ukan | spam; the last journal post

spam; the last journal post

[Getting on board was a moment of chaos. He remembers turning a corner, expecting to find fur and blood in his mouth, expecting maybe to get torn up in return, expecting maybe a bullet from above to take him down, too-

But instead he's somewhere metal, somewhere that smells of strangers and strangeness, and he's bleeding a trail but he runs for safety anyway. If there is any. If there are doors, anywhere, that he can open without changing back, because this has to be the FBI's work and so long as they think he's just a wolf, maybe they won't slit him open and poke around inside.]

[ooc: Lark is a wolf, for now. He'll have to change back sooner or later even if he doesn't want to, so feel free to tag him as human or wolf, just lemme know which.]

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[He raises his eyebrows, rolls his shoulders back and tilts his head. The first two are patently true, and he sees no reason why any warden would feel differently. The last two are intimate, and it makes his skin crawl that someone would know these things, that someone can tell it just by looking at him, by smelling him.

It's satisfying, very slightly, to know that he'd been right about this man from the start.]

You seem very eager to tell me what you know and what you can do. Now why is that?

[Lark isn't a condescending man. Even now, it's not condescension in his expression; but he is some kind of amused.]

You know why.

[Maybe Tommy doesn't, but the reasons aren't tricky. He's not afraid of Tommy, and he's aware that--because Lark has been here before and has people on board who know him--Tommy could find out what Lark is capable of if he's really curious.]

Yes, but I'd hoped for something better than that. [Something smarter. Tommy is quick on his feet, but he is always, like Lark himself, playing the long game. Intimidation this soon, well, it's wasted potential.]

Did you?

[He gives him a mild, coaxing look. There is something more: the wolf in him makes most humans instinctively bristle, and Lark is constantly working out the best ways to exploit that. Or the best ways to find someone to hunt, someone challenging.

But that's not exactly something he'll offer, especially to Tommy, even if a Warden has plenty of ways of finding out the truth about him.]

You aren't used to disappointment yet, are you?

[He's been bristling since the first moment Lark started talking to him on the network, his instincts on edge. He doesn't mind a challenge; if he did, he wouldn't have come here at all.]

Well, what I want I make sure I get.

[It's facetious, and clearly so despite the flatness of his tone. He's had plenty of disappointments, just not the kind that Lark is talking of.]

[Lark chuckles and turns back to the view beneath them]

I have one question, inmate to warden.

[He hums softly-- a go-ahead, though not a promise for an answer.]

Do you believe in what this place does to the inmates?

[It takes him some time to filter through his thoughts, some of that earlier hurt shining through. It disappears in a flash, though, and he leans his back against the railing, tilts his face up before answering.]

I believe that one person can see another and change them for the better.

So do I.

[His voice is soft now, all the aggression gone out of him.]

But the Admiral is the one who decides when we graduate. Which means to get your deal, you have to push your inmate to be what the Admiral thinks is better.

He wouldn't have asked me if he didn't think my judgement was at least fair to middling, Lark.

[He sounds sure of himself, the soft joke only emphasizing that. He had told Furiosa, ten minutes after meeting her: I'm not a good man, but I try to be good enough. It's been enough plenty of times before, and it will be now.]

I do think you have better than fair judgment, Tommy. At least in the ways that actually matter where I'm from.

[Sure it's at odds with how he normally treats Tommy but it's the truth.]

But that doesn't change the fact that he's the one who decides when the rest of us get out of here, and he's the one holding something over your head and asking you to mold someone you don't know and therefore can't have any personal attachment to.

[He gives the barest hint of a smile at that, huffs out a little breath.]

If I didn't want it, I wouldn't have agreed to the terms. As far the inmates... [He rolls his head back down and looks at Lark, sideways.] Every prisoner needs to find someone that can protect them from what that prison can do to them.

[Lark looks at him. Ordinarily he could keep his expression neutral, courtroom ready, but it's been one of the worst weeks he's ever had and he knows his emotions are plain to see. He's got a lot of mixed feelings, though (rage, grief, exhaustion, hope) which he can only hope makes him hard to read.

He assumes the Wardens are all on the same page: that it doesn't matter what the inmate wants because the inmate is wrong. How each Warden rationalizes their way to that is different, but the end result is the same. He's thinking, now, that he missed something with Tommy.]

And can a Warden be that person?

I 'ope so, Lark, or I'd be in some trouble. [He sees what's going on with him, but he doesn't feel the need to call him out on it- revealing one's hand, again, is not necessary at this point.]

[A soft sound. Maybe it's disbelief, maybe it's relief.]

Have you met Arthas yet?

I haven't, no. I hope you're not thinking of setting me up with anyone, I told you I'm very shy.

Oh but I think he's very much your type. Unpredictable, exciting. Psychopathic.

[Teasing, without any malice this time.]

No, I just wondered how in God's name anyone could help protect him. Some of us don't need it. Or- no, I think you're right, actually. We do need it. But most of us would rather waste away here than let someone protect us. Survival instincts like that are very hard to turn off. I never managed it last time.

[He laughs a little, and finally reaches back inside his jacket to pull out his cigarettes. If Lark wants one, he can ask.]

You can be angry about your lot in life, or you can man up and do something about it. You can rot away in a dungeon, or you can let someone else prop you up until you can do it yourself.

[He shrugs, and lowers his eyes to the matchbook as he strikes off a match.]

I know what I'd choose, if it were me.

The trick is the same as ever, then: who do you trust to prop you up? Half the wardens here have never known any real struggle. They're kind enough, but too naive to follow.

[Lark doesn't smoke, or drink, not anymore. Vices are not a good thing for a wolf to have.

But Lark is also obsessed with self-control and is constantly finding ways to test himself, so he nods a bit at the pack.]

Have one to spare?

Hm. [He taps out another one, and lights it off the end of his own.

He lets out a long, smoke-filled sigh before answering.] Everyone needs a different approach. Someone else might need that.

Possibly. But the inmates I know and care about, I prefer the way they are. And for myself...

[Well, Lark needs something else. He takes a drag, and for a moment he's back in university, watching his friends get drunk and show off.]

Does anyone back home know you've come here? A woman told me time freezes...but it's hard to picture. The world doesn't stop for one person.

I'm counting on it doing just that. [He leans back against the railing, closes his eyes. It might not be smart, with Lark around, but the high-strung tension between them has dissipated.]

You don't need to change who you are. Just what you do, and why you do it.

[He nods, frowning to himself. He knows what Tommy's saying is right. It's the same advice, almost verbatim, that he would be giving if their roles were reversed.]

And if someone killed your family and left you for dead, and you were put in prison for wanting to find them- would you be able to let that go and change what you were working toward?

[He would blow up that prison and the whole city, house by house, until he found them. But Lark doesn't need to know that.]

D'you believe that that, of itself, is what would put you in here?

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