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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[ooc: Other people aside from Clarke are also free to threadjack this if they want to have seen him after Clarke died/also tag with reactions regarding iii-b]

[Reigen is, unfortunately, one of the people who did in fact witness Clarke eating shit like that. He had the bad timing of happening to look in the direction of where Clarke had been standing on the railing, and before he had even had a chance to call to her, she had already taken the leap, smacking into the other ship and disappearing into the waters below. Reigen had quickly run over to the railing she had been at moments before, calling for her just on the off chance she was still conscious... and then when that didn't work, he had run to bang his fist as hard as he can bridge door, screaming for the Captain to "get his ass out here right now because he was going to kill the bloody bastard for not stopping a teenage girl from leaping to her death"--

But then, well, neither did Reigen, even if it had been a matter of bad timing and not getting to her fast enough. Even so, he does feel guilt nonetheless--Clarke had told him about what happened at home, and really, he probably should have looked out for her better after hearing about it. So once the threat of breaking his hand on the bridge door has made things obvious that the Captain isn't going to show himself, he ends up spending the rest of the night drinking in one of the bars until he makes himself vomit. Which, you know, is not a healthy way of dealing with things, but what else are you supposed to do after watching a kid die?

... Which is why when, he forces himself to get up the next day and be presentable despite nursing the worst hangover he's had in a long while, he almost doesn't process Clarke right back again at the railing. He squints at her for a long moment, and then when he realizes that no, she is not just a hallucination and looks likes she's about to try it again, Reigen doesn't hesitate--he marches right over and proceeds to grab her by the shoulder, spinning her around to face him.

He's relieved that she appears to be alive, but also, angrier than he's been in quite a while.]

What the hell do you think you're doing? Didn't you learn anything from yesterday!?

( so, dying sucks.

almost dying sucks too, but at least when you finally pull bruising fingers away from your throat or reach the surface of the lake at the bottom of a waterfall, that first gasping breath of air feels invigorating. a mark that you'd somehow beaten the odds, bested death; a rush of relief given to burning lungs and screaming survival instincts, followed by a flood of adrenaline just to remind you you're alive. but this had been different.

it'd been two seconds of weightlessness and determination, bordered with maybe a flick of optimism and self confidence. then a longer four seconds of sheer, irreversible terror when it became obvious she'd been hitting the siding of the galleon instead of the deck. then a sharp pain along the side of her head, and just — nothingness. and instantaneous loss of consciousness, clarke doesn't remember hitting the water moments after and hadn't even heard the horrible sound her skull had made against the wood paneling of pirate jenny's ship. there was a small chance she'd still been alive going into the water, but the brain matter dried in her hair alongside the matting of sea salt told clarke she probably wouldn't have survived much longer on land. it'd been different than waking up on the serena eterna the first time, after having choked on the fluid welling up from her own burning lungs until she'd collapsed and passed out. at least that time, it'd been a confusing few moments of taking in her surroundings, contemplating this was just what the afterlife looked like, or if this was some weird hallucination in the moments before brain death.

this time, she knows this boat is frustratingly real. and blinks at the ceiling until dead eyes adjust to the lighting around her and she recognizes the horrendous bedspread tucked around her, the walls, the porthole window, the rise and fall of the ship on the tide — like a monster drawing breath — and she'd just... screamed.

but clarke had buttoned up her lips, gathered as much composure as she could, and stormed back out on the deck like a hurricane in human form. it felt better to ignore the realities of what just happened a day ago, to not dwell too long on what it meant to die and come back to life a second time, and she twists her own anguish into an emboldened sense of invulnerability so that it's at least useful. again at the railing, one foot on the bottom rung, and set to try again until —

hands curl around her shoulders and drag her backwards. spin her around, fingers biting into the crusty fabric of her shirt with all the intensity of a parent shaking their child for running across the street without looking for cars. apart from sucking, death also has a habit of making one jumpy as absolute hell, and the second clarke feels another person touching her, she's squirming to lurch away. being forcibly turned and seeing it's reigen, and then being aggressively scolded at close range — yeah, only one of those things is slightly okay, and she's taking the moment to indignantly shove his hands off her before hissing through teeth — )

I learned we don't die.

