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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( do better. it's a wonderful sentiment, and a familiar one. sometimes the only notion that kept them going, the faint idea that somewhere after conflict (after conflict after conflict) there was some peaceful ending where they'd be able to put the fight to bed and just focus on regaining their humanity. but now that happy ending seemed not just far off, but utterly impossible.

back on earth, at least.

here? clarke still expects bloodshed and betrayal and loss around every corner. how is she supposed to do better or be better when the calloused over parts of her are the most useful to achieving their ultimate goal? being sorry for her atrocities and then turning right around to commit them all over again seems inevitable. but maybe, hopefully, if she tried — maybe this time it'd be possible to keep at least one persons head above water. optimism isn't her strong suit, but clarke is left with little more to do in this conversation than fall silent, swallow her begging for punishment, and eventually just. nod. )

Alright.

( thanks, natsuno. )

...anyway. Are you tired of my story, or do you want to hear how A.L.I.E. came back and started forcefully converting people to her hivemind utopia in an effort to save them the pain of dying in the second nuclear death wave?

[Alright, she says, and Natsuno accepts that with a nod of his own. Moving on.

There's a pause before he replies, because he assumed that was the end of the story, and he has to backtrack to recall who A.L.I.E is. It says something about Clarke's story, that he almost forgot the AI who destroyed Earth because there were "too many people." Finally he replies flatly:]

...Hivemind utopia.

[Come on, you can't bring that up and expect he wouldn't want to hear - ]

That's basically what it was. So there were these chips —

( and this is the point i tap out on summarizing the entire series. i'm tired, you've watched it, i'm linking this video again. but of course, in clarke's own narrative, there are certain points she hits on harder.

so they slayed the mountain, and then she ran away. lived in solitude for three months, trying to outpace the faces of the dead that haunted her dreams. and while the sky people flourished as best they could, and survivors from other stations that had broken off upon reentry of the atmosphere trickled into what became known as arkadia, the grounders put a bounty on the head of wanheda. the disgraced prince of the ice nation found her, dragged her to a dilapidated but magnificent city called polis and delivered her at lexa's feet.

she'd managed to get a knife to lexa's throat, but couldn't press the blade any deeper. i want your people to become my people wins her over, she swears fealty and turns bellamy blake and his rescue entourage away when they try to save her. life in polis is fraught with tension, no one else wants her there; some fear her, some just hate her. plenty still want to kill the entirety of skaikru and be done with it. forgiveness comes on the heels of lexa dropping to her knees and swearing an oath not all that different than the one clarke had sworn to her, and somewhere past absolution comes affection.

meanwhile — parts of the story she hadn't known then, but learned quickly enough — a.l.i.e. was passing out microchips, laying them on the tongues of followers with honeyed promises of a better life. former chancellor of the ark, thelonious jaha, acts as her right hand man and prophet. charles pike stirs the pot of fury he's brewed within arkadia, birthing violence and undoing months of hard work at establishing a peace. the queen of the ice nation is assassinated. a.l.i.e. moves past infiltrating offshoot grounder villages and makes her way to arkadia proper, she is god in a red dress and her influence grows until promises of salvation are sung in concert with hymns of violence for all those who resist her.

clarke's narration slows as she discusses the day she was to leave polis. if natsuno cares to parse out the metric of her speech, or watch the tight way her shoulders begin to curl and hunch protectively around her torso, he can probably expect what happens next. she'll gloss over falling into bed with lexa, spare them both the embarrassment of sex talk. but spares no detail on how she'd found john murphy chained and bloody in the commanders bed chamber just a few hours later; how titus had chased her around the room with a gun, and how lexa had walked through a door at the exact wrong moment. how she'd bled out on a bed of white furs, using her dying breaths still trying to protect clarke. offering her comfort, while pitch black blood seeped through clarke's fingers. don't be afraid. you'll be fine. (does this sound familiar yet, natsuno?)

the next commander will protect you.

i don't want the next commander. i want you. )

...I loved her. I got her killed. Titus pulled the trigger, but it was me.

( sorry, did you think we'd moved passed the utter mountain of self loathing and penchant for self flagellation already? only these aren't entirely clarke's own words. at least this time she doesn't linger too long on the topic, the wound is too raw. she also doesn't explain much about the flame — it's back on the boat now, tucked in it's small rusted mint container for safe keeping. and clarke misses being able to slide back the lid of the tin and just staring at it.

anyway, moving on: )

Edited 2022-06-30 08:24 (UTC)

( this is about the time they'd become aware of a.l.i.e. and at least part of her mission, but interpreted it as domination. clarke tells him about how monty'd shot his own mother to prevent her cutting octavia's throat in an effort to pressure them both to take the chip. talks about being stalked through the woods, though again erasing that they'd been hunted because she became the new flamekeeper. spends a solid chunk of time explaining how they'd tied raven to a bed and managed to short out the chip in her head with a mangled emp. she tells him how emerson returned, locked all her friends in an airlock chamber and held her face to the glass to watch them suffocate. tells that she'd killed him, and thus completed the cycle of exterminating the last of the mountain men.

