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ph_logs2025-09-20 10:27 am
pumpkinhollow) wrote in ph_logs2025-09-20 10:27 am
Entry tags:
September Event - Guest Appearances
GUEST APPEARANCES
Ignition
September 20th is the Autumnal Equinox. Many places across the world of Concorde celebrate the first day of fall. While various nations and regions have their own cultural practices surrounding it, nature is god everywhere. And so the inception of Mother Autumn’s domain is universally recognized, even if the names change from place to place. But on a little island named Marrow, in a little town called Pumpkin Hollow, there is another reason to celebrate.
The birth of Dahlia Leeds is not so important an event that it supersedes Celestine herself, and neither Dahlia nor anyone in town is foolhardy enough to claim as much. In fact, after the events on this very same day last year, one might argue that perhaps her birth at least started out as a bad thing. But she is certainly the wealthiest person in town. It is through the combination of substantial wealth and a generous heart, two things that are very seldom found in the same place, that we end up with a soiree where the birthday girl would rather spoil everyone else on her day than herself.
The doors to Leeds Estate, which presides proudly over the town upon its throne at the crest of Founder’s Hill, are flung wide open. Large sums of Brass are paid to caterers, florists, and seamstresses to make sure this place is decorated to the nines. Some businesses labor all year, just to prepare for the handsome payoff they’ll get from this event alone. And you, dear neighbor, are invited. Not only are you invited, but you are dressed for the event in whatever your heart desires, completely at the birthday girl’s expense. Dahlia ensures no cost nor conflict stands in between anyone in town and a much-needed break. She is determined for this birthday of hers to be a good night.
Or else.
The birth of Dahlia Leeds is not so important an event that it supersedes Celestine herself, and neither Dahlia nor anyone in town is foolhardy enough to claim as much. In fact, after the events on this very same day last year, one might argue that perhaps her birth at least started out as a bad thing. But she is certainly the wealthiest person in town. It is through the combination of substantial wealth and a generous heart, two things that are very seldom found in the same place, that we end up with a soiree where the birthday girl would rather spoil everyone else on her day than herself.
The doors to Leeds Estate, which presides proudly over the town upon its throne at the crest of Founder’s Hill, are flung wide open. Large sums of Brass are paid to caterers, florists, and seamstresses to make sure this place is decorated to the nines. Some businesses labor all year, just to prepare for the handsome payoff they’ll get from this event alone. And you, dear neighbor, are invited. Not only are you invited, but you are dressed for the event in whatever your heart desires, completely at the birthday girl’s expense. Dahlia ensures no cost nor conflict stands in between anyone in town and a much-needed break. She is determined for this birthday of hers to be a good night.
Or else.
Incipience
{ The timeframe between ignition and the peak of burning, where a small, contained fire spreads and grows gradually into an established flame. All it takes is a spark. }
The whole town is abuzz as preparations for the gala begin. From the moment people begin to wake up for the day, the air throughout Pumpkin Hollow just feels electric with excitement. After August, people have been needing this lift in morale, and after how last year’s gala went… well, there’s a lot riding on this one. And Dahlia seems much more in control now.Speaking of being in control, the whole lead-up process has been incredibly organized. You wake up to a delivery--- your outfit, perfectly tailored and completely paid for. Accessories are included. She truly thought of everything.
It’s noteworthy that Dahlia’s invitations this time included another name beneath her own. “Suzanne Marie Dyneax,” it said. Most people don’t know the name, but gossip gets around in a small town like this. It’s not hard to pick up on the fact that this probably refers to Susie, one of the teenagers that Dahlia recently moved into her home, whose own birthday was ruined by Seemingly’s attack. Gift baskets have been delivered to others whose days were in proximity to the disaster--- Zivia, Capochin, even CT. Wine, fruit, and sweets, along with a birthday card. Dahlia has said in the past, “my birthday is your birthday,” but never has that felt more true.
With businesses mostly closed for the celebration, you are left with the majority of the day to prepare in relative peace. For many of the women in Dahlia’s inner circle, there is even a pre-party group dressing room set up on the third floor of her home. Only those who received her special invitation (Susie, Noelle, Fever, Cassandra, Anya, Alice, Patty, Melanie, Basira, Elsie) are permitted to join, but any friends or partners are gladly invited to wait at the bottom of the stairs for the girls to make their grand entrance.
