( the inside of cabin 108 may remain sanitary by the ship-wide standards of the shades that do the housekeeping, but that's right about where the cleanliness ends. it's an over hoarded mess, has been since day two or three, but there are least some semblance of order to the chaos that ruby will inevitably wake up to. between the alarm of newly arriving, the call of the letter from ebalon and beetlejuice on the bedside table, and the supernatural drag of her legs to the muster station, a better look will probably be gotten upon her return:
all along the wall beneath the porthole window, there's stacks of supplies pilfered from around the ship or else "purchased" at all and sundries. stacks of notebooks, several brightly colored pool noodles shoved in a corner, at least thirty bottles of water and a serena eterna branded tote bag overflowing with prepackaged snacks and candy. travel sized deodorants, soaps, packs of dryer sheets, hair sprays and dry shampoos, lighters, pens and pencils, individually packaged over the counter pain meds, duct tape and glue, rubbing alcohol and salves, ace bandages and packing gauze.
on the desk in the room there's a... frankly alarming amount of small vials stolen from the infirmary, predominantly labeled morphine and penicillin. no needles in sight, several mostly-full boxes of bullets stacked, one or two freely rolling. the helmet of a hazmat suit sits in a silent, unflinching vigil as well.
starting on the wall behind the desk, a veritable wall papering of torn pieces of notebook paper, written on extensively and taped to the wall. what may look alarming and outright crazy at first is fairly logical upon closer inspection: they are nearly written passenger manifests, names crossed out when it became apparent people had left. they're rough, hand drawn but diligently label maps of every level of the ship, arrows leading to notes in the margins. they're pages of english translated poetry by julia de burgos, ripped from library books with certain passenges underlined in red. they're pages and pages of notes about the ship, what they know about the captain, gal friday, the shades, and pirate jenny. there seems to be a species tally as well, featuring human and augmented human right alongside gods, wizards, vampires, sea jelly — not a jellyfish? and sin-eater??
there's a recreation of the battle royale betting pool.
there's a tally sheet of every death on the ship that she knows of. next to it, a rendering of the internal organs in a human being, the left kidney circled.
(there's layers of paper too, nothing thrown out as new information is discovered and old thoughts amended. and interspersed, hidden but not with much effort: a smattering of sketches, pencil portraits of people who had never been on the ship. a composed, intimidating woman.a man with soft eyes.a rocket, breaching the atmosphere... there are so many portraits.)
...basically, if a conspiracy theorist opened a general store, this is probably what it would look like. alternatively, take a suspicious teenage warlord out of the resource-thin apocalypse and give her free reign of a store and limitless medical supplies, this is what you get. )
—
( clarke is inevitably out and about, having caught wind of new arrivals and casually assessing new faces. just people watching, but a little bit like a creep and with heavy handed judgement based on how each new person she spots is conducting themselves. eventually she has to return to her room to jot down some notes, makes a brief detour by the buffet hall for a cup of coffee, and has to juggle piping hot styrofoam, a notebook, and her ship issued cell phone to open the door to her cabin. and once inside, ready to breath for a second and bask in the newfound solitude since kara disappeared — )
Who the hell are you?
( there's a person. another girl standing in her room. why, who, where, and what the fuck run through clarke's head, and while she could absolutely parse out what this means — they need their cell phones to unlock their doors, not just anybody could get in — suspicion and instinct still have her dropping that cup of coffee. hand immediately falling to the grip of a gun in her waistband.
[ The state of the room is... a lot, to take in. Not that the rest of the day hasn't been a lot to take in, too! Or... even the twenty-four hours prior to arriving on the ship, actually. It's been one thing after another for Ruby for a while, now, and in the last forty-eight hours she's neither really slept (except for prior to waking up here, she supposes) or eaten anything but a small meal shortly after the muster drill.
She's tired, and on edge, and maybe kinda thinks she's dead, and trying to process everything in the cabin is simultaneously beyond what energy she has left in her and something she attempts to do anyway. The hoarded supplies is simple enough, it doesn't take a genius to recognise it for exactly that, but the papers on the wall are a little more... alarming? Confusing? Until she takes a closer look, at which point she starts to see it for what it is—information, and a lot of it—but she doesn't get to look at even half of what's there before the door opens.
It's the coffee cup hitting the floor that actually makes her jump and spin around, scanning the new arrival with a rapid threat assessment that does not at all miss where that hand is. Immediately, Ruby's reaching back to the handle of her own weapon—Crescent Rose—where it's folded down into its rifle form and strapped across her lower back. She doesn't want to pull it, but if this girl's going for a weapon... she's not going to take chances, either. ]
My name's Ruby. I just got here. [ despite the hand on Crescent Rose, her voice is calm and measured, she's kind of... used to talking down people who may or may not attack her ] This is the room I woke up in, but I guess it was yours first. Right?
