august 2019. welcome to the void.

[modblob]

Who: Everyone in Anchor.
What: Second Introductory Mingle
When: The Month of August 2019
Where: Around and outside the city.
Warnings: Please add any warnings in the subject lines.

Redshift: Welcome to the v͖͕̺̲̘̱̜͎o̴̦̣̠̦̘̹͞i̯̖d̛̪̬͈̱̦̝͍̕.

Click here to read what characters will experience when arriving in Anchor.

a. bright spots in the darkness.

The redout and accompanying power outage has been going on for over a week now - even though someone must have managed to get the generators up and running so things are a little less dismal, that doesn't mean that everything is fun and games. The generators are enough to power the essentials, like lighting, the MedBay, resident sat phones, sanitation facilities...basically just the things that make life livable instead of kicking the whole city back to the dark ages.

Sometime during the second week, though, around the end of July, residents might start to notice bright spots in the darkness, mostly around the Agricultural levels. Little bobbing blobs of bright blue or vibrant green or glowing red that move soundlessly through the night, poignantly noticeable because everything else is so dark. At first, and from a distance, they might look like your typical swamp gas fake ghost, little glowing smudges in the darkness. Could be promising...but it could be dangerous too.

If residents are brave enough to head up to the Agricultural levels in the darkness and investigate the source of the light, a mildly harrowing mission, they will find that the source of the glowing is...animals. Barely differing from the usual animals one might see in a daylight in the Agricultural levels, these animals prove to simply be nocturnal versions of the usual animals that might survive in the wild and who have made their homes in the faux forest and grasslands. And when everything else is dark, these creatures roam the night, letting off a curious and almost radioactive glow.

There are, however, a slightly wider variety of these animals, who are descendants of animals exposed heavily to radiation that mutated but did not kill them. While there are the usual deer and wild horses, foxes and monkeys, rodents and insects, there are also domestic creatures that seem to have thrived in their glow-in-the-dark forms where non-glowing ones were picked off by predators. Anyone investigating may find glowing kittens and puppies, domestic mice and rats, snakes that are open to being touched, and even a few more exotic domesticated pets like ferrets, hedgehogs, turtles and foxes. While these creatures are still wild, they are the descendants of domestic stock, and with a little effort and coddling, they might turn out to be passable pets, once they're scanned in the MedBay and found to not give off dangerous radiation.

It's not all puppies and kittens, though. Some of these seemingly predatorless glow-in-the-dark creatures are mutated, just like their regular counterparts, but to a more extensive degree. Keep a close eye out while you're trying to tame that adorable glowing purple kitten, because you might find yourself as the prey to a huge mutated lizard or spider, or maybe an oversized glowing wild warthog.

Nighttime exploring, after all, is for the brave at heart...and comes with pros and cons!

b. nightmare swarm.

As if the mutated glow-in-the-dark creatures in the Agricultural levels aren't bad enough, there's something new in Anchor to cause problems. A couple of weeks after the generator room was opened, strange apparitions start showing up in various places around the city. At first they're nebulous clouds that gather in places where there's strong evidence of past violence - in the upper levels of the city where there's serious fire damage, near the security station, hovering outside the armory or wherever there are burns and gouges into the stone walls of the city. But as the month wears on, the clouds start to take shape, and some of those shapes might be very familiar.

Starting at around August 8th, whenever a resident passes by one of these ominous clouds, it will start to coalesce into a solid form, the particles coming together into a concrete shape - the shape of fear. Whether the particles coalesce into the shape of a monster or villain from a character's homeworld or previous game setting, the nebulous representation of their worst fear, a person or thing from their past that evokes a terrible memory of trauma, or even just a generic horrific monster that would particularly frighten that particular person, it's something that is guaranteed to terrify. Essentially, they will turn into the worst thing that your character can imagine.

And these representations of fear? They're not ghosts, they're not digital afterimages, they're not apparitions or holos. They're real, or at least they feel real, they can do real damage, and they're almost impossible to kill. The best way to survive an encounter with the nightmare swarm? Run fast. Because they're generally confined to areas where the echoes of old violence linger, and the quicker you leave those areas the better. Get into whatever light you can, get somewhere safe, and the fear creature will dissipate back into a nebulous cloud, lying in wait for the next victim.

c. power up.

On August 2nd, the dust storm causing the redout and power outage will subside, and a stiff wind will take its place, washing away about two thirds of the red sand piled up on the dome. This fortuitous change in weather will make it possible to start work on getting the power back up. Residents will be able to exit the city through the usual channels so they can work on clearing the dust out of the various installations outside the city that transform wind and radiation and sunlight into power that keeps the city up and running. After they're cleared off, residents can start to get the power up by making repairs to the dust-damaged computer systems. Thankfully, once the power installations outside the city have been cleared off, an automated computer subroutine will boot up on some of the computer panels in the common areas of the residential quarters, with a user-friendly guide to repairing sand damage to the power system.

Mind you, the user guide assumes that residents have a lot of tools, supplies, and assistant bots that the current population doesn't really have on hand, so user-friendly or not, it's tougher than the system seems to think it is.

Thankfully, there is another option. Anyone with a particularly tech-savvy mind who's encountered the nightmare clouds might have picked up on it already, but the clouds are actually swarms of nanites. Released from the room that held the generators, these nanites were originally intended to conduct repairs on the city (there was a reason that room and those generators were so pristine!) that have been corrupted and are malfunctioning due to the ambient radiation in the city that has only increased since their creation. Anyone with even a basic knowledge of computers (and a very strong spine) could collect a sample of the clouds in one of the containment units from the labs or the R&D area, where the semi-functioning computer can be used to work out what's wrong with the nanites...and fix them.

If characters are able to work this out and deploy repairs to the various swarms around the city, those nanites might be super helpful for fixing some of the malfunctioning tech around the city. Food for thought!

d. the wreckage in the wasteland.