The food is laid out, flowers placed, dresses laced and buttoned. The clock strikes 6pm, and the fun begins.
FLASHOVER
{ The moment when a blaze reaches its maximum size and heat, and the radiant heat in the space is such that all combustible materials ignite at once, allowing the flame to steadily and freely burn for the rest of the night. }
By the time it reaches 6:15, the ballroom is already flooded with eager dancers and hungry dinner guests. After all, the whole town is invited, and everyone’s excited to see Dahlia’s beautiful new ballroom and take a load off.The music is elegant, played by a rotating cast of musicians who join the party when their act is over. The food is extravagant--- Dahlia and two of her partners are some of the biggest foodies in town, so this is expected. There is talking and laughing and the swirling of ballgowns, and all is well.
But there is a guest you do not recognize in the corner of the ballroom. An older man with white hair, strong features, and a dour expression. You can see Dahlia eyeing him, then flitting over to him, then talking to him. Her expression shifts from anxious, to annoyed, to resigned, before at last she sighs heavily and leaves him to it. Whatever it is that’s going on, clearly it’s something Dahlia is willing to begrudgingly tolerate in order to get back to having fun.
The reason for the disturbance becomes clear in short order, but by the grace of Celestine (and perhaps Eligos), it isn’t a reality bending nightmare or an attack by some monstrous beings. It is simply more guests.
A lot more, in fact.
Those who were on the island in September of the previous year will recall the Visitor’s Center, which appeared briefly just past the beach and served as temporary living and meeting quarters for visitors from the homeworlds of current residents. It would seem that this is a repeat incident. For the night of the gala, one to two “plus ones” have been invited for the vast majority of offworld residents. Most of them are friends or family who are happy to see their guests--- but this is ultimately a working of Eligos, so naturally, this is not always the case.
At the very least, Eligos seems to have been generous with his own granddaughter. As she turns away from him, she very nearly runs into someone much shorter than her. A dark haired human man with dwarfism. He laughs at the accident, grinning up at her as she stares back at him, utterly baffled. Then, petticoats billowing out, Dahlia sinks to the floor and embraces him as tight as she can, head pressed to his chest with little regard for her carefully-styled hair. Even those across the room can hear her shout his name. ”Jonah!”
Within the hour, the ballroom is packed with nearly double the people originally expected, turning the party livelier than it’s ever been. Tearful reunions, laughter, dancing, mischief, romance, sparring, cruelty, and even proper, righteous violence. Truly, this Leeds Gala will be one for the books!
[ OOC reminders: each apped-in player character is entitled to one or two guests from their homeworld. This can be former selves, family, friends, enemies, and they do not have to be from the character’s exact canonpoint. They can be from the past or the future. You may play them yourself, ask another member player to do it, or recruit a non-member player to do so with moderator approval. Non-member players are permitted to join the Discord server while they’re active in this event! Threads you write for your own guests are eligible for AC for the character they’re there with, and threads you write for someone else’s guest can be used on the AC of a character of your choice. Just make sure to mark them as guest threads. After the gala, guests will be allowed to move freely about town, stay the night on Saturday and go home Sunday, or leave right after the gala if preferred. And last but not least, characters played in the gala can be apped directly from this event, rather than going through the normal arrival process. Let a mod know if you have questions, and have fun! ]
Smoldering
{ The decay of a flame as available heat, oxygen, and burning material gradually diminish. Eventually, the flames will recede entirely into glowing embers, glittering like orange starlight amid the ashes of what once was. }
The party rages well into the night. It’s not typical for residents of Pumpkin Hollow to stay out this late, with everything around here that goes bump in the night, but eventually party-goers begin to find their way out. They move in small groups, huddled around lanterns, may they ever stay lit. Perhaps the surprising bit is that their guests can go with them. There are even reservations made for board overnight at the Oak & Iron, all under the name “E. Rex”.But alas, these reservations are only booked for one night. And by the time the sun begins to set on the darker half of the year for the first time, an unfamiliar black boat is moored at Jack's Marina. One that the guests will recognize as the vessel on which they arrived. They must leave by the time it becomes dark.
