tushanshu_logs | Light 'em up

Light 'em up

Characters: EVERYBODY
Date: sundown on November 29th to sunrise on November 30th
Location: A plaza in Earth
Situation: The population of Keeliai could use a little warmth. So Chekov set stuff on fire and invited everyone over.
Warnings/Rating: None, but please put something in your comment header if necessary.

On Wednesday, everyone received the following audio message (and text attachments in English and Russian) from (1) Pavel Chekov in their inboxes:

“Hello. I would like to invite you to a bonfire in Earth sector on Friday at sundown. Please feel free to bring friends.”

A plaza in Earth sector is buzzing with activity-- most of it from one young man. He spends the day lugging folding tables and pushing wheelbarrows of supplies into the plaza. As the day wears on, several entrepreneurial kedan set up stands. By sundown, the plaza is lit up with three large, roaring bonfires. Most of the ice and snow has melted away, leaving a few patches here and there in the furthest corners of the plaza. One patch a bit away from the fires is completely devoid of snow and ice-- it's a sort of dance floor or performance area. Some music is playing out of one of the upper windows of the buildings overlooking the plaza. It's varies from quick and frenzied to slow and soothing. Of course, anyone is welcome to claim the floor to perform a magic show or do a little singing of their own.

There's a hodgepodge of various folding tables set with the essentials: raw vegetables, the closest equivalent of marshmallows Chekov could find (next to the chocolate and graham cracker substitutes), and sausages. There are skewers and tongs lying around should anyone need them. He also brought a few jugs of water, which are refilled periodically. It's not much, but it's the best he could do with a limited budget and not a lot of time. The kedan have taken the opportunity to sell what Chekov couldn't bring-- hot beverages and food, blankets, scarves and gloves, and several other simple wares.

It's not a grand setup, but there are roaring bonfires, food, and good company.

(Posting this slightly early because of Thanksgiving chaos. Let me know if you have any questions)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Of all things, that made him move, shrugging a little with a quiet, polite(ish) snort. Even relaxing, slightly.

">Tt.< It is complicated." He considered it, for a moment. "If anything, should Grayson be called by a name that he does not like, he would likely make it his own, anyway."

There were both warmth and respect, in the evaluation.

Complicated.

That summoned up a lot of things fairly accurately.

"But it's so...impersonal." Her lips pressed together, for lack of a better way to describe what she thought. Unaware of what she was about to inadvertently let slip: "Last names are for people you barely know. Strangers. Not people you care about."

He shook his head quickly.

"First names are for junior, lesser people."

Without hesitation, or thinking about it.

Her brows lightly furrowed together. Suddenly very confused.

"Who told you that?"

"A number of people. Some of whom even managed to earn some of my respect."

Before they were either shuffled away from him or tried to kill him.

She stared up at him for a long time. Silent. Thinking. Her expression betrayed nothing, though it was apparent by the look in her eyes that she was no longer upset with him.

"That's not what it means where I come from. Calling somebody by their last name...is a way to put distance between you. It can be respectful, if you're talking to a superior...but if you do it to somebody your own age, it just means you don't know them very well."

Damian nodded, considering, then a corner of his mouth togged up, dryly.

"Distance from me is overall not a bad thing." His lips flattened, again. Most people prefer it that way, in fact, and they are not wrong.

He pushed that thought down, instead turning to look at her.

"I will avoid making you feel excluded, by these rules. And none of this is denying your name." The last part was said more firmly than a reassurance. But he needed to clarify it.

And she needed to hear it. Which she did.

"Being around you is better than being alone."

Which sounded like a backhanded comment to anyone who didn't know her habits. How she often preferred isolation. The safety and security of her own private quarters. Why very few people even knew where she lived, let alone had ever been there. At the same time, however, having no one at all...ever...was a dangerous thing to have. She wasn't a fighter. She was a survivor, and that had always been because there were people around who helped her stay alive.

Beyond that...who could say?

"Does this mean you'll go back to calling me Midii again?" But then, a thought came to her. A compromise. Taking into account what he said as well as he'd been clearly listening to her: "Even if you only do it when it's just the two of us. Out in public...you can call me Une, if it makes you feel better."

Considering Damian, it didn't sound to him backhanded at all. His lips parted, then closed again. Especially considering the last ... weeks, by now, that was almost too much.

He swallowed, then looked down.

"It is not about what makes me feel better or worse. It..." he made a gesture. He wasn't sure how to explain it, anymore. "When you have to give up everything that you are, everything that you have ever thought necessary, even right, everyone that you were taught to respect, everything around you is... chaos. And I cannot afford to sink in chaos. In... confusion. So I am... using the few things that I was allowed to keep, the ones that do not contradict my promise, my current life, to ward it off. And am trying to build more structure, more order, more sense out of the world, again. But it is - everything is complicated and moving and changing all the time."

