pain_train: (grin 4)
pain_train ([personal profile] pain_train) wrote in [community profile] goneawayworld2021-02-06 11:36 am

Pain Train Pulling into the Station

Who: Wrath and... you?
What: Getting the lay of the land, also sending out an intro video
Where: All around the rig
When: As the new hires arrive
Warnings/Notes: None, will edit if that changes

[It's a sad statement about Wrath's life that this is not her first time waking up in an alien place, nor her first time being strapped to a chair and interrogated, nor her first time being stuffed into what is plainly a corporate nightmare.

She keeps it together through the intake process, even though parts of it scare the hell out of her. She knows how to put that fear in a little box and ignore it. It's just restraints, not honey, not a woman with chipped pink nail polish. She's got this.

In a strange way, the explanation of the work is almost comforting. The words are different the situation details have changed, but it sure sounds like holding a line, building a dome to keep the people inside safe. In a way, it's comforting compared to being nothing but television entertainment with no distinct mission.

Same shit, different day.

Released out into the rig, Wrath takes her time getting the lay of the land. She's not stupid, and she is paranoid for a multitude of reasons. She pokes her nose into every place she's allowed and perhaps a few she isn't, courtesy of her disarming attitude and non-threatening appearance. She's also, as always, looking for familiar faces.]



Top Deck

[This is actually the first place she heads, because she wants to understand what the external situation is. It's hotter than she's been in a while; she's got sweat rolling down her nose as she looked out over the variagated desert, out to the distant horizon. She's seen the sky recently thanks to the Fleet, but it's somehow different, to think that this is her reality now. The sky is no longer a temporary thing.]

It's beautiful.

[Her fingers itch for a sketch book, for paints, for anything.]

Gardens

[This is not unfamiliar to someone who spent most of her life in a domed city. Proles had some traditional farms, but there were a lot of vertical farms and hydroponics bays. The smell is familiar, and a happy one, and she's happy to get Farmer Bob talking, even if she has almost no idea what he's actually saying. She wanders the paths among the vegetables for a long time, smiling faintly to herself.]

The Mess

[This is honestly the best mess food she's had, and the food even tastes like what it's supposed to be, which is a bonus. Though Wrath is disappointed that there's no drink dispensers like in the mess of the Windrose because she'd just figured out how to make the perfect drink that was also pink.

Oh well.

She collects a tray and chooses a table at random, one where someone who looks like they could use a friend is sitting.]


Hi! I'm Wrath. What's your name?

Training Room

[It's inevitable there'd be a training room, and necessary. Wrath's still got daily physical therapy exercises to do, and she's still trying to train herself back up to full speed and strength after a length of time where she'd been tuned down to human normal for her own safety.

She diligently does her PT, does a few rounds of weights, and then works combat drills with single-minded intensity. First by herself, then with the training droids, then with the floating laser droids. At normal speed, she's impressive. At high speed, she's still plainly relearning. She works both unarmed and with an apparently ordinary, if sleek, cavalry saber.

A couple of lasers hit her and she faceplants into the mats with a loud thump. She sighs with annoyance, picks herself up, shakes it out.]


From the top.

Wildcard!

[There is literally nowhere she's not going to at least try to stick her nose into, so pick a place!]


[Video, sent out later]

[The video shows a middle-aged pink-haired woman with an easy smile.]

This is Wrath, formerly lieutenant in the Proles Militia and first officer of the Windrose. If you're from Proles or the Fleet, report in.

And if not... uh... hi! Looking forward to doing good work with you!

[She waves at the camera. Video ends.]
ownperson: (pb; purple disbelieving glare)

[personal profile] ownperson 2021-02-07 01:53 am (UTC)(link)

...what?

[ Her brother. Right. Of course whoever this is doesn't like her, she knows fucking North and— wait, she was dating him? Except, no, that wasn't possible. North died and then he was here. That's what he told her. Has he been keeping something from her this whole time?

No, he couldn't have been keeping something that big from her, right? This has to be some stupid universe fuckery, right? ]

I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. I went to sleep one night and woke up here, I haven't been anywhere else, and neither has North. He... [ died ] he said he just ended up here same as I did, just earlier.

ownperson: (pb; purple worried frown)

[personal profile] ownperson 2021-02-07 02:12 am (UTC)(link)

[ The mere implication that there's possibly some missing part of her life she doesn't even know about is enough to set South more on edge than she already is.

