come_sailaway | APRIL OPEN LOG: PIRATE JENNY

APRIL OPEN LOG: PIRATE JENNY

[early risers with odd-numbered rooms might notice that the morning sun doesn't quite come through the curtains as much as it usually does; they can peer out the portholes to see their views blocked by black-painted wood. everyone else won't realize something's off until the morning announcements. there's the chime, and Friday speaks, but...]

Passengers, I'd like for you all to join me in the atrium at your earliest possible convenience! We have a… situation!

[there is no bind on their legs; going is their choice. but, who wouldn't? something interesting is happening, at least. for once.

when they arrive, they will find Friday, and find that she is not alone. a woman - tall, dark, with a flowing coat and a lit cigar hanging from the side of her mouth like an old movie gangster - is standing on the raised area by the stairs; they are having a conversation that's too quiet to hear, and the woman's face is nearly as inscrutable. when enough have gathered, Friday steps forward, her empty hands clasped together in front of her, as the woman puts out the cigar on the heel of her boot and tosses it thoughtlessly to the ground.]

Good morning, everyone! I.. I'd like, I'd like to, well, I'd -

[the woman places a firm hand on Friday's shoulder - spins her, grabs her, dips her low to the ground, and kisses her soundly. at the first touch, Friday freezes; but, at the dip, she squeaks, and throws her arms up to hold herself up. the woman returns her to a normal position, and grins widely.]

Let me handle this, Dajutia. Hm? [Friday nods, and the woman turns to face the passengers.] Tau, everyone! My name is Jenny Storm, but all my friends call me Pirate Jenny! And I'd like to think we're all friends, sí? You could call me an... alumnus of the Serena Eterna; I spent a good five years being a thorn in the side of our good Captain! So, when I heard that he was getting up to his old tricks again, I decided to come around and see the fresh meat! And maybe have a bit of a vacation myself!

[she looks at each of them in turn. her grin widens, showing sharp canines.]

Now, I am sure you are thinking, "Señora Storm? You are a pirate! Are you here to rob us of our valuables?" [she barks out a laugh, then shakes her head.] No, no. First off, we're friends; it's Pirate Jenny! And Pirate Jenny is not interested in such things. In fact, I have valuables for you!

[she makes a quick movement: she sticks her pointer finger in her mouth, and then immediately uses that same finger to make some sort of sketch on her palm. seconds later, that same palm closes around a single white rose, which she extends to Friday. she pauses... then takes it, careful, holding it gentle as a bird.]

I may not be the Captain, but I happen to have a little bit of magic of my own! And, for a very, very low price, I can grant you a few small wishes! Trifles from home, maybe - do you like rocket launchers? I am getting very good at rocket launchers!

Jenny...

Okay, okay, no rocket launchers... Machine guns are as big as I'll go, promise!

[Friday just audibly sighs and shakes her head, but there's a clear sort of fondness in it, and Jenny laughs again.]

So, be sure to chat me up, sí? After breakfast! I may not miss much about this damned ship, but I do miss those little omelets!

[she salutes the audience, and then immediately leaves, taking the stairs down three at a time and needlessly pushing her way through the small crowd on her way to the elevators. Friday merely watches her go; her fingers have worried the rose to shreds that fall at her feet.

the rest of the month, until the 13th, is very much the same, with one exception: Jenny's ship remains at the Serena Eterna's side, a sailing ship somehow keeping pace with a modern engine craft. and Jenny doesn't seem to be keeping an especially close eye on it.]

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[ He shrugs. ]

I couldn't even tell you what it may have been from my world. [ Had to have been something from his species. Rather, the ancestors of his species? Being aquatic did give them a lot of advantages... But he would have no idea what the signs would be. ] Farms, maybe?? Or some other thing that fulfills a basic need.

In my world, it was the archeological find of a femur.

