theairlock | week 3

Week 3

[Come week 3 of the Champion Excellence Program the high-flying feelings that came with the dodgeball game last week has dissipated, especially after the...everything that was that trial. Satan Mask sure was a thing that happened.

Just like last week, right on the dot at 7 am, the mechanical woman's voice chimes to awaken the remaining champions on Sunday morning. After the initial wake-up call though there's a new message tacked on:]

Congratulations, Champions! By surviving your second trial, you have unlocked the third floor of the ship. A new mini map has been added to your P.I.P.! To access the second floor please stand on the teleporter and select the floor you wish to be teleported to.

[And again the Champions are awakened they have regained one new memory from the ones they've lost. Starting again on Sunday, as well, Jamie and Bolton will be back to their usual office hours in their usual locations.]

Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday

[ooc: welcome to week 3, everyone! Check-in has begun and don't forget to submit your memory regains!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There's no signs that there's been other champions before us. If there were, we would have found something by now.

[Or they could have deep scrubbed the entire station.]

Like as not you are right. But this seems so much. How could we be the first?

Easy. They could have been planning this for a very long time now.

I cannot see why the intricacy of such designs should include such as me.

[ She says this quickly, without thinking about it, and then regrets it immediately! Why bring that up at all? Even a self-deprecating turn of the conversation is prideful if it centers Thomasin herself. ]

You think Temerity is no peer of ours, then?

I don't know why I was included either.

[She shrugs]

I don't really have an opinion on them. We hardly know them.

Well... I know not the meaning of your title, but you've lead since we came hither. I think you have helped us greatly.

Ah... It's because I would do anything for my sister. That's what my title means. Serah... she is, no, was my only family until I made friends.

[She shakes her head.] Xander is the leader. I'm just someone along for the ride like everyone else here.

[ She won't push the leader thing. Maybe Lightning has the same hangups as she, when it comes to women leading over men? Well, okay, probably not, but there could always be something else. ]

Oh -- you spoke of her at the first. [ When she was still looking for Caleb and the twins. ] I am sorry. This is a cruel place, but so too is separation.

[She's been a leader so long, and the people she was leading aren't here. It makes it a little hard to want to keep doing it.]

Don't be. I know she can take care of herself. She's an adult.

But...

[ Her immediate impulse is to say "but what about you?" but it seems so blunt, and not exactly the kind of thing Lightning would respond to. And missing Caleb is not the same thing after what she knows, not at all. ]

Mother and Father planned to send me off to serve some family, having reached the years of my womanhood. They still would have missed me, and I them.

[ Father, at least. If Mother should have missed her then, she surely will not now. ]

[Being sent off sounds rough.]

So you would have never seen them again?

Nay, I would, some day -- but 'tis different from how a girl on the plantation is bound out. They have family in the village who they might see every day. My family... is not welcome in the village or Sunday services. They'd be busy enough working the farm, and I at my position. It might be a year or more til Father hath good reason to make the journey.

[ wait ]

Dost mean thy sister would not...?

That sounds like a lonely life. What if you wanted to get married and have a family of your own?

[That sure dims the mood.]

She can't. Not where I am right now.

I will, in time.

[ She doesn't get into the logistics of dowry and the question of whether anyone would actually want to take a wife from her father's house, with the dark haze of witchery about her. It's just a given in her mind that if she doesn't die first, she'll marry eventually. What an upper! ]

But not for years yet. So, 'tis that what I meant. She may be well and happy, but thou canst miss her still.

As long as it's willing on both ends, you'll be fine.

[That would all be too complicated. There's political marriages, arranged marriages, mail order marriages, marrying for convenience, and of course, marrying for love. So what's a dowry?]

I miss her every day.

I miss them all. Even the twins, after all of it... I would so rather they were here.

I would never want my sister here. I want her to have a normal life, with Snow and her friends, away from all the pain that I caused for her.

[ She hadn't even thought of the murders. It disturbs her to no end, both that she would think of having Jonas and Mercy here at all, and that something about what is happening on the farm makes a small part of her think it would not be much worse. Of course it would be worse. No matter what happens to her, Mother and Father will protect the only children left to them. ]

Is't what she wants? A good life, aye -- but to be away from you?

Edited 2017-03-14 04:46 (UTC)

[There's a heavy sigh.]

She doesn't even know I'm alive. She'll learn to live happily without me.

But how could she--

[ That's not something to ask, is it? Both in the "literally how is that possible" and the "how could your own sister learn to live without you" sense, nothing Thomasin has said or done has earned her the right to question Lightning's statement. But she does know one thing. ]

Canst thou learn the same?

[Can she? Lightning thinks for a while.]

I have to. I had to learn to live without my dad, without my mom. As much as I love Serah, I know she'd want me to learn how to live without her.

[Which is to say... It'll be almost impossible, but she will try. There's no other choice.]

Lightning...

[ Her words to her earlier carry more weight than ever before, and it hits her like a blow. How much worse would losing Caleb have been, if he had been all she had? How would it feel to know he were well and happy, but that it was as if she had never existed? How much has Lightning really endured? ]

You are strong beyond measure.

[Oh you'll know in a few weeks time just how much pain she's gone through.

She looks curiously at Thomasin.]

And why do you think that?

Edited 2017-03-19 18:16 (UTC)

Because I never could. I could not even go into service. If I had...

They would have bound me out to clear the farm of another hungry mouth -- we've not the food to survive this winter. But Caleb wanted me to stay. And 'tis for that he died.

I see. [This poor girl.] He must have loved you a lot to want you to stay, even if he did pass away.

(no subject)

curdle - 2017-03-21 17:29 (UTC) - Expand