Truth is like a loaded gun

[kungfuey]

characters: Scarlett Harker kungfuey
location: Various
date/time: Month of October
content: A catch all for various things.
warnings: TBA



*TEMP* Some open prompts will be added to this but in the short term - if there's something specific you'd like to do with Scarlett, hit me up on plurk brooklyn2181

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[kungfuey]

She listened as he described the mask to her, the change in him after she'd handed over his shirt making a little more sense. She didn't understand the significance of the mask but it made some sense in a way and while it's an odd thing for her to be able to bond with him over?

She drags herself up from the ground and moves around to the other side of the bed. Dragging open a drawer to pull out a different mask from it, she goes back to join him on the floor, sliding it a few inches in his direction.

"Not all masks are bad." Sometimes they were just things to hide behind. "When the world first went to shit I used to put this stuff around the nose. Vapor rub." One of those things that was meant to mask the smell but judging from the wry grin on her lips, that hadn't lasted. "Seemed like a good idea but hot breath and that shit?" And why she's even showing him this? Maybe to show him he's not so different, or perhaps even to show herself.

[worthallthis]

The Soldier picks up her mask to look it over curiously. Holds it up to its face to peer through and check how well the eye holes work, but doesn't let it touch skin. "Maybe when you choose it, it's not as bad," it agrees, setting it down and pushing it gently back towards her. "I had. Goggles. For the top part. Those were okay." Kind of misses those, sometimes, how they'd helped it focus and see more clearly when it was too bright or too dark. It doubts it could stomach the mask now, though, after so long without it. "My last mission they left both off. For some reason. Or I'd have them here."

[kungfuey]

"That's generally been my experience." That everything is better when it's your choice, even death in Scarlett's case.

As he speaks she reaches for the mask, dragging it back so he's not forced to stare at it and tossing it on the bed. Her head tilted to one side as she considers his words, the reference to his last mission that had ended badly - clearly.

"Do you... remember much about it?" Almost tentative with the question. "Your last mission?" Scarlett wondering of maybe, working backward might help him get some sense of who he was beyond the fragments of memories.

[worthallthis]

"All of it," the Soldier says wearily. "They wiped me before they set me on my targets, and I died before they could do it again." Since she asked, it seems pretty obvious that she wants to know, so it continues, "It was a frustrating mission. The main target was. As strong as I am. And kept talking." You're not supposed to talk to the Soldier as it's trying to kill you. It's just stupid. "And one of his backups could fly. Or he could until I ripped one of his wings off."

[kungfuey]

"You ripped his wing off?" Given the kind of people they have around here? She is envisioning an actual flesh and blood wing and it's hard to picture a thing like that without feeling a little... disturbed. "What - like... an Angel or something?" This was in no way where she'd intended for this conversation to go but the whole wing thing kind of demanded it.

[worthallthis]

"No." It shakes its head a little, hair falling in its face. It ignores that. "They were made of metal and polycarbon. Personal jet packs with articulated stabilizers." That came right out of the briefing HYDRA gave it before setting it loose on them. It sounds intensely satisfied when it says, "I tore one off and threw him off the helicarrier."

Probably the least evil thing it'd done all day, to be honest, considering the guy had a parachute. After the intense lethality of taking out the entire squadron of quinjets and quinjet pilots, managing to ground a difficult target like that without having to actually blow him up or shoot him in the next had been something to be pleased with. (Of course, Scarlett doesn't actually know the Soldier didn't kill the guy. Or that it had killed all those other ones, for that matter. It might have some more explaining to do.)

[kungfuey]

That somehow manages to be far less terrifying and way more funny, a bark of laughter spilling over as he paints a picture of him throwing a guy with metal wings and a jetpack off a helicarrier - whatever the hell that is. It probably helps that she's picturing something on water not in the air.

"You make it sound like you were fighting the Jetsons." Her words undoubtedly going right over his head.

