[OTA] All My Demons Greeting Me as a Friend

[serialskiller]

Who: Murderbot and You
When: Post Info Meeting, Post Muppets
Where: All over the place!
Summary: Critical failure to cope
Warnings: Discussion of slavery, exploitation of sentient beings, capitalism, death all likely here.


1. And I was runnin' far away [STELLAR DINING ROOM]
With no food being served in the dining room, there's no reason anyone is going to be there, so it's where a Murderbot hides while breaking down, while breaking apart internally. Those who regularly check in on it will find their messages returned unopened, because...look. It's too much. It's all too much.


2. Would I run off the world someday? [ANYWHERE PUBLIC]
As sense returns, Murderbot realizes others will be in similar broken states, emotionally. For the first time since Jinx expanded its drone fleet, it's going to be flying them all at once, trying to seek out those who have hidden away, those who need company but not people. Don't be surprised if a drone just comes and hovers near your character, listening and saying nothing. It means well, really it does.


A few of the drones do have speakers, though, so if you attempt to engage it in a conversation, you'll get that.


3. Nobody knows, nobody knows [ADULT POOL]
While not the same sort of Event the Muppets showing, there's a couple times early in October that the projector over the Adult Pool will inexplicably be showing episodes of The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross. If someone looks for the source of this, they'll notice MB up by the projector itself, its media player auxed into the projector.

You know. Good calming relaxing material. Right?


4. And I was dancing in the rain [SAND DOLLARS]
Finally, coming back to itself, trying to figure out a path forward, Murderbot...it finds itself wanting to having something to hold onto of its crew that it now knows it'll never see again. Find it hiding in a closed cafe, where no one will look for company, surely. Find it with the one photograph it has of the PreservationAux survey team and its watercolors, trying desperately to capture the faces it has in memory and the personalities that go with it. A young woman with black hair and sharp eyes, looking like she's arguing about something. A motherly older woman with deep skin, smiling like she's proud of the viewer. A man with pale eyes and visible augmentations along one side of his face, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. Another man, a man too pretty for his own good, reaching out a tentative hand, compassion written across his face.

The paintings, they aren't enough to capture the personalities, but it has to try, it has to do something, it has to hold onto these people. Memories can be erased, but it wants the people it loves down on paper, for others to see.


5. I felt alive and I can't complain [WILDCARD]
darkersolstice or darkersolstice#9463 to plot

Comments

[littlefairytale]

"It's a good idea," she nods, eyes following the drone. She has absolutely no doubt a lot of people are struggling, whether they want direct help or not. "Sure, if— if you want to listen, that... I think that might be good, right now. Um— maybe the Warrior in the Woods?"

Even if she didn't have the book she could probably tell it in her sleep, she's listened to or read it so many times.

[serialskiller]

"Yes, that one." There's a pause, and it almost manages to sound childish for a moment. "But you gotta do all the voices."

[littlefairytale]

That gets a soft little laugh out of her as she opens the book, even if she knows it so well there are also a couple illustrations. "At your own peril be it, my voice acting skills still leave a lot to be desired."

But she'll do it. They could probably both do with something nice like this, right now. So she takes a deep breath and starts reading, her narrator voice a lot like the lower, calmer tone she uses in moments of reassurance or leadership, "A long time ago, there was a village surrounded by an enormous forest. A village that had been safe from the creatures of Grimm for as long as anyone could remember..."

[serialskiller]

The drone hums and hovers--there's gasps at the exciting part, and during a scary part it even ducks into her cloak.

[littlefairytale]

Ruby can't help but smile through the story as the drone reacts, giggling a little as it ducks into her cloak and peering down at it. She does her best to put on the voices, to make the scary moments suitably scary, to make the exciting bits fun. It helps that she loves the story so much, in the end.

For the first time in years, a child runs into the forest during a game and almost dies to a Boarbatusk, saved at the last second by a warrior woman with a billhook, a woman no one knows and who urges him to keep quiet.

A year later, he takes her a gift, and again has to be saved as he brought only a dagger to defend himself. The next year, again, and she saved him with a flash of mysterious white light. Year after year, he returned, a little stronger each time, meeting with the woman and hearing what little of her story she would tell, until one day he found her hut empty.

Full of regret that she died alone, he vowed to protect the village in her place and told her story at long last.

"Why did you keep going back there, year after year?" Ruby says in a silly villager voice, before switching to the perhaps too deep for a teenager voice she picked for the boy, "Because that's what I could do. Because no one else would. Because... I fell for her. The second I saw her silver eyes."

