station72 | [hatch log / mission: hyrypia] the winds that will be howling at all hours

Entry tags:

[hatch log / mission: hyrypia] the winds that will be howling at all hours

CHARACTERS: New Hosts & EVERYONE
WHERE: Station 72; Hyrypia - Naerstone House
WHEN: DAY :002 - :003
SUMMARY: New hosts hatch on the Station, are briefed, then make their way to Hyrypia to join the rest of the hosts… while they attend a very important history lesson.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. Need a warning added? PM this account please!

STATION 72
DAY :002

NEW HATCHES
YOU WAKE UP are are suddenly changed. --No. That's not right. You're you and there's no suddenly about it. It's been a while, hasn't it? It feels like waking up from a very deep, extended sleep or surfacing up from the darkness of some wine dark sea. Nothing is different and everything is because right there in your own head there's something both familiar and strange. You know intuitively that you've been unconscious for more than just a blink of the eye.

But here you are, a small miracle of the multiverse: lying in a small, faintly hexagonal chamber with a gentle white light emanating from the surrounding walls. If you were injured during your escape, those injuries have been healed. If you were anxious or frightened or distraught, those feelings have been calmed. There's something peaceful about waking up here - like you belong. That feeling persists even as you find the tube running from the base of your neck to the compartment's rear wall.

But once the tube's disconnected? Things get loud. A wave of emotion fills that peaceful void - fear, uncertainty, relief, a sense of purpose or loneliness or anxiety. A matching dread. An easy comfort. Maybe some of these emotions are yours, but they can't all be. After the initial sensory overload, the mental buzz elongates: stretches out into a murmur like the sound of a party happening behind a nearby closed door.

You can sit up - barely -, and shift out of the pod. There’s a ladder at your feet and a little cubby just before it with anything you brought with you as well as a set of crisp, loose-fitting white clothes; while your injuries are healed, whatever you’re wearing is in the exact state it was before. Maybe it's time for a change? Drop down the ladder to the floor of the Nesting Deck and you’ll find you’re not alone.In fact there are lots of you and none of them are the strangers they should be. Some even seems like people you've known for a very long time.They are as familiar as this place you've never been is.

Welcome to Station 72. Beyond this room it's quiet and still, feeling for all the world like a hollow shell.

--Or it does until a voice separates itself from the white noise in your head:

BRIEFING
THE VOICE IN YOUR HEAD isn't really a voice at all. It's the warm tang of camaraderie, tinged with a flash of impatience like ticking hands on a clock face and a flicker of wonder: a falling star. It says:

( My, you're all very fresh aren't you? Unfortunately, the multiverse waits for no spring chicken. Once you've figured out which way's up, won't you all join us? )
Join 'us' where is the question. And yet, once you're ready to meet the owner of the voice in your mind, your footsteps simply lead you there naturally. Two strangers sit in a small circular briefing room - a tall being covered in short brown fur with a rigid demeanor, and a pale alien with yellow washed frills at her jaw and throat who is smiling cheerfully.

"Hey there, sunshine," says Rhan, her frills humming as she speaks. "Why don't you take a seat so we can get started?"

[ooc note: please see here for the catch-all briefing thread]

THE STATION
WITH A LITTLE UNDER 24 HOURS before it's time to make the trip to Hyrypia, this is as good an opportunity as you're going to get to familiarize yourself with Station 72 before you leave it. There's plenty to see, but a distinct lack of people to make conversation with. It's lonely and quiet and there's a sensation of dust gathering even where there is none. Maybe studying the briefing files on your databank and going over your mission kit is the most proactive distraction, but if not? Well there's plenty of places to get lost...

HYRYPIA - NAERSTONE HOUSE
DAY :003

MEETING
A SINGLE SHIP LANDS in a field the color of burnished gold, returning to the place it had until late the night before occupied. It's carefully inserted beside dozens of other spacecraft bearing more than faint similarities, though each has its own unique aesthetic. When the gangplank drops, the loud engines powering down, it reveals--

New hosts. Seven fresh faces - obscured as they are in layers of intricate fabric - are led down the gangplank by Rhan There to greet them is a number of other hosts - any who answered to the sweet crystalline ring of Collector’s voice in their heads hardly a half hour earlier, speaking with certainty born of truth:

( Rhan and Siva’co are returning. Shall we see what stories they have to tell? )

Despite the solidarity that both combined groups provide, there's a feeling of eyes here. A number of guards along the edge of the shuttle field are watching the reunion like hawks. Better perhaps to return to the apartments where they'll be able to speak in private and teach the new hosts what it is that has been learned since their arrival. --Or explore, for those who prefer not to rest. Naerstone House's grounds are vast and they are almost entirely open to the parties of the pilgrims to explore.

