etrayalogs | MISSION 009

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MISSION 009

⏵ CAMP ETRAYA ⏴
On May 16th, Aurora and the companion bots direct those not heading off to Solmara to make their way to Camp Etraya.

Nestled away from everything else in a large clearing full of wildflowers and redwoods, Camp Etraya is a nostalgic summer camp experience put together just for it's residents! Cabins are assigned, scary stories are told around campfires, gossiping happens among friends on the trails surrounding the cabins - and don't be surprised when something goes awry. After all, this is still Etraya.

While the rest of Etraya is still accessible and will not be blocked off, characters are discouraged from venturing far from camp for too long: Aurora will specify that they are on a mission, and that missions do require participation, but she has intentionally left them the freedom to wander. Not sleeping in their assigned cabins, not participating in events, and staying away from Camp Etraya will end with her having to take more extensive security measures, so please be on your best behavior! The last thing she wants to do is start enforcing boundaries, but she will if she has to.

Camp is set up much like your generic summer camp! Each cabin is named, housing is assigned to characters as they arrive, there are camp counselors, and rotating daily tasks and chores. There are also multiple activities that characters are expected to participate in, and each activity is worth points that goes toward their camp graduation score. This score will be visible on their earpiece, and follows the A-F grading system. We are not be monitoring this, and are leaving character scores up to players. We do, however, ask that you please report your characters' camp grade HERE for rewards and demerits to be handed out after the mission itself.

Cabin assignments can be found here, which also has their roles, and chores assigned to that cabin. Those who are participating in Solmara have received an assigned cabin, too, but their absence toward the beginning will not harm the cabin's ability to compete given how spread out their assignments are.

⏵ WELCOME TO CAMP ⏴

Camp life is meant to instill a sense of belonging, connection with nature, encouragement towards the creative, all on top of a firm foundation of responsibility. Upon arriving, campers will be escorted towards a table of white t-shirts and countless buckets of dye!

Each Etrayan will be invited to make three Tie-Dyed shirts- as well as required to wear one as part of their summer uniform. Camp counselors must wear 80s basketball shorts or cut-off jeans. Campers may wear cargo shorts or a skort. For those with physical limitations to what they can wear, accommodations will be provided.

Here, bonding is the camp runners' priority. They will be pushed into various ice-breaker activities, such as trust falls, two truths and a lie, and Never have I Ever. As the sun goes down, there will be weenies roasting over the bonfire, followed by s’mores and a sing-a-long! With the stars well-visible, it’s off to bed with campers.

Each day after will start much the same: with the ringing of the bell and raising of the flag (Aurora, while unfamiliar with flag designs but an understanding of the concept, has chosen a rainbow flag for the camp. Rainbows make people happy, right?), followed by a meal at the Great Hall, morning assembly, activities with counselors, chores, free time, and then an evening winding down by the great fire. An hour after sun down, campers will be escorted back to their cabins for curfew. Camp Counselors are expected to keep track of their campers, and ensure they're all within their cabins for bedtime. This is part of their grade, too! Curfew lifts an hour before the first bell.

⏵ CAMP ACTIVITIES ⏴

As with most summer camps, Camp Etraya offers a wide variety of activities to participate in. While some of these activities may be mandatory, others are optional. We'll be leaving this up to individual player discretion: perhaps Viktor is mandated to report to arts and crafts, whilst it's optional for Silco to show. Silco, on the other hand, may be mandated to report to the archery contest. Characters are encouraged to participate in a minimum of one camp activity per day.

Below is a non-exhaustive list of camp activities.

Three-Legged Race - You and a partner are tied together at your ankles, and you must race others to the finish line. Those with abilities that would give them an advantage will find that the rope that ties them together hinders those abilities from functioning.
Archery - This can be more traditional, magical, or include moving targets! If you're particularly unlucky, your target may even shoot back.
Softball - What instills a sense of camaraderie better than a bit of team sports? Games will be held on Wednesdays, the field is otherwise available for practice.
Dodge Ball - Standing diametrically opposed to Softball is dodge ball, the bully’s sport. This is a great opportunity to claim dominance or be sent to the Nurse’s Office.
Obstacle Course - You are directed into a large maze with multiple obstacles for them to overcome, such as rock climbing walls, ramps, tires, and nets.
Capture the Flag - Small teams are put together in order to take the flag from a particular bot, whose entire goal is to avoid being caught.
Canoe Race - Canoes are placed into the rivers just off of the camp, and characters must race to the finish line.
Chocobo Riding - Learn how to care for and ride these magnificent birds! Newbies will be taken around the corral, whereas more experienced riders can take the trail around the lake.
Arts and Crafts - Make friendship bracelets, bead lizards, paint rocks, learn origami! Or perhaps you're tasked with putting together an enchanted necklace. Don't know how to do enchantments? Now is as good of a time as any to learn.
Campfire stories - Share scary stories amongst yourselves around the campfire late into the night. If you're particularly unlucky, you may just hear the thing you were just warning others about..