Once the emergency situation with the power is sorted out, residents might become a little curious about what caused all the trouble in the first place. The dust storm was, after all, initiated by a loud crash landing outside the city. With the dust storm abated and the windows in the Observation Area cleared off, residents will be able to see the wreckage of a spacecraft crashed into the ground, several miles out from the city. Far enough away to make it impossible to see any identifying marks, but close enough to be a tantalizing mystery for anyone so inclined.

Adventurous souls will be able to suit up and trek their way out to the site of the crash in the battery Jeeps to see what's going on, risking the rough ever-changing terrain and the possibility of a red shift, to see what might be salvageable from the crashed ship, or just in pursuit of knowledge. Once those characters approach, they will find the hulk of a badly-damaged spacecraft, about as big as a medium-sized cruise ship. The hull is badly burned, with tears in the metal, and it will be obvious to anyone who's got any experience with space travel (or even anyone who's watched enough sci-fi movies) to see that the ship didn't do well on its slow fall through the atmosphere. The metal is melted and punctured, anything that might have extended away from the hull has been burned off and lies in tatters, and the sand around the crash site is littered with metal and plastic debris.

But the one thing that's still possible to tell from the wreckage? It probably came from Anchor.

The ship is pieced together from salvaged materials, the tech will be familiar to anyone who's been in the colony for more than a couple days, and there's even a few corpses of very familiar bots lying in the sand. Approaching a large tear in the side of the hull will reveal a way inside the husk of a ship, giving access to the ship's small crew quarters section. If explorers choose to proceed inside, they'll be able to dig through what few personal items remain and find personal tablet computers and sat phones with their hard drives corrupted but possibly salvageable with the right skillset and the right technology repaired back in Anchor. They will also be able to find a way down further into the ship, though it's dark and clouded with sand and...well, quite menacing.

Because it isn't just the darkness and the danger of the red shift coming while you're trapped down there, or the danger of the ship's hull cracking with the weight of the sand piled up on its shell from the dust storm...but looking into the darkness, there's a flickering bluish glow. Digital and glitchy, it flickers from wall to wall, with the faintest impression of a human form. A face. A hand. The movement of hair or clothing. And then there's the echoing sounds - soft laughter, snippets of childrens' rhymes, unintelligible whispers or mumbles.

Well. Enter at your own risk.

ooc: exploration info.

As you can probably tell, this final prompt is kind of a doozy! While the first level of the ship is available for anyone to explore with the information provided in the prompt, going further into the ship will require mod guidance, via an NPC.

Any questions can be asked in the mod questions thread below, and if your characters have progressed to the point of wanting to explore deeper in the ship, please hit up the NPC request thread with a link to where the NPC should tag in.

Have fun guys!

Navigation.

Comments

[benhargreeves]

Her passionate reaction takes Ben aback, but he hides his surprise nearly as well as he'd hidden his earlier distress. That's just how Ben handles emotions, when in doubt.

He had stopped walking just a few paces after her, and then had closed the distance to better see her despite the lack of light. It is a tremendous relief, not only that her answer is 'no', but that she is so very offended he would ever think otherwise. That says a lot about her that he likes. And he likes that she is going off on him like this, not hesitant about her convictions.

Ben feels a twist of pain, somewhere in his gut, when she says there is no loophole or excuse for hurting animals. She is so sure of herself and what is right and wrong. All that absolute, decisive judgment means that Ben can't help wondering which side she would come down on, for him, for his past. For the experiments done to him. Would she declare him the victim of cruelty, or cruel, himself? Did motives and free choice matter, or only actions?

He shuts his eyes a moment, because he can feel the lid on that can of worms starting to lift a little and now isn't the time or place. But for that moment, when he has to shut it out and compose himself, draw a little, slightly shaky breath, it is clear he is much less calm than he is trying to appear.

Then he opens his eyes, the tension leaving his shoulders, and he says quietly, "That's why I asked. To make sure..." He can't quite bring himself to keep looking at her, letting his eyes drift down to the cat carrier in her hand, head bowed, "If you'd told me you were going to hurt them, I wasn't going to help you after all. So... we're good. Same page."

[tenuefarfalla]

Well, that takes a lot of the wind out of her sails. Especially because the downcast eyes and the shaky breathing, that's a much more easily interpreted emotional reaction. "I'm sorry," she says, almost automatically, but with a pressing earnestness. "I shouldn't have shouted like that." If one could call it shouting. It sure felt like shouting to Cho, but she's not the best judge of that, of being angry. She doesn't often get passionate and upset at the same time. It feels foreign.

"I have-- strong opinions. That's not an excuse, just-- I'm sorry. Really. You didn't-- It's a good question to ask. It makes sense. I've worked in a lot of laboratory settings with a lot of people who--" Who don't feel anything outside of themselves, and sometimes Cho wonders if they feel anything inside of themselves, either. "I shouldn't have been so defensive with you. Will you forgive me?"

[benhargreeves]

"No, it's okay."

She sounds so genuinely mortified and apologetic that Ben finally looks up at her and manages a tiny half-smile, to show that he means what he's saying. It makes sense, when she mentions she's worked in labs with some less than stellar people. Ben knows probably he ought to open up a little, say he'd been in lab settings, too, in a different way. But there's just no way on Earth he's going to do that right now.

So instead he says, "I like that you've got strong opinions on it. Look, you didn't do anything wrong. I asked you that question 'cause you said you were going to study them and I... assumed the worst, and you got angry because you assumed the worst back, but now we both know better. So it's all good."

A miscommunication born from a common belief, and perhaps two different styles of communicating.

"Nothing to forgive. Shall we?"

It's probably not a super great idea to stay in one place for too long, up here. And now that they've cleared this issue up, Ben's focus ought to go back to keeping Cho safe, if any less-than-harmless animals cross their path.

[tenuefarfalla]

Cho nods her head, eager to be on good footing again. She doesn't like it when people are upset with her. Sometimes it can't be helped, and she tries to not dwell, but it still sucks. She'd rather avoid it, if she can.

"I like that you care, too. And just-- I mean, to be completely honest, I shouldn't say that they never experience any pain at all. I've taken blood samples and small epithelial cell scrapings. No one enjoys being poked with a needle, but I'm very careful to be as gentle as I can be." Just so it's all out in the open. "Do you still feel all right doing this?"

