WAY OUT NOWHERE

TAKE ME OUT THERE.

[havenofseven]

  HAVEN OF SEVEN.

  an independent roleplay sideblog for original characters set in the concept of Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys. heavily headcanon reliant; not comic compliant. plot driven & verse locked (no AUs) follows & asks come from @ru5t !

[CARRD] for full bios, character list/short bios below

the Jack of All Trades

LEADER. Former 'crow from the middle city. Jack makes some 'joys uncomfortable with his still, stoic face value, but is recognized with respect in most of the zones' trading circles and raises a roar of approval from Regal Riotess's sparring ring in zone three. A mechanic, a writer and musician, a bit of a builder, a heavy hitting fighter; a father, an older brother, a man harried by his dozen adoptees — as it says on the tin, he's a little good at a lot of things. Jack's the one who raised the Haven up out of the dust, and he works hard to keep it from sinking back into sandy oblivion. stats+history on carrd.

Desert Phantom

WILD CARD. Former neutral from the Neon Slums, Phantom ran for the desert as a young thing and quickly built a befuddling and contradictory reputation. Often mistaken as laid back thanks to a friendly, flirty front, he's a natural leader and instigator who gained recognition when he was promoted to lead of the infamous Desert Deaths crew. A mechanic by trade. A motorbaby at heart. Even with the Haven as a landing place, his own dedicated space inside, he mostly lives out of his car. Previously Jack's second, they've fallen a bit out of sync, and Phantom lost some of his standing with the Haven. stats+history on carrd.

Desert Dusk

DEN MOTHER. Closely bonded to Phantom and Dawn, and otherwise holding an utterly shrouded past except the known fact that she's survived the extinction of the rest of her previous group, whoever they were. (That's the first rung of entry for any member of the Desert Deaths crew: survive your last). Sensible and spiritual, Des is an acolyte of the Lady of Sorrows, a desert deity. She makes herself useful preserving what they manage to grow and lending her ear and her prayers to the others, giving them peace and hope, as well as serving as a general second set of eyes and hands. stats+history on carrd.

Desert Dawn

BABY OF THE BUNCH. The last survivor of a peaceful settlement BL/ind attacked in 2024. Dawns' the youngest of the Desert Deaths and (second, counting Colton) youngest of the Haven. While she's still working out if she's got a particular 'niche' to desert life, she's already an expert navigator, and picking up skills from the others. Somewhat sheltered and maybe just a little bit coddled by the others; mostly her 'job' as it were is.. to be alive whilst young and bright and, somehow, despite it all, bubbly and happy. If Jack's the collective's older brother, Dawn's their collective younger sister. stats+history on carrd.

Violet Sigh

DEMOLITION & DECEPTION. Living in the zones for as long as she can remember, Vi couldn't tell you if she was born there or in the city, she just knows life is hard when you're living off the scraps. After some time spent turning tricks to make her way, she found herself on the Haven's doorstep. Now she's their in-house weapons modifier. Though not book educated, she excels at working with ammunition and explosives. She's repurposed a healthy handful of city charge into a security perimeter that guards the Haven's flank. (It's best not to approach through the back fence....) Though typically taciturn, Vi is also a social chameleon and great to have along when dealing with other crews. stats+history on carrd.

Foxtrot

MESSENGER & SCOUT. A runaway from the city from a painfully young age, it's a miracle he made it out. His luck has been a bit of coin toss ever since, only ever heads or tails. Tragedy, then heroics. After spending his first stretch of sand with the iconic Sugar Babies, Fox moved on to land with the Acoustic Devils. It he was there he began to make his way...only for hard times to fall. Fox (and RKO) got separated from the pack and haven't been able to find a whisper of what happened to their crew since. This landed them at the Haven. Now, fleet-footed little Fox is the Haven's paper boy (a messenger) and Jack's second shadow, eager to learn and prove himself. stats+history on carrd.

