Your Friendly Neighborhood Shadowrunner

[wheyoftheadept]

Who: Saturday… and you?
What: Open prompts
Where: Locations noted in title
When: in the period between the intro and the next big event
Warnings/Notes: Second prompt may lead to discussing disturbing events in Saturday’s past. No sexual assault, but warnings for violence, child abuse, and eldritch horrors.


1. Free Tickets to the Gun Show [location: communal bathrooms]

Saturday looks at herself in the mirror and nods, satisfied. Even Maggie couldn’t argue the rightness of this; these uniforms were hideous, and too long, and she didn’t like them. Therefore…

She picks a thread out of her newly-created sleeveless jumper. It won’t stop unraveling, so she yanks and breaks it. Her former sleeves lie limply on the sink before her as she admires herself. The room is empty (to the best of her knowledge); her dignity is safe. She starts striking poses.

In her defense, those muscles are pretty impressive.


2. Let Sleeping Adepts Lie? [location: gardens]

The gardens aren’t really gardens, except for the patch that Bunny and Gadget have taken over, but they’re green and they’re quiet and it’s easy to avoid people. These qualities are why Saturday is kneeling in a remote corner of them, hands cupped open in her lap the way her father taught her. Holding emptiness. Control is an illusion. Go with the flow.

Keep your distance, and she looks peaceful. Come closer, and you can see her jaw is tight and trembling, and tears are trickling out from under her closed eyes.


3. Come Fly Away (Or Dream You Can) [location: rig exterior]

The rain never actually stops, but sometimes it lessens into a misty drizzle, the kind of thing a true Seattleite scoffs at. Saturday, being one of those, is out on the deck. It’s evening, going on full dark; the western horizon in orange fading into pink, and the sky above is clouded velvet. She’s tied cloth around her hands and feet for grip, and is running the pipes. Her shoes are sitting neatly at the base of a large beam. She has no destination in mind, no particular purpose; she isn’t in the training area because she wants to be outside, unrecorded, unmeasured, moving for the sheer glory of it. It almost feels like freedom.

Comments

Re: 1

[heterochrocatic]

"Because I hate sitting still," Catra says. Well, kind of. She hates sitting still when she feels like she has to sit still.

"And it seems like a waste of time."

Re: 1

[wheyoftheadept]

"Mmm. Meditation isn't a way of sitting, it's a state of mind. You can do it moving, too - that's how I do it, when I can't settle."

She stretches and starts walking out of the bathroom, assuming Catra will follow, since a bathroom is an odd place to have a chat when you get right down to it. "My pops used to say, meditation is how you get control over yourself. And you gotta have control, or someone's gonna take it from you."

Re: 1

[heterochrocatic]

"I always thought it was like, sitting in one spot and focusing on your thoughts." Catra doesn't like focusing on her thoughts. They're usually bad, for one thing. She does follow Saturday, at least, stepping out into the corridor in her usual indifferent slouch.

"Sure, sounds good. Nice, easy words."

Re: 1

[wheyoftheadept]

"I mean, that's one way of doing it, sure. The way I like, though, you can be sitting or moving. An' it's kind of focusing on your thoughts, but like - letting them go through you. Not trynna pick 'em apart, just letting them exist, being aware of them. Getting comfortable with 'em and then, it's real easy to let it go. It's like - cleaning yourself out. So you become a clear stream."

Saturday needs to find time to do that for herself, in fact. This place, the people in it, they keep stirring waters that had barely settled. She's all mud and debris right now.

"Control is about letting go, not holding on. Letting go is easy."

Re: 1

[heterochrocatic]

"It's really easy to tell people to let go," Catra says with the air of someone correcting a misconception. As they meander into the hallway she slouches up against one wall, arms crossed.

"It sounds really nice and easy when you talk about it, but..." She shrugs. "Most of the time people who say that something like that is easy are lying, either to you or themselves. Or both."

Re: 1

[wheyoftheadept]

"No, people think it's hard, because it's scary. Scary isn't the same as hard, but it likes to pretend it is."

Saturday slouches up across from her. "What you did the other night, talking to Adora - that was a kind of letting go. You let go of the reasons you were holding on to for why you couldn't just say what you feel. It was scary to start, but once you did, was it as really as bad as you thought it would be?"

[heterochrocatic]

"I wasn't scared," Catra says, turning a glare onto Saturday for a moment. "I don't need some lecture about how easy things are from someone who's had a completely different life from me, okay? If it was easy, then everything would have been different." Her tail is starting to lash in agitation.

"Don't give me this crap."

[wheyoftheadept]

"We haven't had the same life, no. But that don't mean I haven't seen my fair of shit." Saturday is, as always, unperturbed. "Nothing wrong with being scared. Shows good sense, strong survival skills. But sometimes it turns into a bad habit. And meditation is a way to get good at telling the difference."

