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35 Tesserae (or, The Unintentional Rory Hawthorne Character Study) Part III
A/N: apologies for the delay on this one! I forget to update my tumblr a lot of the time. If you want to read these on Ao3 instead, I have the same user on both!
Additionally, be aware that this chapter contains references to canon-typical hunting and animal processing (thank you to @amorphousbl0b for researching that so I didn’t have to).
Hope you enjoy! - Icarian :)
I pull the door open and watch as Gale makes his way to our house. The shirt he’s wearing, the soft green one that I used to hope would be mine someday, has darkened two shades in the falling rain, and his boots are crusted with shredded pieces of sodden plants. I have to fight back the urge to embrace him, to feel that he’s real, and here, and still with me.
He stops a few paces from the door. “Got a turkey,” he tells Mama, something akin to pride crossing his face. “I’ll be in in a minute. Got to process it.”
“Make it quick,” Mama says, leaving absolutely no room for argument. “You’re already wet.” She holds her tongue, then, though I’m sure it’s already loaded with a comment about his questionable health.
He moves around the back of our house, to the area where he usually skins and cleans the animals he brings home. I turn away, not particularly wanting to watch it happen. He’s tried to show me a few times over the years, but I can never bring myself to actually do it. I guess I’m much more of a healer than a hunter. But maybe I’m not that great at being a healer, either.
I go to help Mama in the kitchen. She’s started gathering some vegetables to chop.
“I’m making soup,” she says as I enter, not looking up from her wild onions.
“Turkey soup?”
She just nods, still refusing to look at me. I decide I don’t want to pry into her thoughts; she has enough to deal with already.
“I can do this,” I offer, wanting to provide any help I can.
She shakes her head. “No, it’s alright. Make sure your brother’s doing his homework, and don’t forget your own. Go on.”
The house has gone quiet. I can hear a loud thunk from outside, enough to make me cringe and motivate me to refocus. A quick stop in our room to grab my school bag, and then I join Vick and Posy in the living room.
“Still working on your math?” I ask tentatively, craning my neck to steal a glance at Vick’s sheet of paper.
“Reading,” he grumbles, sounding frustrated.
“Doesn’t look like you’re reading.”
He shoots me a glare. “I read it. Doing questions.”
I put up my hands to diffuse the situation. “Okay. Got it.”
I pull my history book out of my bag and settle on the floor next to him. It’s getting darker because of the rain, so it’s a little harder to make out the words than usual. And, of course, it doesn’t help that this chapter isn’t making much sense. I forgot to ask Prim to borrow her book when I was over there, so the missing pages in mine are making everything really confusing.
I read in silence for a while, occasionally tuning back in to hear Mama saying something to herself as she cooks, or Posy playing with her toys under the kitchen table.
It’s not until I hear a harsh cough that I glance up, watching as Gale makes his way in through the back door. He’s holding something wrapped tightly in a towel that I can only assume is the turkey meat. He puts it on the counter for Mama to use.
“Good,” she says, gratitude evident in her expression. “Now go and change. You’ll catch your death going on like this.”
What she’s really saying is how can you be so stupid? But even that isn’t what she means. The look on her face is much closer to I’m so grateful you’re safe. I can tell that she wants to be angry with him - really, she’s trying - but she can’t quite slot that veneer over the waterfall of her relief. If I were in her shoes, I know I would probably be feeling the same, so who am I to make any kind of judgment?
Gale rolls his eyes at the expression, which earns him an unimpressed raised eyebrow. He leaves his dirty boots by the back door and disappears down the hallway to our room.
It’s always been hard to even take a guess at what’s going on in his head. A lot of people slowly stopped trying or just gave up altogether. They realized that, even with years having passed after Daddy’s accident, his view was never going to change. I know that there’s a darkness inside of him, an unending pit of confusion, betrayal, and hopeless anger that no one’s been able to touch. But under all of that, there’s the fear. He’s afraid of losing anyone else so important to him. He may not show it, but his emotions are rooted deep in the soil of who he is, and pulling on them threatens the whole tree with collapse. That’s why he keeps everything hidden, tightly wrapped and stored behind a defensive wall that’s built to never let anyone through.
A booming crack of thunder jars me back to the present. There’s a squeak from the kitchen, followed by the patter of small footsteps and Mama’s soothing words. I can’t hear what she’s saying, but I’d recognize the tone anywhere. That sound has provided comfort for all of us since we were still growing inside her, and I don’t think I’ll ever be too old to ask for the calm it brings me.
“Sounds real bad out there,” Vick says without moving his eyes from his paper. “Think we’ll still have school tomorrow?”
“I’d plan on it. They don’t cancel unless there’s some act of God, and even then probably not.”
