Week 1, Saturday, Post-Trial; Serph

[sylfied]

[ ... It's not too early to sleep, but after everything that's happened, even Fie's well-aware that sleep is not going to come easily. After everything she's seen for herself, being one of the few who had actually witnessed the precise moment where everything had gone downhill and knowing what would come and knowing now what will come...

Fie walks, with a stride a little more confident than her usual sleepy amble. She does tense a little, spotting someone on the beach gazing out at the ocean, but upon recognition... she simply steps up silently beside him.

Serph probably won't mind, she thinks, but she's prepared to keep walking if he does. ]

Comments

[varunastra]

[ Serph doesn't mind a bit. He does like company, usually, even if his silence would seem to suggest otherwise. He and his tribe only overcame so much because their loyalty to each other was even stronger than the odds they faced.

There's not going to be any of that here, he knows. The trial only proved what they already knew, that there was no way a group of forty-some strangers would be able to come together so quickly, place their trust in one another, and beat the odds stacked against them to survive.

Still, there are a few he feels comfortable enough with. They're not the comrades he's lost, but their presence is still a comfort in its own way. And Fie is definitely one of those few. ]

[sylfied]

[ It's times like these that she wishes her class were here, because there were at least eight other people Fie could completely trust with anything and everything. There wouldn't be lies she'd have to keep for the sake of other people, and knowing Rean, he would have found a way to get through this without losing anyone.

... But Fie isn't that kind of leader. No matter how hard she thinks, she doesn't think there's way to bring all of these people together or to find a way to save them without hurting them. ]

...

[ She doesn't say anything, but there's still an audible exhalation when she sighs, one that sounds almost frustrated. ]

[varunastra]

[ Serph...is that leader, to his comrades, or he's supposed to be. But maybe because everything that linked them together started with such death and tragedy, losses were always part of the equation. They hoped for better, but in the end, Nirvana was the dream they chased, and not the end that awaited them.

It doesn't make the losses along the way any easier.

Like everything else, though, that's easier to just feel, and to know, than to explain, and he's perpetually grateful that in Fie's company, knowing it is enough. He doesn't need to try and put words to it.

So he doesn't put words to it. He only puts a hand on her shoulder, and squeezes gently. ]

[sylfied]

[ She appreciates it, but Fie isn't very good at expressing gratitude with heartfelt smiles and eyes clouded with emotions. All she can really do is not move away from the hand on the shoulder, because... honestly, it's comforting. Comfort doesn't have to be spoken, after all, and she thinks Serph probably understands that much better than most.

It's why she feels comfortable enough to lean against him.

This is only the first week. ]

[varunastra]

[ There's a long road ahead of them. If this much can happen in a week, two months feels like an eternity waiting to happen.

Plenty of time for things to go (further) to hell. Plenty of time for them to get lost in thoughts of what might still be coming.

Honestly, he's not really sure which is worse. ]

[sylfied]

[ She's not sure, either. What's worse, their imaginations or reality? Right now, it's too early to say, but Fie can't help but think that it's a little ironic. Her earliest memories are of wandering alone on a battlefield, surrounded by death and violence. Twice, she'd been rescued from it. Once, she thought she might finally be free of it entirely.

But here she is again. ]

... I'm not a hero. [ It's a very quiet murmur. But Fie's always known that. She'd helped people before, and she thinks she might like helping people more than just ignoring them, but this kind of help doesn't seem like help at all. And...

Why would they have wanted her to be one of a few people to try and save everyone? ]

if this tag makes no sense be assured that my canon doesn't either

[varunastra]

You don't have to be a hero.

[ Serph's never tried to be, anyway. He's only ever fought to survive and to keep his comrades alive, and somehow that just...ballooned into saving the world. Because it would save them too, because it went against the people responsible for the hell they'd walked out of, because Sera wanted to make things right.

Because somewhere, along the way, the people he counted as comrades started to extend beyond the Embryon.

He wouldn't call himself a hero, but when it comes down to it, he doesn't have any regrets about the fights he chose in his own world. He did what he felt was right, and he gave it everything he had.

Was it enough? Who knew. ]

Be yourself.

[ It probably sounds a little trite, or would coming from most people. But it's not an overused platitude to Serph, who'd finally broken free from being defined by the soul of a man who barely had one and the perceptions of a child trying to recreate someone she loved. He isn't Sheffield, willing to sacrifice anyone and anything for his own gain. He isn't the first Serph that Sera programmed, pleasant and reliable and empty.

He decided who he was going to be, and that's all he needs to be. ]

smt stands for so much trouble

[sylfied]

[ "Be yourself" really does sound pretty trite. Because usually she's used to hearing "study more", "stop sleeping", "take things seriously", "try acting your age" and Fie has never quite gotten to the point where she's responded by detailing life in the jaeger corps where you never knew when and where you'd die.

