021 ☣ Open floodspam + stuff for Erik

[fridgetothefire]

[She wakes up early, even though there's no sunrise coming through her window, no harsh, glittering mountain vista, and no chickens to feed for the last two years. She spends a few minutes - three, maybe - excitedly exploring her room, treasuring the weird feeling of belonging and safety and freedom it gives her. But that doesn't last long, so she pushes out the painted door and immediately goes next door.

He's not her father, but he is, and it's weird. But she knows how she feels, and she trusts herself, trusts her instincts. She knocks on the door, excited pounding with all the strength in her little fist.]

Daaaaaaddy! Daddy wake up!


Hallways

[Anya is six, though she looks closer to five to anyone used to children raised on modern nutrition. Her hair is in little pigtail braids, a little less neatly pleated on one side, because she did them herself and she's not ambidextrous. She wears skirts with the hems let out, and stockings, and a blouse whose sleeves don't quite cover the ridged, shiny burn scars that skate up the outside edges of her arms like defensive wounds.

She roams the halls looking for her friends - because she has friends now, she's sure of it, a steady warmth in her chest even if she can't remember the details, eager to investigate everyone she comes across in case they make the little compass needle resting there twitch. She runs in short bursts, short braids trailing behind her, then pauses to bend over and gasp for a minute, still not used to the new limits on her lungs, or simply living in hope that if she pushes them enough, they'll eventually give.]

Wait up!


Library

[She flits around, stares at the shark in fascination for ten minutes at a stretch. She climbs one of the wheeled ladders and tries surreptitiously to ride it, almost - but not quite - falling off. She trails through the shelves, staring in glee at the bewildering array, even more impressive than the one in the fortress. She might end up falling asleep over a very large illustrated compendium of Oz, dwarfed by the large armchair she's nestled in.]


Deck

[She's sitting on the railing, ankles tucked around the lower bar, perfectly steady in her perch, head tipped back, staring at the stars as they go by. It's strange and beautiful and endless. She loves it.]


Common room

[The plastic knitting needles are almost as long as her forearms, and her lip is trembling a little. The hat she had half-started is a bit beyond her current capabilities, and the more she tries to fix what she's done, the more it becomes snarled. She can do it, though. She's not going to cry.]

[OOC: replies will come from flatscamp.]

Comments

[halftheman]

Suppose it depends on who you ask. For your Daddy, coin came up good; he punished bad men, he saved his little girl, made sure they'ed never made her cry.

For the other men, who were afraid-- it was bad. They were scared, and in the end, they made what they were scared of real. Justified it, to their minds.

Always -- two sides to a story. Two ways it can fall out. [ He takes his coin out of his pocket, and shows her. One side clean, the other defaced. ] When the coin comes up good for somebody, it's gotta down bad for somebody else.

[flatscamp]

[She thinks about this.]

That's kind of sad. Does it always have to?

[halftheman]

Law of Averages. Equivalent Exchange. Whatever you want to call it-- there's always rules in the universe about balancing the scales.

[ He rolls the coin over his knuckles, and old and practiced trick. ]

[flatscamp]

What if I teach someone to cook, and they teach me to draw? Then we're both better!

[halftheman]

Still balancing it out. Somewhere, someone else loses out. Someone always does.

[flatscamp]

That's awful! Then I shouldn't do anything nice at all!

[halftheman]

Then nothing nice would get done. Nothing bad either. There'd just be nothing, instead. No joy, or sadness. Just -- nothing. You have to take the good with the bad.

All coins have two sides.

[flatscamp]

Does everything have to be a coin?

[halftheman]

[ This made him have to think. But he had to explain it-- to answer the question he thought she was asking. ]

Not all things. Chosing a hotel, or what to eat that day, that's not a coin. That's just a thing, a choice with little impact.

Choosing to save your daughter and flee, or to saves your daughter and make sure that anyone who ever hurt her dies? That's on the coin.

[flatscamp]

What about in between things? Like...taking care of your brother and sister when no one else is around, or making a friend?

[halftheman]

Mostly personal. Not moral choice.

Baby brother choking on something? Moral choice. Then, coin. Be good-- save his life. Be bad, negligent, don't.

[flatscamp]

But if I save him, does that mean someone else has to let theirs die? Did I only help because someone else already did that? Then it's not any choice at all.

[halftheman]

And that's the truth.

Doesn't really matter what choice you make. Just so long as you can live with it.

[ Harv's worldview is an unbearably bleak one. ]

[flatscamp]

That's stupid. Someone should change it.

[halftheman]

[ Harv laughs-- it's not unkind, but... well. Out of the mouth of babes. He pockets his coin a moment later, and says: ] People try. All the time.

But sometimes there isn't a way to fix what's broken.

[flatscamp]

Just because nobody's done something before doesn't mean it's impossible.

[halftheman]

Very little is impossible. Just improbable.

You know what the probability is to toss a coin, five times, and have it land heads up, every time? One in thirty-two. That's means if you laid money on that, you'd be pretty likely to lose.

[flatscamp]

Coins can't try. I can.

[halftheman]

[ He exhales, half a laugh, half a sigh. ]

Good luck with that. You're gonna need it, kid.

[ He reaches out, briefly, like he might ruffle her hair -- but stops, frozen, at war with some other impulse, before he draws back. ]

Take care of yourself.

[ He takes his last drag of his cigarette, and exhales smoke into the nothingness over the rails. A moment later, he flicks the butt of his cigarette after it. ]

[flatscamp]

[She rushes back to the railing, peers over to watch it fall. She wonders where it goes.]

You too, mister!