Or must they? Perhaps for a select few, they will fail to feel the call which draws them home. It is unclear why. There are many that Mortanne would have allowed residency for, if she could. But for some reason, all but a small few feel the pull. Perhaps Eligos has simply abandoned them here. (Or maybe none at all end up marooned and everyone goes home? That all depends on you, dear reader.)
When the sky goes dark, the aptly named Heavy Heart shoves off, with only her crimson sails hanging suspended seemingly in midair in the moonlight. The black ship is otherwise consumed by the night. And soon, even those flashes of red vanish into the distance.
Moments recede into memories, like a dying fire settles gently into glowing embers at the bottom of a hearth. The festivities are over, and the guests are gone. Life in Pumpkin Hollow resumes as before. But maybe just a little warmer and brighter.
“My birthday is your birthday,” as Dahlia often says.
Happy birthday.
References to the appearance of Leeds Estate can be found here!
Agent Virginia | RvB OC
When CT first spots the short, middle-aged woman that arrives as one of the guests, they look— nervous. Not scared—no, genuine fear is reserved for confronting the likes of Carolina—but just uncertain enough as to hesitate in facing her. Yet when she beckons them over, they approach without further resistance and only have the time to stammer, "Gin, I—"
Before Virginia claps hands over their shoulders and pulls them into a hug. Relief washes over CT in a wave and the two of them stand there for a long moment, until Virginia taps CT on the arm and they head over to sit at the edge of the room to talk in fast-moving hands.
There is so very much to catch up on.
It's odd to see CT again, whose death heralded the beginning of a death spiral that Project Freelancer would never recover from. Virginia still remembers the day of their defection, remembers finding Massachusetts's laptop tucked away in her locker and hearing from Illinois and the sunshine states that things CT owed them had mysteriously appeared back amongst their belongings. Odd. Odd enough that, when Alpha Squad arriving back one agent down, it wasn't as much of a surprise as it should've been.Alpha Squad got weird, after that. Already insular tendencies amplified by the betrayal and the ever-increasing pressure from above. Virginia started encouraging Beta Squad to pull back, not get involved, just do their training and assignments and keep their heads down. Something is brewing, she'd tell them, I don't know what, but I don't like it. The following months spent chasing CT's trail did little to put that feeling to rest and well, she was right, wasn't she? They put CT down like a dog and the program imploded within weeks, sending some agents to the wind and trapping others in a slowly crushing vice.
She was one of the latter. Severely injured and newly disabled from a run-in with the Meta after the crash, the Project put her back together best they could and had her back in the field chasing down Recovery Beacons as soon as possible. From a Staff Sergeant in the ODSTs to nebulously ranked squad leader in a Spec Ops program to grunt in a glorified clean-up crew.
That's her life now, so, this is actually a nice break from the grim routine of flitting between sites of death and injury. She tells CT all of this and more, straightforward and open and every bit of the leader CT remembers her being back in the day, knowing exactly what CT would want to know before she asks how they're doing. Which she will ask and will get an answer to, Connecticut, don't test her.
'I'm sorry, Gin. If I hadn't roped in Mass...'
'Stop.'
'But—'
'You think I didn't think about every little thing I could've done differently, after my first squad got wiped out? It doesn't help. It doesn't bring anyone back. Mass made zir choice as much as you did and I don't think for a second the brass would've spared zir even if you'd kept zir in the dark. I don't want your apologies. I want to know how you're holding up.'
A stubborn staring contest ends in a sigh, and CT begrudgingly answers.
[Party/OTA]
Virginia is a 5'1", compactly built woman with greying hair and middle-age and stress alike lining her face. Just above the collar of her suit, there's an old, chicken-scratch kanji tattoo now badly damaged by surgical scarring that stretches around her throat—not something she picked out herself, exactly, but given to her by the kind of soldiers that sign up for and survive the helljumpers long enough to find a CO they trust with their lives.
It's been a long time since she was a helljumper and she could never go back, not with her... damage, but she's still that CO.
What time she doesn't spend talking to her fellow ex-agents is spent sitting down soaking up the vibes of the first break she's had in months, drinking her way through a steady stream of alcohol that edges close to the line of too much (though at no point does she ever seem tipsy). Striking up conversation can be hard, when she can't be sure who around the place will understand her signing, but she's perfectly happy to talk with those who do or who don't mind her having to scribble on a bit of paper.
