come_sailaway | JUNE EVENT: CAMP

JUNE EVENT: CAMP

early on June 10th, Friday's morning announcements end with a request for everyone going on the latest excursion to meet her in the atrium. she seems in noticeably better spirits than she had been last time, and she leads them cheerfully to the tender. once they are all aboard, and the door is securely shut, the interior fills with gas, and, perhaps, their last thought before they slip into unconsciousness is "oh shit, not again."

passengers wake up on a rickety old school bus, driving down a dirt road surrounded by woods. what is it that they notice first? that, no matter what they were wearing before, they are now wearing a camp t-shirt and legitimately horrifyingly short shorts? the overstuffed backpack between their knees? the words "take one down and pass it around" dying on their lips? the fact that Friday is absolutely driving the bus?

or, maybe the fact that it's already slowing down, pulling up in front of a massive wooden sign, saying:

CAMP AION

when they get out of the bus, Friday is the one to divide them up into their cabin groups, and she is the one to give the counselors their very official-looking clipboards and whistles. she explains that they are in charge, and that she will be back to pick them up in a week, and... very little else. she responds to nothing outside of whatever is on her unseen little script, and she gets back on the bus shortly after, leaving them there.

welcome to camp. let's make some summer memories!

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[This early into the week, Natsuno stays close to Clarke like a stoic, vampire shadow. He's still waiting for the other shoe to drop and he's not going to let anything happen to her this time.

He joins her as she ventures into the woods to collect samples, fully intent on putting himself in harm's way in case they run into a hostile passenger - or preferably, a venomous animal. Natsuno's reluctant to let her out of his sight, but sometimes he must, like when he climbs to the treetops in search of bugs and bird nests.]

Still nothing, [He announces as he slides down another tree.] Do you know how to make snares?

( just like the actual shadow her frame casts off when backlit by glaring sunshine, natsuno's presence is now so familiar that it would feel weirder if he hadn't dogged after her towards potential danger. they're of a like mind, not a lot of explaining or justification had taken place before heading off towards the treeline. armed with their camp issued backpacks, a bunch of empty milk cartons, and a few metal cooking utensils from the mess hall — when you can't find a garden shovel, grab a few solid turners, tongs, a basting brush and a set or two of kitchen shears — it's time for a science based field trip.

they stop here and there amidst the underbrush and shading of treetop foliage. clarke focuses on the ground and plant life, leaving the seeking of living creatures to natsuno — who undisputedly had a leg up on her in that department. yet while she's scraping a light green moss off a tree trunk, he's landing back amidst the decomposing leaves without much of a sound — and even less to show for the tree climbing venture.

and — )

Oh, actually I do.

( earth skills had been one of the few organized schooling efforts on the ark, otherwise most children just jumped directly into whatever they'd end up specializing in. usually whatever their parents had done. but before they even knew the ship was failing, there'd always been the hope to return to the ground. if not this generation, than their children, or their children's children. and for that hope, the information had to be maintained, well taught, and survive through generations. sterilizing water, field triage, making snares and starting fires... she's basically the ultimate girl scout. )

Hunting snares, though. It'd likely kill the bird.

[The milk cartons for sample are a great idea, one he wouldn't think of on his own. Natsuno is smart, but a few weeks as an amateur vampire hunter are hardly a match for Clarke's education and training.]

Dead bird is better than no bird. [Palamedes can tell things just by examining a bone, after all.] In movies they always prop a box on a stick and put some food under as bait. Then you pull the stick and the box traps the animal. Would that work in real life?

[Don't judge him, no one covered earth skills in his high school.]

( dead bird is better than no bird he says, and that's absolutely true but maybe clarke just hadn't truly taken into account how much she missed the ambiance of insect buzz and birdsong. this isn't the first time she's contemplating killing something she doesn't want to, and won't be the last time she decides the benefits outweigh the costs. )

It works, but that's easier for land animals. Squirrels and rabbits, things already looking for food on the forest floor. There's a better one we could do, and it's not hard — can you get me a thick stick, a perch sized branch, and a rock the size of a fist? I think I have string...

( she's rummaging through all those collected samples in her backpack, trying to find a length of twine or friendship bracelet string pilfered from the arts and crafts hall. )

Okay. But let's make the other one too, just in case.

[A stick and a fist sized rock are easy enough to find. The branch takes a little longer, because he has to climb another tree to break one.]

( redundancy, she likes it.

clarke waits patiently and takes whatever items natsuno proffers her. then sets to them with the kitchen shears and the bent metal knife from home, going slowly and occasionally stopping to make sure he's watching and understands the mechanics of what's being built between her fingers. a hole in one piece of wood, one end of the branch sharpened to a point. the rock is trussed up with the string and set as a lever to deploy the trap whenever a bird lands on it. all in all, it maybe takes her fifteen minutes to build this, before holding up the final product. )

Push down on the perch, ( clarke challenges mildly, it's good to test the mechanism now to see if the noose is set right. )

[Just like when she taught him how to shoot, Natsuno listens attentively as he watches her work, occasionally stopping to ask Clarke a question or ask that she go one step back so he can try for himself.

