entranceway | [video] once there was a way to get back homeward

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[video] once there was a way to get back homeward

[It wasn't enough, she thinks, to lose so much back home that she had to return here to another loss she was only just rebuilding. It wasn't enough to take away, it wasn't enough to really hurt, no, to quietly return to a familiar room, empty with its vast walls and dark corners. Slowly she filled it again, odds and ends of furniture and the trappings of a home to which she can never return.

She has a reputation to uphold even in spite of the circumstances, better to nurse the greatest wound out of the public eye, a garish scar across her stomach. Evelyn could swear the blade reached her heart.

The exhaustion nestles deep into her bones, a palpable chill that reminds her what she is.

What she isn't.]

I've been informed I was away for a little while, [she addresses the network, unable to muster more than a tired smile.] Perhaps someone might catch me up. I'll be-

[For a moment Evelyn appears distracted, hand gravitating toward her waist.]

I'll be in the library. I've also got several, erm, dogs that need homes. Please let me know if you're interested.

Private to Philip, 11:31 AM
I’m back. May I come and see you? It's important.
-E

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_{[Another observation, with a glance at her companion.]}

Keeping odd company, too.

_{[But then she sweeps toward him, gaze alight with a maelstrom of emotions he can't completely identity, and that stills his tongue from saying anything more. Victor's head tilts for a second, birdlike, silently questioning her intentions.

She looks... different. Not bodily, but different all the same. These great and terrible things, which thine eyes have seen.]}

Are you all right?

No.

["Odd company" notwithstanding - as Cinnamon has taken up a place beneath the nearest table, resting her head on her paws - Evelyn is different and knows it, is certain that someone as observant as Victor would realise. She feels no more human now than she would if someone actively brought her back to life, than if the Lord Himself made her as the stars of heaven for multitude.

But that is the way of things, is it not? Some are dealt worse hands than their fellows, and no card sharp is quick enough to cheat Death.]

I'm...I should tell you something, [Evelyn says, distractedly adjusting Victor's crooked collar.] Have you a moment to spare?

_{[Victor would have been more surprised if she'd tried to say she was all right from the way she's behaving; the despondency in her demeanor precedes her answer.

What's the matter? might be the expected response from someone more forthcoming with sentiment and more used to close proximity (an aborted gesture on her part, obviously, but for what he can only dimly imagine), but asking the question would be redundant when he can tell it's already written all over his face.

He frowns faintly in doubt and waits for her to elaborate, ultimately deciding not to draw attention to the fact she's fussing over him.]}

... All right. I'm free.

[What's the matter? is far too broad a question with far too many answers; what Evelyn wants to tell Victor is grossly specific, too particular to brush off when she considers him a friend and soon, perhaps, a confidante. People like them - people who aren't of the standard stock, the usual score of years sometime in the twenty-first century - should find a certain solace in each other's company, a familiarity unachievable anywhere else.

Regardless, it seems that a great many dalliances she has with people from modern times have ended with her getting hurt.]

I was gone for only several hours, at most. Back home. ["Home." Any part of the Nile qualifies for that, these days.] Things have not- I can't return there, anymore.

I'm...I died.

_{[He listens closely and nods inwardly at the time discrepancy. Yes, he's heard of plenty of that--of people returning, claiming to have experienced events that don't add up to the flow of time here--but that alone doesn't seem like it would explain why she looks heartsore the longer he looks at her.

Ah, but tragedy often means a tragic ending, doesn't it?

She'd... died? In her natural life? Victor's character reveals itself in times like these--the reaction that plays out over his face is small, summed up in a blink and a faint parting of the lips, an emotion creeping into his eyes that could be sympathy, or surprise, or something else.]}

What? How?

_{[The first question out of his mouth is an obvious one to him. He looks her over from head to toe, searching for the practical cause of death as any doctor would.]}

You seem in decent health.

[It is a tragedy, isn't it? Evelyn never found them especially romantic, despite many popular novels stating the contrary, but glorifying death is a wicked thing. Death is not quiet and elegant and composed, death is desperation and fear - she thought it might be easier to compartmentalise with three of them in Wonderland under her belt, but none strike deeper than realising she can never go home.

