(closed RP for Henry Winter and Stephen Maturin)

[estebanmd]

Stephen had rather wanted to talk with Henry Winter at length, if for no other reason than to cement his hopeful deduction that Henry's recent wedding had well and truly laid to rest the remnants of old animosity concerning the woman who was now Mrs. Winter. Unfortunately, there had simply been no time for conversation. Stephen had brought little

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[h_m_winter]

His last words made Henry wince. "Ah," he said. "That. I hope your experience wasn't as terrible as Camilla's and mine. I know Susan meant well, and she did warn me when she gave me the stuff, but there really is no kind of accurate warning for such a thing." It might not have been so terrible for them, if not for the precedence of the bacchanal; they'd both undergone such abandon before, with extremely unfortunate results. Even then, while under the potion's influence, they had feared nothing; it wasn't until after it had worn off that they had really frightened one another.

All things considered, Henry didn't consider it politic to admit he had reason to believe it hadn't been as horrible for Stephen as it had been for himself and Camilla--terrible or no, it was completely overwhelming, far more so than any normal human could stand. "I think she's thought better of the idea, now," he added. "Camilla and I both let her know it really wasn't something she ought to be sharing. Though I have to say that if that's how she experiences the world all the time...well. I'd go mad, myself, and I should think almost anyone else could say the same." Once upon a time he'd craved those semi-divine senses, but now, having experienced them (twice), he was quite happy to remain a dull plodding human.

[estebanmd]

"She can demonstrate extraordinarily poor judgement at times," Stephen said, quite keenly aware that he himself could be advanced as an example of her poor judgement.

[h_m_winter]

The unfortunate implication was not lost on Henry. It also, in some measure at least, explained the past hoboness, though that was of little consequence now.

"She wanted to share it," he said, after a moment. "And I certainly didn't protest trying it. I think many would want to at least sample the senses of the--not divine, I suppose, but the immortal. Having sampled them, though, I now think most others should not. Also, as I said, if that's indeed how she experiences things all the time, I'm amazed she's got any judgement at all." Some of the things he and Camilla had done--well, they'd always wanted to live without thinking, and for a time they'd most certainly done it.

[estebanmd]

As for the past hoboness, Stephen chalked that up to a predictable combination of drunken excess and the dizzying effect of beauty. Henry of all people should understand what effect Camilla could have on a person.

The sensory amplification that Susan's experiments sought to confer, though -- that was something Stephen indeed deemed far from horrible. It was something he expected anyone would want, something he himself still wanted, a craving only a series of past lessons in addiction could keep at bay.

"Maddening, yes, but wonderful, did you not find?"

[h_m_winter]

Henry thought about this a moment. "At the time, very wonderful," he said, his eyes unfocusing for a moment as his mind threw up all sorts of fascinating images--the glint of starlight on the sea, the amazing softness of sand under his feet, the sweetness of Camilla's hair. "Unlike anything I've even imagined. I think it's how the gods must have felt, whenever they visited the earth. Even now, knowing what it did to us--how terrible it was, afterward--part of me would like to try it again. My rational mind might know better, but some deeper, more primal part of me craves it."

He shook his head, resting a hand on Xipe Totec's head. "And the dangerous thing about Susan is that I think she would give it again, if any of us asked. I'm certain she won't give it to anybody else, but I'm not so sure she understands either the nature of addiction, or just how very alien her senses truly are to the rest of us."

[estebanmd]

What Henry described sounded similar to Stephen's own experience, up to a point. He would not have called the aftermath terrible; a letdown perhaps, in the way that coming down from any stimulant could be; and his curiosity must surely have shown in the angle of his head, the arch of his brow, though he prudently refrained from direct inquiry.

"I think she might," said Stephen. "God help me if I should ask her. What she could make of me then I should not like to contemplate."

A pause, then a query he did think it relatively safe to pose:

"What did Camilla think of it?"

[h_m_winter]

Henry could see Stephen's curiosity, and the man's words piqued his own--that was rather an odd thing to say. From what he'd seen of Susan, she had no desire to make anyone into anything. He said so, too. "I don't think Susan would really try to turn anyone into something they're not. She's odd, but she does have scruples, in her way." Like himself and Camilla, they might be decidedly strange scruples, but they were scruples nonetheless. He had no way of knowing that any desire she might have had in that direction was turned in onto herself, though given her curiosity about gardening, etc. it wouldn't have been hard to guess.

He didn't answer the question for a moment. "What she feels about it now, I can't say," he said. "I think that for the most part her reaction was the same as mine--it was beautiful, at the time, but she seemed just as disturbed as I, when it wore off. I don't think any part of her craves a repeat." Camilla was much too tranquil for that sort of thing; also, unlike him, she had no native personal inhibitions. She chose to abstain from certain actions, whereas Henry was in many ways very repressed, determination to do whatever he wanted notwithstanding.

[estebanmd]

"On the contrary," Stephen said, "I do not think that particular potion can make anyone into something they are not; rather, I think it may very well have the potential to enhance the very worst in them, the worst of what is already in them. I say this while taking pains not to conflate the experience with what else might have been at work on All Hallows'. To be dazzled by a deluge of sensory input, to have one's reason drowned out, can hardly be salutary to the soul, if indulged habitually. I am quite certain Susan intended nothing but good in developing the stuff, and it would be to such benevolent intent that you or I must appeal were we to request another opportunity for testing it. Yet the saying goes that the road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Stephen had thought about it, of course. He knew precisely how he would frame the request. It would be all to do with science, and objectivity. It would be a clever and convincing lie -- if he resorted to such a request. He had made up his mind he would not.