If he doesn't, she'll understand.

[benhargreeves]

Presented in a different way, the poking and prodding might have bothered Ben, but after all Cho's outrage, he believes her when she says she's as gentle about it as possible. He says, "Yeah, that's just like they're going to the doctor for a checkup, it's not..."

But he trails off with a shrug, and doesn't elaborate on the sorts of things he'd worried she might have had in mind. He is afraid that the specificity of any example scenario would (further) betray that he has some experience of this and his objection wasn't coming only from a moral place, but a vulnerable and personal one.

"So are you a biologist?"

Together they round a corner, Ben walking a little ahead of Cho. A little distance in front of them, nosing around on the floor, is a tiny creature, shuffling and snuffling around, with its long hair glowing faintly turquoise, with some light lavender patches. Ben stops in his tracks. Tells himself it's because he doesn't want to startle it off. Which is half of the truth, anyway.

It's not going to be a problem. He isn't going to let it be a problem. He's only a little rattled because of what he and Cho had been talking about, but it's all good, and he's going to be totally cool, and it's fine.

[tenuefarfalla]

Cho nods. "Yes. My education is more specifically in marine sciences, but the basic theory of a lot of it is universal. Biology is biology." Cells are cells, when it comes right down to it. Which is terribly oversimplified, but talking about the way her brain actually works is... a more involved conversation. Not to mention, it makes her sound a bit odd. Which she doesn't mind, but she's learned that a lot of people don't really like that, for a first meeting. They like a more low pressure getting to know you period.

When Ben freezes, Cho falls completely silent, and is ready to run. He's not doing anything, though, just standing there. So she peers cautiously around him. "Oh, perfect," she whispers, looking up at him and smiling, a quick thumbs up for her approval. She thinks he's just frozen because he doesn't want to scare it off. Good instincts.

She sets the carrier down as quietly as she can, and pulls a pair of long gloves from her back pocket. They're from medical, lightweight enough to allow her almost unfettered mobility, but lined with some sort of thin metal mesh that can't be penetrated by x-rays, and so apparently also radiation proof. Which is not hugely useful without the suit, but they should keep her from being bitten. It's slow going, as she creeps forward, her main concern being to not startle the little thing. "Hello there," she coos quietly. Total silence has a greater chance of causing a flight response when she's finally noticed. This way, she's clearly not hunting. "Aren't you pretty, little one? Look at you. Purple is my favourite colour, you know. Are you hungry?" From a little container at her hip, Cho pulls a piece of slightly browning apple, turned just enough to let off a sweet over-ripe fragrance. The little nose turns up from the ground, twitching in the air, very interested in what Cho's holding. "Oh, that smells good, doesn't it? Do you want some apple?" She would be getting the same result by making any gentle noise in the limited range of soothing tones, but there's just something about talking to them that has always felt like it gets a better result.

[benhargreeves]

The truth is Ben doesn't know enough about science to say any different; his dad had only educated them on topics that he thought would be useful for saving the world, and that didn't lend itself towards complete or systematic learning. He'd done a lot of additional reading on his own, but for that, he gravitated towards fiction, not the sciences. So if Cho says the same fundamentals apply, he buys that.

It ends up being useful, just how frozen in place Ben is. He stays still, and silent, dark eyes following Cho as she approaches the little guy, talking in that sweet and quiet voice, getting its attention with the smell of food. Clear she's worked with animals before. Clear she really does like them. The whole scene is, frankly, adorable. He knows he should be feeling adorable about it. Maybe if it were a good day and his brain started off in a good place, but it hadn't.

So he hangs back as she coaxes and flatters and bribes the little rodent to come to her, gentling it and speaking to it and feeding it apple bits, before she gets it settled into a little sub-container within the carrier. Like its own little apartment, complete with more apple treats for the road. It's the cutest thing, and Ben hangs back, watching with his arms crossed tightly, hands gripping above his own elbows so hard his knuckles are pale. But he's got this on lock.

Once she stands up again Ben manages: "Why marine science?"

He wants to keep the conversation going, but saying the words requires a little bit of wrestling out, some internal contorting to try and make them sound close to normal, like his heart isn't racing and he isn't trying to fill the silence in an attempt to distract himself from being stupidly upset about stuff that is long-past that shouldn't even matter anymore.

[tenuefarfalla]

"Um, first, if I say... Earth, Japan, China, America, Australia, English, French, Italian, the Great Barrier Reef, trash island, global warming, does all that mean anything to you?" Ben nods his head, seems to understand, so she presses on. They come from worlds similar enough that she won't need to give him any background information.

"I was born in Japan. Right near the Southern tip. A place called Kagoshima. There's a bay there, very creatively named Kagoshima Bay. My family owns it, and the cliffs around it, and the ocean for ten miles out until you hit international waters. We have the land rights and the water rights, and a fleet of fishing ships. I grew up there, in a house perched right on the cliff, looking down at that bay from my bedroom window. I could swim before I could run. I've always loved the ocean. It's what feels like home to me."

As she talks, she catches sight of what looks like a little glowing rock. It's a turtle, and incapable of running away, but that doesn't stop Cho from being slow and gentle with it, from feeding it a berry to make it feel a little safer before she has to tuck it away in its own little apartment within the carrier.

"I always wanted to do something within that facet of the corporation. When I was young, and didn't really understand that I wouldn't be allowed to help that way. Even when I got older, and realized that it was probably only going to be fund-raising or awareness work, that was still all right. I was much younger than the rest of my classmates when I first went to a proper school, before that there were tutors. Structured schooling was the first time I learned about a lot of unpleasant things. It's a rough thing to learn, that the ocean you love so much is home to a giant floating hunk of garbage the size of a small city. It made me very sad, for a while, and then I decided that I couldn't really complain about it if I wasn't doing anything to try and change it. So I really focused myself in college. Then I convinced my grandfather to let me take some time before I got married to get a post-graduate degree in New York. I wanted to try and fix the problems, the things that were doing all the damage and causing all the trouble. My family always talked about them as lines on a balance sheet, decreases in profits and increases in expenditures. What it really meant, though, was that things were getting worse, and the bay was dying by tiny degrees. It's more than the money. It has to be, or nothing will ever really get any better. I thought, if I was a doctor, it might be easier to get people to listen to me."

