come_sailaway | We'd be alright if the wind were in our sails

Entry tags:

We'd be alright if the wind were in our sails

Who: Arilanna Tayrey and You!
What: She's still alive and she has a lot of feelings about this (aftermath of event)
When: Post-event, catch-all for May
Where: Outside her cabin, shops, bars, lounge, around the ship in general
Warnings: She's likely to be depressive, possible talk of suicide and oblivion, property damage with a gun, will update with anything else.

1. another night in jail wouldn't do us any harm [existing CR, outside her cabin/texts]

[Sparkles vanished. She can't fault the decision; she'd want to vanish too, if they'd been in each other's places. What this tells her, however, is that there's nothing more she can do right now. Exhausted, Tayrey retreats to her cabin. Some good has been done here, she knows. The dimmed lights are testament to that. The tormented souls are free. But Ari Tayrey herself? She's right back where she started, trapped on this ship, surrounded by people who are now even more pleased to be there than before. Happy prisoners.

She can't bear to be around them. She can't bear to be around anyone, it's as if the lack of privacy she had no choice but to endure has rubbed every nerve raw, and she needs to recover. She scrubs herself clean, getting rid of every trace of sand, every trace of that ordeal. Before she sleeps, she barricades the door, just in case there's anyone cruel enough to try to disturb her.

Talk to her through the door, if you're not worried about making a habit of it. Or text her. Either way, nobody's getting in for several days.]

2. a bottle of rum wouldn't do us any harm [open, shops or bars]

[When she finally ventures outside again, it's for a perfunctory look around, an assessment of what she's missed. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the supply issues catch her attention first. For now, she's not personally worried. Her stockpiles are very healthy – but she's also aware that they're not infinite, and what is currently an erratic restocking system might quickly get worse.

Find her with a backpack, filling it with whatever looks useful. Depending on where you are, that might be packaged food, or it might be alcohol. Brandy and port and beer. This isn't done in busy areas, but she's not really trying to hide it either. In fact, if anyone approaches her, she'll raise a hand in greeting. No smile, though. She's busy.]

3. if the devil's in the road we'll roll it over him [open, various places]

[She's heard it all now. That Yato never returned from that room. That neither did Shiranui. Incongruously, her first reaction was anger. How could he do that? Confess his feelings for her, leave her no choice but to disappoint him, and then disappear? It isn't right. Ari's emotions are so conflicted she struggles to unpick them at all. She's grieving for the loss of a friend, but also for the loss of something that could never have existed, no matter what she felt for him.

She'd been careless. This is why Tradeliners don't get attached.

Her only solution is to keep herself busy. Even more patrols of the ship than before, and long hours bent over her astronomy texts as if she and not Crichton were the one with hidden knowledge that sufficient effort might reveal. Once, she even falls asleep over an open book in the lounge – something she'll be very flustered over if anyone ventures to wake her.

Or find Ari sitting on the ground, gun in her hand, firing short blasts at a nearby wall. The dark scorch marks leave patterns, and she links them together with a thick marker pen. Star charts. Trading lines. A map writ large, drawn out on a ship that no longer seems to be mending itself. An image in reverse, a negative, bright stars rendered as dark stains, signs of damage. And yet it's all very careful, very precise, and there's a strange sort of beauty in it, for those willing to see it.

If she's approached, she'll lower the gun, give the person an expectant look.]

or a wildcard

[Contact me via PM or at

MillisaK for a custom starter or to discuss other ideas!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She takes a slight, steadying breath.

"I want to apologize to you. I pressed you harder than I should have, on the matter of joining the group in the attempt to work our collective will on the situation."

Tayrey opens her mouth as if to speak, immediately, and then seems to think better of it, pressing her lips together again.

There's a long moment of silence.

'I don't believe in collective will, but you're apologising for the wrong thing. You did offend me, gravely, but I'm not sure that you knew you were doing it.' She takes a slow breath. 'I can explain, but I'll say first that I don't like to hold things that people say in desperate situations against them. It isn't fair.'

She doesn't like to. But she's only human, and things can't be unsaid.

A small frown wrinkle appears between Cassandra's brows, and as quickly smooths out again.

"Please do explain. I would appreciate it."

'Alright.' If nothing else, she's honest. 'I don't fault you for your attempt to negotiate contract. You can always do that, and the worst I'll do is turn you down. It was after...'

She leans back in her chair, and sighs. 'Here's how it seemed to me. You asked for contract and I had to turn you down, because of deeply held principles. Instead of accepting that, you asked me to fulfil a contract I'd told you went against my beliefs, and get nothing in return for it. And you further asserted that you didn't want to hear my decision on that request. After I'd already told you exactly where I stood.'

The words are firm, but not angry. 'We thought we were about to die. Did it please you to walk away thinking of me as the sort of servile, self-naughting individual who might have said yes to that kind of request?' After she'd told Cassandra she wanted to be remembered as herself. Not a passenger. Not what others wanted to make her.

