tucky | IC contact for lastvoyages

[Nita is paying a lot of attention to Tiffany's response, but she doesn't let it distract her from the actual sorting.]

Being stuck in one place that long... I can see why it'd be both good and bad for people.

[Not even adding in whatever specifics came along, the nuances of the world itself!]

... Did you often end up on islands? Or did Flotilla itself have any?

Flotilla was made of ships. It didn't have land at all.

[She closes her eyes for a moment, picturing it.]

There were islands we passed by sometimes. Other people landed on islands and didn't see Flotilla at all. But I didn't go to any. I never left the city.

A city of ships...

[There's people Nita has heard of, back in her home galaxy, who can live exactly like that. But she's not one of them, and she's not sure what she would have been like growing up that way.]

There was something else, too, another time. An island, where all people lost from the ship went - this ship.

[Nita makes a wry face, a somewhat guilty look.]

Pagan mentioned it, and said I should talk to you if I wanted to learn more about... how that came about.

[If she's describing it accurately, even.]

You mean the Land of the Dead.

[There's a slight question in her tone, just in case she's wrong, and that's not what Nita is thinking of - but she doesn't think she's wrong.]

Right?

I wasn't given a name for it.

[Nita's just holding a box, now. Not sure what to say next.]

But it's as good a place to start with as any - if you want to talk about it, I mean.

I think that's what you're talking about. It wasn't an island, but it-- it was like that.

[And it's clearly not easy for her to talk about, but there's a determined look in her eye all the same. It's not easy, but it's important.]

I don't know how it came about. We didn't find out anything like that. But we saw it, from, like-- from a distance, and it felt good. It wasn't a bad kind of place.

[And Nita gives it the attention it's due - the attention Tiffany is due.

For the moment, she's not looking directly at Tiffany, but she's not focusing on anything else, either.]

Places don't have to be all fire-and-pain-and-brimstone to be a limbo, I'd take it.

[But from the sound of it, that's all it could have been - right?

Wordlessly, Nita gestures for Tiffany to go on - if she wishes to.]

It didn't feel like a limbo.

[Her hands still in their supply-sorting as she looks up at Nita.]

It felt like-- an end.

[If this were home, or someone else from home, Nita would ask 'like Timeheart?'

But there's no one to make that comparison with, here.]

Was there anyone you met there who - talked about it? Any history to pick up?

[Or just an eternal Now?

Nita makes herself go back to moving inventory, but slowly.]

They called it Elysium. I remember that. I didn't know what it meant at first, but later I started to learn about Greek myths. Do you know what Elysium is?

[Nita nods.]

There are different tales about the specifics of who's 'allowed' to go there, but...

[She trails off; her recognition is answer enough.]

Well, people in the place we landed said anybody could get there if they could find it. And it was dangerous, but-- not impossible.

We did. I did. And we didn't go in, 'cause we're here, but we saw it.

[Nita nods, curious if not a touch unnerved.]

You think there are places that people can't be - pulled from?

Is that what you mean?

What do you mean?

Can people be brought here from an afterlife?

[Though she's not sure if all worlds even have one.]

Or are there places that are that off-limits, to the rest of the worlds around them?

Oh. Um-- I don't know if there are places that are off-limits, but people can be brought here from afterlives. And inmates who disappeared come back sometimes, too. I never heard of one who remembers being in the Land of the Dead, though.

[Nita doesn't visibly respond for a few minutes, mulling through it all as more boxes are placed where they need to go.

When the last one is gently plopped from her hands, she responds.]

Does that... B had mentioned meeting some people encountered in breaches again. Do you know what he could be talking about?

[Nita assumes he means people from the Barge who'd been effected, but she could be wrong.]

Wait, you mean, like, the actual breach people? The fake people?

[This time, Nita's expression is a wry smile.]

If you find yourself in a story world, do the people there think of themselves as a story?

[But beyond that, she adds:]

It's more... if a world comes up, and it's a recurring one, could people from them find themselves here, to receive or act on a Deal?

Oh--

[Tiffany hesitates, her brow furrowing.]

I don't know, maybe. Probably. I think anybody from anywhere can come here, if the Admiral finds 'em.

[Nita nods.]

So an afterlife - not necessarily a particular one, just the general concept - isn't off limits as a place to go, or come from.

[That seems a reasonable conclusion from what she's learned so far.]

Nah, we get dead people here sometimes. Like, for sure dead people, not just the Admiral telling 'em they're dead.

[Guess who firmly believes in a mild conspiracy theory in which not all inmates are as dead as the Admiral claims? This girl!]

[Nita, for her part, can accept that.]

Not like we know everything about how our own worlds work, when it comes to death.

[Some worlds... may not have any afterlives! Or people pulling Solutions out of nowhere on them.]

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