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the lucid disparity revisited
"Never be the first to arrive or the last to go, and never, ever be both."
By now, time has passed, and most of the crew have found some sort of comfortable groove with the natives of the unnamed island they crashed near. Partying, gambling and drinking, and more… Even the mysterious pool has given people who could answer its riddle insight in this confusing time. However, as the nights and days continue to progress and the parties begin to blur together, things are… odd. The hosts are still as kind as ever, offering anything and everything those at the temple-like building could ask for, but every so often, the world around them appears different. Clear, as if a fog had been lifted. Yet, it’s only a blink, and then, it’s gone, returning everyone to their regularly scheduled eternal party.
Down on the beach, the Captains are still as busy as ever working with those capable to restore function to the Moira. On the morning of the 20th, Navigator Manasseh’s vitals begin to slowly return to normal, her status on the Directory reverting to GREEN, and with it, life is brought back to the Moira. This, of course, means everyone is able to board the ship and leave, but most of the crew who traveled through the jungle and stayed at the party aren’t exactly willing to go just yet. Prior to this, a few of the crew who suddenly realized things were strange and that the people around them were acting strange - themselves included - approached Thán with this particular revelation, upon which Nathan Drake planned to bring back things from the temple to be tested for irregularities. Each sample returned to Cúrre does not alert her to anything abnormal, comprised of similar compounds—except for the water brought to her from the pool. Acting quickly, she reaches the same conclusion as a few of the other crewmembers do: that the water neutralizes the mysterious intoxication caused by everything on this unknown planet.
☄ FROM UNDER THE VEIL
The combined efforts of the crew and Curre have resulted in an “antidote” being made from the pool water; crew members pass it around to those down on the ship and beach, then utilize caution while administering it to those at the party. The change happens slowly for most. A drink that was perfect only a little while ago is suddenly sickeningly sweet and no longer enjoyable. The food tastes wrong. The music no longer urges you to dance but instead reminds you that your feet are aching. The magic is fading, and as it does, the cracks in the facade begin to reveal themselves. The elegant city built into the rocks is faded and cracking at the edges. Nothing is as it seems, especially the hosts. Their eagerness to please now has an edge to it. They try and ply their guests with new food, drink and distractions, but they know when the game is up. Do you try and slip away when they’re distracted, or do you demand to know why they’ve done this? Do you dare to find out?
☄ AS TIME GOES BY Crew have begun to filter to the beach, and as the ship reboots, its systems expelling water and allowing it to float on the surface, all Moira-connected technology refreshes. MID devices, to those who check, will show that a year has passed since they crash landed on this strange planet. Those that did not join the party would not have been aware that so much time had passed as the planet seems to be under the influence of a blurring of time, probably due to the fact it is so close to the Luminous Sea. Crew would have gone through the motions and not realized that supplies were dwindling, and anyone who has themselves looked over in the Medbay will discover that they are, in fact, physically one year older. With the Moira finally functioning and with everyone on board, the ship finally begins to ascend and leave the planet behind.
The Captains are all working together to get the crew settled back on board and help those who might need some adjusting to this particular news. Since it has been such a long time, fresh supplies are badly needed, and the ship is directed towards the closest known place: the Mini Colony.
( ooc; For questions, go here. )
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hownkai) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thisavrou_log2016-09-19 04:07 pm
no subject
Yeah. We were friends. So I guess I knew him as good as anybody else.
[As much as a child could think they knew about an adult at least. He'd been kind to her and more like home than anyone else in that awful time before Kobra had come. It hadn't mattered how little he told her about himself, Deacon had carried that air of Zonerat in the best kind of way and it was all she needed to know.
Even if he'd never said anything about a dog.]
You must of liked him to give him a pet.
no subject
[Even if the lying frustrated him to no end. Infuriated him, actually. But in the end, had it actually been meant to make Kaz's life any worse? No. The man was just using misdirection to protect himself.]
[He wouldn't have trusted him the same way again, but maybe he would have been less harsh.]
He could get to know them too, from how they reacted.
This will have to be cleaned up, but how about we get a picture of it when you're finished. So you don't lose it.
no subject
Maybe to you. But he never lied 'bout nothin' to me.
[He did, many times. But never about things she knew enough to call him on. There was a reason she was so terrified of the medbay and it all had to do with Deacon's increasingly false reports on medical practices.]
He got to know me just fine without any of that. Maybe he was just playin' with ya, sayin' he was lyin'. Adults have stupid senses of humor sometimes.
[She sighs, picking back up the can to finish the tagline.]
