come_sailaway | Something beautiful happens in this world [Open]

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Something beautiful happens in this world [Open]

Who: Deputy Pratt and YOU!
What: Cake decorating, showing off his artistic prowess, shovel knight time
When: Later half of January
Where:Sand Dollars, the Library, Upper Deck
Warnings: None! (Well that's rare for him)

1. Sand Dollars
Pratt has completed his scientific research (having Sharky eat various cupcakes while naked) and has taken actual notes which are in the little notepad next to him while he sits at a table in Sand Dollars. He has one of the plastic trays from the buffet and has assembled a circle of cupcakes onto it to resemble a cake and is using a plastic butter knife to spread the frosting around so it looks like it's all one piece.

The wrappers from all of them are on the table nearby, along with some colorful other cupcakes that he's going to scoop the frosting off of in order to write out a message on this cake.

Yes, he is making the Captain a "Congrats on the Sex" cake. Sure it's been a few weeks but his memory is trash okay. He's trying.

2. The Library
Well, the binder is gone, which sucks because Pratt has already forgotten 80% of the contents. He assumes one of those people obsessed with blowing the place up stole it. So he will add his contribution to its recovery.

In its place is a Serena Eterna spiral notebook with a ship on the front, the ship is crossed out and instead there's a reproduction of Ryan's original cat drawing of Guatauva, but every page afterwards also has a cat drawing. He has faithfully recreated every cat internet meme he can think of. There's space above and below to make them into ship-centric memes. So have at.

His drawings look like this because I'm not going to draw 30 cat memes.

3. Deck
Pratt picked up the best package from home he's ever gotten. It was huge heavy and when he unwrapped it he squealed like a school girl because he's so damn excited. Friday is his favorite person for the next few hours because he has his shovel launcher now. Which is exactly what it sounds like, it is a rocket launcher, that shoots shovels.

He has a pile of shovels next to him, as he stands on the deck, aiming at the hull of the ship and then KUHTHUWNK the thing embeds itself into the metal siding and Pratt straight up cackles. Oh this is fantastic.

On the other side of him is his Christmas present he never opened which is 99 cans of Pabst in an absurdly long box and he's about to have the best day. Drink some beer, launch some shovels, spend way too long prying shovels out of the ship to do it again.

Montana's finest, right here.

4. Wildcard
Hit me with anything. He's always in the buffet or arcade or around the deck doing random patrols.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

( the sentiment is strongly appreciated, and thoroughly considered. but by this point, it feels like the moment for righteous vengeance has passed and clarke skipped over most of the brutality — namely because she was scared of how much she'd wanted to wrought upon skulduggery.

a beat, then a near dogged shake of her head. )

That's okay. I'm fine. I took one of his bones.

Like... out... of his body?

[He's imagining some Mortal Kombat spine-ripping fatality right now.]

Does he know or is this how I find out you're the world's best pick pocket?

( the snort that exits her nose is a vague attempt at humor, but it's hollow. like the victory had been. )

It wasn't anything spectacular as that. He let me take it.

Is he giving them out? That's.. very fucking weird. What are you even gonna do with it?

Undecided. Might put it on my wall, might shove it in a drawer, might just throw it overboard. I think I told Skulduggery I'd make it into a headband.

I... wasn't really thinking ahead when I asked for it, though.

Okay let's.. back up a sec here. You just waltzed up to him and asked for a bone and he handed it over because he thought you were gonna use it for a fashion accessory?

Way to shoot your shot man. Nicely done.

I mean, there was some build up.

( build up", a lovely translation of "being visciously murdered then denied what she'd demanded as recompense". absolutely not about to share that she'd first asked skulduggery to brand protection sigils onto her arms, or engrave them into her bones. that's just a little too much crazy.

the end result of wrenching a rib bone out of the skeletal man hadn't been nearly as satisfactory to the boiling need for revenge as clarke had hoped. and pratt's postmortem praise tickles, but doesn't quite sate either. )

But that is more or less how it played out. ( ... ) He owed me.

Yeah I guess he did. But that's just kinda... I dunno. Is he lopsided now? Do ribs grow back if you're a magical skeleton?

[He has so many questions about this.]

If nothing else you can probably use it to make a weird voodoo doll of him and like.. set it on fire. Sharky would say fire is cathartic so you know, worth a try.

I hope so and I hope not.

Fire was my first thought too. Yuuki even let me take his flamethrower for a few days. But I figured it'd take too long. ( she doesn't just carry the bone around with her, but if she did this would be the point clarke looked at it thoughtfully and scraped her fingernail along the compact tissue.

thoughtfully: ) I don't know anything about voodoo yet. That sure is a thought tho.