( one reaches for a gun, the other reaches for a blade, and then neither of them move. there's enough tension in the air to be carved at with a butter knife, let alone a scythe or speeding bullet, but the hint of hesitation; not a stand-off with any real intention to kill, just weary teenagers sizing each other up. the hot coffee pools and spreads across the carpet, clarke can feel the heat of it through the thin canvas of her boat shoes, but doesn't flinch. stares directly at ruby's face when the other girl introduces herself, then squares her shoulders slightly.
gives a slight nod, and unlocks her knees from a prepared fighting stance. but she's still hovering her palm above the cool, comforting grip of her glock. )
Mine, and my roommate's until she disappeared. ( on the passenger manifest list, kara had been right below her own name, and mournfully crossed out about a month ago. they hadn't been close, but the android had never stepped on her toes nor openly judged her taste in décor. )
I didn't — ( she'd gotten used to being alone in that time. as "alone" as one could be with a veritable revolving door of newfound friends and long-time homeworld companions coming and going for murderboard sessions. somehow, the prospect of a new roommate hadn't crossed her mind, a disappointing oversight for sure. some warning would have been nice, clarke would have at least shoved the pool noodled under the bed. but the bitter feeling over the perceived invasion of personal space is undercut by the reminder that this all meant ruby was new here.
and probably reeling a little, regardless of how calm her voice was. )
...I'm Clarke. And I'm sorry, you just surprised me.
[ Ruby breathes out and relaxes her own stance, withdrawing her hand from her weapon entirely. A gesture of good faith, to show she’s not a threat unless she has to be—though it helps that she knows that, unless any bullets of Clarke’s are constructed extremely differently to anything in her world, a single shot wouldn’t make it through her aura. It also helps that she defaults to seeing the best of people and doesn’t really expect Clarke to try anything, anyway, after the apology. ]
I get it. I’d be startled if I walked into my room and found a stranger there, too; most of the time that… doesn’t mean anything good.
[ ‘Disappeared’ explains the crossed out names and raises a lot more questions in the process—people can just… vanish? She supposes that makes as much sense as them appearing here in the first place, but it’s not particularly a reassuring thought, either. Depending on what it means. Considering she’s already been convinced by one guy that she’s probably dead and just doesn’t remembering dying (with the way things were going at home, it’s entirely possible) it doesn’t sound like it means anything good to her.
…yeah, yeah reeling is definitely a word for what she’s feeling, right now. Hoo, boy. ]
I haven’t touched anything. I didn’t arrive here with much of my own so I haven’t even tried to put anything away yet, I’m used to only having on me what I can actually carry.
[ There’s at least two obvious pouches on the belts around her waist and thigh, a small string of extra bullets visible at her hip, and obviously Crescent Rose. She’s got a good amount of Dust and traditional ammo tucked away, as well as her Scroll that’s obviously got no connection to any communications network here, but that’s it. ]
( it's as if ruby has accessed clarke griffin's cheat codes, because that's exactly what needed to happen here — one of them needed to drop their hand away from the weapons at their waists before the other agreed to as well, and despite a tentative understanding about their circumstances, it certainly wasn't going to be clarke. everyone comes from scary places, gal friday had told natsuno on his very first day, and it's commentary that seems to have rung true thus far. the ship is overflowing with ptsd, heightened survival instincts, mild bouts of insanity and dissociation, and a lot of passengers seem primed for action at the drop of a hat. just damaged people relying on the same strands of logic that have kept them alive so far.
"so far", give or take, the point of this cruise liner was suffering and plenty of them have died thus far. expecting the best of people is a flawed way to go about life here, so far as clarke's concerned, but she always waffles about trying to crush that optimism out of others so casually. )
...I appreciate it. ( in regards to not having touched her stuff. ) The stuff on the wall took me a while, and all that stuff along the wall is just for emergencies. But you can touch whatever else you want.
( after all, it's ruby's room now as much as it's clarke's. sharing feels weird, sharing with someone new feels downright uncomfortable but. that's the hand they've been dealt. )
There's room in the dresser. ( the piece of furniture under the television, which maybe has a few tommy bahama shirts and an old, filthy hazmat suit stuffed in one drawer, but is otherwise empty. clarke doesn't care much for clothing, and honestly doesn't change hers that often. ) Put whatever you want in it. You can pick where you want to sleep, the bed's soft and the couch pulls out, so.
( why are both an option? because on the rare nights she sleeps, clarke makes a nest of blankets on the carpet and sleeps on the floor. )
Oh! Uh, thanks, I guess I'll take the bed? ...and probably remove a couple layers soon, I am kinda sweltering.
[ The outfit she's in right now is clearly not made for the summer temperatures on the ship, between the corset, mesh second layer, long-sleeved undershirt, tights and gloves. It was picked out with freezing temperatures in Solitas in mind, and the materials are thick, so some of it really has to go. ]
I have it on decent authority I'm not, like, a terrible roommate. Spent the last two years sharing rooms and campsites with people, like, every night and I haven't had any complaints, sooo...
[ Now the immediate sense of 'potential threat' has passed, Ruby... slips back into what her default really is with new people: heaps of social awkwardness. Turns out she's better at handling people when they might be dangerous than when they're just a new face, go figure. ]
How— how long have you been here, then? To uh, well, do all... [ vague gesturing around ] this.
( social awkwardness. it's not anything strange — there were plenty of times clarke had stumbled upon something new or alarming, a pop culture reference or a tableau of horror and suddenly it was like her brain wasn't connected to her mouth anymore. it's still a sharp contrast from how she and ruby had been talking just a few minutes ago, but serves to sever those last few threads of tension that had clarke considering violent defenses. she's pausing for a second to scoop up her empty to-go cup of coffee and pitching it into the trashcan, but makes no effort to mop up the spill soaking into the carpet. the shades would be along at some point to clean it. )
Three months? Three and a half? ( she has a calendar of tally marks somewhere on the wall, but that didn't mean the days didn't blur together — especially in peace time. ) Far as I can tell, that's when as far back as anyone here. So if you have any questions...
