Post by Admin on Aug 9, 2009 23:50:53 GMT -5
Suji:
The night was cool in an arid way. The sky had cleared considerably since the storms of the past week or so, and now the moon and stars were shining brightly enough that Suji could see the ruined skyline of what had been downtown Dallas. She was sitting on one of a couple crates in the bell tower, leaning against the stone wall. When she turned her head the ledge of the wall was just below chin-level, and she could see for what felt like miles of crumbled urban landscape.
There was a sputtering click and then a pinpoint of a single flame. Suji leaned towards the lighter, inhaling on the end of the cigarette in her mouth. Another click and the flame was gone: she was draped in shadows again. The tiny red eye of the cigarette flared when she took a drag.
Stretching her legs out before her, Suji slumped against the wall of the tower. The set of bells hung not too far above her head, and tendrils of smoke snaked up into them. She'd found the pack of cigarettes and lighter in one of the drawers of the desk in her room. Though it had amused her slightly that the Pastor must have smoked, she hadn't thought about it until recently.
She needed something to calm her nerves, something to do with her hands. Suji had smoked once or twice in high school--she'd been part of the popular clique, so it'd been highly available, and she'd done it as more of a scientific exploration than anything else. It hadn't appealed to her much, and the idea of lung disease had been even less intriguing. Now, though, what did she have to worry about?
She could have taken the time to recognize that something was off, that there was something masochistic in this. Instead, she concentrated on nothing at all. No Crayak or Ellimist, no Liam, no history. Just a little peace, for just a little while.
Aida:
Sleep, a state that existed in another life, in another time. Aida hadn't had a good nights sleep in years, originally that was due to her illness, but then it was because of the Controllers holding her, and then just dull and painful memories of both. War did not suit her, she was a pawn of it, she allowed herself to be such. What other choice was there? There was the favorite fight or die, and then the other less favorable choice, fight or become a Controller. Of course there were other alternatives like being experimented on, turning into a nothlit, or becoming a rogue on the run. In Aida's eyes she had taken the best path out of a bunch of shitty ones.
War, war meant hostages, even Animorphs apparently took them. Dallas had one right now, and Aida knew close to nothing about him, she hadn't been asked to guard, nor had she been asked....much of anything really. She had been taking up patrolling duties, doing it for hours at a time, even if someone else was out, and when that wasn't the case she was locked up in her room. Dallas was not her home, these people were barely friends, but she was loyal to them. Fin was her only real connection to life, it was when she was with him that she felt like a normal girl again.
Now...she was alone however, no Fin, no anybody, and it wasn't too bad. Her wings gave one more flap before soaring into the bell tower and landing on the edge. <<Oh sorry...I didn't know anyone else was in here...>> she greeted softly, her thought speech barely a whisper. <<I'll uh...>> she paused, <<You smoke?>>
Suji:
Suji took another drag, and fought not to choke on it when she heard a bird flap into the bell tower. It wouldn't be a wild animal. No... Suji didn't have that kind of luck. Thoughtspeech bubbled into her mind, and held the cigarette away from her mouth. She exhaled a jet of smoke through her nostrils.
"You're not bothering me," she replied. Not yet, she added mentally, but she let the internal commentary slip away. As far as Suji was concerned, Aida had more of a problem with her than she had with the girl. Suji had no illusions that she was a particularly easy person to get along with, and she regarded the mockingbird for a moment in the dark. "And no. I don't smoke." There was no sarcasm in her voice.
Suji looked down at the cigarette between her fingers. "But I figured that people pick it up for a reason. And it's not like it's gonna kill me, right?" She snickered lightly for a moment. "If only we still lived in a world where I could be worried about poisoning my lungs." The girl smiled wryly: it was probably a morbid thing to say.
"There was a couple of packs in the desk in my room. I'm not adverse to sharing." Suji inhaled again. The taste was bad, but it felt good, felt like the small defiant act was enough to put a little distance between her and the life she'd been living. "It's surprisingly therapeutic. No hard feelings if you'd rather be on your way."
Aida:
Aida had been preparing to leave again, she'd been avoiding Suji for the most part, their few encounters never seemed to end nicely, and she had never really gotten the best vibe from her. It was far easier to avoid than fight anyway, and up until now it seemed like those were her only choices. For the most part she wasn't inclined to disliking people, but Suji confused her for the most part...sometimes she seemed fine, even nice, but then there were times where she could be quite...cold in her opinion, and that bugged her. You distance yourself...how is it any different? a voice chided. Because I can't not care, even if I try. She wasn't sure yet if the same could be said for Suji.
Her feet grasped the ledge a bit more tightly before she hopped to the ground, deciding if there was enough room for two in there. There was, neither were particularly large females. <<If you can call this living,>> she added, though it was quieter than even her first statement, and it was something she had not really meant to say aloud. It was hard trying to be the optimistic one, she had always been able to see the good in people, and yet lately even that had been failing her.
There it was, an offer to smoke, and Aida froze, smoking was quite common in England, it wasn't like she'd never done it before...but at the same time.... <<I can stick around for a bit,>> she finally replied, and began demorphing a fairly good distance away from Suji--as much as you could at least. When she was fully human Aida took a seat a bit closer, crossing her legs neatly and remaining pretty quiet for a few seconds.
Accepting a cigarette and sticking around almost felt like an unspoken way of saying 'no more hard feelings', if there even were any. Aida wasn't fond of Suji but she didn't hate her...she just...didn't understand the motives behind her actions, and sometimes her actions came off quite mean. Accepting a cigarette however wouldn't hurt in all aspects of the phrase, and so she took her up on it.
"I'm not adverse to accepting," she finally said, gazing out at Dallas for a moment before turning to look at Suji. "Flying around at night isn't quite as therapeutic as it used to be..." she added before sighing. "Can't sleep?"
Suji:
Aida demorphed, and Suji closed her eyes until it was finished. The shadows would make her shifting body look even more distorted, and Suji's subconscious didn't need more fodder for nightmares. The sounds were impossible to escape though, and she shut her mind as best she could to them. When it was finished, Suji knocked a cigarette from the pack at her side, holding it out to Aida. Once she'd taken it, Suji flicked the lighter on for her. It wasn't long before they were both smoking in the dark.
Suji was mildly surprised that Aida had decided to stick around. She half expected that some kind of lecture might ensue. Most of the time when people disliked her, it resulted in some sort of lecture, as far as Suji knew. But she was trying to keep away from all of that, the past, and she didn't bother putting her guard up. That wasn't what she'd come here to do.
"Funny you should ask," Suji replied to the comment about not being able to sleep. "I have these bizarre dreams when I do." She let out a long exhale, tapped her cigarette so that the built up ashes floated to the ground. "Well, dreams is putting it lightly I suppose. Nightmares. They're nightmares." It was something personal to admit; she'd practically been in tears when she told Drake. But that had been a couple days ago: before the Controller they'd caught, before she'd realized that she had some strange obsession with visiting him. Before it became apparent, even to her, just how much of her morality was on the line. Just how fragile that moral certainty was.
Telling Drake had relieved some temporary pressure, but it'd brought it's own hell with it. Because just telling him hadn't stopped anything. The dreams still came, worse now, so much that she was only sleeping in 20 minute intervals. No one had noticed yet--they probably figured she was just strained under the Controller business. And she still hadn't told Ray. As much as she'd resolved to doing the right thing, the right thing was turning out to be hard. Because it meant truly admitting, to someone who could judge her, who had authority over her, that something was wrong with her.
Now she just wanted to let it all float away.
