come_sailaway | He said to me, "Child, I'm afraid for your soul" [OPEN]

Daisy's never made any secret of her disdain for the ship and its Captain. The Serena Eterna has been her prison and torture chamber for so many years, now, and even as she slowly learned to live again she's never had any real hope that any of them will make it out alive.

The announcement changes that, but not for the better. There are things beyond this little bubble of false reality that would do far worse than kill them before they ever considered freeing a single soul. Just ask her how she knows.

(She can still feel the dirt beneath her claws, sometimes. In the roots of her hair. So deep beneath her skin she couldn't reach it if she carved down to the bone.)

Daisy spends most of her time after the announcement hovering around the few people she holds dear, sometimes in humanoid shape and sometimes as a wolf. Much of the time she doesn't even talk first, she's just sat there, quietly, like she's waiting for something. She's never seemed more like a guard dog than she does in these moments.

But sometimes, she's alone. She might be found at the bottom of the pool, or lying somewhere with her headphones in, but most often this means finding her sat in one of the bars trying to find out how much alcohol it takes to get her drunk. Results so far are inconclusive.

"Not taking it to well either, I see."

Phil looks like shit. They both do. His wings are ragged, his talons are slightly uneven, and he just... looks tired, and emptied, the way houses left without inhabitants do. Even if the lights are on.

He briefly eyes the two empty bottles next to her and orders a glass of his own. He knocks back the whiskey in one go.

The noise that comes out around the rim of her glass isn't unlike the grumbling of a disgruntled dog. There's a sharp, uneasy quality to those uncanny eyes of hers as they follow the path of his drink, slit pupils honed like the point of a knife ready to be thrown—but not at Phil. Not at anything, really.

If this was a problem she could jam a sharp implement into, she wouldn't be two bottles in.

She lowers her glass. "Not so much." Refills it. "Not often I wish it was easier to get me drunk." Downs the whole thing in one go. "There's always someone who says 'fuck you, I'm getting mine.'"

Phil chuckles dryly. “The ones who shove ahead are the ones who get what they want, at least in the short term. Let’s see if they can run off before everybody else catches up and starts swinging.”

He doesn’t doubt that Ari has gotten people on her tail already, and probably some of her collaborators too, if anyone’s found them. Oh, he doesn’t doubt that she had help. She may try to take all the credit—or the blame—for herself, but Phil knows people well enough to know that there wasn’t a shot in hell that this was all her. Not for any lack of capability, but just because this isn’t the sort of thing people do alone. She had other people in on it. Whether they knew it or not.

Phil waves down another glass. This one, he sips at. “Whaddya bet is gonna pick up the phone?”

Daisy snorts, pushing up from her stool. "Nothing good."

Up and over the bar she goes, dropping down to look through the available liquor for something strong and fruity. Ordering from the remaining ghosts feels... strange, sometimes. And a Hunter does get ever so restless.

"Probably nothing from my world. The Fears are... occupied. Satisfied. They've got a whole apocalypse designed for them to snack on for eternity." As far as she knows, anyway. The tricky thing about only receiving a handful of tapes is they only tell a part of the story. That the End would claim them all one day is lost on her. That the Fears have been released is even further from her reach. "But they're not the only things like them out there. Even one of those things Erin calls Gods of Nightmare would be bad for all of us."

She plucks a bottle from the shelf and vaults back over the bar, settling back into her seat as she opens it.

"We're sitting ducks."

Phil whistles low as Daisy describes affairs back home.

"No kidding. I was thinking the same thing. Doesn't help that we're conveniently battery-shaped."

It's funny, isn't it, how the optimism he normally so bitterly clings to has slipped from him so easily. Suppose it doesn't, he'd told Erin months ago, and now he can't seem to bring himself to believe in the same anymore. Maybe it's still being fresh off of months of pointed, abject torture at the hands of the Village, and knowing 2 still lives on under his skin forever. Maybe it's the threat of everything just getting plainly worse under someone even less reachable than the Captain. Or the threat of Phil being torn away from everything for the nth time.

