SIX + Action / Voice

[tearmeanewone]

[VAGUE SPOILERS FOR 'BURIAL AT SEA' BELOW]




Elizabeth Comstock, you have been tried and found guilty of leading this man to his untimely death--

[Booker sits in the gallery, staring coolly back at her, and Elizabeth feels both wet and cold. And bloody--there's blood all down her front. But she doesn't feel shock or even surprise. She knows why it's there, she just can't see the memory. Every time she reaches for it, nothing happens.]

[Words feel unsteady, and she has to chase each one and hold it, own it, before speaking it.]

I was never his! But he… he had to have me! [What choice is she defending herself for making?]

--You have therefore, been sentenced to have your head forcibly torn from your body until you are dead.

[A cord is looped around her neck, Robert and Rosalind almost waltzing around and past her as they do so. Elizabeth scrabbles at the cord as it's pulled taut by one Lutece at each end.]

But he’s right there! He’s right there!! I didn’t kill Booker, he’s right there! He’s been here the whole time! [The cord tightens, Elizabeth’s hands don’t work, her fingers can't get under the cord.] Stop pulling, stop pulling, please! I’LL BE YOUR DAUGHTER!

May God have mercy on your wicked souls, child.


[Action - Locked to Gai and BioShock Infinite Crew]

[Elizabeth writhes in bed, her breathing becoming quicker and shallow as though she were having trouble filling her lungs. And whatever she’s trying to get away from her neck, there isn’t anything there. She’s scratching at nothing.]



[END SPOILER CONTENT]







[Voice – Early, Early Morning of December 1st]

Has anyone here ever had a dream that was prophetic? I know that most dreams are a product of our subconscious thoughts, but… I had a dream and I know I couldn’t possibly have been thinking any of the things that were in it. Not even subconsciously.

I thought that maybe this could be an experiment of some kind. [Read: ‘I’m hoping this was an experiment of some kind.’]

Comments

[ablankpage]

["As close to a father as I may get."

If ever there was anything to be terrified of, it was that statement. He actually smiled a bit.]

Proof further, though I didn't need it, that it's a good thing I'll never have children.

[It's said with a bit of humour, meant as detrimental to him, not as an insult to Elizabeth. He's hardly been any sort of decent father. Provided her books but never spoke to her. Not to mention all that she didn't know. Bartering with a desperate young man, handing over a child to a religious zealot. He'd only tried to fix what he'd done in the first place.

To repay his own debt.]

Morals are different here than those I have known. I spent twenty years in Columbia, and twenty more before that in London's society. This is... a far more liberal place, and I...

[He can't help but chuckle faintly with a brief glance to Rosalind, of acknowledgement.]

And I may know how to work against a society's morals, but I was one to do so subtly, to mask my goings on. There isn't need for that here, and I haven't yet learned to shake those expectations. Of myself and others.

[quantumgrammar]

[Rosalind isn't entirely certain where such wariness comes from, when Elizabeth turns her eyes from Robert to her. Of all of her available choices for a parental figure here, Robert may well be her best option, sad as it is to say (and sad not because she thinks so little of her brother, but because they are the same person and thus she knows their shared and contrasted faults in such merciless detail). And the foray into sentimentalism is hardly appalling. They are entirely different creatures, and what is so treacherous to Rosalind is a proven and enduring source of power for Elizabeth.

No, if anything it is intriguing, to see what she thinks of the both of them.

She meets Robert's look with a lift of her eyebrows, innocuous and enigmatic calm to the faint cheek of his admission, but a mirror in its own way. She finds herself in much the same place, save that where Robert seems to wish to protect, she is content to observe.]

The intention of the thing is valid, however poorly the particulars adapt to a new framework. [The words come out more contemplatively than in her head, deliberately. It is a matter she speaks with little to no authority on, but general principles seem applicable, and Robert provides a reasonable starting framework.] If one must have a companion, it only follows one should find one that betters oneself.

[tearmeanewone]

[The wariness comes, entirely, from Elizabeth's realization that Rosalind seems to deal less in feelings and emotions and more in what was strictly practical and logical. There wasn't anything logical about Elizabeth feeling a need for companionship. She could, reasonably, live alone and not starve. She could, reasonably, not be involved with anyone and function.]

[Her wariness comes entirely from the fear that Rosalind will deem her more emotionally-based needs as unnecessary. And Elizabeth has never been able to fault Rosalind for her common-sense wisdom. But she had walked so far with Gai, looking back on the path and wondering if she hadn't made a proper decision somewhere down the line is a harrowing prospect.]

Yes, the intention is valid. And his intentions have always been very gentlemanly within this, ah, framework. [In a very, very general sense. The only way Elizabeth can say that with any conviction is by assuring herself that a gentleman did not take advantage of ladies, and was conscientious and polite and caring during any part of the courtship. Gai had been all of those things to her at every moment. ...even those moments she would never, ever speak of in front of Robert, Rosalind, or Booker.]

And he does better me. We're separated by over one hundred years of history, but our life-defining experiences are so similar it's a little scary. I haven't felt as... inhuman, since I started spending time with him.

[ablankpage]

Constants and variables.

[It's as simple as that.]

Find someone similar enough that you understand them... but different enough that it can complement you. Someone who can support you when your faults have you nearly crippled... and who will rely on you when theirs are working against them.

[He knows that feeling too well, and the two women in the room know it.

After all, he had gone to great lengths himself to join Rosalind in her world. Which was why he knew he had little room to complain about Gai. Any ungentlemanly conduct, he could likely be accused of himself. Probably more than Gai, actually. Not that he shared everything. Rosalind knew; Elizabeth didn't need to.]

Yes, I understand.

[quantumgrammar]

[Robert says it better than she likely could. Unsurprising. A comfort, also, in its own strange way. She has always liked a well-crafted proof, and there is a perfect symmetry between his words and the truth of them in Rosalind's silence.]

I suppose we shall see how it all develops.

[Rosalind remains unconvinced that Elizabeth is at all appreciably bettered by tying her stability and freedom to a young man from another world, but that is her own discovery to make, her own experiment to run, and one that Rosalind sees no particular reason to entangle herself in. Especially where her heart is concerned, Elizabeth will do what she will, and the most that can be hoped for is collaboration.]

In the meantime, you know where to find us.

[She's already half-turned, as if to return to bed, head inclined to Robert to come along with her.]