Quoted By:
>P O S I T I V E
>T H I N K I N G
>86, 92, 83 vs. DC 70 — Enhanced Success
You could sit here (if indeed you are sitting) and let it happen. Could transcend this whole plane of reality, if that's what you're doing, could dissolve right into the static. Not <span class="mu-i">forever,</span> you think. You hope. You don't want to die. But you did want to escape, that was the whole point, and isn't this similar? It's more embarrassing, but you are embarrassing. Even in the unknowable past you're embarrassing. (Crying all the time?) Maybe you'll wake up from this and you won't remember anything at all— let some other you be Charlotte Fawkins, let her embarrass herself, let her drink stupid digusting Wind Court poison and pass out on the table (if indeed there's still a table), let Richard—
Where's <span class="mu-i">Richard?</span> He should be here. He should be telling you you're embarrassing yourself, which you are, but <span class="mu-i">he</span> needs to be telling you that. That's his one job. And then he needs to walk you out of here and put you to bed, because if all you do is pass out on the table(?) the Courtiers are going to draw things on your face in permanent ink, and you couldn't— that'd be a bridge too far. So where's Richard? Is he having fun without you? Why does he get to have fun while you succumb to despair? You think he should have to succumb to despair a couple times just to keep it even. (Unless he already did? And that's why he's acting so weird?)
But seriously, where is he? You lift your head and attempt to resolve the acid soup around you into something resembling the interior of a bar. This fails. You attempt then to summon him into existence near you, next to you, but you can't recall how you'd went about the summoning, or if it ever worked to begin with. You don't know. You don't know. You can't dissolve into static without Richard and Richard isn't coming back. You don't know if you want to dissolve or anything at all right now. This whole tangent knocked you off track. You maybe want to cry, but you can't cry, because then you'd be asked why you're crying, and you don't know. Maybe in mourning for things you never had. Maybe you're just embarrassing.
So you can't cry and can't pass out any longer, and your whole mouth tastes like dirt, and there is water up your nose. There's been water up your nose for three years. The conversation has moved on without you. What do you even do? Sit here until somebody notices something's wrong? It'd probably be <span class="mu-i">Horse Face.</span> Horse Face would notice, and point it out, and everybody would tut and coo over you and your stupid decision to drink the stupid mystery drink, twice, and that'd be the good scenario. The bad one is them asking what the matter was, and then what? You tell them you were hoping your past self was exactly like you? Making you the authentic Charlotte Fawkins, the genuine and original article, not some warped cast-off or...
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