Shore Leave Part 3: The Return Of Stacy

[cityship]

Down on the surface of the planet Zokez II, Stacy's erstwhile (and hopefully much more relaxed) crew began receiving messages over their comm rings and omnicoms.

||Shore Leave is now over, please return to the site for pick up. I repeat, Shore Leave is now over, please return to the site for pick up. I hope you have enjoyed your stay on Zokez II, but all good things must come to an end. Please return to the site for pick up. If you do not return, you will be left behind.||

She means it, too. Better get your butts back to the ship.

[OOC: Please thread amongst yourselves!]

Comments

[gunslinging.livejournal.com]

"Most of them just wait for the Hunters to do everything." Axl shrugged. "X says we can fight better than they can anyway and I shouldn't hold it against them. And, I mean, I don't really hold it against them most of the time, but you'd think they could at least treat the people keeping them alive a little better. I dunno, I...didn't really know that many humans, until I got here." Generalizations were just that -- generalizations -- but he didn't have a lot of experience with anything else to work from.

[ladyofthesands.livejournal.com]

"It can be difficult for people to treat others with respect if they do not see you as anything but tools for survival," Arha said thoughtfully. "That you are fully functioning with minds of your own seems to be something that they do not see, yes?" She folded her hands loosely in her lap. Her Mothers-Within, the Bene Gesserit ones especially, were loud with outcry. Arha silenced them. This was not their own home and the universe this one came from was different.

"You will be treated as family in this place," Arha said, despite the uproar in her mind. "After all, your universe is one we are fighting for as well as every other being on this ship. We are all a strange sort of family, adopted and cobbled together as survivors."

[gunslinging.livejournal.com]

"At least surviving's something I'm already good at," he joked. It was kind of a relief, even if he wasn't the type to say so upfront -- so far most of the people he'd talked to had been pretty cool about what he was; granted, they weren't coming at it with the same kind of baggage that anyone in his world would, but it sounded like Arha at least had even more reason to distrust a machine.

But she was right. They were all in this together, strange a group as they might be. They couldn't really afford to hold onto old prejudice.

[ladyofthesands.livejournal.com]

"I am, as well, good at surviving," Arha said, smiling. "I was near ten years in the deep desert, for the most part, alone. After such a thing, it no long matters where I am, so long as I have my new family with me. I am most grateful to Rogue Squadron and to my Jed-Eye for welcoming me. So, I welcome all those that join us."

[gunslinging.livejournal.com]

"Ten years alone in the desert?" Axl asked, impressed.

That was something to write home about.

[ladyofthesands.livejournal.com]

"I am Fremen and was trained in desert survival from the time I was small," Arha said, thinking back to those quiet years spent with Kalim in the simulated desert with the young and dying Shai-Hulud. "There is much to survive upon if one knows where to look. But, I had my moments where I found myself near death. The point is that despite such slim odds, I survived, and was hardened by my home planet. I have seen war, fought and killed for my people, and I have been a healer as well. It was necessary and it has brought me to where I am today, in this moment."

[gunslinging.livejournal.com]

Bad things that were necessary to bring you to where you were now.

Something close to a wince crossed Axl's face for a split-second, before he smothered it. "Yeah, I can understand that."

[ladyofthesands.livejournal.com]

"One cannot be who they are without first having the past shape them," Arha said firmly. "Kalim, the woman who raised me, always told me that whining about the hardships you have endured lessens their meaning. You must embrace all things and examine how they have changed you. It is then that you truly know who you are."

[gunslinging.livejournal.com]

"Sounds about like what Red used to tell me. Only his version didn't sound as...philosophical."

Red's version had been something more like shut up and suck it up, I'm not raising a wimp.

[ladyofthesands.livejournal.com]

"My Order was bent in such a manner," Arha said with a bright laugh. "Not every individual is as philosophic, as you put it so well. Honestly, everything from the mouths of the Bene Gesserit is much like that. It sometimes requires thought before interpretation."

[gunslinging.livejournal.com]

"I was raised by bounty hunters. Talking was just for what you couldn't say better with a gun." There had been a couple of exceptions, even in Red Alert, but for the most part, nobody thought too hard about anything but the mission in front of them.

[ladyofthesands.livejournal.com]

Arha nodded.

"Such is the way of some people," she murmured. There were many different types of cultures in the universes, this she knew. Hunting for bounty was just one of them. Such a thing was not conducive to 'warm and nuturing'. But then, Arha had never had the luxury of such an example herself.