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

[ It doesn't exactly seem like it's working, but... he's also not getting any worse. And he hasn't hit himself again, good Lord. Harold is going to see that in his nightmares.

He isn't thinking of this as a test himself but he still isn't surprised that Carver passes. The ability to focus through trauma is a crucial survival skill in the kinds of scenarios he's been in. But he still doesn't feel quite right leaving to retrieve Bear, thinks they're not quite there yet. Harold abandons calculation and follows his own instincts instead. ]

The first time I was held hostage, I didn't know how to adjust when I got back, [ he offers. By someone who later became an ally, but that's another story. ] I shuttled myself from safehouse to safehouse and if I stepped a foot outside of that, it was like I couldn't breathe. I couldn't function. I knew it was all too likely that it would happen again -- and it did, later.

That's where Bear came from. Mr. Reese found him and pressed him on me. I thought he was being ridiculous, [ Harold admits, ] but... it did help. To know I had protection that didn't depend on a person.

[ It let him maintain his pride and his privacy, which were some of the only things Harold insisted on keeping in the wake of the ferry bombing. ]

[ Carver's quiet for a long moment at that. Harold's words flow through him like a river. Some catch on the rocks and stay, but most of them just drift. It's so hard to focus. Every breath seems heavy. But he understands that something important is happening now, that Harold is trying to make him understand something, and this is always an intimacy whether it happens in conversation, by touch, or in an interrogation. There's something sacred about it.

Focus, he thinks, and his fingers twitch again. Focus, now. ]

Leah let Freya sleep in our bunks sometimes, [ Carver says after a while, softly. His gaze is focused elsewhere, on the horizon line. ] She wasn't supposed to. It was against the rules. But when the kids had nightmares after raids, it helped.

[ It helped him, once, when he was nineteen and scrubbing bone and brain matter out of his hair for the first time. Terrified that the next time they went out, they were all going to die. ]

[ Again, he's not sure it's helping, but it doesn't seem to be making him worse. Harold is suddenly struck by the thought that perhaps this isn't something that can be helped, like him wandering around in a daze after the deaths of Elias and Root and John and then the Machine, booking a flight to Italy almost in a fugue state... that was just something that had to be endured until it passed.

Maybe trying to fix it is the wrong tactic entirely. He's always been someone who wants to fix, who sees a malfunctioning machine or a pressing problem and tries to find a solution. But there aren't solutions to people. ]

Bear helps me when I have nightmares, too. I won't tell if you won't.

[ He sounds honest, unapologetic, though his voice is soft to match Carver's. ]

You said you'd clean this place up some -- could you get started on that while I fetch Bear? [ Time alone with a simple task couldn't hurt. ]

[ Nightmares, Harold says. He has nightmares, too. This is a thing they're admitting now, words previously locked away. Now, the two of them are saying a whole lot. Giving oxygen to secrets that should have been strangled before they broke the surface. There's no taking it back, is there?

Carver rocks on his heels, gaze drifting. He needs to focus, he knows distantly. This isn't good. He wants to die, a little. ]

Yeah, [ he agrees. Cleaning. He can clean. That's useful. ] Yes, sir.

[ This, at least, he won't fuck up. ]

[ There's a trite analogy about lancing a wound somewhere, he's sure, and the pus coming out and that making it easier to keep on keeping on. Harold isn't fond of it. He hasn't bought into the concept that healing has to come with pain first. Pain just seems to be a constant, separate and apart from everything else, neither good nor bad.

Pain is part of being alive, just like fear. Sometimes you learn to live with the infection, the seeping wound, and you grow to the point that you no longer have to pretend it doesn't exist. That feels more like weariness than strength.

He has several seeping wounds and somehow, perversely, he's found that he doesn't want to apologize for them any longer.

So again he doesn't contest the sir, just nods with equanimity, a careful eye on Carver for a moment more before he turns to leave. It takes nearly thirty minutes for him to return with Bear with his unsteady gait, and he's purposefully not rushing. It's not a statement about his trust in Carver; he's keeping an eye on him through the cameras they'd just set up, wary but trying to give him time.

When they arrive, Bear is off-leash and curious, immediately moving ahead to investigate the shack until Harold stops him. ]

Wachten. [ He's not sure whether he can assume Carver is watching the cameras, too, in the mental state he's in, despite that being the purpose of them... so he calls out in a calm, carrying voice, suppressing his worry as he stops a healthy distance away with the dog: ]

I've returned with Bear.

[ Time swims. Again, Carver thinks of a river. Of his thoughts catching against stones and fallen trees, getting tangled up in things. Slipping away from him in moments, by inches.

The orders stand, regardless. He tidies. He finds a rag and cleans up the dust. Rights what he can. Everything that ought to have a place within the shack is given one. Briefly, there's a line cut through the chaos. He doesn't really notice the time passing.

