ataraxion | {PSA}

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{PSA} - Video

[A somber face on the video feed. When last he addressed the people on board, it was about loss, and how to cope with it here.

Irony was indeed a cruel mistress, was she not...?]

As... no doubt you will have seen. Seraphim, who was here-- a long time. She has departed us, by more natural means that disappearance, and less natural means than a gentle and faraway death.

She was surely too young for such a fate, and far too goodly. For those who grieve her, like I, I offer condolences.

[A deep breath here, to square himself to the reality, and to keep calm in this.]

But let her passing be not in vain.

Before passing, she left for me, a message. Part of which she hoped to share with all of you. I will read that part now, that perhaps someone here knows how better to make of it than I, and can look at it and know what she meant to impart to us all.

She said you all have to know. It was her final wish.

[And so, reading from a part of that transcript, that it is much too raw and painful, too personal, to simply post the entire message she wrote to him.]

There is an entire other side and it's white...

Deutsch was right.

Tell them it's SU(3) structure...

--rallel univer--it's a compact universe--side the Jump...

[There was the mathematical notation, too, but it was much too long for him to make sense of. The begging, and the emotions still to read on page; this, he would keep to himself. That was meant only for his eyes.]

That's all.

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[A deep look of concern, that that wasn't just an ordinary goodbye.]

Jehan, mon cher ami. I am sorry for your loss, and may she rest in peace.

Where are you now?

For a woman who was named for angels, I should hope she is with them now.

I am, as ever, with Feuilly.

[Or rather, not with him per say, but certainly still in residence in his room since the occurrence of the damned bleeding. A stubborn man was his friend.]

[Nodding, frowning.]

Most certainly she must be.

Give me but a moment, and I shall see you shortly.

[Heading over, then. ... Yes. Perfect time to get a nosebleed. Sniffling it up, and wiping it back with a hand, and knocking with his other -- though he wouldn't wait before pushing the door open, to frown, concerned at the other.]

Petit... How do you fare?

[Glancing up, and giving an uneven smile, a nod.]

Better than I did. What has been done cannot be undone; certainly, I must have learned that by now.

Please, come. Sit.

[Heading over to sit, and then going to go take Jehan's hands in his, to hold them gently, reassuringly. Looking at him with a bit of a frown.]

The lesson may have been learned, but that does not end the hurt.

No- nothing does, in my experience.

[But he will look at those hands, and note clearly some blood.]

...Speaking of which, are you inflicted also?

You have experienced more than you should in any lifetime, mon petit... I am sorry that loss keeps following you so closely these days.

[Squeezing Jehan's hands a little, turning his slightly to shift that bloodstain from view out of embarrassment for Jehan's catching such, when he was the one to be comforted.]

Nah, no; it is nothing, only a silly nosebleed. You say also -- are you then afflicted?

Perhaps as punishment for living more than my natural one. Loss hounds us all in the guise of fate, no?

[But raising a brow just a touch as he went. Combeferre had taught him that, after all.]

Who is not? It seems all are. The nose being connected to the face as it is, I might say be careful.

... Yet the rest of us slide by with far fewer lovers lost.

[Softly. Sort of looking at him carefully.]

You were close to her, were you not?

[Raising a damn eyebrow back. Put that away. >(]

True enough, though you seem well, without a drop of red anywhere.

[A flush, and a turn away.]

We were not lovers, in such terms.

[Was the rest so obvious...?]

I am well washed, and Feuilly has kept hold of me. Literally.

[Lips pursing somewhat.]

Her last words were that she loved me, Ambrose. And she died alone. ...How can that be justified?

[Made obvious especially through that response, yes. Squeezing Jehan's hands gently.]

Though the terms were enough such that you will grieve for her far deeper than you would a stranger, or even a dear but distant friend.

[A tilt to his grin, though there was not so much mirth in his eyes as simply the quirk to his lips.]

Perhaps not quite so distant, these dear friends, then? I find myself increasingly more jealous to find you always in the arms of another, mon petit, when we were once such bosom buddies -- also literally.

[The edge of a chuckle cutting short, though, at the look on Jehan's face, at the words that came next. That was, indeed, no laughing matter.]

How can what be justified?

Yes, and yes. Only, please do not say so.

[It felt a poor thing to hear, when it was not so solid as that, and never could be, if he was to be true to his first promise on board.]

Let us give to it is modesty and let it rest.

[Glancing up, and forcing a somber smile.]

