END GAME: THE COUNTDOWN STARTS

[sailmods]

[the prisoners wake up on cold, hard floors.

the lights are bright, glaring, a sterile cell with sterile bars facing a sterile hall. the prisoners with you, across from you, and no one else. no rocking of a ship in waves, nothing. just the prisoner and their prison.

time passes, one assumes. the rhythmic click of Friday’s heels down the hall. it’s almost like the ticking of a clock.]

Comments

[decohere]

Ava crosses her arms, folded up in the back corner of her shared cell with Peter. There's the barest hint of satisfaction of hearing him openly direct the anger of their situation at Clarke.

And she's certainly ready to back him up, for good measure.

"Good, for a moment I thought you were foolish enough to believe that anyone with the means of enslaving a powerful magical being asking you to do so would somehow be a person of high moral standing that certainly wouldn't hold the rest of us in captivity the moment you handed control over the realm over. You stupid, selfish, pathetic little stain of humanity. I can't believe I ever had hope for you doing the right thing. I hope she trades you away for a Tardigrade."

[be_seeing_you]

Number 6 turns around to look at his wife with one eyebrow hump lifted very high, but the look isn't a reproachful one at all. Frankly, he's never been so impressed with her. He doesn't know if he could have said it better himself.

"This is why I love you, Ava," he says softly.

Now, he turns back to Clarke, his expression once again hard. "I would like to know what you did expect, Clarke? Did you expect us all to simply perish?"

[skaikru]

Ava chimes in to chastise (is there a more severe term than chastise? if so, then that) then the two of them briefly get sidetracked when Peter chooses this moment to reinforce his love for Ava. And like, happy for them but also ew as a spectator in literal hell. But we return to our regularly scheduled dressing down, and the corner of her cell still calls. She could just sit down and cover her ears, but futile tempers win out.

To Ava: "The right thing? Like sitting around and waiting for reality to collapse and kill us all? I'm sorry for not meeting your expectations as Plan B, but at least I was still trying."

Then, the more eloquent fury waning, she slaps the bars of her cage with no regard to how much it hurts existing wounds. And directs to Peter: "And worse case scenario I expected the prison to at least having... fucking — doors."

[decohere]

To further Clarke's suffering at their pda, Ava laces her fingers with Peter's and gives his knuckles a light kiss, encouraging.

It's true, she expected Clarke would eventually take drastic enough of an action that would ignite enough of a crisis that would finally force things to change, one way or another. But. "I thought you'd blow a hole in things to escape, not outright enslave someone! Thought that was the basic line of decency and morality most people knew not to cross!"

And like, sure. Ava gets that sometimes plans completely backfire. She fed a corpse to a spirit while trying to free it and ended up doing far more damage than intended. Which spiraled out of control with the whole Labyrinth ordeal. But this is totally different, okay.

[skaikru]

Just punch her in the face again, it would be kinder. They aren't even her parent figures and it's still giving the by-proxy PDA ick.

"It was just a string that was supposed to stabilize this place and let someone come save us until I got it around his throat," she snaps through the bars, just completing the caged animal aesthetic with the underlying hiss and a little bit of spit.

But... means to an end. If everything had worked out how she'd wanted, if everyone who wanted to leave could get off the ship and find someplace safe or at least open range to fight for their survival? The guilt would not be hitting nearly as hard as it currently is. She's done worse. What's one more war crime?

"But fine. Draw an arbitrary line in the sand when we were all brought to this place as suffering powered batteries and — sure, I crossed it."

[be_seeing_you]

Number 6 might almost be happy to oblige a request to punch her, as steamed as he is right now. Since he can't reach her, he follows the kiss to his knuckles by caressing Ava's face gently, tenderly, lingeringly.

"How did you think it would stabilize this place without reducing the Captain to a captive once more? How could it possibly have worked any other way? I thought you were more intelligent than that. I would respect you more if you had committed it knowing exactly the black mark it would be putting on your soul. But this was reckless. Utterly reckless. You should have left the subterfuge and planning to those more suited for it."

[decohere]

"There's nothing arbitrary about slavery, Clarke."