FINAL WEEK

[strangerpeople]

FINAL WEEK

[Well. What else can be said? The Little Courtesy is over. You have all survived. You are now going to your final destination-with invitations to boot. And Charlotte will be getting that private audience, as promised.

But it's not over. Everyone knows it. Confrontation is inevitable. The question is what, exactly, will happen when that confrontation happens-or if anyone will in fact be able to go with Charlotte when it happens. But you've gone this far. There's no turning back. There has to be a way.

Nothing has been certain, or simple. Whatever happens will be no different from the horrors of the Little Courtesy. Perhaps the saying might still hold. Will all be well? Will it?

It must. God help everyone if it isn't.

Seven is the Number, but there are nine strangers left in this place.]

Comments

[disregartist]

[Anyone who is in the lounge will find Lilac making tea. She is mixing the red honey-like substance into it.

She still doesn't look too happy.]

[charmingheroine]

[Her visible unhappiness is a spring breeze promising the start of summer break in just a couple of weeks, the sound of distant fireworks on July Fourth, the sight of a gate left hanging open just enough to sneak through. It is balm to the ragged edges of Charlotte's heart, though she knows it shouldn't be. It isn't nice to relish in suffering, and it isn't right, either... but it is childish, and really the woman is right, has been right, she does have a way of bringing that out in Charlotte.

And admitting to that, even internally, is bitter enough that simply watching their jailer act like a housemaid quickly loses its lustre.]

I've been wondering... what is that, anyway?

FALLEN LONDON SPOILERS

[disregartist]

[She looks over, at this. She stirs in some of the red substance as she speaks.]

A particular type of honey, harvested from the mind. The devils call it gaoler's honey.

[She offers it to Charlotte.]

Officially, it's illegal in the Empire.

[charmingheroine]

And yet you've made sure we had a supply of it, after the killing started. I don't suppose the name had anything to do with that, or - never mind.

[She accepts, and frowns down at, the tea.]

So it's memory itself, then, isn't it? That's why the headaches... literally repatterning itself....

[Her voice just fades away, pressed down by the knowledge that she's applying logic to a world that has no such thing. This is not the first time she's felt like a very stupid child, confronted with the Conductor. It is the first time in a while, true, but this is not the first time ever.

Somehow, that doesn't make the mingled sting of embarrassment and shame any less painful.]

I don't understand.

[disregartist]

Well, they are your memories. You were never supposed to lose them to begin with. But the Liberation harvested them for whatever they intended to do. Sell them? Possibly. Weftlander memories are prized by some artist schools desperate for inspiration.

Losing them is painful, and regaining them, just as much. That's why one must take it slowly.

[She goes back to making...a syringe of red honey. It's only one, though, out of all the teas.]

...As I have said. The Little Courtesy isn't meant to be a game. Even if some in London view it as such.

CW public execution talk, oblique reference to lynching

[charmingheroine]

We aren't in London.

[Somehow, she manages to suppress the urge to tack on "or Kansas, anymore". It's not like someone from this joyless place would know Oz, after all.]

And neither were those - that prison wasn't, either, but they sure did treat our part of it there like a game. They had popcorn, for God's sake, brought their children along -

[But it's not like her own world is devoid of that kind of awfulness. People have turned up for public executions all across history. It's only in recent years that the legal ones have stopped being treated as a spectacle. Using that as a benchmark, her own ancestors were monsters, and not that far distant.]

I still don't understand. If it isn't a game for whatever runs this world, Empress or Sun or... something... even the other you wouldn't say. What is it, really? I know what the other one is, so don't dodge to that.

[disregartist]

...

[She makes herself a tea with some whiskey in it. Does she even get drunk? It doesn't matter.]

For the most simplest reason, as Darwin put it: survival.

[She takes a breath, lets the heat and scent permeate her nostrils.]

Tell me. Did that figment of mine tell you about the Replacement?

[charmingheroine]

No. Maybe to the others, but not to me.

[She stares at the tea, trying to sort her thoughts. Out here the suns can hear. She's been too incautious already. But she has to know....]

Before explaining that, please tell me just what you mean by bringing up Darwinism. Is this meant to find those most suited for life in this world?

[disregartist]

No...not quite. I suppose adaptation is important, but there have been people who have died who might have been far suited to life in Albion then ten Londoners.

[A quiet sip.]

No, it's a question of time. It always has been. Even before the Empress came to the skies. The Replacement merely...complicated the issue to no end.

[charmingheroine]

And I still don't know what that is!

