skaikru | inbox @ comesailaway

"Yeah, I fucking know- for like, hundreds of years they said it was some shit about women being worse than men, and then after ages when we finally know it's not true, they say it's 'tradition' and 'doctrine' and it can't be fucking changed. It's bullshit."

She gears herself up to do the whole explanation from the start, which does always suck, no matter how many times she's had to explain it.

"It's kind of a dumb name, but it's the proper name for what I am. I... died, a while ago. I got rescued by a ghost, got some weird powers. Since then it's kind of been my job to deal with the dead. It's like... someone helps you, you pay them back, ehn? Same with me and the ghost that saved me. I keep living, so I help the dead pass on, protect people if ghosts are hurting them, or help out if we notice something's killing people. That sort of shit."

This...

Is a lot. Even recognizing it to be a rather laissez faire cliffnote version of what Darcy might be, it's still a little overwhelming for a simple apocalypse kid. Clarke listens — oh how she listens, to everyone and anything around this ship that proves different from the world and ways she grew up in. Knowledge is going to be half the battle here, and she's a sponge to soak up any and all hints about magic and vanquishing it.

But listening and processing at the same time is difficult. Darcy's explanation paints a vivid picture — throws several facts into stark contrast, sure — but at the end of it Clarke's stuck on two points.

"I..." What's one supposed to say here? Well, whatever feels most natural, and with the air of utmost honesty and genuine sentiment. "I'm sorry that you died."

And once that's allowed to hang in the air between them for a few moments, a follow up —

"Helping people is always a noble cause, as difficult as it usually is, but. Do you want to be helping this ghost? Or is it just a debt, and you have to."

"Thanks. It's sort of a thing, when you meet another Sin-Eater, you say 'my condolences'. Because, you know, life sucks and then you die, and then you have to keep doing life after that if you're us."

A small shrug. She's had plenty of time to process her own death, and some days are better than others. Her follow-up question gets another shrug, not even really impacted by what could be taken as an attack on the most significant thing in her life.

"Oh I was fucking pissed at the start. I still am sometimes. It sucks, it's not fair, blah blah. But everyone has shit in their lives that they have to do. I don't always want to wake up early for training, or help my mum with her medication, or make dinner, or go to school, or whatever. But I do it. And it makes a difference, unlike most things. On good days, we're like this," she twists her first and second fingers around each other, "what I want and what the Geist wants are not different."

Life sucks and then you die — if that isn't the realest shit she's heard in her entire life...

Waking up on the Serena Eterna, dying twice, and still blinking up at the ceiling of her cabin covered in pitch black blood a few hours later is as close as Clarke will ever come to the second part of that traditional greeting, however. But even that feels like more than enough to set her teeth on edge and do her sanity in.

"...and what about the bad days?"

"On the bad days, I'm still alive."

For all the good and bad that means, for all that life is good and sucks, for all the mornings she wakes up and wishes she wasn't. She and the Scream had argued, obviously, had fought, had differences in opinion and philosophy. But the gift of a second chance had been given freely, and it was beyond the Geist's power to take it back, now.

"Nothing that can be done about it now, anyway. Even if I eat my Geist and try to live like a normal person, I can't. I know what's out there. What's that thing, 'you can't cross the same river twice'? Like that. I took the deal, and now I live with it."

I took the deal and now I live with it — well, if those aren't some incredibly relatable words. Clarke's own deals never included actual, fully fledged demons. But ask her how much of her soul still feels like it belongs to her, and the specifics might overlap.

"No. Can't cross the same river twice. Even if the waters flow and change, the rocks beneath them don't budge." A flowery way to acknowledge that hardship, suffering, difficult choices, violence, and in some worlds apparently physical manifestations of sin have always and will always exist.

"So you fight for humanity, right? All of it? Those in your home world, and everyone stuck here on this ship?"

"Something like that. You make it sound romantic, but yeah, I have a duty to the living and dead. Which includes the people and ghosts here, even if my Geist isn't here to enforce it. If you're angling to ask for help in getting us out of here, I'm already on it. I've been helping Skulduggery with his investigating, and I can help you if you need something done. I'm at your disposal,"

She offers in a strained formality, with a small bow of her head. Darcy wants to be useful, more than anything, and Clarke handles herself with the sharp calculation of someone that she could trust to make good use of her. A thinker, to temper Darcy's impulse and brute strength.

