Quest 326

[primrosella]

[Accidental Voice Post]

[Scrape, scrape, shuffle, shuffle. Glass clinks against a countertop.]

You've abandoned your homeland.

[Scrape, scrape, shuffle, shuffle. The rhythm doesn't break.]

You've forgotten your family.

[Tink, tink. Hiss, burble.]

You've forsaken your responsibility.

[Whisper, whisper, scrape, scrape.]

...

......

You've put too much baking soda in tha--

[WHAM.]

Oh, honestly, would you just stop! Edmund!

[Nails skitter and clack across a countertop, and a beat of leathery wings can just barely be heard before the recording switches off with a clatter.]

Comments

[had_not_lived]

That's ridiculous. All of it.

...Except I don't know about the baking soda.

[primrosella]

Ugh, no, the bit about the baking soda is just as ridiculous as the rest of it. Have you seen those awful balloons today, Neil? I've gotten myself a whole crop of them, somehow.

[had_not_lived]

I'm lucky enough not to have any following me around. They're awful.

[primrosella]

They are, they're positively ghastly. Those horrid faces and the way they just loom about...

[had_not_lived]

This has been a pretty rough October, hasn't it? Much more the scary side of Halloween than the fun part.

I'm glad that they're being ridiculous enough not to upset you, though.

[primrosella]

One just gets tired of hearing the same things over and over again, really. It's not so much what they're saying, just that they're so awfully relentless about it all. Edmund's been doing all right at warding them off, though, so there's something to that, I suppose.

[had_not_lived]

Can he burst them?

[primrosella]

He's tried! They usually manage to get out of his way before he can grab them, though, or they make it too difficult for him to try. Mostly he just chases them.

[had_not_lived]

Anything at all that hassles them is worth it, I guess.

[misterblackbird]

It seems every time I speak to you of late, I always begin by asking if you're all right. But, are you? All right, I mean.

[primrosella]

I am, yes. Today's a bit better than most, as things go--it's tedious to have these...things following me around, but in the end it's only words.

And there's only a week left to go of October, besides.

[misterblackbird]

Of course they are. And they're wrong words, for that matter.

I know. I find I'm rather reminding myself of that fact of late.

[primrosella]

That helps, too. It'd be worse if they were right, but still only tedious. Sticks and stones and so on, I suppose.

We'll make it. We always do.

[misterblackbird]

Yes, of course we will. It's just rather unpleasant to muddle through in the meantime.

[primrosella]

You haven't ended up with your own crop of balloons, have you?

[misterblackbird]

No, I haven't. And I'm rather glad of that. October's been somewhat merciful to me thusfar. I'm sorry it hasn't been for you.

Although, all the same, I think I can guess at what they'd say if I did have them.