ph_logs | [Closed] Birthday Dinner With the Family

[Closed] Birthday Dinner With the Family

Who: Number 6, Ava, Ruby, Darcy
What: A quiet dinner to celebrate Number 6 turning 32
When: Evening of the 19th
Where: Ava and Number 6's new farm home
Warnings: Kinda Bland Food

It's a strange feeling to be standing in the kitchen of a new home, his new home, cooking something that amounts to a Sunday roast for a family dinner. Strange only because it is something he never quite envisioned for himself as a future. The road to get here has been long and fraught, and they've lost good souls along the way. He mourns them each and every day, but he'd like to think, if they could see him now, they would be glad for him. A little slice of normalcy at long last. A chance to live a life of relative peace. He always hoped he might have some small version of this. But he expected it to be alone, in hiding, with him looking forever over one shoulder just to be sure. He never, in his wildest dreams, imagined it would be a home he shares with a wife. A home where he can invite his adopted daughter and his, for now, he'll just say apprentice, in to celebrate something so simple and mundane and yet so monumental as the turning of another year in his life. Thirty-two? He could barely believe it when he got to thirty and now here he is. Not even Number 2 could take this from him.

"It may not be as perfectly cooked as we're used to," he says somewhat bashfully as he sets the roast down on the table in front of his guests. "But the ingredients are fresh. Please enjoy." With that, he will begin carving it and serving onto everyone's plates. Unless someone jumps up to stop him. It is his birthday after all.

[ooc: Just a lil' mingle thread. Feel free to write your characters arriving, offering to help cook, set the table, etc. I'm down for all of it.]

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Ruby flashes another smile, at that. The strain below the surface isn't as hidden as it used to be, but it doesn't make the smiles that happen any less genuine. If anything, there's less faked smiles these days; she hasn't got the will to just put them on.

"I've never really had my own room or anything. Even as a kid me and my sister shared, though that was how I liked it. But I grew up on an island off the main kingdom, in a cabin away from the rest of the village. So this is... kind of familiar, I guess?"

Ava sits at the edge of the bed, listening. Peter mentioned that Ruby was struggling lately, believed that Ava might be able to relate.

"I... had my own room, most of my life. It was hard getting used to everything being so crowded in, but I guess toward the end the ship was getting so empty..." Ava trails off. "What about now, where have you been staying?"

Ruby's brow furrows a little. Right. Towards the end there so many people had vanished and the ship had been so quiet, even compared to normal...

She shakes the memory off and shrugs, a little, fiddling with the hem of her sleeve again. "I'm still at the inn. I'm working, now, but I-I don't really..." want to move out and live alone. It wouldn't end well. But she doesn't want to say it so directly, so she changes tacks: "...I'm fine at the inn for now. So, a room of my own, and a few of us are still there, so it's not so bad."

"There's... room here..." Ava says quietly. "If that. Doesn't interfere with your independence." She doesn't want to make a young adult feel like a child, never knows how much push back she'll get.

"There's another room, right down the hall... I can show you?"

"I think—" Gods, how does she explain her thought process here without sounding like she's being dismissive. "I-I think maybe it would be nice to stay over, sometimes? But I don't... I don't want to impose full-time. Which, I know— I know you're offering and dad would definitely say I wouldn't be imposing, but I don't want to interfere with your home life. For now... the inn's okay."

She doesn't want to add another problem to their pile. Adjusting to life here, dealing with Ava's condition... they don't need Ruby's horrid mental health to handle day to day, too.

"But I wouldn't mind seeing the room anyway. In case I stay sometime."

"It's not imposing," Ava insists softly but firm. "We're actually quite boring," she laughs, because it's a relief. A privilege to finally be boring. Her not going off and digging into horrifying mysteries and shouldering problems she'll never be able to solve. Whatever is going on in this world, it's better off with her not getting involved. Staying here on the little farm.

She stands again, guiding them down the hall to the other room. It's fairly empty, though there's a small box of things in a corner that she hasn't quite figured where else to store yet. Clearly plenty of room for Ruby to utilize if she wishes. "We could... get a nice blanket and... oh. I do actually have something for you," she adds a bit shyly.

"I know you guys wouldn't see it that way, it's just... I don't know. Maybe I'll change my mind, but I think for now just staying the night sometimes is... is better, for me."

For them, more like. There's so many days she can barely drag herself out of bed in the morning. She doesn't need to worry them. She doesn't need to add to the load. But she does want to visit. Visiting should be okay. And that there's a room on offer if she ever does change her mind is enough to make her feel... not totally at ease, but closer to it.

That Ava has something else for her surprises her, though. "Oh, you do?"

"That's what we want for you," Ava assures. "Whatever you're most comfortable with." And if that's keeping some distance, Ava will try not to worry too much that it's because of her. That Ruby just simply isn't comfortable with a woman that's basically a stranger taking up so much of her father's space and time. Because she respects that young adults need to have some sense of control in their lives, their own space.

