hadriel_logs | fear is a device

Entry tags:

emily,
maketh tua

fear is a device

Who: Emily and Maketh
What: Continuation of this unfortunate mess.
Where: The UD house
When: March 22
Warnings: Violence, mentions of cannibalism and suicide.

A time hadn’t been specified for the exercise. Just a promise. One week for Emily to recover, and then – then it would be over, they’ll be even, and Maketh can forget the whole thing ever happened in the first place. Clearly civilians do things different – Maketh sees that now – but if there’s a protocol, then she can memorize it and everything will be fine.

Just because the rules are different doesn’t mean they aren’t there.

Maketh dresses herself carefully, making sure that her uniform is crisp, all the lines ironed to sharp points, and her boots polished. Everything just so, exactly as it ought to be. Maketh made a mistake, forgot the rules once, so she has to be extra careful to remember them in the future. For everything.

She shows up on the doorstep when she’s sure that only Emily is home, then knocks on the door. She stands at strict attention while she waits. This is necessary. This must be done right.

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Who the fuck knocks on their door? The others just walk in and out whenever they want, and Nick just walks in like she lives here. That's about it as far as regular visitors go. It probably isn't a monster or something -- Emily doubts anyone with nefarious intent would knock.

She puts down the mug she has just filled with coffee and heads for the door (why the fuck isn't there a peephole in this thing, fucking weird alien door), opening it as she says, sounding bored beyond belief, "Can I help y--"

Or, well, bored until she sees who it is.

Narrowing her eyes, Emily stands up straighter. "What the fuck do you want."

Edited 2016-03-17 19:09 (UTC)

Emily does not look pleased to see her. This was expected. Emily also looks reality well, which is good and a fact that had been somewhat in question for a time. Maketh had been afraid that she'd seriously hurt the girl for a while. This doesn't appear to be the case.

Good. They don't have much in the way of medical supplies, and dying here - though not permanent - is not without pain.

Maketh looks straight ahead to the spot beyond Emily's shoulder. "It's been a week."

Great. This fucking soldier shit again. Maketh won't look at her, won't cower, won't show anything but perfect posture.

Emily is about to ask what Maketh is talking about, when she remembers. Back in the shop, in the aftermath of getting punched in the stomach, she had told Maketh to give her a week to recover before she could punch her back.

"Damn, you are one masochistic mess of a bitch."

And she's probably not going to leave unless Emily either hits her or asks for more time. Truth told, Emily does still want payback for last week. She isn't nearly as strong as Maketh, and definitely not trained like her, but if it'll make Maketh leave her the fuck alone (and if it'll leave a nice bruise behind), then why the hell not.

Besides. She really wants revenge.

"Come in. Let's get this shit over with."

Opening the door wider, Emily steps aside to let Maketh through. "Kitchen. I was making coffee. I'm going to finish fixing my mug before I hit you."

Masochism is a psychological disorder. Maketh is simply thorough. She'll follow the proper protocols in order to atone for her mistake, and once she's gone through the motions, it will be done. Then she can get back to work. If she hit a fellow soldier of comparable rank, they'd either hit her straight back or get revenge in some equivalently painful way. If she hit someone of higher rank, she would have been shot. Outside of the Academy, officers are supposed to be above such things.

It seems that she's not. Unfortunate.

Emily isn't a soldier - not even close - but this seems like the best way to solve the problem. So here they stand.

Maketh steps inside without a word. She'll be a professional about this. She'll take the blow and then it'll be done, and she'll never speak to Emily again. Won't stand closer than five feet. And if a situation demands proximity, then Maketh will simply stand at attention the whole time, hands behind her back.

That seems proper.

She follows Emily into the kitchen without a word. The house has a lived in feel, clothes hanging off furniture, dishes in the sink. A touch of chaos, Maketh thinks. It's almost comforting.

Not chaos. Just college-aged boys. Five kids with PTSD, all of whom deal in different ways.

"Sit or whatever."

Emily doesn't bother looking to see what Maketh does, her attention on sweetening her coffee to taste and throwing a hint of creamer into her mug, stirring it all together, and taking a sip. Perfect. Setting the spoon in the sink, she leaves the mug on the counter and turns to face Maketh.

"You ready for this, bitch?"

It's a tactic, Maketh thinks. How Emily is making her wait. Meant to intimidate, imply that this--moment, isn't important enough to see through right away. Of course. Clever.

Civilians have to be clever because they're not allowed to raise armies.

She doesn't sit. She stands at attention and waits patiently.

"Yes."

Part of her wants to ask if Emily knows the proper way to hit someone. You can injure yourself, if it's done wrong. But that's probably not the right thing to ask in this situation.

No, Maketh. Emily isn't trying to be intimidating. She's asserting her power here, yes, but it's not about intimidation. She's just so fucking done, and she wants to be sure she's as healed up and far away from last week as possible so that when she hits her, it hurts.