THE PERFORMANCE
AS THE SINGLE RED SUN of Hyrypia dips low on the horizon there is a long, low, mournful sound. A deep bell-- or a horn? Or maybe it's something else entirely, but the call is heard and answered as any nearby servants inform the guests of the house:

“There will be a performance of the First Journey in a quarter turn. All guests are invited to attend.”

There's no mystery as to where the event is occurring. A steady trail of guests and servants lead out past the Veranda into the central garden where a number of pillars have been mounted and a large tiered platform festooned with with numerous draped curtains and abstract representations of trees and mountains - a great stage - now sits. The stage is surrounded by numerous low settees and tables, piles of thick cushions and richly colored rugs around which guests can be found clustered, lounging while sipping thick, syrupy drinks.

Each table is illuminated only by a single glowing orb at its center. Otherwise, as the sun sets it pitches the garden into darkness as even the castle itself has been left unlit. There are no lights in distant windows or on Naerstone House's high walls; these small orbs and the glitter of stars in the black sky might very well be the only points of light in the whole universe.

The allotted time passes and the performance begins. A sun rises over the stage. It's a much larger, more intricate glowing orb and reveals a number of players dressed far more simply than the Hyrypians the hosts have met. They wear complex machine masks upon their faces that shutter into different expressions as their hands flitter across their faces: dramatic caricatures to accompany the droning sound of their singing voices as they unfold the tale at the center of the performance - the one which drives this pilgrimage and for the Nest's very presence in the universe at all. It's the story of lost Rabadoceans coming to a planet near barren intent on brutalizing them - about loss and hardship until finally a single player separates from the rest. The orb of the sun over the stage turns, it's mechanical face shifting and resetting to indicate the passage of time as the very central platform of the stage begins to turn so that this lone player might walk. And walk. And walk through deserts and scrub land, through dark woods and dark caves, against the wind and with it. Through it all, the orb over the stage slowly lowers until at last this lone player can take it in their hands.

It cracks like an egg and brilliance streams from it. Braziers catch fire in the darkness. The garden illuminates itself. Every light in Naerstone House comes to life.

With that, the silence of the crowd breaks. There is applause -- each culture in its own unique fashion -- and then there is a rise of chattering conversation as the guests are served several small dishes and talk about the show they’ve just seen - and whatever possible clues it might give to the pilgrimage they themselves would soon be undertaking.

((OOC Notes: This is the hatch log for all new hosts as well as the evening's performance. Feel free to make your own logs and posts additional to this if you care to. You can find a more detailed overview of the host hatching process HERE and additional setting information about the Station HERE. Please be sure to review the MISSION: HYRYPIA ooc information. If you have any questions, please hit up either the mission's question thread, the FAQ or MOD CONTACT pages!))

NAVIGATION • SETTING • FAQ • MOD CONTACT • GLOSSARY

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ eighteen. too young to be here, too old to communicate that truth without her arguing otherwise. that age was a no-fly zone, prohibiting arguments from both sides. she's not like asuka, who was thirteen, and piloting death machines on behalf of humanity. he had an inalienable right to emphasize her childishness, over and over again, to her sustained objections. not so much here. kaji seems to understand this, leaving her unspoken dare untouched. he pops a single potato chip in his mouth.

he hums into his chewing when she speaks next, seemingly confused by the question, before he looks down at his shirt in a much remiss move. ]

Ah, no. [ though it's a question that begs qualification. hurt in which way? ] Physically, I'm alright. I'll have to pay my respects to their medical staff. Mentally — I can't say I'm so sure. I can hear your thoughts, and insane people never admit to being insane.

[ well, it wouldn't surprise him, and it wouldn't be entirely out of the question, either. he proffers his free hand. ]

Kaji. I never did get your name.

( an automatic response — )

I'm Clarke.

( — given whilst she's momentarily distracted by again feeling she knew that. knew his name before he introduce himself, like it'd just momentarily escaped her memory, but now just seemed to fit. it's mat and it's rust all over again, and call it intuition or the tug of the symbiote along her spinal cord, but clarke would hazard to guess he was instinctually drawn to them too. so this is what it felt like to have broodmates.

absently, almost a mimicry of his casual snacking, she's reaching out to prod a pawn forward two squares. if they're going to sit here, they might as well pretend to be doing something other than evaluating each other. )

And don't worry. If that's the criteria for insanity, you're not the only one losing your mind here.

