Yeah, I chose it. Most people do, though sometimes parents pressure their kids into something specific.
[But his parents told him to pick whatever he wanted, so he did.]
I thought about doing engineering and that probably would've been more useful here, but I dunno. Computers seemed like more fun than designing machines or electrical systems or whatever.
Our instructors chose our tracts for us, according to our aptitude.
[Maketh wanted to be an archivist when she was younger, but a different path had been chosen. Back then she trusted in the wisdom of the Emperor. She watches Chris, curious again about his world. It seems very strange to her. Very different from the Empire.]
Perhaps. Though you'll find that mastery in one field tends to shift better than you might imagine into another.
[She leans back.] You could make programs here, couldn't you?
[Oh, that sucks. And is kind of all dystopian future-ish.]
If you could've picked, what would you've done?
[He considers here next comment a moment.]
Yeah, maybe. That'd be a nice surprise, anyway.
[Since right now the only talents he has that have been much use here have been related to dealing with people.]
I could if I knew like... The basic structure of how the phone work, which I don't, since it's god technology or whatever. But Rhys figured it out and I think he's willing to show me, so yeah, maybe.
[Maketh smiles a little, remembering. Despite - well, everything - her experiences at the Academy were largely positive. Possibly the happiest time of her life.] I wanted to be a pilot when I first started, but everyone did. It was very glamorous.
[Even more so to her, the farm girl who'd never flown before. But it had been decided that her talents were better suited to other, less military things. She lacked the fortitude to fly in combat, which all Imperial pilots did. Maketh had accepted that, because it had been told to her and was therefore true.]
I think, if it had been my choice, I would have studied history.
[She still does, sometimes, when she has time to spare. She frowns at the shot glasses, and prods them back into a straight line.] There you go. It would be very useful if you could make these...apps? Especially a more accurate mapping system, or a means to plot sightings of the--animals, on a grid.
[She refrains from saying monsters. That might bring up the wendigos again.]
[He smiles a little too, glad to see her looking a little less somber.]
Being a pilot does sound really cool.
[But also kind of terrifying, in his opinion, especially if it's military-related piloting. He's a little surprised by her next answer though, because he wouldn't have guessed it.]
Yeah? I was terrible at history in high school, but maybe history in your world is more interesting than mine.
[He couldn't memorize names and dates to save his life, mostly because he didn't care. And wasn't paying much attention, honestly.]
Yeah. Definitely; I think making a map program would be kind of hard, but a way to track monster sightings based on like, the names of locations would probably be pretty simple.
[He, on the other hand, says monsters without even thinking about it. It'd probably be worrying if he considered the fact that he's so used to the idea, but he doesn't and is already moving on to more talk of apps, tone a little more enthusiastic.]
I was thinking like... Maybe some sort of emergency alert system might be doable, too. Where if someone needs help or something they can just press a button and alert people, whether it's like their friends or just people in general who are willing to help out.
Indeed. [The TIE pilots had looked very smart in their uniforms to a much younger Maketh, their boots shiny black and their flight suits like nothing she'd ever seen before. She'd had a crush on one of them, a girl two years ahead of her. Sekhmet, wasn't it? Maketh doesn't know what happened to her. Probably stationed on one of the star destroyers or left in an early grave. TIE pilots rarely lived very long. Either way, very far from where Maketh ended up.] I don't know if it would be more interesting, exactly...not a lot of people care for it in the Empire. A lot of things have been lost.
[Or censored. Maketh brushes that aside, and prods the shot glasses again. She's feeling antsy all of a sudden, barely contained by her skin. She pushes a hand through her hair just for something to do. The alcohol is starting to numb things around the edges, but not quite enough.] That would be extremely helpful. And would likely save lives.
[That, on the other hand, does sound interesting. He'd gone through a phase of reading about conspiracy theories and aliens and lost civilizations like Atlantis, and while he has little opinion on whether any of it's true or not it had been fascinating and missing knowledge had been a major part of them.
He notices the agitated motion, but isn't sure what exactly is prompting it.]
