( catch all | november ) i hold you so proudly, traumas they surround me

[skaikru]

Who: clarke griffin + you!
What: revival, then general coping attempts throughout the month
When: november
Where: all around
Warnings: blood & gore, mentions of more blood & gore & also murder & possession, will add as necessary


i. say you're here, but i don't feel it ( windjammer → cabins, november 1st )

( clarke wakes up whole and mostly unscathed. the hole blown in the flesh and cartilage of her chest is healed, the eye she doesn't remember losing is returned, and this time she doesn't thrash and fight around in the covers of the bed. just lays there for a few heartbeats, and starts wailing — likely in concert with several other newly revived passengers in other rooms. sometimes you just need to scream about the futility of death, now that you can breathe deeply enough to do so.

afterwards, she checks her phone. they've been operating on the 3-day revival for a month, and she has to wonder if that's persisted. half expects it to be november 3rd when looking for the date, and then any pleasant surprise is undermined by seeing message notifications she'd never gotten the chance to check. she's up and out and dashing down the hallway without so much as changing out of the utterly ruined, gore streaked remains of last night's nurse costume. out of one crisis and immediately into another, she's seeking deputy pratt and won't stop moving until she finds him. that's easily the first hour of her third revival spent right there.

it'll be later, somewhere between 7 and 8am that she's trailing from windjammer all the way back to the cabin halls. the space between clarke's ears is alive with an unfriendly, overwhelming sort of buzz; she's vaguely more aware of the setting around her being made whole again, no more scorch marks, scattered debris, or blood. walls reformed, doors back on their hinges — the works, and it's all perfect. if she had any sense of self, she'd now feel extremely out of place walking against a backdrop of luxury looking like a silent hill knock off. the white of the nurses outfit is mostly stained black by now, though the blood has dried into a stiff mess. there's a decent sized hole in the the fabric on the right side of her dress, though beneath that mess is smooth and unblemished skin instead of exposed cartilage and a hint of bone. blood is drying and flaking off from her hands, the bandages still wrapped around left forearm and right calf are filthy. blond hair made a dull sort of ashy tan with the dust of the floor collapse, and at some point she'd lost the dumb little nurses hat. and maybe the most alarming, the distinct halo of pitch black blood encircling her left eye — where it'd been torn out, bled profusely, then replaced but none of the gore wiped off while being put back together again.

around her she can hear the sound of other people, be that weeping or shuffling around behind their cabin doors. life has resumed, but clarke can't bring herself to rightly engage with it yet. just sways slightly as she walks, staring straight ahead like she can see through the walls and people alike. )

ii. give me peace, but then you steal it ( various, all month )

( so that had been the nothing. that was what befell every previous passenger before them — clarke had done the math once: 100 to 150 people, every six years, for at minimum 200 years based on the age of gil's diner... came out between 3,300 to almost 5,000 souls just existing, tortured, here yet nowhere at the same time — and that was what they were all heading for once they'd exhausted their usefullness to the captain. it'd been a shaking, soul shattering thing to experience. and she'd only been there an hour.

there's no quick bounceback. one may go about their day to day activities, but clarke at least has a hard time shaking off the hangover feuge state.

( a. ) she may be sitting in the library, books open and notes half-heartedly scratched to her left. but then her mind will catch onto the memory of that numb, lacking sensation, and her gaze will wander until she's just staring blankly. at the walls, at people, at, resoundingly, nothing.

( b. ) it's a common occurance in windjammer as well, with a forkful of food halfway to her mouth and held there, suspended, until the entire meal goes cold.

( c. ) a less common occurance, a one off if you will: see clarke griffin standing in front of the wall that produces their ghost-made meals in stellar. she's picturesque tension, but still. holding a bowl of tomato soup so fresh-hot it's mildly scalding her hands. still and staring, still and staring — until with a wet crack, she's hurling the dinnerware at the wall, painting a portion of it red with well seasoned soup. then she's just watching it seep down to the baseboards.

