deercountry | you can keep on getting better [open]

Entry tags:

you can keep on getting better [open]

Who: Anna Amarande and you!
What: May catchall
When: May
Where: A bar in Cellar Door, other locations to come

Content Warnings: Light alcohol use, conversations about humanity and murder, blood, vampirism

a. if you want, you can buy yourself a drink [at the bar]

[anna's made plans with a couple people to hang out this month. it's not a tense environment at all, and sometimes she can even be seen on the tiny little stage playing some chilled out bass grooves for the patrons. no concrete songs, really, mostly just improv for vibes. when she's not on stage, and most of the time she's not, she's nestled herself down into a booth down near the end. it's quiet, well-lit but not obtrusively so. people around here know her and know that that's basically her seat, so any conversations that happen there are as private as they're gonna get.]

[she's expecting a few people to show up as she nurses a beer that's so weak she might as well not be drinking anything at all. probably for the best that she's sober for these talks, whatever they end up bringing with them.]

Hey. Glad you could make it. [she tilts her drink at her guest.]

b. no you'll never drink like me [for kainé]

[there's always been a few problems with going out and hunting beasts, no matter how confident and comfortable it makes anna feel. no matter how many lives she saves, she's always putting herself at risk of corruption or injury or beasthood or all three, and one of these days it's gonna sneak up on her. all at once, extremely loudly and incredibly close.]

[anyway, when she comes back home this time, it's clear that she's been in better shape. she limps her way into the house, and she's at least cognizant enough to fix her roommate/girlfriend with a sheepish little look as she holds her side. the cloth there isn't dripping yet, but it's clear that it didn't start as red as it is now.]

Motherfucker out there got the best of me. [she's talking like she's not in pain, or like she's trying very hard to pretend she isn't.] I think I stopped most of the bleeding myself. Don't suppose we've got anything here that can help seal it up before I go to the doctor?

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[it was helping more than anna wanted to let on. there's still water. if there's still water, then there's still a chance for life, because humans have never once been the only thing on the planet. still, she seems distracted looking through pictures. none of them have her face in them; she's barely been outside recollé before now, much less to the places she's pulling up. but she knows what she likes.]

Here. [as she talks, she scrolls through each of the pictures.] This is what our cities looked like. This is Tokyo, one of the densest cities in the world. That's Tokyo Tower, and Mt. Fuji watching over it in the background. A lot of people don't think cities are beautiful, but... I don't know, they're what I've basically always known.

The next one's the Grand Canyon, that's a little west from where I grew up. If anything's still there on the First, this probably is. Then these last three are from Germany, where I was born. The first one is this place overlooking the Swiss Alps. Then we've got the Devil's Bridge in Kromlau, and the Saar Loop in Saarland. I never spent much time in Germany, so I never got to see any of this myself, but I always kind of wanted to go back one of these days.

Gonna have a damn hard time getting through the metal detector at the airport now, though. [that's a joke for her.] But yeah, I mean. This is... what Earth used to look like. At least the parts of it that I know about.

[Oho, pictures. He shifts his glass to the side so he can lean in and see the pictures, marveling at how- how different it all is? He'd seen only a sliver of the First, and he's sure ten thousand years have done their due diligence on the things in these pictures even without the apparent huge problems with the atmosphere, but still:]

I've never seen so many places in my life. The Sixth is— you know what it is, it's a rock with no atmosphere. Red dirt as far as the view screens can see. This is-

[He gestures at the pictures a little, hm, helplessly almost, still not entirely sure how to comprehend a place with so much variation. The Sixth is home, and all things considered it's a better place to live than other places in the Empire, but it's a burn little marble sitting too close to the sun; he's never looked at the view screens and thought it beautiful or particularly compelling. His gaze lingers on the Grand Canyon; even the endless stretches of dirt on the First - on Earth - put the Sixth to shame.

Huh.]

If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were fucking with me. I don't— God, the number of people, right? The numbers go that high. I'm flummoxed!

[flummoxed. he is tho.]

It's beautiful, though. Your Earth.

Yeah. Yeah, it's... really something.

[she spends a little extra time looking through things once he's gotten the idea. all these places of beauty that she never got the chance to see herself. it makes her wish, all over again, that she could go back, and now that she knows she can do it safely without running the risk of losing A2... maybe one day she'll be able to. the wistful nature of her gaze, she's sure, is creeping into just those few words. her attention shifts back to palamedes.]

Hey. I know it's not very likely, but if something happens here that... I don't know, gives us all glimpses of the places we came from or something. Lets us relive things or go visit our homes or whatever. [she knows that pthumerians work in mysterious ways. she should never count anything out. and the smile on her face as she offers is beyond anything she's shown so far. it's friendly, kind, open, and so genuine. maybe a little reminder of the beauty of the world is all she needed.] I'd be glad to take you along so you can see some of this stuff in person. Call it a research trip if it makes you more comfortable, but I think you just deserve to see this stuff up close.

