video; un: poison

[writtendestiny]

[The young woman on the screen has dark hair and large, shockingly violet eyes. She focuses on the camera as if she's looking directly at the person on the other side.]

I want to know if being pulled from other world is something that's happened to anyone here before.

[No preamble, no offering of a name. Poison glances away from the camera for a moment.]

This is the fourth world I've been in since I left my own. It's been four years... I think. [While she's careful to keep the emotion out of her voice, perhaps the act of doing just that might highlight how sensitive this topic is for her. She has an idea of why she can't get home.]

I suppose-- I want to know I'm not the only one who this keeps happening to. ... Thank you.

Comments

video; un: prismviolet

[affannoso]

T-The fourth world?

I thought this was a lot already, but you've been to that many? [......wait--] Ah... I'm sorry, you were asking for people who've also done this. I don't mean to waste your time.

voice; un: stargazer

[leicesters]

So next year you get to look forward to world number five, sounds like. Lucky you.

[But more seriously...] What other places have you been pulled to, and why?

[writtendestiny]

... It's fine. I expected people to be curious.

[She doesn't seem to be annoyed about it, but... a bit tired, maybe?] You can ask me about it if you want to.

[affannoso]

I... Well, maybe I do want to, but...

Well, I suppose I should ask if the other worlds were much like this one. In case I end up transported elsewhere myself...

[writtendestiny]

You're not funny.

[Just to get that out there. She states it bluntly and without venom, but Poison doesn't sound impressed.]

The first place was one we just called the box. The second was Hadriel, and the third was Anchor. And now here.

[She knows she hasn't answered his other question.]

[writtendestiny]

No, they weren't anything like this one.

[She wonders if she ought to give too many details. Poison might be harshly spoken at times, but she isn't about deliberately frightening people.]

This world is... a lot nicer. So far.

1/2

[affannoso]

[okay, well, that's

nice in this case, but also worrying?]

Then, I hope you can stay in this one.

2/2

[affannoso]

[ . . . ]

I-I mean, I hope you get to return home, of course! Simply, if you did have to stay in a different world... um...

S-Sorry, that came out all wrong...

[leicesters]

I actually think I'm hilarious, but suit yourself.

[He might even turn out to be right, for all she knows. It'd fit the pattern.]

And what were those places like? Anything like this?

video, un: redhood

[awooligan]

[Purple eyes? ...Man, he wishes Eliza were here so he could get a read on if that were normal to anything in particular, like his own wild eyes could be normal for Animal People.]

Four years? [Oh god. He'd be twenty by the time he got back, if that happened to him -- and that's assuming it ends at four years. His little brother would practically be an adult himself.] Sorry. That fucking sucks. I've never heard of shit like this happening before, though.

[writtendestiny]

I understand.

[This can't be an easy thing for anyone to approach, so in a way... she's grateful that the other girl is trying.]

I hope I can go home too, some day. But I think it's fine here, for now.

[writtendestiny]

No. Not like this.

[Though Poison has accepted the likely inevitability that she will continue to bounce from world to world and never actually go home, having it pointed out in such a fashion needles at her in a very obvious way.]

Being here is easy.

[writtendestiny]

[Funnily enough, Poison was twenty now. At least, she thought she was. It was hard to know, and her physical growth had not entirely followed along with the years she'd spent in the various other world she'd been in.]

I haven't heard of it either. Not about it happening so much.

[She's known people who had been in one world before, but three? Never.]

But it doesn't do harm to ask.

[affannoso]

There's a lot of strange magic here, so, that may help you find your way... It's not like anything I knew back home.

[writtendestiny]

I've dealt with Phaeries before.

[The way she says the word 'phaeries' is the same way that most people would utter a curse.]

Not the same ones as here, but I know enough to not meddle with them. Or their magic.

Audio | un: graywords

[heartlessswordsman]

This is only the first time I've gotten stuck in another world like this, and it's already a headache. Sorry I don't have anything useful to say, but four times? That's just excessive.

[writtendestiny]

The first time was more than enough.

[The first time had been the worst. The place where most of her scars and nightmares come from.]

I'm not holding out much hope on anyone else having been through the same thing.

[heartlessswordsman]

These are four completely different worlds you're talking about, right? Do you have any special abilities that would maybe stand out to whoever runs these places?

[arcsplainist]

I can certainly relate, but... four times? And I presume, since you ask, that none of these trips were an intentional one.

[affannoso]

Oh. They're that bad, huh?

...I'll be sure to remember that.

video; un: warmsunlight

[heartandsol]

I've traveled to other worlds, but I'm not normally dragged without meaning to go, no. And it's an ordeal when I go, too. There's always something that needs fixing, some crisis about to begin. This is the first time something else has taken me away.

[A pause; it probably isn't compromising operational security to add-] We've brought others back from our trips to stay on our side, but it's always been at their request, so it's not the same thing. I'm... You didn't agree to any of the times you were pulled away, I take it. [It's not really a question.]

[awooligan]

[Sometimes worldhopping is bullshit. It's usually pretty bullshit, actually -- Cliff's got that figured out already, which goes to show just how bullshit.]

Yeah, I guess. [He seems real uncertain about it.] Are you...okay?

[writtendestiny]

They're...

[Once upon a time she would have said they were bad. She knows better now, even through her dislike of them.]

Different. They don't follow the same rules as we do. Remember that part.

[writtendestiny]

[Poison blinks. To be honest, that's not really a question she gets asked that often, and she briefly considers being truthful.

Briefly, then she decides against it.]

Yes, fine. [She doesn't smile when she says it.] But thank you for asking.

[writtendestiny]

I...

[So, she's thought about that being the case (amongst other things), but she doesn't tend to talk about just who she is back home... because people look at her funny when she does.]

Maybe. But they've never worked anywhere else.