Post-Event Blues

[lucetimods]

Who: Everybody, everybody!
What: The battle is won. Now what?
When: The eleventh, twelfth, and onward
Where: Luceti
Summary: With Zompano dead and the cultists routed, Luceti is restored. Kind of.
Rating: F for Feels

On the eleventh, things were slowly breaking down. Memories of their true lives were breaking through. The village, scarred by the battle with the cultists, began to rebuild itself. Community buildings that had vanished were returned to their rightful places. The battle dome was uncovered from the earth that had covered it. Hundreds and hundreds of fake homes slowly faded away. Paved roads gave way to trees and grass. It was an incredible sight for anyone who was willing to sit aroun and watch it happen.

Things wouldn't be easy for the villagers, though. The memories perpetuated by the last ten days would not be easily removed. The feelings and hatreds it had created would take time to conquer and remove. Perhaps, in a way, that was Zompano's nastiest trick of all. The village itself may heal from his invasion, but it would take far more than a few Shifts to fix the people left behind.

Towards the end of the day, their wings returned. Much like some of the buildings, they seemed to just reappear, as if they had never been gone. Their barcodes became visible again as a singular reminder that they were, ultimately, just the property of another entity who as a whole were not much better than Count Zompano.

By the twelfth, the village looked as though nothing had ever happened. Sure, the contents of buildings might have been messed up or destroyed during the battles, but things were otherwise as they were supposed to be. The night before, people would have had to find their old beds to go sleep in, as they no longer possessed the old ones granted to them in another life.

The village was peaceful.

Modly Note: That wraps up the event. As noted in the prose above, you have the option to play up the after effects of the event more than in other ones. While it won't have the same impact universally, the Shift was constructed in such a way that people may have difficulty shaking off the emotions they developed during the event. In effect, it was a cruel send off to Luceti so they would have to deal with the loathing and hatred that came with the less desirable parts of it. Of course, that means the feelings of familial bonds will also persist for awhile as well. It's up to you, as players, to decide how much or little to play with it!

Comments

[ablankpage]

I'll stay until you fall asleep.

[...And he might end up dozing off. But he won't admit that to her.]

I'll be fine.

[DeWitt knows what the asylum was. What their methods were. Or he did then. Maybe he won't remember. Robert hopes so. But Elizabeth... All she needs to know is about the isolation. That can cause enough fear. Anything else... she doesn't need to know.

From where he sits, he shifts -- brings one leg up to lean his weight against it.]

Why don't you... If you'd like to -- I never had any of the memories they created. Why don't you tell me some of the things you remember? The good ones.

[tearmeanewone]

[Elizabeth hesitates, wondering how this might help. But maybe it would calm her down, much like how Robert's presence at the end of her bed is calming her down. She lays back into her many pillows.]

I remember birthdays. I remember... that when I was little I wanted a balloon for my birthday. And Booker bought me one, and didn't even laugh when I cried and cried over it deflating days later. [She laughs quietly, slightly embarrassed even if the memory was fake.]

I remember visiting my mother's grave, and you both held my hands while we all cried. I remember Booker getting angry when we mixed baking soda and vinegar together and it went all over the table. I remember Rosalind trying to explain to me that the reason boys pushed me down on the playground was because they didn't know how else to interact with me, while you tried to convince Booker that knocking around a seven-year-old wouldn't do anything.

...they're nice, even if they aren't mine.

[ablankpage]

...Sounds like DeWitt.

[It's softly said, and Robert actually reaches out his hand to touch hers.

It sounds nice, actually. That sort of a family. Rather than growing up an only child in a family that wasn't quite sure how to handle a genius. To have actually grown up with Rosalind... What would that have been like? He shakes his head, looking briefly up at the woman still standing across the room from them. She isn't real, but seeing her...]

They sound nice. Like what you should have grown up with. I... I'm only sorry you didn't.

[tearmeanewone]

[Elizabeth squeezes Robert's hand tightly and drops her head onto her knees. It is what she should have grown up with, what every normal child should have. It was too late, though. Her life would never be like that, thanks to Comstock.]

I'm sorry too. [Her voice is thick, she's trying to control her emotions and rein in her tears. She'd cried so much during the experiment, she thinks she might rattle apart if she cries anymore.]

[ablankpage]

[Robert takes a deep breath. He doesn't... really know what he's doing, but. Sometimes... Especially that night... Sometimes Rosalind would need someone. Even she couldn't be totally alone.

So, Robert let himself wrap an arm around Elizabeth and tug her close to him.]

He's... not perfect, DeWitt. But he does care about you. It's not a childhood... not the past you should have had.

[He touches her hair gently.]

But it's a future.

[tearmeanewone]

[Elizabeth leans heavily on Robert, both surprised and so relieved that he chose to hold her. As the memories of her being constantly hugged and held and comforted were starting to be supplanted by years and years of 'DO NOT TOUCH THE SPECIMEN', she'd started to miss physical contact.]

