[open log] mama, put my guns in the ground

[strove]

WHO: Clarke Griffin
WHERE: Around New Amsterdam, as well as her dreams. There is also a prompt for other people to play with independent of Clarke.
WHEN: Over the next month IC and OOCly.
WHAT: Dreams, Clarke's time management, drawing, etc.
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Loss of autonomy and control, experimentation on humans (torture and mentions of it), genocide (and the decisions to partake in it), paranoia, mentions of suicide, mind-altering status effects.

If you have any questions, please hit me up on plurk (medieval), Discord (alison#8996), or PMs!

DRAWING (AROUND TOWN)

[To say free time is fleeting for Clarke Griffin these days would be an understatement. When she's not at PRESERVE or what she intends to keep as her day job (interning as a medical assistant), Clarke spends many of her evenings trying to check in with Red Wings. Stephen manages most of the day-to-day operations, but Clarke can't leave it all to him. The expeditions to the gates proved as much on this front.

Sometimes, it gets to be too much, though. Clarke takes to parks, to various cafes, and even a booth in the back of Red Wings to draw. It's obvious from the stylus in her hand that it's what she's doing, even if someone else can't see what she's working on. Her gaze flicks up toward her surroundings: digitally, she's holding on to memories. Trying to keep it all in one place. Now that the weather's getting better, Clarke can be found in numerous parks throughout the daytime trying to find some peace. She'll lean up against a tree, inhale deeply, and get to work.

In the late, late evenings at Red Wings, Clarke pulls out her sketchbook. When it's not a game night, it's mostly empty, and she doesn't have to explain why she has a book full of paper, some scrapped together and tightly nestled, while others hang loose, ready to be pulled free.

Her gaze remains focused, forehead soft and unconcerned, until she notices someone close to her. Clarke's left hand stills in what it's doing, and she looks up at whoever's there.] Would you like to see what I'm working on?

TIME MANAGEMENT SKILLS

[Clarke Griffin is a person with too many responsibilities because she puts too many burdens on herself. It's how she's been her entire life, perhaps more so after her father risked himself wanting to bring an answer to the people of the Ark so that they could band together and help one another, a choice that ultimately got him killed and Clarke locked away in solitary. It began here, but it continues now for a single reason: Clarke is meant to do better. Clarke wants to do better, desperately craves that, but knows it's never as simple as just doing it.

As a result, Clarke is rarely home. Her days are segmented and carefully scheduled—even though "carefully scheduled" is a misnomer. It's more chaos driven by guilt and a need to do right by people. Here, back home. Anywhere.

a. medical work Her job and her volunteering gigs are focused around the same kind of work. PRESERVE's headquarters are primarily set up to work in tandem with the world's medical systems, and the further that that New Amsterdam gets away from the EMP in early November, the calmer it is there. They're no longer offering emergency beds because the hospitals were full, but that just means that PRESERVE's volunteers are focused on other tasks: providing for people in need, offering a bed to someone who doesn't have a home to return to after a medical procedure that would otherwise be routine in nature, and trying to identify areas where people can get extra help so they can return to work. Free healthcare helps the people of this world a lot, but not if they can't work or keep themselves well. PRESERVE's focus between disasters is stabilization in New Amsterdam, but they can only do so much.

When Clarke isn't at PRESERVE, she works at a walk-in clinic as a medical assistant. She's only an intern, but she works full time and may be the person taking someone's blood pressure and checking their temperature. That's her gig, a way to feel useful in the storm of inadequacy that first followed her when she arrived in this world.

b. red wings work When she's not drawing at Red Wings and trying to keep an eye on things, she's either using that back booth to do homework (noise canceling headphones over her head to keep the sound out) or she's back in the kitchen trying to help out Nill. Clarke is looking to better staff the kitchen. She's a manager, but clearly flightier than Stephen, in part because her schedule is so damn filled that she can only be so reliable.

c. yoga Sometimes—when she's not drawing—Clarke still makes time for yoga in the parks. She has a mat, a pair of exercise leggings, and a determination to do good. Unheard by anyone around her is the instruction of a video, pulling her through downward dogs. Clarke makes time for this because it's something she picked up from Bobbi Morse (known to all as Katelin Phillips, including Clarke) back when she was stressed.