Maketh knows war tactics, and Emily knows social ones. That's all.

She makes a fist, pressing her nails into her palm to make sure they're a good length. Emily knows how to "fight like a girl" -- how to draw blood with little effort, where to hit a guy so he'll stop being a perv, when to walk away.

There's no get ready or here goes next, just Emily swinging her open hand at Maketh's cheek. It's about as hard an impact as she dealt Ashley in the basement of the lodge, only this time she adds a slight curve to her fingers, dragging her nails across the skin. Even if she doesn't draw blood, the scratches will sting.

Slaps are probably the only fighting skill Emily has experience with, so she enjoys the tingling of her skin after she's done it, shakes out her hand with a satisfied flick of her wrist. It doesn't matter if Maketh is still standing. It's not enough to make up for last week, but it's a little therapeutic.

"Happy now, you fucking lunatic?"

She doesn't feel guilty, but she doesn't-- it doesn't feel really right. Emily is hanging in this weird middle space where she's not a casual bitch anymore and she's not a monster. It's just like when she woke up in Hope's temple, like the hours after coming home that day.

"Why the fuck would I call you a monster for last month," she mutters, looking at her palm. "For one thing, I didn't even know you turned into one. And for another, that's like calling myself one."

There's no warning. It's better that way, probably. Maketh staggers back, one hand clutching at her face instinctively, but doesn't fall. Her eyes are watering, pain throbbing, skin hot. She wasn't expecting a slap, wasn't expecting the nails - a close handed fist, certainly, aimed for her eyes or her nose, something that would hurt, that would leave a mark she wouldn't easily forget. A single blow, when aimed properly, can do lasting, horrible damage. Part of Maketh expected that. Even saw it as fitting punishment. Something she'd have to think about for a long time.

Not - this.

It hurts, pressure blooming under the sting of blood, but--

Something in Maketh wants to protest, say, try again. You did it wrong. Do it properly this time. Get it right.

That's not the protocol. There must be a protocol. Maketh just has the wrong one, it's fine, it's fine, she'll figure it out, everything is fine--

Maketh lowers her hand slowly. "You--?"

"Didn't you listen to me last week? I turned into a wendigo too." Emily stares at Maketh, gaze cold and hard, but otherwise neutral.

If she called all the ex-wendigos in Hadriel monsters, then she'd be one too, by definition. Emily is no stranger to hypocrisy and double standards, but this is different because it was all an accident on the part of everyone who transformed. And even though she's ruthless and fierce and even vicious (how the hell else is she going to survive in the male-dominated fashion magazine industry?), she's not a monster. They will call her a viper, a bitch (they already call her that) -- but Emily knows herself. No one can hurt you if you know where they're going to aim

Her next question is more demand than inquiry, a tone she uses so regularly that she doesn't even think twice about it.

"Did you eat human meat on purpose?"

"No!"

She would never, and before Hadriel's particular brand of sadism, Maketh hadn't been in a position to even consider it. She'd been poor once, but never that desperate. Never that hungry. This conversation would have been unthinkable on Lothal.

Despite everything, the people there had enough to eat. Maketh made certain of that. She hoped someone competent had taken her place.

Maketh straightens her back to stand at attention, even as her cheek bleeds. Not much. But enough to feel.

So Emily--she also--

Stop. That line of thought is counterproductive.

"I didn't kill anyone," she murmurs, "I didn't---I made sure. I made sure."

"Neither did I." She imagines she'd come close, but as far as anyone can tell, she hadn't killed anyone.

Last week, Emily had been too distracted by shock and pain to notice much about the way Maketh is standing and speaking. Today, though, she can't help it. She's only seen this kind of thing in movies, cadets standing stiffly while a drill sergeant berates them for no reason at all. Maketh had mentioned troops, civilians, dissent. Maketh is a soldier, or an officer, or whatever, back where she's from. That means she was taught rules and regulations. That means she was taught to listen and obey.

Emily narrows her eyes. She doesn't fully understand it all, but she doesn't like what's coming to mind.

"You're a bitch." She pauses, letting the words settle in Maketh's head. "But you're not a monster. For fuck's sake, Maketh, neither of us wanted to eat human meat. Next time you feel the urge to punch someone for that, fight Fear. Go to the caves. Fight actual monsters. Fucking idiot."

This time, Maketh dares to meet Emily's eyes. It's wrong, against regulations, the sort of thing that would have gotten her slapped as a cadet - just like now, exactly like right now - but civilians have different rules. Perhaps this is better. Closer to honesty.

People appreciate honesty, she thinks.

"I'm trying," she murmurs. "I can't--I'm not trained to fight something I can't touch."

It's her job to keep people safe and here she can't do her job.