[She's being shrill, but she can't care. This is so close to the answers she wants, but Her Aubergine Highness is still so OPAQUE - she doesn't know how else to respond.]

[disregartist]

[A sigh. The kind a schoolteacher gives.]

An obvious euphemism for what happened to our Earth. The destruction of that world...the people still on it. Everything in the Neath.

By an Earth from another universe.

[charmingheroine]

[Were she from ten years or so later she'd probably be thinking what she just heard sounded like a bad movie, the kind of thing that only exists because the Russians have the Bomb - but she isn't, of course, and so it just sounds like something fished out of the slush pile at Weird Tales. The sincerity of the answer, though - she isn't being sniped at or mocked, this is possibly the most straightforward the Conductor has been.]

Not torn or woven like our worlds, just... suddenly occupying the same space, like it was... as if filling a vacuum?

[She is floored. It's the simplest answer, and the most horrifying.]

[disregartist]

It was the first tear.

[She pauses, cup halfway to her lips.]

Unlike all the others, a deliberate one. But what was that nonsense the Seekers enjoyed saying? 'Every invitation is a betrayal?' One would think they would have known better.

[A quiet drink of her tea.]

[charmingheroine]

They called it in, didn't they.

[She's not sure if that's the worst conclusion she's drawn in all her time here or not. The question that follows is giving it a run for its money, definitely. She had to be careful with phrasing, where the stars might hear, but....]

If there's something out there that controls space and time, something that may be mortal in its own way... do you think it's possible to prevent all this?

[disregartist]

You mean to go back in time. Even with the power of time on her side, the Empress is unable to accomplish this. Much has been done in what can be done with Hours and time-but it only slows time down, or hastens it.

[Sip.]

he only way to go back in time seems to be through a Weft of Unraveled Time. But that is...quite random, as you might have noticed. And dangerous. And really makes the problem worse.

There is no guarantee you will even go back in time and not go forward, in any case.

[charmingheroine]

There's no guarantees of... anything at all, if we just do nothing. That's all you need for evil to take root, isn't it, to give up and stand aside instead of at least trying - ?

[At this rate her tea will have gone as cold as it feels like her blood is - but it isn't as though she'll taste it anyway.]

How many people have told you what I just did, one way or another?

[disregartist]

So many I've lost count.

[A quiet sip.]

But they run under the assumption that nothing whatsoever is being done to address the problem. They-and you-are mistaken.

As I've said. The Little Courtesy is not a game. There is a reason it is played, and why it is time we seek. It is, as I have said, for survival. And-not just ours. Not just London's.

[She places her saucer down.]

Ours is like a sieve. It goes one way, for now. Towards us. But it will not always be that way.

[otherworldlyking]

[ Well, they do need to get their memories back somehow.

He's definitely up since he's gotten more than enough rest and he'll yawn as he makes his stop. ]

Still looking like that? Your face will get stuck that way.

[ He's not a tea guy but it's whatever so he'll hold out his hand, prepared to take it. ]

[disregartist]

I'll take the advice into consideration.

[Here you go.]

[technicolourdifficulties]

...Ironic that such bitter medicine would look so sweet, isn't it?

[When did RGB get here? Only a moment ago? Or was he here the whole time and just decided to speak up now?]

[disregartist]

Some, more than others.

[She holds up the syringe for RGB.]

What about you?

[technicolourdifficulties]

Bitter or sweet, memories sit better with me than dreams.

[He gets close enough to accept the syringe, though instead of actually taking it he gives a casual grin, as if what he was about to propose didn't make him terribly anxious.]

Would you mind doing the honors? From one monster to another, I'm sure we both would prefer this done as quickly and with as little fuss as possible.

i'm not late at all this is fine all things are fine,

[higanbana]

[Ris just watches her for a moment, hands folded behind her for once instead of in front.]

I'm a bit torn. There is a curious part of me that wants to question what, precisely, that substance is that you're having us ingest. And yet there is another that knows well enough I ought to simply ask for a cup and stay out of your way.

It's a bit strange. A few weeks ago, I would not have even seriously considered the former as more than a brief flight of fancy.

I do suppose I owe you my thanks, in that sense.

lol

[disregartist]

I see.

And which part, do you think, shall win out?

[Stirring the red substance into the tea.]

You are welcome, for what it's worth.

cw: abuse

[higanbana]

I suppose it depends. What is the likelihood of assault if I am to continue pestering you?

[It's probably extremely telling that she says that so casually, almost jokingly.]