IC INBOX for The Last Voyages

[magician_king]

You know what to do.

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[magician_king]

"I think that when you're brainstorming, no idea is too nuts. They might spark off to something good, right?"

He says, with a grin.

"You could- go back in time and marry a prince from a medieval castle."

[utselet]

She laughs again, though less incredulously now.

"Fine. I can... get a hot air balloon and go around the world in eighty days like Phineas Fogg. Or... become a werewolf, go to California, and run my own pack."

[magician_king]

"Um, if that's an option, why are we having this conversation? You should be a werewolf."

Says Quentin, brightly.

"Unless you want to come with me to Fillory and be a were lion."

[utselet]

"What do were-lions do in your Fillory?" she asks, leaning back and crossing her legs as if he's pitching her something.

"Lark told me that women are the leaders where he's from. You can offer me better than this?"

[magician_king]

"I actually have almost no idea. Would you be going with Lark?"

He wonders, tilting his head.

"Is he how you'd werewolf?"

[utselet]

"I honestly have no idea, either." She chuckles.

"But I thought we were talking about fantasies?"

[magician_king]

"You could go be- a famous hollywood actress of the golden age. Act alongside Chaplin."

He says, with a widening smile.

[utselet]

"I am a very good actress," she acknowledges, a shade ruefully, but with a smile.

"Maybe it doesn't even need to be silent film. Marlene Dietrich, Yul Brynner-- they had accents and still got to work."

[magician_king]

"Everyone would want to work with you."

He agrees, with a grin.

"That, I have no trouble believing. You could go further back- find a Vermeer or a Leonardo and be someone's muse. Shakespeare's Rosalind. Or you could be your own Russian writer. I bet you'd have a story to tell. Worst case scenario, grab a copy of something by Dostoevsky, find a date ten years before he was born, and publish your magnum opus."

[utselet]

She considers this, but decides: "Too far back. I might not have grown up with much, but I liked the things I had. Shower, refrigerator..." She touches her hair absently. "Hairdryer."

Something occurs to her and she smirks, glancing down at her clothes, then back up at him. "And I don't know if I'd like wearing a corset all the time."

[magician_king]

"Oh my god, you're right- I forgot how awful fashion could be for women in the past."

Thinking this over.

"You could go for the future? 2015? I feel like you'd like iphones, after some adjustment, but like you might hate hipsters."

[utselet]

"Maybe," she agrees, more seriously. "It feels like that's where-- when-- half of you are from, anyway. Around that time."

She's still not sure how she really feels about coming back after the end of the war, after the fall of communism itself, but she has to admit: "I got a TV for the holidays -- that's the year on it. Electronics do get very fancy in the future." She cocks her head. "Have you ever seen it? You might like it." She grins sheepishly. "I mean, I know you've seen a television, but this one has games on it."

[magician_king]

"Maybe. It depends what kind it is. We had something like it when I was a kid, but I'm a bit out of touch with that kind of thing- didn't have them at school, or in Fillory."

So there's every chance the system- or at least the games- will be unfamiliar.

"You could design an amazing barge based video game."

[utselet]

"Me?" She laughs, shaking her head. "Out of my league. The only reason I know about the games at all is because of a... another friend I had at the Rezidentura. Oleg Igorevich, in charge of Directorate X -- science and technology division."

She smiles wistfully down into her cup, trying and failing not to miss him terribly. "He could make an amazing game. He'd find a way to make it funny."

She's thought before, and she can't help but think again now, that Quentin and Oleg would just love each other. She imagines them sitting at this table, arguing excitably over something she can't make heads or tails out of. "He's a big kid," she murmurs fondly. "You remind me of him, too."

[magician_king]

Quentin's mouth twitches, as he realizes, unsurprisingly, that she has him pegged.

"I guess one of the big questions is, is there a way for you to go home safely? You obviously have people there who you care a lot about. Would you be in too much trouble, or too much danger, if you went back?"

[utselet]

Her smile falls as she gives a quick shake of her head.

"I can't go back there." There's something very final about the way she says it. This is a decision long since made, and not likely to be revisited. "It's not safe for anybody -- not for me, not my family, not even Oleg. It's better for them if they don't even know I'm alive."

[magician_king]

"Okay then. You know best."

He says- and goes back to his brainstorming, steepling his fingers.

"You could... run a cat or dog shelter?" Giving her a sidelong glance. "Or like. An orphanage, or aquarium or something. A sea turtle hospital and rescue?"

[utselet]

That brings the smile back, but only slightly; she looks a little tired now, the sudden jar back to the dark side of reality taking the wind out of her sails a bit.

"I don't know if we have to decide today," she demurs jokingly. "Maybe you can keep a list for me."

[magician_king]

"Oh, absolutely. I have a lot of super specific and detailed information about the seaturtles, that wasn't a wacky hypothetical, there's a market there."

He says, contentedly.

"But why don't we call it a day for now?"

[utselet]

"Maybe so," she agrees. She's tired in a lot of ways, and where Quentin has eased some of them, others have begun to draw her attention.

She sighs, setting down her teacup. "We only got one thing done," she laments softly.

[magician_king]

"One thing is a very good number of things. It's a big step."

He reminds her, with a smile.

"It means, you are capable of magic."

[utselet]

Now her smile grows, slowly, as she stands.

"I never would have believed that," she admits. "I never would have even imagined."

[magician_king]

"You know, I had this teacher. Mayakovsky. Accent thicker than yours- did I tell you this story?"

He wonders, as he stands with her.

"I'm definitely not going to do to you what he did to me, but if you ever teach someone, I bet you could get away with it."

[utselet]

"You told me a little about him. You said he was in Antarctica and that his accent was ridiculous." She tries to think of anything else pertinent she remembers from that conversation. "Very intense man," she recalls. "But Russian men tend to be intense."

"When you were talking about him, I thought maybe he was defector," she admits. "You know? Not a lot of Russians outside of the USSR in my time."

[magician_king]

"He was either a lovelorn tragic hero, or an idiot who couldn't keep it in his pants, depending on how you want to look at it- which is is a little bit true of a lot of guys. But basically- it was a day like this one, you know? Grinding. Gruelling. I cast until my nailbeds cracked. Then, Mayakovsky came in with a tray for my lunch, and a glass. He poured exactly two fingers of vodka into it, drank the first finger himself, then gave it to me, and when I'd swallowed it, he just belted me, slapped, right across the face."

With Quentin's ear for nuance, he recreates the man's accent down to practically the part of the continent he's from;

"Zhat is for doubting yourself."