"Back in Vancouver. The Crayak business," another drag, no malice in her tone, though maybe that didn't say much: Suji could have masked any ridicule until the opportune moment. "What happened to you and Fin?" Aida could answer or not, and Suji suspected that she wouldn't. If she didn't, that neatly prevented Suji from talking about Crayak herself. If she did, it wasn't like Aida could think she was crazy.
Aida:
Aida took the cigarette, or fag as she had wanted to call it--Suji would have probably looked at her funny. English slang was something she was working on cutting down...despite Fin seeming to enjoy her accent. After lighting it up she stuck it between her lips, taking a long drag from it, holding it for a few seconds, and then slowly exhaling the smoke. Her eyes watched it dissipate, small remnants lingering around her face before she glanced up at Suji, slightly surprised. The young woman before her was being more open than she'd anticipated, but Aida stayed quiet as she spoke, taking another drag.
"Me too," Aida said quietly after exhaling more smoke. Her hand absently tapped away the built up ash as she gazed deeply at Dallas. "Only mine aren't bizarre as much as they're just bad memories. Times before the Animorphs," her words stopped abruptly there, sounding slightly bitter. Aida wasn't sure how much any of Dallas knew--aside from Ray and Fin--about her life before joining the team. Being a guinea pig for Yeerk technology and concoctions was not something she boasted of.
Sleep was nothing but a distant memory, something she'd never fully attain, not unlike Suji. Patrolling was what she did instead, as Suji could probably infer from their encounter. Taking another puff she paused, almost choking on it at the question directed at her. She couldn't tell if it was a serious question, and inwardly struggled with how to respond. The silence lasted so long that she was beginning to feel slightly awkward, and so after a sigh, she looked over at Suji.
"I got caught by this...insane religious...and mental man...he thought I was a stray ally cat...I was at my time limit...but Fin was around, thought-spoke to me to demorph, and I did...." she labored over how to further explain it, "In the end I managed to escape, but not without a slug in my head....he had been starving his..." she paused again, taking another quick puff and releasing it, "She was dying...Tisoc....I couldn't let her die, she was good, we gave her the morphing power...and...and she was going to be a Hork-Bajir again...." saying it aloud made it sound more crazy and stupid, but she continued anyway. "From there I don't know whats real and what's not...and thinking about it..." she winced, two realities, two sets of memories, too much to handle. "Crayak came, seething about broken rules...I'm not sure...one moment Tisoc was there, and the next she wasn't."
Silence, she had nearly squeezed the cigarette so hard that it was on longer usable, and she felt tension rising up within her. After a few seconds she added more softly, "He killed her...." another pause, "...I think. He toyed with our memories...it just..." she clenched her jaw tightly in bitter anger. "Two memories, both seem so real, but they can't both be true...it hurts to think about it..one of them is fading...I almost forget it sometimes...until the nightmares hit." One thing she knew for sure, Crayak had been there, she'd felt him...still felt him in her nightmares sometimes.
There, she had been honest, she'd told the truth. Suji could think she was crazy again, just like last time. Aida looked away from her, bracing herself for harsh words.
Suji:
Aida's speech--halting and fading--wasn't exactly award-winning storytelling, but Suji closed her eyes and listened closely. She was able to to paint what she thought was probably a clear enough picture.Tisoc was obviously a Yeerk name, though Suji wondered how a man managed to starve his own Yeerk. It likely had something to do with the "insane" bit. The fact that Aida was telling her at all was interesting enough. But tonight wasn't the time for probing Aida's mind and figuring out her motivations. Suji just accepted what she was saying.
By the time Aida was finished, Suji's cigarette had wasted to the butt. She snuffed it, and as she was getting herself another, noticed that Aida's had died. Or been half-crushed. Either way, Suji put two cigarettes between her lips and lit them both, before handing one to Aida as a replacement. No use bothering with damaged goods--it wasn't like there was a particularly high demand for these things around the Temple.
"Sounds like it was a party," Suji said quietly. Her body language was utterly relaxed, so much unlike Aida's from what she could tell. She was leaning back against the wall, slumped down with each foot firmly planted on the floor. "I think I've had a few run-ins with your friend there. Crayak." Suji smirked dryly. It might have even sounded mocking, though it was unclear just who she was mocking--Aida or herself. "We haven't been formally introduced or anything. But that's why I took your head off when you brought it up before."
She snickered under her breath. "Nothing so blatant as screwing with my memories though. Y'know how sometimes if people are talking about you, they go silent when you walk in a room? It was an awful lot like that, only the whole world would go silent for a few seconds when I had a choice to make. And then I'd find myself thinking things that I wasn't quite sure started off in my head." When she smiled, it was more like a wince, and she inhaled again. "It's fun stuff. I'm glad--honored--that I got an invitation to the crazy table." She sighed quietly.
Aida:
Talking of Crayak always set Aida on edge, almost like thinking his name would make him appear, and to be truthful she was usually surprised that didn't actually happen. She was still pushing the memories out of consciousness because it was giving her a headache, that is when she noted the newly lit cigarette, and took it with a slight nod of thanks. Her hands were a bit shaky as she put it to her lips, but after a drag or two she seemed to calm a little.
"Worst party I've ever been to," she replied quietly, though she felt a lot better, smoking was fairly therapeutic...even if they were cancer sticks. Thank god for morphing eh. Aida's gaze flickered over to Suji's relaxed form when she referred to Crayak again, keeping herself from wincing at the term. By the end of it she sighed as well, propping her elbow on her thigh, chin planted in the palm of her hand. Aidas other arm held the cigarette that occasionally got pressed to her lips, blowing out rings of smoke lazily.
"I just thought you figured I was insane, and in all honesty I thought I was too, but hearing you disbelieving it...confirming what I felt...I kind of lost it..." she smiled weakly here before taking another drag. "Sorry about that," she murmured. No one really liked facing their own demons, and having to do so in front of everyone only made it that much worse. After a few seconds silence she debated on whether she should add one more bit, and in the end she didn't know why she decided to divulge this, but she did anyway. "The Ellimist also spoke to me...not sure why I get all the voices...maybe I'm just extra crazy." Her voice was oddly calm when she said this, hinting the vulnerability behind them.
"Sometimes it's easier to think that, then to accept that it's all real. I never thought I'd wind up here...morphing 5 years ago." One reason for that was because she should have been dead, but even still, their whole lives were pretty insane. "Never thought I'd be living in a house with a captive..." she paused here realizing she didn't know much about their captive, only that people were guarding him/her quite often. "What...exactly is going on with that anyway?" she put the cigarette to her lips again, before turning to look at Suji.
Suji:
Suji waved her hand when Aida apologized, shaking her head. Suji rarely sought apologies, and even more rarely dispensed them. The idea of asking someone to say they were sorry for something, or expecting them to, seemed somehow ruder to Suji than pissing someone off in the first place. If you meant what you said when you said it, there was no use in apologizing for it later. Right? The most Suji usually asked of anyone was an explanation--something she found much more useful than apologies.
Even when Luce had turned traitor for that moment at the Dam, Suji had never demanded an apology. She didn't even want one. She had just wanted it to make sense. That was generally what Suji wanted from most situations... but more and more lately there was less and less sense to be had. She smirked when Aida mentioned the Ellimist.
"So far as I know, I haven't seen hide nor hair of this good guy." Though part of her wanted to make a joke about it, Suji refrained, because deep down... deep down even admitting that scared her. If Aida had talked to the Ellimist, did that mean that Suji was being slowly courted by Crayak, that the side of the good had denounced her as some sort of lost cause? Yeah, well Aida's also apparently chatted with the Crayak about this Tisoc stuff, so you dodged that bullet too.
