voice

[anklets]

[This query brought to you by a pretty handful of missing puzzle pieces, not that you'd know, since Lenalee has no intent to justify or explain that imagery, nor to keep picking at scabs until they fester.]

We've already seen how the smallest change made can rewrite the entire history of this world. People are unborn, warheads are undropped... because we've cut out the circumstances which led to their happening.

How do you think that it might be the same for us? Transports come and go so often here and no one knows why. Whatever we do, we are always altering chances, there is no reason not to consider they could also be our own. That someone arrived on a day no longer existing may suddenly leave, or return by new circumstance, or forget they were ever here before.

It may be that we don't "go home", just. "Never arrive".

[ about ten minutes after broadcast, through careful squinting and experimentation, the feed is locked from Gilbert Nightray ]

Comments

text

[quackery]

if you don't know what the truth is, then there's no reason to assume the worst

it wasn't due to any of us messing something up that he left

[anklets]

[ too used to assuming the worst, it too often is the worst

what comes across the feed is a strangled inhale, sharp, ragged and watery, the screen before her blurring Gaussian, and that's

actually all, for at least ten or fifteen seconds ]

[quackery]

[A pause of her own.]

i'm sorry

[anklets]

I'm. Not placing blame on anyone.

[quackery]

i didn't think you were

sorry

i'm just trying to say that i don't think it had anything to do with us

[anklets]

[ t h i c k l y ] I hope not.

[quackery]

[There's a few minutes before the next message.]

what would you do differently if it were true?

[anklets]

I know there's nothing I can change. If I were to stop now, it would be trampling down on the lives of those who helped to get us this far. But I'm.

Tired.

Of making changes, without understanding what they'll do.

[quackery]

i think it's important to think about

just try not to make yourself too upset worrying about things you can't change. there's a lot of things here we can change! maybe focus on those

[anklets]

[ breathed: ] It's a goal. Believe me.

[quackery]

okay

i'm sorry i didn't have a better answer for you

[anklets]

Ahiru...

[ this world is too full of people trying to bear everyone's burdens upon their own shoulders alone ]

I don't expect anyone to have all the answers I would prefer to have. [ desperate for ones which differ from her own, mostly ] You said I didn't have to fret about everyone else while I was hurting. Neither should you.

[quackery]

it's fine

but thank you

[anklets]

It isn't fine!

[Lenalee Lee very rarely utters pleas, even rarer still where others might see it, but this one tumbles out of its own accord.] Please, Ahiru. You don't need to stand on your own like this.

["Concerned for everyone's feelings but your own."]

[quackery]

[Almost recoiling; she's grateful Lenalee can't see her face as she reads those words.]

i'm not

[anklets]

Then why?... Why does it feel like I can't make my way to you?

[She'd thought this was a trait reserved for her brother, summoning forth pain when all she'd wanted was to defend against it, fiercely, with every part of her.]

[quackery]

[A lengthy pause.]

i don't know what to say about it

but i promise that isn't your fault

i'm sorry

[anklets]

[Her cheeks feel very, very warm. She scrubs at them but it's really just- pointless, right now, with everything so close to the surface, it'll probably just help it all break through.]

So'm I.

[quackery]

you don't have anything to be sorry for

you helped

[anklets]

Then, [ disliking how raspy her voice is... ] I. I'm glad.

[quackery]

i'm glad you are

but i really will be fine

[anklets]

...Yeah.

[quackery]

what's the matter

i mean

besides the obvious

[anklets]

Just.

Homesick, I guess.

[quackery]

i know how you feel, i used to get that a lot :(

do you want to talk about it?