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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With that 'alright', Ruby releases her grip on Crescent Rose and heaves a sigh. "Not cocky, really, just— experience? I've never met anyone with a weapon that can both pop a fully-charged aura and cause damage on the same hit."

There'd probably be a lot more dead Hunters and Huntresses if that were possible. Like. A lot. Hoo boy.

She has pretty much the same idea, grabbing for her Scroll to flip the light on. Doesn't even have to unfold it to do so, so when she manages to get it on she's just sort of holding up a thin, white rectangle with rounded edges on one side, the light coming out of a small inlaid screen.

"Okay- you're using 'aura' like I know what you mean by it, and I really fucking don't. The fuck is an aura?"

Other than what Skulduggery had described seeing, but if she had that kind of aura, it sure hadn't stopped her getting hit before. The lights come on pretty much simultaneously, and- oh, that's a cute girl. A bit of her hostility fades, to see an actual human person and not just a voice in the dark.

"Right, sorry, sorry, still not— used to this whole 'different worlds' thing," that comes with an awkward little laugh and her rubbing the back of her head. "I keep expecting people to just— know, but so far none of you seem to come from anywhere like home."

Ruby relaxes another notch now she can see, and throws the new face a friendly smile.

"Aura's like... a personal shield? That's kinda the simplest way to put it. Where I come from, everyone has one, even if not everyone's unlocked it's actual abilities. It's sort of an extension of our soul."

"It's fine, ehn? Some of us are luckier than others, I haven't had to explain too much of myself here yet."

Darcy indicates with a head movement for them to keep going, not wanting to stop patrolling.

"That's weird. Cool, I guess, but it'd be kind of annoying. I like stabbing people and having them be stabbed the first time."

Ruby nods and starts walking again; right, she doesn't really want to stop patrolling either.

"Well, we rather like getting stabbed and not being stabbed the first time," she says with a bit of a laugh. "Plus, well, a Huntress's main job is actually fighting Grimm, rather than other people, so that's where Aura really comes in handy. Grimm being, uh— soulless beings of destruction. They're everywhere in the wilderness back home, so I keep... expecting them to come running out of the trees."

A little shrug. That's a big reason she feels the need to patrol, at least.

"Oh, shit. Badass."

Ruby couldn't have hoped to describe all of that and not get that sort of response.

"I just hunt ghosts, back home. I don't know if they hang around in forests, but it makes me jumpy, on the ship, with all the ghosts hanging around. It's weirder not having the danger there, ehn?"

"It is pretty badass. I've wanted to be a Huntress for as long as I can remember."

She's always wanted to be like the heroes in the fairy tales and other stories, though maybe with a bit less of being the centre of attention. In the end, she's sort of ended up there anyway.

"We don't have things like ghosts, though, the ones on the ship are the first I've ever encountered. I guess they're a lot different from whatever you're used to?" And a nod, "It is definitely super duper weird, not having the usual danger around."

"The ghosts here are really, really fucking weird. It's like- back home, you stick around for a reason, ehn? Some last thing you want to get done. All ghosts want something, even if it's just to know how a story ends, or to send a last piece of mail. These ghosts are all... hollow. Empty. Nothing left of them and no reason for them to stick around."

Darcy wrinkled up her face in displeasure.

"It's so fucking weird. Like it's obvious why the Captain has them here, but it's still weird. Like if your Grimms had tea parties instead of trying to kill people."

Ruby's brow furrows as she explains. "That is weird... is— so they're definitely actual ghosts, just... everything about them is wrong? Like they had everything taken away by something but they're still stuck anyway?"

Eugh, that thought kind of gives her the heebie-jeebies in the context of even what little she knows about the Captain's intentions so far, and even without having context for how ghosts 'should' be before now. It's easy to defer to someone else who clearly has knowledge she doesn't.

"Definitely actual ghosts. And yeah, that's about it. We're pretty sure that the ghosts are... the passengers who came before us. Eventually the Captain just... drains us dry, apparently, he feeds off emotions and shit. There's not really a nice way to put it, but there we go."

Threats to one's very humanity are best served dry and ungarnished.

"Apparently he's trying to become a god."

Ruby gives this sigh that balances tightly on the line between resigned and accepting. "Well, that sounds about right..."

It's the reaction of someone who's just heard one too many insane things to even be surprised anymore. You get yanked away from dealing with one immortal being who thinks she's a god, wind up in the realm of another. Go figure, huh.

"And I'm guessing no one really knows how to go about stopping any of that, yet." She doesn't even sound particularly upset about the likely lack of solution, that's... also just kind of par for the course.

"If we did, I wouldn't be in these shorts. And none of us would be here, because we'd be stopping him. So good guess."

A shrug.

"We're working on it. Trying to work out angles that the people before us probably didn't try. It's not much yet, but we're getting there."

Ruby closes her eyes for just a moment, too long to be a blink but quick enough it could be missed—truly, this feels like a 'here we go again' moment. She straightens her spine a little more.

Another sigh. "Trying to work out angles that people before me haven't tried yet basically sums up how I've spent the last year where I come from, for a non-too-dissimilar problem at that. I guess at least I'm coming in primed to just get right back to it."

"Well. At least you're not like some of these poor fuckers. Better the shit you know than a new kind of bullshit, ehn?"

This wasn't too far from what Darcy already knew, but she could admit that the girl's apparent expertise would probably serve better than 'sometimes I need to solve a mystery while a ghost is throwing plates at me'.

"I'm Darcy, by the way. I'm usually in 121, but I'll be in Cancer cabin while I'm here, in case you run into anything and need some help."

"There's something to be said for not being in totaly new territory. Guess some things don't really change across some universes."

What sucks is not having her teammates, or access to her Silver Eye powers, or... a lot of other things, but if Ruby's one thing she's aggressively optimistic. She'll take her silver linings where she can get them.

"But— thanks, I'll remember that." She gives another smile, genuinely thankful for the offer of help if needed. "Same back at you, I may be new but I've got it on preeetty good authority I'm not bad back-up when needed. I'm Ruby, I'm over in Gemini right now. On the ship I'm in 108."

With Clarke, all her notes and hoarded things.

"What, power-hungry assholes?" she snorts, "it seems like those are universal, yeah."

"Oh hey- you're rooming with Clarke? Guess I'll be seeing a bit of you, then, Clarke's a friend. She's cool. Kind of... really intense, but cool."

"That... sounds about right." Ruby laughs a little, scratches the back of her head. "I kiiinda maybe scared the crap out of her when she walked into the room and saw me, the first time; we ended up in a bit of a standoff. It didn't last long, but, well I seem to be making a bit of a habit of that."

It's not even like she's a particularly confrontational person! These things just happen to her!

"I think a lot of people are a bit high-strung here. Probably makes it more fun for that fucker, to just... get people who'll punch someone for startling them, put them in a box together, and shake it."

Sue her if she still doesn't trust it's totally random.

"I'd still rather all of us be jumpy than all of us be taken by surprise by shit."

"Better to be paranoid and prepared than at ease and at risk," Ruby agrees, in a tone that's just a little too close to cheerful to be natural and not forced.

She doesn't like that she can be a little paranoid, she prefers to see the best in people, but it's not like her experiences haven't given her reason to be.

"Though being always-on can get tiring. I see it all the time in my friends at home." Trying to exclude herself from that? Apparently. "Doing something about it is always easier said than done, though."

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JUNE EVENT: CAMP

CAMP AION

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