[video]

[ownperson]

[ The woman on the video may look somewhat familiar; it's the shape of her face, the ice blue of her eyes, the blonde of her hair, her height. South and her brother aren't identical, of course, but the family resemblance is clearer than she'd like it to be.

(More than ever, these days; who wants to look in your own reflection and see your dead brother's features looking back at you?)

She's shoved the sleeves of her coveralls as far up her arms as she can get them, revealing a variety of tattoos up one of her muscled arms. There's hints of old purple dye in the front of her hair. Around her neck there's a puck, dangling from a chain, holding a chip of some kind.

She looks... pissed. ]

So this ████ing sucks donkey— [She blinks, then squints.] Oh for ████'s sake, I can't even ████ing swear? ████. ████. ████ing ████-████ ████████████.

[ There's a pause of a few seconds before South visibly decides to test this thing's limits. ]

████trumpet. Bull████. ████biscuit. Dip████. ████face. Jack███. Fuck██████— ha, ████ed that one up.

Ugh, whatever. My name's South. Yes, that's a ████ing codename, no, I'm not telling you my real name. Guess I'm stuck here with the rest of... whoever the hell you guys are. Which ████ing sucks.

[ Not that things didn't suck where she came from, but at least she was something resembling free and kind of in control of how much stuff sucked. Call her old fashioned, but she'd much rather ruin her own life than have someone else do it for her. ]

Comments

[bothbarrels]

[ Now it starts to hit him. She's taking this as a final farewell and a choice being made.

Thing is, he's not sure it's the wrong one.

So he keeps standing there, looking at the wall. ]

That's all I have to say for now.

[ownperson]

...yeah. Right. Fucking course it is.

[ Wetness burns her eyes and she looks away, swiping at her face. She won't cry in front of him, over him. She won't, she can't.

She stands there for a straight ten seconds, not even looking at him, before she finally walks past him toward the doorway. Pauses, in the threshold, barely glancing back over her shoulder. ]

I coulda fucking turned you in any time, y'know. But I thought... [ She swallows. ] I don't know what I fucking thought.

[ There are worse words in her head, on the tip of her tongue, but she bites them back, for once. It won't make him say what she wants him to say, won't make him snap like she wants him to snap.

So she leaves. Walks out of the room before her shoulders can start to shake, before she can show any more signs of weakness. ]

[bothbarrels]

[ He doesn't let his eyes settle on her as she goes by, merely sitting down again on the cot afterwards.

And after she leaves, he swings around onto the bed and lies down. It's time for a long conversation with Theta.

Falling apart will come later. ]

[ownperson]

[ It's not until later that she realises where she's supposed to spend the night. It's like some sick joke and she'd laugh, if she wasn't so emotionally drained.

She doesn't go back to the room that night, because she thinks it might break her and she doesn't want to break.

So she spends the night on a common room couch and tells herself that she's fine, she's okay with being alone, she's okay with losing her brother a second time, even as tears create a wet patch on the material beneath her head. ]