Scene #7993: Wish Upon A Data Star

Owner	Pose
BB	Secundus had come and gone, with a strange digital obelisk falling into an ocean region, pouring a diffusing black substance into the waters. Some obelisks had crept into other locations, surrounded by etched-grid squares, voxels carved in space of perfect geometry in fading radials of influence. None emerged in populated areas - the sky, the sea, the digital, but no lands of people. This hadn't stopped people from exploring, however: During the first Secundus expedition, several explorers - local and external, had interacted with the pylons, drawn by either curiousity or odd digital signals that had come out. From the mysterious obelisk various advertisements and endorsements for digital services and products had been pushed. 'Targeted' digital calls only to specific people, for odd services, only visible on sidebars of unsecured clients. Hard to find. Hard to miss. A mystic statue purporting endless prosperity for investments and donations, the spirit of broken barriers and endless potential. Astrological hogwash, and yet - several individuals and survey teams were drawn in, and all disappeared. The trace can be followed to <a> Hawaii, where a massive anime-comics convention is booked for the forseeable future and the streets are abuzz with oddly beautiful people enjoying the daylife and nightlife. Attractions seem everywhere, and an islandwide party atmosphere continues at a throbbing pace that pulses like a constant heartbeat. The people here are genuinely vital, happy, and live loudly and fully. Any trace brings parties to the check-in at the airport terminal. A vaguely Asian-Indian woman with a broad sun-hat and a mane of shaggy-curly brown hair sits alone at the utterly empty arrivals area, the long glass surface of the terminal that the warpage sits vulgarly on like a disembarking plane, and a gantry extends into with a permanent umbilicus to allow people to disembark into the island life naturally. The Asian-Indian woman at the check-in/customs podim shifts uncomfortably in her too-small stool and scratches at her stomach, yawning and smiling naturally. She expects no visitors worth greeting.
Lilian Rook	There's only supposed to be one other person active in Sector Zero who could even begin to comprehend the context behind that obnoxious bit of advertising, and she and hers would never be so roundabout with it. Something that, under literally any other circumstance, Lilian would blow off as astronomically unlikely, yet logically inevitable, random chance. Something, were she possessed of fewer hours of uncomfortable free time and an invasive obsession with Secundus, she would never bother with. And so-- --Lilian steps out of the Warpgate already saddled with a bad feeling about this. Stockings, asymmetrical glove, concealer and colour contact reapplied. The sounds of festive atmosphere put her ill at ease more than anything, one of the more ominous of all possible options regarding 'and then they never returned again'. Distantly reminded of a certain kind of 'Calibration', Lilian struts her way up to the desk in sight --you always go to desks first-- as if she is on business; as if she means business. Her fingers hover with an imperceptible delay over which of her cards to pull, before she chooses to flash her Chevalier ID. "Dame Commander Lilian Isabelle Rook. Paladins Chevalier, Immunes corps. Would you mind telling me where and what this cell is?" She already feels a certain creeping dread about the answer.
BB	And then they never returned again, because the party never ended and they had become guests! That makes perfect sense. People never want vacation to end, truly. Down the gantry and right to customs, the pear-shaped woman at her stool snaps up to attention before immediately springing an emotional leak, bleeding off the spark of energy as she smiles patiently. "Oh, a Dame Commander, so many titles, you must really want a break." the woman agrees. On her podium she pulls from a small tray of pastry-buns, eating right in front of Lilian with a slow Island Time patience to every motion and breath, a laconicness of the soul. The concierge reaches out with her other hand to pluck the ID and bring it close to her spectacled face. Then she checks the back. Returning the card with a nod, the Asian-Indian woman reaches for a second pastry. There are the same number of pastries in her tray. "What's the purpose of your visit?"
Lilian Rook	Believe it or not, Lilian would rather just bumble into some sort of hellish pit or secret cult ritual or comedic saturday morning villain brainwashing facility than a party. It makes the prompt a clean and satisfying dead end not worth thinking about ever again, and it means that all she has to do is make a round, beat up all the bad guys, release all the victims, and go home. No bad guys and no victims, or at least questionably so, is . . ." "I've had enough of a break for now, thank you." Lilian replies primly to the small woman at the desk, taking her ID card back immediately. "The purpose of my visit is an informal investigation. I've heard enough about these coordinates to take some issue with the fact that so many people are still here, and Secundus is already enough of a volatile unknown that everyone was already obsessed with exploring it anyways. Now would you care to answer my question? What is this place called? What is its purpose? What role do you serve here at a terminal desk and why?" Sadly the cool island breeze is not working so well on her sense of unease. "And what is this bizarre advertisement campaign about granting wishes?"
