ArchivedLogs:Die Together

Die Together
Dramatis Personae Hive, Paige, Scramble	2016-11-22 "I have a safe place to stay, a bed to sleep in, access to a shower -- what more could I ask for?"
Location <NYC> Harbor Commons - Game Room - Lower East Side
Together with the dining room, this is the largest room in the common building, a plentiful expanse of gathering space for people to come and socialize. There is typically a brightly-coloured array of whimsical artwork hanging on the walls, and its wide windows overlook the grounds. Tall cabinets along one wall hold a wide library of board and card games -- there's a sign-out sheet for the use of these clipped to the front of the cabinet doors. The room provides plenty of place to /play/ games in, as well, with several separate wide tables -- three ringed by straight-backed chairs, two nestled amid more casual clusters of couch-and-armchairs -- scattered throughout the room. In the back of the room there's a ping-pong table; over near the windows on the right, an air hockey table, while a pool table stands to the back of it. Doors to either side of the room lead off to the media room and the children's playroom. It's a lively hubbub of activity -- cheerful, raucous, laughter and conversation spilling over between the open doors from the hallways to the rooms. Friendly (hopefully?) trash-talking and dismayed cries and fierce negotiation; around the second floor of the Commonhaus there are a number of different clusters of people gathered for weekly Game Night. Hive is not participating in any of these festivities, just at the moment. He perhaps /was/, until recently; the table in front of him still holds the remnants of a desert storm, a half-assembled airship, pawns that never quite made it home. Dressed in faded old jeans, a t-shirt with a picture of the Death Star reading 'ceci n'est pas une lune', he's slouched in a chair at the forsaken game. He has one hand curled around a bottle of ginger ale (shaved chunks of actual ginger floating inside), his other resting a fingertip on the rounded head of a green meeple that he rocks slowly back and forth. His eyes are half-lidded, fixed down on the abandoned playing board. Scramble is definitely participating, wending her way through the game room with beer in hand, stopping frequently to join in conversations or spectate on games in progress. She’s wearing a red babydoll shirt that reads ‘We’re All Mad Here’ in flowery lavender cursive under a black cropped jacket and black jeans with irregular diagonal slashes that show off red tights underneath. Big gold hoop earrings peek out from the voluminous black cloud of her hair, matching the gold bangles on her wrists and the simple gold ankh on a black cord around her neck. She finally makes her way to Hive’s table and pulls out a chair, rotates it around to face outward, and straddles it backward, one lanky arm folded across the backrest and chin propped on that arm. “I hate dying of sand,” is her comment on the wreckage of the game laid out before them. “Feels so fucking cheap -- like where do you get off running out of sand in a motherfucking /desert/?” One might notice Paige arrive, standing in the doorframe heading to the media room, a skeptical look upon her face. Crowds really aren't her favorite scene, but noise, conversation, attracts her attention easily. She is, of course, wearing her trademark sweatshirt, hood down. There are a few faces she recognizes -- after a week of living in the Commons, she has, in fact, actually interacted with other folx. However, a dull persistent anxiety buffets her mind as she examines the scene. How do you...people when the people you know are already peopling with other people? At least there's one person who doesn't seem to be attracting too many, ugh, people. Then again, that person is Hive. "Okay, you can do this. It's fine. It's swell. Just, right, you can do this." An odd pep talk to be sure, but it seems to generate enough confidence in Paige to head over to the table where the man and a young woman sit, weaving between people to reach her destination. “Uh, hey, Hive,” she offers, shoulders tense. Hive doesn't look up, but a faint familiar press nudges up against Scramble's mind as she approaches, touching there with a feeling of greeting. << Desert gods had other plans. >> A sussurating whisper of many overlapping voices jangling together, shivering through Scramble's mind. << Wanted to save their water for -- >> But this trails off as