Ashley Williams (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cannotrest) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
maskormenacelogs2019-11-11 01:46 am
cannotrest) wrote in maskormenacelogs2019-11-11 01:46 am
one more hill to take
WHO: Ashley Williams and you (open)
WHERE: Jeopardy suburbia, Ted Kord Memorial Centre in Heropa, and wherever
WHEN: early November
WHAT: late ghost, late N7 Day, wildcardin'
WARNINGS: I see dead parent
After getting lured onto a train to the stars by the ghosts of her old unit, Ashley's first inclination when she sees shimmering blue people out and about in Jeopardy on her very early morning run (living in a time zone later than the one she works in is a pain) is to call it in to her team.
(It's been a month now since they've seen Jacob. How strange that it might now really be her (and Darin's) team.)
"Morning, Helix Station," she says into her phone, still one to hold it up to her ear rather than use the mental network or her synthesis. "I'm getting more potential ghosts in..."
Her phone clatters on the ground as a man in his fifties comes towards her, his features similar to hers but more pronounced and with a blue spectral glow instead of the green circuitry in her skin, wearing a navy blue military PT uniform.
"Mija," he says warmly. "And to think you used to complain about getting up early. ¿Me podrÃa decir la hora?"
"Dad?"
All the ghosts lately and this dangerous, multiverse-affecting plan on the horizon give her the feeling that it's probably time to deal with a particular piece of her world that had made its way to her here months before she could confirm its meaning in her home universe. She spent so long here wondering if Shepard's memorial wall name plate meant that she was dead, and then she was back on the Normandy, and one thing passed on from the Reapers across that strange neural network was that Shepard had sacrificed herself to make that network, this change across the universe possible so they could live in harmony.
Without a Normandy here, or her Shepard ever being in this world, it feels a little odd taking the "Commander Shepard" name plate into the Memorial Center, but it's the best she's got to remember her Shepard in. She takes a bouquet, too, for Jacob and young Sara Ryder, and various positive news clippings about Jacob and Aegis Force.
Jacob had set up a little memorial to old crewmates who had been here before her time. When she finds it, she kneels down in front of it to place her offerings and, as usual, study his photo from the party they'd had here. Jacob, whom she'd met only a few times at home but who became one of her best friends and her commander here. A male Shepard. A Kaidan who'd lived. Her alien friends - she'd made friends with aliens even when she'd thought they'd have nothing in common. People she knew only through her friends' stories, but who had helped some variation on Shepard.
Sara would have liked them, these people from their shared home, even though she was a Pathfinder in some farflung galaxy.
She sits in silence for a time as if in prayer, not feeling she needs to say anything to them aloud and also lacking the words to, until eventually, she begins to recite: "Half a league, half a league, half a league onward, all in the valley of Death rode the six hundred."
She'll also be spending more time at a Catholic church in Heropa and actively checking in with Aegis agents making sure they're okay, but I'm good for her just about anywhere!
WHERE: Jeopardy suburbia, Ted Kord Memorial Centre in Heropa, and wherever
WHEN: early November
WHAT: late ghost, late N7 Day, wildcardin'
WARNINGS: I see dead parent
November 2nd: Jeopardy suburbia
After getting lured onto a train to the stars by the ghosts of her old unit, Ashley's first inclination when she sees shimmering blue people out and about in Jeopardy on her very early morning run (living in a time zone later than the one she works in is a pain) is to call it in to her team.
(It's been a month now since they've seen Jacob. How strange that it might now really be her (and Darin's) team.)
"Morning, Helix Station," she says into her phone, still one to hold it up to her ear rather than use the mental network or her synthesis. "I'm getting more potential ghosts in..."
Her phone clatters on the ground as a man in his fifties comes towards her, his features similar to hers but more pronounced and with a blue spectral glow instead of the green circuitry in her skin, wearing a navy blue military PT uniform.
"Mija," he says warmly. "And to think you used to complain about getting up early. ¿Me podrÃa decir la hora?"
"Dad?"
N7 DayNovember 7th: Ted Kord Memorial Centre, Heropa
All the ghosts lately and this dangerous, multiverse-affecting plan on the horizon give her the feeling that it's probably time to deal with a particular piece of her world that had made its way to her here months before she could confirm its meaning in her home universe. She spent so long here wondering if Shepard's memorial wall name plate meant that she was dead, and then she was back on the Normandy, and one thing passed on from the Reapers across that strange neural network was that Shepard had sacrificed herself to make that network, this change across the universe possible so they could live in harmony.
Without a Normandy here, or her Shepard ever being in this world, it feels a little odd taking the "Commander Shepard" name plate into the Memorial Center, but it's the best she's got to remember her Shepard in. She takes a bouquet, too, for Jacob and young Sara Ryder, and various positive news clippings about Jacob and Aegis Force.
Jacob had set up a little memorial to old crewmates who had been here before her time. When she finds it, she kneels down in front of it to place her offerings and, as usual, study his photo from the party they'd had here. Jacob, whom she'd met only a few times at home but who became one of her best friends and her commander here. A male Shepard. A Kaidan who'd lived. Her alien friends - she'd made friends with aliens even when she'd thought they'd have nothing in common. People she knew only through her friends' stories, but who had helped some variation on Shepard.
Sara would have liked them, these people from their shared home, even though she was a Pathfinder in some farflung galaxy.