She's always stressed is the real problem, but yoga is another thing she tries to make time for in her busy days.]

HARD CHOICES (MOUNT WEATHER
[specific content warnings: human torture and experimentation, genocide of an entire people, piles of dead bodies, and the choices leading to each of these things.]

[When you arrive, the room is suffocating with a single, tangible emotion: guilt. It fills your pores, fills every part of your being. It may even distract you from the room around you at first, turning your stomach and bringing emotions to your eyes. Though your chest doesn't glow from the empathy bond, there's a sense that this sharing is due to the link you have between her and yourself. Whoever she is, assuming you don't know Clarke at all.

a. bargaining Eventually, the room will come into focus. There are numerous security screens, all in black and white, put up around the room. There is a dead man on the floor, killed by a bullet wound. (You'll know, intrinsically, that this is her fault. The residual effect of her desperation.)

Desperation is still there—but it's faint, distant. Guilt suffocates it. It's omnipresent.

Clarke nods to you as she walks past, beginning to speak to Monty Green: "Monty, can you do it? Can you irradiate the level?"

"I can do it."

"Wait a second, Clarke, we need to think about this. There are kids in there." This is Bellamy injecting his say, hoping that he can help stop this.

"I know," Clarke says.

"And people who helped us," Bellamy goes on.

Clarke looks at him, panicked and concerned, but also grounded somehow. It hasn't happened yet, but it already feels like a foregone conclusion. "Well, then please, give me a better idea."

Even if this isn't a scene you know, a situation you know, you understand a few things: irradiating the levels will kill nearly everyone on those screens. People dressed in civilian clothes, trying to live their lives. But there are people chained to a wall, people being drilled into for—for bone marrow? This is all intrinsic knowledge, but not explained beyond that.

Clarke looks to you. "Help us."

Stop us, she seems to say. There's a sense that it may be impossible. But she's asking, anyway.

b. the choice Or perhaps you arrive too late. The room is as in focus as it would be if you'd gotten here sooner. On the screens, the experimentation goes on. The room is still swallowed in guilt, but with a sense of inevitability. Normally, it would be Clarke's mother on the table, anguished pain rocking her body as a drill continues to pass into her leg, trying to drag out bone marrow against her will.

But maybe it's someone you know, you care about, someone you're forced to see die. Maybe you know all the faces in that room, ready to be put in line, ready to be used and discarded. There is a small pile of bodies off to the right, people who will be discarded later once they can no longer handle the strain of the drill colliding with their bones.

Out of the corner of your eye, Monty stops. Clarke, worried, says: "Why are you stopping?"

"Because I did it," Monty says. "All we have to do—" his hand moves to a lever, indicating it. "—is pull this. Hatches and vents will open, and the scrubbers reverse … pulling in outside air."

Off to the side, Bellamy notices something on the screen: a guard named Emerson trying to plant an explosive outside of the door to blast his way inside. "He's gonna blow the door."

"Clarke, we're out of time," Monty says, urgency hitting his tone. In response, Clarke's hand falls over the lever.

Bellamy, watching his sister on the screen be surrounded by the people of the Mountain, "My sister, my responsibility."

Clarke, resolved: "I have to save them."

Bellamy meets her eyes, and his hand covers hers. "Together."

It hasn't happened yet, though. Will you allow it to, or will you try to stop them? This is a memory, but the feeling in the room is suffocating.

All those people will die.

All of them.

c. the aftermath "Let's go get our people," Clarke says. It's over. The people of Mount Weather are dead, covering the ground, having died from radiation poisoning on the spot. None of them were prepared to survive. All of the people in the mountain have been killed. There were around 300 of them, and no matter who they were, they lost their lives that day.

You'll walk with Clarke from the security room, out where all the bodies wait. It's too soon for there to be a smell, but you know it will come eventually. You know this to be true.

But it had to be done, didn't it? Didn't it?]