( clarke can accept that they might be working from two different ends of reality, but doesn't discredit mizuki's intelligence enough to feel the need to gesture at either of their thighs to explain what a femur is. )

A very, very old femur. That showed signs of a long-healed break in the bone. The idea behind that being that, in the animal kingdom, you break your leg and you die. That sort of injury takes at least six weeks of immobilization to heal from, and you can't feed or defend yourself during this time. So someone else stopped, and stayed with this injured person; fed them, brought them water, tended their wound, carried them if needed, cleaned them, and protected them from any outward threat until they were well enough to walk again.

I've always heard that that was the first sign of a functional civilization. Of a sense of community. Things that met basic needs like gardens, arrowheads, and bowls — those could have just been selfish, and self serving tools. But this proof that one person put another's need over their own convenience or wellbeing for an extended period of time is...

( honestly, kind of beautiful. the standard of human morality that clarke still holds herself against to this day; tries and tries again to emulate, even after one failure or another. she pauses for a moment here, long enough to drop her gaze to the battery again before handing it back across the table top. )

The point I was trying to get to — it is important. And it's defining, and says a lot about you if your first instinct is to help the sick instead of demonize them.

( super fucking round about way of saying oh hey, you sound like a good person compared to the rest of your world but here we are, finally on the other side of it. )

[ Mizuki listens very intently, leaning a bit forward as he does. He's not as much of a history nerd as other people, but he is a huge fan of learning about stuff like this. How people might think, even ancient people, is fascinating. There's almost a part of Mizuki that wants to try to interrupt and start talking about the science behind the social need of people and all the psychology that goes behind it, but he's too polite to just cut in.

Besides, this is interesting! And the more he listens, the less prevalent the stars in his eyes are, and the more soft his expression looks. By the end of it, he gives an embarrassed laugh and uses one of his hands to half cover the sudden flush he can feel over his cheeks. Mizuki considers himself a good person, absolutely. A hero? No. But a good person. But to be told as such, so eloquently, so vividly... it's a little fluster-worthy. He does take the battery back, and just kind of rolls it around between his fingers, so he's doing something with his hands as his eyes are suddenly very interested in the table. ]

I... appreciate it. Thank you.

[ ... ]

You have such a beautiful outlook on life despite your circumstances, Clarke. It's a little intimidating to be around someone so... genuine.

( mizuki is looking at her so softly, so enthralled and hanging on every word, and... clarke's never been uncomfortable under the heavy, expectant gazes of a dozens of her companions while mapping out a war plan, or appealing to their pathos in an effort to divert a conflict; never flinched when spitting in lexa's face, or shooting through lincoln in order to pierce the heart of the mountain man holding a knife to his throat.

she isn't even all that bothered by his focused attention while she's talking, but that bookend of a compliment is just... too much. mizuki isn't the only one suddenly inspecting their nailbeds. but clarke will muscle through the unpleasant twists in her guts — guilt, it tastes most like guilt for having apparently misrepresented herself — and make herself look at his face again. )

...I don't want to mislead you. I used to think life on the ground would be beautiful. I think trees, flowers, butterflies, and rivers are the most amazing things I've ever seen. But life is hard, and ugly. Humanity may be great, but humans? They can be so, so brutal, and horrible to one another. And I just —

( going from conflict after conflict after crisis after gutwrenching death, clarke's never had the real opportunity to sit down and digest a lot of what she's experienced in the last two years. if this cruise — this extended moment after her maybe-death, where they's hostages and maybe going to have to murder each other — is going to be good for anything, at least it'll give her a few brief moments to breathe. maybe even to process. but that hasn't happened yet. )

I don't know how I feel about a lot of things anymore.

... That, unfortunately, is just a truth of people in general. I learned from someone a long time ago that people can absorb the good around them, and the evil will expel in turn. For a long time, I tried to live that, travelling the world to explore the stories and learn of the lives of good people.

I very quickly learned that that is a truth of the world, and not just a theory. I've seen it. I know it's true. But, I know that the opposite is also very true. Evil can smother the good inside of them, and in turn, eventually wipe away the good and kind souls that bring beauty to the world beneath the stars.

[ Mizuki looks back to his battery, holding it tightly between his two fingers as if he's meant to be contemplating something, before finally sliding it back into his game console. ]

I think the people who believe in the good in people, in anyone, are not wrong, in a sense. Everyone does has the capability to be good. But by the time that they may decide to find those parts of themselves, they very well may have done irreparable damage. So, unfortunately, humanity needs a lot more than learning and getting along if its future is going to be the bright, beautiful and caring one that it needs to be.

