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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"That's awful," and she's laughing right along with him. Actually she has no idea what Max is made of. Fancy and shiny and probably expensive. But hopefully more durable than gold.

"Probably because what people hate more than death, is being left out. FOMO, YOLO."

He knows the first acronym but not the latter; that's fine, he can guess it's similar enough. "Seeing what you all went through did inspire a fair amount of guilt among those of us who chose to say." That's why he signed up, after all. Never mind what the captain had said; he'd known the moment he saw the violence unfolding on the screens that he was never going to be able to sit idly by again.

"For better or worse, I won't be sitting out again. And I doubt I'm the only one."

"You don't want to idly sit out, yet..." look, you're kinda sitting out anyway, which she understands. She came out to get away for a bit as well. "Are you disappointed? That you weren't given direct orders to disobey?"

"I would rather be uselessly kicking rocks here than be forced to helplessly watch you die all over again." It's as simple as that. "And there's nothing disappointing about a peaceful excursion. Even if I am irritated at the captain's obvious laziness."

"Yeah, he's clearly not all that devil in the detail-oriented. I think he's more one of those bigger picture book thinkers," Ava giggles. "What would you have done differently, then?"

"He is most definitely a picture book thinker," Skulduggery snickers. "Ah, I don't know. Taken more care making the trees look like they ought to? I'd think shaping a maple tree from the ether of reality would be quite relaxing, really."

He goes so far as to lift his hands and sort of smoosh the air between them, not magically, just metaphorically.

"I also would have found a second sheet of paper for the sign-ups, but I'm sure he was just too busy that day." The eye-roll is audible, if not visual.

"Sure, but why? What purpose do the trees actually serve. They're just there to be there. Haven't you ever played a videogame, Duggy?" she laughs.

"Maybe we all need to just... see the forest for the trees." Also metaphorically.

She certainly catches and appreciates the tonal eye-roll. "He should have Stede make up the flyers next time, I think. I like his."

"Stede at least has some sense of showmanship." A better sense, anyway. No doubting the captain enjoys presentation, but Skulduggery isn't a fan of the arterial spray maneuver from the dinner.

"I don't know, the trees are meant to be trees. I just think it would be nice to, you know. Have some pride in the product I put out. I'd like people to be able to sit under a hand-crafted oak tree and think, 'yes, this is a nice oak tree. Maybe I'll climb it, or carve my name into the trunk.' You know. Things like that."

Then again, do that however many times you need a tree for, and you're bound to get sloppy work eventually. Ugh. "I suppose I can understand not wanting to put the effort in when you're only going to destroy it later. But I would never want people to associate me with sloppy work."

"Stede has sincerity and good intentions," that's the far more impressive bit.

"And some of us enjoy impressionist works," Ava jokes. "Might be more of a resource limitation than outright laziness. If he's rendering all this, sometimes you have to compress the files. Copy and paste to save on loading time. Or else everything will lag. Like trying to run a Sims expansion on an old computer's with a graphic card about to burn out. And we know he's supporting two active locations at once. Here and the ship. So perhaps there's an energy strain? And if we're the source of energy why waste it all on the trees. They're there, doing what they're meant to do in the background. At least it's better than a green screen." She has no idea why she's even bothering to defend it.

Okay, he doesn't understand everything she says, but the metaphor holds enough water that he can transpose it onto their more magical situation. And whether or not it's in defense of the captain, Skulduggery finds the theory nonetheless fascinating.

"I... think I understand what you're saying. It's all only here to serve as set dressing. The only thing he's put any effort into at all is the camp itself, which is where we're supposed to be focused, anyway. His power has to be limited in scope, after all; otherwise, he would already consider himself a god."

He finally admits, with only a little relcutance, "Maybe that makes the lack of effort slightly more bearable..."

"Exactly," Ava sounds rather pleased that maybe they're approaching it from different angles, but he at least isn't outright rejecting her perspective as invalid simply because she doesn't know shit about magic. (Even when the Captain accuses her of magic days later, that jerk.)

"But also. Imagine how much worse it would be, if this place were filled with living things. What happens to this all at the end of the week, do you think? When it's no longer needed."

In the end, magic is easily transposed onto a great many analogies. Skulduggery's heard plenty of them before.

He's... more than a little embarrassed to realize he hadn't actually thought about it. Of course, the entire dimension is likely to be destroyed when the captain's done with it. Then again, he hadn't been really thinking about life, life. They'd be constructs, of course. Homunculi designed to look like worms and birds.

