♕ |[39]| And pay meet adoration to my household gods

[had_not_lived]

|[Private to the Deities]|

Well, this would be the place to start.

If one of you has the time, I'd like to talk to you about a deal we made, a while ago. Thank you.

---

|[Private to Yvaine | Separate, later in the day]|All right. It's done, or at least, it will be at midnight tonight. I didn't have to give up anything I can't live without

Comments

|| Deity Filter ||

[laszlo_jamf]

There are so many deals. So many, many deals. The papers for them all all fall all across my desk and make new mountain ranges, ghosts crowded beneath the eaves. Stretched among snowy soot chimneys, booming over air-shafts, too tenuous themselves for sound, dry now forever in this wet gusting, stretched and never breaking, whipped in a glassy French-curve chase across the rooftops, along the silver downs, skimming where the sea combs freezing in to shore. They gather, thicker as the days pass, so many jostling in the night, memories unloosening into the winter, seeds that will never take hold, so lost, now only an every-so-often word, a clue for the living--"Foxes" will call someone across astral spaces, the word intended for another who is not present, who won't be told because the few Psi Section who're there to hear it get cryptic debris of this sort every sitting, the sound too late, after the blast, a ghost calling to ghosts newly made. Then silence. Another event, another round-headed pin to be stuck in a map or a list, a

|| Deity Filter ||

[had_not_lived]

Oh. Kind of pretty, even if I don't understand all of it...

Well, sir... My friend Todd and I-- we made a deal a while ago, to share his life between us? It goes back and forth, every week?

|| Deity Filter ||

[laszlo_jamf]

Pretty words, pretty sounds, if I made up a language and told you what it was, you'd all believe me.

I remember that one.
I like that one.

|| Deity Filter ||

[had_not_lived]

It's been better than I could have hoped, sir. But... well, I wanted to know-- if I wanted to cancel it and put things the way they were, give Todd back all of his life, would that be possible?

|| Deity Filter ||

[laszlo_jamf]

It would be.

I wonder what he'd say about it, though.

|| Deity Filter ||

[had_not_lived]

Well... right at first he might be upset but I think once I explain things...

I don't know how much to say, though they seem to know everything here anyway...

I was hoping to make it a surprise, sir.

|| Deity Filter ||

[laszlo_jamf]

You know the example they always give in schools about dramatic irony? That story, "The Gift of the Magi," where the husband sells his watch to buy hair combs for his wife and the wife sells her hair to buy a watch chain for her husband--let's hope we don't spiral down that route. It's so melodramatic.

I dislike melodrama.

It's also an imposition on me, so I will have to demand a little fee. The surprise is easy to arrange.

[ooc: The "fee" can be small--something given up just for a week or two, for example, since this is more like moving the one shared life over to one person rather than trading for a life straight up. I was going to suggest that they both had to be City!dead for a week or two before things were put to rights, but that would rather spoil the surprise. If you have any ideas, I'm certainly open to them.]

|| Deity Filter ||

[had_not_lived]

I hope we don't either. Thank you sir. Let's see...

I figured there'd have to be something... It has to be worth losing, for a while at least, for them to accept it. Let's see.

I'm not sure what I can give up that's of value. Poetry? All of it. For... a mo-- no, I can't last a whole month, maybe I could... it's not making a deal, it's breaking one, would he take less?

Two weeks? It might not sound like the biggest thing, sir, but it's one of the most important there is to me.

[ooc; <3 I hope that's okay? He'll be selectively blind/deaf to anything presented to him and unable to say or write any. I'd go a full month if preferred but I had plans for a curse late in the month |D]|

|| Deity Filter ||

[laszlo_jamf]

You're such an addict.

Fine. No poetry for you for two weeks. A strict diet of prose. You might learn to love the old art of essays. You'll probably go for painting first, though.

Or maybe dance.

Now that would be something.

Come sign the papers, I'll add them to the file, and you'll be set.

[ooc: Sure, that sounds fine! It can take effect the moment the trade is made and/or Todd's life is restored. I'll leave it up to you and Todd-mun to put it all into effect with them.]

|| Deity Filter ||

[had_not_lived]

I can do that. He's done much more for me, it's hardly anything in comparison.

It will certainly give me a reason to read something different. Thank you, sir. I can't say how much I appreciate it. I'll sign.

[ooc; midnight tonight would be preferable? <3 i don't think he could wait til the next switch without exploding, haha. thankyou :D]

|| Deity Filter ||

[laszlo_jamf]

A worthwhile expansion of thought.

I feel downright generous in this edification of, well, you.

Forms are waiting, triplicate and carbon paper--because no one knows anything without pretty colors.

[ooc: Sure, midnight is fine. And you're welcome!]