Second Unused Utility Belt | Video

[hellofist]

[Today, Cass is dressed like a normal person. She's sitting in the cafeteria with a mug of tea, perched in a chair with her knees drawn up to her chest and her oversized sweater pulled over them so she's just a blob of blue fabric with arms. Even the hood is up. With her chin on her knees and her eyes on the tea, she speaks to the comm quietly.]

Had all the words. Could make them, if I wanted. Could write. Talked normal. Was normal.

Couldn't see bodies talking. Didn't need. [Her fist comes up to rub at her temple.] Makes headaches, now.

Does that... happen a lot? Was confusing. Was not fun.

Comments

video;

[buildindreemz]

You could try. It wouldn't hurt anything.

[Ariadne smiles faintly, because what is tact? She's not always good at it, either. Anyway, she doesn't mind talking about it.]

Most of the personality changes I've undergone made me kind of a mean person, but the worst were probably a couple of ports. One, I got tossed overboard and it turned me into a bad person who was planning to kill a lot of people. I was stopped before I could manage it, but it was really disturbing to me.

Another port, a bunch of us got captured by aliens who made us slaves. I got killed trying to escape.

video;

[hellofist]

[The mention of being forced into killing people shakes Cass quite a lot. That's about the worst thing she can imagine happening.]

Glad you didn't. Kill.

[Because no one should have to experience how unfun that guilt is.]

Stings, getting killed. Okay now?

video;

[buildindreemz]

Yeah, so was I. [It's particularly frightening for Ariadne, too, though she doesn't have the burden of actually having done it. Fortunately.]

Yeah. It hurt at the time, but it doesn't last too long around here. Doesn't even leave you with scars. [Not physical, anyway.]

video;

[hellofist]

[And that is just too good to be true. And hard to believe.]

How? Getting hurt... always leaves marks.

video;

[buildindreemz]

Yeah, no idea. No one knows. It sucks for about a week, but then it's like it never happened.

video;

[hellofist]

Huh.

[So you can make deals to fix terrible things that happen and getting hurt doesn't leave scars. At least there are good things to balance out the bad.]

Oh, Cass. [She points to herself, then waves.] Hi.

video;

[buildindreemz]

[Yeah, though Ariadne doesn't exactly know if there are any long-term consequences to dying a lot on the Barge...]

Hi, Cass. I'm Ariadne. It's nice to meet you.

video;

[hellofist]

You too. Been here... long time?

video;

[buildindreemz]

About a year.

It's not all terrible. Some of the people are really great, when you get to know them.