[ OOC notes: Virginia is physiologically mute, but not Deaf. She speaks in a form of universal sign language or can write. She is CT's Freelancer CO from before CT joined Alpha Squad that Carolina led. ]
Sorry, Commander, For Punching That Guy in the Face.
Carolina follows the ex-Freelancer out into the garden, her head sunk low between her shoulders. She has a headache. Splitting. Her own fault for head-butting a person without protective gear, and now she'll suffer the consequences of a probable concussion. She snaps her wrist once— exercise some of the lingering adrenaline— although mostly she just feels embarrassed.
Virginia. Of all the Freelancers to witness her acting so stupid, it had to be Virginia.
Agent Virginia, Commanding Officer before herself, with her suit and inked throat and scar she doesn't think she recognizes. Who isn't speaking for some reason, and that has to be new.
"You're not talking."
A question and a statement. Carolina sits on a garden bench, looking up at her.
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When you're a soldier as short as Virginia is, you learn a few things about how to cultivate a presence—especially when, like Virginia, you're supposed to be wrangling a bunch of tenacious, rambunctious ODSTs who tower over you by a good foot in most cases. It's been a long time since Gunnery Sergeant Isa Lockwood last cleared her throat and drew the eye of every wannabe hardass in the room, but she likes to think she never truly lost the skill and she likes to think her record in Beta Squad proved it.
And while she doesn't try to loom over Carolina, she doesn't move to sit, either.
'I've got the Meta to thank for that. You weren't the only one it attacked around the crash. Still not sure what it wanted with me. Had to know I'd never had Xi, but...'
She shrugs. How to understand what was going on inside what had once been Maine's mind, she doesn't know.
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"Maine."
The name is lodged in her windpipe like a dozen bullets; a bad friend's too-late vigilance spilling uncontrollably over the conversation. What else is she supposed to do? Accept his existence is mutably worse? Ignore the living body that carries his— her— AI, and the mind that still exists inside? He has to be in there. Somewhere. Has to be.
She furls a little, doubles down.
"His name is Maine. I know what he did. I know he isn't all in there, but he doesn't stop being him just because there's something in his head."
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Virginia holds up her hands, then circles a fist around her chest—'sorry'. That wasn't a hot button she saw coming, but maybe she should've, given...
'You're right. Just— been easier to think of what he's been doing as the AI. Not him.' She was never close with Maine, not like Alpha, but it's never good to watch a teammate go... wrong, like that. Not that she's ever seen something like it. Unforeseen dangers of the experimental technology, that's what they keep saying it is. She's pretty sure it's something more. 'Been helping clean up his messes for a while, since the program patched me back up. It's not been fun. Louisi lost an arm along with her AI. And Nebraska... well, even he didn't deserve to go out like that.'
It's been one bloody scene after the next and though Virginia's mostly been stuck on secondary clean-up duty after Washington, it's not a job she relishes.
'Point is, he fucked up my vocal chords and now I can only sign. The irony's not lost on me.'
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"I'm sorry."
In reference to what, exactly, Carolina isn't sure. Everything. The brutal and unnecessary Freelancer deaths. The stealing of a perfectly good voice. She's sorry for giving her AI to Maine, and if she could go back, take on the brunt of Sigma's manipulation herself, she would. For not going with York when he asked her. She's sorry for her father's actions. Sorry her mother ever died, the catalyst to all of this. She feels pathetic. Pull it together.
"After CT, everything went downhill fast— and I was too busy playing rivals with Texas to notice. Stupid." Said in an exhale. She pinches the bridge of her nose like holding something important in place. "Did you know about Charon?"
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'No. But I'm not surprised, exactly. What's one more lie for the pile, right? Mass always told us how CT was... dubious, about the Innies we were fighting by the end. But I never had much hands-on experience with the real thing. I was fighting Covvies from day one.'
Enlisted right around when the war began and rose through the ranks from there. Her whole career built around the shape of a war that's over, now, leaving her in the rubble of a program that's reduced her down to clean-up crew. Sometimes going AWOL seems worth the risk, if only it wasn't for the members of her squad still working elsewhere in the ruins.