Her mouth opens as Ari speaks, and closes again. She waits, somber, until it's quiet.

"No," she says, her voice soft. "No, I was thinking no such thing. I am sorry."

A beat.

"May I explain?"

'Please. Do explain.'

She doesn't know if an explanation will help, necessarily, but it seems to her that it's best to have all this out in the open. No buried resentments.

"My ... understanding of you did not stretch nearly so far as I had thought." That's a difficult admission, and she's trying to hide how bitter it is; not in itself, but on top of so many other failures to understand.

"The way it seemed to me was this: I tried to reach a contract with you, and you turned me down because what I asked would demand too high a price to contemplate. I respected that decision, but then -- and this is where I feel I pushed too hard -- rather than argue further for a trade that would require you to follow my judgment, I asked you to change your mind on your own. And I asked you not to tell me your decision, so that if you did change your mind, you would not then be in the position of justifying that change to me or to yourself."

She folds her hands. "It was ill done, and I apologize."

Ari looks faintly bewildered. 'You were asking me to change my mind about the matter itself, with no supporting reason beyond those that had already failed to change it, and you didn't think I would need to justify that change to myself? I'm not the sort to act on reasonless whims. You must understand why I thought you were asking me to change my decision about following your judgment, without contract - without anything in trade to make it equitable. It would have been terribly arrogant of you, but logical, at least.'

She sighs again. 'We both understand each other less than we thought, it seems. I don't like it, but I think it's good that we know. No use building on shaky foundations.'

Then, after a moment's careful thought, she speaks again. 'I do accept your apology. As I said, people say things under strain that they might not otherwise.'

"Thank you. I appreciate your," a small wry smile, "understanding."

She's quiet for a moment.

"I'd like to hear your thoughts on what came after, if you would like to share them."

It's a difficult question, because there's so much she can say, and she's not sure how far anyone is going to agree with her - but if you make a decision, you have to stand by it.

'I would have preferred,' she says, a little stiffly, 'not to have come back. That opportunity was taken from us, like... so many others. As for what I said? That shadow-creature is nothing but a tormented child. As much of a prisoner as we are here, kept in unimaginably worse conditions, and I... I'm not heartless, Cassandra. I had to try. Sparkles has been wronged by our captor just as we have, and I can forgive cruel actions taken by a child who never had the chance to learn any better. We have a common enemy, we might find common purpose, but it'll take time.'

There. That's the essence of it. 'That's how I see it. What about you?'

She nods at the first words; she knows that Tayrey would prefer to have died.

There's a pause, as she contemplates the rest of it. None of it is a surprise, except for --

"Do you recall," she says slowly, "in the room with the faces, Peter Smith gave a summary of information they'd been collecting? He said -- and I believe a good deal of the later discussion at the bridge supported it -- that Sparkles is the Captain. A piece of him, from earlier in his life. What did you make of that?"

'I recall,' she says, slowly. 'I have a couple of thoughts on the matter. The first is that I'm not convinced it's true. I'm not inclined to take Smith's word for things, much as I admire certain qualities in him. It's not sufficient.' And at the bridge, she hadn't really been focusing on anyone but Sparkles and then Fio.

'The second is that even if it is true, it's irrelevant. Say I take a piece of myself, a sample of my own flesh, and I use it to create a clone. A physical replica. Maybe even a psychological replica. Maybe at a much younger age. And then I spend an unimaginably long time torturing the poor girl for my personal gain, and I think it's all fine, because she's me, and so I can do what I like to her.'

Tayrey frowns, her expression troubled. 'It would make me a monster. And her? Maybe she started out as a part of me, but it'd be both cruel and inaccurate to say that she still is me. She'd be her own person. My victim, whose rights I've been trampling in the dirt. And if she hated and wanted to destroy me - who could possibly blame her for that?'

She shakes her head. 'All that is to say that even if they were once the same person, they aren't now.'

"I wasn't certain I believed it either," Cassandra agrees, "but it was brought up at the bridge, and neither of them denied it. And ... again, whether it's true or not I couldn't begin to say, but they both seemed to believe that if either of them were to be destroyed, it would destroy the other as well. Along with this entire reality and everyone in it."

A beat. "Which, if true, means that Sparkles's desire to destroy the Captain is ultimately a wish for self-destruction rather than freedom. And I can't say I blame him for that either."

'It was absolutely a wish for self-destruction. I saw that, plainly,' Tayrey confirms.

'I hope,' she says then, suddenly very grave, 'that I didn't make a very poor decision. That it wouldn't have been better to encourage the poor child to do just that. End all this, instead of thinking of freedom. The probabilities are...' she waves a hand, 'you know, I'm working on four different escape plans, but any one of them has only a sliver of a chance of getting to a success point, and that's with me spending every hour I have...'