She sits in silence for a time as if in prayer, not feeling she needs to say anything to them aloud and also lacking the words to, until eventually, she begins to recite: "Half a league, half a league, half a league onward, all in the valley of Death rode the six hundred."
wildcard
She'll also be spending more time at a Catholic church in Heropa and actively checking in with Aegis agents making sure they're okay, but I'm good for her just about anywhere!
N7 DAY
[What he didn't expect to find was his co-commander paying a visit to the memorial as well.]
[He's about to call out to her when he hears her quietly start to recite, what sounds to him like, a poem and he immediately falls silent and listens.]
[Even in Heropa, the chill of November was starting to set in...and so Darin was wearing a black men's peacoat over his vest and shirt as opposed to his pale blue obi. Something about the poem Ashley was reciting made him pull his jacket closed a little tighter, as a deeper chill settled in; the chill of the unknown fast approaching.]
[With her poem concluded, Darin quietly makes his way over.]
And you say I'm the one gifted with the ability to make a speech. Methinks my co-commander doth be hiding a gift herself.
Re: N7 DAY
No way. You actually come up with your own stuff and it moves people. Me? That's an old British poet my dad liked. Other people say what I mean better than I do.
no subject
I'll write a speech for you someday, then.
...You okay?
no subject
I will be.
[Not quite a yes, but she's been directing that question at others too often lately to check in on herself.]
I just miss people, I guess. And I'm getting restless - this isn't my first potentially apocalyptic showdown.
no subject
But...hey, for once, it's not just Aegis. Everyone's throwing in to help out. That kind of solidarity only means we're that much closer to beating this thing.
[He pauses and takes a look at the memorial.]
...Thinkin' about Jacob?
no subject
[In comparison, less than a hundred people trying to stop a multiversal threat feels almost more impossible.]
no subject
...Still, I wish Jacob were here. Not that I'd want to put him through what's to come but...I'd like him to see the success his team brought. Closing the case on Atropos and OTO? I think only the birth of his kid would make him happier.
...[Darin shifts a bit uncomfortably, like he's speaking out of turn.]
If...it's alright with you...when this is all done...
...I'd like to put up a memorial in Aegis for past members. And a statue for Jacob.
I think we owe him that much...
Jeopardy
Of course, the cybernetic arm and the glowing eye might help with that.
Mostly, he keeps to himself, trying not to draw too much attention to himself and his less than normal habits.
Still and all, he is curious when he sees the woman's phone clatter to the ground and he moves closer, to see if she needs help, or if she has found a way to communicate clearly with these ghosts or... well, whatever it is that is happening.
no subject
Her father comes in closer to her, taking her by the chin with one hand so he can look more closely at the circuitry that lines her skin, green light tracing slowly through the lines; Ashley finds herself biting her lip at his touch. "You look tired, Ash," he says. "Older. Is it those cybernetics?."
She shakes her head. It's not cybernetics, but that also seems like a lot to explain. "I am older... It's been nine years."
no subject
That... seems odd, and very conditional. How are there ghosts from their worlds? What exactly is going on?
He wants to ask these questions, and yet... he hesitates, once more, watching her, and the ghost. Should he intervene? She seems... not hurt. He licks his lips, before slowly opening them.
"Are--- you okay?" She seems it, but... ghosts are had to live with, he knows.
no subject
She steps towards him and holds out one hand. "Pinch me."
Sure, enough weird things happen in this world (including dreams becoming real) that it's likely not a dream, but ruling out one possibility would be mildly reassuring.
heropa
Commander Shepard. Jacob used to mention them. You used to work together?
no subject
Yes... And no. Different universes. There was a Shepard here, before I Ported in [a gesture at the party photo Jacob left here, featuring a white man in a black N7 hoodie], but I knew a different one. And a different Shepard again to the one Jacob worked with at home.
[Somehow, different Shepards is a weirder concept to her than actual timelines being different, as with Kaidan getting to live in at least one timeline.]
Jeopardy
When he hears Ashley's voice, he's about to respond that he's on his way to assist her when she cuts off.
"Potential ghosts? Ashley, you still there? ... Ashley?"
no subject
Ashley looks numbly down at her phone, and then at her dad, before slowly nodding. "Yeah. Sure. I, um..." She puts her phone to her ear again. "Hi, Al."
Eloquent, yes, but she actively claims to not be a word person even when not faced with the ghost of her dead father.
no subject
"Where are you? Do you need backup?"
no subject
"Jeopardy?" her father echoes. "'Ghost train'? What kind of planet is this? I couldn't find an Alliance base."
"Earth in 2019."
no subject
"Will do," he replies, concern still in his tone, because another ghost train is bad news. Al likes to think people wouldn't board this time, but, well... seeing apparitions of your departed loved ones could cloud your judgment. "It's good to know what to look out for. Is someone else with you...?"
wildcard check in
[archie's in the aegis kitchen, heating up some leftover pizza. making himself a coffee. nasty combination, maybe, but it's what he's choosing to put into his face. the apocalypse is on the horizon! who cares anymore? he's tempted to smear some marshmallow fluff on the thing-- something he's always wondered about how it would taste.
mercifully, he does not.] You alright?
no subject
As your commander, I think I should be asking you that.
[It's light, and the look she gives him is fond. Having been co-commanders at such a fraught time makes Ashley feel like she doesn't have to put on the 'strong commander' front for Archie like she would for most of the rest of the Force.]
no subject
[seems he hasn't lost his sense of humour in the apocalypse. or... something. hard to tell with this one.]
You want any of this? I'm about to commit awful food crimes on the pizza.