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In short, Katie is hiding because she can't make a choice and getting more and more frazzled and withdrawn because in not taking action she's letting things get worse and this suuucks--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

[Too much.] No enough.

Well, you can't be trying very hard. You should find some glitter! Sparkle at people!

Yeah? You think so? Where should I put it? In my hair maybe? I'm not sure it will stick well on my coat.

If you put it in your hair it will be extra shiny and people will notice more!

Great idea! But I don't have any glitter, do you?

I'm sure I have some somewhere. Once I find it I will send it to you, if you like.

Do you have much experience with glitter. I've never used it before. How do I put it on?

I don't know. We shall have to find out together.

[Expect a glitter bomb in your near future, Vash.]

[Vash is happy to be covered in glitter for a day if it entertains a kid.]

Alright, but don't spend all you money on it. I can pay for the glitter.

Okay! I'll remember that.

Great! Then you let me know if you find any glitter. And do you have any other fashion suggestions?

You might need a car. Girls like cars.

[She makes a face.]

I drive a spaceship. Isn't that like a really cool car?

But it's full of people! That's like driving a bus. Nobody dates bus drivers.

Really? Why not? Bus drivers need someone to love them too! They take care of everyone! All those people dropped off safely.

Have you ever met a bus driver?

A couple. One even helped save a man's life once! [Despite regretting it as he drove the bus madly away from killer robots.]

But you may have a point in the looks area of bus drivers.

[Vash, all the bus drivers she's ever met have been fat, smelly men with absolutely no imagination.]

Perhaps there's a world out there where bus drivers are heroes. [Inference being: well, anything's possible. Even this. She guesses.]

I also think I'd have trouble getting a car on this ship. Any other suggestions?

Um...

I don't know. I don't suppose I'm really old enough to know what girls like. Do you like cartoons?

I'm actually not sure. I don't think I've seen one. [Gunsmoke sadly lacks television.]

[Wait what]

Not even when you were a kid?

We don't have televisions where I'm from.

[That is a TRAGEDY, Vash!]

You'll just have to watch things when we make a theatre, then!

I'm looking forward to it. Will you be acting in it?

[Video]

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