But when she thinks about it, the boss had said that too, when she'd still been trying to figure out if she had a place among Zephyr's members. And Rean and Laura had more or less said it, even if the latter had taken a fight in a public park to understand. So it's not as though she thinks Serph is offering this advice just to try and sound motivational and with no real thought behind it.

She's already learned by now, he's someone who doesn't say what he thinks isn't necessary. ]

I'm not so sure being myself is going to help anyone.

[ She's hardly a Nino or a Katara or a protagonist. ]

[varunastra]

Does that trouble you?

[ It sounds to him as if it does - and if it does, that's all the argument he needs to believe that being herself will help someone. Maybe not everyone, but the rules of the game are written to make helping everyone impossible.

They can cut the losses, but they can't eliminate them completely.

If that bothers them, at least they're doing something right. ]

[sylfied]

... Yeah.

[ She'll admit it, and for once, Fie actually looks uncertain and vulnerable. ]

I'll do what I have to, and I can shove everything down to get the job done, but I... I never wanted to be this brutal. I don't want to disappoint my family.

[varunastra]

[ Family. Yet another thing that didn't exist in the Junkyard, but he somehow wound up having a concept for anyway. Like the comrades you don't choose. (Or maybe comrades are the family you do choose?) ]

I won't say that anyone else will understand.

[ Because he's pretty sure you can't really understand this situation without being in the middle of it. Without seeing a mutilated corpse and a person killed just to present an example, without seeing a young girl take a knife to the eye because she didn't want to hurt anyone. It's not the kind of thing you expect anyone to really get, if they weren't there.

But. ]

But that doesn't mean no one will forgive it.

[ Her family? He doesn't know them, and while he thinks family is supposed to forgive that kind of thing, he hasn't exactly had the most positive real world examples to work with. Angel and Sera are...pretty dysfunctional.

He's not going to try to put words in the mouths of people he's never met, but he does know that there are people who won't judge you for violence you can't help committing - they're rare, or at least he'd thought so, but he could name a few on this island alone...so who knows? ]

[sylfied]

[ It's not the first group she would have picked if she'd been given the choice. An alien, a person who was completely against committing violence in the first place (even if it was necessary), Raven, and a cannibal who didn't speak much but still managed to understand how she felt without needing to.

It really isn't a group she would have picked.

But at the same time, she's grateful that she doesn't have to go through this alone. ]

... Thanks. [ He probably knows she's grateful, through her actions, but all the same... Fie feels like she should say it this time. He's right, in that the others probably won't be able to fully understand, and knowing what she'd had to do here might hurt them... but Class VII had an unbreakable bond. They forgave and fought for each other, and she knows she'd do anything to get back and see them again. ]

I'll be okay. I'll... do my duty here, too.

[varunastra]

[ Serph wouldn't have picked this group himself, but right now, talking to Fie, he honestly thinks they could've done a lot worse. ]

We're all here to help each other.

[ Whether that's with moving the bodies, making them, or just having someone to commiserate with after the fact. ]

[sylfied]

Mm.

... We'll have to find a way to make sure you don't starve, too.

[ if it comes to having him eat one of their kills, or at least part of one... or trying to find a way to eat them after they've been discovered, or if she has to chop off a finger or something-- Serph needs to stay alive. ]

[varunastra]

[ Ah, yes, and there's that.

Serph would rather not eat anyone who hasn't tried to kill him first, but that's a luxury he never expected not to have. Suddenly, he's low on enemies, and that makes living more difficult as much as it makes it easier.

But the details on that will keep for now, until the next time they talk strategy. This...doesn't feel like the moment. ]

Thank you.

[ Honestly, he expected himself to be one of the first ones on the chopping block, simply because of what he is. Yet nobody at the trial...had even suggested it. ]

[sylfied]

If we don't look after each other, I don't know how many other people will.

[ Beyond the bleeding hearts, but there are some things they can't tell the others. ]

[varunastra]

[ A nod. ]

It will only grow worse as our numbers diminish, I'm sure.

[ Early on, there are more potential targets, and it's easier to be united in their hatred for Hal, but as things go on? Every death will be more reason to be paranoid of everyone else and fewer reasons for people to trust and look after each other.

If they don't have each others' backs, what hope do they have? ]

[sylfied]

... We have to survive. Or they'll all lose.

[ ... geez. What a job they've been saddled with, and Fie speaks with no sense of burning resolution, just weariness. ]

[varunastra]

[ Indeed. It's up to them.

Kill horribly to save the few, or keep their hands clean and watch everyone die.

No pressure. ]