futurology | video. UN: JAKKU

video. UN: JAKKU

[ Everyone's camping. That's fun, isn't it? Well, before people get ahead of themselves, there's some more news that's waiting. Following Keith and Rey's conversation—and Keith being set right about their shared misconceptions thanks to some clarifications from ALASTAIR—they've finally regrouped enough for … this. If you've ever wondered how good Keith is at sharing information, it's probably along the lines of "not good."

So, this should be good, basically. (At least he has Rey to back him up.)

The two of them are sitting side by side on the outskirts of camp so that they can make their announcement undisturbed. Keith's sporting a warmer jacket and Rey was all but swallowed in the hood of her ALASTAIR uniform, which fit ill now in the light of the doubts that the holodisc shed on them.

After a beat of them … sitting there, Keith awkwardly clears his throat in what sounds like an ineffectual manner: ]

Uh, hey. We have something to tell you all today. [ A beat. Another beat. He glances toward Rey, as if he suddenly feels like she's the one who should talk.

While Rey clearly doesn’t appreciate the hand-off, her shoulders rustling as she composes herself, she can’t deny the responsibility. She directs her gaze towards him for a moment, wrestling with something, before she relents. ]

I made a mistake. [ It seems the simplest place to start when most of them had seen precisely what happened with the Reverend. ] We need to make sure that none of you repeat it. When I killed … [ She can’t muster that admission, not properly, not in this context. So she starts again. ] When the Reverend died, something came out of him. Some kind of parasite.

[ Right, he knows Rey's body language enough to realize where he should probably help. If if were anyone else, that might not be the case, but somehow, they've become friends. It's an odd thing for him, and when she finishes speaking, he preps himself. All right, he can do this. He can do this. ]

The parasite is called the Taraxa. I didn't get a chance to look at a holodisc I found until after the fighting war over, and um, I'm sorry for not coming forward sooner. We wanted to check back with ALASTAIR first. [ He pauses here, but briefly. ]

Anyway, the Taraxa are supposed to be a peaceful group now. They've worked with ALASTAIR via some temporary hosts as spies, but obviously, none of us would call the Deemers peaceful. Rey and I don't know what happened, or if these are some … special branch that decided to go rogue. I don't know. But I think we've got a bigger mess to deal with here than just the mines and mining. [ He offers Rey a brief glance. Keith can't even begin to guess what the Deemers are really doing. He can't. But between the fires and disappearances, he figures they can't just ignore this. ]

They’re also supposed to have hosts that they build instead of steal, but that’s obviously not the case. It’s possible but dangerous to communicate with them because they follow a hivemind they consider their Mother, which is red instead of ... [ Grimly, she raises the dessicated carcass of the beige slug she’d evinced from the Reverend’s corpse. It seemed an odd thing, now, to hold onto it like some kind of trophy, but she hadn’t been ready to let it go, as if holding onto the horror of what she had done. ] Though there’s no clear way to tell when you’re dealing with a Mother while she’s in a host, as far as I can tell.

Until we know more, travel in pairs, and try to avoid lethal force; the Deemers aren’t acting of their own free will.

Or … their hosts aren't, anyway. I guess it's really the same thing, huh? Most importantly, if you have a way of scanning people's brains, let us know. It wasn't clear in the file how to stop them exactly, but heat and salt seem like our best bets. Uh, death and decapitation work, too, but I think we're gonna try to avoid that from now on.

[ Sulky silence quieted Rey, on that note, and she ended the transmission abruptly. ]

[ ooc; if it isn't clear, Rey and Keith. ]

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[Once again, Chihiro's calm, somewhat no-nonsense demeanor is oddly comforting.

His shoulders drop.]

It's scary, honestly.

[Asher lets out a resigned sigh.]

But I guess that's how all this stuff works.

[This mission. Space.]

There's a leader, right? The Mother, or... Whatever you call it.

Mm, the Mother. If she acts like um... like a Queen Bee or an Ant does, then she's the one we need to talk with most. Or... stop most, I guess.

[ she really does not want to think of more murder. there's been so, so much of it. Asher, it just doesn't end. ]

It's all really scary. I think that too.

If we take her out, it might be easier to take the rest of them down.

[He doesn't mean murder necessarily, despite the title of his canon.]

I'm sorry, kiddo.

[Uttered with sincerity, there's a lilt in his voice, a way it breaks.]

It sucks that you got dragged into this.

[ Taking out can mean controlling or disrupting. Chihiro doesn't leap right to murder, either. Even if most people here tend tO ASHER WHY IS THAT ANYWAY? ]

Yeah, it does. [ A pause. ] It sucks you got dragged into this too. We just need to make sure we all get out of it together.

[Asher takes a deep breath.