( already a fact she'd been told, and been sharing around liberally to emphasize just how not okay this cruise ship was. but now, painfully confirmed. )

[He allows her to shove his hands away, since his goal had mostly been to get her to stop facing the railing and focus on talking with him here. Instead, he folds his arms across his chest now (carefully, as one of his hands is now bandaged and still hurting quite a lot from banging it against the bridge door yesterday) and while he still likely appears angry, he tries not to sound it in his words too much.

He doesn't even blame Clarke for what happened, after all. Still...]

That's not an excuse to try something that dangerous again. Even if it's somehow not permanent here, anything that could cause your death should still be avoided as much as possible.

I —

( she's as flustered here as one should be when accosted halfway through a half-baked plan, predominately fueled by anger and adrenaline. flustered, and allowing all of it to be heaped on reigen in this moment, since he's taken it upon himself to interject himself between clarke and her objective. so she hisses — bitter, hoarse from choking on salt water hours ago, tinged with a wet quality that could easily turn into tears or murderous intent later today — )

I'm not trying to die!

( again, but semantics. )

I'm just trying to get over to that god damned boat, so I can see if there's anything there to support Jenny Storm's claim that we're all going to have to kill each other in the near future. Or if there's anything she has over there that might help us, even if she doesn't remember.

It's not that long a jump. I can make it.

[God, he feels like he's arguing with Ritsu here--Mob's brother was also this stubborn sometimes. Albeit, their conversations had never been this serious.]

I know you're not trying to die on purpose, but this is still a really bad plan. There's a very high chance that you'll miss and end up dying again, you know. And who knows what that might mean for someone here if you die too many times...

[Reigen's greatest fear isn't dying in this place. It's the thought that dying here will make the chances of getting home even slimmer if death causes one's soul or what have you to be tied further and further to this ship and thus unable to at least pass on peacefully in one's own world.

He sighs, before he holds out a hand (the non-injured one, as he's trying not to draw the injured one to Clarke's attention too much), weighing out different options now.]

Have you tried asking Jenny if there's a way to get onto the boat without leaping to our deaths? If she can be persuaded into helping us take a quick look and not touching anything, that would be a hell of a lot safer than this course of action.

Edited 2022-04-07 20:40 (UTC)

( she can not, by rights, argue that there's anything good about this plan, it's true. shouldering the burden of being the person everyone looked at while thinking so now what? never actually meant any of the plans clarke griffin came up with were good. plenty skated by the skin of their teeth, sheer luck, or superior firepower; several failed spectacularly, but she'd never been handed the opportunity to make a fatal mistake and then come back the next day to try again.

maybe she just needed to push off a little harder, or tie a rope around her waist. maybe she'd find success if she led with her arms outstretched, or was able to calm the panicked response that'd had her flailing a bit yesterday. maybe this time the wind would be in her favor, or maybe the minimal waves would have pushed the ships a fraction closer. anything could have changed, today was an entirely different day... and clarke's concept of danger and the grip on her composure both decided to stay in cabin 108 this morning.

but she really hadn't intended to actively pursue death a second time in a row. she's back on the deck out of a sheer sense of determination to succeed where she'd failed once before; desperate to root out answers, considering any cost of them to be within reason. maybe emboldened that her belief in friday and pirate jenny's claims that they couldn't actually die here were validated, and maybe mainly insulted that this was the life their benevolent captain had bestowed upon them — the finality of death being absent, but the trauma behind it still very much in attendance. )

Have you talked to her? I mean, really talked to her. Because as informative as she might be, if she came here to help us, she'd do more than hide in the theater, kiss Friday, or chew on jewelry. I don't want the answers she just willing to give us, I want the ones she's tried to bury and forget in however long she's been captaining that god damn boat — ( gesture for gesture, but hers is less about weight and more about violently pointing at the galleon across the way. ) — in the same waters as the man — or whatever — that ruined her life and took everything she ever loved.