'We all believed the Director.' Beat. 'Well. Except CT, I suppose. Not knowing better isn't something you have to apologise for any more than the rest of us.'
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"I get that, it's just..." She gestures oddly with her hands. "You carry things differently when you're in a position over other people. You're responsible for their safety. And when they aren't safe anymore..." A beat. Virginia gets it. "It's what upsets me most about Maine. He didn't do anything wrong. He used the tools that were given to him, and when they started to turn for the worst none of us noticed. I didn't notice."
Not until his fingers were clawing at the back of her neck. Pretty damn late, if you ask her.
"I actually got close. To finding the Director. He was right there."
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'That's impressive. He's made himself a very hard man to reach, these days. I don't think any of us have received a direct order in weeks,' Virginia signs, entirely genuine but lacking the full context of why finding him is such a big deal for Carolina more than any of them. She's always had a feeling that there's others in remnants of the program that are gearing up to do something, but... well, their resources are limited, and their ability to connect with each other even more so.
Maybe Carolina, presumed dead and out of sight, always stood the best chance.
'I know the feeling, you know. The amount of times after my last drop that I tried to convince myself there was something I could've seen in the intel, something I missed that could've changed how it went down...' She presses her lips together, fingers curled against her palms in almost a mimicry of the expression, then moves to sit down beside Carolina instead. 'You don't know the full story of how the program got me, do you.'
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"Sounds like him."
Some things never change, she thinks. Men like him usually don't. She's given up on the idea entirely. Has long stopped fantasizing about confessions of guilt and regret and the want to make things right. Her father addressing her by her name— her name— and she wonders if perhaps he's forgotten it. Doesn't care enough to remember. If it doesn't start with A and end in N, what's the point?
So close.
So close to getting what she wants. Absolution. Tell me I did good.
Carolina looks at her and folds her hands in her lap. "No, I don't think I do."
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'It was meant to be a pretty standard drop. The Covvies had taken an outpost the brass wanted back—some sort of testing site, I think, half the report was redacted even to me. Get in, clear out the Covvies, rescue any survivors and reclaim the outpost—typical threat-level, everything in the intel packet said this should've been a walk in the park for us. There weren't even meant to be any ground-to-air defences in the area.'
Even now, years detached from this, her hands shake a little as she signs it out. Old reflex would have her grabbing for a flask on her hip, but there's nothing there—thank god.
'Three eggs were shot down before we reached the surface. Hunter—she was new—Pender and Dolan, reduced to scrap metal by guns we were told didn't exist. And Chaudhari got knocked off course, got killed before she could make it back to us on the ground. Moon's pod malfunctioned, door jammed, and one of the Split-Lips got him through the metal before we could reach him. My second in command, Platt, she— her door jammed, too, and I almost made it to her before the thing outside got her, but I wasn't quick enough. Rennol, Nosek, Sika, Yueng, Langdon, Geroux, Shelby... they all died off one by one to a force far bigger than we were meant to find. Only a couple of them made it past the first 12 hours and by the end of the first 24 they were all gone. Extraction didn't come.'
A deep breath in, then out. She scratches at the tattoo beneath the scars and then makes herself stop, flexing her fingers.
'I survived two weeks down there. God only knows how. Lot of time hiding in pods, lot of sneaking around—I was small and agile, I could hide in a lot of places in the outpost itself and take a lot of resources without them finding me. So I picked the hinge-heads off one-by-one until I could get to a radio and call for rescue. Couple months later, the brass charged me with treason to cover for their own incompetence. Claimed I was responsible for the bad intel, that I'd sabotaged the assignment.'
It still makes her angry, to think about, and it shows in the way her signs get choppier, more forceful, toward the end. Even now she doesn't understand why, exactly, they needed a scapegoat so badly—something to do with whatever that place was, she supposes, maybe they thought they needed to keep her quiet about what she might've seen inside. But she didn't see a damn thing. She was too busy surviving.
'...and I remember every one of those deaths as clearly as if it happened yesterday. Remembering doesn't hurt as bad as it used to, but I've never forgotten, and I don't think I ever will. I spent months trying to figure out what I could've done differently to save even a few of those soldiers' lives, but all that did was give me a drinking problem just bad enough the Project made me do counselling before I could sign the paperwork. It didn't fix anything.'