"...Well, I wasn't thinking sentient life," he mutters, unable to hide that same-said embarrassment from rearing its head. "I was thinking constructs. Like Friday, or something."

"That line of thinking is what assholes use to justify treating people like Rin and Maximilien as objects," Ava points out. "But it's a hard line to draw, isn't it. What's real, what's alive, what's beneath us." Because she gets it, just because something mimics life doesn't mean it is. She's not going to get too sentimental over this place.

"But do you think that's what he's trying to accomplish? If he's trying to become a god. I don't know much about theology. What sort of god he's trying to become. Certainly not Thor, he doesn't have the arms for it." Ava gives an appreciative hum.

Ouch. Still, "Point taken. And, to be fair, I wouldn't... like to see Friday be disassembled along with the rest of the dimension." Mostly now because he feels guilty about it.

"It's the question of the century," Skulduggery sighs. "What does the captain want with godhood? The only reason he's given me so far is that he simply wants to know what's on the other side. I think we can both agree that is a stupid reason to want to be a god."

"The fucking chicken that crossed the road," Ava scoffs. "And I'd argue that there's no particularly good reason to want to be a god. It's like running for president." Who in their right mind.

"But don't gods usually have... I don't know. Myths and temples and worshippers? All he has is the ship and some hostages and a bunch of books in a library."

"He certainly isn't doing himself any favors if he's looking for worshippers." Skulduggery tilts his head from side to side, not shaking it so much as trying to dislodge his thoughts. Maybe they just need a good shake-up? "I don't know. He doesn't seem to care about any of that. It truly just seems to be about the power, and I don't think you need people to believe in you when you can manipulate energy to this degree."

But then again, maybe he does. Skulduggery has no real idea. "The only gods I know of are giant, faceless, semi-invisible beings that cause madness with one look. They certainly didn't need worshippers. All they ever needed was labor and energy. Both of which we seem to be providing."

"No, but what's the point of being so powerful if you don't have an audience to prove it?" Ava questions, scooting just a bit closer to Skulduggery.

"Anyway, he's obviously missing something. Do you think it'd be so awful, if he achieved it?"

Skulduggery lifts a hand and wiggles his fingers. "Well, he's got us. The most permanently captive audience in all of eternity."

Not that they're paying any attention to what the captain's doing. But he's going to make an effort not to be a downer for at least a little bit. "I don't know. I feel a man with complete disregard for innocent life is generally ill-suited for godhood." He chuckles. "I probably wouldn't be so opposed to the idea if it didn't involve the slow degradation of my soul."

"Well what I mean is that... every cruise ends the same way, as far as we know. He fails to succeed in his goal, he grows bored and no longer has use of his captives, and their souls or whatever are..." Ava waves her hand vaguely. "So we have to do something different, to break the cycle. And what if that's help him achieve godhood? Is that any worse than what we already face?"

It sounds insane, she knows, and she wouldn't voice this to anyone else. Mostly she's hoping for Skulduggery to talk her out of it, exactly why it's a terrible idea.

He laughs a little, because that is a... genuinely crazy idea, no doubt about it. But every solution to their problem, no matter how crazy, is worthy of consideration. After all...

"It really depends on what he'll do once he's ascended. Right now, the damage he causes is relatively limited. He can only draw on us. But if he were capable of reaching across realities, nobody would be safe. Our friends in our home realities would be in danger -- the very fabric of existence could be at risk, for all we know."

But of course, "Even if he had the best intentions, power corrupts. Absolute power, absolutely."

"All I know is that the world wasn't so great anyway." Ava sighs and stretches out, with an arm flung over her face. "But you're right. It's a stupid idea. I just figured all the good ones were already attempted."

Skulduggery reaches over and pats her arm sympathetically. "I didn't say it was a stupid idea. It's certainly a crazy one, but crazy doesn't mean stupid."

"All things considered. Sanity isn't going to get anyone very far in these circumstances."

"And that's why we're here." The popular solution seems to be fairly lateral -- kill the captain and go home -- but it isn't the best one. "As far as I'm concerned, it's our job to come up with the really crazy solutions."

He's joking, mostly, but they both have been known to get a little outside the box now and again...

"There's a reason I don't tell other people how I really think," Ava muses softly, turning her head to peer at Skulduggery again. "But you always seem to get it."

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light_mischief - 2022-06-25 09:24 (UTC) - Expand

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