hadriel_logs | Event log: Mirror, mirror

Entry tags:

Event log: Mirror, mirror

Who: Anyone and everyone!
What: Hope gives everyone mirrors with visions of their most hopeful future inside.
Where: Throughout the city.
When: March 14th-18th
Warnings: None so far!

On March 14th, all characters will stumble across mirrors at some point on their daily journey. Maybe your mirror is right under your pillow, maybe it's on your bedside table, or in the sink in your bathroom. It could be in a random store that you're scavenging, or somewhere along the path that you're taking to go to a friend's place. Wherever it is, it's positioned perfectly for you to find it- though you might want to be quick so someone else doesn't nab it first.

Each mirror is predetermined to hold one person's future and will be placed somewhere that they can find it on that day. Upon looking in their own mirrors, each character will see a version of their future that will fill them with hope. This vision has to be possible- or they have to think it's possible- even if it's unlikely. Picking up someone else's mirror will not change the image inside; you'll instead see that person's vision for their future.

In addition, during the first four days, until March 18th, characters will want to look into any mirror they can find, not just their own. So be a little careful if you want to guard your innermost hopes- someone might be trying to peek.

► This log covers March 14th-March 18th.
► Feel free to make your own logs, as well
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► Please report any character deaths right here!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

(Newt hasn't slept well at all since he got back from- whatever he had to go through back home. It's not an uncommon thing for him to be wandering about but it is uncommon for him to see Maketh of all people out.

At the sight of her own mirror, his hand nearly goes back to touch his own that was tucked into his pocket. He resists though and instead moves towards the woman.

He hasn't known her long but she looks a lot different than usual. Looser.

He politely clears his throat, walking close but not sitting down next to her least she want to be left alone.)

You look nice with your hair down.

(It's a harmless compliment, really. He knows how those mirrors can make people feel. He'd spent hours staring at his own. Distraction is sometimes just what people want.)

[This time Maketh hears the footsteps and doesn't flinch at the approach. She leans back, turning the mirror over in her hands. At least she's not the only one who can't sleep.] Hello, Newt.

[She pauses, flicking a strand of hair out of her eyes.] Ah. Thank you. Are you...all right?

Hello, Maketh.

(He smiles at her and it's only a little bit tired. But it is sincere.)

Yes... Just taking a walk. Are you...?

(His eyes sweep over Maketh and land on her mirror. Those mirrors showed good things, sure, but a lot of the times they only caused pain for one reason or another.)

Oh. [She glances down again, at the images playing over the glass. Possibilities or fever dreams, she can't tell. But it's hard not to look, and hope. She sees Newt in the glass standing alongside others, none of them in pain. Who wouldn't want these things? Maketh smiles a little, turning the mirror over to give Newt her full attention.] It might be a trick. I haven't decided yet. Did you get one as well?

(He wants to look at hers almost as badly as he wants to look at his but he doesn't budge. He could be extremely stubborn when it suited him well to be.)

Yes.

(He looks just the slightest bit embarrassed and his hand naturally goes to his pocket to draw out the mirror. Resisting other people's mirrors might be easy enough but resisting his own is tricky. He glances briefly into it before just as quickly away.)

I don't know either. I feel like...

(He wanders over to her as he tries to figure out the words and eventually sits down next to her, holding the mirror in his lap. He takes no precaution to make sure she can't see it. There's a rich green field with a simple house sitting there. There's some familiar faces from Hadriel and some not-so familiar ones. Newt's sitting on the ground between the legs of Peter who is sitting up a step or two, smoking a cigarette. Sitting just across from Newt's a boy with brown hair and a dotting of specific moles along his jaw. An Asian boy is talking excitedly to a bemused Cashmere while Arya is crouched just behind him, readying a slingshot full of mud. Shapes can be seen moving around inside the house, alluding to more people. Maketh isn't in his own mirror though only for the simple fact that he doesn't fully understand a future where an adult remains consistent in his life. Especially not one like Maketh. He's never had that before.)

It seems a little impossible, maybe.

(His eyes cut briefly back to Maketh's mirror and then up to her face.)

What does yours show?

[She shifts to give him more room. Part of Maketh still doesn't quite understand the rules regarding touch and so avoids it entirely. She's leaned against Henry when they're drinking and put her hand on his shoulder, but that's different. She's utterly sober now.]

I thought it was taunting me, in the beginning. Maybe it's intended that way.

[Newt's mirror shows a happy scene. Maketh recognizes some of the faces, but not all of them. It looks--comfortable, she thinks. Newt's mirror shows a home and the family that fills it.

She passes her mirror over to him without a word.] But I think--we could make something like this here. If we tried.