Aida mentioned the Controller they were holding downstairs, and Suji tensed. She'd been cool enough throughout the Crayak discussion--most of that had been practiced, almost defiantly calm, some sort of show for whatever Powers That Be that could be watching. Now she felt her body go rigid. She bit down softly into the pulpy flesh of the cigarette.
"Aubrey and Fin and I went out on a simple mission during out most recent 'free' week for chores rotation. We planned on scoping out Sootman's place. I don't know if Fin's told you anything more about him from after the night you arrived, but Sootman is some kind of black market broker or something. Not sure how big he is, but something tells me he isn't exactly small time." Suji sat up more from where she was lounging, pulling her feet in closer. The ground here was grainy under her bare feet, slightly damp. "While we were there, three Controllers brought Andre in to sell him or something. We busted Andre out further down the street, and in the process the Controller downstairs was knocked out. I figured it was two birds with one stone, so I gave the order to bring him along."
Suji let her eyes scan out over the city. It was eerie, haunted looking without any lights on except for far in the distance. Well, there was dim lighting here and there in a few windows--squatters of some sort. But that just made the creeping desolation more resolute. "So we're starving him out. He keeps asking me my fucking name," Suji added, barely audible and almost unconsciously. Idly she rolled the cigarette in her hand between her thumb and her forefinger.
Aida:
Aida smiled faintly, though it was a sad one, "I don't think he makes many appearances." The reasons behind the one time she did see him were not ones she wanted to recount. Fortunately Suji didn't inquire further into it, something that probably would have lost her all credibility as an Animorph. Matthias, the rogue fighter, yeah her having any interaction with him and keeping it silent did not exactly lend people to trust her. In truth she felt guilty over it, but there was no use in going after a man that wasn't out to get them.
Her warm brown eyes had been trained in Suji, her lips still pressed to the cigarette when she noted the girl tense. Apparently this Controller captive business held more with her than she'd anticipated. Aida almost regretted bringing it up, but in the end it was better to get it out than hold it in, hell she had spoken about Crayak, one of her worst memories. She stayed quiet, waiting for the explanation, and listened intently as it came.
She shook her head ‘no’ at the mention of Fin telling her more on Sootman, they tended to stray from business talk, and instead enjoyed each other’s company. Suji's words however made her want to question Fin a bit further, maybe later. "You didn't tell him it," she stated, sounding a bit confused--it only made sense that if he'd asked more than once that she had denied him, but why? It was peculiar, conversing with the enemy, being on first name basis but if he was going to die....is that it? He's going to die...she doesn't want to let it get personal?...Names are personal... Aida glanced at her, seeing Suji in a slightly differently light. Was it possible she'd misread her all along?
She should probably change the topic, or at least switch to a less tense area of it, but it was hard to sway her thoughts in that direction. Aida opened her mouth, allowing the smoke to ease its way out, the smoke tendrils snaking their way up to her nostrils and around her face for a moment. When she knew what to say she blew once with mouth, clearing the smoke away before looking to Suji again. "You talk to him when you guard him?" There went trying to change the topic.
Suji:
"You didn't tell him it," Aida said, and Suji refused to meet her eyes. The last thing she wanted was for Aida to think that she was soft. Suji had everything under control. She didn't want to be quietly contemplated or 'understood' on some deeper level. That implied a layer of complexity that, in this area, Suji wished she didn't feel, let alone show. No, she hadn't told the Controller her name. She could say it was some sort of security measure, but that would be a joke. If he knew their faces, that was even better than knowing their names.
To Aida's question about talking to him when she guarded him, Suji replied bluntly, with a tone of finality: "Yeah." But after another drag on her cigarette, she couldn't help but feel the explanations, the justifications, rising up in her throat. She didn't need to explain herself to Aida. Didn't need to justify her actions to any of them. Only Suji didn't really believe that. She'd never believed that a leader--and being a Second meant being a leader, if not the Alpha--meant not being accountable for what you did. The problem was that she couldn't quite justify talking to the Controller to herself. If she could, it would have been easier to dismiss Aida's inquiry as frivolous.
"I have a friend," Suji started, "Who used to be a Controller. While she was a Controller, her Yeerk was in love with another Yeerk. My friend fell for the other host." Suji was certainly not going to go into any more detail than that, and definitely not going to reveal any names. She let out a long exhale of smoke, sighing. "Only somewhere along the line I guess she realized that she fell for the Controller, not the host. Fell for a Yeerk. The enemy. I hated her for it."
Suji brought up one knee, resting her arm on it as she held her cigarette. She was still looking out over the tattered skyline. "I wanted to understand how she could do that. How she could see a Yeerk as a person, let alone as more than an enemy person. And trust me, this Controller was an enemy, not some fuzzy Peace Movement member." Her jaw clenched for a moment. "You know, I fucking hate the saying, 'Be careful what you wish for.' But goddamn if it isn't true. Then again, I've also wanted the war to be over, and that hasn't happened yet."
She popped the cigarette back in her mouth. "Anyway," she said around it, "Long story short is that he is. A person, that is."
Aida:
Aida was curious, she wanted to know Suij's reasons behind her actions, after several instances she had grown to think the girl just didn't care, but maybe that was judged too soon. The specific circumstance didn't matter, it didn't matter to her if it was a Yeerk or a frog. Aida had saved one after all, the very enemy they were suppose to be fighting, because to her they were just like people, some good and some bad, it wasn't a genocide they should be after. That being said...if she was ordered to blow up an entire Yeerk Pool she would do it, even if she didn't agree.
If Suji had only looked up she would have seen curious eyes, nonjudgmental ones, eerily similar to that of a small child learning something like subtraction or addition for the first time. When Suji finally answered it was very....final, and Aida let it drop, not wanting to press her luck further. She was caught off guard when Suji began to explain, and not wanting her to stop, she stayed silent, straining her ears to pick up every detail.
Aida nodded solemnly when Suji finished, taking a last puff from her dying cigarette before putting it out. She released the smoke from her mouth, blowing out lightly before rubbing her forehead. "That's why Tisoc had to live, she was...not evil...whatever that even means..but she was a person, she deserved a life. Makes fighting all that much harder, following an order to kill people...or giving that order." Her words stopped there, the implication more than apparent; each death of a controller killed not only the innocent human but the Yeerk. Two people. Aida had killed, she had been ordered, that was war.
It wasn't something she liked dwelling on, what if she had been forced to live in a body that had barely any senses, wouldn't you want a chance at life as a human? She didn't sympathize TOO much with them, but there had been enough thoughts down that path that she definitely felt guilt. Her gaze wavered over the Dallas skyline, and she let it drift there, taking in the desolate feeling, and yet somehow...it was still...pretty.
"It's so empty out there....makes it seem like we're the only ones around...." but we're not. It was an abrupt change of conversation, but she didn't really care. "It'd make life easier if we were..." she sighed. "It was never this empty in England...." she glanced at Suji, "Where are you from?"
Suji:
'That's why Tisoc had to live, she was...not evil...whatever that even means..but she was a person, she deserved a life.'
Suji turned to look back at Aida, expression sharp but not necessarily frowning. Is that what Aida thought? That being not evil meant that a person deserved to live? Maybe so. But Suji didn't get to make calls about who 'deserved' to live. They weren't in the business of vetting their enemies. They couldn't be. People killed other people in war, and that didn't change what was necessary. It just made the war a little harder to fight now. Maybe Suji had been naive in her own way for wishing that the morality would never become... complicated.
