Entries tagged with ] did you fish

twenty-nine ♢ private & video

( private } ben & elena; cw fire imagery )

video

[Everything is, in its own way, a production. Even this. She's posed herself carefully, sitting on her bed and framed in light from the window, so that she looks older, more poised than she feels. What she feels is afraid. Overwhelmed. Not ready.]

[But she has to be ready, which is why she makes herself smile like nothing and nobody can touch her anymore.]

I'm not as good at telling stories as Ben is. But I want to tell this one, if that's okay, because it's important to me. Some of you know it. If you do, I hope it's all right that I repeat it.

[She looks down for a moment, at her hands where they twist together in her lap, and then up at the camera. The smile reaches her eyes, now, because she can feel the strength coming, making her spine straighter and her breath come smoother.]

Just over two years ago now - two years ago for me - my dad died. He'd killed a bunch of girls who looked just like me, and I had helped him. Because I didn't know what else to do, mostly, and because if I didn't, he said he was going to kill me, too.

I didn't want anyone to know what I'd done. I didn't want anybody to think badly of me. I worked so hard to keep myself safe that I ended up killing somebody else, and then . . .

Some of you remember Hannibal.

[She clears her throat, forces her hands to flatten out on the bed beside her.]

It's so easy to trust the wrong person. It's so easy. I trusted so many of them, and I got so many people hurt. I want to apologize, but most of the people I hurt are gone now. For those of you who are still here, I'd take it back if I could. I'm sorry for making the wrong decision.

But I'm not sorry for surviving.

[Now her eyes blaze with confidence, her words coming stronger with every breath.]

Ben saved my life. You all saved my life. So thank you. I'm going now.

I'm going to kill Hannibal.

[She hopes beyond hope that he comes back here. But that part she won't say out loud, just biting her lip, smiling, waving - and killing the feed.]

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twenty-five ♢ spam & voice

How many people here actually hunt? Or fish? Self-sustaining outdoorsy things.

Next time we come to a port that's not - life or death, people being forced to kill each other, whatever. We should organize a hunting party.

private } mira

[As out of nowhere:]

I would want my new self to have her own becoming. So I would give her a weapon, and no memories at all.

spam } philip

[She isn't stupid. She realizes when she's being ignored, and not only does she dislike it, she finds it childish. If Philip wanted her to leave him alone and had a good reason for it - if he gave her the reason, she might accept it. But this, running away and hiding, it's behavior fit for a little boy, not an adult. It's the kind of thing the kid who threw snowballs at her might do, the kind of thing that the man she met ought to be better than.]

[So she sits down across from him at lunch after her shift is over and fixes him with a Look.]

Stop avoiding me.

spam } scott

[She tiptoes up on him on deck, sneaking up to put her hands over his eyes. She knows he can hear her coming, smell her, too, but they'll both just pretend he can't.]

Guess who?

spam } open

[When she's not tracking down crazy zombie killers, Abigail can be found all over the Barge. Much of her time is spent in the kitchens, where she works on the lunch shift with Ben and occasionally fills in other shifts as necessary. Most of her socializing in the dining hall is spent around the lunch shift, too, when she carefully and methodically checks in with the people she has begun to dub hers.]

[Later, she finds herself drawn inexplicably towards the art room. It's the first time in a while that she's gone near it; she used to be very anti-art therapy, but now . . . she doesn't know. It reminds her of Hannibal, and that calms her and makes her anxious all at once. She hovers outside the door for a while, not sure whether to stay or go.]

[Finally, she can be found in her room. The door is open, and music is playing from the inside. It's a waltz. She isn't dancing; just sitting on her bed, waiting. Nobody seems to be coming.]

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➵ inventory. ➵

( why do you smile like you've been told a secret? )

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twenty ♢ private & spam

( ben, will )

spam } throughout port

[Most of her time is spent with Ben or near Ben. She isn't yet confident enough to venture out on her own much, so she stays close and takes short walks away from their site.]

[She explores the woods, carefully and slowly, making sure not to disturb anything irreparably. Her father taught her how to walk without a sound, and she remembers him whenever she sees an animal. She doesn't try to hunt anything. They have enough food.]

[Occasionally she comes up behind someone and goes still, freezing like a deer in headlights, as if she expects to be reprimanded for getting so close. Occasionally she'll watch someone from a distance. Once she climbs a tree, just to get a better vantage point, and sits twenty-five feet above the ground for several hours, just because it feels nice to be above it all and the breeze is refreshing.]

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nineteen ♢ video

[When the feed comes on, the first thing there is is a wall and half of a desk. Those people on board who've been inside will know it as Abigail's room. There's a small blood smear on the edge of the desk, another dark spot on the corner of the lens.]