Yeah, hopefully. We'd need to figure out a way to track locations or something though to make it really useful.
[As just an alert system it could at least notify people to go looking for someone in need of help, but knowing exactly where to go would be a lot more useful. Still, something is better than nothing.
He's quiet briefly, trying to decide whether to ask if she's okay or not, but decides to wait for the moment; he doesn't want to push too much.]
Purged. [Maketh frowns down at the table. Yep, she's certainly drunk now, feeling light and almost fuzzy but also anxious suddenly, wanting to move. This hasn't gone as planned. Chris isn't like her, he's not an Imperial, and the regular tricks haven't worked. He's still talking. Still unfortunately sober.] Or burned. There was a war.
[There have been a lot of wars. Maketh wonders if she'd like the simplicity of that, instead of...whatever she'd helped impose in the aftermath. It hadn't been peace.
Her hands are shaking. Maketh puts them under the table.] Established fixed data points. Markers. Then the phones can ping off them. Does that make sense?
[She's not talking too fast, is she? Maketh fights the urge to run a hand through her hair again. She wants to move. Usually when she's this drunk she goes dancing, but never with someone she knows and not like this.]
[Sorry Maketh. He doesn't totally realize she's drunk yet though; he's mostly used to loud, wild drunks, and doesn't know her well enough to be able to tell what's the alcohol and what might just be understandably changing moods.]
Ah, yeah, that makes sense. That's happened before in my world too.
[She's definitely not talking too fast; he's used to rapidfire tech-related conversations even if he doesn't talk that quickly himself, mostly because he'll start stammering and make absolutely no sense. But he definitely sounds a little more animated, eyes a bit brighter as he's thinking about what she said.]
That... Is a really good idea. Like cell towers.
[Much simpler than something like a GPS system, and way more doable inside a cave. Hope might even be willing to help give them information if they ask, especially if people here can build the structures themselves, which might actually be possible. They'd need three for triangulation, but probably only the three.]
We might actually be able to manage that. It's just like, a matter of making receivers that can pick up signals from the phones, and since the phones can call each other already that can't be too hard.
[He'll have to send Rhys a message and ask Hope about this, then see if they can find some people willing to help build things if necessary.]
[Well, most places. Everywhere the Empire shows up, that's for sure.
As far as these things go, Maketh is a relatively subdued drunk. Twitchy, sometimes. Usually good humored. Even cheerful. Less so today. She wants to move. Fights the urge. Stares at the glasses all lined up in a nice row, and focuses on what Chris is saying.] Back home we have trackers on all our personnel, and an alert goes out if they don't check in periodically. I don't think anyone would agree to that here, but locating people during crisis - yes. You can program that?
[Maketh might know theoretically how these things work, but she doesn't have the skill to actually build them herself.]
Yeah, I think people would get jumpy about being like, actively tracked.
[At least some people would, anyway.]
I think so. I mean, it'd just be using what's already built into the phone, but combining a bunch of steps into pushing one button; it should be really simple once I learn how the OS works.
[It'd just be a simple script that tells the phone to send out messages to certain people. For the locating part of the program the coding would be a little more complicated but still relatively simple, as long as they manage to figure out setting up the receivers.]
[Yeah, apparently people are used to concepts like privacy and discretion, which don't generally exist in the Empire. Maketh looks down. Her hands are still shaking. She ought to do something about that.]
Good, then--you should do that.
[She stands up abruptly, pushing her chair back. She needs...just needs to get some water, yeah.]
[It comes out automatically, a little sharp. It's the right thing to say, Maketh is fairly certain. She turns away from Chris before she can catch the look on his face.
Her hair is down. Maketh begins knotting it up with her hands, though she doesn't have any pins and it's fairly pointless. Much like this conversation, really - she shouldn't have responded to the text at all, shouldn't have done this.
No, the idea with the cell towers - that's good. That's useful. Maketh tries to focus on that.
She lets her hair slip from her hands. It doesn't matter. She's too far out of uniform already.]