Oh— the portals, but in reverse, maybe?

[Offered with lightly raised eyebrows and a little grin. He doubts they'll be able to reach their homes properly, not permanently by any means - but the thought of a visit is nice. The thought of wandering around any of the places in Anna's pictures is a little overwhelming, in an exhilarating way— imagine, to touch down on the First in its heyday. No Warden of the Sixth has ever managed that one, certainly.]

Thank you, though. That would be... I'd like that. I'm not sure you'd want to see the Sixth, but if you like, our view screens and the copper garden are big hits with guests.

[Everything else is grey corridors and locked laboratory doors, after all. Dark storage rooms, locked boxes.]

I'll bring my thickest notebook, if we get the chance.

Hey, I wouldn't mind being the first person from old Earth to set foot on Mercury. I'd love to see everything you've got to offer.

[this isn't the first time she's made friends with someone ten thousand years in her future, but it's certainly the most enthusiastic one. it had taken her months to get on A2's good side.]

So is that what being a Warden is all about? Taking notes on everything, kind of being the keeper of the lore for the whole House?

I'm advising you now, don't get your hopes up in any context beyond 'sentimental value,' unless you're interested in shades of grey.

[Just being realistic about his bland boxy home. Warden stuff, though, that's much more interesting for... nerd reasons?]

Technically, it's the Warden. The Sixth keeps the Library, including the pre-Resurrection archives, but most of that is lyctoral texts that are preserved such that they will outlast the heat death of the universe and all of us in it, so— don't ask me what they all say. I've only seen a handful of scraps from the immediately post- era, myself.

[Including but not limited to some fucked up shit, a love letter, and something mentioning an "EJG" that he has at least one meaningful theory about and none of the drive to go and ask.

Anyway.]

Scholar is our more common title, which you could consider named for the specialist; making Scholar is essentially— leaving school, if you aren't Cohort-bound. It's a broader, general title. Archivists are, obviously, what they sound like. Minutiae aside, we're fairly literal about the meanings: Warden is akin to a supervisor of sorts, not unintentionally named in order to associate with the sense of the prison.

[You know, normal Empire things!]

So in short: yes, like being the keeper, of the lore and everything else. Becoming Master Warden is an arduous process with a veritable mountain of exams practical and otherwise, but I had things I had to get done that only the authority of Warden affords. [A beat; he sips his water.] I'm in charge, more or less. Or I was, before I was here.

[lyctoral texts, huh. that's certainly an important-sounding word. it's a shame he doesn't know what they say, because, well. odds are she'd understand them better than he would, right? still, though, as he goes into the breakdown, she has to admit there's a certain sense to it. she nods along.]

Well, Warden Sextus, I think it makes a lot of sense why you're called that. I mean, if you're protecting these things from right after the Resurrection, they're obviously pretty important to the empire, right? And—allegedly, at least, don't get me fuckin' started—but you lock stuff up in prisons if it's a danger to society. Right?

[she sips her beer like she's just caught a canary. which is a mixed metaphor but the point is she's smug about it.]

Sounds to me like if any of this stuff got out there, it could cause the whole solar system that our beloved Emperor took for his own to crash down around him. Someone like you could do some serious damage if he wanted to.

[Ah; so it's this line, is it. He frowns at his glass, thoughtfully, then:]

I see what you're saying, and I hate to disappoint you, but I doubt there's anything like that hidden away on the Sixth. Somewhere else, maybe, [and his gaze flicks up from his glass of water very briefly, very pointedly, like maybe has she consulted the other local Imperial citizens about this? hm?] but the things in our archives have been read. An Empire that lasts ten thousand years doesn't leave its smoking guns lying around in a library; even a highly protected, helium-sealed one.

[The Sixth has always been called the Emperor's reason, a moniker Palamedes has assumed, based on his own instincts and those of everyone he's known from home, to be a tongue-in-cheek way of acknowledging that their long-late founder said "no" a lot. He doesn't know for sure and he's certain he never will, because God is a liar and his Saint refuses to say anything directly, but still:

Historically, people have read the contents of the Sixth archives, and no one back home was ever so devout as to write off an obvious damage-doer as "just part of the Emperor's grand plan," or anything.

There's something else.]

Someone like me isn't going to crash down an entire solar system to prove a point. Don't get me wrong, I can't stand the man, and a person only needs to be called an unfinished inbred by the Empire's most lovingly devout once to think, hm, maybe religion isn't it for me? But there are people I won't gamble with, there and here.