She can never see her family again, unless they find their way here and that, that is an impossibility she can't even hope to entertain anymore.]

I was stabbed.

[Fingers gravitate toward her stomach before she occupies them clutching her other hand.]

I bled out.

_{[Forgetting himself, Victor starts to reach out to examine her where she claims to have been injured.]}

Here?

_{[She's hardly exsanguinating from a penetrating trauma as she stands before him, but it's in Wonderland's nature to deceive. Victor frowns hard, doubting what he's seeing--and it's an discomforting feeling, that doubt.]}

This... isn't your first time, as I recall.

_{[He treats the words carefully. She's died more than one violent death in her lifetime, which is another aspect of Wonderland that threatens to overwhelm the mind.]}

Don't-

[Evelyn flinches as he move to touch her, already more than uncomfortable with the reminder that Victor is more at ease with the dead than the living. Taking a deep breath she exhales slowly, a resignation in that she should be familiar with this.

It was never so permanent.]

...I was killed here before, in Wonderland. Thrice. It's- it isn't the same. It wasn't real, even if it felt that way.

[She chews her lip.]

This is real.

Habit. My apologies. _{[He stops at once with a little frown, lowering his hands slowly.]} Typically when one says they've been stabbed, there's some criticality involved. That's not an excuse for causing you discomfort, however. I...

_{[He pauses, a long pause that drags on while he searches her face, looking like he's debating saying what he's thinking.]}

But are you certain one is more real than any other? You've... experienced them all the same way. And you're here now, you've survived them all the same.

[There isn't even a question of forgiveness for his desire to reach out to touch, to see. Evelyn can barely look at the mark herself and it's there, always there, a reminder of what is gone and cannot be remediated.]

Wonderland left it as a scar, [she explains quietly.] I've been here long enough to know the difference between these lives and the one we have at home.

_{[The dead don't bear scars, only the living. That's the difference.]}

Meaning? You think now you are fundamentally changed in some way?

_{[Victor doesn't suggest a physical examination again--unsociable though he may be, he knows enough of non-verbal body language to see that's clearly off the table for now. But he meets her stare evenly.]}

I see a living woman, that is all.

_{[A changed woman, most certainly, but living.]}

Edited 2015-09-11 04:58 (UTC)

[Meaning: she is fundamentally changed in some way, that tends to happen when one feels the life draining from them as their husband screams helplessly and their child sobs into their brother's shoulder. Evelyn understands there is no sense in arguing with Victor, who, not unlike her, places the core foundation of belief in the tangible: what can be touched, and what cannot.

He sees a living woman, but his eyes deceive him. Wonderland plays tricks on them all and Evelyn returns the stare, trying not to waver. It isn't as simple as he says. It never is.]

I don't feel alive,

[she remarks curtly, a statement that could be taken in the poetic sense, or the literal one. Evelyn will let Victor choose, softening minutely.]

But thank you.

You've been through a trauma.

_{[To have vanished for all this time, experience her own death, then return as though only a few hours had passed? She's no doubt feeling plenty, a deluge of confusing thoughts and feelings. She still needs time to adjust.

Thinking of Caliban and Proteus, he makes a quiet amendment.]}

Or a rebirth, perhaps.

_{[But he only shakes his head in acknowledgement of her thanks.]}

I've hardly done anything for that, but I am glad you told me. If you like, my services are at your disposal, of course, whether it be an examination... _{[That he doubts will interest her, but he makes the perfunctory offer anyway.]} ... or something else to settle the nerves, perhaps.

[Evelyn's understandable dislike of poetry in this express context is evident as Victor finds himself an apt metaphor, which lets the barest flicker of a grimace cross her face. Rebirth or not Evelyn hardly feels the nascent change of power within her, only sharp flickers of memory and blackness.]

No opiates, please,

[she hastens to say, as Victor's potential remedies for sleeplessness might come with the price of an addiction she neither wants nor needs.]

