wasteyard | yES HELLO: ruth, 2

WHO: ruth aldine + YOU
WHAT: talking about BOLD PLANS for the FUTURE
WHERE: the ruins, specifically near the river
WHEN: june 30th onwards
NOTES: this is step one of the player quest happening on july 5! please zoom over there if you have questions, want to make plans, &cet. NB: potential for discussions of suicide, state-sponsored murder, etc. more specific notes tbd.

[The warm hiss of white noise is just part of being in the ruins--but at some point, when it's getting a little darker, a voice comes through.]

Yes. Pardon. This is Ruth.

[You know, if the stuttery little words at the start didn't clue you in.]

We had thank you an idea--see if we can reason yes, reason with this place. That... [A crackle of static.] Sorry. You saw the empty spot, didn't you? Sorry. Yes. I think...I think it's something.

But going...yes. I'm, uh. I'm not gonna pardon, won't be in my body. And after all the other stuff yes, pardon I tried to do here...it might not agree with me. Sorry. Might need people to keep an eye out. No.

Sorry. No. So if anyone's interested...

[And, you know. If they understood any of this.]

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[ It makes him angry—he's shaken by how badly he wants to shout into the radio. Reason with it. It's a fucking void, not a traffic cop.

She was there. They were all just there, falling through black. He stares fixedly at the set. He'd take a walk, if he thought it would still be there when he got back. Then he thinks about her first call for help: the bleeding, how she said she felt. When he does speak, it's subdued. Hesitant, as though he's carefully stepping around the cracks in his voice. ]

Are you—gonna ask what's wrong? [ With her powers—with her—he means, but thinking about it, maybe he means more than that. ]

Wrong? No. Yes. Maybe. I want to -

[ But describing it to him makes her pause, the radio crackling just below her chin. She has to think to describe it; getting it across might not make inherent sense to someone who doesn't know what it's like to dive into someone else's head. ]

We don't know sorry if it thinks. How. Pardon. I want to know what its mind looks like.

[ By now he should know better than to ask her yes or no questions. He scrubs a hand over his face—less angry, still dissatisfied. ] But I think we do. It's fractured. Fickle. [ It's every building he's been in, stairways that wind endlessly like a barber's pole. A mind that hasn't made up its mind.

A pause before he adds, voice slipping low: ] Watchful.

[ Another pause—the radio cycles through quick bursts of song as though attempting to find its footing. William feels like he's talking to himself, feels like it's those first few weeks again, his loneliness a law more constant than gravity. ] You could die.

Might not sorry be its fault. [It's not David, and she knows it. David is...he's gone, he's wherever he went, and this is something else. (She has to believe she'd recognize it, if it were him.) But having known him...she can't blame it, whatever it is. Not without seeing how it thinks.] It might just be hurt. No, pardon--

Yes. Yes. I know.

[But that's not that important.]

[ It probably is hurt. Most broken things are. It's the just that doesn't sit well with him, the rest of it—his thoughts scatter ten ways at once. Does she think that's the reason she's in pain? Because it is? Does she think she can cure it, does she think she was chosen? ]

What for? [ A shuddering breath. ] Ruth.

[She knows the answer to that one--because me dying won't matter--but she knows a little better than to say it. There's a pause.]

Someone should. Yes. No one else can.

[ "Bullshit," he spits out. It doesn't make him feel any better. This whole conversation—like watching her walk the edge of a cliff. ]

This is a waste. [ Of what, he doesn't say. Dully: ] You haven't even said what it is you'll be doing.

[Time to explain it again. For all that she's going into it--giving more detail than she has to other people, hoping explaining it this way will make it make the right kind of sense--her voice takes on a sort of distance.

(Other people gawping skeptically at things that feel normal gets old.)]

Your mind pardon, it's different from everybody else's. Yes. Every brain's different. Sorry. And I can sorry, I can go inside them. Yes, sorry.

[The rest, I'm going to try and go inside this one, if it exists, seems too obvious to need mentioning.]

[ That he'd gathered.

He waits for the rest of it. Waits a little longer, not wanting to come to terms with there not being a rest of it. ] And?

[ Remember half an hour ago, when he'd considered himself patient? ] Is there a plan? You don't—if it's hurt, do you heal it? What if you don't get out? What if you make things worse? Most people—I don't think most people would appreciate having their minds invaded.

[ Nevermind whatever this is. ]

[ He sounds tired, his voice ready to collapse. ] Why now? Can't it wait?

Do you think it'll understand you. [ In a way the people here don't. ]

[Well, maybe you should've specified, William!]

Then when the hell should we do something? [He's not the only one at the end of his rope. There's a little more heat in her voice than usual--though she, like William, sounds more tired than anything.] Everyone here's got a lot of damn questions about something they don't understand at all. Maybe y'haven't noticed, but I can't--

[Tell you what's going to happen anymore. She bites the words off, taking a sharp breath in while her sound's cut.]

The plan is, communicate if we can. Pardon. Can't know until I try.

[Bitterness runs through that last bit, but lightly.]

Edited 2019-07-04 11:39 (UTC)

[ He listens—as much to the fluctuations in tone as to her words. Intent on her. It's as though the reception's improved between them—it takes an embarrassingly long time to for him to figure out all the grace words, the verbal speed bumps, have disappeared. To realize she hasn't apologized for any of it. ]

Once we know more. [ William's arrived suddenly at calm, his voice soft and steady. ] Once we know...what to communicate. [ His head tips to the side. ] What can't you do?

See. [After a moment, she remembers that might not be clear enough.] Yes. The future.

...We could learn more sorry from this. Thank you. Figure out what to say.

Edited 2019-07-04 15:51 (UTC)

[ He kind of hates that idea—that there's the future, waiting, that seeing it's like skipping ahead in a movie. It's wrong. He should know: he's personally fucked up time, let a moment of sentiment, of sympathy, cascade into another war.

Maybe that's not what she's saying. Maybe there's another way of looking at it. He doesn't think she's lying—it's her judgment he wonders about.

Even so. It would explain—everything, to her, would be a plunge into an abyss. What's once more?

Reluctantly, almost regretfully, as though the words have been dragged out of him: ] Not if you die.

No. No. Probably not.

[Stranger things have happened. The very fact that Logan's here...]

But pardon. Doesn't mean I will.

[ What is there to say to that? Something snide, a noncommittal thanks. Tell her that whoever she thinks she's doing this for, it's not him.

But there's a real possibility this'll be the last time they speak. ] I hate this. [ It's not angry. It's small, as though he's talking to himself. Maybe he might as well be. ] For the record.

Good luck.

Edited 2019-07-06 23:06 (UTC)

I'm sorry.

[Matching the soft disappointment of his words, quiet and genuine.

Doing these things is easier when you know how each thread of your plans will weave together. When everything feels like a question and the outcomes aren't assured--when other people have the time and knowledge to ask the questions you aren't interested in answering--it's...it's something different. Ruth can't help but think of David, her stomach tightening.]

Yes. Thank you.

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