SO BELOW - EVENT LOG

[pluviosamods]

SO BELOW

With a slightly bump that can be felt throughout the ship, progress levels out. The skies above are threatening rain, but there aren't any drops falling from the sky... Yet.

Not that you'd know it, looking out the windows. A foreign ocean stands outside, on the other side of the glass - the ghost of an ocean, long gone from the truth of this world.

Just like so many other things, which have become visible to those who are willing to pay attention.

This is the event log for SO BELOW. Information for the first part of the Event (days 15 and 16) can be found here, along with sign-up options for the second part of the event.

Comments

[pluviosamods]

"Bit sheltered, aren't you?" she says, and there's not malice in it - just an observation. "Well, it seems like you've got a good heart. The rest of it can be learned." It's reassurance, in a way; she doesn't look at him as he continues to have his moment, perhaps out of politeness, perhaps just because her gaze is lost in the stars that only she can see.

"For me," she says, "it means that I took a long hard at what I would do if it didn't matter. If what I'm doing is doomed to failure, doomed to meaninglessness either way, what would I do? And the answer I have is this. Being here, and trying, and hoping that some suffering on my part might make it easier for someone else in the future. If all I have is trying, then I'll try."

[harmoniousconsecration]

Sheltered... The thought brings him pause. He was, wasn't he? As much as he desired knowledge, as well read as he considered himself, he was still... He had more to learn. She didn't seem to hold it against him, gazing out into a sky that he couldn't see.

"Yes... I. I am. I apologize if I am presumptuous."

Sunday wonders what she found among the stars, all those years ago. He wonders what happened to her. Where it ended.

Was it better to make a choice that could lead to suffering, to make a choice and refuse to regret it, to stick by it, than to linger eternally in the doorway, dreaming of a better world while doing little to contribute? To fear loss, failure. To fear the world itself.

On some level, he knows the answer.

If all she had was the choice to try... It was one she would make, and continue to do so. Even if everything was futile, even if it caused her suffering.

"I... I understand."

It wasn't, though, was it? The plants on the ship thrived. He was experiencing a future she'd fought for, every time he came across a plant. It had meaning. Her sacrifice still held meaning. They still lived, because of the actions of those that had tried their best, even in the face of such a cruel, uncaring world. He feels a warmth, a fondness for her, for humanity itself, the more he thinks of it. A quiet feeling of hope.

"What do you hope to do, with all these specimens? Do you think there's any future for this planet?"

He asks. He wants to honor her, in some way. He wants to try.

[pluviosamods]

"Everyone has to leave the nest sooner or later," she says. "There's no shame in not knowing things; only shame in refusing to learn when you have the chance."

She smiles faintly, and says, "Now you've got me sounding like the teacher I used to be. I guess I never really stopped."

Looking away from the sky and back at Sunday, she says, "Even if the outside becomes completely uninhabitable, as long as there's someone willing to try, the world isn't over. Everything we collect is something we can preserve and bring back when things are better, if we manage to get that far. Everything we miss... Is something that won't. Something that's gone forever once it goes."

[harmoniousconsecration]

Leaving the nest.... She was right, after all. Perhaps he could stand, to be a little more open minded, rather than fighting his own knee jerk reactions, the way he'd been conditioned to think. Maybe. It... Perhaps it wouldn't hurt to try, at any rate.

"I... will keep that in mind."

She reveals that she'd been a teacher, once. Before becoming an outlaw, before feeling like her options had dwindled down to a choice between a quiet life under the heel of those in power, and... This.

"I'm sure you were a wonderful teacher. You still are, if you're able to reach someone as sheltered as I am." He laughs, a small joke at his own expense.

As she speaks, looking at him again. Telling him of her hopes, that what was collected would survive here, irregardless of the state of the world beyond the Ship. That everything they failed to collect would cease to exist, and so it had to fall upon someone to try.

Somewhere in Sunday's heart, between his musings on law and Order, his worries and fears, he knows this cause of hers is noble, and he feels honoured. To know that life had persisted, the future she had wished to cultivate was here, and he, and every single person currently a passenger was here to witness it. Even in her death, even in her absence, even after so long with little attention, no human contact... it had.

Sunday wishes he could tell her. He wishes he could show her.

And then he remembers that he... he might be able to. Sunday rummages through his pocket, pulling out his phone. As much as he personally disliked the foliage and how... wild and feral it was, in the Ship's words, there had been a few very beautiful specimens he had caught a glimpse of, and had taken pictures of. He had no service, and no means of communicating with anyone through it, but... It still existed.

Sunday opens up the gallery of it, scrolling through the neatly sorted albums until he finds the correct one, tapping it open and finding the pictures he was looking for. Thankfully, they had been taken in the hallway, on one of the floors almost entirely surrounded in roots and vines.

"I am... Unsure, if you'll be able to see what I do. But I do have something I would like to show you."

He opens up one of the images to show her, one of a very stunning blue flower. There is enough background in the picture to show that the plants themselves have crept out into the hallways of the ship, thriving, flourishing.

[pluviosamods]

"I did my best," she says. "And a couple of my students were fond enough to follow me down, so I must have done something right."

It's somber, with a definite sense of responsibility to it - they followed her, so she's responsible for them.

For now, she raises her eyebrows, before leaning over to see what Sunday is trying to show her. There isn't any air motion from how she leans into his space. Her eyebrows scrunch together.

"I've never seen a blue Zernnia before," is what she says. The background of the image doesn't seem to register to her.