come_sailaway | i tried ( memshare event )

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i tried ( memshare event )

Who: clarke griffin & your poor unfortunate soul
What: memories, all alone in the moonlight
When: all of march
Where: wherever you least expect a rift in reality to open up. also space, mount weather, earth...
Warnings: general warnings for blood, violence, murder attempted or completed, genocide, maybe even gross body farming. specific prompts will have their individual warnings listed in the body of this post and any additional ones will be noted in subject headers.

CHILDHOOD ( open )
— enjoy the little things, like watching a kid commit the stupid crime of touching books. no warnings here.

SKYBOX ( karkat, number 6, & open )
— did you know clarke was in prison for a year for treason? conspiracy to commit treason? eh, best summed up as "to keep her quiet". well now you can find out! bonus points, she thinks she's hallucinating. cw: probably some dead dad/execution talk and mention of mild eugenics themes, this is dystopia space after all.

D(ropship) DAY ( rita & open )
— when 100 kids are pretty certain they're about to be prematurely executed, one or two's likely to fight back. abby griffin cameo! cw: see above warnings.

QUARANTINE ( darcy, palamedes, & open )
— witness clarke gone absolutely feral, and her first escape attempt from ~~body harvesters she doesn't know are body harvesters yet~~ mount weather. cw: some self harm, blood, violence, potential body horror depending on how the thread goes.

LEVERS ( open but requires plotting )
— join clarke in committing a genocide! cw: genocide!! (also mentions of torture and body farming) this can also partially serve as a cinematic experience for your character, but please respond with some sort of reaction just so i know who saw it.

AIRLOCK 5 ( semi-closed to natsuno, but hmu ooc if you're interested )
— no one likes being faced with their demons. but sometimes those demons set up creepy music boxes and lure you into watching your friends being murdered. cw: violence, attempted (or successful! threads of fate can be changed) murder

THE CITY OF LIGHT ( open )
— when you show an a.i. a picture of the greater metropolitan new york, but she cleans it up and also makes it a hivemind that you have to infiltrate. cw: violence, some creepy hivemind shit, will warn further for anything else.

AFTERMATH ( open )
— your all purpose aftermath wildcards! wanted a memory i mentioned in the plotting post but it didn't make the cut? still available upon request! request starters or throw up your own

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Genetic diversity.

[Palamedes picks up a cookie the other boys left behind and takes a bite]

Assuming this room at full capacity could seat the entire population of Mount Weather, I’d estimate that about 375 people live here. They appear to have a fairly robust food production and water recycling system, and I saw some rather impressive air filters when they were showing us around, so resources to meet immediate needs aren’t a problem. But you can’t grow a unique human genetic sequence in a hydroponics bay. If they’re going to survive long-term, they’re going to need more people, not fewer.

[He munches on the cookie some more.]

I do have questions about where they’re getting chocolate. And sugar, for that matter. [He looks at the cookie for a long moment, and then shrugs.] In any case, that’s just one theory. You’re right. They obviously want us for something. But that something probably doesn’t involve our imminent death.

( ...oh.

that was a very immediate and assured response on palamedes' part. confident and, while shocking to hear, would make absolute sense. the ark hadn't been to the point of assigning someone to oversee consanguinity tables to prevent inbreeding — clarke's only fourth generation — and potentially had the exact opposite problem as mount weather in regards to population regulation. one has made second children a crime punishable by death or imprisonment, the other is potentially so desperate for more that they're willing to take in 49 strangers on the off chance of they fuck around and reproduce.

and really, wouldn't cross-breeding between mountain men and skaikru have been a really peaceful way to resolve this whole issue? for future generations, at least. it's right up there with just asking for bone marrow donations — if 300 arkers would willingly sit in a makeshift airlock in hopes of giving their people more time, 381 would have sat through painful medical procedures to help others too — but we already know this doesn't play out peacefully.