[He holds up his hands, like, hold on;] Still, it's not as hard as you think to push buttons. Just tell him you don't want to be in his special club of people whose lives he claims ownership of and he'll nearly eat his own tongue.

[PM sounds like he's had to refute this idea before, and maybe the line that anna's found is one she shouldn't have crossed. but he talks her through his protests very civilly, in a way that she can understand, and in a way that doesn't... immediately sound like she's offended him. so she's more than okay with just leaning back a little more and removing that whole concept from her mind.]

[she does suppose he has a point about long-lived empires leaving their worst crimes out in the open. her own only made it about 250, maybe 300 years tops before the kindly prince took it out.]

You know, the more you tell me about him, the more he starts sounding like the last guy I knew who made such a big fuss about God. Wonder if he's got some rebellious dyke of a daughter who fell in love with a mysterious woman who taught her how to live, too. [pause for laugh.] Man. I don't even wanna think about this bastard having sex. I'm sorry I brought that one up. But he sounds like a total fucking control freak.

[she leans in just a little more, resting her elbow on the table and letting her wrist hang limply. it's like she's sharing just a tiny little secret with him.]

Tell you what, dude, I would've been ready to kick his ass just from all that stuff you just told me. Even if he weren't some self-made emperor, some jackasses just deserve to get their shit handed to them.

[gee it would be weird if that happened twice

Palamedes sips his water, expression even. He isn't offended, or even particularly irritated; but Six for the truth, and so on and so forth. There's value to be had in putting his cards on the table frankly, without qualifications. He wouldn't lie to her and hem and haw around something of this magnitude, after all; best for everyone to be on the same page from the getgo.

Which is why he more or less told God to eat shit with all of his control freak Lyctor garbage, but at least Anna seems less likely to murder him out of pettiness.]

How many people do you think about having sex? [pfft. he holds up a hand,] No, never mind; that line of thinking stays firmly within literature circles.

[horny book club]

In any case: I see what you mean. I don't disagree, I just— [Hm; he drums his fingers against the side of the glass, frowning. He recalls listening to the Lyctor list her reasons for all her murders, her endless sins, as though she were justified and interesting about it, and he thinks, Is that not God, in miniature? Was she not an insufferable piece of shit in His image?

One time, he often thinks, is enough. He says,] Well, I've never kicked anybody's ass. I don't know how good it'd be for me, you know, emotionally.

[oh, thank god he's not going to make her think about the bonelord supreme doing some supreme boning. she will take this small favor and she will run with it for as long as PM lets her. which is roughly as long as it takes him to say he'd have some sort of emotional problems kicking someone's ass, and she nods.]

No, I get it. I mean... you should've seen me when I was a kid, you know? You think I jump to that answer now, I was a goddamn terror when I was younger. [with just a small hint of pride, she smiles and points at an incisor.]

That was the first baby tooth I lost. Some asshole punched me in the face 'cause I wouldn't let him call my little sister a weird nerd. [there's not a lot of pride in it anymore, or rather it falls off quickly.] But she never threw a punch herself. Never wanted to. Some people aren't built for it, but they're still some of the most interesting people I've met, you know?

Like this one guy, for example, has a literature circle where he talks about people banging.

The Sixth's literary canon is very vigorous, [he says by way of explanation, for that last bit. Just wait until he quits his minister job and becomes a smut peddler full time, that'll be a day to remember.

He makes a face for a moment, a thin smile, because somewhere in there whether she meant it to be or not is the implication that not throwing a punch is uninteresting, at least for other people. Palamedes has met those other people. Camilla threw more than a punch, for emphasis.

He holds up his hands, fingers spread, like Well...]

Well, I don't profess to sainthood, or anything. [ha HA ha] I've done my fair share of violence and wanting to do it, make no mistake. I'll own that.

[He runs through his mental shortlist of things that could inspire him to Do a Violence again, and:] For me, it would have to meet at least two criteria, bare minimum: first, it's personal; second, it's a last resort.

Mmm. [she nods again.] Yeah, I get that. I definitely think you could throw some hands if you needed to. I just hope nothing pushes you that far, you know? Way I see it, people with rules like that set 'em for a real good reason.

[something about still, nerdy waters running deep. though maybe she's reading too far into things again. whatever, it's not important, ultimately. or at least she's convincing herself it's not so she doesn't end up probing too deep into the life of someone who might not be ready to reveal it, whether with questions or assumptions.]

Real glad you're not above telling people to piss off, though. You craft one of those well enough, you can cut deeper than any sword. And in the meantime... well, hell. You much of a storyteller? 'Cause I think if it's not gonna be bringing down an empire, you probably have some lore in your head that could at least be good campfire fodder.

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