deercountry | Sun rises, night falls, sometimes the sky calls...

Having been gauging the situation since he handed over his Omni, Raleigh relaxes a little bit. It seems Airy either missed his stupidity or is being kind enough to pretend she did. What a pal.

And so he gives a soft laugh and shakes his head no, eyes bright as he speaks. It's so rare he gets to talk about her.

"The first generation went together in fourteen months. Gipsy here is third generation. She took a few years and over a hundred billion dollars Two hundred and sixty feet fall, almost two thousand tons. My lady love."

"You talk about her the same way captains speak of their ships," she said. Which, she assumed, meant that he was also probably a little bit married to his Jaeger. A pity for his partner, she supposed. With a small smile, hidden in the corner of her mouth.

It had to be hard, being away from something that meant that much to him. Even if it was an object.

"Why did you name her that? Gipsy?"

"I didn't," he answers with the same fondness from before. She would be very correct that he was very much a little married to his ship. Luckily, his partner is just as bad.

"There's a whole naming procedure I wasn't a part of but it's perfect. I think so, anyway. All the Jaegers had names like that. Striker Eureka, Nova Hyperion, Coyote Tango. They were really something. Made you feel like a part of something so important."

They were colorful names. Striker Eureka, Nova Hyperion, Coyote Tango. Ariadne didn't understand them, but they were memorable. Which she imagined was part of the point. Names that could be whispered and celebrated and remembered for all time.

But her smile faded a little as he went on.

"Machines are just that. It's the people who operate them that are a part of something greater."

And if he thought otherwise...then Trench was going to be hard for him, wasn't it? There were no Jaegers here. He had to rely on himself to feel...part of anything.

Gratefully, or perhaps not, Raleigh is a believer in humanity. He hates people, but he loves humanity. And there's plenty of that here, across all worlds and species if you'll give him the stretch.

"I agree with you completely. You get it."

"I get it."

She nodded, and smiled. And hoped very much that it was a good thing. A compliment. It felt like one, anyway.

Ariadne gave Raleigh a smile. "I'm glad I met you today."

"Me too. It's rare to find another kindred spirit. Thank you for giving me your time."

But that feels too much like a goodbye.

"We should start a seed bank. Ask the city if anyone brought some in with them and pool our resources. The ground in Ache and Feed is fertile, it just needs protecting."

"I love that idea!" she said. Variety improved the soil's fertility. She wasn't a farmer, but she knew that much. "It's not only efficient, but it could go a long way to making people feel better, if they get homesick. A little piece of home, in the earth with them."

Admittedly, not everyone was as sentimental about plant life as Ariadne.

But still.

Raleigh certainly is. He misses his sunflower fields from Deerington terribly. He never thought he would get so invested in farming but here we are.

And Ariadne nails it on the nose.

"Food is important to people. For a lot of us it's the only connection we have to home."

"Exactly. The more we can engage sense memory, the more we can help anchor people when they're feeling..." She made a vague gesture, unsure of the right word for it. Not homesick, although that certainly was an important element to all of this. But she was thinking about Trench now. And about how the corruption sometimes seized old of people and made them...

Made them...

Well, almost out of their minds, it seemed.

If it were to happen to her, she tried to think of what might snap her out of it. And for some reason, the first thing she thought of was the scent of her favorite plants from Valeria. Smell was connected to memory. And memory made someone a person, instead of a beast.

Ariadne shook her head. "When they're feeling overwhelmed."

She doesn't have to articulate all that, he understands on an intrinsic level. He thinks it could help with corruption, too, though that isn't his main goal. His main goal is to eat well but.. yeah, that would be a very happy side effect.

Healing the Sleeper nation through food. God knows they don't have access to therapy. Maybe they should all start baking sourdough?

"I know it helps me. We could make a big difference in our quality of life. A friend of mine, Mako? His brother has earth-centric powers. I don't really understand them but I bet he could help... I don't know. Pull the toxins out of the soil? Coldbloods could help regulate greenhouse temperatures, too. We could really do this, Ariadne."

Even better than his optimism was the fact that he seemed to just automatically include her. Ariadne really liked being part of a group. A pack, as it were. She was Alastrian through and through. They relied on each other. Depended on one another.

She hadn't had a big family in a long time.

"We could," she said, giving him a solemn nod. "We really could."

A pause.

"I thought you said Mako was the name of your copilot?"

It's a wild surge of hope to find a purpose. Raleigh would admit, he's been lacking one for a while now. He's always wanted to Make A Difference. At home that meant The Jaeger Program. But here? He's hung up his war mantle and rejected the call of becoming a Hunter. This, though. This could be something really special.