ontari takes control in polis, pike takes charge in arkadia. jaha and his stupid little backpack make the trek to polis and start converting people there too, including the ice nation's pet nightblood who subverted conclave rules, slaughtered a room of sleeping children and took lexa's throne. only to turn it over to a.l.i.e.

she tells about fleeing to the beach in search of flokru, knowing another nightblood who'd competed alongside lexa for the title of heda had chosen a life of peace. there's a fleeting moment of what passes for clarke's version of humor as she mentions being knocked out to travel across the ocean in a tender, and waking up to hostile threats of death. familiar again, right? how the battle royale had caught her unawares is near embarrassing, but. it's a hard story for outsiders to follow, and not like clarke sat down and mulled over every crisis she'd managed in order to draw minor parallels to their current position. luna kom flokru rejects their suggestion to return to polis and take up the throne, has no interest in preserving the peace between skaikru and the grounders, only cares about life on her defunk oil rig. which they manage to ruin in less than a day, because a.l.i.e. follows them over and urges her followers to stamp out any who refuse to join.

you believe that to defeat an enemy who will stop at nothing, you must stop at nothing. how is that different than blood must have blood?

back on the beach, bellamy looked at her and asked now what? and clarke hadn't had an answer. she explains how they come across roan in the woods again, devise a plan to sneak into polis and speak to ontari in an attempt to sue for peace and focus on defeating a.l.i.e. as a united front. raven reyes works her magic again, examining a.l.i.e.'s code as it'd been imprinted on her brain when her chip had still been active — because that's all she is; lines of code ended the world once and seemed intent on doing it again — and discovers the possibility of a back door and a killswitch for her programming.

turns out infiltrating polis had been a rough plan, goes wrong almost from the get go. they're caught, she's dragged to the throne room, and tortured by a brainwashed abby griffin. for some reason, clarke feels compelled in this moment to pull the collar of her baseball tee down just below her collarbones, and points out two fading, gnarled scars from where her own mother (not her mother, but the face and practiced hands of her mother) had carved holes with a scalpel. all things considered, she doesn't have that many scars, but these two stuck around.

her friends follow into polis after it becomes clear things aren't going to plan, are captured, and summarily escape. they detonate a bomb at the base of the tower. her mother hangs herself in an attempt to get clarke to talk about what they've learned about a.l.i.e.'s kill switch, ontari's head is caved open. bellamy and murphy arrive in time to cut down abby, and they're left scrambling as the rest of a.l.i.e's disciples start climbing the walls of the tower to get them. stuck on options, the only decision left seems to be going to the city of light itself and hoping to find the killswitch. and of course the one to do it is clarke.

she pauses here, one point of clarification — )

...I wasn't a nightblood yet. We transfused Ontari's blood into my body, I took the chip ( and the flame ) and ascended into the City of Light.

( and how to describe it... actually, it occurs to clarke she probably doesn't have to. natsuno had been a city boy before his time in the country, he'd seen giant stone buildings; eerily empty and echoing, then suddenly bustling with the cleaned up versions of every person a.l.i.e. had managed to convert. they really had seemed at peace, until each and every individual turned to look at her and chased after her. in keeping with not mentioning the flame, and keeping the depth of her own heartbroken delusion to herself, clarke doesn't mention lexa coming to her rescue.

just summarizes that raven managed to find the backdoor code, and she was able to push through a door that brought her into what looked like a spaceship. it was like looking out a window from her childhood again, and it was beautiful until the surface of the earth beneath her started to burn before her very eyes. the kill switch had just been a lever on the table, if natsuno wants to spot out the reoccurring themes in clarke griffin's worst days. it's always levers. naturally she pulls it, despite having learned the second nuclear apocalypse was brewing in the bellies of the last standing reactors all across the world. they'd find a better way.

they'd do better.

you don't ease pain. you overcome it. )

...and that's how we found out that in six months 96% of the world would be uninhabitable again.

[Natsuno listens quietly, not a crack in his stoic demeanor other than subtle changes in certain moments - eyes wincing when she describes Lexa's death, jaw hardening when she shows him the scars and tells her they used her own mother against her. She killed nearly a thousand people - how come it only keeps getting worse from there?

(Other than Clarke, his only sympathy is for Luna, who apparently just wanted to be left alone and mind her own business)

They keep bonding over each other's most dangerous traits, both self-sacrificial and ruthless, so after learning she pulled the lever Natsuno feels only the outmost respect. After everything Clarke's been through, after all the awful choices she had to make - she still wasn't willing to give up free will. Burn everything and not yield. He can get behind that.]

