eighteen

[i_got_this]

Thanks for fucking nothing, castle. I really appreciate being able to explore the city as a goddamned furrball.

Please, someone tell me they got embarrassing footage of people getting owned at karaoke. I need a pick me up.


Filtered to Carolina

[So spending time as a Pallas cat had forced South to think about some things, and as mad as she still was about being abandoned at Freelancer, she kept coming back to what Carolina had told her.]

[Except she doesn't know how to word it, she's not even sure what she's asking, but she wants more than what she got in the Details department, so after a few moments she just writes,]

CT

?

Comments

[fanstheflame]

What were you fighting against?

[i_got_this]

Insurrecctionists and aliens. Freelancer pretty much only dealt with the Innies. [Or, well ... what they were told were Innies.]

[fanstheflame]

You mean.... Like rebels.... ? [it's slowly starting to dawn on him that this is a conversation it might not be wise to have]

[i_got_this]

Yup. Started off as like, whining, boo hoo UNSC oppressing us, and then, like. They started targeting highly populated areas. That's when shit got real, you know?

Anyway, yeah, I been on a few operations against them. [She laughs,] Jetpack battle in a zer-o garage was pretty fun.

[fanstheflame]

..... [he has to check himself, remind himself that her government is not his Capitol, and things may have been very different. he decides to feel it out, carefully:]

Were they being oppressed? Mistreated? Do you know?

[i_got_this]

[South snorted.] No. They were spoiled brats. I dunno what their problem was. Just that the more colonies we had the harder it was for the UNSC to like, cover them or whatever? But it's not like anything happened they just got whiney. Then they got dangerous. Uh, like, uh ...

[She pauses, trying to think back to her history classes.] 2512? No, 2511 ... I dunno, a while ago, they nuked Haven and killed like, a couple million people.

[fanstheflame]

...There had to be more going on than you knew.... People wouldn't just destroy a place without reason, would they? I mean ... Maybe there weren't enough resources once the colonies spread out, and people got ......

[yeah, this isn't a conversation they should have. he feels vaguely sick, now.]

[i_got_this]

[Probably not, South's getting defensive now. Freelancer may be a private project, but it operated vaguely under UNSC and ONI, and while she wasn't necessarily loyal to anything, there was a lot of bad feelings built up against the Insurrectionists.]

-- the colonies were nothing but resources! It's the Inner Colonies that would suffer if we lost any of them, yeah?

[fanstheflame]

[shit. that sounds far too like Capitol talk coming out of his old friend's mouth, and he can't cope with it. he doesn't want to. he doesn't know what to say. his throat goes thick and tight, and he swallows before managing to force something out]

I wouldn't know. I didn't live there.

[he lived in another so-called expendable resource town controlled by the government, instead. he feels the old, familiar anger building, and for once, he does the smart thing and shuts the journal]

NOT HERE

[i_got_this]

[They're two very different rebellions, but it's hard to distinguish that when you're on opposite sides of it. South doesn't quite understand why he cuts the conversation off, and she's livid at it, like he's trying to validate the enemy.]

[Sulkingsulkingsulking.]