[ It does indeed feel much more fleshed out and shaped, the room of someone whose personality is quite known. It draws to mind the apartment rooms of white mould he saw, abandoned and yet able to see the personalities and histories of each person in it clearly. All except one, the one in the back with the notebook and the unknown sigil, the thing that still haunts him at the corners of his mind when he spares thought to it. He's curious about the blanketed structure for about all six seconds it takes for him to spy pliers and connect the dots, looking away politely before his gaze outlingers it's welcome.
He settles by the table, looking over what they've got, already imagining what else goes well with elderflower and tonic. ]
Come on now. It's only a pity party if you intend on throwing one... should at least replace the adjective with something nicer.
[ As much as today was... something, it's still a victory. ]
Go ahead.
[ Of course she doesn't need his permission to talk to or text anyone, take a minute or five or however long she needs. He's one room over anyway, after all. ]
It's very hard to resist good alliteration, is all. ["Pithy" party comes to mind, but that hardly works either. Can't hit the same punchy rhythm so why bother?] Maybe chuck the adjective route. "Thank Fuck We Made It" Party?
[It'll only take a moment, though. She pulls out the brick and taps out a quick message.]
Not like I expect a response, but oh well. [Kids will be kids. She frowns and fires off a quick message to Kate while she's at it. Then cuts herself off there. They'd be here all night if they went checking in with all forty sacrifices. Or worse, suddenly find themselves hosting them.]
[ While she's clicking away, he makes a decision of some syrup, elderflower, sparkling water. It's nothing spectacular given they brought home what their hands randomly grabbed and carried, but it's something. Pour it neat in a glass and it looks fine, like a soda. ]
Tell me about it. [Thank god the kids fucked up the ritual as much as they did. That god was a mess from top to bottom.] I wouldn't call it a Pyrrhic victory by any means, but the insanity makes it hard to swallow.
[Camille takes the glass with a fond smile.]
Muchos gracias. Looks good.
[Not too sweet smelling, a bonus. She always did prefer spirits, but in the dry life she must make due.]
[ Spanish... a language that presumably exists because slightly different Spain does exist in his Europa but we are yet to know its name. ]
Worldly, aren't you?
[ He raises a glass of his own, empty for now; he'll fill it after a clink. Just feels more appropriate to not have real alcohol in it for a toast, however unofficial. ]
[But she'll cheers him. The empty glass must be in solidarity, how kind. She takes a sip and makes a pleased hum. Simple, but it does the trick.]
The family fortune came off the backs of hard working immigrants and local white trash. Hog butchering. [Which has put her off the taste of pork permanently, though no one else in the family minded.] I know scraps of Spanish from the employees and a half-assed elective course in middle school, but beyond that? I haven't travelled much.
Stark opposite then. Been all around Europa when I was a kid, although if you asked me if I retained anything from all of that, I wouldn't say so.
[ The buzzing feels a bit louder, recalling that. He busies himself with a simple bourbon, sipping on it absently. ]
Lombardian's rusty, made sure my Bohemian would be passable enough if I was going to be in the area. Spent a lot of time trying to sound like everyone else in Rondon.
What do they sound like? Say a little something. I'm curious.
[The parallels between their worlds were just a little funny. Asa was from a version of Japan so horrifying to her she was glad it was in another dimension, but it was still Japan. The letter swaps on locations and string connections between Alll-Mer and The Lord Jesus Christ were something else.]
If Europa is anything like Europe, it doesn't surprise me that you've traveled. America as a country is bigger than the whole of Europe. Lots of conquered open space. Takes more than a week to cross by car, if you go for a straight shot.
[ Similarities between fucking Europe and Europa, so god help him. ]
...Seems excessively large, but what do I know. Maybe if the Kaiser hadn't had his eyes set so much on Prehevil specifically, he could've turned the entirety of Europa into a singular Bremen Empire.
[ As for the language question, he just waves a hand vaguely. ]
Things like ciau, comu stai, or mint mindig, something like that... though I'm sure Marcoh or Marina could have said either of those better.
It is. [Much too large.] With a lot of simmering discord between far flung states. Only one civil war thus far though, miracles abound. What brought the "Kaiser" to Prehevil?
[She cocks her head, taking a thoughtful sip. Far be it from her to claim linguistic expertise, but they do sound familiar.]
