cactusy | IC contact for lastvoyages

[Well, that's ominous.]

Sure. Lower deck.

I'll look for you.

[Lower deck is where the chapel is, so he can be there right away. Once he sees her, he waves her down, frowning slightly—his usual face.]

Hey.

[He'll find her slumped on one of the benches, doing her best to rub a tension headache out of her temples - though when she hears him coming, she drops her hands and sits up straight, turning to face him.]

Hey. Lemme guess, grievous bodily harm?

[God, she hopes it's just grievous bodily harm.]

[He raises an eyebrow.]

Would that be real or part of some simulation?

Either.

[She says, raising an eyebrow right back as the back of her head thunks against the ship's side.]

Both.

[Dryly, with the ghost of a wry smile-]

What an exciting life you must live.

[Nah, both killing people and getting hurt - even almost dying - lost its flavor a long time ago.]

But no, I wish it were only that.

[He lowers his head, appropriately somber and serious.]

It's about Root again...

Did I kill her this time.

[Her voice is flat - monotone, even. But her shoulders tense almost imperceptibly, and her mind goes blank of literally everything else, all her attention focused in on that one question.]

[The demon in him wants to laugh, but he manages to repress it in time.]

No.

You're outside, walking toward some sort of—chaos. Flashing lights, police cars. The man you're with steps away and says a strange word into his cell phone. Fusco?

You're trying to take stock of the situation—prisoners released, someone cut the power—when he whirls back around, meeting your eyes with a look that's stunned and grim and sort of pitying.

You know it's her. You know she's dead.

You feel... grief, but you don't have time for it, so you put it away. You compartmentalize.

You tell him you need to get Finch.

[A pause.]

I'm truly sorry.

[For once he can say that and somewhat mean it, at least while the memory is still there.]

Edited 2023-04-22 06:57 (UTC)

[The words hit her like little knives, and maybe Will is right, maybe Sweeney is right, maybe Kirei is right; maybe that's grief, or at least her version of it. That feeling of her skin being pricked and her insides being scooped out.

She pulls her sweatshirt sleeves down over her hands, curling her fingers in.]

Fusco's a person.

[She says, because what else is there to say?]

This is... kinda especially weird, for people like you and me.

[Kirei knows what emotions feel like, mainly because he knows what a complete lack of them feels like. When he looks back on his own memories, he has no idea what he's feeling during them—most likely nothing. But Shaw's memory wasn't like that. It wasn't like Fitz's memory of losing Arielle either, but so what? The emotion was the same, just loud and clanging and chaotic in the former, static-y like the numb aftermath of an electric shock in the other.

He accepts the random information with an affectless incline of the head.]

Ah...

[Wait-]

"People like you and me?"

Sure. You don't really do emotions much either, do you?

[Like recognizes like, she thinks. Even without the help of a flood, it's clear in his face; his body language.]

[He shakes his head. It's undeniable.]

I don't have them.

It makes it a bit challenging since we're obviously supposed to open up and be vulnerable with each other, even though that seems incredibly stupid and a little cult-like.

... I try to go along with it, but it usually just feels pretty pointless.

Bet you've pissed a few people off by saying that.

[God knows she has!]

[...]

I don't normally say it.

[Ah. That's not a surprise; he does seem quieter and more tactful than she is.]

You ever think that you might have stuff in there that you can't feel, but other people can?

That is a good question.

Maybe I do, but I'm pretty sure none of it involves empathy.

[A blunt truth. One he should perhaps keep to himself, but she seems open-minded. He'll just carefully avoid thinking too hard about the fact that there are literal eldritch horrors, serving here as wardens and integrating into the community far better than himself, while his own condition puts him constantly on the verge of pariahdom—as it should.]

Edited 2023-04-23 05:33 (UTC)

Me, neither. Feeling it on the surface is pretty much the point of that one.

[She closes her eyes for a moment, shaking her head.]

I had a wife before her, you know. Claudia. Also dead.

[Maybe she's right, but she still managed to feel something approximating sadness or grief for Root. It's more than he could do for—]

Claudia?

[His expression darkens, and he brings a hand to his forehead.]

Damn it. I must have more of your memories.

[Hold up. Seriously?]

How much more?

I don't know. They really feel like mine.

Are you Catholic?

[Give him time. Trying to focus on that period of his life is like trying to peer through a thick mist.]

I remember meeting her. I remember the wedding. My father was there...

[He literally cringes, already getting a headache.]

My actual father, not yours.

.... I think.

Edited 2023-04-23 21:58 (UTC)

... And I lost every memory of her except the one where she died.

[Which, logically, is a very strong sign that she hadn't actually lost all those memories at all, because they'd never been hers to begin with. And even though the Barge so rarely seems to be based on logic, that possibility coupled with those questions of his...]

Not Catholic, no. And my dad died when I was ten. So, Claudia--

[Congratulations, Kirei; you're not the only one with a headache.]

... She was actually my wife? Those really are my memories?

[They do feel like it, but that doesn't mean they don't also feel distant and vague. They may as well belong to somebody else.]

I can barely remember what she looked like, but I do know everything that happened while we were together. She was...

[A saint. She tried to help him.]

She was ill. She died... from complications due to her autoimmune disease, right?

Edited 2023-04-23 22:28 (UTC)

She was dying. But then she killed herself, to try to make me feel it. She--

[Stuck a gun under her chin. Wait, no. Not that, not her.]

She sliced her neck open. Bled herself out.

[Frown.]

How pointless.

[Yep, that's it. That's his reaction to this news. He crosses his arms. It's starting to come back.]

... I didn't feel anything?

Not any more than I usually do. Didn't feel quite like being myself, but it was... analogous.

You held her. You felt like you were sinking into emptiness.

[And god, does she ever know that feeling well now.]

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