I HOPE WE DO BETTER HERE

[For the few who were here before, the room itself is familiar. It's many rooms, however, interconnected to show the life of Clarke Griffin. Most of the images are new, however. Some are from Clarke's time in New Amsterdam: holding a gun to Markus' back, taking OA's hand as they walk toward a gate, or even dancing with Eugene Hicks at the music festival. There are many from home, too: Clarke's daughter, Madi, walking with her while she carries a fish to a bucket, Clarke holding a gun to someone's head as they stare at Madi in reverence, and Clarke kicking Josephine Lightbourne down. They're all sketched on the wall carefully, rarely intersecting in any organized way.

Off in the distance, you'll hear a message playing. The words won't be clear until you seek it out, but once you get there, you'll see a picture of two older people talking in the year 2184, with it entirely coming into focus on the greeting:

"Hey Bellamy, Hey Clarke. We wanted him to wake you first so we could talk. Earth … isn't coming back. You've been asleep for over 28 years, and it's as dead as the day we left. I'm working on a plan "B," though. If you're awake, that means I found it. I'll see you again when I do." Monty's about to turn it off, but Harper stops him.

"Wait, not yet." A pause. Then Harper looks into the camera seriously. Take care of our boy."

The video cuts out for a moment, right before playing again with Monty coming into focus, much older. It's now 2206. Monty begins to speak: "Jordan, your mother died today. She was pretty sick the last few years. Clarke, you were right. Her dad's genetic condition finally got her. We had a good life. Sometimes … I know she wanted to be with you guys. Maybe I did, too. But if we did that, we wouldn't be able to show you this. Son. It took me thirty years, but I finally cracked the Eligius Three mission file. Turns out it wasn't a mining mission. After sucking the Earth dry of oil, they went looking for another planet to tap. I set the coordinates a week ago. If I'm right, you should get there in 75 years. I'm tempted to put myself in cryo to see it, but without Harper … Anyway, it's in the Goldilocks zone of a binary star system, but that's all I know. Eligius Three never radioed back, or, if they did, it was after apocalypse one, so no one heard it. Can you see it? Is it beautiful? It is in my dreams. I hope we do better there. I hope Jasper was wrong, and we aren't the problem. I hope your lives there will be as happy as mine has been. Be the good guys.

May we meet again."

A panel opens up to the side, showing the world below. But the picture is unfocused. It's both Sanctum, the world Clarke knows back home, and Meadowlark's Earth, with the continents having shifted and changed, covered in water as she knows it in this version of 2512 Earth.

"It is beautiful," Clarke says, suddenly there. Or perhaps she always was?

There are two routes from here: talk to Clarke or return to the memories in the other room. Of course, both is also available.]

RED SUN RISING (PARANOIA STATUS EFFECTS AND SELF HATRED)
[specific content warnings: suicidal ideation, loss of control and autonomy.]
[additional note: I wanted to also offer people the opportunity to use the Red Sun effects and use it as a staging for some trauma, violence, etc. In the show, the Red Sun causes people to be paranoid in various ways. They hear voices from the past, they have shared hallucinations, and they also hear voices telling them to kill themselves. They also go Jack from The Shining on each other. There is no cure but time, but dream time is dream time, so you know how that goes.

Here's a promo scene where people are affected by it, but you do you!]

[Overheard, there are two suns in the sky. Within minutes, there's just one: an eclipse has come to play, changing the very foundation of where you are. What you don't know is that the air you're breathing is due to infect you. It's due to make you paranoid, and perhaps turn some internal hatred that you keep subdued into something very, very real.

Clarke is nowhere to be found at the moment.

a. If this is where someone arrives, they won't even know that this is Clarke's dream. In fact, the location is in a seemingly peaceful looking little village. There are several houses, along with a large, castle-shaped building off in the distance. It seems unreachable.

On the playground in front of these houses, there's a book that lays open, showing simple art and a story. Each line is a separate page, detailing what's to come:

Trees and plants give us shade.
We eat them every day.
When the stars align and the forest wakes,
it's time to run away.
For two days,
heaven is hell
and friends are foes.
So few are safe once they're exposed.