Hive's fingers close around the green wooden piece. His eyes still don't lift -- though the wide expanse of his /mind/ is clocking Paige's arrival keenly enough, mental senses listening quite clearly to all the various streams of thought flitting around him in the busy room. << Cooperative board games. >> This time, the odd mental voice -- nothing, really, like Hive's previous voices, either spoken or psionic; just a soft rustle of many-quiet-voices speaking as one -- << The best place to start if you feel out of your depth. >> Scramble has set her beer aside and begun reeling in the aftermath of the game, starting with the x-shaped ‘sand’ cardboard pieces which had proven the doom of the previous party. Inwardly she leans back against the pressure of Hive’s greeting, her own reply also wordless. She looks up as Paige approaches. “Sup,” somehow doesn’t really sound like a question, and comes with a quick tip of her chin upward, casual but friendly enough. “Wanna play? We’ll probably die, but it’s fun times.” The question does not seem to be specifically directed at either Hive or Paige. She stacks the sand pieces neatly aside and starts gathering the lost and forlorn pawns. All but one. “You attached to that Explorer?” She nods at the green pawn in Hive’s hand. There is a mixture of fear and panic as her mind is gently and easily cut into and Paige visibly winces. The advice, however, does produce in a small feeling of reluctant gratitude within her. She looks as though she is about to speak, but seemingly thinks better of it. One might get the impression that she thought to ask Hive not to invade her very personal mental space, yet previous encounters with other mutants inform her to just try and accept it as unnerving and terrifying as it may be. Instead, she lets out an anxious breath. "Thanks," she softly directs to Hive. "I mean, I'm guessing that was you. That...that was helpful. Thank you." She smiles to the other woman and sits herself down carefully in a chair. Curiously eying the game pieces on the table, Paige admits, "I'm not sure I'd actually know how to play this. It looks a bit, uh, complicated. Do you mind if I just watch?" The horned woman then blinks. "Oh. I, um, I'm Paige. Nice to meet you." Hive's fingers curl slowly tighter around the green piece in his hand. There's a quiet crrrrrk -- a slow grind of his teeth, jaw tighter. He sets the piece down very carefully on the table in front of himself. << This is ours. >> His eyes have closed momentarily. The soft echo of voices is briefly underscored with music, lively and wild in its background. << Not complicated. We can reach you. You get lost in a desert and die. >> There's a very faint twitch at the corner of his lips. << But you die together. >> Scramble leaves Hive the Explorer role card and gives the rest a cursory shuffle before dealing one to herself (Navigator) and one to Paige (Climber). Then she distributes the yellow and red pawns go to them respectively. "Yeah, don't worry about it, you learn this game best by playing." Her grin is sudden and playful. "Or, by having other folks order you around, which I am happy to do." She gathers up the game tiles and starts laying them back out face-down to form a new, blank desert. "Well met, Paige. Wanna shuffle those cards?" She indicates the two discard piles. Then, kind of like an afterthought, "I'm Scramble. So, you're Steve's lost sheep?" A breath. Relax. Fear does not mean danger. If Hive intended to hurt her, she would be hurt. She is not hurt, therefore she must be safe. Though it is certainly faulty logic to an extent, it seems to help put Paige at ease. At least enough for her edginess to slacken. Then a pang of shame and a heaping of guilt; of course Hive had no intention of hurting her. Haven't her bigotry and false beliefs been contradicted on many occasions already and hasn't Hive only ever been nothing but genuinely nice and helpful to her? Her thoughts pass quickly through her mind - Hive has her attention. The musical undertone she finds curious and, ironically, soothing. Paige, on the outside, simply nods at Hive's words. Gratitude, again, as the ultimate feeling. "Get lost. Die. Got it. I think I can do that," she says quietly with a wry grin. After accepting her card from and pawn from Scramble, she inclines her head as she begins shuffling. "Ordering is fine. Probably for the best." The horned woman bites her lip. "Lost sheep," she repeats as though tasting the words. "Yeah." The shuffled