Make--make a list of supplies you'll need, please. I will--consult my notes. For the proper locations.
[Maketh flinches. Look, she's upset the civilian again. Apparently she has a talent for that.] I'm fine.
[This is supposed to be nice, Maketh thinks desperately. People like going out and drinking, don't they? Except that she's the only one who's been drinking and that - that might be a problem, actually.] I'm doing this wrong, aren't I? I'm sorry. I don't--know how to do civilian things anymore.
[He means it, tone genuine and calm, and he offers a small smile to go with it in hopes she'll believe it and relax a little.]
We all just had, you know. Kind of a bad month.
[So he's worried about her, and hadn't really agreed to this whole meeting in order to drink but rather as an excuse to try and figure out just how concerned he should be. He's still not entirely sure.
But since he'd never been planning on this whole thing being a social, fun meetup, she's definitely not doing anything wrong. She still wouldn't have been even if he had planned on that.]
[But she is, Maketh thinks, else this would be going much better. At one time she'd considered herself rather clever when it came to conversation - found it easy, if a bit tedious, to wade through moments and push people into accepting her point of view. There had been a pattern. Protocols to follow. Maketh had studied up, read all the right things, and figured she'd been getting results. That she was quite accomplished at the whole art of conversation.
She'd thought herself friendly with the Inquisitor too, right up until he'd proven otherwise. And if she missed that, if she missed everything about him, then she's probably made a mistake here too.
This was supposed to prove something to Chris. That she was competent enough to deserve his trust.
Well she's gone and ruined that, hasn't she?
Maketh pushes her hair out of her eyes and turns to face him. She's drunk and sad, and should probably do something now to save face. Now she just has to figure out what that is.] Yes. A - a bad month.
[Is it that simple? Maybe she can pretend. Maketh lifts her chin.] You're not drinking.
[It's not an accusation. She sounds curious and more than a little confused. None of this is going according to script.]
[Well, she doesn't seem like she's going to have a panic attack or anything--which he'd be a little worried was a possibility--at least for the moment, so he's willing to let her brush off the topic and turn it back toward him for the moment.
At her comment he glances toward the shot glasses, his still sitting empty on his side of the table, and then looks back at Maketh. There's two true answers to why he isn't drinking, but he's not sure which to tell.
The main one--the first one--is probably best, for a few reasons, so he gives a small shrug as he explains.]
Last time I drank more than a beer or a shot or whatever, my friend and I really overdid it and passed out. Two of my friends--his twin sisters--um...
[Had gone missing, had been involved in an accident. Or at least that's what they'd all believed until the night before arriving in Hadriel.]
They disappeared. We didn't even know until we woke up a few hours later to the rest of the group freaking out.
[There's some peace in knowing Beth and Hannah are both at rest now, but not enough to counter the memories of his friend's panicked explanations, and the look on Josh's face when he found out the twins had gone missing. Chris' gaze is fixed on the shot glasses again, though his voice is still steady.]
I mean, if we hadn't been drunk and had gone after them we'd probably just all be dead, since we know now that they were attacked by a wendigo. But I just, um... Getting drunk kind of lost it's appeal, after that.
[It comes out soft, barely a murmur. Maketh clasps her hands behind her back. Almost, but not quite standing at attention. This way her hands won't shake. She watches Chris for a long moment, trying to read him. Properly this time. Of course he'd encountered the wendigos before this - before Hadriel - but Maketh hadn't really stopped to consider what that would have been alike. Here, the strangeness was almost common place. That hadn't made the events any less painful or nightmare inducing, but it was--
Expected. In a way.
It wouldn't have been, for Chris and his friends. They probably didn't see it coming. And if they'd been too drunk to react--
Well. Of course he'd feel this way.
And yet, he'd come out to see her. To check on her, Maketh knows. Even though she's been rude to him and probably damaged him somehow - possibly in a way that can't be undone, she really shouldn't talk to civilians at all.]
I'm sorry that happened to you. It - shouldn't have.
