The individual concepts of the curses was familiar, but I've never seen something execute a multitude at once like that. [Skulduggery's just putting a big red pin in the "discuss the teenagers" conversation, but is also willing to bypass it for now in favor of more important topics. Such as...]
Oh. Ouch. ...She didn't even get her own room...? [That seems cruel, honestly. ...Is he going to have to go up there and put in a room change request for the person who's threatening to turn him into bone stock??? Absolutely not, he would get laughed out of the bridge.]
It was the cuff. He wears its sister on his other wrist. [Skulduggery leans against the edge of the desk, folding his arms over his chest.] I don't know how, but it held a memory of his inside. He only had to examine it for a few moments before it seemed to come back.
[...]
When it did, he asked that I kill him. Said that all of this had been an exercise in futility.
[Jade is entirely ready to backburner any further pursuit of teenager topics for as long as he possibly can, honestly...and in the interim, Skulduggery's remark on Jenny's rooming placement simply earns a slight and rather ambivalent shrug on Jade's part. Honestly, that particular turn of events doesn't surprise him half as much...cruel enough to pinion her to the ship yet again, may as well add salt to the wound by reducing her to yet another passenger aboard, with all the standard arrangements inherent in that. Not that he'd disagree with the idea of a room change request necessarily--because it's quite the awkward neighbor situation about now, as things stand!!!--but even Skulduggery would absolutely get laughed out of the bridge for the trouble, and they all know it.
So...]
The cuff. ...So at some point in the past, he was a prisoner of some sort himself... [Jade can recall the item well enough in his mind's eye, half-melted thing clearly missing a second half. It...makes sense, in retrospect, though the fact it simply contained a memory is--surprising. Before all this had shaken out, Jade himself would have bet money on the needed artifact being some means for the captain to expand his own power, and yet...
Actually, there's kind of a lot to unpack here already, now isn't there? Best not get the cart too ahead of the horse-monster, where assumptions are concerned, even if the urge to start extrapolating is already very strong. Jade frowns slightly, taking a moment to let the rest of Skulduggery's words sink in properly.]
By "all of this"...you mean our collective presence here, yes? This whole process, across countless hundreds of years, of snaring passengers to drain of power towards a lofty goal of godhood--an exercise in futility. [Careful, careful, let's not form a true opinion on this until the full context is had--but it takes an extremely active effort for Jade to keep the disgusted frustration that knee-jerk twists in his chest from reaching his features. And maybe it seeps just a bit into his tone all the same for just a moment there, despite himself.] ...Well. I take it you did not kill him. But...this was what he's been repeatedly making himself forget all that time, I assume?
[Skulduggery nods, yes. "All of this" being all of it, from the ship to their lives to the deaths of thousands of others. Jade's underlying disgust is hard to miss, no matter how much he struggles to keep it to himself, but Skulduggery has no interest in trying to placate him. He's right to be disgusted. It's been a colossal waste of life, and their interference may be the only thing that limits it to the tragedy already endured.]
The Captain can trust I won't try to kill him while Fio's life is tied to his survival. [It's a simple, matter-of-fact statement, and although it doesn't begin to scrape the surface of all his reasoning, it's the one truth he knows he won't have to argue with anyone.]
I believe it was one of the things he's forced himself to forget, but it's... a fraction of the whole. Without more information, it's hard to say exactly what it means for us, but... [He's getting ahead of himself, and so he holds up a hand as he backtracks.]
The cuff contained a memory of a memory. It was the story of his history, but told to him by his human captors. Masters. [The word is interchangeable, really.] He was told that he was taken from a village of magical beings before he was old enough to be named. The humans needed conduits in order to perform magic, and his people paid the price.
[Jade exhales slowly; the disgust still lingers, curtailed as it might be, winding tension into his frame that he has to rather forcibly loosen in order to sit back where he's seated. There will be a better time to be properly bitter about that particular tidbit of news later...and right now, there's still more information to be had. ...Besides, it's fair enough all the same. The simple explanation Skulduggery places on the matter of staying his own hand, even when the captain had actively requested death. An unprecedented opportunity, in one sense--it'd certainly be one way to end this vicious cycle once and for all. But...]
Fio, and all of us here...indeed, we still cannot exist without the captain's anchor, as things stand presently. You made the right choice.