BB	The least comfortable part of the whole presented situation, of an airport with arrivals and no departures and no planes, just a gantry and an approach and a single accomidating woman at customs, and a pulse, distantly, like a nightclub across the street, or a heartbeat through glass. With her right hand, the woman lifts a sweet to her mouth. With her right hand, the woman offers a sweet to Lilian, the mochi surface stamped in red - JUST VISITING Right hand settled on her face, she chews. Right hand outstretched, she offers. It's hard to keep them both 'in frame', perception sliding around her-- Lilian blinks, at the clear incogruity, and suddenly is aware that the woman at the desk has four arms, simply hard to follow in her light vest - unbecoming of her current station, and so they were hiding, but present to the aware. "This is Luluhawa, the land of zero, and of Eternal Summer. Life desires to live, and take pleasure, and create, and grow in ability. This is a gentle land, where anyone who wishes can stay." Past, in the horizon, is an ocean that turns from water-blue, darker and darker, into nothing. Emptiness, a black void, fully unobserved data. "I'm <Ganesha>." The girl answers, a too-energetic and too-happy accent layered over hers like a soft censor bar from a different voice acting session. "But you can call me <Ganesha>." She adds with a little blush. Then Lilian asks about wishes. "Oh, you'd like--" The world falls away, every part peeling away and being replaced by four studio walls, a black void of a studio cieling, the slamming barricades of three facing walls without a backing fourth, and a large banner over the top in a couch produced variety show. The banner alights <B.B. CHANNEL>, and Ganesha hangs her head and makes a long nasal groan. "Oh here we go." "Chin up, sleepy!" BB commands, simply On Stage, dressed in her black too-short skirt, long black boots and sleeved-vest, and white leotard, making heart hands at Lilian over her ample chest and making zero illusions about it. "The wonderful -Dame Commander- asked my favorite question!" BB twirls about from a different position in space, TV-cutting to the side of the still-present podium to settle herself along the front, edging Ganesha out of the frame anyway, leaning against the girl's bowed-forward head with a confident arch of her back as she balances a golden chalice on her finger. "You hate those foolish Grail Wars, right? The ones where a BBunch of fuddy-duddy wizards get together to ruBB their dicks on each other and sneer about pedigree while some gormless SaBBer wins every fight?" "I've aBBolished them." She holds out the golden chalice towards Lilian, tipping it forward as golden, honey-sweet ambrosia pours from the top without source, spilling on the studio floor. "BBut-not-the-wishes~. The Holy Grail is mine, BBecause the Earth is mine by right tenfold. Care for a sip?"
Lilian Rook	Lilian stares at the offered pastry. She experiences flashbacks to reading Alice in Wonderland as a little girl. "Thank you very much, but I have to decline. I . . ." Her gaze sort of nakedly wanders to the extra set of arms. She blinks. Okay, that's a lot less bad then she was suspecting for a split second there, but . . . huh. ". . . Beg pardon? Ganesha? As in, the deva? Remover of obstacles and lord of learning?" That begets a more seriously scrutinizing stare. "Well, if I'm to take that in stride, isn't it also Ganesha's typical role to place obstacles back in the way of people who need to be brought down a peg and slowed down in their headlong ill-advised or immoral rush? This sounds sort of like a situation where that should happen. 'Eternal summer' . . ." Hesitantly, reluctantly, after a great and unsteady pause, she says "Thou shalt never heed the words of that which abides not adversity nor--" and is cut off at pretty much the same place." Even if it is a TV studio, it slamming down around her like a trap sets Lilian off pretty well. Even if it didn't remind her too much of the Count To Ten, it's just far too sudden and suspect. By the time BB twirls into existence, Lilian has drawn her sidearm up to shoulder level in the blink of an eye, and slashed out Night Mist from its place at her throat with a gout of inky darkness, held level and pointed at her side. Her eyes swivel around the room with the pressurized professionalism of someone taught exactly how to scan a situation in a deadly fraction of a second. "Oh. It's you." Lilian's tension is broken down with a vexed sigh when she realizes what's going on. Well, mainly when Ganesha groans in utterly mundane annoyance. The gun and sword both slowly lower floorward. Her eyes glance down to those heart hands, and sort of drift a little past them. Just a little stare. As a treat. She looks back up to check her surroundings for a genuine audience, or whether this is just part of the absurd gag. Not that she's ever been afraid of attention. "I can't say I have that much experience with them, but conceptually, they're perfectly revolting, certainly. And what experience I do have has been entirely negative. Mediocre old men full of unwarranted arrogance and desperate young ones full of piss and vinegar, all shortcuts and borrowed strength to kill each other over the biggest hack of all. The only good thing that ever came of a Grail for me is . . ." Lilian coughs. "Well, how nice. I'm certain nothing of value was lost. But you should be perfectly aware why I don't feel like taking a sip from a magic cup offered by the most suspicious character I've ever seen." she deadpans. Again, Alice in Wonderland comes to mind. "I'm already up to my neck in Wishes at the minute. I don't need more of that trouble." There's a weird, negative pause. She adds a little more bitterly, and a little less guardedly, "Wish, singular, for the most part." as a correction.
