Zompania Draft - Draftees only, days 1-3.5

[lucetimods]

Who: All Draftees
What: This is your death. Followed by your time-traveling life and desperate bomb hunting.
When: From May 22 to May 20 to early May 23 (days 1-4)
Where: Zompania
Summary: Information post here
Rating: Varies on thread, please mark explicit material.

This post is for the draftee-only portion of the Zompania draft--the day 3 death, time travel to day 1, and then the events until the arrival of the reinforcements. Be sure to use the above info post for any plotting needs you might have. Enjoy!

Please note that there is a specific top-level comment thread for:

• The day 3 arrival of the draftees and the 6 hours that follow until the bomb is dropped
  
• Death--This thread can be treated as REFERENCE ONLY. Responding to it isn't necessary.
  
• Threads prior to departing for Zompania--post resurrection freak outs, arguments over how to proceed, etc.

All other threading, from day 1 until the reinforcements arrive, should be conducted as normal.

Be sure to tag this post appropriately: [canon] character name

Comments

[tearmeanewone]

Even if I do, I'm still afraid. [She finally opens her eyes, feeling miles better when she feels Robert's hand on her cheek. Something tactile, something she knows is real and happening now.]

I'm afraid this is the end. I'm not ready for my life to end, I have too much that I want to see and do.

[ablankpage]

[That makes Robert smile.

It's not a warm smile. Not gentle. But it's there.

Certain.]

It's only over, Elizabeth, when you stop fighting.

[tearmeanewone]

[Very true, and Elizabeth doesn't think she can bear to add any caveats or ask more questions. She'll take the encouragement and hold onto it. Really, that's all she wanted from the start was some kind of human reassurance.]

[She nods and sniffs sharply, trying to pull herself and her nose back together. Then she pushes herself into an embrace with Robert.]

[ablankpage]

[Robert couldn't help but sigh as he hugged her.]

Even if you don't --

I have faith in you.

I know you, Elizabeth. Nothing can stop you if you don't let it.

[tearmeanewone]

It's true... if I'm fast enough, absolutely nothing and no one can stop me. [She swallows.] I think everyone should be more afraid of that than I am, but I think it's all backwards anyway. [She forces a wet laugh into Robert's chest.]

[ablankpage]

Speed has nothing to do with it.

Determination. The will to survive.

[The words... Aren't as true as he'd like them to be. He doesn't have the conviction he normally does. But he knows what's expected, and what he has to do. So, he'll offer them.]

That is what makes you unstoppable.

[tearmeanewone]

That's what keeps me thinking quickly. If I see something I know I can use, I just bring it in now. I don't wait for a signal, I just do it.

I've stopped thinking about what it means when I open a tear in the middle of a crowd.

[ablankpage]

Good.

You have to embrace it. Everything, all at once. You don't have a choice about what you see, but you choose how much you let it overwhelm you.

[He'd tell her it's like swimming with a current... but she's been in her tower. It's a reference DeWitt would understand better.]

I've seen you do it. You will be fine.

[tearmeanewone]

[Too bad the only time she actually swam in the ocean, she was pulled into a wave and thrown. But that's beside the point--]

When you saw me do it, was I wearing red lipstick and a short skirt? [She swallows again.] Because I saw her almost everywhere I looked before the bomb went off.

[ablankpage]

She was one of them.

But there are others.

[All of them who reached that river. A place he could only see as part of the Infinite, not join. The last place he saw before the end came. Before things began to unwind.

Before everything set itself back.]

[tearmeanewone]

[Elizabeth figured, but that image of her was so striking that seeing the others didn't have much of an impact on her. Seeing herself making a different choice had meant nearly nothing, but seeing her staring back...]

I liked her. She looked... driven.

[ablankpage]

She...

[Robert has to smile a little. She was definitely Booker DeWitt's daughter.

She was what some version of Elizabeth had to become. And what he hoped others would never even think to be.]

She is an extraordinary woman.

[Because the Elizabeth in front of him... Is still growing up. Still a girl. Especially compared to that Elizabeth.]

[tearmeanewone]

[That's all Elizabeth needs. Knowing that version of her was still whole, still worthy of Robert's praise, means that she hadn't let the lack of a siphon kill her. The capacity for Elizabeth to survive without one was there. The situation wasn't ideal, but there was a strange comfort to knowing that somewhere she is functioning without a siphon. Is, was, and would.]

Alright. [She pulls away from Robert, a weak smile on her face.] We should find Rosalind.

[ablankpage]

We should.

[He needs to know Rosalind's alive.

It's not... that he actually thinks she's dead. Logically, what has been for them is for her and will be. But he still needs to see her. Needs to be sure.]

The sooner we can regroup, the sooner we can get a move on.