It never got less strange, showing anyone just a bare face

[millay]

Who: Maeve and YOU
What: Contemplation, a minor injury, stuff
When: Post camping June times
Where: Topy, the deck, wherever
Warnings: Injury, Westworld as a whole, will update as needed



I. Topy | OPEN

Maeve's decided to celebrate - rather tamely, but still a celebration - her return from the ship with a drink and some crafts. She's gotten quite a few art supplies from the craft place at camp. She wasn't sure what crafting supplies existed on the ship outside of potentially paper. So now she didn't have to worry.

She knew, somewhat, that the Captain knew a lot about them, but now she's seen it first hand. It wasn't a lot, but she gets the feeling he was just throwing a touch in to show her that he did know. She's uncomfortable with the power held over her. So she's sipping at her whiskey, trying to enjoy the fact that she is not dead while also trying to figure out how to address the truth of home.

But tonight she's focusing on something a little less troubling and trying to have fun with it. Even if her art is, well, quite unfortunate.

She's working hard to try to sketch a picture of Hector's hat. A little something of his she could hang up or at least keep in her room. She looks up as someone enters. "Care to join me? I figure we're all due for a drink and some art." Even if they did just do a week's worth of arts and crafts already.

II. Deck | OPEN

Maeve wants some sunlight without the blinding sun of the pools. So she's taken to the deck. She walks for a little while before pausing in a spot of sunlight. She feels much like a cat, just taking it in, hands on the railings.

She's quietly humming a song from the Mariposa. She doesn't quite know the name, but she remembers the tune of it and it reminds her of a time before everything seemed to go sideways. She misses not knowing in a way that she can't quite explain, but that doesn't mean she'd go back to being an unknowing puppet. It's just easier to not know. Ignorance really is bliss.

III. Wildcard - If you have another idea, hit me up or surprise me. You can really just go for it. She's going to be out and about all over. You can find her in Tauva overthinking or in the hottub or the pool with fruity drinks. You can message me on discord at kingdonkey#6187 if you have something particular you wanna run with.

Comments

I. - Topy

[lachtara]

For someone who held the power of creation at his fingertips, the art room is not a top priority when it comes to creative endeavors. Art is to be appreciated in all of its forms - for certain - but using it as an outlet for creation of such has been ever tightly-lidded.

However, he looks through the room with an idle sort of curiosity. He feels compelled enough to look at what his passive acquaintance has drawn - Or attempted to draw.

"What is that thing?" Emet-Selch asks instead of actually answering her question, not at all trying to attempt to hide the skepticism in his tone.

[millay]

Maeve mostly is just focusing on wine and attempting to get better at art. She wasn't programmed for art, but that doesn't mean she's not going to try. At least to give her something to do.

She glances up as she hears a voice. "The wine or the drawing, darling? It's hard to be certain." She assumes it's the drawing because that seems more likely than intense confusion about wine, but that hasn't stopped her from asking.

[lachtara]

"I know what the wine is." He says in huffy protest.

To that end, he invites himself over and takes a seat so that he might get a better vantage point to see what she's creating. It's... his sorted attempt at trying to initiate conversation.

"Your canvas. What is this drawing you've scrawled on it?"

[millay]

Maeve manages to keep herself from both smiling and laughing, but it takes some effort.

"Ah. It's supposed to be a hat. Well, Hector's hat. It was so detailed." She remembers it all so clearly. But she's not the best at art yet. If she's stuck here, then she might as well get something out of it. Even if she can't keep it all when she goes home. She's not really sure if she can or can't take it home.

[lachtara]

A hat. Emet-Selch cants his head to one side to try and wrap his brain around interpreting the shape as a hat. Suppose he could see it...That would be the brim and there the trimming.

"They are a friend of yours?" He asks.

[millay]

There a sadness to her smile and she studies the drawing closer. "No. Well, yes. He was my friend..." She frowns. "I loved him. He's dead." She can still feel the echo of it, the loss.

[lachtara]

"Death will not absolve them from your friendship or love." He says firmly. If there is something he will believe in with his whole being, it is that death could not take those things away from someone.

Emet-Selch gestures a hand toward her canvas, "Creating this proves as such."

[millay]

Maeve doesn’t disagree, but it’s another thing on a list of things and people she’s lost since waking. Would she have lost him if she’d stayed unknowing. Would it be worth never having autonomy to bring him back? He wouldn’t have wanted it if he remembered.

She sighs. “I wanted a piece of him with me. I doubt our paths shall ever cross again. But at least I can remember him in perfect detail.”

[lachtara]

His eyes narrow just a touch. It's a sentiment that he has long known; a desire to have something - anything - as a memento of someone that was cared for so deeply. Yet there are nothing left of them but memories.

It's with that in mind that he looks critically at the drawing and says nothing.

After a moment he puts both hands out in front of him with their palms facing upward and he concentrates. A small glow of white light forms in his hands. The light grows and shifts until it settles into a shape just like the one that is scrawled on the page in front of them. He's created a hat just like the one she's drawn using his creation magic.

Emet-Selch holds it out to her. "Here. Do not mock me for the inaccuracies, I only have your drawing to work from."

[millay]

Maeve looks at the light that came from his hands, immediately enamored by it. It’s so unusual, something she has truly never seen. She has no magic like that in her world. At least she assumes this is what magic is.

