[There's a second of a hesitant breath before Duo starts talking- or maybe it's because he needs the oxygen for the rambling message that follows.]
[In any case, the voice attached to the network ID is way younger than it was the last time she heard it.]
...How did I get this number?
Well, anyway... Hi there! I'm not entirely sure you remember me or-- know who I am. Me-me, not the other me I guess you were talking to. But that was also me, apparently?
[This voicemail is getting offtrack...] Um anyhow, according to my notes you're one of the only ones left? 'cept Stark, he can fuck himself-- and... I'm feeling a little fish outta water at the moment. 'bout this place, about... what happened to the City.
--Oh, it's 'Shinigami', by the way. Hi, if you remember me.
[ Ugh. It's either a temporary thing, or it isn't, and either way, it's nothing Ruka wants to deal with on an ordinary basis, but after everything... well. Ugh.
But she owes a debt of sorts to the elder version, so.
I recognize you. I never met you, in the City, but I know who you are.
[ She sighs on the line. ]
So, you lost your years, but not all of your time in these worlds. Is that right?
[Oof. That's... older? Definitely older, which surprises him.]
We switch places or something?... Yeah, got it in one. I guess it started to happen more often, at this point. Seems like it's been a long time...
[A beat of a pause.] I took some time to go over everything there is here, all this stuff I'd found out before, but. To put things straight: ol' Grinbitch, she's here, or she's not here? Seems sort of nebulous at the moment.
Never thought it'd all come down to some kind of-- godly family squabble, but it just figures..
[ surprise motherfucker the child is A LONG-DISTANT MEMORY ] You got rewound. It's not common, but I've seen it a few times, before. I've only ever gone forward, one step at a time.
As for Lachesis... you could say both. She exists in this world, but she's been absent a long time. Most people who even knew of her thought she was dead until recently. We don't know where she is, specifically, but power remains to her.
['One step at a time', huh. He's finding that the scope of time that's passed in total is more than he initially figured it would be. For someone to grow from a child to an adult in that time- in that place- well, he didn't have to read his previous thoughts on that to form his. Straight shite.]
But she herself- she doesn't have control of the Porter anymore. Do we know what it is that does? Something about a child of hers, but... that's all?
I guess I'm sort of surprised that she'd allow the government of this place to have control over it, rather than shutting them out like the last time...
They don't control it any more than we do. Not in any real way. Like mall cops.
As far as I know, the "child" is a creation of hers, so it's an indirect control. A way to maintain it while she slept, and recovered, from the energy it took to bring us to this world, and the power spent to save us within it.
She picked this world for us. Out of all others possible. She wouldn't skimp and drag us somewhere that she'd be the one endangered at the outset.
[That gets a quiet chuckle out of him.] I'd say something about largescale military ineptitude, but it isn't like we could do any better.
...It's hard to think of her as benevolent, from just a few days ago, but self preservation's different. If Atropos is coming again, she must have something else up her sleeve the second time 'round.
[What he's really wondering, though, is why he's here. If the him that was here also remembered the City, if he was apparently older, more experienced, maybe a little less damaged goods than he had been feeling recently, what was the point.]
...How about you? [He ventures, hesitant.] When you got brought back again-- did you feel it was because you were... able to do something you couldn't, before?
[ If he's looking for encouragement, guidance, he is not looking in good places. ]
I'm not really the person who does things. Accomplishes great feats, or saves many people, or changes the course of a battle or a history. If there's anything useful to me, it's only as a measurement. A recording of history. An emotional barometer. A seismic scale for danger. That's all.
[Guidance? Maybe it was that, in a way; but it's not something he goes looking for typically. It's less guidance he seeks and more common ground, camaraderie, which isn't really any different than what he was offering just a little while ago- the last time they had a conversation about this.]
[Some things changed; others didn't.]
[He gives a little puff, not quite a laugh.] 'Nothing special', huh. I guess this place really puts one's scale of events in perspective.
[He'd say something, like 'I'm sure that's not true', but somehow from that reply he thinks it'd only get him snapped at. Too presumptuous, he's sure, even if he thinks it's true.] So she's just jerking us around for shits and giggles, still. That's it?
It's as good an answer as any other. What she wants for us, or how she feels for us, from the scale of her existence — it's not the kind of thing that helps the situation. Too many things are true; it makes reality more difficult to navigate.
She's capricious, but I suppose she's gotten more sentimental. Anything else is too nebulous for use.
[Even if she thinks she sucks at guidance or advice, what she's saying does help. He wants to know it how it is- history and facts he can get on his own. Perspective, educated point of view- now that was worth a thousand bucks.]