[Jade falls silent after that, though, to let Skulduggery continue as he may. Frowning, as he tries to absorb all that he can, of the implications laid here. Surprising and yet not, these finer details...]
So, he's indeed always been an entity of power--but not one that couldn't be harnessed. Enslaved, essentially. Though he eventually managed to break free, somehow...and has been trying to ensure it never happens again ever since, even after banishing the memories in themselves. ...An attempted ascension to godhood would track, with such a goal...
[His tone remains flatly neutral, processing the data and assembling it accordingly aloud--no room for expressed opinion yet here necessarily, not really. The concept in itself...isn't unfamiliar, actually, if a few parallels might be roughly drawn to similar phenomena he's seen himself back home: even a being like Lorelei was unwillingly bound to a mere mortal in Van Grants, at one time. ...Overall it's a grim tale, even in this highly abbreviated sort of summary. But as far as Jade's concerned it's simply a larger hint that points towards the cause of an effect. An effect so disastrously steeped in the prolonged suffering of countless others, since, that there's really little room left for sympathy or pity to express for the captain himself. Perhaps others might, but...well, he always has been quite exceptional, at simply refusing to get caught up in such feelings.
No, for now, there are only questions.]
...I still wonder why he wanted that cuff in the first place, if he couldn't actually remember its contents until he obtained it. Didn't even know what exactly it was, only that it was there. Did he himself place it on that island, at some point in the past...or was it someone else? [Hmm, perhaps a moot point by now--or perhaps not. Skulduggery likely has no answer for that particular thought either, of course, and Jade's shaking his head slightly a moment after.] --That aside. It sounds...as if he's been convincing himself, for the last countless few centuries, that godhood would be the answer to what he fears--but now he knows that isn't true. ...Yet he still won't release us either, will he? I assume it wasn't for a lack of trying to persuade him, on your own part. [If Jade is still assessing Skulduggery's priorities at least somewhat correctly--and he (hopes) believes he still is...]
When Darcy and I spoke to him in July, we convinced him to stop taking memory charms in order to actually learn something from all of the research he's been doing. He told us that he thought he might have a lead worth following, which I assume was the island.
[Those are the answers he knows, which aren't nearly enough to fill in all of the questions Jade's asked. Most importantly: how did the cuff get placed into that reality? And what was it, exactly, that led him to the island in the first place? Two more questions to throw onto the pile, now that the need for secrecy has passed.]
I did try, yes. You'll probably think it wasn't hard enough, but our freedom isn't something that's going to be negotiated in one night. For now, it's enough to learn that we do have some means of escape from here, beyond oblivion.
[After all, he may not have won their freedom in one fell swoop, but he has found out that freedom is possible.]
...Which brings me to possibly the least pleasant news of the whole thing. [For other people, anyway. Not him. He never had any doubts, but --] We... can't be returned back to our original timelines. Not if we want to remember anything about this place or the people here.
[Jade shakes his head a bit, at the initial part about possibly "not trying hard enough"--] No, I'd actually have been far more surprised if you actually had managed to negotiate our freedom in one night. That'd be a rather anti-climactic end to a centuries-old project, surely. [Ideal as it would have been, to have this all over with in some form not involving their own destruction already...
But it simply isn't to be, for the moment. And there is something to be said, for a confirmation that escape without oblivion is eventually possible...
...Speaking of which indeed. Skulduggery drops that particular tidbit of news, and Jade...takes it in quite calmly enough, seemingly, inclining his head slightly as it's absorbed. Not pleasant news in the least, no, although...truth be told...]
--So it's in stone, is it? ...I had somewhat of a feeling, that this might be the case. I was made aware a little while ago, that each of us on this ship is in fact some form of perfect replica--an entirely diverged existence, here, while our originals continue living their lives in our homelands...
[Though, of course, the term 'replica' is used for lack of any better vocabulary for the phenomena--alongside the fact that Jade's grasp of the concept is still rather more tenuous than not. Setting aside the existentially crushing nature of the whole concept overall...Jade takes a slow breath, and then tilts his head slightly, trying to slot himself into the mindset of all this while carefully tabling any actual strong feelings on the matter. (It helps a great deal, really, than he's already had a couple of months to slowly process it all. That Rita had been the one to rip off that particular bandaid already, that time past...)]