But when he’s done, she’s a little more emotional than she means to be. “Thank you,” she says softly, fingers moving over the hat. It is not a perfect match, but she understands that he can’t really. “If I had a way to show you my memories, I would, but I don’t think I have that ability.” She wipes away at a tear.

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” she says once the emotions have settled a little. “We don’t have…well, at least I’ve never seen a human do anything like that.”

[lachtara]

The faintest of smiles makes its way onto his expression. Seeing people marvel over the gift of magic is one of the small pleasures of being able to perform it. Many in his world saw it as a terrible thing or something too common to be awestruck by. Even as years passed he still knew of its grandeur - its beauty.

"I am not human. My people no longer walk the earth." He explains solemnly. In so many terms that race would be called 'Hyur' or 'Humes' in the world he hailed from, but the name difference doesn't matter so much now.

"Regardless, it is my hope that others may still remember them for all they have given the world."

[millay]

She isn't exactly surprised to find that more people aren't humans. It's still strange to know there are beings that are not human, but are not like her. She wants to ask, but she's not sure how rude it would be.

"Where are your people now?" It seems a little less rude to ask that. If they are not on Earth, either they have passed on or there are other worlds. She's not really sure what they did either, but if there was magic involved, likely a lot.

[lachtara]

His expression turns as notably somber as his tone. "They're gone, the same as your departed friend." It is not a topic that he takes pleasure in talking about but he would tell anyone in the hopes that they would remember that those like him once walked the earth.

"Most met their end in a disaster many years ago. The few that remained joined them in the years that followed." It makes one detail ever more perplexing. Emet-Selch folds his arms in thought. "Which makes my being here all the more perplexing..."

[millay]

Loss and grief are things that she understands deeply. Giving him an apologetic smile. "It is hard to lose people," she says after a moment, knowing how many people she's lost, how much she likely still has to lose going forward.

Being here is perplexing, but she's not certain that she understands exactly why on his end. Is it that he was the only one left or is it that he wasn't meant to still exist? "What about it perplexes you? Outside of the usual. I doubt anyone expected to be here."

[lachtara]

"I said that none of my people walk the earth, myself included." It's some graceful way to say that he too had perished some time ago. "How I came to be here, and why, is a mystery that demands unraveling."

[millay]

"Ah. I am sorry." She gives him a sympathetic look. "I'm not certain this place is terribly concerned with the way things happened. But it has given you a chance at life. I suppose. Not that I'd be excited about living it here, but I realize others don't mind it."

[lachtara]

"Oh, I'm not excited to be here, believe me." A ship in the middle of nowhere that harbored such ridiculous oddities is not among the places he would prefer to be. "There is something to be said about the rest that the next life provides. This place is hardly restful."

[millay]

Maeve nods. "This place in not restful. I do not believe it ever will be. Even if there are long stretches of calm, that hardly means it will last." And she doesn't trust the Captain to not make things difficult and more complicated. Much less the people stuck here. Not everyone is tired of death and mayhem.

[lachtara]

Emet-Selch gives her a faint shrug. "Perhaps it means there is hope for your long departed friend." Not to provide her with false hope on the matter, but if he had no longer lived then its a possibility that her friend should arrive here too.

[millay]

It isn't the first time the thought has occurred to her, but she isn't keen on letting her hopes get the better of her and she's not sure she wants to curse Hector to this place. "Perhaps," she allows. "At least if he is here, I have the power to make him more aware of things." To wake him up if he doesn't remember anymore is what she means. "It seems cruel to wish him here all the same."

[lachtara]

That earns a curious arch of the eyebrow. What an odd turn of phrase. "Aware...?"

[millay]

Maeve nods. "Mm. Yes. I am not...human." She shrugs, which looks a lot more casual than she feels. It's a moment of anxiety. She trusts almost no one with the truth of what she is. Still, most people have been fine. "I am a sythetic lifeform. We're called Hosts. Most of us are not aware that we are not real. I have a way of communicating with others like me through the Host network. Last I saw him, he was awake, but then his Pearl was destroyed and..." She gestures vaguely.

[lachtara]

Emet-Selch squints at her. This person - regardless of what she claims to be - has a soul like all the others. She is capable of speech, thought, and grief. It is much more than an average conjured 'thing'.

"And now you are here. 'Aware' of what you have left behind." He summarizes without delving too much into the specifics.

"You are more 'real' than you may comprehend." He says offhandedly, with a sigh.

[millay]

Maeve nods. "I've been aware for a while. Ford set it up so Dolores would wake me with a phrase, made it so that it would trip things in me and change everything." She's not sure how he did it. She only understands that he did.

His words, even if they aren't necessarily ones she feels she needs to hear are at least a kindness. "There are others that would argue we aren't. I know I am real. I would do nothing if I let myself get stuck in constantly questioning if my actions are my own or programmed responses." She's lying just a little. She does think about that too much. She wonders how much is her and how much is someone else's storyline for her, personality traits, things. She's altered her perception of pain and various other things. No one could alter her back to before now.

[lachtara]

He considers the words carefully. Being he has tried to create something that would substitute for life, he may offer a unique perspective on the matter. "There is an adage in creation magic." He begins thoughtfully. "We may create wonders of the world, but we cannot replicate the soul. That is a gift from the planet itself."

Emet-Selch shrugs. "Something to consider in your future contemplations."