thisavrou | text; jan 2

text; jan 2

[It’s one of those nights. Zam tosses and turns, shifts between forms around half a dozen times, and even tries to meditate the way they’d learned with the Mabari. Nothing helps. Their mind keeps churning with thoughts and questions, completely obliterating any chance of sleep. Eventually, they sit up with a frustrated sigh and activate their MID. They don’t know if anyone will be up to respond, but maybe getting their thoughts out will help nonetheless. At least they’re sober enough this time to keep their late night ramblings confined to text, rather than waking everyone up with a video message.]

I’ve been thinking

I know most of the people on this ship aren’t dead. Or at least they don’t remember dying. But I am. Dead, I mean. And it wasn’t one of those deaths where there’s room for ambiguity.

Which is why when I first got here, I thought it was some kind of afterlife. And in some ways, it still seems like that. But let’s say it isn’t. Let’s say it’s a real, physical ship and that the captains are really going to try and get us all home.

What’s going to happen to me? [Even just typing the question fills Zam with a cold sense of dread.] I died. If the ship actually manages to get me back to my galaxy or universe or whatever it is, am I just going to die again? And if I don’t, what about the me that’s dead in an alley somewhere? Will they still be there? Or will it be like all of that never happened and I’m the only one who remembers it?

Or what if I can’t go back and I just have to stay on the Moira forever? Is that why the captains chose me? Because I can’t go back?

I don’t know if anyone on this ship has the answers. Maybe not even the captains know for sure. But so many people want to go home. And I don’t even know if I have anything to go home to.

{OOC: The post will still be up in the morning for anyone who was asleep when it was originally posted.}

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[Breq knows what it's like to die. In more ways than one. And she knows what it's like to live feeling like your death had already been decided...like you were on borrowed time and waiting for fate to hand you your final, inevitable conclusion.]

Where I'm from, people say a lot of things about fate, and coincidence, and how nothing happens that isn't supposed to happen.

[Breq wasn't sure how much of that she believed. She wasn't religious, but the culture and beliefs of the Radchaai were inartistically a part of her.]

If you're already dead, then what does it matter? Use the time you've been given. Whatever happens is going to happen.

[Given the way Zam died, they don’t exactly want to hear that it was meant to be and was “supposed to happen” all along. Their response is curt.] Fate isn’t really a comforting concept when it seems bent on screwing you over.

The knowledge that we're not completely in control of our universe usually isn't.

[And of course, people could lose themselves in the casting of omens.]

What would you want to happen when you go back?

[Several minutes pass before Zam replies again.] I don’t know. I don’t even know if I want to go back.

Maybe you should think about it. You don't have to have it all figured out, but...it can help to have a course to follow.

I am thinking about it. I can’t stop thinking about it. That’s the problem.

[Ah, that would be a problem.]

When you can't stop dwelling on something, I find that it's best to focus on goals. Do you have any goals as a member of this crew?

[They don’t, actually. It’s hard to think about your future when you’ve already died and even if that weren’t the case, Zam’s never been the type to plan ahead. Which is what makes their current preoccupation on the future all the more stressful.

They do at least make an attempt to think of something though.] Keeping all my remaining limbs attached would be nice.

A good goal. [A joke, but also quite serious. Sometimes the only goal that mattered was continuing.] Before I came here, I had just done the last thing - the only thing - I had to do. I don't know what's ahead, either back there or here. The best we can do is just take one step and then the next.

[Bel is still awake -- the day's been chaotic.]

If it helps, they brought people back after Caducius Primary with... no room for ambiguity there either.

It's been a while since five-dimensional physics, but you're you now, right? If your body is still there, whatever atoms it's made of aren't the ones you live in now. So at least some kind of annihilation paradox is out of the picture.

Does that mean that I never died? Or that I did die and the person I think I am now is just a copy?

With time travel involved in the kidnappings? Hell if I know.