Cho puts another berry in with the turtle, and then picks the carrier up carefully and starts moving again.

[benhargreeves]

Ben is silently grateful for Cho's talkativeness. That was always something he'd like about being around Klaus; the two of them balance each other out, and Ben doesn't feel so guilty for being inclined towards quiet. And it is particularly helpful now, when he doesn't feel up to much talking, himself. It's nice to just... listen. To learn things about someone without having to ask a million little follow-ups. As she speaks, and catches that little turtle, the awfulness and tension that have built up in Ben begin to loosen and unravel, by small degrees.

It's easy to picture her life, the place she is from, with the way she describes it. Ben can practically picture it. Her family must be extremely wealthy, from the sound of it. Wealthy, but not in the way that Hargreeves had been. The kind that involved active business, a corporation, everyone involved in maintaining it. And it sounds like there's a lack of freedom that comes with that. Privilege, but also constraint. He can relate to that, in a way. It's all so different, in the particulars, but there are echoes of his own life that are impossible to miss.

"So you want to save the world."

Though succinct, it's not an unkind summary of what she'd said. He can see that it isn't just ethical treatment of animals she's passionate about. There is this, too. She's a person with convictions, who believes in doing the right thing. Despite, from the sound of it, not really being raised in an environment that encourages that. Ben admires that.

Something moves in the corner of Ben's vision - something close, and he startles. He'd stopped in place beside a small fruit tree of some kind. Evidently, an extremely tiny mouse had been in its branches and had decided that Ben's shoulder was the new hip happening place to be. It is glowing a faint marigold color, and Ben stays perfectly still as it wanders along his shoulder, down to explore the hood of his sweater.

Cho's right to wonder how these things are surviving. Where are this little guy's instincts? Doesn't he know what sort of a creature he is climbing on?

"Uh, little help here?" Ben's voice has become tight and strained again, though not quite so bad. He can feel the tiny movements of the mouse in his hood, but doesn't dare try to get it out himself.

[tenuefarfalla]

It's a very accurate distillation of her life's purpose. So she just laughs and moves her hand up to her ear. Most people would probably tuck their hair behind it, but instead Cho runs her finger around behind it, untucking any hair that managed to find its way back there to join the rest of her hair, which is hiding her ears. She does it very naturally, like it's a practiced and common movement for her. "It's taken care of me. I should be taking care of it, too." She hasn't really shared much about the last place she was living with many people. The incentives are a little difficult to explain, and reminding anyone of the fact that they are all here without their consent seems like kind of a mean thing to do. He's very spot on, though. She wants to save the world. More generally, she wants the world to be saved. If someone else does it, she's also good with that, as long as someone manages to figure it out.

Cho makes a delighted squeaking noise at the sight of the little mouse. It's just so freaking cute. Which has no bearing on its usefulness, and therefore is not something that she should be considering in her selection process, but also she is human and it is tiny and adorable and she can't stop feeling that way. She presses her hand to her mouth, as though holding in the deluge of totally irrational attachment she already feels. Which is why it takes her a moment to look at Ben's face and see how uncomfortable he is.

Oh. Oh no. She sets down the carrier quickly, and her face is serious again. "I'm so sorry, are you afraid of mice? Don't worry. I'll get it." She holds up her hands, and when he bends his knees to get closer to her height, she goes gently rooting around in the hood at his neck. It's not that she can't find it. It glows. It's just that it's burrowing into the warmth, and very small, and she's wary of hurting it. "Just hang on. I don't want to squish it. It's fast and pretty small and--" And now running up her arm, instead of around in Ben's hood. She pulls herself back so that it can't return to the perceived safety of the dark fabric. "Hello little--" Instead, it goes for the perceived safety of her hair, braided loosely and offering just as much protection. The glow disappears pretty much entirely as it hides.

Cho bites her lip and starts shifting her shoulders slightly to see if she can make it want to run back down her arm. "Progress?"

[benhargreeves]

His first thought when she asks if he is afraid of mice is to feel offended and embarrassed. Afraid of this tiny little thing? How pathetic does she think he is? But a moment later, he thinks... there's something a tiny bit nice about her making that mistake. It is dependent on her not realizing that he is a horrifying monster, and thinking he is just... normal.

But how to correct her that he's not afraid, he's just uncomfortable with rodents because when he was a kid his father had used them to train him to harness his powers and to desensitize him to killing? So, he lets her be wrong, says tightly:

"Something like that."

Ben can tell she's having a hard time back there, so he just does his best to stay as still as he can, even if it's awkward, bending down like this and with her standing behind him rooting around in his hood with her hand. Then it's over, and he lets out a sigh of relief watching the little mouse make a beeline for her braid.

He can smile, then, because Cho seems completely comfortable having the little thing running on her, and if it's on her it's not on Ben. She doesn't move for the crate, so he assumes this isn't a good specimen for some reason. Too small for blood tests, maybe. Can't have more than a thimbleful in there.

"He's sure not scared of people, is he?"

And, as is his way, now that he's had a moment or two to think it over, Ben loops back to what she'd said earlier, and comments:

"Don't take this the wrong way, but your family sounds intense."

[tenuefarfalla]

Cho shrugs, in that shared joke kind of way, when Ben talks about the glowing mouse not being afraid. Why would anything be afraid of her, anyway? She's utterly harmless and defenseless. She's still smiling, though, as she tries to get the mouse out of her hair. Apples don't seem to do the trick, which surprises her. Neither do the berries. She has luck with the little mostly tasteless crackers, though, made from not much more than flour, potato flakes, and dried ground peas. She can't catch him, but he darts out long enough to grab it and then return to her hair to hide and eat.