[It's really a wonder that a group of eight teenagers had all been sober that night that they encountered the wendigos, a year after Hannah and Beth had disappeared. But it's definitely a good thing; it had been hard enough to survive without the potential hindrances that even being slightly drunk would've brought.
A moment of poor decision making or fractionally slow reflexes and there would've been far fewer survivors, Chris included.
He shrugs again, a little, at her words; not to dismiss them, but because at this point it just is what it is. It's still surreal that this is what his life has turned into, but he's trying to accept it and figure out the best way to proceed even if the trauma of it all can make that task sometimes feel impossible.
But that's part of the reason he wanted to check on her, too. He has his friends--he even has, as crazy as it is to think about, his girlfriend--here with him, when things get really difficult, and can't imagine having to deal with what happened at home, or here, alone. He doesn't want Maketh to have to deal with it alone either.]
Thanks.
There's a lot of things that shouldn't have happened. To a lot of people.
[He deals with it - well, not like an Imperial. That's clear. Perhaps it's just practicality. There's no use in mourning what's already happened - you have to survive in the moment or else there's no point at all. Civilians aren't supposed to see these things, though. They're supposed to be protected. Maketh rubs her eyes with the heel of her palm. Normally she enjoys being drunk.] You said...you said you understand. What it was like to - chose.
[This isn't something that Maketh has a script for. Not that death is foreign, even self inflicted death. It just isn't discussed. People die either in service to their Emperor or in disgrace. She thinks - maybe - that Chris understands something she doesn't. Her mentality isn't built for this place. Therefore she needs to change.
He'd already prepared, mentally and emotionally, to tell the story if she wanted to know, but that still doesn't make it easy. And it doesn't mean he'd thought about how exactly to say it.
But at this point he doubts she'll judge too harshly if it takes a few tries, or he can't find exactly the right words or if his voice isn't totally steady. The point of this is to make sure she doesn't feel alone--and maybe a little so he doesn't, either--and pretending like it didn't affect him would not only be dishonest, but possibly make her think she shouldn't be bothered by her own experience.
He's silent a few more moments, gaze on the table again, but this time he's staring through it rather than at it.]
The uh... The night before I got here was the night we first found out about the wendigos. There were eight of us and we'd all gotten kind of split up, and some of us ran into the wendigos like, right away, but the rest of us were dealing with something else that was going on.
[Explaining this might get confusing; it'd be easier with names, but several of the people involved are here and he doesn't want to tell their part in the story without them being okay with it.]
It's um... K-Kind of a long, totally messed up story, but there was this guy in a mask up on the mountain with us. We thought he killed one of our friends and was going to kill another one, so we were looking for her, and...
[He exhales slowly, quietly, gathering his nerve to continue and figure out how to get the situation across without going into too much detail. It's partially because of not wanting to identify people, partially because it's just so complicated, and partially because he doesn't want to think too much about the exact situation and the memories more than he already has to.]
The guy in the mask attacked us, and set up this whole situation where um...
[Words, Chris. He's the one who'd broached the topic in the first place, and although he doesn't want to pretend like it's nothing he also doesn't want to make her feel guilty for asking.
So he takes a steadying breath and continues.]
There was a gun, and a time limit. I-If I didn't do anything, me and my friend would both die when the time ran out. But the guy said that if I shot one of us, the person who was left could live.
[Whoever's left can live. The choice is yours.]
So I shot myself.
[He looks up, finally, offering a weak smile with nothing behind it.]
The gun was full of blanks. It was all a big joke; no one was dead, the guy was my friend that we thought he'd killed, it was just...
[Just a prank. Just revenge, for the loss of Hannah and Beth. Just a horrible, traumatizing betrayal by someone who had been his best friend for over half his life.]
[It takes Maketh a moment to work through everything that Chris is saying. Even sober, there would be a great deal to unpack - so many things left unsaid, or said only in part. Maketh thinks she can understand - just a little - about what it would be like to face something like a wendigo. The shuddering panic that came when your sanctuary was completely and thoroughly violated. But the rest - losing someone that close to you, the betrayal of friends - is foreign. Too far out of touch for her to ever understand. Maketh wonders how long it's been since she had friends instead of just allies.
