victory_road | video | action for olivine

Entry tags:

video | action for olivine | private texts

[This is probably a long time coming, because Shiro's Gengar looks sheepish. It's trying to explain where they are, trying to film the interior of the Olivine Pokemon Center. Before panning the 'gear back to where its trainer is unconscious. Sorry, it's trying to say.]

[Fortunately -- or unfortunately? -- no sooner does it do so, than suddenly, Shiro just pops up into a sitting position, apparently in the middle of yelling something.]

-- I SWEAR I WILL --

[But then stops. Blinks. And the camera is wordlessly deposited in his lap by a startled ghost before the feed ends. That sure was a week that just happened.]

[TEXT | PRIVATE TO SEVII ISLANDERS + Krieg]
Guys -- It's Shiro. Where -- what day is it? How long was I gone?

[TEXT | private to Matt Holt:]
Matt please call me. I don't know what happened. Are you okay?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I wasn't asleep.

[But Haunter is nodding -- yes you were. You absolutely were.]

I went back, Sasha. Back where I came from.

[Strange. Usually when people go back, someone says something about it on the network. Maybe she missed an announcement somewhere. Quite likely as she's been on the move with Bertolt and not really checking things.

That said, she knows how he feels.]

Were things okay back there?

[Sasha can only hope that his return trip was better than hers.]

[He doesn't answer her right away. Just pushes his hand through his hair. Debating the right words to say.]

Things were... they were under control.

[For the time being, anyway. So it's not a lie. Just sort of an omission.]

How about you?

[There's a lot that Sasha doesn't get from normal socializing. She misses a lot of the social cues and sarcasm people love to use, but this? This she gets. The pause in replying, the fixing of his hair... Everything Shiro does is broadcasting that his answer isn't exactly on the up and up.]

No. Things were terrible when I went back. I think they'll always be terrible.

[She, however, spills her thoughts anytime someone cracks the door open. This girl needs some serious therapy.]

... Sasha.

[Well, that right there, is infinitely more important than anything going through his head right now. Anything he'd been going through.]

[You can't reach out and try to physically comfort someone through the 'gear, but. He wishes he could.]

You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. I've -- heard a little from Jean.

I'm sorry. [He knows that doesn't change anything. But he can't not say so.] What I've heard... You shouldn't ever have to go back there.

[She does want to talk about it, to air all her grievances, to tell someone how bad the nightmares have gotten, how she misses all her friends that have died. Still, isn't this Shiro's post? Sasha doesn't want to go where she isn't welcome.]

I don't really have a choice whether I do or not since they just sent me home without asking me I even wanted to go. [She shrugs, trying to pretend she's accepted that things are out of her hands, but Sasha has always been bad at lying. It's written all over her face.]. Besides, I still don't know where my father is... whether or not he's still alive.

[Look, he is the king of "I'm Fine" while not being fine. Pretending not to have bad dreams. Shoving it all under a rug. She's welcome here. Absolutely.]

I know -- I get that. Doesn't change how I feel. That you guys deserve to stay here, long as you want to. [It also won't change things. People come and go regardless of what they want or deserve. He knows.] And it's all right to want to stay. Most of the people I've talked to want the same thing.

[Oh. Oh that's... a nerve there. Sasha couldn't have said better words if she tried.]

Your father?

Edited 2018-04-03 05:17 (UTC)

[Sasha shifts in her chair, glancing around a bit looking completely unsure about herself as she pulls her ponytail over her shoulder and begins to nervously tug on the ends.]

When I went back, the walls were breached by Titans again and some of them got into the village I came from. I was assigned to go back and warn them, but the place was empty, except for a little girl and her mother.

[It also looked completely different than it did when she left, but that birthed a certain kind of feeling that Sasha hasn't explored yet or really found herself able to put into words.]

I don't know whether they all got out. [Or if they were eaten instead.] I haven't been back there since I ran away three years ago, so I don't know where they could have gone. I haven't spoken to my dad in those three years either.

[It's thanks to Jean's nightmare he even knows what she's talking about. That and all the times Armin's discussed it with him. He's grateful now, for that. Because it means he doesn't have to ask her awkward questions.]

You couldn't find your family.

[It probably should have been more of a question. But it smacks so hard of Pidge right now.]

Do you think you could find him, if you ended up going back?

