wasteyard | yES HELLO: ruth, 3

WHO: ruth aldine + YOU
WHAT: updates from That Time She Tried To Meet The Setting
WHERE: over the airwaves, because texting this shit sounds terrible
WHEN: around now, 07.16, though it's up to you how many days it's been since Ruthy's Big Adventure (up to 11 days total)
NOTES: The log is back here and still open for business if you want to backtag some backlash, get into fistfights, or anything else! There's the potential for hilarity and also misery, so it's a something-for-everyone kind of deal, and your character doesn't actually have to interact with the Ruth-stuff to participate, just be vaguely in the right area to get hit by the aftermath.
ADDITIONALLY: I realize that this is a lot of Ruth-posting, especially in a small game, and after this, she'll be quiet on the network for a while. I just want to get this out there so everyone has access to What We Learned from the player quest, per player quest rules. o/ Please reach out if you have any questions or concerns!

This is Ruth. Pardon.

[And then there's a pause--she's gathering up her words. They come out a little clipped, purposely neutral, like she's giving a report. (Which...well, she is.)]

Couple of days ago yes, I tried to go into the yes, sorry mind of this place. It worked, but thank you we couldn't talk. Not like--no, not like people. Pardon. It's not like us.

...And I know sorry it hurt people here, me coming back. Yes. I'm...pardon, if I got you, I'm sorry.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ This—all of it—has exhausted him. The, whatever you want to call it. Emotional toll. Watching her bleed. It's probably still there, the blood, on those old rocks and she's— ] Don't apologize.

[ He manages to wring the words out, cuts himself off mid-sigh. That's it. ]

Okay. Sorry.

[And then, hasty:]

Sorry, yes, I meant-- [But he knows what she meant, or she assumes he does. Ruth cuts herself off, takes a breath.] ...Didn't want other people, pardon, other people getting hurt.

Just yourself.

[ But he's not—he reminds himself—actually trying to make her feel like shit, so he stops there. ] I don't think I'm ready to talk about this. Logan, [ his voice does a little lunge toward the name ] I met Logan. You should—you're really important to him.

It was my risk. Yes. I knew--

[I knew it'd be bad. She'd saved her energy for it, did everything she could to keep it survivable. Short of not trying at all, what else could she do?

But if he doesn't want to talk about it, she can let it drop without much fuss. Especially once Logan's name comes through the radio.]

He's-- [She doesn't stammer there, just careens to a stop. Static comes through with the words when she tries again.] Sorry. Used to be my headmaster. Doesn't yes, pardon, doesn't like seeing us get hurt.

Yeah.

[ The word's all knotted up. Once he's said it, he doesn't even know what it's in response to. ] You sounded like you were used to being part of an “us.” [ Headmaster Logan, of what the fuck kind of a school. It occurs to him how official this sounds, how impersonal. Maybe that accounts for the bad taste in his mouth. ]

Were you scared?

I was yes, I was at school. [She shrugs, for all the good it does either of them, over the radios like this.] And we were...sorry. We're the pardon minority. Yes. You have to stick together.

[Or you don't--but it makes the world that much more dangerous. For someone who's spent most of her life being kept out of the path of 'normal' people, it's better to have an us.]

No. No. I was... [She think back to it, the impossible sensation of pressing nothingness. A void shouldn't have weight.] Overwhelmed.

You have to be ready to die. [ There's a moment where he feels bad for harping on it, where it feels like nagging.

William sticks a hand in his hair, grips it. What the fuck is wrong with him? It's her life. A snatch of song comes through the radio, a cheery bum-bum-bum. He flinches. ] Overwhelmed with what? [ Pain. A flush of anger: he's stuck sitting at the radio waiting for her to say the word. ]

[ She flinches, shoulders crunching in, but her voice doesn't hesitate over the radio waves. Not more than usual, anyway. ]

When sorry , when people are gonna try to kill you-- [ it's Luca she thinks of, not anything that happened at school: wild-eyed and full of hatred, and all because, what, because she'd existed and someone told him she shouldn't? the words come out with a harder edge ] --then no you can't hide from it. No.

By nothing. It was nothing Pardon and it was everywhere. Yes.

But— [ It sounds childish, like it should be accompanied by a tug to her sleeve. But he's seen the threads, the connecting filaments of light—they've only now started to fade. He's been isolated here, he's been cold and hungry. That's all happened before. It takes her words to give it shape, to sharply define everything that's lacking. ]

Does it still—is it gone now?

It's here. Yes. [He doesn't sound happy--but at this distance, she's not sure just how unsettled he is by the notion of darkness on every side.] It's...sorry, its thoughts are too big. No. I couldn't find them. But if it pardon, if it has 'em, they're all around us.

[What's the difference between something that can't think and something that thinks so you can't read its mind?]

No shit. [ It spills out of him, no venom, no heat, unsteady almost to the point of laughter. He'd told her—buildings wrung together, everything like the contents of a spilled drawer. It hardly seems to matter now, chastising her. Talking—the words seem as inert as the hunk of metal transmitting them. ]

I just. You. You're the same, right? You're not carrying it around. [ He does laugh, a cracked-sounding noise. ] The nothing.

Haven't pardon, haven't changed.

[Mild surprise in there. He doesn't understand it, she realizes, neither the vastness nor the sense of continuity of whatever-it-is. If he did, these aren't the questions he'd be asking.

She thinks he wouldn't, anyway.]

Sorry. Imagine you're inside a sorry comma. Drowning yes in ink. Y'can't keep the pardon, the whole sentence. No. Even if you leave.

Okay.

[ A long pause. Automatic, disconnected: ] Good.

[He's still mad. And she's not sure she can change that. Her end of the line is quiet for a bit, static crackling and little else. But eventually--]

All right.

[ HE'S NOT MAD HE'S HAVING AN EXISTENTIAL CRISIS ]

[SAME FUCKIN DIFFERENCE]

Just glad to know you're all still in one piece. Also that monster-man with the claws is very protective of you.

[Seriously, Ivar would like to do more not to piss off the guy who clearly outclasses him in the weapons department.]

Logan. Yes. His name is Logan.

[Almost an afterthought. She's too distracted by how even-keeled his answer is, especially after the argument she just had. If William was angry--frustrated, dismissive, having an existential crisis--she'd figured Ivar would be incandescent.]

Pardon. Are you? In one pardon, one piece.

For the most part. It felt a little weird there for a while, but I survived.

[Ivar, fortunately, has a very strong will and has been powered through most of his life by his mind, so while he'd ended up a bit off-balance, it wasn't anything he couldn't handle.]

yES HELLO: ruth, 3

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