clarke's attention had been split — she'd been half following jasper and monty's backs as they fetched more snacks — but as palamedes goes on to give a lowkey dissertation, she hones in on him. really looks at him, and purses her mouth as literally nothing comes up when trying to place his face. you'd think if someone was brimming with logical ideas this whole time, they would have stood alongside her and bellamy at the head of the delinquents. so where was this guy when they were attempting peace talks and battering down for war?

but she's too distracted looking at new enemies to truly scrutinize pal. )

...huh. ( ends up being all clarke says on the matter. and after a beat: ) Their hydroponic farm probably includes cocoa beans and sugar cane.

( then she looks for the other two boys again, and sees jasper approaching maya. the map with no exits is still firmly front and center in her mind, everything is so tightly held under lock and key — and keycard — here. an idea sparks.

very abruptly, clarke stands up. ) Excuse me.

( and she'll be several purposeful strides away from pal before he can so much as scoot back his chair. )

[Strangely, unlike the other memories, this one doesn’t fade. Days pass, and Mount Weather remains Palamedes’ home. He can do nothing but accept this strange turn of events, blending in with the others as much as he can and keeping an eye on one Clarke Griffin.

But he cannot watch her constantly, and it’s inevitable that, one afternoon a few days later, he realizes that he has no idea where Clarke is. Trying his best not to panic—or, at the very least, keep his panic to himself—he asks after her among the delinquents, carefully and cautiously. Most of them shrug, but eventually someone tells him, I think I saw her going to the infirmary? It looked like she was cut pretty bad.

Pal doesn’t waste any time. The map, which really isn’t very good, marks the general vicinity, but once he gets there, he finds no immediate sign of the infirmary in the maze of unmarked corridors. From there, he sets off based on an instinct he can’t define and isn’t sure he trusts, but which, miraculously, gets him where he means to go.

Within five minutes, he standing in front of a door with a little Infirmary label above it. Cautiously, he opens it, relieved to discover the room is mostly empty.]

Clarke? Clarke, are you there?

( throughout those days, he probably hears how she immediately stole a keycard off maya after leaving their table. how she'd run through the belly of mount weather, dismantling security locks so no one could follow her, and ended up at one of the doors leading to the outside. maybe he hears how maya had leveled a gun at her head, and how jasper had talked her down while she'd been on the brink of tears. or maybe just that a crisis had been averted and their benevolent hosts had decided to keep them on. he probably sees her at dinner a night later, staring down dante wallace until finally raising a spoonful of beef stew to her lips and being overwhelmed by the taste.

but backing down and cooperating does not mean clarke's mind stops whirring. she's eaten their food, talked to their president over a series of oil paintings, and been told there was no evidence of ark survivors in almost the same breath she was threatened (please don't test me, clarke). she's been given clean clothes again, and gifted an art kit full of pastel crayons and real pencils. but not drunk from the stream that seems to so enchant other members of her people. she can't stop thinking about that suspicious blood transfusion equipment in the infirmary, and how the tubes just went into the wall with no visible doner.

and when the surface crew returns and she manages to barge into their quarantine ward to view a dead body riddled with bullet holes, she knows they're all lying. that's also the first time she sees the effects of radiation on a human body that's still breathing, and it's horrifying. also the first time she sees the dialysis shunt that's embedded in every single occupant of mount weather.

when she asks to see the body of the shot mountain man again, she's told again that it's simply an arrow wound. and when she asks to speak to the burnt survivor, she's told only patients are allowed in medical. in the end she's forced to reconcile the fact that the wounds on shaw's body look like they could come from an arrow, but the paranoia doesn't evaporate and it's beginning to win her no favors amongst the other 48 survivors (how long do you think they'll let us stay here if you keep this up? right now, the biggest threat to us is you.) that's almost enough to rattle her, in conjunction with the absolute frustration of the mount weather map.

but then she sees langston shaw, up on his feet and personable again. almost completely healed. going for his last "treatment".

