keep that fury deep inside you: primitive weapons plot

[thenewways]

WHO: Kira Nerys
WHERE: the Inn
WHEN: Saturday,
OPEN TO: All (August Plot, part 2)
WARNINGS: none at present
STATUS: Open

---

When Nerys heard about the boxes that Jo and Killian Jones had found, she was surprised. When she heard what was in them, that they were all marked with intent, the surprise lessened, and now was turning into sinking overwhelming tunnel vision in her head, her gut. The physical sensation of knowing, knowing that someone had plans for you, and those plans were likely ugly--oh yes, she knows it. Just because it's familiar, though, doesn't make it something she enjoys by any stretch of the imagination.

No, it's the kind of feeling that Nerys had learned at a very young age to transmute into anger. The kind of anger that fed her family, then the kind of anger that blew up Cardassian weapons depots, then the kind of anger that kept her focused on her job and kept her people safe.

She knows that if she's feeling this way, things are just as bad or worse for others. While she hasn't been entirely candid with everyone about her past, though she certainly hasn't lied, she's pretty sure she's seen complexity (let's be frank, darkness) in some of the people she's met, and like fuck did they need a full-scale civil war on their hands here.

It's a good way for them all, in the not-so-long run, to die.

Clearly, they all needed to have a gods damned talk before this boiled over, and as Nerys sees no one else volunteering, she steps up, roaming through the village like an old-fashioned crier. "Hey," she shouts at the people in the field, around the town, using the rather powerful pipes the Prophets had seen fit to give her. "Hey. Meeting at the Inn, fifteen minutes. We need to talk."

She gets to the inn in a few minutes' time, then clambers up onto one of the tables in front of Jo's lists, and sits, cross-legged, to wait. Folks filter in, a few at a time, and Nerys taps her jaw with her fingertips, counting out the seconds (she'd like a chronometer, but that'd be like asking for latinum dust). Once enough time's passed, she clears her throat. It doesn't really do much, so she rolls her eyes, then turns up the volume a little--not aggressive, but enough to catch people's attention. She's accustomed to walking the fine line between too much and too little leadership, because unlike her Starfleet colleagues, she doesn't expect the hierarchy of rank and linked formality of sometimes-grudging respect. Makes it easier to actually talk to people.

"Hey. My name's Nerys, for those of you who I haven't met properly yet. You've probably heard what was found out in the forest," she starts. "I figure we should all sit down and discuss it, because the last thing that's going to be any good for anyone is us starting to distrust each other and get into fights. So...let's hash it out, right?"

If she has to scream the 'this is what they fucking want, they want us to hurt each other, fuck them' message into people's heads, she's willing to do that. Eventually. Hopefully someone else will agree.

Comments

[lastofthekellys]

"Not since before I buggered up me ankle," Kate allows, after running her memory back. "But it'd been a couple days of neither comin' to eat dinner."

Which, in of itself, isn't odd. The midday meals are hardly compulsory, either to work, to supply, or to eat, and it's not unusual for people to skip a day or two here or there. Particularly loners, particularly if they can handle themselves.

"General Hux is the redheaded gentleman, with the red clothes." Like mine. "I didn't catch the name of his companion. Kyle somethin'?"

The names are important, suddenly.

If they have just upped and vanished.

[teen_angst_bullshit]

"I didn't even think about it, but... Yeah, it's been days," Veronica agrees with a small, slow nod. Every, single day she gets out. She doesn't wander too far -- She's got too many people who would give her a load of shit if she did -- but Mark's taught her a little about what plants to look for, and she likes the excuse to skirt the edges of the village, to take note of what new there is to see.

Except, it's been what wasn't there that should have stood out.

"Maybe they're out hunting or something?" she tries, ignoring the way her stomach wants to twist with anxiety.

[tobeclosetohim]

"Kylo, and Hux," Jo says, finally, when a new subject comes up, even against the sour taste of the desperation that rules this room and the faces around her. The first of those people mentioned, though, was the first person she ever met in this place, right after her from the fountain, and the second one it'd taken a few weeks and a warm meal to end up seeing hide or hair of even for a second time. Both of them names in the log, too, now.

She hasn't said a whole lot in a good while, but that's not surprising.

Most everything in this room has fallen down exactly how she thought it might. Would.
She didn't know who and how -- that won't ever forget -- but it's gone pretty well how it always does.

"I don't get out that way very often, but they've seemed to stick to themselves a lot. Someone could go check go check for them? I don't know much about his friend, but Kylo's been pretty focused on getting out. He checked the bottom of the fountain several times when new people came in after them, so I wouldn't put it ast him to be back trying the cliffs or to have gotten some other idea."