[ an automatic recognition. kaji treads further from the drawstring bridge, but not without difficulty. it is like resisting the pull between two magnets, his efforts to will the unfamiliarity back into the name. she is a stranger. her name should reflect that reality. ]

Clarke.

[ clarke. of course. it's familiar, visceral, an unlearned thing, everything kaji doesn’t want it to be. really, her name was another example in a sea of almost-but-not-quite's. a legacy of the symbiote. a legacy of the symbiote's efforts to ensconce him within his brood, make cohorts out of strangers, until the entire nest assumes the shape of family in his mind. blood is thicker than water, but the symbiote runs deeper than blood.

'a series of standards afterward as a mean to reduce an individual's potential harm to other hosts and the nest.' that's what she had said. kaji's voice is replete with a quiet, conspiratorial seriousness when he speaks next, a marked departure from the genial teasing from barely two minutes before. to her move, he moves. to her pawn, his own pawn. to her two, his two. game set. ]

Have you spoken to Cathaway?

( game, set, match — the conversational tone shifts, and clarke catches on almost immediately. she huddles against the edge of the table, playing intent upon the chess pieces when barely a sliver of her attention is directed towards the board anymore. they're gossiping quietly in a new world where there's seemingly no such things as secrets, and she keeps her voice low as if that will somehow serve to keep this interaction just between them. )

No.

( the furthest pawn to her right marks the next play, sliding forward another two squares. the air of competition is nonexistent, and clarke's sifting through limited knowledge to place the name (cathaway, cathy — another host, an old one; who hadn't made an appearance at the briefing), and already trying to figure out where this is going. )

Why? Did you learn anything new?

[ speaking into the darkness with hushed voices, as thought their existence is something that needs to be kept secret, it's the only way he knows how to transmit information. it feels less wrong than advertising his apprehensions through the link, which feels like turning his eyeballs in upon themselves, inverting them or rolling them around until he can look into his own optical nerve and then into his own mind. this is a role he's been playing for seven, eight years, even though the symbiote threatens to render it irrelevant. he shakes his head, expression softening at the question. ]

No, I wouldn't put it quite like that. [ it's more of a corroboration, vague theories now ratified. he keeps their pretense well - placing his bishop in the square his pawn previously occupied. in the interim, his hand rests idly on the queen piece, fingernails scraping against the crown. ] The thing they've put our heads, it's alive. It's an organism, and the only thing it wants to do is survive. Even if that means adjusting our goals to align closer with its goals. And its goals, they happen align with the goals of this place, and the people that run it.

[ some part of him realizes the implications of this will find them troublesome for entirely different reasons. this girl, this girl looks like a survivor. he's been around enough of them to feel it in his blood. but he, he will always be a coward. ]

Maybe going back home is an impossibility, as they say. But - maybe we won't want to, in six months, or a year. [ his voice is devoid of any uncertainty over the matter. ] That's my worry. And I think us relying too much on the alien in our heads, will accelerate that process.

( the way he describes the symbiote, pieces together the strands of information offered and drives home the terrible reality that they're stuck here, strikes a hollow chord in her chest. this is familiar, although she'd escaped the hivemind of the artificial intelligence back home. alie had been silicon and nerve endings; a computer program that made herself a god and used people with little disregard for their lives, so long as their deaths benefited her overall scheme. it's a sick twist of fate, to pluck her from her own world just as they'd been closing in, scrambling to beat alie, and then dump her right back at square one in the same game. it's like moving a chess piece into check, then upending the whole board and having to play against a new opponent. clarke isn't paying a whole lot of attention to their match anymore, there's no strategy in the way her knight jumps a pawn and lands to the left. just a lengthy beat of self pity, frustration.

another to crowd it all in. she'd been born over emotional and angry into this place, and that had gotten her nowhere. still — )

I can't afford to think like that. ( she cannot process the idea of never being able to return home; can't picture life on this space ship, running errands, completing missions, and playing the dutiful pawns to their so called saviors. there's a raw vulnerability in the way her face screws up, as if she'd like to cry, but can't afford that either. a tentative strand of trust, too; trust that kaji hasn't outright earned, and yet... is entitled to, being an extension of herself and all. )

There are people depending on me back home, and I'm not going to let some piece of technology, or some parasite in my brain make me forget about them. There has to be a way to fight it.