['Too many things are true'. An interesting way to put it, in a world where timelines and memories and the state of reality were all subject to change.]
I don't think sentimental makes me feel any better under her thumb. But hey; at least we don't have criminals running around mass killing people at every--
Oh, no. Nevermind. I did read an article about last week. Uhhh, at least they have police here? Still beats the City by a mile.
...I think I was making you a bike? Or maybe 'another' bike. I don't know where I put that so I guess bear with me 'til I find it, 'kay?
--He's still around? [Duo's tone trails off in surprise; from what he'd read initially, it didn't seem like that many would be left that he'd recognize, but that was already three.] Well how about that. Let's see, if I remember right, you guys were a couple years younger than us... Well as for me, I've been in the City just exactly a year now-- you think she did this on purpose? --anyway, and Quatre...
[Duo stops. Should he be so specific? He decides not to, just for Quatre's sake.] Well, we're not exactly aligned. I'm a little older now, all things told.
[......He's already read his notes enough that he should have expected her voice to be older, but while on the topic, he chews on the question anyway.] And you... It's been all this time, huh.
[He doesn't dwell on it for as long as he had older; he's gunshy to touch on anything too close, too rawly emotional. His own wounds are too fresh, so he quickly hops to the new topic:]
--Optimus? The Autobots, they...? Did they keep at it? Ahh, anyway, that's good to hear. At least if people could rest a little safer in that craphole...
I suppose. I never kept up with them very well, but a lot of them were... pretty good about that, I suppose.
Anyway, the timing's not that clean. My brother ported out and in a few times, so he's not as old as I am. He just turned sixteen; I lost a couple years, after we came here, so I just turned nineteen. It'd be twenty-one, if we hadn't left at all.
The ones who stayed the whole time, that's Stark, of course, and Mitchell Hundred. I don't know if you knew him; he arrived in September oh-nine. There's a couple others that came to the City later, but most left and were brought back, or only arrived near the end.
It might be deliberate. She always brings me back on the same day, if she ever puts me away.
Haha, some of them. I hear that's all kind of its own mess... [Especially the Cybertronian he just met here. Y i k e s.]
[Duo hums along, considering the evidence. So as it was back in the day, some things seemed.... randomized. Or at least, if there was a bias of some kind on the part of ol' Chessmaster, they couldn't see it. It always was a problem of trying to read intent out of nothing, wasn't it?]
Sixteen. So he's between us, then. [Closer to Quatre if he thinks on it.] Does he have-- you had.. shields, right? Along with the-- powers like Quatre's.
[He remembers that. The thing he remembers clearest about her was the way she had stood staunchly, stubbornly, defending people when Quatre had gone mad, while also showing concern for the effect on him, his power spiraling out of control. Both of them had played defense that day, Duo using his powers to sneak bystanders out while she shielded others...]
[As for the other power, well. He just had to look at what Quatre went through, again and again, to know how the other one went. He doesn't bother pressing on it.]
Hundred. No, the name doesn't ring a bell but that was barely two months ago. I guess I didn't come across him yet before I ended up here. That's a pain. What the heck's her fixation on a schmuck like Stark?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
voicemail;
[In any case, the voice attached to the network ID is way younger than it was the last time she heard it.]
...How did I get this number?
Well, anyway... Hi there! I'm not entirely sure you remember me or-- know who I am. Me-me, not the other me I guess you were talking to. But that was also me, apparently?
[This voicemail is getting offtrack...] Um anyhow, according to my notes you're one of the only ones left? 'cept Stark, he can fuck himself-- and... I'm feeling a little fish outta water at the moment. 'bout this place, about... what happened to the City.
--Oh, it's 'Shinigami', by the way. Hi, if you remember me.
[click!]
call back;
But she owes a debt of sorts to the elder version, so.
I recognize you. I never met you, in the City, but I know who you are.
[ She sighs on the line. ]
So, you lost your years, but not all of your time in these worlds. Is that right?
Re: call back;
We switch places or something?... Yeah, got it in one. I guess it started to happen more often, at this point. Seems like it's been a long time...
[A beat of a pause.] I took some time to go over everything there is here, all this stuff I'd found out before, but. To put things straight: ol' Grinbitch, she's here, or she's not here? Seems sort of nebulous at the moment.
Never thought it'd all come down to some kind of-- godly family squabble, but it just figures..
no subject
As for Lachesis... you could say both. She exists in this world, but she's been absent a long time. Most people who even knew of her thought she was dead until recently. We don't know where she is, specifically, but power remains to her.
no subject
But she herself- she doesn't have control of the Porter anymore. Do we know what it is that does? Something about a child of hers, but... that's all?