That didn't make the betrayal sting any less. But the Inquisitor and Agent Kallus - well. They had never been her friends. She'd liked them, maybe. It hadn't helped. She'd projected. Saw things that were never there. She doesn't know a damn thing about friendship, therefore. Not like Chris would.
She does understand about choices, though. Weighing the value of one life over the next. It's no longer a metaphor for either of them.
For anyone else, Maketh would pour a drink. Say nothing, just push the glass forward. Think: forget. Drink and let the memory blur. Get sick and purge it from your body. Do it again and again until it no longer matters.
It doesn't really work like that. She understands that now.
Maketh nods just once.] Their life was...more important. Than yours.
[That's how she'd felt, at least. She'd failed Lothal and betrayed the Empire. Maketh hadn't been willing to fail Hadriel as well. These people were going to survive. Their lives mattered far more than hers ever could.]
[It's one of the only choices that night that he doesn't regret, and wouldn't have even it had lead to his death and he'd still somehow been able to reflect on it. But just because it had been the right choice doesn't mean it was easy; gathering the courage to pull the trigger while the person he loves was sobbing and trying to convince him not to do it had been the most difficult thing he'd ever done.]
But it still... I-It still sucks. No matter how much I knew it was the right thing to do.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mismanagement) wrote2016-01-25 02:02 pm
[Action]
[But his parents told him to pick whatever he wanted, so he did.]
I thought about doing engineering and that probably would've been more useful here, but I dunno. Computers seemed like more fun than designing machines or electrical systems or whatever.
[Action]
[Maketh wanted to be an archivist when she was younger, but a different path had been chosen. Back then she trusted in the wisdom of the Emperor. She watches Chris, curious again about his world. It seems very strange to her. Very different from the Empire.]
Perhaps. Though you'll find that mastery in one field tends to shift better than you might imagine into another.
[She leans back.] You could make programs here, couldn't you?
[Action]
If you could've picked, what would you've done?
[He considers here next comment a moment.]
Yeah, maybe. That'd be a nice surprise, anyway.
[Since right now the only talents he has that have been much use here have been related to dealing with people.]
I could if I knew like... The basic structure of how the phone work, which I don't, since it's god technology or whatever. But Rhys figured it out and I think he's willing to show me, so yeah, maybe.
[Action]
[Even more so to her, the farm girl who'd never flown before. But it had been decided that her talents were better suited to other, less military things. She lacked the fortitude to fly in combat, which all Imperial pilots did. Maketh had accepted that, because it had been told to her and was therefore true.]
I think, if it had been my choice, I would have studied history.
[She still does, sometimes, when she has time to spare. She frowns at the shot glasses, and prods them back into a straight line.] There you go. It would be very useful if you could make these...apps? Especially a more accurate mapping system, or a means to plot sightings of the--animals, on a grid.
[She refrains from saying monsters. That might bring up the wendigos again.]
[Action]
Being a pilot does sound really cool.
[But also kind of terrifying, in his opinion, especially if it's military-related piloting. He's a little surprised by her next answer though, because he wouldn't have guessed it.]
Yeah? I was terrible at history in high school, but maybe history in your world is more interesting than mine.
[He couldn't memorize names and dates to save his life, mostly because he didn't care. And wasn't paying much attention, honestly.]
Yeah. Definitely; I think making a map program would be kind of hard, but a way to track monster sightings based on like, the names of locations would probably be pretty simple.
[He, on the other hand, says monsters without even thinking about it. It'd probably be worrying if he considered the fact that he's so used to the idea, but he doesn't and is already moving on to more talk of apps, tone a little more enthusiastic.]
I was thinking like... Maybe some sort of emergency alert system might be doable, too. Where if someone needs help or something they can just press a button and alert people, whether it's like their friends or just people in general who are willing to help out.
