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Who: Kazuhira Miller and Various

Thread 1: Closed to Big Boss

Thread 2: Closed to Ocelot.

Thread 3: OTA and Link

Thread 4: Closed to Solid Snake

When: Month of March

Thread 1: Ambiguously dated to after this and this.

Thread 2: Ambiguously set after this.

Thread 3: Date open.

Thread 4: Morning of the 19th

Where:

Thread 1: Training room.

Thread 2: Rec Room.

Thread 3: Gardens.

Thread 4: Cargo Bay.

What:

Thread 1: Miller's going to have a "talk" with Big Boss.

Thread 2: Post Big Boss talk, Miller watches a movie with Ocelot.

Thread 3: Miller has a hissy fit but gets calmed down playing music.

Thread 4: David meets a husky

Warnings:

Graphic descriptions of violence, no death. Swearing. Mentions of horrible disease.

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[It's an awkward moment to be caught during, sure. But he's the one to let his temper slip past him in public. Anguish. Whatever it is. Miller has some of his father's shortcomings besides some of his genes. The depression that eventually took him is there, strengthened by the toll of several years.]

[Sometimes, rarely, it leads to him punching a wall, shoving by someone, slamming his currently absent crutch against something. Just sometimes, though. Not often.]

[In this case, better judgement saved that guitar at the last moment.]

Sorry. [He knows how it looked. He at least managed to make it to Med Bay. Removed the reminders of wounded pride.]
This guitar... I used to play it a lot on our old base. [He admitted.] The one that went under. It should be at the bottom of the ocean. Yet, here it is.

[ She considers both him, then the guitar, trying to find the words that might help a little. ]

If the Ingress can bring people from all over, different times and worlds, it makes sense it could do the same to objects, the same way it brings people we know from different points in our lives. [ her eyes go from the guitar to Miller.] I don't know if it helps to think of it that way.

I want it, I guess. I think for a moment I just...

It's connected to a lot of things I lost.

[And he wanted to just get rid of all of it and get it over with. He turns it to hold it properly.] I played a guitar all the time up until I lost my arm.

I felt that way about my dad's books, when he first died. I wanted to burn them all, but I cried when I went away to school. [ She sits down next to him on the grass. ] You told me a little about it... Will you play me a song?

Never been one to cry. Maybe I would have been better off if I did. [The last time he did was watching a bunch of his men having to be shot, systematically executed one by one, because of an illness.]

[He shifts to better sit with the guitar, holding it before playing.]

I guess I held onto the muscle memory. It's been months since I played. It was pretty easy to warm back up.

I don't know... I don't know if it helps anything.

[ She doesn't actually remember if she cried when Roth died. Everything else stands in perfect clarity, but she can't remember if she cried. She hadn't for Grim. No time between watching him fall and the Solarii descending on her. She did for Alex and perhaps it had been as much for Grim and Roth too.

She puts that aside for now, leaning back against the tree and listening to Miller play. ]

That was lovely.

[Miller had for the men at motherbase, the ones they had to put down because of their illness, but somehow he never did for himself. He felt weak. Even the word "please" had been a stretched, almost a demand when it had been thrust at Big Boss. It all made him feel ineffectual. Crying for himself would just acknowledge that.]

Thanks. [He responds humbly, not out of real humility but the face he's trying to mute his feelings. Especially after that outburst.]

How old are you? [He finally asks. It occurs to him that he hasn't before.]

[ The question surprises her a little. ]

Twenty-one. Why?

You look older.

Might just be how you carry yourself.

I just wondered how long it had been, since you lost him. [He remembers how he felt when his mother died. There wasn't anything for him.]

Thank you, I think. [ She gives him a smile for that. Tipping her head back, she tries to count the years.]

Nine years, give or take... I was about twelve.

I mean it as a compliment.

Nine years can feel like a long time or just yesterday. [When it's her age, it probably doesn't feel like that long at all.]

What type of man was he?

[ She nods. ] It feels like both at times.

[ There were days she could barely remember her father's face and then there were days where she could feel the sun on her skin and the dizzying feeling of watching his blood drip to the floor. The question makes her frown. She's never really had to describe her father before. ]

He was brilliant. The most brilliant person I ever met, though... I suppose I'm a little biased. He was always off on these incredible adventures and whenever he came back, he had all these stories and things to share. Driven, too... Even until the end, it seemed.

You really carried that forward, didn't you?

[He sounds very respectful of that. Maybe it's having met Solid Snake, realizing that his own student carries on his own name. Does what he wanted to see happen with the world.]

What happened in the end? [He risks.]

[ She doesn't answer for a long moment.]

He became... Obsessed with myths of eternal life. No one believed him. Including me. But that didn't stop him, it just seemed to drive him forward even farther.