Oh, my friend... you cannot miss such a dour and melancholic thing as I. I darken Feuilly's days, I am certain of it.

[After all, in the light of Eponine's company, Combeferre had politely excused himself from the shadow of his. He could blame no one for that.]

How can such a death be justified, that angels die alone?

And so we shall.

[Inclining his head a touch.]

Then I shall miss it all the more! The dour and melancholic do not repel me -- quite the opposite, in fact, that where there is great darkness must, too, there be a brilliant light to give it such depth. I know you well enough, Jehan, and so your nights do not scare me; when you feel you've cast too thick a veil of clouds over Feuilly's rays, you must promise to then come to me, for I shall be happy to guide you by moonlight instead.

[Rubbing Jehan's hands between his callused ones.]

There is no justification for death, mon cher petit, only that it happens, and very rarely, I imagine, does it happen fairly.

I can make no promises, but the promise to try, if it would in some way grant you happiness that I do so, and does in some way also do you harm that I have not.

[A breath in.]

Only, it does not happen here. Disappearance happens here. Bafflement. Yet to the purest soul on board, this horrible fate. It's irreligious.

Both, though that granting of happiness works twofold, in that it would also absolve you of that harm dealt.

[A bit of a squeeze of hands and a grim purse of lips in a small smile. Then, a slight knitting of brows.]

Then perhaps what you have witnessed was the last unkindness that this ship would ever be allowed to wreak upon so pure a soul; the god whom her spirit served found a happier ending to her story than to be damned to this hell, and reclaimed her as his own. Did not the Greeks extoll such virtues of their own gods, also, who showed great benevolence by rendering great tragedies upon their lovers' fellow mortal friends?

She is in a better place now, in peace; I am sure of it.

["a compact universe"]

...

Thank you for sharing the information she left you. This may have confirmed a theory.

[Someone he recognizes. It earns what he can make of a smile.]

All thanks goes to her. I am merely a poor substitute.

If I may ask-- does the theory concern our time here?

[She could refute that claim, but it doesn't seem to be the time or place. Rey just nods, understanding, focusing more on Jean's query:]

That perhaps some if not all of the strangeness that's occurred on the ship -- the environment sometimes warping and the more recent monster infestation -- may be connected to the White Room and the thing living there. It seems to be a different place entirely from the rest of the ship.

It's not a proven theory yet, but the messages she left behind seems to heavily lean towards that possibility.

Considering that Clarke's drive creates wormholes, her mention of parallel universes is also not surprising.

The White Room?

[He had long since given up trying to follow the ship's politics, but perhaps it was time he began to educate himself again.]

I agree, parallel universes seems all but proved by we aboard.

Is there a way to enter the White Room?

No. [She says it so abruptly, like a snap.

[Then she sighs, rubbing her forehead.]

Yes, there is. Have been there. Opened the door as well.

But-- Think that's what she meant by the "other side".

Eponine pushed past the pain, as she moved towards Jehan's room. The poor boy, to have loved their Reynaud, and have had such feelings for Seraphim. He deserved to be happy, as they all did, and his pain was visible, to a girl that knew him.

A bottle of wine was in her hands. her head throbbing when she knocked against his door. "Jehan, I come with a gift. Let me in, for my hand has begun to bleed and I wish to drink!" Even pain wasn't going to keep her from bringing wine to her hurting friend. He, after all, had been the one to tell her she was in love with Combeferre.

It was, as ever, such an alarm to him to have such friends. Meaning only that in Paris he was used to playing his part: poets brooded alone, only children felt their melancholy in solitude, single apartment owners had the flower planters at their window to share pain with, and the pen to ink it out with.

Reynaud and Seraphim had been the first people to coax at him so. Then Combeferre, Bahorel, Feuilly... such a group of friends, as they always had been, had become something more of a family, as still stunned and touched him.

Eponine, too. Certainly, her also.

"Come in... it is open." Called, with a squint. "You suffer the blight also?"

Eponine pushes the door open and comes into the darkened chambers. "And Michel and Gavroche as well." She set the wine down on a desk, and began looking for a bandage to wrap around her hand. Scars were the things that bled for her, first and foremost, for some time now. Since they had all become so sick.

The one on the center of her palm usually was the one to start it.

"Use whatever you like- a pillowcase, perhaps." Noted, as she searched. He slept here so little these days anyway, she could use what she may. "And Ambrose and Guillaume too. That makes all."