Bit of Italian? Sounds Eastern European too. Hungary or Ukraine, maybe. Who's Marcoh?
[ A slight frown. It's got him thinking those scattered thoughts again. Tunnels. Machines. Logic? Thinking of that last night in the PRHVL Bop, standing behind the counter, listening to Abella, Karin, and Olivia toss their thoughts back and forth, share their connections to the NLU and the war, discuss the Kaiser's motivations. How flippantly Karin advertised her Kaiser Critique, compared to Abella's thoughtfulness, to Olivia's quiet anxiousness about the ordeal and her sister. O'saa feigning indifference but Daan could see how he made little noise to himself, eavesdropping. Marina at the counter when she was done negging him for a drink, also turning to absorb it all with a small frown of curiosity of what was so special about her backwaters town.
Just them six. It felt like a lot and not at all. And now, it's likely all of them save Marina are gone. ]
...
[ Thrust from one journey of his memories into another. He thinks of Marcoh, the quiet giant. They barely had any time to talk. The most he'd gotten to speak to him since they departed from the train was the few words they exchanged as they wandered the apartments, commenting on his broad physique as they made their way through the bloodied hole in the wall. He thinks of his final 'words'. Guilt. ]
Just another unfortunate soul from the train... if they sound familiar to you, then I guess it has to be close enough although none of those names sound familiar to me.
...Hard to parse history when you're in the middle of living it.
[Especially on a ground zero. Tunnels and machines. Secret plots. Some kind of conspiracy?
One that went horrifically wrong of course. Perhaps it was unwise to ask more. Especially tonight. She's got her curiosities and they are morbid, but she can't stand the shadow that comes over his face when she pries. If it were anything productive maybe she'd push, something that might make him reconsider his plans, or help walk him through something vital?
But it's not. Just idle wondering. Camille hums and turns that nosy inquiry about-face.]
I do think it's funny, how much our worlds are all echoes of each other. You have people like Todomatsu, Asa, and the sorcerer boys Geto and Gojo. All three from the same country, Japan, but none of them are from the same Japan as the other. Then there's you, a little step to the left, but you're still cooking with ingredients from the same fridge.
Then you have the outliers, like Gale and Astarion and Karlach, or Izutsumi. But even then, they're not so foreign they're unrecognizable. The myths and mechanics, the languages...even the clothes. You'd think they'd be much further removed, but it's still familiar. Maybe they're strange at a glance, but I don't think anyone here is alien in the way they should be.
Makes me wonder if it's a sort of reflection, just one that gets distorted the further you go. Like mirrors in a carnival funhouse.
[ Maybe... just maybe if he'd had a fourth day. Or if he knew their suspicions had actual founding, then maybe rewind a day and start the search early. More time, more direction. Maybe then, fate could change... except little does he know that the Logic Route also ends in his end albeit in a much... less... worse way, so you know. Maybe it's a good thing he isn't getting mad inspiration here to try Route A even harder now.
He listens along, having half a mind to comment 'sounds like you were expecting textbook aliens,' only to snort softly when she drops the a-name herself anyway. ]
Was the dog not enough?
[ Though granted, it does seem like humans are still kind of the norm there, ish. Arcanists are a special group. ]
Maybe they just pull from what's familiar. You don't know if an actual alien would count for the summoning ritual of a man-made god... or something. Like how they coudln't just grab forty butterflies and meet the quota with far less issue.
[once again, maybe just leave your world forever Daan]
Pickles is still an Earth-style dog. If he had amphibian skin and eyestalks...
[Could be stranger. After two months a talking dog is almost passé.]
There’s diminishing returns on tormenting butterflies too. Can't hear them scream. [Imagine how easy creating gods would be if you only needed a bunch of bugs. Just burn a beehive and call it a day.] Just saying, when it comes to other worlds the last thing that comes to mind is London with the letter switched.
Though maybe speculative fiction hasn't hit an extra-terrestrial fever in Europa yet. Give it another twenty years, when you're landing rockets on the moon.
[ You know what's funny. That's actually in Abella's B Ending. She never quite gets over the trauma of Prehevil and decides to specialise from mechanical enginering into rocket science and intends to land a rocket on the moon. Insanity first off, but we love women in STEM.
He just raises a brow. ]
Europa has speculative fiction. Theorising about life across horizons has always existed. But given they're still trying to navigate Vinland first before trying the great frontier...
