Who: Ashton & closed
When: Night of April 16th to night of April 17th
What: Executing a plan
Where: Quiet corners of the Barge
Warnings: Violence, body horror, character death, brief mentions of cannibalism, brief mentions of gore, implied self-injury


Objectively, Ashton thinks, they've been very good the whole time they've been a resident of the Barge; she's been her unpleasant self, certainly, but as far as violence goes? Absolutely saintly. It's the amount of nonviolence she would've utilized routinely before her first death, back when she didn't even know how to throw a punch, how to hold a knife, how to bite down at the right angle to break bone.

...and this isn't who she is anymore. It's not. She's not meant for this. Who is she trying to fool? Is Ash so grateful to get to exist that he can let himself live this way, and pretend to everyone — tell the lie to everyone's face — that he's still a person who deserves this? He can't stand it. He has to break it. Given his skillset and his limitations, one way to do this is easier than others.

If they really wanted to get away with murder, they'd just eat the bodies — not as if they haven't done so for years — but they don't aim to get away with it. Ruin's the only thing they've ever been good for, accidental or not, so all they need to do is reinforce that fact fresh in the minds of everyone else.

Step one: design a few new faces. Someone who does not exist, but very reasonably could. This isn't necessary — it's a level of misdirection, and who knows if it'll even matter — but it's entertaining. It's enrichment for her! Isn't that the important thing.

And step two: determine victims.

Closed to Norton

Norton Folgate is their first order of business. Ash isn't entirely sure if monitors get an actual notification when their charges are slaughtered, though assuming they don't is a tad too laissez-faire for even her tastes, and there's no need to spoil her fun right at the beginning.

But he is, give or take, a mortal human man. (As far as they can tell, anyway, and they've been wrong before. But nothing they've seen has too-clearly indicated that he might not die as simply as any mortal might, which does make things considerably easier.) He has certain areas of the ship he tends to inhabit at night, not always accompanied by others, and he does have certain tastes.

It's a very easy face to design: boyishly handsome with a mess of curly black hair, scruffy, with a bit of a biker vibe. (In fact, Harvey de Luca probably wouldn't appreciate her using his face as the basis for an angler lure to murder a man, but the two of them never much got along. Sometimes it's the little things, like knowing someone you don't like would be quite pissed about what you're doing with his appearance.) He burns a bit of vitae to get some living color into his cheeks: not something he normally does, but not as if it's much of a resource drain.

And then he goes hunting. At this time of night, this time of the week, Folgate should be around... there.

Closed to Steven

Now that that little bit of unpleasant business is out of the way and Folgate's corpse is also, unceremoniously, out of the way, on to the rest of her agenda. For a minute she thinks about it: isn't it maybe a little uncouth to kill a teenager?

Hmm. Well, yes, probably. However, she doesn't actually care, so that's enough of that kind of thinking.

Teenagers tend to respond a little better to teenagers, so this face is Steven's age, maybe a little younger; wide-eyed, hair in ringlet curls painted in a riot of candyesque colors, a scattering of diamond scales on the face and arms. And an ugly gash on one arm: something that would need medical attention and soon, on a living being. He seems like a good kid. Eager to help. It's such an abusable trait that she almost feels a little bad taking advantage of it by pretending to be injured in this stairwell.

Almost.

(She doesn't feel bad about the blood sweat. It helps sell the lie, and it means she doesn't even actually have to injure herself to get some appropriately-placed blood smeared around. It's still beading in her eyelashes, though, and she always hates when it does that.)

Closed to R

There's a boy working in the library who seems not quite undead, a quiet sort, who's been here only a few weeks — easy prey. Ashton spends enough time in the library that they've been keeping an eye on him every now and again; though it's never a sure bet, they haven't seen him display any particularly unnatural abilities that might mean he would do such rude things like 'not die when she tries to kill him'.

This face is a too-skinny woman with a bleach-blonde bob (dark roots showing, of course, it doesn't look like a good dye job.), eyes so dark they're practically black, and the same sort of pallor as R's got - just a few shades off from Ash's natural corpselike complexion. Late 20s, maybe. All those piercings in her ears are actually bone, which she knows is a silly little detail when they'll be in contact for less than five minutes -- ideally, less than two -- but that was mostly just playing around to see if she could make it look real.

She catches him on his way back to his cabin, after a library shift; no one else is in this hallway right now, so when she stumbles into him hard enough to knock them both to the ground, it should be believable enough. She's just so distracted, is the thing. Anyone could've done that to someone if they were distracted enough and in some sort of a hurry.

Closed to Max

Objectively this is outside of their guidelines for selecting targets, but those are Ash's own self-created guidelines, and there's some sort of sick amusement in killing the last person to perform mass slaughter. The fact said man is their warden's soulmate's husband's inmate is a bonus.

Maybe not a bonus, though it's something, alright. Keeping it in the extended family? Hm. No. Not that. Sheehan being alerted will be annoying, but they're expecting the corpses from last night to be found soon, so adding in an extra level of complication is just fine.

(...killing two members of the library staff wasn't on purpose, but maybe it's how she's showing her appreciation for the important services they provide. By providing the important service of reminding them they could be murdered for no reason at any given time, and maybe they should think about that some more.)

This is a backgrounder sort of face they're wearing: a guy who blends into a crowd. Absolutely no one of note. Hell, even on the Barge there's probably at least five other guys who look kind of like this, which is why hanging out in this hallway focused on his communicator shouldn't raise a single bit of alarm.

Closed to Sokie (+ John, eventually)

If Ashton wanted to get away with it, really get away with it, he'd try a little harder. A human body is much easier to bundle up into someplace it shouldn't be when it's not all in one continuous piece. But he aims to be caught.

Ashton, for her part, has his legs kicked up in a common room all the way across the ship from where he killed Max less than an hour ago. The Barge is only so big, and those little cat legs can cover distance exceptionally well. Who, him? Involved in murders? Please. He's busy reading a treatise on magic regulations that definitely comes from someone else's world.

...She's probably given it enough time for Sheehan to find the corpse by now. Hm. What next, then? The clock is ticking. Serial escalation would demand that the next victim be someone closer to home than poor Max, if she really wants to be dramatic about it. Does she? It's not unappealing. But who would -

Oh. Oh. Alright, then. That's... an idea she can't look away from.

Ash doesn't want to do it. She knows she will; she's already pulling out her communicator and messaging Sokie: "Are you busy right now?" Tone of voice: curious, almost-open, with the insinuation there's something she wants to say but maybe isn't comfortable with.

She doesn't want to do this, she likes Sokie, but that has nothing to do with how efficient it would be in creating the desired effect and how likely Sokie is to let Ashton get close enough. That's the only parts that matter. Everything else is just window dressing in the end.