DECEMBER EVENT PART ONE: ALL IS CALM

[sailmods]

early morning on the 23rd, Friday makes an announcement over the speaker system, cheerfully asking everyone who signed up for the excursion to gather in the atrium. when they arrive, they will find Friday, very seasonally dressed, who takes them down to the tender, which it appears she will be “driving” this time. during this particular trip, none of them lose consciousness, nor suffer any sort of physical aftereffects. however, it does feel like the trip takes about five hours of just. sitting in the tender in utter silence, with little light and still air. so maybe stop being little babies about the anesthesia???

when Friday opens the tender door for them, they find themselves stepping out into the lobby of a hotel - though, if they turn around, they’ll find there was no door at all, and any passengers they see after that will appear as if they are appearing out of the ether.

there is a clone Friday manning the front desk, and though, like the others, she isn’t much for conversation, she is very snappily dressed! she helpfully hands out keys to everyone who approaches her; they aren’t numbered, and are actually entirely physically indistinguishable from each other, but they seem to open up whatever room you want easily enough, and don’t seem to work for any others. weird. the dressers and closets in the rooms also contain suitably sized winter clothing, enough to last the few days they’ll spend there, and then some. weird.

once they’ve situated themselves, they’ll find that what lies before them is a realm much larger than others they’ve encountered; the land extends for miles in any direction, including upwards, though you’re more likely to hit a cliff before the hard barrier. there’s about a foot and a half of snow on the ground, and it continues to fall steadily. the forests lack all signs of life, but the foliage is rather attractive, as long as you don’t examine it too closely; coniferous trees are just easier.

all of the amenities are seemingly staffed by ghosts, though they give off even less of a presence than the ones aboard the ship do. there is also an industrial kitchen attached to one of the dining areas, though the meals served don’t seem to come from it, and it has a distinctly different feel than everything else around it, as if added in slapdash at the very last second.

there is one last oddity, however. every night, at about 2AM, the entire reality goes mute. voices don’t sound. snow doesn’t crunch under footsteps. even the winds are quiet. the effect ends at about 6AM. it’s probably fine.

happy holidays.

Comments

Long Distance Roaming Fees.

[serialskiller]

Someone has introduced the panopticon to egg nog, and it's a large glass of that (with whipped cream and nutmeg on top) that it's holding instead of cocoa when it finds Erin out in the wild. It may even have a whipped cream mustache. It approaches, and...then doesn't really say anything at all. Just lingers in her periphery like it's an object in orbit.

Re: Long Distance Roaming Fees.

[crushed_pearls]

Erin has stopped to whittle. This Legally Not Wood has intrigued her, and the thick branch she's essentially sitting in is being shaped into a small songbird perched on its own branch.

She gives SecUnit a nod. "I see we're being festive. How's the..." Erin sniffs the air, "eggnog treating you?"

[serialskiller]

"Cloying. I may have found the limit of my sucrose intake." Or perhaps it's fructose, as in high fructose corn syrup. It doesn't care to distinguish right now. "Though one of the Maxes and I are apparently planning to make cheesecake together for his birthday. You're welcome to help eat it."

[crushed_pearls]

That gets a find smile. "Must be Mister Maximum. I'm delighted to come, just grab me when you're ready -"

A pause.

"Just realized that I assumed you brought the drones. There a planned time and place?"

[serialskiller]

"I did bring the drones. I can send one for you."

Which makes the fact that it is fully present in itself here more significant. If it just wanted to invite her to cake, a drone could have sufficed.

[crushed_pearls]

"Something else on your mind then? I can make ya a seat real quick, it's no trouble."

Other people use axes to fell trees. Erin doesn't.

[serialskiller]

"I'm fine standing." Don't bother waking Stone for something so trivial. "I...so you know Max-my-roommate already. What do you think of him?"

[crushed_pearls]

Erin thinks about that for a long time. Whittling patiently. Something close enough to wood for government work peels away in thin strips and little chips.

"I think he reminds me of the poor bastards who were the only people more wretched than I was," Erin says at last. "He seems nice. Polite. He's got a real talent doing something he loves doing...but someone hurt him so bad he's not even able to confront that he's been hurt."

[serialskiller]

Can Erin feel this look Murderbot's giving her at that last bit? Because...ouch. Don't ask it why that hurts, but ouch.

"Yeah. I found him out in the snow taking a nap yesterday all alone."

[crushed_pearls]

The whittling stops entirely.

"Did someone order him to?"

[serialskiller]

"No, he just wore himself out playing and decided to lie down for 'just a few minutes'. Daft human, no survival skills, it might have served him right if no one came along."

