☄ one; [video]

[that_bowtie]

[The video feed starts out swinging wildly, flickering with static, until it focuses on a young man's eyes. They're bright, seeking, yet deep and, should any watchers be perceptive enough to look closely, those eyes carry an ageless weight of centuries behind them

Comments

[slavetoyuuko]

I'm afraid I haven't seen either of them, but I'll be sure to keep my eyes open and avoid posting fliers.

Hello to you as well.

[that_bowtie]

Good man! Bit of trouble crossing bridges in this rain though.

[voice]

[slavetoyuuko]

True, and the rain seems to have no interest in stopping for the moment. You spoke of a dream before the feed cut off, sir, what...[gathering himself] What did you dream of upon arrival?

[voice]

[that_bowtie]

... [He pauses to think, and when he does, a heavy silence falls.]

A dream... A room, and a fireplace, and a young girl.

Re: [voice]

[slavetoyuuko]

[A breathe like all the energy just rushed out of him] You saw her too? The little girl.

[voice]

[that_bowtie]

That I did. The others brought here--have they had the same dream?

[voice]

[slavetoyuuko]

I haven't asked. You're the only one to mention it. [He realizes he should have.] I thought she might have been someone I knew.

[voice]

[that_bowtie]

Dreams are funny that way; blueprints to something we think we're trying to tell ourselves. Then again, there's always psychic projection, in which case it's a blueprint to what someone else is trying to tell us.

[voice]

[slavetoyuuko]

Wishful thinking on my part...I should have suspected. Nothing is ever what it seems. [Directed more at himself than the person he's speaking too, sounds incredibly sad.]

[voice]

[that_bowtie]

I wouldn't say that. Nothing is ... 'nothing' is an incredibly strong word, you know. 'Nothing' can't seem to be anything at all, so there's a bit of hope for you.

[voice]

[slavetoyuuko]

The more I see of the universe, the more I become convinced that our eyes and minds and hearts are more than ready to trick us into thinking the most comfortable thing. It's almost sad.

[voice]

[that_bowtie]

Sad? That isn't sad. Inconvenient, sometimes blinding, but certainly not sad. [The Doctor sympathizes silently, however.]

Great thing about the universe--there's always someone who can see the big vastness of it all as something new and amazing and... cool. Something different will always come along, so whatever you think you see... it may be wishful thinking, but in my experience, wishful thinking is sometimes the best sort of thinking there is.

[voice]

[slavetoyuuko]

Sad, sometimes. Because our minds keep the wounds open. Let us keep missing those we should let go. Give us hope even when there isn't any.

I think that's the saddest thing of all, really. No matter how vast the possibilities, there is no returning those we love from death. No matter how much our minds wish to trick us. [He sounds very regretful, and yet somehow sort of flat, as though he can't quite let himself feel the words he's saying]

[voice]

[that_bowtie]

[Regarding you silently for a little bit. There's an old lost sort of look in the Doctor's eyes he can't bother hiding for the moment.]

... Yes. Well, funny thing about pain and death... They really aren't things we should forget, no matter how much we may want to. Look at it this way--hope when there isn't hope gives the possibility of a future when there might not have been one before. It's not the same future that might have been, but it's a future; it's something, and the ones we left behind...

We all have good days and we have some very, very bad days. Loss of loved ones--or any life--doesn't make their existence meaningless. In fact, I've found it throws their meaning into sharp relief. Doesn't hurt less, no, not at all--in fact, it might hurt even more, but without any loss at all, we'd never see the really good things we have left as... how they're meant to be seen: Small things, silly things even, but so important we'd give the universe to protect them.

[voice]

[slavetoyuuko]

No. We shouldn't forget. But they're always things we never want to remember, and yet the things we can't unsee. It'd be so much easier if we could remember them in those moments before; vibrate, alive...innocent. And yet in my nightmares, all I can see if her death.

[soft] Or give the universe to save them.

It's always the little things that creep up on you, you notice they're gone. But it's never the big things that bother. It's the sound of their laughter, the smell of the lotion they use on their hands, the way their arms feel when they hug you. [Echoing the lost look. He's an orphan and a caretaker who lost their charge. Loss and being alone...]

I pray for a future in which they are safe, even if I can't be there to see it.

[video]

[that_bowtie]

[The Doctor switches the feed to video, in which he has a mildly apologetic expression.]

Look at me. Come on, then. Nothing is permanent, to be sure, but doing those feelings justice... you need hold onto those memories. Don't ever let them go.

[Look at the grin on his face; come on, you can't help but smile back, right?]