trans_9 | Man, you look just like I feel [Open]

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Man, you look just like I feel [Open]

Despite the uproar that had taken place only a day earlier, it was all quiet at the Susono Inn. Well... mostly quiet, anyway. It was home to some of the most stubborn crew members on the ship, almost all of whom had gotten involved in the brawl with the Kessek.

Allenby's arm had been broken. Simon had taken a hard one directly to the ribs. Zouichi would probably take a week to get back to real fighting form.

And Howard... well, it would probably take Howard a while to recover from what had happened.

[Visitors welcome!]

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She rolled her eyes. "No, its for the other guys that were going to get tortured." Her attempts at a joke: as good as her first teacher Katara's. " Of course its for you! I know you prefer Stacy's goop, but I figured something tasty would be better at hitting the spot right about now."

Kaya, of course, is only willing to talk to Howard about whatever he wanted to talk about.

Howard flinches a bit, although if it's at the mention of torture or just that the joke is that bad is up to debate. He steps back from the door. "I don't prefer the goop, I just don't see what's wrong with it. You can come in if you want."

He goes to sitting back on the bed with his cats.

Yes, despite usually having tact, Kaya is figuring acknowledging what happened is at least a step in the direction of knowing what to do about it. This was, in her knowledge anyway, the first time the Daligig had actually pushed for it to happen. That thought was frightening.

She stepped in slowly, noticing the two cats, and crumpled some of the meat and left it by the foot of the bed so they could enjoy something to eat too.

"I didn't...go, I guess. What happened there?"

The cats set to fighting over the meat, batting each other with their paws. Clearly they have similar priorities to their owner, or at least, to what their owner's usually like. Uncharacteristically, Howard's almost ignoring the food, as if he's forgotten it's there.

"Stacy didn't go through with it. She lied to protect me and Orc." He shrugs. "So I should be over it."

Kaya nodded, smiling a very, very small smile. "I saw the last time she did the punishment. She was actually pretty torn up about it, and people speculated on whether she actually meant it or not. That she stopped this is proof of something though: Stacy might actually be rebelling against her original purpose that the Daligig forced on her to begin with."

And she remembered what Jaime had said on the planet. "Which makes me wonder what role those Daligig actually play in all of this, what REAL role."

She paused. "You're not over it though. And no reason you should be right now."

"She might be on our side." Howard still doesn't sound like he believes it, but why bother believing anything right now? He's convinced he's going to die, sooner rather than later, on this godforsaken ship.

"Whatever it is, they're messing with us. They don't know how to handle what they can't control."

He hesitates. "No, I'm not. I just want to go to sleep and wake up when it's all over."

"I know no one is holding their breath on that," Kaya said, "and why should they? No one's trusted Stacy since day one. It still seem to me though that the only reason for that is what Stacy was originally made for, and how difficult it is to tell where her loyalties lie. This at least lets us know she's starting to show her true colors. The Daligig might not like that."

And she was, right now, all for the Daligig having less control.

"When what's all over?"

"The Daligig will figure out she lied for us sooner rather than later. The Violations number is easy to crosscheck." He bites at his thumbnail, then takes some of the meat from the tray she brought.

"All of this. People retaliating. The war. Stacy. Feeling like this. I just want to not feel like this."

Kaya herself brought out some of the fish she bought and ate quietly. "So then we won't just have to worry about them targeting us: they'll try to mess with Stacy again too. This is bad: they're going to see we are less and less in their control. This was why I didn't go down there for the punishment. If I'd see you with Orc..."

She wouldn't have held back, that was what. And what good would that have done them in the long run?

"It wasn't something we chose, Howard, not any of us. Where there is peace war is never far behind. That's just how things are."

He shakes his head and sinks into the bed. "I know. I didn't choose this. I don't get a choice in any of this and when I try to make one, I get dragged back for torture."

He tucks his knees up. "That's just how things are."

"If there was a way that easy to get out, don't you think someone might have tried and succeeded? though I don't think anyone ever thought of that. I hate that this happened to you. You've been through enough with the FAYZ, you didn't need this."

She tightened her fist. "And it won't go unanswered, I swear. In the meantime, if they try to do anything else to you, we won't let them, do it easily."

"Yeah. Feeling sorry for me helps a lot." He says it sarcastically, but it does help to have someone actually acknowledge that, at the moment, his life really sucks.

"They won't. I think they're done with me for the time being. That's the one thing about this, I guess they'll know not to pick on me again unless they want a riot."

"It's all I can offer, for that," Kaya said quietly. "but to be completely honest, I'm glad you're back. I know your life might have been better on that planet, but the truth is I would have missed you a lot. So many people I know get repodded, and its because I'm dumb enough to care about them and miss them. That said, this still isn't fair to you."

Here though, Kaya snickered. "They already invited a riot. Attacking all the people they did, with no effort of remorse? No kind of retraction? It was the dumbest thing they could have done. People here can get by when the danger isn't apparent. That punishment I saw? That woman had earned all the demerits for it. They wanted to make an example of you, and FAILED. The riot is just waiting."

"I'm not glad I'm back." He curls up into a ball on the bed. "Not that I wouldn't miss things here, but..."

But the way he came back, combined with the many reasons he left, leave him feeling completely hollow.

"They might want to sneak off the ship before it happens. Leave us to duke it out with ourselves instead of taking it out on them."

"I didn't think you would be, not after the way you were brought here." Without really thinking about it, her hand went to his head, stroking slowly. In a way, he reminded her of Negi, the day she found out what happened in his village. Thinking of THAT was just going down a bad road for her, so she took her hand away.

"I don't know about that. With all that happened around you guys, they need to find a way to regain power. The whole point of apprehending you was to send a message to us to stay in line, and they failed.They won't leave now until they're sure we're under their control again."

He pushes her hand away before she eve gets a chance to retract it. "Stop. Personal bubble." He's not even got the energy to freak out at her over it. He knows she's just trying to be comforting.

"Or they'll leave and nuke us on the way out. Who'd ever know? It's not like anyone's looking for us and they could just say we accidentally did it to ourselves."

"Yeah, sorry." Even she knew better than to do that with Howard. It was just a moment where she remembered when she would have done this with someone she considered a brother. As far as she knew, those times, that person was podded and would not be coming back.

Reality always set in, much as she hated it, was still as ugly as the fact that this war was coming.

"No, they still need us or they wouldn't even bother. If they could just kill us and start again they would have done it by now. No, now they're going to be looking for another way, maybe get backing from crewmembers who don't want a fight with them.

"Mm." Howard stares at the wall. "Maybe you're right. None of it makes sense."

And he's certainly not going to be able to piece it together today. Or maybe for a long while. He's still too disoriented.

"Thanks for the food."

"It never does," Kaya said sadly. "We just have to do our best and make sure the next step we take is the right one."

She smiled. "No problem. I'd say you do the same, but we both know that's not true, so I'll hope you would at least think about it."

Kaya got up, but not before saying one other thing. "I will make sure they pay for this."

"I don't want to fight them any more." He won't stop Kaya, though. He's just done with taking risks for the moment. "Thanks for coming by. I'm going back to bed."

Once she closes the door behind her he goes back to staring at the ceiling.

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Man, you look just like I feel [Open]

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