tearmeanewone | un + action/voice

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un + action/voice

[Action]

“Booker? Booker?!”

Elizabeth could almost still smell the sulfur and fire, and feel the heat coming from Monument Island. It had felt, for a moment, like the world was being pressed and burned into her bones, swelling up against her ribcage and expelling itself in the form of a brilliant, blinding light that enveloped her, Booker, and Songbird. That was what she'd seen, she was almost certain of it.

But instead of her jailer and her strange fellow convict, Elizabeth was brought out of the sky and out of the clouds and light and into cool water. Not that she'd never ended up in water before, but it was very disorienting. She thrashed and doggy-paddled to the edge of the lake, realizing that if Booker had been anywhere nearby, he would have answered her.

The silence was lonely, and familiar. She didn't like it at all. Even the sounds of gunfire would have been welcome as opposed to the sound of her struggling to slosh out of the lake and onto the shore. Everything seemed to echo, even the drips coming off of the plain dress she had somehow ended up in. New place, new clothes, wings on her back... Elizabeth reached out awkwardly and touched them, drawing a hand back in dismay and shock when she realized she could feel her hand on her wing. Wings. She had wings now, when did that happen?

“It's okay, Elizabeth,” she said aloud, crossing her arms over her chest, trying to calm down and warm herself a little. “It's... probably not this wet in heaven.” She sniffled from the chill of being soaked head to foot, and took in her surroundings while trying not to wonder if she had in fact killed herself and Booker by opening that tear. It had led somewhere significant, somewhere foreign and different where madness was king. She had thought she'd seen a sea, but perhaps it was this lake. Perhaps she was in a different place where madness was king...

“Booker!” she called again, almost desperate. Biting back tears and a lump in her throat, she looked around the lake once more. She had lived alone for years. And in the first scrap of quiet she'd heard in a long time, she couldn't find comfort standing by herself.

Shivering, Elizabeth looked around for any movement and saw a patch of royal blue on the ground. Her dress, folded neatly with a thin book. Who did that...?

[Audio]

[The audio starts up, unexpectedly, but Elizabeth seems to know how this is supposed to work. It's like a Voxophone, right? Only it's somehow transmitted everywhere.]

Can anyone hear this? I don't know what day it is, or where I'm supposed to be. Booker? There's a, uh, lake here, and some trees. [She sighs, her voice wavering.] I'm freezing out here, and if you're running around sticking your head in trashcans I'm going to be really mad!

((Catch her walking through the forest or into the village! She has her journal open too, and will be 'Voxophoning' actively.))

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Yeah. [Pepper offers a sympathetic grin; it’s one of the many things to get used to in Luceti.] So you’ve just arrived, right? I know you’ve got a lot of questions. Are you hungry or anything like that? We can go somewhere and get a bite to eat or something to drink—or just some place to talk.

[Whatever Elizabeth needs. They’ll end up in the same general area regardless, and it’ll be a path important for her to learn.]

[Elizabeth smiles, thankful for the support, though she still looks a little wary. She's not used to how helpful Pepper is being, and it makes her wonder if this whole thing isn't just another Monument Island. It seemed too big, and the wings made it hard to justify, but she didn't really know what to think. Was she actually in some sort of mild shock? After everything she'd been through already?]

I am kind of hungry... [She admits, trying to smile again.] I can't remember the last thing I ate.

[That one remark, when combined with Elizabeth’s warning to her companion about sticking his head in trashcans, earns her Pepper’s sympathy.] Then let’s change that. [She motions toward the exit, heading there at an easy pace since she knows Elizabeth has gone through a lot today, with more to follow.]

I know you’ve heard a bit about Luceti already, so maybe it’ll be easier if you ask about anything you’re unsure of. I can probably answer a lot of your questions.

[But Elizabeth does manage to keep up. She's tired, but she's been running for a long time. It's sad, but she hasn't stopped running since Monument Island.]

Yeah, that makes sense. [Elizabeth falls silent as they walk, thinking.] Why wings? Does anyone know why?

They're necessary to our survival, or so the story goes. [Pepper's never tested it, since putting her own life in danger just to prove a point has never really seemed like a prudent move in her eyes.] They're meant to help us cope with the way this world works. There's these things called Shifts, where certain elements of the environment or ourselves change. The wings allow us to survive them.

But why it has to be wings as opposed to anything else, I really don't know.