"Maybe everyone does deserve a life. That Controller down there--that Yeerk--got his. One lifetime," Suji smirked bitterly, taking another drag and letting the smoke slip through her nostrils on her next exhale. "Got him as far as it gets any of us, I guess."
Sticking the cigarette between her teeth, Suji rubbed her hands together and then rubbed her thighs absently. It wasn't really cold; the gesture almost seemed like she was shaking the previous conversation off. "New York. Not New York city, but a decently rich suburb not far from it. Both my parents worked for the same law firm. I got picked up around there. What part of England were you from? If you say anything other than London, I won't know a thing." The corner of Suji's mouth pulled up into a half-smile.
Aida:
Things were black and white, with few gray areas, she felt guilty over taking any life, but if someone killed, if someone lived the way Yeerk did and stole human life basically, if they killed and experimented? No, in her opinion they did not deserve life. It was odd since she used to be religious, and now she wasn't, she only believed in what she saw, what she felt, and no one was there to help her when the Yeerk's had tubes and needles jabbed into nearly every orifice of her body, when she was dying. The Ellimist came to her when she was falling apart, and Crayak caused her to fall apart...but that was the extent of her beliefs.
Aida simply shrugged at Suji's look, and rubbed her temples. "Life is given to us whether we deserve it or not, and it's taken from us whether we deserve that or not. C'est la vie." Her views on life weren't optimistic, they were ones she also wasn't typically inclined to share, not that that small fact mattered at this point. She grew quiet after this, glancing briefly at Suji as she rubbed her hands together, an odd fact since it wasn't too cold--though she was from rainy England, where it never really got higher than 70 degrees.
She smiled a bit, "Then you won't know of it. Manchester, part of northern England. Dreary, cold and over populated," she explained, laughing lightly. That was how she remembered home, though...home was where the heart was, and her heart was not there. It wasn't here either. "Mum was a stay at home type, dad owned and ran a company. I had a lot of free time till I got sick...decided to study abroad, and got picked up in Vancouver." Aida hadn't shared that much even with Fin, the bit about her parents at least. Did Suji even know she had been sick? Guess it doesn't really matter.
"New York the city...is very intense...now at least," she added as an after thought. "I didn't exactly fit in there..." she added a bit dryly, but laughed afterwords.
Suji:
Dreary, cold, overpopulated. Suji could have snickered: New York City wasn't far from that. Though she was glad to have grown up in a less strictly urban environment, she'd taken frequent trips (many of them shopping trips) to the city. She'd visited enough that she never really had the same starstruck, tourist relationship with it so many other people seemed to. She nodded at Aida, only raising an eyebrow at the getting sick bit. Aida didn't elaborate, and Suji wasn't certain the other girl would appreciate it if she pried. If fact, of everything Suji knew about her, she figured it was best not to.
"Yeah, it was." Suji laughed lightly with Aida. "Lots of missions. When I got reassigned to Chicago, I thought that all factions were like that--fast-paced, very hierarchal, constantly jumping from crisis to crisis. I don't know if I really 'fit in' or not, but the adjustment to Chicago about killed me. It was pretty much the exact opposite." Suji smiled wanly. "If New York was heavy on the guerilla warfare side, Chicago was heavy on the recruitment daycare side." Snickering lightly, Suji took another drag.
"I guess if nothing else it taught me how differently each faction addresses the war. Maybe I wish all of them were a bit more like New York City, more organized and aggressive. But you can't force people to fight when they're still more concerned with just surviving. Probably just end up with more dead kids that way." Suji exhaled a long breath of smoke. "Still drove me batshit anyway. Vegas was more like New York, mission-heavy for the time I was there. Dallas hasn't been like either, really. We don't do much recruiting, and we haven't really had any missions dumped in our laps yet. Probably won't be long till we all go completely stir crazy," Suji smirked.
Like talking to a Controller during his three day starvation?
No, no, that was a whole different kind of crazy.
"It's hard to fit in anywhere, I guess. Maybe not for some people. But I think most of us realize, at least on some subconscious level, that we could be asked to move and leave at any time." Was she just projecting? Suji felt a twinge of vulnerability. If Aida stared blankly at her, that might make it look like Suji was just talking about herself. That wasn't the case, was it? "None of us have really got any home, and maybe it's just me, but I think it's common to be cautious about putting down roots anywhere."
Aida:
Aida smiled, nodding, Vancouver had been quiet too, though...a lot of people had died there. Maybe it wasn't so quiet after all. "Recruitment daycare?" she asked, contemplating whether she preferred that to New York. In the end it didn't matter really, she went where she was needed. "I don't know...the constant fighting...it puts a stress...and everyone was so hardened...tough." They were comrades in war, not really friends, or so it had seemed. Aida had been the outsider...and she still was.
"Dallas reminds me of Vancouver...." she admitted. "I guess I don't mind it so much...it beats being cu--" she stopped abruptly, "Uh beats being a Controller.." she finished. Aida had nearly said it beats being cut on....another can of worms she'd rather avoid. Was it sad that she had been to three different factions and still only had one person she could call a friend? Yeah...pretty sad...
After Suji's last remark she was silent for a while before finally sighing. "Yeah..." she replied quietly, glancing down at her feet. She curled her toes beneath the soles of her feet, and then stared a moment longer before glancing up. "Home is where the heart is. But with war....it's hard to keep track of your heart, let alone if it's still there..." she smiled sadly. "It just seems most people have others to turn to, and by others I mean plural. Something more than just a...faction mate. Maybe I'm looking too deeply at something thats not there though. I've never been a good student when it came to relationships."
"Which faction did you like the best anyway?" she asked, the random question popping into her thoughts. It beat talking about lack of friends.
Suji:
Suji carefully stored away the Controller bit. She'd known several Animorphs who had been Controllers--even knew Steve, which she supposed was sort of a Controller even now. She was glad she'd never had to experience that. She didn't envy those who had. She listened as Aida moved on, talking about friendships. Suji's brow knitted. The cigarette had reduced to near nothingness in her fingers, and she put it out on the ledge next to her.
"I think you're off target with the most people having others to turn to," she said. For a while she fiddled with the cigarette pack, as if considering lighting up another. "Most people I've met have been very alone in this war. Even the ones with friends never seemed to have more than one close one, if they even had that. Take Dallas for instance. No one here leans on anyone else--we get along, sure, but we're not family. You and Fin are probably the only two people who are really close to each other here. Maybe Lizzie and Ray. The only real confidant I've had in this war is back in Vegas," she added quietly. It seemed like more of an afterthought than a real complaint.
Drake, her mind suggested, disagreeing momentarily. Did Drake count as a close friend? A confidant? She wasn't sure. Suji didn't have a problem with holding people at arm's length. There was a reason she'd been able to befriend Luce in the first place. Drake was similarly distant, though in a different way. 'Like he's not all there all the time.' That was what Luce had said about him, or something like it. Suji had trusted him, had told him what happened in Chicago with Toby. With Sedra in Vegas. Still, she wasn't sure if she'd call them close. They didn't exactly hang out.
But she was always glad to see him around. And she smiled when she looked in his doorway and saw a ton of rolling chairs. Those thoughts started making her feel uncomfortable, and she quickly left them behind.
"Anyway, my point was, I think the norm in this war is to be alone, maybe with one really good friend."
Suji finally lit another cigarette, still hastening her mind away from the previous thoughts. "Dallas has been my favorite so far," she replied after she took a drag. "NYC was just too, too lonely, Chicago was too child-proofed, Vegas... Vegas was just a transition. Dallas has been good. Not enough to do yet, but I feel confident that we're ready once we take on some missions. Ray's been slacking a bit with sending us into the field, though."
