capeandcowllogs | The mate to a key and lips to a secret.

The mate to a key and lips to a secret.

WHO: SKRULLOCK HOLMES, TONY STARK, EDWARD NYGMA, NORMAN OSBORN, DR. JOHN ZOIDBERG and YOU!
WHERE: The Quarantine Room.
WHEN: February 22nd (evening) to February 24th (afternoon).
WARNINGS: None necessarily? Bickering doesn't merit a warning.
SUMMARY: Skrulls in the dungeon. Well, one anyway.
FORMAT: I'll introduce the setting in paragraph, but you choose what format you prefer.

The area for the quarantined is spacious and clean. Although technically under police custody, the room is established in a large auditorium of City Hall. There are five walled 'dividers' that offer the quarantined the semblance of privacy. Never mind that every inch of the room is taped on camera -- cameras that Mitchell Hundred can control with a word. Never mind that there are armed guards on the other wise of each exit. Never mind that the communicators of the quarantined have been disabled from encryption capabilities.

They were allowed a bed. Access to any bathroom was to be monitored. Meals would be provided. They were handcuffed but not leglocked. If any of the number disagreed with their situation, heavier imprisonment was negotiable.

The quarantined were to be questioned by those in authority, or those who were experts on Skrull detection. Or those who thought they were.

ooc || begin a thread with your character name in the heading. anyone can tag into your thread, including other quarantined individuals.

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Her eye darted its attention between his hands on the divide and his face, the way his eyes looked at her, and the way he held his face together (in more ways than one.) Analyzing. Ruka's only exposure to Skrulls before this had been among her fellow ImPorts, but it had been years since she'd spoken to the ones she knew; trying to weigh the emotional state of the one before her was much more difficult.

The girl unfolded her hands and tentatively mimicked his gesture, pressing the tips of her gloved fingers against the divider, below his. They were a great deal smaller in comparison, but the color of the fabric was almost like blood. She hesitated before she spoke, but she held his gaze level.

"I didn't. Certainly not with any confidence." Ruka shook her head. "To be truthful... I had doubts that there were Skrulls in our number at all."

It probably wasn't the answer he was looking for, but it was the only one she could offer.

He watched her hands, and as she spoke he shifted, smaller, into himself. His hands moving down the divider until they met hers. He was only a little taller than she was, in his true form.

He laughed. Just a single, disbelieving note.

"A guess." He couldn't help but laugh again. "Everything demolished for a guess. Well. At least you're lucky."

"I asked myself a lot of questions about it," she admitted, looking a little surprised by his shift. True, she knew he was a shape-shifter, and had already seen him transition from Sherlock the human to Sherlock the Skrull, but this was different. "Who would the others name? Why? Who benefits from their actions? Who will it hurt more to lose, if we're wrong?" Her lips pinched on one another, a brief moment of pause. "And I thought, if that story about cutting off tissue to prove someone was a Skrull wasn't true, it'd be a pretty clever way to secure cover."

At least it was a little more thoughtful than 'you were the jerk with bolt-cutters.'

"Well. That's a little better. He'd approve, anyway." He was still watching her hands.

"So why did you come." The tone was quiet. The visits were wearing on him, a parade of humanity in all its colours and most of it unpleasant.

"I would have regretted if I didn't," she said, pitching quieter to match. "If something were to happen. Nobody deserves humanity's worst."

Considering just how violent and awful the community had been over the past few weeks, it wouldn't have been much of a surprise if his capture had led to immediate interrogation and torture. Looked like Mitchell Hundred was keeping his word.

"Curiosity too, but I don't know if my questions are one's you'd want to answer."

"They've all been perfect gentlemen," He said, his tone only slightly bitter. He'd tried to fight. He had. He'd tried not to fail this badly.

"Probably not most of them. But I can get you started. Blue. Kraft dinner. Panda bears, but only in the youtube videos where they are being dicks and pissing on each other."

Startled, her expression twisted into one of perplexed confusion, clearly not expecting most of that. Or any of that, probably. Panda bears? Blue? (Of course, whether he meant a color or a name only made the possible questions more bewildering).

Her fingers curled on the partition, and she shook her head. "No, nothing like that. But..." How to even ask this? She broke eye contact to think. "You know that none of us are from this world. This version of the universe, I suppose you could say. We were brought here."

Her head tilted, looking up the short distance to meet his eye. "Maybe not by the same circumstances, but is the same true for you, and your comrades? Or did you originate here? Not Earth, necessarily."

He said nothing for a long time, his fingers curling into a fist against hers, still staring at them.

It was a real question, and he was struggling with how to respond to it. He could try sarcasm, obviously. But no one else was bothering with real questions. And her eye...

"... Not here." He said finally. "No. But that's all-- That's all I'm going to tell you. It isn't important."

She accepted the answer with a steady look and a nod, trying to piece it together with what she knew. True, it'd been years ago that she'd heard from the more space-savvy ImPorts that they seemed alone in this universe, but it was always harder to prove the lack of something than its presence. Not ImPorts, but not here. Then...?

She could think on it later. "Alright. Thank you for that much."

He paused, his hands finally dropping from the divider, his young face furrowed into a frown before it slowly slipped back into Sherlock's. Slowly grew back to his full height.

"Will you fight?"

Her hands fell as well, hanging at her sides. She did not try to make herself seem taller, as that would have been pointless; besides, Ruka couldn't straighten further a posture that was always held straight.

She looked up to meet his eyes, but the height difference did not seem to affect her at all.

"Is there a way to resolve this without fighting?"

"Not when you're resolved to do what is necessary."

And he was.

Ruka held his gaze for a moment longer, but it could not be sustained. She turned her face to the side. "If you mean the other ImPorts, they'll fight. Even when they don't have to, or when they shouldn't be at all. Even if fighting will just make it worse. It's the easier path for them." Year after year she'd seen it, and time and again Ruka felt that the conflicts and violence unnecessary. More than that, they frequently just made situations worse, and no matter how many times it happened, they never seemed to learn. Monsters and aliens and others came through, again and again, to be shocked and horrified by the actions of humans; for Ruka, who had always served as the bridge between the two, was never able to justify the path of her comrades.

Often, it could not be justified.

"But for me... I'm not a 'hero,' or a 'warrior,' or anything like that. I hate conflict and battle. There's already suffering enough. How could I bring myself to add to that?"

Emotions were muddled in her heart, and it showed in her face; the weakness of her heart was exposed, the weary fatigue of conflict. For the first time, her voice wavered. But only for a moment. As she pressed on, it steadied, until finally looking back up to meet his gaze.

"I can't. But I can't let it happen, either. This is not be my world, and every person here I care for will abandon me, but it's my duty to protect them, protect anyone who needs it. Even if my heart gives out, or my body breaks. It doesn't matter what happens to me." Not even the hint of a waver in her tone; her expression was unyielding. "I'm not a sword. I'm a shield. That's my resolve."

Her eye was fixed on his face. "Is there really no other path than fighting?"

He turned his head as he listened, attentive but without watching her, leaning up against the divider and tap-tap-tapping the edge of the handcuffs against the glass.

"You humans have an interesting theory," He said finally, evenly, "About survival instincts. That given a predator - given a risk- you will naturally choose one of two options. Fight, or Flight."

His eyes finally met hers, his face stony.

"When only one of the two options exist, only one of the two options can be taken."

"And I don't have wings."

"It's a flawed theory." Her attention turns down, eye closed for the brief thought. "They may be instincts, but they're never the only options."

Her hand, fingers curled, pressed against the glass.

"I wish we could have given you wings."

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The mate to a key and lips to a secret.

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