She'll figure it out. He can't stay in there forever. Ben's comment about her family is surprising. Not because it's not true, but most people don't just say it. They skirt around it for a long time, dropping subtle hints that fly right over her head. The comment brings her up short, for just a moment, and then she laughs. Immediately after, she presses her hand to her mouth. Probably shouldn't be so loud. "That is absolutely one word for it." People don't generally like hearing about her family, she has learned this through lots of trial and error. "They've always expected a lot of me and my brother." More so from her brother, of course. People don't like hearing that, either. "They expect us to look after the legacy. It's a lot of pressure."

She takes one of the little smaller containers from inside the carrier, and tucks it under her arm. "Give me a boost?" She can see other tiny lights in the tree, perhaps more mice? She wants a closer look.

[benhargreeves]

He'd worried for just a moment after he said it that he'd made the wrong choice. Family is a delicate thing. He knows that if someone spoke ill of his siblings, no matter how much he gives them a hard time on his own, no matter how much they deserved it, he would be livid. So when Cho laughs, he feels a rush of relief that he hadn't offended her.

And Ben, for his part, doesn't seem to mind hearing about her family, even if they are intense, and put pressure on Cho. It's probably easier for him, honestly. To hear her talk about a family that is imperfect. If it were all sweet and lovely and encouraging and perfect that would just be... too unbelievable.

"Are you and your brother close?"

Probably says something about him, that that's the first follow-up he asks. He asks it even as he is kneeling down, hands laced together for Cho to put her foot on as a step, so he can boost her up closer to the tree, or is she going to full-on climb in it? Either way, it's not like she weighs much and Ben is happy to oblige.

[tenuefarfalla]

Cho assumes that it means he has siblings that he's close with, or that he's an only child and wishes that he had siblings. Nothing bad.

She steps into his hand, very trusting, and when he boosts her up, she grabs the lowest branch with her free hand. "We used to be, when we were younger." They'd been quite close, as young children. Which made the loss as she grew older that much more difficult.

Now that she's hanging from the tree by one hand, and unable to use her other hand without dropping the container, she realizes something, and comments on it softly to herself. "I did not think this through..."

Right. Instead of being able to easily pull herself up with both hands, she swings herself awkwardly to the side, careful to avoid kicking Ben in the head, and hooks her leg over the branch. It's an awkward sort of shuffle to get herself sitting on the branch, but she manages it. The tiny lights have come to investigate the ruckus. Seriously, how have they not all been munched on?

"He's only three years older than I am. Beginning when I was three and he was six, we shared tutors, had lessons together, did our work together - we did everything together, really." It had been wonderful, feeling like part of a team, the pair of them in one column, and the rest of the world in the other.

Now that she's seated a little more solidly, she opens the container and balances it carefully in the fork of the branch, so that it won't fall. She taps it with her fingers from a few different angles, applying pressure, making sure it's really secure. Then she scatters some treats on the branch around it, and puts even more inside, and she waits. "Do you have a brother? Or a sister?"

[benhargreeves]

Ben stays hovering close by, ready to catch Cho or at least help break her fall if she loses her balance and topples out of the tree. That's just what you do; common courtesy and safety precaution. Besides, it is fascinating in a way to watch how expertly and how gently she captures these small animals.

A lot of what she says about her and her brother is relatable to Ben: shared lessons, shared lives. For him it had been to the exclusion of all other children (or adults); he hopes Cho's closeness of her brother wasn't accompanied by quite so much profound isolation. He can tell, too, that all of this is emphatically in the past tense. She had said they were close when they were younger. So they had grown apart, or had a falling out. Either way, perhaps not something to ask about further just yet, despite his curiosity.

A few of the treats that Cho sprinkles fall, and Ben catches them in the air, offering them back up to her in the palm of his hand even as he answers her question.

"Four brothers and two sisters. A few of them are here, actually. If you meet somebody else with the last name Hargreeves, it's one of them."

He watches as the tiny lights begin to investigate the little trap that Cho has set up for them, curious and mostly unafraid of the presence of humans, but also distractible, in the way of small animals.

"But we're all adopted, so don't expect any of them to look like me."

[tenuefarfalla]

Cho reaches down slowly to accept the fallen bits of food. There's too much interest in the container now for her to go back there, a pair of mice, indigo and green, already inside and going to town on the feast, while a few more are creeping slowly closer, but maybe she can do something about the mouse in her hair. She holds the morsels on her flat palm, turned up close to her chest, and waits.

Cho has already met one of his brothers, though she doesn't know it. Diego, no last name, the military type who wouldn't leave her to die. "Seven of you? That must have been wonderful. Sometimes I think I'd have liked to have more than just one brother, but then... maybe we wouldn't have been so close if we'd had anyone else. Maybe what made it special was being so alone, except for one another." She didn't know at the time to be sad about their isolation, and now she's too far removed form it for it to hurt her, so it's just a pleasant memory. "He was... a little slow for a while. Not stupid. He's very smart. He just has to work a lot harder for it than some people do, and when he was young, I don't think he really knew how yet. Once they cracked that, and he could be put into a proper school without embarrassing my grandfather, they moved him to Tokyo. We-- weren't really close after that. He started to see me the way everyone else did." She doesn't elaborate on how the other members of her family saw her, but she also doesn't seem to be too upset by it now, so whatever it is, she's made her peace with it.

"What are your parents like?" she asks, smiling down at him, having absolutely no way of knowing how horribly she's about to jam her foot into her mouth. "They must be very loving people to adopt seven children."

[benhargreeves]

So, from the sound of it, there was some isolation, too. Hard to say if it had been as complete, or if there had been tutors, any playmates at all. But what matters isn't an objective comparison, but her experience of it. To her, it had seemed she was so alone. That is what matters.

Ben listens as she explains her brother's struggles, and how he'd overcome them and then moved on, gone from being on her side, it sounds like, to being aligned with the family members that looked down on her. Ben knows all too well how battle lines can be drawn even between people who care about each other a great deal, and feels a pang of sympathy for her.

But before he can ask her brother's name or any other questions, she is turning things around, asking about his family...

