midpointsaloon | Another Day, Another Dollar (post-round mingle)

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Another Day, Another Dollar (post-round mingle)

PLAYERS: Everyone!
LOCATION: Midpoint, and anywhere else people want to explore
GOAL: Time to relax after some hard-won rounds.
WARNINGS: None
OTHER: The setting post for those who want to explore

The stagecoach reaches the Ranch... and the cargo isn’t with it. A large, feathery dinosaur reaches the Ranch a little later, with only some of their cargo, having been hit mid-route and between transformations by the bandits.

“Well, we’ll take what we can get,” Lee says sourly at what’s left after the bandits’ raiding - maybe half of the empty crates. He hollers at his ranch hands, “Come get 'em, boys!” Between him and the other workers, and any of the remaining driver team able to be pressed into service (which is mostly just Groot), the crates are unloaded and stacked and filled with supplies for the next train out. Looks like they were useful, after all.

At the end of the day, Lee sends the drivers on their way back to Midpoint, and the bandits can do what they will with their portion of the cargo. Got any use for sturdy wooden crates, friends?

In Tycoon Depot, Tiffany Jamesson has spent a(n enjoyable) day and a half in hiding with Inara, Daylight, and Irene, peppering Daylight with questions and flirting demurely with Inara and Irene, presumably out of boredom. The hand-off with her father goes pretty smoothly, with only Fuwa on the outside - he might be furious, but he's not willing to interrupt and risk the target’s life in a firefight.

Exchange made, kidnappers and bodyguards are free to head back to Midpoint.

In the saloon, North has laid out a buffet of everyone’s favorite foods to choose from, with beer and wine on the house for two days only: the traditional post-round congratulations-or-consolations feast. There’s someone on the piano almost all night providing music, and extra hot water for baths whenever people finally retires to their rooms. Most Players make good use of the additional free food and drink for as long as it lasts; whether for enjoyment, self-medication, or to stave off boredom is their own call.

The dead don't remain so for long, and wake up in jail cells - the same ones they started their round at - at the edges of the game arena around the same time as the round ends, ready to be collected by friends - if there’s anyone who wants to come get them.

The next week and a half belong to the Players to do with what they please, be it sleep all day, spend their hard-earned points on more alcohol, ask lots of questions, or explore the arena. There are no events planned, nothing to steal, no one to murder (unless you really want to, anyway), and plenty of things to learn about and try to get to the bottom of, for any Players not too jaded to try and search. Good luck with that, anyway.

Oh - did you want to know if you won, or how badly you lost? Gonna have to ask North or Booker for your points totals, because there’s nobody who actually announces whether you won or lost...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Misty-- no. What?" Soldat nudges the draft mare into a trot to catch up, baffled and unhappy, not quite putting the two together. She's not them. Death matters to her, they know that, which is why they're apologizing for not considering that. How did they screw that up? "Wasn't talking about you. Clearly not talking about you."

"Principle applies. What goes for one person goes for all people, it doesn't work as individuals. If that's really how it is, then it doesn't matter whether or not any of us take care of ourselves - if we die - when there isn't someone just around the corner waiting to react to it."

No eye contact, but she doesn't advance to a gallop.

She will cry over this.

The reflexive "not a person" starts to come up, like it always does, but they squash it back down. Misty won't take it well, and it's probably not true, anyway. Probably.

The problem is, that is exactly how they feel. What does dying matter if there's no one who cares? When you just come back? Nothing is being lost. The actual act of dying has become so familiar it just doesn't matter. They know that it matters to her, that's why they apologized, Jesus, how do they even make her see that it's different for her?

They come up beside her horse and reach over to grab the reins, so they both stop. "Misty. I'm sorry. They're not going to let me go. After all this time. I'm going to keep coming back. I've come back thirteen times, here. That's why it doesn't matter. But I don't know if you will. So it's. Different. For you. You're never going to lose me. But I might lose you."

No resistance, but still no eye contact. They're locked forward and watery.

"People came back in Beacon until they didn't." It isn't harsh, but brittle. "I came back, back home, until I didn't. There aren't guarantees like that. And I'm not talking about these weird games we keep falling into, I mean in general, normal life, it can't work like that. I could've died before I ended up here at all and by that logic, it wouldn't matter."

There's a cruelty to that pragmatism, she doesn't cherish being expected to keep safe while he's leaping into fire, but it's laughably forgettable compared to that core grievance. Universal truths, beyond the colorful trapped landscape of the year.

"I don't. I don't know what normal life is like, Misty," they say, unhappy and a little afraid. They hurt Misty. This isn't a memory rock they experienced and can crush for her, it's them, they did this, and they don't know how to fix it. Entire mental paradigms don't change overnight.

Reins looped over their own saddle horn so nobody goes anywhere, they lean over to try and touch her hand. She like touch. They can't well hug her from here, but they'll do what the fucking can. "I'm sorry. I'll try. I will. But it's not-- it's hard. It's not like anything I know."

The contact is made without mishap, and she doesn't shy from it. It isn't dramatic, no heaving breath, but the first reluctant tear rolls. "I know that. I'm not saying I expect something different to sink in and make sense all on its own, or fast. But hearing that is like a slap to the face, to imagine that you'd-- I don't know, that if I'd never shown up here and you'd died it wouldn't bother anybody. That if I'd never shown up and died back home, same rule, it wouldn't matter. Life matters. Yours matters. Whether it's just that person or there's crowds of people close."