"Like the rest of us are trained?" Emily scoffs, rolling her eyes. At least Maketh is finally looking at her. Maybe she's not a robot after all. "Nobody knows what to do here. The minute someone figures something out, something new happens."

Like with the birds on the day they arrived -- the jabberjays, fucking with their heads for no reason Emily could figure out except to torment them all. The monsters on the colosseum, sent there to arrive with them, to fuck them up a little, stir a little fear and chaos for the god who opened the Door in the first place. The wendigos had been familiar, sure, but the signs of the change had manifested too late, and who the hell would even think that there'd be human meat in the food supply?

And then, all the things that had happened before she'd arrived, like that blizzard and the day people woke up buried alive-- no one had seen any of that coming.

"There's no way of knowing what these 'gods'--" (with air quotes) "--are going to do next. How the fuck are you supposed to train for that? You aren't. We're just dealing with what they throw at us, whenever they throw it at us. It's bullshit. They're being assholes just to feed themselves."

"You're not," Maketh corrects softly. She feels this is important to say, so it's understood. "You're a civilian. There is a line."

One that is never to be crossed. That mistake was made during the Clone Wars and everyone paid for it. People like her mother, who walked away blind and with no medical pension to protect her, like the rebels who died blowing up bridges or starved to death trying to protect their homes. There must always a clear line between those who fought and those who didn't. Simple.

Or it should have been. The lines were broken here. Crossed out and burnt to ash.

Maketh swallows hard. "I will--do better. I will perform my duty with the utmost discipline. This will not happen again."

"Are you listening to me at all?" It's like talking to a goddamn brick wall, for fuck's sake. "The 'gods' don't care who's a civilian and who's not. And none of that shit matters anyway because it's all of us against all of them in this fucked up game they're playing where they make up the rules and change them whenever they feel like it!"

It's like on the mountain. Like Josh's little horror movie, starring him and his friends. And just like then, it's not so much that Emily cares enough for everyone else's sake, or even her own, to bother putting herself on the side that's against the gods. It's just a fact that. She isn't one of the gods, therefore she's one of the pieces in their game, therefore she's not on their side. And at this point, it doesn't matter, because all she wants is to go home, find Matt, get off the mountain, and forget that all of this shit (all of it, this shithole included) ever happened.

Maketh stands perfectly still and waits for it to come. A blow, a reprimand, something. But these people aren't like back home. They don't understand, they don't do the proper things.

A game. Like Emily says.

"Then what would you have me do?"

She can't think of what else to do, except ask. Maybe Emily knows something that Maketh doesn't.

"'What would'--" Shaking her head, she scowls. "Since when am I in charge of anything anyone does here?"

It's not that Emily doesn't like being in charge. On the contrary, she's always here for getting her way. The thing is that this is completely not her element. Survival? Shit, she barely made it out of the mines alive, only to almost get shot by her ex-boyfriend. She's not exactly the authority on making it through difficult situations alive. When there's someone else who can do a better job, Emily will stand behind them -- to poke and prod them into getting their shit together and coming up with a plan.

Maketh blinks, then - hesitantly - relaxes her shoulders a touch. Just a little. But she's not standing at attention anymore. "I don't understand you at all."

Civilians, she means. But also Emily, who snaps and yells, but seems to understand something that Maketh doesn't.

Of course Emiily is going to take that personally.

"Excuse me? Who's the one who punched someone in the stomach because she thought she'd been called a monster?"

In other words, fuck you, bitch.

But in all seriousness, Emily understands a lot, sure, but the key is pretending you understand it all. Which Maketh is slowly getting her to admit that she doesn't. If she did, she would've told Maketh what to do. It's hard enough figuring out what Emily herself has to do, both here in this hellhole and in life overall, after the prank and hurting Matt and all the other shit from last year alone.

If Emily could learn to guard her face a bit better, then she could have made a decent Imperial. She has the right attitude, or at least something close to it. A fire burning close to the surface. Maketh can admit that now.

She'll live, Maketh thinks. That's good.

"You should learn to throw a proper punch," Maketh says abruptly. "I'll teach you sometime."

This place isn't like back home. The lines have been crossed. Everyone needs to fight now.

In better circumstances, Emily can be pretty calm and collected and rational. It's just been a hard month, that's all.

That isn't the response Emily is expecting, but-- it's interesting. Is this how Maketh offers a truce, it's not a bad way to go about it. And she's right, too. Emily should learn how to throw a punch. Kneeing guys in the balls is a pretty tried and true method of self-defense, but it doesn't work so much if the person she's attacking doesn't have balls. A good punch, though. That can do a lot.

Narrowing her eyes, she watches Maketh for a moment, trying to find any signs that Maketh is just messing with her. Once she's satisfied she's not, Emily nods. "When my bruise is gone."

Maketh nods. She almost asks permission to leave, but that would be ridiculous. She's not a cadet anymore. "Come find me then."

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