And there's honestly only one response to that question, and the assumption that comes with it; Ben laughs, a sudden, startled sound. It's entirely involuntary, and louder than he means it to be, and a few of the little glowing mice moving towards Cho bolt at the sound of it; the ones already in the container stay, but freeze in place, looking much warier than they had been, before. Oops.

Because it makes total sense she would assume that. He likes what it says about her, that her automatic response is to assume kindness, a big family full of love just wanting to take in the unwanted kids of the world. It's more or less similar to what most interviewers and fans and the general public had assumed about Reginald. There'd been an added element of admiration, since those people knew he'd been taking in children that were, each in their own ways, freaks of nature. It looked from the outside like charity, self-sacrifice, compassion.

"Not exactly."

If it hadn't been for that laugh, he might have been able to dodge the truth almost entirely; a bland answer that discouraged further questions without exactly being a lie. He's not really like Klaus, or Vanya - jumping at every opportunity to talk about just how fucked up his family had been. But she had caught him off-guard, and now his genuine reaction has backed him into a corner. He has to say something to explain that laugh or else he is pretty sure he'll come across as quite rude.

Rubbing the back of his neck, Ben gives a shrug, putting as much it's not a big deal in his voice as he can.

"I know I said adopted, but our dad actually bribed our birth families to give us up. He pretty much went around the world offering strangers money for their babies, and the seven of us are from the families that actually said yes to that."

For now he leaves out the part about why Reginald had wanted them. All this is personal enough without getting into the weird circumstances of their births, and maybe a whole talk about superhero powers being real, etc. Ben doesn't exactly want to be talking about any of this. He's just doing it to

"So. He bought us. And... he was an abusive monster. And now he's dead. But I like your version. It's a really nice thought."

[tenuefarfalla]

Cho just continues to hold very still on the branch. There's a chance that the ones that have scattered will come back, and the ones that are frozen inside the container, she wants them to be comfortable again before she takes them. Or, if they're going to run away, too, she wants them to have the chance. They're little, and getting their hearts beating too quickly is probably not good for them. So she can wait a bit.

She's curious about the laugh, though. She laughed, when Ben asked her about her family, but... well, she knows why she laughed. It doesn't make sense that he would. Until he starts explaining. Then it makes far too much sense. "I'm so sorry," she says, and while she's noticed that a lot of people who say those words tend to sound like what they really mean is they're sorry they opened up this can of worms and now have to deal with the consequences, Cho really does mean that she's sorry he was hurt. "I had no idea. I didn't mean to... offend." Probably obvious. Why would she? Still, she feels like she wants it said out loud, on the record, even though Ben probably wasn't thinking it to begin with.

Cho wishes desperately that her mind could present her with some way this might have been a good thing, some angle to turn it from a horror to a kindness. But to buy babies, to purchase children only to mistreat them. It's gruesome. She's seen poverty, though has been blessed to never have it touch her own life. She knows the lengths people will go to to survive. "I can't imagine that. How desperate a mother must be to sell her baby, how small it must make you feel, to have no other way out. Maybe-- Maybe they hoped they were giving you a better life? Maybe they thought... someone with enough money, that he'd take care of you." Her eyes look almost hopeful - she wants to believe it. That's not enough to make it so, though. "I'm sure that's not much comfort... I'm sorry. I shouldn't speculate. It's none of my business."

[benhargreeves]

Ben's not really sure what to expect after that blunt revelation. Klaus had told some people - boyfriends, rehab group therapies, etcetera - about their father, but the reaction there was always colored by those people's knowledge of the Umbrella Academy, their preconceived notions about Hargreeves, and by their opinion towards Klaus and his reliability. Cho is approaching this without any of that.

"Of course you had no idea. How could you have?"

He can understand how she feels guilty for accidentally stepping on what must seem to her like a land mine, but Ben gives a rolling shrug and reassures, "I promise, no offense taken."

And in his voice and expression, he really doesn't seem offended, or hurt. His amusement is wry and sarcastic, and yeah it's a coping mechanism, but it's working for him just great thanks. He had called his dad an abusive monster because that is what he was, but simply relating the fact of it isn't necessarily always painful.

All that changes when Cho keeps talking, starts earnestly theorizing on why his birth family might have sold him and what his mother might have been going through at the time. Trying to see it from their perspective, sympathize with why they would make such a choice. As soon as she starts down that path, Ben's gaze slides away from Cho, his expression falling into something decidedly closed-off, a quiet stillness settling over him. The thing is, she doesn't even have all the facts. It's obvious to him why his family wouldn't have wanted him, considering the circumstances of his birth. Him even more than his siblings, considering his mother had definitely died giving birth to him. But even though he could explain to her that it's very simple and understandable why they'd done it, and probably had nothing to do with wanting a better future for him... he is definitely not going to do that.

"I wouldn't know."

He realizes how curt that answer must sound, and relents, slightly. Cho is trying to make him feel better about being given up. He can tell that at least. Her intentions are good. She deserves more than a shutdown like that. Even if her speculation had made him feel like garbage and the apology didn't do anything to undo that.

"The only thing I know is he got me from Korea, and my mother died giving birth to me, so it wasn't really her call."

He'd only found out that tidbit of information by accident, snooping through Reginald's notes about his training and his powers. Ben had managed to sneak a look into one of his father's journals, and had seen a note that mentioned his mother dying in labor, speculating about the connection it might have to his powers. That had certainly been an unpleasant surprise.

[tenuefarfalla]

Cho sighs, a little tiny puff of exhaled air, and she considers the silence. "Never comment without context," she says, quietly. "That's the rule. It's a good rule. That way, you don't embarrass yourself. I used to be better at it." Now, apparently, she just sucks at waiting to be certain before she speaks. If her mother could see her now. "I do this thing now, there's no one to get mad at me for talking, so I talk. Too much. I wanted to-- find something good in it. Which isn't an excuse, when you just make it worse." Which she's still doing, isn't she? Ben's cold response, and the look on his face, she can't imagine that it's resentment turned inwards. He was a baby, he couldn't help anything that he did, anything that happened to him or the people around him, which means she's the new unknown factor to be upset by.