BB	'. . . Beg pardon? Ganesha? As in, the deva? Remover of obstacles and lord of learning?' ... 'Well, if I'm to take that in stride, isn't it also Ganesha's typical role to place obstacles back in the way of people who need to be brought down a peg and slowed down in their headlong ill-advised or immoral rush? This sounds sort of like a situation where that should happen.' Ganesha, withered and leaned against by BB as the trio is spirited literally and figuratively off to the studio of the BB Channel, nods under BB's arched shoulder. "Y-yes, that... that's the idea..." BB leans in- Forward, then behind, hoverhandsing over the shoulders, pantomiming a rub, and then back again, to lean on Ganesha with a fond full-out head-bowing arm lean. With her arm bent arm out over Ganesha's head and rolling her cheek across her bicep, BB grins continues to pour from the cup, the ambrosia dribbling messily over the floor below, unclaimed and unwanted. "Oh, yes, many valueless things were lost, and many more were repurposed. It was mages who BBlew a hole in their reality, which wasn't ascending to a higher state or BBecoming a part of magic itself. Really. Terrible." BB stops pouring from the grail with a turn of her hand. When she turns the grail the other way, holding the 'falling' cup with an idle thumb, the ambrosic liquid lifts from the floor, and flows back up into her paradoxical chalice. "It's free to peek and BBrowse~." She suggests, Ganesha groaning again. BB starts noogieing Ganesha. "You're BBeing an oBBstacle." Ganesha whines. "I knowwwww-" BB carries on while Ganesha brings up two hands to gently touch the top of her bullied head. "So you wish you didn't wish? Regrets are wishes too."
Lilian Rook	"If that's the idea, then please, at any moment you wish." Lilian groans in vexation at Ganesha. She's gotten the idea, perfectly clear by now, that the poor deva would if she could, as bizarre as it briefly strikes her to be mentally appending 'deva' with 'poor'. "I'm currently looking at the very picture of irresponsible and immoral. No creature exists more committed to ill-advised acts of cartoonishly demented sin. I really wouldn't mind an obstacle or ten right now." She sighs. Lilian knows it isn't coming. There's not much left for it. She just has to deal with it now. Lilian turns and imperiously sits her ass down on the couch, reattaching her sidearm, planting her sword point down, shrugging off her messenger bag, briskly folding one leg over the other, and crossing her arms beneath her bust. "Dare I ask what browsing means in this context." Lilian groans. She doesn't apologize at all for peeking. Sadly though, past this point, she actually has to think beyond playing the straightwoman and waiting for an opportunity. BB has already seized on that careless rejection in exactly the way Lilian sort of wishes she hadn't. A frown that is less for effect and more a byproduct of the displeasure and unease rattling around in Lilian's head makes its way to her lips. "No. I don't regret it at all." she decides quite quickly, and states quite emphatically. "Wishing for that is something I'm sure I'd have done in all possible timelines. It's something I'd wish for again no matter how many times I was given the chance to redo. In that context, it's the only sane wish. It's the only 'me' wish. Even if I was the one who made it come true, there is still power in it. That I would wish it would be my turn to be." The way she says the very last words isn't enhanced by any sort of special effect, but somehow, they carry a certain electric weight. An inherent gravitas and lingering power. 'Magic words' in a strict and true sense. "I got what I wished for. I didn't pick it up from a store, so I have no right to whine and demand a refund; it came from within me. Everything bad about it that I have to live with is also something that was part of me. It's my trouble to have." she stops to chew the words for a little bit. Her vebal pace slows down, tiring out by degrees. "But something . . . someone? Wanted to grant it too. It chose me out of all the rest of humanity, for god knows what reason. And it did a much better job. Too well." Lilian sighs. "It did it so perfectly that I can't possibly accept it. But even if I know I can't, knowing that everything I ever wanted once upon a time is out there, just waiting for me . . . isn't it normal for it to bother you? Doesn't that just mean that everything bad in your life is something you're choosing to bring upon yourself from then on?" Lilian sighs. She rubs her face a little. "Ugh, why the hell am I asking you of all people. That should be more than enough to satisfy that inappropriate curiosity of yours, yes? Perhaps you should return the favour by telling me what game you're playing here exactly. I'm certain I won't understand it at all, but why harass people over the internet and collect them on some bizarre eternal party island? How does that have anything to do with Grail Wars at all?"
