...I still hope that it's not necessary, I really do. I'm positive you aren't the only ones who would want him back, and I don't know if anyone's even been informed on that end-- I went to see Hugo more or less immediately after I left. [so maybe she just got an early answer, she isn't sure.] But I wanted you to know that it's an option.
[a slight pause, there.]
If it does turn out that way, then if it isn't restricted to myself and Claude-- if I can pass it to someone else for the week, I will.
[He asks it softly. His head is spinning with a lot of different, complicated feelings - grief and anger and a little bit of self-loathing - but he's good at multi-tasking through a little bit of emotional turmoil.]
[the worry doesn't go away, not really. but she's doing her best to hold on to what she can, to try to make her own emotions something more reassuring-- there's hope, she's not giving up on that unless someone else comes back.]
Alright. Please just, uhm. . . there's no need to delay, this is a useful item. If there's time, just. . . the message I told you before. That we care for him, and we tried.
...I don't know. I've found that-- well, you realize after the fact that there are still things you'd have liked to say. Either because you were never able to in the first place, or... because they just aren't there to say them to, at the time.
It's not yet. Not just because of this-- I don't know if your dorm has discussed yet, but it sounds sort of like we might not be all that far from... reaching some sort of end.
They're still around, and they can be reached. There has to be a way beyond bringing someone back early.
I know. Every time it feels like we're getting closer, it just-- we just find ourselves blocked again. And I don't know how, exactly, we're going to do it, but...
[she shakes her head, there.]
I've seen a lot, in my lifetime. A hundred different worlds. I've seen some-- some pretty existentially horrifying shit, honestly, and lost people close to me, and you know what I've seen happen to my world, but-- I know there's just as much good out there. That there's plenty of it in the people here, despite everything. There aren't-- for all the death we've seen, it's not just because there are that many people here who are killers at heart. I've seen so many people here do their best to try to do good anyway, and there are... impossible things, that sometimes still manage to happen.
[it's something she's trying so, so hard to hold onto. especially after yesterday, how everything felt then. she thinks about how it felt like some sort of small miracle, to know one of her friends was dead and then see him stride in, alive, right in time. how it's felt over the last year or so to finally have the chance to bring more of her family together, and to see the things they've accomplished despite her worries and fears.]
This is just going to have to be one of those impossible things.
...I don't know if your world has studied this, exactly, but what do you know about bonds, Caleb?
[He listens to her and lets it wash over him. He knows she's right, and it means a little hearing her say it when she is a pragmatist, she doesn't choose optimism without considering the ugly facts, too.
So his feelings do seem to settle a bit, like he is trying to hear her out. A little resistance, but it's not rejection.]
They're a discovery we made, while studying the power of the Light of Creation. Any two things in existence are linked through bonds, through-- infinite unobservable threads that hold the universe together. There are a number of observable phenomena explained by bonds-- gravity, magnetism, and so forth-- but... the connections we share with others, those are also a type of bond. Sympathy, empathy, affection, love. I've known love to, very literally speaking, hold people together when they would otherwise have lost themselves, and those links that we have to each other, that we develop and treasure, they're-- those are a part of the fabric of the universe itself, and there is a form of power in them.
The ship we used to explore the planes, it didn't run on any kind of fuel at all, it quite literally ran on those bonds.
[she's quiet for just a couple of moments-- maybe in part to rest her voice a second. it's still not sounding great.]
...we've been building them here, too, this entire time. Whether the people we're connected to are living or not.
[It takes him a moment to try to wrap his head around this; he's trying to think it through logically, academically, and it's a bit hard to make sense. But there's a feeling of recognition, when she says love holds people together who would have lost themselves. He knows that all too well. Love is what broke the person he was molded into, shattered him into broken and painful pieces, but love is also what started to put him back together. The notion of it powering a ship is a little alien, but then again. . . he has seen it prevent an entity as powerful as Lucien from hurting them. He has seen his friend use powerful magic, not granted to her by any god, but born out of love for her childhood friend. So. . . maybe.]
