video;

[deal]

[Cassandra glances over before focusing on her wind up music box, and begins slowly turning the handle. Music starts to play, a tune that may be familiar to people from Earth. She's not doing this to play music for everyone though, so she stops after a handful of seconds, looking thoughtful.]

It's funny. You hate home until you've been gone from it long enough, and then you get homesick and home is all you can think about. No matter how shitty it is, you forget about all of the bad things and only care about the people you left behind.

[The music box is picked up and clinched in her hand.]

Do you think it's possible to get a message back to someone? Has anyone tried communicating outside the ship yet? If things like this - [She drops the music box in her hand on the table she's sitting at.] can come through the Ingress to us, we have to be able to send things back through it.

Comments

[deal]

[She bites at her lip and nods, seeming to take in his words and think them over.]

It can't be too random. A bunch of us seemed to get things around the same time. There has to be a pattern to it.

[neveroutwrenched]

Well, okay there are patterns....it spits out a bunch of stuff same time every month, people every month. It's like clockwork, in that regard. But there doesn't seem to be any pattern to what it brings or why.

[People were just as apt to get a completely generic and trivial items as they were to get something personal. But there was no denying it had an ability - a penchant, even - for bringing things from home.]

If we could do that...what would you send back?

[deal]

A note to some people. I want to let them know I'm alive, but they don't have to look for me.

[She shrugs, knowing that it likely sounds stupid.]

I guess I wouldn't hesitate to send the music box back to where it came from, either.

[neveroutwrenched]

I think a lot of people would like that.

[He silently debates for a moment, not knowing if it would be more comforting or less to know they probably didn't even know she was gone. Although even that was still just a theory....people had come and gone and returned again, with no gaps in their own timeline but that didn't mean it was always true.

Where the Ingress was concerned, very little made sense.]

I, uh, guess it's not something with happy memories this time?

[deal]

It's the only thing I've ever gotten here.

[Her voice is soft, and a little detached. She doesn't want to fully explain why the song and the music box that plays it are unwanted, but she knows that a little explanation is needed or else she's going to sound bitchy.]

There was a man back home, he called me Sunshine. He'd sing that song to me sometimes. He...wasn't a good guy.

[neveroutwrenched]

Ah.

[Enough said; he's not going to pry any further than that. They all had their bad mementos and worse memories, and her tone says this is one of those cases.]

Well, if you ever want to get rid of it in a big way, I promise that airlock venting is very cathartic.

[deal]

Airlock venting sounds dangerous.

[There's a pause, and she pulls a face as she realizes something.]

Airlock anything sounds dangerous, actually. I should give it a try sometime.

[neveroutwrenched]

Maybe a little. But most fun things are.

[Spoken like someone ten years younger, trying to be cool; he shakes his head.]

Uh, well, you know what I mean. [A beat.] I'm guessing you're from a more terrestrial version of Earth? No space travel?

[deal]

[She nods, laughing a little.]

We're definitely landlocked. No space travel. There used to be, a long time ago, but now there's not anything.

[Although she realizes just then that there's probably people out in space who probably didn't go back home and just died out in their little space stations or wherever they were. It's a sobering and depressing thought and it makes her look a little somber.]

What kind of Earth are you from?