[TLV] IC Inbox

[keephersafe]

Um...

*beep*

Comments

[verynormalturnipseller]

[He's glad they've spoken at least a little. He's rusty at this.]

You might have seen I'm your temp for this month. First, is there anything immediately the matter that needs seeing to?

[Hopefully not, but he's known some stubborn inmates, and some too guarded to take any of the easily accessible help.]

[keephersafe]

[He had seen. He's still getting used to how this works.]

No, um... I-I'm okay.

[Quiet. R doesn't really need much, and what he has needed so far he already managed to access.]

[verynormalturnipseller]

Alright, that's the easy question.

[Nothing's bleeding or on fire.]

Next, anything you'd like to change? Your cabin, anything inconvenient with meals, anyone you need help dealing with?

[keephersafe]

[There's a pause. He's actually thinking about the question.]

Cabin is f-fine. [A beat.] I'd... like a r-record player.

[Hmm...]

No o-other... problems...

[verynormalturnipseller]

[He doesn't know what that is. He'll ask Chase before he asks the admiral in case it's dangerous.]

I'll see if I can do that. Alright, last of these. If something goes badly and you're injured or killed, how would you like me to handle that? Revive you in the infirmary, your room, with a friend?

[keephersafe]

[A soft sigh. It's not aimed at Wen Ning, but... conversations can be hard sometimes.]

I don't mind.

[He doesn't really have any friends here.]

You can do... what's easiest.

[verynormalturnipseller]

Infirmary is usually simplest, though they can't help much with death tolls. Alright, those are the questions I have to ask. After this, you're free to ignore me if you want, but I'd like to talk if that doesn't bother you.

[keephersafe]

We can talk.

[So long as Wen Ning doesn't mind his halting speech patterns.]

I-if you want.

[verynormalturnipseller]

Where would you like to? And would you like there to be snacks or tea?

[keephersafe]

"Uh... sure."

As much as there's not really much to tell, given his complete lack of memory about much of anything before he met Julie. He... supposes he could talk about her. Chase seems like the sort of person who would love to hear about a girl back home.

Once they're seated, he doesn't immediately start to eat.

"Wh... what d-do you want... to know?"

[fifthofthecovenant]

"I don't know. What you like to do, where you're from, how long you've been here, that sort of thing. Or I guess you could tell me how you went from formerly-dead to what you are now," he muses. Chase would definitely like to know that sort of thing, but he doubts it would really help with his dead parent problem. He's just curious.

[keephersafe]

He takes a breath. Okay. Though, he can't really say if anything he's got to tell Chase will be enough to satisfy him.

"Haven't been here long." If he's quiet, if he concentrates, the words are easier. He looks at the table.

"The enclave is in... South Cascadia." Washington, or thereabouts. State lines don't really matter that much anymore. But the rest of it... He frowns a little bit.

"We don't know why the... the cure happened. It just... did."

[fifthofthecovenant]

Chase has no idea where South Cascadia is. Is it related to the Cascades? Or maybe it's from a whole different world than Earth. He supposes it doesn't really matter. "What was it like?" he asks curiously. "Going from being dead to not-dead." That might tell them something about the "cure" or it might just be a way to get to know R better. Or, really, both.

[keephersafe]

"It was..."

He trails off, not because he runs out of energy to speak but because he doesn't know how to explain it to someone who hasn't had the experience. How does he even put it into words?

"Like... Like turning on a light."

[fifthofthecovenant]

Yeah, that's not particularly helpful. Maybe it was some kind of external effort, something someone else did to him. "Are you the only one? Who came back from being dead? Or are there other people, too?"

[keephersafe]

"I was the first one."

He thinks. He's pretty sure he was the first one, because if he wasn't then who else? But the spread of it, for sure, started with him and Julie.

"But there's more. It doesn't... always work." A pause. He muses on how to explain for a moment. "While I was d-dead I... wasn't injured. I was still i-in one piece? Some Dead aren't."

[fifthofthecovenant]

"Damn, yeah, that'd do it," Chase can guess. He remembers clearly the Dead from that one port where he was a necromancer banishing them. They were pretty gross sometimes. "Harder to wake up whatever life is left in you if you'd wind up with a gaping wound or being down an arm or leg."

Still doesn't really explain how it happened, but. "I bet it freaked people out, with you being the first one."

[keephersafe]

He shakes his head, though not at the comment about freaking people out - because it definitely did. The one before it, about 'waking up'.

"Any Dead can come back," he says, quietly. It seems like his stammer is easier to manage with less people, when he's less stressed, and when he's not raising his voice. "But... the Gleam, it doesn't h-heal the damage."

So... when they come back, with gaping wounds or missing limbs... Chase can probably put it together from that.

[fifthofthecovenant]

"So less cause and more awful result, got it," Chase surmises. But also: "You call it the gleam?"

[keephersafe]

Blink.

Oh, he did, didn't he.

"The... the people trying t-to help, in- in the infirmary. They call it that. Because it--"

He pauses, making a vague gesture.

"You can see it. L-like a... gold flash."

[fifthofthecovenant]

Now that's interesting. It does sound more like magic, when described like that. He wonders whether it's more like the sparks in a witch's eyes when he starts using magic, or the purely defensive light he'd summoned when Caleb attacked him... but he's probably interrogated the poor guy long enough. Ugh.

"Wish I could see it," he muses instead, and pushes the second cupcake over to R to try. "But that'd mean having more dead people on board-- like, Dead-dead, I mean, since technically most of us are dead, but not the same way. And then Ellie would probably have a heart attack or something."

[keephersafe]

"I don't... um. Think you want t-to see it."

Because to see it, the way that people end up Dead like they do on R's world would have to be here, and he's not sure if he could even fix any of it by himself, without Julie. He doesn't think it would work without both of them - or without her, where he's sure the cure came from to begin with.

He doesn't touch the cupcake.

"People would... panic."

[fifthofthecovenant]

"I mean, given this place, probably most of us would go on the immediate offensive, and the walking dead would get destroyed or locked up in spare cabins or something," Chase says, waving that concern off. "Maybe a couple people would panic, but there's so many super-violent people and magical people and superheroes around here that would definitely deal with any thread pretty quickly. There's even a few gods living here."

[keephersafe]

"... Mm."

Weird topic of conversation. Uncomfortable, really, given the ten or so years he'd spent as one of the 'walking dead'. He trails off into silence and looks down at his hands, not really interested in the cake but wondering if he should just try eating it to be polite...

[fifthofthecovenant]

Yeah, even Chase can tell he's stepped in it. Oh, well. He's never claimed to be great with people. "Eat your cupcake," he says instead. "They're good, I promise. Then maybe we can go head back to the library. You work there, too, right?"