IC INBOX for The Last Voyages

[magician_king]

You know what to do.

Comments

[orderfromchaos]

It's not.

But you aren't far off.

[magician_king]

You know where I live.

[orderfromchaos]

Soon, then.

[Since that's about as genial an invitation as he expects he'll get for awhile. They live on the same floor, so he knocks about twenty seconds later.]

[magician_king]

[He gets up and answers. He's subdued today; it's different, now they're paired. It all feels more real and terrible.]

[orderfromchaos]

[Between two fingers, he holds up a tacky looking, but entirely real, $1,000 Bellagio poker chip. It seems to wobble a little in his grip, the purple-blue stripes closest to what would be 'north' on the chip face trying to bend toward Quentin.]

It know it doesn't fix the big things, and I know you've probably got plenty of people you could ask about doors. But I want you to have it anyway.

[magician_king]

[Quentin looks at the chip, then clues into the context, gently, carefully. It's his warden item.]

Thanks.

[He says, holding his hand out, palm up.]

Yeah, that'd be useful.

[orderfromchaos]

[Dillon drops it into his hand.]

I do want to check in, like, pretty often, since I won't have the death alarm. But you can text me to piss off if it's that kind of day, and that'll count.

[magician_king]

I don't text. I don't carry my communicator and I don't intend to start.

[He checks it during current events and bouts of insomnia.]

Come on in, you'd better sit down.

[There's a desk chair he gestures at.]

[orderfromchaos]

Something else, then.

[He scoots into the place he's offered.]

Thanks.

[magician_king]

Sock on the doorhandle?

[He settles down on the edge of the bed.]

I'm not mad at you. And I'm not going to be a dick for no reason. It's just- uncomfortable.

[orderfromchaos]

I don't think you will be. I just - I think you have reasons. Just because they aren't really about me doesn't make them not real.

[magician_king]

So how do you reconcile it? Believing I have the right to be pissed, with staying?

[The contradiction he couldn't sit with in the end.]

[orderfromchaos]

If I had a perfect world to work in, I wouldn't need to do the work, would I?

It doesn't - really feel any different to me than anywhere else.

[magician_king]

What's your deal going to be?

[He asks, eyebrows lifting just a little.]

[orderfromchaos]

...dear God, please do not let my world end up like the X-men.

[It's a joke, but also it super isn't. He runs his hand through his hair.]

There's going to be more of us. Soon. Thousands. I'm going to try and help them, but - I mean, like we didn't scare the world enough with just the six of us. I'm not waiting for it to go all entrenched terror and war crimes and then scramble on the back foot to salvage something, I've done enough fixing that only broke stuff worse.

So it's - preventative. Let the kids be alright.

[magician_king]

Wow, you're so fucked. You'd need the biggest perception-bender in the world to handle a bunch of high powered adolescents. Or they'll just be on Admiral-induced valium all the time.

What's happening, how does it work? How do you get to be you?

[orderfromchaos]

Gee, thanks.

[He kind of - means it, though. There's a nervous, guilty corner of his Catholic soul that has a hard time believing it's right, making a bargain like this for a problem that hasn't even materialized yet. It's hard to believe sometimes that he isn't just hiding from the hard work of getting everything right the first time on his own. But no matter how strong they are or how much less stupid they are at nineteen than fifteen, there's no way they can handle this for sure - and the costs of screwing up again are only going to be higher.]

Try toddlers. Or younger. Aviva's kid is transmuting metals from the womb.

We've got some leverage, and some knowledge - I'm not trying to keep the planet the same, there's gonna be mayhem. I just...I want the kids to be a little more like Winston than me. Fewer massacres before they get their heads on straight. And it'd be good if they - if they didn't have to go through the things we did to get control of the power. And if the growth curves were smoother.

[He's been thinking about it awhile. He looks down at his hands now, expression turning soft, a little sheepish. Outside of his own world, where their gravity is undeniable, it always feels a tiny bit silly to say.]

We're reincarnated stars.

[magician_king]

Okay, well, maybe it'd be a good idea to ask that the age of onset be moved up. Not that adults aren't dicks, but that way you could invite people into a community and prepare them for it before they go off- make it harder to access, or more dependent on you not being a shitty person.

Like a proactive step rather than a fuzzy outcome. Hell, even if you left it to his prescient judgement- 'please do something to make this more likely to be good,' there'd be less reality-ripping lag, or whatever.

[orderfromchaos]

I don't know how to find them without onset.

[He's also not sure he has a right to - it's their souls, after all, and their connection to the rest of themselves, and, at least as Dillon sees it, a gift from God. But.]

Maybe something like...a higher activation energy kind of bar? Where it takes more deliberate focus. So that they don't run around doing things on accident or impulse before they have any idea.

But - yeah, I'm mostly thinking the last thing. I've seen micromanaging fuck up so many different ways. Maybe I can do kind of a hybrid phrasing. 'Do whichever of these kinds of things would help most.' And then I can keep stuff like magic valium off the list.

[magician_king]

Let each of them find one good guide. Let it be predestined that someone who will steer them towards good, who they will love and long to impress, and who will value them in return- let them each have come across one soul to confide in who will try on their behalf.

[He proposes, closing his eyes and turning on the part of his brain that understands fate and fairy tales.]

And let that meeting ignite the spark.

[orderfromchaos]

[Dillon flinches, just a little. Bites his cheek and forces his body, in spite of itself, to let it bleed. The one thing he'd wanted so desperately, and that he had to learn to stop reaching for. He misses Tessic, suddenly, even more than his real parents, Tessic who built his vault prison and Tessic who lead him to drown in the memories of death camps. Tessic who believed in him, even if it was for the wrong reasons.]

I get scared, with that many conditions.

[He is proud of how even he keeps his voice.]

Or saying they have to love anyone. But - it'd be good. It'd be good if we could know none of them were going to end up clueless and alone.

[magician_king]

Clueless maybe, but at least living a life with a kind of upwards buouyancy. Not to say it isn't terribly common for good people to do things that turn out awfully, but I think everyone is at least a little different when they're trying.

But then again, [a self-aware little smile] maybe mine is not the word you should be taking for it.

[orderfromchaos]

I think. That I definitely need to listen to people that aren't just my own fears, so.

Do you think -

[What exactly does he want to ask - and, well, there's a lot there, isn't there. Because people are different when they're trying, and sometimes that turns out worse, which Dillon knows more about than he'd like. And there's the wry little self-deprecation -]

Do you think you should have been demoted?

[Very direct, this. Not quite blunt, not at all aggressive. Just the plain and tactless question.]

[magician_king]

I don't know.

[Because;]

It's hard to understand how I could have been a warden if I deserved to be demoted. I can see why I am where I am now, but I feel as though- I've always been this way.

[It's more complicated than that, but he can't find his way through it.]

[orderfromchaos]

[Dillon has - theories, about the Admiral, about wardening, but that's also all they are.]

I thought I should have been an inmate from the beginning.

[He admits. It's - since Lourdes came, maybe, that he started to consider otherwise.]

Well, what were you like, as a warden?