027 - video

[cauchemal]

[Filtered to anyone Mal encountered during the flood. She's clearly been crying and is distraught beyond words. If you look carefully, you can see that she's clutching her totem in one hand.]

That was not me. I didn't-I'm not like that, I'm not. She was a monster. I don't understand-

[She breaks off and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand.I'

Comments

[Private] back! playing catch up! :D

[naughtbutlife]

Mal, anyone who has ever spoken more than two words with you knows that you are not that woman. Please, madam, do not weep.

Where are you?

Re: [Private] yay!

[cauchemal]

In my room.

I feel dreadful, Angelica.

Re: [Private]

[naughtbutlife]

I can see that. Take faith in your own words - you are not that woman. No one will ever mistake you for her.

If I come to your cabin, will you let me enter? I think a little company would do us both well.

Re: [Private]

[cauchemal]

Yes. I'll be here.

Thank you.

spam-type-thingy

[naughtbutlife]

Angelica had been waiting for Mal's answer - a yes or no to indicate whether or not she'd need to wait outside her door until Mal relented - and hurried quick as anything to her door once she had gotten the go-ahead. They were both distraught, though Mal's distress was far worse than hers, and far, far more worrying.

She knocked and waited again.

Re: spam-type-thingy

[cauchemal]

Mal opened the door quickly and let Angelica in. She shut the door and, at least partly to her own surprise, flung her arms around her warden in sheer relief.

Re: spam-type-thingy

[naughtbutlife]

Angelica caught herself before stumbling backwards, her own surprise at the embrace quickly pushed aside by the comfort she took from it. She wrapped her arms around Mal and held her tightly, absently rubbing her shoulder to will away the woman's misery.

"I'm sorry," she murmured. Sorry for the flood, sorry for not being there, sorry for not knowing about Costigan. She was sorry.

Re: spam-type-thingy

[cauchemal]

Mal didn't say anything for a long moment, and when she finally did manage to speak (muffled slightly against Angelica's shoulder), she said, "That was how he dreamed her. How he dreamed me. Oh god, Angelica, am I so terrible?"

Re: spam-type-thingy

[naughtbutlife]

It had been a slow-dawning realisation for Angelica, that the woman Mal had been during the flood had been her husband's projection of her. In fact, it wasn't until it was spoken aloud that Angelica fully understood who that woman had been, and how horrible this truly was for Mal.

"Nay, never," Angelica had replied, still smoothing little circles on to the woman's back. "Perhaps when you were unknowing, when you first arrived, you somewhat resembled that woman, but only because you were oblivious. In love, wishing to return to him and your life...sole-purposed. Perhaps in your darkest days did you ever-so-slightly resemble her, and maybe that is what his mind has chosen to haunt him with, that false memory. But you, Mal...you are radiant, kind, and whole, and that woman, that dream, was hollow."

Re: spam-type-thingy

[cauchemal]

Mal let out a sound somewhere between a sigh and a sob, a sound of relief, and stepped back from Angelica. "Thank you. I needed to hear that." She wiped her hand across her eyes. "You are right. There was nothing there in that woman, scarcely any inner life. Just an all-consuming obsession ..."

Re: spam-type-thingy

[naughtbutlife]

Angelica nodded firmly. "Mal...was it an obsession with Cobb, your husband, or an obsession with...." She cleared her throat, just a little awkwardly. "And obsession with escape? An escape with him, I mean."

Re: spam-type-thingy

[cauchemal]

"She wanted to be with him ... forever. In a place of their own making, in the world of dreams. It wasn't escape." Mal's voice started to rise a little, from horror at what she remembered of that other self. "She wanted him to stay. She wanted to keep him there, forever and ever-"

She broke off and rubbed her hands over her face. "Arthur says that's not how he remembers me, not consciously. And I know, you can't control a projection. But it's a projection of the dreamer's subconscious. No part of it comes from nowhere. There is a reason for it, whether the dreamer realises it or not."

Re: spam-type-thingy

[naughtbutlife]

"What think you was the reason, Mal?"

She crossed her arms and stared thoughtfully, almost expectantly, at the other woman.

Re: spam-type-thingy

[cauchemal]

"What other face would his guilt wear?" Mal said, a little helplessly. "Mine, of course-the wife he drove mad and who he ... he tried to-" She swallowed, and forced the word out in a near whisper. "To save. Because he tried, did he not? And failed. And that is how he is reminded of his failure and his wrongs ... Angelica, Arthur said, and my father and Ariadne said, that he was filled with guilt, tortured by it, but I never realised how."

Re: spam-type-thingy

[naughtbutlife]

"Aye..." Angelica murmured. "I had not realised that either."

She swayed on her feet for a moment, then found herself a place to sit, brow knitted in thought. She hadn't known how her husband's guilt had manifested itself, though of course she had guessed, but in this way? "Befitting of a dreamer, I suppose," she said to no one in particular. "To be haunted by one's own wife, though not exactly of her, but some...slightly mad ghost. That failure."

She paused, finally glancing back up towards Mal. "Do you think even he deserves such a punishment?"

Re: spam-type-thingy

[cauchemal]

Mal sat down as well, tucking her legs up underneath her.

"Had you asked me that question a mere week ago, before this happened? I should have said that he deserved any punishment and more. Now ..." She laced her fingers together and stared at her hands. "He has made something that threatens not only him, but his friends as well-our friend, Arthur. And ... no, I would not wish this on him, not anymore." A silence. "I ... I cannot say if this means forgiveness. But there is a limit to the grief I would have him bear."