[open]

[strove]

WHO: Clarke Griffin + anyone
WHERE: New Amsterdam
WHEN: The very end of November 2511 into December 2511
WHAT: Returning from a canon update, reintegrating.
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Likely references to loss of autonomy, death, bodysnatching without consent, and spoilers for the entirety of season 6 of The 100.

[Arriving back in New Amsterdam is a shock to Clarke's system. She wakes up in her bed—her bed. Not Josephine Lightbourne's. Her body. Not Josephine Lightbourne's. Whereas she has handled all of these complications back home, there's still a haziness in adjusting here. Two lives lived parallel. Whereas before, she had been certain that her life would be lonely, barely lived—her mind works to correct. To repair. To adjust. She can't adhere to notions that she held before. It will take time. Adjust. Adapt.

Adapt.

And do better. That's the one mantra that stays with her. Being here doesn't change that. Do better. Josephine had mocked that need, but that just tells Clarke that she was on the right track. That she is on the right track. Do better. So, she will.

Once Clarke has slept about a whole day to feel better, she takes some of her vital signs to make sure that she can manage being on her feet. It turns out that a good night of sleep was all she needed (and a good part of a day, at that). That's fine.

Otherwise? She has to acquaint herself with the city again. A cursory glance told her that she has a lot of reading to do. And a lot of seeing how things are in New Amsterdam proper. Clarke makes a to-do list:

a. get a new job. Giles Bell is surprisingly forgiving about her absence, but she tells them that she doesn't think it's the path she'd like to take. Having an evil scientist in her head really did a number on her, so she's willing to avoid too much science at the moment. She'll be hitting the streets to look for ideas.

b. Ask around about the animals that are getting into the city. Clarke hasn't seen any yet, but she knows they're around.

c. Check into travel to and from the city. This is for a future project, one important to all of the Displaced.

d. Start volunteering. She has enough medical training that she can do that. It's a place to start.

e. Otherwise, just be around for the first time since she came back inside of the walls after the EMP. She hadn't stuck around for long, either. Her disappearance was near immediate after she came back with Jyn and Prompto, vanishing before she even hit her apartment on her way home.

Clarke will look different. Her hair is more purposefully cut, and she starts to tend toward a darker wardrobe, with some splashes of red and blue where needed. She is older by six years, and carries herself in a way where someone may pick that up. But she's not exactly going to go around announcing it, not yet.

She has things that she has to do. A lot of things.]

[ooc: I'll also be putting prompts below! If you'd like a thread with Clarke, hit me up in PMs, on plurk @ medieval, or on Discord @ alison#8996.]

Comments

[realists]

[ jyn shakes her head. what she knows best is fighting, surviving, but she has the tools to be an excellent farmer and she is teaching herself as time goes on. armed with books and experience, she'll be fine. ]

We had a farm when I young. We couldn't depend on timely supply ships so my parents started farming and I was a mostly useless assistant.

[ she was four when it started and eight when it ended so she doesn't know how much she absorbed, but she has been pretty successful with keeping her plants alive in the allotments at their building and the herbs in their kitchen. ]

I've got books now.

[strove]

Books can do better than nothing. And trust me, we had a lot of nothing left. I'm still surprised I learned what I could about the ground before I went to it. [She had learned a decent amount through Earth Skills: how to track, how to smoke meat and hunt, how to follow constellations. All things that made sense. But the problem is that Charles Pike was a great teacher who'd never been down to the planet himself. None of them had been.]

I'd probably want to look into how to grow natural remedies if we went that route. Medicines that we can have on hand to help, since I figure that civilization won't want much to do with us. Though maybe they'll pay us the lip service and help. [Considering everything? Possible.] I'd rather not depend on it, though.

[realists]

I can look into that too.

[ she already makes mint tea when she's eaten anything too rich or spicy and her poor stomach decides it can't handle it yet. does it work or is it a placebo, the world may never know. it shouldn't be hard to look into other medicinally used herbs. ]

I would have hated growing up in space.

[ she spent six months on a freighter and almost lost her mind without fresh air. jyn prefers to be planet bound, ground and grass under her feet. she is, after all, eating lunch sitting on the grass in the park. ]

[strove]

Being in a city isn't much better. Even with all their attempts at greenery, it's nothing like how it was when we first touched the ground. [The sun beating down, like she always dreamed. Splashes of green. A mountain in the distance. For those few brief moments, right after Octavia's loud declaration, they were in a peaceful place.]

But that's also why I wanted to take a little day trip outside. I needed it.

[realists]

So did I.

[ it's why cassian didn't try to stop her, why she hated new tokyo so much, aside from the emotional shitshow that happened in new tokyo. she doesn't remember coruscant very well, but she remembers her mother seeking out the playgrounds with fake grass and some semblance of fresh air. ]

's why I like it right here. [ in this park, with her new baby trees. ]

[strove]

Fair enough. I understand why the walls are there, I do. But it still feels a little daunting to experience day in and day out.

[Besides, Clarke has her doubts that the walls are doing the work they should be doing. They can't erase the sins of the past. She knows that no fixture can really handle that.]

[realists]

I try not to look at them.

[ the time flashes in her mind and she almost flinches, startled by the passing of time. ugh. she doesn't want to go back to work. ]

My lunch hour is over.

[strove]

[Clarke gathers up her sketchbook, tucking it away in her tote. She stands up, holding a hand out to Jyn.]

Come on, I'll walk you back.

[realists]

[ jyn lets clarke help her up, brushing the dirt off her pants. she also lets clarke walk her right in and pearl the receptionist turns into an anime character with her big eyes. jyn has so many different lunch dates. the scandal.

c'est fini, the end. ]