002 -- video

[jondrette]

I have been thinking.

[Eponine avoids looking into the camera, favoring, instead, to look beyond it.]

After the events of the previous jump... For those of us who are dead where we come from. Here, are we... undead? For we have come back to life here.

If so, why are we different from the zombie dudes? I wore rags, too, once, and was nothing more than flesh and bones. [She's gained weight here, becoming healthier, from her gaunt looks before.]

Yet I breathe.

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[servator]

[ Shepard understands the curiosity; though she'd been trying a little too hard not to think about her own death, about the stark nothing that was waiting for her back home, she can't flat-out deny it. ]

... I think the ship takes us from before our deaths, physically. Or... I'm not sure. It might put our bodies back together upon after bringing us up. It's hard to say.

[ Beat. Softly: ] We're not zombies.

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[jondrette]

But I recall the darkness, and the cold. [It had been edging in on her vision when she'd caressed Marius' face with her bloodied hand and asked him to kiss her. She'd felt his lips on her forehead.]

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[servator]

Might be the second, then. I died once, back home, but they managed to bring me back. Could be that the ship can do the same, somehow.

[ She peers at the other girl, frowning slightly. ]

Are you okay?

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[letsjustgogo]

I don't think it's that simple. [Gogo hesitates.] Do you remember dying?

Re: Private voice

[jondrette]

I do. [Softly, and though it can't be seen, Eponine's wrapped her arms around herself. Even now, having been loved so fully by her boyfriend, she still loved Marius.]

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[letsjustgogo]

[Gogo made a quiet, thoughtful sound at that. She wasn't expecting that answer, assuming something more akin to being taken from some point before she died. Yet...]

I don't think that means you're dead. [She finally decided.] Or a zombie.

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[foundafamily]

I'm gonna sound crazy, but there might be more than one way a' bringin' someone back to life. The thing I'm thinkin' of probably doesn't count for most people who're here... but it still happened and I never woulda' thought it was possible if I didn't see it myself.

[And experienced it personally.]

This place throws so many curveballs, I bet there's a ton a' possibilities we'd never even think of.

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[jondrette]

Perhaps, Firo.

[It's complicated, she supposes. Her grasp of science is minimal at best.]

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[foundafamily]

[As is his. The other guy in his head might know something, but Firo's steering clear of him.]

But if it makes you feel better, I think we can be pretty sure you ain't a zombie. They're supposed to be all gross and fallin' apart and you're not gross at all.

[but_civilization]

What an unsettling thought! And...[Combeferre looks regretful as he messes with his hair a bit, shoving it out of his face.] It does raise a few questions. We function as living beings...but what is it that STOPS us from being like them?

It...this may be a good thing to think about in more detail, you know?

[jondrette]

[Wow her boyfriend is a+ material. Dork. Also, not helpful. Setting her device down, Eponine glances at him solemnly.]

But what causes it? Are we going to be like them, too, and rot here while our bodies do the same in France? No, you will have a beautiful coffin. I will have been thrown in a nameless grave, if the dogs do not eat me first.

[She doesn't need to think about this in detail. Not at all, it's only upsetting.]

Gavroche will have been beside me, for we had no one to miss us.

[but_civilization]

[He IS isn't he? On the other hand, he HAS been slightly...stircrazy lately. This is, perhaps, one of those wonderful side effects of that business. However, the solemn look does change things.]

That is why I might investigate it if I could. By all rights it...does not make sense, but there ARE different rules in different worlds. Perhaps...we have been lucky.

[As for their bodies? He does somewhat doubt that, but speaking of them makes him a BIT uncomfortable.]

Did we leave bodies behind us? Or did we take them with us? I think that maybe we managed to do that, to leave nothing for the grave. But I...if we did not, when I read a little more of what happened...to our cause... They buried most of us together. Mass graves for traitors.

I could not have done my brothers at the barricades anything less but to die with them. And...far easier that Maman and Tante did not need to...they love me but it would be so much a STRAIN, and it was better to leave instructions. Easier for all of them. If we are there, then all of us, or most of us, are together. We WILL be with you there, I swear it.

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[worthtempting]

[sophie isn't yet sure how much she wants to show her face on the network, but her voice is low and lilting, in an almost-but-not-quite old english sort of way, her tone matter-of-fact but not ungentle.]

To be resurrected is to be returned to life, with one's heart and...soul...intact. To be undead is to be raised by a sorcerer, devoid of heart or soul, to do not your own bidding, but that of another.

[there is a short pause, as she thinks of old dead Baltazar.]

Or, I suppose, a corpse for another spirit to occupy, for a time. But either way, they still putrefy like the dead, and you do not appear particularly putrified.

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[jondrette]

[A pause, where Eponine is frowning.]

No, I am whole flesh and blood now...

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[worthtempting]

Then it sounds as though you are quite alive.

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[acapriciousthing]

It's... a bit different.

[She can just feel it, okay?]

Your heart still beats, your mind is the same and like you said, you breathe.

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[jondrette]

Death.

[She remembers speaking with the girl before.]

You would know, I do suppose, above all others.

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[acapriciousthing]

I would.

[Resident expert here]

What happened is... definitely unusual. But it's different from the dead being merely reanimated. It's more like you've been redirected, still whole.

[undyingbeliefs]

[Evangeline hadn't thought others here may already be dead, or brought back from the dead by this place itself. If that is possible it's a little unnerving.]

What are you referring to when you say "zombie dudes"?

[jondrette]

A man that is a zombie. Once alive, now dead and decaying.

[undyingbeliefs]

[She nods slowly before taking a moment to think.]

You'll have to forgive as I'm new here, but what were the events from the previous jump, may I ask?

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[traumata]

Zombie dudes?

[ The repetition's deeply amused, not offended. Maybe a little charmed, actually. The way she says it, it's obvious she isn't used to the phrase. ]

And I guess that depends on what you mean by zombie. But the way I see it, if you can feel — you know, fear, love — then you're alive, yeah? So the other details shouldn't be that important.

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[jondrette]

[Lady from the 19th Century here, Kieren.]

One of the ones that smell bad, and are rotting. But I- I do feel. I feel often.

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[axeyou]

Why are you asking? Isn't that the kind of thing you're just supposed to be grateful for? The kind and benevolent ship, bringing you back to life again.

If anything, you owe it one. Or them. Whatever.

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[jondrette]

Yes, but, Johanna, I sought death. I was content to die. And I found myself here near a year ago instead.

But... perhaps I should. I have found a happiness here I had never had before.