15strangers | FINAL WEEK

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FINAL WEEK

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.]

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[So, over a month has gone by while they’ve been stuck here. Fifteen people whittled down to nine. It’s good that they didn’t lose more, yeah, but he wishes that they hadn’t lost anyone. He actually cares about the majority of people here, with only one notable exception. Being helpless to actually help the situation...he hates it.

But...it’s not like he can do anything now. He’s got no magic friends to call back on from home. Just the people on this train. Hopefully they can figure something out.

The majority of the day, King can be found in the lounge, reading a couple of the provided books, Lisa sleeping on his lap again. The books are probably garbage, but it’s not like he has many other choices, especially when trapped by a cat.

If you want to ask him anything, he’ll probably answer. He doesn’t really have a reason not to, now.]

[Here, King. Have a sad girl curling up with her knees to her chest and her back against your chair.]

What would you do if you realized you were wrong about... everything?

[Hey Charlotte! King now wants to hug you, but for now will just close his book and look down to her sadly.]

Speaking from my own experiences? Try to make the best of things. Even if the world’s been turned upside down, we couldn’t just give up, could we?

[He’s had experience being wrong about things. He should be able to help with this.]

[Charlotte laughs softly, a mirthless sound.]

I thought that's what I was doing with everything I decided on, refusing to give up. I thought I knew better, and... well, it could have gotten either me or Mithos killed for something we didn't do, for one. I'm trying to make this place make sense in my head and I can't, it's like...

[She pauses, and tips her head back - can't see King from that angle, so she shifts around until she's looking up at him. It really does feel like being a tiny kid and looking up at her best friend's father, somehow. She's definitely asking the same kind of questions now as then, it's just the stakes are higher when "but what if somebody was going to die if you didn't kill another person, isn't that what soldiers do?" isn't a hypothetical posed by a precocious five-year-old.

Come to think of it, John had given a very clear answer then, grave and stern but not angry - "We're not soldiers. We kill monsters, we protect people." She'd been a fool to justify ignoring that. A terrible, awful fool....]

The only comparisons I can think to draw depend on literature, and I didn't think to ask you before about it. Your Earth still has Oz and Wonderland as concepts everybody who reads English knows, right?

[Given the portrayal of talking animals in both tends towards... not exactly flattering to the point of potential offense in a place where such people exist, she's probably on thin ice here, but it's better to know and avoid the topic in future than to charge on in with an extended metaphor that amounts to an insult.]

Well...no one said you had to be perfect in what you think, right?

Yeah, it would be nice if we were all perfect in what we thought, that we could all agree on the same things, and pretty much come up with the right ideas for any problem, but...it's just not possible. Not in the slightest.

[Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone. Charlotte is still a kid. She has plenty room for mistakes still, as far as King's concerned.

He nods a little bit at the question.]

Yeah. My world still has Alice and Dorothy and all that.

Good to know, when I can get my mind to stop running in circles around itself.

[She flashes a quick rueful smile, and with another little huff of humorless laughter, she leans against the chair a bit more heavily than intended.]

I probably shouldn't have downed that tea so fast, earlier, my head's killing me. We're only hu - mortal, perfection is impossible, but... that's not an excuse not to strive towards it.

But maybe that's just an excuse, too. She said she's heard it all before, more times than she could remember... I was ready to give up, because Jonathan would never forgive me for wanting to end this so completely, and then... King, this whole place is feeding on worlds and people from outside itself. I can't be perfect, fine, but I can't let this happen to anyone else. I can't.

[Ah.... King. They're due a talk. Have been for a week. Um.

....How about he just grab a book and sit down right nearby? Stare at the redactions and imagine what might have been there.]

[Ah. Minato. They’re very much overdue for a talk.

Minato doesn’t seem to want to take the first step to actually talking, though, so he’ll try to initiate the conversation.]

Hey, Minato.

[...well, it’s a start.]

Hey.

[A great start. He does remember the extendy-arm thing...]

...Guess....you're not too mad? [He did. Kind of aid in bombing the train.]

I’m...I am mad, but not at you.

[Clarifying that, first and foremost.]

I don’t know everything that you did, but I’m sure you did it to try and help us with the situation at hand.

Am I right?

Didn't....didn't do a lot. Gave information, that's all, not even everything they wanted. Kind of thought they'd ask for more eventually, but...

[He didn't expect a bomb - or at least, he expected to be informed first.]

Said they were trying to help us. And others, on these trains...said- said there've been hundreds. Wanted to put a stop to it.

And...they decided some collateral damage is just fine...

[He lets out a frustrated sigh. The people were leading a kid into killing the entire train. That’s...the kind of messed up that makes him want to...talk with them by himself, armed with some sort of weapon.

But...the other matter at hand.]

Hundreds...and you’re sure that they weren’t exaggerating or anything? Trying to make themselves look better than the Empress?

[While he can believe it, so far they’ve only heard about this happening on the train he was on before, and this one. Wouldn’t they’ve heard about this more if there were hundreds going through the same situation?]

Don't think it was Auntie. ....Might've been....don't know. Don't know enough details about the organization.

[He regrets it, not asking more.....but if he's supposed to keep himself alive, does he dare try to contact them again? He's clearly outlived his usefulness.]

Not sure if it's really hundreds, but...talked to the station master in Menahoven. Sounded like they've got a lot of routine. This has happened before, plenty of times. And he said we wouldn't be the last.

Either way, people saw us as expendable.

[And he does not like being seen as expendable.

That latter part...he needs a minute to think. It's already happened plenty of times. They might not even be the last group that has to go through this. And with a bunch of different worlds to choose from, that means...

Nobody he knows is safe.

He takes in a shaky breath, covering an eye with a paw.]

So...we have a lot of people going through this kind of thing. And rather than trying to fight this Empress directly, the resistance tries to just upset her by blowing up her hostages.

I'm sorry, but if we get the chance, I'm thinking we have to put a stop to both of them.

[Both sides are clearly terrible, to the point where he's genuinely unsure of which side is worse, only that they both need to be taken down, ASAP.]

Don't think they're totally unified. Know they want to attack her control of information and time... Not sure how this is supposed to help.

[He....can't say he likes the idea of taking anyone down. He understands sometimes there's necessity, but he's killed one person and has barely been able to eat anything at all since.]

Sounds like fighting her directly is a good way to die, though...

So...maybe there are some good people there. But if they don't take care of that bad egg soon enough...

[He's not saying it directly, but the implications are probably clear, given how he glares out a window at nothing for a second. He's not letting someone get away with that.]

I know, and if we want to actually take her down, we may have to fight, but...I just think at this point, the woman can not stay on the throne. I mean-she's setting up multiple trains with people being forced to kill each other. That's not someone that should be left on in charge, don't you think?

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[minor backstory headcanon sirens go here]

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