[ OPEN ] Hot Springs Episode!

[shri]

CHARACTERS: EVERYONE
WHERE: The Second Flight
WHEN: DAY :022
SUMMARY: The Sauna!
WARNINGS: Nekkid times.

[ A few hours after the murder, she hasn't blown the ship up, and here they are. Another knock knock on everyone's brain: ]

( For those of you that are interested - I have secured us a place at the Sauna. Free for us to be use without interruption from outsiders.

You are to be clean before you come in. )

[ Maybe you're here because she bullied you, maybe you want to soak - maybe you're the poor bastard that is standing guard at the door. Either way, welcome to the Suana, have fun. Or don't. ]

Comments

[wille]

[ The first thought that occurs to her: wisdom and comfort are unlikely bedfellows. And then: if it were feelings the girl is so worried about then she really has little to complain about. ]

If I were you, I'd count myself lucky. [ Because she assumes Kaji to be as meticulous roommate in the flesh as in the mind, surely. And Rust responsible even if irascible, seething. Mat is easily leashed. She knits her eyebrows in consternation as she questions her own judgment, telling herself that all this is just a case of the grass being greener on the other side. Maybe so. But Clarke's head isn't left with warmongers, including herself, and one acid head.

She is quiet for a long moment, gaze on the rippling surface, watching the uncanny smoothness of her skin under the water. ]

It's like an ache. It's always there, but sometimes if you try hard enough, if you focus on a single point in the future, a goal, you can make yourself forget it's there.

[skaikru]

( clarke is readily wary of misato, has been since their last encounter. pair those unwelcome digs with the thinly veiled warning of the other woman's capacity for duplicity from asuka, it's easy to paint the two of them in black and white — stark contrasting personalities that would never agree on anything, let alone have a somewhat civil conversation. that preconception leaves clarke feeling rather surprised when the words of wisdom on misato's lips so closely match the personal mantra she's come to so readily employ.

sweep the right to mourn for the dead under the rug, bury desires to wallow in self-pity, foist the responsibility for others on her shoulders — bear it so they don't have to. focus on getting through the next day, the next week, and who even knew about the next year. and all the old hurts scar over just in time for new ones. )

Survive this first, existential crisis later?

( it would be funny, sounds funny on her lips, if only the truth of it wasn't so sad. )

[wille]

[ Misato has thought this through many times over, has looked deep into herself to figure out the workings of her mind and find the reasons for her thoughts and actions. See, she finds that it was never Clarke that she disdains, and not the traits and attributes that form Clarke -- that is, all these things that form something that could be mistaken for herself. It isn't as simple as a case of projected self-hatred, no, her anger comes from the frustration of trying to draw patterns that aren't there. The girl is her own person, the similarities stop there. ]

I've used up my lifetime existential crisis quota already.

[ Her smile should be wry, the curl of her lips should betray the hurt inherent in her words. But instead she wears only a confident smirk. This is a victorious gesture, and not one to inspire pity. ]

What now? Your turn to ask an intimate question or can I go again?

[skaikru]

( that's a weird life goal to be proud of misato but okay.

by the numbers, clarke ought to be approaching her own allocated breakdowns, but she's young. full of intense emotions and with time on her side, depending on how this mission and her very existence within the confines of the nest went. although her most notable escape from life and society had led her on a three-month excursion in the woods by herself, which would be hard to top, and near impossible on a mostly arid landscape.

initially, in response to that invitation to pry into misato's psyche as expertly as the older woman had done, clarke is borderline ambivalent. she drops her gaze, focusing on the delicate ripples that span across the water with every shift. she's half a mind to invite another round of interrogation, an open book with undisclosed sore spots and the confidence that they're adequately concealed.

but her thoughts drift back to asuka, who she will always feel more sympathy for than misato, no matter their similarities. and her face hardens. )

Where do you get off using children to fight your battles?

[wille]

[ If she has learned anything, it's that sudden silence in the middle of conversation heralds an ambush. She hasn't been wrong yet, though the chosen topic takes her by surprise. She huffs, displeased but unhurt. ]

You — [ Read: we. ] — should stop picking fights.

[ She shakes her head, at Clarke, at herself. These wounds quickly grow old, scab over and scar. She crosses her arms over her chest and leans back against the side of the pool. There are two sets of words she must choose between: that of an admission of guilt for harm caused, which would mollify but which would be untrue. Then there's the callousness, her merciless stance toward her past mistakes. What's done is done. She takes every responsibility for her actions and punishes herself accordingly, but gives nobody else the right to hear her apologies. She is her own judge and executioner. The choice is clear. ]

Sending a few children to war was worth saving three billion lives. But I was wrong from the start. Nobody's saved.

[skaikru]

( misato's level headed and even handed — cold — response does... remarkably little to curb the edges of clarke's vehemence. it's murky waters, feeling affronted for all of asuka's second hand suffering without projecting her own bitter disapproval of how the adults in her life had seen fit to gamble with their lives when sending one hundred teenagers down to earth. that's an old hurt, one clarke hadn't fully acknowledged she still held on to. but old wounds scab, scar over, and reopen at the faintest hint of an edge.

clarke's voice is quiet; tight and controlled, the sort of low menace of someone trying exceptionally hard to reel in their anger. )

So all that suffering was for nothing and you don't even regret using them?