"No, I shall not have something white. I hate to see the blood. Since I have died, I cannot stand to see it." There had been so much, when she'd laid dying.

"And your head throbs as well?"

"As you wish." He had only his clothes to offer then, and that too seemed not to suit.

"Not half so much as my heart, worry you not."

She wouldn't accept his clothes. Instead, she wound up ripping a piece of pillowcase up, as he had suggested. "This will turn red, then brown soon enough," she admitted, before wrapping it around her hand.

"The heart hurts worst of all. This is why I brought you wine."

"Does it do a wonder for the heart? I've found it equal to plunging one deeper into despair."

But he'd gesture to a set of glasses, knowing her penchant for drinking direct from the bottle.

"It numbs the pain my handsome Jehan," she said pointedly, fishing into her pockets for a bottle opener. Oh, yes, her dress had pockets. She'd found one, and it was the greatest thing ever.

Sticking the opener in the cork, she begins to work it out. "You will sit with me, as we drink, and say all the things that you wish. I shall be quiet and let you, and should you cry I will comfort you and dry your tears. Or if you so wish for a distraction, then perhaps we will find something else to do while we drink. I am good at card games." What else were you supposed to do when a friend was heartbroken? It seemed the right thing to do, but she didn't know.

She hadn't had friends, until this ship.

Not in vain, indeed. None of them will have been so, provided that we keep what they've left with us.

I am sorry to hear of it, though. Would you like to be alone or would some company do you any good now?

No, not in vain, and not forgotten.

[Agreed, though that seemed too little, somehow.]

I shouldn't want to trouble you. Though it is good to hear your voice; it has been such a while. It gives me great heart to see you as well as can be hoped.

And the information that she left. That is...it seems it will be helpful, somehow. You've done well in carrying out her wishes, Jehan.

I wish that it were a better time to hear yours, my friend. I cannot imagine...well. You are stronger than even we could understand.

[As far as it being a while, that's true. This month has mostly consisted of Combeferre hiding in the dark, creeping around when he can, by way of having pasted temporary shades to his spectacles and wishing they were shaded and...it's not been pleasant to say the least. But nothing like this, of course.]

I am, yes. It may always be worse, my position here. How grim it is that I think of that as some form of hope.

...I think it shall be. I hope it shall be. She did a brave thing, in using her little time to give it to us. May her gift find better hands than my own to translate it.

[A nod at the kind words, but he has thought better of burdening anyone, since Courfeyrac had departed. Feuilly generally saw that he ate and did not fall too silent, but even that, he hadn't sought out-- everyone had enough of their own worries here without additional ones. And Combeferre, at least, had some happiness to see to as well.

That was precious.]

Let us hope, then, that it will not be. I would not like to think that this ship could be cruel to someone as gentle as yourself. At some point, I must think that it will stop, that enough is enough.

I am sure it will. Such a desire to help must surely prove to be a factor that will help us all. And courage of that sort? I doubt that it can be forgotten by any of us. Perhaps someday...do you think you might write of her? Would putting feelings into words help you?

[Some feelings are too much for words after all, and he knows it too well. Combeferre feels a stab of sadness that he's not caught up with anyone lately, save those he lives with now, and has been distant himself since Courfeyrac, but losing him was...strange in so many ways. Combeferre had not known what to do with the thought and had tried, instead, to distance himself from it, and the knowledge he was the last of the three here.

He'd found it better to dwell in his happiness, although, he feels the shame of it now, really. He should have been there. At least once. Too late to change the past but he feels awful all the same.]

So it is. It has been so long now, hasn't it? For ourselves alone. And for those here longer...no, Surely every journey must end somewhere so the next one can begin.

Someday... yes. I would like to.

[Admitted, with a soft nod.]

She could only write, herself. No voice, and yet hers was the first voice to touch me here- even before yours, there had been hers.

[Minutes apart, that first meeting with her, and his first aboard the ship with Combeferre.

He could not fault the man for having become better-aquainted with that which made him cheerful than that which could only pull him down. He had lost someone on the same day Jehan had, and it had not been his first loss. He could think of no better way to honour his friendship than in not troubling him. Truth be told, he felt some quiet mortification that Feuilly bothered about him, even now; deeply generous, but perhaps too much at Feuilly's own expense.]

I have known someone who says she has been here six year's time. Sera, for three. Us, what now? Two, perhaps? Every journey must end.

[Agreed.

