Day 013: We Make Peace With Our Enemies
Summary: Fiona returns with the group that comes back from Coesbur and talks with Faolan about the future.
Date: 22 May 2016
Related: Return from Coesbur logs.
Faolan Fiona 


Center of Camp
Just outside the dropship.
Day 013

Day 13 has the Delinquents who went on the healing mission returning - well, some of them, at least. They won't make it back until the afternoon, but when they do, they're clean and well-fed. Fiona makes her way back into camp with the others, relieved to see familiar faces and catching some vague rumor of fighting as she greets people while coming in. There are some Grounders with the group, but others are seeing to them.

The sight of Grounders in the camp makes Faolan frown where he sits by one side of the dropship, sheltered beneath an overhang. He may have backed (somewhat reluctantly) the play that led to all of this, but it only takes one look at him to see he doesn't like it. He rubs his knuckles absently. They're swollen and bloodied and bruised. He doesn't get up to greet or hear news with the others, perhaps assuming that sooner or later the new'll come to him anyway.

There's a flurry of people to get through, but when Fiona sees Faolan under the overhang, she smiles. "Hey," she calls out, extracting herself from the throng. "Fey…I brought you something. From the Coesbur." The name of the Grounder village, it would seem. She reaches into her jury-rigged knapsack and produces a round, red piece of fruit. "It's an apple." she tells him, beaming. She hasn't noticed his knuckles yet.

A moment's silence, followed by a semi-awkward, "hey," as he tries to separate the frown at the Grounders from the young woman who brought them. He runs his fingers through his hair. Squinting at the piece of fruit he leans forward, hand extending towards her to gingerly pick it up and have a look at it. "I could for sure have sworn they told us in ES at some point that bright colours were used as a sign of poison to would be predators. See you all brought some.. friends.. back."

"I promise it's not poisoned." she says with a faint air of exasperation. "I took it off the tree myself, and I've eaten them. It's like nothing any of us have tasted before, we've only ever read about apples and seen pictures." Watching him study the fruit, her enthusiasm somewhat diminished, she nods. "We got our summit. It was a virus we brought down with us that they don't have immunity to. So we just came back to get Quinn and a few things before heading out. You were in that fight?" She gingerly indicates his knuckles. "What happened, anyway?"

"I didn't really think it was," Faolan quickly says to her note of exasperation. He flashes her a half grin, semi-awkward for still nursing his dislike for the coming Grounders. He brings the apple around and takes a big crunchy bite, and the moment the flavors hit him he's making a sound of pure pleasure in his throat. "Mmm." Around his chewing he tries to talk, mouth full still. "I.. never wanna.." chew, chew, "eat Ark food again." Finally he swallows, and glances down at his knuckles. "Uh. Yeah.. kinda. That's to say, uh. No. Well. I mean, Brody and Eggins came limping through the gates shouting about a Grounder attack. I armed and gathered up a group, since they said Rawlins and Simmons and Grey were still there. Well. We found Grey tied up, the other two unconcious. I had Silas look for tracks of the Grounders, but all he found was," and Faolan's tone gets angry, "the five of them. They didn't even use grounder rope, but fucking parachute cord to tie Grey up. Assholes. So uh." And from angry to awkward and shifty eyed in a moment. "I went to talk to, uh, Eggings and Brody." Talk to them. He sort of hides-with-out-hiding his knuckles.

Fiona's smile increases as she sees how much he enjoys the apple. "I know, right?" She reaches out to try and catch his hand, but won't be stubborn about it if he really wants to hide it away. "Sounds like they wanted to stir up a fight between us and Trikru. Idiots." she says with a disdainful scrunching of her nose. "Thank you for stopping them."

For a moment he might have seemed as if he would resist, but then he lets her take it. The thing about hitting teeth is they tend to be sharp and cut you. Flip a coin to guess whether either of them were particularly good with mouth hygiene either. "Idiots, yeah." That she doesn't seem to be judging him for laying out some simple earth justice eases some of his tension away. He takes another bite of the apple. "Could've put everybody in danger if some actual hot head had taken their bait. Could've gotten people killed. I don't much like these.. Trikru bastards, but we don't need a war."

In fairness, she's assuming they put up a fight, or maybe that's what she's telling herself. "I'm not a medic, but as long as you keep it clean, you should be fine." There's a tilt of her head. "I'm starting to understand them, a bit. I learned a lot about them while I was in Coesbur. A lot of them don't trust us either, but so far everyone's realized that trying to get along is better than a fight." Her fingers are still curled gently around his hand.

"There's a quote about the importance knowing your enemy that I can't remember," Faolan says, his mouth quirking in half crooked smile. "But I don't think that's what you're trying to do, is it?" He snorts out a sound of humor. "Sit down, there's room. Tell me about them. What makes the Trikru tick? And do you understand about them?" He still doesn't pull away his hand. It rests in hers, warm and battered, not a lot of callouses. Guard duty wasn't ever that kind of physical labor. Though working with spears has added a few recently.