The night was cool in an arid way. The sky had cleared considerably since the storms of the past week or so, and now the moon and stars were shining brightly enough that Suji could see the ruined skyline of what had been downtown Dallas. She was sitting on one of a couple crates in the bell tower, leaning against the stone wall. When she turned her head the ledge of the wall was just below chin-level, and she could see for what felt like miles of crumbled urban landscape.
There was a sputtering click and then a pinpoint of a single flame. Suji leaned towards the lighter, inhaling on the end of the cigarette in her mouth. Another click and the flame was gone: she was draped in shadows again. The tiny red eye of the cigarette flared when she took a drag.
Stretching her legs out before her, Suji slumped against the wall of the tower. The set of bells hung not too far above her head, and tendrils of smoke snaked up into them. She'd found the pack of cigarettes and lighter in one of the drawers of the desk in her room. Though it had amused her slightly that the Pastor must have smoked, she hadn't thought about it until recently.
She needed something to calm her nerves, something to do with her hands. Suji had smoked once or twice in high school--she'd been part of the popular clique, so it'd been highly available, and she'd done it as more of a scientific exploration than anything else. It hadn't appealed to her much, and the idea of lung disease had been even less intriguing. Now, though, what did she have to worry about?
She could have taken the time to recognize that something was off, that there was something masochistic in this. Instead, she concentrated on nothing at all. No Crayak or Ellimist, no Liam, no history. Just a little peace, for just a little while.
Aida:
Sleep, a state that existed in another life, in another time. Aida hadn't had a good nights sleep in years, originally that was due to her illness, but then it was because of the Controllers holding her, and then just dull and painful memories of both. War did not suit her, she was a pawn of it, she allowed herself to be such. What other choice was there? There was the favorite fight or die, and then the other less favorable choice, fight or become a Controller. Of course there were other alternatives like being experimented on, turning into a nothlit, or becoming a rogue on the run. In Aida's eyes she had taken the best path out of a bunch of shitty ones.
War, war meant hostages, even Animorphs apparently took them. Dallas had one right now, and Aida knew close to nothing about him, she hadn't been asked to guard, nor had she been asked....much of anything really. She had been taking up patrolling duties, doing it for hours at a time, even if someone else was out, and when that wasn't the case she was locked up in her room. Dallas was not her home, these people were barely friends, but she was loyal to them. Fin was her only real connection to life, it was when she was with him that she felt like a normal girl again.
Now...she was alone however, no Fin, no anybody, and it wasn't too bad. Her wings gave one more flap before soaring into the bell tower and landing on the edge. <<Oh sorry...I didn't know anyone else was in here...>> she greeted softly, her thought speech barely a whisper. <<I'll uh...>> she paused, <<You smoke?>>
Suji:
Suji took another drag, and fought not to choke on it when she heard a bird flap into the bell tower. It wouldn't be a wild animal. No... Suji didn't have that kind of luck. Thoughtspeech bubbled into her mind, and held the cigarette away from her mouth. She exhaled a jet of smoke through her nostrils.
"You're not bothering me," she replied. Not yet, she added mentally, but she let the internal commentary slip away. As far as Suji was concerned, Aida had more of a problem with her than she had with the girl. Suji had no illusions that she was a particularly easy person to get along with, and she regarded the mockingbird for a moment in the dark. "And no. I don't smoke." There was no sarcasm in her voice.
Suji looked down at the cigarette between her fingers. "But I figured that people pick it up for a reason. And it's not like it's gonna kill me, right?" She snickered lightly for a moment. "If only we still lived in a world where I could be worried about poisoning my lungs." The girl smiled wryly: it was probably a morbid thing to say.
"There was a couple of packs in the desk in my room. I'm not adverse to sharing." Suji inhaled again. The taste was bad, but it felt good, felt like the small defiant act was enough to put a little distance between her and the life she'd been living. "It's surprisingly therapeutic. No hard feelings if you'd rather be on your way."
Aida:
Aida had been preparing to leave again, she'd been avoiding Suji for the most part, their few encounters never seemed to end nicely, and she had never really gotten the best vibe from her. It was far easier to avoid than fight anyway, and up until now it seemed like those were her only choices. For the most part she wasn't inclined to disliking people, but Suji confused her for the most part...sometimes she seemed fine, even nice, but then there were times where she could be quite...cold in her opinion, and that bugged her. You distance yourself...how is it any different? a voice chided. Because I can't not care, even if I try. She wasn't sure yet if the same could be said for Suji.
Her feet grasped the ledge a bit more tightly before she hopped to the ground, deciding if there was enough room for two in there. There was, neither were particularly large females. <<If you can call this living,>> she added, though it was quieter than even her first statement, and it was something she had not really meant to say aloud. It was hard trying to be the optimistic one, she had always been able to see the good in people, and yet lately even that had been failing her.
There it was, an offer to smoke, and Aida froze, smoking was quite common in England, it wasn't like she'd never done it before...but at the same time.... <<I can stick around for a bit,>> she finally replied, and began demorphing a fairly good distance away from Suji--as much as you could at least. When she was fully human Aida took a seat a bit closer, crossing her legs neatly and remaining pretty quiet for a few seconds.
Accepting a cigarette and sticking around almost felt like an unspoken way of saying 'no more hard feelings', if there even were any. Aida wasn't fond of Suji but she didn't hate her...she just...didn't understand the motives behind her actions, and sometimes her actions came off quite mean. Accepting a cigarette however wouldn't hurt in all aspects of the phrase, and so she took her up on it.
"I'm not adverse to accepting," she finally said, gazing out at Dallas for a moment before turning to look at Suji. "Flying around at night isn't quite as therapeutic as it used to be..." she added before sighing. "Can't sleep?"
Suji:
Aida demorphed, and Suji closed her eyes until it was finished. The shadows would make her shifting body look even more distorted, and Suji's subconscious didn't need more fodder for nightmares. The sounds were impossible to escape though, and she shut her mind as best she could to them. When it was finished, Suji knocked a cigarette from the pack at her side, holding it out to Aida. Once she'd taken it, Suji flicked the lighter on for her. It wasn't long before they were both smoking in the dark.
Suji was mildly surprised that Aida had decided to stick around. She half expected that some kind of lecture might ensue. Most of the time when people disliked her, it resulted in some sort of lecture, as far as Suji knew. But she was trying to keep away from all of that, the past, and she didn't bother putting her guard up. That wasn't what she'd come here to do.
"Funny you should ask," Suji replied to the comment about not being able to sleep. "I have these bizarre dreams when I do." She let out a long exhale, tapped her cigarette so that the built up ashes floated to the ground. "Well, dreams is putting it lightly I suppose. Nightmares. They're nightmares." It was something personal to admit; she'd practically been in tears when she told Drake. But that had been a couple days ago: before the Controller they'd caught, before she'd realized that she had some strange obsession with visiting him. Before it became apparent, even to her, just how much of her morality was on the line. Just how fragile that moral certainty was.
Telling Drake had relieved some temporary pressure, but it'd brought it's own hell with it. Because just telling him hadn't stopped anything. The dreams still came, worse now, so much that she was only sleeping in 20 minute intervals. No one had noticed yet--they probably figured she was just strained under the Controller business. And she still hadn't told Ray. As much as she'd resolved to doing the right thing, the right thing was turning out to be hard. Because it meant truly admitting, to someone who could judge her, who had authority over her, that something was wrong with her.
Now she just wanted to let it all float away.
