crushed_pearls | Come Sail Away IC Inbox

There it is. Erin sighs at that last question. "It's definitely a reason to be, yes. The other reason is this."

|Stone.|

Stone sayeth: Pay up.

Erin throws the nickel. It goes streaking through the air in a blur, faster than mortal arms could have ever carried it, sails through the door to the theater, and embeds itself into the opposite wall, leaving behind a sharp and jagged hole where the steel of Serena Eterna barely held firm against it. "The thing about choosing violence past a certain level of strength or power with your opponent is you might only get one chance to choose it. I wouldn't fault him for deciding on a surprise attack or an alpha strike. Time used to be that I woulda done the same."

But that's not answering the first question. "...Just to keep us on the same page, do you know what slavery is or has your world been free from that evil?"

she doesn't move, but grows tense when the nickel goes flying through the air, slicing through it
as would her knives. tear says nothing, but a part of her finds it impressive; erin had far better
throwing speed than she does. you're too slow, is what her former teacher had always said,
reminding her of it every time she knocked away one of tear's blades away, stopping it from flying
directly into her head.

" I do, yes. While I didn't often see it back on Auldrant, I don't think we're free of it everywhere. "

there were many who used the replicas that way, and one could make the argument that the servants
in kimlasca's manors could be seen in such a light too. not to mention: her own family had been servants
as well, in a way, albeit they'd never quite been slaves.
but tear isn't ignorant to the possibility of it happening back home.

" I ... find it a little hard to believe that you owned and dehumanized people that way, though. "

it just didn't seem fitting, or right. she can't imagine erin being so cruel to other living beings,
using and abusing them like the title would suggest. perhaps there was some kind of misunderstanding
here...?

"Well, you're half-right. I never owned anyone." Erin scoots herself to the edge of the stage so her feet can dangle off it, and half-hunches. Unwilling, or unable, to face Tear directly. "...I was a slave myself. I became a slaver when my master traded me conditional freedom for my continued service to him. I would catch escaped slaves like myself, or kidnap new ones and condemn them to a fate as bad as my own. Most of my life I was in that line of work, Tear. Near on three decades. I was..."

Another nickel. It's not like Erin's going to run out of them. She throws it with far less force, frustrated at herself, at her life, at the situation.

"...I was very good at it. A legend in my time. Liz Malloy, the Pirate with the Pearl Eyes. Things changed only recently. I attacked the wrong person and he handed my ass to me on a silver platter. And he...he asked me if I was happy. And that destroyed me to hear. Been a year and a half, two years, since then. Trying to be better. To help people."

" ... I see. So it was done in order to win your own freedom. "

she lowers her gaze to her hands, gloved fingers twisting together, a stark white against the deep
brown of her uniform. her long hair hides her face; she wouldn't have seen erin to begin with.

what the older woman describes is an incredibly difficult situation. an attempt to liberate oneself from
such a horrible life, even at the expense of others ... it reminded her so very much of anise's
situation, where she'd provided information to the enemy for the sake of her parents. it was tough,
something impossible to weigh with just ethics alone when there was also the question of survival.

her morals overlap with logic as she considers what this all must mean. would she have done the same,
in erin's shoes? it would be easy to say she wouldn't, without ever having known all of that suffering
first-hand. it would have been a break in the monotony, and many people would have
done anything just for the opportunity of that alone.

" What you did was wrong. "

her voice is calm again, almost casual: she is simply stating a truth.

" But I understand why you had to do it. "

the guilt of it probably weighs heavy on erin, much like the gravity of even just
understanding it does to tear. these were living beings they were talking about,
after all: every single one of them had had precious lives.

but was what erin did worse than what her brother had done, or what grand maestro mohs
did with all of the replicas? what luke had to do, with sacrificing so many replica
lives?

" It sounds like you're already on the path to atonement. "

the erin who sits before her certainly sounds nothing like the pirate, liz malloy.