"Okay." Soldat will agree to anything if it will make her feel better. They've encouraged her to cry before, like she's encouraged them, but it doesn't make them happy to see it. It makes them itchy and dismayed and desperate to help. The draft mare sidles one step closer, their knees nearly brushing, so they can take her hand fully in theirs, hold it. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean you. Or anybody else. I wasn't. Wasn't thinking."

How in the hell they going to shoot people and let themselves be shot, while trying to hold in mind that their life matters, they have no idea. But if it's what she needs, they'll try.

The trick is not allowing oneself to be shot to start with, Soldat.

But her hand curls as much as it can around his, and with a shuddering little breath she seems to reach an equilibrium. "I don't want you hurt, much less dying. Thinking like that just leads to a whole lot of exactly that happening. You're important to me, and it's-- I don't need it to be instant, but I don't think I could hear that forever. Shit scares me."

This is going to need some hard thinking. Some new tactical models. (A goddamn escape from this place. I'm not sure that's possible, Sarge. But you don't know it ain't.) Regardless, that's a talk for another time.

Soldat looks at their clasped hands, expression blank, as they work out the disappointing but honest: "I can't promise. These missions are... what they are. But I can try harder. I'm not used to someone looking for me. Hasn't affected my tactical planning yet. But it will."

"Good." No temporary pause, a genuine plateau has been reached. Damp as her eyes are they're not getting worse. "You're so important to me, and I don't like thinking you're still so little in your own head. This place won't let me hover around."

Uniquely hellish, that.

Hmm. She can't be with them all the time, but... hmm. Soldat gives her hand a squeeze, looking thoughtful now rather than worried. "I know. I want to be watching over you all the time, too. But there's not a lot of missions they leave me off of, anymore. I'll work on my planning and how I think about it, though."

They let her hand go, hesitate a beat, then lean over to use a finger to wipe away one of those tears. "I'm sorry, Misty."

It's not the first he's done it, but it's just as rare as a hug so she falls still and silent to appreciate it properly. He is attentive, and caring, and willing to bend, and good.

"I know. I think if you had a callous bone in your body it's long gone, I know it isn't something you intend. Just hurts, and I hate that we keep getting...stuck, in shit like this. Wish there was better for you."

"I know." They decide not to say that for the past few years, all they really wanted was to just be able to stop, to just not be anymore. It doesn't apply anymore, because if Misty is here, and Sam and Daylight, even Jo and now Inara, it doesn't seem quite so bad. They also decide that tossing it back to her, that they want better things for her, won't go over well. Not right now. Maybe later.

Instead, they say, "It's already better. We'll make it. More better? That doesn't sound right but I don't know how else to say it."

Damn him, it's hard not to smile just a little.

"Articulating really never stops being a battle, for the big stuff. But I get your meaning just fine, and it's probably the best one to have. It'll be better. Whatever extent we can make improvements, we will. Slow steps."

"And the first step is a bath," Soldat says, with feeling. They reach over one more time to give her wrist a little squeeze, gently, more for nostalgic comfort than because it's all he feels comfortable giving, then toss her reins back over to her. "After a long-ass ride to get to it."

"Ain't that the truth," she murmurs, expression settling into something more relaxed. Reins taken up, she starts slowly toward a trot. They do need to get moving. "Then dinner, socializing maybe, sleep. No more heavy talk until we hit all those."

"Oh no, is there more heavy talk coming?" They manage to make that sound light, like a joke, even if it does make them a little nervous.

"I mean statistically, in the future, probably? But not for awhile. We're tired, sweaty, and hungry. Priorities. Won't necessarily be bad, either. Congratulating you would count. How far you've come, remember."

There's always the lurking possibility. But for now: hunger.

Doesn't feel like they're very far, right now. It feels like they'd never been closer to just being the Asset again, up until Misty reappeared. And that they're still thinking like it, when that upsets her. Acceptable losses and collateral damage and....

(You ain't that bad. Aren't I?)

Soldat nods, and settles back into the ride. "How did your mission go?" Clearly she's alive, still, so it must have gone okay.

"Fair enough. I think we won? Bandits, and we got some cargo. I've got a couple spare crates back in the suite. Break them up, good for...firewood, stakes, I don't know." Doesn't like them going to waste, anyway. "Alive, which is good. No casualties on our side at all, even better. I saw a dinosaur today, Soldat. Honest to god."

"A. Dinosaur?" Soldat knows what dinosaurs are (thanks, Jason and Sora!) but the idea of one actually being in the game arena is a little weird. The sound vaguely skeptical when they ask, "Wasn't a dragon?" They've had dragons before. The last one disappeared in the last batch of missing players.

"A dinosaur! Honest to god, Soldat! No wings, just a straight-up T-Rex walking around with cargo on its back. It's one of the new guys, he must be a wizard or something, oh, it was amazing."

Is she excited? She's excited.

T-Rex. Tyrannosaurus Rex? Soldat can't help but smile back over at her for the enthusiasm. "That's pretty neat. Maybe next round I'll get to see it. Or you can point out who it is at the saloon."

"Oh, for sure. I'm not getting that out of my head for ages, easily the best thing I've seen since, I mean, you again." Shit as everything is, it's a valuable little personal win. Fighting is the worst way to engage with anything new, but just spotting it...

"Someday I'm gonna watch Jurassic Park with you," she declares, "And this'll make more sense probably. It's...incredible."

The best thing since seeing them. Soldat might be a little pink under the shadow of their hat. Awww, Misty. "Is that a show?" She'd said "watch" so it must be a show of some sort. Movie or something. There's a theater in town, but they're pretty sure none of the shows it's ever shown have dinosaurs in it.

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