maskormenacelogs | May Swear In

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May Swear In

WHO: Everyone!
WHERE: Nonah's Fairgrounds
WHEN: May 12th
WHAT: May Swear In
WARNINGS: None expected; please warn in threads if necessary

Spring is finally beginning to fade into summer with weather starting to warm, and the trees and flowers beginning to blossom into their peak, and what better way to celebrate the welcome change in weather than with a FAIR?

The fairgrounds have been transformed overnight with a swath of rides and attractions filling the field from one edge to the other. There is, of course, a booth for imPort registration that's positioned near the entrance of the fair. Even so, imPorts with an interest in registering may have to ask a fair worker for directions. The signage on the registration booth is, for some reason, faded and easy to miss among the bright and bold banners and lights drawing attendees to the different game booths that line the paths further into the grounds. Must have just been poor planning on someone's part!

Further into the park there are a wide array of the standard carnival games. Games include from balloon pops where you can win your very own "signed" copy of imPort photographs, but does anyone actually remember signing any photos…? There's also a ring toss that no one can seem to win, but the prizes include items like a water bottle discarded by Tony Stark, or dried flowers from one of Persephone's actual vines! Or maybe you'd like to prove your sharpshooter skills by knocking milk bottles down with a pellet gun? Prizes range from cheap, poorly painted figures of popular imPorts, to a handful of detailed and poseable figurines of both imPorts and famous media characters for the very best shooters.

Past the games are the many, many different food booths. You can chow down on Fried Stuff On Sticks, offering fare ranging from deep fried cheesecake on a stick to deep fried corndogs on a stick to a variety of tempura on sticks. (It counts!!) Or perhaps you prefer a healthier roasted meat? There's no shortage of options for that: roast turkey, roast beef, roast bison, roast alligator? Strangely few, if any, of these booths offer any vegetable options, but intrepid imPorts can find a booths offering superfood smoothies, quinoa bowls, or fruit parfaits tucked away at the very end of the food court.

And don't forget the main attraction (at least, the attraction Galla is most pleased with): CAPTURE THE FLAG. A parcel of land roughly the size of two side-by-side American football fields has been fenced off, and a brightly colored banner that looks like it manifested directly from the 90s is hung across the entrance, inviting all to enjoy! Inside, there is a scattering of trees to provide some natural cover in addition to man-made structures like sections of wall, pieces of large construction pipe to crawl through or hide in, and, of course, the different flag bases:

Yes, those are inflatable dinosaur heads inside an inflatable Jurassic Adventure. The flags are located inside of the temple the top of the "mountain" which, conveniently, has a rock climbing facade just in case climbing to the top of an inflatable hill is too difficult for some players.

Capture the Flag games are held hourly, and imPorts can choose to compete against each other, against natives, or even to team up with local native attendees! When competing against or with natives, imPorts are asked to refrain from flight, mind-reading, or teleportation, but it isn't a rule being strictly enforced. In fact, apart from those requests, imPorts are encouraged to use their powers as much as they like! There are natives lined up around the perimeter to watch the games play out, so why not give them a show to remember?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Then maybe I should just play against him, and you can sit the game out. [ It's slight, marked only at the corners of her mouth and the softest curve of her cheeks, but there's a smile there. ] You can practice meditating. Or, I don't know, zone out and rank your favorite rom-coms.

[ Despite everything, there's an easiness to the mood that surrounds Jaime, a sincere sort of pleasantness — the sudden puff of a summer breeze. It's not difficult to fall into the same pace.

Still, she can't shake uncertainty so quickly — grateful as she is that this is the topic he's pursuing. She hums a moment for thought. ]

How do you think it works? That part of my power.

Ten Things I Hate About You would have to be in first, right? Total classic.

[ That's his job - making things easy, putting others at ease. And the easy way he talks, the easy way he ambles along, just as eager to make a joke out of himself as he is anything else except other people, all lend itself to that. Sometimes it's hard for others to suss out what's genuine and what he's just doing to get a laugh out of someone else.