It doesn't really seem that... I don't know, practical. Or even sensical. [Elizabeth frowns and reaches back to check her wings again. Her fingers traveled over her back and into the wing. It isn't an apparatus like that thing they'd shoved into her spine in a drastic attempt to control her (the mark from which is still apparent and framed by her wings now). No, these were actually growing out of her like a normal appendage.]

I read also that everything's free here. So they just expect that we'll take care of ourselves? Eat and sleep, not voluntarily starve to death?

Unfortunately, that's true for a lot of things here. I really don't try and figure out how things work, because so much of it shouldn't. [She has no way of knowing if Elizabeth comes from a world with magic, for example, but in Pepper's such a thing had been completely foreign until only a few years ago. Same with aliens.]

You've got it. But even if someone were to die, they don't stay dead. [She pauses, letting that thought sink in.] People who pass away here come back after a week, although something is taken from them. And it's possible that people who have died in their own worlds can be brought here alive.

Great... [Elizabeth sighs heavily. So much of her understanding was based in science, not 'it works so don't question it'. Wings, free food and shelter, no vending machines with ammunition... what kind of place was this?]

Wait, what? [Elizabeth stops walking and stares, open-mouthed at Pepper.] So I... I could be dead right now? [That sudden influx of power, Songbird coming right at them, Elizabeth had thought she could see well enough to save them. But what if she hadn't seen? What if what she'd felt was something she couldn't control and it hadn't worked the way she'd meant it to?]

I could be dead, and the person I was with could be dead too. But I'm here and he's not...

[Pepper could kick herself once she sees Elizabeth’s shock. It’s something she’s gotten used to, even dealt with before—but Phil Coulson is an exception to most rules, and the way the girl with her now starts to break down would be normal for anyone. So she stops as well, turning to face Elizabeth and putting her hands on the other woman’s shoulders, trying to offer what comfort she can.]

It’s okay. It’s okay. [Although in truth Pepper has no way of knowing whether it is or not, she still tries to give some reassurance.] Being here doesn’t mean you’re dead, or that he’s dead. You both could be perfectly fine. Only one of you being here doesn’t mean anything. And when you leave here, you’ll go back to that same exact moment. It’ll be like you never left him at all. I promise.

How is that possible? Unless they can see into every single moment of every single world, I couldn't... [But what if they could? That thought is probably more terrifying than anything. Life could be changing around them right now, and Elizabeth wouldn't even be able to tell.]

...and what happens if I did die? [She thinks she knows the answer to that question.] Is this some kind of second chance?

I don’t know. I just know it’s true. [Beyond that, Pepper hasn’t ever questioned the mechanics of it. Whether it’s science or magic she knows she won’t understand it, and it seemed futile to torture herself by trying to.

The next question is harder, and Pepper glances down, not able to offer the brand of hope Elizabeth seems to be searching for.] It can be, while you’re here. But what we do here doesn’t affect what happens to us back home---I’m sorry.

Unless I'm where I'm supposed to be, it's not a second chance. [Elizabeth, not one to shed tears at the drop of a hat, is trying so hard not to cry. But all she can think of is Booker dying, her promise to keep him on the other side of life, Songbird coming right at them--]

[She bites her lip to keep it together.] I'm sorry, this isn't your fault. You don't have to apologize.

[There isn't much of anything she can offer in reply to that. Certainly nothing that doesn't feel hollow compared to how Elizabeth tries to hold it in.]

Neither do you. It's no more your fault than it is mine. [The circumstances are just terrible ones, and completely beyond their control.]

I shouldn't shoot the messenger, so to speak. [Elizabeth tries another smile.] The last thing I remember, something very big and very angry was coming right at me and my friend. He said that it was coming, and I reached out and pulled a tear open-- Everything went white--

[She sighs.] And then I fell in a lake. Anything could have happened.

It’s okay. [While Pepper doesn’t know what a tear is, or understand it in the context Elizabeth gives her, she focuses instead on trying to give the woman whatever hope she has to offer.]

You’re right. Anything could have happened—meaning you could both be fine. [Even if the circumstances described make that seem somewhat remote, it’s all she’s going to have to hold on to. So Pepper smiles gently, trying to help her do so.] Try to focus on that?

[Elizabeth had considered that maybe everything was fine. That she and Booker had escaped, and that she would never have to go back to Columbia again. But all of the setbacks she had experienced, Songbird taking her to that laboratory in Comstock House where she'd waited for Booker for so long... that had, perhaps, killed much of her ability to think positively.]

[Which was what Comstock had wanted. And Elizabeth had sworn she would never be beat.]

It would be easier to think that if he was here. That's all.

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