RKO

EYE IN THE SKY. Zone-raised, if not zone-born, K is a young man with a million contacts, making him surprisingly social for someone who doesn't get out much. After losing most of his crew more than once, he's become reluctant to brave the desert's wild. He devotes his time instead to DJing a pirate radio station called The Fence. Rolling out music and chatter all hours to keep company with those on the wind, he also broadcasts encoded warnings appraising the outer zones of bad weather and patrol movements. Another key feature is the weekly segment where he reads off messages gathered from all over the zones: calls from crews and families who have been separated trying to reconnect or let each other know they're safe. stats+history on carrd.

Lady Diamond / Diana

BATTLE-BORN. A former security oriented drac from the center city. Di fled for the zones after a personal conflict of hers escalated to heights that got her labeled as a security risk and traitor. It's been a couple years since then, and while she's not exactly the most colorful resident of the zones, she's grown (begrudgingly) fond of the Haven, and even gained a proper moniker to use along with her 'city' name. A fighting expert and tactician. She's also proven to be great in the garden, which is easily her favorite thing about being out of the city. stats+history on carrd.

Jonny Tox Screen

MEDIC. Former center-city Prodigy™. Former neutral. Presently, exhausted at all times forever and doing his best. A son of the city's elite, Tox is technically a walking talking experiment. The details are fuzzy, but the general idea was in-utero enhancement, and the city loved to take credit for his above-average rate of learning when he was young. He was fast-tracked through schooling, earning medical accolades in his middle teens, and to make a very long and complex story very short and simple, he fled when the city just kept expecting more of him. He is the Haven's primary medic, and makes regular trips to other zones to offer aid to other killjoy groups. (Often paid in some kind of trade, but he will help for no cost at all.) stats+history on carrd.

GUEST / NPC MUSES

Colton — Jack's young son. Zone born and too young to be any one thing except full of potential. Still, the crew (much to Jack's consternation) have already nicknamed him into a moniker: Colorblind Colt. Despite his age and a somewhat sickly nature he's already a fast-talking clever-clogs. He's going to be trouble when he gets older. (If they can protect him that long.) Going to appear in threads and drabbles, sometimes, especially opposite Jack, but won't ever get threads of his own.

Desert Vendetta — A member of the Desert Deaths; Phantom's second in command. She lives in the city under the name Amber Park and serves as a spy, coordinator, and contact point for the crew's smuggling endeavors. Anything that the Desert Deaths do on the city side of the wall is under her supervision. Likely to appear in drabbles, occasionally threads, especially where Phantom and Tech are concerned, but currently doesn't have threads of her own.

[coupleswrld]

[havenofseven]

you know i haven't. talked a lot about/delved a lot into the era of jack when he was first setting up the haven. there's a lot there that just. when i was Actively in the middle of the tech getting reeducated plot i was mostly taking a hiatus for My Own Reasons and then when i came back from that she. was largely a venting tool for a hot second there. i mean she always has been but like, more sd;lkfjg;sdlkfjg so it was.... all about her, really? and. some of that was not having the brain or the willpower to look at any of my other characters, really. she's always been the easiest to fall into. and some of it was that i was in a space where jack wasn't as;;;; i say liked but it may just be that he wasn't as developed and therefore people had less interest in him ((But also. if they never give me avenues i cannot develop him in the do-this-together-hobby!!! bit of both. it's a process, we learn.)) and then. i just didn't want to. touch it. but. i dunno this got really away from me the short version is i ran face first into a song today and while i was shoving tissues up my nose to stop the bleeding and thinking about the Many things it made me think about it occurred to me it. might be a jack song, when. he thought tech was dead.

[havenofseven]

hmmm sort of. passively collecting these. not planning an edit but we'll see. anyway, some nonexhaustive jack variants (in no particular order):

the huntsman from little red riding hood. but also, the wolf.

leon k.e..nnedy (resEseries)

amos bur.to.n (the ex.panse)

frank ca.st.le (the pun.ish.er). the face claim irony is not lost on me.

technically simon t.am (firef.ly/seren.it.y) but really only because of river they're otherwise not wildly similar. ...he's arguably more of a mal actually. hm.

i've never seen it so i can't say for sure but there's a character called jack in lost that seems like he might vibe so i might investigate that at some point

i KNOW i had another one i thought of the other day but it sure did leave my brain again hmm

OH. OC.TAVI.A AND BE.LLAMY I KNEW I FORGOT ONE ON HERS TOO. but like. before all the writing started sucking extra bad.

