[OPEN]

[redheadcarrier]

CHARACTERS: Asuka & YOU
WHERE: The Red Coast
WHEN: DAY :034 - :036
SUMMARY: A catch-all for Asuka's Red Coast shenanigans.
WARNINGS: None, yet.


Sail Away

Asuka's never really been on a ship before, unless you counted her trip to Japan. And even then, those were "modern" ships and she'd been a passenger. Learning how to operate one that ran on wind power and that had ropes and knots and sails was something entirely different. The sailors were pleasant enough and she seemd at home with a harpoon (funnily enough), so a lot of her time is spent scrambling over the small boats, tugging on ropes and figuring out how to make them go.

It's actually kind of fun. It keeps her head and hands busy and off of he losses she's been dealing with Lavellan first, now Seviilia. She's distracted. Which explains why she accidentally lets a boom go and the sail catches the wind, hurling the boom around in a swinging arc.

"Hey, look out-!"


Market Square

She tries to keep herself busy. That means wandering out into the seaside market from time to time to see what they have and to poke at the weird and interesting objects that show up. Some of it is handmade jewelry or knick-knacks and some of it is food. The influx of visitors is a bit of boon for these people, in all likelyhood, but Asuka generally prides herself on not being your stereotypical tourist (even if she tends to be, sometimes). Since she can't go swimming, window-shopping is basically one of the few things she can do that will get her out of her room right now - and she can't t rain herself 24/7, as much as she'd sometimes like to. Driving herself to higher heights of "excellence" in the name of purging her own memory and past failures through physical pain.

But the body can't keep that up, so here she is, picking her way through a few curious items. She plucks something from the table to examine it while the shopkeeper murmurs at her - telling her it's not that expensive and she really ought to try it. It's a bracelet, of seashells and small stones, stained red by the sea or polished to a bright white. She's still considering it, the sensation of thought echoing through her link.

Blood. Does she really want that reminder?


Wild Card

You know what to do.

Comments

[redheadcarrier]

"I hate that," Asuka reiterates, "It would help if our 'guides' would tell us something more useful than 'oh yeah, they're here'. Well, duh!"

She throws her hands up and then dismounts from the wall with a light-footed hop, hop-skipping a few steps before settling back into her walk. She's somewhere between a child and an adult, still figuring out who she is and what she wants to be.

"More of us are going to die if we just keep waiting."

[raw]

"Maybe we're just cannon fodder to them," Elliot points out. It's not the first time he's had this bought. "They need a big group to better fake the Carabuschian diplomat idea, but we're not actually here for anything." Just foot soldiers, like he's heard Annie say.

He's still not sure if he really believes that, but it is exactly the kind of thing that would make him angry back home, big companies treating their workers as disposable rather than utilizing them individually, the disgusting environment that created as everyone struggled to reach the top of that ladder, using their coworkers as the rungs. So mostly it's habit, to believe that the higher up, from Rhan to Cathaway, don't have his, any of their, best interests at heart.

Still, he seems kind of resigned to it. "If dying's what it takes to stop The- Them--" (Amost says The Enemy aloud, catches himself - even alone that might be better kept to mental links) "Then I'll die."

[redheadcarrier]

"Tch," Asuka responds. She doesn't like that idea. She's not disposable. Never has been. She's still figuring out where she fits and who she is and what she's going to do, but disposable has never really been what she considers herself. Well, she tries not to. It's hard not to think of herself as worthless some days. She's adrift and wouldn't it be better if she were gone?

She chases those thoughts away and tries to squash them flat. She's not going back to that, she won't let herself. She can't. She won't be a doll, she won't make herself into an object. And she won't try to die again. She doesn't want to die.

"I'm not going to die. I'm going to live. Die if you want, but I'm not."

Flashes of memories. Pain and thought and anger.

"...I already died once."

The words come out low and quiet, as if saying it too loud will make it come true again.

[raw]

Ah, the idle cruelty of teenage girls. "Die if you want." Not that it upsets Elliot, particularly, especially not when he can see he's distresses her: really, he probably deserves it.