( d. ) even rarer, catch her in sand dollars, hunched over at one of the tables and staring out the expansive windows that look out onto the promenade. sometimes she catches sight of her reflection in the glass and startles slightly. but it's not a big enough series of jumpscares, and there's no such thing as enough caffine in this shop to prevent her from eventually leaning her head onto the sleek tabletop. just for a moment, she insists. her eyes are burning from a lack of rest and the salt of tears long since cried, they just need to rest. she doesn't mean to outright fall asleep, but —

( e. ) or else find her, for the first and probably one of the only times, in the pool. in a black serena eterna branded one-piece, floating on her back, staring at the evening sky, and trying her best to barely move while still staying above water. letting the water fill her ears in that sensory-dulling way it does, breathing shallowly; pursuing that sense of nothingness once more, like given a second crack at it would allow her to parse out how she's supposed to deal with the panic that dredges up everytime she closes her eyes to blackness. (it won't work of course. eventually she'll have to get out.)

iii. watch them laugh at all my secrets ( photos at sea, november 6th )

( no matter what she's been told about the end of the party by those who managed to live through to see it, it's still a strange sort of violating. knowing her body had been out there under the control of someone not herself, wrecking havoc, and even killing someone clarke would struggle to call a good friend but is confident she'd at least never hurt like that. it's not quite a memory gap, as she remembers dying (almost dying, apparently) but still feels like lost time. and it eats at her that she doesn't know what she — he — had done. there was no forced broadcast like the battle royale, there's no highlights replayed that could be watched. but there is the photo shop. and several days after reanimation, clarke can be found standing in front of a big display of prints, stiff backed and staring — aggressively searching for any sign of herself amid the display.

most of it seems party-centric now. there's some bits and pieces she remembers: one extreme close up as she'd been wound up about to punch a jump scare animatronic. she sees one or two of erin as smurfette, vance in the silly edgy vampire get up she'd mocked him for, and rita in her even worse cat dress. there's also a candid of natsuno laughing with his hand on fire in front of ebalon, that's a scene she'd watched play out in horror. and, in the background of a chaos shot she can see herself sitting, bleeding out, while he'd been holding her hand.

and then there's others: a close-up of her face contorted, looming over a struggling rita on the ground, and screaming something she doesn't remember. there's one where she's standing with a foot on the back of a man she doesn't know's head. another where she's smiling fondly at fio, who looks furious in a way she'd never imagined the little girl could, and the world seems to be burning in the background. another where she's lying on her back in the midst of some rubble, peaceful like she were tanning at the beach instead of half paralyzed and waiting for death. but the one that really gets her is, again, featuring natsuno yuuki. in it, she's holding his face with both bloodied hands, smiling a fiercely unkind, delighted smile which he's returning in kind. it doesn't look right on either of them, faces distorted past overarching personality. it's like witnessing a weirdly intimate and familiar moment between strangers, something she's not supposed to see, and certainly not featuring her visage as a main player. along the bottom of the portrait is thick script that proclaims "best friends for life", just to seemingly add a little insult to injury.

and clarke hates it. she hates it so fucking much. hate as a steady, slow filling replacement for every drop of blood in her body until — she's all full up and moving to rip each of these pictures from the shelves. you ever get struck with the aching desire to remove all traces of your existence from the record, and go off the grid? it's a bit like that. some she rips up immediately, some she hugs to her chest with one arm like collecting kindling for a fire. but the ships mechanics seem to be working flawlessly once more, and it seems like every time she turns around the photos have replaced themselves, or alternated into new tableus of awfulness. removing them all is futile, the flash of images relentless, and eventually clarke snaps.

just stops, drops everything in her arms and reaches behind the counter for anything big enough to absolutely hurl at the display wall. the register's next. and if there's a stool behind it for their ghostly cashier, that's third, fourth, fifth, sixth... )

iv. scream and yell, but i feel speechless ( playback, second half of the month )

Hey.