I'm not gonna lose what I remember. [A pause.] But I guess.
no subject
Opened up the piece of paper to look at the code and it was an apology for lying. I was pissed as hell at the time. I got over it. [A rarity. Took a lot for a man like him to get over being lied to.]
[He stands back to use his MID to get a picture for her, a still with the video function, and then he sends it to her so that she has it.] I have a friend that likes to keep pictures. I'm keeping the ones that Link made for me, too. So you should hang onto these anyway.
no subject
Just because he lied to you doesn't mean he ever did to me. [She'll cling to that until the proof came otherwise.] And I don't think I wanna believe ya anyway. Don't know you, don't know if you might like spreadin' the lies instead.
[She looks up at him, a little apologetic. It was just that Deacon had been her friend, and she couldn't pick out Miller from Adam. It was easier for her loyalty to go the one she's known longer.
She turns back to look at the picture sent.]
You're awful lucky to get to pictures at all back home, let alone have a lot of 'em. Your friend afraid of forgettin'?
no subject
Knowing this ship, he could have lied because he genuinely believed it at the time.
[Conceding in this case is better than arguing. She's young. And part of him is very sad she could have that much faith. The rest is sad that he's sad about it. That's some strong suspicion.]
[If he's lucky, maybe she'll stop and think about it.]
[The latter part? ...Well, he decides to not be specific. To protect V's feelings.] I think a lot of us are afraid of forgetting. Sometimes pictures of someone just make us feel good. [He loosely gestures at what she's doing now. He has no idea what's on Venom's mind half the time. He suspects it's not wanting to forget. Seems like it's very simple things that make him feel okay.]
no subject
Like maybe somethin' was messin' with his head, makin' him think that?
[It sounds plausible, with all the things she's seen here. There's been enough strange things that she could see how easily someone could get confused or forced to be believe something false.
And that's what she'd rather believe than that Deacon had been lying. Conceding the point has only given her an out, an excuse.]
There's nothin' worse than forgettin'. I think everybody ought to be afraid of it. [The idea that a picture might be just to make someone happy? She gets that. It's part of why they'd taken a picture of her to send to her mom way back then, back when she still liked to write to her. It's why she keeps the Killjoy's wanted posters in her room.] And sometimes a little bad too.
no subject
Probably. He was a good guy. [He'll keep with that. A lie to protect a lie. Why not?]
Well. Here's a little bit of help so you don't forget. I'll send it to you, just to be sure. What's your name? [He opens his MID to send her the picture.]
[She's not wrong. Even the best picture of the people you love looking happy can be wounding once they're lost.]
no subject
[She shakes her head of those thoughts, not about to get mopey again while someone was around to witness it. There's a moment between him asking her name and her answering, that the Girl looks pained. It's always her least favorite kind of question.]
I don't got one. [She looks down at her own MID, considering.] I just told 'em I was a girl when I got here. Think that's how people talk to me on here.
no subject
Alright. [He debates, briefly, what name to introduce himself under.] I'm Kazuhira. Kaz. For short.
[And he finds her listing, sends the image. A wall emblazoned with a spray painted image. All of the people that hurt to remember, but feel good to think about. He thinks of the ridiculous posters on motherbase, meant to resemble a particular lost girl.] Do you draw often?
no subject
[BLI had come to the desert from Japan, back before the east was swallowed up by the war. While every runner could at least read the language, not many kept the names when they fled the city.
She was a little surprised to hear a name like that so far from home.]
Not like I used to. [She shrugs, rolls on of the paint cans between her hands.] More room for it at home, the boys sometimes found supplies so we could draw on paper too. Only got so much paint to go 'round up here in space.
no subject
[It's hard to know if a "company" is an actual company, or a larger organization or concept. After his encounters with Cipher, and having seen Eli as a child, it's fully plausible that someone her age could have been dealing with some larger entity.]
[He's also very prone to overthinking things.]
There's a lot on the ship. I know a boy who has something that helps him draw whenever he wants. Maybe I can find something like it for you.
no subject
[She gives him a little smile. She's never learned about city names from Japan, maybe she could have if she'd been raised in Bat City. But still knowing someone with that history reminds her of home.]
Plenty of people got folks like that back in the desert.
[She perks up further at the mention of drawing. She's thinking supplies, like the markers the boys would sometimes find her.]
What kind of thing? [And then, more hesitantly:] I ain't got a lot of fancy things to trade for it. Place keeps givin' me booze for some reason, if that'll work.
no subject
[And the bad guys, huh?] When I was born, America was still considered the Bad Guys in my country. Made it hard to grow up there, looking like I do.
