2023-11-28: Come on up to the house
- Cast: Shari Loom, Luanova Luckwright
- Where: Nagoya Spaceport, Britannian Union
- Date: U.C. 0097 12 1
- Summary: As the night of the Massacre Princess continues to unfold, Luanova Luckwright uses diplomatic status to pull a surviving Japanese family out of the Britannian Union to asylum. Her path crosses at the spaceport with Shari Loom, and the two converse while working through the traumatic shock of witnessing the slaughter.
<Pose Tracker> Shari Loom has posed.
The stations on the way out of Nagoya right now are locked down hard. But the wealthy still have their ways of getting out. Most of those are here at the spaceport arguing their way into leaving, and a few have already managed it. With the chaos, a few things are getting lost in the shuffle...
And there is a lot of chaos. Whether or not this incident is an 'incident' or the start of a new policy, authorities are cracking down.
But Shari Loom is a Britannian girl, and one of minor nobility. She's fine. She's not important enough to have her own security team, but nobody has the spare time to bother her all that much.
So it is that she's seated right now in a chair waiting around for her turn to get on out of here. She has other ways of getting around but...
But not now.
The night of the Massacre is still ongoing.
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
The massacre itself may still be ongoing. There is such a rush among foreigners, Japanese, and generally fearful civilians that interference has build up, and it will take time before a clear image unfolds of what has become of the stadium, or of the central government's response to the event. Even communications out of the country are intermittent.
Tensions are high and crowds confusing even among those who have managed to push into the spaceport here, a security checkpoint removed from the chaos. Two tall bodyguards escort a family of three Japanese, an agitated mother and father alternating between arguing between each other and the two guards, and trying to reassure and calm their shocked young son. They take up the seats on the end of Shari's row, leaving two more empty seats between them. One of those is then taken by a young woman, somewhat shocked herself, looking at her phone and waiting for a response. Long blonde hair, an expensive earring, and small spatters of blood still staining her evening dress and the side of her face. The bodyguards belong to her, not to the Japanese family they are protectively sandwiching.
Perhaps Shari remembers glimpses of this woman at the prestige seats in front, calling people to a maintenance exit, or wrenching a rifle from a Britannian officer's hands and dumping it empty of ammo onto the ground. Perhaps not. It's hard to keep track of any one image from this evening.
Luanova Luckwright turns her phone off and stows it back in her back. "No answer," she tells the guard next to her. "It's probably interference," he says back. Try again later.
<Pose Tracker> Shari Loom has posed.
The one person Shari could definitely contact, she doesn't want to right now. So she doesn't. She sits in the chair. If one takes a closer look at it, it's clear that she's been crying; she's tried to reapply her makeup in a station bathroom, but her eyes are still red. Pink hair, a little blood on her clothes, too. A big sweater that she wasn't wearing back there.
But she looks over--at the small family there, and then at the girl who she saw...
"You..."
"You were there," Shari says to Luanova. "You confronted that soldier. And got people out." ...Apparently these people in particular, now that she looks again.
She pauses. And then the pause becomes just nothing in particular.
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
Luanova's eyes are dry. She knows they probably shouldn't be. Maybe she will feel the weight of the loss of life like a human being later. There will be time to interrogate the psychological effects of shock and survivor experiences. The time isn't now. It is better to think of the entire country as the active zone for now.
Luanova takes a moment to register that the girl she sat behind is talking to her. "Oh," she says. "...not soon enough, and not enough of them."
Lua tries to disguise her sidelong look at the Japanese family. The blood on their clothes is much worse than on Lua or her bodyguards. They were closer to the slaughter, right up against it. The boy says a girl's name, it sounds like "Hanako" or "Haruko." The father fights back tears, and the mother clutches the son tight, as if she expects him to be torn away at any moment.
This was a family of four.
Luanova thinks nothing of confronting that soldier, doesn't even respond to that part of the address. "Are you alright?" she asks Shari. Unspoken: are you alone here? Did you lose someone?
No consideration is given to the possibility that Shari's observation might be an accusation rather than an acknowledgement. When it comes to Britannians who might be partisans, Lua is more worried about the government officials than what appears to be high school girl on her own. And in this moment, with this family relying on her, she's not worried about the officials, either.
<Pose Tracker> Shari Loom has posed.
"..." Shari looks over at the others. There were... four. She realizes it; she looks stricken, looking upon them, and then looks back to Luanova instead, focusing on her.
"I'm okay," Shari answers. "I got out of the stadium with my friend... but she had to leave. I decided to stay here. I mean..." She gestures, vaguely, her fingers interlaced. "I live here, so..."
It wasn't an accusation, as it happens. "...That was my school," she explains. "Ashford. I mean, it still is, I guess. ...If it ever..."
She sighs.
"You were with the dignitaries, right? That's why you've got bodyguards and stuff. ...Not a lot of 'important' people in Britannia would stand up to something like this."
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
There's a lot that's hard to express right now. Luanova doesn't know what to say about the school. The politics, at least, are words that she's familiar enough with to form. "Luanova Luckwright," she introduces herself, giving Shari the time to introduce herself in turn before continuing. "My mother is a senator in the Neo-Colonies. I don't think that's anything that should make me 'important,' but..." Well. The Britannians have one up on their Neo-American counterparts when it comes to dynasty and nepotism.
