nysalogs | Forgetting is such sweet sorrow

[The announcement from the stage pulls his attention away so that when Cam yanks down on his sleeve, he very nearly stumbles into the lap of a nearby woman. He catches his balance - his reflexes are sharp, and a man of his stature is not so easy to budge. Although the woman is merely an illusion pulled from Cam's memories, and he of no matter to her, embarrassment touches his features. He straightens his collar although it requires no such attention.]

I would prefer to stand. I can see better, and if we are not truly here, then I cannot impede the view.

[He listens to the end of the poem, then looks to Cam.]

I did not know you were a performer.

[Although he does have that gypsy look about him.]

[Cam nods, eyes transfixed on the stage. He knows how this goes, it is his performance after all, but getting to watch was a new thing. When he opens his mouth to respond, a voice from stage cuts him off, his voice, "And now, for some real entertainment."

Jiutou has disappeared by now, the stage empty and awaiting it's second act. Suddenly, a figure drops from the rafters above the stage. There's the sound of tearing as something that was apparently supposed to stop his descent fails, and he dumps unceremoniously onto the stage. The crowd nearby laughs, assuming it was part of the act, but the real Cam's cheeks heat up and he glances away. Oh yeah.

Memory-Cam recovers easily enough, moving into the next bit: "But wait! What approaches from the edge of the curtain?! Perhaps! A hideous monster!" From side stage, a wooden pig is wheeled out, eliciting a confused laugh from the audience.] It was a dragon! It was supposed to be a dragon—

[The pig is vanquished in a spectacular show of lightning and color smoke. The performance goes on from there, teeter-totering between serious and ridiculous. The audience is entertained all the same, but Trixania's backstage treachery is altogether invisible to anyone who isn't Cam, watching as spells weave to turn the performance of a lifetime into a comedy act. There's a display of acrobatics on stage now, with the demon child joining Cam back on stage, doing flips and breathing fire.

It's in the middle of a knife-juggling routine, it starts off well enough but ends with Cam's trousers around his ankles, when the real Cam gets to his feet turning to Faushe,] You know, we should go. I can tell you how the rest of it goes later.

Edited 2018-04-16 01:21 (UTC)

[Although opera and ballet had flourished in Paris, Jean Valjean has never set foot inside a theater, with his life first characterized by poverty, then wretchedness, and then finally austerity. He has never witnessed a performance such that the memory of Cam now creates on stage. He finds himself momentarily mesmerized by the flashing light and billowing smoke, the daring feats of acrobatics and juggling.

Yet when he looks to the present-day Cam beside him, it is plain that the performance is not following its maker's designs. When at last Cam rises from his seat, purposing to leave before more can go awry, Jean Valjean immediately accedes to his wishes.]

Very well. Let us go.

[And so he follows as Cam wends his way through the rows of seats, and the audience erupts in laughter at the continued antics on stage. Once they have made it to the door in the back of the theater, he says in consolation:]

You were doing quite well in persevering when the act went wrong.

[Then they push through the door, and what else he might have said dissipates in his throat. The scenery shifts around them, at first melting like wax under a flame, then vanishing into darkness. This lasts for only the space of a breath before a new scene forms from the chaos of the storm. Evening has fallen around Jean Valjean and Cam, and around them springs the squat cottages and twisting narrow roads of a village that Jean Valjean slowly recognizes with a lurch of his heart. Digny, unchanged since last he saw it fourteen years ago. Unchanged, he realizes with dismay, because this is a memory.]

[Feigning ignorance,] What? Everything went fine. [Which is definitely why he wanted to beat it out of there before he could keep watching himself be made a fool of. It's a good thing that Korak liked a good laugh.

They pass through the side doors an the scene changes entirely. He wasn't sure what to expect, whether it would be the hall outside of the main performance hall, or just out of the dream, back into the fields of El Nysa entirely. What he wasn't expecting was a small cottage town, the sky dark where it had been the middle of the day before.]

Woah... [Cam does a little turn, mid-walk, getting a look around,] This isn't any of my memories. Faushe, do you know where this is?