There is no cure but time itself. If you've ended up in this dream, you can only hope that you'll get out safely. Alive. In one piece.

b. Of course, this may not be where you start. Perhaps you're inside one of those houses, chained up to a wall, waiting for the time to pass. You've been infected already. Across the room, you see someone—is it someone you know? Hard to say.

c. Or you'll hear a conversation that Clarke is having. On the other end of a radio, there's a voice: "You're a cancer, Clarke, and you know what we do to cancer. Cut it out. You want to do better here, but you can't. Now kill yourself. Put us out of our misery. Finish what you started!"

d. or perhaps you've gotten free. It's time to find some people, to tell them what they need to hear.]

Comments

red sun rising cw suicide

[feralist]

(The weird part is that Clarke has experienced the Red Sun with Murphy-- but Murphy has not experienced it with her. Not yet, at least. He doesn't remember during this dream. That time has not come to pass in his mind just yet.

The Red Sun doesn't affect him (and in time, it won't affect him in his future). Free of the paranoia and self-hate (maybe because he was poisonous all along, maybe because he was full up on paranoia and self-hate). Since this is a dream, he's able to hear what Clarke hears. Abby Griffin's voice, telling her, imploring her to kill herself. Dig things into her wrist. Pull the trigger.

Murphy sneaks up behind Clarke as she pleads with the walkie. He's not the sneakiest, but he still attempts to grab her from behind. Even though he has trained with Bellamy, Clarke will always be stronger somehow. It's very possible he'll miss completely. Or will he?)

Clarke-- stop!

[strove]

["Don't listen to him Clarke." It's just as Abby said before, just as she continued to drone on. The radio here seems to be on for real, and Clarke is too caught up to think anything of it. To think that this isn't how it happened. Murphy shouldn't be able to hear this.

In her waking hours, she's exhausted, tireless. Unable to focus at times and getting by with caffeine supplements that she gets added to fake coffee drinks (she can't tell the difference, liking the mild sugar content and having gotten used to the artificial flavor early on in her time in that world). Here, her mind is just as exhausted, taking hold of the toxic mindset, the belief that she can't ever succeed in doing better.]

I can't let you stop me, [she says, tear-filled eyes.

Of course, in her exhaustion and lack of control over her own dream, Murphy will be able to conclude exactly what he would in his future: Clarke is more harmful to herself than anyone else.]

[feralist]

Clarke, for fuck's sake, don't kill yourself! Stop listening to her.

(He gets closer, and goes to reach for the radio.)

Give it to me.

(It's weird how he goes into these protective modes around people that hardly care about him. Back when he and Bellamy were barely friends, and he was chained up in Arkadia, he whined at him not to hurt himself. And now, the girl he sort of hated, sort of mirrored at times. He wasn't going to beg her not to hurt herself. He was going to demand it.) You're stronger than this, Clarke, this is really dumb. Really.

[strove]

[A factor of the previous memory and previous hallucination like this is the same here: Abby doesn't go after anyone else. Her voice continues berating Clarke, reminding her of how she's failed, how she's never been a good guy. How she can only hurt others.

Abby's voice goes on, though, with some variance. Some different tunes. "No matter what you do in that world, it'll never want you to stick around. All you'll do is speed it along to its end. You should take yourself out, take yourself away from the people you were too selfish to die for—"

Her hand trembles.

Clarke looks at Murphy, wordless.

Abby continues: "Only you would be selfish enough to think you can change what always happens. What came before when you were around, and what comes now."]

Can you—[Her voice breaks. Clarke is trying to break out of the torture, the misery, the way the effects of the dream are tearing her apart. It's stronger than her will, but she knows this. Knows this Murphy shouldn't be here.

Inherently.]

Turn her off? [She doesn't have the strength to do it herself yet. But asking.

Which, in and of itself, is a sign that Clarke has changed somewhere along the way.]

[feralist]

(Murphy snatches the radio from Clarke's hands and throws it down. He crushes it with one swift smash of his size 11 boots. As much as he hated her sometimes, no one deserved the kind of shit he heard on the regular from a voice sounding like his own. She did have the whole genocide thing going on too, so that probably let her win the Pain Olympics for today. He decided to have mercy on her, because sometimes they had a little too much in common.)