[Action]
[Or censored. Maketh brushes that aside, and prods the shot glasses again. She's feeling antsy all of a sudden, barely contained by her skin. She pushes a hand through her hair just for something to do. The alcohol is starting to numb things around the edges, but not quite enough.] That would be extremely helpful. And would likely save lives.
[Action]
[That, on the other hand, does sound interesting. He'd gone through a phase of reading about conspiracy theories and aliens and lost civilizations like Atlantis, and while he has little opinion on whether any of it's true or not it had been fascinating and missing knowledge had been a major part of them.
He notices the agitated motion, but isn't sure what exactly is prompting it.]
Yeah, hopefully. We'd need to figure out a way to track locations or something though to make it really useful.
[As just an alert system it could at least notify people to go looking for someone in need of help, but knowing exactly where to go would be a lot more useful. Still, something is better than nothing.
He's quiet briefly, trying to decide whether to ask if she's okay or not, but decides to wait for the moment; he doesn't want to push too much.]
[Action]
[There have been a lot of wars. Maketh wonders if she'd like the simplicity of that, instead of...whatever she'd helped impose in the aftermath. It hadn't been peace.
Her hands are shaking. Maketh puts them under the table.] Established fixed data points. Markers. Then the phones can ping off them. Does that make sense?
[She's not talking too fast, is she? Maketh fights the urge to run a hand through her hair again. She wants to move. Usually when she's this drunk she goes dancing, but never with someone she knows and not like this.]
[Action]
Ah, yeah, that makes sense. That's happened before in my world too.
[She's definitely not talking too fast; he's used to rapidfire tech-related conversations even if he doesn't talk that quickly himself, mostly because he'll start stammering and make absolutely no sense. But he definitely sounds a little more animated, eyes a bit brighter as he's thinking about what she said.]
That... Is a really good idea. Like cell towers.
[Much simpler than something like a GPS system, and way more doable inside a cave. Hope might even be willing to help give them information if they ask, especially if people here can build the structures themselves, which might actually be possible. They'd need three for triangulation, but probably only the three.]
We might actually be able to manage that. It's just like, a matter of making receivers that can pick up signals from the phones, and since the phones can call each other already that can't be too hard.
[He'll have to send Rhys a message and ask Hope about this, then see if they can find some people willing to help build things if necessary.]
[Action]
[Well, most places. Everywhere the Empire shows up, that's for sure.
As far as these things go, Maketh is a relatively subdued drunk. Twitchy, sometimes. Usually good humored. Even cheerful. Less so today. She wants to move. Fights the urge. Stares at the glasses all lined up in a nice row, and focuses on what Chris is saying.] Back home we have trackers on all our personnel, and an alert goes out if they don't check in periodically. I don't think anyone would agree to that here, but locating people during crisis - yes. You can program that?
[Maketh might know theoretically how these things work, but she doesn't have the skill to actually build them herself.]
[Action]
[At least some people would, anyway.]
I think so. I mean, it'd just be using what's already built into the phone, but combining a bunch of steps into pushing one button; it should be really simple once I learn how the OS works.
[It'd just be a simple script that tells the phone to send out messages to certain people. For the locating part of the program the coding would be a little more complicated but still relatively simple, as long as they manage to figure out setting up the receivers.]
[Action]
Good, then--you should do that.
[She stands up abruptly, pushing her chair back. She needs...just needs to get some water, yeah.]
[Action]
You okay?
[Action]
[It comes out automatically, a little sharp. It's the right thing to say, Maketh is fairly certain. She turns away from Chris before she can catch the look on his face.
Her hair is down. Maketh begins knotting it up with her hands, though she doesn't have any pins and it's fairly pointless. Much like this conversation, really - she shouldn't have responded to the text at all, shouldn't have done this.
No, the idea with the cell towers - that's good. That's useful. Maketh tries to focus on that.
She lets her hair slip from her hands. It doesn't matter. She's too far out of uniform already.]
Make--make a list of supplies you'll need, please. I will--consult my notes. For the proper locations.
[Action]
Maybe you should sit down?