She quiets, then in her normal voice, "I never fully understood that part. Why the silver mattered, why falling for her mattered or what that really... meant, I guess. She fought for them, without ever asking for a thing in return. I think that's the important part."

[serialskiller]

"It still sounds like a sort of lonely way to live."

Not that it understands hiding all of itself from the people it's protecting, not even letting them know it's a person...

[littlefairytale]

Ruby nods a little, eyes flicking to the drone. "...it would be, yeah. I'm sure that's why she didn't try harder to discourage the boy from visiting. Once a year, she could talk to someone, be seen by someone. Someone who knew what she was sacrificing."

A beat. "I used to think the only moral or lesson in the story was the inspiration to protect people. To be the warrior in the woods or the boy who took up her mantle. Now..."

She trails off, brow furrowing a little.

[serialskiller]

"Now...?" The drone drifts to right in front of her, hovering quietly still.

[littlefairytale]

Ruby sits chewing on the thought for a moment, trying to turn it into words in the right way. "...now I wonder how much it's meant to be about not allowing others to do these things alone. About— about not trying to do these things alone. The warrior died, without anyone at her side, without really being acknowledged, because she tried to protect everyone without telling them, and..."

Her head drops back against the wall, but she doesn't look away from the drone.

"I don't know. She didn't have to. You know?"

[serialskiller]

"It's all a lot easier if you have people, isn't it? If you have a crew." Or a team, in her case, but it's also projecting itself into this story.

[littlefairytale]

"Yeah. Yeah it is. Especially when you let them help you, don't try to hide from them."

She's always known how important it is to have her team at her back, but she's never quite been able to stop herself from letting herself be placed on a sort of pedestal. Just high enough above everyone that they can't see how much she struggles, no matter how many times they turn their heads to her for guidance.

But she shouldn't have hidden. Should she?

She breathes in, and out. "...you miss your crew too, don't you." It's not exactly a question.

[serialskiller]

The drone slowly sinks down below her line of sight. Almost sulkily.

"I ran away from them. Back home, before I was brought here. I didn't even say goodbye to most of them."

[littlefairytale]

That strikes a chord, if from a little to the left. "...the last time I talked to my sister, we were arguing."

An offer of understanding, of a sort.

"Would you go back to them, if you could? Or... or were the circumstances...?" Too much of a problem, even now, clearly knowing it misses them.

[serialskiller]

"I don't know and it doesn't matter. I won't ever get that chance."

Denial, the first stage of grief.

[littlefairytale]

"...I think it matters. But I think it's also hard to let it matter, when it's out of your hands. I can't tell you how many times I've told myself something I'm feeling doesn't matter because if it did..."

Then how could she keep doing what she was meant to do? If she let herself accept the idea that she deserves better from the authorities in her life, that she shouldn't be in the position she was in, then it just gets harder to keep fighting.

She sighs. "But it doesn't have to be something you think about right now. This is all still so... fresh. For all of us."

[serialskiller]

The drone is quiet for a long moment.

Then: "Because if it did, you'd break, right?"

[littlefairytale]

She has to take a deep, deep breath before she answers, giving a nod. "...yeah. I think I'd have just fallen apart. And I couldn't do that." Pause. "You— get that, don't you."

[serialskiller]

"I'm still there right now, I think."

[littlefairytale]

"I don't... think I'm out of the woods yet, either. Not really. It's hard. Once you give in..."

How do you pull yourself back out again? She certainly doesn't know.

[serialskiller]

The drone hums quietly.

"How about we make a deal? When it gets to be all the way too much, you come to me. The prime, not a drone. And we just. Break down together, so we're not doing it alone."

[littlefairytale]

Another breath, as if steeling herself, then a firm little nod. "...yeah, yeah okay. That... that would be better." Not being alone. "Deal."

[serialskiller]

"Don't try to stay strong to avoid inconveniencing me. Alright? If you need it, you need it, and I already need it."

[littlefairytale]

Why is it that she so often feels like she needs permission or some other excuse to let herself have these things? She's starting to see the answer to that question now, actually, but it doesn't make the combination of being told not to worry about inconveniencing it and it already needing it hit her any less hard.

There's a sudden mistiness in her eyes. "A-Alright. I won't. I'm— not. Where uh— where is it easiest to find you, after...?"

After just all of this.

[serialskiller]

"I'm in the dining room right now. It's empty because it's not serving food anymore."

[littlefairytale]

Extremely concerning nugget of information there for someone who hasn't been paying attention to the state of the ship, but she doesn't have the mental bandwidth to process any possible implications right now.

"Stellar? Okay." It honestly takes a lot of will to get her legs under her, enough that there's a solid thirty seconds where it's unclear if she's going to move right now at all, but she does.