EIGHT + Action/Voice

[tearmeanewone]

[Action - Wednesday Night]

[It's been a few days since Elizabeth was kidnapped by the Malnosso, but like most subjects Elizabeth returns looking more or less whole and unruffled.]

[She comes back looking a little different, too.]

[The first and most apparent thing is her clothing. Whereas Elizabeth used to do her errands in a long, flared skirt and modestly-fit blouse, there's a whole lot more va-va-voom to her now. She's wearing makeup, heels, and someone has very clearly discovered the wonders of the brassiere.]

[But to those who know her, the change is more drastic in her eyes and expression. As she walks through the dark trees and village, her eyes stay straight ahead and fiercely focused. Her expression is cold, closed off, business-like instead of her usual open smile. And she moves with purpose instead of a curious and slow wander, and only casts her eyes around to double check that she's going the right way. There's no confusion or hesitation, she knows exactly where she is.]



[Action - Locked to Infinite Crew]

[Eventually, she makes it through the village and arrives at her house. At first, she almost moves to knock. Fist hovering, she reminds herself, forcibly, that this is still her house. She walks in and looks around the living room for any sign of Robert or Rosalind. ...or him.]

[Suddenly, Elizabeth feels blind. This must have been what Robert and Rosalind had felt like when they had first arrived in Luceti--completely and utterly blind. If she could just see everything one more time, she would know where he had come from. But she had never known before, and so she doesn't know now. Everything told her that he was Booker DeWitt, but that name belonged to too many for her to know, truly, which one he was.]

Robert, Rosalind-- I'm home!



[Voice - Thursday morning]

I've been going back through my journal, and I realized that my kidnapping was actually filmed. So in case anyone was concerned about me, I'm back in Luceti. Not too worse-for-wear.

Eleanor-- can we talk?



[Action - Thursday]

[During the day, Elizabeth can be seen wandering around Luceti and looking at all the various buildings with some strange sense of nostalgia. She acts almost like an older woman coming back to her hometown, and marveling at how much things have changed. She never looks lost or confused, but reminiscent and sometimes sad. She visits the Library, where she stands in some aisles just running her fingers over the books. Then Good Spirits, where she hovers around the bar waiting for a certain table to be free. And in the meantime, she packs away a few drinks like it's nothing. Then she goes to the Battle Dome, where she navigates to a few of her saved simulations--mainly Paris--and just stands in them for minutes on end. She works a new one, almost casually, of dozens and dozens of lighthouses connected by miles of boardwalk. She walks along them and talks to herself, quietly, as though trying to explain something to air.]



[Action - Friday - Locked to Gai]

[It hadn't surprised Elizabeth to hear that Gai had shipped off to go fight the day after she'd left. It was who he was when she wasn't around, after all. It had probably been an awful shock to him to see the video, too. Her poor darling.]

[She wasn't worried, just anxious for him to return. And strangely well-informed of when that is... When Gai returns to his apartment, not only is the door unlocked, but there's a pair of high heeled shoes on the floor, simply stepped out of and abandoned, and a skirt and blouse tossed in the direction of the coffee table.]


((OOC: WARNING - COMMENTS CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR BIOSHOCK INFINITE AND BURIAL AT SEA. Scroll fast if you want to avoid, kids!))

Comments

action:

[ablankpage]

[The moment Robert hears her voice, he knows. He remembers that voice, remembers the blood. Again and again, working to try and destroy Comstock before realizing that by the time he was Comstock... it was too late.

So, he emerges from the bedroom/laboratory.

He is, in a way, the least dressed he usually appears. His shoes have been shed, but his stockings are still on. His trousers, yes, and a shirt... but waistcoat, tie, and jacket have all been abandoned. He's been bothered by Elizabeth's disappearance, but... As he and Booker had accepted, there was nothing either of them could do.

He stands in the doorway, one eyebrow arching a little.

His voice is low, not wanting to wake Booker at the moment.]

Elizabeth.

Welcome home.

action:

[tearmeanewone]

Robert. [She's glad to see they're still awake--obviously they are, though, they were almost always working. Elizabeth allows herself to smile and goes to Robert, reaching out to hug him in easy familiarity.]

I hope you weren't too concerned.

action:

[ablankpage]

[Robert returned the hug, putting his hand against her back.]

Well, it's Luceti. Of course we were worried.

All of us.

[Because he will give Booker credit. He worries. A lot.]

I will say-- I never expected to see you like this again.

Doing... alright? It's a change, being here. After that.

action:

[tearmeanewone]

[Elizabeth keeps the hug brief, then pulls back to cast a wary eye at Booker's room.]

'A change' is putting it mildly. I'm starting to understand what it must have been like for you when you first got here.

[And no comment on how she is after 'that', but--] Where is he from? Do we know for certain?

action

[amonglions]

[Booker has been dealing with the utter failure to even pretend he could look after Elizabeth here in the best and only way he knows how: by getting piss-drunk and making bad life choices.