The trick is, it's all genuine in its own way. Others' happiness makes him happy. Anything he can do to help that happen is as earnest as can be. ]

And... just the way you described it, I guess? [ He tilts his head skywards, thinking. ] I guess I've been thinking of it in the same way that I can feel what Khaji's feeling, even if he's not saying anything. I know it's not coming from inside me, but I feel them anyway.

Is it? If Will Smith isn't in it, I haven't seen it.

[ The naturalness of it is what's so dangerous. She doesn't want that kind of easy pleasantry — not when she knows how little she deserves it, and letting her own mood shift to mirror his only feels parasitic. She doesn't want to be as selfish as she wants.

So even if a little bit of a smile shows in pieces in her expression, for little jabs like that (and what a weird qualifier to have, for rom-coms), she keeps her grip tight on the umbrella, her other arm remaining crossed, shoulders tense. She doesn't look at his face, either, his soft and thoughtful expressions, instead opting for the premise of looking for a game they can play. ]

Anyway, it's... sort of like that. I can feel how everyone around here feels, even if I'm not trying to. It's noise. But when I pull emotions from objects, they don't... they don't pick up your feelings, just by being around you, like I am right now. The emotion has to be a lot stronger for an object to take it, and it has to be from touch. Like...

[ It's something she should have explained at the outset, before he got it in his head to make this offer. It's something she should have explained, at any earlier point. It's something she shouldn't be bothering with, now, when there's so much else on the table.

And yet, she explains: ]

Let's say you have a photograph of someone you love. You want to protect it, so you keep it in a frame, with the picture behind glass. And you love her very much, and you miss her, and maybe sometimes you wish you could talk to her, so you hold onto it and talk to it like you'd talk to this person. You pour a lot of your heart into it.

But, while you think it's the photograph that's capturing your feelings, you never touch it. You always hold it by the frame. When you get upset, and cry, your tears only reach the glass. So... if you took the photograph out of the frame, and gave me that, I wouldn't be able to feel anything about that person. But if you gave me the glass, and the frame, with no picture in it... my power would react.

If I want to use it to drown out anything else, it has to be an incredibly strong emotion. Most people don't reach heights like that unless they're in pain.

[ My anchors were vessels for pain, she says, with pieces to a puzzle held in separate hands. ]

So ... it's hard for me to see you having something like that. That you'd really be willing to part with it. ... I don't want you to be disappointed when it doesn't work, the way you hope.

[ She forces a shrug. ]

That's all.

[ Only Will Smith movies? Man, that's a bad metric. Jaime makes a mental note to show her some other movies at some point though, cosidering their current conversation, that's something that's just going to have to wait.

He knows, almost immediately, what would be the best thing to give her. His corkboard. Not all of it - it would hardly fit in her pocket - but at least a piece of it; it's been with him all these four years, carrying pictures of just his family at first, and then his friends, his new family, bits and pieces of everything that's ever mattered to him, the only things that have truly mattered to him here.

Or maybe he could try something else. Maybe BB's first collar, that swell of almost alarming love and affection he felt for him even as he grabbed onto it to keep him from doing whatever dumb crap he was trying to do at the time. Or maybe one of the handles of his bike, the one Kaidan and Shepard had given him, the one Shepard had taught him how to drive on. It's just a thing. Ruka's well-being means more than just things. ]

Hey, I'm not saying it'll definitely work. Just that it's worth a shot. And... I mean, I get that pain's a strong emotion? But I feel plenty of other stuff strongly too. To anchor you with something that just hurts seems like it'd be besides the point. Come over sometime; we can try a few things out.

[ The Will Smith Saga is complicated and is better left alone.

Still, as he talks — as he concedes to the possibility framed by her uncertainty, her hesitance — she listens with a slight bowing of her head. If he's willing to accept the (extremely high) chance of his failure, then it's only fair that she accept the (extremely low) chance of his success. She's given him chance after chance to back away, and he hasn't taken them; if she wants to reject the offer, she has to do it herself. ]

... Okay. [ Spoken easy, but in the softer, calmer way her voice goes when she's most steady. ] You'll have to tell me when. Your schedule's busier than mine, I'm sure.