It'd be... a hell of a better copy than anyone's capable of where I come from, though. Even on Jackson's Whole, they'd at least have to keep your brain alive to transfer it, or the whole thing's useless.

Yeah, well, it wouldn’t be the first thing in this place to not make sense. [Which is another contributing factor to Zam’s theory that this is the afterlife; the living world had never been this nonsensical.]

The thing is, even if I get back home and don’t keel over dead the second I step off the ship, I

Well, I’d need to know what happened. Whether I really died, or if the Ingress changed things so that I didn’t. I mean, there was someone else there when I died and I need to know what he remembers, since

Stars, why am I even talking about this

I don't know about going back to your world but you could start over. Go home with someone else

I hadn’t thought of that. [Mostly because the thought of transplanting themself into a completely different universe with almost no support is mildly terrifying, but at least they’ll have some experience on the matter after the Moira.] I guess I should try to find someone whose home isn’t too different from mine. And who wouldn’t mind having someone extra tag along.

After what we have all been through I'm sure you'll find someone. [Situations like this bring people together, after all.]

Or we might visit a planet you like better

Maybe.

It’s stupid, but just talking about this makes me kind of homesick.

It isn't stupid. Everyone wants to go 'home.'

You still have time to think.

[Zam appreciates the sentiment, but they doubt the woman would be as understanding if she knew exactly what situation they had left behind.]

Yeah. All the time in the galaxy, potentially.

I'm sorry to hear that happened to you.

It’ll happen to everyone eventually. [Though given the seemingly miraculous resurrections offered by the Moira...] Only question is whether or not it sticks.

Not always in an alley, though. Bad way to go.

I think the girl that said to go with someone else is smart. Someone you think you can work with, with the similar goals.

[But once he realizes what he's said...]

And be prepared to leave them if they change.

Yeah. It was.

Leaving would be easier said than done when you’re a guest in their universe. [And the thought of being betrayed again makes Zam’s stomach churn.]

Worlds are big. Universes are big. There's always somewhere to go.

Better to choose the chance of survival. [Even at the risk of getting dicked over.]

If we’re talking solely in terms of survival, then my best bet would be staying on the Moira. As far as I can tell, people don’t die here.

Starting over somewhere new isn’t a bad idea. But the most survivable option isn’t necessarily the best.

I guess living would be a better term for it. A step above surviving.

[He only survived for a very long time.]

What's your usual line of work?

I was a bounty hunter. [Zam feels no shame about their choice of occupation. From their point of view, they were cleaning up the scum of the galaxy. It didn’t particularly matter that it was often other scum signing their checks.]

Probably should have seen it coming. People don’t become bounty hunters if they want long lives and peaceful deaths.

I've never found a place where that job wouldn't be useful. I almost wish there was one.

You improvised well when I gave you some tools, in any case. Get more while you're stuck here.

[Late night MID messages tend to wake Ratchet up. Never a heavy sleeper to begin with, and the ever-silent cuff on his opposite hand did a good job of training him. Some messages were important.

Even though he's only talked to Zam once, Ratchet feels strangely compelled to respond. It's probably the sick, familiar feeling in the pit of his stomach when he reads that last line.]

i dont think youll die again, zam. i mean, not that same way. its...its complicated. im not saying i have the answers anymore than you do but, by taking you away from that version of you..bringing you back? that isnt what happened to you anymore. its changed. and from here going forward youre a different zam.

...i don't mean that in a metaphysical psedo-philosophical kind of way, either. literally.

I remember dying, though. I know it happened.

And even if I’m a “different Zam,” that still

It doesn’t answer everything. It wasn’t a neat, isolated death. Other people were involved. If that isn’t what happened to me anymore, what happened to them? Do they remember something different?

well, i mean

how is that any different than anything else? it's not like you had the answers before either. maybe you'll come out of this a little more prepared...make a difference in some way. who knows.

its...something.

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