[walkabout] Duck? Rabbit, Duck? [backdated to the first week of April]

[capital_asset]

I'm beginning to feel like I'm monopolizing the network, but... two things:

One, I had another prophetic dream last night: The Manticore looming over a puppet theatre, making a skeletal marionette dance on the graves of the Third Reich.

Two, I think I've figured out who we're carrying around with us - or rather, whose soul. Have any of you heard of Koschei the Deathless?

Comments

[breakaleginhalf]

[Private]

[Well, he's not surprised at all by that response. Nor the dissociating, but he's not sure how much he can do to ground Raidou with that one; even if Raidou were the kind of person who appreciated physical affection, it would probably just make it worse to ask if he needed a hug or something while he's. Like that.]

Yeah. No, that's entirely legit. But we've been here for a pretty good few weeks now, we've gotta be more than halfway through this. It won't be for much longer.

[Unless Raidou getting killed again doesn't bring him back in another borrowed body; but if there's no guarantee he won't get his own body out of it, Gil's not about to suggest it in a hurry.]

[capital_asset]

[Private]

The last time something like this happened, there was a week and a half left to the Jaunt. But that was an overlay, and not... this.

[This being a completely different body. No matter how alien it had felt to Jouhei after a decade or so of Ai being in near-complete control, it had at least been his body.]

[breakaleginhalf]

[Private]

[At least when Gil used to die a lot, he was always in the one body. He can't really imagine what it'd be like to wake up in a genuinely different body each time, not one that's just got some fancy new scars. He doesn't want to, frankly.]

Sounds about the same as now, yeah. Just gotta take it one day at a time, right? And with how fucked everything is, they're coming at us fast enough that we'll be back in Liminal in no time.

[capital_asset]

[Private]

I'm not sure whether that's comforting or not.

[His mental voice still mostly sounds hollow and distant, but there's an undertone of dryness in that statement, which could be taken as a good sign.]

[breakaleginhalf]

[Private]

I think it just is what it is. We can do this.

[capital_asset]

[Private]

[There's a pause while Raidou takes the time to absorb Gil's words.]

You're right - we can.