[He hasn't spoken to Jenny at all, actually. ~~Because I've been distracted and haven't gotten around to tagging her yet, whoops.~~]

Then we need to make her offer those answers another way, because sneaking around behind her back doesn't do any good if it gets you killed.

[A pause, as he then adds--]

Also, I hate to tell you this, but there is a chance that you won't come back if you fail again--remember at the meeting when some people were mentioning how their roommates suddenly vanished from this place? They still haven't been found yet, and that could very easily be you here if whatever whim decides to keep people alive decides you're not worth it after dying too many times, and instead you disappear to wherever those missing roommates went instead.

( you know, he's speaking a lot of sense here. especially in that second sentence — what good is the fight if one doesn't live long enough to keep pushing towards a resolution? — but this isn't an excellent moment to list facts and expect them to be well received. whatever the opposite (but distant cousin) of a survival instinct is, that's what clarke's running on right now. beyond tired, underfed, stretched thin trying to understand every part of the situation they'd ended up in; over stimulated, too alive, and so so angry.

they might die and not come back, and the sentiment swelling in clarke's chest in return is — )

Then that gets me out of here. And leaves me exactly where I would have been if I'd never woken up on this god forsaken boat in the first place.

( only she doesn't entirely believe that. jenny had told them that the souls here burnt down to ash, and then the captain still found some use for them. reigen just has the unfortunate reality of meeting clarke griffin for the second time, when she was at her lowest and most self-loathing. not logical, mostly angry, and with him standing directly between her and what she wanted to do next — with the brunt of all her frustrations spilling over the sides of her mind and splashing on him like they ought to burn. )

Help me get over there, or get away from me. No one's asking you to watch.

( ...again. )

[Reigen sighs.]

You're right, I'm not going to watch this. Not again.

[Which is why he moves to stand next to her rather than in front. One foot against the bottom rung of the railing, but watching her rather than looking at the ship or the ocean below. Both of his hands sit on the top railing, but there's a tense line to them.

It looks like if she tries to go over again, she'll end up taking him down with her too as he's prepared to try to grab or otherwise dive after her.]

Look, you may not think I get it, but I do. Pardon my language, but this situation is an absolutely shit storm and there is a very high chance that we're all going to die here if something isn't done quickly. But that's not a reason to throw caution to the wind and decide that one's life is still expendable even if death is not permanent here anymore. Even if by a slim chance you succeed and make it over there by jumping, it will never make you feel any better about this. You'll still have to deal with the consequences of that first leap in some way down the road. And more and more of those kind of choices will end up just becoming a wall that eventually, it'll be too tall for you to climb over and continue. Even this railing will become like a wall too, someday, even if it doesn't seem like it right now.

[And then, he holds out a hand.]

Let's go talk to that pirate again. Last time, you didn't have me with you, and I'll have you know, I'm prepared to talk with her for as long as necessary until we get what we need.

( earlier in the day — just between her return from death and her haphazard beeline to the same spot on the deck she'd died before — natsuno yuuki had dragged her aside for a... check in of sorts. a moment of brief admissions, followed by immediately stomping all over her emergency stop buttons when he insisted he'd follow her. a you jump, i jump moment, if either of them had ever seen titanic. and if there's anything that forces clarke griffin to second guess, double back, swallow her own words, and remember that the world is bigger than the scope of her personal battles. her own life and well being feels best utilized as a tool, and clarke has yet to regret gritting her teeth and doing what's necessary to reach her goal. but when those impulsivities threaten to drag in others, it's —

all suddenly very unacceptable.

so reigen moves from crowding her space to slotted alongside her along the railing, and the hard lines carved into her face falter. )

Wait —

( she's turning back around to face the same direction, but while one hand goes to the top rung of the railing, the other fists very firmly in the sleeve of his shirt. there's an incomplete attempt to shove him away, but reigen's already undercut a majority of her fight — it's no big demand that she pauses and actually listens. he speaks reason, he offers very decent alternatives. and, maybe most importantly, he offers support. just because dying had been a very lonely experience in the end, and reviving several hours later had felt detached and isolated, doesn't mean this entire fight has to be too.

on principal, clarke's shaking her head. keeps her own hand twisted in his clothes, won't take his. but she'll at least take a nibble at the bait. )

What do you think you could say to her that none of the rest of us have tried? What can you do about the fact the answers we need are ones she can't even remember?

