voidtreckernet

[There's a blue lady on the comm's screen, not looking like she completely trusts it -- or that she quite likes being so visible. She has something to ask, though (as much as it feels like an exploitable vulnerability to ask) so she stays. And it's fair that others should see who's talking.]

Hello.

[. . . Knowing how to start is harder than anticipated, and considering the last time she was on the comm was to apologize, it feels even more awkward. She swears she can feel eyes looking at her. Unconsciously, her arms tuck into a cross.]

I heard there are "missions" every month. Where we're supposed to infiltrate, or something attacks.

. . . This time there was water in the city. In the pipes. And the sewers. But people say it's not always a city. Locations are different every time.

I need to be able to access some when it isn't there naturally.

I need . . . help.

[Silence for a moment. That was extremely uncomfortable to say, and the next question isn't much better for her.]

Also . . . I'd like to know what people do to find their own space. Where they can sometimes be alone. When . . . they need to.

. . . Thank you.

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[ Alice lets out a breath of air, more a huff than anything else. ]

That would depend on who you ask. I'd say there is no way it actually cares about us. [ Which means asking for a quiet alone space wouldn't really help, huh. ]

.. if you need a way to cheat the system and have a true quiet place, find someone who's willing to share a double room with you, and make sure they are someone who'd give you space. That is what I am doing.

[In her view, the train is not to be readily trusted. She doesn't think it cares, but even if it does, it doesn't matter. It takes care of them for its own purposes -- because it wants for them to do these missions, not out of any sense of altruism.]

If it cared, it wouldn't have taken us. It has its own agenda.

[She gives a small nod at the room suggestion.] Thank you. Even if there was someone like that, though, right now the rooms are full. Unless the train adds more, I'll have to wait.

[ It hasn't added more yet?

Figures. The train probably thinks even a room you have to share with less than three people is a luxury, Alice figures. She feels rather glad that Rich suggested the thing in time then. ]

I guess you could use the time you have to spend waiting anyway to see if you can find someone like that. I found one, even though I did not think I would.

[It's genuinely hard to imagine finding someone like that -- someone she feels comfortable enough to be in that close of physical proximity, let alone ask the question of in the first place.]

[Though . . . it happened before, hadn't it?]

[. . . She just wishes she could remember how it worked.]

You're lucky.

Don't say that as I did not put any effort into it at all.

[ Not that Lapis isn't right. Alice has been lucky. This sort of thing is a lot about being lucky.

But she's not entirely lying either - if she hadn't bothered to try and open up to other people, she wouldn't have ended up here in the first place. ]

A lot of people here are oddly nice. It's not that difficult.

[Blue eyes flick, startled, to Alice's face at the correction.]

[She's not sure what to say in reply. She'd like to believe those words -- that people on the train are nice. Faith in such things, though, isn't something that she relies on. She'd stopped relying on it long ago.]

I guess . . . then maybe I was lucky before.

I don't . . . pull people in.

[Maybe that sounds maudlin, but she doesn't mean it that way -- nor is she seeking reassurance. For her, it's simple truth. She knows she doesn't have the ready smile, the charm, the flattery, the conversational skills that tend to lure others. She's simply herself, edges and raw spots. She expects nothing from Alice; the words are merely reflective of not expecting to be that lucky again and expression of the knowledge that she gets in her own way.]

[And of uncertainty, because truly, she was lucky to be where she ended up before, with the people she'd ended up with. Looking back, it seems like a small miracle. It seems foolish for her to expect that will happen twice.]

[ It's slightly tempting to reply with another sarcastic quip - maybe wondering if, along the same lines, Lapis somehow seems to think Alice draws people in.

Because she knows she doesn't. She knows it's the opposite, if everything back home was anything to go by. It's like she actively repels people through an unpleasant attitude, through her resting bitchface, through her past. ]

You don't need to be anything you're not.

[ It doesn't sound like a direct reply to what Lapis is saying, but it's more a reply to the undercurrent in all of this. There's no reason to behave a certain way just to make people like you, she means. ]

Just be yourself, and see how that works out for you here. [ Because just being herself has worked out differently for Alice here - if not just slightly - compared to back home. ]

[If she had said such a thing, she would have received an even, quiet "yes" -- because one, Lapis does believe others do it better, and because two, Alice has been quite kind to her, and Lapis has appreciated both that and the tone with which she's done it. She's frank, she's honest, and while she supports, she doesn't over-sympathize or fuss.]

[Softly,] Thank you.

[And maybe because it's easier to say in the wake:] I . . . don't know what I am. How I am. I've learned, I think, some of the things that I'm not.

I hope that's enough.

It's a start.

[ She doesn't ask why Lapis doesn't know what she is.

After all, Alice went through the exact same circumstances that could cause the same thing. The only reason she does know what she is - or likes to think so, anyway - is because she desperately clung onto the last remaining parts of her mind and built it back up from there.

Lapis can do the same. ]

If nothing else, you will have plenty of time to figure out exactly that in this place.

[There's the faintest flicker -- almost invisible -- of an upturning of Lapis' lips.]

[And a nod.]

Thank you.

[Not for the fact that they are in this place and have the time to figure it out, of course. But for Alice herself and her responses.]

[ Alice waves a hand, slightly dismissively. And while it's easy to just take it as a rude gesture on her part in the face of this, there's a faint hue to Alice's cheeks that indicates it's just because she's embarrassed and doesn't know how to otherwise deal with this. ]

It is nothing to thank me for. You asked for help.

[ So she gave it. ]

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