driftfleet | (no subject)

Who: Katie and anyone!
Broadcast: Yes
Action: Vanquish
When: Today!

[So ever since a couple of weeks ago when she spent a couple nights off ship (for reasons she still hasn't explained), Katie has remained basically shut up in the personnel office instead of getting underfoot or sticking her nose out of the ship and making faces at the moon, a quieter shadow of herself. She's hiding. She also feels guilty for hiding, because she wasn't raised to hide, but she's at a complete loss of what to do about what, to her, is a critical and terrifying problem. What she'd really like to do is just tell an adult about what she saw, because that would be the simplest and wisest thing for any other child. There's something terrible. Make it go away. But with how much honesty would have to be involved she'd be a wreck on the floor within minutes.

There's a brief few days in there where her mind shies around the idea that she may have to kill someone on the Fleet. Which makes her shut down on multiple levels, because she's just a kid and kids shouldn't have to think about that, and it's a horrible act, and nobody would understand at all why she did it, and on a very base level she doesn't want to, she's not made that way. But not going through with it just means she's letting the problem roam free and he's hurting people just by existing. Any older fae would have dealt with this by now. Ignoring the problem is equally a terrible option.

So there's a third choice. She's just terrified of making that one, too. It's never ended well for anyone. Sam and her mother are testament to that.

In short, Katie is hiding because she can't make a choice and getting more and more frazzled and withdrawn because in not taking action she's letting things get worse and this suuucks--

Sometimes it might be nice just to be, in fact, a little girl.]

---------

[By the second week she starts making dolls. Simplistic blue yarn dolls at the base. It's just something to do with her hands and mind at first. Then she makes one in which her blue wool is dipped sporadically into black ink as she makes it, so the doll looks rather like it got thrown in a tar puddle when she's done. She attaches five or six pieces of loose, spattered wool to its shoulders, closes her eyes, and blows gently on its darkened face.

Don't ask why she does creepy things.

Then she stares at her little collection, swallows... and goes to watch Princess Bride instead. It's video courage! (Which small children have to make do with instead of liquid courage.) Which leads to this post on the network twenty minutes in, very grumpily:]

[Video]

If we're in space and everything's so very future and all, why don't we even have television? [Petulant, pale child alert. Please ignore the spattered bits of ink on her chin.] Aren't we allowed to watch alien TV?

...I don't suppose anyone can make a TV with magic, can they? I don't think you should have to watch movies on this thing. [She taps the screen and accidentally turns it off. OH WELL. Question stands.

...but now that it's off, after a few minutes there comes an addition in text:]

[Text]

If it would make everything better, would you do something terrible so that nobody else had to?

[Hopefully, that part's anonymous. Right?]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

And, indeed, loneliness is a very sad thing. No man can keep it at bay forever, but...

If you lack "everyone", you will be lonely. If you do something terrible, that could lead to loneliness, too. But you will have helped everyone, who you value out of fear of loneliness...

And if you're able to preserve the people you're caring for, there's hope to be had despite what you've done. There will always be someone who can forgive your sins. If you have that, you may lose "everyone", but you'll gain "someone". Sometimes that's all it takes to keep from being lonely.

[She wilts a bit on her end. What he says is reassuring, but a large part of Katie would have preferred a no, it's not a good idea, let someone else do it sort of answer. Which is ridiculous and childish, but...well.

Sam might understand. Bigby won't.]

Have you ever had to do something like that?

[He'd be able to understand it, that yearning for an easy way out. If anyone had told him he'd end up so tired, what would he have done?]

I know some things about loneliness, and I know what it's like to make choices.

Edited 2016-06-04 22:44 (UTC)

What if you really don't want to do it and it's scary and nobody will understand anyway?

It's hard, right? But sometimes, that's how fate works.

Whatever happens is going to be your choice. This is how you exercise your free will: you weigh the consequences of any action, and you decide whether or not those consequences are worthwhile to you. Then, you choose to act or not to act. So, I can't actually tell you what to do. I can only tell you what I would do.

But I can say that, even when things aren't easy, they can still be meaningful.

Meaningful

[She pauses after that for a long time.]

I suppose if nobody will understand that's not my problem.

[Kaworu is patient throughout the pause, and he's being as gentle as he can through text.]

Maybe. I do think that it's a problem, and being misunderstood -- or not being understood at all -- can affect a person deeply. But some things are worth that.

But, always, it's up to you. And it's still true that nothing is unforgivable.

[She curls into a ball at that. Nobody does understand her, not really. It's the curse of her race. Some people get close, but... not on something like this. There's no chance.

But he has a point.]

Even if they don't understand, maybe they'll trust me when I say I had to?