He knows he doesn't have the knowledge people like Jade, Pal and Skulduggery have, knows that his experience is limited. But he also knows he's clever and keen and that he's much more resilient than most passengers. He needs to learn as much as he can, to be better at gathering information for people better equiped to decipher it.

When Clarke is done, he pushes down the perch and raises his eyebrows when the it falls and the noose tightens around his fingers. Cool. He tugs at the string a few times, trying to figure out if a fluttering bird can break out.]

Did you use stuff like this a lot, when you were on Earth?

( she'd had a conversation with yuri lowell some weeks ago, in that brief span of quiet between pirate jenny's arrival and her attempt to drown them all. and from that chat had come the seemingly indisputable fact that it was going to be resilience that got them through this hellscape. not grand speeches, not any one stroke of genius, not the strength of a single human being. but that willingness to learn everything, lean into every challenge, ask questions and expand your thinking. and most importantly, get back up after being knocked down.

traps, gun handling, fighting techniques and relevant histories could be taught. hell, even magic could probably be learned. but resilience wasn't something that could be acquired on a whim, and was even harder to disperse. some people had it, some didn't, and in times clarke doubts her own stubborn willingness to never back down, she doesn't doubt natsuno's.

the noose should hold tight around his finger. if he somehow manages to get free, they just need a bigger rock as a counterweight. the trap is designed to latch around the birds foot, but not cut it off. if it caught around the animals throat, it'd inevitably strangle it. )

Only whenever we wanted to eat.

( rations ran out, it wasn't like they'd been sent down with the makings and seedlings of a hydroponic farm. the delinquents from farm station had set to making a still before they'd considered a garden, like teenagers left to their own devices tend to do. clarke eventually reaches out to untangle the noose from natsuno's finger and slowly resets the trap so he can watch. )

You'd have to catch a lot of birds to feed 97 people though. We usually tried to find bigger animals that weren't too irradiated. But you can go almost a month without eating, and hunting wasn't a bigger priority than fortifying our camp so.

( so sometimes they went hungry. there was a reason so many of the surviving 100 were sold so instantly by the platters of meat and cakes set before them in the depths of mount weather. there was a reason clarke's self imposed hunger strike her first month on board hadn't entirely crippled her resolve; it hadn't been anything too new. )

[Almost a month. That's longer than he'd think, but then again, what does he know? His only encounter with hunger was the shiki's hollow, painful bloodlust the overtook them if they went more than a couple of days without feeding. For a moment Natsuno can't help but wonder what would happen to him in this situation - how long without normal food would it take before he starts craving blood?

But that's a thought for later, when he's alone. He focuses on Clarke putting the trap back together.]

How do you get from 97 to 1100, then?

[He knows her Earth is a cruel, unforgiving place. He knows that she became Wanheda because she had to make cruel, unforgiving decisions to protect her people. And yet, somehow it turned from fortifying a camp of 97 people to experimenting on herself so a thousand will have a chance to survive a deathwave. How can you extend yourself like this? The captain keeps bringing more passengers - how do you stop them for tearing each other's throat out, if only so the unimportant masses won't hurt the few who truly matter?]

( they're both momentarily caught on the concept of time. natsuno thinks about starvation, and at his question, clarke's struck by just how long they've known each other without her ever... really... telling him much about herself. has it really been three, three and a half months?

is this a different brand of dishonesty?

her fingers stay at reaffixing the noose, and for a second she just looks at him. blank, shocked, the weight of her life story on her tongue but so, so bitter. not that long ago she'd levelled the number of people she killed at diana abel and witnessed abject horror reflected in the other woman's eyes — a reinforcing moment, that she was more blood-soaked than the creatures of nighttime horrors.

but it's just a second. the mask of a halfassed grin gets slapped back on, and clarke shrugs. )

Long story. I guess the short version is only 100 of us were sent down to Earth at first. Well, 102 actually.

( and there's that vague obfuscating again. 100 criminals sent down to earth from space. 102 people becoming 97 all because of a rough landing, not to mention how only 40-sum of the original number were alive by the end of the next month. )

[It's just a second, but a second is all he needs to realize he overstepped. Natsuno was trying to understand who "Clarke's people" were and they became so many, but seems like all he did was remind her of how awful it'd been from getting one point to the other.

("Wanheda means Commander Of Death."

"I didn't want that reputation, but once I had it, I used it."

"I don't think it can be called bravery when it's a necessity and you hate it.")]

...okay.

[That's enough to piece some of it together. "Sent", so someone else decided it. Not all of them survived. And they ran into other factions, who took Clarke's people hostage and paid the price...]

You don't even have to tell me the short version, if you don't want to.

