( catch all )

[leaderboards]

WHO: Carolina + others
WHERE: dreamscapes, around New Amsterdam
WHEN: july 2512+
WHAT: a catch all log
NOTES OR WARNINGS: general space marine ptsd; will update with anything else.

currently have one open dreamshare! will match prose if you feel more comfortable and feel free to hit me up if you want to plot something else: eflat or streetsongs#5551 or pm

Comments

HERE WE GO AGAIN - D lol

[championofsnark]

Hawke is getting so used to these moments that when she opens her eyes into it, she doesn't have those few moments of uncertainty. She simply sighs and rolls her eyes, waiting to see if she can recognize anyone in it. She thinks she sees someone heading into a door and the head looks familiar, so she follows her in.

"Oh good, it's you," she says once she recognizes Carolina. She doesn't notice her reaching for the glasses, instead she focuses her attention on the woman in the looping video. Hawke narrows her eyes. "It's a bit spooky, only silence. Is there a sound up button around here?" See, she's gotten so used to modern slang that she knows what to ask for and everything!

oh heck yeah

[leaderboards]

Before Carolina has a chance to be properly startled by someone joining her dream, Hawke speaks and puts her at ease. It's not a stranger, then, but one of the few people in New Amsterdam that Carolina has grown to genuinely consider a friend. If anyone's going to watch her subconscious haunt her with this room, she's glad it's Hawke.

"No buttons. This facility was mostly voice controlled, just a few terminals here and there," she says, looking back at Hawke to give her a soft, weary sort of smile. "But since this is a dream, I can probably just..."

Carolina closes her eyes as she talks, focusing on the memory of the video, of watching it when she was younger, a teenager who just wanted to feel close to one of her parents, who poured over every video of Allison she could find. That's better, she thinks, than thinking too much about the loop the Director had the video on in this room.

"— that thing down, you're going to make me late."

The video and the sound don't match up, at first, and even Carolina has to admit that that's not exactly a reassuring development. But as she watches, focuses, static fills in the gaps until the words meet up with the movement in the video.

"Don't worry, you'll see me again," the soldier in the video promises and that tired, sad smile of Carolina's is back.

She doesn't exactly need to breathe in a dream, but she still takes a deep breath before she offers, "This was my mother."

[championofsnark]

"Voice-controlled, how fancy." Hawke is only slightly on top of tech. Barely. Limping along. But she's fairly comfortable in her ignorance too. Some things just are. Carolina seems to be able to control her dream so Hawke steps over to her friend, watching this new version. The strangeness of sound and video not syncing up perfectly is odd, but she can still get the gist of it.

She also picks up pretty quickly that this is someone important to Carolina before she speaks. There's something loving about the memory, the type of thing someone has remembered many times. Hawke flinches when she says you'll see me again, because yeah, obviously if she came back someone would be playing this clip over and over. Poor thing.

It becomes much more poor thing when Carolina gives context and Hawke's eyes move to her quickly, startled. "Shite, I'm sorry." Because she's already guessed this story didn't end well. They might be from very different worlds with tech, but they aren't when it comes to tragedy.

They're friends, in Hawke's eyes, which is why she doesn't hesitate to reach over and place a gentle hand on her shoulder. "She's lovely. She also looks like she could kick some arse."

[leaderboards]

As much as Carolina likes to pretend she dislikes any invasion of her personal space, Hawke has earned enough trust and affection for her to drop the act and give her friend a grateful little smile. The hand on her shoulder is nice, even if it's just in a dream. Reassuring.

"Right on both counts," Carolina says softly, obviously proud of that. Proud of Allison, proud to be her daughter. Hawke's told Carolina about her own mother before, so it feels fair to return the favour. "I grew up planning to enlist, so I could be like her."

And she's never been quite sure if she got there, if she ever became a person that Allison would be proud to call a daughter.

"You know, it's funny," she continues, in a tone that says that the following observation isn't really funny at all. "I can't remember where I was when my father was recording this. I had breakfast with my parents, my mother hugged me and said she'd see me in a few months and then... I went to school or to play with a friend or something. It doesn't really matter, I know that, but I still wish I could remember."

[championofsnark]

They've reached this place of comfort with each other without intending it, but that's the best kind of friendship for Hawke. She tends to slide her way into someone's life and heart and then burrow in, stay there forever. Carolina reminds her of Aveline, but she's a lot easier to talk to.

She nods, understanding well how a child would want to follow in a parent's footsteps. Bethany was like that with their father, but Hawke was the warrior in their family. And Carver followed her. She'll always regret that. But this isn't about her, this is about Carolina, and therefore the redhead gets her full attention.

"You think that these significant moments would feel significant when they happen, but most of the time, they're average. Every day shite." She gets it, she really does. Memories want to crystalize, but it doesn't work by sheer will power. Hawke keeps the hand on her shoulder since she doesn't seem to mind.

"It matters," she says gently, "because if that's the last time you saw her, you want to remember every detail, yeah? But brains don't work that way." Hawke half-smiles. "They're real arseholes that way."

[leaderboards]

"They are, aren't they?"

For all the crystal clear memories Carolina has, it bothers her that she doesn't know what happened after she hugged her mother for the last time. But Hawke's right: some things are only significant in hindsight, some last times can't be confirmed as the last for months or years.

"And to give myself a little bit of a break, six year olds aren't known for their attentiveness," Carolina says, tone dry, her weight shifting toward Hawke to gently bump her elbow against the other woman's side. It's gratitude not just for the gesture of affection, but for the space to talk about this.

"I try not to think about her too much," she continues, her smile a wistful one as she watches the footage loop again. It's so much easier, so much nicer to make this dream about her mother and not about the room they're in at all. "Obviously, my subconscious thought this needed to come up. Brains being shitty again, I guess."

my brain has returned to life

[championofsnark]

"You were only six? I have to tell you, I barely remember anything from that age." Hawke remembers vague things like her father, the birth of her siblings, them always moving and trying to keep under the radar so no one gets suspicious about the apostate mage. Her memories come more in snatches, like Bethany's first word or Carver's insistence on pulling her hair and laughing about it.

It's a shame though, that she lost her mother that young because it meant memories were gaps and difficult to grasp. She smiles when Carolina bumps her and bumps her back. She'd get along so well with her gang, she just knew it.

Hawke's attention moves back to the footage. "Or maybe you do want to occasionally think about her, and your brain's encouraging it. Just for now." It is a wistful and sad memory, but sometimes those have to be embraced. The mind is a troublesome thing, otherwise she wouldn't be caught forever in her mistakes in her own dreams.

"That being said, this is not your room, I take it. If you didn't want to be stuck on her." And this loop is in no way a healthy option for someone who wants to move on. "Not to poke at a sore, mind you."