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

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?

...a little bit.

[ It's Jaime's turn to feel uncomfortable, though it's more on Ruka's behalf than it is on his own. Hearing about his own death has become a startlingly normal occurrence, and one that bothers him less and less. They're versions of him, not him, and he's fairly certain most versions of him find an early death. They court danger too often for that not to be the case.

It's different when he's looking someone for which that was their friend square in the eye. It's not so remote then, not like when he was talking about it with the Negotiator who couldn't care less about Jaime's death. ]

I've mostly only heard about the other me from you and the Negotiator, but I heard the most from him. He told me that the last version of me had a truce with him, which we started back up again. He also told me that I died, and that he didn't do it.

And that after I died, Khaji, um, decided to take the reins. Punish him for it.

[ She remains composed as he says it, the thing she had wanted him never to know — I died — but her hands ball and tighten at the rejection of blame. Of course he would say that. Does she believe it? Not any more than she did back then, uncertain and hurt and wanting to believe in Khaji Da and wanting to believe in justice as more than a veil worn by revenge.

But that version of Khaji Da doesn't exist in this world any more, and neither does that Jaime. The relationship those two had, the nuances of it — that was unique to them, just as the subtleties of this Jaime and his scarab are unique to them, standing before her.

Knowledge changes things. And even if Khaji Da had made the wrong conclusion, there's no one else who can explain what happened. ]

... It's close to the truth, [ said quiet, her attention still not on Jaime's face, ] but it's... it's not the reality of it. It wouldn't have gone on for as long as it did if that's all it was.

I'll tell you what happened, but, I never got all the details, in the end. I don't know if Jaime got them all, either. We didn't talk about it, afterwards. [ Her lips flicker in a smile, struggling for traction. ] Just because I knew he was the Blue Beetle doesn't mean Jaime ever really talked about what it meant, with me. That's not the kind of friends we were.

... Anyway. It's... it's not that he died. He didn't, completely. [ She takes a breath, deep and audible, and after that pause, she finally finds her footing, speaking deliberately. ] Two civilians were in a public square when they were shot in unidentified gunfire. One was a regular person; the other was Jaime. She died; he didn't. ... He was shot in the head. He was hospitalized.

... The scarab fixed everything he could. Kept his organs from shutting down while he repaired the tissue, but when it was all said and done, his body was perfectly fine, but it wasn't enough. [ She pauses. ] When we talked about it, Khaji Da said that he couldn't detect any independent brain activity. He was alive, but the part that made him Jaime was gone.

[ The reality of it was much worse, because they were holding onto hope. ]

[ Jaime nods along, unable to help himself from wondering at the that's not the kind of friends we were. Ruka had been terribly young in the City, and Jaime must have been a good few years older. Is that why? Or was it the same thing Jaime can't help but do with everyone, push aside whatever he's feeling because it's too difficult to talk about, reject what's going on until directly confronted by it? Maybe that's why she called him during the bomb. Because she saw what he had done and knew he wasn't going to call anyone else, knew him better than he knows her.

Or maybe it's for some different reason. That wasn't him. That was a different guy, that Jaime, and there's no way of ever knowing how alike or how dissimilar they really are.

And then, of course, is the question of Khaji riding Jaime's corpse around. He takes a deep breath, slightly unnerved, but not as much as he should be. None of what he's feeling is as much as it should be, even to an empath; the emotions that should accompany this, the shock and horror and disgust, are mostly absent, replaced by a sense of confusion, urgency, concern. ]

I... knew it had to be something like that, with Khaji taking over. Otherwise he would have had to find a new host. [ Jaime's quiet for a moment, turning it over in his head. ]

But I - but that version of me came back afterwards, right? Which means that either a miracle happened or something happened to Khaji Da if the City operates the same way that this place does.

[ He picks it up faster than she'd have liked. She tries to keep herself steady, but gripping her hands together and locking her elbows doesn't quite stay the trembles of her arms, the guilt and the grief that have stayed, buried and vital, like bulbs waiting for the right spring rain before blooming once more.

She swallows, but she nods. ]

Yeah. It worked differently there. We didn't have nanites, or continuum, or any of that. When an imPort really died, the body was exPorted, basically. They usually imPorted back in a day or two later, but they still... left. ... If he'd let the body die, then Jaime and Khaji Da both would have exPorted, even if he did find a new host. More likely than not, anyway.