Clarke, she's not really there.

(He kneels beside her and puts a tentative hand on her back. Yeah, he did hate her a lot of the time. Spending so much time with Bellamy painted him in a better light. Made it seem like Clarke was the one who had him lynched. Would have left him behind. Because Bellamy and Clarke were two heads on one body for so long. It was just that way.)

[strove]

[Clarke's hand comes up to the side of her face, almost guarding it from him. The hand on her back helps. Human contact, even from Murphy, helps.

(Of course, Clarke has a much more positive regard for Murphy than the other way around. But then, she knows that she's the one who's caused most of the strife between them, caused the scenario where he had to be tied up and caught between her and Titus, caused the scenario where he had to be chained in place while she threatened Emori with the black blood serum. Caused a lot of the trouble.)

She exhales.]

I know. [Her hand falls from her face, shaky and trembling. She turns her gaze up toward him.] I know.

[Clarke looks him over, and then looks down at the radio. It's off, it's off, but she's wary. She knows how this went before. Gain control. That's what she tells others. Gain control of the dream.]

This isn't real, either, [she says, a way of forcing that to be true.

But she's not certain.

At the end of the day, when does Clarke's hatred for herself start and end?]

[feralist]

What do you mean this isn't real? You are trippin' hard, Griffin.

(He thought about it a lot when he was in space. How Emori suddenly wasn't one of them when it came to the serum. How he wasn't. It was hard for him to trust the others, but eventually he did. And then Emori distanced herself even further, so he just pushed away like a magnet. Even harder, even further away.)

HARD CHOICES B.

[championofsnark]

[Why does this keep happening to her? Will she have no restful dreams? Hawke sighs as she opens her eyes to be in a new spot, and she knows the sensation of experiencing something rather than being asleep. This is slightly different from the others though. When she looks around, she seems to understand some facts about what's happening, although not completely. Perhaps it's the technology that throws her, or the strange physical place they're in. She turns in a circle, observing before her eyes fall on Clarke.

She recognizes her from Red Wings so that answers (probably) who she's reacting to. Hawke's usual sense of humor and friendly demeanor is very somber now as she gazes at the faces on the screen. Innocent people. It reminds her of Anders. He killed just as many, as far as she knows, and with the certainty he was doing the right thing. That he had no other choice, unable to see why he was wrong. This isn't entirely the same; he was blinded by righteousness. She can see on their faces their back is truly up against the wall.

Still, with the weight of someone who knows hard choices, she looks over at Clarke.] Is there no other way? What is happening with those ... [The word comes to her, although she doesn't know it in reality.] drills?

[strove]

[Clarke has gone over this scenario countless times in her head. Countless times. What could she have done differently? What would she do now? If Lexa hadn't betrayed her, would it have ended up this way? She resented Lexa, had resented what she allowed herself to become, had resented a lot of it.

And here she is again, in her dreams. How many times has she dreamt this?

(Too many times.)

She knows Hawke, but not well enough to accept her presence here. Her eyebrows pinch together.

Would an explanation even help?]

They pull bone marrow out with it. Bone marrow can be extracted willingly and properly, but they're—[Her voice cracks. She straightens.]

They believe their people have more of a right to live than mine, and won't look at alternatives.

[championofsnark]

[Hawke isn't judgmental if anything she's openly sympathetic. Being the leader, the one who makes these calls, is a fucking terrible position. She understands it all too well. She never asked for it or wanted it herself, and she constantly wonders how much better things would have been if she wasn't in charge. If she couldn't be better, she shouldn't have been in charge. She nods slowly and contemplates, rubbing fingers against her chin.]

And if that door comes open, the rest of you will die, all your people will die. But they'll die out there anyway.

[She's just trying to get all the facts. She knows this is a memory, that there's no way of fixing it, but it's absolutely the type of thing she agonizes over in her own dreams.]

It's a shite position to be in, but it doesn't look like you have any options.

