driftfleet | .01 [ action | video ] have we lost our way back home

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.01 [ action | video ] have we lost our way back home

Who: Katara and you!
Broadcast: Video, from the Marsiva
Action: Action on the Marsiva and then then post!Shuffle on the Vanquish
When: Friday, 3/23

[Katara wasn’t always a heavy sleeper, but she never did enjoy waking up. It was a slow process, even here, as if her subconscious had already registered the wrongness of where she was and was well on its way to the land of Denial.

Eventually, though - her eyes opened. And she stayed very, very still as fear replaced sleep in an adrenaline spike sharp enough to make her stomach heavy. Okay. Okay. She still had her bending, in fact, that was at full force for the first time since the last draft, she can feel water in a distant room. But these lights… those walls… that… well, actually, she kind of likes the music, but she can’t -- this is definitely not…

And then she feels it - or she doesn’t feel it - and she forgets her caution and bolts upright, straining her head to take a closer look at her back.]

[She doesn’t expect a response, but she does get up out of the bed and glance around. Her balance is off when she moves, so she takes careful, deliberate steps, as she takes stock of what she has and doesn’t have and exactly where everything is in the room and pauses as the fact that there is music seeps in. What... what is going on here?

But that’s nothing when she spots the viewing bay. She pauses, transfixed for a moment, and then walks very carefully over to the window. She places one hand against it and whispers:] ...there are stars.

[As she spends more time on the Marsiva, she’ll explore the food and take advantage of the exercise equipment, doing what she can to try to get her balance to where it should be without the added (useless; she tells herself she’s glad they’re gone) appendages.]

[ Video Broadcast while on the Marsiva ]
[Serious blue eyes peer out in stark contrast to dark skin as a girl of about eighteen addresses the fleet.]

Hello, my name is Katara. I'm from the Southern Water Tribe, but I've spent the past four years [Had it really been that long? Her expression flickers for a moment.] in a place called Luceti. I understand a... lot of basic information about this place from the augment, but I'm sure there's more to this place than just what is implanted in our heads by our captors.

[Frowning, angry at that, needing to take a visible breath before she can continue.] I'd appreciate any additional information you feel it's safe to give out over these things. And... [Her gaze drops for a moment before she regains her composure and looks back at the camera.] ...if anyone knows the name Luceti, or has heard of the Southern Water Tribe, I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know about that too.

[She manages a brief smile.] Thank you so much.

[Action on the Vanquish]
[Katara had been working on her balance on a make-shift balance-beam in the gym section of the Marsiva when she was suddenly teleported -- fortunately close enough to grab a wall. She bats at the confetti with a frown with her other hand as she straightens -- so this is the ‘shuffle’, huh?

The happy little jingle just makes her frown deepen. Jerks, playing with people like this… She gives a deeply exasperated sigh.

Hopefully no one is there to catch frustrated!Katara as their first impression; she will try to make a better second one by exploring the ship, sticking close to the walls, and looking to see who her new shipmates are with a pleasant smile on her face in a few minutes. Feel free to catch her walking around with a smile in a moment or two, but right now, she is having a few mental words with the Atroma and they are Not Nice.]

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Rogue and Remy. Actually, Remy's still here. I guess Loki too. I'm not sure if he's from there or not. I couldn't get a straight answer out of him. [When she asked the one from Luceti who then disappeared and a new one reappeared and didn't make any fresh announcements, so as far as she knows, same weird guy that her friend was possibly into.] Shocking, I know.

[Remy! That was his name.

And Rogue was simpler.] Oh, Rogue? She ran the Item Shop and played really loud music.

[Loki is... well, whatever, Ikki's not here so she figures he's not her problem. But they'd both been there when she'd left, so...

...oh, this was all so very strange.]

I could see her liking loud music. [There were a lot of ways in which her Rogue and that one were different, but they were both important to her. And while back home Rogue was a young mother and one of the leaders of the X-Men with all the responsibility it held, married to leader-in-cheif, she could remember a few nights of loud music herself.]

Rogue and Remy were both from a version of my world. [Versions of her friends but also her friends in their own right. Rogue had been so good to her when she arrived. She made the transition easy. Easier than it had any right to be at least.] She's been gone for awhile. The cajun's on my ship here.

[...Katara has no idea what a 'cajun' is, but she assumes that it would refer to Remy ~~and possibly explain his strange accent~~.

So... that was it, then. A bunch of people she didn't really know, and Loki, and...

