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

[crushed_pearls]

"You would have gotten a message at least. I'm not gonna stand you up, Tear." Erin's voice is soft; she knows full well how it could carry in this theater, and this...this business is about to be personal. Tear hadn't gone to Tauva, no, but she was there at the game show.

She heard.

Erin steps softly up onto the stage and settles down to just sit on it. After the entire day before in a chair, she craves the comfort of floor time.

"...I kinda figured the smoking lounge might not have been your scene. You holdin' up?"

[qliphoths]

her lips curve into a smile, reflexive of erin's concerns -- of erin knowing her so well.
it was a small thing, but it demonstrated to tear how close they'd already gotten somehow.

she says nothing as her friend seats herself on the floor, hands coming to rest primly on her lap
as she watches, waiting the space of a breath.

" I'm alright. A little apprehensive about what the captain will do next, but alright. "

their last 'event' with him, the game he'd orchestrated with the art pieces, had ended far too peacefully
as far as she's concerned. it was something to be thankful for, but very suspicious given the information
everyone had been sharing about him ...

" How did it go in the lounge? "

she keeps her tone cool and even, but she's curious.

[crushed_pearls]

"Better than I could have dreamed, frankly. Hard. It...was hard, but." Erin sighs. "...That said I doubt it's all over. Among other things I met Colonel Curtiss before it all went down at the game show. He was very protective of you, which warms my heart, but...well, he didn't show at Tauva. I suppose we'll see if he chooses violence or not."

Erin's fingers go digging in her velvet coin purse, and she gets out a nickel, which she walks over her knuckles.

"...I didn't know you played the harp. That song was beautiful. Melancholy."

Still circling the larger point. Erin's...not sure how much to tell Tear. After what hearing her story did to Phil she's so much less confident about sharing every last detail.

Tear's been through enough.

[qliphoths]

" You met the Colonel? "

her eyes grow round with wonder at that, her stoicism cracking with surprise. she wonders how it
went, and what they spoke about, especially for him to be protective. in a way, it was a little
sweet of him (not that she'd ever tell him that to his face though).

" I don't think you need to worry. I can't imagine he'd choose to be violent, to be honest. "

jade was a man of practicality. he is a scientist through and through.
despite the rumours of his brutality, he had always appeared to be someone quick and efficient,
more prone to untangling situations than blindly acting. tear knew better than anyone that he was
simply utilitarian in his methods -- a commonality that they both shared.

if he were to choose violence, it would likely mean either all other methods had been exhausted or he
had evaluated there was no point in even exploring them. and tear doubts such is the case here.

" Oh, I ... I don't, really. I was just playing it by ear. "

sound had always been something of a specialty for her: it was easy to hear the pitch and
frequency even of living beings around her, to reverse those frequencies and cancel out effects.
it wasn't a skill she'd been able to explore all too deeply, but learning instruments was easy.

erin's hesitation isn't lost on her though, and tear hesitates for only a second before just
plowing through and just asking. as always, blunt by nature.

" What exactly did the Captain mean when he called you a 'slaver'? "

she can guess, but she'd rather not put words into erin's mouth or make assumptions about her case.

" I'm guessing that's why you're worried the Colonel would be violent towards you? "

[crushed_pearls]

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?"

+1 cool point

[qliphoths]

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...?

Tear I'm So Sorry

[crushed_pearls]

"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."

[qliphoths]

" ... 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.

[crushed_pearls]

"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."

[qliphoths]

" 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? "

[crushed_pearls]

"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."

[qliphoths]

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?

[crushed_pearls]

"...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."

[qliphoths]

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? "

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

[crushed_pearls]

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

[qliphoths]

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? "

[crushed_pearls]

"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."