"Shit," he says aloud at that little revelation. Every time he finds out something new about her it's something shitty, and it's hard not to feel pity. But his own life wasn't that great, and hadn't he taken a bullet before showing up here? So maybe it's empathy instead.

His hand twitches as he considers putting it on her shoulder, doesn't. But he's still agitated with concern. "That sucks. I didn't know that could happen." Pulling people from death, he means. Maybe that's what happened to him, too.

[redheadcarrier]

Asuka doesn't really want pity. Respect, maybe. Care. Some sort of love. The sort of things she hasn't been able to give herself. She breathes deep and tries to settle her own mind, banish thoughts and fears and the twisted desire to lash out.

"It was... weird," she replies, not particularly wanting to linger on it or explain it in depth. Too many bad memories.

"Let's leave it at that."

[raw]

Elliot isn't the kind of guy to push people, unless he needs to upset them, usually as part of some social engineering scheme. So he nods, just once, and — not for the first time with Asuka — shares something he's not usually very forthright about, so she doesn't feel weird about telling him stuff.

"I got shot. Right here." He touches his abdomen lightly. "Dunno if I would have survived if it wasn't for Cathaway. So." He gets that it's weird. But he's also not... a second chance hasn't made him any more passionate for living.

Man this conversation is morbid. He stops them both suddenly, hand out, and sniffs the air through his robes. "Someone's cooking something." And it smells good. If they can track down that stall, Elliot might actually buy something.

[redheadcarrier]

"...that sucks," Asuka replies after a long moment. It's a noise of sympathy. An acknowledgement of his humanity and the fact that dying is awful. She should know. And he's been... respectable? Kind? She doesn't know. She kind of likes him, though, and that's enough for her to actually feel a little bit of sympathy for him. Asuka's a bit strange like that - she's still figuring out how to properly express feeling for others while still being able to love herself.

Or love herself at all.

She's about to say something else when he changes the subject and she's honestly happy that he does.

"Are you hungry? We could probably find something to eat."

[raw]

"Yeah, I'd like that." Elliot is so used to living off fried food that whatever this greasy, open-cooked smell it, it's enough like McDonalds that his body is sitting up in interest and demanding he find it and eat it, right now.

"My treat," he adds, since if they're hanging out he might as well buy it. Not that he's really totally sure how the heck currency here works but let's assumed he's managed to get his hands on some at some point. "You good with meat? Gluten?"

[redheadcarrier]

"Hey, thanks-" Asuka sounds a touch surprised and honestly a bit grateful. Not that she couldn't get her own food, but having someone treat her was always good. It made her feel a little special. Like she was worth it for someone to go out of their way to make sure she was taken care of.

Weird how that works.

"And yeah, I'm good with all of that. Meat's fine, so's gluten. Actually - meat would be awesome. It's so expensive - well. It was expensive."

[raw]

"Sounds like your economy is as bad as mine was." $25 for an apple from a cart outside the subway kind of bad. (And whose fault was that, Elliot?)

Anyway, he kind of laughs when he says it, and leads them towards the food, which is decidedly not that kind of expensive. Though it's mostly seared meat and vegetables on sticks, like shish-kabobs his grandma used to make when he was little, on the rare occasions he saw her. Some vividly blue tuber mashed and fried that is probably the closest they're going to get to fries here, and was definitely what he was smelling.

"Get whatever you want," Elliot says, making his own order. He has no idea how the fuck they're gonna eat with the veils but he thinks he can figure it out.

[redheadcarrier]

"That's what happens when three billion people die and there's a mass die-off," Asuka scoffs. Not that she remembers much of it. She was an infant and then a toddler in the aftermath of Second Impact, so the impact of the resource wars and massive famine and food shortages are only very distant memories. Still, it means that meat's expensive. Or was, anyway.

Still, not something to dwell on when they're getting food. The greasy meat and vegetables remind her of the food she shared with Clarke in her tent last week and it's a pleasant, deeply appetizing aroma. She snags a kabob and a round sort of flatbread to bo with it. IT odubles as a napkin and she juggles the hot food from hand-to-hand. Even through the gloves, it's piping hot!

"You're my new favorite," she teases as she glances up at him.

And here she has no idea what he even looks like.