thecapitol | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Who| Signless, Gary, and anyone who needs a distraction!
What| Signless and Gary do what they do best: draw a crowd, so that nobody notices the actual important things going down.
Where| A Capitol park
When| Backdated to the day of the break-in
Warnings/Notes| Nothing in particular; will add if something comes up.

In one of the largest available Capitol parks a stage has been set up. It's festooned with colorful fabric, riddled with microphones and wires and lights, and surrounded on either side by stalls with food and drink (there are, of course, funnel cakes). Most of that was Gary's doing, but Signless deferred to him on the logic that Gary knew better how to do one of these things in public than he did. All of his experience was in keeping these things quiet and secret, which is the exact opposite of what they need to be doing.

Guests are invited to take a seat on the grass before the stage. First on the program is an 'authentic' troll sermon much like one of the ones the Signless would have given back on Alternia. It's billed as a way for those not familiar to participate in a piece of troll culture and history, though the subject is less radical rebellious philosophy (for very obvious reasons) and much more Capitol-appropriate and safe. He speaks for a good while, often inviting his listeners to contribute to the discussion, and after the sermon proper is finished there is a short question and answer session. True to his word it really does follow the same format one of his talks might have back on his native planet.

Of course not everyone is here to listen to a troll ramble in a park. For them there is the debut concert of Gary Epps which takes place after a short intermission so everyone can grab a funnel cake or a corn dog or two. The grass in front of the stage is now a makeshift dance floor and the guests are encouraged to let loose and enjoy the very, very loud and very, very upbeat music. It may be bubblegum for the ears but it's fun and the beat is good -- perfect for drowning out thoughts of why there are so very many parties all going on on this day in particular.

[This is going to be much like a crowning: a party-style post where you can put up top levels and tag around to others at any point during the festivities. Go ahead and mingle, and have some fun before everything crashes and burns! I'll be putting up a transcription of Signless's sermon shortly for characters to react to amongst themselves, and Gary will also of course be joining in!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Rivers branch, don't they?" he points out. "And the branch you choose to follow often determines where you end up. It's the same way with fate. It all flows in one direction toward a singular end point like rivers flow toward the sea, but only one or two branches will actually get there and the rest are dead ends. At least that's my understanding of it," he amends, because who can really say how fate works? Some guesses may just hit a little closer than others.

Alain considers this for a moment. He's never seen the sea, and his understanding of how rivers flow to it is purely theoretical, but it's enough to understand the metaphor, at least. Some branches trickle out into creeks or dry up in the desert, some become stronger, faster-flowing rivers as they go. It makes a kind of sense.

"But you can't tell which it is from the current," he says, finishing the thought out loud. "Mayhap that's all the difference is. That your friend sees what I only feel."

"Something like that. She sees the eventual outcomes of choosing each branch, which is very different from knowing if that is the right outcome according to whatever fate has decided is correct."

Is he a little unimpressed with the concepts of fate and predestination and how they tend to cause far more pain in the pursuit of the 'right' timeline than they actually help anyone? Well, maybe. His relationship with fate is a complicated one, is the best way of putting it.

Alain is quiet for a long moment, mulling that over. To know what will come of your choices... that isn't something he's ever had, not to the extent the troll is describing, and frankly, he's glad of it. Roland had that knowledge back in Hambry, and it's brought him nothing but pain and suffering since. A heavy burden to bear, to say the least. Even Alain's fractured visions are heavy enough for him.

"It must be hard for her," he says quietly, at last. "To know what rides on every choice."

Strange, but he'd never really thought about it that way. Even stranger because Terezi is a person that, in his estimation, is driven so much by the choices she makes. The power to see the outcomes of those choices logically would weigh heavily on her -- especially when the pressure would be on her to choose the right one.

"I imagine so. Choices are hard enough to make when the outcomes are unknown. I'm incredibly lucky that all my own visions ever showed me was the past. That could be learned from."

Despite himself, Alain smiles a little. "You sound like Vannay," he says, by way of explanation for his amusement, and shakes his head, his smile fading. "I've seen the future, now and again. But not how it comes about, only that it will. More often, what I see is the now. What's in people's minds, what's coming to pass elsewhere. In some ways, that can be a heavy enough burden alone." Because mostly, what he sees, he's too late to stop. And it's rarely pleasant.

"Vannay?"

That's a name he hasn't heard, or if he has, it's only been in passing and he's long forgotten about it. That isn't really the important part of this conversation, though.

"I'm sorry. I know that kind of knowledge is a lot to carry, no matter the particulars of it." Something occurs to him and he lets out an almost wry chuckle. "Do you think there's something about Roland that attracts people like us? He seems to have a whole flock following him around."