"I've been trying to keep tabs on the sky, but it's not gonna be much more helpful than a slightly early warning. If that's even how it pans out. It's all I've ever really been good at."

"And all I've ever been good at is violence. But I'm not sure that will help us any more than your—" her eyes narrow thoughtfully for a moment, "—astronomy or meteorology?"

Being one of the most powerful people on the ship doesn't mean anything against the likes of what will be beating down their door. Even the immortal and nigh-indestructible can die, here. Maybe, maybe, people like her and Valdis could hold an invader off for a while, buy the others some time, but what then? What would they be buying time for? There's nowhere to escape to.

(The futility doesn't stop her from thinking about it non-stop. It isn't the first time she's thought this way. Started weighing up her life versus the lives of the people she cares for. Months before the attack on the Archives, months before the apocalypse came for the world, she'd already decided that if it came down to resisting the Hunt or protecting Basira, Melanie and Jon, she'd pick them.

The list is bigger, here. Erin, Max. Valdis, Siffleur, Karkat, Johnny. Others, even. Some more distantly than others, but there nonetheless.

If she has to lose more of herself to buy them even a second of time, even a slight chance, then she will. She'll die for them, if it comes to it. Daisy Tonner isn't meant to be alive anyway.)

"I always figured things would end badly. I've been living on borrowed time for..." she blows air, "years, now. Between this ship and home. Jon pulled me out of the Buried, something that shouldn't even be possible. I got maybe six months. Then I had to give into the Hunt to save my friends. Last thing I remember before waking up here the second time. And it doesn't even stop there. I should be dead. The thing I became..."

Shaking her head, she tosses the cap so hard in a random direction that it smashes a bottle on the other side of the room. She doesn't even look over, just takes a swig.

"They had to kill me. I heard it. Eye got it all on tape. So this place is pretty much it. And that part, I was fine with. Rather be dead than stuck here, but home's a no go, that's fine. Whatever happens next, though? It's going to be a hell of a lot worse than just dying."

"Meteorology, yeah. I did, ehn, um--the, the news, the weather channel back home, on TV and everything."

He listens, tired and patient. Flinches too much more than he would have years ago when the cap smashes into the bottle. Ignores the band of anxiety-borne irritation that stretches across his mood. It's not what he wants.

... He huffs, softly.

"Good thing, or else we'd have to call all those probe schmucks murderers on a manslaughter charge, ehn?" He shakes his head. "But. Sheesh, that blows. I don't have anything like that, but I... this is my third go on the neverending merry-go-round of spacetime crap. First time I'm still in my world but I fall out of time and get stuck in a time loop for, for probably more of my life than I'll ever spend outside of it. I get cut a break for a couple years. Then I get taken between worlds again--dropped off in some alien city by some alien goddesses, which has also got people from all over the place, like here. Cut a break for a couple months. Then I get dropped here."

He stares at his reflection in his drink. "I keep getting passed along between powers way over my head. My forecast s-says that it's probably not gonna let up any time soon."

"...a time loop. And it doesn't even stop there. Fuck. That definitely explains— I told you everyone reeks of the Fears that touched them, right?"

All that Spiral and Lonely. This once genial, charismatic, optimistic man who could hardly even stand to be angry at her, so draped in Loneliness as to feel like she's looking at a living contradiction. Out of time, or out of place, never home. Never getting to just live his life for long enough for it to stick. Surrounded by people and yet never being sure how long you'll get to hold onto them. Never able to trust your life to last. Alone in a crowded universe.

Daisy worries at her bottom lip with her teeth. The sharp edge almost, but doesn't quite, pierce the skin.

"But uh— wouldn't fancy the odds, no. Sorry. This stuff never really leaves you alone. Not once you're in it. Cosmic nightmare. Don't suppose it's any consolation it's not just you, this time."

“I must smell pretty bad then.”

