[snuggle up real close everyone]

[cephalon]

Who: The fair crew and visitors of the Windrose
Action: Aboard the Windrose
When: May

[It's a mingle! Make friendly everyone~]

Comments

[grandstanding]

[Erik doesn't look remotely surprised at the mention of Hank's death. Or even bothered.]

So, the heavy things. You really are getting along.

[passingthrough]

Mutants have funny ways of bonding, don't we? [She's pretty sure this goes beyond mutants, but still.] I told him that I die back home too. A few seconds after I was pulled out for all the prison fun.

[grandstanding]

Oh... I'm sorry. [And he is. He had known that Kitty's world was no more, but to hear her tell it this way, her death occurred before that. It makes it more real. And yet, unreal, because he never knew her then. He didn't see her live, or die. She has always been alive to him.]

[passingthrough]

[She smiles at him gently.] It's okay. I'm alive now. Just not in any hurry to get home. And I've known for awhile though Kurt accusing me of masquerading as his dead friend when he arrived gave it that extra layer of confirmation.

[grandstanding]

I suppose it would. [A tragedy for them both.]

I've died before, but it was never permanent. It never happened at home. [Barring the world-destroying event that had resulted in his waking up in Kyriakos to begin with. Everyone on Earth had been destroyed by that. So the story goes.]

[passingthrough]

I think it's made him even more protective of me.

Did you know it wouldn't be permanent when it happened? [She wonders how different that really makes it.]

[grandstanding]

You're the only ones here from your world. It's not surprising.

There was always a period where we didn't know. But it happened so frequently that it became obvious that everyone would be revived afterwards. I treated it as permanent, as much as I could. [Because there was no guarantee. And to slide into a mindset where he found it less awful to die since he would be revived, well... it warps things. He had fallen victim to it at the end, willfully letting himself get killed when he couldn't stand the rules of the game anymore.]

[passingthrough]

Yeah. They became temporary in Marina too. They hadn't always been and I wasn't sure if they'd always stay that way once it changed, but if you don't treat it like it could be then... I don't know. I figured it was just a line it would be hard to uncross later. For killing and being killed.

[grandstanding]

It is. People in that place... they started to assume they would be brought back. It made them reckless. Too willing to die just because they disliked what they were asked to do. [Only two instances had inspired that kind of reflexive refusal in Erik. They had ultimately been the only two times he'd been killed in Kyriakos.] It warps your mind, when you die and come back too often.

Most everyone there were children. They behaved like it, too.

[passingthrough]

Hard situation—being without your memories and forced to make life or death decisions for a game. Natural mind warping from the experience or something about the place? A penalty?

[grandstanding]

The former, but the latter happened as well. [The less said about some penalties the better.]

[passingthrough]

I can see why you aren't eager to talk about your time there. Then again, I don't really talk about the prison that much. [Not as much as she thinks about it at least.] And it was fairly low on the trauma scale. [Especially when compared to home.]

[grandstanding]

Ultimately... to talk about those things only invites pity and horror from most others. [He doesn't mean Kitty. He means 'regular' people, who don't understand how cruel and merciless the world can be. What it can wreak upon its inhabitants.] Having to explain it is more trouble than it's worth. Some of it is also just personal.

Honestly, I'm glad to hear it. I'd prefer to think what I've seen is the extreme end of possibilities.

[passingthrough]

And then the next thing you know you're comforting someone because of something that happened to you and not them. [At least she's had experiences like that and honestly, she doesn't really mind? But it can be a lot to invite in.]

The fleet here seems even less extreme. If I use the word boring do you think they'll do something drastic to prove me wrong to the viewers? [Like have several people's augments go wild in the coming weeks.]

[grandstanding]

[He looks faintly amused at that, because Erik's response isn't generally to comfort others over something they have nothing to do with.]

It's possible. You could be tempting fate. [Winter is now Kitty's fault, news at 11.]

[passingthrough]

When am I ever not? [Oops! Tell no one!]

But it's not so bad. Boring definitely has it's perks. [Like Winn. How much would she worry about him in a time of trouble?]