cradleproject | WEEK 8

WEEK 8

the pygmalion. . .

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CAPTAIN'S LOG:
WEEK (8)

monday - thursday

(23) survivors

Sunday's trial was only mere hours ago, but you find yourself faced with a new week on The Pygmalion. When you awaken, you will find the ship restored to its previous state, all areas interfered with during the murder looking mostly the same as they did before. Along with this, it appears there are new areas opened on the ship. It seems you have more exploring to do. The robot in the cafeteria has prepared another breakfast of various foods.

(OOC: Please submit your murder proposals by 9 PM EST Tuesday.)
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ENTER COMMAND_

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No.

[ her voice is soft and honest -- yuno sniffles, and maybe it's a clue that's been crying, or maybe it's a clue that she's catching cold.

but his words make her crack a smile. whether or not judar is joking, she isn't sure. how literally he takes it, an attempt at cobbling together some kind of representation of a happy life for herself; it just seems so comical. judar's probably come to pick on her, she realizes, but that's not so bad anymore. he's an idiot, but he's been nothing but kind to her, in his own way, so she only answers bluntly.

she pushes forward with her response only once she's lowered her head. ]

It's a house... my house.

[ surely he's played pretend before, right? even judar's an old man by now, he has to have been a child at some point. she's only fifteen, so something as simple as a box tossed over her head can still function as some kind of illusion. ]

...You can come visit if you want.

[ she made sure to pick the one big enough for two; judar's not the one she wants beside her, but she wouldn't object. ]

[Oh god no, he did not ask for this? He just wanted to poke fun at her, and all of a sudden there are emotions. This would normally be the point where he'd immediately fly off, but...well, he does owe her for standing up for him during the last trial. He might be a spoiled, selfish, arrogant prick, but he's not ungrateful.

As for playing pretend...ha. Not really a lot of chances for that when your childhood - well, he doesn't like to think about that so he's going to brush that thought aside before it even lands. Still, maybe it's the pure simplicity of the sight that speaks to the child he is now, the idea that someone could sit in a cardboard box and pretend it's their fantasy dream world. Maybe it's the fact that none of them have seen their homes for two months now and even just a box is better than nothing. Or maybe he's just bored.

Either way, he'll enter the box with her and land, actually sitting down on the ground for once.]

Budge over. [He pauses.] And stop crying, or I'm gonna draw dicks all over the walls of your perfect house.

[Well, he tried. Give him a gold star please.]

[ honestly, if this were someone else, yuno might not have opened up like this. there's a vulnerability here that she doesn't want to show, not to anyone. but judar slides up to the box and pokes fun at her, and she feels a little bit better. it's like a sense of normalcy in the constant string of abnormal here. the deaths, no. she can handle them (for now, even though shelley's shook her more than she wants to admit), but she can't handle the time away from yukki, so far away.

so judar actually sitting next to her lets her feel like maybe a big box can feel a little comfortable. it's placed back over them, and she scoots, edging closer to the wall of the box than before. ]

Hah. [ there's not cheer to her laugh. it simply is. still, there's no fight against the threat of dicks. ] I've seen them so often on this ship, I kind of expected them to be on the box already... to be honest.

[ at least she's not crying. ]

It's not perfect, though. I don't think anything is perfect... [ not anymore, at least. ] Even your hair isn't perfect.

[Once again, Judar's method of 'let's be a jerk instead of offering sympathy' comfort somehow...works for him....]

Seriously, what's with everyone's obsession with my hair? It's fine.

[But since it's late at night and they're in a box where no one can see them and his hair is taking up way too much room in here, he'll go ahead and deflate it so it lies flat as a normal braid. Still ridiculously long, but at least it doesn't look so stupid anymore.]

'Course nothing's perfect on this ship, it's run by assholes. [He glances up at the stars too, frowning slightly.] ...view's not bad though. And the music's great. I better get to take one of those tablets home with me.

[ she kind of wants to ask about his hair. why is it so long? laziness? maybe. judar doesn't seem like the type who would want to bother with getting it cut. her own hair is ridiculously long, but nothing on the ship could compete with that rapunzel braid. ]

I think if you ask her, Alice will say no, so you could hide it in your hair. Just don't let her find out.

[ yukki and i are going to watch the stars together some day is on the tip of her tongue. yuno opens her mouth to say it, but the words don't come. instead, she stares ahead, dumbly. if there's anyone who has supported her all this time, it's judar, but she simply can't say it. as much as she could use the encouragement, as much as she wants to hear it, yuno also can't stand it.

but it's nice, anyway. judar's nice to her, so this is fine. ]

It'd be nice if you could come with me. Do you have television back home?

[Honestly, this is the best life choice she has made yet because Judar would just make fun of her for being a sap SORRY...his weird jerkish niceness only goes so far. But he can do talking about frivolous things, sure.]

See? My hair's useful. And we don't have anything like the technology on this ship back home. But they don't have magic, so it evens out.

[As for her invite...well, that's certainly unexpected. He knows it's not serious, but still, someone actually wanting him to stick around for something other than his power? Not exactly something he's used to. It takes him off-guard, and the surprise makes him more honest than he'd been planning.]

I'd consider it just for your tech alone. [It's not like he has any particular attachments to his world anyway, aside from the magic and maybe a couple of people. Honestly, he despises it most of the time, hates how he's been bound by its fate and its laws. And yet...] But there's someone counting on me back home.

