Quest 265
[Private || Hackable by Friends]
I don't like the feel of things lately, even if it all has been getting back to usual.
The harpies may be gone for the moment, and the barrier is back up, and that's certainly a good thing if I've ever heard one. Things are quieting down, becoming normal and routine again--if anything that happens here can really be called normal, anyway. The curses are the same as ever. The time goes on. We're already halfway through April now. A week from today, I'll have been twenty years old for a whole month already.
There's so much to think about that I hardly know where to begin. Do I really think too much about that clock? It's hard not to, when it always seems to be at the center of everything--the City and its troubles alike. There's always been that rumor that it runs on our misery, that we're here in the City at all to keep it running, and I haven't heard it tick in a long time, even when I've been alone. The ticking is supposed to drive us mad if we listen to it for too long; it's strange to think that I'm almost going mad from not hearing it now, because the expectant silence is as oppressive as the ticking in its own way. It's always that clock, all gears and cogs and awful machinery, and now the harpies are gone but the ticking still hasn't come back. If it's true that everything ends when the clock stops, then why hasn't everything ended? Or could it be that the clock is something like the barrier was, and there's a secondary plan for emergencies that we've just never known of until now?
It's not supposed to stop, but it's stopped. The barrier isn't supposed to come down, but it came down. The City is supposed to mend itself, but it hasn't mended itself. The deities are supposed to fix things, but they've left us to our own devices. Do I think too much about that clock? Sam always said I think too much.
...Next month is May already. And the first of June will make it a whole year without him.
May is a bad month, we always have trouble in May. Adrastus came in May as the hair monster and terrorized us awhile, up until his mother came to collect him. Will that be two--three? No, two, and this is the third--Mays ago already? Two Mays ago the hair monster, after the deities demanded those hair tributes of us in January. And last May the shepherdess, after the deities demanded we slaughter lambs for protection at the end of March. This will make the third May I've seen, and it's always been a bad month before. And the deities demanded we all fix the barrier at the end of March. Will it be the barrier that terrorizes us this May? Or is it true that the barrier is different, it was our fault somehow, and there's something else entirely in store?
Or will there be nothing at all? Sometimes I wonder if that wouldn't be the worst trick of all, to have us all on edge waiting for a calamity that never came.
May is Cain's month, too. Four years now in this awful City, and in all that time he's only been allowed to go home once. Which makes it two, perhaps a bit more than two, since he's last seen his London, assuming one doesn't count the dreams or the tricks that the deities like to torment us with.
I didn't ask Sam to stay with me. I couldn't ask Blue. If London calls in May, am I selfish enough to try to keep you? Even if I know just as well how it feels to have to wait so long? You hate it here more than anyone and I still want you to stay, as horrible as it makes me to want it. I don't know if I could keep myself from asking, not after Sam and Blue. And perhaps that's why it's better that it's you, in the end, because I know Sam would've done what was best for me, but I know you'll do what's best for you...
Sometimes it seems as though things are connected when they aren't. I wonder if that's the lesson I ought to take from all this. Some months seem worse than others because we connect them together to think so. All sorts of good things happened right after I lost Sam, and I remember wondering if it was connected, that Merry came and Neil was alive and so much good came of it, but I had to be miserable in the process. Maybe they don't go in threes, Sam and Blue and Cain. Maybe a month is just a month, and a clock is just a clock, and I'm looking for patterns that aren't there because I need something to look for. It's easier to look for patterns than to worry. It makes me feel like I'm doing something.
Neil and Todd are--mm. Speaking of things that are connected.
And now it's Rumplestiltskin and Iacho, and connections between them. Two of them. Adrastus and his mother were a pair, too. But it'd make more sense for there to be three, wouldn't it?
You're right, Sam. I do think too much.
But soon it'll be warm enough for water balloons, just the same.
[/Private]
Well, it's been a week since the harpies were dealt with, and the barrier is back up again--or, well, a barrier is back up, at least, though I think it's not quite the same as the one we had before, somehow? Which is rather something to ponder over, really. We'd fixed the other barrier before, when it started to come down in pieces and we were all made to put it back up again, but that's a bit different than having the whole thing disappear completely and leaving us without one at all, and having to put a new one up in its place. It certainly was pretty when it all came together, though, wasn't it? All the lovely shifting lights in the night sky.
In any case, it's up now, and keeping the harpies out again, and yet there still isn't any ticking to speak of. I suppose that rules out the idea that the two of them were connected, the clock and the barrier, and that ruining one disrupted the other somehow. Still, even if they aren't connected, it's still curious that the ticking's gone silent, isn't it? If it wasn't the barrier falling that caused it to stop, then I wonder what it could be.
Yes, Cain, I know, I think too much about that clock. Though I suppose it's only fitting that it's driving me mad whether it ticks or not, isn't it?
Still, I'll try not to let it bother me for the moment. I have a few things to get done yet today, and some errands to run, and something to see to this evening, besides. And that's quite enough for right now, I should think.
[Filtered AWAY from Godchild Cast (Yes, Jez, That Means You Too) | Unhackable]
Though I do wonder--if it's not too much trouble, please, I'd like very much to speak with someone who's visited London, if you have a moment to spare. Edmund, Peter, you've been, haven't you?
[/Filter]
[Filtered to Iacho | Attempted Unhackable]
Iacho, I'm going to leave a box outside your office doors this afternoon. It'll be on the doorstep, a small brown box. It's...it's a gift for you.
[/Filter]
[OOC: TL;DR forever! She's not cursed today, but she's getting things done: getting stuff off her mind, going to Claire's birthday party, dropping off a box containing shiny pebbles, a shoe, and a pair of fuzzy bunny slippers for Iacho at the Deity Office, conducting a little super sekrit stealth research...good times!]