I don't know. My horse got spooked, so wherever I went, I would have to walk, and not knowing where he could have gone...

[She could be walking forever, only to find nothing. Sasha doesn't know if never finding out if he was safe or not is worse than having some sort of confirmation that he died.]

[And there's not much else for transportation in their world, from what he's heard.]

Puts you in a bad spot, yeah.

Don't want to go back, knowing you probably have to... because you have something important you have to do.

[Boy does he get that.]

[She's still tugging on her hair. That can't be good for the many split ends Sasha has.]

Maybe that makes me a coward.

[People like Armin know the duty they have runs deep and even if they would prefer not to, they would go back to fulfill it. Sasha, on the other hand, wouldn't go back for all the money in the world. Nothing could be worth it, but if this place could bring her here, why can't it bring her dad? Is she a chicken for wanting that instead?]

He called me a coward. Maybe he's right. Cowards run from things and I never want to go back.

[So she's running. Even if she saved that little girl in the face of not being able to do anything for her mother, Sasha is running. Almost being crushed to death by a Titan would probably do that to you.]

No.

[There is exactly zero hesitation there. None whatsoever.]

You're not. You're allowed to not want to go back to somewhere that hurt you. You're allowed to hate it. To be afraid of it.

[He's afraid of being caught again. Of that... yellow-eyed monster and what she'd done. What she knew. Hunk was afraid of literally everything half the time, and no one would call him a coward. If they did, they'd have to fight the entire team.]

I've been fighting a war where I'm from. So has everyone I care about. And I'm sitting here... glad to be back here.

You think that makes me a coward? Because I'd rather be somewhere I don't have to worry about dying? About my friends and teammates being captured or killed?

[He's not going to talk about how this may be the first time he admitted to wanting to be here. Instead of where he knows he should be.]

No, but...

[But he isn't her. Sasha realizes that she actually doesn't know what Shiro actually does for a living, what he has back home waiting for him. She never asked. It never came up. In any case, she sees him as something far different than her. He looks smart. Educated. Well trained. She's nothing but a country bumpkin who had an argument with her father and ran away from home to join the military as if that would prove a point. It proved nothing because she's still the scared pre-teen who signed up for duty four years later.]

But I ran away once already. I should have stayed home. Let him turn us from hunters to horse breeders. That's what he wanted to do and he didn't run away. He didn't leave his father behind to get eaten like I did.

[Oh, hi, guess who's beating herself up with some newly discovered guilt? This is why it's probably best not to goad Sasha into talking about her feelings. There's no time for that at home and for good reason.]

There's no buts, Sasha.

[This time, he does hesitate. But only because he wants to make this closed up. Wants to make it so she doesn't have to air anything else where someone could see.]

I'm their leader. I'm the one making the calls, the one my team is supposed to look up to. If... I'm considering this place a better one -- then there's no way you're a coward for doing the same.

[No, they're not the same people. But if someone in his position can't be called a coward -- how could she? He just can't see it that way.]

You had no way of knowing that was going to happen, Sasha -- you said don't even know if it did happen. You can't beat yourself up for what-ifs.

It never helps anything.

You're the leader. You can make those calls. I'm just a soldier.

[She's not saying "but". He can't call her out on that now. She can, however, continue protesting. A leader can turn and run if they want to. They don't need permission. Soldiers? They're the squishy wall that stands in front and waits to see if their leader is willing to let them go.]

I couldn't save that little girl's mother. I left her behind because she couldn't walk and by the time I got there, the Titan was already on her. Everybody else in the village left them behind to fend for themselves and I still couldn't help her either. I left her behind to die too.

You -- You really think that?

[What kind of "leaders" do these guys have? People who'd just up and abandon their team? He could never do that... he'd rather throw himself into the fray first.]

Is that what happened? In your world?

But that still doesn't make you a coward, Sasha. That's -- that's a call you shouldn't have had to make alone.

Everybody knows the the Military Police Brigade doesn't really do any of the work. The superiors make the privates do it all while they slack off. I guess that's the kind of power being a leader gets you there.

[That crew doesn't even see Titans face to face, but still, the superiors fart around uselessly, gamble and drink, and whatever they damn well please while the privates work and toil elsewhere. She's pretty sure that if they had to head out to the frontlines, the Brigade would just throw the fresh meat out there as human shields to save their own butts.]

But I did. No one else was there to do it. And now I have to live with it.