There's an almost desperate look in her eyes now. 'Do you think I made the wrong choice?'

Cassandra shakes her head at once. "Absolutely not. For a very broad range of reasons. I think you made the best choice available to you there, and I ..."

It's hard for her to say this; it probably shows. "I don't think I could have done it. Even if I'd known it would work, even with the survival of everyone here at stake."

The look she gives her is one of understanding. 'It wasn't difficult for me, because I was only telling the truth as I saw it. Being kept in that room... it was torture to me - but I can't hold a damaged child culpable.'

Her voice turns softer for a moment. 'It's alright, if you couldn't have seen it that way. If you still don't. There are things you're capable of that would be totally beyond me. That's the strength in individuals working together. Shared values, but different talents. You didn't have to do it. Another time, it'll be your turn to step up and do what others can't.'

Cassandra breathes out, quietly. You didn't have to do it. Another time, it'll be your turn. Hearing that ... helps, somehow.

"I hope you're right about that. Thank you for saying so, regardless."

Ari nods. 'It's no trouble. I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it, and we both know this fight is far from over. But I do have one question-'

She pauses, leans a little closer, because this is important. 'If I can convince Sparkles of the merits of freedom for everyone here, are you willing to work with him against the false captain, and for our escape? I'm not asking you to approve, or be friendly, or - really for anything other than temporary co-operation in service of a shared objective.' Then, almost an afterthought: 'Saying no is perfectly acceptable. I just need to know it, as I'm making plans for future possibilities.'

She considers that, carefully.

"I don't think it's likely," she says finally. "Any likelier than convincing the Captain of the same. But should that situation arise ... I'd be extremely wary of trusting it, but I wouldn't be opposed in principle to that kind of temporary cooperation."

'Thank you.' This is enough to make Tayrey smile. It's one less potential trouble.

'It's not likely, no. Although it's actually far more likely than convincing that false captain of anything, but that helps less than you might think. The probability is still very low - but isn't that true of all our plans? Still, I have to try. Sparkles might hold more power than we know. Possibly than he knows, right now. I shan't rule it out.'

"If I may ask," Cassandra says cautiously, "why do you think it's more likely? Not the part about opposing the false captain," sure, she'll use Tayrey's phrasing, "but the part about seeing the merits of freedom for everyone here."

She hears that phrasing, and appreciates it immensely. 'I'm afraid I'm being very literal,' she admits. 'I don't think there's any chance that our captor will simply set us free. I certainly have absolutely no chance of convincing him, since he won't meet with me. The chances of convincing Sparkles are higher since it's actually possible to negotiate with him.'

She thinks for a moment. 'But it's also true more broadly. Sparkles was held prisoner here. Tortured so badly that the only way out he saw was death. If we can convince him escape is possible, why shouldn't we convince him that we long for freedom and deserve it just as he does? Children do understand that others have feelings too. I'm not saying that it'll be easy. But possible? Certainly.'

"He's met with me. I ... don't have any clear idea of what kind of impression I made."

She listens to the rest, then frowns in consideration. "If I understand the order of events correctly, Sparkles -- or rather, the being that eventually became both Sparkles and our captor -- was held prisoner and tortured long before 'here' even existed. This place represents its attempt to escape all of that. I admit I don't understand how the division between them happened, but ... I'm not certain either aspect of him is likelier to come to care about what we want or deserve."

'They are not the same person.' Ari says this sharply, vehemently. 'They are not aspects of the same person. They likely have the same origin, but that hardly matters. Sparkles is an individual. He was trapped within this ship, for a very long time. Who do you think did that to him? If this ship was his escape, why would he be so desperate, in such pain that he wanted to destroy it, and himself and everyone else with it? Sparkles had no choice about that situation. He was trapped. Alone. For such a long time.'

She has sympathy for the poor tortured child. There's - Ari can't see it, but there's something in the way of projection going on too. But both those things pale in comparison to the idea that Sparkles and the false captain were the same. If it were true, Ari would have done something absolutely unforgivable in speaking up for the former, and she suspects Cassandra wouldn't have told her it was the right decision, either. More like siding with the enemy.

'He's a child. He can grow. He can learn. He already cares about Fio.'

"They aren't the same person now, but they were once. I think that does matter, and it could be dangerous to lose sight of it. The being that they once were, that being created this place as an escape, and it severed a piece of itself to do it. Sparkles is that piece. He didn't get a chance at that escape because he was imprisoned to make it possible."

A beat, as she tries to work out a better way to explain.

"I don't hold Sparkles responsible for anything the false captain has done to us, and it would be reprehensible if anyone were to do so -- but I don't think their experiences have differed enough that it no longer makes sense to view the false captain as a, a way to guess how Sparkles might behave. Maybe Sparkles can grow and learn, but finding one of us to care about clearly didn't stop him from tormenting the rest of us."

We'd be alright if the wind were in our sails

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

wrap here?

sure!