Perhaps she should have a thousand questions, should wonder just how many bodies he left in his wake but she'd spent more than three years leaving a trail of death behind, only she hadn't been brainwashed to do so. They were Vampires, sure - most of them anyway - but now knowing that her blood could have cured them? She couldn't claim to be innocent.

[worthallthis]

Nice. It was pretty funny. And badass, thank you very much. "There was only the one who could fly. The rest were mostly pilots and guards, that day. And the main target, of course." It pauses, then reminds her, "Also, I don't know what the Jetsons are."

[kungfuey]

Pilots and guards. There it is, the understanding of how deadly this mission might have been and yet she can't say that she's horrified by it, not knowing what she knows. There's a difference between doing what you have to do and taking pleasure in senseless death. And in the end? If he hadn't killed them, they would no doubt have killed him.

"Heh - yeah Mr. I grew up before World War II." Her grin turning wry. "Cartoon from when I was a kid. They wore jetpacks. It... was probably as bad as it sounds."

[worthallthis]

"I. Don't know what a cartoon is, either," the Soldier admits after a slightly embarrassed pause. They existed in Sergeant's time, but none of the feelings Bucky-from-before had about them were strong enough to echo back through the decades, to give the Soldier even a little bit of familiarity.

[kungfuey]

Just when she thinks she understands him a little better, he'll say something like that and it flips her on her head. "It's ah... Moving pictures? Drawings that people make that - " She looks at him, another low chuckle escaping at how badly she's murdering this.

"Maybe if we can still get stuff brought here, I'll talk to Rastus. See if he can't find a way that I can show you one."

[worthallthis]

"Moving pictures. I know those. So cartoons are... drawn moving pictures?" How weird. How would that even work. (Shit, pal, I ain't even sure how regular movies work. Probably the same way? Just with a lot of drawings, I guess?) "That would be interesting to see. I'm not going to guess how Rastus can. Get things anymore, though." Their fault, still. Dammit.

[kungfuey]

"Basically, yeah." For all the shit she didn't know about the world beyond the microcosm she'd been raised in? It was almost nice in a messed up way to be around somebody who knew even less than she did. it almost made her feel 'normal', which isn't something she'd really known before The Rising.

"Hey - " Immediately seeing where he's going in his head, whether it shows or not. She's gotten to know him well enough to know he has a penchant for self-flagellation.

"It's Rastus. He'll... figure it out. Even if he manages to get spirits to fly in with supplies." A rare display of optimism that she doesn't entirely feel, but that she's trying on for his sake.

[worthallthis]

She's right. Guilt and shame are still very new, and still threaten to overwhelm. But it's also had a long day with two sets of new and horrible memories, and would really rather not argue about it. "Do you think the spirits can reach other places?" the Soldier wonders, allowing itself to be distracted.

[kungfuey]

If she catches his need to change the direction of the conversation, it certainly doesn't show. Scarlett seeming to think about it for a long while before lifting her shoulders in a shrug.

"Who knows. Maybe? The rats were spirits and they came on on the Ferry. It suggests it's possible. Either they came from here in the first place or other spirits are capable of coming here."

[worthallthis]

"The rats. Tell me more about them?" The Soldier knows they existed. Knows they'd been a problem. But there isn't much about them on the network, really, and it might be useful intel in learning about the spirits. Working the tactical portions of its brain is absolutely a good distraction.

[kungfuey]

"Not much to tell. They came on the Ferry, before you arrived." The arrival before his, if she remembers correctly. "They'd gotten into the supplies that came on the ferry. I know somebody caught one. Killed it and it bled? So that tells you something about the Spirits."

[worthallthis]

"They eat. They're solid. They bleed. They have a language, we just don't understand most of it. Sometimes they like us and want to do things with us, and sometimes they attack us. Why do we call them spirits?" The Soldier doesn't know much about spirits, to be honest. The word is just picked up from the network and the others in Beacon, rather than anything grounded in an understanding of mythology.