[ He pauses, then reaches over to gingerly touch Clarke's shoulder. ]

So, I feel like maybe you might see things in a way very similar to me. In fact, I think out of everyone on this ship, I understand you the most.

Edited 2022-04-06 03:33 (UTC)

( it isn't that clarke actively tries to remain detached from beautifully spoken, well thought out speeches surrounding humanity and the optimism they deserve to push forward with. it's just that... she's given herself so many pep talks along the same vein, listened to so many stirring pleas from her leaders, her parents, and her friends — only to witness all those good intentions steamrolled by the next world-crisis that snuffed out lives and cared little for the dreams of the people it left ground into the dirt. maybe she'd been an optimistic little girl until the age of seventeen, but had been forced to grow up quickly down on earth, and accept the brutal consequences of living to the point that, sometimes? in situations that felt particularly dire and inescapable? it physically hurt to hold on to hope.

and all of clarke's resilience has been shoved towards escaping this ship. beat the captain and his game, then worry about good and evil as it was represented among humanity. but every point out mizuki's mouth sounds like something she'd have said once upon a time. just because he didn't look at her and see a blood drenched genocidal witch didn't mean clarke didn't remember how easy it was to take hundreds of lives at once with the pull of a lever every time she looked at herself in the mirror. she could hate herself, and the toll of her choices, and in the same breath really, desperately want to believe that none of that made her evil. that she wasn't a terrible person, just living through terrible circumstances.

but circumstances change people. experience change people. evil smothers to good out of the very best, and she was never the prime example of a humanitarian good girl. clarke herself could have used a lot more learning and experience, and just... the opportunity to live a life where survival at all costs wasn't the baseline, and a little room was left to figure out how to find joy in the world, how to thrive. but then she'd maybe-died, woken up on a ghost ship, and felt any chance at actual, real redemption was taken from her in the wake of the deathwave that had leveled her earth.

it feels so uncomfortably vulnerable for someone to look her in the eyes and say they see her; understand her. the friends she'd cherished at home had been quick to say similar things, and quicker to turn on her when that propensity for making hard, ruthless decisions jeopardized them personally. adding one more confidant feels a lot like adding another name to her list of people to disappoint; perpetually waiting for the other boot to drop. and then mizuki goes and touches her, and clarke goes painfully rigid under that hesitant touch. jaw locked, eyes wide with a mixture of alarm, discomfort, and wet — the pressure of so many unshed tears that threaten to well in her lashes as she's reminded that thing she wants most in the world right now is a hug from her mother. that permission to fall apart a little under the tactile contact of someone trusted who'd try their best to put her back together afterwards. she doesn't shrug off his hand, but remains frozen like she expects a kind touch to suddenly start stinging.

(no, not because he's a jellyfish.)

eventually she'll regain a modicum of composure, enough to look away and even busy herself with pushing a few scraps of meat around her plate like she means to start eating again. but what little appetite she'd scrounged up has fled. )

I don't think I understand you much at all, but...

( a toss of a coin, an impulsive decision right here and now about how much she wants to align herself with someone that makes her feel gross, unwelcome feelings that are hard to push back into their bottle. )

I think I'd like to. And I want to hear more about your world. For whatever flaws are rooted in its societal makeup and meteorological system, it sounds beautiful.

[ Mizuki has never had an easy time reading someone's expressions. Sometimes, he's able to pick up on more obvious ones, if he's really looking, but for the most part, social cues and context sort of flew right by him. If he were ever to psychoanalyze himself, he would probably even assume that's why touch is so important to him. Someone's weak attempt to squeeze your hand because they're sad, the tenseness of their shoulders because they're worried or afraid, the desperate grips of someone who needs comfort... it's all things that he understands far better than expressions and words. People don't make sense. Words are confusing.

He gets this, though.

