exsiliumlogs | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Date: February 1st
Location: The Initiative Hold & Courtyard.
Characters: Everyone.
Summary: New Transports have all arrived and have been shuffled into the Courtyard after their initial briefings, while older Transports are returning from the mission to Uruguay.
Warnings: None.

While those who have been guests of Exsilium since at least the last wave of Transports return from their desperate mission and are pressed out of the Transporter room and into the Courtyard, the Initiative prepares to receive a second wave at the same time. And if you're in that second wave, the fresh meat, then you've just been hustled and bustled through mazes of information and literal, wide corridors of the Initiative Hold and you've been equipped with your weapon—be it a gun, a sword, or even your existing powers. They've handed you this light netbook and a small pouch of coins (or a debit card, if you're more inclined), and there are several Transports before and after you going through the very same motions. You can hear the Greeter's voice as she walks alongside large groups, telling them all about the history of this place and sharing with you your purpose here in a hurried and urgent tone. "You're in luck that we have enough rooms for all of you; the housing building is getting awfully full. Please, let me show you into the courtyard."

You pass what looks like huge gymnasiums, all with dummies and targets strewn and splayed around the room. Training areas. There are even classrooms, and a few small offices. You're rushed past a large library while the Greeter informs you that you can find almost all your information there, if you've got the time to look—and trust her, you'll have time. You don't spend a lot of time in the bank, and it's a bit of a blur of exchanges with more and more of these strangely-accented and oddly polite-seeming members of the Initiative.

Soon enough, you're in a massive courtyard bustling with all the other Transports. It's not exactly what you'd expect, and it looks more like barracks than anything—huge walls of concrete and stone, separating you from all of the hallways you'd just passed through. It's raining heavily, and dark clouds loom in the air, though it hasn't turned to snow. It's a chill cold, and there are shelters—long cloth hangings that extend from the walls of concrete to house you from the rain, but not enough. Most notably, the courtyard is filled with a marketplace. Even in the cold and the rain, there are several citizens seated at their covered booths and tables, bundled up against the weather. They're selling all manner of their own handmade goods and foods, and citizens and Transports alike are traveling from one small covered shop to another in search of all manner of necessities.

The Greeter's voice has become so faint now, but you swear you can make it out in the back of the crowds as she tells you, "Good luck. Be safe!"

Her voice is drowned out by the busy marketplace, though even the transactions taking place are somewhat subdued. Nobody is overly happy, really, though most citizens can be found with smiles on their faces. It doesn't seem like they're that shocked to see you, either; even if you're not bound in tattered rags and wrapped in heavy shawls as they are. You're welcome to walk up to a shop, and find yourself something to eat—hey, maybe you'll even find something akin to a raincoat. Or, you can join the others under the coverings against the walls. Where am I? What war? She was talking so fast, and it didn't all make very much sense… did anyone else catch it all?

Welcome to the courtyard. Welcome to the Initiative Hold—and most importantly, welcome to Exsilium

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That was interesting. Not the stuff about United Earth; she doesn't buy the your world is threatened line for a moment. Her world has threats, and her world has protectors, and even if she is one of them, she's nowhere near the most capable at anything, and if they wanted Signers really capable of fighting on this scale, Ruka thinks she would probably rank somewhere under the severed arm in a canister.

No, what's interesting is Kanaya's conclusion.

"What do you mean by that? Timeline divergences."

She slowly draws her lips over her teeth to make sure only her two main fangs show, which is synecdoche for her realizing how very closely she is flirting with exposing the absolute core of her primary predicament in undeath. The pain--

Is something she can only mitigate by professing that timelines diverge in the end, dooming herself in the process.

"Well, in many cases the Initiative has taken transports whose fates and personal timelines are closely intertwined, so - it does take a while to think about it." She's going to need to make more gestures for this, and extends her right forearm in a straight line. "Imagine the timeline," as she moves her first two fingers along it slowly, "where nobody has ever been taken and everyone proceeds with their uninterrupted joyful or joyless lives." Her fingers reach the base of her right hand, which opens from a tight fist into a wide burst of five splayed fingers. "But then you have the dubious luck to arrive here and stay for a year." That occurs at her right thumb. And at her middle finger-- "Where you find your friend who remembers leaving two years ago and has been here for six months.

"Do you remember their having been kidnapped, or suddenly returning rabid against the United Earth? Or for that matter, do they remember all the things that have happened in the meantime to you."

