mental link; after everything goes down on the evening of :038

[adamance]

[As it becomes apparent that it's time to move on—to shift forward in what feels like an endless pilgrimage, one in which none of the Hosts will gain any "true" enlightenment, as they will never see this culture as anything more than a means to an end. (At least, that's as far as Lexa sees it. Perhaps it's disrespectful. Perhaps she would bristle at it herself if it were about her culture. But then, no one is calling these people primitive and uncivilized like she's heard about her people in the past.)

Not that any of this will be spoken. This mission will go on, but it's a mission that can come to an end. That is something within their reach.

Which is why she opens up a mental communication to all the Hosts.]

( We must discuss, as a whole, how we hope to proceed moving forward. Before we pack up our things, I would prefer that we have some plan in place for how we act next. It'll prevent any further need to take on actions individually as we will be acting for each other. With the knowledge of each other's future actions.

That is not to say that I recommend against actions. But we can't act in contradiction to one another. Out of impatience for each other. We all hope to be done with this mission as soon as possible.

We have confirmed the presence of the Enemy. How do we hope to proceed? How will we ensure that the Descendants do not claim control of this power?

Furthermore, I implore you all to consider why it is the Enemy would act to prevent peace talks that could secure them the Nectar. And why it is that they need the Nectar. We are only fighting one battle here.

I won't lead this discussion. But we must have this discussion. We work well under time constraints. Let's have an idea of how we hope to proceed before we continue our journey. )

[That's her way of setting a time constraint, all in hopes that people will discuss what they will have to do. It's no longer about Keya (as far as she's concerned), but about their greater mission.]

[ooc: please please please treat this as an IC discussion post where people can threadjack and discuss whatever! i figured it would be a good idea to facilitate discussion here!]

Comments

[wrackful]

( I'm missing them because they don't change what I'm saying. )

[Blunt, flat. Yeah, he knows the difference, of all people. Which is why he doesn't want to think about how fresh the blood was. How screwed up that was.]

( We don't know whose blood it is, and we don't know who was wearing them. The tracker found them shoved under a bed, but we don't know who put them there. )

[A beat, but impatience drives him on. The real extent they could be dealing with.]

( We're not the only ones sneaking around here. ) [They know it's happening politically. And they know it's happening with this bigger, Nest vs Enemy war.] ( Someone else could've gone in there, same as we did. )

[adamance]

( Was there any sign of a wound on the clothes themselves? That much blood may indicate where the wound was opened, at least. )

[wrackful]

( No. They were whole. )

[It comes with an image, the memory Bellamy had already picked up, a cut snapshot of the robes as they'd discovered them in the quarters.]

[sizeofyourbaggage]

( It's Keya's blood. Elena was able to identify it. )

[ The rest of that - it's a good point, and he's not gonna argue it. ]

[wrackful]

[It's information they needed to know. Confirmation, irrefutable - exactly what he's arguing for. But the reaction that rolls through him is something close to disgust. Personally, he really could've done without knowing.]

( Great. So not only can our big-E Enemy apparently kill us as soon as they see us, they can keep our blood fresh for a screwed up amount of time after. )

[He'd say it couldn't get worse, but he wouldn't believe it.]

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ It's a reaction echoed in Sam, honestly. He's unsurprised but still pissed off that Keya ended up as just an obstacle in the Enemy's path, with her peace talks, but this is just -

Great, it's just great. ]

( That or some kind of messed up inter-dimensional time travel. )[ Which isn't something he'd have thought likely before coming to the Nest, but, well. The Nest. ] ( If it is the Admiral, he's obviously not working alone. I don't know if we can pinpoint which Descendants are in on it and who actually killed her without knowing more. )

[ Maybe it doesn't matter in the long run, since it's pretty clear the Enemy's aligned with the Descendants, but it's on Sam's mind. ]

[adamance]

( It doesn't matter if we know who the others are, so long as the Descendants can't win. We can't be caught up in the smaller details unless they require our attention. )

[wrackful]

( Right, and the aunt signing us up to be her personal revenge army doesn't need the smaller details like who's actually the murderer. )

[adamance]

( I asked for caution when she approached us. Do you really think feeding into her revenge quest is really important at this time? )

[wrackful]

( Yeah, and I bought us that space. )

[Because Lexa might have had the right idea, but it was Murphy who'd had to smooth over her delivery of it.]

( That doesn't mean we got out of it totally. You were the one talking about proceeding. We're not done. We've still got to direct the Seconds away from giving the Nectar to them, which means we've still got to play their politics. )

[adamance]

( And we can't risk the aunt fighting to kill someone who can kill her. If we're playing politics, we need to have her as a gambit in play. She will die, and what connection we have to the Descendants to sabotage them may be obliterated. )

[Lexa knows that it's hardly an ideal approach to things. But it is one they need to consider.]

[wrackful]

[The thread of disagreement remains, strikes discordant notes against the assumptions in Lexa's words that the Admiral is the agent they're looking for. It remains clear, but he doesn't need to voice it right now. Not when the conclusion matches on both sides:]

( So we need a way to stall her. )