[open] when you got nowhere left to go

[fintastic]

Who| Feferi and you
What| Feferi is hanging around the training center after her death, trying to distract herself by cheering other people up.
Where| Training Center, all around
When| end of Week 4/beginning of Week 5
Warnings/Notes| possible talk of death, violence, and mutilation in subthreads

It stings, losing. Feferi wasn't really prepared to lose. She's a troll, she should have had the upper edge, even without her powers. But she let guard down, and in the end, that was her undoing. It's not the memory of all the pain, the daily paranoia that someone might be lurking around the corner. It's that she knows she can't protect Sollux any more than she already has, and that hurts more than any broken bone ever could. She just wanted one of them to come out on top, to take away some of the worry.

She takes to the common areas of the training center, trying to find some of her fellow tributes who are lurking around, trying to find the ones who look like they're in need of a cheering up, even even some of the ones who aren't. There's no sense in moping. She's still upset, but she knows it will pass soon enough. She reassures her that in time, she'll see her nearly five weeks in the arena as a success. For her first time, she did pretty well-- or so she'll think when the initial bite passes.

Vaguely, she's aware that the power outage in the Capitol wasn't any more pleasant than it was in the arena, but she can't let that stop her. Others might need a cheering up even more in light of all the action. She'll walk up to anyone, flagging down her friends, and introducing herself to strangers with a big smile and a perk of her fins and a friendly-sounding "Hi there!"

Comments

hope this is okay?

[biomechatronic]

Dennett was more accustomed to losing than he should probably feel comfortable with. Dying was terrible, but he still couldn't manage to bring himself to kill. He is a doctor. Death is his enemy, not his ally.

But he felt it, this time. He'd lashed out, when he'd been stabbed, and if he'd been more skilled, or more lucid, he might actually have hurt her. It wasn't a good feeling, this idea he might be slipping, that next time, he might kill.

So if she's not moping, that's fine. Dennett's moping enough for the both of them.

He twitches at her greeting, immediately figuring she must have mistaken him for someone else. "I. Uh. I'm sorry?"

of course 38D

[fintastic]

"I said, hi there!" Feferi's fins twitch, but her smile doesn't falter. "I'm Feferi! I wanted to introduce myself to the rest of my fellow Tributes, because I did not get a chance to before the Arena!"

There's a subtle way she smiles a little more when she says words like tributes and arena, easy enough to miss and barely short of a snarl; fleeting, but enough to show off her fangs. Nothing else in her pleasant demeanor shows her deep dissatisfaction with being here.

[biomechatronic]

The fins are a little eye-catching, but she's hardly the first troll he's seen here. Just the first...girl troll. He guesses they had girl trolls too. Why not?

"A-are you sure that's a good idea? I mean...I don't really want to run into the, uh, the people who killed me." The one he'd asked to kill him was an exception, except he would have NO idea how to start that conversation.

[fintastic]

"Why wouldn't it be a good idea? I know I didn't kill you, so I think you are safe!" She's pretty sure she only killed one person, and that was an accident entirely. She has to remember to find that boy, and apologize, though after the number his friend did on her, she is pretty sure they're even. "So, you are...?"

[biomechatronic]

"No, you didn't." Yet. There's always, apparently, another Arena. In which, who knows? Still, he doesn't feel particularly safe. "I'm sorry. I just...my last time was, well, even worse than the first." No surprise, that time, but it was still bad. "I'm Dennett. Dennett Norton. I'm--I used to be--a doctor."

[fintastic]

"Well, if it comes down to us, I promise I will make it a fair fight!" That's really the best that she can promise to anyway. She wishes she could say she'd spare this human if they were to face down in the arena, but she knows she wouldn't. Even if she's still a little shaken over her actual kill, if it really came down to it... she needs to win, just like everyone else does. "It's nice to meet you! Why did you stop?"

[biomechatronic]

"You'd have to...well, I don't even think that's possible. I don't fight. I don't think I can." He's a wuss. Sorry.

"It's hard to be a doctor, here. I don't think I can call myself one. And my last case...he's here too." Like a walking, mechanical reminder of his lack of medical ethics.

[fintastic]

"I think if you're still trying, or you still really want to be, you should be able to call yourself a doctor!" Ever the optimist, this one, though she'll be the first to tell you she's not a princess anymore if she doesn't have an empire to rule over. "It's not like you can control any of this. Who's your last, uhm, case?"

She's not even entirely clear on what human doctors do. It's such a foreign concept, but she'll try to be positive about it anyway.

[biomechatronic]

"It's hard to call yourself a doctor when your equipment is a first aid kit you bought at a drug store." Only so much use for antibiotic ointment, really. He didn't even know why he bought it. Just to have, like a souvenir.

"Oh. He's here. Alex Murphy. Do you know him?"

[fintastic]

"Alex Murphy?" She has to stop and think. She's met a lot of people, and heard a lot more names, but that one doesn't ring any bells, so she shakes her head. "No, sorry! Is he nice? I think I'd like to meet him!"