She might have felt stifled and useless when she was supposed to be seen and not heard, but at least she didn't go blundering into mine-fields of abusive rich assholes and dead mothers. Point one for Grandfather. The mice in the container are moving again, munching on the crackers. The little golden one in her hair puts a paw on her fingertips, ready to snatch a cracker and scurry back, but she's just barely faster than it is, and transfers it carefully to the container with its little buddies before putting the lid on it. "I'll stop. I promise. I can be quiet. I'm really good at it." Out of passing curiosity, she wonders if the fruit of the tree has anything to do with either the glowing or the survival, and she picks a few pieces and puts them into a mesh pouch meant to hold a water bottle on her belt. Then she tucks the container under her arm, grips the branch tightly in her free hand, and begins getting down, which involves the same awkward shuffling that got her up here, just in reverse.

[benhargreeves]

Ben listens as she talks about talking too much, how people used to get mad at her for talking, and now that's gone she doesn't know when to stop. Even if he is feeling hurt by what she said, he doesn't love hearing that she'd been raised to be silent like that. Reginald hadn't wanted any of the children he was raising to make noise, but only in that he had wanted them to be tools, not children. Most of his siblings had grown up to talk a perfectly average amount. It was only Ben and Vanya, who had settled into habitual silence as a defense. The worse Ben feels, the harder it is for him to manage even a single word, even a nod. Retreat is his preferred method of coping.

But Cho is promising that she can be good at being quiet, and Ben doesn't want to let his own issues make it seem like he endorses that. So he manages, the words awkward and ungainly:

"Please don't do that. Act like I asked you to be quiet. I didn't, so don't put the words in my mouth."

It's all such a tangle, and Ben wonders if saying more, giving more information, will untangle things, or drive the knife deeper. In the end, he chooses to reveal a little more. Because Cho comes from a messed-up background, too, and she's trying, and he doesn't want her to try less in the future because of him. So he sighs a little unevenly and braces to catch her as she gets down from the tree, in case she slips.

"I'm not mad at you for wondering. I just - thinking about my mom makes me sad. She'd never done anything to me, and the first thing I ever did in the world was kill her."

There's no irony or softness in the way he puts it; Ben really does think of it that way. That the very first act of his on the earth had been to end an innocent person's life. It had set the tone for so much else that would follow. He crosses his arms tightly, the body language self-soothing, betraying more hurt than his careful voice as he goes on:

"I'm just the opposite of you. I'm out of practice at talking. It's - a struggle, for me."

That had been what caused their earlier miscommunication, too: Ben not saying enough to frame his question, to explain why he was asking and his stance on the issue. Saying the bare minimum keeps landing him in trouble, and yet it's all he can manage sometimes.

[tenuefarfalla]

With Ben's help, she manages to make it out of the tree without dropping the mice or hurting herself. Which is good, because she definitely would have hurt herself to keep from dropping the container. She knows he didn't ask, but she can't say the wrong thing if she just stops talking. You can't say the wrong thing if you don't say anything at all. How many times has she heard that in her life?

She's in the process of putting the container back, wanting to give Ben a little privacy, when he brings up his mother and that stops her cold. "What? No." She said that she'd stop, and this might upset him, or make him want to stop talking to her, but she decides, very quickly, that that's all right. Some things, you just don't stay quiet about. Some things, you just don't let them pass in silence. Even if you lose because of it. She can't say the wrong thing if she doesn't say anything at all, but if she stays quiet, if there's any chance that her silence could be seen as her agreeing with his opinion about what happened to his mother, she just can't do that, either.

Cho straightens up, the door to the carrier open, and moves right in front of him. "She died giving birth. You didn't kill her. Maybe-- someone told you that it was your fault, or wanted to make you believe that you were the problem." She wonders, in a fleeting moment, just what form the abuse of his adoptive father actually took. "But it wasn't your fault. Babies don't-- we don't ask to be born, and we don't choose the circumstances or the complications or anything else that might happen. It isn't our fault if we're a girl instead of a boy, it isn't our fault if our mother can't have children after us, it isn't our fault if someone dies so that we can live, and it isn't our fault if we end up with someone who doesn't love us the way we should be loved - and... we should be loved. All children should be loved. When the bad things happen, it's a tragedy and it's heartbreaking and it shouldn't be the way that a brand new life starts out, but it's not the baby's fault, it's not your fault."

Her hands have been fluttering indecisively in front of her while she rambles endlessly, and they seem to come to something of a firm decision, finally, as she reaches to lay her palms against his crossed arms. "You can tell me to shut up if you want, or to leave you alone, and I'm not saying that you are, but you can, and I will - and you can tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about, and I know that's partly true, but... I also know that you were a baby. You were just as innocent as she was, and just as blameless, and it's horrible what happened to you both, but it's not your fault. And I'm sorry I'm making you think about her and I'm sorry that it's making you sad, and... I'm sorry that she's not here to see that you grew into the kind of person who wants to take care of others. I'm sorry for the circumstance that took her away from you."

[benhargreeves]

He had hated it, but in a lot of ways, things had been easier when he was a ghost. So much of emotion is wrapped up in the body, and he hadn't had one. So even though he felt things in stressful situations (Klaus ODing, his siblings fighting, Vanya's book...), he didn't have a heart to race, a stomach to churn, a body to go cold all over. Coming back to having a body again has been a learning process. And even though more than a month has passed, it still catches him off-guard sometimes, how intensely the physical effects of emotions can hit him.

All that is running in the back of Ben's mind, distantly, as Cho comes closer to him, touches his arms and delivers her impassioned speech about how his mother's death hadn't been his fault. At first he tries to shut it out, invalidate it silently, telling himself that she doesn't know the circumstances. That if she did know, she'd change her mind and say he was the exception. But as she keeps talking, she makes it clear that no matter what the situation or complications, she wouldn't think it was his fault.

That throws him. He thinks, from the ferocity of her conviction, that she must have some personal stake in this, too. Her family sounds traditional: had they blamed her for being born female, like she said? Was her mother infertile after her, barring any future sons? But whatever her own experiences, they don't take anything away from her words.

