Nova Barnett (Clone Shepard) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
petridish) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thisavrou_log2016-07-18 02:40 pm
petridish) wrote in thisavrou_log2016-07-18 02:40 pm
Entry tags:
(no subject)
Who: Clone Shepard and Nihlus Kryik
When: July 16th
Where: Just outside the medbay, moving into the cargo bay
What: Sitrep after being in cryo and mail check (and overflows from previous months)
Warnings: Possible references to past violence and body horror (Caducus Secondary event chat)
Coming out of cryostasis is uncomfortably similar to coming out of her growth tank, but this time, she has the language to articulate that in her head, and there's no Brooks waiting to teach her everything she knows.
She dresses quickly and only holds still long enough for a checkup on what was supposed to be a simple repair for her cell deterioration but had gotten complicated enough to necessitate her stay in cryo. While she waits, she checks her MID, her eyes widening at how much time she's lost, and sends a text. The second she has the medical all clear, she's out of there.
Out in the hallway, she touch types a second message to Shepard, and happens to catch sight of Nihlus coming towards her. Damnit, she'd just wanted to go and check what she's received in the cargo bay, not have to deal with the alien who could ruin her. She gives him a nod of greeting. "Nihlus."
When: July 16th
Where: Just outside the medbay, moving into the cargo bay
What: Sitrep after being in cryo and mail check (and overflows from previous months)
Warnings: Possible references to past violence and body horror (Caducus Secondary event chat)
Coming out of cryostasis is uncomfortably similar to coming out of her growth tank, but this time, she has the language to articulate that in her head, and there's no Brooks waiting to teach her everything she knows.
She dresses quickly and only holds still long enough for a checkup on what was supposed to be a simple repair for her cell deterioration but had gotten complicated enough to necessitate her stay in cryo. While she waits, she checks her MID, her eyes widening at how much time she's lost, and sends a text. The second she has the medical all clear, she's out of there.
Out in the hallway, she touch types a second message to Shepard, and happens to catch sight of Nihlus coming towards her. Damnit, she'd just wanted to go and check what she's received in the cargo bay, not have to deal with the alien who could ruin her. She gives him a nod of greeting. "Nihlus."
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"Shepard," he greets seemingly surprised but his tones were warm. He slows a bit, falling easily into step beside her.
"You were in cryo for quite a while." You know, in case Cloney thought that friendly greeting was for the other Shepard. "I was beginning to get a bit worried."
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"Well, you can stop: I'm fine," she informs him. She holds up her MID wrist, where she's begun scrolling through the network posts. "Sounds like I missed a hell of a lot, though."
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"You missed one clusterfuck of a fight," he says, watching her scroll through the network, tucking his tablet under an arm. "The Captains wanted us to vote on different plans instead of coming up with a ship-wide strategy. The Caducans decided it was better to die trying to murder everyone instead of trying to preserve some meager amount of their own civilization."
The entire ordeal was all flavors of brazen stupidity and the crew's own attempts at reigning things in were unfortunately built on shaky foundations.
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"Caducans as in Caducus Primary?" she asks, though she'd heard the term enough on their planet to know that's who he means. "I came out of their Ingress... I shielded so many of them for evacuation when their planet started falling apart." It was the most capable she'd felt since her plan to replace Shepard had fallen apart: She'd finally saved someone and proved Shepard wrong about making a lousy her.
She sighs, her face and slumping shoulders betraying her genuine dismay at this news where her words are merely exasperated. "And here I thought their obsession with glass was the most stupid thing they did."
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He's quiet for a brief moment, giving the clone an appraising look through his visor. There'd probably been the pressure to act like Shepard, but that disappointment seemed... oddly genuine.
"You'd think they'd have perfected transparent metal technology at the very least," he says by way of agreement. "How do they even build so much with just glass anyways? It sounds like they must've had a lot of dead construction workers. You'd think someone would've rioted for safer working conditions at least."
Nihlus has so many questions and no way of getting them answered.
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"Human ingenuity, I guess," she says, and she sighs, returning to her network browsing while walking. (Training as a Sentinel, she'd gotten good at using her omni-tool while walking; the principle had carried over to the MID.) "The glass could be kind of creepy at night, but I liked their planet. What a waste."