[She's his friend and that's not going to change. She doesn't owe him her past, her secrets or her pain. She can tell him a little, everything, or nothing at all, and Natsuno will always respect her decision.]

I'm not trying to be cagey.

( not that the denial takes away from the fact she's quite a bit cagey... it's just been three months of actively focusing on a new problem, with no one really throwing the weight of her past decision around to make her second guess the new ones they'll inevitably have to make. immediately after mount weather she'd all but run away, tried to blend into the foliage for a time, adamant she was no one and here...

but, no. it decidedly feels like dishonesty. )

Maybe we could just talk about it later? I still want to get samples of the lake water, and we need to find a box for the other snare.

Alright.

[As someone who's been acting cagey since the moment he woke up on the ship, Natsuno can't judge. He drops the subject and focuses on the task at hand.

When Clarke decides it's "later", they'll talk. He won't push it.]

There's an arts and crafts cabin, right? There's gotta be boxes there.

( there's no so much a sigh of relief when the topic switches, but a low exhale and a reinforced sense of appreciation. sometimes it seems shes capable of making exceptional decisions, and whatever ones were made in terms of befriending natsuno yuuki might just be her pièce de résistance.

tl;dr, he's a homie. )

I think I at least saw some crates there. And some jars full of paint brushes, those'll work for lake water.

We need to take some food from the kitchen too. As bait.

[So they should probably head back. He can always come back at night to see if there are any nocturnal animals.]

When the trap's ready, does one of us need to stay and drop the box? Or is it like the bird trap?

( the thought of returning to camp for boxes and food has clarke pausing, looking at the array of milk cartons still nestled in the dirt. not all are full, but barring anything new popping up, it feels like she's covered the bases: dirt, grass, bark, stones, leaves, moss...

so she kneels to refold the tops in an effort to secure them, before carefully arranging them in her backpack so they wouldn't spill much during their return to the main camp. )

We shouldn't need to. The rig would hopefully trigger the second something gets close enough to the bait. But it's good to check them religiously, just in case.

( is she very optimistic about the chances of success for these snares? no, not really. they haven't even seen a hint of bird poop out here but, after ody there was always a chance, right? and for that slim chance, they needed to try. )

I'll check. I was gonna head out again at night, anyway, in case there are nocturnal animals.

[Honestly, he's as optimistic as Clarke is, running on stubbornness more than anything. Even if it's hopeless, it feels better than hanging out back at the camp and playing the role of a happy camper. What a weird thing for the captain to find amusing...]

( hold up buddy back the fuck up you're gonna do what? )

What, alone? You know it's more likely you'll run into nocturnal murderers than animals, right?

( she's absolutely willing to shatter the illusion of hope they've been chasing, attempting to track, and building snares for to get that point across. don't do anything stupid, natsuno. survive another day to grow angrier and more stubborn. )

And it's more likely I'll notice them way before they notice me.

[He's a creature of the night by design. It worked well enough on the island, until Ebalon started messing with the moon. And since there will be no moon bullshit this time, surely the woods are totally safe.]

You know you're not the only vampire on the ship, right?

( nevermind that the likes of diana abel and claudia are nowhere to be seen on this excursion. it's already a fact that they can't keep track of every newcomer, nor an accurate log of their species of abilities.

besides, didn't he hate relying on his powers? )

Just — ugh, don't be reckless. I can come with you.

( a liability, but a liability with a heart at least plated in gold. )

[He gives Clarke a sharp look. Yes, he's not the only vampire on the ship, and Claudia especially gave up all pretense of concealing her nature, but still - what other bloodsucking abominations have you been talking to, bestie, and can they be trusted.]

I know, and I can tell who they are right away. [They all reek of death - he's yet to meet anyone who's alive like him. And yes, he hates relying on his powers, but it's not like he can turn his senses off.] I don't want YOU to be reckless, either.

( just diana abel, who embodies all the stereotypes of a deadly wild animal, predominantly: she's more scared of clarke than clarke is of her. it's a whole thing, and kinda sucks. )

It wouldn't be reckless if I came. I'd be traveling with the most situationally aware person here.

( ...you. you, natsuno. and we're ignoring that she's simultaneously complimenting him while also bullying her way into these nighttime excursions. )

[Flattery will get you nowhere, Clarke.

Bullying just might though, even if Natsuno can see right through it.]

Fine.

But only because I know you'll probably do it anyway no matter what I say.

[It's fine, he'll just go another night without telling her, maybe when she's busy puking tacos.]

( potentially taking advantage of her future food poisoning... so proud of you, bestie. dick move, but so proud. )

Am I becoming that predictable?

( "becoming", clarke please. )

[Natsuno, watching Clarke collapse in the grass while crying for her mother: an opening, nice.]

No.

[Did he just crack a smile? That's definitely a smile.]

Or maybe I'm only saying that because I don't want to be surprised.

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skaikru - 2022-06-18 07:34 (UTC) - Expand

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