[Jean Valjean does not answer. He has halted in his tracks as if turned to a pillar of salt. His chest tightens as if pressed upon by a great slab of stone. What draws such a reaction, the very image of pale dread, is the appearance of a figure in the road ahead: there comes toward them a man clad in what would be more aptly described as rags than clothes. On his head slouches a leather cap that obscures his sun-weathered face, over his shoulders is slung a knapsack, and in his hand is wrapped a gnarled walking stick. His hair is cropped, his beard long. His broad shoulders are hunched under a mantle of weariness and hopelessness.

It is a man buried long ago, a man who had been conquered by compassion and so conceded the territory of his soul to a higher power.]

Let us keep going.

[His voice is quite choked, bearing in this moment the mark of one restraining his true thoughts as naked flesh does bear a bruise. Without meeting Cam's eye, nor looking back toward the approaching traveler, he turns to go in the direction whence they had just come.

Behind him, the traveler has come to a door, the door of one of the finest houses in the town, and on this door he knocks sharply.]

[Despite his general… everything, Cam Buckland isn’t as thick as he lets on. Catches on to the spike of tension that surrounds Faushe. Given what they’ve already seen of Cam’s memories, played around them like a scene from the picture box on Natha’s ship, while the specifics remain a mystery, it’s not too hard to guess why.

There’s a moment of silence as he watches the man, disheveled and features obscured by dirty clothes, and Cam can’t help but be curious. Faushe was still largely a mystery, keeping a specific set of cards close to his chest but…

Some memories are better left where they belong.]

Actually, you know, I think I’ve seen this place before. [Cam turns from the apparition, at a slight jog to catch up to Faushe,] Looks a lot like Greybell. Guess the storm isn’t too picky with its memories.

[Playing dumb, but he can’t help but cast a curious eye over his shoulder, back to the man in the rags.]

[His pace quickens as he pushes ahead, purposing to find the way out of this memory he has too often retread. His eyes sharpen, the old instinct for escape seizing him. Cam's words fall feebly against the dull roar in his ears as his thoughts turn to a riot between fear and reason. What could a glimpse have given away? The man he was is no longer recognizable as himself, so why should Cam find him within those weather-beaten features?

He slows again. He attempts to tame his countenance, carriage, and voice into neutrality before turning his eyes to Cam.]

I expect this shall not last much longer.

[Yet when he looks up the road, the way has bent backward to bring them facing the house outside which the traveler had stood. Even as he stops, arrested by shock and dread, the distance between his feet and the door seems to shrink, as if the memory itself possesses a sort of momentum or gravity that compels him to retrace this night.

Shortly, Jean Valjean and Cam stand in the doorway, the traveler having left open the door when he was beckoned to enter. The ragged man stands just inches before them with his back turned so that they look over his shoulders as he addresses the small assembly within. An old man sits before the fire, and at the table sit two old women; the latter are evidently alarmed by the stranger's appearance, while the former listens calmly. The traveler is in the midst of explaining his troubles: sent away by innkeepers and the turnkey at the prison, driven away even by a dog in its kennel, he was forced to take up shelter in some doorway on the square, until a kind woman directed him to this house.

I have money; my savings, one hundred and nine francs and fifteen sous which I have earned in the galleys by my work for nineteen years. I will pay. What do I care? I have money. I am very tired - twelve leagues on foot, and I am so hungry. Can I stay?

Beside Cam, Jean Valjean has forgotten how to breathe.

Madame Magloire, the man says to one of the women, put on another plate.]

[The memory is not content to let them go until it shows them what it intended to. Cam is momentarily disoriented as the ground shifts under them, the inside of the house they had just turned from suddenly directly in front.

Cam had a few guesses about the poor man. Less from his appearance and more from Faushe's reactions. Either way, it's impossible to miss that the scene in front of him was of no small significance to Faushe. Though there's nothing shameful about being poor and needy. It's hard to play dumb for too long (though Cam would give it a good go), he scratches his head, putting on a show of being confused.] Huh, this is weird.

[Very convincing. He glances over at Faushe, who looks like he might be considering passing out soon. Slowly, after a moment of deliberation, he puts a hand on the other man's shoulder,] Hey, you alright?

[His shoulder, already tight with tension, twitches underneath Cam's touch. Nor can he go on long pretending, but he nevertheless insists in a tone the thinness of which negates his words:]

I am fine.