Those weren’t the words I was expecting to hear from my brother. When my eyes land on him, Gale’s leaning against the couch, looking down at both of us.
I can’t stop my brain from entering what Mama calls “problem-solving mode” once I get a better look at him. I know it’s not healthy, but it’s almost involuntary when it comes to the people I love.
Gale’s face is drawn and ashen, his eyes slightly unfocused as he stares out the window at the storm. Everything about him looks gray in the fading light - his eyes, his skin, the worn shirt he’s wearing that probably used to be black but lost its color from years of chemical exposure and weather damage.
Then it hits me. I know this shirt. The way it ever-so-slightly hangs off of Gale’s frame where he doesn’t quite fill it out. The way it’s a couple of inches too long on him, meant for someone a little taller.
This shirt was Daddy’s. I know it deep in me, even if I can’t remember him wearing it. Maybe it would still smell like him, the smoke and maple he wore like a second skin. I don’t know if finding out would be worth the pain.
“Boys!” Mama calls from the kitchen, raising her voice to be heard over the rain on the roof. “Dinner’s almost ready. Come and eat.”
I stand mechanically, memories weighing down my steps. I’m so lost in my thoughts that I nearly trip over my history book, which still lies splayed open on the floor.
“Ro? You alright?” What an ironic question for Gale to ask me. Even his voice sounds tired.
“Hmm? Oh, yeah. Fine.”
“Okay.” He doesn’t push it. If there’s one thing I can count on with Gale, it’s that he won’t force anyone to talk. It’s appreciated, especially in moments like this.
We sit around the cramped table with its mismatched chairs in silence. Even with only five chairs instead of six, there’s still not enough space for everyone. Posy, still a little too short to use a chair by herself, clambers up into Gale’s lap. He doesn’t look too happy about it, but he’s never been good at saying no to her.
Mama hands out bowls to all of us before putting her own on the table and taking her seat. She always serves herself last. I don’t know if that’s how all parents do it, but it’s always been her way.
I take a sip and let the salty, savory broth filter over my tongue. Yet again, my family has managed to turn wild ingredients into something remarkable. Maybe it’s not their job, but they’re damn good at it, and I hope that one day I can be, too. Prim’s been teaching me some things about edible plants that she learned from her daddy. I’ll have to ask her what goes well together and how to prepare them.
Typical dinner table talk consumes most of the remaining light outside. Even after everyone’s bowls are emptied, we sit together, enjoying the time we have with the people we love. Mama and Gale discuss the latest news from town, while Vick shows Posy how to stick green beans lengthways on the end of her fork.
Once it’s too dark to see much in the room, Mama stands from the table. “Get your bowls washed up and get ready for bed. I’m not sure yet, but I don't think I want you all going to school–” she shoots a pointed look at Gale, “-or work tomorrow. It’s wet out there, and it’s only going to get worse. That means flooding and unstable ground, which isn’t good for anyone. Trust me.” Once she’s done, she goes to clean up what’s left of dinner, leaving us to ourselves.
Posy jumps down and dutifully brings her bowl to the kitchen. Gale moves to stand after, but much slower. I could be imagining things, but it almost looks like he’s holding pain in his body, tight and careful. I try to put it out of my mind as we all go to the kitchen. It’s my night to do all the washing, so I collect everyone’s bowls and rinse them out before putting them on the side board to dry.
“Thanks for dinner, Mama,” I tell her once it’s just us. “Really good.”
She looks up from where she’s wiping the counter with an old cloth the color of dead leaves in the wintertime. “Of course. Now go on to bed. All of you need to get some sleep.” There are still worries swirling in her eyes, and I’m not sure who they’re meant for. “Goodnight. I love you.” She draws me into her arms, maybe squeezing a little harder than normal.
“Love you too,” I nearly whisper as I turn and head down the hall.
When I pull the door open, the only light in the room is a candle burning low on the side table between the beds. Vick’s laying out his clothes for tomorrow. He gives me a smile when he sees me before going back to unfolding his socks.
Out of instinct, I turn to check on Gale. He seems to be settled in his bed already, his back to us. I glance back at Vick before gesturing to the other side of the room.
“Fell asleep pretty quick,” Vick quietly explains. “He was breathing real bad. Must be tired.”
I nod grimly and gesture for him to scoot to his side of the bed. He obliges and I blow out the candle before getting in on my side. “Night, V. Sleep well.”
“Mm, night, Ro.”
Sleep doesn’t come to me quickly. I stare up at the ceiling for what feels like hours, keeping an ear out for the rise and fall of two distinct sets of lungs. It’s hard to hear them over the groaning wind and the splash of the rain, but I strain my ears to do it. I need to make sure. As long as they’re breathing, they’re safe, and here, and still with me. At least for another night.