Phil has no kingdom. Put it this way: he’s been mourning his friends since he’d met them.

There’s a huff that’s kind of like a laugh. The ever-present breeze around Phil takes on a sweeter pace. “Honestly? At least in a group, there’s people who remember your name and understand what you’re going through. I’ve been appreciating the variety. You have no idea how gratifying it was to hear you swear just now.”

From Daisy. Yeah—yeah. Daisy who understands. Daisy who took something from him on accident. Who can be reasoned with, who can have some kind of level head, even befriended; who didn’t mean to, and knowing that is still enough for him. It’s comforting, knowing that it’s still enough. He may harbor an ugly, verifiably murderous hate towards 2 and his doctors, a fear about him and his capacity confirmed, but even now he cannot quite bring himself to be mad at Daisy for what happened between them. There is some part of Phil that he can still recognize in the mirror—still accept.

He sips at his whiskey. “The, uh, the… bad way for me, or one of ‘em, is that I get cut off again. In the case that something up there feels the need to start curating, or window shopping, or… something.”

Edited 2024-01-27 10:36 (UTC)

The corner of her mouth quirks, despite herself. "Kind of. But most people around here do."

The Hunt isn't like the Eye, but they aren't as far apart in the messy cosmology of her universe as some might think. The Archivist wants to know what you fear for the sake of knowing. The Hunter wants to know what you fear to know what makes you weak. Both of them Know more about the impact of other Fears than just about any other Avatar, and neither is afraid to exploit what they know when they have to.

She hasn't used it against anyone in a long time, now. Hasn't had the need or the desire. Keeps it to herself.

"Isolation's a favourite trick. Easiest way to mess with people. But I dunno. The thing about things this big is they don't do... personal? Might seem like it, sometimes. The way their games work. But they don't care enough. A fucking god doesn't look at ants and think 'oh that one has daddy issues, let's play on that'. They just..." she gestures loosely with the hand holding the bottle, liquid sloshing, "play their favourite tricks. It's the pawns like me that get personal."

The Fears themselves didn't care about individuals, no matter how many people felt as if they were being chased by one. They didn't even have any particular investment in their Avatars, beyond making sure they were paying their way. Individuals are susceptible, individuals can be marked, but the reality of life under the Fears is that the worst days of their victims lives are a result of rotten luck, and the inhumanity of their pawns is a result of their own rotten choices.

"Mmm. I get it. It's c--it's a comforting thought in some sense, honestly. These big guys... I'm always gonna believe that the loop was some freak quantum accident, but I guess if it had to be something's fault, then I prefer the idea that it wasn't anything deeper than, like. Just some sentient force of nature looking for a mark. The same way kids will pull the magnifying glass on whatever poor ant's on the sidewalk that day, or a spider crawls into the light in the wrong place at the wrong time. And not like, some wizard or alien who thought it'd be funny. Or--g-god forbid, that I needed a lesson."

Not to mention that Phil has opinions on magic these days, and if it turns out there are funny wizards hanging out casting fireball on people in his world, he's going to have to start beating a lot of people over the head.

"What kind of lesson could you even need teaching? I mean, it probably wasn't that—see previous comments on why—but. I get why I felt like getting buried alive for eight months was teaching me a lesson. I'm a retired serial killer. The Buried marked me 'cause I was so trapped by my own bullshit already. But you're just..."

She gestures, loosely, at the whole of him—which... actually makes what she's about to say feel stupider, given the matter of the wings and such, but she carries on.

"—some guy. No offence."

Phil barks out a laugh. "No, no, you're right. I-I'm probably one of the only jerks here who lived a good, healthy forty years without a dose of magic o-or, like uh, insane espionage drama or something. I was a weatherman. I'm the guy who says so how about this weather. I don't think it was a 'lesson' even if it sure fuckin' feels like it sometimes, but just so you know, I was an asshole before the loop. I mean, really, like--I didn't make a single friend for something like twenty five years. Picture the shallowest and most misogynist city-slicker pretentious asshole you can imagine, that was me."

