come_sailaway | I should have wrote a letter

Entry tags:

I should have wrote a letter

Who: Maeve & OTA
Where: Promenade, Playback, and John's
What: November catchall, fallout from October stuff
When: November 6th onwards

1. Promendade

Once she leaves the room finally, she stops at Sundries to pick up a package. When she opens it, she stares for a long moment at the trifold tablet with the hook up. She sits in the middle of the promenade and pulls out a small knife to cut her right forearm, sighing as her fingers found the port and then connected herself to the tablet before pulling up the diagnostic screen and running a scan.

Everything seems functional so far. No signs of any injury or malfunctions.

“Well, I guess that’s…good,” she says to the air before pulling another screen up with the attribute matrix. She doesn’t immediately move to change things, but her fingers hesitate over the screen as she considers it. She could feel less of this, could just avoid it. But she has shit to do and...really, she shouldn't.

2. Playback

It’s the noise of the place that draws her in. She can hear the machines both in and out of her head and it’s the sound of it that’s steadying her in that moment. She doesn’t have any idea still how to make the games work or play anything. Which is why she just…stands there, eyes closed as she listens to everything. The sound of other people helps as well and she feels a little less overwhelmed after a moment. She wonders if it’s cheating to use her abilities to control the machines as she makes the claw move on its own. Not that she cares for prizes, but she does want to at least try for something. Only as the minutes pass, she shakes her head.

“Do you know how to play any of these games,” she asks whoever is closest to her. “I want to learn something new.”

3. John’s

She hasn’t seen Phil in a while. She’s been avoiding John’s because he’d said that he needed time. But when she peeks in, she doesn’t see him. Just hears the sound of Billy Joel filtering through the air. So she walks in and finds a booth to sit in where she can just listen to the music for a while.

She doesn’t actually know the song but the mood is at least less depressing than her mood at the moment. If anyone happens to find her sitting there, she’ll go from sitting with a chin resting on her hand to sitting up straight. “Oh. Hello, darling. I didn’t notice you there.” A beat. “Do you know this song?”

4. Wildcard

Hit me with whatever you like~ If you wanna run anything by me, my plurk is kingdonkey and otherwise, discord is kingdonkey#6187

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Maeve is just gonna hold her. Whatever feelings she's having can get shoved to the side. She'll lie in an emotional puddle later and maybe text Sharky about it because this place is the worst sometimes.

"Shhhh." She's just carefully running a hand over her back with one hand while continuing to hug her close with the other arm. "No one's ever prepared fully for what it feels like." She didn't care about the people she killed because the option was dying or not dying and she...wasn't going to die. At least not until she succeeded in what she was meant to do. Until then...no. "I've got you, okay?"

"I-I should—" I should be, she almost says; between the life she was living at home and the way things are on the ship, shouldn't she have been prepared for the inevitable? She was always going to have to kill one day, wasn't she?

She doesn't finish it because what echoes in her head are all the voices of people reminding her she shouldn't be dealing with any of this.

So instead she just mumbles a weak little, "O-okay. Okay," and buries her face more against Maeve.

None of them should have to be prepared for killing. Especially situations like this. But there's not been much choice in anything that happens here. Outside of the excursions. But this? This is different.

"I'm sorry, Ruby." She wishes there were anything she could do to ease all of it, but there's nothing that truly eases the feelings of loss or pain. At least not in her experience. So all she knows to offer is her presence.

Right now her presence is just about all Ruby would ever ask for. Last time ~~her mom~~ someone like Maeve went away they never came back and a part of her was so scared of that happening again.

But it didn't. Maeve is back. Not okay, but back.

So Ruby just cries until the tears start to dry up and she starts to calm down, little by little. Finally, after a while, she lifts her head, sniffling but calmer and trying to give Maeve a smile. "I-I'm sorry. I'm all— damp, now."

Crying: not a dignified emotional response!

Maeve's memories of her own daughter feel both so recent and so far, but the last time she saw her, she was going into the Valley Beyond with her other mother. The one she knew. She didn't remember her. So this? She understands how to deal with.

