waffuport | 3-choo! (now with real sneezing!)

3-choo! (now with real sneezing!)

Phone

Everybody, I got my rune back in the mail today! I can use it to send you places, so if anybody ever wants help going somewhere you can just ask me! Then school and work and the ice cream place won't seem so far away anymore, if you think they're far away. Oh, also I---ah......ah.....ah.........

[a long moment of silence.]

....ah-choo!!

[This is followed by the sound of someone dropping the telephone! and then failing to hang up. Oops?]

Action;everywhere

[Hello Mayfield. How's life today? Are you at home? At work? School? Going shopping, maybe? Wherever you are, there is now also a Viki. She might even have landed on you! Don't worry though, she's not hurt!

Feel free to run into her wherever, whenever, however! Hope she doesn't embarrass you.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[That catches Gat off guard.]

Huh. You ain't got a family at home?

Hm?...I never though about that before....I guess I don't?

... You never thought about it?

[That's ... kind of troubling to Gat. He can't help but wonder if Viki's an amnesiac sort.]

Well, I've got a home, but I always seem to end up somewhere else, so I haven't been there for a really long time.

[She seems strangely unbothered by this.]

[There's a look of dawning realization on his face.]

... That ain't connected to how ya wound up in this here fire engine, is it? How ya said you sneezed an' wound up in here?

Oh right, it is! It happens a lot. I'll sneeze and suddenly I'm somewhere else! I'm glad I didn't leave town this time.

Frankly, if I had that kinda power I'd be glad if I got outta this place. What with how our captors love torturin' us.

A lot of people have said that...but I've got friends here! If I left I don't know when I'd get to see them again.

Well—that's a fair point. Plenty'a folks I've met I wouldn't've ever seen back home.

But I ain't sure if it's worth th' kind of things they put us through. Like when that sorry Milkman got picked to be th' Chief of Police 'round here.

Oh, that was pretty bad, wasn't it? Everybody looked really unhappy then. But things like that happened a lot in all the other places I went to, too--I mean, there weren't any milk problems or anything, but there were other problems, you know?

You wind up gettin' sent to a lotta bad places, I take it?

Oh, I liked all those places! There were a lot of nice people. But for some reason there's always a war, too. Isn't that weird?

[Gat lightly taps his chin with the knuckle of an index finger as he ponders that pattern, propping that hand's arm up with the back of his other fist.]

So you're sayin', every time you sneeze, you risk windin' up in another world. An' every world you've been to, there's been some kinda war or conflict goin' on.

[Gat glances out a window, toward Mayfield proper.]

I know how that is.

Well...kind of! Usually I'm just in a different part of the same world. This is the first time I went somewhere else entirely.

[She follows his gaze to the peaceful street outside.]

Does that happen to you, too?

Well—I don't wind up in other worlds just by sneezin'. But I've been around th' galaxy a time or two. Not entirely of my own will, either.

Oh....Was it fun, at least?

Well—first time 'round, it wasn't. Kind of a part-colonization effort, part-escape from a dyin' homeworld. Considerin' th' kind of world we wound up in, I can't say we were much better off.

Second time, that was when it wasn't of my own will. Still ain't sure what happened, and I ain't sure how it relates to where I came from. It's got its own problems, but—things don't seem as bleak. Even if I get some mighty bad cases of deja vu every now an' then.

...Well. Um. At least it's better? It sounds like it's better.

Yeah. Better than where I've been before, at th' least.

[A beat.]

An' better than here, too.

Well that's good! That means you've got something good to go back to, once you're done here. Right?

That's true.

[Man, Viki's upbeat outlook never falters. Gat is kind of impressed by this.]

What about you? Out of all th' places you've been to, where wouldja rather go back to, if'n you had a choice in th' matter?

Me? Well, um...hm. That's a hard one.

.......Maybe Budehuc? I liked the plays there, and the castle wasn't in the middle of a lake or an ocean or anything so I could take walks if I wanted.

[Castles ... Yeah, that definitely shoots a pattern for the technology of her time period(s).]

Sounds like a nice place. Though I reckon a lil' lakeside property ain't such a bad thing.

[The technology in this town is amazing for her, really.]

Oh, there was a lake at Budehuc too! But the castle was next to it instead of in it, which was really nice.

[Gat grins some.]

Well, then. Best of both worlds.

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