[Though this isn't the hardest thing England has had to tell someone, he's still not looking forward to it.]
Good morning.
We're not well acquainted, but we conversed previously on my post about Sealand. I realise there's quite a bit going on right now, but if you've got the time, I have something important to tell you.
[She's just seen the obituaries - so yes, you could say that quite a bit is going on. It's only with concerted effort that Shepard formulates a proper, civil reply.]
It's not the best time. But if it's important - did you find Sealand?
[Shepard repeats the words out loud, almost not believing them. Believing but not. Realizing that this means Miranda most likely knew that she was going to die.]
[England fiddles with his tablet a bit, finding the message Miranda told him to pass on. He cuts it down to just the last bit, not wanting to betray her trust or get her in trouble with Shepard by divulging too much.
Then he sends Shepard a message that is simply a video attachment, cropped down as such:]
After the obituary goes up, could you tell her -
- Tell her that I do damn fine work in any universe.
[There is a long moment of silence on Shepard's end, as she listens, as she fights to control her reaction. She wants to hit something, plant her fist into the wall, through the plaster and the ice. Break her hand, break through... there's nothing she can do. She can't bring Miranda back the way Miranda did for her.
Her voice rasps low when she finally speaks, contained, but seared with the pain that she chokes down, like swallowing hot ash.]
[England doesn't feel right giving this sort of news over text any longer. He switches to voice after making sure he can speak as evenly as possible.]
She was on her way back from the chapel and didn't have time to reach shelter before lockdown. She mentioned something about supply drop points, and that she'd been intending to make the trip for a while; I assume it was related.
[Oh, God. Of all possible things, this is the one Shepard least wanted to hear - that it had been a slow death. A frustrating death, locked out of shelter, because of some failure, some mistake... Miranda isn't supposed to make these kind of mistakes.]
Thank you for letting me know. [Still carefully controlled, though she manages to make that thanks sound genuine.] If there's a body - it would be in the funeral house or the hospital, then?
...it's no trouble. You deserve to know. [Plus, Miranda asked him to do it, and he's not the type of person to go back on someone's dying wish.]
I assume so. I suppose there's a chance she could wind up in the chapel; it's closest to where...well, it would have been closest to her. But God only knows if that will be taken into account. [Nothing in this awful place makes any sense.]
Still. I appreciate it. [With all the talk she's heard about trust issues... reaching out is what she does. All she can do. What she does when she feels lost.]
I'm still moving West, towards the funeral home, maybe the hospital... I guess we're both in the same boat now. Waiting.
[ Miranda has spent the previous evening catching up on everything she missed on the network after tearing the funeral home apart. She's now as far away from the wall of drawers as possible, unwilling to face what she's decided are hallucinations, and working on her communications while waiting for the doors to unlock.
Shepard, having been the only one to be notified of Miranda's death - and, quite honestly, probably the only one to care - gets first priority. Knowing Shepard's got plenty of reasons to distrust everything about this place, Miranda goes for the option most difficult to fake: video.
When the video cuts on, she looks neater and cleaner than she had before, but also exhausted and more than a little on edge. She smiles wanly at the camera before dropping it altogether for a more sober expression. ]
[For all the pose of confidence she struck at House, the previous day had been an absolute nightmare. Shepard had seen Miranda's math; she knows how likely, or unlikely, revivals really are. She'd been trying to digest it, somehow, the idea that Miranda - this Miranda, but the distinction blurred into nothing when she'd seen the obituary - had lived through the Collectors' base mission, and through months of the Reaper war, only to die here. A small death, frozen in the night. Courage ending in nothing. Shepard might have told her, don't try -
But Shepard would've tried herself, of course, so she didn't have that. Just guilt, and an almost painful oscillation between hope and the grim resolve she knows from the Skyllian Blitz. Hold the line because there's no one else. She doesn't remember how to be that woman anymore.
So her response to seeing Miranda is a moment of pure, unbridled joy. It shines through her face and she has barely got it under control when she speaks.]
I knew you'd beat the odds. [She laughs a little, more dry now as the initial elation balances out.] So now you know how that feels.
You had more confidence than I did, then, or I wouldn't have bothered to say goodbye. I take it you got my message?
[ Miranda had held out hope that she'd be one of the few, maybe due to her genetic tampering, maybe just from pure dumb luck. But she was never one for self-delusion and she knew the odds as well as Shepard did. Maybe better; she still remembered the near-frantic moment that lead to her compiling them.
Shepard wasn't wrong about her death: it had been quiet, miserable, undignified in the end. Though it had been undone, the thoughts she'd faced down alone in the freezing darkness won't ever really leave her now.
She can't find it in herself to summon another smile. ]
I have a little more empathy for you. We're probably not meant to remember our own deaths.