She just stands there, rubbing Ruby's back as she cries. She doesn't comment on the tears or her damp outfit because it hardly matters. If Ruby needed to get her emotions out and cry, she's not going to make her feel weird about it. "It's fine, darling. A little water never hurt anyone."

"I-I'm not sure that's strictly true." She scrubs at her face with the heel of her hand, and then with the front of her cloak, the latter of which definitely does a better job.

She's in her plain red cloak, now. Her own, not the one that looks like Summer Rose's. Crescent Rose is cleaned, now, but it isn't strapped back across her lower back.

In some ways, these things are progress. In others, they've been spurred just as much by her being hard on herself for hurting Maeve's body as they are anything else.

"A-Anyway. You're back now. That's... that's the important thing."

"Well, it's true here." She does note the lack of Crescent Rose and the cloak, but she's certain she can guess the reasons behind them. Especially given the information she's been given.

"I am back," she agrees. "And I'll be here for whatever you need. Or not. I'm sure some things are easier to talk to other people about, but..." She studies her for a moment. "If you did want to, I don't mind listening."

Ruby just about resists the urge to shrink awkwardly upon being studied, because there is at least one giant Goliath in the room that she really should say something about, but... how?

"...thanks. I know you'll listen." Deep breath. "I. Uhm. I think— I think I'm a little hung up on some of the stuff she said when she was taunting me, still?"

There. That's a... start.

Maeve isn’t sure what that could be. If she even wants to know. There’s some anxiety lurking somewhere in the back of her mind. Whoever the woman was, she didn’t like her.

“That’s…understandable. I hope…” What? Hope what? It wasn’t too bad? Obviously it was. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Another big, deep breath and she smiles, softly. Trying to be a little reassuring. She's not sure if it'll work. "...maybe. Probably. We should— we should maybe find somewhere to actually sit down, though. That'll be more comfortable than me getting into it right here in the middle of the arcade."

She glances out at the promenade. “Perhaps the benches? Or…if you think it would be better, we could go to the…uh…ice cream place?”

Ruby tilts her head a little, like it's some big decision, but honestly the answer comes pretty quickly. "Ice cream does sound nice... everything is kinda better with ice cream."

And she can always use eating some or brain-freeze as an excuse to gather her thoughts if she needs to...

Ice cream does seem to be the way to go. At least...that's what Maeve's noticed. In general. It also gives her something to do with her hands. "Yeah. That's what I've been told, too."

So she starts over toward Scoops, the anxiety settling in the pit of her stomach. She's not really sure what she's going to hear, but...everything about the person that was in her chafes and she wants nothing more than to destroy her. And yet, she can't.

Ruby sticks close to Maeve's side as they walk down the promenade from Playback to Scoops, quiet and buzzing with nervous energy but in some ways more relaxed than she could be. Maeve isn't mad at her, not that she really thought she would be, but...

She ends up with a bowl of chocolate and cookies & cream, once they settle into one of the shop's booths.

"She knew... everything about me that you knew. Which to pretend to be you she had to, I guess, but it only really settled in for me when," she sighs, "when she said something about people back home taking my childhood away."

Once the get to Scoops, Maeve settles on the peanut butter and chocolate flavors. She wants to try the lavender ice cream, but today seems like a more chocolate kind of day.

She listens as Ruby talks, studying her face for a moment. "Ah. She said that, did she?" She wouldn't have put it that way necessarily. "I can see how that would be upsetting."

"It kind of was, but I've been thinking a lot about that this last month or so already, you know? It's not exactly how I'd describe it even now, but I know... I know I've missed years I should've got to be a kid. It was... it was everything she said after that really got under my skin."

She doesn't immediately elaborate, brow knitting as she tries to think of how you even broach this. She shovels a spoonful of ice cream into her mouth and flinches at the bite of brain-freeze.

Maeve nods. She has. Not that she really had a childhood herself. But she was built as an adult and so there wasn't really a childhood to have. It was just one of those things. But Ruby could have had more of one. But the adults in her life seemed fine letting her do...whatever. Her own daughter hadn't been capable of a real childhood either, but that was Delos' fault.

She notes the flinch, head tilting slightly. "After that?" She's not sure if she can even guess. She's just...here. "You can tell me if you like," she says softly. "Or you don't have to. Either is fine. Whatever you're most comfortable with."