"Atonement isn't an idea I have a good grasp on." Erin's voice is so soft, so distant. "When I was growing up you were a good person or a bad person. When I was taken it was easy to believe that there's only bad people, that anyone would have done me the same way I did them with half a chance. Told myself that every time. They're no better. They'd do the same. A...friend."

Erin has to stop, for a long moment.

"...A friend, after, she doesn't buy into good people and bad people. I demanded to know why she was helping me when she didn't like me, and she said she figured the tomorrow where I'm around to help is better than the one where I'm dead. I'm. Trying to live up to that. I still get it wrong. Hurt people's feelings, misunderstand them, lash out. But. I want. So badly, to be that person she thought I could be."

" No one ever does. "

her world had been painfully similar to erin's: one where your fate had been pre-written,
pre-determined, where you simply had to fulfill what you were told. such would lead humanity
to unprecedented prosperity -- supposedly. but much like erin herself, the world was
simply not just black and white. there were so many shades of gray, so many variables and
stipulations that people had to wrestle with and stumble through.
it was just new territory to have to discover that, to pave your own path.

erin was reminding her so very much of luke, right now.

it feels like almost a lifetime ago that she was having a similar conversation, talking about
atonement after the fall of an entire city, atop corpses and rubble.

" There will be many times where you keep getting things wrong. No one is perfect, and an entirely
good person just doesn't exist. But the important thing is that you keep trying, and that you
keep moving forwards. "

whether it was to atone, or to live up to those expectations, tear knows that to be true.

" What person did she think you could be? "

"One like her, I think. Righteous. Heroic. Colors...she worked for bad people for awhile, who told her they were good people. But those sorts of deceptions never last long. Cruelty always outs itself."

"...I'm not going to tell the full story. You don't need that horror sitting on your soul, you've had horrors enough. But. I will ask if you still wanted to do some music tonight."

she stays silent, a protest dying before it ever makes it to her lips: she wants to hear
the rest of the story. she wants to hear more about erin and her homeland, and doesn't want for
the other woman to think less of her for her circumstances.

there was a kindness to erin's considerations of course, but tear doesn't see them as necessary.
shouldn't she be told because of her experiences? wouldn't that mean she can understand?

if she gave voice to these things, would that make her childish?

after a moment, tear breathes a sigh.

" I don't ... know if I really want to. "

she decides to go the honest route rather than to force herself, because she knows erin will be
able to tell if her heart isn't in it.

" If you want to play something, or sing, I can listen. But if not then I can just go back to my room."

maybe erin wanted privacy after such a tough topic?

"...I don't, but I don't want you to go either." Erin makes a frustrated sound, and turns her head to face Tear.

She can't cry properly, for she has no eyes, but the look on her face is all guilt and misery.

"...I wasn't trying to be deceptive. I just...the people I hurt, they're so far away now. I can't apologize to them, or be punished by them, or do anything for them. Here, though, here I can help. Liz will haunt me forever, but I didn't want her haunting everyone else. And now. Now she is."

she makes a quiet sound of affirmation, nodding knowingly. such a thing had been an issue for her, too:
in many ways it still is. there was so much left unfinished at home, so many endeavors and tasks to
continue. the people here were nice, but the unfinished business where they'd come from was a heavy
task to bare.

" You did what you had to do. "
is the first thing she thinks to say.

" People do horrible things all the time, if it means that they survive. Some might say the same of
me, too. "

she'd killed people, after all. how many soldiers had perished by her artes or her knives? how many
monsters and people were slain by her group? they'd all had lives, too. she's sure there's people
out there who may hate her for it, but such is life. unfortunately.

" I think it's more important that you're changing, and that you're trying. Does it really matter if
some people might not agree with that? "

"...It does if I want to belong here."

a part of her wants to ask: what does 'belong' even mean? on a ship like this,
where everyone has just been thrown together... the ultimate goal was to go back home,
or to survive. did she want to get along with everyone? wasn't that impossible?

she isn't sure if she wants to pressure erin with more questions though, or to ask for clarifications.