[ He frowns, obviously uncertain about the idea of landing rockets on the moon. That's neither here nor there though. ]
[ABELLA THE WOMAN THAT YOU ARE. I'm sorry i got both of your arms cut off we can get them back maybe, we have marcoh and olivia now....
Anyway Camille chuckles, shaking her head.]
Oh no, don't go accusing me of having imagination. Any flights of fancy I have are strictly borrowed from popular culture. We're a media people. One of our biggest exports is film.
I've always steered closer to the ground. Even as a kid, I liked history and the news better than fantasy. [She smiles, looking down into her drink. Remembering her immediate alarm and awe at the pyre, waking in cultist robes.] Probably why I panicked so much off the bat, beyond the kidnapping. Embracing magic and mysticism might be easier if I'd dreamed about it, even once.
You'd be surprised. Plenty of people can read fiction and just can't wrap their heads around it no matter how hard they try.
...
Hardly the norm for anyone. Just because I'd been through something frighteningly similar hardly means that's anything usual, and that the camp hadn't been any less strange. [ Cult robes and flowers were outlandish. ] ...Anyway, you don't need to embrace any of that.
Don't I? Can't go back to believing it's not real, can I?
[She shakes her head. His experience is exceptional, true, but all the sacrifices had been cherry picked for exceptionalism. Fantastic origins and terrible fates for everyone, save for her and maybe Todomatsu. She only sticks out because lightning struck twice in her family: a true crime wet dream, two female killers in one family. Drop Camille amid all these chosen ones, princesses and wizards and damned souls? She fades into the background.]
Besides, I'm not...certain, how I'd explain anything to anyone. Kind of dreading it, as a matter of fact. [She smiles, thought it's more a thin pull of the lips. The long line across her throat is going to be a bitch to justify, even with a life sentence of turtlenecks.] Guess I'll have to play it by ear.
[ That's probably what makes her different from the other blonde journalist. Actually sensitive, and doesn't have a stubborn granite skull. Daan's had little choice but to accept these things and he certainly would have preferred it if he were nothing more than a stranger caught up in a murder mystery. He never asked to be a surpisingly main guest in the thick of Prehevil, even if he doesn't know by how much -- and likely never will, much to his chagrin.
He seems exhausted the moment Camille mentions the idea of explaining anything to anyone. ]
It was already going to be difficult enough trying to acknowledge Prehevil. This place with its star-crossers and god-blessed wizards, and changing bodies or sprouting ears like it's nothing more than a prank...
I'll be lucky if they just laugh it off at best. Worst they can do is institutionalise me.
[ And actually so did Daan but uh, sadly for him, they gave him bnuuy ears so it wasn't fun for him ICly so he won't be volunteering that information. ]
Oh god. Well he embraced the cat pun curse pretty well, if his letter to me was anything to go by. If there was a guy who could take that bullshit in stride...
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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He settles by the table, looking over what they've got, already imagining what else goes well with elderflower and tonic. ]
Come on now. It's only a pity party if you intend on throwing one... should at least replace the adjective with something nicer.
[ As much as today was... something, it's still a victory. ]
Go ahead.
[ Of course she doesn't need his permission to talk to or text anyone, take a minute or five or however long she needs. He's one room over anyway, after all. ]
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It's very hard to resist good alliteration, is all. ["Pithy" party comes to mind, but that hardly works either. Can't hit the same punchy rhythm so why bother?] Maybe chuck the adjective route. "Thank Fuck We Made It" Party?
[It'll only take a moment, though. She pulls out the brick and taps out a quick message.]
Not like I expect a response, but oh well. [Kids will be kids. She frowns and fires off a quick message to Kate while she's at it. Then cuts herself off there. They'd be here all night if they went checking in with all forty sacrifices. Or worse, suddenly find themselves hosting them.]
Have you got enough to work with over there?
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[ While she's clicking away, he makes a decision of some syrup, elderflower, sparkling water. It's nothing spectacular given they brought home what their hands randomly grabbed and carried, but it's something. Pour it neat in a glass and it looks fine, like a soda. ]
If I didn't, you'd just have to settle for water.
[ Stay hydrated, folks... ]
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[Camille takes the glass with a fond smile.]
Muchos gracias. Looks good.
[Not too sweet smelling, a bonus. She always did prefer spirits, but in the dry life she must make due.]