"And we don't make peace with our friends, we make peace with our enemies." It might not be the quote he was looking for, but it's a good one. She sits, tugging him down with her to resume his seat. "The obvious stuff, first. They're just people, trying to survive. You've only seen their warriors, but I've met their healers, their artists, their children. I learned some of the language, I'm still learning. I think they're torn between being afraid of what changes we bring and the advancements we could bring them. Watching their healers and our medics work together was amazing. Also," she grins ruefully, "Being really, really clean for the first time in forever? With actual hot water that wasn't rationed? Amazing."

"Never heard that one." But he sounds like he intends to file it away for later usage. With her drag he dumps down in a boyish sprawl of limbs, boots kicked out far away. He keeps munching on the apple while he looks across the bustle of the camp. Once or twice he glances at the hand she's still holding, but makes it subtle. You know, subtle like an elephant in china store. He isfairly clean himself, if the recent blood letting and mud wrestling of yesterday is ignored. So, not that clean, but at least there's no layers of it. "Clean is nice. I can't even imagine grounder kids.. Huh." He phases out for a moment, then refocuses again. "So tell me some grounder words?"

"They're so different from Ark kids. We were restricted in every way, where we could go, what we could do. We were never going to meet more people than those on the stations. But these children, they're so free. The world is a hard place, but it's all they know, and they're still pretty happy. I mean, people have their problems, but that's just it, they're people." At his request, she smiles. "Heya, ai laik Feyona kom Triku. Yu laik Feilan kom trikru. Trig op Gonasleng?"

"Just people," Faolan repeats with a soft sigh, his eyes climbing up off the crowds to the skies instead. The apple is quickly devoured, but he nurses the core, nibbling on it like he doesn't want a single sliver of fruit meat to go to waste. "Nothing more dangerous than people. Would've been nice growing up here, though, wouldn't it?" He shakes his head, chuckling. "I remember that part from the meet with Bear. The first parts, anyway. What's the last mean?"

"Maybe." Fiona says. "But making other people seem like something less than you makes it easy to hate them. Easy to kill them." She grins. "It means do you speak English?." she explains. "I know a few other words - the titles of authority, please and thank you, that sort of thing." Like she's a long-ago tourist with a helpful phrases book.

He makes a sound when she mentions easier to kill them. "Sometimes that's necessary, I think." Its the sort of morose thought he has a tendency to pursue. "What's thank you, then?" While he holds up the left over core, obviously meaning to grab the word so he can thank her for it.

"Maybe." Fiona looks out over the camp thoughtfully. "I'd like to think we can make other choices if we want them enough. That's why we're talking instead of fighting." Looking back at him, there's a duck of her head. "Mochof."

"Mochof, then," he says cheerfully as if to make up for his earlier poisoned thoughts. He scrapes out the apple core's seeds, then pockets them. He knows someone who'll want to make a use for them. He makes a slow and languid stretch of his body, pleased to have had his apple. "So why're they here? Whose idea was it?"

"They're here to understand us, in the same way that I went to understand them. They're here to watch us, because they don't trust us, and that's okay, because trust needs to be earned. And they're here as a stop on the way to speak to the leader of the clan for the summit." Fiona starts to slide her hand away when he stretches, glancing at him sidelong. "We asked to come home on the way, they asked to come with us, and we agreed."

"I think that's a mistake. They should never know us too well." So circling back to his thoughts on knowing your enemy. He frowns again, squinting at the sight of the Grounders. "Not that they can learn too much that they don't k now already. Except.. Shit. The guns that Quinn found. Automatic rifles. They don't need we have those. Or.. fuck," he rubs his head as if thinking about all the various possibilities is giving him a headache. "Or perhaps they should, then they'll know we're not as weak as we were. I don't know. Ugh." He blows out a loud sigh.

"Wait. Quinn found guns?" Fiona's relaxed posture straightens into something tense, and she darts a look around as if she somehow expects kids to start spraying bullets everywhere and mow the Trikru down. She lets out a breath, relaxes her spine a little, and looks back to Faolan. "Please tell me they're being stored someplace safe where idiots like those kids who tried to start something can't get to them."

"They're not being handed out nilly willy just yet," Faolan responds with a grunt. A smile flutters about the corner of his mouth; he's more amused than anything about Fiona's reaction. "Did you just watch your whole world crumble?" He teases, making a blowing-things-up-rumble-sound in his throat, hands shaking like a tower collapsing.

"Not yet." She reaches out, gently fapping his ribs with the back of her hand. "Don't tease me like that, jerk." She's smiling at him when she calls him a jerk, so there might be a mixed message there. "Other than those two morons, has everything else been alright?"

"Zoe and Mika are still mising," he says it like he thinks there's about zero chance or even care if they come back. "The hunters have been looking for signs while hunting, me included, but nothing so far. I've been working on training people." For the war that she's hoping to avoid. "Other'n that, no, not really."

