Jedao (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
deuceoftears) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thegalley_tlv2022-08-16 12:08 am
deuceoftears) wrote in thegalley_tlv2022-08-16 12:08 am
Entry tags:
Triptych
Who: Jedao Two & You?
What: MISC
When: Pre, during, and post revolt
Where: VARIOUS
The first days with his Advocate are both awful and easy.
It's to his advantage to seem weak, and he feels weak, feels absolutely wretched. He pulls the thin sheet off his cot and wedges himself into a corner against the mirrored wall, shivering. When his Advocate shows him his list of crimes, he shudders, two parts rage to one part endless guilt. It's easy to show the former, to say he wants to atone, that he just wants to do the work. He always sleeps in his corner. With his head pressed to the opaque glass, he can feel as much as hear it when his advocate goes out, the heavy click of the door and lock traveling through the solid medium of the adjoining wall. It's awful work, trying to pick it with a pen cap he palmed off his Advocate's desk blind, eyes full of tears over the crimes he isn't sorry for. He's blind. But he remembers how the insides of mechanical locks are shaped, and he has time to practice.
He doesn't go out into the hallways unsupervised until he's been on the Galley almost a full week. He knows which wolves are making the worst of a bad job and which are brutes who love the law for its harshness. He wears his black sweater and fixes his face in the dead expression of his counterpart around the former, passing himself off for an Advocate if no one looks too closely.
The latter - well. He tries the same ruse on some of them, and makes the best use of his natural speed, getting into their space before they realize he doesn't belong, twisting their wrists to breaking before they can activate shield or stunner, jamming nerve points, choking them with brutal pressure on the Carotid, not the trachea - cutting off the blood supply to the brain, leading to unconsciousness far faster than merely interfering with breathing. He takes their keys, along with the equipment, and hides their bodies in their own rooms, cleans himself in their bathrooms if he's bloody or bruised.
At the Oars, he finds and almost meditative peace in the steady, solid rowing. He'll sit next to someone who looks weak, hurt, or shaky, and shoulder as much as he can of the burden. If it's someone he knows, someone who might be trustworthy, he might offload one of his contraband items into their pocket. Other times, he might sit by someone he knows could use such a thing.
During the Revolt, Jedao is not with any of the main groups. his face is bloody, and he runs through the halls. "Help - there's a fucking rampage, they got my Advocate -" Any lone Advocate he finds moving to reinforce the defenders will have an armful of bloody, terrified, hysterical Jedao throwing himself at them, begging for help before sliding inside their guard, if he can, before the shield goes up. It doesn't all go that smoothly - but he still doesn't leave any witnesses to testify against him.
Some foxfucking part of him knows, in his bones, how to play a long game.
After the RevoltJedao spends a few days in a daze. He knew - he knew this is probably how it would go. He could see it. There wasn't a plan, or a path. There wasn't an Engine, not the way James hoped. Jedao knew that. Jedao should have stopped him, talked him out of it. Isn't it his job, to talk James out of it?
He knows he couldn't have. He knows he didn't want to, either. He knows he should have another plan, a real plan, a patient plan, he's Crowned with Eyes. He should be able to unravel this place. But James is dead, and who knows who else -
He forces himself to eat. He rows at the Oars. He sits in the Yard and stares at no one. He should be seeking out allies again, building up information, learning who survived - but nothing feels real. Nothing has felt real since coming to the Galley, cut off from the palpable weight of the world around him in his mothsense, and now it's all fraying apart in his mind.
And then - for a minute - the world feels real again. He reaches out, nudges at tiny pins, unlocks every lock he find.
What: MISC
When: Pre, during, and post revolt
Where: VARIOUS
The first days with his Advocate are both awful and easy.
It's to his advantage to seem weak, and he feels weak, feels absolutely wretched. He pulls the thin sheet off his cot and wedges himself into a corner against the mirrored wall, shivering. When his Advocate shows him his list of crimes, he shudders, two parts rage to one part endless guilt. It's easy to show the former, to say he wants to atone, that he just wants to do the work. He always sleeps in his corner. With his head pressed to the opaque glass, he can feel as much as hear it when his advocate goes out, the heavy click of the door and lock traveling through the solid medium of the adjoining wall. It's awful work, trying to pick it with a pen cap he palmed off his Advocate's desk blind, eyes full of tears over the crimes he isn't sorry for. He's blind. But he remembers how the insides of mechanical locks are shaped, and he has time to practice.
He doesn't go out into the hallways unsupervised until he's been on the Galley almost a full week. He knows which wolves are making the worst of a bad job and which are brutes who love the law for its harshness. He wears his black sweater and fixes his face in the dead expression of his counterpart around the former, passing himself off for an Advocate if no one looks too closely.
The latter - well. He tries the same ruse on some of them, and makes the best use of his natural speed, getting into their space before they realize he doesn't belong, twisting their wrists to breaking before they can activate shield or stunner, jamming nerve points, choking them with brutal pressure on the Carotid, not the trachea - cutting off the blood supply to the brain, leading to unconsciousness far faster than merely interfering with breathing. He takes their keys, along with the equipment, and hides their bodies in their own rooms, cleans himself in their bathrooms if he's bloody or bruised.
At the Oars, he finds and almost meditative peace in the steady, solid rowing. He'll sit next to someone who looks weak, hurt, or shaky, and shoulder as much as he can of the burden. If it's someone he knows, someone who might be trustworthy, he might offload one of his contraband items into their pocket. Other times, he might sit by someone he knows could use such a thing.