The repetition got him nothing, but she respected the fact he kept going at it, kept trying to get out, rather than figure staying put.

[thenewways]

Despite being noisy as hell to kick things off, Nerys has stayed unusually quiet during the earlier proceedings--she can see value in both sides of the argument and she doesn't really have anything valuable to add. She hates being fucked with, knows these likely will come back to haunt them, but she finds it incredibly futile to not keep what they have. As the other dark-haired girl (not the one who's brought up this issue, the other one, the one whose people ruined their version of Earth) and Mark mentioned, they couldn't very well take them back to the shop, could they. Might as well make use, as long as it wasn't to harm each other.

If she's being honest, Nerys already knows that productive use of the tools is what she'll do regardless, the morality of the tainted gift and the opinions of her fellows be damned. The discussion, for her, is just to lance the wound before it bursts and infects everything down to the bone. The infection may still linger, but

The fact that some people have gone missing, though, that's new. She bites her lip and thinks for a second. "If he was trying the cliffs," she says, "or if they both were, maybe they fell and got hurt. We should go have a look, at least." Tact makes her leave off the 'for bodies' out of the last sentence, as well as any speculation as to what they could do for medical care (ha) if she was right. Nerys has tried the cliffs herself and found them to be treacherous as all hells.

"If none of us have seen them for that long," she adds. Thanks to the meals, she's pretty sure Kate sees a good chunk of the population at some point during a day, or certainly over several days, and climbing was hungry work.

Or maybe they got out, a thought hisses in the back of her mind, a slithering feeling that's not quite words, not quite a sound, almost like the tone of Kai Winn calling her child. Implying that she hasn't tried hard enough.

[igotacrossbow]

It might come as a surprise, but Jake is capable of keeping his mouth shut when the time comes for it. And so far, his opinion hasn't really been necessary in most of the discussion, as the others have all voiced pretty much exactly what he was gearing up to say anyway, so he's been sitting silently for most of the evening, one hand on the head of his dog as it sits more or less obediently at his feet.

He doesn't like to think about people disappearing, though. It's a fact of life, in situations outside of your control, but still.

"I'll go look," he volunteers, stroking his thumb over Baby's skull. "Or at least be part of the search party. Baby's a hunting dog, he'll be able to suss out any tracks they might have left behind."

What he doesn't point out is that he's more used to dead bodies than perhaps many of the others trapped here, and he's strong enough to carry them both home, if need be. Neither of those guys looked particularly heavy, and if they've been lying dead or dying at the bottom of a ravine for a few days, the scavenger animals will have already gotten to them and started to lighten the load, as it were.

[dnr]

Frank looks a little wary, both about the disappearances and about the idea of mounting a search party. It could be important - they could have been killed by something that'll threaten the rest of the group, or they might have found a way out - but it could waste time and energy they can't afford right now, given the urgency of planting season.

"I can take my dog out in the other direction when we hunt tomorrow. Cover more ground that way. She's not trained yet, but she's got that bloodhound nose all the same."

"Ought to keep the groups small, though," he adds, considering. "Forage or something as you go. Multitask. We don't have a lot of manpower to spare."

[igotacrossbow]

"Parties of two," Jake agrees, his eyes cutting across the room to Cougar out of habit. Cougar's always been at his six, practically his entire career. It's instinct to trust him to be there with him in situations like these, no matter what's going on inside their home.

"It'll make it easier to...bring them back, if we find them," he continues quietly, since that's still something to consider. And, if they're too messed up to bring back to the village for burial here, then having another person along will make it easier to bury them in the forest.

"I'll go North," he offers, turning his attention back to Frank, rubbing Baby's silky ear absently between his fingers.

[thenewways]

Both of the men look like they know what they're doing, and Nerys isn't sure how she feels about that--not entirely. Then again, she's really one to judge, considering some of the shit she's done.

"Seeing as I brought it up, I'm willing to go," she says, "cover whichever ground the two of you aren't--if I can find a partner. We can take the cliffs, anyway, and be there and back again with no more than a day lost."

There's a hint of steel in her expression, as if she dares anyone to think she's not capable. She's not afraid of hauling bodies; hell, hauling injured people is far, far worse. Some part of Nerys that she will never voice almost wants to find the two dead, a far less terrifying explanation than that they've effectively vanished, and far less brutal than wounds and infection they won't be able to treat.

Part of Nerys, frankly, never left the Resistance.