"Back in Vancouver. The Crayak business," another drag, no malice in her tone, though maybe that didn't say much: Suji could have masked any ridicule until the opportune moment. "What happened to you and Fin?" Aida could answer or not, and Suji suspected that she wouldn't. If she didn't, that neatly prevented Suji from talking about Crayak herself. If she did, it wasn't like Aida could think she was crazy.
Aida:
Aida took the cigarette, or fag as she had wanted to call it--Suji would have probably looked at her funny. English slang was something she was working on cutting down...despite Fin seeming to enjoy her accent. After lighting it up she stuck it between her lips, taking a long drag from it, holding it for a few seconds, and then slowly exhaling the smoke. Her eyes watched it dissipate, small remnants lingering around her face before she glanced up at Suji, slightly surprised. The young woman before her was being more open than she'd anticipated, but Aida stayed quiet as she spoke, taking another drag.
"Me too," Aida said quietly after exhaling more smoke. Her hand absently tapped away the built up ash as she gazed deeply at Dallas. "Only mine aren't bizarre as much as they're just bad memories. Times before the Animorphs," her words stopped abruptly there, sounding slightly bitter. Aida wasn't sure how much any of Dallas knew--aside from Ray and Fin--about her life before joining the team. Being a guinea pig for Yeerk technology and concoctions was not something she boasted of.
Sleep was nothing but a distant memory, something she'd never fully attain, not unlike Suji. Patrolling was what she did instead, as Suji could probably infer from their encounter. Taking another puff she paused, almost choking on it at the question directed at her. She couldn't tell if it was a serious question, and inwardly struggled with how to respond. The silence lasted so long that she was beginning to feel slightly awkward, and so after a sigh, she looked over at Suji.
"I got caught by this...insane religious...and mental man...he thought I was a stray ally cat...I was at my time limit...but Fin was around, thought-spoke to me to demorph, and I did...." she labored over how to further explain it, "In the end I managed to escape, but not without a slug in my head....he had been starving his..." she paused again, taking another quick puff and releasing it, "She was dying...Tisoc....I couldn't let her die, she was good, we gave her the morphing power...and...and she was going to be a Hork-Bajir again...." saying it aloud made it sound more crazy and stupid, but she continued anyway. "From there I don't know whats real and what's not...and thinking about it..." she winced, two realities, two sets of memories, too much to handle. "Crayak came, seething about broken rules...I'm not sure...one moment Tisoc was there, and the next she wasn't."
Silence, she had nearly squeezed the cigarette so hard that it was on longer usable, and she felt tension rising up within her. After a few seconds she added more softly, "He killed her...." another pause, "...I think. He toyed with our memories...it just..." she clenched her jaw tightly in bitter anger. "Two memories, both seem so real, but they can't both be true...it hurts to think about it..one of them is fading...I almost forget it sometimes...until the nightmares hit." One thing she knew for sure, Crayak had been there, she'd felt him...still felt him in her nightmares sometimes.
There, she had been honest, she'd told the truth. Suji could think she was crazy again, just like last time. Aida looked away from her, bracing herself for harsh words.
Suji:
Aida's speech--halting and fading--wasn't exactly award-winning storytelling, but Suji closed her eyes and listened closely. She was able to to paint what she thought was probably a clear enough picture.Tisoc was obviously a Yeerk name, though Suji wondered how a man managed to starve his own Yeerk. It likely had something to do with the "insane" bit. The fact that Aida was telling her at all was interesting enough. But tonight wasn't the time for probing Aida's mind and figuring out her motivations. Suji just accepted what she was saying.
By the time Aida was finished, Suji's cigarette had wasted to the butt. She snuffed it, and as she was getting herself another, noticed that Aida's had died. Or been half-crushed. Either way, Suji put two cigarettes between her lips and lit them both, before handing one to Aida as a replacement. No use bothering with damaged goods--it wasn't like there was a particularly high demand for these things around the Temple.
"Sounds like it was a party," Suji said quietly. Her body language was utterly relaxed, so much unlike Aida's from what she could tell. She was leaning back against the wall, slumped down with each foot firmly planted on the floor. "I think I've had a few run-ins with your friend there. Crayak." Suji smirked dryly. It might have even sounded mocking, though it was unclear just who she was mocking--Aida or herself. "We haven't been formally introduced or anything. But that's why I took your head off when you brought it up before."
She snickered under her breath. "Nothing so blatant as screwing with my memories though. Y'know how sometimes if people are talking about you, they go silent when you walk in a room? It was an awful lot like that, only the whole world would go silent for a few seconds when I had a choice to make. And then I'd find myself thinking things that I wasn't quite sure started off in my head." When she smiled, it was more like a wince, and she inhaled again. "It's fun stuff. I'm glad--honored--that I got an invitation to the crazy table." She sighed quietly.
Aida:
Talking of Crayak always set Aida on edge, almost like thinking his name would make him appear, and to be truthful she was usually surprised that didn't actually happen. She was still pushing the memories out of consciousness because it was giving her a headache, that is when she noted the newly lit cigarette, and took it with a slight nod of thanks. Her hands were a bit shaky as she put it to her lips, but after a drag or two she seemed to calm a little.
"Worst party I've ever been to," she replied quietly, though she felt a lot better, smoking was fairly therapeutic...even if they were cancer sticks. Thank god for morphing eh. Aida's gaze flickered over to Suji's relaxed form when she referred to Crayak again, keeping herself from wincing at the term. By the end of it she sighed as well, propping her elbow on her thigh, chin planted in the palm of her hand. Aidas other arm held the cigarette that occasionally got pressed to her lips, blowing out rings of smoke lazily.
"I just thought you figured I was insane, and in all honesty I thought I was too, but hearing you disbelieving it...confirming what I felt...I kind of lost it..." she smiled weakly here before taking another drag. "Sorry about that," she murmured. No one really liked facing their own demons, and having to do so in front of everyone only made it that much worse. After a few seconds silence she debated on whether she should add one more bit, and in the end she didn't know why she decided to divulge this, but she did anyway. "The Ellimist also spoke to me...not sure why I get all the voices...maybe I'm just extra crazy." Her voice was oddly calm when she said this, hinting the vulnerability behind them.
"Sometimes it's easier to think that, then to accept that it's all real. I never thought I'd wind up here...morphing 5 years ago." One reason for that was because she should have been dead, but even still, their whole lives were pretty insane. "Never thought I'd be living in a house with a captive..." she paused here realizing she didn't know much about their captive, only that people were guarding him/her quite often. "What...exactly is going on with that anyway?" she put the cigarette to her lips again, before turning to look at Suji.
Suji:
Suji waved her hand when Aida apologized, shaking her head. Suji rarely sought apologies, and even more rarely dispensed them. The idea of asking someone to say they were sorry for something, or expecting them to, seemed somehow ruder to Suji than pissing someone off in the first place. If you meant what you said when you said it, there was no use in apologizing for it later. Right? The most Suji usually asked of anyone was an explanation--something she found much more useful than apologies.
Even when Luce had turned traitor for that moment at the Dam, Suji had never demanded an apology. She didn't even want one. She had just wanted it to make sense. That was generally what Suji wanted from most situations... but more and more lately there was less and less sense to be had. She smirked when Aida mentioned the Ellimist.
"So far as I know, I haven't seen hide nor hair of this good guy." Though part of her wanted to make a joke about it, Suji refrained, because deep down... deep down even admitting that scared her. If Aida had talked to the Ellimist, did that mean that Suji was being slowly courted by Crayak, that the side of the good had denounced her as some sort of lost cause? Yeah, well Aida's also apparently chatted with the Crayak about this Tisoc stuff, so you dodged that bullet too.
