crushed_pearls | Come Sail Away IC Inbox

Oh damn. You have got the elders of my kind beat by like fifty years. Good job genuinely.

When she learns punctuation on this swear to GOD.

I will be protecting those who cannot fight but please do not hesitate to contact me. Are you available to help if something comes up?

~~[What, like it's hard?]~~

Sure, if you need stealth for anything and can remember to text me.

I'm not being funny, I mean it. Texts are already a memory hole for people without the supernatural ghosting in. Maybe put a sticker or something you'll feel on your device that'll make you ask yourself why you put it on there.

She's on voice to text and missed the invention of the internet show mercy.

Hostile Giles has been violating passengers on false pretenses. When I am more collected I may ask for help hunting him down. Full disclosure intent is to kill.

[in our defense, we meant the staying alive thing, but they'd probably be about as merciful anyway]

Sure, no problem 👍

If you're good with hurting Giles' body
Btw whos Giles?

['Hostile Giles' is going to be looping in their head now. Hostile Giles. Hostile Giles.]

When in his correct body Giles is a fellow passenger from the same world as Ossie and the husband of Ossie. Currently the correct Giles is absent but I am confident he would want his body stopped. English. Tall. Likely in an emergency change of clothes since I ruined his current set when I crucified him. Can confirm he turns invisible by the same kind of magic I use. Other capabilities unknown.

Is his invisibility camouflage like an octopus or is it like a 'don't notice me' thing?

To the best of my knowledge he simply becomes unable to be seen by the writ of fate. The magic of my people is strange and wild and it is not out of the question that he has somehow learned something like your cloak but I would deem it highly unlikely. Based on scent of flour during my initial confrontation with him Ossie may have countered his magic by sticking particles to him that would then be visible.

Ah, "invisible man" situation, got it. Flour wouldn't work on me, though I guess I never got myself into a situation where I'd find out.

Give me a ring when you need my talents in play 👍 I could flush him out if you think he's hiding somewhere

She hasn't gone too wacky, considering the space and materials they have available to them. Though she probably rattles off that story somewhere in the midst of it all, giving justification for some choice or another as if to be like 'I've built less safe things that worked out fine!!'.

(Seriously, how did those bunk beds never fall. It's a mystery!)

There are, however, a couple of questionable choices. Broken pieces of other furniture that probably shouldn't be being used as legs that are, in fact, being used as legs. The headboard may now actually be the back of the couch until whatever usually fixes things comes back. The bedding does not immediately become less of a nest when placed back on top. It's just as surprisingly stable and comfortable as the ridiculous safety hazard she slept on in her months at Beacon, but it is, probably, kind of a safety hazard.

It's fine! It's fine.

Erin looks positively delighted. At last, her room is presentable! Ignore the fact that the bed is the only extant piece of furniture, yes she lives like this.

Christ, if a new passenger shows up as her roommate...

...Well actually that will involve so many other problems so let's just ignore that for now.

Tucking Ruby in is nine thousand and one percent too much closeness for Erin to handle even if she thought Ruby wanted it, so she settles into a corner in a meditative pose, still Very Sweaty(tm) but, hey, she's worked while feeling worse. Her breathing becomes steady and slow, and soon the gunpowder haze around her matches it, floating forward and back in a metronome crackle that is so oddly peaceful.

Ruby drifts off to sleep, and to dream...

...

Ruby finds herself back at Beacon for a few moments, before the school dissolves like vapor along with everything around it, leaving behind a cool grey fog. From all around a familiar voice (who? It's so musical...) lets out a thoughtful little hum.

"Let's see, let's see," the voice hums. "Peaceful but not a lot of characters, where can I - got it!"

The fog swirls and parts, and Ruby Rose finds herself in an aquarium. The lights are dim - it's so very clearly after-hours - but the tanks are lit, showing lovingly-constructed environments for fish and aquatic life from all over Earth. A reef shark glides past her in its tank before vanishing behind the vibrant corals; soft music plays on a loop, filling the halls.

Someone's standing in front of a tank, watching it, delicate hands clasped behind her ice-mail. The familiar stranger turns her head and offers a sunny smile; where human eyes belong she has something not quite right. The veins of her eyes are green and spread like leaves, and where pupils belong are mismatched windows of vibrant stained glass, one depicting a blade, the other a blooming white rose.

She snaps her fingers, and Ruby is awake in herself.

"Welcome to your dream, produced and directed by me," Erin greets, full of a bright enthusiasm. "I haven't done this in a dog's age, I forgot how good it feels. This place is from my old world, I wanted somewhere neutral without a lot of people your mind wouldn't know and thus be unable to properly produce, so I culled a memory of breaking in here after hours to avoid the crowds."

She turns her head back to the tank, and her gunpowder crackles merrily. "When I'm working I won't wake you up like this, but once you learn to wake in yourself you'll probably be awake on your own anyway. Once that happens I'll just tuck myself into a nice corner and chat up your cast members."

Ruby blinks, and her head instinctively snaps in a few directions to take in their surroundings before even fully settling back on Erin, at which point it takes just about every ounce of her restraint to not blurt out 'you have eyes!'. Instead, she ends up staring with increasingly widening eyes for a straight ten seconds before snapping out of it as Erin turns away, and processing what she's actually been saying.