So you tried to make everyone a nightblood. But it didn't work, so Bellamy and six friends went to space, while the others hid in a bunker.

[Both to confirm he listens, and to offer Clarke another exit point. By now he figures the bodies will keep piling up, and she relived enough painful memories tonight.]

...yeah, that's the jist of it.

( turns out season 4 is easy to summarize in just a few words.

she doesn't need to tell him about how they'd tried to make the remnants of the ark into a bunker first, and she'd consigned half the seats aboard it over to the ice nation and roan in order to save bellamy blake's life — the precedent has already been set that she'd kill her own people for him. there's no romantic tryst that inevitably ends in heartbreak this season, only the venom her own friends spat in her face every time she makes a hard choice. who are you? when have you become this person?

you're not god, clarke. you don't get to decide who lives or dies.

alright wanheda, savior of us all — it's too bad you weren't a real nightblood because then you could have been commander, imagine how many people could you have killed then?

you're the one going too far and using the same justification, "it's all for my people".

one day they'll thank you for what you're doing here.

i bear it so they don't have to.

ai gonplei ste odon.

...sorry, what was the original tangent before she just fell into a record playing of formative quotes? anyway, past a certain point, the painful memories fold over on themselves and just yield numbness. they're just memories, and there's one point she needs to hit on to bring this entire conversation back to it's beginning. )

There was a fight over the bunker. ( because of course there was. ) A conclave between the clans, and Octavia won. She decreed we were no longer separate peoples, but Wonkru. And so a mix of all surviving grounders and sky people made up the 1,100-plus who filed in with the wall of fire on their heels. But Raven was still out there, so. I couldn't stay. We couldn't stay — Bellamy, Emori, Harper, Murphy, Monty, Echo and I. But there was no way to get back to the bunker after we got her. So, space was the only option.

( and she does some quick math, seeking a more accurate count. )

It was closer to 1,200 in the bunker. And seven in space. They were the only survivors after Praimfaya. And they were all, each and every one of them, my people by the end.

Edited 2022-07-01 04:43 (UTC)

[A conclave. So another battle royale? Win, and survive a deathwave? Better incentive than a crab, at least...

This is how they all became her people - with fight after fight, survivors dragging themselves from under their loved ones' bodies until they had to unite because the enemy was no loner another person.

It sucks. Natsuno hardly defines himself as a particularly good person, and hearing her story - he still prefers his own way, of not allowing yourself to feel regret for doing everything for a precious few (always few, never hundreds) while the rest burn.]

...thanks. For telling me.

I don't know how many will be your people here, but. You don't have to stay behind this time.

[Maybe he's selfish. But he doesn't want Clarke to keep tormenting herself over choices and then sacrifice herself for everyone else's survival.]

( oh, so he listens but doesn't seem to quite... get it. )

No, they are all my people.

( it's not like signing up for stede bonnet's crew, even those who don't ask to be cared about are inevitably swept under the umbrella of people clarke feels obligated to save. the headachingly optimistic newcomers, the lazy pool loungers, the idiots, even the psychopaths to some degree. is there still a line there? absolutely, the same line she'd drawn between bellamy's life and the 250 people in tondc who hadn't expected a bomb to drop on them in the middle of the night. there will always be those who are more important to her than the rest — like natsuno, like mizuki, like darcy and diana and venti and rita and jade now apparently. )

Just because I don't think this has a happy ending doesn't mean I'm not ready to do any and everything I can in order to save them.

( that includes pulling any sort of lever again. that includes killing, even if that's lost it's importance in the face of the regeneration aspecthere. that absolutely includes being left behind. )

Okay.

[Natsuno doesn't share the sentiment, but it's her choice.]

Just remember you're not alone in this.

[He only feels obligated to precious few, but Clarke is first and foremost. If the unimportant masses need to be saved along the way, so be it. If she needs to pull a lever, he'll break the door down and remove everyone out of her way.

And if she wants to stay behind, he will absolutely stay with her until somehow, she survives.]

( what a boon it is, to not be alone during what very much feels like the end of the world all over again. to actually crack open her tightly reserved jaw and spill (almost) every deep, dark cloying truth and for once, not be met with vitriol and disgust. in this exact moment, shrouded in darkness and side by side with a friend, camp doesn't feel so bad. )

...yeah. I know.

( this feels like another new level of friendship unlocked. she'd really like nothing better than to take his hand for a moment and just squeeze. for a brief moment her fingers twitch tellingly, but ultimately clarke just sighs. when she finally pries her knees from her chest and lays back down on the cabin rooftop, it's with a quiet sort of acceptance. yeah, she knows she's not alone in this and for him, she'd actively try to do better. )

Thanks, Natsuno.

