littlefairytale | come sail away cr chart

ERIN PETERS
Congrats on your little sister

Honestly awkward introductions shouldn't even merit a mention with Ruby, they seem to be a given. What matters is Erin spent an entire month protecting Ruby from her nightmares and teaching her how to handle her own dreams, something that Ruby is immensely grateful for. Over the course of that month and their conversations both at night and elsewhere, Ruby has come to trust Erin a great deal and to see her like another big sister. Her guidance has been invaluable. She was the first person Ruby heard tell her that she should have gotten to be a child and didn't feel patronised by. Erin actually seems to understand, and she's not pushing Ruby to figure this out any one way. That means something.

MAEVE MILLAY
Reverse adopted mom

Maeve was one of the first people to greet Ruby on the ship and that initial familiarity kept Ruby gravitating her way as she got settled in. She's been nothing but kind to her, putting up wiht all her quirks, and though Ruby wouldn't have admitted it before the end of October, Ruby couldn't help but start seeing her as a motherly figure, and after December, the word 'Mom' has finally been said from Ruby's own mouth. She's not sure what having a mom is really supposed to be like, but now that she and Maeve have decided to be each other's family on the ship, she's happy to find out what this will be like. And, already, Maeve is doing better about not putting her own emotions too heavily on Ruby's shoulders than some adults in Ruby's old life, not that Ruby would ever put it like that.

CLARKE GRIFFIN
We're so bad at being roommates

They're not exactly close, but Ruby likes Clarke well enough. They've both kind of sucked at the roommate part of... being a roommate, at times, but they're both putting in some kind of effort now. Clarke is intense, from a world that sounds dangerous in a way very different to Ruby's own, and though Ruby doesn't pry she's seen the signs of the losses she's dealt with. She figures Clarke isn't so blind that she can't see the same in return. Either way, considering the first thing they both did was go for a weapon, there's much worse places they could be as roommates. Little do they know how opposed their current approaches to escaping the ship are!

SecUnit (MURDERBOT)
Special interest buddies

Despite an awkward first and embarrassing second encounter, Ruby actually really likes SecUnit. Now that they've gotten to know each other better Ruby feels like they understand how each other's brains work, in a lot of ways, and it's helped them click some. They both have an appreciation for different kinds of stories and enjoy sharing them, Ruby looks forward to their serials sessions and reading stories aloud to it from her own books. She feels safe around it, both physically and in terms of not having to be someone specific with it. Sometimes she doesn't even have to be a person and that's okay.

"PETER SMITH" (Prisoner #6)
Dad energy rising

Despite accidentally insulting Smith to his face about how old he looks, he still seems totally willing to take her under his wing a bit with hand-to-hand stuff and is generally kinder than he seems at first glance. She actually really likes him him and though she can't seem to help being a little shit sometimes, she's mostly on her best behaviour and knows he won't hold a little mischief against her. After Maeve and Erin she probably shouldn't have been surprised when she realised she'd started seeing him as a father figure, but some things never change—and either way, she's happy he sees her as family too. He's been a voice of reason more than once when Ruby has been struggling with her emotions, a good teacher, and Ruby isn't totally sure where she'd be right now without his input.

DARCY LEJEUNE
Not just a burden

Darcy and Ruby are only now starting to grow closer as friends, but Ruby has both a great amount of respect and concern for Darcy that both grow the more she gets to know her. It's not easy to look at someone and recognise some of the very same pitfalls you fell into at their age, while still having absolutely no ground to say anything about them considering you're still pretty damn entrenched in those very same patterns. But Ruby's already resolved to step over to the Darcy (& co) side of the debate on the boat, because she can't sit back and have no opinion anymore. She just can't. And if that means she might be there to stop Darcy making mistakes she's made, even just once... well, it'd be nice.

DIMITRI ALEXANDER
No more follow the leader

There's something familiar in Dimitri. Another young soldier with a story off to the left of her own, legacies to grow into, abilities that you never asked for and people depending on them and all of that context that's made them who they are now utterly stripped away. Dimitri is the first of the numerous teenagers whose problems rhyme with hers that feels like he echoes in the sense of leadership, of being the one everyone's eyes are on, being the one that even other people in your situation look to. There's something different about the guilt and pressure you feel, when you're meant to be the one leading. When if you screw up, it's not just your life on the line but the life of the people who depend on you.

Cassandra De Rolo
Older than I am

Cassandra initially reminded Ruby a little bit of Weiss—an upper-class sort of manner with an upbringing to match, an unfamiliarity with how to be someone her own age, even the implication she was once an heiress of some kind. The more she gets to know her, the more that impression... adjusts. She's not entirely sure where her impression of Cassandra sits, right now, but she does like her—it's hard not to after everything with the cookies, honestly.

Eleanor Lamb
A first friend

If Ruby had a nickel for every time she ended up an unusually socialised girl's first ever friend... Eleanor's an unusual girl, with a familiar love of tinkering, from a world that's grim in a whole separate way to Ruby's own, and though Ruby frankly made a mess of trying to introduce her to the ship she's tried to make up for it since by just being a good friend. That, at least, she's usually pretty good at.

Fio
Protect at all costs

Fio is a sweetheart, far too young to be subjected to all the horrors here on the boat and someone that Ruby is even more determined to protect than everyone else. She's deeply relieved that Fio seems to enjoy travelling by Petal Burst so much because that makes protecting her easier, if push comes to shove. Until such a time, though, it's just nice to get to share things like her favourite fairy tales and other moments of relative peace with her.

UNDINE WELLS
Lost and found childhoods

She's gone, now. The first person Ruby really knew that vanished. Undine and Ruby's worlds aren't the same, but they definitely rhyme. Loudly. Monsters and magic and more than your fair share of the weight of keeping your world safe on your shoulders, a childhood that never quite was, and dead friends who should never have had to die like they did. Undine gets it, they get each other, and they were going through similar (but not identical) journeys of figuring out what to do about the mark their worlds have left on them. Of trying to remember how to be a kid.