tushanshu | Something to take the blues away [video]

[Ellie clicks on the console. While those who don't know her might think she looks like a normal 14 year old, those that do know her can tell she's trying to distract herself.

She rubs her nose as she ponders how to start this, before thinking that maybe she should even just cut the feed off. But, hell, she made it this far.

Her arm is bandaged up in a rough sling-- something she did herself.]

Sooo... I guess we can talk about what the fuck just happened, or we can talk about something better. Like, okay, I've had some of the kedan read to me?

Guys, guys. Their stories are fucking hilarious. I'm not even sure how someone gets engaged 12 times on accident, but there's a story for that.

And there's a story about the guy who had a huge case of mistaken identity, and owed a stupid amount of debt because someone pretended to be him when gambling.

... And a huge amount of these end up being romance stories.

Don't even fucking ask me.

[she shrugs and offers a little grin]

I asked if there was any stuff about someone pissing off a monster, or going to outer space, but nope. Nothing. Nada.

How fucking weird is that?

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[she nods, taking a bite of the dumpling as the other girl asks her if she's okay with a romance story. She pauses eating to wipe her mouth with the back of her hand]

Yeah. A real love story... Doesn't sound half bad.

It wasn't, actually. It was...kind of sweet. I knew one of the girls involved.

[Another bite of her dumpling. Taking the time to chew and formulate her words carefully. She was treading dangerous ground by sharing this story, risking revealing a bit too much of her own past. But Ellie did know some of it, so as long as she didn't go into too much detail, it should be alright.]

Back home, there was a War. It had been going on since before I was born, and most kids had grown up knowing nothing but.

Some of us couldn't stay at home. Either because their parents were killed, or they couldn't afford to feed so many mouths. So there were places where we would be sent to. ["Training Camps"] They treated us pretty okay. Taught us things. But there were also rules to follow, and...chores we had to do.

That's where I met Justine. She was a few years older than me at the time. Maybe fifteen or sixteen. I never asked--a lot of us lied about how old we were, you know? They never wanted girls younger than ten working for them, but I heard that Justine had been around since she was only eight.

Okay, so, Justine. [she didn’t ask about the places they were sent to. That sounded too much like the military school that she, herself, had been in for most of her life. Doing chores for them, learning how to shoot Fireflies… If anything, she could understand skipping over the details. They were too close to home for her]

So, she’d been around since she was 8. What happened?

Well...

We weren't supposed to make friends, but a lot of us did. Justine was like a big sister to a lot of us, but there was one girl she was closer to than any other. I forget her name, but she came and went on assignments all the time, and she always spent her time with Justine. They planned together, and they even trained together....

[Oh, no, wait, that was getting a little too much into what she did. Pressing her lips together, she looked up to explain.]

Fighting, I mean. Hand to hand. Justine always said that it was better for us to learn, just in case. And there were never any boys allowed in the girl barracks, so her friend was the only real fight she ever had.

But then, one day...her friend came back, and she had somebody with her. Her brother. Her twin brother. They looked so much alike, there was no question who he was. Even though he never said. It was only because he was her brother that he was even allowed there at all. And soon after, he met Justine...and, well, you might be able to guess what happened next.

[For a second, Ellie’s heart dropped. That almost sounded like—Riley. But in the end, she was able to put that separation between her and Riley, and Justine and this mysterious twin brother. But swallowing was still difficult. She managed with some effort, nodding slowly at the implication that Midii was trying to give.]

Yeah. She and this brother—they sorta hooked up… or did hook up, right?

[Fortunately, it was distant enough from her own story that Midii never found too many parellels herself. Mostly because of what happened next.]

Not at first, no. But all the younger girls knew it would happen. We...[She grinned here]...we used to spy on them. We all knew how to be quiet. To move without our footsteps being heard. It was good practice, and we learned a lot.

[Thought the smile turned sad.]

But then...Justine's friend and boyfriend were going to be shipped away. We didn't find out until the night before. It was supposed to be a big, important mission. One that would possibly secure them with enough money to live off of for a long time. The only catch was that we would never be able to see them again.

What the fuck… So, either give up your friends, or give up the chance to really live outside of this place? [Ellie sounded disgusted at the prospect of the choice. It was one she was all too familiar with, though on different levels]

That’s so fucking shitty… [she takes an aggressive bite of the dumpling, chewing for a moment before continuing] So, what happened in the end?

That's why they didn't want us to make friends in the first place. Because they knew something like this could always happen.

[Especially at that age. A combination of surging hormones and emotional instability didn't always make for the most rational (or loyal) of choices.]

We woke up the next morning...and they were gone.

They never left a note, but one of the other girls who had insomnia said she caught them just as they snuck out. Ran away so they wouldn't be separated. All three of them.

[she pauses at that. She was glad they ran away, but it was so close, if not for the infection, if they hadn’t been attacked by those fucking runners. So, instead, she takes another bite, and chews it over for a second, before swallowing] Good. I’m glad they did, fuck whatever they were supposed to do.

It couldn’t have been worth it. Friends? A hundred times more important than what the fuck ever was going on at that training place.

[She takes another bite, quietly mulling over the story she’d just heard]

But that was a real thing. Not a story, huh?

It's a story, but it really is true. It really happened.

[A pause, then, a fraction softer:]

Every single one of us has a story.