ｔｅｘｔ

[uncurse]

[ For all that Emma tries not to brood, she missed space Christmas and news of Pan's curse has her feeling particularly sentimental. Reflective, even. And the prospect of losing her memories, losing her loved ones, only serves to remind her that sooner or later, they're all trying, in some capacity, to lose the people they've grown to care about aboard the Tranquility. ]

A friend of mine pointed out a while back that not everyone has a home to go back to at this point. Or one worse than what's here, whether that means they're dead or just some other kind of screwed.

[ Strangely, with Dean back now, she has to wonder if he'd say the same again. That staying on the ship, even as it is now, is better than the alternative for some. Getting a read on him is tougher now. It feels like she's missing pieces. ]

What about you? What's your best case scenario for whenever we figure out what the hell's going on here? Do you go home, forget all about it? Backtrack to Arima and set up shop?

Comments

[uncurse]

No I don't mean forgetting when you got home. That's normal. The same happened to me. But not remembering right away when you get back on board is news to me, aside from the usual jump disorientation.

[hedoniste]

Really? It made sense to me, as it happened. No, as far as I know, nothing unusual happened to me besides 'being dragged back here in the first place'. It just took a while to recall everything.

Maybe it's because the gap was so large.

[uncurse]

How large?

[hedoniste]

Roughly sixteen years. A busy sixteen years.

[uncurse]

Ah shit.
Yeah, that'd do it.

[hedoniste]

Yeah. There were a lot of other things in the interim to remember a bit better.

[uncurse]

Makes sense.

I only went back for a week.

[hedoniste]

I'd have tossed me back and waited a decade or two if I'd grabbed me at twenty-two, frankly, I was a pain in the arse.

[uncurse]

Fair enough.

I see what you mean about this ship's relationship with time now though.

[hedoniste]

'Completely irrelevant'? Nietzsche missed a trick; time is a sodding bouncy castle.

[uncurse]

I'm a little out of my depth with the reference. I never read much Nietzsche. Or any.

[hedoniste]

I fucked a lot of philosophy students. You spend enough time tuning them out and you turn around one day and you've absorbed pointless information by osmosis.

[uncurse]

I'll consider it a point in my favor that I skipped the whole college experience then.

[hedoniste]

I went to a conservatoire, which is worse.

( because it's all passionate ~artistes~ and ilde is self-aware enough to find much of her own life history sort of hilarious. even, or especially, the parts that it really isn't appropriate to laugh at, but that's a different conversation entirely. )

[uncurse]

I have no idea what that is.

[hedoniste]

It's for music, acting and the technical behind the scenes sort of things - I did a principal study in cello for my undergraduate degree, which I'd planned to be the height of laziness except it turned out you couldn't coast an entire degree on raw talent and I actually worked for the damn thing. My husband thinks I love the cello more than him, but it is insured for more.

( also she probably does. )

[uncurse]

Do you miss it?

[hedoniste]

My cello is here, and I wouldn't relive undergrad if you paid me.

( whether or not she misses her husband is a bit more of a complicated question she's sort of relieved not to have been asked. )

[uncurse]

You found your cello? I didn't think anybody had found something that huge from home.
Cellos are the big ones right?

[hedoniste]

Oh, yes. I learned how to play it side-saddle just to see how much of a pain that must've been, when it was the only way women were allowed to play the stupid great thing. It was in my locker when I first arrived.

[uncurse]

You learned to play cello while riding a horse?

[hedoniste]

I can do both, but not at once. No, you know how a cello is played? You sit with your knees either side of it? Playing it side-saddle means not doing that.

[uncurse]

Gotcha.
I was never much of a music person.

[hedoniste]

It really wasn't optional, for me. I was learning music before I could reliably walk without falling on my bum.

[uncurse]

Helicopter parents?