[Thread] The Next Life

[berranyrmizzrym]

Characters: OU!Alice Liddell, OU!Pharaun Mizzrym
Where: Alice's room, Dor-Eksi
When: A day or so after the events of Delerium Tremens (waaay backdated)
Summary: Pharaun has been ordered to have tea with Alice on account of saying something about her introducing herself as imaginary one too many times. He isn't going to object too strenuously.

Comments

[darker_alice]

Alice smiled.

She'd been seated at her desk in her room, reveling in her new strength. For they were ALL here again, all of her toys, and even the CAT had come, finally, from her world. For the first time in a long time, Alice felt empowered, strong, and finally on the winning end. To top it all off, she was getting to meet properly the man she'd been acquainted with during the mad times when the Entropi attacked, Pharaun. She had properly steeped a tea for them both: a dark, Earl Grey for her, a citrus-y red tea for him. She had tried to make the place amicable, not hard considering her new roommates. Meilin's cheeriness was evidenced in the dorm as well as Helena's dark and surreal paintings that Alice loved so much.

"Come in," Alice said. "I've been waiting for you!"

[berranyrmizzrym]

Pharaun stepped in, looking around. He was quite pleased with the absence of the cuffs as well. Many of the most powerful spells in his arsenal had been prohibited by the use of the cuffs - either due to their offensive use, or because they drew on the power of other planes and might have been construed as an escape attempt.

He smiled. "Waiting for me? I must say I'm flattered."

[darker_alice]

Alice nodded. "Well its not very often I have people for company. I used to have some regularly, but I'm afraid since the absence of my friends Sweeney Todd and Ms. Lovett, things have gotten rather quiet around here. Still, I would say the decor has undergone quiet an interesting change. Ms. Helena is quite the artist!"

Alice motioned for him to sit down, and she gave him the prepared tea with a plate of biscuits. It was ashamedly English, but Alice was feeling rather proud of her lineage these days. "So tell me a bit about yourself, Pharaun. We were rather rudely interrupted last time!"

[berranyrmizzrym]

There may have been a hint of sadness in Pharaun's smile this time - or anyone who noticed may have just been imagining it. "I can understand that. My own room's been quite quiet since Yuuko left."

Pharaun took a seat, taking a sip of tea. "I come from the city of Menzoberranzan, on a world called Toril. Under it, really; most drow cities are underground. You might have noticed me squinting a bit the last time we met - daylight tends to hurt my eyes unless it's filtered through something."

[darker_alice]

"That's a shame," Alice replied. "You have a rather melancholy look about you when I mention my lack of people about. I'm sad to see that. A fellow like you, well, you ought to be brimming with acquaintances. Why so serious?"

At Pharaun's next explanation, Alice's eyes lit up. "Underground? How perfectly interesting! And how does life fair there? I apologize for our lack of lenses to make things easier. Are things better, more complicated, below ground?"

[berranyrmizzrym]

"I was... rather fond of Yuuko, I'm afraid." He chuckled mirthlessly. "One would think that after living in Menzoberranzan, never mind here, I'd be used to losing acquaintances... Drow society tends to have a fairly high body count."

He shrugged. "Actually, I didn't discover that lenses of some sort could do that until I arrived here - I'm wearing a set that Yuuko made before she left right now. But things are... interesting. It's not that different from the surface apart from the lack of weather, really, but living in a drow city particularly, well... Drow as a race are obsessed with power - a vice I'm not actually exempt from, but most of the real positions of power here are occupied simply by getting people to trust you."

[darker_alice]

"Ah yes, Yuuko," Alice said. "I have heard of her. She seemed like a nice enough person, I was sorry to see her go. I'll admit I hadn't had a chance to make a wish, but I suppose that was all to be. I haven't had a need to barter with wishes, you know. I've had very little need for anything i particular to happen. Strangely enough, no longer where I once was, I'm quite content. The bad things that happen to others here are more amusing than tragic, although yes, I miss my friends I made here as well."

Alice smiled. "Power. Ah well, that is something I have to say in certain ways I'm unfamiliar with. The only power I possessed in my world were my wits and the last strands of sanity, and I daresay they helped me well enough! Still, I have no trouble having friends with a sense of power, though some balance it with a bit of chaos, and I'm game for that too. Though with you, I say you strike me as the sort of fellow who's nature is much harder to pinpoint than that of the average Drow. Am I right?"

[berranyrmizzrym]

"I suppose so. The average drow isn't likely to actually have friends as such, after all. More like competitors who aren't dead yet." Pharaun seemed to be looking at something a long way off. "For all the shortcomings of drow, though, I must admit to missing Menzoberranzan. It was a beautiful city. The Demonweb is no garden spot - especially when you died there as well as being tied to it afterwards."

[darker_alice]

Alice shrugged. "Must be a lonely existence then. I'm a bit used to that, to be honest. An asylum is a bad place to make friends. Before you ask, yes, I was designated as crazy, happens when you see your parents die in a fire. Still, nothing beats the actual appearance of home, despite the people. I'm sure it was a thriving city, where you are from. As for dying, well, I'm a bit used to that line of thinking."

[berranyrmizzrym]

"Trust me, no amount of preparation can really make death easier." He smiled suddenly. "Though it was some consolation knowing that it took an ultroloth and a horde of demonic spiders to finally finish me off. And all the fiend managed to do was paralyze me."

[darker_alice]

Alice looked impressed. "So you've already died too, hmm? Well, I hope that you stay here then. The last person I met who had died disappeared, so I can only imagine he actually met that grisly fate. I would hope that isn't the case. Still, you've been through much, I imagine. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

She took sip of her tea. "So I trust you've made yourself cozy in this place then, knowing so much?"

[berranyrmizzrym]

"And yours as well. Though if I go back... Well, my fate's been met and passed by. I was pulled here from my race's afterlife. What about you?" he asked suddenly. "Surely there's more to you than people believing you to be a lunatic figment of their imagination."

[darker_alice]

Alice took another sip. "Yes, actually, I have to an extent. I've always been a bit to myself until I came here. Samus, Ms. Lovett, Sweeney Todd, good king Leonaidas, Meilin...you could say I've definitely been in good company. In my world, I triumphed over the darker parts of my psyche, and saw a many harsh thing. There are things in the mind, you see, that are normally perceived as simply disorders, but in my case they were real, all of it. I spent a good amount of time fighting and triumphing at last, and then I arrived here."

Alice brought out her ice blade and watch. "With only these as my consolation."

[berranyrmizzrym]

Pharaun nodded. "I suppose I've had some little experience with how you would have felt with your weapons so limited - I assume what you were talking about in your last entry was more or less a complete list? Wizards in my world are reliant on their spellbooks - if we don't rest every so often and study them, we're unable to use our magic. Even drow and surface elves, though we don't sleep the way humans do."

[darker_alice]

"I see," Alice said. "Well, in a way, you could say that Drow have something over humans. They don't need to sleep, they can just rest. In the time we sleep, I am sure we would be slaughtered. Say someone invaded our dreams? I suppose you could say that, once you've been pulled down as far as you can go, how frail humans really are. At that point, only one other thing matters."

Alice pointed to her head, and then, in an instant, all of her weapons were o the table.

[berranyrmizzrym]

"Oh, no, we still dream. More or less, at any rate - there's a sort of trance we go into. Drow call it Reverie; I don't know if surface elves do so as well." He stopped there and looked at the weapons on the table. Quite a few looked more or less like toys, but Pharaun knew how dangerous magic items that didn't look dangerous could be. "Very impressive."