( open ) what do you do when the monsters look just like you?

[motivation]

Who: dutch + OPEN
Where: weaver's, the woods
When: end of june to july 11th
What: dutch drinks, tries to come to terms with what they've all learned, and gets her clearance
Warnings: n/a (will update if necessary).


WEAVER'S (end of june, early july)

[ dutch doesn't like being manipulated. khlyen had done it for years, had made her kill for his affection or attention. this is a very different kind of manipulation, but it still stinks of it. they'd withheld information, so had khlyen. they'd done it with good intentions, or so they claim, the same can be said for khlyen.

it doesn't help that khlyen is dead, that understanding why he'd done the things he had means that dutch doesn't, can't hate him anymore. hating him had been easy. she wants to hate the people here as well, but can she? she's not so sure.

so dutch does what she does to cope: she drinks, she looks for someone to fuck or to fight. right now, she's content to do the first and idly consider the second. depending on how far into the night it is and how many stronger drinks she's talked the bartender into giving her, she might unbend enough to ask whoever sits closest to her at the bar: ] What do you make of it, then?

WOODS (july 11th)

[ freedom means a lot -- it had meant something when she'd been a killjoy, able to cross contested jurisdictions, a warrant enough to get her in and out of almost any place. it still means something, and she doesn't want to be stuck in this town for a moment longer than she has to.

if she has to play by their rules a little longer to make freedom easier to achieve, well. acing the test should be fucking easy.

she's at the spot, having completed the target practice already and breathing harder from her run. she's watching someone fight an abbie, waiting for her turn because of course she's decided to go for the death-match option herself. ]

You looking to fight one of them, too?

Comments

[dominance]

[ he firstly gives her a shrug for an answer. he knows why he's asked, and he finds that his memory has bits of that name in it. it's not overly powerful, like the school and the college that's here, but it's there, somewhere. like a memory that's whispering "i am here." ]

[ tapping his glass against the countertop, he still his movements. ] Trying to see if I can place it. Can, kind of. But I know it's still fake. It doesn't fit anywhere else in my head. [ and that's the weird part. he doesn't like how he can't place it in his memories of the ark, of a dilapidated earth standing on its last legs. dance studios don't belong in his post-bombs life, but it fits, somewhere, in the one where he's always been here. ]

It's fucking weird.

[motivation]

You don't say.

[ she thinks maybe she remembers him as well, remembers seeing him before. she doesn't remember everyone who's ever set foot in the studio, or who ever allegedly set food in the studio. it's probably better that way. she's not even sure the human brain is meant to hold that many memories, an entire second life.

there are some things from her real one she would have wanted to forget, once upon a time, but the truth is that even the bad and the terrible memories are part of her story, part of who she is. after khlyen, she doesn't want anyone holding pieces of her story hostage again. ]

Weird's too sweet, if you ask me.