driftfleet | Tha sin mar bhàs.

Entry tags:

Tha sin mar bhàs.

Who: Katie and you!
Broadcast: Yes!
Action: Planetside
When: Now-ish

[Amusement Park]

[So this is where she goes when she wants time to think, apparently. The bunker is a place she won't enter; between the heavy aftermath of a mass death and the understandably stricken reactions of its visitors, the atmosphere is far too toxic. But it doesn't mean she isn't grieving. The deaths could not be helped and are god knows how far in the past, but the fact that these people have been forgotten - not acknowledged even by this automated town, let alone the rest of space - is something that sits very poorly. She can't even change anything about the town to reflect its population's final days.

She's walking the rollercoaster tracks, very high up, thinking over the issue. Don't ask how she got up that high. And don't worry if you should be using the rollercoaster at the time; she can avoid you. Might give you a bit of a scare, though, sorry.

Eventually, she puts a call through to Sam.]

[Outside of town]

[As far as she can go before she suspects (or hopes) she's outside the range of the city's replication science so her work isn't scrubbed. She's not too far from the bunker; it would be pointless if she were too far away from it.

She finds a rock face smooth enough, and between a thick blade and Kirito's lightsaber she carves a memorial. Maybe nobody will ever see it, but if any other visitors come to this place, they should know what happened. It's worth the extra headache.]

[And Broadcast]

I've decided to quit making dreamcatchers and move on to voodoo dolls instead. It's more fun. So if you'd like to take one before I end up throwing them all out, feel free.

[Just so you know. Totally honest, as usual. Less cheerful than normal.

If anyone wants her she'll be curled up in her office with Licorice on her lap. She's so tired of these planets.]

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[...maybe. The flickered image of a dying dragon gives her pause. She's seen the same dragon with someone else, but... different. Mikleo's fear was different. It's almost punctuating the point.]

Maybe so. [Softly.] But different doesn't mean better or worse, it just means sideways.

[Sorey offers her a crooked smile, a little solemn but no less sincere for it. He tries to rewrap the yarn correctly this time, patiently.] You always know how to make the most incomprehensible things look different, [Sorey says idly.] It really helps. Thank you.

Are they any less incomprehensible, though? [She crooks a smile in return.] If they are, I should probably be fired.

Heh. [Sorey draws more yarn off the bundle.] Y'know, one time, me and Mikleo got stuck on this puzzle room in the ruins for weeks. For weeks we'd come back to the same puzzle, the same inscription, and argue about it over and over. We just couldn't figure out what it could mean.

And one time, when we were arguing, Mikleo had had enough and he'd just, [Sorey waves his hand imperiously,] iced the ground in front of me as I was storming away. I slipped and fell flat on my back.

Mikleo felt bad right after, but as I was looking at the puzzle upside-down, I finally realized something we'd missed. And when I pointed it out to Mikleo, the look on his face... [Sorey sighs.] It was worth a bump to the head, honestly. And we were so eager to finally get past that stupid puzzle that we were out way past curfew, and got in huge trouble for it.

[That is a cute story, Sorey, and she's paused in her own creation to listen.]

Curfews and trouble and upside down. This sounds like a day of the week for me. Well, when I was older. It's interesting how things look so different if you just change the angle, isn't it? It's like your reflection.

[what???] What do you- [wait- is it okay if it's just not a question?] I don't know what you mean.

Which part? Reflections or days of the week?

[Oh good, that way of asking is safe. Sorey sighs in relief.] The reflections part.

What you see in a mirror is exactly how everybody else sees you, because the mirror's very honest.

[That's... straightforwardly opposite.]

[It is, so much so that Sorey takes a moment to think about that, trying to find an angle that isn't actually there.

But then he thinks back to the times he'd seen his reflection; not often, not until he left Elysia. He could see his face in water of course, but mirrors had been one of those things that seraphim hadn't thought about because what would be the point, if they couldn't seem themselves in it?

The first time Sorey had seen his face in an actual mirror, he'd been shocked. That's what I look like, he'd thought, turning this way and that. The first real, striking, crystal-clear look at his face in seventeen years.

In a novel, he'd have had an epiphany. He'd have realized something of himself, but in real life...he hadn't felt anything at all. Fixed his flipped-around earring and moved on.]

It's not really the mirror though, is it? [Sorey muses aloud, winding yarn on his dreamcatcher absently.] It's your own eyes. What you see through your own eyes, only you can describe and understand. Even if you're looking at the same thing as everyone else.

Terrible way of putting it. [Mildly. He's very perceptive, this kid.] Is what you see with your own eyes more important than what others see?

[His gut reaction is "of course not!" but again, Sorey holds his tongue to think it through. Over his past year back home, and the past two years in the Fleet, he's learned a lot. He's had the time and space and experience to learn a lot. Looking back to how he was just leaving Elysia, he was...idealistic, and selfish, and naive. Not necessarily bad things, but not conducive to what he'd needed to do.]

...I don't know, [he settles on finally, half-wound craft project resting in his lap as he chews on his bottom lip.] I want to say no, but at the same time I can't live a life taking what other people say they see for granted, without ever seeing it myself. In the end, you have to make your own decisions, and find the answers to your questions.

[It's a wonderful answer. She's back to being playful again, eyebrows ticking up.]

Has anyone ever told you you're wiser than a lot of boys your age?

[Katie you're like three years older than him tops]

I don't feel very wise. [Ain't that the truth, too. He feels dumber than ever.]

That's what all the wise people say. Well, according to some philosophers who don't get out much.

We can't really take what they say as fact either, can we? [Sometimes Sorey thinks being wise is just knowing nothing but being confident about it. If only Gramps were still around to ask.]

Ah! You know, you're right. Perhaps we're all secretly fools after all.

[Laughs at that, cheering up a bit.] Who says it's a secret? Maybe everyone but you can tell I'm a fool!

Oh, no. I couldn't tell at all.

[Straight-faced.]

[Shoves her gently, grinning and reaching for some feathers for his dreamcatcher.] Have you been hanging out with Mikleo?

Of course not. He's been hanging out with me. [There's a difference, gosh. She nudges some shells in his direction.] That's a terrible attempt for a first time.

[There's that second of hesitation again before Sorey remembers and he beams at her, reaching for the shells also.] Thanks Dorothy! I'll be honest, this isn't my first arts n' crafts.

[He'll get there.] What else have you done besides leatherworking?

Hmm, well... [Looks down at his clothes and plucks at them a little.] Mikleo usually handles the sewing, but I know how to stitch a tear and reattach a button. I do drawings in my journals sometimes too, although Mikleo's better at that also...oh, but my Ancient Tongue script is better than his!

Ooh, what kind of drawings do you do?

[From one artist to another.]

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