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Worldly, aren't you?
[ He raises a glass of his own, empty for now; he'll fill it after a clink. Just feels more appropriate to not have real alcohol in it for a toast, however unofficial. ]
Cheers then.
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Hardly.
[But she'll cheers him. The empty glass must be in solidarity, how kind. She takes a sip and makes a pleased hum. Simple, but it does the trick.]
The family fortune came off the backs of hard working immigrants and local white trash. Hog butchering. [Which has put her off the taste of pork permanently, though no one else in the family minded.] I know scraps of Spanish from the employees and a half-assed elective course in middle school, but beyond that? I haven't travelled much.
Not 'til I got here, anyway.
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Stark opposite then. Been all around Europa when I was a kid, although if you asked me if I retained anything from all of that, I wouldn't say so.
[ The buzzing feels a bit louder, recalling that. He busies himself with a simple bourbon, sipping on it absently. ]
Lombardian's rusty, made sure my Bohemian would be passable enough if I was going to be in the area. Spent a lot of time trying to sound like everyone else in Rondon.
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[The parallels between their worlds were just a little funny. Asa was from a version of Japan so horrifying to her she was glad it was in another dimension, but it was still Japan. The letter swaps on locations and string connections between Alll-Mer and The Lord Jesus Christ were something else.]
If Europa is anything like Europe, it doesn't surprise me that you've traveled. America as a country is bigger than the whole of Europe. Lots of conquered open space. Takes more than a week to cross by car, if you go for a straight shot.
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[ Similarities between fucking Europe and Europa, so god help him. ]
...Seems excessively large, but what do I know. Maybe if the Kaiser hadn't had his eyes set so much on Prehevil specifically, he could've turned the entirety of Europa into a singular Bremen Empire.
[ As for the language question, he just waves a hand vaguely. ]
Things like ciau, comu stai, or mint mindig, something like that... though I'm sure Marcoh or Marina could have said either of those better.
[ They're natives of course they could. ]
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[She cocks her head, taking a thoughtful sip. Far be it from her to claim linguistic expertise, but they do sound familiar.]
Bit of Italian? Sounds Eastern European too. Hungary or Ukraine, maybe. Who's Marcoh?
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[ A slight frown. It's got him thinking those scattered thoughts again. Tunnels. Machines. Logic? Thinking of that last night in the PRHVL Bop, standing behind the counter, listening to Abella, Karin, and Olivia toss their thoughts back and forth, share their connections to the NLU and the war, discuss the Kaiser's motivations. How flippantly Karin advertised her Kaiser Critique, compared to Abella's thoughtfulness, to Olivia's quiet anxiousness about the ordeal and her sister. O'saa feigning indifference but Daan could see how he made little noise to himself, eavesdropping. Marina at the counter when she was done negging him for a drink, also turning to absorb it all with a small frown of curiosity of what was so special about her backwaters town.
Just them six. It felt like a lot and not at all. And now, it's likely all of them save Marina are gone. ]
...
[ Thrust from one journey of his memories into another. He thinks of Marcoh, the quiet giant. They barely had any time to talk. The most he'd gotten to speak to him since they departed from the train was the few words they exchanged as they wandered the apartments, commenting on his broad physique as they made their way through the bloodied hole in the wall. He thinks of his final 'words'. Guilt. ]
Just another unfortunate soul from the train... if they sound familiar to you, then I guess it has to be close enough although none of those names sound familiar to me.
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[Especially on a ground zero. Tunnels and machines. Secret plots. Some kind of conspiracy?
One that went horrifically wrong of course. Perhaps it was unwise to ask more. Especially tonight. She's got her curiosities and they are morbid, but she can't stand the shadow that comes over his face when she pries. If it were anything productive maybe she'd push, something that might make him reconsider his plans, or help walk him through something vital?
But it's not. Just idle wondering. Camille hums and turns that nosy inquiry about-face.]
I do think it's funny, how much our worlds are all echoes of each other. You have people like Todomatsu, Asa, and the sorcerer boys Geto and Gojo. All three from the same country, Japan, but none of them are from the same Japan as the other. Then there's you, a little step to the left, but you're still cooking with ingredients from the same fridge.