Aida mentioned the Controller they were holding downstairs, and Suji tensed. She'd been cool enough throughout the Crayak discussion--most of that had been practiced, almost defiantly calm, some sort of show for whatever Powers That Be that could be watching. Now she felt her body go rigid. She bit down softly into the pulpy flesh of the cigarette.
"Aubrey and Fin and I went out on a simple mission during out most recent 'free' week for chores rotation. We planned on scoping out Sootman's place. I don't know if Fin's told you anything more about him from after the night you arrived, but Sootman is some kind of black market broker or something. Not sure how big he is, but something tells me he isn't exactly small time." Suji sat up more from where she was lounging, pulling her feet in closer. The ground here was grainy under her bare feet, slightly damp. "While we were there, three Controllers brought Andre in to sell him or something. We busted Andre out further down the street, and in the process the Controller downstairs was knocked out. I figured it was two birds with one stone, so I gave the order to bring him along."
Suji let her eyes scan out over the city. It was eerie, haunted looking without any lights on except for far in the distance. Well, there was dim lighting here and there in a few windows--squatters of some sort. But that just made the creeping desolation more resolute. "So we're starving him out. He keeps asking me my fucking name," Suji added, barely audible and almost unconsciously. Idly she rolled the cigarette in her hand between her thumb and her forefinger.
Aida:
Aida smiled faintly, though it was a sad one, "I don't think he makes many appearances." The reasons behind the one time she did see him were not ones she wanted to recount. Fortunately Suji didn't inquire further into it, something that probably would have lost her all credibility as an Animorph. Matthias, the rogue fighter, yeah her having any interaction with him and keeping it silent did not exactly lend people to trust her. In truth she felt guilty over it, but there was no use in going after a man that wasn't out to get them.
Her warm brown eyes had been trained in Suji, her lips still pressed to the cigarette when she noted the girl tense. Apparently this Controller captive business held more with her than she'd anticipated. Aida almost regretted bringing it up, but in the end it was better to get it out than hold it in, hell she had spoken about Crayak, one of her worst memories. She stayed quiet, waiting for the explanation, and listened intently as it came.
She shook her head ‘no’ at the mention of Fin telling her more on Sootman, they tended to stray from business talk, and instead enjoyed each other’s company. Suji's words however made her want to question Fin a bit further, maybe later. "You didn't tell him it," she stated, sounding a bit confused--it only made sense that if he'd asked more than once that she had denied him, but why? It was peculiar, conversing with the enemy, being on first name basis but if he was going to die....is that it? He's going to die...she doesn't want to let it get personal?...Names are personal... Aida glanced at her, seeing Suji in a slightly differently light. Was it possible she'd misread her all along?
She should probably change the topic, or at least switch to a less tense area of it, but it was hard to sway her thoughts in that direction. Aida opened her mouth, allowing the smoke to ease its way out, the smoke tendrils snaking their way up to her nostrils and around her face for a moment. When she knew what to say she blew once with mouth, clearing the smoke away before looking to Suji again. "You talk to him when you guard him?" There went trying to change the topic.
Suji:
"You didn't tell him it," Aida said, and Suji refused to meet her eyes. The last thing she wanted was for Aida to think that she was soft. Suji had everything under control. She didn't want to be quietly contemplated or 'understood' on some deeper level. That implied a layer of complexity that, in this area, Suji wished she didn't feel, let alone show. No, she hadn't told the Controller her name. She could say it was some sort of security measure, but that would be a joke. If he knew their faces, that was even better than knowing their names.
To Aida's question about talking to him when she guarded him, Suji replied bluntly, with a tone of finality: "Yeah." But after another drag on her cigarette, she couldn't help but feel the explanations, the justifications, rising up in her throat. She didn't need to explain herself to Aida. Didn't need to justify her actions to any of them. Only Suji didn't really believe that. She'd never believed that a leader--and being a Second meant being a leader, if not the Alpha--meant not being accountable for what you did. The problem was that she couldn't quite justify talking to the Controller to herself. If she could, it would have been easier to dismiss Aida's inquiry as frivolous.
"I have a friend," Suji started, "Who used to be a Controller. While she was a Controller, her Yeerk was in love with another Yeerk. My friend fell for the other host." Suji was certainly not going to go into any more detail than that, and definitely not going to reveal any names. She let out a long exhale of smoke, sighing. "Only somewhere along the line I guess she realized that she fell for the Controller, not the host. Fell for a Yeerk. The enemy. I hated her for it."
Suji brought up one knee, resting her arm on it as she held her cigarette. She was still looking out over the tattered skyline. "I wanted to understand how she could do that. How she could see a Yeerk as a person, let alone as more than an enemy person. And trust me, this Controller was an enemy, not some fuzzy Peace Movement member." Her jaw clenched for a moment. "You know, I fucking hate the saying, 'Be careful what you wish for.' But goddamn if it isn't true. Then again, I've also wanted the war to be over, and that hasn't happened yet."
She popped the cigarette back in her mouth. "Anyway," she said around it, "Long story short is that he is. A person, that is."
Aida:
Aida was curious, she wanted to know Suij's reasons behind her actions, after several instances she had grown to think the girl just didn't care, but maybe that was judged too soon. The specific circumstance didn't matter, it didn't matter to her if it was a Yeerk or a frog. Aida had saved one after all, the very enemy they were suppose to be fighting, because to her they were just like people, some good and some bad, it wasn't a genocide they should be after. That being said...if she was ordered to blow up an entire Yeerk Pool she would do it, even if she didn't agree.
If Suji had only looked up she would have seen curious eyes, nonjudgmental ones, eerily similar to that of a small child learning something like subtraction or addition for the first time. When Suji finally answered it was very....final, and Aida let it drop, not wanting to press her luck further. She was caught off guard when Suji began to explain, and not wanting her to stop, she stayed silent, straining her ears to pick up every detail.
Aida nodded solemnly when Suji finished, taking a last puff from her dying cigarette before putting it out. She released the smoke from her mouth, blowing out lightly before rubbing her forehead. "That's why Tisoc had to live, she was...not evil...whatever that even means..but she was a person, she deserved a life. Makes fighting all that much harder, following an order to kill people...or giving that order." Her words stopped there, the implication more than apparent; each death of a controller killed not only the innocent human but the Yeerk. Two people. Aida had killed, she had been ordered, that was war.
It wasn't something she liked dwelling on, what if she had been forced to live in a body that had barely any senses, wouldn't you want a chance at life as a human? She didn't sympathize TOO much with them, but there had been enough thoughts down that path that she definitely felt guilt. Her gaze wavered over the Dallas skyline, and she let it drift there, taking in the desolate feeling, and yet somehow...it was still...pretty.
"It's so empty out there....makes it seem like we're the only ones around...." but we're not. It was an abrupt change of conversation, but she didn't really care. "It'd make life easier if we were..." she sighed. "It was never this empty in England...." she glanced at Suji, "Where are you from?"
Suji:
'That's why Tisoc had to live, she was...not evil...whatever that even means..but she was a person, she deserved a life.'
Suji turned to look back at Aida, expression sharp but not necessarily frowning. Is that what Aida thought? That being not evil meant that a person deserved to live? Maybe so. But Suji didn't get to make calls about who 'deserved' to live. They weren't in the business of vetting their enemies. They couldn't be. People killed other people in war, and that didn't change what was necessary. It just made the war a little harder to fight now. Maybe Suji had been naive in her own way for wishing that the morality would never become... complicated.