and later that night, she peel gauze from her forearm and holds the stitched gash earned from breaking out of quarantine to a particularly jagged edge of a bunk bed. grits her teeth and tries not to make a sound while dragging it through the raw wound; it has to be slow and deliberate to perfectly match the wound pattern already established. it's a simple lie — sorry, my stitches reopened — but enough to get her sent to mount weather's medical facility and redressed in a yellow hospital gown. when dr. tsing leaves, she tries to rouse langston shaw, but he's unresponsive. she peels back the edge of his hospital gown to get a good look at the shunt, and tracks the tubes leading into a pipe inlaid in the wall. follows that to a door, that's impossible to open when she tries.

then spots the vent cover next to it, and an idea sparks in the back of her mind.

then, she hears someone calling her name. and looking around, spots that same strange boy from before. he is... being way too loud. )

Shh, ( she shushes him unkindly, finger to her lips and eyes bright and angry. she doesn't appreciate pal's presence, but at least accepts him as enough of one of us to falter. to offer: )

Go back to where you were, or come with me. But be quiet about it.

[All right, Clarke isn’t happy to see him, which is both unsurprising and understandable. But she has a scheme, and schemes mean danger, and Palamedes Sextus hasn’t voluntarily let Clarke charge into danger alone since they dragged each other up the Serena Eterna decks in the middle of a hurricane.

She says or come with me and the tiniest smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. Pal slips inside and carefully shuts the door, then looks at her with an arched brow. What are we doing, then?]

( what they're doing is trying to dismantle part of mount weather's filtration system as quietly as humanly possible. the vent is large and heavy, clunky and almost impossible to rip out silently. but luckily the inhabitants of the medical wing are unconscious, and the walls thick. no one come running and, one by one, they can hoist themselves up and through the tunnel. clarke goes first.

on the ark, there are plenty of vent vaults, cleaning accesses, and interconnected engineering that one could squirrel themselves away in; take the fact octavia blake had lived sixteen years of her life in an underfloor recession. there's even stories of a girl from alpha station using them to spy on important conversations and hide from the guards. but clarke had never been the type to tempt the rules back home, and all of this is new. once or twice as they go, she invariably turns her head and glances at him warningly or whispers shh. he's seen her bossy plenty of times before, but probably not so overtly commanding since that wet dash up the flights of stairs.

ahead of them, a lurid green light shines through metal slats. when they reach it, clarke places both hands on either side and heaves with her full weight to jostle the aged vent cover out of place.

the room beyond is quiet, but heavy with the weight of a den. it's some sort of laboratory at first glance. but immediately to the left are bodies. )

There are some advantages to having a weird kid you don’t really remember suddenly deciding to join your question to find evidence that your hosts have less-than-pure motives. For one thing, it’s useful to have an extra pair of hands available when you’re trying to dismantle a metal vent and lower it to the floor without making too much noise. It probably also helps that this particular weird kid has also spent some time creeping around in spaceship air ducts and maintenance hatches, and is willing to follow quite dutifully.

There’s one problem, though: thanks to some mess-up genetics, said weird kid is awash with upper-respitory allergies, and they have only gone a few feet before he is struggling to hold back a sneezing attack. Each time Clarke looks back, though, Pal is smiling encouragingly, his nose twitching, barely breathing for fear that he’ll give them away completely.

By the time Clarke pushes aside the vent—which, to be fair, makes quite the clatter itself—Pal can’t hold back any longer. Taken over by an attack of sneezing, he all but rolls out of vent and onto the floor beyond. A few moments pass before he can raise his head and look around.

And when he does, the breath goes out of him all over again.]

Oh... my god.