The swirl of information runs through her mind—rubber bands and fractured hearts and a twin brother, a decade her elder, spinning stories of the life they would lead once she returned home. She knows that there are alternate worlds and alternate times, but as far as the City was concerned, it never broke a timeline on its own. If people returned to their own worlds, it was at the same age, the same physical body, the same set of memories they possessed when they left. It had happened to her, once, years ago. The best anyone could hope for was half-forgotten dreams, and even those were rare. If she returned to Neo Domino City from there, she would have shed the long years and the hurts and every bond ever formed.

If she 'returned' to Neo Domino from the City, she, as she was, would simply cease to exist.

As she thinks, her left hand moves in familiar gesture, to press the heel of her palm against her eyepatch, against the false eye that lay behind; the pressure of solid metal and all the misery it contained helped her focus away from her own feelings, and to other matters.

But that gift of an eye was gone, too; the fabric nearly folds concave under the pressure. With a startled jolt Ruka thrusts her hand back, away from herself, breathing staggered. A swallow, a shaking exhale, and her hand instead moves to settle against her brow, fingers combing into her hair.

Breathe. "That's... that's a lot to take in." Inhale. Exhale. "I'm not sure if I fully understand it... that is, your explanation was fine, but I think... that's something I need to think about to get."

Her attention is drawn to Haruka's eyepatch again in spite of herself - she's an alien. She should know to hate staring. She doesn't understand what's going on with Haruka's hands. (Sometimes she might run her nails, her fangs, her lipstick as just color and not lines, down along her "brother's" face; sometimes, when she's to have kicked her other shameful nightly habit, she clasps a pillow in her arms and tests if she can pretend it has piercings. Most of the time she feels ashamed of the fractured way she is now.)

"There are some people who think our original fates are immutable, of course, but--" She flashes a sparkly smile. "That's physically impossible, Haruka, isn't it."

Her hand combs through her hair, breathing steady, but the smile—the way Kanaya's been showing teeth, the emotion behind her face, the color of that smile—leave her uneasy.

The question isn't spoken like one, but it's loaded all the same. She feels like she's walking into a trap. "Because we're here in the first place," she offers in return, watching Kanaya's face, "or something else?"

"Mostly---" She falters. Thinking about her status makes it so damn hard to smile. She's got to play her cards close to the chest. She hid the truth from Karkat for... fewer months than she thought she did but more than she would have expected; this should be easy.

"Mostly our location. I personally couldn't bear it if I went through with my ordained destiny, but you don't want to hear about something which is just that ille est personal.

"But we are here in the first place growing older and interacting across various timeline differentials so the notion that we wouldn't remember and act differently if we ever went back is really just kind of stupid."

"Mmm..."

The simplest solution is, of course, one of the most depressing, and definitely not suited to a first conversation, fatalistic as it is. "You are right. The aging, I mean, that's the tricky part. At least, that's how it seems to me. But, I don't really understand this sort of thing at all; it seems impossible from the start."

"All of it does, doesn't it?" Ahahaha. She doesn't laugh though. Nope.

"You get used to the cognitive dissonance. It's the only way possible to survive in the end." Her eyes narrow thoughtfully as she gets a thought into her fussy think pan.

"Speaking of possibilities, can you walk now."

"Hm?" The change of topic takes her a little by surprise, but not too much; she adjusts the bag on her shoulder, shifts her feet for better balance on the wet ground, and leverages herself to standing in a smooth motion. Naturally, Ruka isn't very tall, just a few inches over five foot, but the tall heels of her boots help; it's one of the many fashion choices she's made to make her appear closer to the age she presents herself. The coat settles, flaring out from her hips; aside from the dark leggings and the scarf around her neck, the coat masks completely whatever she's wearing beneath it. Though fitted, it makes the specifics of her body shape hard to determine; even the dark leggings help obscure details.

In the way that others might use loose sweaters and baggy pants, the picture is deliberate obfuscation—here, through aesthetic appeal.

Ruka twists her hands through her hair, wringing out the worst of the damp. "Yes, I should be alright now."

Kanaya likewise repositions herself to a stance that will facilitate walking alongside, to lead Haruka to the apartment complex. There's almost a suggestion of putting her hand on her shoulder but that doesn't even get to the half-of-a-gesture stage. She merely weighs pragmatism with intimacy and chooses to ignore the former. Not to mention Haruka has defended her health at this point anyway.

"Good. The complex is this way."

