come_sailaway | (open) unimaginable bird

True to her word Erin doesn't leave her room the first day at all. By the time evening arrives, having subsisted entirely on candy and tap water, she's bundled up in her soft new blanket in the middle of the floor.

Not asleep. Just waiting. There's things to talk about while the talking is, if not good, at least available.

"You've got to eat a decent meal, you know."

She knows she's on the floor, and carefully moves around her with tiny steps, navigating to her bed where she pulls her legs up, sitting in a sort of Helena ball and tucking her beloved bunny in her arms.

"Can you name one thing you ate today that wasn't sweets?"

Fretting over Erin is easy - it allows her to let the ruckus in her head quiet down for long enough to know her own thoughts.

"...The poor abused strands of my own hair," Erin admits. She sounds fucking exhausted. "I'm. Listen, I'll eat. Tomorrow, I'm not going out there and I'm not asking you to go get me food."

To emphasize the point she nestles deeper into the blanket Helena so thoughtfully provided to her.

"...I realize I'm being a hypocrite right now but I think, given the circumstances, I'm due some hypocrisy. I'm not gonna ask how you're doing, I damn well know, but..."

"...I suppose I'm waiting up to finish that talk we started at the resort, lass."

She won't press the food issue, instead deciding to take off her glasses for the time being and set them down next to the bed. There's a neutral, affirmative sound before she tucks her face a little more into the doll, fighting every urge to say something about it not being the time, about Erin being in distress, that it can wait. It always can.

If I can't handle something I'll tell you, okay? She has to believe that, and Helena takes a big breath, trying to find the right angle to face this from. Not everything wants to come out, but...perhaps a little. A little that won't cut too much, too deeply.

"Before I dictate the course of conversation, a question, then. What do you know? Or rather, what have you gone and guessed at, without my saying so?"

To confirm or deny suspicions is easier to start with. She already knows her claims of her past being entirely unremarkable have been upended, both with her nightmares and with what she performed in front of practically the entire ship.

It's a long while before Erin answers. She just breathes, steadily, wrapped up and warm. In no hurry.

Not wanting to confront Helena, but to listen to her.

"...Someone hurt you, for a long time. The little habits suggested it far before our talks about your nightmares. The caution in your courtesy, the way you take pains to ensure you stay fit and athletic despite your bookish interests...the understanding you offer comes from a place of experience, rather than one of pure compassion. The nightmares only confirmed what survival habits I've already seen suggest."

Erin had known people like Helena in her old life, mainly as prey. And yet, and yet...and yet...

...And yet she'd also known them as the ones that got away.

Helena learned about the strength of the pack over that of the teeth, but where?

From the floor, Erin can't see how Helena's hands tighten on the stuffed doll, the way she wants to hide. It's dangerous to let this out - when she wants to keep breathing without those chains on her. When she wants people to think there is nothing there, because then they don't ask questions, they don't stir up what's meant to be left behind, they aren't exposed to the same horrors. The more people she can keep away from that, she wants to.

"...have I really been so obvious?"

She can't put a word to the heat that wants to crawl up her spine and twist her lungs and heart up in it. She hasn't done enough for it. There is nowhere to hide, and she has to take the blow.

"Not to most people, I suspect. The thing you have to understand is that it isn't just that I'm like you in this way, hurt and hunted and haunted. It's that my people are too." The blanket rustles as Erin tries in vain to draw it tighter around herself. It can't get any tighter. "My entire life has been spent around people who are, by definition, traumatized. You learn to notice."

Hunted. Her throat feels dry, and she swallows. If she holds this doll any tighter, she's afraid her nails will hurt the seams. She doesn't want to say it - it sticks to her lungs - old tree sap, saltwater in wounds, the metallic scent of blood that never washes out of the earth. But the words need to come out. Breathing is the only way.

