makingitworse | The Last Voyages: Inbox

makingitworse

Hi, this is Bob. Leave a message if you want to.

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From:

makingitworse

"I passed out," Bob says, since he'd been sure the whole start of things was just his brain playing tricks on him. It was after he understood (kind of) what was happening that he didn't stray from his temporary warden. "I didn't go looking for anyone when I felt the pull. So I'm glad you didn't. I don't recommend it." That's halfway a joke, really.

"You're feeling better now, though, right?" he adds. With the flood over, and no hangover, and all.

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musicdied

"I'm fine," she assures, straightening enough to draw an exaggerated 'X' over her heart. "I promise. But I think I should be asking you that question, if it knocked you out."

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makingitworse

"Oh, I hadn't slept the night before, that's all, and so I thought I was imagining things," Bob says, embarrassed but not so embarrassed that he won't share. "I woke up pretty quickly when Ulla found me. She took me back to her cabin and made me breakfast and explained what was going on."

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musicdied

"That is definitely part of the learning curve here," Yelena says, a little bit ruefully. "Getting used to the part where it's usually not your imagination, even when it makes no sense. It's good you got Ulla. She started here as an inmate, so she's better at explaining things instead of treating us like unruly children who just need to be quiet and follow orders."

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makingitworse

"Yeah, she was pretty nice," Bob agrees. "She showed up with her fish tail and had to change back when we got to her cabin." Because she's a mer-person. Even after three days stuck within a couple feet of her, he still finds that pretty cool.

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musicdied

"She made some magic charms to let people breathe underwater when we were on the cruise ship," Yelena shares with a little smile. "Probably they saved a couple of people's lives when we capsized, even if no one was expecting that to happen."

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makingitworse

"Did you know her magic works by singing?" Bob says with a slightly bigger smile. "She changed her tail into legs and made herself a new outfit and everything, just by singing."

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musicdied

"It's pretty cool, isn't it?" Yelena replies, dropping back down to lean against the chair again. "There are a few people with some very interesting magic on the Barge. You know, I spent a while reading about magic from other worlds, after my first port."

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makingitworse

"Yeah? What did you find out?" He curls his arms on top of his knees, watching her with clear interest. Magic, after all, is not a thing he's ever really thought much about seriously. Superheroes just aren't the same thing. (He doesn't know about Doctor Strange's types.)

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musicdied

"That it's so different from world to world that calling it the same thing almost seems silly." She smiles a little bit ruefully. "Also that on a lot of worlds, it's something you're either born with, or you aren't. Or maybe on all of them, and it's just a very common trait on some."

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makingitworse

"Tell me about the most weird or interesting one?" he suggests hopefully. The he catches himself, feeling silly, asking Yelena for a story like a child. "Sorry, I mean, you don't have to."

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musicdied

"You don't need to do that, you know," she says, straightening to circle the chair and drop down into it, leaning forward a little with her elbows resting on her knees.

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makingitworse

He hesitates for a second. "Do-- what." She means apologize. He knows that's what she means. He's annoyed people by apologizing too much before, but he can't quite make himself stop, either. Not most days anyway.

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musicdied

"Apologize for asking for something," Yelena replies. "You aren't imposing."

She pauses, and gives him a brief, crooked smile. "And if you ever are imposing, I am very, very good at saying no to people when they ask me for shit I don't want to do."

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makingitworse

Well. She did keep telling him not to help. So she's probably right. (And then he helped anyway and died. He's pretty sure. So she was probably right then, too.)

"Sorry," he says (again), and winces. "It's just a habit. I'll try to stop."

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musicdied

Someone really did a number on you, she thinks, though she doesn't say it aloud.

Instead: "Maybe you should have something like - what are they called, in sitcoms?" She snaps her fingers. "A swear jar. But for apologies instead." It's not entirely serious. It's not entirely joking, either.

"Anyway - the weirdest magic I've read about is probably actually the magic from that first port. Not the creepiest, but the weirdest."

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makingitworse

"I'd have to have something to put in it, I hear there's no money here," Bob says with half a smile. It's a funny idea, maybe, if it were somehow important that he actually stop apologizing. Though in tv shows, normally the swear jars didn't actually make people stop, it was just for laughs.

He tilts his head with interest at the magic thing, though. "What was so weird about it?"

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musicdied

"It was - split, sort of, into two parts. There's what they call Charter Magic, which works using a magical language - symbols or words that do specific things, very ivory tower wizard stuff. The people there needed to be...baptized, sort of, into the Charter to use it." She lifts a hand to drag her thumb over her forehead. "With a mark on their forehead. I'm still not sure if the placement was just custom, or if it was actually magically significant."

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makingitworse

Bob frowns. "That sounds familiar. Like I read it in a book somewhere." He can't remember what book or when, but it definitely sounds familiar. Something to do with a white talking cat? "What was the other part?"

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musicdied

"The world's natural magic, which pretty much works like radiation in those horrible old B sci-fi movies," Yelena says. "People could use it, but it eats away at them, and there were walking corpses and weird monsters roaming around outside the cities."

She taps her thigh, and gives him a little smile. "I was walking around with an ugly scar from one for months, before I died and everything reset."

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makingitworse

"I know I've read a book like that," Bob decides. "Maybe when I was in Europe, or maybe still in America, I don't know. But I definitely did." He rubs a hand over one eye, thinking. "There's a hobbit here, you said, like from the books... maybe book worlds really exist somehow."

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musicdied

"Oh, they definitely do," Yelena says. "Also worlds that only exist in movies back home. There was a warden here for a little while who was from the universe where Star Wars actually happens. It makes me wonder sometimes, are there realities out there where everyone thinks some of the shit that's happened in our world is just a story someone made up?"

Not their lives, maybe. But the big events, the world-shaking ones?

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makingitworse

Bob can't imagine his life would be interesting enough for anyone to write a book or make a movie about. But maybe someone like Yelena, or Captain America...

"If people whose stories exist in our universe are real... maybe," he says thoughtfully. "The alien invasion would probably make a pretty good story. There must be a whole lot of universes out there, if everything lined up enough to put real universes into fiction from our world."

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musicdied

Yelena considers that for a moment, then shrugs, though there's a gleam of humour in her expression still. "Or the writers wound up somewhere like this, and just cribbed from the things people told them about their lives, because it is not like anyone at home would know any better."

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makingitworse

Does that mean there are authors here now, from other universes? Or-- "Are there more places like this?" Bob wonders. "More... random cruise ships where people from other universes can meet and go through stuff and then go home?"