[The traveler has now stepped further into the house, and the door has fallen shut behind him. When he turns to address the old man, his face can be plainly seen in the warm light of the lamp. His eyes are hardened and wild, the eyes of a man who has not cried for nineteen years, the eyes of a man who has learned hatred and forgotten love. His profile, however, is unmistakable beneath the untamed beard: a perceptive eye might recognize that this traveler's features are identical to those of the man who calls himself Fauchelevent.

Until this moment, Jean Valjean has stood frozen by the door. Now, thawed by panic for what he knows comes next, he turns and grasps at the door handle, only to find it unbudging.

Did you understand me? I am a galley-slave - a convict - I am just from the galleys. There is my passport, yellow as you see. That is enough to have me kicked out wherever I go.

The traveler holds up the yellow paper and reads from it. His name, Jean Valjean; his sentence, five years for burglary and fourteen years more for four attempted escapes; his ultimate judgment, a dangerous man. The old man is unmoved from his conviction to let the traveler stay. He asks the old woman to prepare a bed; he tells the traveler to keep his money, for he is not an innkeeper but a priest.

And all the while, the door does not answer to Jean Valjean's great strength. He falls still as he realizes the futility of trying further to conceal the secrets that have been pried open. With the handle still in his grasp, he bows his head and closes his eyes, at once diminishing Cam's presence and waiting for his judgment.]

[The judgement that Valjean so waits for doesn't come. Cam has settled into silence, watching as the rest of the scene is laid out pretty clearly. Eyes widen imperceptibly at the revelation, a convict, but otherwise he doesn't move, doesn't let on approval nor dismissal. He's just... taking it in. Thinking.

Finally he turns, reaching across Faushe... Valjean... whoever he is, and he grasps the handle of the door, turning it gently. It gives easily under Cam's hand, the door swinging open with ease.] Oh, this is one of those doors that opens out when you think it opens in, I get confused by those all the time!

[His voice is lighthearted, only an underlining of tension betraying it as different from normal Cam Buckland behavior.] Well, lets go!

[And he'll lead the way out of the the house,]

[He follows, dumbfounded by so calm a reception to so damning a revelation - just as the man he was had been astonished by the bishop's compassion. Before the memory fades from sight, sinking back into the depths of his mind, Jean Valjean steals a final glimpse of the bishop, his age-worn face emitting a radiance and serenity he has never beheld in all the years since.

When he turns, he and Cam are once more in Olympia, on a quiet side street empty of souls but for themselves, the Storm having compressed distance while they were swallowed up by rogue memories. With ashen face and wary eye he regards Cam.]

You have seen the man I once was.

[The words come with difficulty, his tongue offering every resistance to the release of these secrets it has kept for so long. With no man's life on the line but his own, the conviction he had mounted when he stepped into the courtroom at Arras does not bolster him now. It is only because the truth can no longer be denied that he confesses: when the sun blazes overhead, no shadows can be found in which to hide, and so man must face the light.]

No, rather I should say you have now seen the man I truly am. What will you do?

[Where Cam was happy to pretend that everything was as it was before (it was his defense mechanism, albeit not a healthy one,) Valjean presses for an answer, a judgement.

Cam looks at Valjean for a long while, jaw working in a rare moment as he takes the time to consider his words. Finally, he releases a breath. Wordlessly, he brings his right hand up, pulling at the straps on the bracer on his left forearm, loosening it, until finally he can yank it up, sleeve and all, exposing his arm. On the underside of his arm, midway between his elbow and his wrist, there is a quarter-sized symbol scarred into his flesh. A brand.]

In case I ever got arrested again.

[Kind of like Valjean's yellow papers. Cam shrugs, though he pointedly avoids looking at his own brand. It's not a fun subject.]

Just because you did something wrong doesn't mean you're a bad person.

[His expression turns to quiet astonishment once Cam reveals the brand seared into his forearm. This hideous mark elucidates the man's ready acceptance of his great shame, the deferment of judgment for his past wickedness. Here is one who too has feared ignominy and felt the indifference of the law, seen the blindness of justice]

Yes, but as you saw it is a rare soul that will give a convicted man the chance to show he can be a good man too.

