first one who touches the ground loses

Octavia woke up with someone's arm resting over her side. Nothing unusual about that, really, or even about just any sign that she was sharing her bed with someone. So when she blinked her blurry eyes open and didn't see the bedroom wall on the Rouge but rather the drab beige of the interior of the Samsara, well, that was a sign that something was off.

It took her a moment to find her bearings, put everything together in her head, to remember yesterday and how it wasn't all just a dream. She managed to restrain herself into rolling around carefully to see that the arm belonged to Ilian. That Ilian was still here, peaceful and still and also faintly snoring.

Of course, she hadn't meant to sleep here. That much was evident even from how they were both almost fully dressed in their stret clothes as if they'd expected to go out at any moment, and then just... hadn't. Which was more or less what had happened. The boat was littered with takeout containers from most of the restaurants all across the island. What did you do when someone showed up from a post-apocalyptic world? You did your best to show them some of the good in this time, which in Octavia's case apparently meant focusing on the abundance of food, and the variety of it.

And as they'd eaten, they'd talked.

They'd talked a lot.

About everything.

About how things had gone after the conclave. About everything she could remember of what had become of members of Wonkru who'd been Trishanakru in the past (although she'd cut out some of the gore, when it was there). About her life on Fandom, complete with show-and-tell with all the little sentimental bits she kept on her boat (butterfly statues and pictures of various futures and ridiculous giant tulle boas). About his life on his farm, with his family, before ALIE and Skaikru and everything going to shit. All the things she hadn't had the energy or interest in asking about last time.

Making up for what they hadn't had on the Ground. Making up for what they were about to lose again all too soon, although of course Ilian was taking more of a 'grateful that it happened at all' approach against the way Octavia's pre-emptive grief tried to bubble up.

And somewhere in the middle of all the endless talking, laughing, crying, then talking some more, they'd both fallen asleep. Curled up a little. Not like on the farm, but close enough. Octavia knew this probably meant she had some explaining to do to Duke and Lucifer, but couldn't really feel too bad about it in the moment.

Watching Ilian's face in this moment was already crushing her heart over the thought of losing him again.

[ooc: Open, if you have some business on the lil' boat, or want to text or something.]

It was Lucifer's night at the club, and Duke was... well, not on the Rouge, at least, for a little change of pace.

Or at least that had been the case when Octavia had found herself drift over to her own boat, first to try and see if she could hang up the framed print of a painting she was yet to tell them she'd gotten, and then to just... sit on the little back deck of the boat, looking at the sky.. Maybe the guys were home already. She'd go check, in a bit.

She still had a few bits of the sky to squint at, trying to make out the stars.

[ooc: For that guy, not that many other people will even see this, lol.]

Beyond her weekly schedule, Octavia didn't tend to keep track of dates much. She was far more likely to be able to say how many days it had been since something than she was to be able to say what month and number were associated with the day that was currently happening. Days were days, the rest didn't much matter to her: a holdover from the endless, indistinguishable parade of days down in the bunker, probably.

But the date on her phone had caught her eye, this morning.

July 2nd.

It was Bellamy's birthday.

And there was something... something about that that seemed to be slowly crushing her, as the day wore on. She'd tried to ignore it, see? But she tried that all the time, too, didn't she? Tried to push thoughts of him back because they hurt too much, because they were too much to deal with. And it never worked. It never had. He'd been with her after he'd gotten yanked away into Fandom the first time around. And then again for the long six years she'd been down in the bunker and he'd been up in space. And he was with her now, like always, in daily thoughts that came to her whether she wanted them to or not.

There was no ignoring him.

And so finally, as the day began to turn into the afternoon, Octavia stopped fighting. She was sitting on the tiny deck of her boat, music faintly playing on her phone, and she just... let the thoughts come. Thought about that last little moment with him, right before he put her on ice. Bittersweet, because it was him closing her chamber, because it was him only barely able to even look at her, after everything.

"You're my sister, and a part of me will always love you."

"Does the other part still wish I was dead?"

"The other part wishes a part of you was. Yeah."

"That's fair."

All of this, so crystal clear, and yet she wasn't even sure how old he would even be today. Was, today. She looked towards the sky, and tried to imagine Eligius IV somewhere up there.

Her chest felt almost too tight for breathing.

[ooc: Open!]

The port wasn't quiet tonight. At least, not if you were right outside the little fishing cruiser docked there. The music, while not terribly loud to a listener outside the Samsara... sounded like it was probably pretty loud on the inside of the boat.