She shrugs. "We can talk about something else, if you like."

[heterochrocatic]

"Whatever." Catra crosses her arms stiffly and looks away from Saturday, all bristling prickliness. She stares away from Saturday, going quiet for a long few moments. Why does Saturday always do this? She's always probing and asking stupid questions.

"Just stop trying to make me your little project. I don't need you or anyone else to fix me."

[wheyoftheadept]

"That's right. You're not a project and you don't need fixing," Saturday affirms mildly. "Meditation's just been real useful for me, that's all. If you don't think it's for you, then that's that."

God, Catra really is a piece of home in all this horror - cat ears and portal nonsense aside. Wanna-be hardasses and vulnerable kids are the same across metaplanes, it seems.

[heterochrocatic]

Catra's reply is to make a rude gesture with her hand.

"Well stop suggesting crap. Last time I had someone this concerned with how I was acting and whatever her name was Shadow Weaver. Stop acting like I need your help. I don't need you or your stupid suggestions or anybody else's!"

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday raises an eyebrow. "All right, then."

[heterochrocatic]

"Why are you so damn calm all the time?" Catra seems to be getting even more irritated that Saturday refuses to fight with her.

"You think you can just come into my life and like... fix stuff, like you can actually make things better! Like it's easy. Letting go is so easy, Catra--!" The anger is bubbling over now and Catra doesn't know how to stop it. Doesn't know if she really wants to. It's perverse, how good it feels to be angry in the moment and it reminds her how gratifying it was to sink into all the anger and hurt and aim it at Adora like a weapon. Lashing out feels good. At least right now.

"I didn't ask for your help!"

[wheyoftheadept]

"Because I meditate," Saturday can't help responding, with an easy smile that fades into seriousness as Catra yells. She listens, and thinks a good long while before she responds, silence stretching between them. Eventually, Saturday nods.

"Okay. Fair point. What would you like, instead?"

Judo, like meditation, is a mindset.

[heterochrocatic]

"I want people to stop acting like there's something wrong with me!" Catra hisses. "Like I need to learn to meditate, to be more like you."

[wheyoftheadept]

"There isn't anything wrong with you. You don't need to be more like me." Saturday runs a hand through her hair, thinking how to say it. "I offered meditation 'cause it's a tool I find useful. Not to make you like me. This isn't an exchange, Cats; I don't need you to be any particular one thing in order t' think you're worth knowing and deserve looking out for."

A corner of her mouth turns up in a smile. "Be nice if you didn't start yelling at the drop of a hat, though."

[heterochrocatic]

"If there's nothing wrong with me why do people keep wanting me to be different than I am now?" Catra says. She's still bristling, but at least she's not yelling anymore. Of course, that's a trick question. Not even Catra likes herself how she is now.

"And I wouldn't yell if people didn't make me yell." Oops, that's some nasty internalized stuff right there.

[wheyoftheadept]

"'Cause you keep acting like you don't really like the person you are now." Saturday says softly. "You're hurting. When people see someone hurting, they want to try and help, make the hurt stop. If they're decent, anyhow."

Saturday considers adding that people couldn't make her yell if she was in control of herself, but, hmm, that's a step too far on this unsteady bridge.

[heterochrocatic]

"I'm fine with who I am now," Catra said, like a liar. "And who said I was hurting? Don't make stuff up about me." She's not yelling, but she's still tense and angry and ready to go off again.

[wheyoftheadept]

"All right, then." Saturday shrugs. "Sorry for getting the wrong impression."

[heterochrocatic]

"Good." Catra crosses her arms. It's quiet again for a long awkward period, Catra stubbornly refusing to say anything else that might prove Saturday correct.

"...I hate this place," she says in a quiet voice, finally.

[wheyoftheadept]

"Yeah. It sucks major balls." Saturday exhales heavily. "And that Planker guy, jesus. What crawled up his ass and died?"

[heterochrocatic]

"I want to claw his eyes out," Catra says with a snarl, then shrugs.

"He's bad. Some of the Horde drill instructors could be bad too... Kinda want to see how far I can push him."

[wheyoftheadept]

"Just not breaking'll push him to the edge," Saturday says with confidence. "Dude's entire ego is wrapped up in the idea that he's the hardest motherfucker in the room. And in this room, he definitely ain't. Be harder than him, and he'll go insane."

Saturday may or may not have already started testing this theory.

[heterochrocatic]

"Yeah, but I wanna see what happens when I get him mad." Self-destructive? Maybe. She laughs.

"If I could deal with Shadow Weaver, I can deal with him."