Yᴜᴊɪɴ Mɪᴋᴏᴛᴏʙᴀ 🌸 御琴羽 悠仁 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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ximilialog2023-06-10 10:33 am
softshoes) wrote in ximilialog2023-06-10 10:33 am
open | no boys allowed
CHARACTERS: EVERYBODY, toplevel away!
LOCATION: smushed very precariously into the North Wing
DATE: first night following the June log
CONTENT: slumber party!111!!1!!
WARNINGS: n/a - pls add to your threads as appropriate <3
NOTES: I'm posting this log OOCly, but ICly consider this a group effort rather than Yujin's doing - feel free to handwave how your character helped out :)
helped set up the place, pitching in to wrangle up whatever sleeping supplies they could;
is still helping get others settled, or checking in with the injured (or, emotionally distraught?);
is too wired to sleep, their mind racing from the day's events (or, maybe they just don't sleep?);
is CRANKY about their assigned Blanket Pile On The Ground, and trying to find somewhere else to rest;
or is trying to bring the orbers' spirits up, joking or laughing or entertaining in spite of the situation they all find themselves in.
Or maybe they're doing something else like having a pillow fight or something silly. I'm not the boss of you!!
LOCATION: smushed very precariously into the North Wing
DATE: first night following the June log
CONTENT: slumber party!111!!1!!
WARNINGS: n/a - pls add to your threads as appropriate <3
NOTES: I'm posting this log OOCly, but ICly consider this a group effort rather than Yujin's doing - feel free to handwave how your character helped out :)
It's been a long, exhausting, and emotionally trying mission. It would've been enough, even without the orbers finding themselves in this strange past incarnation of the Ximilia station, forcing them all down so many painful trips down memory lane.Perhaps your character:
And yet, at the end of the day... everybody's still got to sleep!!
With the help of Iris, the infirmary staff, and any others who've volunteered, the North Wing's been outfitted as much as it can be to sleep a crew of over 40 people. Spare linens from the infirmary, whatever pillows or makeshift cots the team has been able to create: though humble, it'll sleep everyone. It's hardly luxury accommodations-- this station is older and more worn, and the North Wing is meant for half their number-- but it's cozy enough for anyone desperate for some rest to get it.
(Some of you will have to share bunks, though. Or sleep on the floor. Sorry.)
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One might say so.
（ it isn't really direct confirmation — but nor is it the pointed evasion he would give someone with whom he was less familiar. it's even said just a little playfully, with his head cocked to one side not entirely unlike a bird. ）
What of yourself?
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Nothing like that. [ Maybe a little that. ] More that I couldn't fall asleep, and thought I'd check up on everyone else.
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So, I needed 'checking up' on, did I?
（ he is teasing the man, however much that it's said in his usual dry tone. then, he shifts his position so that he is seated cross-legged on the ground, just as the clone returns. it leaves them with a makeshift tray, and pot and cups and then lifts its hand in the seal of release, giving a nod as it dissipates into smoke. itachi, with the air of one well-practiced in such things, pours the tea for them both, and proffers a cup first to james. ）
I do appreciate the company, regardless of motive.
（ he would not have said as much a year ago of anyone — but times do change. ）
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[ He takes the cup with a small dip of his head, taking in the scent before anything else. ]
I just wanted to talk to you. Been looking for a chance to just sit, get to know each other. Or, well, me getting to know you.
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I am happy to answer whatever questions you may have for me. I understand it must be difficult to be in a position where one knows more of you than the reverse by dint of a prior acquaintance you have no memory of.
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[ He chuckles, fully aware of how senseless that sounds. He lets silence linger for a moment, while carefully sipping from his cup. ]
Tell me about yourself. How did you become a shinobi?
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（ it must feel a little like a minefield. wondering what you have done, what you may have said or shared of yourself. he does not envy the man the task of bearing up under that.
and given his relationship with mccoy — hm. ）
Within my village, most who become shinobi are born to it. I attended the academy as a child, graduated, and became so.
（ as expected of my son, his father had told him at the time. ）
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[ He frowns slightly, not unusually surprised but still a little puzzled. He's heard plenty about parents holding certain expectations over their children —it may not be the norm on Earth now, but it was pretty common a few centuries ago—, but it's always a little hard to wrap his mind around. ]
What if you weren't good at it? [ He looks over at Itachi. ] Was it what you wanted to do?
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he is silent for a moment, in a way that suggests contemplation rather than any true reluctance to answer. then, taking kirk's words more broadly at first — ）
Children graduate from the academy at twelve, generally. （ except in cases like his own, or in wartime when their service is considered of immediate use — a practice he may have condoned once, but no longer can. now, it fills him with an acrid bitterness. ） And if they do not show an aptitude for the work by that age, they needn't continue. One of my teammates retired not long after her graduation.
（ shinko is never very far from his mind. he wonders how her life has gone, in the wake of tenma's death and his own defection. ）
However... shinobi are culturally revered among my people. There are other villages that might force a child against their will to serve, but in mine it is more that... children will dream all their lives of being shinobi. They play at it in the streets. Children born to civilian families will travel great distances to test their aptitude for molding chakra. It is considered to be an aspirational life, for all that the danger is recognized, it is also romanticized to an extent. For me, personally — I was born to one of the three great shinobi clans of my village, and was the eldest son of the clan head besides.
（ his voice is soft, speaking on his family. the depths of his feelings for them is obvious in the care of his tone. ）
It would have disappointed my parents, had I chosen another way forward — but they would have accepted it out of their love for me. However, my bloodline is such that very few children born to my clan are not above the average in combat capabilities. Even now, I cannot imagine another vocational pursuit.
