Well I'm not sanctified... [OPEN]

[pointofhonoria]

Who: Honoria Crabb & You!
What: Various monthly shenanigans
When: First half of September pre-event
Where: Various spots around the ship
Warnings: does a mild existential crisis count
Notes: Feel free to flip me to brackets, I'm fine with either style.


1. There's no love that's come to rescue me [Cabin, Lounge, Library, Tauva]

There's about a week, early in the month, where Crabb can be found sitting doing not her usual scribbling of notes, but writing an honest to god three-page report on a book from her world, Oscar Berrada's final unpublished notes on his last case with Detective Madame Theresa Ferrier—the Nightjar.

It's less about the book itself and more about processing what learning the information in the book means for someone who will never see home again, never get to use that information to help her team. It's unsettling to think about there being a version of her still running around with Ferrier, oblivious to what Ferrier is, apparently, refusing to tell her despite its importance. Hard not to feel a little angry, but that anger has nowhere to go.

Not a totally new feeling, really.

Sometimes, she just sits writing in her cabin. Other times, she can be found sitting around other areas of the ship, with both a proper sized notebook for the long-form writing and a smaller one for scribbles to get her thoughts unstuck. Catch her grumbling to herself, try peer over her shoulder at what she's writing, get caught out by a stray screwed up ball of paper being thrown somewhere...

2. Bend my heart and even break my knees [Calgona]

Writing the report is a good way to clear her head, and wailing on a punching bag is still a good way to get out a combination of restless energy and directionless anger. Sure there's some... weird memories... tied up in it, but Cragen doesn't get to take everything away from her, so.

If someone sturdy-looking enough is around, she might ask, "Don't s'pose you'd mind holding the bag? Not getting the enough resistance right now." Or if she spots someone else after stepping back to wipe her face and drink, just shrug vaguely and say, "Gotta burn energy somehow, yeah."

3. But it's these chains that are defining me [Sand Dollars]

The other thing about accepting she's never going home to the friends she knows is accepting she has to socialise more. Not that she's been a recluse, mind, but Crabb's always been a bit of a workaholic who has more co-workers than friends and though the rest of the Lavender League are very firmly in their own joint category... that's also why she hasn't had to figure out deliberately making more friends before the ship.

(Yes, it's been like five months since she got here, but Johnny's the social butterfly from their world, alright, let her live.)

Right now, her effort to get out there more mostly amounts to grabbing a coffee in Sand Dollars and sitting herself down a sociable distance from the actual counter and doing some mix of polite nods or smiles, depending on if she doesn't know you or does. But look, it's something, alright, at least she hasn't got her head in her notebook for once.

4. Yeah it's these chains that are defining me [Wilcard]

Poke me at bluecitrine or artisticblueteam#5757 in the discord to plan something specific or just throw something at her.

Comments

[pointofhonoria]

Between the popping hearts and the Summer lasses comment, the colour absolutely rises back to Crabb's face, but at least she manages not to decide into quite so much bumbling embarrassment this time. She's already gotten the sense Erin can, in some way, see despite the blindfold, but she's really hoping whatever that entails doesn't give away things like a damn blush right now.

God give her strength, she had no idea how little she was built for handling more modern folks... openness? Is that the right word? About such things until this very conversation, apparently. Sexuality may not be an issue in her and Johnny's world, but, well, in other ways it's still very much 1918.

"I'm used to handling multiple folks at once, these days." Beat. Goddammit. Rolling ahead past that. "My partner's getting on in years, and our enemies like throwing everything they've got at us. So."

Plus sometimes she just gets herself in over her head, that's not on Ferrier's old bones. Eyeing the bag and Erin for a moment, she rolls her shoulders and so long as she's sure Erin's still got it and won't be surprised, she will give herself a moment to get her composure back by doing a much smaller, less hard-hitting set before stepping back again.

"Sounds like a hell of a world and a hell of a life." Two hellscapes. Unending onslaughts. Christ. "The way you say 'Summer', there's something else to that, isn't there?"

