bit gentler than is her wont.]

No, nonsense, there's no need to be sorry. I do have a way of going on. [But that's a tough question, because the moment when it truly struck her, more clearly than any other before or after, was just a senseless swell of emotion. There were no words, no logic, nothing to think about.]

Well... I think both times I've really been in love, the bloke has known me in a way no one else did. Or could be bothered to, really. Once I realized that there couldn't be any more games, I couldn't play at being what I thought I should be because they'd see right through it anyway - I didn't want to anymore. They knew the truth and they were still there, maybe even because they knew.

That relief, that incredible relief - I thought that must be love.

[ she absorbs this, and thinks about it quietly for a moment—maybe a little too long, before coming back to the video feed ]

I just feel like people have so many expectations.

Of love, you mean? Don't they just. That's why I've always loathed romance films, because they set up most of those expectations and not a single one is realistic. Think of how easy it would be if you could just trust yourself, without any outside influence.

[ snorts derisively ]

I got kind of screwed up about all of that. I don't know what to think anymore. I didn't know what to think then, I just wanted to stay alive.

[It's one of those red alerts she remembers so well from Eudio, sirens wailing and lights blazing around the words stay alive: this girl's got a horrible story somewhere in her past, and Celeste probably isn't anywhere near equipped to understand it.

Not that she bails entirely in these situations. She's just learned to tread more carefully than she did before she learned how bad a life could truly be.]

Maybe my mates were right. You've got to do more feeling than thinking if you're ever really going to sort it out. And you needn't tell me that just letting yourself feel without analysing every moment of it is terrifying and always feels like a mistake - I know it all too well. But it's served me better than thinking once or twice.

I can see where that would help. I tend to make things worse when I act on my feelings. But something different works for everyone, or maybe I'm just going to make bad decisions no matter what.

[ she's not trying to be hard on herself, she just thinks it's the truth, and her inflection and countenance reflects that ]

[It's a very hard way of looking at things, but so familiar that Celeste ends up laughing. Obviously not at Nova, though - in an understanding way.]

Well, then, you're in good company. We can make horrible life decisions together. Or maybe we'll be able to spot one another's even though we can't do it with our own - you never know, the blind leading the blind could be on to something.

[ she relaxes—just slightly—at that, and offers a small smile ]

Everything being on fire?

Hopefully not that dire. That's about the worst thing I can imagine, being in space as we are. It means a whole new set of fears, doesn't it?

[She's obviously joking, but then she glances at her surroundings briefly, and her expression becomes more serious.]

I mean, I knew I preferred open spaces before this, but I didn't have myself down as a claustrophobic. In this place I feel like I could start climbing the walls at any moment.

... I hadn't thought about that...

I don't really like it here, either. I'm used to being outside, among nature.

Oh. Oh lord. That would make it worse, wouldn't it? I'm quite used to being restrained, whether in a building or a school campus or a city, but that doesn't mean I like it. And I'm sure you can see how the progression has gone backwards here.

[She's immediately reminded of Ramse, and a small, very sad smile touches her lips.]

I've only been out in nature - proper nature - once. A dear mate of mine took me on my first camping trip in the woods outside Eudio. It was wonderful... I never felt so free.

Didn't you have nature where you're from?

[ she's a little confused as to how someone can avoid it ]

[Celeste almost wants to laugh at that, but it's not really a funny sort of question anymore - she's had to ask similar ones more than once, expecting that she was misunderstanding, and found out that very simple things in her life were totally alien in others.]

Oh no, we certainly have nature, at least out in the country. But I grew up in the city, and in fairly extreme isolation for a good deal of it... I suppose the school I went to for a few months did have nature, but as they were carefully tended gardens, I don't think they really count.

There just wasn't very much opportunity for me to get to nature, you see.

Oh, I'm sorry. That sounds terrible, to be honest. Maybe it's just whatever people are used to, but I really don't like cities all that much.

[ she really can't conceptualize not having access to the outdoors... she knows it happens (people live in the Capitol) but it doesn't feel right ]

It is what you're used to, really, but that can also set you very far apart from others when it comes into contact with what most people are used to.

[Her tone and expression are obviously meant to play it off as not such a big deal, but the words are a bit too honest for that. She's faced loneliness, a lot of it, and it can tend to bleed right from her pores when the topic comes up.]

See, for me, I don't know that I could ever say sod it all and run off into the wild forever. But the option... just the option to go where you like, really, wherever that might be. It's difficult to lose.

Yeah, I agree.

Sorry about where you're from, though.

Oh, it isn't all bad, where I'm from. There's certainly much worse out there, in the multiverse or whatever you'd like to call it. What happened to me was just... luck of the draw, I suppose, and poor choices. I did tell you that you weren't alone in that.

[It seems like she should smile along with that last comment, but she's gotten a bit quiet and withdrawn.]

What about where you're from, though? Did you live somewhere out in the country?

[video]

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