"I— wow! This is... wow. I've— never been in an aquarium before." She takes an almost tentative step forward, to look into the tank. "It's... beautiful. This is all..."

The right words don't quite come, so she just trails off.

"Like a dream?" Erin finishes wryly, turning her head again to flash Ruby a grin. "On my Earth, places like this are dedicated to conservation and education. Helping animals and species that might go extinct in the wild, raising awareness, fostering a love of nature...keeping the world beautiful and abundant. Even when I was at my lowest I really did love it, just not all the crowds. Hence breaking in, actually."

Erin twirls her hand and -

- The two of them are underwater? It doesn't seem to be a big deal. Ruby doesn't even feel wet. Brightly-colored fish swim up to her and wiggle against her hands for Pettings.

Erin starts explaining, still sounding almost giddy; she twirls in place to face Ruby and rocks back and forth on her boots like a schoolgirl with a juicy rumor. "I'm gonna offer you a useful word here - 'diagesis', the things in a story that are literally, actually happening. Sometimes things in a story aren't literally happening - think of musicals for that where like, people aren't usually actually singing the songs in the logic of the story, the songs are more metaphors or montages or what have you. In the diagesis of a dream, anything is possible, but dreams do have laws that separate them from the narrative they tell to an extent. Thing the first: I'm not in your mind, I'm in your dream. There's a difference. Two, our dreams aren't touching, I'm actually here. My mind is right here -" Erin taps her head, "- where it damn well belongs. I can't read your thoughts or control your actions, but I can pay attention to the dream and what it could tell me about you. Three, when you're awake like this you'll wake up for real if you die in the dream. Your body won't be hurt but it'll make you wish for those nightmares back so try not to hurt yourself if you can avoid it. That will become less of a concern when I'm not here. My presence...charges things, a bit."

Erin gives Ruby an extravagant bow. "Dream logic isn't normal logic, but it's not no logic at all. I can force my will on the dream but there's a lot you can get out of working with its venue. Go ahead, try moving! However feels natural to you. Be a fish, be a mermaid, just walk, float like a god, whatever. Interact with the dream. Just remember that I'm not actually controlling the fish, they'll act however your dream thinks they ought to act." She tips a thumb at a shark, currently showing Many Teeth. "Plan accordingly."

you watned to talk? i havnt seen giles in days but im not mad abt it.

Suppose it is time yes. Private venue preferred. Your room?

shure. you know where it is. ill even leave the saith in the corner this time.

Wow the text-to-speech is no one's ally in this situation. Eventually Erin gives up on trying to figure out the object in that last sentence and just trudges down to Bash's door. She stops to peacebond her sword before she knocks.

Surely the vermin took the very clear chance to blacken Erin's name already.

Surely.

Bash answers the door, taking in Erin's appearance for a moment, before putting a smile on his face and into his voice that he doesn't quite feel. It's not her, it's really not her; Bash and Giles didn't end up discussing her in detail. But he's...well, he's in a state.

Again, that coffee-and-tobacco scent is present, mingling with her gunpowder-and-sex to make one hell of a BPAL scent in that room.

"Erin. Hi. C'mon in? I got a thermos of coffee that's still mostly warm, if you want any." This is his offer of hospitality. This is him playing nice.

"Wouldn't mind," Erin confesses as she comes inside. Her ears are flat against the side of her head, and she immediately picks a corner near the door to Be In with all the air of a frightened alley cat.

"...Our mutual interest attacked Ossie, or at least I'd be shocked if it was anyone else," Erin says. Business. Start with business. "He's not likely to survive the reprisals about to ensue."

Business.

Work up to keeping your word, Peters.

He walks the thermos of coffee over to the corner, getting no closer than he has to, in order to hand it off. To him, she resembles nothing so much as a stray cat brought into a house for the first time, all the fur sticking up as it hides under the bed.

"The death's a waste, but I suppose it's not my place to have an opinion."

Erin takes the drink with outstretched hands and cradles it close to her body. After a long minute she remembers her manners and takes a sip; now she's a guest. Her body relaxes, marginally.

"I don't think killing him will solve anything for long," Erin admits. "But to be...honest...if I take him out it's for me, not for everyone. He had. The gall to compare himself to me, after..."

She turns her head sharply and tries to shake herself off.

"If he dies and his body is brought here to revive, I plan to tie him up until I know which one of them wakes up in his body. And if I'm not sure, he might stay tied for a while." And if it's the vermin, the scrap...well, they'll all burn that bridge when they come to it.

Maybe Bash will learn to kill. Wouldn't that be something?

That makes Erin go still. She uses the coffee to get time to think.

She's more confident when she turns her head back, her voice low and clear. "If you can't tell, send him back to death. Our bodies fix themselves. Confinement would be a cruelty difficult for me to describe, and it would follow him no matter how many more times he died. I'd ask the same if it were me. My kind don't survive cages, not as who we are."

He starts to respond to that, but doesn't even manage to get a full word out, not quite, not right away.

A pause, a deep breath. "If I can't tell."

"Thank you, St. Expedit. It's a kindness few do us." Erin caps the thermos again and takes a deep breath. "...What did he tell you about privateers."

There's a sputtering sort of laugh, the sort that comes when the humor's really not appropriate. "Bash, please. St. Expedit is my father."

That out of the way...

"He didn't tell me shit. I wasn't interested in listening to him that night."

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