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In short, Katie is hiding because she can't make a choice and getting more and more frazzled and withdrawn because in not taking action she's letting things get worse and this suuucks--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

[He sits there for about five minutes. Lights up a cigarette.]

You know I can smell you in there, right?

[......]

No you can't.

[So there.]

Oh, sorry, guess I can't.

[He keeps smoking for a while.]

You should talk to someone. I know it's nigh on fucking impossible with... stuff, but we can try and muddle through.

I talked to a lot of people today. I was very honest.

[Some of them come close to realising she's got trouble. Some just called her annoying. It was a frustrating exercise.]

[It's a matter of unpicking the truths in the lies. He pulls out his communicator and looks through the logs.

He isn't sure what she saw. But he can guess what it's all about.]

He's not a vampire. I don't know what he is, but he's not a vampire. I didn't know he'd be so terrifying to you. He reminds me of things from home, though. We are what we are, we can't change that, but we can choose to be monsters or choose to be the things that monsters fear.

That's me. Usually.

Thing is, things like us, we don't die. I can make sure you never see him again and I keep nearby, make sure he doesn't accidentally hurt anyone. I can't give you more reassurance than that, but he doesn't want to hurt anyone and I'm the Big Bad Wolf. Even the nightmares hide from me.

[It's maybe not much comfort, but it's the best he can offer. Sascha doesn't mean to be a monster and bigger, badder monster keeps an eye on him.]

[.............
.......

Most of that goes right out the window. In fact, everything after the first two sentences.]

You told me he was a vampire.

Yeah, I didn't, kitten. I said he wasn't a vampire like any vampire I'd heard of and he was a nocturnal predator... I forget what I said exactly. But I wouldn't tell you he was a vampire when he's not.

[Katie's not the only one who can be very... careful with words at times.]

I guess he's worse than a vampire to your senses.

We went over the me being an insensitive lout thing, right?

[She was accusatory and now she's unsure. Did he say that? He just said vampire to Max, but she remembers something more in their proper talk...

...]

He's definitely a vampire. Do you like him very much?

[To Max? Yeah, he used vampire. He doesn't give two shits about Max, it was the convenient term.

He really doesn't have a great feeling about this.]

... Kitten, you're worrying me. You're young, you don't have to do everything on your own. Not when you have a mean old bastard like me used to dealing with magic and nightmares and paperwork.

[Bigby's not great at this caring adult thing, but he's trying.]

I'm older than I look. Probably. You can have my paperwork, though.

[You can't deal with this, Bigby.]

You didn't answer my question.

Yeah. But you're still young compared to me.

[That one doesn't work on a Fable, Katie.]

No. I didn't. Yeah. I guess I do like him.

I wish you didn't.

[That sounded frighteningly like truthfulness.]

He's not going to go anywhere near you, Kitten. Even without me telling him to keep away from you, he wouldn't go near you.

[She's paying for it.]

What about anyone else?

He won't hurt anyone. He's pretty terrified of hurting people, because he's been hurt a lot.

What he is and how he chooses to act aren't the same.

[That's not the case. Sascha could be the sweetest-tempered vampire in the world, and his very being would still reach right out and steal the life from others. She won't feel sorry for him. She can't afford it.]

Okay.

[That's all she says.]

[He leans back a bit more and he scents and he doesn't like what his nose is picking up.

But he can't make her believe him.

He still stays there.]

[She knows you're still there.

But she has nothing more to say. She can't make him understand, and she honestly wonders if it's worth trying. Out of everyone on this fleet, Bigby is the one that would be unaffected.]

[Stalemate. Neither has anything else to say, but Bigby isn't willing to leave just yet.]