[voice] → "Eagerly I wished the morrow."

[bookworldly]

[Thursday's shoes have scarcely disturbed the soil of Luceti since its most recent Shifts. Her accustomed jogs around the grounds have wound down. She has not found herself out at the fringes of the forest or stood staring down streams. Her name has not lingered either on the library's ledgers or its logs for countless days

Comments

[ voice ]

[slaying]

[ oh. thursday's voice. how very strange to hear it even with a week between now and when she had been her mother. it's difficult to ignore the sting of guilt. how could she have so easily forgotten joyce?

buffy nearly doesn't answer at all except there's something in the woman's voice that inspires compassion. ]

Kind of a tall question. [ she remarks in an equally quiet voice. there are so many answers she could give; this opening remark serves to buy her time to think of which she feels most comfortable voicing. ]

[bookworldly]

[The sound of Buffy brings the sudden shock of a smile to Thursday's lips. It falls before the feeling can affect her voice - She answers in a quite tone, quite unlike her own.]

I'll ask someone else.

[slaying]

N-no, I'll answer. I just -- tall questions require tall thinking and I'm pretty sure no one in this village would ever use the words Buffy Summers and tall in the same sentence except maybe to say 'Buffy Summers is really very not tall' -- so? Thinking.

[bookworldly]

[Thursday wonders whether her once-was daughter recalls it all the same way she does. She doesn't know the specifics of the Shift. Perhaps each Luceti citizen was taunted in a manner tailored to themselves; two weeks' memory of their fondest wish? She shouldn't assume. She hasn't been checking the journals.

She does know, however, that hers has been fading fast.]

It's alright, take your time.

[For now at least the reflexes of maternity persist.]

[voice]

[poorneedyand]

[This talking-to-a-book thing is going to take some getting used to--and the only way to get used to it is to try. This sounds like a general enough announcement to answer.]

All right, I'll bite. Tell me what for, and I'll tell you what you want to know.

[bookworldly]

[Why try hiding it? Her purpose is innocent.]

Inspiration, that's all. I need something new to paint.

[poorneedyand]

You paint? [She's got admiration enough for artists, she'll help out.] Well, I don't know what to tell you about, but let's see. I like my typewriter well enough, and Belvedere Castle. Or my husband, I suppose I could tell you about him. Your choice.

[bookworldly]

The typewriter, please.

[A fondness bleeds around the hard edges of her words.]

Tell me about the typewriter.

[Voice]

[semper_cogitans]

[Now this is a voice Robert has heard before, but never spoken to. However, this question is enough to make him think, and certainly enough to make him respond. Being socially withdrawn after the experiment means that, although Robert has been avoiding people, that feeling of loneliness - foreign in the sense that he has never really allowed himself to be lonely until Luceti - has set in.]

What a fascinating question...

... But certainly a complex one. [So complex, in fact, that Robert could think of thousands of separate answers.]

... Is there any reason in particular for the inquiry? Perhaps it could... narrow the criteria, so to speak.

[bookworldly]

It's for a project. I'm working on a painting and I need a little inspiration. There's only so much to see in Luceti, you know? It all gets a little bland after a while.

[Not strictly true - she has lots of ideas. Too many. That's the problem. Still, she puts on a happy face. People are more receptive to the voice that comes out of a happy face.]

[semper_cogitans]

Ah, an artistic sort of person. [Robert has never been good at that sort of thing. He's too concrete a thinker for the abstract.] Well, I could certainly oblige.

Something I cherish...

[Several answers run through his mind. Don. Vivi. Having friends. Not being alone anymore.

But those are things that Luceti brought, and this person is requesting something from outside Luceti. So his mind goes to his work, of course. And what better for it to go to than his beloved Institute?]Picture, if you will, a massive structure - easily several hundred metres tall - of smooth metals... primarily various titanium and iron alloys, so mostly a lustrous silvery colour; worked into the material are trillions of microscopic circuits, and Terran photosynthesis-mimicry solar panels, which are a deep bluish-purple in colour, coat the building's external surfaces

[bookworldly]

[The detail provided puts her in mind of her uncle. Circuits and photosynthesis, petabytes, they're all a long way out of her comfort zone. That is not to say, however, that she doesn't find herself drawn to the mystery - the potential of these words. She was one of the few who took an interest in her uncle's work; she had him describe each of his devices to her, demonstrate them. She was proud, even now, just to think of Aunt Polly and him.

It was a pity he never got started on the memory erasure device, though.]

The "Randy Institute of Lindon." - got it. [She'll write the name somewhere - on a banner or a billboard. And she'll do it wrong - but then, she only has what she's hearing to work with.]Are the circuits visible? You said the structures glow blue... Is that because of the circuitry? Microscopic circuitry... so you can't see the circuits but the light that they give off is visible

[voice]

[lists_to_port]

The Black Pearl, sweet Jane. That's my object of belovedness.

[bookworldly]

Jewels. I might have guessed.

[A little antagonism, yes, but she doesn't have the energy for a fight right now. She draws a deep breath and straightens her chair, plucks up her pencil. She should have no trouble drawing this pearl and ending this conversation within the minute.]

One pearl? Round, black and shiny?

[lists_to_port]

One Pearl, with billowing black sails and a proud bearing and huge-ish proportions. She lists to port, slightly, but we make do.

[bookworldly]

The Black Pearl is a ship..

[Okay, she hadn't expected that. She'd never really painted a ship before. There's a shuffling of paper and a jostling of things with wooden handles - pencils and paintbrushes.]

Okay, tell me about the Pearl.

[neverplaysfair]

A city.

[ My city. But that's all he says. ]

[bookworldly]

Which city?

[She'll match his brevity]

[neverplaysfair]

Shibuya, Tokyo.

[bookworldly]

Japan. [This is said by way of confirmation. She's gathering her thoughts - picturing what she remembers of Osaka.]