[havenofseven]

i just think that the odds of him giving someone a zerbert are really really really low.

but not zero.

[lcfthaunted]

Reality check. It reminds her of when they were kids, the way Mallaidh could tell when she would start silently catastrophizing, and would grab her shoulders and say You’re being stupid again. That gentle fondness as her sister forced her back to reality. It didn’t always keep, but it usually helped interrupt the spirals she would go down. Explore that. You’re being stupid.

She’s thought of a thousand things she should have done and didn’t, but with Jack’s prompting she properly examines them, and knows Tech wouldn’t have let her get away with a single one of them. Mazie drops to sit on the foot of the bed, forces a deep breath. It shakes, but it steadies her a bit more. Jack’s question starts another spiral—upset her. abandoned her. let others clean up after her. got too stuck in my own head to help. triggered a migraine that I’m still feeling the effects of—She pinches one of her taped fingertips between the knuckles of her thumb and forefinger. It pulls a faint grimace, but with her level of fatigue, she’s not sure it’s even noticeable.

What did she do. Her gaze is still fixed down at her hands, at the three knuckles she’d scraped to bleeding on the garage floor. “…—Cleaned,” she whispers. She’d told the others what was needed so Tech could be taken care of, even if she wasn’t the one to do it. She made sure there wasn’t a mess to deal with among the clientele, made sure any further mess would be contained. She dealt with the aftermath, because she didn’t want to make Tech face all of that blood. The flashbacks had started as soon as she slowed down; what would another trigger be to her? “I cleaned it up.”

[havenofseven]

  It's enough of an unexpected answer to make a faint glimmer of surprise appear. The way she tidies around the Haven, he'd take it for an attempt at order. (Even under his watch the vast warehouse and the crowd of kids within defied it at every turn.) The comfort, maybe, of the familiar, the meditative element of mundane tasks. Here, now, it sounds more like a punishment. He reconsiders all that she's done.

  All that she's ever done.

  “Thankless job,” he names it in a hushed tone.

[havenofseven]

@glasshcldhigh ( Wraith ) || I didn't feel like hunting down the meme ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

“Doc, don't come at me with that.”

  Clear spring lives in his look, an easy smile close in tow. He shines with the echo of mischief — something from a past life filtering through. Not enough to break through the ease of rapport. As per instructions, he leans back.

  “Didn't take you for squeamish.” Tox closes his hands gently over the spider in the center of his palm, intending to carry it out. “I don't like crickets,” he confesses, “they're...” Words fail. His expression speaks for him, pulled and cinched at every juncture, grimace and wince and general shudder of distaste. Just something about the bend of those back legs, and the jumping. The noise of one sat too close. “But,” he holds his closed hands aloft a bit for proof: “I don't mind spiders.” Quiet. Inoffensive. Eat crickets, sometimes. Something graceful to the way they move, too, though he imagines that point of conversation won't share well. “If it helps at all, this one's not venomous.”

[lcfthaunted]

She tips her head as her eyes return to him, distinctly amused. “Do you think I’m a harmless airhead?” she asks, fighting down a grin. Understandable for when they first met, since she’d been invested in maintaining that image. He’s forgiven for not knowing the character; his ignorance of Mazileah Chevalier was part of what made him so much easier to talk to. No preconceived notions to fight against.

She shakes her head, gaze turning back to the path before them. “It was just a role to play. A character I built to… protect myself.” She doesn’t elaborate what from. He could choose whichever reason he wanted; it might even be true. “I’ve always hated that name. Made it easy to build distance. The story the company wanted me to sell helped. Character for the part.”