Except he can't lose any money or daughters here since there is no money to be had and no one would give him a child if he paid them to. So really, drinking is his only option.

Or was. The sad fact of it is that Booker is not the young man he was when he started boozing it up every day and drinking heavily for the better part of your life has consequences - one of them being that your hangovers seriously motivate a consideration to change your habits.

As usual though the consideration falls through around the 1lth hour when he's sober enough to remember how much like shit he feels and how nice it is to be hazy and dull until he can pass out and rinse and repeat.

He doesn't know that Elizabeth is back yet, he hasn't exactly been keeping up with the journal nor his housemates. All Booker is doing now is sitting in his room, uselessly staring at his hand where the scarred over 'A.D' sits, bisected by a long thin line of new puckered skin that is matched on his palm.

His thoughts might as well be a neon sign of self-loathing, he's not exactly varied in his brooding.]

action

[tearmeanewone]

[It takes the better part of the morning for Elizabeth to get up the courage to face Booker. As much as killing Comstock over and over again had dulled Elizabeth's ability to feel remorse or compassion or pity, she knew herself. This would be the first time since the lighthouse that she's seen Booker DeWitt. Her father, Booker DeWitt. In person, with him looking back at her.]

[She wasn't afraid of gunfire, but she was afraid of him. Or what he meant to her, maybe.]

[She knocks on the door lightly, a mug in her hand, dressed comfortably in her pajamas with most of her makeup removed.]

I made coffee... Do you want some? [...wait. Back up.] Are you awake, Booker?

action

[amonglions]

[He jolts upright as if he were asleep, at least. A bright, slightly desperate awareness coming to him the instant he recognizes that voice. He doesn't register a difference - not really - anything beyond her simply sounding tired goes right over his head.

He takes a moment though - patting down the eagerness to see her and see her whole and well instead of the mangled bits and pieces he's been dreaming would be sent back to him - a moment to regard the door in front of him where her knock echos from.

It's all rather familiar in an eerie, uncomfortable kind of way and Booker would like to never remember the sound of Robert Lutece banging his fists against his door telling him to open up.

So, instead of giving Elizabeth the time to knock twice, he bites the figurative bullet and opens it and the relief in him is palpable. He looks horribly unimpressive: all old clothes, unshaved face and boozy breath. But with the grief stripped off him for a few moments he looks more human than he would on a good day. A good day for him.]

Jesus -- [He swallows convulsively, trying to contain the litany of 'I didn't think I'd get to see you again' and does his damnedest not to leak a tear out or do something else that's stupid.]

Elizabeth.

[Since his arrival in Luceti he's gotten better at hugs and much more free with them with Elizabeth. So it's not strange to him, for once, to carefully (because of the mug) wrap his arms around her shoulders and just hold her because he missed her.]

[voice]

[notyourutopian]

[This is a while later because someone was in class like a good student.]

...Elizabeth? Ah.. Alright. What do you need?

[voice - filtered]

[tearmeanewone]

I was in Rapture recently, and I remembered what you looked like during that experiment. It wasn't hard to put two and two together.

You used to be a Little Sister, weren't you?

[How their two worlds, so different from one another, happened to connect here, Elizabeth couldn't begin to figure out.]

[voice - filtered]

[notyourutopian]

[Eleanor makes a startled, unhappy sound at all that, and afterwards there is a long silence as she tries to figure out what to say. Elizabeth had been in Rapture? Why? How?! But. Did it matter? Did she want to tell anyone?]

[Not that she was going to lie about it.]

...Yes. I was. I was one of the first ones.

[quantumgrammar]

[Another thing Rosalind had not missed, while being something other than human, was petty and inconvenient seasonal maladies. And even as she charges through the beginning stages of tickles at the back of her throat and having even less of an appetite for everything, the second far-too-long stretch of sleep (as a glance to the clock while she dresses affirms) is an ill omen. And that's not even beginning to account for the pall that's been thrown over the house with Elizabeth's abduction. All in all, it's just been an unpleasant few days.

It's an obscene hour of the early morning, but as good a one as any for tea, even if the kitchen is all the way at the other side of the house. Rosalind's passing by Elizabeth's room when she notes the door ajar, the sound of quiet movement within. She nudges it further out of curiosity, only to catch a glimpse of a turned back, of white and black and stocking and . . . ah. She's returned. In more ways than one, it looks like.]

My. This certainly hastens matters, doesn't it.

[tearmeanewone]

[Elizabeth hears the door swing open and looks back over her shoulder. She's examining a dried carnation in a little glass bottle. When she sees who has discovered her little trip down memory lane, she smiles. She had wondered where Rosalind had been earlier, but figured she had a good reason for her absence. In this case, it looks a little like Rosalind is experiencing the joys of being mortal again.]

Rosalind. [She goes to her companion, hand reaching to give Rosalind's a familiar squeeze.] Tea?