He hoped soon, for his part.]

Yet yours begins just recently here; surely, we must hope for a balm, before an end.

Only words...I do not think there need be an 'only ' about it. And what else is what we put on paper but another voice? Didn't your Byron say the pen was mightier than the sword? Perhaps it could mean, too, not only that words matter more, but that writing them can be a form of might.

It does allow for you to save them, after all, her words [There is a gentle smile at this, and the effort sets Combeferre's ear to bleeding a bit, but he ignores that for now. Perhaps he's done too much ignoring of the bad things lately, but this is one thing he plans not to think of. Instead, he is nodding as Jehan mentions balms.]

Ah, but we do not know what sort of end this journey will have. I had hoped for a place where we might make lives for ourselves, or continue the ones we've made. Six years for some... [There is a shudder.] I could not imagine it.

You certainly use your words wisely enough. Thank you... I do believe in the truth of what you've spoken.

[And if that's what saving her meant, in its way, that that's what saving any of them meant, then it ought to be done.]

What sort of end... I imagine, it must end as it ends for all the rest. Simply, disappearance. Or death. [Morose as it was to say- but he'd always had a dark view of the realism of things, however equally optimistic he tended to be.] Would you not suffer some six years, if it was with your darling?

...Also, Michel- you are bleeding.

[Then Combeferre is glad of that at least. He's not the one used to using his own words so much as repeating and using the words of others to help, or to teach, putting them into a new structure and presenting them in ways that may help people understand, but, he will take the compliment all the same.]

I am glad that I could help. Less of my own words than words I've read and thought about, I think, but still.

Disappearance or death, perhaps. All things must come to an end eventually, even our state of things now. I do not think there is science to prevent it or that I would wish for it, but... [And here is a wistful sort of smile for his friend.]

I think there still is something of an in between, a space between the moment and that death or disappearance. When this voyage ends, I cannot believe we are done yet, or will be. There must be something of the future we've dreamed. I doubt the ideals change, even if the people and the places do. Surely, we'll at least see it, first. Or so I hope.

[Combeferre never professed to believing, or not believing in any things like ghosts or gods, or Gods, because, well, there was no proof to him that they existed, but also no proof that they did not. They had always existed in a state of possibility with both sides needing to be acknowledged and addressed, always. He had driven the brothers who taught him Religion and Theology insane by politely asserting and holding to that position and supporting it with sources, always, and he found that now, years later, the belief in possibility had never changed. The one constant he'd known and could believe in, no matter what, was the future, whether it was one that he would be taking part of, or not. He held to that today as well.]

The one belief that I know to be concrete is that of the future, Jehan. I cannot see it failing us now. It's coming, still, along with us. Something will continue no matter where we land.

[At the mention of Eponine, he does smile, bittersweet as it is.] Ah, yes. I must admit, I would hope to spend them somewhere better, where we might fully embrace and make a future we can't dream of here, but given no other choice, I could do it, I would wish to do it, to be in her presence, yes. You've found the magic key.

Am I so?

[There is a blink, and he's reaching up to wipe away that blood.]

How strange. I've quite stopped noticing it, now.

I think I know what she's talking about. If she's talking about the same thing I saw once.

If I may-- what was it you saw?

A white room. I don't remember all of it, but I was there. Or I almost walked into it once.

she told you to share it?

[He cannot pretend that this is someone he is wholly compelled to speak to at the moment, but Seraphim had loved him once, and that should be reason enough to overcome.]

Of course. Or I certainly would not have.

It was her wish.

[And what was personal had remained just that.]

so what dyou think it means

If I may be frank, I've no idea. I think it must be why she asked me to share it. Though she trusted me to do right by her with the information, I have no mind for sciences, and never have.

She saw a door to other worlds, perhaps; which doesn't seem unreasonable, considering all the proof aboard. Or perhaps she spied heaven. That is my purely religious guess.

I can make nothing of her numbers.

Have you a thought as to what it might be?

too many doors for her to have seen heaven

she sent loads of messages
whatever happened to her didnt happen straightaway

[--which he writes with an image of Sera in his head, blurred and superimposed over the smear of blood on a floor, a tangle of clothes dipped in red.]

she knew something & then she saw something that was weatching her

Hey, I'm sorry to ask but if you have access to the other messages she sent can I see them? If they're all put together it might be easier to understand what she was trying to say.

ive got mine
i didnt go around collecting the others

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{PSA} - Video

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