This was probably the closest he'd ever gotten to complaining. Even so, it was an explanation, not self-pity.

"So I need my little pieces of order that I still have. How I call people is one of them; the intensive daily routines are another." Hence the levels of upset when he had been too small to follow them. "To begin breaking the system of naming is... not going to be a good idea. For me, obviously, but it is - other people's safety that I am more concerned about."

Midii didn't completely understand, but she did listen. Quietly. Seriously. Taking every word of his to heart, knowing it was just important for him to be telling her this at all.

She knew what it was like to have nothing. Probably even better than he did. And although she still questioned how he could act so deprived when he had his family here with him now--people who cared about him--she could empathize. He really was just like her in that sense. Both of them clinging to the most seemingly trivial of things just because it was all they had to call their own.

Though the more selfish part if her was disappointed by his resolve...at least now, she could see it for what it was.

"It is about how you feel, though, Daman. And that's okay." Comfort levels. If he needed this, it was just as much for him as for those around him. "But...what did you mean when you said it was also for the safety of others?"

She had a vague idea, but wanted to hear him explain it in his own words. Just to be sure. And she would sit by and listen for as long as he'd be willing to explain.

People who cared for him were probably what made sense least, to Damian. Not that he wanted them not to, but they fit nothing logical that he could figure out. He was beginning to accept that.

He was far from being able to rely on them, not for keeping himself in check.

Damian sighed, slightly, opening his hands, palms up, eyes out over the crowd, making sure nobody was too close.

"I told you what I was raised to do, did I not? If I fail to keep on stopping myself, I will likely resort back to it. That will be... unsafe, for many."

His mouth twisted. "In my words, I can afford to be somewhat careless. In my actions, I must... always, all the time, follow reason. What I feel cannot be trusted, on the whole."

Some people were getting him to see that some of is feelings might not be entirely wrong. But he didn't have a pattern that could be relied on.

He was dangerous. That's what he was telling her.

Yet...she wasn't afraid. Not of him. Part of her knew there was a good chance she could be. He had told her things that would have terrified most any other twelve year old. Heck, some of the things implied would have terrified some adults. Survival instincts told her to get up and walk away. Right then.

She didn't budge an inch.

"You think you'll get so upset one day that you'll eventually start hurting people."

Her words were soft. Echoing his warning, if only to show him she understood. She still didn't budge.

"Upset? Not at all. I do not need to be upset to start hurting people. I merely need to stop holding myself back from it."

He hesitated a moment, then corrected even that statement, "and I hurt people all the time. But I do not kill - and work to help, anyway."

Damian had a way better view of things to deceive himself on that count. Slowly, he settled on the far end of the bench - lounging a little, his body ready to act, but at the same time absolutely comfortable. "My feelings cannot be trusted, I have found out. So I rely on reason only."

That was also a warning, though of a very different kind.

She watched him cautiously approach, taking a seat on the opposite end of the bench. Closer now, but still with a noticeable physical distance between them. She watched, and she took note of how what he said...still did not entirely match. After all, what else could possibly be allowing him to hold back but his feelings?

It would explain why he was warning her.

But hurting and killing were two vastly different things in her mind, and even then, it depended upon the how and why.

"You told me once that you wouldn't hurt me." Speaking physically, of course. Back when details of their respective pasts were slowly starting to emerge. "I believed you."

"I told you that I would not kill you." The correction was almost mild, but he didn't stop to consider it.

Not hurting wasn't something he was ready for; he knew better.

"And you are among the people I am not - I do not intend to hurt. But I can not promise. I - lack sufficient knowledge and understanding, for that."

And he was too damaged, to boot, but there was a limit to his self-exposing, even now.

"It's more than I ever had back home."

Her head tilted downward slightly, hair partially falling in front her her face as it always did whenever she observed someone from afar. Eyes glazing over, thinking back to the little boy whom she'd last has feelings for...and had nearly gotten killed for her troubles. All because she's been weak in her resolve and spared him. Giving up her safety net in order to ensure he would make it.

Never again, she should have promised herself. Because Damian was right. Feelings were dangerous. She knew that better than most.

But he had already admitted he did not like her. A knowledge she could hardly take comfort in, except to know to steel herself off from him further. If she already knew, then at least he would not be able to hurt her again in that sense. She could still be around him. That much was...acceptable.

"You were forced in a situation where you had even less control of the circumstances than here." Because she'd had people she cared about. Family. Who were in the power of others, and so those others had had leverage against her. Hence... warning her about feelings.