He raises his glass. "I like to think I dropped the first two adjectives, but the rest probably still applies." Sip. "Since I was so average for so long, whatever's up there probably just thinks it just gets funnier every time something weird happens to me."

Edited 2024-01-30 23:40 (UTC)

Daisy snorts, "Probably. They don't care but they do like some quality entertainment."

She's joking, mostly. The Fears probably don't care, though their extensions down in reality certainly do—Simon Fairchild seemed to be the type that just enjoyed causing havoc for the sake of it. But other things their scale might, who is she to say.

"I should've known you used to be a prick. No one gets your kind of nice without starting as a colossal bellend." Hard to tell if it's another joke, but there's no question that it's almost playful. "We would've been natural enemies. You think I'm grouchy now you should've seen me dealing with city boys in pubs who thought they were a big deal."

Now that's a real smile out of him. "That's not even a question. I was natural enemies with everybody, but you probably would've actually done something about it."

He's not even talking about the murder, just getting decked in the chin like he so often deserved. Or kneed in the dick, whatever.

"I was always a city kid. Grew up in kind of a crud one in the American Midwest, then moved to a more decent one for college and stayed there. But, ehn, I'm pretty used to living rural these days--the loop kept me in a podunk little town for ages and ages. Kind of place that only has two cops, a sheriff and a deputy."

He takes another sip of his whiskey. "You grew up outside the city?"

"Mmhm. Small town in Northern Wales, Bodelwyddan. Less than two thousand people, back in my day." Her nose wrinkles up and she snorts, "Back in my day, fuck I'm getting old..."

Except she's not, really. Forty-two at most by lived experience, and hardly any of it showing on her face. Evidence of her life past the age of 28 is muted, if it's even there at all.

"Didn't move to London 'til my second run-in with the Fears. First police partner got eaten by the coffin that got me later. Had to sign a section 31—this," she gestures loosely with a hand, "stupid form they made us sign when we saw something a little too weird. Officially it stops it being released in Freedom of Information requests. But really it mostly gives the brass a pre-selected bunch of muppets to send after the paranormal stuff."

She rolls her eyes, taking another, more restrained, drink from the bottle she's working through. She was never a fan of the top dogs at the Met, even when she believed in what she was doing as a cop.

"Anyway. There's me. Small town Welsh girl who'd barely set foot outside of the place until two years prior. Twenty years old, 5'2", pretty fresh to the force. Suddenly being shunted down to the capital to rub shoulders with the big city cops." She nods her head to the side. "I punched a lot of wankers those first few weeks."

Phil nods along as she talks; raises eyebrows at the coffin and the form, snorts at punching wankers. "Sounds like they had it coming. I can imagine the type of guy, after being one of 'em, but I'd also guess that 'big city English cop' is a whole different breed than 'sleazy jackass who thinks he's a celebrity for doing the local weather.' You know how guys are supposed to get better after college? I think I got worse."

He chuckles, swirling his drink. It's always easier to joke about when you've passed it. "I struggled a lot with classes, which was from a cocktail of jackassery and depression. Meteorology was the one thing I could see myself doing without ending it all in ten years, and I got my degree out of some, like... spite against being a college dropout. But I do still like my job after... shit, twenty-six years? However crap my old self was, at least I set myself up for that."

"Guys are supposed to get back after uni?" is said with what is mostly false, teasing incredulity, but, well, the only guy she ever actually knew both before and after he went off to higher education was a serial offender in assault, battery and murder from the age of 11 onwards, so...

"Still doing what you love. Least you made some good choices. Me, I never even considered uni. Got my A-levels and I was done. Went straight into the police. That'd been the plan since I was maybe... twelve? Could've been eleven, that was when my life took a turn, but I dunno. Think it took a bit longer for dad's old stories and ideas to really get into my head. You know the kinda guy who washes out of the police or army and never lets that go?"