"Maybe everyone does deserve a life. That Controller down there--that Yeerk--got his. One lifetime," Suji smirked bitterly, taking another drag and letting the smoke slip through her nostrils on her next exhale. "Got him as far as it gets any of us, I guess."
Sticking the cigarette between her teeth, Suji rubbed her hands together and then rubbed her thighs absently. It wasn't really cold; the gesture almost seemed like she was shaking the previous conversation off. "New York. Not New York city, but a decently rich suburb not far from it. Both my parents worked for the same law firm. I got picked up around there. What part of England were you from? If you say anything other than London, I won't know a thing." The corner of Suji's mouth pulled up into a half-smile.
Aida:
Things were black and white, with few gray areas, she felt guilty over taking any life, but if someone killed, if someone lived the way Yeerk did and stole human life basically, if they killed and experimented? No, in her opinion they did not deserve life. It was odd since she used to be religious, and now she wasn't, she only believed in what she saw, what she felt, and no one was there to help her when the Yeerk's had tubes and needles jabbed into nearly every orifice of her body, when she was dying. The Ellimist came to her when she was falling apart, and Crayak caused her to fall apart...but that was the extent of her beliefs.
Aida simply shrugged at Suji's look, and rubbed her temples. "Life is given to us whether we deserve it or not, and it's taken from us whether we deserve that or not. C'est la vie." Her views on life weren't optimistic, they were ones she also wasn't typically inclined to share, not that that small fact mattered at this point. She grew quiet after this, glancing briefly at Suji as she rubbed her hands together, an odd fact since it wasn't too cold--though she was from rainy England, where it never really got higher than 70 degrees.
She smiled a bit, "Then you won't know of it. Manchester, part of northern England. Dreary, cold and over populated," she explained, laughing lightly. That was how she remembered home, though...home was where the heart was, and her heart was not there. It wasn't here either. "Mum was a stay at home type, dad owned and ran a company. I had a lot of free time till I got sick...decided to study abroad, and got picked up in Vancouver." Aida hadn't shared that much even with Fin, the bit about her parents at least. Did Suji even know she had been sick? Guess it doesn't really matter.
"New York the city...is very intense...now at least," she added as an after thought. "I didn't exactly fit in there..." she added a bit dryly, but laughed afterwords.
Suji:
Dreary, cold, overpopulated. Suji could have snickered: New York City wasn't far from that. Though she was glad to have grown up in a less strictly urban environment, she'd taken frequent trips (many of them shopping trips) to the city. She'd visited enough that she never really had the same starstruck, tourist relationship with it so many other people seemed to. She nodded at Aida, only raising an eyebrow at the getting sick bit. Aida didn't elaborate, and Suji wasn't certain the other girl would appreciate it if she pried. If fact, of everything Suji knew about her, she figured it was best not to.
"Yeah, it was." Suji laughed lightly with Aida. "Lots of missions. When I got reassigned to Chicago, I thought that all factions were like that--fast-paced, very hierarchal, constantly jumping from crisis to crisis. I don't know if I really 'fit in' or not, but the adjustment to Chicago about killed me. It was pretty much the exact opposite." Suji smiled wanly. "If New York was heavy on the guerilla warfare side, Chicago was heavy on the recruitment daycare side." Snickering lightly, Suji took another drag.
"I guess if nothing else it taught me how differently each faction addresses the war. Maybe I wish all of them were a bit more like New York City, more organized and aggressive. But you can't force people to fight when they're still more concerned with just surviving. Probably just end up with more dead kids that way." Suji exhaled a long breath of smoke. "Still drove me batshit anyway. Vegas was more like New York, mission-heavy for the time I was there. Dallas hasn't been like either, really. We don't do much recruiting, and we haven't really had any missions dumped in our laps yet. Probably won't be long till we all go completely stir crazy," Suji smirked.
Like talking to a Controller during his three day starvation?
No, no, that was a whole different kind of crazy.
"It's hard to fit in anywhere, I guess. Maybe not for some people. But I think most of us realize, at least on some subconscious level, that we could be asked to move and leave at any time." Was she just projecting? Suji felt a twinge of vulnerability. If Aida stared blankly at her, that might make it look like Suji was just talking about herself. That wasn't the case, was it? "None of us have really got any home, and maybe it's just me, but I think it's common to be cautious about putting down roots anywhere."
Aida:
Aida smiled, nodding, Vancouver had been quiet too, though...a lot of people had died there. Maybe it wasn't so quiet after all. "Recruitment daycare?" she asked, contemplating whether she preferred that to New York. In the end it didn't matter really, she went where she was needed. "I don't know...the constant fighting...it puts a stress...and everyone was so hardened...tough." They were comrades in war, not really friends, or so it had seemed. Aida had been the outsider...and she still was.
"Dallas reminds me of Vancouver...." she admitted. "I guess I don't mind it so much...it beats being cu--" she stopped abruptly, "Uh beats being a Controller.." she finished. Aida had nearly said it beats being cut on....another can of worms she'd rather avoid. Was it sad that she had been to three different factions and still only had one person she could call a friend? Yeah...pretty sad...
After Suji's last remark she was silent for a while before finally sighing. "Yeah..." she replied quietly, glancing down at her feet. She curled her toes beneath the soles of her feet, and then stared a moment longer before glancing up. "Home is where the heart is. But with war....it's hard to keep track of your heart, let alone if it's still there..." she smiled sadly. "It just seems most people have others to turn to, and by others I mean plural. Something more than just a...faction mate. Maybe I'm looking too deeply at something thats not there though. I've never been a good student when it came to relationships."
"Which faction did you like the best anyway?" she asked, the random question popping into her thoughts. It beat talking about lack of friends.
Suji:
Suji carefully stored away the Controller bit. She'd known several Animorphs who had been Controllers--even knew Steve, which she supposed was sort of a Controller even now. She was glad she'd never had to experience that. She didn't envy those who had. She listened as Aida moved on, talking about friendships. Suji's brow knitted. The cigarette had reduced to near nothingness in her fingers, and she put it out on the ledge next to her.
"I think you're off target with the most people having others to turn to," she said. For a while she fiddled with the cigarette pack, as if considering lighting up another. "Most people I've met have been very alone in this war. Even the ones with friends never seemed to have more than one close one, if they even had that. Take Dallas for instance. No one here leans on anyone else--we get along, sure, but we're not family. You and Fin are probably the only two people who are really close to each other here. Maybe Lizzie and Ray. The only real confidant I've had in this war is back in Vegas," she added quietly. It seemed like more of an afterthought than a real complaint.
Drake, her mind suggested, disagreeing momentarily. Did Drake count as a close friend? A confidant? She wasn't sure. Suji didn't have a problem with holding people at arm's length. There was a reason she'd been able to befriend Luce in the first place. Drake was similarly distant, though in a different way. 'Like he's not all there all the time.' That was what Luce had said about him, or something like it. Suji had trusted him, had told him what happened in Chicago with Toby. With Sedra in Vegas. Still, she wasn't sure if she'd call them close. They didn't exactly hang out.
But she was always glad to see him around. And she smiled when she looked in his doorway and saw a ton of rolling chairs. Those thoughts started making her feel uncomfortable, and she quickly left them behind.
"Anyway, my point was, I think the norm in this war is to be alone, maybe with one really good friend."
Suji finally lit another cigarette, still hastening her mind away from the previous thoughts. "Dallas has been my favorite so far," she replied after she took a drag. "NYC was just too, too lonely, Chicago was too child-proofed, Vegas... Vegas was just a transition. Dallas has been good. Not enough to do yet, but I feel confident that we're ready once we take on some missions. Ray's been slacking a bit with sending us into the field, though."