Come Sail Away IC Inbox

[crushed_pearls]

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."

Comments

in person, 11/22, night.

[decrypter]

[you know how they talk at night before settling down? Helena's lying on the bed, and then bursts out with:]

You were willing to let a cougar man eat you alive?!

[this has been rotating in her mind all day, okay.]

Re: in person, 11/22, night.

[crushed_pearls]

"He would have killed me first," Erin dismisses, without nearly enough dismissal. "Cougars kill their prey with a neck bite, I woulda been down for the count. I take it Siffleur met up with you?"

[decrypter]

"He did, and explained everything. Why didn't you tell me?"

Erin tells her enough about the ship. Her neglecting to talk about a cougar fight was a significant omission.

[crushed_pearls]

Erin sighs and flops back on her bed. "It was before the game show, I wanna make that clear. I wasn't trying to buy your friendship or be some hero or punish myself. I didn't tell you beforehand 'cause I would have felt silly if I lost, and I didn't tell you after because I thought it was more polite to let Siffleur tell the story."

Erin sits up, just a lil', propped up on an elbow. "If I say I've got reasons that I ran past sane people, you wanna hear 'em?"

[decrypter]

"Yes. I'd ask you for them regardless."

Lying on her bed still, it's actually easier for her to hear Erin this way - neither of them has to feign polite actions for the sighted. So instead, she folds her hands on her stomach and waits.

[crushed_pearls]

Deep breath. Hopefully Helena gets it rather than feeling babied, but...

"So...as to why you and not someone else, you're my roommate. Kinda young, gentle...I want this place to be as safe for you as I can make it, and the store already has a monster living in it without worrying about Siffleur. I also thought if he was safe to be around you might find him interesting. We hit it off after the fight and he's a fascinating person, with a perspective you might not find elsewhere."

[decrypter]

There's a part of her that feels flattered to be thought of so well - even though they come right back, so it almost seems useless. That she's well accustomed to being tracked down, cut off early, or the mutual understanding of survival at all costs involving leaving someone, because in the end, they all wound up in the same place. Erin doesn't know her, so the why feels harder to grasp.

SecUnit's words ring in her ears, though - The thing to remember, when it seems like it's a lot more than you can accept, is that her kindness isn't always about you. It's about her need to be the person who is kind, now. So she can stifle any strange impressions, nod, keep her expression carefully neutral. Listening, instead of leaping to any conclusions.

"He's certainly...different. Unlike anyone else I've met so far."

[crushed_pearls]

"Yeah. He talked a bit, about the cycle of his life, spending time drifting between one role and another. Spend a few years as a man, soothed by society and social bonds and, presumably, pizza, and then when that starts making his skin crawl he fucks off to be a cougar for a few years until the siren call of language and fast food returns. Based on the evidence I have on hand, Siffleur was...notably hostile when he first boarded. He made the info sheet in October when we were trying to organize a defense, and, well, Dimitri is not given to exaggerating threats." Erin sighs. "That was a bad month."

"...Anyway. When Johnny told me about the game on offer I took it for a good move. He's actively trying to find a way to both be true to himself and live in harmony with his fellow passengers, and I wanted to encourage that. I also figured if he was willing to set those terms I might get to meet him after, win or lose, and maybe make a friend or at least deliberately not make an enemy. And, if we're being honest, I kinda just wanted to dust off some of the old skills and see how it felt to use them for a better reason. Hunting, stalking, laying traps...those don't have to be used for evil but I'm mildly short on opportunities to use those to either feed people or conduct forest rescue. Given that we come back, that I was able to ask Siffleur if he consented and get an answer...it didn't seem all that different from agreeing to a boxing match. Y'know?"

[decrypter]

For a moment, there's no sound but breathing, a silent consideration of what's been offered out. It makes sense, on a purely logical level. And if she's to be realistic, she isn't quite put out by it, if the deaths happen and get reversed. It's the same as it was, where they'd take blows for each other - they just didn't let the hunters eat their corpses in the end.

Eventually, she sighs, louder than necessary just so that Erin gets her point. Fine, it says. I won't argue with you on this. The less she argues, the more docile she seems, the less people will want to pry.

What a life for him, though, never quite fitting into one place. Undone by one's own nature, both times. Could someone be happy, like that? Despite everything, she can't help but feel a twinge for it.

"He hopes you'll challenge him again at some point, when you feel ready to go again. He spoke highly of your battle."

[crushed_pearls]

"It'll be a while, if ever. I'm not gonna worry Crabb and Cass unduly." Erin sighs, wistfully. "It was a hell of a fight though. He's smart, he's quiet, wicked fast. Faster than I could have really conceived of before experiencing it in action, honestly. Some of the ship's heavies are gonna learn humility, challenging him."

There's a long pause, as Erin thinks of what to say.

"...I don't want you to think that like, I feel you're incapable. There's others I might have made the same deal for if you weren't aboard. But...you're not like, a fighter, you said it yourself. And you're my roommate now. I figure the least I could do was place you under my aegis. If that makes. Human sense?"

[decrypter]

"It does. I don't think that you think I'm incapable - I was honest with you. The best I can do in a fight is to run away."

Everything she's ever faced, it's been stronger, unable to be destroyed. Unable to really be hurt for a long period of time. That sort of powerlessness - the only thing she can do is outthink them, and that doesn't make one a fighter, it just means you survive.

"I know my own limits. So it's more that...I'm touched, Erin. But I'm also going to worry about you, even as I know you can take care of yourself. If I'm under your aegis, you're under my concern, okay?"

[crushed_pearls]

"You're picking a pretty wild person to be concerned about." It's half joke, half warning. "I'm...not...always good at taking care of myself. I do try, it's just. Well. Yeah."

That whole mental wellness thing that came up after the game show.

"...Now's a good a time as any to bring this up, though. This isn't an offer yet, I don't expect a yes or a no or anything of that nature. But. I've noticed you don't exactly sleep well either. I can't fix that forever, but...I could teach you lucid dreaming. But to do that you'd need to let me into your dreams, which means, among other things, that I'd see them and experience them. The good and the bad."

[decrypter]

She goes quiet, and if Erin glances at her face, there's something unsettled there, unhappy. If someone else experienced all of that? No. They go through enough, they don't need to know the depths of her own mind.

"It's kind of you to offer, I really mean it, but...right now there are things in my dreams I want to keep just for me, if that makes sense. Not that I don't trust you, it's just....hard to explain."

Someone else, with their own nightmares, doesn't need more.

"...A friend of mine once told me about a crystal she had that warded off all nightmares. I wish we could find something like that, for the both of us."

[crushed_pearls]

"Mm. It sounds very pretty, but...you need your nightmares just as much as your dreams. They have a job to do, same as everything else. It sucks, but..." There's a heavy sigh. "You don't need a reason to decline, and I won't bring it up again. Just know that it's available to you, as well as more detailed information, whenever you want to know more. Our dreams are some of the most private things about us, and I don't make the offer lightly or expect it to be taken up without serious consideration. In thirty odd years of having this capability I've been in...nine people's dreams that aren't my own, including exactly one person here."

"...But if things get worse for you, do think of me."