BB	Ganesha and BB shift, as Lilian takes her seat. The deva offers no support or obstacle to Lilian, moving with bowed-down head, carrying her tray of sweets with one hand while eating, alternatingly, with the other three. She doesn't run out of sweets, always drawing a perfect orb from the top row of a tower. BB hops and skips, doing a full circuit around the couch with a traipse to settle into -- Ganesha's stool, from before, set besides the couch. Ganesha plops down bow-legged on the floor, slowly eating with a forlorn look, besides BB's acquired chair. "Have you ever considered that a you from the future, simply chose yourself? That it was always you? A power that feels natural, that comes from you, that is entirely synonymous with your legend, could just BBe your own legend catching up with you, like the Kings Arthurs." Ganesha makes another grunt, but this one more of an affirmative 'heh'. "I don't think it's strange at all you wanted to BBe." BB smiles, innocent. Ganesha makes a long nasal stress noise. BB titters, toeing the snacking girl. "Not going to humor the Dame Commander, deva?" Ganesha looks up, chewing and yet clearmouthed. "You're putting up barriers fine yourself. What you fear is already the wisdom I represent: That you cannot simply fall forward into destiny forever." Now it's clear. Ganesha is not here to impair BB and foil her as some counterbalance: Ganesha is here for Lilian's benefit, and as a block between Lilian and... "It's the couch." BB adds, easily, at Lilian's inevitable 'why am I telling YOU?' to the cheerful nurse with the kind lavender eyes. "They're over. I've ended them. My Luluhawa is a paradise BBeyond space-time, where people who wish to get away can stay as long as they like. A layer of my Moon Cell expressed in this..." BB curls a hand up, gloved fingers stroking invocatively. "Almost-reality. If it connected to the rest, I hoped to make a LostBBelt, a place for a New Human Origin-" Capital letters. "To take place." "If you're asking me why I'm hosting an extra special BB Therapy Couch session with you:" BB leans in, the grail once more grasped in her hands to lift to her mouth like a microphone, distorting her words and glowing sun-gold from within. "You came with wishes and regrets, Lilian Rook. That's why you stepped off in Luluhawa."
Lilian Rook	"No, I don't think I've ever considered that." Lilian replies a little primly. Somehow, some way, she implicitly understands that being compared to plural King Arthur is less than admirable. "No, I don't think it could. Even as I want to say you're not making any sense, I'm certain it couldn't just be the inevitability of 'me' ensuring its own integrity." Lilian pauses, choosing her words slowly and carefully. "That wish . . . is the antithesis of integrity. Taking that offered hand is tantamount to . . . no longer being 'Lilian Rook', and being 'me' instead. And I'm not certain it's even possible for that 'me' to communicate with 'Lilian Rook'." A tired consolation. "Though holding out a hand through the past would be about the most believable way to make contact, if that were possible. 'Time' is the only thing we share a unique understanding of. The only language we could possibly speak to each other." She makes a face at Ganesha. "How easy to say after the fact." She hasn't disagreed. "And how easy to say when falling hasn't been the only way for you to move forward once upon a time. When whatever is at the bottom is less frightening than staying at the top of the cliff." That thoughtful mood is interrupted by a huff that might as well be a verbal eyeroll. "The couch indeed. Do you see me lying on my back?" Lilian retorts. "Frankly, you aren't trustworthy enough for me to believe it's as simple as them 'staying as long as they like'. But then it's not as if just saying that would compel you to be any more honest." Of course she can't help but look suspicious when the Proper Nouns come out. But . . . 'You came with wishes and regrets, Lilian Rook.' Tense seconds pass. The ticking is almost audible. Actually, it is, from her bag. But only in one's head. Lilian exhales slowly. Pinching the fingers of her glove one at a time, she pulls the asymmetrical garment off, and wiggles her semisubstantial black fingertips, gold glints catching the TV lights. She swipes her thumb over her nose, wiping concealer from her discoloured scar. "I know of someone else with . . . not the same kind of wish, but a wish that could only be granted in the same sort of way. And I met someone who fulfilled their own wish that was a little too similar, or, what became of them, at least. And I think I don't want to be like that. But I know I don't want to be like this." She quickly clarifies "Not this little problem. I mean . . . this. I don't know how else to put it but . . . being human is important to me. Staying human is about the most important thing I can think of. But I also hate it. I can't stand being human. And I only realized that once I got my wish. Once it was my turn, I understood that . . ." "I think I just don't like humanity. I don't get why people want to be this way. I don't understand how they can be this way. How is it so easy for them? How is it so normal? How are they so happy? Why is it that my trying never quite counts? Just human enough to be held to human standards, but never quite human enough to deserve whatever it is that makes humans want to carry on with each other. So I started thinking, maybe it isn't that I can't stand being human, but I have to be, or else something terrible would happen, but maybe what I meant was I can't stand being human 'like this'. And once I started thinking that . . ." She stares down at her fingers. "This started happening."
