I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.

[keephersafe]

Who: R & you
Where: The beach
When: 21/10
Rating: G for now
Summary: Still trying to keep out of the way of the general population as much as he can help it, R takes himself down to the beach.
The Story:

[The wind ruffles at his hair and tugs his clothes, and R closes his eyes to take a deep, unnecessary breath. He can almost feel the way the salty air should sting the inside of his nose, and he can almost feel the chill from the wind, and that almost is so tantalisingly close that he loses a good hour reaching for it.

He sits cross-legged in the sand, oblivious to the way that the position strains the tendons and joints of his knees. His fingers dig gently into the sand, and he watches the way it slides over his hands with an expression that could only be called curious.

His head tilts slightly as he hears steps behind him, and he glances back over his shoulder. The time he's spent here has done absolutely nothing towards making him look any less Dead, but he's finding that he cares less and less about people's reactions to it. If someone's going to shoot him, then... they're going to shoot him, and there's really nothing he can do about that.]

Um... hey.

Comments

[angewiesen]

[Jean crossed his arms over his chest and nodded. That made enough sense to him. Sometimes he got tired of all the here-and-there that went on in the Mansion too.]

The ocean reminds me of a couple of my friends. [The ones that he liked. Eren wasn't included on that list.] I haven't seen them in a long time.

[keephersafe]

[Simple conversation is nice, easy to follow, and doesn't make him feel like some kind of brain-dead idiot who can't parse a simple set of unrelated questions.

R shifts to pull his knees up to his chest, wrapping both arms around his legs.]

Y.. you miss them?

[angewiesen]

Yeah. [He shrugged a little. It wasn't too hard to admit this to a stranger.] I've been here since the spring, and compared to my world, this place is a vacation. I feel bad I've been here alone the whole time.

[keephersafe]

S-sorry.

[It's not certain what he's sorry for. It might be the fact that Jean is alone, or that he's been there so long, or maybe both. R has only been in Wonderland for a few months, but he's never really shaken the feeling of loneliness while he's been here.

He never thought he'd miss that airport.]

What's... y-your world like?

[angewiesen]

It's a shitshow. [Jean couldn't help the rasp of a laugh that shook his shoulders.] We've got a maneating monster problem of our own. It's a bit... bigger, than me or you. But still, it's humans that are the worst.

[keephersafe]

[A small nod follows that statement. R doesn't know much about the Living, not anymore, but the Dead sure didn't create the destruction that he shuffles his way through each time he goes into the city with a hunting group.

The Living did that.

But they're still human, Living and Dead alike. He wonders if he can really place all the blame on them.]

H.. how much bigger?

[angewiesen]

An averaged sized Titan is about 15 times bigger than a human. They're stupid, but they're fast, and they're always hungry. Practically nothing stops them. They can shrug off a cannon shot to the head like a mosquito bite.

But it was humans that put us all on that damn island to begin with. Titans just do what they were made to do. Can't really blame them for anything.

[keephersafe]

[He tries to imagine that. It's... difficult, when at the best of times he has an imagination that a domestic dog could rival, but he tries. The Dead would be a whole bigger problem if shooting them in the head didn't put them down. Usually they succeeded through sheer force of numbers.]

S-sounds c... complicated.

[R shrugs one shoulder slightly. He's not sure why - some kind of reflexive gesture to fill the silence.]

Who made them?

[angewiesen]

The Marlians. Not that I totally get what that means. [The whole idea that there's a people outside the walls he lives in, that never faced the subjugation of the Titans, is still pretty new and hard for Jean to understand.] They did it to punish all the people that live where I live now. Because... We're not them, I guess. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

[keephersafe]

[Punishing people who aren't like you? He kind of gets it, he supposes, as a concept, but he knows very well why the Living ostracise the Dead. That's about survival, but he isn't sure what this sounds like.]

Y... you don't know?

[Seems weird, to be put in a situation like that but have no knowledge of why. The slightly rusted cogs in his mind turn over, pulling simple thoughts together into attempts at more complex things.]

... How long?

[angewiesen]

Like I said, doesn't make sense. I didn't do anything to them. Neither did my folks, or their folks before them. Why punish generations of people for something that happened ages ago?

[Jean shook his head.]

It's been about a hundred years since we all got dropped on Paradise. "We" in a general sort of way. I wasn't alive back then.

[keephersafe]

[Why, indeed. R thinks briefly about his adopted children, presumably still back at the airport and probably not wondering about where he is. Kids who end up as zombies will never age, will never be able to operate on the same level as adults no matter how keenly they try to learn, but he knows that any Living person would gun them down as quickly as they would one of the adult Dead.

His thoughts wander far off track before he realises they've become mostly irrelevant, and he abruptly pulls himself back to the topic at hand.]

'Paradise'? [He murmurs. Doesn't sound much like paradise.] M... maybe... they were a m-mistake.

[angewiesen]

I think it was supposed to be ironic. Or just cruel. [He wouldn't put either notion past the Marlians.]

And what the heck happened to you? Zombies seem to be a health issue in other worlds. Are you the same?

[keephersafe]

Uh... [Shrug...

It's a good question, and one he's asked himself before. How did he end up like this? How did it all start?]

D... don't know.

['Left my medical records with my last GP... then forgot where that was.']

Can't r-remember... before.

[angewiesen]

Huh.

[That was interesting to Jean, who knew that Titans still remembered their pasts even after being turned. It was just that the instinct to consume overcame any sense they might have had left.]

Maybe that's a good thing. Remembering can be painful.

[keephersafe]

[He gives a small shrug.]

M-might be nice... to know.

[Remembering might be painful, and even with most of his life missing he knows that, but he'd still prefer to have the option. If you lose your entire memory, what does that mean for you as a person?]

[angewiesen]

If it's what you want. Everyone's got a right to know why things are the way they are.

[Even if it's tough to handle, the truth is something that anyone should be able to have if they want it.]

Anyways, I didn't come to interrupt your brooding. I'll see you later, uh...

I don't think I got your name. Do you have one?

[keephersafe]

[It's a good thing one of them can show some initiative. This could have gone on in stops and starts for a while if it was left to him.]

Um-- [A small nod.] It's R.

[If he get an odd look for that... it wouldn't be the first time.]

[angewiesen]

Just... R?

[Yeah, he's gonna get an odd look. But Jean wasn't here to judge people for wanting to go by their initials, for whatever reason.]

Okay then. R. I'm Jean. Maybe I'll see you some other time.

[Jean put his hands in his pockets and walked away.]