ataraxion | NINE: video

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NINE: video

[The room Taylor's sat in is dark, unidentifiable from the wall behind her, but soft, blue-tinged light from another source washes over her face intermittently. It highlights how drawn she looks, pale, tired. She's a mess, really. Even by Tranquility standards.]

It's January, right? Been counting on the jumps since I got here. [She isn't slurring as she speaks, but the lack of focus in her expression and sluggishness to her movements makes it clear she's inebriated to anyone who knows what to look for.] Guess it doesn't matter though. Just start calling them by numbers. I was meant to turn twenty in December. Be an instructor back at the Academy. [She frowns for a moment, taking a drink out of an unlabelled bottle.] Or maybe they'd have terminated me.

[Another pause, and she shifts off to the side for a moment, putting the bottle down. When she comes back into view she’s holding something else – a mask. Her mask, an mongrel canine face, beaten, bruised and bloody. She holds it up, hanging off the fingers of one hand.]

Turns out these show you ghosts. Hallucinations. Whatever. If that isn't fucked up enough to get you thinking don't touch them, you're a fucking idiot. [Very evidently angry, suddenly, half a snarl on her mouth. She looks at the mask again, then drops it to one side.] Didn't want to see my old man the little he was around, sure as fuck didn't want to see him here. Thing I've been thinking, though - what do you see, you wear someone else's?

[She doesn't hold the second mask up for the camera, but it's there in her hands, looks like a modern military gas mask. She's quiet for a long while, like she maybe forgot she even had the comms running, all of the anger and energy drained out of her again.]

Tommy's gone. Gone last jump. Told him he would, cause everyone goes. [A thin smile, strained, sad, and then gone again.] Guess I didn't wanna be right.

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[But his response is firm:]

I don't want to hear any more self-pity, Tyke. You've had a hard time of it, and your friend is gone; for that, I am sorry. But you're the head of security. "Everyone else" didn't get it wrong; you positioned yourself as the person to trust, and you must follow through on it.

It's duty. Are you the sort to renege on duty?

What's the point of that duty? Everyone's gonna leave. That's what happens. They leave and I--

[She cuts herself off, grabbing the bottle again, drinking a good mouthful before she levels another glare at the camera.]

Is it still self-pity if it's the fucking truth, huh?

[Firmly:]

Yes.

[There's a slight pause, and then - ]

I've been thinking about this. Do you know what sets security apart from all the other teams?

[She's quiet for a moment, looking like she's really intensely internally debating continuing with this, letting him lead her along in this conversation. But eventually some part of her curiosity wins out.]

No.

[He nods once.]

All the other departments - they do what they want to. They play around, experiment, get into fights, go out drinking. Completely at their own volition, at their own pace; they decide what they want to do, when they want to do it. Communications - and I will say this to your face, whoever amongst you is listening in on this - just play about, trying to come up with some new technology. Gunnery crew just practices. Flight crew tinkers with their machines.

We're different on Security. We don't do what we want to do; we do what we have to do.

[She listens without much reaction, but at the end looks away again.]

It's all just names on a list. [A shrug.] Don't have to sign up.

No. You don't. And you didn't have to volunteer to lead, and at any point any of us can step down. We can step away from it.

But while we're here, we just - [And for a moment, he does grope around for the proper words - ] Ignore what we have to, grit our teeth, and carry on. Because we must. Because that's our duty, and that is what truly unifies us, more than our backgrounds or our abilities: when duty calls, we answer.

I don't know anything about duty, Edgeworth.

Then why are you now the head of SEC?

Dean was gone.

[Her shoulders hunch in slightly - more people that had left. Tommy had been there to pick her up, that time, and no one else had known the state she'd fallen into.]

I wasn't gonna let him down.

[A dry smile.]

Not like he remembers, though.

That's duty.

[She looks slightly surprised at that.]

Always thought it was meant to be bigger than that.

...There are certain great people who are motivated by ideals and nothing else; that is true. But they are few and far between. Most simply do their duty because they made a promise. Or in honor of another person. Nothing bigger than that.

[She does seem to fully consider this for a moment, scraping a hand back through her hair.]

Nothing else I'm gonna be good for.

[It's not clear from her tone whether that's an agreement or not.]

Stop it.

[At that, his determination to get her back on her feet is tempered with honest frustration.]

Stop acting like you're incompetent; you know full well you put the rest of us to shame.

[That isn't really anything she'd ever expect him to say, and her response is an immediate, blurted out,]

What?

What I said. You're more competent than the rest of us, God knows.

You've been-- [She stops, frowns, but then just repeats it again, gets all the way through.] You've been arguing with me for months.

Yes. ["And?"]

So shouldn't you be telling me how much I'm fucking up? Trying to get rid?

[She knows even as she says it that it's not really true. Things haven't been like that with Edgeworth for a while.]

[He narrows his eyes.]

Tyke, have you been assuming this whole time that when I've been arguing with you, it's been from some sort of...hatred?

Not hatred. Just... the start of this, I didn't think I could do it. Tommy and Jenna, they had my back, but...

[She rubs a hand over the side of her neck, shuts her eyes for a moment.]

I never gave orders before. Thought I could only take them, but there was no one else to do it. [To step up and take Dean's place.] And then I had to fight you every inch.

Not remotely every inch.

[The mission to comfort is sort of swept aside in favor of clarifying...something that he never even realized he had to clarify.]

I fought you on things I thought were important. Having an investigatory force was - is - important. And stocking our ranks with people who are capable of strategic thought, mediation, and conflict resolution, not just people who can fight - that's important, too. I fought you on those points because fighting you on those points was best for the future of the security force, not because you were bad at leading. Honestly, Tyke - I argue with judges, and there is no higher form of authority in the land, no one whom I'll obey more quickly.

Edited (because having him say her name twice makes it sound like he's a soap opera character) 2013-01-16 03:46 (UTC)

[She isn't in the right kind of place to actually think about any of the stuff that he references there. To argue about it again, and that's not the point, anyway.]

You fought me over your own safety, Edgeworth.

[And the safety of the people on the ship, her team included, was always the most important part.]

[That shuts him up a moment. Finally:]

I fought you over a matter of efficiency. My safety wasn't the central issue; a proper allocation of time was.

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