Oh, there's one— [ The contact is a brief little bump, her elbow tapping against his, her attention finally landing on one of the bright carnival booths, ] —that could work.

[ Why does everyone keep picking sharpshooting. ]

Deal.

[ It's a small success, but a success nonetheless. He'll take it - at a later date, though. For now, they've got a carnival to conquer. He has other things he wants to ask her too, less palatable topics they have to cover, but Jaime figures that can wait til later. They can afford to have a little bit of an ordinary afternoon first, right? They deserve that much, after everything they've been through in such a short amount of time. ]

Let's do it! It's been a while since I shot a gun that's not, like, just my arm, but I can give it a shot.

[ Easy — it's the word she keeps coming back to, with this guy. She knows it's not because of knowing a different Jaime Reyes, at least not completely, since it's not like she's using that knowledge to structure her reactions, to give her topics to cover, pitfalls to avoid. It's not because he knows she knew one, too. At the very least, it's not as though he's brought up anything to do with the Blue Beetle in a serious way, either. It's not foreknowledge at all. It's not familiarity. It's simply... easy.

It's hard to trust easy. It's hard to distrust easy. Easy shouldn't be so difficult — that's why they're antonyms — but here she is, anyway.

Even when it's easy, when it's meant to be easy, she responds after deliberation. ]

Then you can take the first shot. I'll go second, and your rom-com deliberation can go third, if he wants his own turn.

[ A half-smile. ]

Probably not the place to be using the name, right?

Probably not. But hey - anyone who knows it is a friend.

[ Well... not anymore. His smile drops for only a moment before he returns his attention forward and onwards, determined to have a good time for at least a little while before they get into that nonsense. ]

It's a deal, [ he says, digging around in his pockets and placing a few bills on the counter of the booth, motioning for the man running it to load up the pellet gun. He lifts it with a little more familiarity than what people would ordinarily assume out of him, weighing it in his hands and eyeing down the target. ]

Hey, which prize are you gunning for? We gotta place some stakes on this thing.

[ She doesn't show it in her face, but Ruka catches that falter and sets it aside. Maybe not a lot, but maybe something that isn't true, either. Nothing to do for it now, anyway.

She glances towards the scoreboard at the back of the stall, counting down from the top. ]

Well, it looks like anything worth taking home is in the last tier, and that takes at least five perfect rounds... or up to twenty real bad ones. [ At least the total points will stack, if you play long enough. ]

So, quickest to get two? Unless you want to forfeit before that.

Pfft, in your dreams. Do I look like the kind of guy that backs down to you?

[ Yes, the guy running the stall mutters, and Jaime pauses to give him a deeply unimpressed look before lifting the gun and taking aim, making a quiet shushing noise underneath his breath revealing that Khaji doesn't care at all about the rules.

When he squeezes the trigger, he hits the target off-centre. ]

Well, it's not bad. Here, you go.

[ It's no surprise, she thinks, that it's Jaime the stall attendant dismisses; he has a softness to him that's nothing to do with the shape of his jaw or the breadth of his shoulders. Ruka, meanwhile, has a rigidity that reads like sharpness, and even her visible impairment doesn't lessen it — it probably intensifies it, regardless of the fact their trial is based in part on visibility. Between the two of them, she probably seems the more dangerous.

Then again, maybe that isn't wrong.

Her hum is non-committal at his shot, and she takes the gun as he passes it over. No real weight, which is expected, but when she goes to take her aim, she lowers the toy with a frown. Ugh. Usually her gloves are fine enough for fine tasks, but they're sweaty in the heat, and the fabric is bunching uncomfortable at the knuckles.

She bites at the fabric of each fingertip and tugs, and after a moment of struggle pulls her hand free. The empty glove gets half-tucked into a pocket, and she goes to take aim once more.