( a mild trail off. a mirrored vague gesture around the room. ) I didn't do all this alone though. Is it going to bother you if my friends come by often?
( being in cramped quarters and lacking any real sense of privacy didn't immediately translate to willingly sharing what little sliver of personal quiet they'd been provided. )
Three and a half months—? Oh, wow. That's... [ her brow furrows a bit ] I'm not sure if it's longer or shorter than I expected, come to think of it...
[ Maybe she'd hoped it was shorter, at the very least. That people here hadn't already been here months and there was a chance this wasn't as permanent as it was immediately made out to be. ]
Your friends coming by won't bother me though, no, don't worry. Really, I'm kinda used to having a lot of people around, sooo... [ a little shrug ] nothing new, I can keep out of your hair, too. Um, questions wise...
[ She rocks up onto the balls of her feet then back again, before stepping back to sit down on the edge of the bed. ]
The letter that was there. It said something about how we don't... stay dead? If we die? And about being the captain's plaything? I guess it'd be pretty naïve to hope that's them messing with people, right?
( while the few remaining polite bones in her body balks at the idea of kicking ruby out of her own room for secretive meetings and the like, clarke recognizes that it could very well happen at some point in the future. she likes to think they're capable of becoming one cohesive group, all fighting against the tyrannical magic of the captain and striving for freedom from this hellscape, but. it's not in her immediate nature to trust random passengers with all she's come to know about the ship. bunking in the same room didn't erase the fact that the other girl is still very much a stranger at this point.
but, you know, never discount a potential ally. ruby has questions, perches on the edge of the bed to ask them, and clarke eventually unsticks her feet to move across and lean against the edge of the desk.
the lines on her face are thin, grim, almost apologetic. on the topic of death, there's nothing pleasant to say on the matter. )
It'd be nice if it were all one big joke, but no. The Captain's main reason for bringing us here is to channel our pain and suffering into fuel for this ship. He may not care much if we die — maybe prefers if we do, so long as it isn't quick — but intends to bring us back over and over again until our souls are too broken to be of use.
[ For what it's worth, whilst Ruby's own expression turns grim and there's a flash of something like alarm in her silver eyes, she takes that objectively horrifying information with surprising grace. Either the girl has one hell of a poker face, or she's used to dealing with terrible things, or... maybe both. (It's both.) ]
So, purposeful disruption of the cycle of life and death to cause maximum suffering for his own purposes. [ she's heard that story before... ] Okay. That's... well, 'good' isn't the word I'd use for knowing that, but thank you for being frank about it.
[ She swings her legs, heels knocking against the base of the bed, thinking. She's so very tired of dealing with this kind of person, the kind of person causing all this suffering just for their own ends, but apparently that's all she gets to do anymore. ]
So... souls. This— this question might not make a lot of sense, but does that mean everyone here has aura? Or is that... still a my-world-only thing?
[ If everyone here has a soul to be broken, she has to wonder. Is she the only one here essentially walking around with her soul on her sleeve, or is that, at least, normal everywhere? ]
( a solid poker face and the solid building blocks of life experience are both useful things when perpetually facing the unknown so, while clarke may side-eye initially, it's not an unkind sort of appraisal on her features. and when ruby recaps the information she'd just shared, there's a business-like nod on clarke's end — there's really no other way to approach this other than bluntly, and it's refreshing for a newcomer not to blanch and balk at the idea.
but it's the talk of auras that really snags her attention. a flicker of surprise dances across clarke's pinched features before she can think to smooth it out. and she's suddenly looking at ruby with a newfound interest, like the other girl may have new information to offer about their situation. )
...I've heard he sees our souls in "shrimp colors". Bright, colorful blotches, but nothing special from one person to the next. Vampires, augmented humans, normal humans, gods, and even robots look the same to him.
[ It's the first time there's been any sort of recognition of a term from her world, and though what Clarke goes on to describe sounds at odds with her idea of aura, it still makes her perk up a bit. There's also a slight tilt of her head as the list of types of people here (Vampires? Fictional in her world, but sure, why not. Augmented humans, what counts as augmented? Gods, what? Robots, well, one of her best friends is a robot, but she's also the only robot with a soul in her world, so...) goes on, wow this place is... a lot. ]
In my world, our aura is a representation of our soul, but... not quite like that? They're colourful, but only one colour; mine is red, my sister's is yellow, some of my friends' are light blue, purple, green...
[ She gestures vaguely, the list goes on and on. ]
Everyone has one, but not everyone unlocks the more... practical, aspects of it. [ what's the simplest way to explain this... ] When you unlock it, it's sort of a personal shield. You have to break it to actually cause physical damage to someone.
And it means you can unlock your Semblance, but that's a whoooole other thing.
that sounds like a really heckin' cool way to manifest and utilize a soul. aura? for all her research and keen listening on the fact, clarke still hasn't parsed out all the specifics — these weren't actual, realized concepts in her world. a soul had just been another term for the grief and self loathing that weighed heavy after an atrocity, and an aura had been based around the gut instinct of trust vs fear one got immediately upon looking at a stranger. but what ruby's describing surpasses the emotional wall people tend to throw up and call a shield, this sounds like actual — )
...so you're from a world with magic?
( the term is broad and wide, it means a lot of things. it's become clarke's catchall for worlds with any features she can't directly explain or understand how they've come to be, and they fascinate her. )
Kiiiiiind of? [ she tilts her head and rubs the back ] I mean— yeah, yeah I am, but none of what I just described is... magic, exactly? Auras and semblances, they're just... normal, for us. Everyone has them, even if they don't always unlock them. Very few people have actual magic.