That was her old man. He had a lot to say when she was growing up, and most of it was horribly authoritarian.

"And I mean. I enjoyed being police. Didn't always like it, but—" she waves a hand vaguely, it's a strange distinction to make but that's how it is with her time affected by the Hunt. The cognitive dissonance. "I really believed in what I was doing for years. Even when I knew it was fucked. Then there was everything with the Magnus Institute and it all just started. Crumbling. Honestly I think I was happier living out of the dusty basement of the Magnus Institute trying to stop the apocalypse than I was with a real home and a job."

She shakes her head and laughs a strange laugh, throwing her hands up. "Which is fucked! That situation was fucked six ways to Sunday. We literally couldn't quit and we hardly left the building. My partner could barely look at me 'cause I'd changed so much. I was wasting away. My only two other friends were another Avatar I'd almost killed once. And a woman who went on to blind herself to escape. But— it was still better? It still felt better."

They haven't talked, not after that mutual agreement in Fenrir's realm. It's more when a predator recognizes another in their surroundings and gives a look of acknowledgement to the other, to keep a boundary in place. At least one person in this place looks at her the way she knows she should be looked at.

But right now, she doesn't particularly care if it raises any hackles to have her in orbit. Demona's gone, and Fever wants to mope a little about it, as well as try to beat back the feeling of looming dread that hasn't left since that meeting. She heads behind the bar, picking her way through the spirits, and in the end plucks up a green bottle and a glass, settling a few seats down from Daisy before she pours for herself.

Not a word exchanged, just red eyes flicking over to see if Daisy can tolerate this proximity.

Daisy's odd yellow eyes never settle themselves directly upon Fever, as she searches behind the bar. They don't seem to focus on anything much at all, actually; she just stares blankly, swirling a half-empty bottle of something fruity around by the neck. And yet there's never a moment where Fever feels unobserved. Daisy is as tense as a string pulled taut, waiting to snap, and her hair is messed up in such a way that it almost does look like literal hackles.

Slaughter and Hunt never have played nice for long. It's just one of those things. Different priorities. Different rules. Different tastes for blood. Even then, it's always been more personal for Daisy than most. Calvin...

Anyway.

It's stupid to cling to entity politics a thousand hundred million billion miles from home. Daisy does know that, even if she can't seem to bury the instinct completely.

When Fever looks over at her, yellow meets red. Cheek propped on her palm, hair in her face, sharp teeth catching at her own lip, Daisy watches her.

Then she takes a swig from the bottle in her other hand, wipes her mouth, and simply says: "Fever. Right?"

No time for names in Hell. She only got it from Valdis a few weeks ago.

A single, deliberate nod, before she raises her glass a little.

"Daisy."

She had gotten it in passing, after the fighting. Better to know the name of who she would end up circling like this, where the observation feels nigh physical on her skin, something that is and is not hostile. Like she can blame her, Fever would look at herself the same way. Daisy's not the same, but she rhymes in some way, the combination of a shortsword and a dagger in the off hand. Struck together, sparks. She's not foolish enough to play at pleasantries - good to see you're still here might just be too polite to go over better than a rock.

"...You ever try this? Fireswill, they call it."

It burns the entire way down, is why.

"I'm not much of a drinker." The bottle in her hand sloshes. Daisy drags her tongue over her teeth and huffs a quiet laugh at her own expense. "Usually. Doesn't do much for me. Can't get drunk."

And yet going by the empty bottles and abandoned glasses on her side of the bar, she's been making a determined effort to change that. It doesn't seem to be working. There's no rosy flush to her face, no dilated pupils, no looseness. She's downed enough liquor to kill a man more than twice her size, but any and all dishevellement is that of a ruefully sober woman who's simply too existentially exhausted to care.

She takes another swig from her bottle. "How literal's the fire?"

"The spices and the strength, and you feel every sip. More a sign of warning than anything else."