She knows Ruby needs more support than she's letting on, but doesn't know how to connect, to be anyone that she trusts on that level. So instead she moves over to the box of things, and pulls out a little wooden doll with a little wooden sword. "Peter carved it," she holds it out. "And I made the dress." In red and black, an imitation of some of the outfits she's seen Ruby wear back on the ship. The stitches are a little uneven, and by the way Ava's hands tremble and blur it's probably obvious why. That it was done with a lot of effort, and not rushed together.

"Didn't know if it was weird to give you a gift on his birthday, but... he thought you'd like it?" She sounds hopeful.

If Ruby knew the doubts she was inadvertently causing, she'd try to lay them to rest, but she's too tangled up in her own to even consider the ripple effects. The truth is Ava already has an implicit trust, because of people like Undine and Peter and what she's seen herself thus far. Bridging the gap has just always felt more complicated than it's really turning out to be.

Her eye widens when she sees the doll. The effort put into it is clear. And she didn't expect...

She's very delicate, as she reaches out to take the doll. Like she's scared of somehow breaking it. She carefully touches the little sword and the dress, and a smile cracks her features. "...heh, on my last birthday I only gave out gifts, sooo... it's not that weird. And I love it. I really do. Thank you."

To be fair, she's sure that 6 would consider this moment shared between them a gift. He hasn't pushed, but he has encouraged it.

She smiles with relief as the gift is accepted. "I admit I... was a little nervous. That it might come off as silly," or worse, taken as offensive and infantilizing.

"I... struggle knowing how to... interact with people your age," she bites lightly at her bottom lip, hoping that doesn't get taken wrong. "Because I didn't grow up around any other children. Didn't get much of a childhood of my own. But I... get the sense you were forced to grow up too fast too."

Ruby chews at her bottom lip, running her fingers along the carved shape of the wooden sword. "...yeah. I-I guess I was. Not that I realised it for a long time. Everyone grows up fast on Remnant, you know? If you want to be a Huntsman you need to train early, and even if you don't, you're never totally safe from the Grimm. But if my life had gone normally IIII would still have been in school, heh. Combat school, but... school."

Graduation isn't meant to be until you're 21 and yet Ruby got given her huntsman license at 17, the age she should have joined Beacon.

"My world's sort of ending? I'm meant to stop it. Not just me, but..." It felt like that, sometimes. It still does. Like it was all on her shoulders. "Things aren't good. But. I had a mostly normal childhood, thanks to my sister. I'm sorry you didn't."

She nods along. It doesn't seem so unlike Undine, whose world relied on young magical girls sacrificing their safety to protect whatever was left of civilization. No wonder they were friends. "Why you, specifically?" Ava asks softly.

"It's... I've." She can't lie and say it was okay. "People say that kind of thing makes you stronger. But. No. Despite it. Things are better for me now, and I'm happy for that."

"I'm... special. Apparently." The way she says the word, it's not something she holds in high regard. Ruby never wanted to be special. Even when she was aspiring to be a fairytale hero, that never meant special. The fairytale hero was meant to be the bare minimum. You weren't supposed to be special for it, not in your lifetime. "My eyes. Silver eyes. They have a kind of unique magic in them that comes from a long line of legendary warriors. It can destroy even the most powerful of Grimm, in the right conditions. I stopped an ancient Wyvern the first time I used mine, by accident."

She doesn't say in words that she didn't know about that power, before that day, but maybe it can be inferred. It wasn't something she was ever told about. Not until they had no choice but to tell her. She thinks her dad was trying to protect her, but...

"My mom had them too. She and my dad, and the rest of my family, were part of the inner circle already working against the witch trying to end the world. But she..." inhale, exhale, "she vanished. She tried to face Salem alone, and she never came back. I used to think she died."

Not anymore. Now she thinks she was made into something like the Hound. A silver-eyed warrior trapped inside a Grimm, morphed and twisted.

"The guy that recruited my parents also... sort of recruited me. He saw my eyes and gave me a head-start at the big academy. Made me the leader of my team, even though I'm the youngest. And then everything... everything started to get worse, so I stepped up. It's... it's my turn."

Her turn to take the world on her shoulders. Her turn to take risks that don't pay off. Her turn to take the hit and go down fighting. Except she didn't. She didn't go down fighting.

She shakes off a thought and brushes her fingers over the head of the doll, before looking at Ava directly again. "...you're right. It doesn't make you stronger. But at least things— at least things are getting better."

She listens, trying to take in all the shared details. It's hard to fit them into incomplete context, not fully knowing Ruby's world, its history or politics. All the other factors at play. It's hard to place her own knee-jerk bias aside, that tells her it's all wrong. Because worlds do need saving. There's really no pretending that anything could exist without soldiers willing to defend and sacrifice themselves for the collective.

But. "It's unfair. Having that responsibility pushed upon you, so young. As an obligation due to your eyes and heritage, of all things. I understand being labelled as special, for reasons you can't control, never asked for. And all that's expected of you, despite how much it hurts."