And yet, the huffiness is cover for Murderbot brooding like a hen, not like Batman. It's worried.

"I did come along, though. Got him inside and warmed up. He's fine now."

[crushed_pearls]

After a moment, the whittling resumes. "Well. I'll take stupid over suicidal. Stupid can be fixed. He was a butler, I can't imagine he's been outdoorsy before. You warn him about Tommy Bahama yet?"

[serialskiller]

"Suicidal...maybe it can't be fixed, but it varies in intensity. It's possible to find things to live for, to come back from hanging your toes over the edge."

Which is an interesting thing for it to say to her, after the reasons she cried all over it on Halloween.

[crushed_pearls]

A ghostly smile touches Erin's lips. "...Yeah, you're right. Guess it's just been on my mind lately. Daisy got hit by something nasty and tried to walk it off, and I can't shake the feeling like her blase attitude towards dying is gonna drag her back into the Nothing."

Politeness would usually dictate looking towards her friend, and Erin smothers that urge by putting the carving a bit closer to her face so she can do some fine knife work. "...It seems like you've placed him under your aegis. Like I did when I picked up a roommate. 's weird, right? Helena, Mister Maximum, neither are exactly what you'd call fighters. Coulda roomed them with someone like Siffleur with a...I'ma say 'tough love' attitude, gotten all kinds of drama and misery. Death, fear, having to sleep out in the open or try to barricade the door...but instead they get roomed with the likes of us."

[serialskiller]

"Does her being under your aegis include helping her out when she has nightmares?" It's interesting, isn't it, how it homes in on that mention of Helena...

[crushed_pearls]

"Wish I could." Erin sighs, heavily. "...In a lot of ways she's a very private person with me. I know she has them, we had the 'I might be up late due to the horrors' conversation with each other. But..."

There's a long pause at the end of that 'but'.

"...As things stand now I don't think she'd welcome my assistance, and unlike you or Daisy or Crichton I can't really bring myself to call bullshit on her wall of politeness to her face." Erin's head tilts in that bird-like gesture she does so often. "I don't even know what those nightmares are about. And she's not asked after mine. Another little wall, but I need that one. I'm not sure I can bear to explain myself if I demand answers."

[serialskiller]

"Ah."

There's a note of genuine surprise there. It sits with all that a minute. Oh, none of this is deciding whether to share what she's told it about the cause of her nightmares, that's out of the question. But.

"Assistance doesn't always look the same."

[crushed_pearls]

"'s true. If she's taking your help, I can only be glad of it. I can't..." Erin has to get up enough to roll the branch under her ass and work on carving out the base. "We don't exactly have a friendship style where I can hold her and reassure her. Especially not after. What happened in November happened, I think."

Cut. Shave. Scrape.

"...SecUnit, I think you might be one of the few souls here who grasps my full meaning when I say I trust you with the people I care about. Unconditionally, and without reservation. I don't know what or why but something terribly ungentle happened to that lass. It's good that you're there."

[serialskiller]

"I feel wholly unqualified to hold and reassure anyone." That ought to be a snarky joke. It starts off as one and then...isn't. It lets out a huff that isn't a laugh, and its face forms a shape that isn't a smile.

[crushed_pearls]

"More than one way to hold someone," Erin opines, echoing its own words back. "You've been doing fine with me so far. She trusts you, or she'd be rooming alone, and I can tell that because when Ruby was still under oath with me that mad lass just went fucking homeless for a bit instead of asking anyone else for help. She had options, but...not trust, then."

[serialskiller]

"I haven't held you at all, Erin, unless we count lifting you to my shoulder on Halloween." It pauses. Toys with the hood-strings of its sweatshirt. "Her, I have. And Max. And Cassandra."

[crushed_pearls]

"Sure you have, buddy. Just not with your arms." Erin's movements don't change their speed, which is amazing considering how FUCKING SHOCKED she is at that revelation SecUnit just dropped. "...Still. That's a big change from your usual habits. How's it sitting with you?"

[serialskiller]

"I don't know." But that's a soft and quiet 'I don't know', nothing defensive or sharp.

[crushed_pearls]

"That's okay. 'Know thyself' is a goal, not a casual practice." Erin wipes her knife on her pants and sets it down for a moment, flexing her hand to stretch it. "I admit I'm a bit surprised, but if you're not distressed...I wouldn't over-think it in the moment."

An idea: "Do you know Ossie?"

[serialskiller]

"Yes. He let me paint the flowers near his cottage once. Why?"

Its face wrinkles a little when she admits to surprise. Yes, it's also surprised, but she doesn't need to call it out like that.