He doesn't know why she's uncomfortable, of course, and he has the common sense to not just ask. But he can work with this. She's not pushing him away at all, and despite how she may be feeling, she's being very amiable. That's good news, right? That makes them friends, right? ]

Really? I would be happy to talk to you more about it! I love teaching people new things-- I didn't get to do it much back home.

... Whenever you're ready, I would like to hear more about yours as well. But I don't mind waiting!

( friends is still a super generous term — especially when she'd actively work to keep as many people an arm's length away as she could, just so there'd be no verbatim repeat of an enemy learning her friends are her weakness, start with bellamy blake — but they could be tentative allies. she could get behind that title, at least eventually; has honestly already compiled an inner circle of confidants and co-conspirators in this quest to beat the captain at his own game, but none of them had offered to eat someone for her, and gazed at her with a soft sort of unearned... reverence? fascination? too intently, for someone who waffled between standing front and center of a group and assuming leadership, or else melting into the background and not being glanced at once.

and, yeah, clarke acknowledges that outside of thinly veiled hypotheticals, she hasn't told mizuki much about her home at all. it wasn't intentional omission, but too much information about the circumstances she'd left behind and wars she'd won tended to drag conversations dangerously close to those raw, barely knit-over wounds along her psyche — that lengthy list of secrets, of hard choices that still hurt to revisit. everyone at home knew what she had done, she'd earned a bloody title and reputation to go along with desperate war crimes. sue her a little if it's nice not immediately being feared because the passengers on the serena eterna don't know just how many kill marks should have been tattooed on her back.

still, she's given others a basic run down, and it feels like the least she could offer in return of how patiently he'd explained his world and fielded her follow up questions. so — )

I was born in space.

( this is the point where she sits up a little straighter, leaning just far enough away that it's no longer easy for him to touch her shoulder. )

About eighty years after a nuclear apocalypse wiped out all life on Earth and made the entire planet uninhabitable.

[ Rude. Fair! But rude. Mizuki settles his hand back on the table and uses his other to prop his head up as he listens. ]

Nuclear... apocalypse? How did the come about??

[ Not that Mizuki is totally unfamiliar with the concept of nuclear warfare or anything, but a lot of the wars from Terra were internalized within their own countries. Which tended to make nukes a little harder to use. ]

Ah, I guess if it was that long ago, you must not know that much about it...? Were you- [ ...Is he allowed to be nosy? Is it okay to ask questions? He isn't sure. ]

... You don't have to keep going if this is a tough topic.

( she actually knows more about it than she'd like to know, having come face to face with the perpetrator about seven months ago — just long enough to be told it would all be happening again in a matter of time. )

It's just history.

( a small shrug, eyes dipping back to her plate to push around a few more pieces of meat before eventually bringing another up to her lips. she'll talk while chewing, like the proper feral child she is, but at least the gross lip smacking is absent. )

A lot was happening. Over population, global warming, war, disease... Earth is completely dry of oil. Terroristic bombings, political assassinations, coups. Potable water was getting harder to come by, and the smog was suffocatingly thick. The Earth was dying beneath humanities feet.

So a scientist created an artificial intelligence with the sole directive of helping humanity, and she took that to mean culling half the population. But tip over a can of paint and you can't really plan on how far it'll stain across the floor. Instead of 6 billion people, the blasts took out almost all 11 billion. Anyone on a space station in orbit — we called them the original Grounders — were far enough away to be spared, but also cut off from their ground bases. For years, they drifted past each other until one day Mir floated by Shenzhen, and they realized life would be better together. The other stations saw this, and they wanted to be together too. When all the other stations were joined they called themselves The Ark.

( her tone slips into something practiced; remembering her childhood, her role in the unity day play's where children walked in circles around each other in place of the twelve spaceships and each recited praises to their ancestorial astronauts.

they never talk about the thirteenth that was shot out of the sky. )

And that's where I was born.

That sounds ridiculously messy. Sounds to me like your world didn't implement enough time outs... [ …A joke. Is he allowed to use those in serious conversations with Clarke yet? Hopefully! ]

Rogue AI, then? That's... [ Harsh! Thank god the robots back on Terra haven't tried to do anything like this. Then again, they're all worked on by the best engineers constantly, presumably to avoid something like this, but... well, there have been certainly a few video games to explore the hypotheticals of if they didn't.

