sixthiterationlogs | See, everywhere I go I got a million different people tryna' kick it

WHO: Ashley Magnus
WHERE: Around the village
WHEN: During the first part of March, post Take Two
OPEN TO: OTA, with individual threads for Desmond and Lucy
WARNINGS: Talk of dying and killing likely

Vagabond - South village, moving

For the second time in five months, Ashley found herself moving. Things aren't nearly as bad with Druitt as how she'd felt upon arriving, but she's happier having distance and space from the central hub as well.

Gathering all of her things, mostly clothes (not all her own) and little else, she heads for Vanille and Phryne's place to start getting settled in there. Before leaving though, she pauses at the house where she had lived with Ty for such a short time and digs a small folding knife out of her pocket. Maybe it's vandalism, but laws are always a gray area for Ashley as she works to carve Ty's name on the railing of the porch. Maybe it's childish and pathetic, but he's one of the dearest friends she's ever had, and she doesn't want him forgotten.

Gathering up her things, she heads for the other house. It's not a far move, but it feels like such a change of life for Ashley yet again. It's more times in five months than she's ever moved in her life, and she's still trying to adjust to it all. And maybe in semi-healthy ways as well.

Readjustment - South village throughout the first 2 weeks of March

After the knowledge of her death, of what her life becomes, Ashley kind of let herself wallow in her own depression. She is a Magnus though, and wallowing is not in her blood. Not truly. Not in the way she was raised.

So despite the cold, she starts getting up every morning and going for a run. Hard and fast, sweating out the anger and the pain and the frustration she is feeling without a repeat of her first time dealing with this build up of emotion. It had taken her weeks to heal from the beating she had put on Druitt, and he had returned, and she would like to avoid that if she can. It's hard though, and she pushes herself more and more every day, going out farther and father in an attempt to work through the thoughts in her head.

Other times she might be found in the stable, or outside with one of Vanille's animals, grooming kirin or playing with the other animals from the barn area in the police station. Not much of one to cook, she heads to the inn often for food, spending time by the fire and studying books she got from the schoolhouse.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Beverly's expression turns very interested. Horses weren't exactly her field of study, though she did have to learn a bit of veterinarian medicine to care for the Enterprises variety of pets, but she knows someone who would be very able and willing to help Ashley's studies.

"You should talk to Jean-Luc sometime," she says warmly. "He has always been an avid equestrian and ever since our housemates disappeared, he's taken over looking after the two we have."

The kirin weren't his to begin with, but she knows Jean-Luc enjoys any chance he gets to work with equines.

"I've been doing all right. Trying to keep up with the general flow of the population. I've tried to take a head count of people who know any kind of medicine and who might be willing to learn. Can't have too much medical staff running around."

"Oh, I've been meaning to talk with him anyways," she says, putting the book aside and looking glad to find there might be someone with hands on practical knowledge. Ashley has never been one for the study side of learning, but when it comes to living beings, she doesn't want to take the chance she hurt them. Vanille would be so hurt if they were.

"Given how they keep sending us off to the far reaches, that's smart. I keep worrying if any they've done that to just haven't come back, and we won't know why since others disappear."

"You should," Beverly encourages with a warm smile. "I'm sure he wouldn't mind talking to you, especially about horses." Or as close to horses as they have here. Regardless, she knows he wouldn't mind at all and if she can help get them to talk, she absolutely will.

"That's always a concern," she agrees slowly. "I think that's why so many people put up requests for updates. If anyone hasn't checked in, there's the option to message them with the wristband network. It's more than we had when I first got here."

"I will get right on that," she says, smiling widely. Adjusting to be that person on the other side of things isn't easy, especially now since she isn't even sure exactly what she's researching, or what might not be accurate between what she knows and what they have. She keeps trying though, doing the best she can.

She nods. "It's how I realized Ty was actually gone. His name wasn't on the device anymore," she admits, hating that she still finds it hard talking about him, missing him as much as she does. "What was it like when you first got here?"

Having been a resident for nearly two years, Beverly has seen a lot of change. She wasn't in the first wave, but somehow she has become one of the old timers now. She has experienced more than most here and likes to offer the knowledge she has gained over that time as often as she can.

"It was similar," she says slowly, thinking back to that time. It feels like so long ago and yet just the other day at the same time. "I think we were more isolated then. We didn't have immediate contact with each other and it was harder to keep track of who was around unless you saw them every day. It was... different. And a lot of the things that happened to us weren't on a scale as large as the one now. We'd have earthquakes, lightning storms, snow storms, fireflies that made you hallucinate with fever. That sort of thing. Then again, back then, we didn't have a simulation this large, either. We were all contained between a crater's edge and the lake we thought was an ocean."

It's not the first time she's heard of this spoken to as a simulation, and yet she isn't sure how real that makes things or how much they have to accept they aren't entirely real. Either way, she's not sure how much it really changes in this place.

"Do you think it's true we're not the real use either? Not entirely?"

It's almost easier believing she's a clone than living, if only that it's a second chance just like this place is. Home she's dead. Here though, she can go on.

"That could be," Beverly admits slowly. "What I think is that the environment is the simulation. Even here in this second version, there's a lot about it that can't be easily explained. I don't think the people are simulations. We'd have noticed a lot of inconsistencies and malfunctions a long time ago if that were the case."

A lot of that is just reassurance for both of them. Beverly knows full well that she can't confirm the clone or hologram theory without her Starfleet technology, but even if she had that, the sad fact of the matter is that those could be holograms, too, programmed to display what the Observers wanted them to. So, until proven otherwise, she will just continue to assume that the environment around them is the only simulation.

"So it's all time travel and not cloning?" She considers that, not sure what to make of it still. "I know that Druitt knows a lot more about home than I do," she points out. "And then there's the whole dying thing," she says, as if it's casual and not disturbing or weird. Which it's both.

"I guess that makes more sense, because you're right. How would they even maintain it all like this." Though she knows most of that is because she wants to believe it, not that she's sure that's true.

At the mention of death, Beverly reaches over to rest one hand over Ashley's, a silent show of support and comfort. She can only imaging what it would be like to have that kind of knowledge about the future. Still, she doesn't want to bring it up unless Ashley really wants to discuss it again, so she lets that touch be the only sign that she noticed at all.

"Even Starfleet holoprograms start to malfunction if they're constantly kept running. We just have to find the signs," she points out. "The fact that people with powers in their worlds can't use them here is also an indication, in my opinion. True, it's been almost a year since we all were brought back through the fountain to this location and things have been fairly quiet since then, I'm still not convinced that this isn't a different simulation. If they did it once, they can do it again."

See, everywhere I go I got a million different people tryna' kick it

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