Summer Camp Petoskey Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
petoskeymods) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
camppetoskey2018-06-23 11:04 am
petoskeymods) wrote in camppetoskey2018-06-23 11:04 am
WEEK 3 - TRIAL
It takes a full day after finding the body, but on Saturday, the counselors call you all to the campfire, the bonfire already roaring away as everyone finds their seats. Red is seated there, but Stan isn't here...? The box saying 'VOTES' sits quietly on his seat.
It looks like you're here to find the killer.
And just like before, you know you'll be forced to vote before the night's over...
And condemn someone to a grisly fate.
CAMPERS REMAINING: 21
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You know. I don't mind too much if people get a laugh at my expense. But today's just not the day. The rule was stupid to begin with anyway.
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He wants to stay here. It would be better, if he stuck to the sidelines, closed his eyes. Let trials run the way they want to. Let death take what it wants, the way it always does.
He won't. But for a split second, while they're sitting here, he thinks about it.]
None of the rules have any flexibility or mercy. This one is the same. [and he's serious about it, because Lance is serious about it and he responds in kind] I don't think any of us are laughing.
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He appreciates that it's not what Lenka's saying or doing though and actually manages a weak smile.]
In a way, that almost makes it worse. There's less and less to be laughing about.
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It's hard to live, in a place like this.
[It's something he's never been good at, and something that others are always showing him new aspects of no matter where he is and no matter how dark things get. Against all odds, he's still here and still learning, so occasionally he should remember to make the best of it. Not now, but eventually.]
... But I think it's important, too.
[He's really not being clear enough about what he means but, oh well.]
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Living in difficult places is important now?
[That sounds absurd enough on face value that he's certain that can't be what Lenka means, but then the longer he thinks about it, he supposes he can't deny that he has, in fact, learned to value all the many small things about living a free life on Earth because he's been to planets like the Balmeran planet, Olkarion, Arus and so many others, that just don't enjoy any kind of freedom.
Knowing that he's fighting to protect that freedom for his family at home, and fighting to give that freedom to others is a powerful motivation for his willingness to fight wars in space, millions of light-years away from home. It's just.. not the kind of hard lesson he'd wish upon anyone else.]
You gotta have both. If all you know is how bad it is, there's no room for optimism. No hope.
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[He turns the words over a little this time before he says them, because as much as putting them together in new and better ways to lift spirits and soothe has never been his strongest suit he's been trying lately. Lately being relative, but still.]
That's part of really living, isn't it? Hoping for things, talking about the future. Finding things to laugh about.
[So in a sense, they're working at the same conclusion. Merely existing and fighting in places like this -- in difficult and terrible situations -- isn't quite enough. You need to know what it looks like beyond that, or at least have the means to picture it. Back home, he'd thought he'd mostly gotten the picture. Here, things are much more unclear.]
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Yeah, I'd say so. This place is doing its best to take all of that away from us, but we can't let them have it all.
[Even though that's hard right now, when feeling sick with loss and grief. In a twisted kind of way, it'd have almost been easier to cope if Clarke had been viciously murdered because there would have been a small sense of closure from catching the person who did it to her. That's not the right way of looking at it of course, the fact that Clarke chose to go out that way is much kinder - inspiriing on some level, even - it's just that it doesn't make the knot in his stomach less tight.
But he also knows Clarke wouldn't want him to dwell on any of this or on those feelings of self loathing as he set her aflame and watched her turn to stone. As they're talking about right now, that's not what life's about.
So he reaches over and gives enka a playful punch on the shoulder.]
so you better start taking your own advice and find some things to laugh at once in a while, instead of looking so stone faced all the time.
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There's... a lot this place has taken by now, and he's not sure about the things it's given back: he cares about the people here, of course he does, because you can't live with the same people -- especially people your age -- for three weeks on end and more and not come to care at least a little. But he also knows that this is the kind of place that methodically rips things away, no matter what.
It's something that's hard to fight against, and even more so when they're herded into trials like this. Given a choice between death and more death. He takes a breath and puts that aside for this brief moment in time.]
I... hope I'm not too stone-faced. [it's just a touch dry, actually, he manages that much] I don't know how good I am at finding things to laugh at. I'm better at the future and things like that.
[Actually, maybe all of that is a little dry. That might the closest he can come to being any kind of lighthearted about it. Here in trial, at this point in their stay.]