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Equilibrium
Mar. 6th, 2014 02:51 am"How do you do it?"
AO looked up at the question, asked by a too intent woman seated in the underground's current gathering place who was sliding a silk scarf from hand to hand, eyes fastened on the brilliant green of it. "Pardon?" he responded in turn, continuing to feed bits of alfalfa to his sleepy bunny.
"How do you keep such a perfect façade? It's like you're taking your dose, every day. You never make a mistake."
"Ah." He fell silent again, for a long moment. "It is simply how I am. I have never been dosed. I am not from here." It was difficult to open up about himself, even in this world where no one would ever know the real him. Or perhaps in this world it was James who was real? He wasn't sure. It would bother him, if it were important.
"What do you mean, 'not from here'?" she sounded impatient, and he came very near to smiling at it. Rachel would know he was smiling, at least, if she were there. It was good that his rag tag little collection of sense offenders was starting to get over their awe of him. They needed that.
"Not from this world." he let that simple sentence spread through the room like a rock into a still pond, although in this case the ripples were silence and murmured conversations quelled and a room full of faces turned towards him.
It was, apparently, story time. "I am from a world where there are no sense offenders." murmurs started again, disbelieving. There would always be offences, after all, "No sense offenders, because emotion is not an offence. If you walk down the streets of my home, you will see green and blue, orange and red, yellow and purple, and colours that your do not have words for any more. Trees, grass, animals of all kinds kept as pets. You will hear laughter, and tears, joy and sorrow...and yes, anger and hatred. There exist things to decorate the body, from jewellery to face paints to hair dyes.
"I live in a house with a yard, both front and back. The front yard is filled with grass, and has a hedge fence. The back yard has a wooden one, and also a small vegetable garden filled with food for myself, Tweedle Dee, and his brother Tweedle Dumb." The names of the bunnies made people chuckle softly, as they always did. "There is art on my walls, and my bed is draped in comfortable sheets and blankets." a slight exaggeration, there, but he was trying to paint a picture of hope.
"I am not a demonstrative man. I have never been so, and as I have grown older I have also grown more reserved. For me, it is a comfortable way to live. Indeed, it has been a boon to someone for whom I care deeply. However I also know that the degree to which I under-emote is quite unhealthy for humanity, and Rachel has been attempting to bring me closer to optimum.
"This is why I am here." blank faces that did not understand watched him, waiting for him to explain, "Rachel is called where she is needed; across worlds and universes. Your world needed her fire, so she came." he fell silent, then, to let them process. It didn't take long before questions started clamouring for his attention, and he smiled another of those smiles that only Rachel would have known.
AO looked up at the question, asked by a too intent woman seated in the underground's current gathering place who was sliding a silk scarf from hand to hand, eyes fastened on the brilliant green of it. "Pardon?" he responded in turn, continuing to feed bits of alfalfa to his sleepy bunny.
"How do you keep such a perfect façade? It's like you're taking your dose, every day. You never make a mistake."
"Ah." He fell silent again, for a long moment. "It is simply how I am. I have never been dosed. I am not from here." It was difficult to open up about himself, even in this world where no one would ever know the real him. Or perhaps in this world it was James who was real? He wasn't sure. It would bother him, if it were important.
"What do you mean, 'not from here'?" she sounded impatient, and he came very near to smiling at it. Rachel would know he was smiling, at least, if she were there. It was good that his rag tag little collection of sense offenders was starting to get over their awe of him. They needed that.
"Not from this world." he let that simple sentence spread through the room like a rock into a still pond, although in this case the ripples were silence and murmured conversations quelled and a room full of faces turned towards him.
It was, apparently, story time. "I am from a world where there are no sense offenders." murmurs started again, disbelieving. There would always be offences, after all, "No sense offenders, because emotion is not an offence. If you walk down the streets of my home, you will see green and blue, orange and red, yellow and purple, and colours that your do not have words for any more. Trees, grass, animals of all kinds kept as pets. You will hear laughter, and tears, joy and sorrow...and yes, anger and hatred. There exist things to decorate the body, from jewellery to face paints to hair dyes.
"I live in a house with a yard, both front and back. The front yard is filled with grass, and has a hedge fence. The back yard has a wooden one, and also a small vegetable garden filled with food for myself, Tweedle Dee, and his brother Tweedle Dumb." The names of the bunnies made people chuckle softly, as they always did. "There is art on my walls, and my bed is draped in comfortable sheets and blankets." a slight exaggeration, there, but he was trying to paint a picture of hope.
"I am not a demonstrative man. I have never been so, and as I have grown older I have also grown more reserved. For me, it is a comfortable way to live. Indeed, it has been a boon to someone for whom I care deeply. However I also know that the degree to which I under-emote is quite unhealthy for humanity, and Rachel has been attempting to bring me closer to optimum.
"This is why I am here." blank faces that did not understand watched him, waiting for him to explain, "Rachel is called where she is needed; across worlds and universes. Your world needed her fire, so she came." he fell silent, then, to let them process. It didn't take long before questions started clamouring for his attention, and he smiled another of those smiles that only Rachel would have known.