She envies the act of draining out her hair. It's hard to do that with Kanaya's own style, and she prefers to avoid it by using her insane speed attribute to go around in the rain, but that obviously wouldn't suit Haruka.

A moment to collect the weapon—a bow and associated articles, all obviously unsuited to someone with limited arm strength and only one eye—and she offers Kanaya another halfhearted smile. "Thanks. I appreciate the company."

Though as they walked, her thoughts mulled over the possibilities of this, once again, being a simple trap. She was new, and had already claimed physical weakness. Regardless of any prior circumstances, Ruka would find herself completely unsurprised if this walk wound up leading to some more secluded destination and attempts were made at robbery or murder.

Aggravating, yes; disappointing, sure, as Ruka liked it when people who were kind on their surface were genuinely so; but on the whole, expected. It was folly to anticipate good circumstances without a solid foundation.

Kanaya has, of course, no idea that her ambulatory companion is so suspicious of her. She might have this paranoia herself about an older human who wasn't a Transport (though she'd be worried as much about robbery as rape, herself); but she's myopic, knowing she's a benevolent troll. As they walk, she points out shops that they pass by; the nature of these nondescript buildings is difficult for a newcomer to determine (something she probably admits at one point to having had trouble with herself).

The blocks it takes to reach the apartment complex are actually less daunting than the stairs will be. When they get inside, Kanaya thinks, she should warn Haruka about the stairs.

Ruka doesn't know how long she'll be stranded here, so she's very attentive. She memorizes the faces of buildings and the information Kanaya gives her, as well as the look of the streets, the sounds of this miserable city under the rainfall. With the names of shops Ruka begins compiling the list of things she will need (clothing; a new set of knives; food; painkillers; stimulants, sedatives, preferably in their respective beverage forms; toiletries. The list was not necessarily in this order, but it was very close.) As they walk together, Ruka does not contribute much to the conversation besides her attention; she rarely interjects, aside for clarifications.

In all, it's a shorter journey than she anticipates, and they arrive only wetter for wear.

When they reach the double doors, Kanaya thinks about how best to help her companion through and then her eyes land somewhere they never have before: That strange button which makes doors open automatically. (Why is there a picture of a wheelchair on it? Humans who are crippled don't live long enough to get those or else are coddled beyond being able to reach even that level of handicapability, aren't they?) She presses it, as if being told to pet someone's lusus of unknown temperament, and the doors open automatically.

"This is the apartment complex," she says with her head turned to Haruka and two arms lifted towards the open doors: You go first.

If Ruka knew about Kanaya's momentary dilemma with the doors, she would wonder if she was, perhaps, playing up her weakness too far; she could, after all, open doors by herself. But she doesn't, so she doesn't, instead crossing the threshold with only a bowed head for gratitude.

Once inside, she sidesteps the entrance, both to give Kanaya room to enter, and so Ruka could keep her back to the wall as she took in the layout of this first floor.

It was no Tops, that was for damn sure.

Kanaya stops once she's inside, and though she sees the disappointment on her companion's face, she interprets it as more depression about her situation, her kidnapping, the concept of living here, than the accommodations themselves. If Haruka did express disappointment with the quality actively Kanaya would be surprised; it's nothing as generous as highbloods had on Alternia, sure, and not even as personal as her own wigglerhood Space hero hive; but when she said better than average for this planet, in her experience, she was accurately describing Earth in general.

She really needs to find out more about how nice human high society can be some time. But she doesn't know. What she knows is the complex, with its twenty-eight flights of stairs.

"So to finish your journey you will need to know your room number. The last two digits are arbitrary; the ones before that are the important ones. They determine your floor." She is the messenger, to her lament, of bad news: "Unless you're on Floor One you'll have to take the stairs."

"That's fine, I'm used to that." The reply comes easy, the polite smile of reassurance once again pulling into her cheeks. "Elevators tended to be more trouble than they were worth, and it was easier to trust myself than something that couldn't be predicted." The specifics of it were complicated, and a little more exciting than the presentation of 'Harkua's life' was meant to be.

A half-shrug, for her purse to drop from her shoulder to her elbow, and Ruka's already digging beneath an unusual assortment of items (sure, that knife was gone too and would need replacing, but Ruka did not know many people who carried this much of a first aid kit just in a shoulder bag; passport, spare eye patches, and so on) to find the apartment key. "I didn't examine it too closely, are the numbers on the keys themselves?"