He can't help but worry and fret about all the people on this planet and wonder if there really is a way to save them all. They're all standing on a ticking time bomb, a way of life that's growing more dangerous by the second, and the situation just keeps getting worse and worse.

Practicality-wise, the lawyer-to-be knows this isn't going to end well, but he hopes-]

Yeah.

[It sounds as though something's stuck in his throat.]

I guess that's what's important right now.

[ Are they going to build an arc to save all the animals unique to just this biosphere? It's a complicated mess they're all involved in.

AND THIS BEFORE IT GOES TRULY COMPLICATED.

She breathers in and out, slow and controlled because it's as close to mediating on a response as she can bring herself. For Chihiro, at least, it helps. ]

Mm. ... Asher-san, where are you right now?

[Maybe he should be ashamed. His discomfort is so obvious, it's even stirred worry in the heart of a child.

Her concern touches him deeply because he knows that it comes from a genuine place. Asher isn't used to that sort of warmth, and so he still gravitates towards it even when it's a bad idea.]

I'm okay.

[What a lie.]

I swear.

[Still, he should go see her.]

Where are you? I'll head over.

[ There's no hesitation when he asks where she is. She simply tells him, rubbing at her arm all the while. It's nice having people around who she feels understand what it is to be so normal kind of human in these way crazy situations. Ones where people with different abilities and skills are able to handle things so much more easily, seeming, than she's been able to.

So she doesn't think he's okay, but she doesn't call him out on it, either. She just makes herself easy to find.

'Cause as soon as she sees Asher, she's running on over and flinging herself at his waist with a hug, burying her face in his middle. ]

[It's been so long, he'd almost forgotten.

Chihiro latches onto him with no trouble at all, and in that moment a frightening rush of emotion washes over him. Acceptance and unconditional regard, the two things he's wanted most in life, even moreso than success... She's managed to offer that to him, even though he's screwed up so many times.

Gently, he removes her arms from his torso and kneels down on the ground so that he's on her level. Asher suddenly reciprocates with a bear hug of his own, because he can feel it too.

That need for physical contact, reassurance. The notion that everything's gonna be okay.

Is it?]

Edited 2016-12-15 04:01 (UTC)

( It's not. Chihiro isn't one to believe it will all be okay, at least not in any simple manner. The world is too complex for blanket statements.

As his arms pull her into a crushing hug of his own, she wheezes, returning this unexpected reciprocation with the force she can manage. It feels weird on one level, being more used to acting as the hugger instead of being really hugged in turn, but that's fine.

Everything might not end up okay, but they're not alone. They'll get through this. They'll find better ways to reach their goals, as opposed to simply the most expedient. )

... Thank you.

( Sure, it comes out more like a wheeze than anything else, but she's not protesting. She means it. Physical contact that has left her feeling grounded and completely assured that they're not alone. It's... the first time she's really had that since she got here. She's more thankful for that than she knows how to say. )

[He loosens his grip but doesn't let go just yet, arms slouching around her shoulders.

Asher doesn't look particularly happy.]

Yeah, no problem.

[If he were a little less worn out, he'd be more ashamed to admit this:]

I really needed that too.

( She nods, accepting his admission, casting no judgment. It feels natural to her that he could use that kind of contact, too. Especially when as foreign as he is to her in several ways (she doesn't know many Americans, but she doesn't know many of anyone who isn't Japanese before coming here), he's also familiar in more important ways.

Ones that leave her feeling like it's okay to say: )

I'm tired of getting shot at and almost eaten, burned, or suffocated. Thinking about aliens who take over your body and stuff like that... ( she shudders, fisting her hands into his shirt. ) I don't know what to do to make that better.

[Asher isn't aware of Chihiro's traditions or customs, so he doesn't understand why her actions are even more significant.]

It's crazy, right?

It's crazy that so many people... Just pass all of that stuff off, like it's normal-

[Because it isn't, it shouldn't be.]

Don't get me wrong, it was kind of fun at first, but now I'm sort of sick of it. Super sick of it.

[He can't sleep anymore.

Not when he isn't too tired to stay awake.]

( She keeps nodding, perhaps seeming to do so almost too often as she listens: but that's because she listens, and is actively listening. She wants him to know that, even when she's breathing in deep and trying to find her own words to say the same thing. )

It's really crazy. It makes sense to everyone who thinks it is normal. But it's not normal. Or... it wasn't. Now it is.

( The worlds are too full of possibilities for her to doubt many of them. These days, she mostly doubts people's ability to be forthright where it matters most. Changing, adapting... those are skills people need in order to survive. Are they the ones they've all been picking up all this time? By merit of surviving long enough to learn them? (She's held a gun now. Held and surrendered a gun, earned through no merit she can understand. Owns a knife, practices self defense each day punching sand until she's pretty sure sand is never going to look the same to her again. Even beaches are starting to look chancy.) )

Asher, do you know if there's any way to make the nightmares less... happening?