"Why should Camilla be unmoved by that which tempts us?" he wondered, as much to himself as to Henry.

[h_m_winter]

Henry thought about this. The potion had done nothing that had particularly enhanced his or Camilla's more undesirable traits; it had simply enhanced everything, leading them to complete, wild abandon. He knew, however, that such a result was not guaranteed--the bacchanal had taught him that. It was simply fortunate that no one else had been around, although in truth the potion had not been exactly like the bacchanal; his memories of that were fragmentary at best, while he could recall every detail of what had gone on while he was under the potion's influence.

"Camilla does not crave," he said aloud, answering Stephen's question rather than speculating on the potion itself. "Not in the way most people do. There are things she wants, some of them quite strongly, but I think that for her, one experience with that would be enough." The similarities to the bacchanal would almost certainly sway her more than it was swaying him; she knew it would be a terrible idea and didn't want it.

"I once wanted, very badly, to lose all control," he added, half to himself. "Just to see what it was like to know complete abandon. As you say, it really can't be healthy, but that doesn't stop the primitive self wanting it. Did you go outside at all, while you had those senses? The night is beautiful in a way I had never imagined; there was nothing to cloud my mind, to distract me from the present moment. Once the fear and discomfort brought by its departure had passed, I felt for the next day like I had been taken away from impossibly clear air, and shut up in a stale, dusty box. I think the real price of such a thing is having to give it back."

[estebanmd]

"We did not go outside," said Stephen. "We stayed indoors." After Susan had taken her Dreamless Sleep Potion, Stephen had not wanted to leave her alone.

Henry's words, though, made him wish he had gone outside, to look through telescopes, and hear the sounds of night birds, and -- oh, any number of things.

He was quiet, then.

[h_m_winter]

Ah. Right. Henry could be tactless, but usually it was intentional, and it had not been in this instance.

"It really is unfortunate," he said at last, "that such senses surely are so very bad for us. Susan did us no favors, though she wanted to, and thought she was. For most people even a taste of that could be addictive, common sense notwithstanding. Camilla and I were fortunate, in that we didn't run across any people, anything that could have caused harm. On the grounds at least no one can die, but I'm not sure I like to think of what could happen to a person so...so blissed-out, to use the hippie term...on that potion." If he told himself that, it helped ease that want, but it couldn't banish it entirely; it was an irrational want, and though it was very minor, it was all the more noticeable for that. "Perhaps it might be better that you didn't go outside, especially that night. God knows what might have happened."

[estebanmd]

Astonishingly, Stephen began to laugh -- that creaking, disagreeable laugh of his, the one he could not repress when genuinely and thoroughly tickled by some remark.

"What might have happened?" He coughed with the last of the laughter. "We intended to conquer Europe, as I remember. Shaun would have assisted with a cricket bat. One hopes we would not have made it off school grounds."

He coughed again, and wiped his eyes.

"Sweet Mother of God, it beggars the imagination."

[h_m_winter]

Henry looked at him, initially in disbelief, and laughed himself. "Conquer Europe? Between the three of you, I really would fear for the world."

He wasn't really joking, either; there were quite a few people here who could have done some really terrible things, had they gone off-grounds that night. "You and Susan and Shaun with his cricket bat. "And what would you have done with it, or did you even plan that far?"

[estebanmd]

It was Stephen's assumption, and hope, that Henry could not know precisely what sorts of damage Stephen himself could have done.

Meanwhile, he himself could have no notion what kind of experience Henry spoke from ...

"I believe we must all have had different intentions. Shaun, for example, would have liked to keep this part of the world safe from zombies," he said, sobering a little. "I do not know whether he had been endowed by Susan with the sort of sensory powers you and I had been speaking about, or whether it was merely the unrelated enchantment operative on a broader scale; whatever the case, I expect his ability to tell the difference between zombie and innocent bystander may have been somewhat impaired. Myself, I have been known to harbor certain political allegiances, particularly in my youth." He made it sound like a harmless throwback to 19th-century enthusiasms (which, in a sense, it was).

"Surely Camilla at least could have posed no one any danger?" Henry was physically imposing enough that he could do some damage.

[h_m_winter]

Henry had only met Shaun once, and that without the cricket bat, but even one meeting was enough that he could picture it. A little too well. He really had no idea just what Stephen was capable of (aside from very good aim), but still the thought of the three of them loose upon the world--even if only two of them had the heightened senses--was slightly...twitchy.

His expression went neutral. "In her own way, she's very dangerous," he said, thinking of the ravine, of her going with him to check Bunny's dying pulse. "All the more so because no one would suspect it of her."

[estebanmd]

Stephen thought of Diana's entanglements in American espionage, her unfortunate link with Louisa Wogan; he thought, too, of that night in Boston, her fierce proud face, her slender white fingers wrapped around the pistol he'd brought her. Now I need not be afraid, she'd said.

"Those are the most dangerous sort," he agreed gravely.