come_sailaway | Pack it up, pack it in,

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Pack it up, pack it in,

CHARACTERS: Darcy, and YOU?!
DATE: First half of September prior to the event
LOCATION: Sports deck
SITUATION: A pirate-sponsored fight club for the sake of ~~beating the shit out of each other~~ bettering each other
WARNINGS: It’s a fight club. Violence is to be expected.

I came to win

Fliers go up around the ship, as they so often do. This time put up with a reasonable amount of tape and written in a much less flowery hand than people would expect, the announcement ‘FIGHT CLUB TUESDAY EVENINGS SPORTS DECK: MAKE FRIENDS AND THEN HIT THEM’.
Anyone going to the sport’s deck after 7pm for the Tuesdays before the excursion will find tennis court set up for an impromptu fight club. There’s a notebook with a pen off to one side as a sign-in sheet, and a small list of rules written in the same handwriting as the fliers.
-No killing or dying
-Respect tapping out
-If you’re learning, respect your teacher/s
-If you’re teaching, respect your student/s
-Cause problems, get kicked out

Off to the sidelines, Darcy can be found supervising, keeping an eye out for any issues.

Battle me that's a sin

In one corner is supplies for fencing and swordplay. Three protective jackets, mesh masks, and blunt training sabers in a loose pile, plus whatever weaponry people themselves supply. There’s a circular arena drawn out on the ground, with a narrower fencing piste drawn through the middle of it.

I won't ever slack up

For those more inclined to hand-to-hand combat, a couple of the punching bags from the gym have been dragged out onto the court, along with focus-pads and a couple of long strips of bandages bandages to wrap one’s hands with. An arena has been drawn out, about the right dimensions for a boxing ring.

Punk you better back up

Over on the furthest side- deliberately angled to face off the ship- there’s a makeshift shooting range consisting of a bunch of water bottles and some mannequins from the Tommy Bahama laid out as targets to shoot at. A line has been drawn on the ground, presumably to stand behind when shooting.

Try and play the role and yo the whole crew'll act up

Right in the middle of everything is an arena marked out for no clear purpose, with no equipment nearby. It can probably be presumed that this is somewhere for people to spar, or more likely, show off in front of everyone.

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Polite? Not at all. Fair? ...situationally, at least.

"Eighteen."

Nineteen soon, but does she like to think about how the passage of time here on the ship has been lengthy enough for a birthday to come around? Absolutely not.

"Just coming into adulthood. Or, you would be in my time." He knows to make that distinction now. He's learning.

"Very well..." Much as he hates to admit this. "I'm thirty, freshly turned." The Village had been oh-so-kind in reminding him of that fact. Number 2, herself, made him a cake.

An impassive shrug. Some old world rules carried over in the apocalypse, she was considered adult enough that — if still on the Ark and having committed even the smallest infraction, she would have been executed. So, yes. Adulthood.

What happens next is entirely silent but, tragically, visible. Both eyebrows creep up, then back down, the space between them scrunching with a hint of disbelief. Her mouth opens, Clarke seems to think better of whatever she was about to ask, and just peels the notebook apart and, picture of unsubtly, scratches something out.

See, she coulda said damn, you look weathered for thirty. She coulda said that, but she didn't. Instead she says: "Happy belated birthday."

He watches that tragedy play out in her expression with an ever-hardening deadpan look of his own. She doesn't have to say a word when her eyebrows do so much talking for her. Now, really, it isn't that bad. He knows he's been weathered in the field but he's wounded, truly.

"I suppose you were expecting me to say I was forty? Or more?"

"Twenty-five, actually "

Is a lie even a lie when it's so obviously a lie? Or is it a teenagers strenuous attempt at apology without admitting any wrong? Whatever it is, her poker face is immaculate — ignore the hint of embarrassment working it's way up her ears in an uncomfortably dark flush.

"If you're going to lie, do it more convincingly," he says, but there is a light tone of amusement to it that suggests that, perhaps, her non-apology is accepted.

"I'm lucky to have lived this long at all. Many of my peers met their fates much sooner."

"I'm not lying."

This statement does not help her case...

But Clarke at least seems self aware enough to look some mix of sheepish and apologetic beneath the wash of bemusement creeping in at the corners of her mouth. Short lived, though, because wow that's a wallop of a sentence to follow up with. And it resonates, but it takes carding through historical conversations to fully remember why.

"Right. Former solider. Guess I never did ask how much combat you saw."

He gives her a look that reads as "disappointed dad" when she tries that even flimsier lie on him, but otherwise makes no comment about it.

"I've seen enough." The frigid tone of that answer warns against trying to press too much deeper on that topic.

"I might be inclined to say more if you're willing to share where you got your experience from?"

There is a lightning quick tally of their interactions in which Clarke assesses exactly where he might have gotten the implication she had battle field experience. Self aware enough to know she presents a hard face, wears a gun on her hip, and first met Number 6 while sporting a painfully fresh gut wound, the suspiciously thick woven bracelet that loops her wrist several times is more a garrote than a friendship bracelet, and she watches people like a bird of prey, but — what specifically was he asking her to answer?

