Conversation Space IV.

[powersthatbe]

The small room is painted a dark beige, with stained wood paneling on the lower half, and lush burgundy carpeting. The ceiling, however, is cracked and bowed, sagging alarmingly, occasionally shedding chips of plaster. Wrought-iron lamp-posts in the corners suspend pale, wan globes of light, and between them along the walls run rows of painted sunflowers, all turned towards the center of the room as if listening attentively. A jutting spire of granite rises from the floor on a diagonal, its flattened top sporting a cracked wineglass from which the wine (a white) slowly spatters teardrops across the plinth. And there is no chair, but a therapist’s couch, blue with gold trim, and ornate scrollwork on the legs, beside which the fluted horn of a phonograph player pipes music into the room, quiet enough to just be background ambience.

Comments

[itsananimalthing]

Riddick almost thinks he should have belonged in the last room, between the way it looked and the way this one looks. It's not entirely attractive, but it's still a lot brighter and more friendly than what he figures suits him. He plucks up the wine and tosses it back before more of it can drain away-- no point wasting it-- then settles his back against a wall to wait, expression sober and arms folded across his chest.

A lot of the important questions have already been asked. But he has a few of his own.

[iseethe]

"Riddick."

The alto voice is yet again slightly different than the one before. The figure in front of him--willowy and androgynous, skin greyish, like a black-and-white photo--is wearing a silver-tasseled flapper's dress and the mask from the Solstice Masquerade.

"It has been some time."

[itsananimalthing]

"Yeah, you could say that," Riddick agrees, no inflection to his voice or expression on his face. He's good at the whole "impassive" thing. "And I hear you guys are bein' pretty free with info, this time around, too."

[iseethe]

"Some of us may be," she says, almost casually. She touches one of the globes of light. "Why--do you have questions?"

Did the smile on her mask get slightly wider when Riddick wasn't looking at it?

[itsananimalthing]

"Think we all do, but yeah, I got some in particular." He doesn't offer anything for them, like he did last time. He's not opening himself up to that without her making the suggestion. He does push up from the wall to approach her, though. "How much've you been payin' attention to us, between our little chats?"

That's less one of his important questions, and more a means of gauging what all he has to ask. Whether she'll understand or even care where he's coming from when he gets to the big stuff.

[iseethe]

"More than some Travelers think, less so than others," she says, ambiguous as always. She places her grey hand on his cheek.

[itsananimalthing]

At least he can take that to mean "not all the time", which is a bit of information to start with. He resists the urge to twitch back and away from her, holding very still instead. His eyes are still hidden behind his goggles, so it's hard to tell just where he's looking, unless you're looking along another spectrum. "So when's the last time you checked in on me?"

[iseethe]

"Time's relative," she says, letting go of his face after a second. "In liminal space, moreso."

The space of half a dozen heartbeat, and then, "You were alone. Deliberately so. You'd have thought you were SAGE's--not mine."

[itsananimalthing]

"If you know anythin' about me before you snatched me up for your game, here, you'd know that's how I spent a pretty big chunk of my life," Riddick reminds her. "I'm pretty used to it." It isn't as if he and Hermit don't share a number of traits, too.

[iseethe]

But she took her turn first.

"It was during that tacky display of MALBOLGE's," she says, examining her fingernails. "The time before that? You were examining the floor while a naked thing of Mei's shrieked."

[itsananimalthing]

Okay, that does get a snort of actual amusement. "At least he was helpful while he shrieked. Almost punted him off the catwalk, though." More than once. "So tell me this. You got allies here, with the other Trumps? Friends? People or things you care about? Or you all just doing your own thing?"

[iseethe]

"Does a very friendly rivalry count?" she asks, looking up. "We all of us want to win it for ourselves... but there are ones we'd find more acceptable to lose to than others. Hakan and Mei, for instance. If one cannot win, they would wish the other to."

[itsananimalthing]

"And what about you?" Riddick presses. Got to be specific, with Moon, if you want anything at all-- anything she isn't willing to share for free, that is. "You got any special ones you wouldn't mind winnin' in your place if it had to go that way?"

[iseethe]

"Didn't I mention a friendly rivalry?" she asks. "Sol," she says decisively. "In a pinch, Miss I Have Many Names."

[itsananimalthing]

Though he's not sure who that is, he's pretty sure it's not Strength, Judgement, or Emperor, which are the three he cares most about not fighting against. So he nods grimly. "So you got somebody you care about in here. I got some of those, too. One of 'em your group did somethin' with recently."

If Moon has been watching him, she'll know who he's talking about.

"Where did she go?"

[iseethe]

"Your lover," she says, quietly. "Penuel's girl. She has gone out of ambit, recently. You don't really understand how that happens, do you? It's not often something we would trigger deliberately. We don't need to."

[itsananimalthing]

"Nobody does, sister," Riddick points out. "It ain't like we got an instruction manual with this Traveling shit. So explain it to me. What's 'out of ambit' really mean, and what causes it?" And how does he fix it, but he'll be able to better work that out once he has an answer to the first two.

[iseethe]

"Sometimes," she says, in a distant voice, gazing at the wall, "the mind rejects Liminality. Individuals fall out of ambit. It requires more energy than we care to spend to retrieve them while their minds are still in rejection, so we leave them there. In time, sometimes, their minds begin to reach out again, so that they may become retrieved."

She looks back to Riddick. "You Travelers call it Dungeons."

[itsananimalthing]

So she's still here. He's not sure whether he's relieved or pissed off. He watches her, keeping his expression impassive, but there's tension to him, too. He's silent for a moment, digesting that, weighing what to ask next. In the end, he does with: "What happens when this is all over?When one of you fuckers win this thing? Do we all go back where you took us from? Or do we get to do it all again for a new set of Trumps?"

[iseethe]

"That depends on who wins," she says, simply.

[itsananimalthing]

"So you guys decide what to do with us, in the end. Guess we gotta hope for somebody generous. What happens if you win? What's your world you wanna see happen?" Because Moon's... ambiguity... seems hard to impose on everything else in the universe.

[iseethe]

"We all want a universe that better reflects ourselves. Should you aid me, however..."

She touches Riddick's cheek again, lightly. Her flesh feels almost like silk. "I'm sure we can come to an accord, pilgrim."

[itsananimalthing]

This time, he doesn't even tense up, just staying put. But he smirks faintly. "That don't answer my question, sister. What does the Moon's universe look like? I gotta make sure that's a universe I wanna live in, after all."

[iseethe]

She laughs, low and amused. "Dear servant, you should know it would be out of character for me to give you a straight answer on this. It is one I think you will do well in. This current universe was Fortune's. Use that and what you know of us to extrapolate."

[itsananimalthing]

His hand comes up then, to grab her wrist, if he can. "Call me 'servant' again, and you'll find me fightin' for somebody more like Tower or Emperor just to spite you. You might have more information than me, maybe more power, but that don't make you better, or any kinda master over me."