⏵ NIGHT TIME ⏴

Once campers have been put to bed, the counselors can still stay up. Unwind with hidden beers and the strumming of a guitar. Don’t get too comfortable, though, since without supervision, no one is keeping the campers in bed.

After dark, should campers evade their counselors, they can go exploring in the dark. Eerie lights glimmer from the lake. There’s rumors of a headless spectre walking from the archery field to the edge of the forest. Should you behave, you still might hear a scratching at your bunk house window.

And on the very last night of camp, there will be a talent show. Show off your hidden talent and bask in the excitement of wowing your fellow campers!

⏵ NOTES ⏴

Welcome to Camp Etraya! Please enjoy the s'mores and campfire songs. :)

Camp will last approximately two weeks, going from May 16th to May 30th.

For all questions relating to this mission, please refer to the plotting post. All other questions can be directed to the FAQ.

⏵FULL NAVIGATION⏴

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[The Solmara mission had been successful, he supposed. No one had died and there were no life-threatening injuries that he had heard of. They had all gone, completed what they had set out to do and returned all within the set timeline that Aurora had determined. Wasn't that just quaint?

During the final confrontation, he had agreed to stay with the snipers until it had turned into a vehicle chase. By that point, Caitlyn had been knocked unconscious and suddenly his willingness to die in Solmara evaporated. Cait had to survive, and then that became his responsibility. So he did, though in the fighting she did slow him and forced him to be more defensive than he normally would be. His style could be extremely overwhelming and aggressive, but not this time. That wasn't to say he came back unscathed, of course.

The fifteen of them came back through the portal in the morning and nudged into joining the summer camp activities. He saw many of the people that he knew, and his game face was perfectly cultured; he even hit his limp for those that didn't know him particularly well. On through the day he went like nothing was untoward and put on a front.

Much like all Zaunites, curfew was a matter of perceptive and he was less of a rule follower than people gave him credit for. His excuse was a smoke, leaning on that crutch to slip out of the cabin and wander into the woods away from prying eyes. Navigating a forest was easier than navigating a darkened mine after all; at least there was light from the stars and moon filtering through the foliage. Once the cabins were out of sight, he dropped his act and allowed the limp to be full on for his left leg.

Vander picked a spot where the foliage was thick and leaned on a tree. He did actually pull out his pack of dwindling cigarettes and put one between his lips before lighting it. He lifted his left foot and set his heel to the top of a fallen log to rest his leg and slowly hiked up his shirt to check that the bandages he had applied in 'secret' had not slipped. They had, which forced him to unwind the material, roll it back up and then begin the process of reapplying them over some self-sutured lacerations on his left side.

All the while he dragged on his cigarette and listened for signs that he wasn't alone.]

[ Sure feet step silently through the underbrush. It's no mine, no stone and rock, but the forest floor is no worse than a slippery mineshaft or the low, flooded part of one of the fissures. He'd been lurking near the lake, slipped out well before curfew had even ended and had chosen not to go back. Not that anyone had been forcing him to do much. Sorry, Aurora, Silco isn't really jiving with this whole... "summer camp" deal. If anything, he wants to leave. Get out of here. Go back to where he is at least solitary and comfortable.

But then the group from Solmara comes back. He made sure to catch Sevika's eye, but hasn't had the opportunity to catch up yet.

It doesn't matter. He'll get it later. Whatever happened... well. Did he care all of that much? No. Not beyond whether Sevika survived. Everything else served to make him angry. Particularly —

Well. Something else was making him angry too. Had been making him angry. Angry enough that every moment in this little camp serves to make his mind wind around all the things that makes him angry. His existence here in Etraya. Who's come through. The fact that he wasn't the only one alive. That Sevika had left. The letter, oh that letter makes him as angry as anything else. He keeps coming back to it.

