IC Contact - Exsilium

[maddeninghatter]

[ Thirty seconds of tuneless humming--beeeeeeeeep! ]

Comments

[retraced]

I got them for you to eat, not me.

[The answer comes easily enough, but at the mention of Oz, his voice dips a bit lower. Resigned. Depressed. Pathetic.]

He's leaving soon for another mission with someone else.

[maddeninghatter]

[ Gilbert you are so embarrassing on so many different levels. He flips the box shut; direct action won't be successful, he'll have to resort to deviousness. ]

Oz is...

[ Over a century old and not even human. But despite all of that, he manages still to be... an existence that is growing. Changing. ]

One day, Oz won't need you as much. He'll grow up and leave you. Is that what you're thinking?

[retraced]

[He winces.]

He was fine on his own for months before I arrived here.

[Already, Oz doesn't need him as much.]

[maddeninghatter]

That's true enough.

[ Oz wasn't completely alone in those months, but he'll leave that alone, for the moment. He sets the box aside and folds his arms, leaning on them. ]

So if he doesn't need you, then the only logical reason he spends time with you at all is that he wants to.

[retraced]

W-well, that's...

[All well and good, but Gilbert needs to be needed, whether Oz wants him around or not is only part of what makes him happy when the boy calls out his name.]

[maddeninghatter]

[ Cutting in quickly, before Gilbert can finish: ]

You don't need me anymore. Why are you still here?

[retraced]

Eh?!

[He's mortified at how painfully his stomach aches at those words.]

What are you talking about?

[maddeninghatter]

I'm saying, you'd be able to look after yourself if I disappeared. You're competent in practical day-to-day matters. You're tall and you're strong. You can think and make your own decisions. Your greatest enemy is yourself; but I think pretty soon you'll get over that, too.

[ He hopes so, anyway. ]

So you don't need me, not really.

[retraced]

[His fists clench. Though he's not sure exactly what Break is getting at, or rather where these words are coming from, he still has an answer.]

If practical day-to-day matters were all we had to deal with here, that might be true. If you were to disappear here, I...

[Ugh, he's going to have to say something sappy here, isn't he?]

My 'priorities' here are the same as back home. I'd rather keep using you as you use me than try and get through all of this without you.

[maddeninghatter]

— except you don't "use" me. I'm not certain that you ever have.

[ This isn't "kindness chicken" anymore. It's the truth. He has always recoiled from saying things like this, but now that the words are on his lips...

He feels strangely free. He reaches for Gilbert, on purpose to pat his head, as if he were still that boy of fifteen. ]

[retraced]

[All he's ever done was use him. He used Break to enter Pandora, to learn the principles of the noble houses and the secrets of the organization that had always been nothing more than a fairytale. He'd used Break to teach him the structure that he needed to succeed, and used him as a springboard to learn to cook and bake and fire a pistol.

He'd used Break to learn how to watch death right in front of your eyes and not flinch or look away.]

Break. You -

[But then Break has to ruin the moment by patting his head and making him feel young and short again. He stutters and bats his hand away.]

S-stop treating me like a little kid!

[maddeninghatter]

[ Even now, Gilbert's sputtering is still endlessly entertaining. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, as they say in fantasy Japanese France. ]

Okay then~!

How shall I treat you? What would you like, hm?

[retraced]

[Ugh, now he has to muss his hair back into place...]

I want you to eat your chocolate and go to sleep! I have to finish reading - you're a terrible distraction!

[maddeninghatter]

[ He's about to remark on the mutual exclusivity of eating chocolate and going to sleep, however — ]

You?

You have to finish reading?

[ You're hardly the bookish sort, Gilbert. ]

[retraced]

[It's not what it sounds like!]

These documents that Kate compiled about the research that the UE was doing before...

[Well, before they blew up the city.]

It's a lot to sort through.

[maddeninghatter]

[ Thump! That is the sound of Xerxes Break jumping down from his bunk. His air of affectionate teasing is gone: he's all business. ]

What sort of research? What is it?

[retraced]

[He's taken aback for a split second, but this isn't the first time, nor the last that he'll watch that particular transformation of Xerxes Break.]

Research and development for what they called Project Chimera.

[There's been vague discussion of it on the network.]

Something about tailoring their soldiers to make them stronger through whatever method they were working on. Trying to replicate powers that people from other worlds possess. And they were working on something called a rover. It was supposed to be able to travel across the surface of other planets like a carriage.