week four | mingle

[marriagebroker]

Final week at the estate! Final week with your friends. Final week with your beaus. Time to make the most of it, everyone!

In fact, to celebrate this fact, today there is a cake. It's nothing special, just a nice little cake to enjoy with your morning coffee or throughout the day. Yay, cake!

And when Wei Wuxian arrives that morning, he is going to call out once again for everyone to join him, near the cake.

"Everyone, I have another announcement!"

Hell yeah, announcements.

Boom Boom Room | Dates | Property Damage
Truth Booth Voting | Match Ceremony Voting

Comments

[irreversal]

Well, that still depends on us getting everything right.

[ Which they will, obviously, but still. ]

You don't seem bothered by what just happened.

[nrangel]

The information they just dropped?

[ A pause as she thinks it over. She's processing a lot of it right now for the most part, but... ]

I'm the person that gave someone a gun when I shouldn't have, or maybe it's more correct to say I fixed up a gun she already owned. Most Sankta have a patron firearm, so that's usual for us, but Sankta who don't grow up in the city wouldn't be put through the same training, including safety training, that the rest of us had gone through, so...

[ Her expression is a little more somber for a moment. ]

It's easy to forget things like that when it's so engrained into you from such a young age, but it doesn't excuse it either. I already know that I'm partly to blame for it, and that I'm partly not. I can't really change what happened, but I can keep moving forward and do what I can to help the girl who is still alive, and make sure I never repeat a mistake like that again.

[ A deep breath in, and a deep breath out. ]

I guess I've made my peace with it for the most part, so I don't need to feel worked up over people hearing about it, but it doesn't feel good to hear it announced the way they did regardless.

[irreversal]

[ To her credit, Shoko listens dutifully, even while she pulls a cigarette and lighter up to start smoking while Serpilia generously provides context and nuance to her story where the production's voiceover had oversimplified. ]

...No, it really doesn't feel good, does it?

[ Even for how unbothered Shoko seems to be, she can at least still say that much. ]

It wasn't your fault, and you did everything to the best of what you knew and could do at the time, but... you can't help but feel responsible, anyway.

[ She knows how that feels. So very well. ]

[nrangel]

[ A thoughtful hum there as she considers it. ]

To be honest, for my own reasons I was trying to get her to trust me at the time. I needed her help with a mission I was running, and it worked in my favor to have her like me. It made sense to fix up her old gun as a way to earn her trust, because it was important to her and easy for me to do.

[ She finally smiles, but it's a sad smile. ]

So even though I never imagined that things would end the way they did, I don't want to let myself off that easy either. It wasn't like I was doing things with pure intentions.

[irreversal]

[ Shoko nods. That, too, she... she gets. ]

Maybe not, but that doesn't mean you can't be affected by it. Still, that's a refreshingly honest way of approaching this all.

What kind of mission was this, anyway...? Is that something you can talk about?

[nrangel]

I don't mind talking about it a little. It was for a pretty good cause for the most part, which was finding a friend who had gone missing. You might have gotten a chance to see her during ghost week? Lemuen.

[ A small sad, smile. ]

There might have been some other b-plans besides just making sure she was safe and well, but none of that came to fruition. Honestly, for the best that it didn't either.

[irreversal]

[ The recognition flits across Shoko's face. Lemuen, yes, the girl whose memory visited them last week. Serpilia had been one of the few to be visited by someone who's still alive, so the sight of her stuck out to Shoko, especially. And so does the small, rueful smile Serpilia shows. ]

But you were able to find her, after all. Right?