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It's awful. Every detail, every death, every malfunction somehow worse than the last. Virginia paints a picture in which every corner houses some brand of bad luck, her hands shaking with the effort. The Convenient was never a pleasant force to go up against. There's reason humankind swung head-first into forcing advancement, attempts to pitch themselves above the enemy in both manpower and technology. Carolina's experience is, admittedly, limited. She knows the beasts— Grunts, Drones, Elites and more— has painted the ground with enough of their blood— but this... Never this.
She chews the inside of her mouth. Considers, then reaches out to lay a hand on Virginia's shoulder. "None of you deserved that. I'm sorry."
It stays there for a minute, then she removes it. Laughs a little.
"Hah. Counseling. Their counseling is bullcrap. I can't remember one time I left the Counselor's office feeling any better than when I walked in. We're meant to do these— things— at their command. Do them without asking questions. And when they're hard— when we come back changed— they act so surprised. Like they aren't the ones telling us to do it. Like it's our fault."
It's my fault.
She'd tried everything to talk the Director down from pursuing Connecticut— which, in the end, hadn't been enough. She remembers the aftermath. The counseling sessions— required long before the incident but taking on a colder air after CT's death— 'that must be difficult as a leader', Price's voice, 'have you considered that Agent Connecticut might never have considered herself a part of your team?'
Livid.
You people made me do this.
Why didn't I tell you to stop.
Carolina shakes her head.
"Sometimes it feels like something we'll never get out of. Ever. No matter what war's going on."
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'Sometimes.' Virginia can't disagree with that, god only knows she's found herself feeling the same over the years. 'I gave my whole damn life to this military and it chewed me up then spat me back out into another branch's mouth like feeding a baby bird. Sometimes that smarts. And god knows I'm going to get out soon as I can figure out how to get the others out too.'
She can't leave behind the members of her squad still stuck in that open maw. Four of them are on hold for some mystery assignment related to the sim bases that are, for some fucking reason, still running. The rest are split between other clean-up duties, the sickbay or those who somehow made it out on their own.
There has to be a way to get them the fuck out of there.
'But we're not just their toy soldiers, Carolina,' Virginia insists, firm and steady once more. 'Hell, we know how to lead our people far better than those glorified civilians at the top of the Project ever did because we know what it's like on the front lines. We know what it's like to actually fight. And they were determined to screw up everything that we knew worked because they thought they knew better.'
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"They're everywhere. You get out of one bad outfit then you're right back into another. Like the— Charon stuff. No one does anything in good faith. You can't trust anyone. And you can't do anything without recourses. Who owns all the recourses? Them." Okay, maybe that's her baggage and trust issues talking. Maybe she's playing the part of the pessimist when really she should be regaling for their freedom. Just like—
Carolina laughs, dry and sharp. She lowers her forehead into the crook between thumb and forefinger.
"We sound like Insurrectionists. One war ends and it's back to another, right? I don't know if I could step away from everything even if I wanted to."
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'Sometimes I forget how young you are. It's not Insurrectionist to not trust the brass, Carolina. It's common sense,' Virginia says, expression suggesting it's somewhat of a joke, but not really. 'They always have their own agenda. They never know your soldiers as well as you do. And the longer they're up above the rest of us, the more they forget about what it's like to have their boots on the ground. If they were ever there at all.'
(In hindsight, the lack of military leadership in the program outside of its more experienced agents was as much of a red flag as it was a green. Which she supposes makes it a brown flag. Impossible to judge until it was too late.)
'People like us, we sign up and we stay because we know there's something to fight for. Before, it was surviving the Covenant. Now, it's the people left behind. That's worthwhile.'
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Carolina's mouth falls open, ready to object— say something puerile and unconvincing about knowing exactly how the world works and being practically geriatric in military-years— then shuts it again. A boldfaced lie. Well, not about being thirty. That bit's true. Rather, at having even the slightest grasp on how and why the world works the way it does; where it went wrong, and where it's going in the near and far future.
It's funny (in a bald and unfunny way) how little she knows about Virginia— about most of the Freelancers, aside from her own. Probably, she thinks, by design.