She pats at the edge of the bed to offer Ruby a chance to sit down. "To me. It sounds like the adults assigned your world's problems to you to solve what they couldn't, yeah? I know I... I felt responsible a lot. For everything going wrong back on the ship. Nothing I did was ever enough, I couldn't... couldn't save anyone. It's a pretty terrible feeling, isn't it. When things get worse despite everything you try."

Ruby only hesitates for a moment before she moves to sit on the edge of the bed, carefully resting the doll on her knees. It's still not easy, admitting to herself that she was set up by the people that were meant to look out for her. Even if, even now, she doesn't believe it was ever meant to hurt her—or at least, the adults in her life had long since begun to internalise this kind of hurt as just a thing that happened when you were trying to save everyone.

"...yeah. I-It is." Even on the ship she felt it, but she never ended up involved enough to feel the full weight of what was happening there; not like Ava and Darcy did. "Nothing I did made anything better in the end. Everything just... kept getting worse. I tried so hard not to let everyone down. To save everyone I could. But people still—"

She squeezes her eye shut and breathes. Don't think about Penny and the others that died. Not now.

"...I-I'm guessing they decided you were special because of your powers, too, huh."

"We keep doing what we can, in the hopes that our actions might have some sort of positive impact. But nobody can singlehandedly save the world. The circumstances that we're up against, they're not our doing. Not our faults. And if they were easy to overcome, then somebody else would have already been the hero." She wants to wrap an arm around Ruby, but carefully keeps her hands to herself. Doesn't want to push too far in her desire to comfort.

"We're always going to lose people, because death is inevitable and we exist in such dangerous worlds. And it's always going to be hard. I... I still miss my friends. Maximilien. Fio. Phil. Skulduggery..." The Captain, but she knows to keep that to herself. "But they're still in my heart, they're why I made it through. In some ways they're the ones that saved me. And so I try to live each day in honor of that." She does reach up, to gently brush some of Ruby's hair away from her face. Can tell she's suffering the loss of close friends too.

"My powers were useful to the wrong sorts of people. But nobody ever expected me to be a hero."

Ruby's head tilts lightly with the motion of Ava's fingers brushing away her hair, and she breathes.

"...they always expect something." Heroism or not. Salem's side has twisted young people up into tools using the things that may make them special, or their desire to be special, against them. Ruby's seen it. "I'm— I'm just tired of losing people. It's been one thing after another ever since mom vanished and... I-I don't know."

When Darcy and the others had first left the cells, all Ruby could think was that if one more person she loved died, it was going to break her beyond repair. And then she went home. And it turns out she was right. Losing one more person was all it really took.

"...once upon a time I was the one making offering people these kinds of assurances, heh."

A sad sound of agreement.

"I'm tired of losing people too. I... I wouldn't be nearly as functional if Peter hadn't made it. It's terrifying knowing how fragile life is, how quickly everything can change. How things can go so wrong in an instant. I lost my parents to an accident, and it was all so quick. I was afraid of making close connections after that. And for his own reasons, Peter was much the same. The idea that we have to distance ourselves from others because of all the associated dangers..." she shakes her head. Glad that she's overcome the view of isolation being a necessary part of protecting herself.

She gives Ruby a gentle side hug. "We can be strong for others while still having our own struggles. I wouldn't be in the place to offer reassurances if I hadn't received so much support."

Ruby leans into the side-hug without hesitation. "I didn't... get a lot of support, at home. I-It's no one's fault! Not— not really. Or... not any of my friends' fault."

Ozpin's fault, yes. To varying extent her adult family's fault... also yes. But she can't bring herself to actually blame her friends, now that the bitter anger born of stress and grief has faded. They didn't put her on the pedestal she stood upon, they just didn't help her down.

"But I was the leader. It was my job to pick everyone else up. Or... I thought it was."

It all feels different, now.

"You can't pick anyone up when you're down yourself, Ruby. It's not a weakness to let others know when you need help... and those that care most for you won't hesitate to provide it. I... I spent a long time being trapped by those treating my struggles as an inconvenience to them, that I was causing more troubles than I was worth. Not to say that's how they treated you. But I learned to... keep my complaints and hurt to myself... and that only made things worse. Peter's the one that... picked me up off the literal floor, when I finally collapsed under the weight of it all."

"I... I don't think I ever even let it show enough that anyone could see me as an inconvenience." She learned far too early that it would just be easier for people if she didn't show it, if she was just okay. No one ever really taught her it. Not until Ozpin cemented the worldview that she'd already been formulating for years and turned it into something somehow even more toxic than it already was. "But— things have been different, since the ship. People saw through it there."

"When you're away from the environment that shaped you, and the expectations of the people you've built yourself around... it's a lot easier to express the parts of yourself you've been suppressing. But yes, people have been very good at challenging my ideas of who I am, too. And a big part of that is... allowing yourself to be more than your regrets."

I'm not sure how much of me is even left outside of the regrets is thought, but not said. Instead she just nods. "Yeah. I-I guess that's true."

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[Closed] Birthday Dinner With the Family

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