[He breathes a quiet sigh of relief when it seems she is going to cooperate to some degree here. Maybe now he doesn't have to sweat so hard over potentially dealing with her jumping again.]

Just because someone is having a lapse in memory does not mean that they can't be negotiated with.

[He uses a hand to brush back his hair out of his face for a moment as he continues--]

Sometimes it's the things that people don't say or do that can be an answer in itself. Having another pair of eyes to observe may give us a lead that wasn't caught the first time.

Edited 2022-04-19 20:37 (UTC)

( he may mean this as a show of camaraderie — after all, they're all stuck in this together, right? each and every one of them consigned to exist upon this ship and suffer for it; fates intertwined, knowledge wide reaching and varied, lives potentially ending at each others hands...

but she takes it as a request for a trust exercise. and that's hard to agree to. it's always difficult to go from thinking you might be the only one who can accomplish a specific goal to willingly forking over that responsibility, or even just sharing the load. all the people she's roped into acts of together are gone.

clarke's ragged breathing has changed it's tune, now the struggling sucks of air around a rapidly swelling lump in the back of her throat. she looks at reigen hard for a few moments, then back to the deck of jenny's ship. then to the water below, and then to the back of her own hand. )

I don't think it'll do us any good.

( talking to jenny again. and maybe also... jumping... )

Right now, at least.

[Reigen regards her carefully, before he seems to relent.

As confident as he is in his negotiation skills, he is also still dealing with a hangover, and that would be embarrassing if it ended up hindering him any in a verbal debate, so maybe this is for the best to give it another day before attempting to approach that pirate...]

Okay. But as soon as you're ready, I'll be too. Just say the word.

I'll... remember it.

( because yes, clarke will always remember this interaction. every recognizable face's seen thus far is eerily backlit by adrenaline, each conversation burnt into the grey matter of her mind. the world is bright and vivid, and everything feels like a little too much...

but remembering doesn't equate actually following through and asking reigen for help in the immediate future. it's like her sail had been punctured and all the wind's gone out of her. the fight's evaporated, and clarke is stiffly disentangling herself from the railing completely now. she's so god damn tired, but can't tell if it's exhaustion or tears pushing at the back of her eyeballs. )

I'll talk to you soon, Reigen. But right now I think I need to —

( ...yeah, she's got nothing. no decent excuse. just wet eyes and a slump in her shoulders. )

[Reigen nods.]

Yeah. Try to get some rest, okay?

[Maybe she'll feel better, or more clear-headed about things once she has gotten some sleep or something... probably not likely, but it's likely the best one can hope for here.]

[ Flynn, unfortunately, also happens to be on the deck at that precise moment. More unfortunately, he isn't fast enough to do anything about it: he shouts Clarke's name with something like panic, and his voice spirals up into the sky and disappears just as she slips limply beneath the waves, leaving Flynn braced on the edge of the railing feet from where she disappeared, his face white and stricken and his hand outstretched.

He wavers, staring wide-eyed at the cheerful blue waves, and then starts to strip off his shirt. Nothing to do, clearly, but go in after her. ]

[Reigen glances at Flynn, momentarily debating on if he should stop them from going in after her... but, ultimately, he ends up saying--]

Be careful. Don't drown.

[As long as Flynn also doesn't slap into the other ship and eat shit when jumping off, he should be fine, Reigen thinks. While Flynn is seeing if he can get her back, maybe Reigen can find Friday or someone else that can help him get them both back up onto the deck of the ship if need be.]

[ It is lucky that Flynn chose not to wear his armor today. All he has to remove is his thin cruise-branded t-shirt, which he folds jerkily and shoves onto a deck chair. He gives Reigen a short, sharp nod of acknowledgement and climbs onto the railing much as Clarke had, trying to ignore the swoop in his belly. The water below sparkles blue and inviting and awful, and somewhere down there is Clarke, limp under the waves. He can't just leave her there, not if there's a chance he can save her.