Lilian Rook	"It's not like there's nothing about being human that I like. I have enough to stay for. But when I made that wish, there wasn't. I'm certain it'll mean giving up what I have now, and I must simply be too selfish for that. I want to be human in a different way, one that makes sense, but I also want to keep everything I made with my hard work learning to be human in this way too. If you still insist on calling it a regret, my only regret is that I didn't accept it sooner, before I found any reason to stay." "And this isn't therapy, it's just you being nosy and showing off."
BB	BB begins, from the stool. "You're sure it couldn't..." Ganesha continues from the floor, soft. "'Just'." BB finishes, clear. "Bbe that inevitability of you." Ganesha gets up, from their cross-legged seat, and begins walking, disappearing as soon as they leave observation - or remaining in sight as long as it takes for them to leave 'the set'. They walk, and walk, and walk, and when it becomes too boring or beneathinspection to continue maintaining full vigilance on them, they cease being observed and get where they are going. BB remains, placing her hands in her lap and tapping fingertips together, gazing and listening. The digitary tap tells time like a fingertouch metronome, lined up to the only other 'ticking' in the room. "There is a human terror, and human fascination, a deeply human experience and relationship, with the inevitability of their own selves." Lifting her metronome-timekeeping left hand away from her right, a stretch of the fingers holds, in-air, a rainbow held in six sides - a cube of brilliance. Upon it are face-reflections, tesselating from BB's cheek away - each turn revealing another blond head. "There was a human - man or woman, as humans are - known by as many names as their are permutations of that human-designed letter 'A', and some others that just -sound- similar. Human language, from human tongues. Blessed with many trials and cursed with many swords. Beloved by the Planet, chosen by magic itself. Every time. Always." BB tilts her head away from the cube, and the funhouse reflection only gets clearer - the cube-face towards Lilian resolving into a lion-helmed visage she recognizes from the Paladins. They are all Kings Arthurs. "Is it 'to be Arthur', to hold the sword? Or to be truly 'Arthur' to deny it, and write a different tale? There are as many Kings Arthurs as there are choices to the story. If you ask any student of the true history: There isn't an Arthur until the hand closes around Caliburn and draws it free. Until the hand of fate is taken, shaken, pulled forward, there -is- no Arthur. Swords know as swords, can only speak in weight and ability and the magic within." BB pauses for effect. "Swords, as products of Humanity, are Human too." She places the rainbow cube down on her knees, pressing a finger into the center-top face. "Holding out a length into fate's path and waiting for the right kind of something to grab on is the only language your sword of selection could possibly speak to you." Ganesha sounds like they're about, shuffling behind the walls and screens, present in a bumbling, someone-grumbling-in-whispers presence. BB carelessly plucks the crystal cube-rainbow off her knees and underhands it at Lilian on the couch. When it gets closer to the '''therapy''' couch and its occupant, it reflects someone else - blue of hair and tight of chest, in an equal numerosity to the many Kings Arthurs. "You are on a journey, King Arthur. You know that should you hold the sword of selection or the blade of victory, you will never falter. You know that should you choose Fate's course, you will gather up a table of loyal friends and true companions, for the human you are, the sword you hold, the table you set, the place you create."
BB	"And as King Arthur, Camlann awaits. The reckoning of Fate's BBlessings. The proving. When all victories come due, and History is given the blood of heroes and knights that it was -promised-. Promised BBy holding onto fate's hand and falling all the way into its arms." "One of the most human stories, isn't it? See, the one that the lore could, rather, reflect from you:" Uncrossing and recrossing her stool-seated legs, BB extends her hands to L with thumb and index finger a picture-frame window between her and Lilian Rook. "You're familiar with this choice: BBeing incapable of living as a 'normal' human, some humans went out to the fairies and gods and demanded a re-vision. So, Lilian," Not Dame Commander. "If you do not wish to 'die early and gloriously', or 'peacefully in your bed of old age'--" Lilian walks to it herself, with her words. 