Can't keep a good woman down, Miranda. [She knows Miranda might not take that description of herself so easily, but right now she doesn't care. She can tell that there's pain in there, in the grim absence of an answering smile, and she's determined to fill that absence for both of them. Enough damn optimism to last.]
I got it. Yeah. He told me what happened. [Her voice softens.] You did something brave. I wish those always worked out. [She's not expecting that to be a comfort, definitely not for Miranda, for whom things are supposed to work out. It's more like an opener. For some of her crew, it's easy to reach out and prop them up, but Miranda's always needed to hold herself up first of everything. Shepard's ready for that.
[ Miranda startles herself with the candor; she'd intended to play things a little closer to the vest than that, but she supposes she's more emotional than she'd thought.
She clears her throat, loudly enough to be heard on the tablet, before continuing in the face of Shepard's optimism and belief of in her better nature. ]
It was a rookie mistake. I never meant to sacrifice myself to find that boy's body. Maybe that's something you'd do, but I don't want to die here. Not if it doesn't matter.
[Well that was... alarmingly easy. Shepard does her own small double take. But they are talking about dying. It's a topic that gets unexpected responses out of people even when they didn't actually die.
Maybe even Miranda has her limits.]
Didn't say it was smart. [There's dark humour in her voice. She'll give Miranda that much.] But I know it wasn't just about the kid. Claiming ground in combat is always risky. When you're the vanguard, you always go in knowing you'll get hit worst. [She leans in, closer to the tablet, aiming to look Miranda in the eye.] This town's a battlefield. And we're gonna have to take risks.
[ There's a hesitance there, but not for long. Miranda had never been reluctant to argue Shepard down before, even when their relationship was a lot more tender behind the closed doors of her office. She's certainly not about to get shy now. ]
This isn't home. Of course we have to take risks, but more importantly we have to survive, and I'm not sure how to do both when every advantage I have is gone in this place. No guns, no biotics, no limitless financials or galaxy-wide network of contacts. We're not soldiers anymore, not here.
[Hearing her lay it out like that is a bit like being hit behind the knees. Which Shepard figures is much, much worse from Miranda's end, saying it. Every advantage gone. Miranda used to have all the advantages.]
Remember when Cerberus threw enough money to run a small planet into bringing me back? [Shepard never asked the cost, but Miranda would know it to the tenth point past the decimal.] If it was just guns, or biotics, or contacts that got anything done, that's where they'd have spent at all. But even they knew it isn't. It's people. It's us. Sure, we've got new tricks to learn, but this is what we do.
[That said, she can dial down the patented Commander's Intensity. Just a little bit.]
Let's just... try to make sure our learning experiences don't always come with that a high a price tag.
[It's just after the doors open for the day, and the sound of crunching snow underfoot is already audible as Al and his group push onwards towards the school.]
Hey, uh... this is Alphonse, I'm sorry it took us so long, but we should be at the school in the next day or two. I'm heading for this house [And he sends a roughly drawn map of house 17 in J3.] and I'm hoping to be there by tomorrow evening.
Hey. Good to hear from you. [Shepard's voice is a little hard to hear through the wind, but she speaks up, and she's clearly very happy to get the message.]
I think I know the place. That'd put you about two days' travel from us. We're headed for the school to stock up now, but we can meet you tomorrow night at the house where we stayed last night. It's pretty nice. [After a few moments, she sends a rough map of house 31.]
Is Steph travelling you with by any chance? I've got the girl she was talking with who needed clothes with me.
I really wish we could meet you there tomorrow, but we're actually coming from the opposite direction so that's even further away from us. We could get there, but it would be maybe three days?
[It's hard to tell with the weather the way it is now, they're coming as fast as they can from the east.]
But Stephanie is with me, so I'll pass that message along. It will be me, Steph, Greed, and my brother, Ed.
I may be late to the town hall meeting. There seems to be a situation developing south of the school. You're aware that Rhys and Angel are missing? Clayton and Enoch have been investigating. Apparently Clayton checked in with Enoch that he was entering a building and then didn't check in again. Beckett and Rydia and I are headed down to join Enoch and investigate.
This will take a few days just with travel time. I'll keep you posted.
Beckett's concerned that they might be. I don't want to jump to any conclusions, myself. If it's monsters, could be the same monster lurking around, could even be a coincidence. Could be something else nasty we haven't seen before. I dunno what to think, I've stayed in the house where Clayton disappeared and there was nothing weird about it at the time.
If it is something leaning new tricks, we need to know. We can't take the chance of just leaving it. I don't want to go too far right now - got a feeling that unless someone's staying at the center, the meeting won't happen. But you keep me posted, as soon as I can get backup set, we'll head your way.