It was a risk he wasn't ready to take. He wanted answers, and... he wanted to do right by Jaime, too. [ She swallows again, but it's harder this time, and she turns her head so he won't see how rapidly her good eye blinks back the beginnings of wetness. Maybe she doesn't need to defend what Khaji Da had done, and late amends will do nothing, but the words keep coming. ] He kept the Blue Beetle active. He kept up with all the things that mattered to Jaime, even if it was... totally pointless in finding out what happened. He still helped people, and kept up with Jaime's friends, and... I mean, he even told me what was going on without me having to force it, and, like, plotted out optimized driving routes so I could get my driving hours in just because it's something Jaime would have done. He just—

[ —it's a delirious, useless little tangent, and even if it's urgency she feels from Jaime now and not revulsion, not disgust for what may have happened to that alternate self, she remembers how other imPorts had reacted. (Remembers who it is that told Jaime this happened in the first place.) (Remembers how she used this fear, when—) ]

—wanted to do the right thing. He must have been afraid of dying, too.

... but... no, it wasn't a miracle. The only way Jaime could come back, or go home, was if he died.

[ (Would he have forgiven her? There's no way to know for sure.) (Nothing good will come of saying it.) ]

It wasn't a risk he would have ever taken. And everyone else who knew, they just... I don't know. But none of them would do anything, either.

[ (Nothing good. But she's always known she would have to.) ]

... So... I did.

[ Jaime is comfortable with the idea of his own death. That's been made abundantly clear throughout this conversation, through the remove with which he's able to see it, less horrified than he ought to be at the idea of Khaji steering his corpse around, at being dead in the first place, at having others know him as dead. But this - this gets to him. He swallows, paling a little as he imagines Khaji in that awful position, wonders at what his friend must have been thinking, at not getting even the possibility of finding a new host or detaching himself from Jaime altogether as he should, as Jaime's always known that Khaji eventually would.

His own death, he can accept. And he can accept worlds in which Khaji never awakened as well, knowing how poorly things could have gone. But to have someone kill Khaji while he's still cognizant, still innocent? That puts a bolt of nausea through his gut. ]

So you killed... Khaji asked you to kill him? He never even tried to detach himself from me?

[ The air freezes in her lungs, and then burns, and then falls to ash; frustration, disbelief, a heaviness that isn't quite anger but maybe it might as well be seize and fill her organs, and for a moment, she says nothing. Her hands release their hold on one another, and instead grip the ledge of the window. She propels herself to her feet; her sandals don't have weight enough to make an impressive sound, but there's an echo to it in the empty hall. It's only a few steps — not towards Jaime, but not really away, either.

Always assuming the best of her. It reminds her of the first time they met, in that jailer's cafeteria, and without knowing her he'd tried to find some way to bend reality to absolve her of guilt. Of blame. And maybe he'd been right, that time, but he isn't now.

Maybe it is anger. Maybe it isn't. ]

Nobody ever asks for my help. [ Nobody ever wants it. Maybe there's a reason for that. Maybe there's too many reasons to count. Her hands shake, balled into fists at her sides. As usual, they're gloved; as always, it's that single ever-familiar shade of red. Maybe there's a reason for that.

It hurts to speak, but sometimes it's easier when it's painful. ] A city full of heroes, and you think he would have asked me? I was fourteen. No. He never tried. He never asked. Once he decided it was the Negotiator's fault, he imprisoned him. The cage would only hold him if Khaji stayed close enough to power it — the scarab chained himself to his grief, and his anger, and his regret, and he was never going to let go of any of it. He wanted to do the right thing, but it was all wrong.

[ She pivots, and for the first time looks Jaime in the eye — one the same age as her, but one who never knew the City, and how much harder and darker and more painful it was there, who had not seen how much she'd changed in only three years, who could never truly understand how much Jaime had meant to her, and how much she'd wished there was any other way, and how much it still hurts now even though her friend had come back, even though everything had worked out the way she wanted, and how regret is self-feeding and self-defeating when she wouldn't take it back even if she could — and maybe, just maybe, he'll finally see the real her. ]

So, yes, I killed Khaji Da.