Well, that was a good thing overall, wasn't it?] Thank you for telling me. What's your name?

Kitty. I'm the captain of the Twin Roses. It's one of the ships in the fleet. [Being a little more descriptive than she might normally be unprompted, but from what she's heard of Luceti it wasn't a great place to be, so she might as well make a smoother transition.]

It's nice to meet you, Kitty. [A quick smile.] How long have you been here?

Two years and two months. Probably not the most promising thing to hear, but you're probably used to it being from Luceti.

Yeah, that's... not the longest time I've heard. [Leaning forward a little, her brow furrowed.] And they really run this place like it's... some kind of play?

[She has no reality TV concept at all.]

I think the longest one I've heard here was about double it, but I'm not sure anyone is still around from that early.

[Nodding.] Sort of. We don't have to learn any lines or do anything we wouldn't normally do, but in theory they're recording it so other people can watch it...like a play.

[Katara leans forward a little, both intrigued and... well, horrified, to be honest.]

Has anyone ever seen any evidence that they're actually recording? Seen any... [what's the word] ...episodes?

No one in the fleet and no one we've come across in the various systems we approach. Or if they have, they've lied or kept it to themselves. Could all be a lie.

[Yay.

...in fact, with a small, sighing huff:] Yay.

Were things more clear cut in your last place? I figured there was always a certain amount of "this is what we're told and things seem to kind of fit that mold so we go with it" information.

In Luceti, there was always a mix of what we were told and what we were able to figure out, yeah. I'm just...

[Exhale.]

I don't understand people like this.

[And I hate them.]

People like the Atroma and whoever the overlords of Luceti were? People who want ultimate control over others until we're playthings instead of people?

[Before Katara speaks, a face fills her vision - a face without a name, but a face she'll never, ever be able to forget. She has to close her eyes for a moment to banish it, to banish the memory of staring up at that face, helpless and frightened and...

Breathe. She opens her eyes again and her words are carefully, deliberately chosen.]

I don't understand what could have been killed off inside of people who view others as so less than them that they can use them casually, for anything from experimentation to entertainment [or to just - kill them]. There is something wrong with them.

I've seen a lot of it. [Not just in places like these but also back home in those who followed Apocalypse willingly like the Dark Beast and Sugarman. And heard of more from her grandfather talking about the Holocaust. He'd been more or less safe in America at the time, but so much of his family—their family—had died in Poland that he made a point to never let those memories die.]

But I don't know what that thing is either. I don't know how you do that. I hope I never know. [She had to kill in battle and she feared becoming the thing she was fighting so much.]

Me too. [The choice to kill and to not kill... but to exert power over others in order to save lives - her life - in a way that was so horribly invasive... the fear of winding up just like the Malnosso if they'd been trapped in Luceti long enough...] I hope so too.

[She lifts her gaze.] I'm sorry that's something you had to experience so much of, no one should have to. [And it seems like, over and over, no matter where people were from... they did.

But now the tone is sober, and Katara doesn't feel it's appropriate to try to lighten it as much as she feels like... she needs some time to adjust again.] Thank you for talking with me, Kitty, and for filling me in. I appreciate it.

[She nods.] No problem. It's a lot to process. We'll probably be in a holding pattern here for awhile. You should have some time.

[Yay, time.

She exhales quietly.] Yeah, it is. About how long are we usually 'holding?'

Mmm...about a month? When I arrived it was longer. Closer to two months a lot of the time. Then a week or two traveling two our next pre-selected destination.

...so there's no real pattern to it, it's just usually at least a month?

[...]

Do you remember the longest time the fleet was just - between planets?

[Because... rations D8]

There's a pattern more or less. I've just been around long enough to see it shift. It's not as rigid as my last place.

Mmm...Probably two weeks. I'd have to check my notes to be sure. Why?

...mostly because I was thinking about rations.

[ She doesn't see any reasons not to admit it. ]

It's a little uncomfortable to be so dependent on forces we can't see or control for our food, or for how long we'll be able to replenish with other resources.

[ Starvation is a terrible way to go. ]

Oh. The Atroma provide food on the ships and clothes too. They just aren't what you might call good food and clothes so we usually buy or gather something else when we can. Running out hasn't been a problem yet. [Though Katara wasn't the first new arrival to be concerned recently, which makes her wonder if this is some kind of Atroma reality show foreshadowing.]

.01 [ action | video ] have we lost our way back home

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