[ It's... complicated. Ruby isn't actually entirely sure how to define the distinction and there's a wrinkle in her brow as she thinks it over some more. There are differences, as she's been taught anyway, but she's not sure she knows the exact limitations of them. ]
Semblances can be just about anything. I sort of turn into petals and go super fast, my sister takes hits and returns them twice as strong, one of my friends used to be able to control magnetism. But magic can do... more, and do things semblances can't. Like. Uh.
[ Example, example... ] My Uncle Qrow can turn into a bird?
[ A crow, to be specific. Ozpin clearly had something of a sense of humour when he gave the Branwen's their magic... ]
( that is a very round about way to say yes, yet clarke hangs on every word with the same intensity she'd clued in to the conversations that spawned a lot of the notes plastered to the walls. but just like those chats, she doesn't understand the intricacies of everything ruby's spilling forth, barely grasps the general gist. yet still nods along, and blinks in intrigue when the other girl lists what she and her homeworld friends and family are capable of. )
...I mean, where I come from, there's nothing like that at all. I'd call all of that magic by default.
Honestly that... sounds as crazy to me as my world must sound to you. I can't imagine not having these things be just a normal part of life. If we didn't have these things... humanity and the faunus wouldn't have lasted long in my world at all.
[ Her world is just too inherently hostile for sentient life without those amongst them who've unlocked their Aura and semblance to fight for them. An agreement by the Gods: one brother could unleash life, so long as the other brother could unleash destruction to keep it in check. ]
( is there anyone here that doesn't come from an inherently doomed, hostile, bloody, or violent home reality? probably a few, but clarke tends to fall in with the perpetually traumatized crowd; honestly struggles to hold a conversation with someone without a strand of pessimistic ptsd in their bones. )
I mean, humanity didn't last forever on my world either. But it was mostly by our own design.
( man ruins the planet, man creates artificial intelligence with the directive to help, artificial intelligence destroys man. scarce few survive the apocalypse, artificial intelligence returns in an attempt to help, man (or blonde haired girl) kills artificial intelligence, then man faces down the burning oblivion artificial intelligence was trying to spare them from. )
But even before all that, the most we had were nuclear weapons and space stations.
We're not really immune to that, either; causing our own demise, I mean. There's people who are out to end the world.
[ At the will of one of two immortal beings that the Gods made after wiping out early humanity and replacing them. An immortal being who can't be destroyed and yet who Ruby and her friends have to try and stop anyway.
She's distracted from that after a moment though because, ] Space stations...? People in your world went to space? Before... before—
[ Gesturing vaguely. Before the destruction she implied. It's pretty clear that sounds insane to her; in her world, they've never even had satellites in orbit. They're not lacking in technology, but that level of technology has simply never existed. ]
Not just space. We put people on the moon before — ( yeah, she knows what you're gesturing about ruby, it's all good) — and sent crews even further in search of new resources.
( actually not clarke's first rodeo with this sort of mix of confusion and awe, and while not at all smug, she's still letting out a good natured snort. just a hard exhale through her nose, comfortable in this position now, and well practiced in her responses for it. )
I grew up thinking the only survivors of the first nuclear apocalypse were the few hundred people on board the 12 national space stations in orbit. Eventually all twelve of them banded together into one big space station, and 80-ish years later, that's where I was born.
Wow. That is... wow. We can't get even a single transmitter into the upper atmosphere, not that we aren't— trying, but the resources needed to do it are just... wow. That's crazy to me. You were born up there?
[ She's still determined to get Amity Coliseum up into the sky, re-establish global communications that have been down for months since one of the CCTS towers went down, but it's a goal that's barely achievable. The idea of getting anything into orbit, let alone establishing twelve and then one large space station... yeah, it's absolutely blowing her mind.
It's not that the horrors implied in 'first nuclear apocalypse' are lost on her, but it's very firmly overshadowed right now. ]
( you were born up there? clarke gives a stiff little nod, unbothered by the query but sour around the memories it brings up. ration pills, no medical supplies, a death sentence looming around every corner, oxygen rations... )
Uh-huh. Third generation.
( it was never as cool and fancy as it sounds. )
I miss the view. Sometimes the structure. ( any slim vestiges of childhood innocence. ) But that's it.
[ For what it's worth, this time Ruby does not somehow manage to miss the cues, there; the stiffness, the short list... and she knows she gets easily wrapped up in the fantasy of something. Like how she always thought being a Huntress would be like the fairy tales, and, well, she supposes in a way it is, but not... really in the way she imagined, and— well, that's not something she wants to dwell on, so she doesn't, just flashes a bit of an awkwardness-tinged smile. ]
The view must have been... I can't even imagine. Just the view from airships awes me still.
But I'm sure these things are never quite so glamourous as they sound to a stranger, huh. [ awkward, well-meaning little shrug ] The most interesting parts of my life probably sound better in theory, too.
[ The girl is chronically compassionate and empathetic... and also offers her own emotions up more like bargaining chips than anything else. ]
...still think I'd take dealing with those interesting parts over being stuck away from them, though.