（ it would be a waste of his talents. even aboard the ximilia, there is nothing else for him. perhaps in another life, were he anyone other than who he is, he may have owned a tea house. but such a life was never truly an option for him. ）
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But it's not a topic he's going to touch, for the time being at least. Besides, if Itachi knows him to some degree, Jim's distaste can't come as much of a surprise. ]
Excelling at it doesn't mean it's what you've always wanted for yourself. As for people's expectations—
[ There's a pause, then he sighs, chuckling faintly. ]
I grew up with half the people expecting amazing things from the son of the great, self-sacrificing George Kirk, and the other half thinking that I would never really amount to anything. Never did anything with myself until my early twenties, and even then I did it mostly to spite the latter.
It's not the same as you, I know that. [ Fuck, not even close. ] But I guess nothing really felt right until I stopped doing things because of what other people expected, or didn't expect, of me.
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it has taken him years, now, to examine the system that produced him critically, and in a way he is still protective of it, because others are so quick to judge while lacking the foundational knowledge of why that system exists in the first place, what has made it necessary, and how much pain it has caused his people.
james is the first one who has had no occasion to know any of his past, who he has simply told. knowing that look of disapproval would come, knowing the way it would be at odds with his own morality the way it is with mccoy. it stirs up a curious feeling in him, but upon review none of the anger he feels is towards james himself. it is anger for the fact that, at a time when other shinobi children were finding lost dogs and rescuing cats from trees, his team was guarding the daimyo from assassination. all because he was uchiha itachi, and his strength was hard-used by the structure of leadership within his village. but that power was never admirable, nor something of which he was proud. he learned too young that it was only ever a death sentence for those around him. tenma would not have died, if itachi had been ordinary, because they would have never been put in madara's way.
his attention alights on the man's expression, and then away. he listens, as he details his own life. he knows why he choses to relate it back to his own life, and it is the sort of solid, earnest goodness he knows drives the man forwards. not a lecture. just a connection, the same as seeking him out here. some of what he mentions, itachi had pieced together from their conversations. some is new.
a sort of soft gratitude touches one corner of his mouth, and then: ）
It is a difficult thing, to live in the shadow of someone else's sacrifice. People often act as if your life is not your own when there are expectations upon you, that meeting them goes beyond duty and into identity. I am sorry you experienced that pressure.
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Don't be. The way I see it, our experiences shape us. I wouldn't be myself if it weren't for my past, [ He smiles into his cup, shrugging. ] And I kind of like who I am now.
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One can be sorry for an experience without wishing to change its having occurred.
（ he has played god, in other people's lives. that tendency is something he's had to unlearn. ）
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[ Hasn't Jim felt the same for others' experiences, after all? It's empathy, pure and simple. Doesn't mean he would wish an experience to be changed for someone else. ]
In that case, thank you.
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You spoke of George Kirk. Your father, yes?
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Did I ever tell you about him?
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（ what even is bonding. he's bad at it.
like. better than he was, but. that was a limbo bar in hell, when last they were acquainted. ）
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[ It's a little odd to share it with someone he doesn't know too well (or doesn't remember, anyway), but strangely it makes him feel like he's more in control. This is one thing that's not beyond his reach entirely; he gets to decide to talk about it, not just deal with Itachi having heard it before. ]
He was First Officer aboard the USS Kelvin when they were attacked by a ship that was accidentally sent back in time. The Captain went to the other ship to try to find a diplomatic solution that would avoid conflict, so he took the chair.
He was acting Captain for twelve minutes. Saved 800 lives. Sacrificed himself to make that happen. [ He breathes out a quiet sigh, shoulders following with a soft motion. ] That was the day I was born.
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he can imagine, how that might cast a pall over your life from a perilous age. how the telling might twist an old knife all the deeper. his expression remains unreadable, but he does rub his thumb lightly along the rim of his cup. not quite a physical tick, but perhaps an excuse to direct his attention elsewhere for a moment. ）
It must have been an act of incredible bravery.
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Didn't exactly make it easy, growing up. Even if I knew that all along.
[ It was easier to be angry, to be resentful of Starfleet, of his father, everything— than to accept that his father had an impossible choice to make, and he still somehow managed to make the right one. ]
But yes, it was.
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I understand.
（ it may not be an experience he carried himself, but there is a deep cultural wound built on the bones of sacrificial loss. there were those that happened publicly, like the lord fourth — and those that happened in the shadows, like shisui. ）
Forgive me if this is a matter of overstep, but given what I know of you — I think any father would be proud of who you have became.
（ in another time, another place — there were two little children with solemn dark eyes that called him father. it isn't something so easily put away. ）
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Kinda took him until Pike's own death for him to even begin to understand what that kind of loss felt like.
So it's strange, because he also doesn't know if he cares about whether or not he would have made proud a man he never knew— but he definitely would have cared about making Pike proud. So the sentiment isn't lost on him, and he turns to Itachi with a grateful smile. ]
Thank you. It's not why I've made the choices I have, but I hope so too.
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Given what I've heard of the Enterprise, I can only imagine.
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And what have you heard of the Enterprise?
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Only good things. （ it's said lightly, in itself a rarity for him. ） Doctor McCoy has touched upon some of the missions you have undertaken — not to any amount of detail — and of the five year engagement he was on not long before arriving here. Diplomacy and outreach, is it not?
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/fin?