After a thoughtful pause, she says, "Do you ever wonder what you'd be doing, if you weren't military?"
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'I used to know. If Harvest had never happened or maybe even if my colony wasn't glassed that first year of the war... I would've gone to college, either gone into medicine or medical engineering. Assuming raising my kid didn't wipe me out.'
Money wise, energy wise, both. Grand ambitions held by a new mother who didn't yet know the world was about to end. That her world was about to end.
'These days, I don't think about it so much. Gotta get out first. After that, who knows. Good at manual work, got some practical engineering experience...' She shrugs. 'But I get the feeling you never thought about it at all, until now. Yeah?'
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"Yeah. I liked dancing, a lot actually, but that didn't seem like a viable career path. I always planned to enlist. It was my dream. Everything else became secondary, so I didn't think about it or consider alternatives or make a ten year plan or whatever. Maybe I should have."
Dream and expectation are somewhat synonymous here. She hasn't caught on.
"I have no idea what I'm gonna do after everything. I don't know what 'everything' is going to look like. Connie and I haven't exactly hashed out a solid plan. We can't get more than five minutes into a conversation without arguing."
A beat.
"...Kids are definitely off the table."
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Virginia huffs, a sound in her damaged throat that's not quite a laugh and, at the very least, definitely not a happy one. 'They're off the table for me too, at this point. Wasn't actually part of the plan back then and, well, I haven't seen my son since I handed him to a stranger on a full evac ship. Early days of the war... it was chaos.'
Evacuation protocols had barely begun to be put in place, the Covenant attacks were even harder to predict than they became with time and knowledge, the colonial army wasn't big enough to make a dent... everyone was scrambling, and getting her son onto a ship was more important than getting herself on with him. Even then, she didn't realise how easy it was for the ships to get split up, go different places.
'I think you and Connie can figure it out. Neither of you are idiots, you've just been pushed to your limits and pitted against each other. But you're on the same side. You've just got to figure out how to act like it again. Which, I know, easy for me to say, but...'
Another shrug. She flexes her fingers.
'I don't think you're going to be able to think about the future until you not just know, but accept you have one.' She eyes her, for a moment. 'Military brat, yeah?'
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They come over and give an excited two-hand wave before yanking down their bandana so that Virginia can see their facial expression. "I saw you use some Sign and thought I'd come say hello! My name's K-E-L." (They fingerspell it for her. They do have a Sign name, of course, but they've just met.) "Are you visiting tonight?"
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Virginia smiles, lines around her eyes crinkling. Nice to see that some of the others besides her fellow Freelancers know how to sign.
'Hello, Kel. My name's—' There's momentary hesitation in her usually fluid, snappy signing, before she ultimately continues: '—I-S-A. Yeah, I'm here to visit a couple old teammates of mine. C-T and C-L.'
C-L for Carolina is, admittedly, unique to the program, where NC and SC mean nothing, something she simply doesn't think about being non-Earthborn.
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CT is one of the constables. They know that much. And they think they heard once that it’s short for Connecticut, like the state. But what state is CL? Maybe someone CT knows?
”C-A-R-O-L-I-N-A?” Then they sign something unique— the signs for “blue” and “green” (which combined is how one says turquoise or cyan) but the sign for “green” is modified to look more like a C. This is what Pokey has named her in ASL. ”She’s one of my best friends! I love her threatening aura.”
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Virginia laughs—more fluctuating breath than anything, what little sound involved more of an almost painful sounding grunting. 'That's her. She hasn't changed much, since we last talked.'
The threatening aura's always been there, even if Carolina used to be a lot more... a lot less on edge, all the time. Simpler days, back before the program felt like a trap.
'I was lead of another squad in the same program.'
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'We were mostly infiltration. Sneaking around, stealing stuff, finding new targets,' she answers. Important work in a program like theirs, they needed the intel to progress their various objectives. 'Most of our unique tricks were focused on helping with that. One of us had a unit that let her see through walls. Monty—'
This is signed as a combination of M into yellow, reflexively.
'—could zip about like they were skipping frames. Louisi—' L into sword, 'could teleport. The sunshine twins could jump multiple storeys. CT could make duplicates of herself. Stuff like that.'