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 think we both forgot what it was like to read those books in our youth. [He chuckles softly to himself. He was sure Rosalind had read a few, even if she'd never said it. Because they'd been works he had been drawn to, things that had fascinated him.]

We didn't know at the time how much they'd help. [Teach her a sense of adventure, of freedom, of having faith in a man who said he was there to get her out.]</small

[tearmeanewone]

They were my life. [She smiles, recalling all the fond memories she has of reading the most recent book Songbird had brought. Under a blanket with a small lamp next to her, staying there reading until she fell asleep with the book as her pillow.]

Without them, I would have felt like more of a prisoner than I already was. Thank you, Robert.

[ablankpage]

[He can't help but smile a little.]

I tried once to convince him that you ought to have tutors. That with instruction you would exceed mere brilliance.

But I think he was afraid of a corrupting influence. Especially since he knew who I'd suggest.

[tearmeanewone]

You and Ms. Lutece? [Elizabeth grins back. She would have loved to learn from them, to have someone as a fixture in her life who would talk with her. But knowing what she knows now, she could predict how that conversation with the Prophet would go.]

Songbird couldn't speak, so he couldn't tell me why I wasn't allowed to leave. You and Ms. Lutece would have had to answer those questions. You would have had to explain why I never read anything about China, or Ireland, or Native Americans. Why I learned navigation by stars, latitudes and longitudes, war strategies, code breaking... It was easier for him if I stayed ignorant on certain things, and had a jailer who couldn't speak to me.

[ablankpage]

Plus he'd hardly have let his Lamb learn science from someone who entirely disavowed the existence of God.

[It made his life easier, Comstock's. A naive, ignorant girl to be taught as he saw fit. A jailer who couldn't speak. A pair of scientists contained. Killed, later, to keep his secret and preserve the status quo when they proved capable of changing it.]

He was afraid of what would happen if you knew too much. But what got him in trouble was not telling you enough sooner.

[tearmeanewone]

I don't know if that would have saved him. [Elizabeth says this with a grim finality.]

Booker saw what he turned me into. Even if he'd told me from the beginning that that's what he wanted, I wouldn't have done it willingly. I wouldn't care how much the world below Luceti resembled Sodom, I couldn't just set it on fire and be content to watch it burn. Never.

[ablankpage]

[There are a million, million worlds. In every one, a different choice led to a different path. I've seen those worlds.

But none of that can be said.

"You're far too sentimental, brother. She deserves the truth."]

He thought it would. Men with delusions of grandeur don't often allow for true reason.

[He smiled faintly, touching her hair lightly. He kept his voice light as best as he could.]

[tearmeanewone]

Fair enough. I wouldn't call The Prophet the most sane man, either. Maybe he thought I would grow up more docile than I actually did.

[She smiles faintly too, closing her eyes when Robert touches her hair.] Maybe those books really did ruin everything.

[ablankpage]

[Robert can't help but laugh a little. Soft, but genuine.] No. Certainly not the most sane.

Still, I'm glad you liked the books.

[tearmeanewone]

Things could have been different if you hadn't fought for my right to them. [She sighs and groans as though remembering something unfortunate.] I really don't want to imagine a world where I couldn't read.

[ablankpage]

...It was the least I could do for you.

[After all, he'd brokered the deal that had led her to be locked away in that tower. He owed her books. Far more than that, really. Which he'd realized too late.]

[tearmeanewone]

[She shrugs, resting more heavily on Robert's shoulder.] I don't know if Comstock would have allowed anything more than what you did.

[ablankpage]

[Robert can't help but sigh, stroking her hair again.]

We did try. [His voice is soft. He is not a religious man, but for all the regret in his voice, he might as well be a penitent sinner in a confessional.] Too little, too late, but we did try.

[tearmeanewone]

I know, I believe you. [Elizabeth puts her hand over Robert's free one.] I don't blame you for not doing more, you had enough of a battle to fight.

[ablankpage]

We robbed you of so much, though. [He's painfully aware of that. Not enough to make a full confession. Not after everything she's been through. He can't do that to her.] Your first memories should be of home and family. Of parks and sunshine.

Not that damned tower.

[tearmeanewone]

...I know. [And it hurts to know that she'll never have that normalcy. Because of her abilities, because of her childhood.]

I can't go back and do it again, though. And Comstock paid for taking years of my life from me. [With his own life.]

[ablankpage]

...He did. [Robert's hand stilled briefly. It brought back the thought he hated to dwell on, yet it pervaded his thoughts now.]

All our debts were paid, in the end.

[tearmeanewone]

[Elizabeth is almost sleepy enough to let that slide by.]

What do you mean 'in the end'?

[ablankpage]

I've seen how it ends. When you and DeWitt hit upon how to stop Comstock before he ever begins.

By seeing he answers for what he did and is stopped, we all answer for our actions, good and ill.

[tearmeanewone]

[She frowns softly, thinking this may be a waste of her breath but she still wants to know.]

How does it end?

[ablankpage]

The Prophet never exists.

[She's tired enough, he hopes, that she won't remember. That she won't see just how many threads that unravels. That she'll see only the good it will do her and Lady Comstock and those the Prophet used.

That she won't see how it undoes the ones he helped, too. She doesn't need that on her shoulders.]

The only way it could end -- if it never began.

[tearmeanewone]

[Elizabeth's eyebrows come together as she tries to parse out how she and Booker could possibly do that. Maybe something to do with the siphon's destruction. Maybe in some tear Elizabeth and Booker stopped Comstock from ever founding Columbia, somehow.]

That makes sense, even if I don't know how we could do that. It has to do with tears, right?

[ablankpage]

You told DeWitt that when you were young, you could create tears. The destruction of the siphon allows that again.

[There was so much more to it, but that was all she needed to know. For now, at least.]

You're able to choose when you go, not just where, and... There is no way to really end the cycle unless it never begins.

[And so the Prophet is drowned before he could ever be born again. But that, especially, he can never tell her. She'll have to learn that for herself or hear it from DeWitt.]

[tearmeanewone]

Oh... [Elizabeth's hands wrap around Robert's elbow as she considers that. Killing him before he became The Prophet? Killing him before he murdered people at Wounded Knee? Or before he ever really lived?]

[The idea of killing an infant causes her to recoil and tense against Robert. She had to have done it, otherwise Robert wouldn't have said that it had ended, but she can't reconcile the thought now. Even with all that Comstock had done to her, there was something just repulsive about harming a baby.]

And Booker's with me when I do this? When I kill him? [God Robert, don't tell her she's alone at the end. Tell her anything but that.]

[ablankpage]

Right by your side.

[No matter the cost to him.

For that, Robert gave DeWitt credit. He never left Elizabeth, never balked when the situation took a turn for the worse. Even when he realized what he would have to do.]

He never leaves you.