[crushed_pearls]

Erin makes a Face. She'd managed to duck being the introduction to her people back at home for a year and a half, but...she's openly Lost here, this was always gonna be coming. Still.

Then again, the question's been asked in good faith. She takes a deep breath.

"This is gonna be a bit of an explanation," Erin begins. "So I'm gonna pause frequently to make sure you're with me. I wanna open with this: I'm human. I'm not human the same way you're human, or the same way most humans are human, but I'm human. I bleed when you cut me, one day I will age and die, I need to eat and drink and fuck, I've got all the wretched tapestry of human emotions, the whole thing. When I talk about the Lost I need you to keep that in mind. My people aren't your people, but we live in the same house and we've got a lot of the same problems."

Another deep, deep breath. That warm Spring breeze subsides some, getting an early March bite with the teeth of Winter still clinging to it. This looks difficult for her to talk about.

"There is another place, past a vast labyrinthine Hedge that lurks behind every mirror, on the other side of every door, beneath the moon in still ponds, between the branches of arches made from trees. Through the Hedge and its Thorns, at the end of broad and fair roads that promise wonder beyond naming, where time and fate cease their weave because they have been clutched in spidery fingers, are the great Glass Gates, and beyond them is the Fairest of Lands. The things that live there steal humans, and turn them into something more, and less, than they once were. Something like me. Most of us die; even more never make it back home. We die in the Hedge trying to get back, or we escape before we're ready and turn into mad goblin things that haunt the Hedge. The ways There are many, and the ways back home, to the Iron Lands where reason rules, they are few. But some of us make it back, and our masters hunt us like dogs."

She trails off. There's a brief shake of her head, which sends her cloudy hair flying into the burning gunpowder, which snaps and sizzles against it. She's paused.

[pointofhonoria]

Crabb gives a nod of acknowledgement as Erin explains that this needs some sort of context, and settles her weight back on her heel as a sort of equivalent of settling back in your seat to listen.

And she does listen. Quietly, intently—she's pretty used to long, often complicated explanations, honestly, between working with Ferrier and the cases they handle in general. That and information is, in itself, a lure to get Crabb to listen. It's that insatiable curiosity and drive to Know.

So she nods and makes an acknowledging noise when Erin talks about them being human, just in a different way. She follows along through the descriptions of this place beyond. It's... a lot, but she follows it.

And when Erin pauses, she says, "That's those hellscapes, then, yeah? God's teeth... can see why you'd think this place is just another corner at first, I guess, the way he's grabbed us all."

[crushed_pearls]

"Yeah," Erin agrees. "But thankfully this place is the wrong kind of wrong. The Fairest of Lands are...places of unreason. The things that rule there are as gods in their place of power, and their whims are its laws. The bit where I can map this boat is a key point against this being there, though not as much as the bit where you're visibly still a normal human. Humanity doesn't...last, there. To survive you have to make certain agreements, and those agreements make you into something like me. The thing you're doing where you're breathing air and it's letting you breathe it is a bit of a clue."

Erin looks like she's trying to decide something. Eventually she taps the bag twice and stances up herself; it's a good stance, tight, conservative. A defensive fighter, at a glance, and from the way she bounces, one used to moving a lot.

"Like I said, not many of us get back. I hope you have a New York City where you're from so I can make a comparison: in a city like New York, having a mere two hundred of us would be a swollen population, indicating that either something has gone deeply wrong, or that some vast change is about to sweep the world. Most of us live in much smaller communities; it might be as few as forty Lost, with seventy or a hundred being fucking insane but not without precedent. There, for most of history, we were hidden from our fellow humans by illusions that created the appearance of normalcy. You would look at me and not see the ears, the tattoos wouldn't be moving, my Mantle that you're seeing and smelling would be absent to you. I'd be human, like you, to all of your senses."

[pointofhonoria]

Crabb moves to brace the bag. Erin's got a good half foot on her, but where Erin is slender and surprisingly stiff, Crabb is built compact and solid, what you see is what you get. She watches the way Erin moves, the stance that's tighter than Crabb's ever is, but what Crabb lacks in technique she's always made up for in other ways. She's got a knack for finishing a fight in as few blows as possible and making her opponents take each other out.