Thinking about it.

He hates that he's still thinking about it. He hates that even now he's thinking about it. He hates that Vander came back seemingly unharmed — seemingly, but he can see the signs. The way he's favoring a leg, the way he turned that was unnatural as if he's avoiding stretching something open again.

Just because it's been years doesn't mean he doesn't know the man. It's why he doesn't hesitate to keep his feet silent, and doesn't hesitate to approach. It's barely a thought before he decides.

With a burning cigarette, it's probably easy to miss the smell of foul cigars until it's too late — the butt of a knife slams into the bandages on his side (It's not stabbing!) before he seems to appear out from the other side of the large tree, all fury, a smouldering cigar clamped between two teeth, and that hateful pit of an eye starts to dance back as he makes the hit, and then starts to try and move away. ]

[Forests were loud regardless of the time. Owls hooted and there was scampering in the underbrush, all signs that nocturnal creatures moved about. It was easy to focus on it, so different from the slithering, sliding or click of animals moving over stone or gravel. Despite scratching out a living in Etraya, he still wasn't that used to forests and would have preferred even the creaking slick smelly docks that still had considerable familiarity.

He was busy wrapping again, cigarette smoke caressing his cheeks and nostrils as he worked. The acrid tang of cigar smoke did indeed reach him, and he was able to shift his leg from resting at the heel on the log to the ground when the butt of knife slammed into his side. He growled low in his throat in surprised pain, and he jerked away from the punchy blow, tearing some sutures beneath for his efforts.

Silco...

Vander didn't have to look to know who had attacked him, and he would admit that it was awful ballsy for the older man to assault him outright. His head snapped around to locate Silco in case he come face-to-face with the blade the next time, and the red hate-smoldering eye was easy to pick out in the dark as he bared his teeth around his cigarette.

Blood was already striking through the bandages and damn it, now he was going to have to wash them and find new ones. Annoyance flared, but he otherwise simply stared at the older man. He could give chase, but he expected it would aggravate Silco further if he didn't. If he didn't rise to the bait, Silco would likely feel the need to come back and settle the cheap attack.

So instead, he issued a low chuckle.] Missed me, did you, Slugger? Summer camp doesn't seem to have improved your mood.

[ It did aggravate him. They knew each other well enough to know the ways they reacted, the things they did to one another. He'd attacked him, goaded him, and wouldn't you know it? He simply didn't engage. Of course not. Vander was the pacifist now, after all, wasn't he? The kind of person who wouldn't fight.

No, Silco knew better.

He slid behind a tree, like a specter, only to slide out from the other end, his hateful little prick of an eye glimmering in the night. It always stood out in the dark, and here where there were even fewer lights than in Etraya, or Zaun? It was even brighter. He wasn't going to hide in the dark without an eyepatch, and Silco had worked too hard, and taken too much to simply hide his eye away.

He sneered, a curl of his lip, something a little annoyed. ]

Was it supposed to? [ A beat. ] Were you gone? I didn't even notice. I just hadn't inflicted any bodily harm, and it seemed... just about the right time, apparently.

[ The bandages were bloodier.

He'd hit him where it hurt. Good. After whatever that stunt was before he left, he should be reminded about where he stood. He had no rights to any of that. ]

[He inhaled fully, expanding his lungs to their maximum capacity so the skin and muscle beneath the injury flared further and the pain focused him on this moment as his gray eyes followed Silco to behind the tree and then out the other side. It was easy to follow the other man's outline in the dim light, that baleful burn of eye a key marker of where Silco's attention was and the distance between them.

Slowly, he tucked the edge of his bandage into the wrap mostly completely and then dropped his shirt down over it so he had his hands free again. One hand lifted to pluck the cigarette from between his lips so he could exhale the smoke and scrap it out on the bark of a tree nearby, dotting out his location. He'd always wondered if Silco could see in the dark with that mutilated eye, though the white of his shirt certainly still made him visible enough if one knew where to look.]

If you didn't notice, you wouldn't be out here with your hair all blown up the back. That manner of petty paltry lies are above you, don't you think?

[Slowly, his hands rose again to gather up the long hair resting against the nape of his neck. His fingers audibly moved through his bangs as well to pull them back and he made a neat little half-bun of his hair in the dark of the forest. He remained outwardly nonplussed by Silco's little show, hoping it would annoy him further.]