[quantumgrammar]

[It's a surprising show of warmth, exactly as much as it is not. This Elizabeth - the one who she'd seen struggle and fight and war before triumphing at a cost no one could fully comprehend - this one she understands a little better. There was no haring across world after world without attaining some measure of companionship, it seemed. Even for Rosalind Lutece.

She inclines her head, enough that it almost hides the little curl of her lips, and she returns the grasp with a brief squeeze and a tug in the proper direction before releasing her.

My thought precisely. [A beat.] You'll want to wash that.

Action - is Wednesday Night okay?

[yourfononsarewhack]

[In the dark of the night, that's where Jade Curtiss is lurking. Just a routine patrol he does every now and then both for exercise and to keep an eye open for the unexpected. And on this night, there certainly is something unexpected. And just for this, he'll still have his gynophobia at this point in time.

He can feel a sense of goosebumps as he sees her coming through the night at the outskirts of the plaza. With over a month of practice, he's much more skilled at keeping his fear from showing, at least - most of the time. He does a quick analysis of her. There's no doubt it's Elizabeth. No matter how much she seems like an entirely different person, he still has a nearly photographic memory of her features, so he's certain that it has to be her. Or a replica, of course.

Still, he experiments with the name when she's at a respectable distance, just to gauge her reaction.]

Elizabeth?

Action - Wednesday Night is totally good!

[tearmeanewone]

[Elizabeth stops and turns. It's been a while, of course, but she recognizes him immediately. Her cold and focused expression fades into a warm smile, almost like she's seeing an old friend instead of one who she used to exchange insults with.]

Mr. Curtiss. Good evening.

Action - Wednesday Night is totally good! Yay tahnks!

[yourfononsarewhack]

[Now that's an unusual. She's showing sentiment? He studies her carefully. But he gives a casual smile as well as he does so.]

My, so formal. You know, with all our talk of aging, I wasn't quite expecting such a swift maturity.

Thursday action!

[wildbluevagner]

[Kurt has entered the Battle Dome to set up a new sword-practicing scenario, but he's distracted by seeing the simulation of Paris being conjured in one room. Not yet noticing the user, he strolls over to observe it through the observation deck.]

Mon amie!

[Spoken, of course, in a very German accent.]

Thursday action!

[tearmeanewone]

[Elizabeth turns, quickly, startled by the voice coming from the deck. But once she sees who it is, she grins and beckons him down.]

Kurt! You need to work on that accent if you're going to keep learning French.

Thursday action!

[wildbluevagner]

Elizabeth? [He says, more stunned, taken aback by how different she is. He bamfs over near her and rubs at his hair nervously.] Now you're sounding like my French teacher! I guess an accent's not just something you trade in.

[Action - Friday]

[voidseeing]

[There is definitely something to be said for the therapeutic power of killing Shift Hunters, Gai will admit that much. It had served to be an excellent method of working off his anger and frustration in a way that the Battle Dome just couldn't simulate. Though he's not proud of himself for turning to violence, it had accomplished its purpose, and thus he's in a far better mood when he returns to his apartment than he'd been in when he left it.

... until he gets there and finds the door unlocked, that is. Then he's just suspicious, opening the door quietly and peering around to see if anything seems out of place. The first thing he sees is those shoes; that's all it takes for him to realize what's going on, and the uncertain look on his face quickly changes into a pleased smile.]

[Action - Friday]

[tearmeanewone]

Welcome home, soldier. [Elizabeth calls from the bedroom, smiling ironically up at the ceiling at the greeting. The 1950s were wearing off on her a little bit, it seems. And in more than one way... Gai has a legitimate pin-up girl laying on his bed right now.]

[Even if she hadn't remembered it at the time, she missed Gai fiercely. Her best friend, her love... her husband.]

[But she wasn't going to scare him with that bit of information just yet.]

Doesn't your best girl deserve a kiss after all this time?

[Action - Friday]

[voidseeing]

[It isn't often that Gai looks downright stunned by anything. Usually he has too tight a rein on his emotions to allow for more than the briefest expression of surprise on his face, no matter what the circumstances may be.

Now, though, his mouth is actually hanging open as he stops in the doorway and just stares at the sight in front of him. Elizabeth in a bra and panties and stockings - something he'd fantasized about on more than one occasion - lying there on his bed in a very clear invitation...

His very bad week just got about a million times better. Just give him a moment to remember how to speak first.]

[Action - Thursday]

[spohkh]

[Spock had been on his way to the dome when he spots a slightly familiar face. Brows furrowing he approaches the woman.]

Miss Elizabeth?

[Action - Thursday]

[tearmeanewone]

[Elizabeth, before Spock calls to her, has been wandering in a bit of a haze. Looking at the trees as she walks, as though she hadn't seen one in years. But once she hears her name, her attention immediately snaps to the source. Recognizing Spock, Elizabeth's face breaks into a thrilled smile--as though she hadn't seen her friend in years.]

Mr. Spock! On your way to the Battle Dome?

Re: [Action - Thursday]

[spohkh]

I am...

You appear different. [She wasn't gone long enough for Spock to register her disappearance.] What has happened?