![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reach the residents
● ● ● REACH THE RESIDENTS
For any questions you want to ask Viveca or Degar and receive an IC response, please direct them here. Please indicate in the subject line who you are trying to contact.
// VIVECA
Hi, what can I help you with?
// DEGAR
Today was gonna be the day, but they'll never throw it back to you. And by now, you should've somehow realized what you're not to do.
no subject
Do I need to make you a list? We might be here for awhile.
[ how do you politely say "for being a colossal fuck-up that disappointed you." ]
"Ruining everything" would be a fine start.
no subject
[ it's a joke, shh. ]
You didn't ruin everything. And I'm not gonna tell you you've ruined everything either, if that's what you want to hear. Never been a 'kick 'em while they're down' kinda guy.
no subject
Just most things?
[ exhaustion flattens out that self-pity sarcasm until it's just a hollow lump. he doesn't need to confirm it for her to know it. ]
I wanted to show people the truth. I didn't expect that I would be broadcasting a slaughter from some of our own.
no subject
It ... was a tough call. [ does he think she did the right thing? not really, but he's not some all-knowing, fortune-teller either. ] I get where you were coming from, I think they call it the 'journalistic spirit'? I dunno, we don't exactly have journalists where I'm from.
But it wasn't like you were the one wielding the blaster guns. Now, those guys —
[ he isn't going to add that she could have shut it off the moment she saw what was going down, but ... he isn't even sure if that would have been the right call either. ]
no subject
It didn't have anything to do with ... what you called it. Journalistic spirit.
[ it's clear it's a foreign term to her, too, with how her mouth wraps around the phrase. but what's more important is the sigh that flares out her mouth, as resigned as her quick correction. ]
It doesn't matter why I did it. All that matters is that I did do it, and it caused as much damage as anyone holding a gun.
no subject
So, do better next time. [ it's the advice he'd been given on a couple of occasions, himself. ] Remember what happened here so you can avoid making the same mistake later.
no subject
[ cowardice? maybe. but callan had succeeded where she had failed, managed to do when she had fumbled; there's a lesson to be learned in that, even if the lesson is in how utterly unprepared she is for ... any of this. that fate that waits for her in ravka seems to loom more grimly, in the wake of that mistake. ]
Will you tell Viveca I'm sorry, when you get the chance? She deserves to hear it.
no subject
[ he realizes he should probably say something ... encouraging and commander-y, so he adds: ]
Take this time between missions to reflect, but don't — don't get too deep in your head about it, okay? Speaking from experience, you can get pretty lost if you go too far.
no subject
[ but for all that it's a dismal statement, there's a ruefulness that weaves its way through the words. ]
If we're talking about experience ... [ she trails off. cuts off the impulse to ask can i ask you a question? degar seems the type that would say, you just did, to begin with — and she's not certain she has the right to ask, anyway. ] How many missions did you and Viveca go on? Before all this.
[ if she's wrong about her guess, then she's wrong. but something in the conversation she'd had with viveca nags at her, even now. even still. ]
no subject
(hurt who?
well.)
but in light of everything that's happened, a part of him feels like he owes this team something more than a quip. ]
It's uh — pretty easy to lose track of what day is what when you're moving from planet to planet. As you'll know, not all of them operate the same way. But I'd say it'd been maybe over two years before this — easy enough to do the math, I guess.
[ he breathes out. ]
Anyway, it doesn't really matter. There's no real benchmark here, and the orbs split themselves apart into however many pieces that we've got to get back.
no subject
[ or — perhaps it was for her sake, in some small part. an unknowing compulsion to have some scrap of information that makes him feel as human as viveca, some hazy image of him. it's never boded well for her to be left in the dark when it comes to those in power, after all.
more accurately: she hasn't asked for only her own sake. ]
When we do get them back, what will happen to you and Viveca? Are we helping you undo your own regrets, or ... are you trapped here?
no subject
It's not an easy job, but someone's gotta do it.
no subject
[ as it always does, to have that weighty responsibility settled on the shoulders of so very few. she'd no better than most. and while there's some piece of her that wants to question if there's nothing for either of them to return to, if there's no one else to take over that responsibility, she has her suspicions that she already knows the answers to those riddles. there's an awkward heartbeat of silence before, ]
I suppose I should let you get back to it, then. Thanks for listening.
no subject
[ but also lol he would never consider himself a hero. he writes songs about them, but he sure ain't one. ]
But yeah — any time, Alina.