Because it was.

Which was probably a little funny, since Octavia had originally come there for some peace and quiet on her own. But that had been hours ago, and anyway, sometimes this was just what you had to do. Turn your tiny stereo up, and find the space to dance.

There really wasn't much of it, though. And the boat rocked in the water if she went too hard.

But she didn't care. It was rare that she got this urge at all. She was going to milk it for what it was worth.

[ooc: Open, if you'd like.]

There'd been dinner served on the Samsara tonight: Octavia had cooked. Sort of? She'd made something in a skillet on her tiny stove, anyway, even if it was just mac and cheese (which she had... little to no previous experience with, even just in terms of eating it) and then she'd served it to Duke, and it seemed like no bad side effects had befallen either of them. So, success?

Octavia gave her last forkful a quizzical look, tilting her head a little.

"This could have been worse."

Way to brag, Tavi.

[ooc: For the lovingly modded snogon.]

There was a rainbow on the dock in front of the Samsara when Octavia got back from her class in the afternoon.

... Not like in the air, or anything. And not really in a rainbow shape: it just looked like someone had painted thick, bright rainbow stripes onto the dock itself. Octavia found it kind of weird, but, considering this place? It was so much better than many other random occurrences.

And maybe it contributed to her decision to sit out on the deck of her boat for a while, reading.

Or maybe it was just a nice day outside.

[ooc: Open! There has been a little bit of a hubbub about painting rainbows in my town this past week, so here we are.]

This had been a much quieter week than the last several. And easier, at least some of the time. But also more busy, at least at the Samsara, not that it took a lot. Just two planned visits in the same week.

Duke was supposed to come over, once he'd finished up at the diner.

And Octavia was... waiting. And more fidgety about it than she had been about Lucifer's visit on Monday. Nervous. She didn't want to look too closely at why that was. Just went with it, tidying up things around the boat that didn't really need tidying up.

She was down in the cabin, but the hatch to the deck was open. Ocean air wafting in.

... And one curious porg, but she ushered it back up the steps.

[ooc: For that tall pirate dude.]

For the first time in a week, Octavia woke up with a clear head.

And began to feel like she was crumbling down almost immediately after, because all this clarity did was allow her to see more clearly what a fucking mess everything had turned into. Duke and Lucifer were back and that should have been a good thing, a happy thing, and all she wanted to do was run.

Maybe she should just take the Samsara around the island for the weekend. Or at least to the lighthouse, get a little distance between herself and the ticking clock that was however horribly the next meaningful conversation with Duke was going to go. At least there she'd be --

There was noise coming from the dock outside the boat.

[ooc: Primarily for SP with myself, but also open! With the same SP warning until my evening.]

Octavia had been holding it together. All through yesterday, she'd been hanging tight to the feeling of relief that Duke was no longer at the mercy of a stupid rock's whims affecting his emotions. But she hadn't relaxed fully into it. Hadn't allowed herself to, because the past - weekend? Month? However long was weighing on her, and moment by moment she'd felt more and more like a dam was about to break. Like it was just a matter of time.

She'd held on for as long as she could. But she'd finally left the Rouge after breakfast this morning.

And Octavia was no longer holding it together.

At all.

Ridiculously enough, it was the envelope that did it, that started her off. The one with the paperwork from Dr. Baker's office, from what felt like a year ago because this past month seemed to have gone on forever. She caught sight of it on the little table on her boat, and just --

Crumbled onto the floor, to finally cry for everything she'd been holding back.

[ooc: Primarily establishy but can be open, sure.]

Octavia had spent most of yesterday cooped up on her boat, staring at the three red trunks that had been taking up most of the floor space. One had said THE BUNKER. Another, THE GORGE. The last one, THE VALLEY. That third one had had some intricately, lovingly painted flowers and trees all around the text.

Octavia hadn't really needed to check the little luggage tag on one of the handles to know it said THE FARM.

(She'd done it anyway.)

The trunks had made it difficult to move around the cabin, but that hadn't mattered much. Octavia had spent most of the day sitting on the edge of her bed, just staring at them. Letting their silent accusations sear themselves into her retinas.

The trunks and all the other bags in varying shades of red were gone now, but - post-breakfast barring any Jossing in SP - she was still here. Reading, now. Or pretending to herself that she was reading, even as her eyes passed over the same strings of letters over and over, not processing any of them.

Might as well have been still just seeing the trunks.

[ooc: Open, if you dare.]