She hadn’t anticipated playing the part for a decade; she would have built the character differently, but she hadn’t had much time to prepare. It had kept her safe, more or less, dancing on the beast’s teeth instead of clamped in its jaw. If the company had known she was in possession of the Chevalier genius they’d been searching for, she would have become a very protected, very targeted, very useful cog in the machine. Instead, she got to be the paint sprayed to hide the blood, making everything look pretty and palatable. Sweet, inoffensive, harmless, airheaded Mazileah. With a faint, bitter smile, she admits, “I hated every second.”

[havenofseven]

  If he has an assessment, he does not give it now. Merely listens with an idle sort of attentiveness, his task at the wheel both consuming and rote at once. Just enough space left to roll the idea of it around.

  A character as something separate from the self entirely. It is... not an unfamiliar concept so much as a principle of city living that both echoed and yet defied his own experience. His efforts at maintaining his position whilst plotting to free his sister from a punishment she did not deserve. His mask had not been something that felt alien, nor even like a stranger. Only himself as he might have been. An inextricable part merely pulled to the surface and wrapped tightly over the rest, covering any lapses that would not face scrutiny otherwise. Exaggeration, certainly. A lie, to be sure. But a separation? He felt there could be none, he had done what he'd done and chosen what he'd chosen, and to say it was someone else -even a someone else chosen- seemed as divorced from reality as it did responsibility.

  Then again, he'd struggled to free himself of his masking. Had to scratch and tear and peel and bleed. Hers seemed to slip on and off as needed, or maybe as she liked. That he'd yet to divine — if they remained in reach as a necessity or a comfort. Perhaps both.

   There are greater crimes.

[havenofseven]

experiencing a very normal number of emotions

[lcfthaunted]

She offers a faint smile, recognition and appreciation of what Des is trying to do. She can’t quite look at Des, though, can’t meet her eyes, her gaze instead skittering across the surfaces in the unit before coming to rest, once again, on her hands loose in her lap. Leaving her hands unoccupied was usually a bad idea, but she can’t imagine keeping her focus on any work well enough to avoid disaster. Better not to risk it.

Mazie shakes her head in answer. No, prayer had never been a large part of her life. “I don’t—” she grimaces briefly. She doesn’t want it to come across that she’s critiquing Des’ religion, but, “I don’t have a good relationship with higher powers.” She bites down on the inside corner of her lip in an attempt to hold back the violently self-deprecating thought that followed. Despite the attempt, some of it slips out anyway. “Not that I could blame any of them for ignoring me.”

[havenofseven]

  Des makes a small sound of regret. She doubts very much that Mazie is being ignored —far more likely, she suspects, that she didn't know what to look for as answer, or perhaps that she was reaching out to the wrong places. The gods come in many shapes, not all of them easily recognized, and nearly none of them when consigned out of stale, fearful desperation in place of true acceptance.

  All things that sound far too harsh and in need of punishment than she wants to suggest. She didn't ask to preach, or reproach. Not with someone in the midst of a spell of self flagellation. If at all possible, Des would like to avoid having her words turned into the whip.

  “I probably would have given up on it too, if I felt ignored,” she admits instead. “There were times... it came close.” She imagines it must be difficult. Find the sense of connection in place so cut off as the center of the city. “If you don't mind me asking.. what did you believe in?”

[lcfthaunted]

She’d never bothered to question why no one checked in earlier; it was on record that she’d returned from the night’s events shortly before 5 in the morning, and she was frequently unreachable during the day. She’d thrown enough diva fits at the beginning of her tenure to be sure no one ‘interrupted her sleep’. She doubted anyone would have even questioned her silence for another couple hours, if not for Baileigh.

She hums an agreement, but the corners of her lips tip into a self-satisfied smile. “Not really the same need for someone else to come to my rescue. Anymore,” she amends, with a quick glance to him. “I can be as violent as I need without worrying about what flags it might send up.” There is something in her voice that suggests she is quite capable of violence, despite her years in the limelight.

She can’t stop thinking about it now, though. How did they get in, both times? No one was supposed to be able to reach her. How did they get through security—how did they get through the front door? “Surely there were easier ways to get rid of me,” she murmurs, wrapped up in the puzzle. “More reliable ways, even. So, not enough sway to have me disposed of properly, but enough to sneak someone in—and out.” She frowns, tapping her lips. “I suppose a personal vendetta is possible, but unlikely. Mazileah was a harmless airhead.”