( the arcade has, inadvertantly and unexpectedly, become a place of solace. the distraction of lights and bright sounds from the game systems, the gentle swell of music from the teen lounge area, the dark of the room as a whole juxtaposed by the illuminous opportunity for escapism. even the tinkling disembodied giggle that seems to live here is easily ignored. it's where she'd run with natsuno after cracking a hole in the side of the captain's head that failed to kill him. it's also where the two of them had shot dinosaurs in the wake of the desert death race, and she'd cried to him about killing her mother in the future. usually when clarke ventures here, it's with her best friend in tow, but today she's here alone. and there's really only so far she can get in a game of air hockey just alone.

so, first person she sees nearby gets flagged down. politely, if not enthusiastically. you can stand in a shower and scrub gore off your skin and out of your hair, but not much can be done for the bags beneath the eyes and exhaustion practically etched into your dna. there's no smile, but a sweeping open gesture to the opposite end of the table. )

I need a second. Feel like a game?

v. ask for help, you call it weakness ( sports deck, every tuesday )

( maybe the only good thing that comes from being distantly introduced to ivar the boneless via pictures and vague retellings from party survivors is —

clarke can use this as a push in a direction she'd been considering for a while.

the second and third fight club of the month will find her up on the sports deck, notebook and pen abandoned in favor of a blunted practice sword. no attempt to be covert and sneaky like how she'd previously stared longingly at the gun range, but also no attempt to seek out guidance. just a girl, standing in front of a sword rack, trying to twirl a sword in her hands and accidentally yeeting it a few feet away.

or fumbling and dropping it directly onto her toes with a yelp.

or losing control and smacking herself in the face with the flat side of the fake blade.

...at first she'd been disappointed these blades weren't real, but after further experimentation — )

Ow, shit, goddammit!

vi. lied and promised me my freedom ( wildcard! )

( y'all know the drill! feel free to take these prompts and twist 'em a little to fit your needs, hit me with something left of field, or hit me up on discord or inb4circlejerk for further plotting! this post will also be a catch-all for any closed threads that crop up during the month! title inspiration. )

Comments

iii. double-tap for photos at sea

[neverleave]

[Natsuno hates the photo place, hated it since his first meeting with the Dioscuri when Pollux took a photo of him declared a battle royale winner, and complimented him for being a warrior. He tries to steer clear this time, knowing the display will be worse than ever, but he can't stop thinking about the awful things the ghost did while wearing his body. Things he has no recollection of and only knows what Jade and the others told him.

He holds back for several days, but like the urge to pick a rotting tooth with your tongue, Natsuno ends up at the shop eventually. He has to see. Has to stop others from seeing it.

A loud crash tells him someone beat him to it. It's Clarke, hurling chairs at the display. One photo lands at his feet - Clarke cupping his face, smearing him with blood, wearing a smile that doesn't belong there. And the writing -

Natsuno says nothing as he steps inside. His face is devoid of any emotion, contrasting the terrifying violence in his movements as he tears another display board off the wall.]

[skaikru]

( the world's narrowed and compounded into this moment, this shop, right now, this violence. and she's alone in her destructive fury until suddenly — she's not.

clarke has the clerk stool by the feet and raised over her shoulder for another blow when a crash resounds from her right and she has to look over. eyes bright and full of an unguided sort of fury, but mind still clear enough to register who's taken up post beside her and is absolutely laying in to the photo walls alongside her.

this is good, this would be nice if anything here were nice. but it at least serves as a reminder she's not alone, and clarke swings the cushioned seat of the stool directly into a photo of jade curtiss holding back rita mordio while she's in the background clutching an arm and looking wounded beyond a burn mark. the wooden ledge that keeps the pictures upright cracks beneath her blow, but that's not enough. there's a standing case full of ship-specific chotskies to her right, and she suddenly longs to hear the tinkling of shattered glass. and why deny ones self simple delights, this is a pleasure cruise after all, right?

she's smashing out every single pane of glass in rapid succession. and trusting natsuno to do the real damage to her left. )

[neverleave]

[Glass shatters on his right, and as Clarke smashes panes with a stool, he approaches the wooden ledge and slams his heel against the crack. Much like how he destroyed the screen after the battle royale, Natsuno stomps and rips and obliterates the stand into shards, into splinters, almost methodical in his rage.