Edited 2016-03-15 17:06 (UTC)

(Newt had been pretty easy-going about touching until Cliff freaked out on him over it. After that, Newt wasn't so sure about whether or not it was okay to touch people. He personally liked touching. It grounded him. Her being near him doesn't make Newt tense up and he doesn't move away from her but he doesn't move closer either.)

Sometimes I can see that it might be, yeah.

(He doesn't really think this kind of life is possible for him. He's still pretty convinced he should be dead. Won't make it much longer than the age he's at.

He takes the mirror from her and looks at it. He's surprised to see himself and really, it's the first time ever that it's actually solidified as a fact that an adult....Cares about him? He's no idea what to make of that. Then his eyes cut to the brunette woman who keeps slipping in and out. He blinks, watching closely, oddly fascinated.)

She's pretty.

(He says it in a soft sort of way, not a way that implies any sort of feelings of personal attraction. And it sounds a bit like a question.)

[Maketh closes her eyes for a moment. Part of her is tired, though oddly content. Of all the things this place has done to her, this one probably hurts the least. It might even be a comfort.] It's something to reach for.

[Even if it's meant as a taunt, that's how Maketh intends to take it.

She opens her eyes a bit, glancing down at the mirror.] Oh.

[Hopefully it's too dark for Newt to see how her face colors.] She--yes. She was.

(He would hope for her, for everyone else, that it was possible. Maybe he wasn't supposed to know much of a future but that didn't mean others couldn't. He wasn't selfish by any means and he sincerely did hope that it was something she and the others could achieve.) It's a good thing to be reaching for.

(He looks again at the mirror and finds himself grinning just a little bit. He's not really familiar with romance or anything, not that much anyway, but he recognizes the intimacy enough. It's reflected in his own mirror between himself and Peter and it's just there enough that he gets it.)

Was?

(Again, it's a gentle probe.)

[Her face is burning. Maketh puts a hand over her mouth, trying to compose herself. It's just a conversation, that's all.] She was...uh.

[The image shows them embracing, suddenly, Itani pulling pins from Maketh's hair and letting it slip down from the bun. Maketh lets her hand drop.] We were--together. Once. Her name is Itani.

(He's watching the scene with a quiet sort of fascination. He doesn't really understand in full the complexity of relationships or what's normal but what he sees is...Sweet. He looks over at her, frowning a little bit.)

Itani. Do you miss her then? I mean...If she's here.

(He realizes himself then and looks a little bit sheepish.)

I'm sorry. That was nosey.

She's not here.

[She would have shown herself by now, wouldn't she? Maketh smiles a little, uncertain if Newt can see it in the dark.] It's all right. I...I don't know what happened to her, actually. But if I could see her again, even here...that would be nice.

[It's possible that Itani is dead, has been dead for over ten years now. Her TIE fighter went down under uncertain circumstances, and a body was never found. Maketh heard rumors of a possible defection, though she'd denied them hotly at the time. Now she wonders.

She tips her head to the side.] You're close, aren't you? With Peter.

[She taps the edge of Newt's mirror briefly, wondering if it might be similar to her and Itani. She and Itani had been older when they met, of course, but...

Well.]

(He can see her. Only a little bit but enough to see her smile. Though something tugs at the pit of his chest and he shifts a little closer to Maketh. Cliff might have made him cautious about touching others but it's still in his nature to comfort and soon their sides are lightly pressed together.

After all, not knowing someone's fate is sometimes worse than other things.)

Who knows. She could always turn up here. It's clearly not impossible with how many people do, right?

(His optimism is sincere. He sometimes even thinks his old friends could show up. He hopes they do just about every day - if only because Hadriel was a little kinder than their world. Safer.

Then the topic is changed onto him and he feels a light coloring in his own face. He glances down at the mirror.)

Yeah. He was the first person I met here. We're uh-. He's helped me through a lot of things.

(His voice is quiet, fond and even if he doesn't clarify anything specifically with words, it's pretty clear there's deep affection there for the other boy.)

I suppose... I don't really know how to picture a future without him anymore. Don't think I'd want to.

[Oh. This is happening. Maketh glances down at Newt uncertainly, wondering if she ought to--say something. About this. She takes a breath and lets it out, instead. The Empire's rules don't apply here.] I suppose. It--I'd like that.

[Even if it brought Itani here, with all the monsters and horror. Perhaps that's the trick of the mirrors, Maketh thinks. Making them see possibilities that nonetheless keep them trapped in this place.

Maketh bumps her shoulder against Newt's, gently. She can hear the warmth in his voice, along with the uncertainty.] Why not?