decks are placed back down. "You?" << Lost. >> This word is echoed quietly as well -- the musical motif swells, in time with it. << ... and afraid. >> There's a questioning feel to this statement, uncertain, puzzled. Hive's eyes crack back open -- frown down at the board. << We won't really die. /This/ storm is just a game. >> "Lotta folks here have a tendency to bring home strays, but, well, you been found, so..." Scramble shrugs, takes a swig of her beer. "That's a start, and you gotta start somewhere." She drops a few sand tokens down on the desert she has laid out. "Me, I live here. Well, /there,/" she corrects, jerking a thumb over her shoulder at...a shelf of boardgames. "Share a place with Natalie and Blink, if you met either of them." Her dark brown eyes fix on Hive for a moment, appraising. << We ain't afraid, though. >> There's a formless mental /tug/ at Hive -- gentle, despite the weight of Scramble's mania behind it. She fiddles with the vertical cardboard slip that tracks their imaginary sandstorm. "Let's just put this at 'normal', give ourselves half a chance. So how you liking it here, hm?" A slight drop of the shoulders and Paige's eyes flick to Hive, her face feeling warm. His remark brings rise to memories, recent and old, the emotions of which swarm before coalescing into a single, strong, frightened answer: << yes >>. Though not actually intended as communication, the response is clear in her mind. Her gaze turns to Scramble, the act of conversation allowing her to relax further. Paige shakes her head at the other woman's mention of her two housemates and nods at the proposed difficulty setting. "It's...it's amazing. I told someone else it's like paradise." She glances at the table. "I have a safe place to stay, a bed to sleep in, access to a shower -- what more could I ask for? I just..." A sigh is released. "I--I'm just adjusting slowly. I'm not very good at..." She trails off, seeming to have not found the proper word. "It's good. -Great-. Amazing." The rustling whispering voices that Hive speaks with die away, though the music lingers for a few more bars before fading. He reaches again for his pawn, this time picking it up to set it down precisely in the center of one of the tiles of the board. Wordless, silent, there's a ripple of fear -- tasted from Paige, reflected over to Scramble -- that washes out from him. "Paradise." When he does open his eyes and speak, it's in a voice slightly scratchy with disuse. "You don't ask a lot." "Place is as safe as the folks in it. There's a whole lot more you can ask, and whole lot more you /should/ ask." Scramble sucks in a sharp breath at the wave of fear and lifts an elegant black eyebrow at Hive. Then, kind of philosophically, "But I guess there's plenty to be afraid of, even when you have a full canteen." Paige stiffens at the mention of fear, fingers clenching slightly. "I...I don't need a lot," her answer comes softly, eyes watching Hive's actions. After speaking the words, however, thoughts flash through her mind - clothing aside from her single outfit, a source of income, belonging, love. She gives a skeptical look to Scramble. "What -should- I be asking, then? Why should I question what can easily be taken away?" Hive pulls in a quick breath, brow pulling just slightly together. His jaw clenches again, teeth giving another long slow grind. Crrrk, crrrk, through the others' talking. There's a long stretch of staring at the board before he folds his hands on the table. "I wish it were as safe as the people in it. But we're always in the world, no matter what we do." His head tips toward Scramble. << Rules say the thirstiest player goes first. That's /definitely/ you. >> "I meant in a comparative sense, but yeah... Oh, so we start where our helicopter crash-landed." Scramble sets her yellow pawn and Paige's red one down beside Hive's, on the same tile. "I dunno. Ask for help, ask for ways to give back, ask for friendship." She ticks these points out on the fingers of her left hand. "And realize that it's just that -- asking isn't demanding, and it's sure better than assuming. But you can decide for yourself, whether you need what you need badly enough to take a risk on folks." Then, taking a long swig of her beer, she turns her attention to the game. "Alright, then. One..." She sweeps up all three pawns from the home tile and flips it over, then sets all three down on different adjacent tiles. "...two, three, four. Let's go explore this Forbidden Desert!"