Things happen. He barely exists. And then there's a voice cutting through the river, and the noise of a dog.

Carver stills. He watches Harold. He watches the dog. He hasn't been checking the cameras. ]

Yes, sir, [ he agrees softly. ]

[ Not an encouraging response. But in the interest of not trying to fix anything, Harold decides on a more subtle approach. He reflects on his earlier thought that he needs to come in from the side. ]

Since you know his commands, I'll leave Bear with you, [ he declares, without much of an authoritative tenor, just calm. ] I have a few things to catch up on while you finish.

[ And he'll find a place off to the side to settle himself, pulling his computer out of his messenger bag, focusing ostensibly on his screen. The steady typing does lend itself to believability that he's occupied. Of course, Harold keeps one of the more helpfully angled camera feeds minimized to a tiny corner window while he works.

He has plenty of things to do, he just isn't foolish in how he extends his trust. ]

[ For a moment, Carver just stands there. He holds himself very still, hands loose at his sides. No more pacing, he thinks absently. No one likes that.

Once, when he was so worked up he couldn't hear anything past the roar in his ears, when he couldn't stop himself until somebody stopped him first, Pope backhanded him into a wall. It knocked his thoughts back into alignment. For a moment, the world was even quiet. Peaceful. He remembers that moment and the dreamlike bubble that followed, barely even touched by the way Pope stared at him after. Don't make me do that again, son.

Carver reaches up to touch his face, where the blow landed. For a while, he'd thought Pope had broken his jaw. He almost says it, almost puts it to words, because there's a part of him that remembers Harold doesn't really understand. Harold was never a Reaper, never could have been. Trying to imagine him in uniform, with a mask hooked to his belt and a blade in hand, is so abjectly strange it almost makes Carver laugh. What world would ever do that to Harold Finch?

He drops his hand. A moment later, he realizes the dog is there. Bear, who isn't Leah's dog, who isn't Delaney's, but who fits some of the same shapes. Bear, who's bumping his narrow dog head against Carver's hand. He can hear the tac-tac-tac of Harold typing, a sound that hits strange now; no one typed anything back home, not for more than a decade.

These details keep catching against him like thorns. Biting in.

The dog whines. Bumps his hand again.

I'm dissociating, Carver supposes.

It happens sometimes.

He doesn't remember deciding to sit down. It just happens. It seems like the thing to do. He's on the ground, back to the wall, and the dog keeps nosing at him. For lack of a better idea, Carver lays his hand on the dog's back. Bear, that's the dog's name.

Bear's soft. ]

How'd you get fucked up? [ he asks softly. Not looking at Finch. This is a sin, too. ] Way you walk, it's a blast injury, right?

[ It's hard to focus right now. He can't remember if he's asked this before. It would've been a disrespectful thing to ask but Carver's not always a good soldier. ]

[ He notices that Carver doesn't keep working and says nothing about it, remains passively focused on his screen, the soft sounds of his typing continuing intermittently. If he can do nothing else then he can sit and be present without pressuring him to do anything.

Bear, of course, used to Harold having moments like this, knows how to comfort without being demanding, matching the quiet energy of the moment as he presses up to Carver.

When he finally speaks it's unexpected, and Harold's eyes dart up to look at him over the lid of his laptop. His hands still. He can't be surprised Carver knows what it looks like to take a blast injury and then heal badly from it. It goes without saying that Harold doesn't talk about his injuries, doesn't explain them to anyone, hasn't even really told John. It was always too hard, like the words coming up from his throat were edged with knives and would tear up his esophagus.

With the benefit of time and more tragedies to crowd out that older one, its sharpness has softened. Enough at least to let him speak to someone who will understand what he means when he says simply, ]

I walked away and Nathan didn't.

[ Ah, Carver thinks, his hand pressed gently against Bear’s back. He tilts his head back, gaze drifting to the ceiling and the camera he knows is there, watching him. In the end, he probably should’ve guessed something like that. This a familiar story. People don’t fall into a life like this without some kind of blood sacrifice, he’s found. They certainly don’t stay.

He wonders what Nathan was like. He wonders if Nathan knew how much he shaped Harold in the aftermath. ]

These things happen, [ Carver says after a while. He’s unfocused and distant from himself, knows vaguely that something’s wrong with him. That he needs to snap out of it.

He pets Bear. It’s something to do. And after a moment, he lifts the shitty camp shirt to reveal the dappling of shrapnel scars over his hip, where metal punched through his armor all those years ago. It should have killed him but it didn’t. ]

I walked away, too.