( empathy, compassion, well-meant awkwardness... despite this entire meeting starting on the tail-end of weapons almost being drawn, ultimately ruby strikes clarke as a kind person. it's a good first impression, even if those don't always hold up on board the ship. even while she continues to chew over her own sour nostalgia for like on the ark, watching someone else marvel at the fantasy of it reminds her of being younger (like, by two years, she's still eighteen) and wistfully dreaming of what life would be like on earth. imagining flowers, and rainstorms, rivers and waterfalls, laying in the grass and looking up at the sky instead of down for once; farming and hunting, building a homestead and a brand new life on the ancient graves of humanity's ancestors, thriving instead of just surviving...
not much played out how clarke had hoped. it never does, but that didn't take away from the stunning sensation of feeling wind on her face for the first time, or smelling a bioluminescent flower, or swimming. wonderment, one of the few things people seemed to cling to, even in the darkest of times.
on the board behind the desk, there's all those sketches. most under layers of notes and rough maps, and clarke reaches out to pick through until coming to a specific doodle and pulling it down from its pushpin. it'll look roughly like this, only done entirely in black and grey pencil and missing the sliver of moonrock along the bottom. but she hands it to ruby regardless. )
Definitely not glamourous. But that doesn't mean it wasn't beautiful.
( so enjoy the earth picture. while her new roommate does that, clarke's attention is brought back to her wet shoes, which she'll go about changing before announcing: )
I'm going to get myself another coffee. I'll give you some space to settle in but later, if you'd like, I can show you a few places around here.
[ Ruby accepts the picture carefully, unable to help a little, silently wide-eyed 'ohhhh' because that is beautiful. It makes her wonder what Remnant must look like from afar—sure, they have maps, on Remnant like anywhere else, but... a map is more clinical than a piece of art, and they're certainly less beautiful than the real thing must be. ]
...yeah, that really must've been one hell of a view. [ she looks up again, smiling ] I'd like that, yeah. You showing me around a bit, I mean. I tried to explore some earlier, but it's a big ship.
( she watches ruby's face as she takes in the sketchy rendering of earth as viewed from outer space until her wonderment stokes a sense of homesickness in clarke's chest — the very same she's been trying to stamp out this entire time, reminding herself that earth no longer looked green and lush, and there was no going back because she'd died — and she returns to focus on changing out her boat shoes. )
It's pretty big, but you'll get the hang of it.
( spend enough time stuck even on the expansive cruise liner, and it very quickly began to feel tiny and cramped. )
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
action, her first day here, cabin 108
all along the wall beneath the porthole window, there's stacks of supplies pilfered from around the ship or else "purchased" at all and sundries. stacks of notebooks, several brightly colored pool noodles shoved in a corner, at least thirty bottles of water and a serena eterna branded tote bag overflowing with prepackaged snacks and candy. travel sized deodorants, soaps, packs of dryer sheets, hair sprays and dry shampoos, lighters, pens and pencils, individually packaged over the counter pain meds, duct tape and glue, rubbing alcohol and salves, ace bandages and packing gauze.
on the desk in the room there's a... frankly alarming amount of small vials stolen from the infirmary, predominantly labeled morphine and penicillin. no needles in sight, several mostly-full boxes of bullets stacked, one or two freely rolling. the helmet of a hazmat suit sits in a silent, unflinching vigil as well.
starting on the wall behind the desk, a veritable wall papering of torn pieces of notebook paper, written on extensively and taped to the wall. what may look alarming and outright crazy at first is fairly logical upon closer inspection: they are nearly written passenger manifests, names crossed out when it became apparent people had left. they're rough, hand drawn but diligently label maps of every level of the ship, arrows leading to notes in the margins. they're pages of english translated poetry by julia de burgos, ripped from library books with certain passenges underlined in red. they're pages and pages of notes about the ship, what they know about the captain, gal friday, the shades, and pirate jenny. there seems to be a species tally as well, featuring human and augmented human right alongside gods, wizards, vampires, sea jelly — not a jellyfish? and sin-eater??
there's a recreation of the battle royale betting pool.
there's a tally sheet of every death on the ship that she knows of. next to it, a rendering of the internal organs in a human being, the left kidney circled.
(there's layers of paper too, nothing thrown out as new information is discovered and old thoughts amended. and interspersed, hidden but not with much effort: a smattering of sketches, pencil portraits of people who had never been on the ship. a composed, intimidating woman. a man with soft eyes. a rocket, breaching the atmosphere... there are so many portraits.)
...basically, if a conspiracy theorist opened a general store, this is probably what it would look like. alternatively, take a suspicious teenage warlord out of the resource-thin apocalypse and give her free reign of a store and limitless medical supplies, this is what you get. )
—
( clarke is inevitably out and about, having caught wind of new arrivals and casually assessing new faces. just people watching, but a little bit like a creep and with heavy handed judgement based on how each new person she spots is conducting themselves. eventually she has to return to her room to jot down some notes, makes a brief detour by the buffet hall for a cup of coffee, and has to juggle piping hot styrofoam, a notebook, and her ship issued cell phone to open the door to her cabin. and once inside, ready to breath for a second and bask in the newfound solitude since kara disappeared — )
Who the hell are you?
( there's a person. another girl standing in her room. why, who, where, and what the fuck run through clarke's head, and while she could absolutely parse out what this means — they need their cell phones to unlock their doors, not just anybody could get in — suspicion and instinct still have her dropping that cup of coffee. hand immediately falling to the grip of a gun in her waistband.
not drawn, but ready. )
no subject
[ The state of the room is... a lot, to take in. Not that the rest of the day hasn't been a lot to take in, too! Or... even the twenty-four hours prior to arriving on the ship, actually. It's been one thing after another for Ruby for a while, now, and in the last forty-eight hours she's neither really slept (except for prior to waking up here, she supposes) or eaten anything but a small meal shortly after the muster drill.
