multiversallogs | I should have known (OPEN)

Who: Sharon and you?
What: Sharon finally needs something to do
Where: The arena, sundry points around the city
When: various times on Givdi
Notes: The arena post is the only hook I have, but feel free to start something else! PM me if you want to know if something makes sense.
Warnings: mention of suicidal thoughts

Sharon didn't expect to have nightmares in the afterlife. In fact, nothing about Baedal is anything like she might have guessed. Sometimes, she tries to pretend everything between the Cylon attack and her death didn't happen - that she died in the first attack and ended up here.

Sometimes it works, but not very often.

She wonders what would happen if she tried to kill herself here. Could she? If she can, where would she go?

Mostly, she thinks she might as well stay. If there are any Cylons (any other Cylons, a treacherous part of her thinks), they're well hidden; and, after all, there's no one she loves here to betray.

(She doesn't open the book she got at the swap meet.)

After a while exploring and watching, she finds herself drawn to the arena. She was never the brawler like Helo or Starbuck, but she'd taken her turns in the boxing ring on Galactica. She was a trained member of the Colonial fleet. And, really, what was the worst that could happen?

Nothing she felt she wouldn't deserve, in honesty. And it would feel good to be in motion if not in flight. She may look out of place at first, but she does know how to fight.

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"Probably good advice," she allows. "What sort of things do you do, besides this?" She prefers to focus on him. It's safer.

Jaime is not quite savvy enough to note her preference of focus, although his smile does go crooked, bemused at her apparent interest. Fortunately, he does consider himself interesting.

"Hone my skills so as not to get killed when I am here. If you're anything like myself, you'll find yourself significantly tried when it comes to running with the pack." A hesitation, before he admits; "I also keep a horse. There are larger forests I can ride without interruption, and make a day or a week of it if I choose."

None of that sounds particularly unlonely, Jaime.

"You know, before I came here, I'd never seen a horse in person? I'd seen pictures, of course, but... it's still strange." She moves to sit, taping up her hands in preparation to use a punching bag.

"Did you fight on horseback, at home? I'd think that'd make a difference, if you're changing your fighting style for the Arena."

There is a snort at that first assertion. Even peasants knew, even rode horses, the savages across the Narrow Sea even ate them, but Jaime supposes that that isn't a claim of stature. Just difference. It usually is.

He shakes his head. "Even in war, I preferred to be in the vanguards with the foot soldiers, although any soldier worth his salt could fight on horseback. In tourneys, we had jousting. I don't suppose you'd know what that is either."

"Not exactly," she confesses. "Fighting for sport of some kind?"

A tip of his head, to communicate sort of not exactly. "You've two men," he says gesturing loosely, and moving also to sit not far from her, "and they start on their mounts on either end of a track. They've lances of wood, and bear shields, and full armour. On the mark, they race towards one another, and use their lances to strike or, better, dehorse the other man.

"It's brutal, and often short. I prefer the sword over the lance, and to worry only for myself rather than an animal. What is it you fight with?" He nods down at her taped hands. "Your fists alone?"

"For sport, yeah. At least at home. A lot of us would box on the ship to let off energy."

She shrugs. "Here... I'm still learning. For actual combat, I use - used - firearms. But I haven't seen any here that are the kind I'm used to. And I flew. Not much call for that set of skills in a place where you can't even get off the ground." Much less into space. She liked being a Raptor pilot, and she'd been good at it, but she tries to imagine a Viper pilot grounded indefinitely. It's probably best that Starbuck hasn't found her way to Baedal.

No confusion reads across Jaime's face, but he's good at his expressions. There's a quizzical line at his brow, but it's made its mark since they begun talking. As she does, he continues to watch practice bouts, his future potential opponents.

"More than a hundred years ago, men didn't only ride horses. They rode dragons. A new sort of warfare, unparalleled. Fire raining down from the skies, melting castles, baking alive the men and women inside of them. They forged the kingdoms into one, and eventually died out.

"But I don't imagine you're referring to dragons."

"No," she says. "No, not dragons." She gets up, stretching her shoulders. "Where I'm from, men have built machines of all kinds." She keeps her voice steady. "Huge ships, of a kind, but instead of sailing in water, they fly. They go out into the stars."

She misses that. When she'd not been sure she'd ever see a planet again, she found the vastness of space a little oppressive. Now she feels chained down by gravity.

"What I flew, it was sort of more like a skiff. You'd fly out, scout, and bring back word to the main ship, which was much larger. Not as fast, but equipped for longer distances and with better weapons."

As she stands, Jaime remains seated in his casual recline. He's seen machinery here that is far more advanced-- in its way, he supposes-- than what one might find in the Seven Kingdoms and so there's no cynicism, just speculation. His mouth twists, a hand gesturing with his palm open.

"Such a pity you've no such machine here. The stars seem to surest passage of escape."

She looks surprised, for a moment, then says, "I guess that's true. But I don't know where I'd go. It's vast, out there, and a lot of other plants - worlds - they aren't right for people to live on. The wrong kind of air, or no water, or no plants and animals to live on. I don't know where we are, even, so it'd be a gamble." Without an FTL, probably a futile one.

Unsurprisingly, Jaime has not thought long and hard on the precautions of space travel. Or the notion, even, of other planets; astronomy and star-gazing being the hobbies of Maesters, not aspiring knights. He is both unqualified but quite serious all the same when he shrugs and says; "There are times I'd take my chances."

"You sound like a man with a life worth getting back to," she comments, neither kind nor unkind. Sharon wonders sometimes if she should pretend to want to get home.

I should have known (OPEN)

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