And like with the screen, it doesn't make him feel any better. There's awful pressure in his chest that only tightens with every familiar face in a picture. Rita hurls a fireball at Clarke, Natsuno and Tear laugh as she pieces together a creepy letter, Natsuno stands over Jade's prone form in the Spirits Halloween, blood trickling down his chin -

His fist goes through another glass pane before he realizes it. Natsuno reaches out with bloodied hands - the cuts already start healing - and starts tearing every single photo. He'll turn them into confetti, and once that's done he'll break every single shelf, rip every wire the photos hung on until it stops - coming - back - ]

[skaikru]

( they work alongside each other in silence. relative silence, at least, for the snap and clatter and crunch and shattering of every single object within arms reach creates a symphonic score to go along with the destruction. but natsuno doesn't say a word of what he's feeling or swear loudly in anger, and even with all the exertion she's throwing into each swing, clarke doesn't grunt at impact or scream in furious dismay.

but she wants to. if this is supposed to be catharsis, it isn't working like it should. something mildly painful has pulled in her shoulder from just how hard she's beating their surroundings with the stool top, but it's not enough to make her stop and assess how fruitless an endeavor this really is. they could stand in flames and burn this entire shop to the ground, but it'd still just restore the second they were out the door.

she hates this place. she hates photos at sea, she hates this ship, she hates this month as much as the last, she. hates.

and beats the stool over the seller countertop until the seat cushion breaks off in an anticlimactic fashion. the metal legs are still intact, clarke has no supernatural strength with which to bend them into an ugly shape and so she just hurls the whole frame at a nondescript and unimpressive stretch of wall. the few branded display frames that are still atop the counter follow suit in quick succession and then she's just standing there. chest heaving, arms shaking, fists clenched so tightly it seems for a second she's going to join him in punching things, likely only to break the bones in her hands.

then the moment of her own incandescent rage starts to ebb. she half turns to watch natsuno descend specifically on the photos, and cracks glass shards beneath her feet when crossing to join him. a photo of darcy slaying fio, another of jade sitting listless on a pile of rock next to a bloody mess of a body, a picture of her back framed in the middle of the dark, bent doorway of the sports deck closet — all of them are summarily shredded. )

[neverleave]

[They say a trouble shared is trouble halved, but the more photos they shred together, the heavier his stomach feels. He knows it's pointless and yet he can't stop, he's so angry, helpless rage that simmers like a pressure cooker on the verge of exploding. Mizuki kneeling to collect gore from a supply closet, the Dioscuri cradling Rita's corpse, Natsuno sinking fangs into Rita, Jade, Jinx, Ebalon, Oda, laughing and laughing even in a photo of Jade driving a spear his heart...

They finish one display and move to shred photos in another one. The moment the look away the photos they just destroyed are whole again, the glass upright and pristine save for Natsuno's bloody handprint, like a mocking reminder nothing he does matters.

He stops then, shoulders heaving.]

...I want this shop to burn. [His voice is low, almost a growl.] I want this entire fucking ship to burn.

[skaikru]

( it's sickening to think that, just a week ago, they could have done that. could have set fire to the entire shop and it would stick, if not even spread. they could have smashed shelving and the front counter, and defaced the walls, and shredded pictures, and it would have stayed that way when they walked away. this just serves as another reminder that, a week ago, he hadn't been here, and both of them had been silently suffering for it.

the photos repair, the display reforms faster than humanly possible, and clarke wants to scream. in the same breath, she doesn't want to pry apart her teeth and give the serena eterna and its captain the gratification of knowing they were getting to her. got her. were well into the process of absolutely wrecking her. half her body aches from effort and impact, and while she's more than ready to do this all over again on the off chance it just finally works, when natsuno stops dead, rooted to the floor, clarke stops right next to him.

other times, she would have reached for him. gripped his arm to ground either of them, or rubbed his back to comfort and calm. this time here, it's different. they stand side by side with hearts hammering and shoulders shaking. clarke stares straight ahead, at a newly minted version of the same image that'd broken her in the first place: the two of them, past death and reanimated as psychopaths, her blood and gore-streaked fingers digging into the side of his face while both of them laugh in the midst of chaos. best friends for life still embossed along the bottom border, the surface of the picture glossy and reflecting lights above. )

I know. It will.