"My best friend taught me how to shoot. Past that I'm not sure what you mean, I never enlisted."

No, Clarke, because you were essentially conscripted by necessity at the end of the world. Faintly she has to wonder on the kneejerk need to keep secrets, play everything close to the vest; there's only so much of their old lives that carry over onto the ship. But at the mercy of an overlording eldritch being, it makes sense each person eeks out some measure of control over their ordeal, and for some that's how close and familiar people can get with them.

It was the way she wore that wound that really did it. She did not act like this was her first time, and there are only so many circumstances under which someone sustains a wound like that and doesn't react like a victim. Battle-hardened is the term that comes to mind.

"No. You don't read as a soldier." Not quite enough respect for authority. "But there are other ways to experience war."

It would feel disingenuous, to walk away from a fight to the death with just a flesh wound, and affect a guise of victimhood knowing full well how long it'd taken to strangle a man to death. For better or for worse, she's a tendency to own and internalize all the hurt she's caused, and never feels like anything suffered on a personal level is worth the same acknowledgement.

But he's right, there are plenty of ways to experience conflict. Lots of ways to be molded by it, and like tends to recognize like, don't they? When one is the authority — competent and elected or otherwise — they tend to bristle, not cave, when others attempt to go above their heads and control.

Ultimately her response is tempered and careful; controlled, but unflinching. "My people have been in conflict for... at least a year. From all sides, really. You could say I ended up the ambassador between mine and our enemies. My Chancellor gave me a lot of leeway."

Gave. A very generous term when both Thelonious Jaha, Marcus Kane and her own mother ultimately couldn't do anything about it if they tried.

He accepts her explanation with a knowing nod. Yes, he'd read the authority in her that day when he tried to talk her out of the race. This puts her words into context.

"It's a heavy burden to carry, being the voice of your people, knowing they may live or die based on the strength of your words." Sometimes, that's even harder than simply relying on the sword.

"My role was never so public."

"It wasn't easy."

Heavy is a good term for it. A load to bear for others so they don't have to, so the price of leadership is sleepless nights, a sore back, and a withering conscious. The corner of Clarke's mouth twitches involuntarily around the word die, but she at least stays her head from shaking a denouncement about strength. A sword would have been easier, with at least a cutting and sharp edge between yourself and anyone that'd do you harm. Swords don't field questions and swords aren't asked to justify after the fact.

"So does that make you... the mechanic? Field strategist? Inside man? Or the executioner?"

Those are the only roles she can think of off the top of her head where any sort of anonymity came into play. Wars boasted decorated commanders, colonels, generals, veterans, and sometimes even (though Clarke would argue against the purity of their existence and ease of their actions) heroes. But mechanics get to keep their faces smeared with oil. Strategists live in their own minds and rely on others to enact their plans. Spies, turncoats, and traitors are condemned and put in nameless graves if their bad, and no one knows of their existence when they're good. Executioners wear a heavy dark shroud to avoid persecution.

She's dancing close with her fishing. Now comes the time where he must decide if he's willing to let her reel in the truth. He's been guarding the secret less and less. But he worries how she'll think of him if he admits to it.

"What I was encompassed a little of all four. In the field, I had only myself to depend on. The type of missions I engaged in required discretion, deception, and grit. It was sometimes unsavory work, but necessary."

There's not a lot a spy can say to a commander who'd sent out spies of her own, that would make her somehow think less of him. Ever so slightly, Clarke tilts her head in thought; no lesser, but still a more intent regard for Number 6 as his answer skirts any outright information — and oh, isn't that a familiar tactic. Okay, then.

"Were you good at it?"

Though, there's a beat and then an immediate self-correction.

"Of course you were, if you're still alive. Right?"

"I was one of the best." Spoken with pride, but not arrogance. He was, objectively. And that may have been his downfall. He should have known they'd never let one of their best go so easily.

"You're right. Very few made it to my ripe old age."

So, so quiet under her breath: "Of fifty-one."

Then a purposefully loud clearing of her throat, errant strands of hair tossed out of her face, and chin raised as if the last two seconds never happened: "Thanks for telling me. I'll be sure to add it all to my notes."

"I still have very good hearing, you know." Because he's still in his prime and not going senile, thank you very much.

"Yes. Do make sure you underline that."

Snrk.

"I'll write it in bold and everything."

Among Clarke's established group of friends, this would be the point in the sassy conversation where she smiled brightly, with a slight air of superiority and humor, and pretend that was an amicable and acceptable way to say bye, see you later. But all Number 6 gets as the conversation is drawing to a natural close — or a forced one, before he can ask her any more questions about her part in the wars of her people, and vice versa — is a brief raise of the eyebrows.

Then back into a placid mask of focus, as two someone's in the distance step into one of Darcy's mapped out fighting rings and Clarke turns to watch. Whatever they're about to do should be noted down, and without the distraction of conversation or invasion of eyes over her shoulders. So, excellent time to take her leave.

"I'm going to go watch that, now. Enjoy the rest of the club." Shooting or boxing or useless fencing, what have you. She's not waiting for any semblance of a goodbye from him either, just turning to make a smooth exit.

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Pack it up, pack it in,

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good place to wrap?

yup!