Still...I'm not yet privy to the finer mechanics. The way you refer to 'timelines', and retention of our memories of this place...I take it that the matter extends rather beyond just physical copies, but into temporal affairs as well?
[The relaxed resignation is honestly a blessing, and Skulduggery noticeably relaxes at his response. Even for a skeleton, he manages to look as if a weight has been taken off his shoulders, which -- well, yes, it has. One less person he has to prepare for fallout with over the news about home.]
As far as he could tell me, returning back to the moment we left would be functionally the same as ceasing to exist, and returning to our timeline in general runs the risk of unmaking that reality. Possibly all of them. It... isn't something that would be very sensible to test.
[Something about considering one version of him to be original and the other simply copied rubs him the wrong way. It's probably his ego talking, but he nonetheless has to bring it up for consideration.]
It's more constructive to think of it as if we split at a fork in the road. The version of ourself back home is no more or less real than we are; we're just on two different paths. Honestly, though, I think Ava might be a better person to ask about timeline theoreticals. She seems to get that sort of thing. [He's the magic guy, she's the science guy.]
[The way the tension ends up easing out of Skulduggery's skeletal shoulders assuredly doesn't go unmissed; Jade can't really blame him for the apprehension, all things considered. Rita had tried to check whether Jade was actually prepared for the news at least three times, and it wouldn't surprise him if Skulduggery was worried about the same. He wonders how many people have had this broken to them already. Doubtless, in time, the information will have to be spread to many others too...
If they expect to have any sort of collective plan by the time they actually free themselves from this ship, anyway.]
Mm...I didn't mean to imply that a replica would be any lesser than an original. --Though the connotation does tend to sound that way, doesn't it? [Here, for the briefest moment--an odd and faint sort of smile, wry but also...almost sad. Of course, Skulduggery wouldn't know the context--the weight of that term, in Auldrant. The peace Jade has made, with that particular debate, where the value of a copy versus an original might be concerned.....but that's not what they're talking about here, not really. The smile fades almost as soon as it formed, and Jade's nodding slightly soon after.] 'A split at a fork'...I could see that. It's surely more fitting. Ties in better, with the idea that returning to the exact same point in time from here may very well be destructive. ...But timeline theoreticals certainly aren't my field either, so that makes two of us. I'll have to take Ava aside sometime, in that case...perhaps over a cup of tea. If she'd be amenable to that sort of thing, you think?
[Probably not exactly a sort if thing to just bring up in casual conversation out if the blue. He really would like to learn more about this sort if thing, though...really, if only there were even one book in the library vaguely brushing upon the topic--]
Either way...if we cannot go back, forward certainly becomes the only option. You now say with certainty, that we may be able to exist beyond this space--did the captain confirm that?
I think she would be, yes. Once she's had time to process the whole affair, she'll probably be very amenable to tea.
[Sooner or later, they're going to need to tell people the truth. There won't be any way forward until they can all put the idea of going home to rest. He'd done it himself some time ago, but others will have more trouble adjusting. They'll need time to think about it, space to process, and something to motivate them to move forward. He hopes that the second half of the news will do that bit for him.]
He confirmed that it's theoretically possible. He's never tried it before, obviously, and he isn't currently inclined... but I think he can be convinced. But it will take time, and it will take a great deal more patience than I think most of us are willing to expend.
[Most of them, but not all. Every crack in the Captain's emotionless, egotistical facade increases the depths of his own patience. If he could get others to see it, too...]
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come_sailaway
no subject
Oh. Ouch. ...She didn't even get her own room...? [That seems cruel, honestly. ...Is he going to have to go up there and put in a room change request for the person who's threatening to turn him into bone stock??? Absolutely not, he would get laughed out of the bridge.]
It was the cuff. He wears its sister on his other wrist. [Skulduggery leans against the edge of the desk, folding his arms over his chest.] I don't know how, but it held a memory of his inside. He only had to examine it for a few moments before it seemed to come back.
[...]
When it did, he asked that I kill him. Said that all of this had been an exercise in futility.
no subject
So...]