[ Jaime doesn't move, neither to step away from her, nor to step towards her. He's spent so much time trying to understand her, trying to see things from her perspective, trying to understand what exactly the City was like and how it affected people, but now he's just trying to understand what the heck happened. It's easy to remove himself from the picture when discussing his own mortality, even that of his alternate selves, but Khaji... the thought of him going through undue suffering pains him. He's already suffered so much in what is, essentially, an incredibly short life. Khaji takes care of Jaime, but Jaime takes care of Khaji too. The thought of Jaime dying and leaving Khaji to rot in his own grief, to be taken out by another is unthinkable.

He's supposed to die, and Khaji's supposed to choose the next Blue Beetle. That's how it works. ]

Khaji doesn't care about people's ages, [ Jaime says, quietly. ] He doesn't get it. He's not - he's not like us.

[ Sometimes, Jaime thinks Khaji still doesn't quite grasp that Jaime will die one day, and that he will be on his own. He's tried to talk to him about it before, the idea that one day, no matter what Khaji does, he will die. If his is not a violent death, he will just get old.

But Khaji is ancient. He's existed since before the pyramids were built. The idea of a violent death he can prevent is something he can grasp, but mortal lives remain beyond him. If Khaji did not ask Ruka for help, it's because he didn't think her capable, or he didn't want it.

His Khaji, anyway. How different could they be? ]

Did you kill him to free the Negotiator, or - or did you kill him because you wanted your friend back?

[ Khaji doesn't care bout that, but that kind of mollification doesn't work. She shakes her head, a slight gesture, the force of her feelings still restrained in her trembling arms. ]

I know that. Maybe he wouldn't on his own, but Jaime did. Because of that, neither of them would have wanted me to—

[ To hurt, to suffer, to live with the guilt of any of it, to carry any more hurt on her shoulders and in her heart, to deal with any of it alone. She doesn't say any of it. Instead she takes another gulp of too-cold air, wishes she had her eye or her rings or her bracelet to center on, and shakes her head. Anger without heat, and remorse without regret. Her arms cross; how she wishes she could rip this whole day to pieces so neither of them would have to remember this.

If she can't destroy it, she can bury it. Right? She shouldn't have said anything at all; it hurts too much to speak. She shouldn't speak any more to it.

Her attention drifts to the window, and the bright spring day outside, the festive atmosphere so far removed from them it feels like looking at a photograph of a foreign landscape. ]

... Of course I wanted to see my friend again. I'm not stupid enough to deny that. That doesn't mean it's why. I'd already lost everyone else, after all.

[ It would take honesty — true, full, sincere — to buy forgiveness. The price only seems to climb with every passing moment. And if she can't pay it, she'll certainly lose what little friendship this Jaime is willing to ascribe her. ]

What's one more?

[ Even then, Ruka lost everything? Jaime had thought - hoped - that her life in the City had some joys in it, that her current bitterness is because of losing everything in the City, not everything that came before that. To feel that way at the age of fourteen...

It's not unheard of. Not in the least. Jaime's seen it, again and again. But even now, he wishes that it hadn't been an experience Ruka had gone through, simply piling on misery after misery that seems to be her life.

He stares down at his lap and then, absently, puts one hand on his own shoulder, creeping towards his spine. Khaji flashes and pulses, as though to greet him or to reassure him. Jaime's not sure which one it is. ]

He was right. It shouldn't have been you.

[ Jaime would have never wanted that out of a child. Slowly, as though trying to measure his words, he says, ] I know that that version of me and this one - we're not the same person. You don't need me to tell you that. But I think we were similar enough to know what had to be done. I've... had talks, with people. Contingency plans. They know that they need to kill me if I ever lose control, if I'm ever a danger to anyone else.

[ He'd had that first conversation four years ago. It had been a terrible thing to put on these people, to put on people who ostensibly love him, but he demanded it of them anyway. The cost was too great.

But he would have never put it on Gon, or Killua, or Ken, or even Tara. That means his previous self would have never put it on Ruka either. ]

Why was it you? Why didn't anyone else step up to the plate?

Edited 2018-06-18 00:40 (UTC)

May Swear In

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