"That explains the gunpowder." It's an idle comment as she turns the rest over in her head. "We got a New York. Might not be the same population, mind, but... I get the picture. You're scarce. Scarce enough that between numbers and some illusion you could hide easy, yeah? Until... something happened. You said 'most' of history and I can see all that now."

[crushed_pearls]

Erin nods to show Crabb that she's got the right idea and then starts moving. She's stronger than she looks, though there's nothing magic to it; just athletic living and lean muscle, which powers careful, snapping punches and surprisingly vicious kicks with those heavy boots.

From the look on her face, she's thinking.

When Erin finally stops to dust off her bare knuckles (scraped from hitting the bag; this is why we wear wraps, people, but her reaction to the faint beadings of blood is just to lick them from her thumb after wiping off) she gestures vaguely. "That illusion was not our choice, even if it was often to our benefit. We couldn't turn it off, couldn't make people believe us about what happened. To the mortal world, we were just...maniacs. Crazy people. Which we are, but still. I'm mad as a fucking hatter and it is not fun at all."

A frustrated hit to the bag. Erin shakes her hand off and licks the knuckle.

"So we were on our own. To stay free, to stay alive, we'd circle up. Bind ourselves as a society with magical agreements that defined citizenship, obligation, governance, that set a territory in which we lived and held some kind of sway. Those territories are Freeholds, and they are typically governed by the Seasonal Courts. Every solstice or equinox, the Lost pass off rulership from one monarch to another, who then sets priorities for its defense, its betterment, and for...healing, after the horror. For trying to live a happy life. In Spring we throw parties, make money, and perform deep contemplation on who we want to be. That's me. In Summer we militarize, hunt our enemies in the Hedge and beyond it, and remember our hatred of the things that did this to us. In Autumn we focus on mystical matters, on spreading the fear of our retribution upon our enemies and on remembering that we have good reasons to be afraid. In Winter we bunker down and hide, store up money and resources, and nurse the deep sorrow of what we have lost. And then the year turns, and it's Spring again. There's a lot of magical reasons it works like that but if we try the deep lore we'll be here until the Captain throws us off this fucking boat."

[pointofhonoria]

Crabb holds the bag steady as she strikes it, feels the strength in the blows and seems briefly surprised by the kicks—just a little jolt, an instinctive reaction to a motion coming vaguely her way she didn't expect. But it's just the bag, not her, that's taking that face full of boot, so it's alright. She's impressed, really.

What's less alright is watching Erin lick the blood off her thumb. Less alright here meaning that one: she gets caught mouth-open again, half-way to saying something about what the infirmary has if she needs it, and two: she barely restrains herself from knocking herself on the side of the head to snap her out of whatever the hell she's thinking now.

Goddammit, Erin. How many moments can you give a girl. It's embarrassing.

"Uh." Rebooting, rebooting. "I think I get the gist, no deep lore needed. Curious as I might be, that's just— uh, well that's my default state, as it turns out."

Slightly funny turn of phrase she chooses, but the thing is she really did used to suppress that curiosity. She kept her head down and did as she was told. She believed serving her city meant turning a blind eye to what the people above her were up to. Embracing her desire to look deeper was a journey.

Anyway. She rubs her bottom lip for a moment as she thinks her words over. "When you can't rely on the world around you, you rely on each other. Figure out how to make your own place in it again, yeah? And that's... different, for different folks and different times. Reckon that makes enough sense to me, if I'm actually still following."

[crushed_pearls]

Erin herself actually looks surprised, but the goblin grin that spreads across her face comes with another smoky show of hearts.

"Got used to training bare knuckle," she explains. "I don't scar when I heal, so I figured it was best to get used to pain. I can wrap up next time...if you want me to."

[pointofhonoria]

She repeats: goddammit Erin. Human brains were surely not meant to run at full under the kind of heat that keeps going to her face. Never has Crabb spent so much time cursing how reactive she is, it's not usually such an issue to have such a bad poker face. She's even learned to control it in some situations, but this? This isn't one of them.