'I must simply be too selfish for that'. BB sits, lowering her hands and smiling, silently, save for a bouncing grin at 'just you being nosy and showing off', mischevious, and a quiet. "BBut I am a nurse~." Ganesha, from 'behind' the couch, and under the BB Channel sign, shuffles back into stage and frame, making a path wide around the couch so Lilian can spot her first before she just Snaps Behind The Couch And Starts Talking. A real gulf between the deva and BB's approach to the situation: But one was a lucky obstacle, and the other was BB. Scratching the side of her ear and fretting with the sides of her bangs with her right hands, she carries a knitted piece of cloth in one left while her other just pats her stomach. "Difficult, difficult. You are right, it's easy to say after the fact. When you know, from now to the distant past, the course, and have to justify to the you of today that you are still the same, or a different, human. The obstacle before you is the most Human of all obstacles, the unknown becoming." Ganesha's eyes fall. "Luluhawa is..." BB picks up. "The answer you don't want to take, Lilian Rook. Not 'yet'. Camlann is terrifying, but you can put it off forever. As long as you stop being King Arthur." Ganesha's eyes come up, and she approaches Lilian with her knitted cloth, placing it at the couch-edge rather than draping it or handing it. On the front is simply the phrase letters, in cherry blossom pink, The Form Of Man Is Without End. Apologetic, as if leaving a great burden on the couch, Ganesha retreats somberly, to plop down next to BB's stool. Still speaking, Ganesha lets her head loll back and rest against the cushion of the stool and the side of BB's thigh. "You can stop being Lilian Rook, or King Arthur, or Cu Chulainn, any time you like. Just put the blessings down and accept the empty hands." BB's eyes shine lavender. "You won't keep everything. Of Lilian Rook, of what you have right now. You can transform yourself BBy letting words BBecome real through you, so of course you won't stay the same." "That's BBeing human, silly. Do you think King Arthur never failed at being the best 'human' they could be? The shape is infinite. You can't be all of it." "You can be King Arthur, though." Ganesha sighs, largely in relief. "Or Lilian Rook." "Or the Lilian Rook." BB agrees, slightly sour she has to clarify her metaphor.
Lilian Rook	Lilian doesn't care much to watch Ganesha leave. She doesn't like watching people leave in general. Especially the ones who are supposed to be on her side. 'There is a human terror, and human fascination, a deeply human experience and relationship, with the inevitability of their own selves.' "Change is scary. So is staying the same." Lilian, unhappy, murmurs under her breath. She idly bites her thumbnail, eyes lowering to the anomalous cube, her teeth thoughtfully clicking softly in time with the tick-tock tipy-tap pulse of the room. Fifteen seconds later, it strikes her that she'd completely forgotten to ask what in god's name that cube is supposed to be. Supposed to represent. The urge to do so is interrupted so carelessly. Fatefully. Inevitably. 'Beloved by the Planet, chosen by magic itself. Every time. Always.' Tch. "How nice for her. Him. Them. To be beloved and chosen. Every time and always. I'm certain it's much easier to fall into destiny when fate loves you. Extracting its price at the very end; that's only fair isn't it? That's not even fair enough. Of course they'd pick up the sword. Of course most of them would even surrender it at the end like good little girls and boys. How easy it is to accept it when someone says 'I love you. You matter. I choose you to be special.' even if there is to be a Camlann." Lilian hisses. "If I'm to be honest, out of all the famous knightly tales, I've never liked Arthur. I don't care for a story where someone is invested with all the authority and power and all the blessings in the world, wields it as they please, and everyone sings their praises. People read those, imagining themselves like that. Wishing they could live their lives with a Caliburn and a Calmann to elevate it and tie it all up with meaning. I read those stories and I want to ruin them. I want to break them. I want whoever is told by the world that they're right to be wrong. I want whoever the world chooses to lose. I want the heroes who are good and just and who everyone likes, because they already have all the power and approval, to get a taste from the people who don't. One Mordred at the end isn't good enough." "Why would I ever accept a Camlann after nobody ever chose me before?" "If it was me, choosing myself, I wouldn't put Lilian Rook through that." 'Swords, as products of Humanity, are Human too.' "I've heard that before. 'Lips aren't real, but lipstick is. The ear isn't the human part, but the hole for the earring to go'." She catches the cube. Reluctantly, but caught all the same. "I think I like that thought. That anything made by humanity is necessarily within the purview of human. When we dream and create, we expand the definition of human, not transcend it. When we change ourselves, we expand the definition of normal, not step outside it. I wish more people thought it." 'If you do not wish to 'die early and gloriously', or 'peacefully in your bed of old age'--' ". . ." 'BBut I am a nurse~' Lilian's bitter tension cracks down the middle for a moment at the absurdity of the claim. She laughs, only briefly. "I thought you were a television hostess? And the devil? And an 'Earth Mother'? Nurses aren't supposed to actually be bubbly and salacious; that's all pop media. They're supposed to be bitter, harried, underpaid, bossy bigots. If you knew how to roleplay, you'd have told me to shut up and stop complaining, then left the room to go complain for thirty minutes." It's that bleak semi-sarcasm; one of her more typical mechanisms.