[ That felt like an important point to make. Determination turned to obsession. ] He killed himself.

[Sounded complicated, whatever led to that. The distinction does make it a special case.]

So did mine.

[Not meaning to take an edge of hers- obviously she was closer to hers than he was to his. He threw money at Miller, it was all he knew how to do to take responsibility. But now, he's gone.]

I wonder how much of that is in me sometimes. I don't particularly want to die, but it sort of surprised me that when I found out I did.... I didn't get too upset.

I've tried not to think about it, I suppose.

[ Just like she's tried not to think about Miller mentioning his own death. In the moment, there was nothing she could do to fix it, nothing she could do to help. But now... Well. There it is. ]

I can't imagine what that's like. Everyone dies, but knowing specific details... [ Her voice trails off and she looks up at him, concern writ large across her face. ] Is there anything I can do?

[He takes a moment before he starts telling a story. He's told it to her before, but in this case it's like a fairy tale.] There was a prince who would be king. He had two advisers, both former enemies that came to love him dearly, both with different advice. One only knew the life of royalty, the other came from the people. One day the kingdom was destroyed, and another pauper who looked like the king was asked to take his place until the true king could stand again. The adviser who was once poor didn't notice the difference, the secret kept from him, just that the king seemed to be acting like a better man. The one that had been royalty, trained this man to be like the original.

And in the end, there were two kings acting as one. And the adviser who had been a pauper swearing loyalty to only the king who had once lived like him, because the other forgot how important his subjects were.

Now, that first king... he had three sons. All of which destined for the throne. So the two advisers would have to pick sons to aid them, to choose the true successor through combat. One would destroy the kings' evil new kingdom. One would rebuild it more terrible than the first.

Have you ever read a book, and wanted to come up with a new ending to it. When you start in the middle, and see where everything is in the process of going wrong. But you remember what started the downward spiral. And you don't know if you can stop it from there? Before the kingdom was destroyed, when the man on the throne first started to break. But now we're midway through the story. Two kings on the throne. A new kingdom, but darker, still being built. Before the advisers must choose the princes to support. The ball is already rolling. Changing the course is harder from here.

It's not something I can ask for help with, but it's all I have left that I can do. Rewrite the book for the best possible ending. That's all I can do. Or else I have to accept that I die alone and my prince will be the one that stops everything.

[ Her frown deepens as he tells his story. By the time he's done, she's turned to face him fully, legs tucked under her. The low level awareness that's always in her, thrumming like an electric current through every gesture, focused on him. It's an intensity that could lend itself well to obsession, like her father before her, if she wasn't careful. ]

It's not just some fairy tale plot-- [ She stops herself. She knows, or she thinks she knows at least a little. She grits her teeth and then forces out a breath. You can't save everyone, Lara girl. ]

I have to try. You don't have to ask, but I still want to help. However I can.

The way the story is written now, the pauper takes the fall for the real king, the real king is killed by the prince supported by the modest advisor, then the modest advisor is killed by the royal advisor. And there doesn't seem to be much of a way out.

Big Boss is in the middle of making a terrible mistake. He's going to do a lot of damage.

I don't know how to stop it. But I want to believe the man that I used to care about is still under there somewhere. Ocelot swears he's a living legend. An endless meme. But he's a man.

Legends are stories that shift and change, with as much truth as lie depending on the storyteller. Any one person with a measure of accomplishment, skill and talent could be considered the same. [ Also having not long ago encountered real legends come to life, the living sort don't seem quite as large as they might have before. ]

I don't suppose there's a version of this story that might end with no one dying.

I want to think there is.

I despise this stupid idea of predestination. One time, a long time ago, a woman wanted to make the world whole again. The woman that trained Big Boss. To be honest, I did too.

But now I see the world can't be whole again. Scars run too deep. It's too badly broken. [As broken as he is.] Trying to fix that will just make it worse.

I know I haven't seen what you have. I'm not sure I even fully understand the sheer scope of it all, but Miller... It's not broken. [ He isn't either. Even after what she's seen, she can't believe that. ]

It's just-- It's different than what we expected. What we believed it ought to be. Having scars just means we've survived.

It's broken enough. Enough so that a military nation above nations won't fix it.

Which is what he's trying to do.

[Miller is still bitter that he gave up parts for himself for a different future. He wanted the business. Not a nation. Despite Big Boss claiming that he'd wanted Miller to join him in the end, he's relatively sure he wouldn't have been able to take him up on the offer.]

This guitar is from the first base we had. Something we built together. Before his dream got more fantastic.

You need more historians in your line of work.

[ Lara deals mostly in antiquities, but she can't think of any point where that would have been a great idea. She hums and settles with her back against the tree, nudging his shoulder with her companionably.]

I imagine it's strange to be reminded of those times so vividly.

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