( and it doesn't take their neurological connection for the implication to land: if there is a way, clarke's going to try her hardest to find it. )

[ the dogged resolution feels unbecoming for a girl her age. when kaji was eighteen, he was watching the world go by from under the covers of a bed he shared with another disenchanted refugee of second impact, barely responsive, barely subsisting, barely even a stock character in his own life. he doesn't know how much these people depended on clarke, but if it's anything resembling the way his world depended on a handful of fourteen year olds, he might as well seek for the airlock and give himself over to vacuum of space. even as he speaks of the symbiote in harsh terms, kaji can feel her vulnerability, could almost drown in it with how it crashes over him like a great wave. ]

Maybe. [ or maybe not. maybe the symbiote eked out a living by eating at their brain tissue like a fulminant amoeba, or perhaps it replaced them entirely with its own neural pathways, slowly but surely undermining their individuality. kaji can think of at least a dozen different scenarios where resistance was futile at its best, counterintuitive at its worst. ] I can't stop the others from speaking into my mind. But between you and I, we should agree to communicate like this, just as we're doing now. Whenever we can help it.

[ unused muscles - even mental ones - tend to atrophy, right? he's taking for granted that the symbiote works much the same way, but kaji doesn't have much in way of solutions, barring surgical removal, which doesn't seem viable on this ship. he has yet to make such a deal with mat or rust. the truth is, the landscape of clarke's mind felt so unlike his. her indomitability against his will's blemishes and sores. her survival instinct against his death wish. this is for her sake, too.

he's all but forgotten about their chess game, now. ]

Make me a promise.

( clarke doesn't exactly make a face at his request. there's the brief tease of a grimace around her mouth, and she's dropping her eyes to the back of her own hands. )

It's a bit early to be making promises.

( and feels a bit unfair to ask her to. especially on the eve of being dropped into what was shaping up to be a war zone — the culmination of a conflict against a faceless enemy was going to get dangerous, and there were no room for undertakings of this magnitude, not when they were sure to be broken. he should know this, she reasons; a shot in the dark with pointed accuracy. in situations like these, things never turned out how one would expect. there's plenty of blood on her hands from people she'd made promises to.

(one liar deserves another.)

it takes actual effort to drag her face up to look kaji in the eyes again, but clarke finds it in her to offer a small smile; forced, and not quite reaching her eyes. and she nods stiffly. )

But I'll try to stay out of your head, okay? ( this is how you compromise, right? no, this is how you skirt responsibility for your future actions, because there is the undeniable undertone that anything she says here and now will be thrown out the window if their situation changes, if danger presents itself, and if clarke deems it necessary. )

[ it is much too early for promises. it is an unfair request of her, to bridle something that had no shape or form, that seemed to their senses so automatic and out of their control. they've hardly known each other for eight hours, hardly spoken with each other for twenty minutes, but the symbiote throws a wrench into what would be his normal sense of propriety. sometimes procedure needed to be sacrificed for necessity. she should know how that goes.

kaji's brow crease in a heavy line between his eyes as he stares at her, sweeping for any indication of hesitancy or prevarication like a machine scanner. he's conducted profitable enterprise in the business of lying. it was was something he did effortlessly. and he doesn't like that smile. he doesn't like the impressions that slither across the link: uncertainty, mute reluctance, open flexibility of the kind most people would find sensible or admirable. it betrays her experience in making these sorts of deals, or rather, making then breaking these sorts of deals whenever circumstances forced her hand. after a long moment he leans back against his chair, sighing a hard, long-suffering sigh.

a small smile threatens the corners of his lips. an exhausted one, that betrays his experience in working with people who tended to make then break deals whenever circumstances force their hand. ]

You're not very good at that.

( not very good at promises or lying? both, probably, given her history. once upon a time clarke may have wrapped herself in a blanket of high and unwavering morals, but times changed. people changed, and blankets were ripped to shreds. she's a few threads left, enough to mean she would genuinely try to respect his wishes and keep her thoughts to herself. but they're sitting on the cusp of a diplomatic war zone with high stakes, and surviving it meant adapting.

she knows what he's calling her out on. misses the tease of a tired smile, but feels it all the same. there's little use deflecting, even when they're actively trying to distance themselves, it's like their pulses match up, their moods match. there's no need to agree aloud about something they both already know. clarke glances at the unfinished game between them, shrugs her shoulders at the pawns and queens and knights. )

What, chess? I told you, it's been a while.