[havenofseven]

  Now there's a novel concept. One of the city's carefully selected faces describing violence as a need. Not that it contradicted any of the city's ethos, exactly. Necessary violence took place at every level he had seen or could think of. It was only that presenting it that way would never, he had reason to believe, come about. At least not from the public presentation side of things.

  “You say that like it's someone else.”

[lcfthaunted]

She’s braced for his testing to hurt—most movement does, when her hands are like this—but he’s careful enough that she manages to relax, just a bit. He gets close to triggering the shooting pain a couple times, but seems to know when to stop before pushing that far. She even manages to offer a small, watery smile to his gentle joke. Mazie takes a careful breath and nods; at this point, she’s willing to try anything.

Tension creeps back into her shoulders but she doesn’t rescind her agreement when he returns, just carefully offers up her wrist again. His warning that the pain can spike has her waiting for the worst, her breath careful and measured in an attempt to keep herself from either holding her breath or hyperventilating. She doesn’t feel anything worse than mild discomfort, though, and she sighs silently in relief.

“Uncomfortable,” she confirms, “but not… worse. I think I’m just, um… more aware of it, because of the compression.” Trying to move her fingers still brings a grimace, but it’s easier to move her hands without twinging her wrists. She thinks she could probably get away with some mending, if she’s careful, without aggravating things further—if she’s allowed to try.

“Do I— sh-should I wait for my hands to… recover, before I get back to things?” She’s a little afraid of the answer. Beyond there always being something that needs doing in the Haven, she’s never been good with idle hands. The possibility of hours with nothing to keep her from getting lost in her head is genuinely terrifying.

[havenofseven]

  “Ah,” he gives a little toss of his head, a brief wince taking his expression as he scoots back from her a little. Giving space. Recovery is a... difficult thing to be sure of. His instinct is, of course, to rest anything that isn't feeling up to full strength and steadiness, but some things. They linger. “Give it some time before ... trying to push through?”

  A few words short of incurring a technically correct question, it is a question. Will you? He's all too aware, after years of proximity to Tech and Jack, that he cannot possibly command his way to total victory over how his patients handle their injuries. He can at least make suggestions, and dedicate many prayers.

  “In a perfect world, this and rest'll help enough they stop hurting at all. I figure we're more likely to see improvement in some shape.” As their world is, decidedly, less than perfect. “I'd prefer to know how much it helps before pushing.”

[lcfthaunted]

She has a dozen answers for that one—for all the ways she could have, should have looked after Tech, and didn’t. She’s not a member of the Tavern, of course, but she’s familiar with it and its people. Family of family. Not unlike how she’s Rocket’s to look after during her visits, Tech had been hers. And she’d failed at it.

Should have had someone else go with her. Should have been paying attention. Should have been closer. Should have kept the door to the garage propped open. Should have been out there. Should have asked Wraith to stay out with her. Should have made sure she wasn’t alone. Should have made sure she wasn’t visible. Should have checked on her. Should have caught her. Should have stayed with her. Should have helped her. Should have—

It wasn’t your fault.

He didn’t blame her? She certainly blamed herself. Kobra blamed her. She wouldn’t be surprised if, on some level, Tech blamed her. But then, Jack hadn’t seen the aftermath. That might have changed things. As it was, there was barely any evidence left; she’d scrubbed the garage floor instead of sleeping, managed to make the stain significantly less obvious. Between the tub for Tech and the laundry basin, there was plenty of bloodied wastewater for her to use. She’d also given the storage room a decent wash, scrubbing away more than just the blood Tech had trekked in. Keeping busy more or less kept her from falling apart completely, but she doesn’t have that to hide behind anymore.

She tries anyway; straightens the blanket on the bed she didn’t sleep in, closes her sketchbook and gathers her pencils, double checks that her knives are returned to their spots. She runs out of things too quickly, ends up with just the tape on her fingers to keep her hands busy. More fingers are taped than not, mostly her fingertips but a few knuckles were skinned in her single-minded cleaning.