Edited 2018-04-05 05:58 (UTC)

That's ... that's wrong. That's ridiculous! Don't they care about their people?

[Sorry, Sasha. He may have snapped that a little bit. If only because he's always felt that weight of responsibility. It was always his crew. His team. His responsibility to save and lead.]

Do you think the girl feels that way? That she blames you for getting her out?

[... like he'd always assumed Matt blamed him.]

[She shrugs. That's a question so many other have asked and there's really one simple answer to it: No.]

The people who get to live inside the inner wall don't really think about us on the outside unless it's to risk our lives saving them from another Titan breach. The Brigade serves the king and well, living over there means you never have to want for anything, so I guess that's all they care about.

[Pursing her lips, Sasha looks away from the camera, as if her attention has been pulled away, but really, it's just her not wanting to face the possibility that she's not the only one who blames Sasha Braus.]

I don't know. Last I saw her, I told her to run and to keep running until she found some help. After I escaped from the Titan, I ran in the same direction, but then I ended up here somehow before I caught up with her.

[One minute home, next minute here. It makes her head spin how this traveling business works, in the way she can't figure out how it works.]

That's not right. It -- [He has to stop himself from going on. Because it won't actually change Sasha's situation. Or Armin's. Or Jean's or anyone else's from their world. But it's just so wrong... And maybe a little personal.] Sasha. I'm sorry. For what it's worth, I'm sorry.

[That she had to go through that. Grow up with that.]

She... might just be grateful you saved her. Even if you're beating yourself up over it -- it might end up she thanks you. More than anything.

[No, it's not right, but it is what it is. Sasha, out of all the people who live in that world, feels like she has the least ability to change things. She could kill every single Titan by herself, but there will always be people to look down on her because of where she's from, how much money she doesn't have, how she has too little education and too many questions on how things work. Never good enough. Never good enough to fit in with the normal folks.

She doesn't know how to reply to Shiro's apologies. He has nothing to do with how things are. There's no need for him to apologize for it.]

I don't know. [She shrugs, looking down at her hands in her lap, wondering if they'll be good for anything that she'd feel proud of in her life.] I don't know where she ended up, so who knows.

[For all Sasha knows, she could have told that little girl to run right into her death. It's something she's thinking about, but not putting into words.]

... Maybe you'll see her again. And, maybe she'll tell you something you never thought you'd hear.

[He shakes his head, and pushes a hand through his hair, ending up looking down at them, too. Just like she is. Picturing another time. Another place. When they looked different.]

[After a moment, he looks back up.] I know that sounds... I know how that sounds. But I'm not just talking out of nothing. It's happened to me, here.

[He never expected to see Matt Holt alive and well again. Never thought he'd hear "I forgive you". But it sure happened. And the least he can try and do is pass that reassurance on to someone else who might need it. He can't change her world, or her past... but maybe? Maybe this can help.]

[He says maybe, she thinks different. No one's ever told her they were proud of her or that she did a good job and they were grateful she was around to do it. There are no hugs and shoulder pats back home. Definitely no trophies. Just "you did what you were expected to do" and a lot of "you could have done this better" towards her. The day she ever hears anything other than that, Sasha just might faint.

Sasha looks up, curiosity on her face.]

What happened?

[Be prepared, Sasha. Someday down the line, he's going to say he's proud of you. Don't ask how or why. It's going to happen. But right now? Now he's just got to talk and hope it helps somehow.]

My friend came here. We'd... been imprisoned together back where we come from. The people who captured us were going to send him out into their combat arena. Just for... sport.

[Just to watch someone die. Just to be entertained. He takes a breath, steadying.]

So I took his place. Hurt him to do it -- I had to make the guards think I wanted out there bad enough to hurt someone I cared about.

I never... knew if he understood that. If he blamed me for injuring him, or hated me for it. When he got here, turns out he did understand. He forgave me, and -- it's more than I ever thought was possible.

[It's the quickest possible explanation he can give her, without overloading her with names and terms that would require more explanation. So it comes out a little dry, as a result.]

Maybe the same thing could happen for you.

» video

» video

» video

» video

» video

» video

» video

» video

» video

» video

» video

» video

» video

» video

» video | private

» video | private

» video | private

» video | private

» video | private

» video | private

» video | private

» video | private

» video | private

» video | private

» video | private