The silence is extended, and she knows she'll be begging Erin for her silence after this. From her place on the floor, Erin won't see how she needs to hold herself tight, or she'll shake to pieces. To say it to someone outside that cycle, outside the game, she's offering up her neck to be cut, her heart to be crushed. Who'd believe this?

But finally, finally, something comes out, soft as down feathers yet so loud in their quiet.

"...I don't know how long it's been since it started. I lost track of time. But I have been killed over and over again, by a multitude of people. And this is the longest stretch of time that I've been allowed to survive since it started."

"...I'm so sorry." The blanket rustles, again; the edges trail on the floor. Erin is emerging from it. Roused by the distress she can taste in the air, and the knowledge that she's opened this door herself.

And yet...Helena isn't alone in this experience here. She can't bring up what happened to Phil. Darcy...Darcy will say it on her own, but...

Well. But.

"...Would this be easier if I were somewhere besides the floor, Helena?" Like further away, or hugging the smaller lass to ensure she knows she's safe.

"You can be wherever you want."

Breathe. Breathe. Even when the hunter's at your back, breathe and remember where you are, remember the ledges, the drops, throw yourself out the window if it buys five more precious seconds. To outthink, to outmaneuver, to do whatever you have to. No matter how hurt you are, no matter how desperate you look, you have to keep going.

So far away, and she's heard not hide nor hair of them, but they can't drag her back. She'll bind herself in however many arcane rules this place holds before she agrees to it.

The distress Erin can feel is considerable, like it makes up the whole of Helena's form, the core in that heart beating in her chest.

"Even if we escaped, it didn't matter. It just began again another day."

A shuddering breath, but she's still upright.

Erin gets up slowly. Stretches, thinking, deciding.

And then she sits next to Helena and wraps the blanket around them both. If Helena wants to lean on her, that's her call.

Erin listens, intently.

It's warm, is what she thinks. This near, Erin will probably feel her trembling, the weight and uncertainty of a secret this big can't yield anything else. But someone is near, someone who promised to keep her safe, and that's why she isn't strangling the doll, why she can keep tears from her eyes for now. They aren't here. And every day she wakes up, and they're not there, she can breathe a little easier.

"They hunted us down, over and over. All we could do was survive until struck down or things began again. But...I don't know if even the hunters were bound to hunt as we were to run."

That instant understanding and acknowledgement to the Captain. Sometimes, there is no way out. No other option. There is no way of changing the rules, even when you hold power.

"Trapped in the story," Erin murmurs. "Forced to be a role over being a person. I know the taste of it."

(Understatement of the fucking year, Peters.)

"Did you get the grim courtesy of knowing why?"

A role, and a title to go along with it. How she feared them, but at the same time...none of them escaped sorrow. The ghost queen who still clung to her dignity, the man returned from fire and ruin, the laughing sculptor-

She shakes her head.

"The hunting, the chasing, the killing, the running, it was all part of a so-called game, with endless rounds. Yet I don't know why it began in the first place. If I was ever told..." Another breath. Erin's pulled open floodgates, it feels like. "There are parts of my memory that feel empty. Whether that is a result of so much death or otherwise, I do not know."

Tears prick at her eyes, despite her best efforts, and she roughly tries to wipe them away.

"...I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to make you hold so much - not when you have your own sorrows. When what you've had to live through - and everyone here has to handle so much - I'm sorry, Erin. You didn't ask for all of this."

"Helena...yes, I did. Out loud, not all that long ago." Now comes the hug, drawing Helena in close, supporting her so she doesn't have to keep herself upright. "We're none of us sovereign, contained and alone. You're so dedicated to helping others, but you need help too. It's no burden."

Nerves still so raw from the trial, she can't fight it anymore. Helena's form shakes from silent sobs, flooded with different emotions - guilt at telling, the bitter unfairness of everything she's been through, the stress of yesterday, fear at being perceived, and not knowing what to actually do about any of it. She cries, and she feels like a small girl again, but at least there is a friend nearby to hold her, with strong arms and a steady presence.