“I couldn’t—” Gaze on her hands, she picks anxiously at the tape around one fingertip, and then another. “I didn’t.” It wasn’t her fault, but there was plenty she could should have done. She keeps going back over things, finding something new to blame herself for—at least, when she wasn’t struggling with flashbacks.

[havenofseven]

  Everything seems sound, in one sense of things. The front of house at least seemed...business as he'd expect. Unruffled in a way he'd come to know of some places in the desert, though in this case that's perhaps a solid portion of the issue at hand. Rather, some continuation of it. None of the others had so much of a personal stake in what happened, no, but still something terrible had happened. And if he didn't know, he would never have known. No quality in the air no clue in their behavior. In a fighter, in a chosen few, that works. In a whole group...

  The thought trails and he lets it. It's assumptive at best, and unproductive regardless. Jack's attention goes to skimming as Mazie busies herself. Aware of the slow growing tension. Like saying that she isn't to blame has somehow made it worse. Far from a new experience for him. He stills, catches a brief glimpse of the sketchbook though he hadn't aimed to pry. A face. Too fast to take more than a passing impression of a pale, empty stare.

  “Explore that,” he suggests. Run it down. Parse out every avenue, all the places she could think, now, to put herself. After the fog of adrenaline, the speed at which these things happen. “Didn't.. sit with her? She would have sent you off, or gone where you wouldn't think to look.” Didn't catch her? He's not convinced, anyone can. Not forever. And they certainly can't catch up. There's always something that did not get done. Whether for habit, comfort, forbearance. Forgetfulness.

  Didn't. That's a road to madness.

  “What did you do?” It was not nothing. Of that he's sure.

[havenofseven]

@lcfthaunted || Tell That Mick...

“Thanks for sticking around.”

  Des’s smile pulls. It’s more mischievous than generally expected of their den mother. She’s the more reserved, the more intentional. This one, though, it slips on like she can’t quite stop it. Amused, rather, at the idea there’s any sort of world or reason in which she wouldn’t have. In fact.

  “Get used to it,” she hums, still doting on that oh so rare impishness. “I think you’ll find you’re stuck with us, now.” Some more than others, certainly. But crew is crew. Home is home. The connections have begun and even though they might not all be in the fairest or friendliest of beginnings, they’re still there. “So many strings...” Des says, feeling that if anyone is going to understand her thought of it, Mazie will. “You’d have to undo it all to go back now.”

  Woven through. Not a patch, a part.

[lcfthaunted]

His sigh confirms Mazie’s suspicions. He can’t be more upset with her than she is with herself, but upsetting him at all ties her stomach in knots. She failed him, failed Tech, and will never forgive herself for it. A vicious voice in the back of her mind hisses a litany of her failures, every possible reason Jack might have for not wanting her back at the Haven. She’s worn too thin to muffle it.

She startles slightly at his touch, a small flinch away. She hadn’t expected the reach, hadn’t expected the gentleness of it. She pauses in leading him through backstage to the Canteen, turning surprised eyes on him. She sees, finally, that his frustration isn’t aimed at her, but she doesn't understand why. Surely she’s the most to blame in this situation? In her current state, tears come too easily. She turns away again, hopefully before he sees, and continues on.

Once she’s sure her voice won’t shake, she murmurs, “Don’t pay Mel any mind. She doesn’t like that I don’t react the way she wants. Her whole thing is figuring out what draws reactions. She just wants to get a rise out of people.” She pauses, considering the unintended entendre of her words. “However she can manage it.” She offers him a faint, unsteady smile over her shoulder. “She might dislike you more than me, now.” It’s the only olive branch she’s capable of at the moment.

The smile doesn’t last, fading quickly as she pushes into the Canteen. Her little corner is far from messy, but there’s a level of disorganization that she usually doesn’t reach. There’s another flinch when her gaze catches on what she’d been working on before he arrived, but she doesn’t move to close her sketchbook yet. The face of Tech’s monster is as finished as it will get, an attempt to block the blood-soaked memory from surfacing first. Her own monster’s face is still unfinished, but she’s done enough that anyone who had known him would recognize him.

