After...party...?

[diesifkilled]

[SO THAT SURE WAS AN EXECUTION, HUH

Shirou's just been kind of staring off into space, still holding on to Usagi's hand, ever since Kon and Natsume's deaths. Just when it starts to look like he might stay like that all hecking night, he suddenly blinks and looks around.]

I'm going to go get some food.

[And indeed, he disappears off to the lodge and returns a little later with a huge pile of beautifully made sandwiches and other snacks. Did he have them prepared, or did he just make them really fast somehow? Who knows.

Anyway, there are now sandwiches. And the shack might still be on fire. This is fine.]

Comments

[petoskeymods]

[That gets some hippie nonsense about using petoskey stones to hypnotize people.]

[le_mat]

If you want. Give that sword shooting jerk a little blue balls, he won't die.

[lovebun]

But he seems like an okay person...

[ Oh well, back to Candy Crush unless anything else happens. ]

[particlebarrier]

[Hippie nonsense you say...

No, okay -- he'll try this instead:

"Where is the the Petoskey stone that the Michigan Department of Natural Resources confiscated in December 1955."]

[soylentprotag]

[He'll open up FGO. It has a decent loading time in which they can both keep staring awkwardly at it. Tap, tap, tap. Most of it means nothing to him. It's almost soothing. He might just be scrolling through menus, though.]

... Patience while people are killed.

[He has his teeth gritted, so it comes out low and rough and cracked through with anything but patience.]

I can't wait through that.

[He interprets patience as wait, when all he can bring himself to do is take less and quieter action (usually), but not none.

Somewhere in the agitation he probably also accidentally friends or unfriends some players. Oops. Enjoy the support roulette.]

[petoskeymods]

[The internet crashes and the phone reboots.]

[particlebarrier]

Huh?

[WAITING WITH BAITED BREATH FOR PHONE TO BOOT UP SO HE CAN TRY SEARCHIGN THAT AGAIN????]

[petoskeymods]

[Now the internet browser won't open.

:D]

[seekingsunrise]

[He doesn't understand, that much is clear. It doesn't make any sense to him but Nine is upset and that is distressing. So he kisses his bare shoulder, reaches up to coax the blond into turning around in his arms so he can cry on Talcott's shoulder where his own jacket rests now.]

It's okay... it's gonna be alright, darlin...

[This time when he sways it's meant to be soothing, just like the hand stroking slowly up and down his back. And this time when he starts humming it's not Stand By Me.... but something more familiar to Nine.]

[particlebarrier]

[Um??? No? No ": D"????

Gdit he had so many other things he wanted google and he didn't even get a chance to delete that browsing history. Ugh god. He's just going to hand the phone back to Mitsuru and sink into the earth a little.]

[particlebarrier]

[As long as Lenka's silent, Lance may be too focused on what he's doing to notice him right away. There's just too much going on in his mind and the physical distraction of training feels like just about the only thing that's keeping him together right now.

But eventually, he does spot Lenka. And he does pause. Normally he'd smile, but "normal" feels like a concept from centuries ago. Of course, Lance knows he's not the only one who feels anry or is grieving, and that knowledge alone would get him to try and make other people (and thus himself) feel better, but he's having a bit of a selfish moment.]

What did Clarke die for?

[The question is utterly toneless, and he still hasn't put the sword down yet.]

[warmyyarny]

Maybe. That seemed like something I'd do in the heat of the moment, you know.

[In other words, something hotheaded and hasty. Hah!]

You feelin' better now?

[soylentprotag]

[He doesn't turn away, or flinch, or step back at the question.

It's a variation on a question he's asked himself, at himself and at others, a hundred times, a thousand times in these short few weeks. All his life. It's a question that's never far from his mind and never will be, because death is something that dogs his steps and shadows every single thing in his life; so all he does is keep silent for a moment. Digging for one answer among dozens. More than dozens.

There are a lot of skeletons in the attic.

Eventually, softly and without expression:]

I don't know. That's up to all of us.

[It's not an answer, because there is no answer that will satisfy either of them. No answer that will satisfy any one of them at this point. He doesn't try for it. There's no sign of tears this time. Just his steady, flat stare.]

[fallbymyhands]

[there's. . . no arguing with that, honestly. even Mitsuru, who doesn't mind being patient, understands how difficult it is to watch people die again and again while they all wait for answers]

They are alive.

[in a manner of speaking. but they are; they have to be]

We can cure them. There must be a way.

[soylentprotag]

[He closes his eyes. A stray tap adds a handful more low-level CEs to Red's inventory from the friend summon. That might happen a few times in this conversation.]

I don't like that way of thinking.

[He's not completely disagreeing, because the more they have to deal with the dead walking among them, the more they have to deal with how much closer they are to the dead, the more... the more they understand just how bad the coral infection is -- the more it's unacceptable to give up on those who are gone.

At the same time, banking too much on killing people by telling yourself it can be undone later... maybe it's the world he comes from. Maybe he's too inflexible. He doesn't want to put much stock by that.]

[particlebarrier]

[The reply gets a darkly bitter laugh from Lance. It doesn't last long, but the frustration behind it goes deeper than just what happened today. Weeks of people dying, his own potentially fatal run in with Nine, the zombies -- all of it just crushing him under an enormous pile of responsibility that he never asked for, and never really wanted. but is now going to have to embrace because absolutely nobody here knows what they're doing and the consequences just keep piling higher and higher.]