Not a drop having effect. What a blessing and a curse that must be. Is she chasing some type of numbness, or just oblivion? If they weren't so wary about each other, there are a few options she could give to clear the mind.

"Of course, the strength means I could probably set it on fire and have it burn long enough to make a very interesting experience." You can use the barrels as impromptu weapons, so... "I don't think it'll bring intoxication, if you're already surmounting it, but drinking true fire? Might be worth it to say you did."

One of Daisy's brows quirks almost imperceptibly. "Mm. You know. Telling most people to drink fire would probably count as a pretty violent way to tell them to go fuck themself."

Of course, Daisy heals so quickly that it wouldn't kill her at all. And pain stopped meaning what it should to her a long time ago, now. The way her gaze flicks momentarily to the bottle isn't the look of a woman who isn't considering the pros and cons.

"'Course," she gestures loosely with her bottle-wielding hand, "to something like me it's closer to flirting. But that's an easy mistake."

There's a flash of too-big teeth, and she downs the rest of her bottle in one go.

Edited (typos) 2024-01-24 23:17 (UTC)

Intelligence says to let it pass, that this is walking a fine line between flirtation and potentially getting her measure taken in a fight - one never quite knows, with women like them. But Fever isn't letting intelligence tell her what to do, especially when she's got that strange knot in her chest from knowing Demona's nowhere to be found. Indulging in her feelings is a path forward, and so is distraction.

Daisy might be watching her, but she's watching Daisy back, the mutual awareness of when they move, gauging and making decisions and putting others on the table, eyes watching her swallow to think about all the ways you could kill someone via their neck. And she didn't live this long by not chasing down impulses and working with the situation on hand. There's only her best judgement at play, and said judgement decided to take a vacation when she'd picked up her current drink of choice. Which she pours another measure of, the spices tickling her nose, lips quirking into a restrained smile.

"Only closer? That tells me I need to try harder."

If she wanted to tell someone to go fuck themself, there are plenty of more direct, vicious ways to do so. Plenty of terrible promises to make on what to do with their bones. This offer, that was sincere. And because no one ever told her not to dip into the theatrics when they truly come calling, the right twists of her hands bring light, a cupped mote of fire that will dissipate since she won't throw it. But if you're very careful? It works excellently as a lighter.

The blue of the alcohol catching, and she dismisses the flame, watching the new one burn. An interesting experience, she had called it, and Fever's half tempted to try it herself. It'd be running risks, like anything else worth doing. Her expression, meeting those yellow eyes, says enough. If Daisy declines, she'll take the gamble herself.

Fever isn't the first woman, nor may she be the last, to find herself the target of the Hunter's attention in such a way that it's hard to know if she'd have more fun killing her or kissing her. Even the most normal one-night-stand has felt that thrill of danger and decided to chase it, without knowing they were ultimately always safe. Even the most dangerous prey has felt that thrill of danger and decided to chase it, knowing full well their safety were not guaranteed.

Daisy doesn't really want to kill her. It'd be messy and not really worth the relapse, or the questions. Still, that doesn't mean she's made up her mind one way or another, or that she ever will.

The corner of her lips quirks in a dangerous little smirk, and the flame reflects oddly off those unnatural eyes.

"You think you'll know when you're trying hard enough?" Challenge, or warning? Who's to say.

Daisy watches Fever for a moment longer, long enough that you might expect her to decline in the end— then snatches the flaming drink and tosses it back without so much as flinching at the inevitable scorching heat. The alcohol carries the flame long enough that it burns the whole way down, the bitter sting of a pain Daisy has encountered only a scattered handful of times in her violent life, just sharp enough to catch at that unique exhilaration that rides pain that you know won't kill you but still feels real.

It heals instantly. The flame burns out.