Commander Shepard. I am Sir Raoul of Goldenlake. Captain Rogers gave me your contact information. I understand you're planning a meeting, of sorts, and that the building it's to be held in has a rather, ahem, narrow opening? I'd like to attend but... [ It's easy enough to see from the sparrow on his shoulder that Raoul is a Very Large Man. ] I can't imagine I'd have an easy time getting in. Is there some place else I can meet with you to talk?
[Shepard picks up quickly, a bit embarrassed by the situation if she's honest. She looked at the dog door and all she saw was a defensible position. Not exactly forward thinking for someone who's fought side by side with people twice her size before.]
Good to hear from you, Sir Raoul. We've been talking about the problem, actually - thinking of moving to a more accessible house a little further west. Would you be okay going through a regular door?
Just making sure. [She chuckles in response.] One house west it is. I'll make sure word gets around. Looks like we're expecting a good number - is there anything you could use that I could ask if someone's bringing in?
I'm well equipped, aside from being stripped of all my weapons. I don't guess anyone has bird feed? I don't know how good my rations are for this little fellow.
[ The sparrow tweets an acknowledgement. Yes, food please. ]
[O... kay. Shepard is not totally sure what just happened, but he seems perfectly nice and reasonable otherwise, so she rolls with it, smiling a little.]
You know, I talk to my pets all the time but I never quite got the hang of getting them to talk back...
Yeah, you're gonna have to excuse me, still getting used to the bit where... magic. [She is a little uncomfortable, but there is also some wide-eyed fascination there.] So you actually understand what she says?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninetydegrees
@SceptredIsle; text - morning 58
Good morning.
We're not well acquainted, but we conversed previously on my post about Sealand. I realise there's quite a bit going on right now, but if you've got the time, I have something important to tell you.
text;
It's not the best time. But if it's important - did you find Sealand?
(no subject)
But Miranda did.
She asked me to pass a message on to you. Would you prefer I repeat it over text, or play it back for you?
[England knows it might be difficult for Shepard to see Miranda right now, but he'd like to give her the choice.]
voice;
[Shepard repeats the words out loud, almost not believing them. Believing but not. Realizing that this means Miranda most likely knew that she was going to die.]
Play it for me. Please.
text with video attachment
[England fiddles with his tablet a bit, finding the message Miranda told him to pass on. He cuts it down to just the last bit, not wanting to betray her trust or get her in trouble with Shepard by divulging too much.
Then he sends Shepard a message that is simply a video attachment, cropped down as such:]
After the obituary goes up, could you tell her -
- Tell her that I do damn fine work in any universe.
(no subject)
Her voice rasps low when she finally speaks, contained, but seared with the pain that she chokes down, like swallowing hot ash.]
Do you know how she died?
voice
She was on her way back from the chapel and didn't have time to reach shelter before lockdown. She mentioned something about supply drop points, and that she'd been intending to make the trip for a while; I assume it was related.
(no subject)
Thank you for letting me know. [Still carefully controlled, though she manages to make that thanks sound genuine.] If there's a body - it would be in the funeral house or the hospital, then?
(no subject)
I assume so. I suppose there's a chance she could wind up in the chapel; it's closest to where...well, it would have been closest to her. But God only knows if that will be taken into account. [Nothing in this awful place makes any sense.]
(no subject)
I'm still moving West, towards the funeral home, maybe the hospital... I guess we're both in the same boat now. Waiting.
VIdeo - Early Morning 59 (before the doors locked out)
Shepard, having been the only one to be notified of Miranda's death - and, quite honestly, probably the only one to care - gets first priority. Knowing Shepard's got plenty of reasons to distrust everything about this place, Miranda goes for the option most difficult to fake: video.
When the video cuts on, she looks neater and cleaner than she had before, but also exhausted and more than a little on edge. She smiles wanly at the camera before dropping it altogether for a more sober expression. ]
You know, this is a little embarrassing.
Video;
But Shepard would've tried herself, of course, so she didn't have that. Just guilt, and an almost painful oscillation between hope and the grim resolve she knows from the Skyllian Blitz. Hold the line because there's no one else. She doesn't remember how to be that woman anymore.
So her response to seeing Miranda is a moment of pure, unbridled joy. It shines through her face and she has barely got it under control when she speaks.]
I knew you'd beat the odds. [She laughs a little, more dry now as the initial elation balances out.] So now you know how that feels.
(no subject)
[ Miranda had held out hope that she'd be one of the few, maybe due to her genetic tampering, maybe just from pure dumb luck. But she was never one for self-delusion and she knew the odds as well as Shepard did. Maybe better; she still remembered the near-frantic moment that lead to her compiling them.
Shepard wasn't wrong about her death: it had been quiet, miserable, undignified in the end. Though it had been undone, the thoughts she'd faced down alone in the freezing darkness won't ever really leave her now.
She can't find it in herself to summon another smile. ]
I have a little more empathy for you. We're probably not meant to remember our own deaths.