The cuff. ...So at some point in the past, he was a prisoner of some sort himself... [Jade can recall the item well enough in his mind's eye, half-melted thing clearly missing a second half. It...makes sense, in retrospect, though the fact it simply contained a memory is--surprising. Before all this had shaken out, Jade himself would have bet money on the needed artifact being some means for the captain to expand his own power, and yet...
Actually, there's kind of a lot to unpack here already, now isn't there? Best not get the cart too ahead of the
horse-monster, where assumptions are concerned, even if the urge to start extrapolating is already very strong. Jade frowns slightly, taking a moment to let the rest of Skulduggery's words sink in properly.]By "all of this"...you mean our collective presence here, yes? This whole process, across countless hundreds of years, of snaring passengers to drain of power towards a lofty goal of godhood--an exercise in futility. [Careful, careful, let's not form a true opinion on this until the full context is had--but it takes an extremely active effort for Jade to keep the disgusted frustration that knee-jerk twists in his chest from reaching his features. And maybe it seeps just a bit into his tone all the same for just a moment there, despite himself.] ...Well. I take it you did not kill him. But...this was what he's been repeatedly making himself forget all that time, I assume?
no subject
The Captain can trust I won't try to kill him while Fio's life is tied to his survival. [It's a simple, matter-of-fact statement, and although it doesn't begin to scrape the surface of all his reasoning, it's the one truth he knows he won't have to argue with anyone.]
I believe it was one of the things he's forced himself to forget, but it's... a fraction of the whole. Without more information, it's hard to say exactly what it means for us, but... [He's getting ahead of himself, and so he holds up a hand as he backtracks.]
The cuff contained a memory of a memory. It was the story of his history, but told to him by his human captors. Masters. [The word is interchangeable, really.] He was told that he was taken from a village of magical beings before he was old enough to be named. The humans needed conduits in order to perform magic, and his people paid the price.
no subject
Fio, and all of us here...indeed, we still cannot exist without the captain's anchor, as things stand presently. You made the right choice.
[Jade falls silent after that, though, to let Skulduggery continue as he may. Frowning, as he tries to absorb all that he can, of the implications laid here. Surprising and yet not, these finer details...]
So, he's indeed always been an entity of power--but not one that couldn't be harnessed. Enslaved, essentially. Though he eventually managed to break free, somehow...and has been trying to ensure it never happens again ever since, even after banishing the memories in themselves. ...An attempted ascension to godhood would track, with such a goal...
[His tone remains flatly neutral, processing the data and assembling it accordingly aloud--no room for expressed opinion yet here necessarily, not really. The concept in itself...isn't unfamiliar, actually, if a few parallels might be roughly drawn to similar phenomena he's seen himself back home: even a being like Lorelei was unwillingly bound to a mere mortal in Van Grants, at one time. ...Overall it's a grim tale, even in this highly abbreviated sort of summary. But as far as Jade's concerned it's simply a larger hint that points towards the cause of an effect. An effect so disastrously steeped in the prolonged suffering of countless others, since, that there's really little room left for sympathy or pity to express for the captain himself. Perhaps others might, but...well, he always has been quite exceptional, at simply refusing to get caught up in such feelings.
No, for now, there are only questions.]
...I still wonder why he wanted that cuff in the first place, if he couldn't actually remember its contents until he obtained it. Didn't even know what exactly it was, only that it was there. Did he himself place it on that island, at some point in the past...or was it someone else? [Hmm, perhaps a moot point by now--or perhaps not. Skulduggery likely has no answer for that particular thought either, of course, and Jade's shaking his head slightly a moment after.] --That aside. It sounds...as if he's been convincing himself, for the last countless few centuries, that godhood would be the answer to what he fears--but now he knows that isn't true. ...Yet he still won't release us either, will he? I assume it wasn't for a lack of trying to persuade him, on your own part. [If Jade is still assessing Skulduggery's priorities at least somewhat correctly--and he (hopes) believes he still is...]
no subject
[Those are the answers he knows, which aren't nearly enough to fill in all of the questions Jade's asked. Most importantly: how did the cuff get placed into that reality? And what was it, exactly, that led him to the island in the first place? Two more questions to throw onto the pile, now that the need for secrecy has passed.]
