[closed] sentiment's the same but the pair of feet change

[3ofswords]

WHO: Kira Akiyama
WHERE: 7I Peach Tree
WHEN: November 18, late
OPEN TO: Mark Watney
WARNINGS: N/A

---

The letter had arrived days prior, tucked into the last box he'd moved between what were apparently his houses. Who was he not to commit to an action everyone said he was taking, especially if it made practical sense? And he was practical, by all accounts. Helped others, volunteered for work. Things that are both true and very convenient to tell the guy who just showed up.

Kira doesn't think the reward the letter promises will get him home. He believes them when they say no one gets out, but--maybe he can know when people are lying again. Maybe he can at least live in a canyon that doesn't ask him to have faith, trust strangers, believe in general goodwill.

Knowing's better.

Knowing's saved his life.

Being known is less appealing: it's an easy choice of who to steal from, and what. Even if he doesn't get his power back, can't know what Mark's intentions are, or how deep into this he's involved--Mark won't fucking have a scrap of paper in his handwriting anymore. Kira won't have to engage the fact that he was here, writing things down, letting them fall into someone else's hands.

Stealing the shit is the easy part: the house is unlocked, he has an easy excuse for being there. There's another tarp sled behind Mark's house, already rigged up better for Aurora to carry it than the one in his own home. The only hiccup is another dog, but it's as familiar with him as the people here: he pets some ears, he lets Aurora distract it, and he's in and out of Mark's house before anyone returns, leaving only drag marks in the thin snow and frozen dirt.

Getting the shit to the peach trees is the hard part.

There's no moon tonight, and he's glad he had multiple houses worth of towels to soak in animal fat and tie to a stick. Which just leaves him in the fucking woods, trying to navigate terrain (which he's never done) through a gap in a canyon wall (that he's never seen before), to some hypothetical trees he doesn't recognize, but finds mapped out in a journal full of his handwriting.

It's lunacy, the kind of thing he might die doing, but--what's one more trek through a cold and hostile environment? At least he has a dog to drag his stuff, and at least no one's shooting at him.

According to map, he's at the peach trees--but they're hard to recognize in the dark, bare of leaves, flowers, or fruit. It's too cold to be wrong, and too cold to make another stab in the literal dark: Kira adjusts his scarf away from his humid breath, tucking it around the bird nested down on his shoulder, and holds his flaming walking stick closer to the journal, the letter spread over the other page.

"Should I just leave it in the sled," he asks the dog, a sure sign that he's losing it out here. "Two for one?"

Comments

[markwatney]

Paper has always been in short supply here, but whenever I've gotten my hands on some, whether it be pristine 8x11 typing paper or the backside of wrapping paper scraps, I've used it to take notes. That compilation of knowledge hasn't served me as readily as I would have liked, but that doesn't mean it isn't important. Even if it's only useful for things like trying to estimate how many people we'll be feeding over the winter, it's worth having. And I've got a lot of it — It's amazing what you can fit on a piece of paper if you write small enough — not to mention the journals Veronica left to me, filled up in their own right with lists of people and events.

And someone, for God knows what reason, has taken the whole lot. It's such an odd, counter-intuitive thing to do that for awhile I actually convince myself either Helen or myself moved them. I even walk to the inn and town hall and storehouse just to make sure I didn't accidentally leave them behind, despite knowing I hadn't.

It's on my way back that I notice the sled is gone, too, and that the thief has left a pair of ruts running off into the snow like a trail of breadcrumbs. It's so obvious, I think it must be a trick, but then I remember Occam's razor. It's probably just stupidity.

I don't appreciate having to hike all the way over to the east side after dark — Or ever, really — but if it snows overnight, I could lose the trail. It's easy enough to follow along in with a lantern, and then to spot the wavering flame through the skeleton branches of the trees.

Stopping at the edge of the clearing, I squint at the scene.

"What the fuck?"

[3ofswords]

This is exactly why he should have dumped the sled at the first tree that might have been the right one, and bailed back to the other side. He's twisted his walking stick into the earth between two rocks, creating a circle of light to work by while he unhitches Aurora and checks the blanket covering the contents of the sled. He doubts any substantial reward for a pile of wet paper.