Flynn isn't a very strong swimmer, really. He can do it, can stay afloat, but he certainly doesn't know how to dive. His stomach swoops up into his throat and then drops to his toes, and he pushes himself off the rail anyway and it's really more of a freefall than a dive and he comes very close to hitting Jenny's ship but manages to splash into the water instead.

Will he find her body? Who knows. He's going to try his absolute best though. ]

[Thank God Flynn does not hit the side of the ship, but he does nearly give Reigen a heart attack in the process.]

For the love of God, do not die doing this too.

[He mutters under his breath before looking again for a dive ring or something to throw to Flynn here so that he can be pulled back up to safety, hopefully with Clarke in tow.]

[ Flynn doesn't die.

He doesn't succeed, either. He crashes into the water with a last gasp for breath, shoves his way to the surface with pain driven away by cold and by salt, having barely missed the side of the pirate ship. Its bulk looms over him like Heracles, a massive dark thing, but it's only him in the water. Clarke's form, her blonde hair, are nowhere to be seen; or maybe Flynn is just focusing on treading water and staying afloat, which is harder than it should be. He's built for close combat, dense with muscle from carrying around 70 pounds of armor all day.

Yelling her name does nothing but make it harder to breathe, so Flynn sets to swimming, pushing through the water down the side of the ship, ignoring the salt-sting in his eyes and on his tongue. ]

[At some point, Flynn will find a floatation ring having hit the water after he's been in the water for a while. Reigen has returned to waiting at the railing for Flynn to come back so that he can help him return back to the safety of the deck.

There's no sign of Clarke it looks like, but we'll worry about that after checking on Flynn.]

H--hey, are you okay?

[ That little floating ring hits the water at precisely the right moment. Flynn is tiring quickly, buffeted by the waves and the wakes of two ships, his limbs cold and empty because Clarke is nowhere to be seen. His head had been sinking lower and lower in the water, salt heavy on his tongue, trying not to think about Yuri slipping like this beneath the waves. Had he fought? They had looked so hard, and found nothing—

Flynn should ask him, he thinks, and then the thing splashes down and he grabs it gratefully as a wave rolls up around him. He sucks in a gasping breath, clings to the thing for a moment to catch his breath, and only then looks up at the tiny figure far above leaning over the deck, watching him.

Helping him?

With a great deal of effort, Flynn raises his arm in a weak wave, trying to muster up his flagging strength. Yuri would laugh at him for his lack of exit plan here. It's likely difficult, hauling float-ring-and-rope-and-Flynn through the water; he does his best to help by swimming until he's bumping up against the side of the ship. ]

[Oh, thank god, they're still alive. But as he watches Flynn grab the ring and get hauled up, he notes with some amount of bitterness that Flynn is alone. A good thing for Reigen in regards to his physical prowess, as he likely would not have been able to pull up both Clarke('s body) and Flynn at the same time, but... still.

He somehow manages to be able to pull Flynn up and back onto the deck, and once the other is safely back, he sighs.]

Are you alright?

I couldn't find her.

[ Which is not, precisely, an answer, and it is given as he sits there, sodden and hopeless and reeling from the sound of the impact still seared into his head. Is that what happened to Yuri? Did he hit something on the way down, plunge into the waves unconscious and bleeding—? ]

She just disappeared.

[Reigen swears under his breath, a hand coming up to run through his sweat-slicked hair.]

It's possible she has already been swept out too far for us to recover...

[After a moment of glaring at the floor, he stands back up proper from where he had been kneeling by Flynn.]

I'm going to go find that Friday gal to tell her what happened--albeit, she probably already knows somehow, and then give that damn captain a piece of my mind.

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APRIL OPEN LOG: PIRATE JENNY

iv, but referencing iii-b because I'm always down for Reigen suffering (cw: death and emeto mention)

oh no, he's so sweet yelling at the bridge :'c

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one threadjack comin right up

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