(no subject)
I got it. Yeah. He told me what happened. [Her voice softens.] You did something brave. I wish those always worked out. [She's not expecting that to be a comfort, definitely not for Miranda, for whom things are supposed to work out. It's more like an opener. For some of her crew, it's easy to reach out and prop them up, but Miranda's always needed to hold herself up first of everything. Shepard's ready for that.
She hopes it's still the right thing to do.]
(no subject)
[ Miranda startles herself with the candor; she'd intended to play things a little closer to the vest than that, but she supposes she's more emotional than she'd thought.
She clears her throat, loudly enough to be heard on the tablet, before continuing in the face of Shepard's optimism and belief of in her better nature. ]
It was a rookie mistake. I never meant to sacrifice myself to find that boy's body. Maybe that's something you'd do, but I don't want to die here. Not if it doesn't matter.
(no subject)
Maybe even Miranda has her limits.]
Didn't say it was smart. [There's dark humour in her voice. She'll give Miranda that much.] But I know it wasn't just about the kid. Claiming ground in combat is always risky. When you're the vanguard, you always go in knowing you'll get hit worst. [She leans in, closer to the tablet, aiming to look Miranda in the eye.] This town's a battlefield. And we're gonna have to take risks.
(no subject)
[ There's a hesitance there, but not for long. Miranda had never been reluctant to argue Shepard down before, even when their relationship was a lot more tender behind the closed doors of her office. She's certainly not about to get shy now. ]
This isn't home. Of course we have to take risks, but more importantly we have to survive, and I'm not sure how to do both when every advantage I have is gone in this place. No guns, no biotics, no limitless financials or galaxy-wide network of contacts. We're not soldiers anymore, not here.
(no subject)
Remember when Cerberus threw enough money to run a small planet into bringing me back? [Shepard never asked the cost, but Miranda would know it to the tenth point past the decimal.] If it was just guns, or biotics, or contacts that got anything done, that's where they'd have spent at all. But even they knew it isn't. It's people. It's us. Sure, we've got new tricks to learn, but this is what we do.
[That said, she can dial down the patented Commander's Intensity. Just a little bit.]
Let's just... try to make sure our learning experiences don't always come with that a high a price tag.
@LELRIC; voice; Day 064, early morning
Hey, uh... this is Alphonse, I'm sorry it took us so long, but we should be at the school in the next day or two. I'm heading for this house [And he sends a roughly drawn map of house 17 in J3.] and I'm hoping to be there by tomorrow evening.
voice;
I think I know the place. That'd put you about two days' travel from us. We're headed for the school to stock up now, but we can meet you tomorrow night at the house where we stayed last night. It's pretty nice. [After a few moments, she sends a rough map of house 31.]
Is Steph travelling you with by any chance? I've got the girl she was talking with who needed clothes with me.
(no subject)
[It's hard to tell with the weather the way it is now, they're coming as fast as they can from the east.]
But Stephanie is with me, so I'll pass that message along. It will be me, Steph, Greed, and my brother, Ed.
@CaptSteveRogers; text; Day 64, late morning
This will take a few days just with travel time. I'll keep you posted.
voice;
[Pardon her French, it's early and cold and she'd been half-following this and worrying already.]
I saw the post. You think those two things are connected? I thought the monsters didn't have the smarts to set up anything like an ambush.
text
(no subject)
@Raoul ; video ; Day 64
video;
Good to hear from you, Sir Raoul. We've been talking about the problem, actually - thinking of moving to a more accessible house a little further west. Would you be okay going through a regular door?
video;
I'm big, but I'm not that big. A regular door should be no problem.
(no subject)
(no subject)
[ The sparrow tweets an acknowledgement. Yes, food please. ]
(no subject)
Actually, it's your lucky day. I found some birdseed that looks like it should still be good. It's not a lot, but your friend's pretty small.
(no subject)
Well, we'll certainly accept the charity! He belongs to my squire.
[ For that he gets a light peck on the ear. ]
What, what did I say?
[ The bird tweets loudly directly into his ear and he winces. ]
She? Are you a girl sparrow?
[ The bird settles, apparently satisfied. ]
My apologies. She belongs to my squire.
(no subject)
You know, I talk to my pets all the time but I never quite got the hang of getting them to talk back...
(no subject)
(no subject)
Yeah, you're gonna have to excuse me, still getting used to the bit where... magic. [She is a little uncomfortable, but there is also some wide-eyed fascination there.] So you actually understand what she says?
(no subject)
[ The bird preens. Yeah, it's pretty easy to tell what she means. ]
(no subject)
They get enlisted as soldiers? Do you... pay them in birdseed?
(no subject)
We've yet to pay them a wage, but I won't be surprised if it comes to that. They've adopted my squire, and help the rest of us for her sake.