[He can't tell if she agitated from the alcohol or for emotional reasons, or maybe both. But either way, sitting back down is probably a good idea.]
I can get you some water or something.
[Action]
[This is supposed to be nice, Maketh thinks desperately. People like going out and drinking, don't they? Except that she's the only one who's been drinking and that - that might be a problem, actually.] I'm doing this wrong, aren't I? I'm sorry. I don't--know how to do civilian things anymore.
[Action]
[He means it, tone genuine and calm, and he offers a small smile to go with it in hopes she'll believe it and relax a little.]
We all just had, you know. Kind of a bad month.
[So he's worried about her, and hadn't really agreed to this whole meeting in order to drink but rather as an excuse to try and figure out just how concerned he should be. He's still not entirely sure.
But since he'd never been planning on this whole thing being a social, fun meetup, she's definitely not doing anything wrong. She still wouldn't have been even if he had planned on that.]
[Action]
She'd thought herself friendly with the Inquisitor too, right up until he'd proven otherwise. And if she missed that, if she missed everything about him, then she's probably made a mistake here too.
This was supposed to prove something to Chris. That she was competent enough to deserve his trust.
Well she's gone and ruined that, hasn't she?
Maketh pushes her hair out of her eyes and turns to face him. She's drunk and sad, and should probably do something now to save face. Now she just has to figure out what that is.] Yes. A - a bad month.
[Is it that simple? Maybe she can pretend. Maketh lifts her chin.] You're not drinking.
[It's not an accusation. She sounds curious and more than a little confused. None of this is going according to script.]
[Action]
At her comment he glances toward the shot glasses, his still sitting empty on his side of the table, and then looks back at Maketh. There's two true answers to why he isn't drinking, but he's not sure which to tell.
The main one--the first one--is probably best, for a few reasons, so he gives a small shrug as he explains.]
Last time I drank more than a beer or a shot or whatever, my friend and I really overdid it and passed out. Two of my friends--his twin sisters--um...
[Had gone missing, had been involved in an accident. Or at least that's what they'd all believed until the night before arriving in Hadriel.]
They disappeared. We didn't even know until we woke up a few hours later to the rest of the group freaking out.
[There's some peace in knowing Beth and Hannah are both at rest now, but not enough to counter the memories of his friend's panicked explanations, and the look on Josh's face when he found out the twins had gone missing. Chris' gaze is fixed on the shot glasses again, though his voice is still steady.]
I mean, if we hadn't been drunk and had gone after them we'd probably just all be dead, since we know now that they were attacked by a wendigo. But I just, um... Getting drunk kind of lost it's appeal, after that.
[Action]
[It comes out soft, barely a murmur. Maketh clasps her hands behind her back. Almost, but not quite standing at attention. This way her hands won't shake. She watches Chris for a long moment, trying to read him. Properly this time. Of course he'd encountered the wendigos before this - before Hadriel - but Maketh hadn't really stopped to consider what that would have been alike. Here, the strangeness was almost common place. That hadn't made the events any less painful or nightmare inducing, but it was--
Expected. In a way.
It wouldn't have been, for Chris and his friends. They probably didn't see it coming. And if they'd been too drunk to react--
Well. Of course he'd feel this way.
And yet, he'd come out to see her. To check on her, Maketh knows. Even though she's been rude to him and probably damaged him somehow - possibly in a way that can't be undone, she really shouldn't talk to civilians at all.]
I'm sorry that happened to you. It - shouldn't have.
[Action]
A moment of poor decision making or fractionally slow reflexes and there would've been far fewer survivors, Chris included.
He shrugs again, a little, at her words; not to dismiss them, but because at this point it just is what it is. It's still surreal that this is what his life has turned into, but he's trying to accept it and figure out the best way to proceed even if the trauma of it all can make that task sometimes feel impossible.
But that's part of the reason he wanted to check on her, too. He has his friends--he even has, as crazy as it is to think about, his girlfriend--here with him, when things get really difficult, and can't imagine having to deal with what happened at home, or here, alone. He doesn't want Maketh to have to deal with it alone either.]