She's tired, and on edge, and maybe kinda thinks she's dead, and trying to process everything in the cabin is simultaneously beyond what energy she has left in her and something she attempts to do anyway. The hoarded supplies is simple enough, it doesn't take a genius to recognise it for exactly that, but the papers on the wall are a little more... alarming? Confusing? Until she takes a closer look, at which point she starts to see it for what it is—information, and a lot of it—but she doesn't get to look at even half of what's there before the door opens.
It's the coffee cup hitting the floor that actually makes her jump and spin around, scanning the new arrival with a rapid threat assessment that does not at all miss where that hand is. Immediately, Ruby's reaching back to the handle of her own weapon—Crescent Rose—where it's folded down into its rifle form and strapped across her lower back. She doesn't want to pull it, but if this girl's going for a weapon... she's not going to take chances, either. ]
My name's Ruby. I just got here. [ despite the hand on Crescent Rose, her voice is calm and measured, she's kind of... used to talking down people who may or may not attack her ] This is the room I woke up in, but I guess it was yours first. Right?
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gives a slight nod, and unlocks her knees from a prepared fighting stance. but she's still hovering her palm above the cool, comforting grip of her glock. )
Mine, and my roommate's until she disappeared. ( on the passenger manifest list, kara had been right below her own name, and mournfully crossed out about a month ago. they hadn't been close, but the android had never stepped on her toes nor openly judged her taste in décor. )
I didn't — ( she'd gotten used to being alone in that time. as "alone" as one could be with a veritable revolving door of newfound friends and long-time homeworld companions coming and going for murderboard sessions. somehow, the prospect of a new roommate hadn't crossed her mind, a disappointing oversight for sure. some warning would have been nice, clarke would have at least shoved the pool noodled under the bed. but the bitter feeling over the perceived invasion of personal space is undercut by the reminder that this all meant ruby was new here.
and probably reeling a little, regardless of how calm her voice was. )
...I'm Clarke. And I'm sorry, you just surprised me.
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[ Ruby breathes out and relaxes her own stance, withdrawing her hand from her weapon entirely. A gesture of good faith, to show she’s not a threat unless she has to be—though it helps that she knows that, unless any bullets of Clarke’s are constructed extremely differently to anything in her world, a single shot wouldn’t make it through her aura. It also helps that she defaults to seeing the best of people and doesn’t really expect Clarke to try anything, anyway, after the apology. ]
I get it. I’d be startled if I walked into my room and found a stranger there, too; most of the time that… doesn’t mean anything good.
[ ‘Disappeared’ explains the crossed out names and raises a lot more questions in the process—people can just… vanish? She supposes that makes as much sense as them appearing here in the first place, but it’s not particularly a reassuring thought, either. Depending on what it means. Considering she’s already been convinced by one guy that she’s probably dead and just doesn’t remembering dying (with the way things were going at home, it’s entirely possible) it doesn’t sound like it means anything good to her.
…yeah, yeah reeling is definitely a word for what she’s feeling, right now. Hoo, boy. ]
I haven’t touched anything. I didn’t arrive here with much of my own so I haven’t even tried to put anything away yet, I’m used to only having on me what I can actually carry.
[ There’s at least two obvious pouches on the belts around her waist and thigh, a small string of extra bullets visible at her hip, and obviously Crescent Rose. She’s got a good amount of Dust and traditional ammo tucked away, as well as her Scroll that’s obviously got no connection to any communications network here, but that’s it. ]
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"so far", give or take, the point of this cruise liner was suffering and plenty of them have died thus far. expecting the best of people is a flawed way to go about life here, so far as clarke's concerned, but she always waffles about trying to crush that optimism out of others so casually. )
...I appreciate it. ( in regards to not having touched her stuff. ) The stuff on the wall took me a while, and all that stuff along the wall is just for emergencies. But you can touch whatever else you want.
( after all, it's ruby's room now as much as it's clarke's. sharing feels weird, sharing with someone new feels downright uncomfortable but. that's the hand they've been dealt. )
There's room in the dresser. ( the piece of furniture under the television, which maybe has a few tommy bahama shirts and an old, filthy hazmat suit stuffed in one drawer, but is otherwise empty. clarke doesn't care much for clothing, and honestly doesn't change hers that often. ) Put whatever you want in it. You can pick where you want to sleep, the bed's soft and the couch pulls out, so.
( why are both an option? because on the rare nights she sleeps, clarke makes a nest of blankets on the carpet and sleeps on the floor. )
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Oh! Uh, thanks, I guess I'll take the bed? ...and probably remove a couple layers soon, I am kinda sweltering.
[ The outfit she's in right now is clearly not made for the summer temperatures on the ship, between the corset, mesh second layer, long-sleeved undershirt, tights and gloves. It was picked out with freezing temperatures in Solitas in mind, and the materials are thick, so some of it really has to go. ]
I have it on decent authority I'm not, like, a terrible roommate. Spent the last two years sharing rooms and campsites with people, like, every night and I haven't had any complaints, sooo...
[ Now the immediate sense of 'potential threat' has passed, Ruby... slips back into what her default really is with new people: heaps of social awkwardness. Turns out she's better at handling people when they might be dangerous than when they're just a new face, go figure. ]
How— how long have you been here, then? To uh, well, do all... [ vague gesturing around ] this.
