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[A far too cheerful sounding voice pipes up over the Network, the owner of it nowhere to be found in Liminal Space in a rather telling way.]

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your pilot speaking-

Everyone okay? Anyone gone missing after the last Jaunt?

... Any newcomers we need to get off the brainway asap? Because just arriving and then being run over would really not be astrous. At all.

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Still here, barely. No new faces yet that I know of, or folks missing that I've noticed but... it's hard to be sure for either of those.

... Giovanni is missing. Dio mio...

I'm sorry. [ and he is, though he doesn't have the context to understand his friend's pain. Ambrose himself has only spoken to Giovanni twice, once as l'Aquila, but... ] If he's... trapped,I'll help bring him back, if I can.

I pray to God he can be returned to us. He... he deserved more time.

[ more... oh. oh no. ]

I-I hope he'll have it, and that I'll have the chance to know him better. Leonardo... tell me about him, if you want to. What he means to you.

[He falls silent for a long while, trying to bottle up his grief and worry to answer his friend's request properly.]

... Ambrose, I owe everything to Famiglia Auditore. My success, my security, my life many times over, particularly to Ezio.

[His Betrayal tattoo stings in real life, and he has to take a moment to recompose his thoughts.]

I love them more than my own family, though I did not know them all as well as I should have. Giovanni was one, I say with utmost regret. I only just began to truly know the man. I had met him once before, in my world, briefly... but it was in passing. I knew his wife, Maria Auditore, far better - bless her and the ground she walks upon.

But the instant I introduced myself to him, he treated me so kindly. He promised to protect me, watch over me, without question, as if... as if I were one of them. As if I belonged.

[ for a moment he’s overwhelmed by a memory of the Queen and her consort insisting he stay for lunch, tiny DG balanced on her mother’s knee and Azkadellia smiling shyly from across the table, how it became expected and then natural as he was enfolded into the royal family. laughing at the court gossip about what it meant, wiping away embarrassed tears when he’d confessed to not realizing how lonely he’d been, his joy at belonging- ]

[ he flits back to the present a heartbeat later, before the dark annuals swallow them all whole. ]

When I see him next, I’ll thank him for that. [ maybe it’s naivette, maybe it’s pure stubbornness, but Ambrose is not going to relent on that point. they’ll find Giovanni again. ] That kind of gift is… an uncommon generosity.

[The little spark of hope Ambrose offers him is, perhaps, what he needed. Surely, if Ezio vanished and reappeared, then his father could do the same... surely they could meet again...]

... it is. I would almost say it was a miracle, but I know better than that now. They are... a very protective family, towards their allies. I was very lucky to meet Maria, let alone befriend such an amazing woman. And I was luckier still to meet Ezio, and now Giovanni.

[And Ambrose may detect the slightest psychic impression of a smile.]

Hopefully messer Auditore will accept your gratitude a little easier than he did mine. I am afraid both he and I suffer from offering thanks easily, yet accepting thanks is a rather difficult task for us.

Hopefully you'll both learn to. [ and hopefully the gentle teasing comes across there, even as he turns a little more serious. ] And even if all that was the result of luck, it was deserved. Everyone... deserves to belong somewhere.

Yeah, our population is a little more fluid than most.

[ that and Ambrose is really bad at paying attention apparently. ]

Not helped by some folks vanishing on Jaunts. What were you up to this time?

Who vanished? I was just lurking as usual.

Infiltrating again? I'll guess Peregrine, if that's the case.

Why's that?

Blending in the multitudes, cuz there were a lot of them. I could... see them, most of them, even if they'd faded. Probably a leftover spirit-sensy thingy from H-- England.

[ the name of the place is still difficult, he avoids it if he can.]

...I was seeing a lot of ghosts, basically.

Ghosts or ghosts? I mean, the Trumps have shown us dead people before...

Ghosts, mostly, but there was one ghost, he wasn't a Peregrine though. A Sithen that became an Angel, I think. He... looked like the boy they'd made the innkeeper's son in Harrogate.

[ there. the name's out but it wasn't his son, it was Laing's and he must keep that distance, he has to. he can't. ]

I couldn't do anything to save him this time either.

[He's silent for a long, long time, mulling over his choices before slowly responding:]

You know he's not real, right? Just like 'Ambrose Laing' wasn't real.

[ oh, no, Laing was plenty real, as were Violet and AM/BRs and all the rest. everything they experienced and everything they did, Ambrose feels it reflected back to himself. ]

If that were true, people wouldn't start relationships - make families - based on what happens when they infiltrate. The grief is real, even if he is just... someone like Tobi. I still can't switch that off.

He's... look, he's going to keep showing up, whether we like it or not. Or until the Trumps decide to get rid of him for good. Is this going to affect your ability to keep your head in the game?

It hasn't yet. [ snapped, almost. impatient. ] Tobi was one of my Cousins in Dolorosa, this is... no worse than that. A-and if Dick turns out to be as perpetually doomed as he is then I'll figure out how to live with it. And if I can use a connection to him, knowing his behavior, then all the better. If anything this is an asset.

... So he's either someone to feel guilty about or to just use?

Can't it be both? [ no, no it cannot. ]

I miss the boy who they made the son I never had. As a Traveler, I can hope his information helps us. Should I choose between those?

Sounds like manipulating for information, that's all I'm going to say.

What else should I do? Ignore him?

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turbedon - 2015-09-09 14:17 (UTC) - Expand

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wholeheaded - 2015-09-10 03:25 (UTC) - Expand

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