" I don't think belonging means you have to have the approval of everyone. Isn't it more important
to have your own approval most of all? "

"I do have to live with myself every day," Erin agrees. She flashes Tear a ghostly smile. "But...for a long time I wasn't part of a community. And here, I dunno. It's felt like I am again, and I don't want to lose that."

[left outside the room Erin is sharing with Crabb is a silver grey faux fur blanket. very soft, very easy to cuddle with, and a paper with a brief message in braille. they'll find it whenever they get up.]

Merry Christmas.

It takes a bit for Erin to find the note since she's lost in the soft cuddly fur, but when she does she realizes this has to be from Helena; if nothing else, no one else on this ship has braille handwriting that good. A little Sound escapes from low in her throat and doesn't get far; there's too many emotions trying to all get out the door at the same time.

Shortly thereafter, the blanket is safely stashed in the luggage Erin brought, so it can't be forgotten. It will have pride of place on her bed in the cabin back home on the ship.

[ Phil hasn’t got a way to deliver this in a way that’s comprehensible to a blind person, so in-person it is, much as he’d rather just leave it at the door.

So he hauls the thing out there that morning after the Silence and knocks. ]

Later on Erin will wish she'd made herself presentable. Right now a weary and drawn elf opens the door for Phil, still at least a little keyed up; when she sees it's him her free hand conspicuously lets go of something that's next to the door.

"Morning Phil. Merry Christmas."

“Morning, Erin,” says Phil, quite a bit more put together than she; though he’s been running himself ragged lately, getting up much earlier than is reasonable has been standard fare for his job back home.

“I’ve got something for you. I would’ve just left a card, but I’m not sure how to do that. So, merry Christmas. Careful grabbing this one.”

He holds up… a pair of full-sized antlers, glued to some kind of sturdy headband, which has ribbons tied around it so as to be fastened under the chin. Accompanying this is a set of plastic rings. Don’t ask where they came from (answer: Somewhere In The Hotel, IDK).

It’s. A wearable reindeer antler ring toss game.

"...Oh my god." Erin's disbelief is heavily seasoned with excitement. "I can cause people to understand the exact emotions engendered by the Taco Bell quarter game! Phil! You went to all this trouble for me and I never figured out what to -"

A thought dawns in real time.

"You ever take up whittling when you had ah, free time?"

There’s this very reserved sort of look of satisfaction that he gets. Just the littlest quirk at the corner of his mouth.

“A little, but not much; I ended up taking more to ice sculpting. Why do you ask?”

"Care to learn? Peace of mind, moving hands, the inexplicable urge to make a chess set - it's got a lot to suggest to it. Fun way to kill a day, y'know? The main learning curve up front is not cutting yourself but if you're in ice sculpture you've got a leg up on knife safety."

Listen.

Listen.

Even now, when she's not a it Satrap, the Lost are a bartering people. She can't just not offer something back.

Luckily for Erin, Phil is in the market for a go-to distraction; piano is good, but he knows it too well and he’s settled into too much of a routine with it to be sufficient on its own anymore. Learning a new art of making sounds as good as anything.

“I did it with a chainsaw a couple times,” he comments idly. “I think I’d love to learn. You were pretty handy with those trees while we were making the maze.”

Edited 2022-12-26 06:51 (UTC)

"Sounds like a plan! And to think I thought lessons were off the table as a Christmas present when I had a different idea for Tear." Erin's Mantle sizzles happily. "This'll see use later, I just need to find my moment. And coffee."

There’s a half moment where he gets distracted as Erin’s burning mantle makes itself known again, but he brings himself back to attention quickly. “Oh—do you mean to do this today? I mean, I’m sure we’ve got time and I won’t say no, but… well, I don’t know, it’s Christmas. Maybe someone’s planning a party.”

Also Révellion just happened and he’s running on all of two hours of sleep at current.

"No, god no - wait, might be a culture issue again." Erin offers a wan grin. "Favors and lessons are kinda the gift cards of gift-giving for the Lost. We uh. Tend to be broke."

Come Sail Away IC Inbox

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+1 cool point

Tear I'm So Sorry

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By tradition I declare: damn OCs and their one-liners

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12/25, morning

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