consolation | kenos inbox

[ Gray has never considered herself a participant of the political world. She didn't have a say in how things were run in her village, and in London she would have had to be eighteen years old before she could consider voting. So even though the hubbub surrounding the replacement of the Tribune should be her direct concern, she finds herself mentally dissociating as she quietly pets a cafe cat on the periphery of a fiery speech by one of the notable rabble-rousers of late.

Gray's gaze is absent as her mind wanders... but it snaps back into place as she recognizes a familiar face nearby. ]

Oh... Miss Caren!

[ She's hailing Caren before she can think of what consequences that may bring. ]

[It's a struggle to go outside in this city. Being surrounded by so many troubled individuals is difficult regardless of the climate, but the harsh burn of the sun only emphasizes those pains.

When Gray hails her, Caren looks like she could use the reprieve that sitting down at a cafe table might bring her.]

Ah... the young woman from Great Britain.

[Adjusting her sleeves, Caren crosses the way, moving patiently around the gathered audience to stand at Gray's side, close, but not joining her.]

Times are troubled. Desperation breeds desperation. They could probably learn a thing or two from having a coffee. Or perhaps smelling the flowers.

[ "The young woman from Great Britain"... It tracks that Caren wouldn't identify Gray in a normal way. Gray's hand pauses on the cat as her brain runs up against Caren's usual slightly dramatic way with words. ]

I find that spending time with animals is a good distraction.

[ Eager to avoid any strange conversation tangents, she bulls forward. ]

Um, have you had any pets?

[If she's aware that she's being steamrolled into something resembling normal conversation, Caren doesn't show it. Perhaps she's content to simply let the subject be led on for her, having no observations to make.]

Oh. I have a bird; it was gifted to me here. He is learning to talk.

[There are no other pets to speak of. Animals may wander around abbeys often, sleeping at the feet of priests and mooching for scraps, but they are free to come and go as they please. Only something kept inside on purpose can really be called a pet.]

A bird? Like a parrot?

[ She can't imagine Caren with a parrot at all, let alone such a typically colorful one, but she's also not sure what other birds talk... ]

Yes, a grey one. He's learning to speak. [She puts it this way because, even if Caren has also been teaching him, the creature seems alarmingly perceptive at times. Gray can probably get a decent idea for the kinds of things he's picking up, too, knowing his master.]

Sometimes he chews my hair.

[It's been growing wild lately, indicative of her precipitously spiking Discord, making her noticeably fluffier, albeit just as ghostly.]

[ Caren delivers that information with such a straight face. Gray looks at her in surprise, and then her lips stretch into a wry smile. She would laugh if it wouldn't feel so rude. ]

Does he have a name?

Oh? [Caren lifts her head slightly.] Ah, it's Andante.

[She is not particularly experienced or skilled in taking responsibility for another living thing. There's a significant difference between safeguarding a soul and safeguarding an entire life. Caren suppose it's much better than a child, however; on occasion, the animal's company has even been unexpectedly worthwhile when the quiet is unpleasant.]

You have no pets of your own? [Her gaze falls to the cat.]

Andante...

[ Gray isn't completely sure what that word means, only that it might be related to music. But it sounds proper and a little complicated, a bit like Caren herself. ]

I don't know if I would call them pets, but I have four chickens... and I'm taking care of a horse named Slow Dancer. I haven't decided on names for the chickens, though.

[ They probably deserve something better than "The first one," "the brown one," and so on. She follows Caren's gaze down to the cat, which continues to laze under Gray's hand. ]

Ah, I don't have a cat, but I've thought it might be nice to have one.

Chickens? I see. It would be respectful to ensure they have names of their own.

[There's something quaint about it, chickens and a horse in the middle of this city that often feels so tightly crammed together that the people and the buildings breathe as one.

Now that she thinks about it, it was a small country town that Gray was from, wasn't it? For all that she might be better off leaving behind the kind of world that held her old hometown, perhaps there's some desire for that kind of life remaining there.]

One could protect your barn...or wherever you keep the other animals. [Not in the house, surely?] When it comes to purpose, it's a practical choice.

Yes, I think so too.

[ It's a practical choice. All practicality here. No other reason why she might want a cat.

As they talk, another cheer rises up in the crowd as the nearby orator says something particularly enticing. Gray glances over, then back to Caren. ]

By the way, what brings you to Springstar, Miss Caren?

[ It isn't really a time of rest and relaxation with all the political excitement that's been going around lately. ]

[She knows there's certainly no reason beyond practicality that Gray would want a cat! That's why she follows up with,] Of course, a working cat would also free you of the need to have it sleep inside.

[The riled crowed ripples around the dissident's inciting speech, and she's reminded yet again that this city and its inhabitants are aching. That was why she was called here, wasn't it? Caren blinks at Gray for a moment before it occurs to her that they haven't met in quite some time.

The last month feels like a nothingness - which is impressive, as it also contained the countless days spent bent over a cure for the Blight, a cycle that felt too familiar to her.]

Well, this is where I'm staying, so I've been here.

[ Gray sits up with surprise, which in turn makes the cat look up lazily. ]

You're staying here? Did you... decide to change sides?

((also i briefly forgot that with the timing on this thread the brainwashing would still be semi-...washed so we'll just say her recollection is a little fucky still lmao))

[Caren tilts her head to the side at the reaction. She hadn't expected it to be so pronounced. Is this really so surprising? Had Zenith ever really claimed her close to its heart?]