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Three months? Three and a half? ( she has a calendar of tally marks somewhere on the wall, but that didn't mean the days didn't blur together — especially in peace time. ) Far as I can tell, that's when as far back as anyone here. So if you have any questions...
( a mild trail off. a mirrored vague gesture around the room. ) I didn't do all this alone though. Is it going to bother you if my friends come by often?
( being in cramped quarters and lacking any real sense of privacy didn't immediately translate to willingly sharing what little sliver of personal quiet they'd been provided. )
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Three and a half months—? Oh, wow. That's... [ her brow furrows a bit ] I'm not sure if it's longer or shorter than I expected, come to think of it...
[ Maybe she'd hoped it was shorter, at the very least. That people here hadn't already been here months and there was a chance this wasn't as permanent as it was immediately made out to be. ]
Your friends coming by won't bother me though, no, don't worry. Really, I'm kinda used to having a lot of people around, sooo... [ a little shrug ] nothing new, I can keep out of your hair, too. Um, questions wise...
[ She rocks up onto the balls of her feet then back again, before stepping back to sit down on the edge of the bed. ]
The letter that was there. It said something about how we don't... stay dead? If we die? And about being the captain's plaything? I guess it'd be pretty naïve to hope that's them messing with people, right?
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but, you know, never discount a potential ally. ruby has questions, perches on the edge of the bed to ask them, and clarke eventually unsticks her feet to move across and lean against the edge of the desk.
the lines on her face are thin, grim, almost apologetic. on the topic of death, there's nothing pleasant to say on the matter. )
It'd be nice if it were all one big joke, but no. The Captain's main reason for bringing us here is to channel our pain and suffering into fuel for this ship. He may not care much if we die — maybe prefers if we do, so long as it isn't quick — but intends to bring us back over and over again until our souls are too broken to be of use.
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[ For what it's worth, whilst Ruby's own expression turns grim and there's a flash of something like alarm in her silver eyes, she takes that objectively horrifying information with surprising grace. Either the girl has one hell of a poker face, or she's used to dealing with terrible things, or... maybe both. (It's both.) ]
So, purposeful disruption of the cycle of life and death to cause maximum suffering for his own purposes. [ she's heard that story before... ] Okay. That's... well, 'good' isn't the word I'd use for knowing that, but thank you for being frank about it.
[ She swings her legs, heels knocking against the base of the bed, thinking. She's so very tired of dealing with this kind of person, the kind of person causing all this suffering just for their own ends, but apparently that's all she gets to do anymore. ]
So... souls. This— this question might not make a lot of sense, but does that mean everyone here has aura? Or is that... still a my-world-only thing?
[ If everyone here has a soul to be broken, she has to wonder. Is she the only one here essentially walking around with her soul on her sleeve, or is that, at least, normal everywhere? ]
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but it's the talk of auras that really snags her attention. a flicker of surprise dances across clarke's pinched features before she can think to smooth it out. and she's suddenly looking at ruby with a newfound interest, like the other girl may have new information to offer about their situation. )
...I've heard he sees our souls in "shrimp colors". Bright, colorful blotches, but nothing special from one person to the next. Vampires, augmented humans, normal humans, gods, and even robots look the same to him.
Why? How does it work in your world?
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[ It's the first time there's been any sort of recognition of a term from her world, and though what Clarke goes on to describe sounds at odds with her idea of aura, it still makes her perk up a bit. There's also a slight tilt of her head as the list of types of people here (Vampires? Fictional in her world, but sure, why not. Augmented humans, what counts as augmented? Gods, what? Robots, well, one of her best friends is a robot, but she's also the only robot with a soul in her world, so...) goes on, wow this place is... a lot. ]
In my world, our aura is a representation of our soul, but... not quite like that? They're colourful, but only one colour; mine is red, my sister's is yellow, some of my friends' are light blue, purple, green...
[ She gestures vaguely, the list goes on and on. ]
Everyone has one, but not everyone unlocks the more... practical, aspects of it. [ what's the simplest way to explain this... ] When you unlock it, it's sort of a personal shield. You have to break it to actually cause physical damage to someone.
And it means you can unlock your Semblance, but that's a whoooole other thing.
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that sounds like a really heckin' cool way to manifest and utilize a soul. aura? for all her research and keen listening on the fact, clarke still hasn't parsed out all the specifics — these weren't actual, realized concepts in her world. a soul had just been another term for the grief and self loathing that weighed heavy after an atrocity, and an aura had been based around the gut instinct of trust vs fear one got immediately upon looking at a stranger. but what ruby's describing surpasses the emotional wall people tend to throw up and call a shield, this sounds like actual — )
...so you're from a world with magic?
( the term is broad and wide, it means a lot of things. it's become clarke's catchall for worlds with any features she can't directly explain or understand how they've come to be, and they fascinate her. )
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Kiiiiiind of? [ she tilts her head and rubs the back ] I mean— yeah, yeah I am, but none of what I just described is... magic, exactly? Auras and semblances, they're just... normal, for us. Everyone has them, even if they don't always unlock them. Very few people have actual magic.
[ It's... complicated. Ruby isn't actually entirely sure how to define the distinction and there's a wrinkle in her brow as she thinks it over some more. There are differences, as she's been taught anyway, but she's not sure she knows the exact limitations of them. ]
Semblances can be just about anything. I sort of turn into petals and go super fast, my sister takes hits and returns them twice as strong, one of my friends used to be able to control magnetism. But magic can do... more, and do things semblances can't. Like. Uh.