I guess I'm sort of surprised that she'd allow the government of this place to have control over it, rather than shutting them out like the last time...
no subject
As far as I know, the "child" is a creation of hers, so it's an indirect control. A way to maintain it while she slept, and recovered, from the energy it took to bring us to this world, and the power spent to save us within it.
She picked this world for us. Out of all others possible. She wouldn't skimp and drag us somewhere that she'd be the one endangered at the outset.
no subject
...It's hard to think of her as benevolent, from just a few days ago, but self preservation's different. If Atropos is coming again, she must have something else up her sleeve the second time 'round.
[What he's really wondering, though, is why he's here. If the him that was here also remembered the City, if he was apparently older, more experienced, maybe a little less damaged goods than he had been feeling recently, what was the point.]
...How about you? [He ventures, hesitant.] When you got brought back again-- did you feel it was because you were... able to do something you couldn't, before?
no subject
[ If he's looking for encouragement, guidance, he is not looking in good places. ]
I'm not really the person who does things. Accomplishes great feats, or saves many people, or changes the course of a battle or a history. If there's anything useful to me, it's only as a measurement. A recording of history. An emotional barometer. A seismic scale for danger. That's all.
Nothing really important.
no subject
[Some things changed; others didn't.]
[He gives a little puff, not quite a laugh.] 'Nothing special', huh. I guess this place really puts one's scale of events in perspective.
[He'd say something, like 'I'm sure that's not true', but somehow from that reply he thinks it'd only get him snapped at. Too presumptuous, he's sure, even if he thinks it's true.] So she's just jerking us around for shits and giggles, still. That's it?
no subject
She's capricious, but I suppose she's gotten more sentimental. Anything else is too nebulous for use.
no subject
['Too many things are true'. An interesting way to put it, in a world where timelines and memories and the state of reality were all subject to change.]
I don't think sentimental makes me feel any better under her thumb. But hey; at least we don't have criminals running around mass killing people at every--
Oh, no. Nevermind. I did read an article about last week. Uhhh, at least they have police here? Still beats the City by a mile.
...I think I was making you a bike? Or maybe 'another' bike. I don't know where I put that so I guess bear with me 'til I find it, 'kay?
no subject
But, you're right. No missing police here. We'd actually gotten that pretty well-handled, in the City, after a while. I'd almost forgotten.
no subject
[Duo stops. Should he be so specific? He decides not to, just for Quatre's sake.] Well, we're not exactly aligned. I'm a little older now, all things told.
[......He's already read his notes enough that he should have expected her voice to be older, but while on the topic, he chews on the question anyway.] And you... It's been all this time, huh.
[He doesn't dwell on it for as long as he had older; he's gunshy to touch on anything too close, too rawly emotional. His own wounds are too fresh, so he quickly hops to the new topic:]
--Optimus? The Autobots, they...? Did they keep at it? Ahh, anyway, that's good to hear. At least if people could rest a little safer in that craphole...
no subject
Anyway, the timing's not that clean. My brother ported out and in a few times, so he's not as old as I am. He just turned sixteen; I lost a couple years, after we came here, so I just turned nineteen. It'd be twenty-one, if we hadn't left at all.
The ones who stayed the whole time, that's Stark, of course, and Mitchell Hundred. I don't know if you knew him; he arrived in September oh-nine. There's a couple others that came to the City later, but most left and were brought back, or only arrived near the end.
It might be deliberate. She always brings me back on the same day, if she ever puts me away.
no subject
[Duo hums along, considering the evidence. So as it was back in the day, some things seemed.... randomized. Or at least, if there was a bias of some kind on the part of ol' Chessmaster, they couldn't see it. It always was a problem of trying to read intent out of nothing, wasn't it?]
Sixteen. So he's between us, then. [Closer to Quatre if he thinks on it.] Does he have-- you had.. shields, right? Along with the-- powers like Quatre's.
[He remembers that. The thing he remembers clearest about her was the way she had stood staunchly, stubbornly, defending people when Quatre had gone mad, while also showing concern for the effect on him, his power spiraling out of control. Both of them had played defense that day, Duo using his powers to sneak bystanders out while she shielded others...]
[As for the other power, well. He just had to look at what Quatre went through, again and again, to know how the other one went. He doesn't bother pressing on it.]
Hundred. No, the name doesn't ring a bell but that was barely two months ago. I guess I didn't come across him yet before I ended up here. That's a pain. What the heck's her fixation on a schmuck like Stark?