She takes the drink right before Fever would have gone for it herself, and her eyes widen slightly in a mixture of feelings. Fascination, mostly, along with the deep and liquid desire that wants to know how it felt for her from the inside out, that hopes that it hurt in a unique way, both impressed with Daisy for simply enduring and wishing she could have seen at least a little flicker of the pain it would have caused. And of course, the part of her that senses the danger and dives after it, letting herself freefall down - the part that glances at Daisy's mouth and wonders whether she'll find those teeth in her flesh or in her throat. To see her lips glossed red with blood...

It's just more fuel to the fire, really. To borrow a very fitting metaphor, embers in her that want to smoulder.

She barely manages to stop herself from murmuring beautiful, though she doesn't stop the small lean forward instead, as if studying for any changes from the drink.

"Now you've got a new story to tell."

She figures when she's trying hard enough, there will be signs. The most agonizing end to this will be having to behave, in one way or another, so the burden's on her to keep it interesting.

"Of course, it's just the start of one at present. Accepting drinks from strange women in bars...that can't be all there is to it, surely."

The now-downed and doused drink is set aside with a little thunk against the bar, and, for just a split second, as Daisy's tongue swipes out across her lips Fever might see the last of the burned tissue knitting itself back to pristine condition.

She leans sideways against the bar, now, head propped on hand but looking at Fever head-on rather than watching out of the corner of her eye.

"You really do like playing with fire," she muses, almost as if she's talking less to Fever and more about her. But then, that distant tone gone and replaced with something much more pointed: "You're not wrong. My stories rarely stop there. They go in all sorts of directions."

"When you say it like that, you can't fault me for getting curious about all those other tales. All the directions they went, all the conclusions they led to." She takes a drink from the bottle itself, savoring the burn while keeping eye contact. "But then again, you're an intriguing woman all on your own, Daisy."

What, did she think she was the only one observing?

"You're in a bar though you can't get drunk. You fight like a force of nature, and your emblem has the meaning of innocence. You strike me as proud, though every piece of it would be earned. And it feels like you're waiting for me to do something unwise, yet you took a drink I gave you without batting an eye. Makes me desperately want to see where this story wants to go." There's amusement in her gaze, holding steady. "Of course, I have a bad habit of slipping in where I'm not wanted."

An exit path. Tell her to stop, tell her to go, and she will.

When Gwen isn't being enlisted into fucking around and finding out by Darcy, she's... not really sure how she feels. She isn't scared. Somehow, after all of the time she's spent picking apart how her life was supposed to go, there's a strange sense of resolve that comes in the face of a true unknown.

Whatever comes next is hers. Not just a part of the Spider-Man story.

Find her beating away at her drum-kit in Bellona's theatre, louder and more energetic than ever. See her walking on the walls and ceilings, or zipping between levels with her webs. Encounter her training in the gym, or practising with her webs on the sports deck.

Or find her in the middle of a 'the world is ending' makeover in the spa, where she's dyeing her hair blue and maybe giving herself a new piercing or two.

There is a whale at the edge of the kingdom.

Not literally, not here. But Ruby has felt the shadow of an oncoming storm before, cast by the humongous Grimm that Salem rode through Atlas's once impenetrable bubble of safety. It's one of the last things she remembers from home. It might be the last thing she'll see here—in spirit, at least.

She didn't do enough. She got too wrapped up in her own issues and didn't. Do. Enough. And now where are they?

Maeve is gone.

Ruby isn't taking the best care of herself, after the announcement. She doesn't sleep in her cabin. She doesn't eat as many meals as she should. She wears the eyepatch with magical sight for too long and gives herself headaches. Her usually layered, frilly outfits tend towards the simplified. She spends hours holed up in a corner of the library with a nest of her most important belongings, sometimes reading and sometimes not.

And she spends hours on the sports deck, when she thinks no one's around, carving violently through some of the infinite supply of mannequins with her scythe or sword.

He said to me, "Child, I'm afraid for your soul" [OPEN]

This beast that you're after will eat you alive, and spit out your bones [cw: referenced self-harm]

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cw ??? self inflicted burns???

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She'll string you along, and she'll sell you a lie

There's nothing but pain on the edge of a knife