She doesn't know this woman, none of what she's describing happened, she knows that, but Wrath sounds just as sure that it happened as South is that it didn't. ]

Yeah, of fucking course shit's weird, different realities, whatever, but I know my own damn life and I know my own damn brother. You don't get to come in here and— and—

[ She cuts herself off with a frustrated noise and takes a deep breath. Things with North are okay, right now, they're stable, this can't be happening. It was bad enough that everyone else on the rig knew they were twins now, could start making comparisons, but now this? ]

ownperson: (pb; purple talking angry)

[personal profile] ownperson 2021-02-07 04:04 am (UTC)(link)

[ A different her. She doesn’t know if that idea is more or less disconcerting than the idea it happened to her and she doesn’t even remember. The logic tracks, if there’s a multiverse at all then there could be more than one of her out there but...

That someone can know her and her not know them, that she is facing someone she has no idea how much she knows about her and North...

She winds down a little, at the apology, which in itself is unexpected, but not entirely. ]

Oh don’t worry, anyone’ll tell you I’m still a fucking bitch. But not because of anything some version of me [ her jaw flexes ] did to you. I’m already dealing with enough of the bullshit I’ve actually done.

ownperson: (pb; purple frustrated talking)

[personal profile] ownperson 2021-02-07 04:32 am (UTC)(link)

Yeah yeah, join the club, you’re not fuckin’ special.

[ He’s taken bullets for her on more than one occasion, no matter how much she wishes he wouldn’t have, and that’s not even counting all the times he’s had her back.

But South shifts uncomfortably under Wrath’s eyes, despite her attempts to be dismissive, her jaw clenching again. If Wrath was as close to ‘her’ North, wherever he was from, as she claims she is, the things she could know... private things. Things that are for South and North to handle, that they are handling. If this stranger knows, if there’s even the chance she knows... ]

ownperson: (pb; purple talking down)

[personal profile] ownperson 2021-02-07 05:39 am (UTC)(link)

[ South... has no idea how to respond to that. Wrath’s not wrong. And South would never usually be so... defensive of her relationship with her brother, things have always been complicated for them, but for the first time she almost feels like they might actually fix things and all of this...

It feels like a threat, to that, somehow. An unknown she can’t account for. ]

...whatever. I didn’t sign up for this shit. So what, you dated North, you owe him, whatever, he doesn’t know you and I don’t know what you know about us but you better keep your nose out of our fucking business.

ownperson: (pb; purple training glare)

[personal profile] ownperson 2021-02-08 01:22 am (UTC)(link)

[ South was ready to walk away with that, to leave and hope Wrath kept her nose out of things, but she stops dead at the question. It as good as confirms South's worst fears about this... whatever this is. Her teeth grit, her good fist clenches and she takes two steps towards Wrath before reigning herself in.

Causing a scene down here does her no favours, and it's not worth the risk of her blurting something. ]

No. I'm not. He knows everything he needs to know, there is nothing you can tell him about me he doesn't already fucking know. And it's none of your or anyone else's fucking business. So stay. the fuck. out of it.

ownperson: (pb; purple hurt glare)

[personal profile] ownperson 2021-02-08 03:24 am (UTC)(link)

[ South barely cuts off a snarl aimed at Wrath, but she's lost enough fights since getting here and with her hand fucked up, she's certainly not looking for another.

She could tell Wrath that North knows everything, that she sat across from him and explained every detail of the way she betrayed him, that she had to watch his composure crack in a way she hopes she never sees again. But that's their business. Not Wrath's. And South isn't going to give her an inch more than she's already allowed to be taken. ]

You keep out of our shit and we won't have a fucking problem, no matter what you think you fucking know. But you butt in, and I make no such fucking promises.

[ She snatches her water from the floor, chugs it, and throws the empty bottle aside before storming past Wrath towards the exit, staying plenty far enough away to not risk coming up against that blade.

She's shaking, and she's not sure that it's just with rage. ]