Conversation Space: The Ultimax

[powersthatbe]

You feel as if you've stepped through a door.

Comments

[favors_thebold]

"Mort would be better at this than me, or ROSE if she didn't leave you to puzzle the whole thing out by yourself, but I'll try. We are the Mystic Journey, and the Mystic Journey is us." There's clear capital letters, when she says it. "What shape does your soda have without the can?"

The drink might be the part you're there for (or... not so much, if it's black garlic soda, apparently), but without something to give it form, it's just a puddle.

"A Fellow Traveler is one whose universe has the same shape."

[comebewe]

Well. Matthew did already have a visit to Death on the agenda. Now it's apparently a necessity.

"A player would need to be...more like you?" he says, head tilted to the side. "An idea? An archetype? A being whose themes are reflected through reality?"

[favors_thebold]

"If you weren't at least a tiny bit like us in the first place, I'm not sure we could bring you here at all. Obviously, there have been... gaps in our understanding of each other. But that's not the shape I meant. The ideas that govern your realities have the same shape we do - not the spectrum of emotions, not the shifting of constellations, not the power within dreams, not things better left undiscussed."

It's a definition that prevents the seats of power from being taken from the outside, more than anything else.

[comebewe]

"Then...what shape do you mean?" Matthew says, frowning. "Why aren't we Players already, if we are already a bit like you? How did you become Players in the first place?"

[favors_thebold]

"That was so long ago, I couldn't tell you. But you're not players yet because you didn't know you could be, and we didn't give you the chance to find out. I gave you the chance; you'll have to take it from here."

[comebewe]

"But you think Death would know," Matthew says, more a statement than a question. "He's one of the few of you that understands time."

[favors_thebold]

"He is. And he's easier to get a straight answer out of than Ix." She loves Hermit, she really does, but he was cryptic before he was a wolf. That hasn't exactly made him more forthcoming.

[comebewe]

"Right," he says, sighing. Death is not exactly his favourite Arcana. They have never really managed to let get of the grudge they have, for being Marked in the first place. "Anything else useful you might tell me before I go talk to him?"

[favors_thebold]

"The less I know about your plans, the better. It'll make it harder for any of my siblings inclined to stop you from catching on, and besides, I'm looking forward to the surprise."

[comebewe]

"We are not concerned with giving you a surprise," they say. But she did have a point. "And should I be concerned about Death? He wanted to stop the game. I imagine this isn't what he had in mind."

[favors_thebold]

"But you are concerned about being caught, I'd think." She can't not look forward to the surprise. It's in her idiom.

"It probably isn't, no, but he thought you were people well before I did. I don't think he'd interrupt."

[comebewe]

Matthew shrugs. He can't argue with that.

"I'll be off to talk to him, then." They reach up, about to tear a portal back to liminal space. But then he pauses, and looks at her.

"We do not like the Arcana," they say. "But I don't want you dead. We are glad you live now."

[favors_thebold]

"You don't have to like someone to not want them dead. I'll take it."

[comebewe]

He gives her an awkward nod, before reaching up once again to open the portal.

Time to go visit Death then.