returnjourneynet | text // aq. // 01

i ran across antarctica barefoot

[Volk tries to filter this private twice, tries once to filter it away JUST from Silco, then gives up.]

Why can't I DM? fuck this thing. Where are you?

[ about to get drunk and blow up a gun,

well. there's time. she shuts the minibar door, postpones responding to aki: ]

i can meet u somwhere.

[It only takes one time getting dragged out of bed to be a distraction for someone who was only very briefly noted as a doctor to figure out that Silco thinks this is a game and that it's winnable through metaphorical brute force. No point in interacting with people like that - just move out of the way and wait for them to bite off something too big for them to chew.]

sure. library's alright?

my fav

[ Across the ship, sealed cadaverous into a bunk that he won't leave for the next twenty hours, Silco dreams of being read for filth by a disheveled gothic gnome.

Meanwhile: Alice starts walking. It's a wrong turn or two before she makes it — the Peregrine outsizes its current population, and though her steps are steady, the shadows aren't. The hallways are long; they were longer in the tomb, ]

Hi, [ Head poked about the doorframe, cautious, to spy the only man within. They must be about the same size — though the hand that tugs at her blouse is almost disconcertingly long. ] JAV?

[Volk is in the library when he's awake and bored, which are two things that always accompany each other these days. He's in a hoodie and pajama bottoms. Both from yesterday, because who gives 1 entire shit about anything any more.

He takes one hand out of the hoodie pouch to wave. This has to be AQ - new people aren't hard to spot in a crowd of less than twenty.]

Yeah. Hi. I'm ... Volk.

[Wait, should he go over there, or is she going to come here, or -

He kind of halfway-wanders over. Hi, welcome to the, library with no books and a judgmental bird robot.]

Alice.

[ Is a quick answer, the kind of quick that trips over its own tongue not for eagerness but as a matter of perpetual imbalance. At least he looks normal — what'll pass for it. After an acre through Fillory and straight into space, her standards are fully shot.

She meets his eyes, but only briefly before they're torn away. She circles the owl with fingers splayed, worrying at her lip. ]

Do you have Chuck E Cheese?

Edited 2022-02-08 11:11 (UTC)

What, like here in the building? Yeah, it's next to the cafeteria.

[He puts his hands in his hoodie's kangaroo pocket. His inner voice is telling him to shut the fuck up because he actually thinks Alice seems like she has a head on her shoulders, which is something this place URGENTLY NEEDS, but not even Volk can make Volk do this.]

God, I'd believe it.

[ She shakes her head, finally snorts something like a laugh. It's caught halfway - inelegant. ]

If that thing starts playing the banjo and selling pizza, I don't even know what I'm going to do.

I realized right this second that I miss pizza like I've been, fucking, widowed.

And — calzones —

Fuck off, [Volk says, staring into the middle distance like it is the cruel and loveless sea which has taken his betrothed from him.

Wait.]

Hang on, you got here two seconds ago. Maybe actually fuck off? I haven't decided.

Like I haven't been living on trail mix for a month.

[ Her chin tips, avian — briefly a mirror to Archimedes above. A sidelong expression: ]

Will you be offended if I say you're the most normal person I've met so far?

Offended? I guess not. I think it says more about the people you hang out with than anything.

[Smirking a little.]

Probably. If you start telling me you're an international assassin or whatever, I'm rescinding your award.

Violence adds harm to the world, it's a net loss for the cost of an individual gain.

[He sounds not preachy just... dismissive. Like he's just done the math and it's not a logical investment.]

[He blows out a puff of air in a stressed sigh and runs his hand through his hair.]

Actually, that's what I didn't want to say over the network. It's ...not just you and Travis with stories like that. It's a lot of us. None of them match up with consensus reality, and none of them even match up with somebody else's impossible story.

Edited 2022-02-18 00:08 (UTC)

[ how does non-violence sound threatening when he says it off-hand like that —

not the point. it takes a moment, drifting to one of the tables, to work out what that point is. ]

With your reality, [ She corrects, ] Right? That's what you mean. That there is no consensus, other than maybe — I don't know. This table. And if the only commonality is anomaly, you're left with two possibilities: The total insanity of the situation, or.

[ Her smile pulls a little sad. ]

The total insanity of the situation.

[Okay, yeah, good idea, he's following and pulls a chair out to sit Incorrectly in.]

With my -

[COME ON MAN, IT'S EVERYONE'S REALITY.

Okay, no, yeah, she's got it. She got it faster than anyone else he's explained this to.]

That's the problem, isn't it. Which one? Occam's Razor is one thing, but what's more likely to be true? That there's something out there, and it individually wants a couple of random specific people to be better, so it launched them into space? Something that has never happened?

Or that you can do anything you want to delusional people, and to prisoners, and no one will believe them. Which... happens constantly. All the time.

Yeah. [ She rakes a hand through her hair. ] Like you said: The problem with Occam's Razor is that there's a hundred ways to cut. Which one's right?

I can't answer that. [ Alice examines a few black strands, twined about her fingers. Wipes them free. ] I think it's structurally impossible, as a question, to answer. Evidence doesn't matter. Why trust it? The baseline's already screwed. Even if we agree on the present moment, we could be working from different definitions. We could have been doing that for years outside this place.

But that gets into, like. What if the green I see is different from the green you see, territory. So.

What do you want to do about it?

I've been here before. That's my evidence.

[He looks at the table, picks his words not with any ominousness or self-hate but with precision, like a jeweler setting tiny stones.]

I know what I am, even if it's a surprise to the rest of you. I promised years ago that if I ever got this bad I'd take the emergency exit.

[Volk makes a gun gesture against his head.]

That's what I want to do. Can you imagine how humiliated we are from the outside? What everyone thinks of us?

[Death rather than shame. Death as an equal rather than life as someone pitied.]

What we should do, that's another story. I've got no doubt that this place is real, that you're real, that the consistent lying about where we and what we're here for are is both real and purposeful. I'm pissed off about that either way.

People think of you?

[ Maybe that's unkind. It's meant honestly — head cocked, eyes wide with attention.

(The rest, it seems, can wait. He wants to get even? Well. That's better than dead.) ]

[Volk scoffs. No one's heard of him here. That's their fault, not his.]

Girl, I'm verified.

[Blue check mark! Feel free to imagine this in the gayest tone possible. girl please.]

I'm not super, [ A loose gesture to herself — ] Clued in? To pop culture.

What?

It's ... it means that I'm notable enough that people will try to impersonate me.

Like, not a lot of people, but you only have to find an account roleplaying as you once.

Edited 2022-03-01 00:57 (UTC)

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saklas - 2022-03-01 00:58 (UTC) - Expand

text // aq. // 01

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grandpa pressing a hand over his heart, touched

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institutional abuse mention

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cw suicidal ideation, ableism

probably just a cw for that from here on out

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