"I don't think we'll see Mika or Zoe again. Mika got into a fight with Cole and took off, and while I don't know what happened with Zoe, she was pretty much in it for herself." Fiona's frank about that, looking for a moment like she's having an unkind thought, but promptly dismisses it. "But if we get past all this, and the rest of the Ark comes down…what do you want to do, Fey? I mean, for yourself. It's not like you have to follow anyone's path but the one you choose down here."

A grunt marks his agreement about Zoe having just been in it for herself. He smiles wryly, too, for that look on Fiona's face. Amused to see a bit of the mean side, perhaps. He folds his arms over his chest, rests his chin on his collarbone, and hms aloud. "I don't think we're ever going to get past this. Not you and me. Our kids, perhaps. I don't think Earth or its people'll let us tame her anytime soon. But I don't know. Its kind of crazy, how I wasn't even scared when we were put in the dropship. It was.. I don't know, freeing. No choices, everything just so simple. I'm not as good with choices."

"Huh. Kids. I saw families in Coesbur. Brothers and sistes." Secondborns are an oddity enough, seeing families was so startling. "But thinking about kids means you're thinking about the future. That's good." She too shifts in her seat, turning toward him and leaning forward a bit. "Why aren't you good with choices? Are you worried you'll pick the wrong one?"

"It what people do, right?" Faolan asks somewhat awkwardly when she zones in on the fact that he personally might have kids at some point. He scratches at his jawline. "Uh, have kids and what not. I mean, not only wouldn't you need to limit kids, I think you'd probably want to encourage multiple kids just to make up for the harsh environment." That makes him frown, the thought that folows on him. "I bet a lot of kids die early." He blinks, eyeing her out of the periphery of his vision as she leans closer. "I thought that was pretty obvious. I mean, I'm down here. Good choices didnt lead anyone of us down here."

He's uncomfortable, and once she realizes it, she tilts back again, looking briefly rueful. "Maybe. All actions have consequences. But now we can choose for ourselves. And I meant more like…what do you want to do. Farm? Learn one of the trades that might be needed down here?" A faint smile. "Form a security force? Assuming we remain a community."

He laughs at the idea of him farming, the sound of it bubbling up from his chest with an unexpected genuine warmth. There hasn't been all that much to laugh at recently. He looks down at his hands, those bruised and torn knuckles, and shakes his head. "I'd be a horrible farmer," he tells her. "I don't know. If the Guard'll have me back, though I don't think it will. I proved I wasn't meant for it." Said with a sour grimace, even if he's lived just about every day down here on Earth like he isn't just an ex-Cadet, but a proper guard. "Then I guess that. Otherwise, I don't know. I'm getting better at this hunting thing. Perhaps I'll do that? I like being out in the woods, and just.. you know, on the Ark you could never run forever, but here you can. Its.." There's an innocent wonder in his tone at the idea of just running without ever having to stop.

"You know, Trikru is actually just one tribe from amongst a dozen? They're spread out all over. I wonder what it would be like to meet them all. See all the different areas, the different tribes." She smiles at his cheer, she likes it when he's happy. "You probably could run forever. Until you hit an ocean." Fiona rests her chin on her hand. "And then you could swim."

"Have them try to kill you in a dozen different ways," Faolan quips wryly, leaning in and using his shoulder to shoulder-bump her. He rakes his fingers through his hair. "I found a stream, not a proper river, to wash in. No river snakes. Just flapping around in it, freezing my ba.. uh, just freezing, I can't really imagine actually swimming properly. Hard to even think about what an actual ocean would look like, you know? Water everywhere you could see. But I do wanna spear myself some caviar." Because its a fish or something, right? "Seafood is supposed to be the best."

She reaches up, and if he doesn't shy away, drags her fingers through his hair in an echo of his earlier gesture, and then puts her hand back in her lap. "They have hot water in Coesbur. No baths or tubs, you just have to stand there where the water comes out and clean up. But it was so nice." Fiona actually sighs fondly, like she's remembering a childhood sweetheart.

His hair is still short. And the aforementioned splashing around has cleaned it out, as much as its going to get without some serious soap work and time and effort. At first he leans into the gesture, instinctively. But then something clouds in his eyes and he shies away. Quite abruptly he's pushing himself to his feet. "I bet it was. Listen, I have some rounds I have to do. You know. Things. And Grey is injured so I should go hunt. We got all these extra Grounders to feed and all.." he trails off as he dusts himself 'clean'. "I'm glad the trip was successful, Fee."

She starts to smile as he leans in, but she can't miss the way his expression changes, and he's declaring his intention to go hunt. "Okay." she says. "I guess I'll just try to catch you before we leave. We should be back by Unity Day, though." She looks slightly askance. "You owe me a dance, yeah?"

Again he is running his fingers through his hair, this time more furiously. Not scratching, just rubbing his scalp. It happens its the same spot she was doing it earlier. He doesn't look at her directly, just clears his throat and nods. "I, sure. Yeah." Did he owe her a dance? His brows furrow for a bit as he considers it. "Of course. Anyway, I'll see you around, Fee." And with that he's turning away and hurrying off.

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