Then again, Feferi would like to meet everyone, so that doesn't mean much coming from her. The sentiment is there all the same.

[biomechatronic]

"Big, silver and black armor, like a robot." More like a robot than he wanted to think, when he'd last seen him.

"He, uh, he can be very nice. I haven't seen him since the last arena." He gives a rueful smile. "He made me keep the price tags of the clothes I took from the department store. SO it wouldn't be stealing." So, there's Alex for you.

[fintastic]

"Sounds like there's a lot of robots here..."

First Thor had a robot friend, and now this guy? That's twice as many robots as she's ever known, and clearly that constitutes a lot. But the second part is what gets her, and she gives him a confused look. "How does that make it not stealing?"

Is this some kind of human custom that she doesn't know about? It would be handy to know, if it is. Did she stumble over some faux pas by taking clothes in the Arena? This is important to her; she needs to keep up a good image.

[biomechatronic]

"Oh, he's not a robot. Not really. He's a cyborg. He had an accident, in his, er, human body." And Dennett fixed it, as best he could.

No, none of that, Dennett. You gave him a life without pain, a life where he could do something, where he wouldn't be dependent on everyone for his needs.

"I. Uh, I think he expected me to pay for them later. But I died and then I woke up and didn't have them." OH WELL, justice system. But it probably says something about the caliber of nerd he is that he dutifully kept them as long as he could.

[fintastic]

"Oh! Well if you died, then I guess that changes thing." That doesn't change anything at all, and to a degree, she's humoring him, but if that's the only explanation he has to offer, then she's just glad she didn't miss something important. "You know, I had a friend once, and then she died, and then our other friend made a robot body for her... so I know what it's like!"

[biomechatronic]

"Does it?" She sounds like she knows, and honestly, it's all a little ridiculous, but you know what? He could use a little ridiculous right now. "I may ask you to vouch for me, then. If he asks." Which he hopes Alex doesn't, but he remembers all too well how Alex is--was--when neurosuppressed like that. One-track-mind didn't even begin to cover it.

"You do? And did, I mean, were you okay with that?"

[fintastic]

"Don't worry, I've got your back!" Ridiculous is what Feferi's good at, especially when she's trying to avoid the grim reality.

"Of course I was okay with it! Aradia might have felt differently about it though. I think she was very depressed as a robot? We never really talked about it after she came back to life." She wishes Aradia was here right now. It'd be good for Sollux, and Feferi would like to talk to her too. She's always seemed so savvy to managing complicated things like the flow of time.

[biomechatronic]

He could hug her, if he wasn't afraid of getting stabbed. After that catastrophe with Eponine, he's more than a little afraid of anything that might be forcing himself on a female. But still, she's like a ray of sunshine and he's like....uh...something that sure could use some sunshine.

"A robot, well, it's a big change. With my patients, they often need counseling, to get used to the new, well, the new opportunities they have." That's how he's always viewed it. Opportunities. Continued life, continued independence. "But you. You were happy to have her back?"

[fintastic]

"I think being a ghost first made things different?" Feferi can't even begin to imagine what that was like, but it did seem to make Aradia a lot more... depressed. She can only take a guess. "But yeah! I mean, it was better than not having her at all, and she is important to someone who is important to me. Have you met Sollux yet? He's like me, but he has no fins, and he has two horns on both sides! He is the best hacker in the world!"

[biomechatronic]

"Ghost?" He shakes his head. "I'm sure that's...that's just a figure of speech." Ghosts don't exist, after all.

Still, it's kind of a nice story. Sweet, at any rate. "N-no. I only know one other, uh, troll." He still winces when he says the word, because he's not quite sure it's not an insult.

[fintastic]

"Nope, no figure of speech! She was in fact a ghost!" And Feferi has never stopped to question it. Her boyfriend hears the psychic voices of the soon-to-be-deceased, and if that's not weird to her, then very little else is. "Which other troll have you met? There aren't many of us left, so I probably know them!"

[biomechatronic]

"How do you know? I mean, did you see her? Talk to her? When she was a ghost?" Maybe it was some medically induced delusion. "The, uh the one called Fray Song?" He's pretty sure that's close to it. "He talks very...emphatically."

[fintastic]

"My boyfriend talked to her online, sometimes. I lived way too far away to see her in person, even when she was alive, so I didn't actually... get to talk to her myself! But she was definitely involved with our friends." It's just so matter of fact for her. Of course a ghost could chat online! And even if she had tried to visit Aradia's ghost, who's saying Feferi would have been able to see her? That wasn't an ability that most highbloods had. "I do not think I have met him yet, though. Maybe I will have to find him! It can't be too hard around here."

[biomechatronic]

"Oh." Because what can you say to that, really? It sounds like some 80s high school John Waters movie plot...with robots. Either that or this whole story is, as he might say politely, bunk.

But Fraysong had told him to be wary of the finny kind of troll.

But. THus far, she certainly didn't seem evil. At worst, a little, well, confused. "It's harder than you think. People lose track of each other easily here." Or at least he does. "Or run into them at the worst times, like the Arena." Like he'd run into ALex.