Raleigh prefers to work in collaboration. If he has to lead, he chooses to do so by lifting up those around him first. He prefers to give than to loan, and he is a man of action, but he is not a tactician. A sword, yes, but he would rather be the strength at someone's back.

"Oh? Oh-" A small laugh and he shakes his head.

"Two different Makos. Mako back home is a girl. That's how I met the Mako here, actually. I was looking for my co-pilot and he answered. Incredible guy, always thinking, you know? He co-owns The Raccoon Room in Cellar Door with his partner Wu. Two of my oldest friends from Deerington."

"My friend Orpheus performs at the Cellar Door sometimes," she said. Which was the closest she usually came to the place. There was something about it that was just overwhelming. The scents were overpowering and tended to leave her feeling a little bit exhausted.

Also, she didn't like the way some of the partygoers looked at her.

Now with the added fear of wondering what Anakin would do to anyone who looked at her the 'wrong' way.

She waved the whole thing off. "I know how confusing it can be to run into someone with a familiar name."

"Oh? I'll have to keep my eye out for him.

Raleigh is, blissfully, completely unaware of Padme Gate.

"It's funny when it happens, isn't it. What's the weirdest thing, though is two people who could be twins. That happens here sometimes."

"I know," she said quietly. "I've met four different Sam Winchesters. Five, by some definitions."

Were you an entirely different person without your soul? She honestly didn't know. It was probably a question better suited to educated scholars. He certainly had seemed different at the end.

The end.

Ariadne was still kind of hurting from that. If only because Vira-Lorr's vision had left her feeling like...like there was some kind of future with Sam...

Oh well. It was silly to think about.

"Three Dean Winchesters, I think," she added.

"Yeah.. yeah, so have I. They never can decide if they hate me or not, either. It's whiplash. I think those guys are allergic to the multiverse."

"I think they're the multiverse's favorites." If it was a thinking, living entity, anyway. And Ariadne wasn't sure if it was or not.

Another question to leave to those who were much smarter and wiser.

But she did make a point to scold Dean next time she saw him, if he was being mean to Raleigh.

"I want to believe there's some kind of...I don't know. Pattern. Pattern to the people it chooses. But I haven't figured anything out yet."

Edited 2022-02-10 21:31 (UTC)

Favorites.. yeah, maybe. Or maybe just favorites to torture.

But he gives her thought some room to ferbulate in his own head.

There's a pattern here, alright, Yancy says from behind him. This time Raleigh can't stop himself from glancing. Are you going to be useful or not, man?

Yancy looks up from the mobile and raises an eyebrow before pointing to and tapping his temple.

Right.

Asshole.

"There's a pattern," Raleigh murmurs before looking back at Ariadne.

"Most of the people here have... incredible stories. Hero stories. That's something I've noticed."

"Hero stories..."

She mulled it over a moment, stealing a covert glance behind Raleigh, trying to determine what had caught his attention. Maybe just the light reflecting off of one of her mobiles. They could be startling, for a moment.

"I don't know," she said. "I'm not sure I would ever qualify as a hero, anywhere. Not like you."

"I wouldn't say I'm a hero," he chuckles.

"I'm just some idiot they put in a war machine. Maybe it's about potential. Not all heroes are made in war."

If Ariadne hadn't been fond of Raleigh before, she most certainly was now. And she wasn't always quick to form an opinion. But he was just so...cheery. With such a wonderful, positive outlook.

"I like that," she said. "I like that a lot."

Maybe she would have a chance to be...a hero.

Just some advice from an old has-been. Heroes very rarely come From battle, and when they do it is always at the expense of another's life. Raleigh doesn't feel too bad about the kaiju he's taken down, but there was extreme loss of life in collateral damage. Their blood is on his hands.

He smiles at her response and sips his tea, relaxing back into his chair with a soft sigh.

"If we're splitting hairs, I think you're already a hero. Your orchard and the work you're doing here is important."

Edited 2022-02-10 23:45 (UTC)

A look of alarm flashed across her face. "Splitting hairs?"

Instinctively, she ran her hand over the length of her braid, as if she was going to protect it from...well. Something.

She knew it was foolish. Obviously, it was some kind of idiom and Raleigh wasn't actually suggesting any harm come to her hair, but she couldn't help it. It was a primal fear. An instinct. Something that had been branded on her soul from a very, very, painfully early age.

She still remembered finding Lief...

Swallowing hard, Ariadne forced herself to get go of her hair. "Thank you. That's kid of you to say."

Raleigh's brows pin high on his forehead. He looks from her to her hair and back.

"It's just a saying. My sister was attached to her hair, too."

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