But we did make a lot of businesses, yeah. And I've seen a lot of businesses from any place go bad. What happened to Better Living Industries? [Maybe he can take a few lessons home with him; he's been trying to do that. He's got a hell of a lot of mistakes to make up for.]
no subject
They're probably still pretty bad, I guess. They let it happen. [Sort of, from what she gathered. It's not like anyone sat down and really explained the wars to her.
She gives him a quick look over, shrugging.] You don't look bad to me.
[He could stand to wear more color, but that's the same complaint she's had about everyone on the ship. Really, she didn't quite get where he was coming from. The division in her world came down from the people of the city to the people of the desert; she never learned about anything else.]
Used the wars and the bombs and everybody bein' scared to make themselves the cats in charge. Sayin' they'd keep people safe, give 'em pills for the radiation then for the bad feelin', then just to make 'em all forget that the world was over. Then once they had everyone under their spell they decided if ya did somethin' they didn't like, started to think for yourself-
[She raises a finger to her head, mimicking a gun.]
Bang, bang. Follow their rules or get in a body bag.
no subject
Yeah... you let it happen, doesn't exactly make you the good guy, does it? [Kaz guesses one day he's intended to be the Bad Guy in that way. More that he played along with the plots that had been laid out on one side for his student, that he didn't say things he should have. Won't say things he should have? Whatever the tense. That can go to hell, anyway. All he cares about is being able to be the man he actually wanted to be, now. Lying to someone he has that much influence over and that trusts him that much; that's not a part of what he wants to be.]
[But isn't that what he just pointed out to her Deacon was doing? Seems like it. Also he reasoned with himself that it's fine if she believes him; everyone needs someone they need to believe in.]
[God he doesn't want to write off what David went through with that.]
[But with the rest of the story (the bombs, the radiation, the fear of being caught and different), those were very much subjects that he and Deacon had commiserated on, and reflecting on the common ground he once shared with a mutual friend leads him to walk over and stand beside of her, wrinkling his nose only slightly at the smell of paint.]
There were bombs dropped on my country not long before I was born. And I've met people that wanted to launch missiles with the same sort of bombs... We were lucky. We got to stop those. [To think that one day Big Boss wouldn't want to is actually pretty funny.]
[But then that last bit, it really hits him. It's never struck him so thoroughly before. Not until he's been removed from it, staring at it from the outside. Watching the secrecy, the lies, thinking about the roles he was tricked into, that both Big Boss and Zero forced people into.] How many people that start thinking for themselves get away? Where do they go?
no subject
She looks up sharply when he mentions the bombs. So many people had reacted to her story with surprise, Deacon notwithstanding, that she's surprised someone else could understand what it was like to live after someone tore apart the world. It feels particularly fitting to meet someone else born in the after.]
You grew up with it too. [She says it like it makes for camaraderie. She smiles faintly.] Don't think my desert could handle a second comin' of all the explosions. If ya were able to stop somethin' like that, it'd make someone a hero. A legend.
[There's a compliment there, in a round about way.
She doesn't have to think about the answer, talking almost absently. Her home has never been something she minded talking about.]
To the desert, to the Zones. That's where I lived, ever since I was so lil' I couldn't remember it. [She's proud of that. She knows it gives her a certain sort of privilege back in her world, that she's never been subject to the drugs or the city. She's as much a product of the desert as anyone could be, created there and raised by its leaders, its legends. If she thinks too much about it, it becomes all too clear why she became the subject of so many stories.] We get 'em comin' out to the Zones in pairs sometimes, mostly it's just one person gets loose enough from the pills to run. Lot of 'em don't make it.
[Leaving the city is hard enough on its own and it's harder still to make it past the patrols in the early Zones without guns or help. She knows a lot of runners die before they ever get a name or colors, shot by a roving Scarecrow unit or put in a Drac mask or simply falling to dehydration.]
But those who get far enough, runners will take 'em in. Show how to find water and trade for food, how to get a hold of a gun, tell 'em to listen to radio. Guess there ain't a lot of us, not as many as there is in the city. Not even as many as there used to be before the last war ghosted most of 'em. [She has no direct numbers, mostly because her family had tried their best to keep her shielded. They were targets, she was more a target than they ever let her know, and letting her out in public was too much a safety concern. But she heard the names on the radio, listened to Dr. D tell stories about a dozen different cells running underground operations.]
There's a lot of us, I think. Even if they just come one at a time, it adds up.