Once again, Mizuki finds himself feeling terrible about a hypothetical that Clarke literally had to go through. ]

So you were born in space? [ Well not like in space, but you know what he means. ] That's really cool! When I was still a young Aegir, I would float along the ocean waves and just stare at the stars and moon for hours. I mean, obviously I didn't have too much else to do, but... [ When you're just a wee jellyfish and you don't have a brain, things happen. ]

… Do you curse your ancestors for putting you in that situation?

( very few jokes are going to land in such a way that'd ever make clarke giggle or crack into side-splitting laughter. but her pulse-less sense of humor doesn't mean she can't aggressively relate to generalizations like that, especially as the unofficial (but kind of official) mother of her friend group. time outs. time outs for everyone would have been hugely effective and probably prevented a lot of suffering, and yet here they are...

but curse her ancestors? )

...No. I could barely tell what to expect between one day and the next on Earth, and I can't imagine it was all that different for them. All of that started long before most of the branches in my family tree would have been grown, and even then — it wasn't specifically my great-great-great grandparents who destroyed the world. It was every single human on the planet, spanning generations. Either through inaction, ignorance, honest mistakes, or blatantly aggressive decisions.

I don't think I could curse humanity without including myself in that. It's not like I had any luck preventing the second Death Wave either.

It's just... from the sounds of things, it doesn't sound like there's a lot of... um, what's the word...? [ He lulls his head for a moment. ] I'd be... hopeless, I guess? All that feels so... damned if you do, damned if you don't. But, then again, I already have a hard time deciding things for myself, so...

[ He scoots himself back over to his food, ripping off a piece of his steak. ]

But maybe getting upset with the people who caused it to be so miserable is just a coward's way of doing thing. Getting mad doesn't fix the problem... But... [ Sigh. ]

...

Do you want to go back?

( he's hit the nail on the head, perfectly summed up her homelife, and clarke's eyes dip in an unspoken acknowledgement of this. she won't say out loud how futile life on earth had proven to be, how hard it was and how useless it felt to persist at times. to do so would be a disservice to the three generations who'd subsisted on the ark before her, all silently pining to smell pine trees for the very first time. and she had, but the immediate second taste hanging on the breeze had been blood, and it's just...

it would undermine all that the dead had sacrificed. for her to be ungrateful about ever feeling the wind on her face, or feeling leaves crunching beneath her feet. )

It's okay to be mad. ( a soft admission, a hint at something beneath a more proper veneer that's subsequently swallowed along with a mouthful of spit. she puts another bite of steak in her mouth and chews. ) But no, it doesn't fix anything. Sometimes it just makes things worse.

( and the whew — does she want to go back? well... )

I do.

( either she'd died in a deathwave and would return to her world to find some semblance of peaceful death where she wasn't forced to play another brutal game for survival, or she'd lived and would at least be able to try to find out if her mother and friends had survived as well. if the nightblood experiment had worked, if life could flourish after a fire. it's like asking her if she wants to live or die, and clarke not being able to come up with a concrete answer either way. neither are the most appealing, but the serena eterna somehow manages to be worse. )

Do you want to go home?

[ Mizuki ponders this for a while, pressing his finger down against the pinker bits of meat while he chews. That's... a hard question, actually. Mizuki is extremely attached to his home, for sure, but when he said he was bad at making decisions, he wasn't lying. He did his best to weigh the pros and cons, but inevitably just shrugs. ]

I don't know. [ Sorry, Terra. ] I think so. I miss everyone at home, and I still feel very strongly about my world, and I want to help make it a better place for the people that made the things I love...

But I also know that the Doctor will take care of that world, even if I'm not there. I may want to see them again terribly, but I've also made a few friends here. And I want to see the Captain suffer, too! So... [ Another tear through the meat with his teeth. Shred, shred... ] …I want to stay until I accomplish that much, at least.

Whatever happens after that... happens.

