SECOND | video

[gilding]

[The feed clicks on to show Gold clearly sitting at a table somewhere, an apron on over his suit. He isn't looking at the camera - a bad habit of his, or maybe it's deliberate - and seems to be working on something, though the angle of the camera means what, exactly, is out of frame. For a moment it seems like maybe the device just clicked on accidentally, but then Gold finally starts speaking - tone perhaps a little more terse than most have heard from him in the past.]

As charming as I'm sure we're all finding these story exchanges, I'm afraid I'll have to break the topic with a reminder of our current circumstances. More specifically, leaving and returning.

[A pause. Too late to stop now, but he still really doesn't want to air this out so openly. It's messy.]

I've heard that several of you have done it, and no, I'm not going to ask how. I believe we're all fully aware it's out of our hands. [He definitely sounds annoyed there, though he doesn't linger on it.] I'm more interested in the details of the experience - how long you were gone for, whether time had passed there, whether you remembered the Tranquility and whether any other unfortunate passengers that you happen to know were absent. That sort of thing.

[Another pause, and he finally turns his attention to the camera.]

Any answers will have my appreciation. But if you don't subscribe to the free flow of information we seem to have adopted here, I'm sure some other recompense could be arranged.

Comments

[killarevolution]

Maybe I am. [And if he is, he hasn't really lost anything in thinking it.] Point stands. Leaving's too easy.

[gilding]

Unless they were found wanting. Or considered as having used up any potential. [A pause.] And to give the rest of us some morsel of hope.

[He says us, but he isn't really including himself in that at all.]

[killarevolution]

You think anyone here actually has hope anymore?

[Haymitch wouldn't include anyone in that. Everyone walks around either like nothing's happening or like they're waiting for the other shoe to drop.]

[gilding]

Hope is far more tenacious than most realise.

[killarevolution]

[It takes him a second and then he laughs.] Hope will burn down regimes, which is why I don't think they'll give us any. Even fake hope is worth something.

[gilding]

Oh, it's worth plenty. As is the pain caused when it's dashed. If they are truly toying with us as you believe, using it as a tool for entertainment may be fully worth the risk.

[killarevolution]

Never ends the way they want it to, either. [The last Quarter Quell proved that.]

[gilding]

I wouldn't want to presume how this is intended to end.

[He also doesn't intend to be here to see it.]

[killarevolution]

You and I both.