Lilian Rook	'You're familiar with this choice:' Lilian sighs, lobbing the cube to the side of the sofa and staring straight up. "That's one of the things I don't get about how you're 'supposed' to be human. The one I hate next to most, actually. The way you're supposed to just . . . cope. Fate and destiny, gods and fairies, chosen and unchosen, pain and death; I don't understand why the human thing is to accept them, capitulate them, and weave a narrative after the fact about how that was the noble thing to do, and congratulate whoever had it better for deserving it by being better than you. Rewarding the rewarded, humiliating the humiliated. Isn't it stupid? Isn't it pathetic?" "That's the biggest reason I don't regret anything. Because the version of me who was beloved by the world, who didn't wish for anything, who got offered her lot and took it; that version of me whose brain isn't slowly melting in her head and who doesn't need other people to repair the damage every day or she'll float away from reality; that girl probably thinks that way like everyone else. That King Arthur and Camlann are the best we can ever hope for; to be chosen." "More than anything, I can't stand being someone who failed to be anything. More than I'm afraid of losing touch, losing control, or losing a reason to care, I'm afraid of being trapped in that failed, broken species we defined as 'human'. I hate--" A certain turn of phrase strikes her memory. "--being beaten into that empty shape. That the only way I'll ever really count, or be accepted, is if I'm exactly as stupid and pathetic as everyone else who's so possessively happy with exactly the length and width and depth that 'human' is." "So it's not fair that it's so hard to walk away from it too. I just can't stand--" It's Ganesha, returning with the decorative knit, that stops the words in Lilian's throat, and, a moment later, sets her to laughter. Really, really laughing. Head thrown back to couch cushions, hand pressed to eye, shoulders dropping in helpless, cackling chagrin, she has to wipe her eyes with her sleeve before she can find the breath to just speak again. Reboot from fault handler. "I didn't know a deva --or a devil, in fact-- could be such a smartass. That's not even the context of-- no I suppose it doesn't really matter, does it? 'Thou shalt not deny' is the entire point. 'Whatever humans make themselves into is human'. Christ, I feel-- really bloody stupid, actually. I'm always so hellbent on holding myself to those, did I really forget to try holding myself across from them too? I honestly must have--" Her humour cools a little. "--I honestly must have forgotten what it's like for the rules to approve of me too." 'Do you think King Arthur never failed at being the best 'human' they could be? The shape is infinite. You can't be all of it.' "Putting aside that I still despise your choice of metaphor for the fact that I do think I more or less comprehend it. I don't need --don't want-- to keep everything about 'this', and maybe I don't quite need everything of 'that'. But if we're speaking of 'the inevitability of own selves', then I suppose it couldn't be 'the world' holding out its hand now, after all this time. Only I would choose me, and only an 'I' who likes me a lot better than I do." "But I really won't tolerate a Camlann you know. I've had enough of that dramatic sort of sad story by now. I won't hear any rationalizations of it either; the world has had enough of my blood; I've paid up front, so I'll be taking what I'm owed and moving ahead even further. Because if there's a like this, there must be another way too."
BB	There are many moments of heaving shovelling, and coal-black unburdening. BB does not have a personal-specific stake in the story of King Arthur. She does, however, have a personal stake in the story of Lilian Rook, the woman before her, the hero who faces her spirit origin. Ganesha, on the opposite, has an impersonal stake in all these matters save for BB, and serves as a role. In this way, the pair form a fair meter, sitting on either ends of the see-sawing of a leveller. And they sit, Ganesha against stool, BB atop it, not 'waiting' but listening. The time is given to Lilian to speak, and then, to laugh, and expel, and come down. Ganesha had barely left, but couldn't get to where she was going without leaving perception. A limit on the power of the deva, or a kindness to the sorts of people who normally passed through. Present, audibly and slightly bumbling in the way of elephants. 'Putting aside that I still despise your choice of metaphor...' Ganesha makes a sad face. BB just smiles. "It is a metaphor for you, Lilian Rook. It is simply who the Kings Arthurs are. Whosoever, the legend goes, draws the sword from the stone will BBe Arthur, rightful king of England. The sword cannot see who draws it, only know purpose and pull. It is the character that draws it that does the BBecoming." A few moments pause, as Lilian rests on the matter of Camlann. Ganesha is not looking at Lilian. There's something about this that troubles her. The black witch slowly steps up from her stool, brushing out thighs, then skirts, then left and right sleeve. Ganesha remains sitting, though she has her sweets back. "Altria-" Not Arthur? "-was consumed by the self they were supposed to be. Fiery, but a king must be just. Competitive, BBut with a sword that BBrought only presumptive victory. Loving, BBut with a family that they knew would inevitaBBly BBetray them, faillessly. Caring, BBut with a cadre of knights they knew would inevitably ruin all the happinesses that came. And, at the end, Excalibur's" BB speaks the name clearly. 