Utsugi "May the Vores Be With You" Lenka (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
soylentprotag) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
camppetoskey2018-07-07 03:11 pm
soylentprotag) wrote in camppetoskey2018-07-07 03:11 pm
After(life) Party--
[Lenka isn't talking much, though he spends most of the time after the execution either expressionless or frowning, moving among the ones still left at the campfire to check on people and try to make sure none of them are trying to either follow Boa or possibly throw literal or metaphorical stones at each other. Probably everyone's too exhausted for any of that at this point.
At some point he disappears for a little bit and comes back with an entire table and supplies -- not from the kitchen, but from the stash he'd accumulated in Cabin 2. It's not much, but it feels better than eating anything from the kitchen right now. Nobody wants that.
There's just some crackers and fruit snacks and some cheese with them. A few baggies to take them to go since most people aren't hungry right this moment. Once that's set out, he'll idle at one end of the table, staring out into the lake.]
At some point he disappears for a little bit and comes back with an entire table and supplies -- not from the kitchen, but from the stash he'd accumulated in Cabin 2. It's not much, but it feels better than eating anything from the kitchen right now. Nobody wants that.
There's just some crackers and fruit snacks and some cheese with them. A few baggies to take them to go since most people aren't hungry right this moment. Once that's set out, he'll idle at one end of the table, staring out into the lake.]
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[he's too tired to even cry at the mention of her again. but facts, regurgitating truths? he can manage that.]
The souls are still somewhere else. The real ones. In that ... Metaplace. Where the god's just a kid.
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Yes. Sol, the god, is holding them. Do you remember the Mishibijw?
[He's been using the name deliberately, familiarizing himself with it as best he can even if he'll never be an expert at Ojibwe. If they need to, he can at least call the lake spirit by name. Get them eaten a little less.]
I think they were wrong. No matter how angry Sol is, the other souls are still here. [he doesn't explicitly mention what's actually walking around, not now] They're not just in the Metaverse.
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[talking details is helping distance him from the pain. no names. no people. just facts. he can handle this a little better. he also appreciates that Lenka's using the Ojibwe name... he needs to start doing that more, himself, and makes a mental note to remove 'lake cat' from his vocabulary]
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Take stock of the day. The mission. Go over the briefing and what went right, what went wrong, what they know and what they can do next time. Anything they can use to keep themselves alive and in one piece a little better. It's not even always a military thing: the meetings back before he was a God Eater used to give him a sense of purpose, too. Something to focus on.]
I'm not sure about the Metaverse. You'd have to ask about that. [eventually, perhaps, the children will be able to talk to Ren again -- he leaves that option open, since Ren isn't the only one who went to the Metaverse] But if you remember the documents from the meeting... the souls are like... reflections with bad signal. Sometimes the signal drops. I think the original is with Sol.
And we're getting closer to understanding where Sol really is.
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[is he still bitter about that? you bet. he came for the info, after all]
Bad signal, though. If that means they've got some sort of ... like, soul rabbit ears? Maybe we can find a way to make the signal better.
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[Accidentally calls Mitsuru (tall) by her first name by proxy. She'll probably forgive him for the economy of names this time. One of the two has vanished for the moment, but he'll be back eventually; and both of them share their notes pretty freely, anyway.]
... Er, soul rabbit ears?
[He is not familiar with this electronics-related terminology.]
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[we're not going there, definitely not. but ever since Mitsuruf explained the last-name thing to him, he's taken to calling Mitsuru (tall) by her last name. it seems best.]
Yeah. Don't you have those on T.V.s? Little antennas that help the channels come in better.
[he holds his index fingers up to his head like bull horns and waggles them. RABBIT EARS. the gesture reconnects him, like a spark, to the parts of himself the grief and pain had blocked out. the silliness. the youth.
he's coming back, slow as molasses, but certain]
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Lenka gives a quiet nod when Richie himself trips over Mitsuru (the smaller)'s name.]