(No rules from anyone's world apply here. It's a good thing mostly, Newt thinks.) You know, I think these mirrors aren't just showing stuff we wanna see. But things that are possible too. Maybe difficult but...possible.

(He's only convinced of this for the simple fact that in his own mirror, in a perfect world, Alby would have been there too. Maybe even Chuck. But both of them had been killed and it was something he kept thinking about. Alby had been his best friend for years. The person he'd known the longest. Him missing from the mirror was pretty telling of what the mirror could and couldn't show.

She bumps his shoulder and Newt blushes just a little bit more. His shoulders roll up and he looks down at the mirror a bit intently.

It had been embarrassing and tricky for Maketh and it was embarrassing and tricky for Newt to talk about these kinds of things. But she had admitted as much to him so he supposed he could return the favor. Funnily enough, she would be the first person he ever told about this.)

I guess- we're together. I think. And it'd be nice to keep it that way. I'd like a future with him.

(Him wanting a future at all was a pretty big deal but that's another matter entirely.)

The rest of it would be lovely too. I'm not much without my friends, after all.

(Which makes him pause and finally look at Maketh rather seriously.)

Do you consider us friends?

I hadn't thought of it like that.

[Though Maketh supposes it's possible. If the mirror was just showing her what she wanted to see, then it would have been perfect, wouldn't it? And it wouldn't have been on Hadriel, certainly. It would have been on Lothal, which is lost to her.

But this - no matter the strangeness - this could, perhaps, come to pass.

Maketh smiles a little at Newt, this strange boy she's come to know. And why shouldn't he find some happiness here? It's not much to ask.] You seem happy.

[In the mirror, she means, but also sitting next to her, talking about these things. Maketh doesn't know Peter at all - doesn't even think she's spoken to him yet - but she recognizes the comfort in their proximity, how they fit together so easily. She had that with Itani, once.] It's not...wrong, to want a future. It's something to fight for.

[She pauses, sounding surprised.] I--I'd like to think so, yes. It's...I had allies, back home. But I think here I am making--friends. It feels different.

(Newt wanted to believe as much as her that this was all possible. Or really, that could be the worst part about it maybe. That it wasn't impossible but so, so difficult to achieve.

He looks oddly surprised to hear that he looks happy and he first looks down at his own mirror and then back up at Maketh.) Can't say I've ever been told that.

(There haven't been many moments of joy in his life. Peter's changed that though. And so had his friends, both here and back home. Sometimes he thought his life really was getting better.

Maybe she would meet Peter soon enough. He wasn't overtly social but Newt thought that maybe the two of them would get along well.)

I think you're right. It's...I think that's the only thing that really keeps us going when things are awful.

(He's trying to be more positive lately, really, he is. People like Maketh are making it easier and easier.

He smiles when she agrees that they're friends and he sits up a little bit straighter.)

I think so too. I've never met an adult like you before either. I don't think this is the kind of place for allies. We're all against the same thing so I guess here it's just friends or not. I'm glad to call you a friend though.

I think we both lived in difficult times.

[Newt more than her, perhaps. At least on Lothal, there had been moments of peace. Quieter things in between the violence that eventually erupted. The Empire's presence there had been a subtler sort of ill than the things Newt described. On the surface, Lothal might have looked peaceful. But dig down under a few layers and you'd find the truth.

Maketh presses her arm against Newt's side, just a little.] It makes things easier, to have a clear goal. Something better than just surviving.

[No matter how difficult that might be on Hadriel. They have to try.

Maketh laughs just a little at that, surprised.] You are a very strange person, Newt. Though you may be right.

[She pauses.]

I'm not...well. It's been a long time since I've tried to make friends. It's harder than I remember.

Yes, I think that's right.

(With how stringent her military life seemed to be, he wasn't all that surprised. The only peace Newt had known was in the Glade but that was a false sense of security. Much like Hadriel was. Still...it wasn't all bad...In its own way.

Newt looks at her then and he finds himself grinning.)

Yes, I think you're quite right. Surviving just to survive...Ah. It doesn't always work. Leaves too many open-ended questions of why?

(Hadriel, in Newt's opinion, still wasn't all that bad. It could be much worse. Much better but much worse- which he thought was the more important thing to take note of.

At her laugh, he grins a it wryly.)

Am I strange? What makes you say that?

(Not that he seems particularly offended. It's definitely not the first time he's been told that.)

I think you're doing just fine. You're a lovely person. Just. Be yourself, I suppose. That's kinda corny though, isn't it?

Survival for it's own sake becomes...exhausting.

[She doesn't want that here, for anyone. These people deserve something better. Maybe to go back home, or maybe to build a new one here. Someday, Maketh will find a way to defeat the gods, drive them out, and then she'll try her damnedest to built something here. She'll build what Lothal was supposed to be.