Did you receive my letter? Maybe I accidentally sent it to another angry little man from Zaun going by the name Silco. These big clumsy fingers of mine and all....

[ It does. Of course it annoys him further. How could it not, the causal way he treats him, like he isn't a threat, like the man hadn't mutilated him and tried to kill him. Oh, he'd said he was done apologizing, and that was perfectly fine. He didn't want it, the apologies. If he regretted it, he shouldn't have done it, after all.

There's a deep nagging pain to the point, of course. That Vander had done that to him, that he had decided that he was worth tossing aside. No matter what he said, no matter the desperation. They were smart, they had the ingenuity. They could have made it work. The will hadn't been there. He could apologize for it, but that made him angrier. If he knew that it was wrong, why wouldn't he have simply not, then? Because he was angry?

His anger had been more valid than Silco's in that moment, then? That his anger was okay. He would be rewarded for it. Silco's hand't been. (There were so many ways to cut it. Each time he unknotted another piece of this off, every time he saw the shape of it, he was angry all over again. A new reason to be furious. A new reason to hate.

What would he find, if he unknotted every piece of this tangled web? ]

Oh, did you send one? I deleted everything from my box recently. Good habit to get into, actually.

[ A tight smile the man probably can't see in the dark. ]

One never knows, people tend to send the most unsightly things.

So, if you sent something, I'm afraid I didn't read it.

[ Oh, he did read it. It only served to make him angrier. Of course he did. He was an artifice of fury in this moment. How could he not be? ]

[Vander knew Silco could lie as well as tell the truth, but there was a caveat that all people tended to lie worse when they were angry. His current issue was that it was dark, which meant that he couldn't read the normal tells that might provide him the information to determine the truth or lie.

He made a noise in his throat like a chuff. It was an old sound of amusement. He didn't feel it at all, but here in the dark, it was best to keep up the ruse. Perhaps his heart wasn't in this confrontation, and he did consider walking away but his leg was sore and Silco would likely pursue.

Still, it was unlikely that Silco would receive a message from him and ignore it. They had never been particularly efficient at being able to avoid one another when they passed closed to one another. It was their burden to bear apparently.]

Well, for the best then. I doubt you would have enjoyed the contents of it, so good for you have the restraint to just delete it without reading.

[He made the effort to sound reasonable, logical even. If his hunch was correct, Silco needed little more than a nudge to fly off the handle and then it would be back to their usual antics of verbally assaulting each other. Some people underestimated that he could manipulate a situation.]

Well, I guess I'll just see you around then, Slugger. Unless you have something you want to say to me?

[ This was the problem. If anyone on any planet could incite his anger, it was Vander. How could he not? There's the history, there's the pain, the hatred, the anger. The mutilation and the betrayal. It was all a tangled mess that centered on one person. (Well, the topsiders as well, but that anger was deeper, older, colder. A churning sea before the storm, whereas towards Vander it was the tempest.)

His head tipped. Seemingly calm. He was anything but calm. ]

And it clearly wasn't important enough, was it? For you to send it, but feel nothing at it being deleted and discarded?

[ his fingers tightened in the knife he kept. It's a weight that's comforting. Even if he's holding to the agreement, by the barest of strings. ]

Leaving so soon? You had something to say to me, but you're too cowardly to say it to my face, is that it? It's only good enough to commit to a message and send it off?

[ His eyes roll — one of them visible in the dark rolls. ] I'd call you a coward, if it's that unimportant.

Why bother wasting my time at all, then?

[Vander had the advantage of being intimately aware of Silco and all of his habits. It meant that pushing one another buttons was relatively easy because not only did they know what to push and in what order, they also were able to clearly read one another's tells. They had been close since they were boys, and yes they knew how to manipulate situations, but they also knew how to manipulate each other most of all.

He shrugged his big shoulders, aware that Silco was feeling out how he felt about the missive. He knew Silco had read it regardless of any denials. The older man would never allow information to pass him by, and anything from him was immediately cause for suspicion and require examination.]

What do you want me to feel about it? I sent it; it was your choice to read it or not. If you don't feel like my words have value to read, there is nothing that I can do about it and I don't see the point of investing energy into your decision on that front.

[There was blood starting to stain the white of his shirt. He knew he would need light to repair the stitches that Silco's brazen act had torn in the first place. The only way it would work out here in the woods was if someone else stitched him up, and he wasn't letting Silco that close to a vulnerability.]