I don't like the feel of things lately, even if it all has been getting back to usual.
The harpies may be gone for the moment, and the barrier is back up, and that's certainly a good thing if I've ever heard one. Things are quieting down, becoming normal and routine again--if anything that happens here can really be called normal, anyway. The curses are the same as ever. The time goes on. We're already halfway through April now. A week from today, I'll have been twenty years old for a whole month already.
There's so much to think about that I hardly know where to begin. Do I really think too much about that clock? It's hard not to, when it always seems to be at the center of everything--the City and its troubles alike. There's always been that rumor that it runs on our misery, that we're here in the City at all to keep it running, and I haven't heard it tick in a long time, even when I've been alone. The ticking is supposed to drive us mad if we listen to it for too long; it's strange to think that I'm almost going mad from not hearing it now, because the expectant silence is as oppressive as the ticking in its own way. It's always that clock, all gears and cogs and awful machinery, and now the harpies are gone but the ticking still hasn't come back. If it's true that everything ends when the clock stops, then why hasn't everything ended? Or could it be that the clock is something like the barrier was, and there's a secondary plan for emergencies that we've just never known of until now?
It's not supposed to stop, but it's stopped. The barrier isn't supposed to come down, but it came down. The City is supposed to mend itself, but it hasn't mended itself. The deities are supposed to fix things, but they've left us to our own devices. Do I think too much about that clock? Sam always said I think too much.
...Next month is May already. And the first of June will make it a whole year without him.
May is a bad month, we always have trouble in May. Adrastus came in May as the hair monster and terrorized us awhile, up until his mother came to collect him. Will that be two--three? No, two, and this is the third--Mays ago already? Two Mays ago the hair monster, after the deities demanded those hair tributes of us in January. And last May the shepherdess, after the deities demanded we slaughter lambs for protection at the end of March. This will make the third May I've seen, and it's always been a bad month before. And the deities demanded we all fix the barrier at the end of March. Will it be the barrier that terrorizes us this May? Or is it true that the barrier is different, it was our fault somehow, and there's something else entirely in store?
Or will there be nothing at all? Sometimes I wonder if that wouldn't be the worst trick of all, to have us all on edge waiting for a calamity that never came.
May is Cain's month, too. Four years now in this awful City, and in all that time he's only been allowed to go home once. Which makes it two, perhaps a bit more than two, since he's last seen his London, assuming one doesn't count the dreams or the tricks that the deities like to torment us with.
I didn't ask Sam to stay with me. I couldn't ask Blue. If London calls in May, am I selfish enough to try to keep you? Even if I know just as well how it feels to have to wait so long? You hate it here more than anyone and I still want you to stay, as horrible as it makes me to want it. I don't know if I could keep myself from asking, not after Sam and Blue. And perhaps that's why it's better that it's you, in the end, because I know Sam would've done what was best for me, but I know you'll do what's best for you...
Sometimes it seems as though things are connected when they aren't. I wonder if that's the lesson I ought to take from all this. Some months seem worse than others because we connect them together to think so. All sorts of good things happened right after I lost Sam, and I remember wondering if it was connected, that Merry came and Neil was alive and so much good came of it, but I had to be miserable in the process. Maybe they don't go in threes, Sam and Blue and Cain. Maybe a month is just a month, and a clock is just a clock, and I'm looking for patterns that aren't there because I need something to look for. It's easier to look for patterns than to worry. It makes me feel like I'm doing something.
Neil and Todd are--mm. Speaking of things that are connected.
And now it's Rumplestiltskin and Iacho, and connections between them. Two of them. Adrastus and his mother were a pair, too. But it'd make more sense for there to be three, wouldn't it?
You're right, Sam. I do think too much.
But soon it'll be warm enough for water balloons, just the same.
[/Private]
Well, it's been a week since the harpies were dealt with, and the barrier is back up again--or, well, a barrier is back up, at least, though I think it's not quite the same as the one we had before, somehow? Which is rather something to ponder over, really. We'd fixed the other barrier before, when it started to come down in pieces and we were all made to put it back up again, but that's a bit different than having the whole thing disappear completely and leaving us without one at all, and having to put a new one up in its place. It certainly was pretty when it all came together, though, wasn't it? All the lovely shifting lights in the night sky.
In any case, it's up now, and keeping the harpies out again, and yet there still isn't any ticking to speak of. I suppose that rules out the idea that the two of them were connected, the clock and the barrier, and that ruining one disrupted the other somehow. Still, even if they aren't connected, it's still curious that the ticking's gone silent, isn't it? If it wasn't the barrier falling that caused it to stop, then I wonder what it could be.
Yes, Cain, I know, I think too much about that clock. Though I suppose it's only fitting that it's driving me mad whether it ticks or not, isn't it?
Still, I'll try not to let it bother me for the moment. I have a few things to get done yet today, and some errands to run, and something to see to this evening, besides. And that's quite enough for right now, I should think.
[Filtered AWAY from Godchild Cast (Yes, Jez, That Means You Too) | Unhackable]
Though I do wonder--if it's not too much trouble, please, I'd like very much to speak with someone who's visited London, if you have a moment to spare. Edmund, Peter, you've been, haven't you?
[/Filter]
[Filtered to Iacho | Attempted Unhackable]
Iacho, I'm going to leave a box outside your office doors this afternoon. It'll be on the doorstep, a small brown box. It's...it's a gift for you.
[/Filter]
[OOC: TL;DR forever! She's not cursed today, but she's getting things done: getting stuff off her mind, going to Claire's birthday party, dropping off a box containing shiny pebbles, a shoe, and a pair of fuzzy bunny slippers for Iacho at the Deity Office, conducting a little super sekrit stealth research...good times!]