driftfleet | .05 if i live the life i'm given, i won't be scared to die

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.05 if i live the life i'm given, i won't be scared to die

Who: Rogue and anyone, really
Broadcast: Video, why not?
Action: The Star Space Station
When: Basically all week, Video Sunday afternoon

[ Video ]

[Rogue doesn't really like addressing the fleet at large, so she keeps it brief.]

Alright, folks, here it is - one of the best places we've been yet ta stock up. What's on your 'must bring back to the ship' list an' [more importantly, maybe] how are ya plannin' on storin' it?

[She's got her own list, but she knows the way these things usually go and she doesn't want to forget anything in case it winds up being a long, long dry spell before they hit another place this good.]

[ Action - All week ]

[Sooner or later, Rogue always falls into a routine. She's too well known in the fight circles now to make any real money, so she's taken to working as a chef/bartender at one of the middling-to-fancy restaurants. When not there, she is either 1) shopping (thank you, space gods, for a place that finally carries lipstick) 2) in the 'datary' checking out books to be 3) read in the garden. or jogging in the garden. Let's be honest, being around actual plantlife feels amazing after the desert planet, the frozen planet, and let's not forget -- space. Garden, reading, ~~wine~~ whiskey, chocolate, lipstick -- a good day. And then it was time to start it all over again.]

[By the time Rogue had given Kitty directions to where to meet, she'd had time to get... nervous about it. Which was dumb, but true. They'd talked fine enough over the communicator, why should meeting in person be any different?

In any event, Rogue hopes that Kitty will like the place. It was one of those middle level spots that she could easiest afford, and she's found a table that would let them both have their backs to the wall, let them both keep an eye on the door. She waits, gloved hands curled around her coffee.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[It takes Kitty a bit to find the place because she's still getting used to all the new places. Though apparently they'll me moving on from this one before she knows it. Not time to get attached. Probably for the best.

She nods and heads to the table with Rogue, glad for the seating choices. She's not the paranoid sort and she can take care of herself, but there are habits that are hard to break.]

Glad to see you didn't stand me up. [Not that she thought that was a real possibility. Just chatting like people who have and haven't known each other most of their adultish lives do.]

[It was a little strange seeing Kitty in person and not over the video link. There were so many differences and so many similarities... was this what Jim felt like when Winter arrived, but... more?]

I'm warmed by your confidence in me. [She smiles and slides a menu over.] So what ship did they put ya on?

[She's met versions of people she knows before. It shouldn't be that jarring for her, but it still always is. She got through most of it on the comm, but in person is always a little different.]

The Windrose. So far so good. I'm also thinking of adding a "the" to my name after meeting The Vision.

[Checking out this menu.] Oh, and I'm a pilot.

Oh, Natasha's ship! [With a little bit of a smile.] You'll like her, she's [how did one describe Natasha Romanoff?] smart an' fair.

[Let's see... that was Vision and Wrath and... well, there were other people she knew, but with all the comings and going, she wasn't sure who was left.]

Did ya meet Wrath too?

Sounds like a good way for a captain to be. [She's glad Rogue approves of the captain she hasn't run into yet though. It makes her feel more solid about the ship and crew.] I think I've met everyone except Natasha actually.

I knew a couple of them from my previous life.

[Her eyes narrow a little, curious.] Ya mean in that under water town, or in, you know, an actual previous life?

[Because Rogue puts nothing past the weirdness of their lives at this point.]

[That gets an amused huff.] Underwater town prison. I've been working on the one life. [Just barely.]

Just checkin'. [Still seems like a legit question to her, so Rogue's unfazed by the amusement.] So. Underwater town prison -- how long?

About a year. A busy one. [7:1 games will do that to you.] Feels like I lived at least one lifetime there.

Yeah... those happen. [Spending so much time guarding her own (and other people's) secrets does leave Rogue at a little bit of a disadvantage when it comes to asking questions, but she doesn't mind offering:] Five years or so, in Luceti for me.

Luceti is the place before this that you don't like talking about, right? [At least she seemed uncomfortable last time it was brought up.]

Parts of it ain't so bad. [She considers.] Parts of it were pretty awful. I don't know how open your version of me was [She will never forget hearing about a Marie] but I'm not used ta just sharin' things about my past over a public network, especially not if we're gonna talk 'bout the drafts.

[Or the experiments. But she wasn't going to go there, period. Not if she could help it.]

[She gives Kitty a very direct look.] But I don't mind talkin' about it with an X-Man. [Screw it, that's the coward's way out:] With a friend.

[Kitty's expression softens at the word friend, not that it was exactly hard before. Rogue gets a nod.] You're ready to call me that?

[Trust can be a hard-fought commodity for Kitty, but she already has a level of it for Rogue—for all the X-Men here. Even the one claiming he was on the other side. She already feels protective of them even if they don't need that protection. It's just how she's wired. And friends? She'd like that. She could use some after losing everything she'd built up in the prison.]

Ready ta work on it. [Honesty. 'Friends' don't come easy, because they require such trust, but Kitty was an X-Man, and that didn't respect universal boundaries, as far as she was concerned.] You?

Count me in. [It even gets a small smile.]

I knew your Kitty. I think. Kurt said it sounded like her. She's at the prison.

That a fact... [Instant concern, tbh, manifested in the narrowing of her eyes as she focuses, the slight lean forward.] Tell me 'bout the prison.

She's safe. It's nothing like you'd expect in a prison. There's a beach, parks, a pet store, and restaurants. Everything is free and plentiful. There are apartments to live in and people usually behave themselves. We had some problems with a couple of vampires, but it wasn't an issue when I left.

Bots clean up after us and the wardens have some odd rules. You have to get a wrist band to have sex. Not that your Kitty is having sex with anyone. [Her own band disappeared in the transfer.]

Things do...come up. But they usually aren't dangerous.

[If Kitty wanted to have sex, more power to her, but only if that sex was, you know, wanted. Rogue wondered why on earth that would need to be the sort of thing that was in any way monitored.

She continued to turn what Kitty said over in her mind, even as she asked:]

What kind of things?

Sometimes they called them glitches. Other times they they said they were for our rehabilitation. I think they were probably just social experiments.

Not too long ago I woke up in someone else's body for a day. More than once the power has gone out and everything goes completely black. And sometimes the dinosaurs get loose. [Yeah, it's a weird place.] Sometimes they just throw a big party. [She remembers the night on the ferris wheel pretty fondly.] Shared dreams, group therapy sessions, mistletoe robots that trap you in shrinking barriers until you kiss, discs with glimpses of your past or future, snow, a flood. I don't know. There's always something.

It's all a shared virtual reality experience so it feels real, but they can make anything happen.

[Back up.]

It was virtual reality?

[A lot of these things sounded awfully familiar, but it just figured that mistletoe was a universal pain in the butt.]

We didn't know until recently. There was a glitch. Maybe a real one. Some of us woke up in our bodies. It was actually the third time something like that had happened, but this time it was easier to connect the dots. The wardens admitted it not long after. It's possible the whole thing was just a head game, but it explains a lot of what they were able to do.

And virtual or not everything about it feels real to me. [What are memories made of anyway?]

[The stuff life is made of.

Rogue nods slowly.] Did they call themselves wardens?

Yep. Did they do that where you were too?

[She shakes her head.] Scientists. It was 'for our own good.' An' the good of the world, of course.

[She tilts her head.] Did they ever tell ya why y'all were bein' kept down there?

When you arrive you just get a message telling you that you're a criminal and listing all the crimes you've ever committed and saying you've been removed from your timeline to protect it.

I'm guessing the scientists weren't actually saving any worlds.

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