I'll...see how I feel, after a few- a few weeks.

_{[Fine, not a rebirth she sees as much potential in as he does, then.]}

Very well, if you're certain. I could prescribe something less potent.

_{[Victor looks like he's considering pressing her refusal, always ready to extol the virtues of drugs for moments like these when they could be physically and mentally beneficial, but he refrains. If what she says is true, he won't undermine her decision on what she wants done to her body.]}

[To be fair, Victor wasn't the one who woke up on a beach covered in his own blood.]

Like what, Victor? [It's difficult to keep exasperation from her tone, but the sentiment isn't personal. She's simply tired.] Tea and bed rest?

[His attempts at assistance come at an awkward time - she should have stayed in Dean's rooms longer, should have spent several more hours recovering, should have avoided company when she feels so awfully fragile.]

Other options exist outside of opiates.

_{[Including the herbal alternatives she's quick to discard, even though they're not Victor's first choice, either.]}

But rest, yes. You've only just returned. What work can you have here that can't wait a bit longer? Resuming your duties too soon will only exacerbate matters.

_{[Hypocritical for one workaholic to call out another, maybe, but it comes from a place of concern.]}

[To be fair, it's difficult to eat and drink problems away when she hasn't the stomach for it.

Victor isn't wrong - she should have waited before venturing back into the public eye, Dean probably wouldn't have complained if she lingered around his apartments for another couple of days instead of returning to her own rooms. They feel empty and vast, a wide expanse that suffocates.]

Work is what I'm good at,

[she protests lamely, halfheartedly, as though she didn't quite believe it herself.]

I wish- I just want to feel more...whatever I am now. I feel less. Less me.

_{[He can relate. However, their situations are vastly different: his problems are self-made, whereas the violence Evelyn had said was enacted on her had been outside of her control.

He pities her a little for that reason.]}

That will pass.

_{[Confident of that much, Victor's tone gentles.]}

You may feel outside yourself, this place may make you feel even further from the life you had, but that, too, will pass. It takes time. I think you know I have some passing familiarity on the subject. _{[A corner of his mouth lifts, a gesture toward fellow feeling.]} I'm... glad that you told me.

_{[For what advice or assistance he can provide, but mainly for the act of telling, giving voice to the truth instead of bottling it up and daring not to speak it.]}

[Evelyn feels a wan shadow of her former self, subjugated to a not-life of pointlessness, trapped in an endless cycle of staying while other residents wander in and out, almost by their own free will. She has no such luxury and feels the noose tighten even as she wants to pull from it.]

Thank you for listening,

[she replies softly, quietly buoyed by words that sound so Biblical. This too shall pass. Evelyn moves in quickly then, executing a brusque embrace, grateful, before stepping away.]

I'll- I'll call on you soon, yes? After I- [She rubs at the bridge of her nose tiredly.] -rest.

_{[Listening is the least he can do, a small thing well within his capabilities. There's not much else he can do--he certainly can't snap his fingers and give her back her family or her peace of mind. All in all, Victor is aware he can do very little besides what he's already offered, which is why the hug catches him off guard when it comes, having not expected her to think of him for comfort of that nature

He's sure his surprise shows. Dumbstruck, he goes still, only belatedly bringing his hand to rest on her shoulder instead of leaving it to hang limply in the air. Soon enough, she pulls back, leaving him wondering what's happened.]}

I--It's nothing. I'm available to listen should you ever need it.

_{[When they part, he tries to smooth the tremor of hesitation in his voice. Very rarely does he get physically close to others; he's forgotten the feeling.]}

Why don't I finish up here while you do that?

[Evelyn knows it isn't within Victor's usual purview to comfort or console and she won't push him for what he cannot supply. As a listener, however, he is irreplaceable. She wrings her hands, nods, is incapable of protesting when this is the logical course of action.]

...thank you, again. I'll-

[Abandon her work, leaving it in careful hands.]

I'll speak with you later. Good afternoon, Victor.

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[video] once there was a way to get back homeward

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