[strove]

If the door opens, they die. Only a few of them have taken the cure to allow them to walk freely outside. [That's the choice here. They can open up the vents, allow the people to die, and then live with the consequences.]

If those were your people, what would you do? ["Your people." It's not said defensively. Some part of Clarke is prying, hopeful, that maybe there would be a different answer in the future.

The Primes don't make up hundreds of people, but—when it comes to something like this, they're bound to need to go, right? To free Sanctum from their toxic hold?]

[championofsnark]

[Hawke laughs with no humor to it, more like a startled suck in of air, but it's because laughter is as much a weapon of hers than a knife. Clarke, whether she likes it or not, is revealing big pieces of herself here, and Hawke's stumbled into it unfairly, so she feels like tit for tat is the fairest way to be. That's the only form of true honor she has, most of the time.]

If there was a choice between my band of miscreants and everyone else in the world, I'd pick them, every time. [Now that's a piece of cold honesty.] When I said it's us against the world to my friends, I meant it. [She shrugs, apologetic but also resigned.]

A lot of people died because I loved a handful of them more than anything else. If I could save everyone I would. [She glances back at the people who are most certainly going to die, and it's not a lack of sympathy or care on her face. In fact, Hawke cares a little too much, although she wishes it wasn't the case. It would make it all easier.]

It's a terrible choice either way and one you've had to live with, I see.

[strove]

[For a moment, Clarke's eyes close, allowing that knowledge to sink in. The room itself remains the same, but Bellamy and Monty disappear like a memory, fleeting. One of them is gone, dead after living the life he chose for himself alongside his wife, while the other has grown and changed, in part because of this day.

And Clarke? Clarke ran away because of it at first, as if she could take their struggles with her at the time.

She can't do that anymore, can't fool herself. When her eyes reopen, she looks older. Clarke's the type of person who will always have a younger face, but her cheeks are fuller, and her build is different, like she carries herself less bunched up, and more striding and forthright. It's a part of herself she had to grow into with them, even if she's always been in people's face when the time called for it.]

I've questioned this moment in my life a lot. [Not "the most." There are too many.] But the answer is always the same. They chose their people over mine, so I had to do the same in reverse. They turned away our solutions and let their people die because of it.

RED RISING SUN; C.

[selfimage]

[ there's something about this that seems invasive, but it doesn't really bother him. he's pried before, been in the mind of others before, and those types of barriers are different when they're not pertaining to him. there's awareness of what this is, and what it may threaten to be. there's awareness that what's on the other side of that radio is something that comes so vividly in many memories across many lives. it hits far too close to the words of his brethren, and on occasion, his family.

in a single swat, he moves to knock the radio from the table and into one of the metal-paned walls. ]

Shut up.

[ a voice he's heard before.

a deep breath.

a voice he defiant tries not to listen to. ]

[strove]

[For a moment, the radio goes silent. Mission accomplished. Clarke's shoulders tremble as she looks at Loki, a knife in her hand. He shouldn't be here. The person who drew her out of this was Murphy, and it was only just barely, only just fleetingly managed. She could barely focus when he and Bellamy fought, could barely keep it together.

And then—the radio crackles to life. Her mother's voice gets louder.]

There's someone else there, isn't there, Clarke? One of the ones who don't know. One of the ones you've fooled. All you've done is infect them. And then one day, the time will come where you'll betray them, or get them killed. Or kill them yourself, all because it's what you believe is right. Just because you haven't had to do it yet doesn't mean you won't. You'll find a way.

[selfimage]

[ it's clear that he shouldn't be here, but he's familiar with the ephemeral nature of dreams. this is a situation he's been in before—not just in this world, but also in others. the words ring through his brain, both familiar in the way that's jarring and easy to ignore like so many other barbs that have been thrown in his direction.

his eyes go to Clarke first, and the knife second. it doesn't seem to faze him, because his eyes go back to the radio. ]

Don't you have the knack for prophecy? [ but the words are so sharp they're close to caustic. ] Shut up means shut up, you know.

[ he kicks it again for a good measure. ]

[strove]

[The radio is dented, damaged. It cuts out again. Clarke doesn't seem to hear it any less, though. The knife trembles in her hand, tears filling her eyes. Even if the voice is gone, she remembers what her mother had to say. Loki shouldn't be here, shouldn't come closer.