Even though he could at least take care of himself.

His eyes remained fixed ahead of him for a while, before turning to look at her - a rather open look, for him.

"If you do not want me to, I will not leave you alone again."

She looked up at him. Shocked.

I will not leave you alone again.

But...she thought...

She had been under the impression that he didn't like her. She had convinced herself that this was the case, based on their conversation. Past conversations. Words. Not actions.

And yet...

Even if this was the case...maybe he didn't like her the way she would have preferred...maybe, in his own way, he still cared.

Slowly, in real time with the thought processes running through her mind, the surprise melted away into a smile. A rare, true, genuine smile. Her eyes sparkled. Her entire body language radiated a moment of pure warmth and happiness.

"I won't leave you, either."

A promise.

In a way entirely different from the other person he thought this of - Grayson - smiling did become her, Damian thought. Especially the smile that nearly radiated from her.

The heat on his cheeks had to be from the nearest bonfire. Really. It couldn't have anything to do with him having given up on that smile turning on him again. At all.

And then she made her own promise and. Damian's lips parted, but he didn't let anything but a slow hiss come through, not immediately. (Because the response - the defense-by-attack - would neither help matters nor matter at all. Until you are strong-armed into getting me killed? Not only because of her past - not even mostly because of that past. That was what he expected of people. And saying it wouldn't make any difference, whether or not she was going to actually do it.)

Instead, he breathed in, and once again, getting a tighter grip on the anger, on the lashing out.

On the fear.

Because he couldn't possibly explain to her what a realization of that promise would mean to him. Not even if he was ready to try.

"Thank you." Though his voice was tight, it was just enough hoarse to let her know it wasn't a shutting down of formality, but rather the opposite. Closer than emotional than he'd ever allowed himself to be when older than three.

His reaction was...not entirely unexpected. Though that was partially because she dismissed the sudden glow in his cheeks to the heat of the nearby flames.

He was holding back. Which, considering everything, was a huge step in the right direction. But there was still the fact that he had to hold back at all. Teeth gritted, body tense. She couldn't tell if he was holding back a less than pleasant comment or accusation of lying on her part.

Either way, she assumed it meant he didn't believe her.

Which was okay. For now. Knowing what he knew...knowing was she knew...she couldn't really blame him.

She would just have to prove it to him. Somehow, someway. After all, her past betrayals had all been for the sake of her family. The people she cared about most. Even Nanashii...she had literally put her life at risk to make sure he made it out, even if she couldn't save anyone else.

Here? She had no one. There was nothing to hold over her head. Not even her own life.

"Of course, Damian."

Maybe it would make a difference this time.

The fact that she didn't push helped. Kyle was making explicit what Richard and Stephanie - and Cassandra - had done almost effortlessly. Be patient. And with patience, he had time to evaluate, to understand, to estimate.

And to begin to trust.

So the patience truly made a difference, and in Midii's favor. Much better than any argument she could make.

He let silence settle between them for a little while, then tried to do the whole. Lighter topic conversation thing.

"Do you like the fires?"

If there was one thing in life Midii understood, it was patience.

Patience for her little brothers, whenever they were acting up. Patience for her father, who would sometimes have days so bad he could barely get out of bed. Patience for the soldiers who were always kind enough to offer her food and shelter, whom she would spend months waiting on to accidentally let slip value intel around her. Patience for the little nameless boy who had once fascinated her so. He spoke very little and had acknowledged her personally even less. Between the two of them, it had always been Midii who'd had to initiate conversation.

So when Damian actually turned to her and inquired about the fire...well, it was an unexpected (but welcome) surprise.

"I do," she nodded lightly after a moment of thought. "Although I would never had thought to center an entire party around them."

Damian, on the other hand, was not a little nameless boy. He had been raised to rule a world, and, while most of the time he was too tangled up with other matters to stop and pay proper attention, he was aware of people. Just not of what to actually do about them. So the shot at conversation was random, but, at least, somewhat remote from the topics that are barbed.

His mouth twisted slightly at that.

"You do not come from a place where it gets very cold, do you?"

She shook her head, and though the smile that appeared was ironic, it wasn't directed at him.

"Just the opposite. We were traveling for so long, with nothing but caravans and tents as shelter, there were times when I forgot what it was like to feel warm."

"Ah. Traveling." Damian nodded. "You probably would have seen more of these," he motioned to the fire centers, "if you had stayed in one place long enough. Bonfires are a traditional way to gather, in long winters. It is rather inconvenient, otherwise, as a matter of fact."

Bonfires were also a tradition that had survived thousands of years, as far as he knew, in colder climes. He couldn't imagine that it would have died out in the future, either, colonies or no.

Light 'em up

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