impure_tale | 235 [Video]

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235 [Video]

Well, that was rather unexpected.

My apologies for my sudden absence, especially so close on the heels of the last. [An uncomfortable clearing of his throat.] So tell me, dear neighbors: What excitements have I gone and missed?

[Something off-camera catches his eye and he perks up.]

Other than a new assignment, apparently!

[He picks up the file, and upon reading a couple lines looks positively tickled.]

Loki Laufeyson. It appears we need to have a little chat soon, and you have my deepest apologies for my initial absence. We shall have to begin in earnest to rectify this. In the meantime, however!

Admiral, please see to it that a fully updated copy of my file be delivered to Monsieur Laufeyson as soon as possible.

As for everyone else, my dearest friends and loves, I'll be out and about soon to greet you in person. I feel we must all have a visit lest I pop out of existence again and miss the opportunity.

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For the most part.

[He frowns, rubbing a hand over his clean-shaven chin]</smalL. ...Handsome, eh?

You disagree?

I'm old and weathered. Perhaps in my younger days..

[Pfft]

Nonsense.

It's been near a hundred years since I saw my own face. And I've shaved my beard off.

I realize I'm comparing your other form to this one but you actually look younger.

Likely I look as I did when the curse first began.

Odd, that.

You'll forgive the impertinent question, I hope, but is it merely an illusion? Or does it physically change you?

It's an illusion. The curse ain't broken yet. Won't be for...I don't know when.

[Small 'tsk' at that.]

Ah well. It does as much as you need it to do, oui?

Aye. It does enough.

That's not all the warden's given me, neither.

[He pans the camera down to where a maine coon cat is sitting rather comfortably in Davy's lap]

She don't leave my sight.

[Marquis has a softer spot for dogs but that doesn't stop a faint coo.]

Lovely creature. Have you named her?

[He decides to leave out that Jones probably smells delicious to her.]

[He gives a snort, petting the cat fondly on the head]

'Nessie'.

[Chuckle.] Fitting.

Pets are a wonder in a place like this.

How d'yeh figure that?

I've found the companionship can be very soothing.

In my freer years I raised several dogs, but I requested Renate specifically so that I could work toward becoming more physically active, myself, and also for protection. I wouldn't say that I was the victim of frequent attacks but there were certainly too many for my liking.

You? Irritate someone enough to attack yeh? I don't believe it.

You don't know the half of it, dumpling; I was much worse once.

How I managed to go make it to Wardenhood without dying on this ship, I'll never know.

Yeh've never died here?

Oh no, don't mistake me. I've passed a few times now. But never as an Inmate. I was one for...about two years. I think. It's been so long, now. Never died. Suffered numerous injuries -- gladly, even. But no, I didn't experience my first death on the Barge until after I became a Warden, and it wasn't a flood, perils of a port or even an angry shipmate. It was a heart attack.

[Okay; for the first time, Jones has to laugh. Which he does: deep and throaty and amused]

You're bloody joking.

I'm not.

[He returns the laugh, though the tail end of it is rather halfhearted.]

A boy came to the Barge, someone I knew in life that survived me -- and while I've faced the consequences of my influence in my life before the Barge, never with such lucidity. Not after I'd cleared the madness. It was too much.

And what boy would that be, to cause such a thing? What happened to him?

I died in asylum before I came here. The Abbe du Coulmier was a friend, once, but more importantly the one in charge of patient treatment there. Certain events took place that ended our friendship and, apparently, his career, leaving him a patient himself.

I would not be silenced. I would not be broken. After my passing he paid the price.

And ended as an inmate himself?