That too, [ they're both on the same page, are they? and it's thanks to the symbiote that she understands exactly his trepidations about the symbiote. it was so absurd, so exceedingly self-defeating, that he almost wants to laugh. kaji's attention returns the board, evaluating their pathetic excuse for a game, which might as well be a metaphor for their pathetic excuse of an agreement. it wouldn't be the first time. ] but the most important skill for a political spy is knowing how to sell a lie. Which means your smile -

[ he taps the area under his eye, darkened from sleep deprivation and worse. ]

- has to reach your eyes.

( clarke's mouth forms the thin line of obvious disagreement — an honest expression, but devoid of any semblance of a smile almost to be petty. this mission, heated political tension and subterfuge? this wouldn't be her first time. and while her methods may not have been... solid, or particularly peaceful in the past, that didn't mean she doesn't know what she's doing.

...generally.

with a swell of confidence and a deep breath to rebuff: )

Then I just won't smile.

[ as far as he's concerned, if kaji were to choose one flaw to be burdened to the exclusion of all else, a failure to sell an insincere smile sounds to him fairly tolerable. most people couldn't lie, consistently and candidly, without it manifesting somewhere on their body. most people had integrity. most people were decent, honest people. most people couldn't wire their minds to the point of near-dissociation, or order their bodies to override its physiological tells. most people couldn't, whether for lack of wanting or lack of ability, turn themselves into a living, walking fraud. sometimes these people were the subject of his envy, when they weren't falling for his window dressings. now, with the symbiote, they just downright terrify him.

clarke's response is terrifying in it's own way, considering her age - and that frown emphasizes every one of her eighteen years. kaji soothes, his face radiating the polar opposite of remorse. ]

That's one solution. It doesn't need to sound so drastic, though. [ a hand dives back into his potato chip bag. ] Don't sound so offended. There's a certain kind of person who can tell a perfect lie, and they're not fun to be around.

Can you? ( tell a perfect lie. a flit of suspicion, a are you one of those people? there's a confidence that underlines their connection, but it isn't one born of long years proving loyalty to one another. it's a synthetic sort of trust, one she'd been leaning into a little too readily. extricating her instincts from reality, and trying to relate to kaji like a stranger is difficult. clarke has to physically lean back in her seat to gain some distance.

despite the loose promise to keep her mind to herself, there's the swell of pressure in the air between them — the sense of questions, and opinions ready to be solidified based on his answers. )

No.

[ that's not a question, clarke. that's a challenge. that's a call for demonstration, a show me, a prove it, a clear neglect of the liar's paradox. and perhaps it's because her mind dwells right alongside his, nearly-but-not-quite overlapping at the perimeters, like a neighbor, like a younger sibling, that he decides to show her how he tells a perfect lie. even if he has to cross the drawstring bridge to do it.

through the link he gives her an instrument, a pair of binoculars - no, a spectroscope - to see what to the naked eye looks, acts, and talks like one man. this man is actually made up of two, composite images overlaid on top of one another too neatly to tease apart. with barely a flinch he separates them like how one splits apart chopsticks, unthinking, offhanded and automatic, one image honest and reliable, one image crooked and traitorous. when he overlays them again, the lie is placed on top of the truth where it so often goes, completely shrouding it from view. total and complete dissociation, of body and mind, like watching yourself die.

the commander had hit gold, using him to end the human race. kaji breaks his own promise, here - ]

( See? )

( the detachment catches. clarke watches and feels — learns. it's easy to lose herself in it, a little harder to tell if he's painting a picture of himself, of her, or of a stranger neither of them really knew but could relate to. it's a more efficient disguise than the ones they've been given for their mission below; the drapes of this facade don't shift in the wind, cannot be stripped. they're hooked all the way down into bone marrow.

by the end, her decision is clear. )

( So you're a sociopath. )

( though underneath the judgement, there's understanding. she's not uneducated in the methods of divorcing from who you really are, or in losing pieces of that original person in the process. who we are and who we need to be — )

[ he had no shortage of choice words he reserved against himself. the list was long, and not particularly gentle. wretched, cowardly, weak, these words were sufficiently punitive while still allowing him the illusion of choice. his fronts were meticulously kept, after all, constantly refurbished of its cracks or unruly corners. he was constantly repainting his fences, reglueing loose parts, trimming the bush. but he'd never once considered the word sociopath, neither had anyone ever accused him as much with so little words. he could feel the entirety of it concentrated on his own self. that word gestured at something that didn't concern itself with choice, something intrinsic, something congenital. illness. still there's a palpable relief that roils through him when she says it, as though he were waiting his entire life for this moment, after having spent years looking for it in the wrong places. ]

( I wonder. The insane never admit to insanity. )

[ a callback to the beginning. kaji extracts himself clasp by iron clasp, the image he's painted toppling over itself. each time he dives in it becomes harder to pull away. the silence belies many things before he exhales long and slow. ]

You don't pull any punches, do you?

