We're wide awake now, our eyes are wide open. We're running this world, we keeping it turning

[opheliac]

Who: EVERYONE ON THIS DANG SHIP!
What: IT'S A PARTTTYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When: last week of april before more shit happens.
Where: rischie
Warnings: PG-13??? alcohol is definitely involved, teens being teens, drunk people or doing bad decisions??? who is to say!!!





Fast Travel Thread Links

★ ENTRANCE.
★ THE DANCE FLOOR.
★ AT THE BAR.
★ GAME AREA.
★ DJ TABLE // PRIVATE WITH JINX
★ LOSER CORNER.
★ THE FOOD TABLE.
★ KARAOKE.
★ OUTSIDE RISCHIE.
★ WILDCARD.

Comments

[decohere]

"Hey," Ava says gently, an awkward attempt at petting Clarke's arm. "This is a start, isn't it? I don't..." she doesn't know who the rest of them are. Allies that Clarke's found upon the ship, she supposes. She's avoided her own social life enough that she isn't particularly nosy about whatever cliques the teenagers are forming, or whatever relationship drama is going on that night. She feels far too old for any of that, but she envies it too. The ability to just... connect. People keep telling her that she should, that there's strength in numbers, that she needs to stop disappearing or pushing everyone away.

And maybe this is a start for her too. Trying to repair something that felt better off broken.

"I don't have any answers, because I failed. All I have are my mistakes," Ava reaches to play with a strand of Clarke's hair. She's never been around other women much, has always found them a bit intimidating with how they're meant to balance being so many different things at once, things that she's never learned. But there's something more relatable in Clarke that she finds.

"I fought for so long for the right to exist, let it consume me. That when I finally... when I was given mercy from my suffering. I realized I don't even know how to live. It just feels so empty. So yes... maybe I'm fooling myself, trying to enjoy some food I can barely pronounce. Relax in the hot tub, learning to braid hair. They're stupid things. But I need that."

[skaikru]

It's a stupid, childish, selfish desire — but Ava tugs at the end of her hair, and Clarke immediately wishes the other woman would card her fingers across her scalp and pet down any fly away strands like her mother used to. The tightly held tough exterior that sticks in place even when she's drunk off her ass on the floor of a gaudily carpeted hallway is still just covering cracks in an eighteen year old's inadequacy issues and undigested personal traumas. And sometimes she just wants to be seven years old and safe again. Just wants her mom —

Especially during hard moments, when faced with mountains of logic that she can comprehend, but still struggles to apply to her own life. Maybe Ava is just who Clarke's going to become in the next decade, when she finally exhausts every recourse she's got and is faced with every single mistake she ever made. Maybe they didn't have any right to exist, if existence was so hard-won and painful. But then — why? Why the fiercely burning drive in her chest that insists she can't stop, that she deserves to live and maybe some day even be happy? Is that just another childish notion held close to her heart or...

"Life is supposed to be about more than just survival," Clarke admits in a quiet, mumble. Nevermind that, come tomorrow, she'll return to defining herself about what she fights about and who she fights for. In this moment, it's smile or cry. It's seek out that human connection, or fall apart at the seams. And summarily she's offering —

"I'll braid your hair for you. I can do a neat princess braid, I'll show you how..."

[decohere]

Deprived of sources of affection mixed with a difficulty of touch, Ava both craves and pointedly avoids it. Yet the fuzzy edges of her brain can't access that instinct right now, to push away. Instead she just holds onto Clarke as the hallway continues to sway, fingers brushing at tangles she finds. She too missed her mom, misses Janet... yet another connection in her life cut off too soon.

"Probably so," she agrees, has no idea what to suggest that may be. Survival and pain is all she really knows. There's so many stupid basic skills she lacks, things nobody bothered to care to teach her because they weren't related to her purpose. And now Clarke is offering...

"Princess," she scoffs quietly, as if she's above such things. And then, even quieter. "My favorite is Rapunzel," she admits, a sort of shameful secret that she's ever bothered with fairytales. But she can relate, locked away from the rest of the world.

"Yeah, but go slow," she requests. "My hands don't always work."

[skaikru]

If Disney survived the apocalypse is up for debate, but there's still probably stories akin to the good ol' Grimms Fairy Tales, or at least oral tradition folklore passed down through space locked generations. Probably enough for Clarke to know Rapunzel was a princess with long blonde hair, locked away until love persisted. It'd be easy to stretch her imagination and draw parallels between an imprisoned princess and a victim of human trafficking, but this isn't the place. She's too drunk to do it delicately or kindly, and what would it actually matter? Not every moment with a person has to be seen as an opportunity to plumb the depths of their personhood and gauge how much use their hurts could lend to her cause.

Nah, she'd offered to braid Ava's hair. And while maybe she'd meant at some point in the near future, there's also nothing wrong with right now.

"C'mon."

This time Clarke jostles the shoulder the woman's been leaning against for the better part of ten minutes, urging her up and fussing with both hands until Ava's turned her back enough that she's proper access to her hair. There's no comb nearby, and after a hot party environment, no way her hair's free of sweat. But Clarke's made the best of worst situations, and offers a few quiet shhhhh's to any of Ava's objections before working her fingers into the brunette locks at the root.

Shitfaced or not, she's done enough princess braids on herself throughout her life that it basically comes as second nature. A few tugs here, some finger combing here, gentle detangling with soft sorry's whispered under her breath if Clarke thinks she might be hurting Ava. And give her a good five to ten minutes, and a mysteriously produced hair tie, and the end result isn't horrible. Clarke's proud enough, at least, and hums in the back of her throat while fussing with a few fly away hairs she couldn't tame.