THE COLD AND SILENT [FALLEN LONDON SPOILERS]

[disregartist]

THE COLD AND SILENT

[The Conductor doesn't speak to anyone as they are escorted back. She simply goes to her quarters, leaving everyone to their own devices for the evening and night. There were things to do, reports to file, and of course negotiating the release of certain animals from the prison and the removal of that incompetently-named warden. A million and one things before they departed for the next port, which they did before the sun began to rise the next day.

Still, the Strangers will find a note slipped under their door when they wake up.]

Some answers were promised. Meet me in the lounge car at eleven am.

[She had the rats prepare food, and booze is of course readily available. She herself is sitting in a chair, pangolin sleeping in her lap, waiting for whoever arrives. Once eleven hits, she speaks.]

Well.

What are you waiting for? Let's get on with it.

[[OOC: CAUTION! This post will contain spoilers for the Fallen London metaverse, including for Sunless Skies! Abandon ignorance, all ye who enter!]]

Comments

[katzenpfote]

[Caleb heads to the car, watching the rest of the group file in. He's silent, glancing at the Conductor, until it seems most people are here.]

... I have some answers to disclose as well, I think.

[disregartist]

Well. I won't feel so alone, then.

[It's not mocking.]

[zackthekiller]

[Zack must have been dragged to the meeting somehow. He can't read notes, remember?

He does have quite a few Pokemon at his side now. Crown the deerling is on the couch with Zack, sitting on his lap as he sneaks some treats from the rats. Slinky the tepig is sitting next to an inexplicable mound of dirt on the ground that happens to be Dragon the diglett. Blaze the pidgey is perched on Zack's head.

Zack himself is watching the conductor with a steely glare.]

This had better be fucking important.

[technicolourdifficulties]

[RGB is already there well before the time. This is where he sleeps, after all. He's still uncharacteristically quiet, though he does seem to be keeping a watchful screen out as he waits for the whole thing to begin.]

[disregartist]

As I said, I did promise answers to questions yesterday, did I not?

Namely, the question of why you have powers.

[disregartist]

Hm. A drink? Or do you not drink?

[zackthekiller]

[That gets his attention.

Blaze flaps his wings a bit as Zack looks up- The Pokemon does look ready to fight, but at least he has more sense than Zack did at the trial.]

What do you mean?

[katzenpfote]

You might find this enlightening, actually. There's a mystery that's been plaguing this train, after all.

Why are Minato's bones made of glass?

... Because of what happened on the HML Vespertine. I had no idea why until Beatrice's execution. ... It's because he took the fall for me on that train, and was executed for it.

[technicolourdifficulties]

It would be a bit difficult to do so without anything resembling a digestive system.

[disregartist]

...I see. I had suspected that was the case, when I saw his injury. That, and the fact he knew of the Vespertine and what happened, when most people who would be aware don't even know.

It does also explain how he ended up back in the Little Courtesy, without anyone even stopping to realize he had already gone through it. Given the Vespertine's fate...

[disregartist]

As I have repeatedly said, we had nothing to do with the powers you now have. But...I do know what-and who is responsible.

[zackthekiller]

Huh?

[Eliza told him about that earlier, and it's painful to remember, but somehow something doesn't line up.]

So he died and somehow got revived. What's that got to do with the glass?

[katzenpfote]

It is why I have no intention of taking advantage of it. I already did, and never got what I was promised.

[katzenpfote]

Think about it. What do those who are executed turn into?

[disregartist]

Oh. A pity you have to miss out. The spicy sauce on faux-quail is quite delicious.

[zackthekiller]

Then spit it out already, damnit!

[disregartist]

Your luck wouldn't exactly be the same as his.

[A pause.]

The only way he could have been revived-and all of you ended up back here-is the same way your previous Little Courtesy was aborted: the wefts.

[biddentodance]

[He'll....add a little.]

Don't actually remember being executed. Whatever happened - think it started right as it was about to happen.

What....did happen?

[katzenpfote]

They do call us 'Weftlanders'.

[disregartist]

Very well.

You were abducted during your initial intake into the system. Taken to another part of space entirely, where a certain rebel group reigns, and then tossed into a place called Piraneesi. A prison. But not any prison like you know.

[She leans back.]

The point of Piraneesi is change. To never look back. To become something different than what you were before. You cannot leave unless you change, and there are those who live there for centuries, until they are so changed they are not even remotely who or what they were when they first entered.

All of you changed. You were there long enough to have lost your powers, if you had them, and gained new ones, before I was able to bail you out.

[technicolourdifficulties]

I'll have to take your word for it. After all, how can a television truly comprehend what it is to taste something, whether good or ill?

[disregartist]

For a very simple reason: you came from them.

...

As did parts of your worlds.

[charmingheroine]

That's a truly poor choice of words, given you're outnumbered. Or do you really want to die that much? Does it not count as a mortal sin if you make somebody else do it, here?

[disregartist]

Do you know? They won't tell you, because no one calls them that, but the proper, original name of the phenomenon are Wefts of Unraveled Time. One can go in one week and pop back out a month or even a few years before they went in.

The difference, of course, is...the Vespertine, or most of it and those on board, never came back out. Perhaps it's going to come out eventually. Or perhaps they ended up elsewhere entirely. No one knows.

[katzenpfote]

... I suppose that would end the war between the Empire and the Dynasty quite handily.