(Is it normal for a daughter of a senator to know how to safely strip an active duty soldier's rifle from him and immediately dump the clip?)
"I don't know what's going to happen from here. I know it's already been violent in the Union, but it's probably going to escalate. If you have access to somewhere to go outside the Union... well." She clasps her hands together, reflecting on political science studies and the histories of oppression.
"There are times when people find themselves choosing between putting themselves in terrible danger or watching others be in the same." The Japanese family has gone quiet for a time, while the father whispers in some desperate conversation with one of Lua's bodyguards. They don't know where they're going or what they're going to do when they get there, or even whether it's right to go. "I'm not saying I'm in any position to cast judgment."
<Pose Tracker> Shari Loom has posed.
"Shari Loom," she answers, and nods back. She looks a little--she's too shell-shocked to be wry, but like she finds it funny, "That's Britannia for you. Who your parents are is everything."
Shari doesn't know much about 'normal' these days.
"...You're probably right," Shari sighs. "It's a good idea to go. I'll have to... figure it out. I can't really get in contact with my parents. My aunts..." She pauses, and hesitates. "No. Not them, either."
Luanova speaks brave words, and Shari looks at her thoughtfully for a few moments. "You're that kind of person, huh?" Shari asks. "...I'm glad you were there for them. There should be more people like you." She thinks about it.
"...I know some people who could help," she says, hesitantly. "They're pretty weird, but... They help people who don't have anywhere to go. And they're non-Federation."
"It's fine, though. I can judge me enough for both of us."
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
Luanova smirks and lets out a humorless little snort. "I'm a weird kind of person. That's all." Is it that brave when you'd rather spend your days wrestling away rifles than pressuring for visas? A little actual humor colors that smirk, though, at Shari's last comment. "Don't go overboard with judging yourself, though. You can get stuck in your own head that way." She knows that one from experience. "But you sound like you're going to turn out alright. If you keep being willing to put that much thought into it, you might be in the right position to make a difference for some people."
Lua's phone vibrates, and she begins scrolling through a message, although she keeps talking. "I have to think you're not the only Britannian who thinks like you do. But stay careful, too. People don't really show their true character until it's questioned. People you've known in easier times can surprise you."
<Pose Tracker> Shari Loom has posed.
"I guess if you own it, that's fine," Shari says of being weird. She smiles lopsidedly at the smirk,, at what she says. "I'll keep it in mind. My friend told me the same." Still... "I hope so," Shari says of making a difference. "...That's weird. I never used to care about that kind of thing before."
She glances down at the noise, but doesn't try to read Luanova's phone or anything, focusing back on her face after a moment. "...Yeah. You never really know what people are like, huh?"
Their true character, until it's questioned...
"...Getting stuck in my head isn't something I'd wish on anybody," she says, and it's supposed to be a joke but even she doesn't find it very funny. "...Anyway I guess that's what I'll do."
"It's funny. My aunt has been saying Britannia is Like This for a long while, but I never really believed it was this bad..."
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
Any double meaning to getting stuck in one's head is lost on Lua. She starts typing out a message, pausing to speak so she doesn't mix up the two conversations. "There's always time to grow. You never really stop making mistakes in life, but you also never stop being able to learn from them." She waits for a reply on her phone, and then taps one of her bodyguards and shows it to him. Looks like Luanova's used to being busy and having to do three things at once.
"Living in a system does things to people. Some people become attached to it because the system makes them feel more important than if they had to judge themselves without it. Others, even if they don't like it, forget there's any other way to do things."
Luanova stands. "A shuttle's going to be coming in for me. I need to be there with the Kikuchis to get them through the checkpoint." She smiles. "It was nice talking to you, Shari."
She smiles, but a faint tear gathers at the corner of her eye. She hasn't noticed it starting to hit her yet.
<Pose Tracker> Shari Loom has posed.
Hmm... Luanova seems to Shari like someone who's been through a lot, to have this kind of experience. "That's... nice to think about." Growing.
She's going to think about the matter of the systems and how people are in them. She'll have a lot of time to think about it, considering.
"That makes sense," Shari says. "Good luck." She waves over to them.
"It was nice meeting you, too. Take care of yourself, too." She spots the tear, but...
She's not going to say anything. She smiles, instead. "Later."
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
"It's been a long day," Luanova says. She steps to the side, where her bodyguards are already talking to the Japanese family, and picks up in the conversation herself. "A shuttle is coming," Shari can still overhear her say. "We're going to go down to C2. Stay close to Erich and Fill, and I'll do the arguing again if anybody tries to stop us. We'll get you a hotel room so you can rest. Tomorrow, I'll help get you in contact with somebody who can get you somewhere to settle, and make sure to push the legal stuff through..."
The son says something in Japanese that Luanova doesn't understand, and the parents say something back to him, sad and gentle, but firm. "Thank you again," the father tells her in quiet English, and the parents bow to her, which she receives awkwardly.