At the sound of the voice, he doesn't quite look up, finishing the knot at Aurora's hip to free her before he stands and walks back to his light. Yanking his stick from the hard earth, he points it out, pulling his hood from his brow and squinting back.

"Oh, Mark," he says, like he didn't just drag the guy's shit halfway across their terrarium. At least he seems to be alone; too early to tell about unarmed. With a recently practiced whistle, he gets Aurora at one side, and holds his torch upright at the other. Push to shove, he might be able to threaten the load with fire to save his own skin.

[markwatney]

Well, whatever it was that they did to Kira in those three days, it has officially become alarming.

"Please don't set those on fire," I say, lifting a conciliatory hand, palm-out. "It might not be worth much to most people, but keeping track of what's happened in this place is the best way I can think of to figure out how to get out of it, and some of that I can't replace," I add with a nod toward the pile of papers. "It's also got the census information so we can feed everybody over the winter, and it would be a real pain in the ass to collect all that again."

[3ofswords]

"But you could." He turns his head to keep the sled and Mark both in some measure of his sight. Being cold and alone in a thing is old hat, but this is on par with throwing Nicky or Ty's special ops bullshit watches into the river. After everything that happened, he'd do it, but he can't say his core isn't shrinking into a ball of fear at the same time.

Some of it could be replaced, though. The really important part, and probably not the parts about him.

"Some of this is personal," he says. Aurora sits rooted at his feet, and he doesn't know her enough to find it out of the ordinary. "Why do you have it? And if it's so widely important, why is it shut up in your house?"

[markwatney]

"It's not shut up in my house," I reply, and can't help softly scoffing. "Anybody can come and look through it. There's not even a lock on the door, as you clearly discovered. I live in a house with two other scientists— Well, one moved out, but his lab is still there. We're trying to find answers, and data is step one. To the point that other people have dictated that if they disappear, their notes should come to me. Including you."

I motion toward the pile. "Take your stuff back, if you want. The only reason I have it is because you explicitly told me to go get it if you disappeared. You've had several friends disappear in the last several months. I think it was probably at the front of your mind."

[3ofswords]

"Yeah Mark," he says, torch swaying a bit with his hand swaying it one way and his eyes rolling in the other: "let's argue the semantics of what I fucking said." There wasn't anything particularly unreasonable in the explanation, just - the utter disconnect. It's like he woke up one day and they swapped out strangers for everyone he ever knew, expecting him to just go with it.

"I've got the torch by your research," he presses, "so let's get a few things straight. I don't have people here. I am fucking tired of being treated like a known. I will torch this just to get to start over, alright?"

Except he won't, because of the other piece of paper he's fishing out of his coat pocket and holding out. He wants to start over: he doesn't want Mark to think he's a goddamn sociopath this go-around. "And I don't think they're asking for something you were holding onto for me."

[markwatney]

I like to think I'm a person who is pretty good at rolling with the punches. I won't pretend that I've dealt with the sort of genuine, deep-seated strife many people face everyday — Even when I was left behind on Mars, I had resources. Hell, I had all of NASA and the Chinese space program, too. I have a certain privilege in not feeling hopeless. But I try to do something productive with that. I can give way a lot before I get angry.

I'm starting to get really fucking angry.

Fortunately probably for us both, Kira disrupts my Hulk out by thrusting out a piece of paper, and when I read what it says, the anger bleeds quickly away — Or at least diverts itself to something else, for whatever good that will do me.

"I've never seen anything like this before," I say at length, my brow creasing as I read over the text yet again. "I don't think anybody's ever gotten anything direct like this."

Apparently we've gone to the next level.

[3ofswords]

This, unfortunately, is Kira's productive action. After weeks of being told no one had any answers - ripped away from his happy ending, shoved into an impossible situation, and subjected to the disappointment of strangers over lost friendships and inability to take back over fucking chores effectively - the anonymous powers that be had pushed just the right buttons.

And kept pushing them until he dragged his ass across a pair of canyons.