I wrote my piece. If you didn't read it, that's on you. I won't waste my time again to repeat it only for it to fall on deaf ears.

[Look, this was on Silco. If the other man refused to admit to reading it and try to pin it back on him, he had nothing to say about it. They could do this dance, but honestly, why? He'd said his piece.]

Maybe we should ask why you're wasting both of our time tonight when we are both aware you read it. If you want to yell about it, get on with it, Silco.

[ Generally, Silco is a logical man. All cold calculation, with a spider's web of orchestrations and lies that lead right to where he wants people to end up. Even when they were boys, they were like this, Vander with the explosive energy, and Silco with the perfect set up, the calculation, the point at which they would trip, or fall, or even just find the wrong floorboard, and there was Silco with the knife, or gag, or whatever they needed. That has always been how it has been.

However. When it comes to Vander, all sense flies out the window. Oh, the years of orchestrating revenge and calculation of it would suggest that he was over that, that he could quite perfectly arrange the right order to topple the man. Ah, but that was only the partial truth. The moment he'd seen the opening, he'd gone for it. The moment the man was in his clutches, what had he done? Tried to convince him. If he could have, would it have changed things? Oh, he could still hate him, and work with him.

They'd worked well together, after all. If he could draw the beast out.

Now, he had a new reason to hate him. A new reason to loathe the man. The threat he posed, but there was also that lingering, old hate. The one that was like toxic acid, that flooded his veins and made him feel like there was an itching, violent sensation under his skin that he couldn't excise and couldn't seem to shed. Like an itch he couldn't scratch, and the only thing he could do is lash out. ]

Oh, so you knew I would, did you?

[ Yell about it. Of course he would. What did he expect? Sending something like that? He didn't deserve the time it took to read it, and yet he had it, didn't he? He had no choice, but to respond. ]

Then why would you send it, hm? Worried you were going to go off and die and had to leave with the last word. Is that it?

[ Oh.

He was mad. ]

I only want you to remember one very important thing.

[ He wants to talk about a lot of it. He doesn't.

He doesn't dare talk about it. Rip open that quagmire and let it spill over, all the muck and grime and hate and hurt, and let it spill over everything. ]

The only person who gets to kill you again is me. That is my due. For every moment since.

[ Since the Pilt. Since the pain. Since the burning, the loss of vision, the way his eye burned every moment of every day, the layers of it drying out, aching, stinging, searing as they slowly dried out and burned away, leaving him with nothing. With a blind eye and nothing left. With just the pain, and the hurt, as the skin rotted around his eye, fetid and stringy like it was now. With that, and the betrayal, and the isolation. ]

And if you think of sending me some nonsense again while you cart off and risk my due before I am good and ready to take it again, then you should reconsider the delusion.

Otherwise I'll be forced to find some way to enact my revenge in some other way. It will be worse, for every foolish attempt, it will be worse, and if you have the stupid idea of actually dying, I hope for your sake you've found a way to guarantee that you will not return. They've brought the both of us back to life before.

Do not doubt that I will find a way to make them do it again to make sure you pay for taking that from me.

[ Don't die before i kill you or I'll kill you worse the next time, in short. ]

Remember that, Vander. The next time you try to send me such drivel.

[Vander was well aware that Silco was out here for opportunity, not because it was a planned out scenario. Perhaps there had been the makings of a plan, but this was a random attack, the actions of a man who wanted an opportunity and had taken it. There were always certain scenarios that required immediate action with no plan, and it either worked out or it didn't. Normally that was a Vander special, but he knew Silco had it in him too. They'd always had it in them.

And for his part? He knew that other man was hard pressed to not be unreasonable with him, so there were plenty of times that he left openings to lure Silco in. Etraya had nothing better than to provide them opportunity to crash together, standing on opposite sides of whatever argument they could find. It was stupid honestly; they should simply avoid each other.

That's the problem with emotion. It wouldn't quit. They were like an immoveable object meeting an unstoppable force.]

Why did I send it? [He repeated the question, letting it hang there between them like he was judging Silco, like the man in all his brilliance had simply missed the actual answer along the way. Lost in details. Lost in emotion, he thought.] I didn't want things left unsaid between us. If I was gone, you'd be just as mad if I didn't write you anything. I was covering my basis.

[He spoke calmly despite the tension in his frame. His side ached and blood was still marking up his shirt, but he knew it would stop. Silco technically had the advantage of a knife, but that was little concern for him honestly. He mostly didn't care if the other man came at him again.