A breath in, half out, and squeeze. ]

Mmm.

[ Dead center. She passes the gun back, but takes noticeable care to not let her bare hand touch his. (Of course her hand seems smaller outside of the dark fabric, but her fingers are long and thin, and her wrists bony and narrow. In a word, it looks frail.)

A genuine smile, hooking into one cheek. ]

Best of luck, catching up.

[ In the end, Khaji's the one that wins. It's probably not a surprise that he does so - he is a supercomputer after all - but it does mean that Jaime's the one that has to listen to him gloat, chittering with laughter that sends itself straight down his spine, a scratchy buzzing sound zinging through his ears. Jaime never minds. He likes to hear Khaji laugh provided he's not laughing at him, which is often the case.

They walk around and look at the sights for a little longer, maybe check out a free sample or two (Jaime can never resist free food; it doesn't matter what's put in front of him, so long as he can shove it into his face) before Jaime finally settles on the idea that he has to say something. ]

Hey, Ruka - not that this hasn't been fun, but there's actually something else I needed to talk to you about.

I wondered.

[ It was almost a long enough time — and, to tell the truth, an enjoyable enough time — that she might have forgotten about it. It wouldn't have been difficult to use his good mood as protection against the negativity she's cursed to carry. Wouldn't have been hard at all, especially with that faint flickering of different, unfamiliar glee buoying behind Jaime's smile.

But Ruka has never been good at letting things go, or at ignoring the shadows that hang in the periphery. ]

If it was something like that, I mean. [ She speaks more softly, but calmly. Maybe it should be irritating, that a good time could only be in the service of something serious — something worse. Maybe it should be disappointing. (Then again, disappointment would require her to have expected anything else.)

Oh well. ] What is it?

[ That's not exactly what he had meant - he had wanted to spend time with her, and enjoyed doing it - but he doesn't know how to refute that, so he leaves it be. It's hard, when so much of your life is wrapped up in what you want to do warring with what needs to be done. And this needs to be done. He and the Negotiator may have a deal, but he needs to protect the people that know, make sure that they don't wind up just being used by the man.

He doesn't think Ruka would allow that to happen, truly, but that's no reason not to head this off at the pass. ]

I saw you talking to someone on the network the other day. The Negotiator.

Yes.

[ The shift in mood is instant. Her face trades softness for tightening at her jaw, around her visible eye; even in only one word, her voice is colder.

It's certainly a different tone than when she was talking to the Negotiator. ]

I... try to keep an eye, on my 'fellow' refuges, when they remember the City.

I remember him.

Good. I mean... [ Jaime pauses, then shakes his head. He doesn't need empathy powers to know that Ruka doesn't like the guy. All for the better, as far as he's concerned - while he'd like for the Negotiator to have his time to be normal, if he's capable of doing so, he doesn't want any of his friends to be swept up in his manipulations.

And while their relationship is a strange and frequently rocky one, they are friends. ]

It's good that you already know he's bad news. I just - there's not much I had to ask or to tell, really. I just wanted to make sure that you knew.

Yeah. [ She nods. ] I can put two and two together.

[ It would be enough to leave it at that. It should be enough to say that much. She can do the math; if Jaime wants her to know he's "bad news," then he wants her to keep her distance. Keep herself safe.

It would be enough. But— ]

And I can tell when they don't add up. [ She forcibly rolls her shoulders, as though that would dissipate some of the tension she feels building. ] It's not my place to know everything, but... there's one thing I have to know for sure.

[ There's a part of Jaime that feels bad for springing this on Ruka. They were having a perfectly nice time for once and now she's gone back to looking as stressed as she normally does. This time, he can't argue it. The Negotiator is absolutely someone to be stressed about. God knows Jaime's been losing his mind over the man. ]

Of course. What do you need to know?

[ She shakes her head. ]

You're not the one with the answer.

[ It's nothing she wants to explain, nothing she wants to dig up — and Jaime already turned down the offer she made, to hear about the other Jaime, the one it was... much simpler to call her friend. If she's lucky, he won't press now. ]

But, you don't have to worry about me. That guy didn't recognize me, and never knew me in the first place. I'll be fine.