During the Revolt, Jedao is not with any of the main groups. his face is bloody, and he runs through the halls. "Help - there's a fucking rampage, they got my Advocate -" Any lone Advocate he finds moving to reinforce the defenders will have an armful of bloody, terrified, hysterical Jedao throwing himself at them, begging for help before sliding inside their guard, if he can, before the shield goes up. It doesn't all go that smoothly - but he still doesn't leave any witnesses to testify against him.
Some foxfucking part of him knows, in his bones, how to play a long game.
After the RevoltJedao spends a few days in a daze. He knew - he knew this is probably how it would go. He could see it. There wasn't a plan, or a path. There wasn't an Engine, not the way James hoped. Jedao knew that. Jedao should have stopped him, talked him out of it. Isn't it his job, to talk James out of it?
He knows he couldn't have. He knows he didn't want to, either. He knows he should have another plan, a real plan, a patient plan, he's Crowned with Eyes. He should be able to unravel this place. But James is dead, and who knows who else -
He forces himself to eat. He rows at the Oars. He sits in the Yard and stares at no one. He should be seeking out allies again, building up information, learning who survived - but nothing feels real. Nothing has felt real since coming to the Galley, cut off from the palpable weight of the world around him in his mothsense, and now it's all fraying apart in his mind.
And then - for a minute - the world feels real again. He reaches out, nudges at tiny pins, unlocks every lock he find.
After the Revolt
He approaches Jedao anyway, his footsteps light and quiet.
"You play chess?"
Chess was how Flint had approached Akira. It seems fitting.
Re: After the Revolt
James had taught him.
no subject
It's carefully undemanding. Calm and even. An offer, not a demand. Akira is ready to get back to work but everyone has to make that choice for themselves and he doesn't really know Jedao.
no subject
A grave tactical error by the judge, he thinks, that none of the Advocates were chosen for superhuman hearing. Much could have been quashed before it ever began, if she had anything like proper surveillance. He drifts to the chess board, though, reflexively taking black.
no subject
"I think so. In chess, pawns can promote to any position except king. A game needs a set win condition. But games like chess and shogi are based on war."
He flicks a finger against the crown of the king piece without moving it.
"In war, a king can have an heir to take over. If chess were realistic, it wouldn't end until one side of the board was empty."
The mutiny side of the board wasn't empty yet.
no subject
In the long history of the Hexarchate and the Heptarchate before it, they many times wiped out an enemy, but almost always because they chose to, as a prerogative of victory, not because their enemy didn't eventually surrender.
He makes a pawn move himself, one that will allow him to get a bishop out soon.
no subject
It had all been connected, after all, even if they hadn't found that out for a long time. Every little world full of enemies that they'd torn down. All part of the Grail's plans. Akira moves another piece.
"For most of it, I knew that if I got taken out, the others wouldn't stop. They'd keep fighting. Maybe harder, because we'd all lost- no, we'd all had enough taken from us already."
no subject
no subject
no subject
After the Revolt
It's good to see Jedao, in large part because he's been worried about him.
Re: After the Revolt
Jedao, too, remains unmutilated, but he's clearly taken Flint's death hard. He looks too pale except for the bruisy shadows under his eyes, haggard in the cheeks, crushed in the shoulders. His voice is a papery rasp.
Re: After the Revolt
"Have you seen Cho Gonou?"
Re: After the Revolt
"If he weren't on shift I'd be with him now," he murmurs.
After the Revolt
Seeing Jedao's face is like a slap of cold water to the face, for a second. Then he remembers who it is, and wanders over to sit beside him. Maybe proximity will help? Or something. It can't hurt.
Re: After the Revolt
Re: After the Revolt
Re: After the Revolt
Re: After the Revolt
Re: After the Revolt
He struggles to find the right words. "The Engine room didn't need engineers. It just needed...us to participate. To interact. To - to put in time and attention and work and care. But it made the format something totally divorced from steering or control. I think maybe the Courtroom is the same. Maybe it needs participation. Cases, rulings. But not...navigation."
If anyone could steer a boat like this, other than the Judge herself, it's probably him, Jedao reflects. Even if he's only a baby moth, at least the ether probably makes sense to his brain, not that the Barge ever let him try.
"Where did you want to go?"
Re: After the Revolt
Re: After the Revolt
He sounds wistful. He doesn't mind his sentence - some of it - but so many of them deserve better.
Re: After the Revolt
Re: After the Revolt
"James was right, though. The Gavel matters. We did something."
Re: After the Revolt
Re: After the Revolt
It's a horrible, hollow sort of question. He thinks of Nat, and Daniel - he'd have like to have warned them, but he never had a chance. Nat would probably have betrayed them anyway. And now he's dead, and the Judge -
Re: After the Revolt
Re: After the Revolt
Re: After the Revolt
That last one stung. He'd wanted to kill Gaunt for a solid reason, even if he no longer wanted to. It hadn't been ambition or rule-breaking. It had been attempted restitution for his dead world.
Re: After the Revolt
Re: After the Revolt
Oars
One more day of this. She will make it one more day and then she will destroy the ones who did this, or die trying.
Re: Oars
(Which, come to think of it, is what he would really be angry about, if he let himself be angry.)
"Don't try to push," he murmurs. "I won't fall out of time."
Re: Oars
She curls her hands against the bar, hissing between her teeth when they rub against bloodied callouses.
"It doesn't matter." She says, after a moment of silence.
Re: Oars
Re: Oars
Re: Oars
His own body's aches have been surprising him; it's an adjustment, suddenly becoming mortal.
Re: Oars
"Thank you. I am not used to being so human."
Re: Oars
"Don't worry about it," Jedao murmurs. "We have to take care of each other, right?"
Re: Oars
"I am simply...not used to not having my full vampire powers. I hate this awful place."
Re: Oars
Re: Oars
Re: Oars
"I don't want to talk about him," Jedao says in a flat, quiet voice that could be mistaken for mild.