Palamedes Sextus (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hellonspectacles) wrote2021-04-04 12:56 pm
hellonspectacles) wrote2021-04-04 12:56 pm
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Borne back ceaselessly into the past
Palamedes has always thought of himself as a solitary person. The Sixth are, as a rule. If one isn’t born with the ability to enjoy long stretches of time with reading and writing as one’s main form of entertainment, one grows into it quickly enough. Palamedes Sextus has spent hours pouring over a single phrase and days by himself in the deep recesses of the Library. The quiet is perfectly normal.
What has never occurred to him, not until now, is that while he has often been solitary, he has never been alone. Camilla has officially been his cavalier for almost eight years, but they’d been living out of each others’ pockets for longer than that; she is his right arm, his sounding board, his other half.
And alone in his apartment, larger even than the quarters allowed to him as Warden, he has never been so distant from her.
He has avoided leaving for most of that time—the loneliness inside makes him feel hollowed out, but the hustle and bustle of Darrow overwhelms his senses and leaves him dazed. In the forty-eight hours since appearing here, he has barely eaten. He has begun talking to the furniture. He needs to get out. Eventually, he finds himself on the long stretch of Darrow shoreline, where the sky is frightfully open, but the people few and far between, and the sea tantalizingly mysterious.
As he approaches the water, he toes off his shoes and socks and leaves them in the sand. He sinks onto his haunches at the edge of the water, his grey scholars robes pooling around him in the wet sand, and lets his fingers trail in the foamy edge of the water as a wave comes up to greet him.
"Temperature: Ten degrees celsius. Salinity: 35 parts per thousand. At least fifty distinct species of microscopic organisms,” he murmurs. It doesn’t tell him anything he doesn’t already know, but its a comforting sort of exercise, for all its simplicity.
What has never occurred to him, not until now, is that while he has often been solitary, he has never been alone. Camilla has officially been his cavalier for almost eight years, but they’d been living out of each others’ pockets for longer than that; she is his right arm, his sounding board, his other half.
And alone in his apartment, larger even than the quarters allowed to him as Warden, he has never been so distant from her.
He has avoided leaving for most of that time—the loneliness inside makes him feel hollowed out, but the hustle and bustle of Darrow overwhelms his senses and leaves him dazed. In the forty-eight hours since appearing here, he has barely eaten. He has begun talking to the furniture. He needs to get out. Eventually, he finds himself on the long stretch of Darrow shoreline, where the sky is frightfully open, but the people few and far between, and the sea tantalizingly mysterious.
As he approaches the water, he toes off his shoes and socks and leaves them in the sand. He sinks onto his haunches at the edge of the water, his grey scholars robes pooling around him in the wet sand, and lets his fingers trail in the foamy edge of the water as a wave comes up to greet him.
"Temperature: Ten degrees celsius. Salinity: 35 parts per thousand. At least fifty distinct species of microscopic organisms,” he murmurs. It doesn’t tell him anything he doesn’t already know, but its a comforting sort of exercise, for all its simplicity.
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"Yes, I am getting that impression," he deadpans as he comes up behind her in the kitchen. His glasses are still off, dangling between his thumb and forefinger. "I considered a dozen possibilities; nothing else would have worked." He pauses, ducks his head. "But I am sorry."
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"You could have...warned me," says Gideon, after a long moment. She hops up to sit on the counter, drumming the heels of her bare feet against the counter. "Or just...you know....Not pinned me like a fucking bug."
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He scrubs a hand through his hair, adding quietly, "I needed to talk to her."
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"Didn't we all," says Gideon, suddenly miserable all over again. Yes, Cytherea had turned out to be hell on wheels, but, God, she'd held a candle for Dulcinea. And she knows she's in good company there. She sighs and scratches at the edge of the label on her beer bottle with her thumbnail. "I just wish I knew how it all turned out. What happened to Cam and Harrow. Even Ianthe. Coronabeth was still kicking the last time I saw her, too."
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He exhales a sigh. At least Gideon doesn't look like she wants to murder him anymore. "Me too," he says quietly. There are so many things he wishes he could know, that no he might never have the chance to, about the people he had held dear, and about the nature of their society itself. Palamedes doesn't like it one bit.
"We might find out yet," he says after a beat, unwilling to give in to the inevitability of ignorance. "One of them might appear here, or," the corner of his mouth turns up as an idea suddenly occurs to him, "or perhaps we can find a way to communicate. Even if we can't travel outside the pocket universe, we might be able to get a message through." Palamedes turns around and starts hunting through the things on the table for a blank piece of paper and a pencil.
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It would be wrong, technically, to say that Gideon had missed this, the nonsense that comes with being around necromancers. But there is something comforting about it, all the same.
"I haven't even really got the hang of text messages," she says.
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It still feels a bit like sacrilege to take notes on actual paper, but God, they’re swimming in it.
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"Yeah," says Gideon, her eyes narrowing slightly as she watches him. She's already developing a faint stress-headache.
"I haven't used the paper ones since Maeve taught me how to use the app."
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"Have you heard of anyone having some sort of contact with the outside world? Even indirectly."
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"Other than people showing up, like you?" Gideon hops up to sit on the counter, leaning her head back against one of the cupboards mounted on the wall. "Sometimes people get stuff from home. And someone told me that there's a mailbox in the park. You write a letter and post it and...hope it gets to here its going."
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"Seems to always be stuff that matters," says Gideon, pausing in the act of shredding the label on her beer bottle. "I've been holding out hope for my two-hander but, knowing my luck, if anything for me shows up it'll be something of..." She swallows around the sudden lump in her throat. "It won't be mine at all."
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He grins a little. "Camilla said she thought you were used to a two-hander. When I asked her what that was, she said, and I quote, 'A giant fuck-off sword.' Which seems appropriate."
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"She's right, too," says Gideon, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "My swordmaster put an infantry sword in my hands when I was nine and they figured out that I was never going to be a nun."
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"What else can you tell me about the mailbox?"
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"Pretty sure they had suspicions before that," says Gideon, huffing a laugh. "The hair, for a start, right?" She rolls her shoulders. "It's in the park. I haven't used it."
She'd started to write a letter to Harrow once and then she'd realised that she didn't have one fucking idea of what she was supposed to say.
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"I can take you to look at it," says Gideon, leaning back against the cupboard again. There's something comforting about having a necromancer scribbling in her presence again and, even if he is the wrong one. "And maybe one of us will get something."
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