revivalproject | Some people have a bad day.

Entry tags:

Some people have a bad day. | Calibrations

WHO: Catra, OPEN
WHERE: Catra's Calibration Room
WHAT: Catra's Calibration
WHEN: 3 June - 10 June
WARNINGS: Child abuse, violence, possible She-Ra spoilers (up to end of season 4)

The room you step into is one of utilitarian design, metal walls and bunks with perfunctory mats that serves as mattresses, along with a single pillow. By it there's a crude drawing of two girls, one of which seems to be scratched out.

A small shape sits on the end of one of the lower bunks, hidden away under a thin blanket and sniffling, though she'll hiss if you approach. She holds a letter clutched tight in her fists, and that may be what has her so upset.

Meanwhile, the longer you're here, more you might begin to notice, something seems off. Part of the room seems to be fading away, being slowly devoured by whiteness. Will you avoid the impending doom or explore it?

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

The room is disturbingly bare. Jon moves through it slowly, deliberately. It's not like there is much clutter here to miss anything of importance, but he doesn't merely pay attention to the visual clues. There is... A certain dread lingering here as well.

A dread very much tied to the being hiding under that blanket.

"Hello?" The Archivist addresses what he assumes to be a kid as he slowly approaches, not yet anticipating to be hissed at.

The crying figure scuttles back, and she hisses weakly at the stranger, peering out from beneath her blanket. Mismatched eyes full of tears narrow in an attempt to be frightening, not overly effective when followed by a sniffle.

"Go away~" she whines.

"I don't think I can do that, sorry." Jon replies, his tone soft and he crouches down at a safe distance, trying not to intimidate this room's occupant entirely.

"Can I do something to make you feel better while we're here?"

"...No." She frowns thoughtfully, watching Jon suspiciously before tugging the blanket down a little, revealing a head full of fluffy hair, and two cat ears pinned down in distress.

"...Who are you? You're not part of the Hoarde."

"No, I'm not." Jon confirms and offers a smile to the revealed face "I'm Jon. And I won't harm you. But for the time being I am stuck at your place." That's the truth as far as Jon has been able to figure out so far.

"Will you tell me what upset you? Maybe I can help?"

Well, this was different. Chikai wanders around the space, not doing much more than idly glancing at different things and occasionally giving one of the bunks a poke just to see if he'll get a reaction. It's not until he gets a row away that he hears the sniffling.

"Oi, someone here?" he calls - he can see the blanket and shape, but from the size he's assuming it's a kid of some sort. Better to give 'em some warning he's here than just try and yank the blanket away, he figures.

She frowns, not looking overly trusting, tugging the blanket closer and trying to push away the tears in a way she thinks the man won't notice.

"...I got in trouble," she admits with a grumble.

"Huh?" Catra scrambles back from the strange, now appropriately 'kiddo' sized compared to the last time he saw her, but given the hiss she directs at him, this version of her doesn't seem familiar with him.

"How'd you get in here?!" she demands.

"Oh, I understand." Jon gives a brief nod and shifts to sit cross-legged on the ground, looking at the girl for a moment before glancing upwards and offering her a piece of himself in hopes of reassuring her at least a little "I used to get in trouble a lot when I was a kid, you know? Police had me bring home at least three times by the time I was eight. My grandmother wasn't very pleased."

"I walked in, kiddo," he says, sounding a bit amused. Despite her age here, she's easy enough to recognize. After all, as far as Chikai knows there's only one cat-person around. "What, there supposed to be security or something?"

Edited 2020-06-07 23:50 (UTC)

"...Yeah?" Her expression softens a little after some thought, and she shuffles a little closer.

"...I'm Catra," she offers finally.

She seems just as annoyed to be called kiddo at this age as she had at her considerably more adult size, huffing softly and looking away.

"Only like a whole bunch of Hoarde soldiers. And you don't look like part of the Hoarde to me."

"Well you're right about that, I'm not. I'm way sneakier than some dumb soldiers." Said with all the confidence of a man who knows he won't have to back up his claim. He leans down to take a look at what she's got in her hands. "So hey, what's got you down? Get a bad grade or something?"

"No...she left-" Catra explains, holding out the note for him to take, and as he does, the world shifts.

The fully grown Catra paces the hallway with a low growl, stopping to cross her arms when she's approached by the hulking figure of Scorpia.

