mercy, singapore sling gunner (technopunk) wrote in warrantlogs, @ 2016-01-21 15:01:00 |
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Entry tags: | euphemia corte-real, mercy frey |
who: euphemia corte-real and mercy frey
what: night talks.
when: backdated to sometime around when the red warrant first went out.
warnings: feels and tea’s beautiful writing!!!!!
There is a strange symbiosis between the ship and its captain; she would keep the cogs(crew) working neatly, and in return the ship held her(the static filling her ears as her vision blurred late at night - the ship held her). It's entrails and secrets were entrusted to her; now those follow, clinging at the edges of her shadow when she turns down corridors. A killjoy bounty is Euphemia's preference, because some people need to be put away as fast as possible or, failing that, put six feet under. That is why the answer is yes. Yes, always. And she is not in the cockpit or her room - her current place is sitting on the floor in one of the Sling's corridors, a pensive look across her face. There are logistics, concerns, strategies; the absence of this place helps her think. Mercy is always in the halls these days. She hates being in her room. She hates being in a rattling tin can in deep space. Which is stupid - because she used to like it. This is what she wanted. If she wasn’t here, she’d be on Tijuana still, waiting for nothing. At least now she can move in pursuit of it, even if her searching is a secret kept close. But being in her room - alone - she doesn’t like it, so she moves out into the hallways in search of just someone. She’s been listening to Lastin Fever over and over again, mostly because she can’t stand the silence of her own company. Then she’d be forced to think. Consider ‘what ifs’. Realize that maybe, one day, it could be Honor on that poster. She doesn’t even know the extent of what Honor has done, if she’s done more since the last time. And if she has, well… This is why Mercy doesn’t think about the ‘what ifs’ anymore. Killing just doesn’t seem pleasant to her in general. She gets the idea of it, but it doesn’t mean she has to like it. Some people like justice, but Mercy - she’s not the kind of person who wants to judge. It’s too much responsibility. Leave it up to someone else. That’s what killjoys are for. On others, justice has made a home of twisted ideals, in which death of convicts is righteous, needed, desired. A bounty brought in alive is always better, but it’s uncomfortable to think a life could be wiped out and it would be fine. (It wouldn’t. But Mercy, for complaining about black and white justice, sees things in duochrome too.) She sees Euphemia. Pauses at the corner, looking at her captain sitting on the ground. She looks strangely peaceful to Mercy. “Comfy?” she asks. Her echoed voice sounds thin, it rings a bell signalling the end of absence, and Euphemia looks over with a smile. "Very, would you like to join me?" The floor is cool but discomfort won't visit until later, when it is a matter of softness rather than temperature. "I think last night I went to bed humming the music from your room." It was rather catchy, and even muffled behind steel doors she had caught enough; that insidious melody, not her taste but withholding judgement. Glancing at Mercy made her feel old (bones corroding under time, gnawed on further by present actions). This ship would eat her whole. Mercy moved to sit down beside her captain, accepting the offer with a small crook of her mouth, a smile. “Yeah, it’s one of those earworms.” Needed, by Mercy’s own private admission, to keep the silence from yawning silence of her solitude far away. So long as she could hear another voice, it would work. Now, she had Euphie. She stays quiet for a moment, before her own curiosity gets the better of her. “So are you just hanging out here for fun? Practicing some meditation or something?” "Thinking about our next bounty," Euphie settles the weight of her stare on Mercy, waking from the daydream of empty corridors and whispers. The gunner is solid, her voice rings clear like s bell; questions come unbidden, all discarded except for one: "You saw the announcement, right?" The decision to go would be put up to a vote, but Euphemia is confident that the answer will be in favour. Her mouth tugs downward; she falls silent, picking at a loose rope bracelet on her left wrist. A leftover relic from a childhood in Tijuana, fabric scraps from her aunt. Old t-shirts mostly, braided by sisterly fingers barely remembered. Sometimes Mercy thinks too hard about what a hand feels like, can’t seem to pin down the sensation of someone brushing her hair to the side, someone holding her once-small grip in theirs. “Yeah.” She doesn’t know what else to say. She doesn’t like these kinds of warrants, but coaxing the whys of it… She doesn’t think about it much herself. Tries not to, at least. If the silence is telling, Euphemia does her best to tuck the questions and utterly fails. "You do not seem overly enthused by this. Are you tired of chasing reds?" This is not an official inquiry, If Mercy chose not to answer, the captain would merely swap topics to something else. Everyone had their secrets, the Sling had a rather curious crew(so full of secrets, they leaked sometimes and echoed down the halls). “I guess you could say that. They’re not really…” She trails off, picking her words carefully amongst the jumble of them that circulate in her thoughts. Chooses not to say certain things - sister and gone and grief are in stark contrast