| Rolling the Bones |
| Summary: | Sawyer and Tisiphone discuss the reporter's contact with Robin. |
| Date: | 2041.04.02 |
| Related Logs: | All things Robin Merrell-related. |
| Players: |
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| Viper Squadron - Naval Deck - Battlestar Cerberus |
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| Post Holocaust Day: #34 |
| Viper Squadron pilots call this home. Berthings line the walls with grey curtains to cover their sleeping areas. Lockers sit between each stack of berths and a round table sits in the center with chairs around it. A hatch at the end leads to the communal Head that the Raptor pilots share. |
| Condition Level: 3 — All Clear |
It's somewhere in the middle of the morning shift, when nearly everyone with something better to do is off doing it, already. Tisiphone, with her whole day of nothing with a lovely side of nothing to look forward to, has chosen to keep her scant Light Duty Hours for later. For now, she rolls dice — irregular, carved bone ones — across the table nearest her bunk with a hollow, scritching clatter, keeping track of her score, left hand against right, on a scrap of paper.
Sawyer drags herself in from the shower, moving a little slowly herself today. Not that she has a pressing schedule to keep that isn't self-imposed anyways. Funny how deadlines and job requirements seem to go by the wayside following the obliteration of the Colonies. Well, unless you're a poor military schmuck. No cookies for you. She pads back into berthings with the slap-slap of flipflops she uses as shower shoes, redressed in her pink plaid pajama bottoms and tee as if she might just crawl right back in bed despite her wet hair and general intention to actually get up and moving for the day. To give her further motivation for staying awake, she shuffles towards the coffee pot and past Tisiphone and her game of bones. "What's that?" She asks, the tone of curiousity in her voice falling a bit flat with general lack of enthusiasm for being awake.
"Dice," Tisiphone replies, matter-of-factly, as she looks up. There's no sarcasm to it; maybe it really is filed away as 'playing dice' in her head. Who knows what lurks in the mind of a pilot, anyway? "Uh. You'd call it 'fivebones', I guess. Something my uncles used to play. Dice travel better than cards." Her eyes travel down Sawyer's pajamas to the flipflops, which spark some private amusement. Looking back to her dice, she pushes two of them away and picks up the three remainders, rolling them again in her left palm. "Feeling better this morning? Took off in a rush from the Observation Deck last night." The tone is casual, though there's a glance that sneaks along with it that's less so.
Sawyer gets some coffee and schlepps it back to the table that Tisiphone occupies, inviting herself to sit down with the pilot. She lives here too, afterall. Settling into a chair, "I thought that was the night before last? But it's rather hard to keep track of dates and times in the middle of space, I suppose." Sinking down a little, Sawyer cooks up an elaborate excuse during that short pause. "I had to use the restroom, then I ran into the Commander's aide in the hallway on the way back, and we got into a discussion and I ended up having to schedule another meeting with the Admiral and by the time I thought to go back to the Observation Deck, I figure everyone had filtered off to do better things than sit around and jabber jaw with me." Phew. The way she ran on and on, it's probably pretty easy to see right through that.
They're ordinary dice, if you discount the fact they still bear saw-marks and bear whatever imperfections the beast's skeleton bore in life. The more well-to-do colonies doubtless sell the same sort of thing made from pressurized plastic, labelled as 'antique' or 'traditional'. The little drilled pips are stained a dusty blue-black. So quaint. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Night before last. Be easier to remember if I'd sleep two nights in a row sometime soon." She tosses the dice out again, pushes one of them toward the others, then adds a few ticks to her indecypherable scoring method. "You knew Robin Merrell down in Engineering, didn't you? It's getting easier to tell who did and didn't." It's a very blank look that accompanies that. Appraising. Either she doesn't have the same issues with eye contact some of the other Saggies do, or that blankness is meant as a challenge.
Sawyer reaches out to toy with one of the dice that Tisiphone seems to have already counted. What once was a lovely manicured nail has been gnawed down to a nub, so it's her fingertip that catches the rough hewn edge of the die and clicks it over so the face showing the single pip is now face-up. "I did. I used her as a source once." Sawyer says rather matter of factly, finding the truth easier to hide behind then a lie. "Why do you say that? That we're easier to pick out now, I mean?"
"There's a /look/ people get, when her name comes up," replies Tisiphone, her words a little slowed from their usual cadence as she inspects them before offering them out. She draws one knee up toward her chest, bootheel hooked on the very edge of the seat, and wraps her good arm around it, absently scritching at the striped socks poking out beneath her fatigue cuffs. "/Some/ people get, when she's mentioned. It's not every day the dead come back to visit us." That blank stare /is/ a challenge, maybe, now dropped on the table between the two of them. Pale brows lifted slightly against paler forehead.
Sawyer looks up from her absent play with the dice then, her fingers stilling on the cool surface of one of them as if she was just about to pluck it from the table and got side-tracked. "Is that what you wanted to talk to the Chief Engineer about? Why you were so concerned with Merrell's belongings? You're feeling…haunted?" There's no confirming or denying Tisiphone's suspicions, at least not verbally. Though Sawyer's eyes have definitely rounded out in that 'oh my gods this can't be happening' sort of way.
"See, there it is." Tisiphone's observation is… defeated, almost. Haunted would be another good word for it, as ironic as it may be. It doesn't seem to cross her mind that the round-eyed stare could be the look of someone simply thinking, 'I'm sitting across from a madwoman.' "You've seen her, too. It's weird, though. The others were friends. You just asked her some questions, one time?" She starts worrying at the raw spot on her bottom lip that's never left to heal, blowing out a sigh at her dice. "You want a smoke?" She's already digging for the pack.