[In the cold eyes of society, one becomes defined by that yellow passport and reduced to his past crimes with no chance to redress them, no chance to redeem himself. Jean Valjean looks over his shoulder to ensure that nobody is about. Turning back to Cam, containing his words to the space between them, he holds his voice down to a murmur.]

It was only after I broke parole that I was able to live an honest life. I had to take a false name and live a life apart, but at last I was regarded as a man and not an animal.

[Incidentally, Cam knew a lot about starting a new life to run away from his sins, and that had little to do with the brand on his wrist. He'd been a simple performer, part of a poor band of misfits before he ran away, found a new life as an adventurer as he found it easy to avoid confronting his problems when he could fully invest himself in the problems of others. For the greater good, yes, but also running away from his past.]

But you don't need to do that here. It's a new chance, right?

[His secret divulged, Cam rolls his sleeve back down, affixing the bracer back into place. It occurs to him that he is the only person here with any idea what the brand really means, but it doesn't make him any more willing to share it with others, because that requires confronting it himself. In this way, it makes sense how secretive Valjean has been, even surrounded by strangers who knew nothing of his crimes.]

You can go by whatever name you want, but... you've shown who you are since you came here. And you're a good person. No one here's going to care about... bread.

[For Cam's unsinking optimism he gives a wan smile, one that only floats atop his countenance without reaching further. He is grateful for the man's merciful compassion, and he appreciates such kind sentiments, but his own experiences do not lend credibility to these hopes. Overnight, the people of Montreuil-sur-mer had abandoned the man they had honored as mayor; all his good deeds were effaced from their memory, and all that remained were the crimes of a scoundrel. Thus without weight backing them, such sentiments shall remain just that.]

Perhaps not. It is true all records have been destroyed, but those who remember the records may awaken yet. Moreover, my daughter...

[His expression becomes clouded with a thin veil of anguish, his voice falters, and his gaze falls away.]

It would break her heart if she knew the truth.

[If it is for her that he lives, then it is for her that he beats back the shadows of the past. That ineffably dark place and the bright one that she inhabits must never touch. It is as if between them stretches a fastidiously constructed and maintained wall of brick - as if brick might contain dark or preserve light.]

[He listens to Valjean, his expression indecipherable. In a way, Cam knew all to well about abandonment, yet their situations couldn't be more different.

Cam had been a no-name traveler, as he always was, and while the severity of his crime far outweighed Valjean's—manslaughter; Cam got off easy. Given a brand and a command to never return to a city he never considered his own. So he was left alone to regret, to bury his shame in the same place where he buried his despair over Mirela.

It's easier, in a way, when you already have nothing to lose.

He clears his throat,] Well, I'm not going to talk about. I'll keep calling you Faushe, if that's what you want.

[A pause,] But... give your daughter a little credit. Maybe you'll be surprised.

[Just as Cosette is the world to him, he is the world to her; and he does not wish for the world to come crashing down around her when already she has suffered so much in so small a life.]

Then I shall place my confidence in you, Monsieur Buckland.

[He has no choice but to trust him, but while it is difficult to dispel the doubts that darken his heart, the Cam he knows is a kind soul. Not once has he sensed malignancy in his manner or word. Jean Valjean bows his head.]

I am...indebted to you for this burden.

[Cam claps a hand on Valjean's shoulder, smiling broadly,] Hey, it's the least I can do.

[Fausche has been a good friend since they arrived and, in the event Cam has his sordid past unfortunately thrust in front of them, it's better to know people he can rely on. But the weight of the conversation is starting to make him antsy, and Cam leans in, voice dropping to a stage whisper,] But what about a new fake name? You don't look like a Fausche. Maybe a.... Huey?

[Let Cam “Camulus” Buckland help you with a secret name.]

[He, on the other hand, does not find it so easy to lighten from a solemn mood; yet even so, he grants a smile. Out of necessity, and perhaps out of his nature too, he has avoided growing too close to anyone - save for the sole exception of Cosette, into whom he poured the full measure of his love and fondness. Now, despite the creeping fear that comes with such exposure, it is also a relief to have someone whom he might trust to hold his most fragile secrets.]

I am afraid I've grown too accustomed to this name by now.

Forgetting is such sweet sorrow | semi-closed logs

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This tag took me 500 years to write and I still don't think it sounds right :'|

how dare you jessa

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