I did try, yes. You'll probably think it wasn't hard enough, but our freedom isn't something that's going to be negotiated in one night. For now, it's enough to learn that we do have some means of escape from here, beyond oblivion.
[After all, he may not have won their freedom in one fell swoop, but he has found out that freedom is possible.]
...Which brings me to possibly the least pleasant news of the whole thing. [For other people, anyway. Not him. He never had any doubts, but --] We... can't be returned back to our original timelines. Not if we want to remember anything about this place or the people here.
no subject
But it simply isn't to be, for the moment. And there is something to be said, for a confirmation that escape without oblivion is eventually possible...
...Speaking of which indeed. Skulduggery drops that particular tidbit of news, and Jade...takes it in quite calmly enough, seemingly, inclining his head slightly as it's absorbed. Not pleasant news in the least, no, although...truth be told...]
--So it's in stone, is it? ...I had somewhat of a feeling, that this might be the case. I was made aware a little while ago, that each of us on this ship is in fact some form of perfect replica--an entirely diverged existence, here, while our originals continue living their lives in our homelands...
[Though, of course, the term 'replica' is used for lack of any better vocabulary for the phenomena--alongside the fact that Jade's grasp of the concept is still rather more tenuous than not. Setting aside the existentially crushing nature of the whole concept overall...Jade takes a slow breath, and then tilts his head slightly, trying to slot himself into the mindset of all this while carefully tabling any actual strong feelings on the matter. (It helps a great deal, really, than he's already had a couple of months to slowly process it all. That Rita had been the one to rip off that particular bandaid already, that time past...)]
Still...I'm not yet privy to the finer mechanics. The way you refer to 'timelines', and retention of our memories of this place...I take it that the matter extends rather beyond just physical copies, but into temporal affairs as well?
no subject
As far as he could tell me, returning back to the moment we left would be functionally the same as ceasing to exist, and returning to our timeline in general runs the risk of unmaking that reality. Possibly all of them. It... isn't something that would be very sensible to test.
[Something about considering one version of him to be original and the other simply copied rubs him the wrong way. It's probably his ego talking, but he nonetheless has to bring it up for consideration.]
It's more constructive to think of it as if we split at a fork in the road. The version of ourself back home is no more or less real than we are; we're just on two different paths. Honestly, though, I think Ava might be a better person to ask about timeline theoreticals. She seems to get that sort of thing. [He's the magic guy, she's the science guy.]
no subject
If they expect to have any sort of collective plan by the time they actually free themselves from this ship, anyway.]
Mm...I didn't mean to imply that a replica would be any lesser than an original. --Though the connotation does tend to sound that way, doesn't it? [Here, for the briefest moment--an odd and faint sort of smile, wry but also...almost sad. Of course, Skulduggery wouldn't know the context--the weight of that term, in Auldrant. The peace Jade has made, with that particular debate, where the value of a copy versus an original might be concerned.....but that's not what they're talking about here, not really. The smile fades almost as soon as it formed, and Jade's nodding slightly soon after.] 'A split at a fork'...I could see that. It's surely more fitting. Ties in better, with the idea that returning to the exact same point in time from here may very well be destructive. ...But timeline theoreticals certainly aren't my field either, so that makes two of us. I'll have to take Ava aside sometime, in that case...perhaps over a cup of tea. If she'd be amenable to that sort of thing, you think?
[Probably not exactly a sort if thing to just bring up in casual conversation out if the blue. He really would like to learn more about this sort if thing, though...really, if only there were even one book in the library vaguely brushing upon the topic--]
Either way...if we cannot go back, forward certainly becomes the only option. You now say with certainty, that we may be able to exist beyond this space--did the captain confirm that?
no subject
[Sooner or later, they're going to need to tell people the truth. There won't be any way forward until they can all put the idea of going home to rest. He'd done it himself some time ago, but others will have more trouble adjusting. They'll need time to think about it, space to process, and something to motivate them to move forward. He hopes that the second half of the news will do that bit for him.]
He confirmed that it's theoretically possible. He's never tried it before, obviously, and he isn't currently inclined... but I think he can be convinced. But it will take time, and it will take a great deal more patience than I think most of us are willing to expend.
[Most of them, but not all. Every crack in the Captain's emotionless, egotistical facade increases the depths of his own patience. If he could get others to see it, too...]