What's she supposed to say to that without falling into another embarrassing hole? God help her. She's must look like a stupid gaping fish again. Like watching her old goldfish swim around with his mouth going, blub blub blub.

"Uh— that's, uh, I mean—" Mouth snaps shut, takes a second. Huff of air. "...I ain't gonna tell you what to do. Granted, it might be less— distracting."

There's plausible deniability there, surely. Someone bleeding is distracting. Don't mind her scratching at her neck, which will be a blatant nervous tick once you know her long enough.

[crushed_pearls]

Erin rewards Crabb's deflection with a melodious laugh, and claps the bag before bracing it. That unspoken offer again.

"You've got the idea right about Freeholds," she soothes. "Members join the Courts and are members of them year-round, which informs both how they're choosing to try and heal from... being over There, and also the sorts of jobs they do. A Summer boy might do heavy lifting in Spring, lead secondary combatants from other Courts in Summer, bodyguard a sorcerer in Autumn, and escort deliveries in Winter. So when I say that the Summer lasses had my engine going I mean they were offering training and I was horny and scared enough to take some punches to be there. Absolutely worth it."

A pause, with an 'any questions?'-shaped hole in it.

[pointofhonoria]

The last part really does not help with Crabb regaining her composure but she'll take the pause for the actual opening to straighten herself out with a set of punches, as well as getting her thoughts together on everything Erin's told her.

There are a few things about what Erin's said that back-up some of her initial observations of Erin herself: the obvious signs of some kind of trauma in how jumpy she was, for one. Her visible experience as a fighter, the incorrect edges of that puzzle piece now fitting neatly thanks to the little fact she doesn't scar. Even the sort of... intensity, for lack of what might be a more fitting word, makes a special kind of sense cast in the light of someone who has had to claw back their life and humanity after having it ripped out from under them.

And then there's the bigger picture of it all. This unseen society made up of all sorts of people who've been through the same thing and come out however changed, moving ahead however they can. There is a certain something about that which hits... different than most of the other magic types about, because it was, apparently, unseen. Confident as she's been that her world's mundane, wouldn't it be harder to tell if it's all hidden?

Christ. The set runs longer this time just because she's thinking and when she finally steps back again, grabbing her water to chug some, she's still not quite got her words.

"Feel like half of what I'm thinking right now's just... Hell. Can't not think about how goddamned depressing it is that folks can just go missing and come back different and no one's the bleedin' wiser or would believe it. Reminds me a bit of how easy it is for folks to fall through the damn cracks even without..." Vague gesturing, all that. "Happens so damn easy. Best you can do is try to catch people. That's really what I do, these days. We handle things for the people who the folks up top keep tryna stamp on. We got kids going out to war and they'll never be the same and... man, I dunno where I'm going with this."

She laughs awkwardly, reorients. "Guess it's just interesting how people are always people, y'know. Sometimes they go sideways on you, never did much like tryna predict how folks are gonna act, but then sometimes..." Vague gesturing.

[crushed_pearls]

"Yeah," Erin murmurs. "Sometimes the little match girl on the streets gets dragged beyond the Glass Gates...but usually she just dies. If we're not for her, we're not for ourselves."

Erin claps the bag. "I hope I've been an entertaining distraction. Make good on that drink sometime, yeah? I'd love to hear about your home. I can behave a bit better..."

That goblin smile. "If you ask me to."

[pointofhonoria]

To her credit she just about manages to stop herself going giant goldfish again, she only stammers for a second before managing to huff a laugh and say, "I said I ain't gonna tell you what to do, didn't I?" which might be the closest she's got to returning— banter, she's going to call it banter for her own sanity right now, "I'll make good, either way. Woman of my word."

And she is. So she will.

But first, she's just going to need to sit down and process this entire conversation the second Erin's gone. And add catching up with Johnny again to her plans because she's pretty sure she just made at least a little bit of a fool of herself and has no goddamned idea what to do about it. If there even is anything to do about it. God.