Sawyer leans forward, her elbows grinding into the table top as she props on them heavily. "You keep saying there are others. More people are having dreams about her? What are the circumstances?" Like any good reporter (or psychologist), the conversation is deflected off herself and back to others with simple questions to keep the talk flowing in a direction she wants it to. Namely, that which isn't /quite/ so uncomfortable. At the question of a smoke, Sawyer merely extends her fingers to accept one in a non-verbal 'yes'.
"They're not dreams." Matter-of-factly, again, this time about something considerably less tangible than dice. The look Tisiphone gives Sawyer is slightly narrowed — as if she's fairly certain she's catching the other woman in some manner of a lie, but can't figure the exact details. "Circumstances have been- different. Either she's getting better with communicating, or it's- maybe dependant on how well she knew them. Some have only seen her. Others get to talk with her." Disturbing, perhaps, to be fixed with the intent stare of someone who has passed beyond believing in the concept of restless dead to being certain of their existence.
"And sometimes, they take a dip in the pool with you. Has she conversed with you in these…sightings? Who are the others?" Sawyer's outstretched hand still waiting for the cigarette, instead snags Tisiphone's scratch piece of paper and turns it over, nipping the writing utensil too, as if she means to take notes.
Tisiphone blinks out of her stare when Sawyer's hand moves, reminding her of her own stalled cigarette retrieval. "Sorry," she murmurs, tapping two cigarettes out of the pack. She lights up her own, then slides the scuffed steel zippo and other cigarette across the table. Back to her slouch she returns, dragging hard on her cigarette. She's either trying to look like she's perfectly calm, or trying to will herself toward perfect calmness. Either way, it's not very successful. "What, for your next story?" she asks, with a sharpish point of her chin at the retrieved paper. Evading the question. "Is that where she was? Back at the pool?"
Moving to take the cigarette with her off hand now, Sawyer retreats to a safe distance on her side of the table with the pencil and paper. "First of all, not everything needs to be published. Two, I have a shitty memory when it comes to names. Three, sometimes my quest for knowledge doesn't always equate to me raping the minds of my fellow humans just for the cheap thrill of seeing it all in print with my name attached to it."
Sleety eyes frost over a bit, full of jagged defensiveness, cigarette paused mid-motion on the way back to Tisiphone's lips. The stare continues through the slow drag, then breaks abruptly to the ceiling, where another lungful of smoke is blown. "Point," she concedes, at some length. When she looks back to the other woman, it's a considerably less hostile expression. "I don't know the order of events. Who was- first. Whatever. For me, she was- in the galley. There and gone again. I went to Chapel a couple days later, and Sister Karthasi was- upset. She'd just been there. I didn't push for details." She keeps bullying the details out through slow, deep drags off her cigarettes and long, smoky sighs. The words themselves are somewhat dull. Tired. "Then- one of the MPs, Sergeant Demos told me Robin had mentioned my name to her. A couple days after that, the Sister held a- ceremony to speak to Robin, and find out what she wanted. Jesse was there for that."
Sawyer makes quick little notations, her eyes on the stolen slip of paper now instead of the woman across from her, as if focusing on the tip of the pencil is a little easier at the moment. The list seems to be of the names Tisiphone lists off, pausing when it gets to the last. "Jesse? The fellow from medical?" She asks, daring a flick of her gaze up to confirm the fact. "The sister tried to summon Robin? Did it…work?" Okay, there's still some skepticism there, but at least it's not scathing.
Tisiphone gives Sawyer a blank look for a second before she nods. "Uh. Yeah, sorry. Lieutenant Stavrian." When asked if the ceremony worked, her eyes hood over, mouth twisted up at one corner in a mute sort of, You have NO idea. "Yeah. Yeah, of course it worked. The three of us, we- spoke to her for a time. Jesse was really upset, I wasn't much better. Sister Karthasi's who you want to talk to about the whole mess."
A little shiver crawls up Sawyer's spine, telegraphing itself out to her limbs in a raise of goosebumps that dot her skin and cause her hair to prickle like a cat sensing danger. "I…see." Is all she can really muster. Her thirst for knowledge is quickly getting overrun by her fear of broaching something she's not ready to handle psychologically yet. "I think I need some time to process all this, before I…whatever the frak I intend to do. I don't know yet." She mumbles, pushing the cigarette back between her lips and slinking to her feet. A nice retreat to her bunk to stare at shadows sounds good right about now.
"Talk to the Sister." It's said with more earnestness than sympathy. Tisiphone seems very convinced that it's The Best Thing To Do. "Whenever you're ready. I know I drank myself stupid for a couple days, first, and I'm- used to crap like this." She tries to keep the statement light; it stumbles and falls flat, instead. Pushing herself up from her chair, she starts collecting her dice into a little leather pouch. "I'm gonna book it. Anything before I go?" Determination isn't really /calmness/, but it's a decent substitute.
Sawyer shuffles off with her slip of paper, cup of cold coffee, and a cigarette that's leaving an acrid taste in her mouth. Or maybe that taste is from the conversation. Anyways, the flap-flap of her flip-flops marks her progression back to her bunk, where she's ducking inside with her little momentos of her vices: caffeine, nicotine, and information. "Just keep your figurative door open. You and I have a lot to talk about…" When she can actually fathom talking about this. And with that, the curtain gets snicked shut to ward the rest of humanity off for a while.