Thanks.
There's a lot of things that shouldn't have happened. To a lot of people.
[Here and at home.]
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[This isn't something that Maketh has a script for. Not that death is foreign, even self inflicted death. It just isn't discussed. People die either in service to their Emperor or in disgrace. She thinks - maybe - that Chris understands something she doesn't. Her mentality isn't built for this place. Therefore she needs to change.
This is a start, Maketh thinks.]
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He'd already prepared, mentally and emotionally, to tell the story if she wanted to know, but that still doesn't make it easy. And it doesn't mean he'd thought about how exactly to say it.
But at this point he doubts she'll judge too harshly if it takes a few tries, or he can't find exactly the right words or if his voice isn't totally steady. The point of this is to make sure she doesn't feel alone--and maybe a little so he doesn't, either--and pretending like it didn't affect him would not only be dishonest, but possibly make her think she shouldn't be bothered by her own experience.
He's silent a few more moments, gaze on the table again, but this time he's staring through it rather than at it.]
The uh... The night before I got here was the night we first found out about the wendigos. There were eight of us and we'd all gotten kind of split up, and some of us ran into the wendigos like, right away, but the rest of us were dealing with something else that was going on.
[Explaining this might get confusing; it'd be easier with names, but several of the people involved are here and he doesn't want to tell their part in the story without them being okay with it.]
It's um... K-Kind of a long, totally messed up story, but there was this guy in a mask up on the mountain with us. We thought he killed one of our friends and was going to kill another one, so we were looking for her, and...
[He exhales slowly, quietly, gathering his nerve to continue and figure out how to get the situation across without going into too much detail. It's partially because of not wanting to identify people, partially because it's just so complicated, and partially because he doesn't want to think too much about the exact situation and the memories more than he already has to.]
The guy in the mask attacked us, and set up this whole situation where um...
[Words, Chris. He's the one who'd broached the topic in the first place, and although he doesn't want to pretend like it's nothing he also doesn't want to make her feel guilty for asking.
So he takes a steadying breath and continues.]
There was a gun, and a time limit. I-If I didn't do anything, me and my friend would both die when the time ran out. But the guy said that if I shot one of us, the person who was left could live.
[Whoever's left can live. The choice is yours.]
So I shot myself.
[He looks up, finally, offering a weak smile with nothing behind it.]
The gun was full of blanks. It was all a big joke; no one was dead, the guy was my friend that we thought he'd killed, it was just...
[Just a prank. Just revenge, for the loss of Hannah and Beth. Just a horrible, traumatizing betrayal by someone who had been his best friend for over half his life.]
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That didn't make the betrayal sting any less. But the Inquisitor and Agent Kallus - well. They had never been her friends. She'd liked them, maybe. It hadn't helped. She'd projected. Saw things that were never there. She doesn't know a damn thing about friendship, therefore. Not like Chris would.
She does understand about choices, though. Weighing the value of one life over the next. It's no longer a metaphor for either of them.
For anyone else, Maketh would pour a drink. Say nothing, just push the glass forward. Think: forget. Drink and let the memory blur. Get sick and purge it from your body. Do it again and again until it no longer matters.
It doesn't really work like that. She understands that now.
Maketh nods just once.] Their life was...more important. Than yours.
[That's how she'd felt, at least. She'd failed Lothal and betrayed the Empire. Maketh hadn't been willing to fail Hadriel as well. These people were going to survive. Their lives mattered far more than hers ever could.]
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[Her life was more important. Is more important.]
I don't um... I don't regret making that choice.
[It's one of the only choices that night that he doesn't regret, and wouldn't have even it had lead to his death and he'd still somehow been able to reflect on it. But just because it had been the right choice doesn't mean it was easy; gathering the courage to pull the trigger while the person he loves was sobbing and trying to convince him not to do it had been the most difficult thing he'd ever done.]
But it still... I-It still sucks. No matter how much I knew it was the right thing to do.
[And he knows it's probably the same for her.]
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