Ben's heart is thudding away, his arms pressed so tight to his chest that it's like he's trying to keep himself from flying apart. He swallows, little flashes of pain crossing his face without him really realizing it, even as he bites the inside of his lip and does his best to stay stone-faced. He doesn't know why, exactly, it hurts so much to be told this. That it wasn't his fault. He had just assumed that it was, and that anyone would agree. Cho insisting, over and over, that it wasn't his fault, feels rather like being stabbed. He'd never been told that by anyone apart from Klaus, and Klaus is so close that Ben almost forgets sometimes that his brother is not another piece of himself.

It isn't until she says that she's sorry his mother isn't here that Ben actually starts to cry. In his head he blames a million things - sleep deprivation, all ambient post-traumatic garbage that had already screwed him up from being around those rodents earlier, something he ate, some kind of odorless emotion gas in the air... But no matter the catalysts, when she calls him the kind of person who wants to take care of others and says she's sorry Ben's mother couldn't see him like that, he has to reach up and quickly brush hot tears from the corners of his eyes.

He gives a tiny, almost imperceptible shake of his head. He doesn't know anything about his mother. Not her name, how old she was, what she looked like. But he is sure that no possible mother - except one that had been programmed specifically to do so - would look at his life with anything resembling love, or pride. All the people he'd killed... all the blood he'd been steeped in over the years, while he was still a child. One of those children that Cho, because she is a good person, probably thinks are as innocent as babies.

"So... you don't think... anyone is just- born evil? By nature?"

His voice is thick with emotion and held-back tears, and it's only too clear this is what he's thought, about himself. That, if her guess earlier was correct, he had been taught to think about himself. Evil down to his bones, in his cells, fundamentally. Full of a darkness that needed to be contained, because the second that he came into existence, he started to hurt people.

[tenuefarfalla]

Cho shucks her gloves, dropping them onto the floor, and then from a little pocket at the waist of her leggings (usually meant to hold your house keys while you go on your run) she pulls a pale lavender handkerchief with darker purple embroidery at one corner. She tucks it into Ben's fingers as he's wiping at his eyes, and her heart breaks for him.

"No one is born evil." She says this with a kind of conviction that few people ever hear from Cho. It's not always easy to dig down this deeply into what makes her tick, and she likes to hold herself safe from pain when she can, but everyone has those things that they just can't let pass without comment. This is a big one, for her. It's not a child's fault if their mother dies in childbirth, it's not their fault if they're conceived in violence, it's not their fault if they're unwanted for whatever reason. Maybe that's the case with Ben? Maybe that's why he blames himself, because he was unwanted, but any terrible thing that happened to his mother, he didn't do that. "Hey." She reaches up, to cup his face and make him look at her. "No one is born anything. We're-- blank slates. We're a part of our mother until we're born, and her choices and feelings and actions are her own. We're born as nothing, just potential, and then our own actions shape us. We are a sum total of our choices. You can choose to do bad things, you can choose to do good things, but no one chooses to be born, no one chooses how it happens." She didn't choose her gender, her mother's complications, he didn't chose his mother's death, no baby who has ever been born into bad circumstances has been born so because they deserve it, or have done something wrong.

"You were not born bad." And then she's hugging him. Which is not something she would usually do without permission, but heck if this isn't pinging some very deep wells of personal feelings for her, too. No one asks for life, and no one chooses their family. Well, their biological family. "There are people in the world who will do bad things, for selfish reasons, and cause pain and feel nothing out of place while they do it. They weren't born that way, though. Someone taught them how to hate. Someone broke them, or they broke themselves, but it happened to them." I don't think evil by nature exists. It's just an excuse. A good person can do a bad thing, and a bad person can do a good thing, and that's-- really scary, because it means that we decide who we're going to be, but I think it's better to have the choice."

[benhargreeves]

Ben takes the handkerchief when she presses it into his hand, more out of reflex than acceptance of the gesture. But he doesn't use it; just clutches it tightly in his hand and blinks hard, fighting with all his will to force the tidal wave of awful feelings back into a manageable little container that he can bury again, deeper this time, deep enough that a conversation with a kind stranger wouldn't accidentally unearth it.

But Cho just keeps talking and every word is like a twist of the knife. Ben wants to believe her, but again he thinks, that he was not born a clean slate. He was born a baby connected to another world, full of unspeakable horrors. Had his slate never been blank? When she touches his face, Ben goes still, wary and alarmed by the intimacy of it. The gesture is a kind one, but kindness is such a foreign thing, to him. Kindness that is not Grace, acting on her programming, or Klaus, making it bearable much of the time by mixing it with humor and smiling cynicism.

Then she talks about choices, people choosing to do bad things... he wonders again if the things he had done with the Academy had been bad, had been good, had been necessary, had been cruel. He thinks that he can't entirely blame his father, for the people he'd killed on missions. Sure, he'd been a child, been trained, had been given no choices. But killing is still killing and maiming is still maiming and there must be some level at which pointing the finger at somebody else just didn't cut it.

He doesn't hug back, when Cho suddenly hugs him, but he doesn't pull away or tense up, either. He just stands there, breaths shaky and thin, wondering how he had let this whole situation get so far out of his control. Just accepting the comfort, believing her, doesn't feel like an option. No matter how nice it would be if he could. He forces himself to exhale, as slowly and deeply as possible. The words are hard to summon up, but he manages a few.

"I think... the way you see the world is very... humane. And I think - you're a very good person."

Which is decidedly not the same as saying he agrees with her. But that would be a lot to ask, on the spot. She's given him some things to think about. He folds the unused hanky up, very neatly, and offers it back to her, with the smallest smile, all tinged with sadness at the edges still.

"Thank you. For- what you said."

That had been a lot of vulnerability for Ben to show, and particularly to someone who wasn't even family. His eyes are a little red but he pulls himself together, collecting the scattered threads of his dignity and forcing himself into something resembling calm. God, if he had known talking about his mother would set him off this badly, he would have avoided the topic more carefully. At least he knows now, for the future.

"Do you... do you have enough?"

And he gives a little gesture to the carrier with the animals she had collected in it.