[kungfuey]

"It's what Winters and the Doc called them." She never really questioned it at the time but the arrival of the rats and the other things she'd noticed scouting the treeline raised a few questions. "Winters told me that after a reset, animals come back but I'm starting to think they're not animals but Spirits. Just like the bugs."

[worthallthis]

"The bugs are, too? Intelligent? Or at least-- cognizant, like the larger spirits?" This world is so much not like the one it's used to. How does the ecosystem even survive? (Not like you know a damn thing about ecosystems, city boy. I know the word, so I gotta know something.) "Does this world even have any natural, non-spirit animals?"

[kungfuey]

"I don't know. I leave that sorta thing up to the scientists." She was smart, but only when it came to certain things. She was probably the foremost expert on Vampires and knew more about hunting than almost everyone here combined but this wasn't Earth and she was way out of her depths.

"Doc would be the one to ask." He was an ass, the Doc, but outside of the Soldier? He was probably the closest thing she had to a friend around here. She couldn't trust him as far as she could kick him but she also figured out what made him tick, and that made him easier for her to deal with.

"This place makes no sense." A general statement of fact. "We shouldn't have greenery without the sun. No sun, no photosynthesis." So she knows some stuff but there'd been a lot of talk about what would happen to the wildlife after the cloud of ash blanketed North America.

[worthallthis]

"Either something other than the sun keeps the plantlife alive, or it's. Designed somehow not to need light. Which would suggest. What. There was never a sun here?" The Soldier doesn't know much about planetary physics or ecology, dammit. (There's a lot we don't know. Stop rubbing it in. Hey, I'm just as annoyed about it as you, pal.)

"I know we're not the only ones wondering about this," it says. "Where is that. Doc? Person? Is that Will? Where does he live?" The Soldier doesn't like using the network, so finding him in person would be the only way to talk to him. Though from his network presence, he's also kind of an asshole.

(Buddy, your best friends around here are both assholes. ... okay that's kind of a good point.) Maybe the Soldier is calibrated to deal well with assholes?

[kungfuey]

"Hell if I know. There was. Once. At least that's what we're hearing. The world eaters took care of that. How things continue to grow after? Who knows. This isn't Earth so maybe science is backward in this plane of existence." She somehow doubts knowing would help all that much, if that helps them feel better.

"Uh..." She grimaces because. Well yeah. Will is an asshole and she's pretty sure he will be an asshole to Tinman. "Yeah, Will. He's a couple of doors up from me. He spends most of his time hidden away in his room working on this and that." and ya know. Scarlett may have also asked him to monitor Crowley's tablet so he doesn't pull another incident like the Ferry. So there's that.

"He's... not the easiest person to talk to." Said the pot about the kettle.

( Hey screw you both! She's not an asshole to Tinman. :| )

[worthallthis]

The Soldier casts her a brief look, somewhere between amused and dry. "I'm not easy to talk to, either." For very different reasons, really. "Not today, anyway. I have. Done more than enough difficult shit for today."

It shifts so it can pull out the tablet in one of the many convenient pockets on its pants, checks the time. "And I've missed half the time I allotted for sleep. I think if I try again, I might just have nightmares. Or another malfunction."

[kungfuey]

She's not going to disagree with him but she can almost picture a conversation with Will and Tinman, especially in light of the Ferry incident and she's ninety percent sure it would end badly, and that's even if she were there to supervise. Will was... Will. He made Scarlett seem like Miss Congeniality standing next to him.

She regards him for a long quiet moment, her gaze flitting over to the bed that had once belonged to Raylan. It had been empty for much longer than it had been occupied but Scarlett hadn't offered for anyone to take it. That would require her encountering somebody she'd be willing to tolerate in her space for more than five minutes. Or... tolerate, period.

"Crash here?" And almost as if she feels like the offer sounds too much like a request she tacks on; "If you want. Nightmares don't bother me and I at least have an idea of how to handle you during a malfunction." Little by little trying to minimize the kindness by wrapping it up in logic.