"She— brought up my mom." Ruby's eyes are entirely on the ice cream, now. She doesn't even lift another bite to her mouth, just starts poking it with her spoon. "Which is... cruel, anyway, but it was in the context of—"

She mashes the ice cream more with her spoon. Pale cream of the cookies & cream turning browner as it melts in with the chocolate. She sighs, deeply.

"—of me already knowing what it was like, to lose a mom."

She just leaves that in the air, with no elaboration. Letting the implications speak for themselves. Either Maeve figures it out and she doesn't have to drop this on her in words just like that, or she comes to a different conclusion and Ruby gets to either let that conclusion sit or take it as an out.

Maeve feels the anger bubbling up all over again because who was she and why can't she destroy her slowly?

But she's distracted from all of that by the last thing she says. It's not like she's unable to grasp what's being said. Erin mentioned it before, but it's...different here. "Ah. I've...well..." She looks down, not entirely certain she's meant to point out that Erin said something in case it crosses some informational boundary. "And that hurt? The insinuation that you knew that...regarding me." She is mostly playing with her own ice cream at this point.

"I wouldn't...ah...assume that's..." For someone who is usually much better with her words, this is...not her best. "I know I'm not your mother. Not truly. But I do care for you very much."

Ruby flashes her an awkward, almost sad little smile. "...a-and I know I'm not your daughter, not really. But— but it hurt because she was right. Because that was... that was what it felt like."

It's weird, she feels more nervous having this conversation than she does in most battles. Her heart is really going and she keeps wanting to fidget. Her legs start swinging.

"Because you've been really good to me and I really care about you, too. And I couldn't tell right then if her saying that just meant you'd picked up on what I was thinking, or..."

Maeve certainly hadn't expected this. The feeling of caring and responsibility that came over her as she got to know Ruby. She certainly hadn't expected to be someone that anyone else would want as a mother either. Even if it's just a mother figure. Not quite the same thing, but close enough. She reaches down to casually smooth down her skirt as if it will help or is necessary at all.

Her daughter is out of her grasp at this point. The one she's been fighting to get back to. But Ruby is here. Ruby is someone she can do something for. Her gaze is questioning as she looks her over quietly for a moment. It's another moment before she realizes she hasn't actually said anything.

"I don't know what she took from my memories. What information she had." There's a frown. "But perhaps she picked up on my own feelings and knew that...it was something that was a source of pain for you. Your mother." But she doesn't remember either side of the conversation. She doesn't know what Ruby said or anything that happened. It's disorienting.

"If you..." She pauses. "I would like..." No. This is not correct. "Despite the fact that we both have families...I think here we could be...each others. If you would like."

Ruby holds with a nervous, thrumming tension as Maeve fumbles through her response. Hearing Maeve of all people all unsure of her words might get a little bit of a sympathetic giggle out of her any other day, but right now, she's just listening. She's stopped even mixing her ice cream.

The tears that try to well up in her eyes surprise her, but the bright, surprised, relieved grin doesn't. She laughs at herself, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand and nodding. Nodding, like, a lot.

"Y-Yeah, yeah I would like that. I would definitely like that."

She misses her family at home so, so much and she will always miss them, but most of her family back home isn't family by blood anyway. Even Uncle Qrow. She knows the value of a family you find.

Maeve feels the anxious feeling in her chest dissipate and the relief is fairly evident on her own face. Maeve resists the urge to reach out and help wipe tears off Ruby's face. They've been through a lot in one conversation.

"Good." She smiles a little herself, reaching over to take one of Ruby's hands. She debates something. "I've never been so nervous before in my life and I've been..." Well, a vague gesturing that means 'Westworld, really'.

Ruby immediately squeezes Maeve's hand back when she takes it, smiling with real sympathy over at her. "I've fought in so, so many battles and never felt that nervous. Emotional stuff is... it's complicated. Especially when we both have things hanging over us, when it comes to family."

She really is a pretty emotionally intelligent girl when she tries, at least.

"It is, yes." Maeve hasn't really had to worry about it since...well, a while, truly. "I have been reminded of the truth of this since...the everything that was last month." And she doesn't even know the full everything of it yet.

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