I am not content with the absolution implied in these things happen, [ he answers, but he's careful to keep his tone mild and easy, the layer of cold raw iron that undercuts his feelings muffled beneath something purposefully delicate. Harold has started to catch on that Carver reacts very sensitively to tone. That is, at least, one of the things he is good at modulating.

Carver's scars are gruesome, and he grimaces before turning his attention back to the computer. It's not like he can see his own very well, so he's never had to confront them, exactly.

Calmly, almost distantly, not unlike he's experiencing some measure of shock himself: ] Just because I've chosen not to act on it doesn't mean I am absent of the desire for revenge, or the self-loathing that comes with survival.

Absolution, [ Carver echoes, halfway focused. He thinks of the river again, his mind drifting through the rocks and streams of it. He remembers, vaguely, that he’s offered this mantra out before. He meant it as a comfort the way it’s been a comfort to him over the years, but Harold didn’t take it that way.

Strange, Carver thinks. It helped him in the bad times.

He pets Bear. He doesn’t know what else to do. ]

Why didn’t you? [ Carver asks softly. ] You could’ve. You wouldn’t need to use your hands.

[ He certainly wouldn't. He'd planned to suffocate Alicia Corwin in her car, and that was the very least of what he could do.

Harold remembers how their last conversation about children went, so he gives up the pretense and shuts his laptop, a wave of sad fondness washing over him. Maybe this isn't the right conversation to have at the moment, but Carver asked, so he'll answer. The vulnerability should go both ways; he's earned that much. ]

Because my child thought I was a better person than that, [ is how he chooses to explain it, plain and without excuses, ] and I didn't want to set that example after I'd spent so long preaching otherwise.

[ Before, it felt like an insult to compare Harold’s machine to a flesh and blood child. An offense that Carver couldn’t think to do anything except brittle and order him out, lest they both become entangled in a way that no one, not even the dead, can take back.

Now?

Carver just bows his head and strokes Bear’s silky fur. He accepts it as truth because that’s all there is in this moment. Uneasy, grief-born truths. ]

I tried so hard not to scare Matthew, [ he explains softly. ] He didn’t like seeing bodies. He wanted—

[ The words trail off. ]

It doesn’t matter. He was the best thing I ever did. But you…

You were better for her.

[ It's a charitable interpretation, and one Harold can't accept any more than he could the attempt at comfort a moment ago. Like he'd told John, he doesn't want comforting. He's braced himself, finally and at long last, to accept what he's done and face it. Having done that, backsliding an inch feels distasteful.

Like with Nathan and the irrelevant numbers, this is how he's chosen to live up to Root's memory, by being brutally honest with himself about the Machine.

Bluntly, ] She told me at the end that I'd made her to watch people die. She was right. I made her to prevent violent death, but that also meant she had to watch it over and over, thousands and tens of thousands of times. To predict something means to understand it.

I programmed the Machine to erase its memory every night, because I was afraid of it learning to care about me, and what that might mean. [ The pronouns slip back and forth with the time period Harold's thinking of without him fully noticing. ] I purposefully ignored the pain I was causing because it was easier for me.

Please don't think too highly of me; like you, I am only a man who has lost more than I know how to stand. Some of those losses were by my own hand.

[ Carver closes his eyes and rests his head against Bear's back. It's not what he wants to hear from Harold, he realizes distantly. Once, just once, Carver thinks he'd like to hear someone say they got it right. That they suffered and fought and came out stronger for it. That they cared for their people, their kids, and even if they made mistakes, they figured it out and made it right at the end with no equivocations.

That'd be nice, he thinks. It'd make the world simple again. Give him a rock he could steady himself against instead of just another person who tried and made mistakes and had to carry a lot of the same pain.

It hurts, he doesn't say. I'm supposed to be strong but it just fucking hurts and I can't do this anymore. That's not the sort of thing you can say, to anyone. ]

Was it worth it?

[ Please, God, let it have been worth it. ]

[ He can't say he got it right, he can't say he came out stronger for it. Harold can only say... ]

Yes. I think so. [ A moment's pause, and then he adds as if to substantiate, ] Would you like to hear about the people we saved?

[ Carver shivers. He keeps his face hidden against Bear's fur, a weakness. A sin. ]

Yes.

[ Please. ]

[ Sometimes that's all he has himself, and it's what the Machine had died asking for -- reassurance about the people they'd helped. So he starts with one of those that he thinks about often. ]

I don't think I ever told you, but when we receive notice that someone's in danger, we don't know if they're in danger themselves or if they're planning to hurt someone else. One of the earliest cases we received was Dr. Megan Tillman.

She was a remarkable E.R. physician, dedicated and skilled. She worked countless hours saving lives. Naturally, we assumed she was the victim.

[ Like before, he lets Harold's worlds churn through the world. Catching against the rocks of the moment, of whatever's bouncing around Carver's skull that won't let him settle, won't let him sleep. Pope called that weakness. The sort of thing they had to burn out.