to the rest, neon lights in her mind - but the sentences loosen gently out of her mouth, untangled and simple. “My kind of thing. Never felt comfortable with death.” She can be frank; she can say most of it, just not all. “I mean, it’s never a goal, right? But I think I just think too hard about it.” The smile offered is warm, "No, it never is a goal." At least it didn't use to be, now? Those lines were a little less clear because once tragedy stuck it's fist inside the ribs and rattled your heart, everything became tangled and complicated. "You don't have to like killing, nor approve of it. That &mdash" Somebody she used to know would have agreed, "— makes you kind, I think. We are a product of our experiences too, there is a reason I pick reds when they come up over other bounties." The captain is offering an explanation, the same way she reaches over to touch Mercy's wrist lightly, contact reassuring. Kind - there were a number of words Mercy would use to describe herself, but she has never thought to use that. Something warm blossoms in her chest, a soft fire stoked by Euphemia’s own kindnesses. Mercy clutches them close, a collector by nature; she is easily pleased and won. Despite her best attempts to be wary - she was born on the street, but not of it, though she tries. She doesn’t mean to be hostile, but her voice is a little more harsh; Euphie does not take offence. Stunned is the word. “Experiences? You think that’s an experience we need?” She doesn’t understand it. Her eyes plead more of an explanation, but to extrapolate what Euphie means is complicated, so many reasons all entwined into a labyrinth, and at the center: the right thing, justice, a better world. "Yes, it is. This won't be the last red that comes up. Those are the worst sort of people, darling." She feels so distant, echoing the words a murdered engineer once sat to explain. "The threats to this world that need to be put away, and it is our responsibility. At least for me, to do what I can with this ship. And at the end of the day what I want is for my crew to be prepared for anything." Everything. The tide was turning though she couldn't explain why or how; something was wrong. There were personal reasons for her choice in red too: a yearning to correct the past, a yearning to get revenge, a yearning to find an end. But Mercy is no good at grasping intangibles. She doesn’t know the truths of others, only her own! and Euphie sometimes is too good at guessing the truth others hide. Secrets waving behind gestures and words(screaming, wanting to be heard). Euphie’s words are a kind hand petting her still, soothing. Mercy, legs tucked underneath her chin, chews on her lip, considering the answer provided. She wants to protest. There’s a deeper question here than she can articulate. Words are not her strongsuit, which is why she prefers frankness, directness. Things she can understand at face value. Simplicity is her best quality - someone once told her that. She has to say: she has her personal reasons too. A fear of seeing a familiar face; a judgment she can’t bear to see passed. She is being selfish. She is a child carved into an adult. “I guess this is what I signed up for.” It is. She is not here to chase down a dangerous shooting stars across the velvet blackness of galaxies. She is here to cage them. They burn, handling them with care only helps a little, eventually the flesh begins to go from red to black. “Sorry,” she adds, an afterthought, “I’m not trying to be difficult. I’ll do whatever they tell us - whatever you tell us.” Her personal allegiance is closer to here and this old ship and crew. “We have to do what we have to do. Just night thoughts.” "You have nothing to apologise for." Unwavering sincerity, "I prefer hearing thoughts sooner rather than later. You can remain on the ship for this red, we can't leave the ship undefended after all." A concession hidden behind official motives, behind strategic logic. A gunner was not required to stay on board while chasing a bounty, but Euphemia was a captain who worked by exceptions. Her crew of mismatched chess pieces: her job was to make them work. Their loyalty had to be to her and this ship, as long as that was the case she would take risks to protect them. To make sure they fit in their place with ease; another captain might not have the flexibility to accommodate their idiosyncrasies, and they were not a family but they were part of this ship. A living, beating hunk of metal that whispered with each hum of its engine. Mercy doesn’t mind being a cog and in fact, this allowance suits her. “I can do that,” there’s a suggestion of a smile. It disappears quickly under the clouds of her thoughts. She’s become preoccupied, thanks to Euphemia. Thanks to a lot of things. And when her captain can, she would help Mercy find her way out of that myriad of preoccupations. Her hand reaches out before she thinks to hesitate. When she wraps her fingers around the Euphie’s - a relic gesture from a life before this ship - she immediately drops them, standing up, cheeks flaring red. (There it is, the secret). Euphie smiles knowingly(she always knows, each secret that occupies her mind until there are none of her own). "You are very welcome, darling. Get some sleep, we have some time." And then it is as if a switch has been flicked, Euphemia's attention focused on the empty metal walls once more; from friend to captain - from functioning human being to this husk made of steel that is but another part of the Sling. She is listening. They are still screaming. |