[neverleave]

[He nods ferociously, staring at that disgusting photo with its disgusted caption. It will.]

The captain too. I don't care how many people talk about "helping" him, or how cruel humans were to him.

[Skulduggery's written report was nothing but dry and factual, but considering how he lead an expedition to get something for the captain... there's sympathy there for sure, and Natsuno's having none of it. The captain's forsaken any right for a happy ending when he created this ship and started pulling in victims.]

I want him to burn with this entire reality. And I hope the ghosts tear what's left of his soul into shreds.

[skaikru]

( at first, all she has to offer back is a sharp and concise nod of the head, which she isn't even sure natsuno's got the mind to watch on the outskirts of his peripherals. but it's a solid gesture, it's whole hearted agreement.

secondly, quiet and low: )

He will. And it'll hurt.

( in this, they're agreed upon. it no longer seems like the popular opinion, that cut and dry binder written in skulduggery's handwriting seemed to appease a lot of people with it's vague promises for a happy ending. but she'd tracked him down after the fact, asked if could actually meant would in regards to the captain releasing the lot of them, and hadn't gotten a truly satisfactory answer. she's unswayed, and itching for a new direction to pursue.

but in the meantime, now she reaches out to him. just a hand on the shoulder, light and easily shrugged off. it's a let's leave gesture, that she doesn't follow up on with actual spoken words. if natsuno wants to stay and wreck the shop all over again, she's there for that too. )

[neverleave]

[Natsuno exhales, trying to pull himself back together. He really doesn't know what he'd do without Clarke by his side. Even if no one else understands, she does.

One ally is all you need to light the spark that'll consume everything.

When she touches his shoulder, Natsuno nods. Let's go. He does pocket the photo of both of them grinning like psychopaths, holding into some stupid hope that if he "buys" it and keeps it at the very bottom drawer, the shop will stop making copies.

They usually hit the arcade at times like this, but...]

...I don't even know where to go. Everything here is a shitty joke.

[skaikru]

( from what i've tasted of desire, i hold with those who favor fire —

...just because she'd been the one to trigger their departure, doesn't mean clarke's got any decent idea of where to go next. this month will eventually see her make her way to playback and revisit the air hockey table, but not with natsuno. she watches him pocket that particular picture, but offers no opinion, objection, or outright agreement.

instead she tries to parse through places on the shitty joke of a cruise liner and, once again, is reminded of how small and confined it feels. literal rabid animals stuck in a well dressed cage. )

...life boats?

( this is an offer to sit silently in the shadows cast by the tarps stretched overhead. maybe diddle on their phones, maybe just stare at the plastic sheeting, maybe talk in broken and sparing intervals. )

[neverleave]

[She knows him so well. Clarke hasn't taken to the life boats like he does, always went there on his request or while looking for him. Another small, everyday gesture of friendship that reminds him he's not alone, no matter how much he feels that way, how much he still wants to be.]

...sure. Wanna take one out? [His mouth quirks, humorlessly.] We can pretend there's somewhere to go for a couple of hours.

[skaikru]

I love an escape plan. ( even if it's fake and futile. honestly, anything to get away from the confines of these sprawling hallways and glittering, perpetually unblemished shops. she can't outright mirror his forced grin, but raises her chin and her eyebrows in a muted sense of enthusiasm. )

Sundries first?