What if she slips? Makes a mistake?

Isn't able to stop herself from doing what she always does?

Clarke Griffin is a cancer. She spreads and spreads and makes things worse.]

You—you have to go. You don't need to see this.

[What she needs to do.]

[selfimage]

[ it feels like a downward spiral, even if he destroys the source. Clarke looks terrified and Loki looks—well, a little irritated at the circumstances.

she's probably right—he's not the best person to be here. ]

Do you listen to this drivel?

[ he can deduce the metaphor of the radio, anyway. ]

[strove]

[Drivel. Loki's never heard of what she's done. What she always does, at least when given a chance.

Like a cancer, she continues to live and spread, never being able to be stopped.

Even Josephine Lightbourne couldn't make it out of the experience with Clarke Griffin alive.

Isn't that evidence enough?]

It's my mom.

[As if that's an answer. But it is, at the same time: one of affirmation.

Of course she listens. It's the truth.]

time management skills • b

[variate]

[ when there's not many people at the bar he preps some of the cocktail garnishes: limes, lemons, carrot sticks, grated cinnamon, or anything that needs to be chopped or peeled in preparation for the night's crowd. he's diligent in his work without complaint. in his hands is a bin filled to the brim with lemon wedges.

for the most part, he's pretty quiet. he does his job, he chats when necessary, and he makes sure to clean up. it's not often that he makes a comment on someone else's work. his voice is low: ]

You'll need more roux for that. Do you need help?

[ because if someone doesn't pay attention to that, it'll burn. ]

[strove]

[The truth is that she's working off a recipe with a video, but she's too frazzled, too stretched thin to watch the video itself. Her gaze flicks over to him as she stops chopping up a series of peppers, and then looks into the pot. It is looking as if it's needing a stirring, but that's only because the smell of the flour and oil isn't terribly appetizing.]

You can tell what I'm doing?

[Making a roux in the first place is a new skill, learned in part because of her need to help out here.

It doesn't mean she's good at it.]

You can cook? [she asks a beat later. They have countless bartenders, but very few cooks.

Too few cooks.]

[variate]

[ there's no way that he can leave her like this.

as she asks the last question, he begins to roll up his sleeves from mid-forearm to his elbow. that's all the invitation that he needs to step in and help, and he doesn't seem to miss a beat. the pot gets stirred as she chops, and he folds the roux over and over in the pot. there are some things that Ren needs to practice to learn, but cooking had been something he had worked steadily toward ever since he arrived in Tokyo. he knows what needs to be done without a second thought.

belatedly, she gets a little nod in response. ]

[strove]

[Already better than her at her best: haphazardly scraping the roux off the bottom of the pan to ensure that it doesn't stick there. She nods, turning back to what she's doing. At least she's capable with a knife, for whatever it's worth. One thing they were taught even on the Ark was that even cuts would make for even cooking, so it's something she's carried forward, even in curing and drying meat for herself.

One pepper is done, another follows in its place.]

You work in the front, but we need extra hands back here. I'd like to start scheduling you here.

[It's not a question. Clarke is definitely the less stern of the Red Wings owners, if only because she's not ... Stephen Strange. But she's still Clarke, so there's that.]

[variate]

[ the rest of the chopping is something that he leaves to her. the roux gets put into one of the small bowls when it's done, and he grabs a spoon to taste the sauce that's on the stove. he has to let it cool before he can.

she's straight-forward, and he responds in the same manner. ]

If I can be helpful back here. [ though there's a pause. ] ... I do like working with people, though. I'd like to split my time.

[ there are certain things he likes about working up front. the patrons at the bar, and learning new skills. ]

[strove]

We do a lot of prep in the morning and early afternoon before we open at two. If you could help Nill there, it will go a long way.

[The fact that he enjoys people is something she notes. Clarke files away that information, in part because it's useful.

She may not know how to run a business, but she knows how to assign others to tasks. It's halfway there.

Ish.]

Do you know of anyone else who can cook among us?