( there's a flicker of doubt, a waver in the confidence of her conclusion. would a sociopath care enough to try defining himself, or wrap himself up in a warm blanket of reassurance at being labeled as such? that didn't quite fit, maybe she was wrong. but the masterful way he picked apart the anatomy of a liar equally terrified and fascinated her.

clarke would like to think she'd learned enough to know when to distance herself from dangerous individuals. but she's not shifting in her seat, not trying to disentangle herself from their conversation and flee just yet. there's the press, the question in the tight line of her lips — ) ( To them, it's not insanity at all. So what are you then? ) ( — that's all but whispered as he tries to withdraw from their connection.

but maybe she doesn't really want to know right now. and they'd flimsily agreed to stay out of each others heads. so returning to playing at being two separate people again, clarke leans to settle her elbows on the tabletop again. reaches across to his side of the board to move the pawn in front of his castle forward one square, then back to her own side to push forward a bishop past her exterior defenses. she'll continue playing the game for both of them, unless kaji interjects. )

Not really. ( a brief glance at his face. and a peek into what passes for humor for her people now a days: ) If I'm not a good liar, I can at least be direct.

Sticks and stones.

[ direct like a laser point centered square on the forehead. direct like a needle jabbed deep into ungrateful thigh muscle. direct like reaching across and moving his pawn for him, which goes far in distracting kaji from the bone she left for him to chew. what - not who - are you. she already knew who he was, their being broodmates had made that much straightforward. but with close encounters with extraterrestrials, the desire to classify, to categorize took all precedence. the katsuragi expedition had understood they'd come across an angel - the only question left for them to consider, maybe, was friend or foe?

he'll let her play the game for the both of them - for know. something tells him she tended to bring the stick, the stone, and the word. ]

You know, you remind me of someone.

( the game they'd set up as a precedent moves quicker now, one person making decisions for both sides with no real desire to win. the white pawn takes the black knight, the black queen slaughters the white castle. it's quick and efficient, an easy way to distract from the desire to push deeper into his conscious and root out the answers for herself. that would be rude and intrusive, and might beg the same treatment — and clarke isn't ready to reveal every terrible thing she's done yet. not again, so soon after unintentionally falling into the feedback loops of faces and blood with their other broodmates a few hours ago.

warily, guardedly curious with her arm outstretched to have his bishop take one of her pawns, she asks: ) Who?

[ who? she had a name, and a story, sure, given by a language inadequate to the task of describing her adequately. he was inadequate to the task of describing her, knowing her, loving her. a survivor in the truest sense of the word. someone who adapted at rate evolution could not possibly do justice to, and justice could never be done to the things that had happened to her. someone strong. someone weak. someone so far away, an ocean away. he can't help the swell of feeling at the memory; can't even realize he's having it.

it didn't matter anymore. he won't ever be seeing her again.

kaji plucks his queen piece from his side of the board, squeezes it between the folds of his fingers, and hands it to her. checkmate. ]

Someone like you.

[ and with that he makes his adieu, steeling his hands against his trousers and rising to a stand. in parting he offers the barest smile, one that communicated good chat and nothing much else, before he turns his heel and walks out. ]

( that's the sort of answer that isn't an answer at all; that leaves clarke first staring at the queen piece in her hand, then curling her fingers tightly around the ridges whilst turning bodily in her seat to stare at his retreating back. kaji can likely feel the accusatory holes her eyes burn in the back of his skull, the wisp of conscious that isn't ready to let this conversation go. but clarke doesn't rise to chase him.

doesn't break their weak oath to dig a proper answer out of his grey matter.

she spends far too much time thinking about their conversation, about what they'd learned about each other and chosen to take away from it. he was maybe but probably not a sociopath, and she was somehow familiar in her directness. there's the precipice of thought to be teetered on, wondering if maybe he reminded her of someone too. but likewise, the idea is an open wound.

clarke loses her interest in playing the one sided chess game. packs up the pieces in his wake, and for once, leaves less of a mess than she'd stumbled upon. )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[hatch log / mission: hyrypia] the winds that will be howling at all hours

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