So the answer to Erin is a decided no. She's not fine. She hasn't been fine since she stepped on this boat.

"It's okay," Erin murmurs softly. "I've got you, and I won't go spreading your business. It's okay, lass."

Whatever else this place might be, it's not that nightmare. Helena got out alive.

Out of the fire and into the frying pan, maybe, but alive.

"Thank you."

She's a mess, but she didn't have to ask for that, beg Erin to keep it quiet. These are her wounds to bear - her story to tell or not tell. The scars embedded in her arms from the rounds time and again that she hides under her clothes are hers to keep quiet about.

Eventually, the tears subside, and she breathes a little easier. The edge of her sweater isn't the ideal to wipe her face with, but that's all she has right now. She feels like a rough sponge was taken to her insides, and her head hurts, but it's passed. It's over, and she's still here.

Erin has not once, in her life, considered joining the Court of Sorrow, but she's never appreciated their stance on the healing power of grief as much as she does right now, in this moment. Gently, so gently, she rests her head atop Helena's and tries her best to just be warm and safe.

"I had to have a friend yell at me before I started showing your discretion," Erin murmurs. "I'm not unappreciative of you not wanting to lay the horrors of your world at my feet. But..." A soft sigh. "When I say you're under my aegis, that you're my friend, that I care, it's not just your body I'm trying to protect, Helena. We sail here between worlds together. We're all we've got; this odd little community."

She'll feel how Helena leans into her - exhausted by the tears, but trusting. Trying her best to believe that the horrors can't reach her, that talking about these things won't invoke them. She hadn't been able to confess more than a little before this, but even so, it had been enough to gain care, warmth, security. And now, she had wept, and the world hadn't fallen apart around her.

People want to keep her safe here, and it still catches her off guard. They say it directly to her, and it's the stiffness of new clothes, not worn enough to be comfortable yet. So much time spent fighting to live, and what is one to do with it when they have it?

There are so many things she could say, but Helena knows they're fitful things that only expose how much she doesn't know. Everything uncertain, because it's not as though the others didn't fight for her as much as she did them. It was simply an understanding, that if one must fall for the others, then so they did. If only one could get out, they took it, and left the others behind. If you were the one they really wanted -

She stays silent, and listens, focusing on calming down for now.

There's so much to say, to ask, to share, but...maybe not right now. Erin doesn't broach her offer to help Helena's dreams again either, though it's on her mind.

Another time. When you're not used to being cared about, it can be a lot.

"...Did you want to share a bed tonight, lass?" The offer's soft, and small. "SecUnit mentioned...well, you know what it mentioned from context. I can't promise it as a regular happening, but maybe we can both dodge some nightmares tonight."

(...We really could have phrased that be-)

Shut. Shut the fuck up. Head voice. Just. Please. Shut the fuck up.

It's a good thing Helena's tucked up near Erin, or the older woman might see how that mention causes her expression to shift a little, the little twinge of self-consciousness that breaks through even in this state, when someone brings up a fact that one hasn't quite settled with. Those nights had been peaceful, a small token in her heart, and she has certainly not forgotten the feeling of it. They were important, very much so.

But Erin can't, and can't seize upon the moment for levity, and she's grateful.

"I might accidentally touch you in your sleep, though."

Erin's own nightmares. Would they be made worse, by a proximity?

"You won't be the first. Ruby sleeps with her head on my lap sometimes, or I could just hold you. If you want," she stresses.

"...I'd really like that, then. Thank you."

It would leave her feeling less torn open by what she'd managed to say. Safe, safe. Right now, if anything happened to any of them, it would be self inflicted, given the way everyone has to heal.

Maybe her presence can do something for Erin, too, and keep some of the nightmares off her back.

"Alright. I'll...get changed, and I think we use your bed considering mine is my beloved safety hazard."

(open) unimaginable bird

Re: aftermath 🌠 12/27 and onward

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And scene?