To show that, he was putting the cigarette he had recently dotted out on the tree and lit it with his lighter. See, he had one. There was no point pretending this wasn't a confrontation like many before it, like a routine they had taken up and took comfort in the volatility of it.]

Oh, it's your due, is it? [He sounded amused.] You technically already had me killed before I arrived, so I would say our score is settled. You managed two bonus kills of my kids too. If anything, I would say I owe you on the score card.

[Vander laughed though because it was so childish. Silco was leveling the same 'do this or else' that his kids did when they wanted a particular outcome and thought brute forcing it in negotiations was going to do the trick. He would usually give Silco credit for points as the older man was eloquent and methodical, covering all basis in negotiation. Right now? He sounded like a spurned child.

That's how Vander knew his words had effect. He knew he had unsettled Silco and yeah yeah the man would prattle about due and hate and what was owed, but in the end, it was the same argument.

So he laughed. Confident, easy, welcoming as if Silco had managed to tell a good joke for once. He didn't bother to stifle it.]

Janna, Silco, you sound like you're ten again. So you did read my words, and they bother you and now you're out here pretending to be the big man because there was a chance I'd be dead and you've have nothing to throw your shit at. I knew you still liked me somewhere deep, deep, deep, deep - and I mean deep - in that narrow little chest of yours.

[That wasn't it, but the whole scene here? Vander had control now. He knew it.]

[ That's the problem with emotion. Deep, deep down it still controls Silco. Oh, normally? When there's no emotion, even when the hate isn't personal, he's at his most effective. A little spider at the center of the web, plucking each one over and over again, watching it all go down. Even here. He's careful, he's quiet. He hasn't made waves. He's kept his head down since the explosive start. All the signs that he'd (mostly) gone to grown, planning and plotting.

That's where Silco is at his best.

Unfortunately, Silco has blindspots. Angry spaces. The places where he loses his head. He'd spent so long planning Vander's downfall, and even then, it had already been well on its way, before his emotions had gotten in the way (and very nearly ruined everything. Again.) That was Silco's fatal flaw. It was always his fatal flaw, and normally it was kept carefully under control, and yet. Vander, in everything that he was, he represented, everything that made him so, so blindingly angry, he could set it off like a match to tinder. ]

You continue to blame me for them, I notice. [ Like he cared about the children. Collateral, yes, but not actually a factor he wondered about. Bothered to draw in. Something to deal with, yes, but they were Zaunite children. They were simply doing what Zaunites did best. Vander simply refused to understand that.

Or perhaps it's a wound he can't heal. How funny. How ironic. ]

I'm here because I was coming back from a smoke, Vander. You just happened to be in the way, and I thought to pay you bac for that drivel. [ A scoff, sharp, and biting. ] You didn't want to leave things unsaid, did you? Yet you could hardly say them.

[ He has control. Silco can feel the anger rising. He aims to cut it. Make it snap. ]

Seems to be your little calling card, doesn't it? Leaving letters and hoping I see them? At least I read this one, I suppose, though it hardly made a difference.

Congratulations, Vander. You made me angry.

Does that feel good, old friend?

[ As if he isn't always angry. At Vander. At the state of things. At Etraya, at Sevika, at all of it. At being impotent and left behind, with no way back, no future, no cause, no nothing. ]

[Sometimes, Vander was certain that Silco saw through him and the pain that he carried and probably reveled in it as a insignificant but still present mirror of Silco's own pain. And he was reminded how so many people looked at a single snap-shot in time and considered that all that was and all that would be, neither considering or caring about their own involvement.

He actually stared at Silco in the dark, picking out the man with the angry glowing iris so similar to the cherry of the cigarette hanging from between his lips. He wondered for a brief moment if Silco was daft or purposefully trying to incite him. It would not surprise him if it was either or both.]

Your lack of self-knowledge is honestly breathtaking sometimes. [The problem was: he felt it. The stir that stemmed from a deep hurt, a yawning grief so large it threatened to swallow him, an insurmountable wave of emotion that crawled its way up his chest to close out his throat. Not here, not now.] You've surrounded yourself with your pain for so long you've lost the ability to see anything beyond it.

[He sucked on the filter of his cigarette aggressively, shaking his head as he considered marking this standoff as over and walking away. He didn't have his punching bag in camp, so he's have to find an alternative if he should have any hope of finding sleep tonight after this little conversation.]