The passport was probably the glimpse that made Kanaya's overly bright eyes bug out the most; she had never seen an object like that and could not intuit its purpose. She dismisses the question once Haruka takes out the key and explains she hasn't examined it.

"Yeah. ...They're just a little hard to read." She takes hold of the key between two fingers (glowing like her entire body, black nail polish) on the opposite end of Haruka's grasp on it and raises it up into the light (much of which is cast by the rainbow drinker herself). "I think it's assumed they're only to be read once." In this lighting the embossed numbers are exposed with better contrast: 410.

She has to squint a little to determine if that's meant to be a four or a nine; she is simultaneously relieved and disappointed. "Fourth floor, then, unless there's a room zero somewhere." The building did not seem tall enough for forty-one floors when she saw it from the outside. "At least the trip up will be short."

But even for the long years away from a situation like that, Ruka intensely misses the view and some of the solitude that comes with living on the top floor of a tall building. But then, it was hard to tell the structural integrity of any of the buildings in this world.

"Yes, that's definitely meant to be parsed as a four and ten. Which means only three flights of stairs." She lets the key go and then is in the stairwell, holding onto the railing and keeping the door open with her foot. The period during which the other girl might see her walking over there and opening the door is astoundingly brief. Kanaya realizes too late that she's dipped into her insane fastness attribute again, and flashes her companion an uneasy apologetic grin. This is the most annoying thing about being around other people: They have to pace themselves. It takes forever. It's the only thing for which she has to wait anymore. Though of course it pales in comparison to waiting for death.

The speed of departure takes her by surprise; while Ruka knows intimately just how fast Gamzee can move, she hadn't realized the same was true for Kanaya. Or was it? Who knew. It means, at least, that her look of surprise is genuine, even if not the way Kanaya will likely understand it. (If Haruka is a normal human, after all, she wouldn't know the first thing about troll physiology or even supernatural abilities.)

She makes her way to the stairwell at brisk pace. Once more, she considers the possibility of a trap, but, well, what an she do about that? She's far enough in already. Though, she supposes, if Kanaya does try something, Ruka knows now to anticipate the speed and react accordingly.

She lets the door close behind them and leads the way upwards now, a little briskly. She's slightly surprised at Haruka keeping pace on the stairs. The disabled didn't survive long on Alternia unless they had paternalistic friends, and she'd been under the impression they rarely had much luck on Earth either. She doesn't know what to expect from her - she'd almost interpolate in the stereotype of the physically frail psionic rustblood, but Haruka doesn't dress like even the human equivalent of one.

After allowing for half a floor of silence, "I've been told I really need to stop doing that" comes out of her mouth.

Her own thoughts had turned elsewhere—postulating the possibilities for roommates, what would and would not be acceptable to her, and so forth—so when Kanaya speaks up once more, the words jolt Ruka back to reality, and a confused one at that.

"Stop doing what?" she asks, uncertain where the topic has gone without her.

"Moving around so fast, I mean." She continues to walk, not really looking back, but her speech is clear enough that it should carry well regardless. "I've been told it makes people uncomfortable." And... she wasn't ever sure what to do about that. Whether she was in an alien context or not, she was still a rainbow drinker no matter what. To an extent if her behavior weren't what were viewed by some as "creepy", it wouldn't be the romanticized adventure of prosecution and being misunderstood of which she'd dreamed. And it was that. Sort of.

Oh. That. "I can't say I was expecting it." True enough; she wasn't expecting it from Kanaya. The chain that followed, however, was almost completely a string of lies: "There's only mundane humans where I'm from, at least, as far as I'm aware. I suppose that I've been judging the capabilities of everyone around me, based on what I'm used to, but I see now that it's a mistake on my part."

Flippant, and quick-adapting. It's as good enough impression to make as any, she hopes.

"I would think it's not the ability itself, but rather, how it might be used against someone not capable of it, that would make a person uneasy. At least, I assume so. Otherwise..." What floor is this, two or three? "... that'd be like fear at the flight of the birds."

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CW: excessive, entirely imagined building detail

oh nooooooo i can't handle all this building

BUILDING UP AROUND YOU

WHY DO YOU BUILD ME UP (BUILD ME UP) BUTTERCUP BABY JUST TO LET ME DOWN AND MESS ME AROUND

I'm Ms. Sugar Lips, liquor liquor lick //cw: imagined key detail// I'M GONNA BE YOUR BUBBLEGUM BITCH

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