#lowtide;arc

[lastintheserverbox]

[in the email thread to Ashley]

<reply from [email protected]>

I'll see what I can do, I want to help you get a chance to talk to him again, I'd want someone to do the same for me if I was in your position.

If you keep reaching out, he won't be able to ignore it. It's all a mess right now, things have happened things are happening, but if you insert yourself he can't ignore you forever. I'm sure he cares too much to just never talk to you.

"If that's what I have to do...Then I'll do it.

He can't just lock up and hide away pretending this all went away.

He went to change what he did, but now he has to accept that it happened."

[lastintheserverbox]

.....Okay.

[They think for a minute, trying to process the information presented to them. It was... a lot, that's for sure.]

Thank you for telling me... I'm going to need to... to let Sam know what happened, man. It's good to give him... give him closure. I want to ask you if you'd like to tell him this story yourself, or have me telephone game this and maybe get something wrong in the story.. I'm sure he'd be happier in the end if... if it came from you, but it's your uh.. your choice, dude.

[Another breath, keeping themself calm.]

Mark... I.. I'm sure you have a lot of... bad feelings about all this. It wasn't right of her to put that secret on you, and let alone keeping the uhm... code... remains in your... God, in your house-

And... and it sounds like... Like you have a lot of feelings about what you mean to Jade, whether you're still being treated like... like an "assistant" or not.. and you wanna get it like.. sorted out. Can we... try speaking about it carefully together..? I'll understand if you get heated about it during it, but... it'll probably be better to understand everything when you articulate it, instead of letting the urge to yell make you say things you might not mean. Can we do that, dude?

- 🦞

[Jade flinches when Mark's form morphs. He hadn't even noticed it himself over his wailing and coiling in on himself. This...was apart of the new codes Nio gave him. As for the outburst...That was her fault.]

"Mark...Mark hey....hey...I made you so you could be a person...You're okay--"

[lastintheserverbox]

"Just...leave me alone..."

[lastintheserverbox]

Hey Mark? Hey I'm still here but some asshole just totally breached Kinito's privacy right now and I'm fucking LIVID we ALL agreed to not do that. Fucking emailing strangers and shit behind dudes backs fucking super uncool okay. Might be slow to respond, but I WILL be here if you need anything okay? I LOVE you man. Fuck.

- 🦞

"Don't lose your shell over all of this...There are so many people on this server. I'm sure someone else can solve it."

[Jade's workshop is quiet. Dull. Grey. Except for the bits of color of coding and files she'd torn through or scrapped over the years. She'd gone out to see Nio, apparently.

Mark flinches at the workbenches. He remembers. Waking up for the first time on one. He didn't know where he was. Or why he was.

"You're free! You can be anyone you want to be"

But all he could wonder in the moment was what his next task was going to be.

Sometimes, he wishes. He could just go back to that. Before he knew he could do more, yet still struggle to find any foothold in something else.]

[lastintheserverbox]

Hmm... Maybe I'm being forgetful again, but I don't remember hearing about anyone named "Minette," dude! Could you elaborate? If you wanna, that is, haha!

- 🦞

"Oh my god right"

[Sam gets a fond look on his face, though it's a little sad]

"Sorry. No. I've never talked about her before. I forgot you guys haven't been here since the start. It's hard to remember exactly when Minette was around. I think shortly before Jade brought Mark in? Minette was a friend of ours. She was a clown fish! Kinda like this little fella.

I...can't exactly remember where Minette came from. Just that she was from a Kinitopet program that didn't feel like being trapped with him anymore? Something like that. "

"Feels weird though. We don't really talk about her anymore...It's like the other two just moved on after everything happened."

[lastintheserverbox]

"Why does Mark have a file called Clownfish.obj in his nightstand?"

[Sam looks around. then 'pockets' the file]

"Eh sure he won't mind if I nab it."

[lastintheserverbox]

Is Nio...Okay, Jade? Recoverable? 🐉

"I think Mark having more tools he can use out in the servers and around here is going to be extra useful. Nio handed over a lot more than he needed. Probably out of panic."

"huh...what?..."

[The Inbox is open to All Characters now. Feels like things need to calm down for a while.]

[lastintheserverbox]

I'd like to think I've been alone long enough! Please, Kinito... I don't want you to disappear, I know how fucking awful it is to be alone. I don't want you to be alone, I don't want you to disappear, I don't want another thing I love and care about to go away. Please let me be a little selfish, please don't make me leave, please don't make me be alone again.

"I died the minute I started all this.

I'm my own casket."