Well, considering you're always in hiding, it's hard to come knocking on your door to have an actual conversation with you. A note seemed the best alternative. Besides, we used to leave notes for each other all the time a long, long time ago. [When they were boys with separate occupations, always having little spots to leave notes to communicate and organize them meeting after their tasks were done.

He huffed, blowing smoke from his nostrils.]

How is that congratulations? You're in a constant state of anger with me. This is no different, so I would actually require congratulations if you experienced any other emotion around me.

It feels the same, brother.

[He shook his head, turning aside.] I'll let you have that smoke in peace then, shall I?

[ Angry with him?

Silco knew he was. That he blamed him for his kids. Of course he did. He wondered, if maybe he left it, if he'd let the enforcers take him away, and let those foolish children follow him to take him, would they be in the same boat? A pack of dirty Zaunites trying to break into Stillwater, only to end up right next to him? Oh, but they would still be alive, right?

Hardly living.

He inhales the smoke. He wants to tell him that he's surrounded by pain, as if that was their choice. As if he couldn't look at everything they had, and not be angry? That was the problem. Silco wreathed himself in anger. He felt it. He thrived in it, and it motivated him. He was alive out of spite. Because he wouldn't allow anyone else to have domination over him. He wouldn't let them. Not Topside, and certainly not Vander. ]

Look at you, talking about it all like you're above it all.

[ He doesn't stop him. He doesn't intend to. ]

Like that anger and pain doesn't exist, hm? Or is it that you're taking it out elsewhere? After all, you can't take it out on me, now can you? Not really.

After all, you don't want to isolate yourself from the last of what you have left, isn't that right?

[ Idly, he taps the cigar, ashing into the detritus. ] You have to play nice instead. Is that why you're sending little letters? I can't imagine you would want to communicate with me otherwise, hm?

[ Or... ]

Or is it that you want to make sure I don't forget that you're still haunting me? [ A cloud of smoke escapes with his words, inhaling before he speaks: ] You had the indignity to plan for death, and then not even die.

[ Had the indignity to leave that letter. And for a half-second he'd read some of that and hadn't been angry. That's what makes him so mad. ]

[Sometimes, like in this very moment, Vander wanted to let himself be angry. He had developed such a strangle-hold on it since the Pilt that he had almost forgotten what it was to experience the full breadth of his rage, the frightening exhilaration of it rampaging through his veins. He felt unstoppable, and often time he was.

Yet, that strangle-hold remained even as his emotions twisted like cutting knives into himself. He could see it though, how Silco's anger was like armour, a repellant for any other hurt that might come his way. Cool and calm once, now a trembling mess of fury while Vander had swung in the opposite direction, practically neutering his rage as little more than a flicker in his chest.]

I'm not above it. I just hide it and control it better than you do. [Perhaps it was his first and only acknowledgement of a suffering he preferred not to give voice to. Vander the coward. Vander the protector. Vander the Hound of the Underground. He had no room for public meltdowns, even out here. Especially out here.]

Do you want me to take it out on you? We both know how that would end. Or are you prickling at me to see if that man on the gangplank is still there?

[This was the game, the maneuvering around each other. All because of a letter that annoyed Silco, no doubt. It scraped at their long and twistedly bitter history with each other, where normal conversation had no room to exist between them. It was better to rail and fight each other, and yet how does one fight against a letter? Smoke and be snotty apparently.

It wasn't like Silco could hand the words back to him. They were written and read, and there was no easy take-back to that.]

Jinx doesn't care what I do with you as long as I don't cut you. That's the rule, but otherwise, I think she's seen the writing on the wall and knows there's not getting together as she had thought. So I expect she prefers us apart than squabbling like a couple of sumprats.

[He rolled his eyes, stamping out his nub of a cigarette on his boot heel.]

Janna above, I knew you'd harp on the letter, so yeah, maybe next time I'll make the extra effort to die so I don't have to put up with your hissing whinging. And for the last time, I sent it because, at some point a long time ago, you once mattered to me. And I figured you deserved closure. I should have known that was too much for you to manage.

[He tucked his hands into his trouser pockets and took his first limping step to leave the area. Slow, steady, painfully, he tried to put distance between them.]

[ He tries to put distance between them. Silco feels it, like the tide, all of that anger. It bubbles over like a kettle left on the heat for too long. He's so angry. He feels it festering like static in his head.

