crushed_pearls | Come Sail Away IC Inbox

Erin's voice mail message is in a weary voice: "Erin Peters. If you called in the middle of the night and I didn't answer, I'm dying. If I pick up and someone on your end isn't dying, they will be shortly. Text otherwise."

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From:

decrypter

"For once, no. It's more that I remembered something."

She exhales, folding her hands on her stomach.

"Logically, I know it's over and done with. I even know I'll never return there. But still, it wants to stick like putting your hand on tree sap."

From:

crushed_pearls

"The past lies like a nightmare over the present," Erin quotes in a distant murmur. "...Would it help to explain, even if it can't be solved?"

From:

decrypter

"It's..." There's a depth she runs cold at the idea of letting even Erin into. Things she wants to push down in a trunk and lock the key on. So, she takes the easier road.

"Someone said something to me today. Well meaning, definitely tied to where they came from, but...the way they said it, it made me think about all the times I've had to weather people pitying me. How it feels to have people worrying over you, calling you 'poor girl' and feeling sorry for you. As if you need to be sheltered from all weather, even the sun."

And those who make weakness into its own weapon.

"Of course, it's not their fault. I'm too old not to know that. I don't blame them. It just...sticks."

From:

crushed_pearls

It's a good thing Helena put it like that or Erin would have a new limp from breaking her foot off in some fool's ass. Even with that, there's no mistaking the sharp intake of breath, the protective growl.

But then, beating someone's ass over this is one of those umbrella in the sun moves that Helena just complained of, isn't it?

"...I can't say that's unimaginable. I can see easily how people might look at you and then decide you're some delicate thing fit for a dollhouse or a high tower. Where imagination fails is them thinking that after more than a minute speaking to you."

From:

decrypter

"How someone grew up can't be dispelled in a single conversation."

She wants to extend grace, even if it leaves her feeling like this.

"It's different here, don't get me wrong. When you talk about an aegis, it makes me think about being shielded - but you're not putting me up in that high tower. You're there right next to me instead." Which makes all the difference.

From:

crushed_pearls

"My people stand together or we die together. If you're good at fighting, you shield the technical boys in the back; if you're good at magic, you provide magic. You're not helpless just 'cause you're not a warrior, your role is just different, y'know? Protecting the people built like lo mein is my job, or it would be."

From:

decrypter

"A different role is a good way to put it."

It's why when they had found out that she was so skilled at deciphering the puzzles, she had been told that as much as she could, that was to be her focus. When the machine hummed under her touch and she understood it, a swifter and more delicate touch than others who could be brave and keep the hunters off her back.

"I thought I'd sleep and I'd feel better, but..." The results of that are plain to see. "I don't know. I shouldn't let a few careless remarks ruin my mood."

From:

crushed_pearls

"The thoughtless transgressions often hurt more; without the presumption of malice our stupid traitor brains take them as more true." Erin sighs. "...Helena, you're a treasure, and though there's no need to prove your worth you definitely already did. What did they even say that's got you so hurt?"

From:

decrypter

"...calling my blindness an affliction. Asking me if a cure wouldn't empower me."

They had brushed by this, gently, when Erin had made her offer of the dream doll. It was different there - Erin was offering an experience, and with the full knowledge of who she was. The uncertainty, the doubts, they were all listened to.

The difference here is someone who doesn't. Speaking like she needs a cure. Like they look at her, and see what's wrong.

"I'm not hurt. I'm just annoyed." But she says it softly, knowing it's a flimsy sort of falsehood. "But I shouldn't be upset with someone who can't read my mind and who can only judge based on their own."

From:

crushed_pearls

Erin on the other hand is audibly restraining a need to commit violence.

After a series of long and painted sounds: "You don't need to change for anyone's fucking convenience."

From:

decrypter

"I know." Still softly said. She'll leave out the part where the girl was at braille class - she doesn't need Erin to distrust any of the students. Coming at her with anger isn't going to change her mind, isn't going to show her that she's been incorrect. At least, that's what Helena's conscience is telling her.

"I'm twenty years old - if I was unhappy with how I was living my life, it's not as though I'm forever bound to what I knew. We've got physicians here, we've got magicians, we have people from places where technology can make a whole person. I'd be looking for to change it if I felt afflicted."

From:

crushed_pearls

A long silence.

Then: "Yeah. It's not on anyone but you to judge your quality of life. And, well, we damn well know you can handle yourself, you've been teaching me new tricks and I'm the big scary badass. Who knows how high you'll fly?"

From:

decrypter

"As high as my jetpack allows, I'd hope."

It's all a metaphor, Erin. Don't think she literally has one, even as Sundries decided to give her a gun.

From:

crushed_pearls

"...I can see it clear as day, you with a voice activated jetpack, pelting people with cupcakes as you zoom by..."

From:

decrypter

"That'd be a waste of good cupcakes."

But there's a smile in her voice again as she says it. Verbalizing what's going on actually does still help people, fake as it might seem.

From:

crushed_pearls

"Clearly then the only proper solution is to get you some water guns so you may achieve maximum mischief." Erin sighs fondly. "You lemme know if anyone gives you grief with malice aforethought, yeah? I don't stand for that shit, both in the specific and uh, in general. I'll throw hands over Security's lack of gender, Ylva being a wolf, you being fine the way you are, and also if I catch anyone putting the milk in before the cereal."

From:

decrypter

"Oh, the last one needs more than your hands to solve all their problems."

She tries to say it very seriously, but ends up giggling anyway.

From:

crushed_pearls

"Yes, clearly the only solution in that case is to chase the offender through the halls as a living trumpet, dooting their sins for all to hear."

From:

decrypter

She has no doubt Erin would do that, and it's why she ends up laughing out loud, temporarily freed of the doubts that plagued her. It helps, to be able to laugh even after all that.

"You can't do it for too long - what if the wrong person tried to play you -"

And then she laughs again, because she just thought about the Erin-trumpet shrieking at the idea.

From:

crushed_pearls

"My defense against this," Erin says in a Sage Voice Of Wisdom (patent pending), "is to point out that to play me they'd need to be literally kissing my ass."

From:

decrypter

It's not fair, to make her laugh like that. It's not fair at all, but she's helpless against it, and her thoughts from before are swept away in a tide of just laughing at how stupid it all is - sometimes you just need something completely different. And she's trying to regain composure, she really is, but she keeps giggling, calming down and then having to breathe very slow to come back to herself.

If Erin says anything else it's liable to set her off again.

From:

crushed_pearls

Oh Erin's not going to say anything.

She turns her head into a trumpet and doors out a series of notes that sound like 'kiss my assssss', holding the last one for a bit, before turning her head back to normal.

From:

decrypter

If she could protest, she would, but instead she just dissolves, hands over her face, feeling the tears at the corners of her eyes. Her stomach hurts, but she hardly cares, because it's just funny, wringing out all the tension she's been carrying around all day.

Slow breaths. Slow, shaky breaths. It's not that funny. It is that funny. She's going to die right here of laughter and Erin will be her murderer.

From:

crushed_pearls

"You good there lass? Or have I proven to be your...doot?"

Should Erin be trying to murder her roommate with comedy alone? No. Would it be the best murder in the history of this voyage? Yes.