[ of course someone is counting on judar back home. he's stupid, arrogant, a pain in the ass and difficult. being around him is like getting food poisoning, sometimes. and other times, it's nice having someone there you didn't know was there backing you up. for all his faults, either, yuno can't peg him as a dangerous person. too stupid and lazy for any kind of wrongdoing, she thinks. he leaves peach pits around his room! who would believe this guy doing something terrible? ]

...Do your best.

[ it's what judar would say, she thinks. not as plain, no. judar would never say something simply, but he would mean it. ]

If you lay around eating peaches all day, I bet they'll be really mad. And if you do well enough, maybe Alice will let you come visit me to watch television.

[ ... she'll have to remember to pay the electric bill that month, though, so hopefully she'll get a memo in advance. usually she opts to spend what little money she has on food. ]

[That statement of support earns her another surprised, almost baffled look. He has no idea that she thinks he isn't dangerous, but still, he hasn't exactly gone to any effort to hide what an asshole he is. That someone would still tell him to do his best - well, he doesn't know if it's touching or painfully naive.

(Of course, given who Yuno stans for, he gets the feeling that even if she did know the details of what exactly he's being counted on for, she'd cheer him on anyway. And that's...well, it's too weird to think about and gets too dangerously close to emotions, so he's just going to ignore it.)]

Hey, I can work my ass off if I need to! Just don't see any point in doing it here. [He's been used as a pawn far too often in his life, which is why he has barely any interest in this game aside from the sheer entertainment value and also why his nose immediately wrinkles into an expression of disgust at her next sentence.]

And I'm not relying on Ass Lice for anything, not after the way we've all been toyed with here. I don't need her to let me do anything - if I visit you, it'll be through my own power!

[ it's an earnest laugh that judar draws out of her this time, though it isn't laugh and natural. as much as she wants to hide it, she can't deny that judar probably could misuse his magic enough to pop into tokyo. although, she's... pretty sure that getup with get more than a few stares. ]

If? You should definitely visit me, then you can see television. Are you a couch potato, Judar?

[ she can totally see him lounging on a couch in the middle of the day, watching some kind of game show. would he lean more to peaches or pick up junk food? yuno tries to picture it and anyway she imagines it, judar is sitting on her family's couch, spitting peach pits without a care in the world as a variety show plays loudly. ]

Maybe it's more like the couch is your trash can...

[Squawking indignantly - he has no idea what a couch potato is, but it sounds gross.] I'm not a potato! I don't want to be any vegetable, blech. Let me be a couch peach.

[But no, he'd definitely be a couch potato. Honestly, his life would probably be a lot better off if he only had a television instead of relying on actual people killing each other for entertainment.]

I'll see if I can make it a two-way portal so you can visit my world too. We might not have television, but we've got magic and that's way better. Plus, princesses.

[Though now that he thinks about it, introducing Kougyoku to Yuno would be a terrible idea because they'll probably get along way too well and then gang up on him noooo. (Plus she might kind of hate him now, but whatever, he's just not going to think about that! It's been two months, Hakuryuu wouldn't have gone through with the coup without him anyway, everything is fine.)]

[ the decry of veggies is seemingly too much for her, because yuno's expression falls, turning into something that looks like a mash between disgust and agitation. ]

Vegetables are good for you. You should eat more of them, you know. [ potatoes are also the least offensive veggie, judar!! there's no way that he can't admit that much, at least. it'd be bad if he didn't keep healthy... or rather, didn't get healthy. ]

...I've seen magicians and stuff. I guess it's not the same where you're from, though. It'd be fun. [ maybe she also just doesn't want to lose someone that she feels is capable of understanding her. that's just the truth: judar has somehow managed to breach yuno's defenses, and wiggled his way into her life. she doesn't want to lose someone who supports her, and if there's a way for her to keep seeing him after they get off this ship, she's all for it. who else has encouraged her as much as him...? she can't remember. ]

If you come to my house to watch television, then you're going to eat your vegetables, though.

Peaches are fruit, they're healthy enough! [But yes please encourage him to eat his veggies, because he's had servants cook for him his whole life and his idea of a healthy diet on his own is just 'fruit I guess so I don't have to cook'.]

Magicians or illusionists? They're totally different things. [He points his staff towards the opening of the box as proof, sending a small sheet of ice flying into the air. It shatters into a smaller cluster of prisms and hovers there, circling the stars.

He falls unusually silent for a moment, watching the starlight refract and sparkle in the ice. It's a pretty dream, he thinks distantly, but no more real than the "dream house" they're sitting in now. Even if he makes it back home, and the possibility seems further and further away each day, he still has a coup to plan and revenge to enact. And afterwards...well, he knows Hakuryuu enough to know that he likely won't be satisfied with just that. Not to mention as arrogant as he sounds bragging about how he'd never rely on Alice's power, a spell that can somehow transport someone between worlds? Even if it was theoretically possible, it would take an absolute godlike amount of power.

It's something that he'd normally mock her over, and the familiar cruelty is on the tip of his tongue. He's never liked wasting time on hope, and certainly not a false hope at that. Reality's already horrible enough after all, why bother making things worse for yourself by dreaming of things that can never be? And yet...here they are in the middle of space, two people who by the laws of reality should have never been able to meet at all, Solomon knows how far from their homes, all so they can be part of some game of death that doesn't even make sense. And they're sitting in a giant cardboard box pretending it's a house. The absurdity of the situation hits him abruptly, almost getting him to laugh.

It's pretend, that's all it is. But he's never played pretend when he was a kid. Maybe he can make up for it now, at least just for a night.]

That depends entirely on how tasty you make them. I'm not making any promises!

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WEEK 8

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