{ open post | days :039 - :041 }

[theycalledmeacurse]

CHARACTERS: Rogue & ??? OR Elena & ???
WHERE: The Morran Ship & Far Shore
WHEN: Day :039 - Day :042
SUMMARY: Boat things. Decision making.
WARNINGS: Will update as needed!

ROGUE will spend much of her time wandering the ship, particularly the sections of the Lower Deck that lend themselves to easy observation of the sea. She'll avoid the more crowded areas, preferring to make said observations in relative peace, but she won't turn away from company.

ELENA will be drinking. When she's not enjoying the alcohol provided by their hosts, she'll be alternating time in the open air space on the Main Deck and the hosts' cramped quarters on the Upper Deck.

Unconventional formatting, but come at me. Brackets are totes fine, btw, this is just a slapdash post.

Comments

[redheadcarrier]

Sugar. Weird nickname and Asuka's not entirely sure she likes it. There's a prickly sense of defensiveness about her - a hedge of thorns that walls out the rest of the world and fills up the space between them. It's a wariness. The sense of an animal wounded once before and now prepared to fight or run if presented with another threat.

"Same, I guess. It's just been... quiet. And I don't know what to do with myself - how much longer are they going to drag this stupid pilgrimage out for, anyway?"

[theycalledmeacurse]

That prickling tells Rogue a lot about the other woman - a young girl, really, probably mid-teens, and someone who's had a hard life without any sense of stability in a long while. She's experienced it from the outside from so many of the students she worked with over the years, the ones who had been kicked out of their homes, abandoned by people they'd trusted, used for what they could do instead of being loved for who they are. For a moment she wonders which applies in this case, but those sort of questions don't make for easy conversation.

"Probably a while yet, I'd say. Unless something drastic happens to move things along, it doesn't look like there's a clear choice yet." And they still have work to do themselves.

[redheadcarrier]

"We're trying to force them without looking like we're forcing them, aren't we?" Asuka replies. She drifts a bit closer, arms folded over her chest as she stubbornly stares out over the ocean, watching the surface of the water.

"I still think we should've just blown it up."

There's no real compunction in that statement, though. She's just saying it for the sake of saying it.

[theycalledmeacurse]

There's no sense of judgment as Rogue processes the statement, just a thread of curiosity weaving through that impression of an open welcome that is still firmly in place. There's a reason the girl has that opinion, whether it's strongly felt or not, and what matters is why she thinks that way.

"Why do you say that?"

[redheadcarrier]

"It'd be easier than... this."

And Lavellan wouldn't have had to die for it. He'd still be alive. She'd still have a place to belong. She'd still have her first friend. So many things could've been avoided if they'd decided to just get rid of it all instead of trying this covert ops bullshit.

"We'd be done already."

[theycalledmeacurse]

"But more people would be dead than there are now."

In a purely numbers game, they're doing better with their current course of action, saving more lives than they've lost. But she knows all too well that things are never that simple, especially in times of war.

[redheadcarrier]

More people she didn't know anything about. Better than people she knows and cares about. Better than her. There's an ugly boil that rolls under the surface, but she knows better than to indulge them too much. Even if a part of her feels vindictively pleased about it.

"No one I know."

Maybe she wants to see what Rogue will say.

[theycalledmeacurse]

It's a sad way of looking at things, but it's not one that's unfamiliar. And it's not one that Rogue can automatically dismiss as invalid, because it's human nature to want to protect and keep close the people one cares about.

"In hindsight, maybe it would have been the better option. But just going into things, I like to hope that we wouldn't make such a decision lightly."

[redheadcarrier]

"Maybe. But... I don't know-" She remembers what Bakugo called her. A killer and a murderer and she bristles, mostly at herself and the imagined argument in her head. That's not fair. He doesn't - he's not here. Don't think about it.

"Now that we're here, we can't. But maybe we should've."

Now she's just arguing for the sake or arguing.

[theycalledmeacurse]

"Whether it's a single life or millions, they deserve some consideration before choosing to end them. The costs of such actions need to be weighed against the benefits, and sometimes you have to set aside your personal feelings."

It's not said as a lecture, but as light conversation. Funny how Rogue can talk about war and genocide so casually, but bringing up a potentially damaged past is too much for her. What exactly does that say about the life she's had to live so far?

[redheadcarrier]

There's a pang of guilt that works it's way past her prickly hedge of self defense. The woman is right. They deserve more than a single sentence. But weighed against the rest, does Asuka have a choice?

Which is a ridiculous queston. Of course she does. She's always had a choice. She just has to make it instead of letting herself be carried by events. Her weight shifts and she frowns under the veil. She doesn't like this much.

"I guess."

A pause. A beat.

"...what's your name, anyway?"

[theycalledmeacurse]

Convincing others to think a certain way has never been Rogue's style. Convincing people to think, period? That's what's most important in her mind. Think things through, make informed opinions, have all the facts and consider consequences.

No one said it was easy.

"Rogue. What's yours, sugar?"

[redheadcarrier]

"Asuka," she replies with a shrug. She's still tight and tense and a thousand other things. It's part of being a teenager. With her, it's also jsut a consequence of what she's been through and what she's done, even since arriving on the Station.

"Rogue's kind of a weird name."

[theycalledmeacurse]

That's probably the hundredth time she's gotten that particular comment, and it still makes her laugh. "Thanks, I was a teenager when I chose it," she explains easily. "I'd just left home and my whole world had changed in ways I wasn't expecting, so I was probably a bit dramatic."

[redheadcarrier]

"You chose your own name when you were a teenager? They just let you do that?" Asuka puts her chin in her hand. For someone who tries to be independent, most of her life has been spent under the watchful eye of an adult guardian. She hasn't really had much of an actual chance to spread her own wings.

[theycalledmeacurse]

Rogue gives an exaggerated shrug to be sure it's visible through the costume. "There wasn't really anyone to stop me, and it was kinda the thing to do with the people I ended up staying with. Pretty much everyone chose a new name."