( everything's fine, no one worry, this conversation is completely normal. )

[Pratt here has no idea that he's joking and Clarke is deadly serious.]

Someone probably knows more about that then me. Bash I'd guess. [Is that racist? New Orleansist? That feels a little racist, moving on.] It would take forever to burn, even when you cremate people at crazy high temps the bones stick around and just kinda fall into bits. They just don't want anyone to know that chunks of their grandma's spine are in a bucket at a funeral home waiting to go out with the trash.

I guess it's cool he let you take it though. Hopefully that shit is all dealt with and no more evil armored skeleton.

( and just like that there's a New Bit between them. )

...yeah. ( spoken re: bone remains. and that's about all that's gonna be said on that, because the natural continuation of that yeah is i burnt 300 warriors with the thrusters on a rocket and still walked out to find their intact, slightly overdone skeletons covered in ash and that's just... too much.

so, moving on. )

Maybe. We can hope at least. I won't be betting my life on it, but... hope.

I don't think you get a choice, not like we can get away from people, all stuck in this weird bubble of a reality.

But like.. if we don't have hope what do we have? I spent my whole damn life being fucking miserable and I don't wanna do that here too so.. trying to be more optimistic you know? Turning a new leaf or something.

Anyway, I made you a meme to explain them to the Demon King.

[He grins and flips some pages to show Clarke his beautiful drawing of the captain as a cat with a lot of Clarke threatening him with knives.]

( "you still have hope?" "we're still breathing". sometimes it's almost funny how clearly she can hear bellamy's voice ringing in her ears, like he's not gone to the nothing or drifting around in dead space on board the go-sci ring.

but, more immediately, she dips her head down and doesn't respond. doesn't really want to acknowledge that pratt's the second person she thinks about (natsuno being the first) when reminded that the dead are better off on this boat than back home. that line of thinking threatens the resolve she has for finding a way to kill or incapacitate the captain, and is not allowed right now.

so, meme shift.

clarke blinks at the picture. ) That's not what hap— ( and all of a sudden she gets it, and snorts so hard a hand raises to her mouth on instinct. a second later, a bit wryly: )

I only hit him once.

I'm still trying to think up a good one for cracking his head open with uh.. tongs? A spatula? What was it again?

[Unfortunately the cute cat memes he's familiar with aren't very violent, so he might have to settle for giving Clarke laser eyes that shoot lobster crackers.]

My world uses these to make jokes about shit that's happened, especially if it's awful. I dunno, sometimes it makes people feel better. I just.. everyone's so miserable all the time, and Ava was thinking maybe that's why people disappear. They just kinda give up and fade away, and I don't want that to happen to anyone else. Already sucks it's happened to so many people. Maybe that's not what causes it, but people being more cheerful can only help right?

( other than magic sigils, that image should absolutely be her first real tattoo. teenagers don't actually change all that much, and shitty meme tats feel like a prerequisite before she hits twenty. )

...The method of execution on the Ark was called floating. Council determines you guilty, they put in an airlock ( vague gesture here, as she'd mentioned the graffiti already ) and open the outer door. We used to say "go float yourself" instead of "go fuck yourself". Then on Earth, one of my friends dragged the Chancellors bedmat into a lake while he was asleep, and he woke up in the water having literally been floated... It was really funny. ( clarke hadn't been there to see it, though. )

Gallows humor won't save us from the gallows. But it... makes the mystery less intimidating.

( all that to say she's not completely devoid of humor and does get it. )

I don't think it was giving up. The people I know who vanished, they would have never given up. ( bellamy blake, mizuki... hell, even ebalon. even jinx. ) ...And it was a lobster cracker.

It makes it easier at a uh... micro level so you don't have to freak out about the big picture. Something like that anyway, I'm the last person who should be psychoanalyzing shit. But it works and I'm not gonna question it.

Something got them though. Either it's something internal like they don't have enough emotions to juice the ship. Or it's external like they were sucked through a mirror by the ship ghosts. Like SOMETHING happened, I don't think they're just all hiding out in the VIP lounge.

( some mild humming along of agreement until that proverbial record scratch and keen interest into one of pratt's throwaway lines. )

Oh, you've been thinking about the mirrors too? What all do you know about that?

Pulled Clara out of one when she first showed up. There was this thing in the mirror grabbing at her and her arm from here, [He gestures to his shoulder] to here, turned white, and she couldn't feel it. Looked like it does when someone exsanguinates, just totally devoid of blood, but it wasn't rotting. Weirdest thing, never seen anything like that and I've seen a shit ton of injuries. Eventually feeling came back, an hour later or something.