( it's not even a little bit of an overstatement to say clarke cannot currently remember the last time she's eaten, but on the heels of wrecking one shop she's ready to pilfer another. )

[neverleave]

Sundries first.

[They can pack an entire bag like they're really going somewhere. Honestly, Natsuno wouldn't mind spending the entire week out there, like he did after battle royale.]

Let's take floaties too. We can shoot them, it's been a while since I practiced.

[Natsuno counted the knives, checked the bullets and flamethrower. The ghost didn't touch any of it, preferring to use his bare hands.]

[skaikru]

( is it childish, cowardly, or completely normal to fantasize about being able to run away from this? from all of this? staying and fighting and seeing it through to the end — of the captain, of the serena eterna, of herself and all others if absolutely necessary — is clarke's baseline, but this feeling of something to do and somewhere to go with a friend is doing wonders at plaster-patching over the rift in her soul that october left. )

Me too.

( this is not entirely true, she'd shot the ceiling of the theatre in an attempt to callout jinx. her own ghost had inhabited her for a brief span, absolutely nothing compared to natsuno's. she'd woken up with her gun still strapped to her thigh and knife still laced to her boot, albeit on the opposite side and smeared with faint blood. )

Can't afford that, can we? Come on.

( and clarke'll take the slightest of lead to guide them through this begrudgingly familiar landscape, down two decks and through the door of the in-ship convenience store. )

[neverleave]

[To Sundries they go, and Natsuno heads straight to the bottled water and snacks. Clarke can pack whatever else a human who can get injured or sunburnt needs. As he looks over the granola bars and trail mix, he's once again reminded of the battle royale aftermath.]

...Flynn helped me pack last time. After the island.

[Flynn, who isn't around anymore. Neither is Lumine, who survived with him until just before the end. His closest friends have all been here from the start, but others keep coming and going, never truly understanding. It's easy to talk about finding a peaceful solution when you haven't seen a friend lose a hand trying to open the bridge, when you haven't watched everyone you care about die.]

All the snacks he picked were disgusting.

[Still, he picks up the spicy trail mix he offered, way back then.]

[skaikru]

( the puny mortal space kid starter pack is a little different for a boat ride than a full scale escape attempt, but clarke'd walked into the woods and lived there alone with little more than the clothes on her back, a suffocatingly heavy conscious, and a knife after mount weather so. it's okay if she packs light.

a pair of neon green rimmed plastic sunglasses, a bottle of sunscreen, and some chewing gum have been selected — along with one of those dinky little draw string backpacks to hold their loot post checkout. )

...I miss Flynn. We weren't close, but I admired his optimism.

( to a point, of course, because unflinching optimism felt like it'd get them killed. his heroics, too, because running towards pirate jenny in her full godly form without a lick of armor or hint of a weapon on his person and saving them all? that was impressive.

basics acquired, clarke's moving more towards natsuno in the snack section. chocolate bars, beef jerky, packages of salted peanuts. and once realizing what he's holding and where he got it, she'll pick up a spicy trail mix as well. they can eat it together, in memoriam. )

[neverleave]

We weren't close either, but he was a good guy.

[So many of them owe him for sparing them at least one horrible death. Not to mention he was Rita's friend from home, which separated him from other passengers by association. She took it hard when he and Yuri disappeared - died, for all intent and purposes.

Backpacks ready, their next stop is the pool deck to get floaties.]

...Lumine disappeared too, some time after the salamander island. Not sure if you knew her, but. She was a good friend.

[skaikru]

( for once, the narrative in her brain that wants to rebuke the idea of good guys is... silenced. because if there had been any, it'd probably have been in the form of flynn scifo, and it's a tragedy they were robbed of him. and lumine... )

I didn't know her, but wish I had.

( there's no real narrative of blonde girls vying for natsuno's attention. clarke didn't feel envy for lumine being the one by his side at the end of the battle royale, just a lot of guilt that she'd died so early on. guilt she'd left him, and gratitude that dying didn't mean he'd been left completely alone. an open wound, since closed over with scar tissue that remained sensitive when prodded the wrong way.

but all of it still sucks. they fake-pay their way out of sundries, take the elevator, clarke punches the button to summon it and to bring them up to the cursed pool deck. as they wait for the lift to come: )

I wish we kept a better record. Of all the friends who disappeared.