Just keep your distance, okay? We've got... a truce going on, but that doesn't mean I trust him. Which means I want all my friends to be careful.

[ He goes after whoever he can, in whatever ways he can. Jaime knows that now. Even with guilt on his shoulders, he's not willing to let that go.

His family could have died. ]

But even if I don't know the answer, I'd like to know the question. Whatever involves him is my business, one way or another.

... Knowledge changes things, Jaime. And sometimes it is for the worse.

[ She doesn't want to tell him. She doesn't want to say. She doesn't even want to think about it, but she's never been any good at letting go.

It's hard to form the words; they feel like syrup in her mouth, thick and shapeless and heavy. She can't even look at him when she speaks. ]

An incomplete story is a dangerous one to tell.

Maybe. But I know enough about people living here with incomplete stories to know it's better than nothing.

[ It's not something he should press. Obviously it's something that's caused her pain, that's causing her pain now to remember - but if this involves him or the Negotiator, he wants to know. He has to know. ]

I can't force you to say anything you don't want to. But if it involves me - if it's up to me, I want to know.

[ She takes a breath before she answers, gazing more into thought than their surroundings. It doesn't involve him, because it didn't happen to him, and he doesn't remember it. If it were just that, then that's all answer there would need to be. But the reason she's thinking of it, the reason he's asking, the reason it matters, is an entity that does remember. That can act.

She doesn't want history to repeat. She knows it won't, if she's allowed to act.

(Was it the right decision to make, in the first place? She hopes so. God, she hopes so. She hopes he would have forgiven her. She hopes he never knew.) ]

If you're sure. [ Her voice remains quiet. He asked. Even against her warnings, he's asked — and she'd made a promise to him before, hadn't she? All he has to do is ask. ] ... Then, we should go somewhere a little more private.

[ And if he hears the whole story, if he asks for all of it... and he can't forgive her... then at least they won't have an audience. ]

I'm sure. Lead the way.

[ Jaime has the tendency to feel vaguely guilty even when he knows he's doing the right thing, particularly if it's the right thing for himself and no other parties - but he has to know. The Negotiator has made so much trouble for him and those he loves in the first place, and here? He's an unknown quantity.

For someone who's frequently obsessed with compiling as much information as possible so he can plan things in advance, that's a nightmare. There's a whole history that the Negotiator knows that Jaime doesn't and more than that, it's information he can never, ever get his hands on. His only path to getting it is through people who were there.

People like Ruka. So, hands in his pockets, he follows her to wherever she wants to go, content to wait until she feels comfortable enough to speak. ]

[ It's easy enough to choose a place. All fairgrounds come with their share of barns, of exhibition halls, of sprawling little two- and three-story buildings for market vendors and grade school art shows — the kinds of things communities love, but that imPorts could rarely be paid to notice. It helps that even the ones that are used have unused halls — a phantom slip of a small shield through a locked door, and opening the handle from the other side makes getting in a breeze.

It's through, and up, to a wide-windowed cavernous hall, unlit save for the natural sunlight; the whole west side of the fairgrounds stretch out below in crowded panorama. (She would have preferred the roof, but too many imPorts can for that to be anything like private.

As she leads the way, she doesn't press for conversation, her thoughts instead turning inward, dissecting what little she's gotten from Jaime thus far, and what even less she's gotten from the Negotiator himself. If Jaime says they have a truce, then they've already spoken in this world; the date the Negotiator gave for his City memory doesn't make sense for the timeline she remembers. Did he leave and come back, and escape her notice? Perhaps that was more likely than making up a date and hoping for the best — but who knew, just yet?

Finally alone, but not any more ready for the conversation ahead, Ruka sighs, sitting down on one of the shelf-like window ledges, back against the glass. ]

Did that guy tell you anything about the other you, in the City? [ A pause. It's even less likely, but— ] —Has anyone else?

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