( clarke would phrase it as seeing the captain face justice, but the sentiment is the same. death, suffering, and anything in between felt like an apt punishment. and while she doesn't have any firm relationship tethers keeping her bound to this ship yet, they're beginning to form against her best intentions. clarke would not want to leave unless she was certain everyone else who wished to escape could as well.

then she could rest.

ultimately, a respectable answer, mizuki, thanks. )

Who is the Doctor?

[ Mizuki brightens about tenfold just at the prospect of talking about the Doctor. He stops everything he's doing to gesture in the air as he speaks. ]

The Doctor is the commander and tactician that I worked for back at Rhodes Island. They're the one who makes sure that everyone is safe, and the one who told me which of our enemies were evil. Despite the fact that I am not an official employee at Rhodes Island, they still decided to have me by their side, and I got to bask in their kindness, wisdom and heroism. Saying they are a good person is an understatement to the wildest degree. They're the one who protects the Infected, the innocents, and even all the operators at R.I...

[ A smitten sigh. ]

They're amazing. I want to be just like them.

( ...she's not going to outright question that level of enthusiasm — everyone has someone they admire that much, right? maybe not as colorfully but if asked to describe lexa's virtues, the same sentiment would have backed her words — but clarke is absolutely going to... squint.

just a little bit. admiration is one thing, reverence is another. )

So they told you... who to eat?

( not that she's in any position to judge how a person managed to keep their people safe, but yes she's still going to do it. )

... Mostly who to not eat, I suppose! [ He was stopped a lot from trying to eat people, actually... He still doesn't fully understand why. There are a lot of bad guys, and they hurt so many people. He never fully understood the Doctor's rationale when they told Mizuki "No"...

But he won't question it. ]

To look over and care for my team from places they cannot see me, and devour those that wish harm to the good and innocent... that's my job. And the Doctor makes sure I do a good one.

( a little bit more squinting, another bite from her plate just to give herself something to physically chew over while also processing how this workplace dynamic must have worked, and ultimately... )

How do you know they were right? About who was evil and who was innocent. How did they know they were right?

Because they're a hero! Better than just a good person- they know the right thing to do and they always take action and make decisions that are best for our world, not just themselves. They're the most selfless and caring person!

[ Mizuki has, at this point, stopped eating himself. He seems far too engrossed in gushing about this person. ]

... I don't know how they know they're right. To be honest, I don't understand their decisions a lot of the time. But I know that they deeply care about people, so they're always right.

...I believe most people have it in them to be selfless. And to care. And that most are capable of heroic actions. But

( i tried. i tried to be the good guy.

maybe there are no good guys.

none of us is innocent.

fine, i'll be the bad guy. )

I don't believe in heroes.

Edited 2022-04-09 01:41 (UTC)

I'm afraid I have to disagree about your view on heroes. But you already know how I feel about good people, so...

[ He tilts his head slightly. ]

Besides, where this is people, there will always be someone who has to cull the bad among them. So heroes are simply a necessity.

...But I'm not going to try to change your mind about it. It sounds to me like you might not have found the hero amongst your world. [ Or, more likely to Mizuki, that she was the hero, but he's not quite ready to voice that opinion yet. Mostly because he's not 100% on it just yet. ]

( hasn't found one yet, because there isn't one anymore. even those who'd seemed pure and beyond reproach, humanitarian to a fault and giving with no end in sight — push them far enough, and the doctor will kill people they ought to have treated. the chancellor will put himself and his grief before his own peoples. the warrior who will rebel against their commander and kill to soothe their own soul. the diplomat that will allow matters of the heart to cloud matters of the mind. the leader who would run away...

if there's one thing clarke can agree right back with is that there will always be someone who makes the call to cull the herd. bad is just a definition up to interpretation, and good is a lie people tell themselves to sleep better at night. )

And probably never will. My world burned. Again, and I don't know if anything or anyone survived this time.

...

You did.

[ Mizuki stares at her for a moment with an innocent smile that doesn't show the sympathy he feels. He doesn't want her to feel like he pities her. That's not what this is. ]

And, if I can say something selfish, I'm glad you did. I'm glad we met.

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