[ Example, example... ] My Uncle Qrow can turn into a bird?
[ A crow, to be specific. Ozpin clearly had something of a sense of humour when he gave the Branwen's their magic... ]
Which is... a super long way to say yes, I guess.
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...I mean, where I come from, there's nothing like that at all. I'd call all of that magic by default.
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Honestly that... sounds as crazy to me as my world must sound to you. I can't imagine not having these things be just a normal part of life. If we didn't have these things... humanity and the faunus wouldn't have lasted long in my world at all.
[ Her world is just too inherently hostile for sentient life without those amongst them who've unlocked their Aura and semblance to fight for them. An agreement by the Gods: one brother could unleash life, so long as the other brother could unleash destruction to keep it in check. ]
We need our hunters and huntresses to survive.
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I mean, humanity didn't last forever on my world either. But it was mostly by our own design.
( man ruins the planet, man creates artificial intelligence with the directive to help, artificial intelligence destroys man. scarce few survive the apocalypse, artificial intelligence returns in an attempt to help, man (or blonde haired girl) kills artificial intelligence, then man faces down the burning oblivion artificial intelligence was trying to spare them from. )
But even before all that, the most we had were nuclear weapons and space stations.
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We're not really immune to that, either; causing our own demise, I mean. There's people who are out to end the world.
[ At the will of one of two immortal beings that the Gods made after wiping out early humanity and replacing them. An immortal being who can't be destroyed and yet who Ruby and her friends have to try and stop anyway.
She's distracted from that after a moment though because, ] Space stations...? People in your world went to space? Before... before—
[ Gesturing vaguely. Before the destruction she implied. It's pretty clear that sounds insane to her; in her world, they've never even had satellites in orbit. They're not lacking in technology, but that level of technology has simply never existed. ]
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( actually not clarke's first rodeo with this sort of mix of confusion and awe, and while not at all smug, she's still letting out a good natured snort. just a hard exhale through her nose, comfortable in this position now, and well practiced in her responses for it. )
I grew up thinking the only survivors of the first nuclear apocalypse were the few hundred people on board the 12 national space stations in orbit. Eventually all twelve of them banded together into one big space station, and 80-ish years later, that's where I was born.
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Wow. That is... wow. We can't get even a single transmitter into the upper atmosphere, not that we aren't— trying, but the resources needed to do it are just... wow. That's crazy to me. You were born up there?
[ She's still determined to get Amity Coliseum up into the sky, re-establish global communications that have been down for months since one of the CCTS towers went down, but it's a goal that's barely achievable. The idea of getting anything into orbit, let alone establishing twelve and then one large space station... yeah, it's absolutely blowing her mind.
It's not that the horrors implied in 'first nuclear apocalypse' are lost on her, but it's very firmly overshadowed right now. ]
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Uh-huh. Third generation.
( it was never as cool and fancy as it sounds. )
I miss the view. Sometimes the structure. ( any slim vestiges of childhood innocence. ) But that's it.
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[ For what it's worth, this time Ruby does not somehow manage to miss the cues, there; the stiffness, the short list... and she knows she gets easily wrapped up in the fantasy of something. Like how she always thought being a Huntress would be like the fairy tales, and, well, she supposes in a way it is, but not... really in the way she imagined, and— well, that's not something she wants to dwell on, so she doesn't, just flashes a bit of an awkwardness-tinged smile. ]
The view must have been... I can't even imagine. Just the view from airships awes me still.
But I'm sure these things are never quite so glamourous as they sound to a stranger, huh. [ awkward, well-meaning little shrug ] The most interesting parts of my life probably sound better in theory, too.
[ The girl is chronically compassionate and empathetic... and also offers her own emotions up more like bargaining chips than anything else. ]
...still think I'd take dealing with those interesting parts over being stuck away from them, though.
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not much played out how clarke had hoped. it never does, but that didn't take away from the stunning sensation of feeling wind on her face for the first time, or smelling a bioluminescent flower, or swimming. wonderment, one of the few things people seemed to cling to, even in the darkest of times.
on the board behind the desk, there's all those sketches. most under layers of notes and rough maps, and clarke reaches out to pick through until coming to a specific doodle and pulling it down from its pushpin. it'll look roughly like this, only done entirely in black and grey pencil and missing the sliver of moonrock along the bottom. but she hands it to ruby regardless. )
Definitely not glamourous. But that doesn't mean it wasn't beautiful.
( so enjoy the earth picture. while her new roommate does that, clarke's attention is brought back to her wet shoes, which she'll go about changing before announcing: )
I'm going to get myself another coffee. I'll give you some space to settle in but later, if you'd like, I can show you a few places around here.
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[ Ruby accepts the picture carefully, unable to help a little, silently wide-eyed 'ohhhh' because that is beautiful. It makes her wonder what Remnant must look like from afar—sure, they have maps, on Remnant like anywhere else, but... a map is more clinical than a piece of art, and they're certainly less beautiful than the real thing must be. ]
...yeah, that really must've been one hell of a view. [ she looks up again, smiling ] I'd like that, yeah. You showing me around a bit, I mean. I tried to explore some earlier, but it's a big ship.
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It's pretty big, but you'll get the hang of it.
( spend enough time stuck even on the expansive cruise liner, and it very quickly began to feel tiny and cramped. )
Alright then, I'll be back in a bit.
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