...Well. We sure bungled that one up. She died to save Natsume and Kon and we sent them straight to their graves.

[Briefly, his grip tightens on the sword, but he does lower it and the sword resumes its normal bayard form.]

I know that's not technically on us, I know that's on Red's superiors. But that doesn't make if feel any better.

[fallbymyhands]

[maybe she'll draw ANGRY MANGO]

. . . I know. It sounds cruel. But I don't mean that it's okay for anyone to die just because we may be able to cure them.

I mean, there must be something positive we can look to in this situation. A goal to strive towards, to keep us going.

[soylentprotag]

[His stare doesn't waver when that laugh hits the air -- he absorbs it, like everything else tonight, still and silent and unreflecting like the lake next to them. There's no one really here but them and Red, he'd understood at some point, and no one and nothing would save them but themselves. That part is something he's almost always understood. He'd been taught it a long, long time ago now.

Responsibility. The messy, wide radius of it is almost shapeless now, splashed across the lot of them like so much mud and grime. But he's used to living down in the mud. He just doesn't know which direction, exactly, is up. No, nobody here knows what they're doing.]

We made the choice. I made that choice. [there's no softness in his tone] Clarke wanted them to live. We wanted them to live. This world didn't.

[All of it is said in the same quiet, flat tone. There's no accusation there. Just bald statements of the truth. Post-trial moments may be him at his most unvarnished; he's normally at least a little more tactful than this. That makes two of them.]

They died, so the rest of us will live.

[And he's not trying to comfort. Because no, that's not any better. It's just the way it is.]

[soylentprotag]

[He absolutely doesn't have enough luck left over for that this week.]

This is a cruel camp.

[His tone softens a little. It's not that he's trying to rebuff her; he's just worried, even beneath the simmering blood-raw emotions clogging everything. Something he's thought since the first week: the way they decide to approach these trials, to approach death and dealing with each other and this camp, is going to determine their ultimate survival. Not plans. Not information. Not anything they can measure.

People are terrible and fickle beasts that way. But it's also what she said. Something positive. Something to look forward to. For now, though:]

... We have acceptable losses in numbers.

[He... might not be in the mood to pull punches, though.]

[particlebarrier]

[It's pretty late by the time Lance makes his way back to the campfire, but when he spots Nine he approaches immediately.]

I'll get a new shirt for you from Stan to replace the other one.

[fallbymyhands]

[. . .]

[nothing he says is wrong]

[and yet, Mitsuru can't help but feel like it's a punch to the gut. perhaps. . . it's one she deserves]

Ideally, there is no such thing as acceptable losses.

[but they aren't living the ideal. and they never have been]

At this point, I'm not sure what else there is for us to do.

[particlebarrier]

[He drops eye contact for a moment, staring down at the sand. There's so much bitterness boiling over at once that it's hard to know where to start with any of it.]

This world doesn't care. It doesn't take sides like that. If we'd all voted the same way, we could have minimized the loss.

[This world still has its rules; their mistake was in trying to outwit those rules. Not presenting a unified front. It'd been right there on the goddamn hippie text files. They see Ren as a "unifying risk." Why - why hadn't they picked up on this and utilized their knowledge better? He grits his teeth briefly, then looks back up at Lenka.]

We should have all voted for Ichigo. [He said as much before storming off after the execution. On some level, he knows that's "wrong" but he hadn't felt a lick of shame for it when he said it then, and he still doesn't feel any now.]

Those two could've been saved that way and Ichigo could've upheld his promise to protect Kon.

[soylentprotag]

[Her hesitation gives him pause in turn. He... was probably too harsh, and there's a reason for that today, but he still stops to consider his words. There's always a part of him that never wants to drown out hopes, no matter what, because sometimes that's all you have to keep going.

And here, there's not a whole lot of it to begin with.]

It's something we have to think about.

[--is what he says, finally. It's not a concession so much as a clarification -- they're not on different pages, no, but perhaps they're reading in different directions.]

If a sacrifice is demanded every week.

[They'll still need to do their best to try and prevent deaths -- murder or other -- but there's no denying that it hasn't been working so far. He thinks there are still other options. Just, frustratingly, they're still elusive.]

[linearcrash]

[ Like any of them would actually let him detach. ]

Hey, you'll see her again. I'll make sure of it. What about Drew? Is he looking forward to anything?

[ Gotta include the little one. ]

[soylentprotag]

[He's quiet for a moment.

He's not so sure the world itself doesn't care -- there's a vague memory of Red's face, when she'd tossed her cellphone, her face when she'd given him her answers, everything, and he shouldn't be remembering that just like he probably shouldn't have trusted her at all... but.

In his heart of hearts, or perhaps in the back of his mind all along, Lenka knows what the easier solution would be. People want to survive. Most of them want to live, a handful notwithstanding, and even that handful has something to live for. People band together like that. They're easier to aim.

There's just a lot holding him back from that sort of aiming.]

We were trying to minimize the loss. But it's not that easy to move people, Lance.

[He stares down at his wrist. The right one, the one that had been covered with bandages and now with an elbow-length glove.]

This group... do you think they're more open to those who want to sacrifice themselves, now? [there's no indication as to the intent behind the question, still soft and toneless] Can you guarantee that a vote for Ichigo would have happened?