Noticing a lack of mourning posts on the network, she glances sideways at Nihlus. "Only one Moiran casualty?" It's back to business. She can deal with her unexpected sadness about some stupid survivors on her own.
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"Only one," he shrugs in answer. "We lucked out."
It was Aurelia too. He tries to feel little bad about it but honestly?
... Okay, he actually feels a little bad, but she seemed like the orphan murdering sort and he'd like to trade in some of his empathy for gleeful schadenfreude please.
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As they pass a wall with some glass panels amongst the steel, she points at it and raises an eyebrow, letting that ask the question more than her bemused tone.
"Speaking of glass."
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Include, uh, himself. Hence the helmet. Not that Cloney needs to know that, she can just assume it's there for protection. Which does remind him...
"We'd better get you a mask. There's a lot of glass particles in the air right now."
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"No wonder the post-cryo checkup seemed long." Well, no, she'd mostly thought it was because it was post-cryo after a procedure to fix her deteriorating cells that had had complications. "They could've told me about the particles."
She puts a little more speed into her stride. "I'll swing through my room and grab my helmet. Good thing it's on the way to the cargo bay."
Yes, she did just change that 'we' to an 'I'. She just wants a sitrep, not company.
Galactic History with Clone Shepard (March 2016)
"The look on your face is what I've been dealing with for the last three years," she says dryly. At least, she imagines that's what the Council and the Alliance have been giving Shepard, considering their utter inaction on the dangers of the galaxy. "But yes, that was a success: No more Collectors, no more meat machine."
She stretches up in her chair, and nods to the kitchen. She's not sure she's ever said so much in such a short time in her life. "That was last year, so you're almost up to date," she says. Although Shepard had managed to do a hell of a lot since the Reapers attacked, so she knows she's going to need this: "I'm gonna grab some water."
the lone wolf you were always meant to be (June 2016)
The incredulous look she gives him is, for once, completely genuine. She's briefly tempted to say, 'What, like that clone she mentioned?' but for fear it's a little too on the nose, shakes her head instead.
"What for?" she asks. This isn't either of their home timelines where there can be only one Shepard, and besides, people believe her here. "So she could get brought back to life again, and I'd get to choose between the hold or getting dumped on the nearest planet?" Well, the Collectives wouldn't be so bad, and she's been stocking up for the event of an escape, but that's beside the point. "There's plenty of room on the Moira for more than one Shepard, even if it's already messy and awkward. All I'm going to do is try to live my life in peace for a change."
It's one of the only honest things she's ever said to him.
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"I'm heading down to the cargo as well." A shrug. "I'll come with. There's a bunch of parts I need to pull out of the fabricator since things keep shattering left and right."
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"Damn," she says, mostly meaning him coming with her, but a little for the fabricator too. Even constructed by aliens, it doesn't deserve that. "Guess the glass wasn't limited to the crew and the ship."
As they approach her deck, she adds, "Anything else I missed?"
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Spirits. Spirits help him, was he going insane?
There's no way- no way any of this was happening. How can any of this be happening? And everything he'd just heard about Saren? And Benezia?
Why wasn't he waking up?
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She returns with two glasses of water, the etiquette classes some planets ago having taught her that this is polite and expected in adults, and sets one down in front of Nihlus before taking her seat.
"At least you're not being brought back from the dead to be told that not only is everything going wrong, but you have to do something about it with your enemies," she points out. Like being awoken in the first place, she never asked to be brought back to life, but the Moira's a better place for it than the Reaper war with a lookalike running around. She can be who she wants to be here.
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An interesting answer though. He knows that the Clone would have tried offing Shep by now if she'd been planning to do so. There were a few opportunities to do so, not in the least the time when the woman had been in cryo. The reason why she hasn't done so was been a bit harder to pin, however.
Peace, then?
His expression fades into an oddly contemplative one. It doesn't sound like a lie. If anything, she mostly just sounded indignant and it did line up with the pattern of behavior up until now, too. Why hide though? What did she think was going to happen if she was exposed?
Why so desperate to keep being someone you hated?