Alain doesn't laugh with him, though. In fact, his smile fades, and he frowns a little, thinking. At last, he says slowly "I don't know so much of who he is now, say true, nor what company he keeps. But he always carried k... carried fate heavy on his shoulders. Right from boyhood. It eddies round him like a rock in a stream, even before..." Before Hambry, he's about to say. But if the Signless doesn't know of the war, which belonged to all of them, then Alain isn't going to risk being the one to tell him about Hambry, which is Roland's first and foremost. Instead, he cuts himself off, clearing his throat. "Could be that's what draws the likes of us to him."

"Could be," he says, the laughter fading from his face and voice. He's always made a joke of fate because that's the only way to deal with how hard fate has fucked over his life, but it's a bitter joke and not one he can laugh at for long.

"Like tends to attract like, I've found. Fate pushes together those it has particular interest in." What was it he'd said, when Roland first explained his Tower? We really are a well-matched pair, you with your Tower that holds universes together and me with my game that ends and begins them. One man trying to save universes, the other trying to atone for destroying one. He'd laugh at that too if he felt like it.

"It helps at least in that one is often in company that understands."

"It does," Alain agrees quietly. He could be answering any part of what the troll said, or all of them. He isn't sure himself, and doesn't particularly think it matters. After a beat, though, he allows a slow little smile onto his face, a certain glitter of humour in his eyes. "Understands fate, at least. If you've known Ro' any time, you must know there's plenty else where you could get more understanding from a wall."

He says it in love, and without any kind of rancour. It's not an insult; it's the teasing assessment of someone who knows him well. Roland has always been the best of them; the bravest, the fastest on the draw, the sharpest at adapting on the fly. But there've been times when Alain could have pulled his hair out over all that Roland doesn't seem to grasp about people, about consequence, about temper...

"If he's still like that at all," he says aloud, his smile fading. He'd forgotten, for a moment, that this Roland is not the Roland he left; forgotten the gulf of years and experience now between them, and the deep lines of grief and travel etched in Roland's face. The thought of it sobers him drastically. Does he know this Roland at at all?

"He is sometimes," Signless affirms, perhaps sensing the worries that Alain doesn't say aloud. He is himself familiar with the sick, sinking feeling one gets when one of their dearest friends is suddenly removed from them by a great gap of time and it feels impossible to truly catch up.

"There are certainly things he doesn't understand. You should have seen his face when I first told him I was a pacifist." He remembers it pretty well, because it was the first time they'd met and Roland had looked at him he'd suddenly grown an extra head.

By the expression on his face, Alain sympathises heavily with that first impression. Pacifism isn't something he's much been exposed to, and despite his kind, empathetic nature, he's a warrior born and bred. Pacifism, to him, means cowardice at worst, shortsightedness and naivety at best.

He has to admit, though, that the man before him seems neither cowardly nor naive. And he is close to Roland, which counts for a great deal. So he bites back that instinctive distaste, raising an eyebrow. "A pacifist who led a rebellion?" he says, almost to himself. "No wonder he was taken aback by you."

The way Signless laughs at that -- quiet and a little wry -- says that he's used to that reaction and used to having to explain.

"That isn't quite how it went. I was only trying to introduce a different cultural philosophy; some of the trolls who listened to me took my ideas and ran with them. If they were risking their lives for something I had told them they deserved then I owed it to them to stay, didn't I? They needed someone to rally around."

Alain considers this for a long moment, giving it the thought and examination he feels it deserves. In this case, that means the contemplative silence stretches out quite long before he says slowly, "That's a noble enough way to see it, I guess. I can see why you and Roland would get on."

'Noble' isn't quite what he'd been going for, but Signless will take it. He doesn't see much nobility in what to him is simple decency, but he's long since learned there's no point in arguing the distinction with people.

"He's surprisingly easy to get on with. There's a lot of kindness in him once you know where to look."

He imagines it can't have been that different in the when that Alain remembers. Kindness is something that can be burned out of people, but not so easily learned later if it's not an inherent quality.

"There is," Alain agrees, with a little smile. "He's a good man, under the hardness. Though he's changed much in the years now between us." He's quiet a moment before saying, rather uncertainly, "...It's good to know he hasn't changed that much. That he's still a good man, even scarred by the years."

"Time wears most at the outside of people. It's harder for it to touch the core of them. Almost everyone here who has come from my where has been nowhere near my when. I know the feeling of looking at someone and seeing all the years between you."

He places a hand on Alain's shoulder, gives it a bracing pat.

"It's easier to bridge that gap than it looks."

Alain looks at that hand on his shoulder, and smiles just a little, rather sadly.

"I hope you say true," he says in a low voice, bowing his head just a little. "Once already he changed too fast and too deeply for me to follow. I am not sure I can take it if he has done so again."

Edited 2015-07-31 18:03 (UTC)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

(no subject)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

we can probably wrap this soon, unless there's other stuff you wanted to do

no, I think wrapping it up's a good idea