[He looks away, wishing Clara was still around so they could ask her more about what had happened. Both because of Pratt's shitty memory and just to have her back on the ship. He'd felt a little safer having another person who had effectively talked him down before. That's rare. ]

I asked Friday about that too... after Izzy got attacked and the same thing happened. Like if it was connected. And if the mirror ghosts and the ones that processed people were the same. I think she said they weren't but.. I don't really remember. I shoulda been writing all that shit down. Gonna end up like the dude from memento and just scraps of paper everywhere.

( literally every hair on the back of her neck is standing up on the back of her neck from pure excitement. talk about confirmation of a theory from the most unlikely source. and, sure, the latter half is secondhand knowledge from a man with enough holes in his memory he's kinda like a block of swiss cheese. but it's pratt, and it fits, and — )

Oh, that's what was meant by "blood drinking mirrors"? I was imagining... ( something between stumbling upon a mirror with a random dribble of blood hanging off the lower edge like soup leaking out of a mouth, and an open wound being required. ) Nevermind.

( after the revelation, she's more aware of the fact pratt isn't looking at her anymore. a quiet sort of mourning is recognized in his profile and aversion, but it's hard to touch that without also brushing up against her own. touching him isn't that hard though; between pressing his arm to the table the day after halloween and rubbing circles in his back around the bonfire, it feels allowed. so a hand is raised, and clarke gently nudges his shoulder with the backs of her fingers. i get it, it's okay and hey look at me all in one. )

You know, you could just text me after anything significant happens. I'll remember for you.

Who called them that? I mean, yeah that's... what they do. Except the blood doesn't get sucked out of you it's just gone. Unless that happens on the other side of the mirror and we can't see it. Clara didn't have any actual wounds or anything. Just white as hell and no feeling.

[He does look back at her, shaking himself out of his little reverie before he falls too far down his memories and regrets.]

I really probs should. I text Sharky sometimes but he probably gets annoyed by at least some of it. That's why I got a notebook and been writing all the important shit down. If the ship ever eats me you guys are gonna have the worst diary text log of all time. A bunch of random sentences that mean something to me and no one else.

( when he looks back, clarke smiles at him. well. half smile. a solid attempt, but it comes out the pinched, broken remnants of anything properly relating to happiness. a sad sort of buckled lips. the sentiment is there, though, in her eyes. )

I don't think you're all that hard to understand. And I'm pretty difficult to annoy.

( ... )

Unless it's Darcy. Or Jinx. Or sometimes even Rita.

( a small shrug, then moving on. ) Anyway, what mirror was this? ( totally casual asking! ) Do we need to put like, a warning sign in front of it? ( yeah that's exactly what she's thinking of doing with said blood draining mirror. don't worry about it! )

[He gives a half grin back, they're doing so well at convincing each other everything is just peachy.]

It's one of the ones in the hall off the atrium, but it hasn't done anything weird since then.... I don't think anyway? Not that I've been checking it. And it wasn't really the mirror, there was something in it that reached through it and grabbed her. Like a freaky decaying skeleton sorta.

( everything is absolutely fine. neither of them are dissolving at the seams nor plotting ship-wide chaos at the hands of a vector ghost, what do you mean?

though the hint of wind in clarke's proverbial sails seems to dissipate at that clarification. she'd seen plenty of mirrors around here, maybe even all of them after the several month stint of religiously walking the halls of the serena eterna in order to map them in her brain. and not once had a ghostly arm extended itself towards her. dammit. )

Gross. That does sound really freaky.

( where does she even start with that? is she going to have to make a crapshoot attempt at a single person séance just to set the mood?

... ) It was good of you to save her. It was in the binder, we know what would have happened if you hadn't. And it would have hurt the whole time.

I don't want anyone to get hurt. Or die. Or get their bodies used by ghosts. Which sounds dumb coming from... me. But it's true.

[He can almost hear Jacob telling him he's not a hero, he's a tool, but Jacob isn't here so fuck him.]

Whaddya think we need to do so it doesn't happen again?

( that punishing self deprecation streak hasn't let up, she sees. quietly: ) It's not dumb. It doesn't sound dumb.

( he's better than her, at the very least. the term acceptable losses had started floating around her mind early october, jarred forward when she'd screamed at natsuno that he wasn't one. but it's stuck around since, like a particularly ominous storm cloud above her head.

but, anyway: planning mode. or something like that. )

Mitigate the risk first. Perpetuate the knowledge. Post something next to that mirror, and any others in the common areas. "If suspicious looking, don't touch; you will die" or something like that. And then investigate the root cause, maybe there's something that could be done to fix it at the source.

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Just noticed that awesome typo up there. Processed? Go me. Well done.

i knew what you meant!!!!

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