That is something else. I'm not sure I fully understand, but. . . I like this idea. It's only that. . . these people are my family. I've already lost one, I don't want to say goodbye to another. I need to put them first.
... I'd feel the same way, if my family were here.
[she's been fine with it, being the only one here. it means she's the only one who has to deal with this, that none of them are in any danger here. that she doesn't have to risk them, or see them hurt in the same ways others have been.
but if they were, she'd have done anything to try to keep them safe. they couldn't lose more.]
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It won't work until the new week. But. If you do end up needing to send a message-- I can.
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I see. Good for you.
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...I still hope that it's not necessary, I really do. I'm positive you aren't the only ones who would want him back, and I don't know if anyone's even been informed on that end-- I went to see Hugo more or less immediately after I left. [so maybe she just got an early answer, she isn't sure.] But I wanted you to know that it's an option.
[a slight pause, there.]
If it does turn out that way, then if it isn't restricted to myself and Claude-- if I can pass it to someone else for the week, I will.
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There was a little bit of hope that was keeping him going, and it feels like it was just pulled out from under him.]
It's alright. It's alright. Use your item, you have earned it.
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[she'd rather make sure they see him one way or another, though she's holding out hope it won't be needed.]
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[He asks it softly. His head is spinning with a lot of different, complicated feelings - grief and anger and a little bit of self-loathing - but he's good at multi-tasking through a little bit of emotional turmoil.]
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[the worry doesn't go away, not really. but she's doing her best to hold on to what she can, to try to make her own emotions something more reassuring-- there's hope, she's not giving up on that unless someone else comes back.]
Starting tomorrow, I believe.
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[that's first on the list.]
You're sure that's all?
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[He toys with his scarf a bit, distracted. A little bit of guilt and regret. There is something else left unsaid, but. . . ]
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[Not only for Molly, for every goodbye he's ever had.]
But what is there to say in a few brief words. It's too late for all of that.
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They're still around, and they can be reached. There has to be a way beyond bringing someone back early.
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[He sighs a little.] I don't know what we'll be going back to. He died, and his body is someone else now. Something else.
I was going to save him, if we made it. Try, I mean. But it's. . . it feels like everything wants this to fail.
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[she shakes her head, there.]
I've seen a lot, in my lifetime. A hundred different worlds. I've seen some-- some pretty existentially horrifying shit, honestly, and lost people close to me, and you know what I've seen happen to my world, but-- I know there's just as much good out there. That there's plenty of it in the people here, despite everything. There aren't-- for all the death we've seen, it's not just because there are that many people here who are killers at heart. I've seen so many people here do their best to try to do good anyway, and there are... impossible things, that sometimes still manage to happen.
[it's something she's trying so, so hard to hold onto. especially after yesterday, how everything felt then. she thinks about how it felt like some sort of small miracle, to know one of her friends was dead and then see him stride in, alive, right in time. how it's felt over the last year or so to finally have the chance to bring more of her family together, and to see the things they've accomplished despite her worries and fears.]
This is just going to have to be one of those impossible things.
...I don't know if your world has studied this, exactly, but what do you know about bonds, Caleb?
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So his feelings do seem to settle a bit, like he is trying to hear her out. A little resistance, but it's not rejection.]
. . . Bonds? In what sense?
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The ship we used to explore the planes, it didn't run on any kind of fuel at all, it quite literally ran on those bonds.
[she's quiet for just a couple of moments-- maybe in part to rest her voice a second. it's still not sounding great.]
...we've been building them here, too, this entire time. Whether the people we're connected to are living or not.
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That is something else. I'm not sure I fully understand, but. . . I like this idea. It's only that. . . these people are my family. I've already lost one, I don't want to say goodbye to another. I need to put them first.
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[she's been fine with it, being the only one here. it means she's the only one who has to deal with this, that none of them are in any danger here. that she doesn't have to risk them, or see them hurt in the same ways others have been.
but if they were, she'd have done anything to try to keep them safe. they couldn't lose more.]