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

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.

...sounds like they're full of crap. [Frankly.]

Theirs. [Rogue made a face.] That planet was a hot mess. It had somethin'... wrong at the core. Folks would get sucked in from all over, but there weren't any natives, just the spirits. An' they wouldn't stay dead. They'd just die, an' reset ta when they were sucked in, an' slowly lose more and more of themselves every resurrection until they were turned ta vegetables. That, or go mad.

Wait, that was happening to you?

[Rogue shook her head.] No, I didn't die there. Could've, a few times, but even if I had there was one scientist - we called him John - who'd worked out a way ta reverse the penalties. He worked with our enclosure, but he was in hidin' from the Malnosso...

[Rogue trailed off then, shook her head and laughed slightly.] Sorry, I'm not very good at explanations. An' Luceti was a mess. Ya wanna get somethin' to drink or eat or something?

[Maybe she can use salt and pepper shakers to try and explain the Malnosso and the Third Party and the enclosures. It'd have to sound less insane with props, right?]

[She'll have questions but for now she's just going to let Rogue work it out and try to figure out where she's missing pieces if it still isn't making sense to her.]

Yeah, this feels like a conversation that could use some fuel.

[You are getting a concerned glance at that could have died bit though.]

[Rogue raised a hand to get the attention of the waiter. Between the two of them, it is not hard to do.]

Get what ya want.

[It was a medium-price ranged diner place. Rogue vaguely wondered if this Kitty was a vegetarian as well. There was pretty much anything she wanted on the menu. Rogue herself ordered a fruit and cheese platter, because you just don't know how much you miss fruit and vegetables until you've been on a space ship eating variations of protein paste for months.]

[Not a vegetarian. She also doesn't keep kosher. Food could be hard to come by so she couldn't be picky. Some of her favorites are Chicago-specific treats like the pizza that are part taste and part nostalgia. But shockingly, that's not on the menu so she goes with a sandwich. (Do they have chicken in space? Space chicken!)]

Thanks.

There's a Logan there too. At the prison. He only barely recognized me, [which was NOT fun for her] but I still think your Kitty is safer with him there.

Edited 2016-02-12 13:25 (UTC)

[Rogue frowned a little.] He barely recognized you, but he knew her?

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