"Why does it have to be so messy and awkward?" Nihlus watches her carefully. "The worst thing she's done to you is get your armor put through decontamination on Del-Pascia."
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That was by no means a sarcastic question. She bristles, but is well aware trying to defend that will only make things worse.
Instead, she turns the question back on him. "So you're telling me that if another Nihlus Kryik came through the Ingress, one with a different life from yours - an easier life - you wouldn't feel awkward?"
If another clone turned up, one who wasn't trained to become Shepard in six months, she'd feel just as awkward as she does with Shepard. Hell, maybe it would be worse, as it would be a much closer example of what might have been, instead of an example of someone else's what-if.
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Yeah, he can tell she's annoyed about him following her around again. She can deal. He's got some henning to do, spirits dammit.
"For now, the Ingress is inactive, which is probably a good thing considering... well. This."
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With a nod, she lets the rest of the trip to her room (where she's relieved to find her things haven't moved) for her helmet and then to the cargo bay pass in silence. She doesn't have anything to say to Nihlus on the best of days (not without possibly provoking him into blowing her cover), let alone after spending a month in cryo: She's hardly going to share that she'd originally gone into the medbay to slow down her accelerated aging in case it became a problem.
"This is the first time I've gotten something so big I have to get it in the cargo bay," she says as the doors open. "Usually I just get small things from the Ingress. The other Shepard got the Mako; maybe this is the Hammerhe..."
This is not the Hammerhead.
This is her growth tank sitting next to the Mako, the second thing she ever saw (the first being Brooks), seemingly here to remind her of what she is and announce it to the entire ship. This is her growth tank, which wouldn't look too out of place in the medbay, upright and big enough to grow a human from cells, the wires that gave her nutrients and stimulated and monitored her growth hanging unattached to anything, the fluid containers empty, the display blank.
Involuntarily, she takes a step back, the blood draining from her face.
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It's said with some level of cockiness, but if Nihlus is being honest...
Well, he would.
It would be awkward initially, yes, but how long that went on for would entirely depend on this other version of himself. This Nihlus here had cultivated his ability to get along with people and sharpened it into one of the most powerful tools in his arsenal. This Nihlus would have very little problem dealing with another version of himself.
And... if he's honest, he kind suspects he's one of the probability branches with the better outcomes here, the 'easier life'.
"I have scale, personally," he continues tone light. "It's the 'are they more or less of an asshole than Saren?' scale. As long as they're less than or equal to his level of assholishness, I can get along with them. This is still dependent on transgressions they have actually committed, of course, versus them just having something that I don't."
/)_(\
"Good for you."
Having never met Saren, she can't relate to this scale, but she isn't about to say that in public. But she's spent months carefully getting along with people when she has to. It's just easier to avoid having to.
"I can get along with her. We're going out for dinner tomorrow. But I don't see how the amount of time I choose to spend with her is any of your business."
Looking away from him, she catches the eye of a waiter and handsigns for the check. "I'm full," she says over her shoulder to Nihlus. She's not - she already regrets leaving her plate - but it gets her away from him.
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More pressingly... this wasn't the script Nihlus had been expecting.
He's not entirely sure what he'd been expecting, really. The caginess, yes. The quiet resentment about Shepard's... everything, also yes. But the quiet acceptance of the state of things and her apparent willingness to cooperate for the sake of peace? Even to the extent where she's willing to keep pretending to be someone she loathed? A selfish desire fore peace, but still an unexpected variable.
"Wait."
And there's a change in his tones now: the playfully menacing knife's edge fades into something softer and more contemplative, quieter. Setting down his utensils he peers up at the clone, searching her face as if he could somehow find his answers there.
"... I'm sorry."
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Her expression shutters, trying to keep a handle on her bewilderment as the waiter brings the check. She deliberately ignores Nihlus while signing off on her card and gathering her things, only meeting his eyes again once she's ready to leave - jacket on, shopping collected.
"What for?" she demands, her face stony. After this roundabout interrogation by someone who knows she's the clone, an apology is the last thing she expects, and wasn't even in the realm of things she wants. If anything, she wants to know what this whole routine was for, not what the apology was for, but that question skirts dangerously close to a public admission by either one of them.