Silco had never had to deal with Vander back in his space, alive and real. When they had co-existed before, they were aware of one another's presence, but they had been apart. Silco like a spider deep in the depths, in the fissures and abandoned spaces of Zaun, where the smog clung the most, like thick smoke lurking against his skin and in his lungs. Where people didn't go, unless they were discarded, and that's what he was too. Discarded.

That's what it had always been since that moment in the Pilt. Oh, he'd said that there was no choice, but there had always been a choice. He had been the payment. His death, paid in full — one more trencher, one more death, and then that would be it. Quiet complacency. "Peace", paid for with continued poverty, starvation, poor water and air. So little changed.

Silco had never been able to simply accept it. No price too high.

Or so he'd thought.

He'd learned otherwise, of course. It was the same price Vander wouldn't have paid too.

Here, with him alive, it feels like nauseating acid, bubbling in his stomach.

In the end, they were no different from one another. ]

I had that!

[ He snapped. Uncontrolled.

He ran his hand through his hair, putting it all back into place (it was not out of place) while a burning pit of an eye burned through the dark like a laser, focused on his back. ]

No, this was not for my closure. There's no such thing.

[ Not anymore. It itches under his skin, like a tremble that threatens to lead his fingers to a knife that he's promised to withhold. Like he can excise it from himself, if he just excises Vander as well. Oh, but he cannot, can he?

The stain is there. He can't excise it from his face, his eye, anything. He has to live with it, this anger. Simmering under the surface, leaving him spiraling constantly.

Before, he'd had his plans of revenge. Before, he'd been able to fight him. Now, his weakness — Jinx — demands otherwise. She holds him back, redirects. She was a child, she wanted what she saw as home. He'd given her what he could.

It could never be good enough. What was? When was he ever? ]

There can never be closure, after all. Can there?

[ What's closure for broken men who only knew how to hurt? ]

Don't bother trying to delude yourself. Whatever I "mattered", we both know that it was never enough.

I know what the purpose was. To use it as motivation to do what you really wanted to do: remind me of that.

[That was the right of it. When they had existed in one another spaces, they had been entirely different men. Yes, they had begun to grow apart as he slid into complacency and Silco seemed driven to carry on well passed the Lanes and beyond like a madness still. They had orbited each other for so many years, knowing in intrinsic value of looks and body language and how they played into situations they found themselves in. Even growing apart, they still knew how to operate together, effectively as one, keeping the arguments behind closed doors.

And after the Pilt, Vander was keenly aware that Silco had survived. It was on the stagnant wind sometimes, and he had seen the signs but been unwilling to follow that thread. He'd had opportunity, but shame and resignation had kept him in the relatively safe confines of the Lanes where he still had a base of power. Their orbits were wider, but a part of him knew that Silco was only laying in wait back then. He had thought the other man was waiting for him to die and then would sweep in, but he had underestimated Silco back then.

Now here they were squabbling like children with adult grievances against each other. They pounded verbally rather than physically. It was more back to the old times after all, arguing, bickering, lashing out at each other in their own respective festering wounds that wouldn't heal. One would think that either one of them would realize that there was only madness on that path repeating the same scenarios expecting a different result.

He paused halfway stepping over a low-lying log and glanced back at Silco's display of old grief and pain. He shook his head then scrubbed his fingers through his hair smoothed back against his scalp.] Right because you can't let anything go. There will never be punishment enough to satisfy you for your grievances and the slights made against you.

[And for a long time, he felt awful about it. Even now, he did had moments when he knew there was nothing he could do to make up for the scar that marred Silco's features. No, an identity had been built around that grievance, so his empathy had waned as Silco railed and yelled and festered.

That offer on the gangplank had probably been nothing but a ploy to lower his guard.

He took another hobbled step away.]

Do you actually want closure? Do you think I do after what you did as your comeuppance against me?

[He actually winced at the accusation, his shoulders twitching in the dark of the forest. He wanted to argue that point so badly. He wanted to openly speak of how much Silco had once meant to him, but those days were gone and only ash remained. Why incite them both? Silco would never believe him and he didn't have it in him to feel that way again.]

You were always enough; the world was never enough for you.

[He hobbled further away, using a tree as support to make his way over roots and rocks lining the path.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

MISSION 009

Wildcard - Post Solmara

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sighs... cw eye trauma mention...........

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sorry for the wait on this one... gotta be on my a game

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