Or she'll try, anyway.

Maketh tips her head back with a smile.]

You don't think like anyone I've met.

[Newt's company is refreshing. Maketh likes him. He's quick and clever, and keeps Maketh on her toes. She blinks, then clears her throat.] T--thank you. That's--hard, sometimes. I rely too much on protocols. What I've been taught. It's not always correct. But I am--trying.

[She wants to be better.]

(The day they ever accomplish that and Maketh tries for a better world, Newt would be right there to support her. He's abandoned his own world entirely. He can only hope his friends eventually make it here but their fate had always been better than his own- presumably. Either way, he was ready to make a new world.

For a moment, Newt winds up staring at Maketh with wide-eyed surprise. He raises his hand up to his temple and idly touches himself, his eyes straying away.)

Thank you.

(It's a good thing, he knows, but sometimes he wonders how different his life would be if he wasn't so good at thinking outside the box.

But she means it in a positive way, not the possessive way of WICKED and so he eventually smiles and lowers his hand.) It's okay. I'm kind of a stickler for rules too but I guess after a while we all find a reason to break them. I think trying is more than most people can say.

(She already is better then, isn't she? Newt firmly believes that it's that first step that matters the most. Makes the intent clear and what more could anyone ask for than that? Improvement was always a slow road.)

[Rules, yes. Once, Maketh found a great comfort in memorizing them line by line, in knowing exactly what was expected of her in every situation. That way she'd never been surprised and if she worked hard enough, she never disappointed. The rules themselves might not have been the problem, but she'd found the people behind them often twisted things for their own agendas.

Maybe she'd been foolish not to have seen it at the beginning.

Maketh rests her head back against the wall.] We come from strange places, don't we?

[Strange and awful, though in different ways. Surely there must have been good in Newt's world just as there was good on Lothal, no matter what it was eventually overshadowed by. And here they sit, in a place that defies explanation, looking down at mirrors that play their dreams over the glass.

There are worse things.

She tips the mirror towards Newt, to show him something. There's a large, cat-like animal in the process of shredding someone's boots.] Look. We had these animals back home. They're called loth-cats. They'd wreck havoc on our security systems - damn things would attack the turrets, if you can believe that. But they're strangely friendly. I wouldn't mind seeing them here.

(Rules were what had kept his home life in the Glade running smoothly. Keeping sixty or so teenage boys in line required a lot of implemented structure and order. Similarly, their rules hadn't technically been a problem but they had just been another bar to the cage they were in in the end.

Everyone had to learn eventually, Newt would suppose.

Newt joins her on leaning back, deciding it was worth getting comfortable for.) Yes, we do. And we've come to another strange place. Maybe the universe is just...strange.

(He shrugs afterwards. There was good in every world. Apparently on his, there had even been a Paradise of sorts. Of course, that Paradise would never be open to him. It was for the people who were immune. He didn't...belong.

He's looking at his own mirror, wondering curiously if in it he's healthy. It seems so impossible-

But then he's interrupted in thought by Maketh which was probably for the best. He looks over and his face instantly warps into an expression of confused delight.)

It's....so cute!

(He splutters this in utter surprise. He almost looks childish in his wonder, eyes large and body suddenly sitting up again. He's only seen so many animals. Your generic farm animals and a dog but anything else? Sure he could conjure up the words but that never stopped the excitement from seeing things.

And there definitely weren't these things back on his own world.)

That'd be amazing.

[Maketh grins at his expression. For a moment, Newt almost looks his age - eyes wide and wondering. Most of the time she can get away with seeing him as another soldier - a cadet, perhaps, but someone that Maketh can understand and work with. She doesn't have to censor her thought process from Newt because his world is just as cruel as hers was. No place for children, at any rate.

It's easy to forget how young he is.]

They get into everything, back home. But if you feed them, sometimes they'll let you pet them.

[She taps the mirror fondly.] I miss that.

(Newt smiles widely and it feels good to look at something like that. The last animal he had pet wasn't really an animal. He was quickly getting accustomed to petting wolves in this place. That alone was pretty awesome but Newt had found that he liked animals. He couldn't really play with the fish that he now had but at least it was pretty.

His eyes flicker back to his own mirror briefly before going to Maketh's face.)

What do you think about wolves?

(He asks casually as can be. He'd never endanger Peter's secret- ever- but he is curious. Peter seems pretty convinced that people will hate him for it or hurt him and Newt agrees. He just thinks that maybe not everyone would.

And Maketh- well. She seems maybe like she likes animals too.)

Event log: Mirror, mirror

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