[She doesn't turn it towards herself, but the camera does move towards the desk, is set down at the edge of it. Two hands appear in the frame, blood-caked, palm-up. There's blood under her nails, too, drier blood that's oxidized to a deep, almost black color.]

[She doesn't say anything. But after a moment, there's a strangled noise, and she knocks the camera off the desk. The briefest flash of dark hair and a pale face; then it hits the floor and shuts off.]

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ten ♢ list + spam

( gift list. )

flood spam } all over!

[Abigail receives a Coffee Dancer doll on the first day, which she thinks relatively little of. It's pretty enough, so she props it up on her desk and assumes if the other shoe is going to drop, she'll know soon enough.]

[By the second day, her wardrobe is radically changed, and she's attached at the hip - or, well, shoulder - to Slevin, who seems content to carry her around on his shoulder. They peer curiously and/or judgmentally around at everyone about 99% of the time. The other 1%, he puts her up on some high surface and goes to do something else, while she continues to scrutinize the other passengers.]

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nine ♢ spam

spam } zero, saturday 23-tuesday 26

[Forty-eight hours after she walks into Zero, Ben lets her have visitors. She won't ask anyone who enters to leave - she knows, in an abstract way, that a lot of people will be angry about what she's done. They should be. And for the time being, she can distance herself from public opinion, at least for the most part.]

[Her responsiveness varies based on who comes to see her, how in the moment she can manage to be when they come in. Whether she's been drifting beforehand. But she tries, at least, to look people in the eye and answer them.]

( spam } zane )

spam } tuesday 26-thursday 28

[After which she spends most of the rest of the week in her room. It's partially hiding, partially trying to remember how to think straight.]

[On Thursday she only loses time once, and only for a few minutes. She feels grounded, then, enough to walk to the dining hall and back - a concerted effort. She's still terrified, probably more so than before. But it has to happen sometime.]

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sixth ♢ public

[She doesn't hear from Arkin all day on Thursday; she doesn't see him, either. By evening, she's concerned. Maybe he's sick, like the new girl in the infirmary. She brings him soup.]

[When she finds him in his room, she drops nothing. Just places it on the nearest flat surface with a sigh and pinches the bridge of her nose.]

[The announcement comes after a slight delay, during which she's thinking hard.]

Arkin O'Brien has fallen into a coma in his room. I need help getting him to the infirmary.

[Anyone who tells her to let them take care of it and go away may get knifed.]

fifth ♢ private + voice + spam

( private | ben )

public } voice

[She cuts the feed on, then off. On/off, on/off, in strange but rhythmic patterns like Morse code.]

[She's fishing. Questions, accusations will come - she remembers that much from last time, with her real father, with Garret Hobbs, the Shrike. She wants them now. She doesn't want to wait.]

public } spam

[She doesn't change her routine, not even slightly. Which is not to say she's not afraid: she's terrified. There's no Freddie Lounds here to publicly doctor this story, to minimize her shame. Even if there was, she honestly isn't sure she'd want that anymore.]

[So she walks the halls and accepts what comes, goes to the art room, goes to lunch, visits Ben on his shift. Sometimes she goes to the CES and forgets where she is and how time passes. Hours and hours go by as she sits under a tree with her knees pulled up to her chest.]

[This is the only vulnerability she shows, and it is accidental.]

( private )

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third ♢ filters & voice

filter } inmates

How many of you think that you're insane?

filter } inmates-turned-wardens (minus ben)

What made you decide to stay on as wardens?

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second ♢ spam & private

[Abigail spends a lot of time with Tyrion, but not all of it. Occasionally she makes quiet escapes, flitting from sight to sight like a songbird. In the end, though, she settles at a coffee shop with newly purchased books - The Violent Bear It Away first, then The Optimist's Daughter.]

[She tells Tyrion where she is, so he won't worry or (more importantly) come looking for her. Every few hours she gets up and wanders the neighborhood, a shopping district. She thoroughly enjoys her anonymity; she hasn't had any for a while.]

private/text | david

Do you like it here? I'm bored.

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first ♢ voice

[Abigail's voice quavers, as though she's uncertain of the connection, like someone making their first long-distance call. She starts out firm and then peters out into uncertainty, the tail end of her first sentence almost a question.]

My name is Abigail . . . Hobbs.

I'm not sure how I got here, but I'm here now. [A pause; who to ask for?] I'm looking for Dr. Alana Bloom. She's tall with dark hair. She was supposed to check in with me this morning, but instead I'm here.

Are there - [And here she inserts a little more tremor than necessary into her voice, because she doesn't know what else to do right now - ] Are there letters home? That kind of thing? How does this work? Because I need to talk to my dad.

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visual♢ocities

( i want to keep you alive so there is always the possibility of murder. later. )