[All of a sudden, it hits him like a moving train.

Asher turned twenty-five this year, and for all his childish buffoonery, he's still an adult. Chihiro can't be older than thirteen, and that makes her what, less than have his age? She's had to learn the same things despite being of a much smaller, slighter frame.

His brain starts moving too fast for him again, asking more and more questions. When he was a kid there was someone to take care of him, whether it be a parent or the well-intentioned help. The doubt in the other's eyes is enough to make him finally act responsibly.]

I just don't sleep.

[Somewhat.]

Or, I didn't, before.

[He'd go outside and watch the stars, text people. Drink at the saloon until he knocked out.]

Are you staying with anybody else right now?

( She blinks, breathing in and exhaling as she considers if that's really okay. Not sleeping at all? She still drifts off. It's just not so restive. )

What do you do now?

( What's changed? That's what she wants to know the most. Has he found a way to deal with the things that are so crazy but being normalized out of necessity and exposure? It's not that she even thinks of these things in those terms. For her, it's a mess of feelings and her understandings of the world she's living in. Sometimes she's right. Sometimes she's not. It's a learning curve, like so much of what's around her here. )

Um, at the Reverends? There's a few of us there. Master Anakin, Jin-san, Arima-san...

[When she mentions Jin, something about his posture changes.

So that's where his friend has been staying all this time.]

I...

[Asher wants to suggest something else first, but he doesnt.

There's more than a fair share of decent people here, who probably wouldn't be of danger to her. But he can't trust that.]

I go overkill, basically.

I work so hard during the day that, when nighttime rolls around... I just kinda pass out.

[And then, after another sigh:]

Wouldn't recommend it though. Really sucks.

Edited 2016-12-15 05:33 (UTC)

( For whatever reason, the sheer honesty has her uttering a short, soft laugh, an edge of her tired state carried in the sound. Unintentionally, that's exactly what she's been doing. )

Like waking up early for self defense training, then meditating, then doing chores at the Church and weeding in the graveyard, then heading in to help make lunch, then heading out to try and find those weird holodisc parts by the frakking fields, only to come back and take riding lessons and then head by the saloon for toothpaste?

( The breathlessness she finishes that sentence on might be an indication of just how hard she goes at doing the same. )

It does help. Most the time.

[Perhaps he should be more ashamed, relating to someone so much younger than him.

Instead, Asher is relieved. They aren't alone.]

Yeah, totally.

[He sits himself down next to her, wherever they are.]

There's something else that works pretty well for me too, though. It's been keepin' me sane.

Edited 2016-12-19 00:31 (UTC)

( She stays by his side, listening to him speak, nodding as he does. It's easier to just accept that they're both struggling, and in ways they can both understand. Her illusions about adults having things together, about their infallibility or ability to protect, had been broken before she even arrived here. She'd had to relearn that lesson, then remember those things she'd forgotten when she'd left the spirit world for the human world...

... and had been taken through a rift to this place. )

What is it?

( She asks, turning her face to look over at his. )

Edited 2016-12-19 00:35 (UTC)

[He smiles in her general direction before speaking.]

Sometimes if I can't sleep...

I'll text a friend.

[or do something else

that he wouldn't share with a child]

If they answer, it means they're up. If not, they're probably sleeping. It doesn't have to be about whatever it is that's buggin' ya, but having people around who care about you...

Knowing that they're there? It means a lot.

( Please never tell her what else he does. She Does Not Need to Know.

What she does do is tuck her knees in tighter to her body, encircling them with her arms. Here texting is a thought away, but that's a big thought for her to think. Her eyes are studying the ground when she makes her tentative question. )

Asher... would it be okay if I ever texted you?

[Asher watches the way her body tenses up, how she curls into herself as she even considers the thought.

He responds with zero hesitation:]

Of course.

Any time, okay? Text me whenever.

( she holds herself still, then nods her head, almost too hard. nods, and nods, and vocalises, because this matters to her. )

Thank you. I won't bother you with it often, but... thank you, Asher...san.

( and with that, she gives him a brief, relieved smile. it all fades too fast, like so much of the stability in the world around them, but that's okay. she has faith they'll both pull through, along with the rest of the team.

they have each other, after all. )

Don't worry about it.

[He doesn't want her to feel as if she's a burden, not when her presence has given him the strength to move forward so many times before.

Asher doesn't understand it now, but their bond is one that's hard to break. Despite everything they've come to learn, all the growth that they've experienced, they still remain one frightful thing: Ordinary.

Another smile graces his features, this one sadder than the last.]

I'll probably be up, anyway.

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