I guess I'd assumed at the beginning that he wouldn't stay with me. He had his own life, after all. [She rests her head on Robert's shoulder.] But at the end, I don't know if I could have let him walk off on his own.

[ablankpage]

He's as alone as you are. [Alone and looking for a family. Even if DeWitt would never think he deserved one.

It was why he was perfect. Besides his own debt to her, besides his skill in killing people -- he had needed Elizabeth as much as she had needed him.

Maybe... No. She definitely deserved to know.]

After the battle with the Vox? Before he takes you to Paris? [That part... not entirely true, but it sounds better than the whole truth.] He stops Comstock. Breaks the whole cycle. So that in no other world do you grow up without your family.

[tearmeanewone]

[Elizabeth buries her eyes in Robert's shoulder, overwhelmed for a moment. She didn't know how it was possible to stop Comstock, break whatever 'cycle' she had started with her tears. But even if it was too late for her, Booker had cared enough about what her life could have been to save her again. Countless times.]

And we're together. In Paris...

[ablankpage]

The city of lights.

[It's a good distraction, he thinks. One he can actually talk about. After all, he saw quite a bit of the world before we went to Columbia, before he crossed through a tear.

And Paris...]

The Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame.

It's a beautiful city.

[tearmeanewone]

You've been there? [Distraction accomplished. Elizabeth lifts her head, expression brightening a little. If there was one thing that always cheered her up, it was talk of Paris. Of anyplace that was new and exciting.]

[ablankpage]

A few touring lectures from physicists I greatly admired as a young man happened to be in Paris, so I travelled for them.

[Which is, actually, entirely true. He'd gone there for his work and his passion, not necessarily for the city. But he had seen it while he was there.]

[tearmeanewone]

How exciting. [Elizabeth settles back on Robert's shoulder, smiling as she imagines him as a wide-eyed young man with his suitcase and traveling hat. Chasing knowledge.]

I can't wait to go. It seems like such a... cultural hub. Art and music, literature, philosophy, everything.

[ablankpage]

One of the few places of the world where... you can get lost and not care. Because there's something to see around every corner.

[Exaggerating? Maybe a little. But that's what she needs right now. A... A bedtime story. A little bit of hope.]

I learned about art there. Never had been interested in it before then.

[tearmeanewone]

[Yes, she could have pleasant dreams all night of wandering the streets of Paris, lost and in love. No looking over her shoulder, understanding absolutely everything that was happening.]

Ah, did you go to the Louvre? [She wiggles a little as she resituates herself on Robert's shoulder.]

[ablankpage]

I did. [He smiles a little.]

An art student I met there convinced me to try my hand at painting, actually.

[tearmeanewone]

Right! I saw you painting once. [She grins back.] It didn't look much like Miss Lutece. Maybe you should have taken a class from a professor instead.

[ablankpage]

I probably ought to have. Diagrams and schematics, that's all I'm good at.

[It's said lightly, though, and he touches her hair slightly. A small gesture, one he's not sure she'll want, but it's what he can do.]

[tearmeanewone]

[She's getting used to it, Robert touching her hair. Maybe it wouldn't be so strange after her association of Robert as her uncle faded. He was her second guardian, after all. He reassured her so easily, and because most of what he said was so firmly rooted in the logical it was hard to dismiss what he said as 'fluff said to make her feel better'.]

It was a very nice self-portrait, ...Robert. [There, that wasn't so hard.] All I'm saying is that I can't imagine Miss Lutece was terribly thrilled if you were supposed to be painting her.

[ablankpage]

I imagine she'd have called me a narcissist. And laughed.

[He chuckles as he says it, his voice warmer than it usually is. Rooted in a memory his heart won't quite shake.]

[tearmeanewone]

[Elizabeth laughs too, smiling when she hears some warmth come back into Robert's voice.]

You should paint here too. You have nothing but time.

[ablankpage]

[Robert stills his hand, which had been making small movements through Elizabeth's hair.]

I... might.

[Except he won't. Because now, his pictures would be of Rosalind. Of a past he can't recapture. Of what has been and will never be.]

[tearmeanewone]

You should. There's so much beautiful scenery around here. Or are you just a portrait painter? [She has a thought and grins, already amused by her own joke.]

You could sit Booker down, see what you can get before he stomps away, and sell it to the gallery as 'modern art'.

[ablankpage]

I think I could paint DeWitt from memory.

[He chuckled lightly, shaking his head.]

Four years of watching the man.

[tearmeanewone]

[Elizabeth's brow furrows slightly and she wraps an arm around Robert's shoulders.]

You don't have to watch him anymore, at least? Your life is your own again.

[ablankpage]

My life is my own, entirely. [And he manages to smile as he says it.

Because he can't tell her what that means. Because she doesn't know that one world has to unravel for the millions of millions to undo as well. That for Comstock to have never existed... meant he never funded Rosalind.

And what did that mean for the Lutece Field? The Lutece Tear?

Best not to think about that.]