Doing a slower reread of the Murderbot books and I'm really paying closer attention to how much of an unreliable narrator MB is. And it's fascinating, the way that it is unreliable.
Murderbot repeatedly states that, outside of some specific as shit contexts, it really has a very limited understanding of the universe. That its education modules are crap and frankly far from comprehensive either. And yet? It generally fails to recognise or account for the fact it that it has these massive blind-spots and unfounded biases.
Like, we spend the majority of the books being told again and again just how insanely dangerous rogue SecUnits are. How dangerous they will always be. We are told this by a rogue unit that is, generally, only slightly dangerous to its clients through negligence.
More importantly, Murderbot rarely seems to question some core assumptions even in light of new information. In Artificial Condition we find out that MB has always had a niggling concern that it killed all those people because it disabled its governor modules/disabled the GM in order to kill them all. And what does it find out? That, no, that's not what happened, and that it's probably right that it did hack its GM to ensure that it never happened again.
MB knows that it hacked its GM and then continued protecting clients and doing its job because, well, why not? It fundamentally likes its job, in the sense of it feels a deep and abiding desire to protect humans, to keep them safe. Which makes sense! It's a SecUnit! Of course they're built with not just a shock-collar to keep them in line, but an innate drive to Provide Security. The bits of its job it fundamentally doesn't like are a: when it's made to hurt people who aren't threatening its clients and b: when it's forced to let clients endanger themselves against its judgement.
So what does it do? Does MB reassess its assumption that Rogue Units are of course going to immediately go on a killing spree? Nope! No, it just keeps assuming that it's the likely outcome. It recoils at the very idea of freeing other SecUnits because of that. Because it doesn't seem to understand that it's basing its assumptions on trauma, ironically on trauma that relates to the fact that it fundamentally finds the idea of going on a killing spree horrifying.
And sure, it probably is a minor risk. SecUnits are clearly individuals and there's always going to be some arseholes out there who get free will and immediately go "sweet! Murder Time! gun-arms go pew-pew-pew lol". But, uh, I think it's wildly overestimating the risk factor there.
Which, we see more of how fucking wrong MB is in Network Effect and Platform Decay.
In Network Effect, MB-2.0 frees Three, and what does Three do? We hear its internal thought process and its main driving factor, its default behaviour is "I want to help. I don't know what's going on but I want to Help Protect People". Three does not start blasting every soft, squishy human in range. It tries to get everyone to safety and then volunteers to help rescue someone else. Because it's a SecUnit! That's what SecUnits are made for.
And then we get to Platform Decay, where Three has decided to go on a sightseeing/chaos tour of the Awful Fucking Torus, handing out freedom-code to other SecUnits. And what do we see, from out admittedly limited perspective on events? There are reports of Rogue SecUnits about, panic and fear. But what's missing are reports of Rogue SecUnits actually killing anyone. Not saying that didn't happen, just that uh, the one rogue unit we see isn't hurting anyone, it's just running about (presumably going "oh shit oh shit ohshitohshit what the fuck am I supposed to do now???") and trying to hand out the code to others it meets.
One thing the Murderbot books do really well is giving characters unconscious biases. Plenty of stories about rebellion against corrupt systems will construct protagonists miraculously untouched by the prejudices of the dystopia, but neither MB nor the Preservation crew are immune to the order set by the Corporation Rim, no matter how much they hate it.
The other example is one of my favorite parts of Preservation society: their incomplete emancipation of bots. Their laws still require "free" bots to have human handlers and chaperones because they still don't trust them. It's free of much of the Rim's miserable inequality, but it isn't perfectly egalitarian; it still needs work. That simple detail makes the setting feel so much more well-realized.
Having Palpatine come up with the "Darth Vader" name and give it to Anakin on the spot is very funny, because... what if Anakin didn’t really like that name? Could he have asked to change it? What if he really wanted to ask but thought it would ruin the moment so all this time Darth Vader has been doing all his terrifying villain stuff while thinking his name sounds dumb?
"Why is the hero always sixteen?" because those books are written for sixteen-year-olds. Read books for grown-ups and you will solve this problem very quickly.
The Last To Die by Worst Journey Graphic Novel on Patreon. Join Worst Journey Graphic Novel's community for exclusive content and updates.
While my paid patrons get all the perks, as an impoverished researcher who has benefited from the generosity of my colleagues, I believe in making research freely available – eventually.
Linked above is a post my supporters got in March which is free to everyone now, in which I address a question that has dogged polar historians trying to unpick truth from mythology: Who, in Scott's tent, was actually the last to die?
when i was a kid i decided that killing people was bad therefore war was bad therefore the military was evil. and adults would tell me it's more nuanced than that and i would understand when i grew up. well i'm a grown up now and idk i still think that killing people is bad and war is bad and the military is evil
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