[broadcast mind]

[samianscar]

[wot, don't see a lot of text Broadcast Minds, do you? swirling up from the bottom of the forge screen in wispy dribs and drabs, words coalescing and reconfiguring, fitting together in shifts, until perhaps some of these stanzas briefly stabilise together.]A is for Liam who caught the wrong eyes

Comments

[voice]

[girl_unlocking]

S is for Spike who totally left me out of his poe---

---if i know what?

[voice]

[samianscar]

Glad you're not on this list, nibblet. Not a club to join too soon.

[voice]

[girl_unlocking]

There's a club? And a list? M-maybe I do want in. What are the requirements?

[...]

Do I have to be a certain level to join?

[voice -> Private] <- yes, he figures out how!

[samianscar]

…Okay, I guess some of the people on there, when you knew them…

They've all got something in common which you probably can't…

I mean, by my time…

…Can you tell? At all? …the ones you…?

[hell of a way to tell her. He forgets exactly what happened when-(or exactly when happened wot?)-and wherever the hell her memory is at now. Glad he didn't get up to "T" but he did get up to "J" and that's…

Time to whip back out the notebook of colourful ways to disembowel his forge. …Disencircuit. Disintegrate. Now we're getting somewhere…]

[voice -> Private] <- she knew he could do it!

[girl_unlocking]

The ones I...

...I can't tell anything they've got in common besides that I only know some of them, and...

...forgive doesn't rhyme with wouldn't.

[Disencircuit. That's a good one.]

[voice -> Private] <- she knew he could do it!

[samianscar]

The ones you… knew. At any point. Which isn't all of them.

Don't think I can say, Bit.

Look up Edward Gorey sometime.

[voice -> Private]

[girl_unlocking]

Does he rhyme forgive with wouldn't?

And I thought Anya was made for vengeance! Unless that's her and she's...

...under wood?

[voice -> Private]

[samianscar]

[raises an eyebrow, which doesn't entirely hide the bit of a pout] C'mon, dreaming! …And not finished.

[unnecessarily loud sigh; the kind someone gives when they don't think they should want to share something but actually do] A mutual friend. Remember the other one who whammied us all into being trapped in your house?

[voice -> Private]

[girl_unlocking]

You mean Halfrek?

...do you want me to let you finish the dream?

[voice -> Private]

[samianscar]

[with a hurt air] Just mean… not to be judged like it was finished. [not that it would probably be much different even if]

Halwreck. Yeah. Used to be called Cecily Addams Underwood. When she was human. …I assumed she was human. When, y'know… I was. Human.

[voice -> Private]

[girl_unlocking]

Okay. Rephrasing to would you like me to let you finish the poem? No judging. Just listening.

You were human together? Like, you were bros? Or...

[voice -> Private]

[samianscar]

[gives up the pretense] Nah, that's as good as it was gonna get.

Ye-ah… human, not… bros. I may have… kinda… proposed to her

[voice -> Private]

[girl_unlocking]

Oh. Well, it wasn't bad it w---

----haaaat. As in---

[laugh]

---it sounded like you just said proposed.

[voice -> Private]

[samianscar]

Yeah, what? People did that back then.

[voice] 2/2 <-not so private

[samianscar]

…And yeah, I saw that, Bit.

We wish the world worked like that. Like you have to pass a test or be strong or smart or qualified enough to get a crushing world of burden placed on any act or random decision. Like anyone got what they deserved.

…Huh. There's a hell dimension for you. Maybe, maybe not people getting what they deserved, but where everyone knew they actually deserved what it was they got.

So. If you're really worried about upping your level, step one: forget about levels.

'Sides. I've met some of the ones with score cards. They're rubbish.

[voice] 2/2 <-not so private

[girl_unlocking]

[She's just a little quiet, Spike. No, no, it's nothing you said exactly. She's just thinking.]

Do you think it works that way? In the end, I mean. Does everyone really get what they deserve?