"I tossed the first one in the stove and it just came back," he explains. "Some fucking Harry Potter shit." Kira doesn't quite back off from the canoe: he's going to leave something here for the letter's author, but he lets Mark into his space, gives him the time to read it over. "Obviously I want to know what they're offering, but I also don't want to find out what happens if I ignore it. They made the fucking sun stay up for a month."

[markwatney]

I give my head a conceding tilt. "And you couldn't have told anyone, or it wouldn't have been stealing, strictly speaking." I have to wonder if I've inadventantly tread over that line by being here and seeing this letter now, but there's nothing for it but to wait and see.

I let out a sigh, my shoulders slumping, and look to the pile of papers. "I don't know what the parameters are here. If I take them back now, does it still count? We have no way of knowing."

I hold the letter back out to Kira. "Can you at least do me a favor and flip the boat over them in case it rains? And for fuck's sake, stop acting like you're going to set shit on fire. We can give it a few days and see if you actually get this reward they're offering. I don't see any other way to find out if it's true."

And one way or another, we're going to have to tell everybody else.

[3ofswords]

Well, that was - a little easier than expected. Mark seems more concerned with verifying the letter than anything else. Fair enough, Kira can't expect the man he's stealing research from to care if there's a punishment for not stealing it. Giving him a final once-over, he decides Mark probably won't set him on fire in the dead of night, and hands over the torch. "Hold this for me."

He lays the tarp down first and folds it over the pile in its entirety before settling the canoe over it. The canoe seems like a more annoying thing to lose, considering how far absolutely no one has gotten with any kind of notation to track what the fuck is going on, but whatever makes Mark happy for now. "I'll help you take down names again," he promises.

Tying off the pile with Aurora's harness, he take back his torch and letter - if he left it with Mark it might just pop back up in his kitchen. "Has nobody stolen shit before? Why don't you all lock the doors?"

[markwatney]

"If they have, nobody made a fuss about it," I reply, holding up the torch so that Kira has some light while he works. "The community isn't really big enough to get away with anything major."

I like to think that as a whole, we're honest people here; That for the most part we wouldn't steal from each other even if we could get away with it. But context really is everything.

"There aren't any keys," I point out. "I don't know if that's on purpose or not, but crime isn't exactly an issue here."

[3ofswords]

"That's fucking weird," he says, verbal stimming at the downward swing of a very long night. Now that he's done the deed, he's going to have to hike back to civilization, and that feels like punishment enough. Maybe it isn't weird at all: it's not like anyone has anything he wants personally, to put in the effort of stealing. It's just weird compared to having to barricade himself in an apartment.

"Maybe they don't pick the so inclined," he wonders aloud, sighing as he packs himself up for the walk home. "Which then begs the question: why the fuck are they asking this?"

[markwatney]

"That is the question of the hour," I reply, although let's be real: None of us have a clue about why these people do any of this. This is just the latest example of confusing shit.

"I'd really like to know if this is an isolated incident. Is it something to do with you specifically, or do you just happen to be one of the people who got this pleasant directive to introduce the village to petit larceny?"

[3ofswords]

"I mean, I hope I'm not the only one." Being here is weird enough--being singled out by the shadow operation pulling their strings can't possibly result in anything good, dangling carrot or otherwise. "What are you going to do, though, just get a crowd together and go hey, any letters telling you to steal from people? Did you?"

If he does, Kira's advice to those waffling on the decision? Do it with some daylight left for the walk back.

[markwatney]

"Why not?" I ask, and pass the torch back now that it looks like Kira has done the best he can to secure the papers. "People need to know regardless, and you have the proof right there. There aren't a lot of secrets in this community, not when it comes to this kind of shit. Everybody's trying to figure out anything they can about why they're here. When you have clues, you share them."

[3ofswords]

"Is that what I was doing before," he asks, obvious as the answer is. He'd looked over some of the pages before stuffing the lot of it into the sled and carting it off, thinking cover of night would aid him in some way. So much for that.

"I don't think I wanted to believe any of you, but I know my own handwriting when I see it. If anyone brings you any clues about why the fuck this happened to me, pass them on."