( silence wins for a beat. the faux sun is still several hours off from rising, and there's no ambient insect activity. just unnerving quiet, maybe a hint of wind. clarke almost thinks she can hear her own pulse, and the breathing of any sleeping cabin occupants below them. )

What about you?

( feel like talking? i'll listen. )

[What about him? Natsuno's silent for a while, staring at the dark lake and debating whether he should say anything. He spoke with Lumine earlier, seeking her immortal perspective on things, but couldn't reach a satisfying conclusion. Maybe Clarke's perspective - very mortal, and yet wider than his - will help.]

I've been thinking... our way out of this is probably to take the captain down with us, and I'm fine with that.

[He truly is. That hasn't changed. But he started thinking about the way.]

But. Do you think it's okay to use this time to figure other things out? About what I am, and what it really means for me.

( clarke blinks a little in surprise at that. but her answer is relatively immediate, no hesitation — )

Of course it is.

( not the same measure of grace she extends to the likes of stede bonnet, who seems content to fluster over interpersonal relationships, his own ghosts, and the sorry excuse for a crew he's gathered together and claims to care for. it's different when a self discovery is just a side quest, something to chew over when new ideas on how to get out of here are few and far between. there's admtitedly more downtime than clarke's accustomed to, despite the constant needling fear that something new and horrible is just around the coroner. and if she'd any questions about herself and what she might be capable of doing, she'd be asking them too. )

I'm...sorry. I didn't know you still had questions about it.

( the downfall of stoicism and deadpan, others just sorta assume you know what you're talking about. )

I didn't, until recently.

[He was a monster, he was dead and the Serena Eterna was nothing more than an unwanted delay along the way. Fuel his spite until this pocket dimension is no more, then stop existing like he was supposed to.]

But I guess... [A pause. When he speaks again, his tone is lower.] realizing just how many different realties and people are out there gives another perspective. [Natsuno scowls, sounding downright grumpy now, like he's admitting something he shouldn't.] And I don't know if I should keep thinking about it, because I don't want to get distracted. Or comfortable.

( wow, she didn't know it was possible for him to ever sound more grumpy than his given baseline, yet here that is. )

You really think it's possible to get distracted from all of this?

( yes, camp is boring. but they both know even if this entire venture ends in little to no bloodshed, there was always more coming. interpersonal frustrations are mounting, enemies emerging, and each new person who arrives here throws a wrench into already grinding gears.

as for comfortable — has he ever been comfortable? )

...I wouldn't worry about that last point. The Captain won't let that happen.

( unacknowledged, the deeper implication is: i won't let that happen either. for as long as he'll have her, clarke will be at his doorstep, dumping newfound mysteries and theories before dashing off to put them to the test. and she's come to trust that he'll follow her into the mouth of hell and back with very little discussion. )

Guess not.

[It's tempting to just leave it at that, but after another pause, he admits:]

I meant comfortable with what I am. [He won't deny some it has been useful, even invaluable here, but it's didn't end with having a better nose or healing from damage. He could do so much worse.] Back home, the shiki acted like it's obvious I'd be like them once I turned. But now I'm here, and - I don't know. Should I pick and choose which part of it I'm willing to accept?

I don't... ( have any real answer for that.

her own changes in biology and physiology don't hold a candle to his, but what it all mainly boils down to was choice, right? guilt ridden and scared of the impending deathwave, and wearing the noose of responsibility tightly around her own throat, clarke'd had the option to inject emori and hope for the best. but had chosen to turn the needle to the crook of her own arm. )

I can't answer that for you. I don't know if there is a good answer for it at all. But... I think there could be a lot of peace in acceptance. ( she's a filthy hypocrite but the advice is sound. ) There's no way to go back, is there? You can't be a human again, I'd guess.

But knowing the full scope of what you are doesn't dictate who you become. That's entirely up to you, and all the other shiki can choke on their expectations.

No, there's no going back. [No way to be human again, no way to delete everything that's happened.] ...I'll think about what you said.

[Other people here have been telling him that, and though they don't know the full story, he respects their opinion. Especially Clarke's.

(It's totally rational, of course, not like it makes him feel better, because emotions and unrelaiable and gross)]

...I'm sorry. That I can't give you a clearer direction.

( but while he's learnt over the course of their friendship just how utterly reckless and stupidly self sacrificial clarke can be, she's been learning just how stubborn and willful natsuno can be. unlike mizuki, he's not the sort she wants to tell exactly what to do. whatever he path he follows is going to have to be one he chooses for himself, and she'd just tag along for the walk. )

But whatever you pick, if there's a way for me to help you with it, I will. In every single way I can.

( different worlds, different struggles, different specifies — whatever stands in the way of total understanding, he's not alone in this either. )

Edited 2022-07-08 02:54 (UTC)

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JUNE EVENT: CAMP

CAMP AION

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