She doesn’t know how to ask if he wants her to come home, or if the intent is to keep her here. Doesn’t know if she should be packing up or settling in. She tidies ineffectually, mostly an attempt to keep her head and hands busy to fend off the impending breakdown. She tries to ask what the plan is, but what comes out instead is a small, weak, “I’m sorry.”

[havenofseven]

  Her fraught turn doesn’t surprise him in the least, some mixture of distance and what he wants to call anxious fear muddled together in the look she gives him. Answer, though it isn’t. A lot has happened. He knows how Tech will take it — has taken it. Fallen into that stride of hers that goes and goes, seemingly no matter what the world throws at her. It’s here that he’s uncertain. Not sure which way this has shaken what Mazie has only begun to build.

  Don’t mind Mel? Well. He hadn’t planned to. The name, though, goes tucked in with the rest of what she’s showed him about herself in one passing moment. “Who, me?” he deadpans as the moment goes along. Like he’s got no earthly clue why someone who likes to needle others might find him frustrating.

  It’s a strange valley of doors, the background of this place. Interestingly, though it doesn’t measure by his estimation like there are any true reductions in the apparent rooms, it feels… smaller than it looks, from the outside. Cramped, somehow. Despite being spread through the fronts and backs of the old stores like an anthill, everything feels closed in to him. All of the rooms crushed together, and this last one particularly strange. Empty and full at once. An amount of wasted space that seems odd, given how many people appeared to stay here.

  (Then again they had passed a set of stairs...)

  He’s on the precipice of saying something when her apology interrupts, confusing him enough to full-body pause him. Exactly as he was, no change but the slight angling of his head. A question. Sorry…?

  “What for?” he wonders. Somehow, he doubts the answer is going to be “I’m sorry they don’t know how to keep themselves safe here” which, as far as he’s concerned, is the major issue. If nothing else -if nothing else- they need a lookout. He didn’t care how far or safe or well positioned or whatever they might think of themselves, here. A lookout. Some kind of warning before they got in the door. In the door. Something shifts, then he does, puzzled to a soft surprise as he works something out— “It wasn't your fault.”

[lcfthaunted]

The question startles her, and it takes his clarification for her to follow where his thoughts had taken him. A laugh escapes, terribly hollow. “Oh, no, of course my babysitters responded quickly. I just had no way of getting a message out for them to respond to. If I hadn’t joked with Baileigh—if she had taken it as the joke it was meant to be, instead of genuine instruction…” She shrugs. She’s already said what would have happened.

“I had panic buttons installed, after that. For all the good it did me.” She was still stolen out of her bed, one of the rare times she was asleep before sunrise. Not that she regrets what’s happened since, but it would have been nice to be wearing actual clothes before hitting the sand. She’s left with the same unanswered question following both incidents—how did they get in?

[havenofseven]

  It's hard to explain, without sounding either like an overzealous (which.. he may have been, in another life) or paranoid (..) sort, but she specifies a difference between the time held and the time of response after summoning and. Well, that's exactly what he's wondering at. Why someone in her place had been forced into the position to issue summons to begin with. How did something like that go unnoticed at all, never mind for so many hours. What of patrols? Checkpoints? Clearance?

  Questions that don't matter. They don't matter. He's no longer of the city, no longer who he was. Never someone assigned to the crown at all. Training's a hard thing to shake, and he's beginning remember the thoughts he'd had before. People like him aren't assigned the Bridge for a reason. Someone there didn't want anyone paying that much attention, thinking of those details. Planning to eliminate avenues that would allow city icons to disappear from their beds...

  He sighs lightly. He takes one hand from the wheel to draw his hair back, though none of it had particularly fallen forward. What are they doing? All the roads to get here.

  “No panic buttons out here.” It's a shade contemplative, but ultimately... a note taken from his sister's books. Vague and undirected anywhere other that out of his head.

[cowboyhudsons]