[neverleave]

You would've liked her.

[Lumine had wisdom and inner strength only 600 years of life experience can bring. She was kind and optimistic, but never naive, and ready to throw down at a moment's notice. She and Clarke could get along.]

We can still keep a record. We've been here since the captain started this round.

[skaikru]

( she thinks for a moment on that last point, even hums quietly in contemplation. )

Flynn, Yuri... Kara. Dean. Reigen.... Sarge. Peter Parker. Wanda, Darlington, Ed... The kid who talked to the Captain about skateboards, all the men from Venti's world plus Lumine...

Bellamy.

( there's so, so so many of them. )

I've lost track of who all's even on board now, let alone who's left. I don't think just you and I could make a complete list.

[neverleave]

[Out of that list, only Lumine, Flynn, Yuri, and Bellamy mean anything. The first for being his friend, the other two for being decent people and precious to Rita, the latter for being precious to Clarke. Some of the other names are familiar, some aren't, and he doesn't care much for any of them.

Natsuno never cared about the big picture, only about precious few. There are more of them now, but he doubts the rest of the passengers will ever be anything beyond meaningless crowd.]

A complete list will always need everyone else. We can remember our own and that's it.

[skaikru]

( it's coming about that clarke's not all that different. she wants to care about everyone, and on some level does — on yet another level, the one where her ultimate goal would be ending the captain no matter the cost so future pockets of people wouldn't be subjected to all of this, she cares about the most people. but put her in a desert setting, surrounded by zombies, with palamedes yelling at her to turn around and help others and... no, the answer is pretty simple. she'd had almost everyone she cared about in the rover right then, there was no turning around if it could get them killed. )

Did you know ( her tone's shifted a little, from a muted sort of sorrow to a quiet sort of anger. ) people apparently put up a memorial for the ghosts?

( not the ghosts of their lost friends, the ghosts. the one's that'd just tried to kill them all. )

We haven't even done that much for our lost...

[neverleave]

[That startles him and. Where Clarke's anger is quiet, Natsuno's is not, and his face darkens before he snaps:]

For the ghosts?

[He lets out a disgusted tch. A less out together person might have spat.]

People will really eat up whatever crap you feed them as long as you wrap it in a sob story.

[Whatever. They're not important right now. In a quieter tone, he asks:]

Do you want to make one for our lost?

[It's a genuine question. He isn't sure how to mourn something like that.]

[skaikru]

( it's nice when they can compliment and contrast each other; usually it's the other way around to some degree, but clarke looks sidelong at natsuno as they walk and feels validated in every shadow that crosses his face. they agree, it's a disgustingly sentimental thing to do for people that tried — and almost succeeded — to kill them all. )

I want to do something, ( she answers in turn. but... waffles on any sort of follow up. there's a lack of conviction, some prevailing self doubt, and a whole lack of enthusiasm for the venture it'd be to remember everyone. ) Just — ...something that actually matters in the long run.

( vengeance, she wants vengeance. freedom for all the souls trapped here, even the ghosts if need be, and even at the expense of them never being whole again. )

That's not going to be accomplished with an alter and a few words spoken over metaphorical graves.

[neverleave]

[He nods in agreement. Rituals are for the living, and they can't always offer comfort or even closure. Natsuno didn't find comfort in seeing everyone mourn Tohru-chan, and Tohru-chan certainly didn't find comfort in leaving flowers by his murdered best friend's window.]

Even if they're still in this reality, the dead don't know anything. The only thing we should do is take down the captain.

[Vengeance and freedom. Let this ship end like Sotoba.]

We still don't know how, but. [Natsuno scowls. He hates feeling so helpless.] If we're frustrated, we should be frustrated with that and not with how we're not writing down names or lighting candles.