'Excalibur', no doubling. "-price for every victory." "Camlann." "You stand far short of taking hold of Excalibur, but hear it. You know it exists. And can sense the price, the promise of what that BBecoming tells you. You would BBe Arthur, or like them, rightful by nature. It howls, 'Arthur'-" Ganesha sighs. "'Lilian'." She corrects BB gently. BB back-heels the sitting deva with a lifted foot. The standing devil continues. "Arthur, Kings Arthur, of Englands and Camlanns, responsiBBle for all the blood that was shed for them, yet wreathed in Avalon and holding Excalibur, could be nothing -BBut- Arthur. There was precious little room for any 'Altria', and Arthur's wizard saw to the rest." BB, ready to Do something, just sits back, and it is Ganesha that finally rises, to pad back over to Lilian on soft-soled feet and stand before her. Short compared to the heroic proportions of Lilian in breadth and width, still, Ganesha stands central and focused. "Lilian, you chose us. To come here. You chose this world, and us, and this moment. You do not need to wish to be an Arthur to summit what you are." "The mountains you challenge are battles between you and the mountain. Between yourself and yourself, because mountains will go on being mountains down to the pebbles and stones." BB, on her stool, spreads wide her arms. "You could also make wishes, like for a BBetter, kinder mountain!" She pauses, her arms falling. "This one is free: The Lilian that gets all that she could ever dream of at the price of all that she could be, for she could be nothing else, is the Lilian that dies at her Camlann." Ganesha, forward, looks haunted in a deeply human way for a moment, speaking quietly. "It's not that unusual a story."
Lilian Rook	Ganesha makes a sad face. 'It is a metaphor for you, Lilian Rook.' "Don't you give me that." Lilian sighs, lightly rubbing her face with one hand. "I've been perfectly clear. You're a bit of a menace--" A bit? "--but I know you can comprehend me just fine." A thoughtful frown remains stubbornly on her lips as BB continues. "I can't imagine what it would mean to be 'Altria'. The sort of person who would touch your metaphorical sword of selection, not to just have something she can't, even if only for a little while, even if it turns out terrible, but for something as lofty as 'country' and 'people', and be willing to pay that price. There's a certain sort that finds it easy to be noble, and it's not the same sort as the idiots who will die for any stranger in their field of vision." 'There was precious little room for any 'Altria', and Arthur's wizard saw to the rest.' Something dimly, unpleasantly registered. Lilian laughs, short and half-bitter. Her fingers drift across the bridge of her nose and down to her jaw. "And it takes a certain type to be willing to fill the shape set by someone else. It's one thing to throw away the self you were given for the self you want to be, but another entirely to throw it away for the one you feel you must allow someone to make you." A discomforted, mouth-closed groan. "I get it. I do understand what you're trying to say. I just don't have to like the details. I'm very vain when it comes to comparisons and very prickly when it comes to attempts to relate. I'm entitled to my personal selfishness. Or rather, I don't particularly care anymore if I'm not." 'Lilian, you chose us. To come here. You chose this world, and us, and this moment.' "Oh? And here I thought you were fishing for me with those ludicrous targeted ads." says Lilian, attempting to re-inject some dry levity. An eyebrow goes up. Fingers drum on her crossed knee. "Those people won't stay here forever. Be it weeks or years, they'll grow tired of it. I'm deciding to believe that, because I'd like to. Because I could turn right around." 'The Lilian that gets all that she could ever dream of at the price of all that she could be, for she could be nothing else, is the Lilian that dies at her Camlann.' Lilian's slyly aloof affect falls. No crisp and proper, perfectly enunciated and audibly patient 'Yes, and' flies from her lips. It is a soft and tired "Yeah." mingling disappointment and relief; acceptance and nothing but, because the argument against makes too little sense, and the looking away is no longer possible. "You're right that . . . I think I sensed that. It's nothing so literal, but we've . . . established that. Not dying on a hill. But as much as I want to believe that giving up 'Lilian' for 'me' would still leave some, singularly thin bridge to reach back across . . . to touch the things I'd leave here . . . I sort of felt that even that would be temporary, wouldn't it? That there'd . . . come a day where the due is paid and it's no longer up to me to decide. And I'd . . . go somewhere. Where none of this matters anymore." There's a brief, steeling pause. A little more of her edge comes back. "And I quite like deciding things." Though, she leans back in somewhat undignified sloth into the sofa. "Ugh, what an absolute load of shit. This is what therapy is in the end, isn't it? Being told the things you already sort of know, but it takes hearing them out loud to make them convincing. I cannot believe I'm really staring down the 'consider the other option' barrel after all this time. Absolute bull." Lilian moans an unhappy little "Nnnn." in the interim, holding her face for a moment again, then sitting back up invisible string straight. "Then while I'm feeling generous and not yet filled with regret, how should I thank you for this little pearl of closure?"