"You better have something for me," she demands, looking unimpressed.

Scorpia blinks, before putting on a smile and holding up a pincer, clutching a damaged computer chip. "Entrapta's recordings. She stored them all in Emily."

Catra looks surprised and then grins, taking it before she notices the damage, smile fading away.

"...The chip got damaged when I extracted it," Scorpia explains, "But hopefully that won't matter?" Catra's fist clench tightly as Scorpia continues, "It was just so small, and you know, pincers ."

"...You. broke. the recordings?" Catra repeats in a dangerously quiet voice, eyes narrowed.

"I-I didn't mean to-"

"I asked you to do one thing," Catra throws the chip aside, "One simple thing and you completely ruined it! But of course you ruined it. Yeah. You're Scorpia. That's just what you do," she berates cruely, while Scorpira stands there looking hurt.

Resuming her pacing Catra continues to rant. "You couldn't handle Emily, you never know when to shut up. The only thing you've ever done is get in my way!" She gestures violently with her claws, "What did I expect? I mean how can you possibly be this useless?"

A beat of silence passes, and Scorpia's hurt look remains before Catra's demands, "What?!"

Another beat, and Scorpia finally looks up, calm but sad. "...You're a bad friend." She says it with a soft finality and turns to walk away, while Catra stares after her in shock.

Jon gives her a small smile and a nod "Nice to meet you, Catra." He leans against the bed with one shoulder and tilts his head to the side slightly.

"So. Do you want to hear of my dreadful misbehaviors as a kid? We can trade stories, if you like."

Seeing the memory, his first impulse is to make a crack about good help being hard to find. If Catra had been her usual age, he probably would’ve gone ahead with it. But he can’t quite make that light of what he’d seen to an upset little kid.

Instead, he sighs to give himself time to reconsider, and tries to give her a pat on the head. “Looks like you got quite a temper, huh? Been there.” That’s comforting, probably. “That pointy girl your buddy?”

"I guess that'd be okay," she agrees, tail giving a guarded twitch as she nods, "As long as Shadow Weaver doesn't catch us."

"What are those things on your face, can I see them?"

Her hair floofs and stand on end, fixing him with a wary look at the contact, but eventually relaxing a little.

"No," she grumbles petulantly, "She left. They all leave. I don't need her or any of them. And I don't need you." She swipes belatedly at his hand, eyes narrowed.

He pulls his hand back amicably enough, a bit of amusement in his expression. "Hey now, who ever said you did?" Chikai thinks he gets how she feels, more or less. He's certainly burned plenty of his own bridges over the years, a good chunk even not on purpose. "'s not a bad thing, y'know, not needing people. Means you're tough, right?"

"Fair enough." Jon nods at her request, then reaches a hand up to touch his glasses "You mean these? They're my glasses. I need them to see properly." He explains and takes the item in question off before offering it out for her to inspect.

"Just be careful, please. They do snap quite easily - And the world gets blurry for me without them."

She's not exactly gentle, but she's trying...maybe, turning them about curiously before peering through them, trying to hook the ends over her ears, but they don't exactly fit the same.

"How do you see with these things??"

"Mm," That seems to work, and Catra gives a determined nod, features brightening. "I'm the toughest cadet in the whole Hoarde," she agrees proudly.

Jon gives a soft little chuckle "Pretty sure the way you see everything with my glasses is similar to how see it all without them. My eyes need a little assistance to be as keen as yours, Catra." One of the little side effects of spending most of your childhood reading, regardless how dimly lit a room may be.

"People don't wear glasses where you're from?"

"No one I know." Which effectively means no one to her current understanding of the world.

She passes the glasses back, edging a little closer and flashing a tentative smile, showing off a sharp canine. "So tell me your stories all ready."

It's not a very cozy place, wherever it is that Teddy has ended up. In fact it closely matches what he would think boot camp or military barracks would look like right down to the identical mattresses and bedding on each of the bunks.

The only thing ruining the same-ness of everything is the small bundle of blanket sitting at the edge of one of the bunks. He hears the sniffling for what it is, either the beginning of tears or the end of them.

"Um, hello?" This is a really awkward way to introduce yourself to someone, but there's no turning back now.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 1 of 7

Some people have a bad day. | Calibrations

Kitty~

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

you have a freaking icon for this omg

no subject

sure do~

no subject

no subject