( but there is no god in mount weather.

the two bodies they come upon are strung up like cattle in a slaughterhouse, naked save for medical gauze wrapped around their pelvises and chest. one man, one woman. bruised and lifeless, save for the vital monitoring equipment that insists they both still have heartbeats. suspended by their ankles, hair and arms dangling listlessly towards the floor, with a variety of different bleeding wounds — other places they've been tapped — bandaged over carelessly. and awash with tubes full of dark liquid that clarke immediately knows has to be blood.

the tubes run up to the ceiling, and back through ports in the wall towards the medical wing. and whatever she'd expected to find on the other side of this vent, it wasn't this. palamedes' sneezing fit doesn't even go reprimanded, she's so sick to her stomach that it physically hurts and all she can squeak out is: )

Those are Grounders. They're bleeding them. For —

( medical treatments. to compensate for the mountain men's inability to metabolize radiation. they're killing them so they can live. and...

behind them, a soft rattle. the squeak of metal, the distinct sound of another person breathing in the room with them.

there are two rows of inhumanely small cages, and the occupants have begun to stir. )

Grounders.

[Palamedes pushes himself to his feet and straightens, peering into the darkness and the horrors that await them within it. Grounders. The descendants of humans who had somehow survived the destruction of Earth. He remembers Clarke mentioning Grounders, always in tones half-wary, half-admiring.]

But why— 

[Before Pal can speculate, though, he sees the flash of movement out of the corner of his eye, and some medical instinct kicks him. Setting aside the mystery for now, he hurries to the cage to investigate and kneels beside it. At first glance, the person inside appears dead, and it is somehow more horrifying to realize that they are breathing.]

Clarke. [The name has the air of an order to it, polite though his voice remains.] See if you can find some water for these people.

( she hears him, and water's a good idea but — like pretty much any other time anyone's tried to boss clarke around when she doesn't want to be, this iteration also mostly ignores pal's suggestion. there's a strange pull in the back of her ribcage, a need to investigate and understand that compels her feet forward down the aisle between cages. the men and women behind bars groan and moan, wheeze and maybe try to beg but the words come out unintelligible. hands reach out, brushing the edge of her yellow hospital gown or the edges of her yellow hair. the shadow of a large industrial fan makes its dutiful rotations on the ground, and the further back in the room they look, the more cages they'll see; stacked on each other in pyramids and rows. some occupants are half dead, some are possibly entirely dead. some still have some fight in them, and plenty are scared — like the monsters of legends have finally manifested from the shadows to eat them alive.

clarke doesn't realize she's looking for familiar faces — for any survivors from the dropship camp, or the ark crashdown sites — until she sees one. the woman is bruised and bloodied, almost beyond recognition in the dim green light of the laboratory. but when she raises her head ever so slightly and they lock eyes... )

Anya? ( quietly gasped, and she's immediately crouching beside the lower level cage and twining her fingers around the bars. anya kom trikru blinks at her, bedraggled but still very much alive and angry. but also a little surprised.

the sky people and the grounders are not on good terms. they'd just been at war, bellamy had shot anya less than two weeks ago. but determination settles in the pit of clarke's stomach the second she'd seen her, and now — now she remembers palamedes is here too. )

I know her. Help me. ( which isn't a very specific call to action, but the meaning can probably be inferred by the way she's suddenly yanking on the master lock holding the cage closed. )

[Clarke doesn’t follow his instructions—shocker—but the need for water remains, and after a moment Pal rises again and goes searching. In one dark corner there’s an industrial sort of sink, and when he turns the tap, water spits out. Now he needs a receptacle; he finds a steel bowl that probably isn’t entirely clean, but will serve the appropriate purpose, and fills it up.

By now, Clarke has found Anya and is rattling at the lock, and Pal is hurrying back. The woman in the cage looks at him with her sunken, suspicious eyes, but she isn’t so proud that she turns away when he tries to tip the water into her mouth through the bars.]

Hitting it isn’t going to help, you know. [This is directed at Clarke’s thus-far unsuccessful effort to break the lock by force.] Let me see.

