WEEK 3

[strangerpeople]

WEEK 3

[You dream.

She sits across from you, hairpin shining like fire, her violet eyes staring at you. She slides a cup of tea in front of you, but not before mixing in a dollop of something thick and red like fire into it.

She encourages you to drink. Insists, even. For some reason, you feel compelled to obey. The taste is that of honey. As you sip, she talks.

"I'm sure you think I'm a monster. You wouldn't be wrong."

She sips her own tea.

"I had a family, once. A long time ago. A husband. Children, though not mine. It was acceptable. I was satisfied. Then I found my true calling. I had to leave them behind."

Her cup slowly returns to its sauce.

"They're gone now." A pause. "Replaced. As is the reason I abandoned them. A Counsel of Peace...the dreams of a Messenger...a curious experiment...love itself. Maybe none of it mattered, in the end. Maybe we will not matter, either. Maybe what we are trying to do will fail after all."

"But...I am still here. And you know what they would say about reckonings in the Neath..."




Your eyes open. Something has changed inside you. You remembered something. You look around, dazed, before you stumble out of your room.

You are docked, again. A new week, a new po-wait. The hell is this. Yes, you can see it's called Spatium Prison, but when you think of Victorian era prisons...well, this is not what were expecting. Are you sure that the Conductor-whose name you somehow now remember as Lilac-didn't end up in the wrong universe or something?

...No, sadly. There are the tourists. Well. This is going to be...a week.

Hopefully everyone will survive this one.


There are 13 strangers left in this place.]

Comments

[telecosmetic]

...so's Luce. [She stares down at the stuffed frog in her arms.] He doesn't like to eat anything that's too strongly flavored, or that's not white...they can't be taking care of him properly, there.

[She blinks a little a his side comment.] Huh? Why not?

[technicolourdifficulties]

[He quirks a bit of a smile, though there's no humor in it.]

Our relationship is more one of necessity than a desire for one another's companionship. She is a hero I chose to save my world, and I am her guide and, if I am honest, a thief who has stolen much from her.

[telecosmetic]

[uM.]

There...wasn't anyone older you could have chosen?

[technicolourdifficulties]

[He has said that he's a monster. He just doesn't mean it only in the literal sense.]

...Not then.

[telecosmetic]

[Eliza huffs a little as she looks down.] Was she happy about it, at first? I bet there's lots of kids who would be excited to be a hero of some sort...

[technicolourdifficulties]

She practically jumped at the chance when I asked.

[telecosmetic]

And...realized later on it was way different from how it goes in stories?

[technicolourdifficulties]

...Perhaps. Or perhaps she realized that she is part of a story rather than a spectator. When you are being told a story, you know that you are safe, for it is something that has already come to pass. To live a story is an entirely different matter.

[He raises a hand to the bullet hole through his left shoulder, no longer looking at Eliza.]

...To those in the story, the danger is very real.

[telecosmetic]

[Ah...she can kind of understand that. Town A was similar to that, after all.]

How literal are you being when you say "in a story"? Is...is there an actual narrator, or is it being recorded somehow? [She's gotten some sense of RGB's eccentricities by now, and she'd be remiss to just ignore them.]

[technicolourdifficulties]

[Well, someone is good at asking the right questions.]

Quite literal. I'm... not certain if I can give certain details, however.

[Whether that's from a lack of knowledge or due to Charlotte informing him earlier that they are in fact currently being recorded is anyone's guess.]

[telecosmetic]

[After his performance in the Two Truths and a Lie game, she's got a much better understanding of his world.]

Ah...that's alright. So...you think she'd just be even angrier at you, if she knew she was there because of you? [Her expression does look sympathetic. He does obviously care about that girl in some way, after all.]

[technicolourdifficulties]

[He would die for her. Might have died for her, if certain parties hadn't intervened, without a single thought beyond pure, instinctive reaction. Whether there is any love in it, RGB couldn't tell even himself, but...]

...I think she would be angrier still if I killed innocents to free her.

[telecosmetic]

[A sigh.] I can understand that...Luce would also be upset. He wouldn't want anyone to die for him.

[technicolourdifficulties]

It's an admirable quality.

[He sighs deeply himself, sinking lower into the couch.]

If only humans weren't so damnably fragile, I wouldn't need to concern myself over this.

[telecosmetic]

[Oi, she's human, y'know?] Isn't your head partly glass? I thought that was pretty fragile too.

[technicolourdifficulties]

[Don't worry, he's an equal opportunity jerk. Humans, elves, robots, amorphous blobs, himself, tree people, sentient chairs, he'll say something kind of offensive about or to everyone eventually.]

That depends entirely on the type of glass, doesn't it? Moreover, you have all manner of flesh and bone bits that take poorly to all sorts of damage. Most damage done to me will ultimately only hurt my feelings, but the rest of you? You're all terribly vulnerable.