... I was invited.

[The answer comes a bit slowly, like it needed to be assembled before it could be released.]

There's a dark spot in Meridian's heart... a fear of loss. [Unlike the loss that's already been felt and processed by Zenith, perhaps. Once that could propel people to act in desperate and unforgiveable ways.]

Huh...

[ As always, there's a cryptic element to Caren's answer that Gray feels unqualified to decipher. ]

Couldn't you also say that Zenith's dark spot is that they've already given up on their worlds?

Are you trying to exile me already?

[Knowing how Gray reacts to nearly everything she says, Caren assumes she's likely to take it as another humiliating jab. Maybe that's why she just can't let it go, knowing that even the most lighthearted things will be taken as gnat bites.]

That's what I thought from the beginning as well. To align with Zenith means accepting loss. Farewells are not easy. Perhaps I was hasty in "giving up" on a world I should be more grateful to, for granting me the opportunity to live.

[There's a little less conviction to her voice at that point, though; the circumstances of the other bearers seem to concern her more.]

[ Caren is right that her teasing immediately puts Gray in apology mode, so it's a good thing that Caren runs that right over... Her defense of their world sounds a bit weak even to Gray, more obligation than affection, but knowing what Caren's role was in the Church, Gray can't blame her. ]

Is there anything you miss from our world?

[ Just out of curiosity... ]

[It has nothing to do with missing anything...there could be not a single object or person in the world belonging to her and it would have exactly the same worth.

But Gray is wrong about one thing, at least, in that obligation and affection are intertwined. Because Caren's love extends into the world, she had been willing to release it. She had been equally willing to love those living in this strange, new, temporary world, and whatever came after it. Another inexplicable miracle. Another universe's worth of sins to weigh down.

But the influx of Meridian sunlight that entered her - however it happened; Caren doesn't remember the full details of what happened during the struggle for the Oracle - pulled the existing thread harder.]

Let's see. There's a town I grew fond of despite myself. It's a place I hardly know anything about, and yet when I think of it I feel an inexplicable nostalgia. It was an agreeable place to stay for a while.

[ A town Caren grew fond of "despite herself." What odd phrasing. It sounds like, for whatever reason, Caren is hesitant to admit to herself that she's allowed to like things. ]

What did you find agreeable about it?

[ The people, the scenery, the weather, the food? It's pure curiosity on Gray's part, to know what Caren values. ]

[no shit gray]

Do you know, it would be difficult to say.

[This is surely an answer that Gray will find cryptic, like some sort of puzzle that Caren has laid out for her to slide the pieces into place. But unlike her typical acrid tongue, this isn't something she's dangling at arm's-length.]

The people there were too happy, enough to make me sick, but I wouldn't mind staying among them for a while. What I know about them or about living in that town is disconnected. Maybe I'm just remembering a dream.

[For her to have this inexplicable dissonance, an attachment that exists in her feelings but not in her mind, shouldn't be something to dwell on for so long. A dream that should vanish but survives shouldn't be, but is, the glass dome under which a fleeting happy memory is pressed.]

[ Too happy? What a strange thing to be disgusted by. Gray has seen what it means for a people to be terrifyingly jubilant, but she has a feeling that isn't the case here. ]

Isn't it normal to want to be among happy people? What did you want to see in a new world as a Zenite... if not that?

[Sorry that some of us literally get sick when we're surrounded by too much happiness, Gray? It is, at least, a much different experience to poke at people when they're happy.]

I didn't give much thought to it. However, I thought it was an impractical promise, that a world already totally lost could be restored in kind. [Indeed, the first thing that toward her toward Zenith had been more of a distrust of Meridian from the start.] I hoped the lost would find a place where they belonged, if I had a hand in it.

[Her actual hand clasps her elbow as she speaks, squeezing there, seeking some kind of control, perhaps.]

[ How altrustic of her. It strikes Gray as at odds with her demeanor, but in the context of the Church, Gray supposes this sort of solemn righteousness is actually on-brand. Though all that squeezing Caren is doing at her elbow is a little suspect... ]

When I think of what world I'd like to see, I have a hard time. A world too perfect would be unnerving. And if a perfect world stays perfect forever, it's just trapped in time.

[There are things in her memory that should not exist there, though the longer Caren lives with them, the more she feels some reconciliation with them and the less she hopes things will even out and disappear. To hear Gray describe a stagnant, perfect world makes her spine feel like the first cracking line that snakes up glass.]

Hah, [she breathes slightly in understanding.] So a world that is both beautiful and hollow holds no appeal to you.

I do not think an ideal world can be without flaw. It cannot even be with pain or unhappiness. The center cannot hold... and it's human to change.

[ Gray nods slightly, for once feeling that they're on the same page. ]

Our world was flawed, but it created the people I cared about. If there's a more perfect version of it, I don't have the creativity to know what it would look like.

[ Though maybe the creativity has already been done for her. She blinks as the thought comes to her. ]

I suppose the Garden of Eden was supposed to be paradise, but I don't know if most people would count that as their preferred paradise.

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consolation - 2023-08-19 19:45 (UTC) - Expand

kenos inbox

mid-to-late June...

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YOU SHOULD BE RESTING

shh i'm resting at my computer

hmmmMMmMmMmMmmMmmMMmm idk if it works like that

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