( on some level, it's really nice not being alone in the pits of actual human depravity, otherwise affectionately known as hell. on the other hand, she immediately wants to argue with palamedes that she knows hitting and yanking on the lock won't yield any results, even if the metal is 100 years old. there's just no time for that, and as he rejoins her and takes over, she moves to get out of the way.

at least, after a second. a weighted moment is spared in this desperate breakout attempt to look anya in the eyes and promise with conviction she doesn't own: ) I'm going to get you out of here.

( but then she's on her feet, and gives palamedes room to look. while he does whatever he's about to do, she's off to the side — setting her sights on a piece of pipe that encloses some wiring under an outlet, and summarily ripping it off the stone wall. )

[It’s probably a good thing that Clarke walks away; that means that Pal doesn’t need to explain what he does next. He takes a small knob of bone out of his pocket and, as he rubs it between his thumb and forefinger, it elongates and grows the teeth of a key. It’s nothing fancy, but neither is the lock in question.

He inserts the glorified lock pick into the keyhole and fiddles with it, frowning faintly. It’s not like Pal knows much of anything about locks, and there’s always a chance this won’t work. But just as he is about to give up on his little experiment, he hears a click and grins.]

Gotcha.

( clarke's returned, pilfered metal pipe in hand, just in time to hear the click and subsequent jangling of the lock being taken off. she also hears the prideful gotcha sighed under pal's breath, and while she didn't see exactly what happened enough of this is sufficiently suspicious that she pauses. )

How did you...

( — and then thinks better of asking questions. at least right now. the gate of the cage swings open, and anya sags with it, as if leaning on the metal mesh link was all that was keeping her upright. clarke immediately reaches to grab the woman's arm, and sets her feet in preparation to haul her out, sling a bandaged and bleeding arm around her shoulder and figure the rest out from there.

but then comes... the familiar twirling sound of mechanics. the sound of the keycard lock to the laboratory door unlatching with high enough access credentials. and the heavy metal door itself beginning to heave open. she has two seconds to think, and no concrete thoughts form in that time, so it's all left to instinct. with one hand she shoves anya back into her cell, and with the other she finds the back of palamedes' neck, pushing him in after the grounder. there isn't enough room for all three of them — two is already pushing it — so with very little time to spare, clarke scrambles to the end of the cell block. crouches down immediately behind the last bottom level cage, trusting her shadow to be hidden by those of the captured grounder masses. her heart is hammering, and she puts a hand over her mouth in an effort to stifle the sound of her erratic breathing.

dr. lorelei tsing walks in alone. she is obviously unbothered by the stink of fearful humans, or the blood-let bodies still suspended from the ceiling. she crosses to a freezer and opens the small panel door to fetch a bag or two of blood. and around them all, the grounders come to life all over again — a heaving mass of humanity behind bars, groaning in anger, groaning like they're begging. frenzied, while half starved and heavily drugged.

and they must be louder than usual. or else there's something desperate and palpable in the air, because the good (horrid) doctor doesn't just leave. her attention is caught by those low animal noises, and she starts walking towards the lines of cages. )

[Everything happens so fast, Pal doesn’t have a chance to respond. One moment he is helping pull the woman from the cage to her feet, the next moment they are both being manhandled back into the cage. It takes Pal a second to realize what’s going on, that someone new has entered this horrifying laboratory and is striding towards them.

Anya leaps to the bars with her fellows, screaming and pounding with the energy of someone who may have nearly lost their body and their mind, but not their fury. Pal crouches behind her, partly hidden in shadow, silent and breathing hard.

Pal recognizes the doctor. He has seen her around, exuding the sort of calm confidence and detached sympathy that, as a member of Sixth House, he has been raised to admire. Now, as she surveys this room of horror with that same calm, his disgust is great enough that he nearly joins in the screaming.]

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i tried ( memshare event )

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cw for brief self harm reference

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cw "mount weather" from here on out

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