Then you have the outliers, like Gale and Astarion and Karlach, or Izutsumi. But even then, they're not so foreign they're unrecognizable. The myths and mechanics, the languages...even the clothes. You'd think they'd be much further removed, but it's still familiar. Maybe they're strange at a glance, but I don't think anyone here is alien in the way they should be.
Makes me wonder if it's a sort of reflection, just one that gets distorted the further you go. Like mirrors in a carnival funhouse.
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He listens along, having half a mind to comment 'sounds like you were expecting textbook aliens,' only to snort softly when she drops the a-name herself anyway. ]
Was the dog not enough?
[ Though granted, it does seem like humans are still kind of the norm there, ish. Arcanists are a special group. ]
Maybe they just pull from what's familiar. You don't know if an actual alien would count for the summoning ritual of a man-made god... or something. Like how they coudln't just grab forty butterflies and meet the quota with far less issue.
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Pickles is still an Earth-style dog. If he had amphibian skin and eyestalks...
[Could be stranger. After two months a talking dog is almost passé.]
There’s diminishing returns on tormenting butterflies too. Can't hear them scream. [Imagine how easy creating gods would be if you only needed a bunch of bugs. Just burn a beehive and call it a day.] Just saying, when it comes to other worlds the last thing that comes to mind is London with the letter switched.
Though maybe speculative fiction hasn't hit an extra-terrestrial fever in Europa yet. Give it another twenty years, when you're landing rockets on the moon.
[Or Kubrick is helping you fake it.]
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He just raises a brow. ]
Europa has speculative fiction. Theorising about life across horizons has always existed. But given they're still trying to navigate Vinland first before trying the great frontier...
[ He frowns, obviously uncertain about the idea of landing rockets on the moon. That's neither here nor there though. ]
Maybe your imagination just runs too wild.
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Anyway Camille chuckles, shaking her head.]
Oh no, don't go accusing me of having imagination. Any flights of fancy I have are strictly borrowed from popular culture. We're a media people. One of our biggest exports is film.
I've always steered closer to the ground. Even as a kid, I liked history and the news better than fantasy. [She smiles, looking down into her drink. Remembering her immediate alarm and awe at the pyre, waking in cultist robes.] Probably why I panicked so much off the bat, beyond the kidnapping. Embracing magic and mysticism might be easier if I'd dreamed about it, even once.
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...
Hardly the norm for anyone. Just because I'd been through something frighteningly similar hardly means that's anything usual, and that the camp hadn't been any less strange. [ Cult robes and flowers were outlandish. ] ...Anyway, you don't need to embrace any of that.
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[She shakes her head. His experience is exceptional, true, but all the sacrifices had been cherry picked for exceptionalism. Fantastic origins and terrible fates for everyone, save for her and maybe Todomatsu. She only sticks out because lightning struck twice in her family: a true crime wet dream, two female killers in one family. Drop Camille amid all these chosen ones, princesses and wizards and damned souls? She fades into the background.]
Besides, I'm not...certain, how I'd explain anything to anyone. Kind of dreading it, as a matter of fact. [She smiles, thought it's more a thin pull of the lips. The long line across her throat is going to be a bitch to justify, even with a life sentence of turtlenecks.] Guess I'll have to play it by ear.
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[ That's probably what makes her different from the other blonde journalist. Actually sensitive, and doesn't have a stubborn granite skull. Daan's had little choice but to accept these things and he certainly would have preferred it if he were nothing more than a stranger caught up in a murder mystery. He never asked to be a surpisingly main guest in the thick of Prehevil, even if he doesn't know by how much -- and likely never will, much to his chagrin.
He seems exhausted the moment Camille mentions the idea of explaining anything to anyone. ]
It was already going to be difficult enough trying to acknowledge Prehevil. This place with its star-crossers and god-blessed wizards, and changing bodies or sprouting ears like it's nothing more than a prank...
I'll be lucky if they just laugh it off at best. Worst they can do is institutionalise me.
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Sounds like we're both fucked.
[Eternal silence it is. Though—]
Who sprouted ears? I missed that one.
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[ And actually so did Daan but uh, sadly for him, they gave him bnuuy ears so it wasn't fun for him ICly so he won't be volunteering that information. ]
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Oh god. Well he embraced the cat pun curse pretty well, if his letter to me was anything to go by. If there was a guy who could take that bullshit in stride...
[hm.]
When was this?
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[ I THINK it was W5. ]
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I wasn't looking for admissions...
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