December 27, 1944

[dark_butler]

What do you think happens to people when they leave here?

Comments

[banditfox]

We go home.

[dark_butler]

That's what they tell you.

[banditfox]

Unless the City is producing an extraordinarily complete hallucination, it's the truth.

[dark_butler]

What makes you believe it's real?

[banditfox]

The City, or home?

[dark_butler]

The things people say happen in the City.

[banditfox]

Experience.

[dark_butler]

So things happened and you believe that they are curses.

[banditfox]

I've been made younger, older, crueler. I've crossed into an alternate version of the City to retrieve my partner through the exercise of virtues. I've watched the Titanic sink and I've died of wounds that were only memories these last twenty years. "Curse" is as good a word as any.

[dark_butler]

Died. Right. But you still believe that's all real.

[banditfox]

Several times, actually. You're growing up with Dracula and you have difficulty believing any of this?

[dark_butler]

Oh right. I believe all of it. Why wouldn't I? New worlds, old mes, Nazis floating over the ocean who are just here for the fun and games.

[banditfox]

I knew you were stubborn, but I don't think I fully appreciated until now how mulish you can be. Is there a part of this experience in particular that you're having difficulty with, or is the denial all-encompassing?

[dark_butler]

Which part wouldn't I be having difficulty with? Oops, a hole just opened up in reality and dropped me in a city where I used to live when I was an old vampire.

[banditfox]

Now we're getting somewhere.

[dark_butler]

Where's that?