Yeah. You should read through them. And... talk to Mitsuru, if you can find him. He'll need that.
[He won't dig into the details of that particular awkward mess, not right now and not this soon, but he'll say what he said to Eddie. Give people a little nudge towards Mitsuru when he can, because while he'll do his best to reach out to him, Lenka is only one person. And not one particularly good at this sort of thing, at that. Even if Mitsuru is as prickly as he is, he is one of them, still.
And having Richie and Eddie there -- even though he's aware of how much of a mess everything is with Boa right now -- will be important. Lenka lets out a breath when he sees that spark, the little bit of it. He can worry a little bit less this way.]
We do have them on some TVs. [usually the ones that don't work] I didn't know that's what they were called. But you're right. We're looking for a way to improve the signal. The altar in the chapel... do you remember what it looked like?
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[he's worried about him, after all. it's the first time he's seen someone straight up disappear after an execution, and ... the way he was holding on to Boa just confirms that they cared about each other the way he and Eddie do. he can't even imagine how that must feel ... so he'll come back to focusing on that blessed technical question]
Yeah, it's made out of the same rock coral stuff. I have a feeling if we try to put rabbit ears on that Red would break it, though.
[he pauses]
Unless we made it look like it belonged there. Like some crazy church thing.
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I'm not sure we'll need real rabbit ears. But there should be a way to use the altar. When we went to look at it... [because he'd gone with Ren, hadn't he, and the Third Eye is--] Sol, ah, yelled at us. Because we were looking at -- at it.
[He's momentarily distracted by the memory, that perhaps he should have been more attentive then -- was there a way to avoid the execution, was there a way to... avoid any of this, but it's not the time to be dragging things like that into the light of he fire.]
We could both hear it.
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[he's not quite mature enough to understand there's a reason they made it an ALTAR, to be worshipped, to be fed energy to. but he knows that if more than one person tells you something, it's more likely to be true, so ... the more people talking to this thing, the better, maybe]
Why doesn't it want you looking at it?
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[He's not entirely sure what you're supposed to do at an altar either, besides make offerings (and sing to it, in the case of their resident coral campers), but he's pretty sure that gods don't usually yell at you through them. It... probably couldn't hurt to try having more people there.]
We should probably try. I think he was still mad at us back then. I was with Ren on Tuesday.
[That would probably be why Sol was mad. At least partly.]
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[There's an inquisitive tilt of the head as he thinks that over, because it's not really something he's ever done, per se -- but the name at least helps with a guess. He's honestly not sure what sort of exercises Lance would have done at home, but they're probably not combat exercises. Not on the face, anyway. Hm.]
Is that like -- like exercises to work as a team? Some way to get Sol to trust us.
[Because the problem right now is that Sol emphatically doesn't, does it? Even if it's been right here, watching them all this time. They've been forced to keep feeding it, and feeding it, even though it apparently doesn't particularly want to be fed.
Maybe there's a way to show it something else.]
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I'm ... trying to think of something, too.
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[At least in the amount of blood and dirt on their hands and the way things hurt long after they're done, the darkness and the rain. It's an entirely different type of war from the one he's used to; he's open to ideas.]
Maybe if we show Sol who we are, the way we've showed each other. I think most of us trust at least a few other people, no matter what happens here.
[It's not really something that's easy to put into words, and it's not a completely concrete plan of action. But it's something. They have been showing Sol bits and parts of themselves all this time. But that's different from doing it intentionally.]
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[He has a feeling that the minor feud between Ren and Sol was a lot more complicated than just Sol not wanting to hear them out. But that's not the important part, for the present moment. Right now, it's more...]
But starting with pictures is a good idea, for getting comfortable. Um... an ice breaker?
[He's never worked in a normal office or team, but he kind of gets the concept? It's a little like trying to tame a feral kitten, but one that you really can't feed any more. Hm.]
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