That demure angle of her neck, the formality of the bow... It's all super uncomfortable, but nothing Clarke hasn't stood tall and weathered before. She'd earned a reputation back home, and with it came a bloodied sort of respect. And no matter how much she'd hated it, she'd used it for the benefit of her people.

"I'm just a human." Augmented maybe, but rebuilt to withstand high levels of radiation, not head voids and resurrection magic. "I can't do anything nearly as complex as you do. I can't do magic, I barely even understand it. I could use your help with that, if you're offering."

Someone in her corner, you know? Except more accurately, someone at her elbow the next time she charges towards oblivion without a trace of abandon. She means to resist, but there's absolutely a glance down to Darcy's sword, then back up to her eyes. I need weapons, I need to win, the wartime narrative echoes over and over again in Clarke's head, her own personal Scream.

Of course, again another person wants her for what she's weakest in. Skulduggery for her wits and Clarke for her powers, as if they weren't an unwanted gift foisted on her for overcoming death.

"You'll want someone like Palamedes if you want to know how it works. I don't get a lot of it myself, aside from what I've picked up, I just do it. But if you want someone to do magic for you," she steps into Clarke's shadow and reappears in the rafters, Cheshire-cat-like, with a smug smile to match.

"I'm your girl." It's rasped out, and Darcy looks... considerably more fucked up than she was when she was at Clarke's side a moment ago. Bloodshot eyes, a hollow face like someone who starved to death... but it's gone again just as quickly, as if it were only a trick of the light.

"I know Palamedes already. We've talked about it a lot."

A rough translation being I already have the necromancer in my deck. But Pal's endurance is... less than ideal. He wields his wits more than any blade, and runs his mouth more than he runs with his legs. He is invaluable as far as Clarke's concerned, and those transparent shields he throws from his fingertips were absolutely clutch in a time of crisis, but that doesn't change the facts. Darcy hadn't hesitated to swing for the Captain's face.

One second the girl's right in front of her and the next, she's gone. Clarke glances to her immediate left and right, and almost does a full spin to scan the deck before Darcy's voice drags her gaze upward. The sudden change in her face is something straight out of nightmare fuel, and Clarke's eyes admittedly widen. Shock dances over her face, chased by a slight inclination of fear and alarm. It's an unpleasant visual surprise, but they'd just been talking about powers and if this is the face of Darcy's powers... Well. Give her a moment to adjust, and she'll look into the face of death and smile at it.

Darcy's features are back to normal by the time Clarke schools her own, but that doesn't extinguish the delighted spark dancing in her irises; a spark, set to blazing at the potential.

"With me. Not for me." Yes, specifics are blurry there; Clarke can't do magic to save her life, but the note she's trying to hit on is camaraderie. A joint task force. A team effort, despite what she's really after — and won't even admit to herself — is another blood thirsty guard dog to keep at her heel.

They're going to have a better chance as an army, and this isn't her first time playing Commander.

It's an odd feeling, when Clarke states that she's already familiar with Palamedes. Like she already has someone to run through theory and such, and she'd want Darcy's services for her own sake. Not the vague nebulous idea of companionship and camaraderie that anyone could bring like in Stede's crew, but Darcy, for what she and nobody else could do. It wasn't a bad feeling. It mingles with the moment of terror that Clarke in all her sharpness cannot hide, and Darcy really feels like she's got the upper hand here, like it'd only take a touch or two more to win the bout.

"With you, then," Darcy corrects, "I can do that. Let's hope I get a chance to show off more than just teleporting soon, ehn?"

Er — quick amendment.

"Not too soon."

Because as hungry as she is for some advancement in the plots and ploys against the Captain, that would inevitably call for strife and violence. And as ready and willing as Clarke is to fight all over again, she had just come back from the Battle Royale. And had just wiffed spectacularly in an attempt to kill the Captain in front of the entire ships populace. A moments peace was necessary to regroup, reassess, and hopefully come up with a new plan before they went absolutely all out in another attempted coup.

Not that they'd ultimately get that. It's just a few days from now that she'll be seeking Darcy's attention across a sparsely occupied auditorium, and they'll flank a singular enemy like predators converging on a prey animal they haven't learned was poisonous yet.

"I hope we get a few more chances to talk before we just go showing off. Like I said, I'm in 108. Come by some time."

Come admire her murderboard, Darcy, it's really cool okay?

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slides back in here late

its fine time is fake

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