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29. stray
[Public video, backdated to September 23]
[The video is from the lab. Barbara and Iris can be seen a few feet behind, scrutinizing a monitor; Mal is visible, prone, on an examination chair, looks a little haggard, maybe dozing. The Emperor looks a wreck. A very composed wreck, clothes clean and hair passable, reclining in his own exam chair, but a wreck nonetheless. He has deep shadows under his eyes, his gaze loses focus, trails about, then jitters and darts, his jaw clenching as he tries to get his attention on track. The camera frame actually shakes slightly, hand trembling as he holds it. He flicks his eyes back to Iris and Babs once, as though to confirm they're occupied, but doesn't bother whispering. His voice is raspy, physiologically strained.]
Listen. Listen. There's going -
[A fit of coughing; brief but violent.]
There's going to be a door. Don't go through it. Don't go near it. Don't - don't be arrogant contrarian divas for once in your lives, and take my word for it. All of our -
[He jerks his head to indicate Babs and Iris, a little wildly.]
They did the work. Rigorous. It was falling apart, but now it's not, the other - the hell barge. It ate us. It killed us, and ate us, and put us back together from its - ichor, and the door is the maw. I'm not - mad. I am appropriately mad. I'm unraveling, but I'm right.
[The camera is shaking a little harder now, and Babs comes over, gently pries it from him. He makes a soft wounded noise, looks lost, before she turns the camera away from him and onto herself.]
He is right. Everyone who went through the door, or was seized by it, has displayed similar symptoms each time we approached the other barge, and everyone who let us analyze them shows evidence of the mirror barge itself woven into them. Normally it lies dormant, but right now it is using that connection to drag us back.
You don't want this to happen to you, and you don't want to strengthen that place. The door is usually found on deck, and very obvious. Stay clear.
[Spam for Sylvanas]
[After he's released from the lab - or before? Was he in the lab for something? He can't breathe, and he can't stop breathing. His vision swims and he stumbles, sags against a wall. No, a door. Something about -
- he jolts back to his feet, fear spiking, a jumble of adrenaline and invisible thorns. He wants to run, doesn't, walks with all the dizzy dignity he can manage, mouth dry, glancing behind him. The butcherman - no. He rubs the hem of his shirt between his fingers. There's a scar - belly, not lungs. So the butcher hasn't got him yet. No, it's something else.
He knows where to go. Not why, not what he's running from or whether he's alive or dead - neither seems quite right - but he knows where to go. The door is - the right door, not - wood, not steel, heavy and warm, handcarved, worn smooth but without chemical varnish. He traces the old mechanism of the latch, thinks of Çatalhöyük, the city built before doors. Intermediate history.
He thumps against the wood, whole-bodied, weary. He's safe here.]
[Private to Morgana]
[Raw, urgent, choking the words out before he forgets, scrawling make morgana leave on his arm so he can repeat it, if he has to.]
You're a warden. You can escape, you can - the planet I gave you for Christmas. Go. You should go there, if you can't go home yet. Tell the admiral to send you there. A month. A month should be enough?
[The video is from the lab. Barbara and Iris can be seen a few feet behind, scrutinizing a monitor; Mal is visible, prone, on an examination chair, looks a little haggard, maybe dozing. The Emperor looks a wreck. A very composed wreck, clothes clean and hair passable, reclining in his own exam chair, but a wreck nonetheless. He has deep shadows under his eyes, his gaze loses focus, trails about, then jitters and darts, his jaw clenching as he tries to get his attention on track. The camera frame actually shakes slightly, hand trembling as he holds it. He flicks his eyes back to Iris and Babs once, as though to confirm they're occupied, but doesn't bother whispering. His voice is raspy, physiologically strained.]
Listen. Listen. There's going -
[A fit of coughing; brief but violent.]
There's going to be a door. Don't go through it. Don't go near it. Don't - don't be arrogant contrarian divas for once in your lives, and take my word for it. All of our -
[He jerks his head to indicate Babs and Iris, a little wildly.]
They did the work. Rigorous. It was falling apart, but now it's not, the other - the hell barge. It ate us. It killed us, and ate us, and put us back together from its - ichor, and the door is the maw. I'm not - mad. I am appropriately mad. I'm unraveling, but I'm right.
[The camera is shaking a little harder now, and Babs comes over, gently pries it from him. He makes a soft wounded noise, looks lost, before she turns the camera away from him and onto herself.]
He is right. Everyone who went through the door, or was seized by it, has displayed similar symptoms each time we approached the other barge, and everyone who let us analyze them shows evidence of the mirror barge itself woven into them. Normally it lies dormant, but right now it is using that connection to drag us back.
You don't want this to happen to you, and you don't want to strengthen that place. The door is usually found on deck, and very obvious. Stay clear.
[Spam for Sylvanas]
[After he's released from the lab - or before? Was he in the lab for something? He can't breathe, and he can't stop breathing. His vision swims and he stumbles, sags against a wall. No, a door. Something about -
- he jolts back to his feet, fear spiking, a jumble of adrenaline and invisible thorns. He wants to run, doesn't, walks with all the dizzy dignity he can manage, mouth dry, glancing behind him. The butcherman - no. He rubs the hem of his shirt between his fingers. There's a scar - belly, not lungs. So the butcher hasn't got him yet. No, it's something else.
He knows where to go. Not why, not what he's running from or whether he's alive or dead - neither seems quite right - but he knows where to go. The door is - the right door, not - wood, not steel, heavy and warm, handcarved, worn smooth but without chemical varnish. He traces the old mechanism of the latch, thinks of Çatalhöyük, the city built before doors. Intermediate history.
He thumps against the wood, whole-bodied, weary. He's safe here.]
[Private to Morgana]
[Raw, urgent, choking the words out before he forgets, scrawling make morgana leave on his arm so he can repeat it, if he has to.]
You're a warden. You can escape, you can - the planet I gave you for Christmas. Go. You should go there, if you can't go home yet. Tell the admiral to send you there. A month. A month should be enough?
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