He shivers again. Bear whines. ]

Who'd she wanna hurt?

[ He doesn't belabor the point, was expecting Carver to see through it quickly. This is supposed to be a good story, something hopeful, but he also thinks...

That Carver won't believe in something hopeful without a tragedy to it first. ]

Her sister was raped by a remorseless man, [ he says plainly, voice growing taught, ] and her attempt to bring legal charges was unsuccessful. A year later, Dr. Tillman's sister took her own life.

[ He leaves a moment of silence out of respect. ]

Eventually we realized she was stalking the rapist with the intent to kill him and dissolve the body in lye to hide the evidence.

Oh, [ Carver replies softly, the noise of it half muffled against Bear's fur. The dog doesn't fuss or bite at him. Just noses at his arm and lets him cling. He can't look at Harold right now, can barely focus at all. It's like the drowning tests, Carver thinks. That part at the end where the body starts to die and everything goes quiet and still. He almost liked that part when it happened.

Coming back always hurt, though. And he thinks the moment he takes a deep breath and returns to himself fully in this place is the moment he's going to do something unforgivable and scream. He tries to focus on the story instead, the things that Harold's telling him, choosing to tell him. And Carver wishes he could say that shit surprises him, that he had a part of his soul that hadn't gotten ugly and cold to this particular pain years ago, but he doesn't.

People do evil things to each other. He learned that early, in the Army. There's so rarely any justice for any of it.

Carver forces himself to breathe. To listen, and focus on Harold's voice instead of the way his lungs feel like they're burning. ]

What'd you do?

[ He knows this is the tipping point, that he needs to approach this with great care. He knew that already but it's reinforced by how still and quiet Carver becomes, how much he clings to Bear. Harold feels his heart rate increase with the pressure of getting this right.

It's still not a test, not to him, not for him or for Carver. There's no penalty for failure; he just wants to make one thing feel less awful for him. He wants that desperately. ]

There's more than one way to save someone, isn't there? It wasn't Andrew Benton who needed saving. Killing someone takes something from you, and Dr. Tillman, she'd only saved lives before.

John caught up to her and took that burden over. Promised her he'd take care of it.

[ It says something about the mood and the tired truthfulness with which he's telling this story that he doesn't bother with Mr. Reese, uses John. He's speaking softly, heart aching with the memories, thinking not just of what they'd done for Megan but how much it had proved to him so swiftly that he was right to also save John. To pry him from jail and push onto him a new purpose. ]

To this day, I don't know what he did with Mr. Benton. [ It should be something that makes Harold despair, makes him taught with the desire to know for certain, but he has reached absolute peace in trusting John's decisions. He's never asked and he feels no desire to ask now. ]

But he spared Dr. Tillman from having to do it. She could remember Gabrielle without thinking of that man with every breath.

[ The way killing him herself would have, made his face and his voice and his acts indelible to her, something she'd sullied herself over. Instead, he was gone, and no part of him could touch her the way it had touched Gabrielle. And Harold, of course, remembers her name as well. ]

[ The words come, flowing slow and steady. He knows the cadence of Harold’s voice by now, the particular rise and fall of the tone. Each word chosen deliberately, spoken just so. And maybe Carver knows why he keeps thinking about water, choosing metaphors that lead in some or way or another back to drowning because at least that means clarity. At least then there’s a point.

He lifts his head. The world blurs. The dog doesn’t bite him.

That burden, Harold calls it. Another word for the killing. The good doctor planned to get away with it, to deal with the mess. Maybe she would have. And maybe she would’ve balked, or gotten it done just fine but been unable to survive the aftermath. You don’t know until you know.

A burden. What a thing to say. ]

He gave her mercy.

[ Carver’s voice is low. A little unfocused. He thought only the Reapers could trust each other the way Harold trusts John. ]

[ Killing is a burden, isn't it? Harold doesn't believe in souls but he still believes that killing places a weight, something that can't be unshouldered. He doesn't see John as someone redeemed; he sees him as someone who has pushed himself to move and walk and fight with all those weights placed on him, even taking on more rather than let others be burdened themselves.

It's kindness and, yes, mercy of a sort that most wouldn't recognize. Harold isn't surprised that Carver does. And he doesn't need to say out loud that he agrees. ]

I keep tabs on her, [ he offers instead. This is a hopeful story. ] Megan Tillman went on to save many more lives. She's married now. By all accounts, she's never committed a crime.

Who am I to say that alone didn't make it all worth it?

[ Who's he to measure one life against all the rest? No one. He's just one more life himself, no greater or smarter or vaster than any other. ]

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cw suicidal ideation

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cw: abuse, cult shit

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cw: sexual assault & suicide

cw: torture

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