Anyway, don't worry, Rich, it's a glowing review, probably. Only Cloudbank's best and brightest rising influential types for the Camerata's plans. And then...there's Boxer, hecking it all up by existing.]
Scheherazade...? [The impressive job he does of mostly not tripping over those syllables is balanced out by the fact that it's one of the only things he really picks up from that whole story. Something about wishes. He hums under his (theoretical) breath.]
The sky looks blue because we want it to. [He says it like he's quoting something. (Someone. Farah Yon-Dale, another one of those best-and-brightest people who isn't supposed to be here.) Then he snorts, dizzily wry, as if at the concept. Besides—] Doesn't even really work that way. Not around here.
[What a world. Though, that apparently reminds him.]
Hey, Red... [Because he does, at least, recognize all this. Has the presence of mind to know that something is wrong. That something in his processing is too slow and too muddy to keep up, or keep track of himself. Or keep her safe. But he tries. He weaves slowly from tipsy to feverish and there and back again, in the time it takes Red and Richie to text under his (metaphorical) nose. Equal parts distracted and exhausted.] You don't...think it's here. Do you? The Spine of the World. Thought we left all that behind in Cloudbank. [A beat. Like he's just remembered something and has to work his way around it.] ...Not that there even is a Cloudbank. Anymore. What d'you think they did...about the Process? Y'think they're all just...
[The downward slope in the path evens out to flat again, like they've reached the bottom of the crypt, and the little >come closer prompt they've been following seems to have steadied out in size. Can't be far. The crypt takes this moment to creak eerily around them, as they come across a set of doors. An odd rumble echoing out through the darkness of them. Hushed, his train of thought reorients on its way to finishing that sentence:]
...ghosts.
[(Didn't they say this place was haunted by things like that? Not that Boxer had any stock to put in it, at the time—)]
no subject
Anyway, don't worry, Rich, it's a glowing review, probably. Only Cloudbank's best and brightest rising influential types for the Camerata's plans. And then...there's Boxer, hecking it all up by existing.]
Scheherazade...? [The impressive job he does of mostly not tripping over those syllables is balanced out by the fact that it's one of the only things he really picks up from that whole story. Something about wishes. He hums under his (theoretical) breath.]
The sky looks blue because we want it to. [He says it like he's quoting something. (Someone. Farah Yon-Dale, another one of those best-and-brightest people who isn't supposed to be here.) Then he snorts, dizzily wry, as if at the concept. Besides—] Doesn't even really work that way. Not around here.
[What a world. Though, that apparently reminds him.]
Hey, Red... [Because he does, at least, recognize all this. Has the presence of mind to know that something is wrong. That something in his processing is too slow and too muddy to keep up, or keep track of himself. Or keep her safe. But he tries. He weaves slowly from tipsy to feverish and there and back again, in the time it takes Red and Richie to text under his (metaphorical) nose. Equal parts distracted and exhausted.] You don't...think it's here. Do you? The Spine of the World. Thought we left all that behind in Cloudbank. [A beat. Like he's just remembered something and has to work his way around it.] ...Not that there even is a Cloudbank. Anymore. What d'you think they did...about the Process? Y'think they're all just...
[The downward slope in the path evens out to flat again, like they've reached the bottom of the crypt, and the little >come closer prompt they've been following seems to have steadied out in size. Can't be far. The crypt takes this moment to creak eerily around them, as they come across a set of doors. An odd rumble echoing out through the darkness of them. Hushed, his train of thought reorients on its way to finishing that sentence:]
...ghosts.
[(Didn't they say this place was haunted by things like that? Not that Boxer had any stock to put in it, at the time—)]