♕ |[110]| But maybe you're thinking in bigger terms, one loss leading to all the others,

[had_not_lived]

[VOICE]

I have to admit this door... makes me nervous. I know, that's selfish of me, because there are a lot of people here who want to go home and they don't deserve to be stuck, but I love living in the City. If everyone goes... well, I just worry. There are people who don't have anywhere else to go.

[People like him, but he doesn't want to say so. It's probably obvious, anyway.]

But--

[He tries to cheer his tone up a bit. It sounds a little forced, at first.]

I always like visitors, I'm glad you were able to come. Is there-- anyone here from home?

[He always kind of hopes. But he's happy to see anyone who wants to see him.]




[ooc; one final hurrah. please don't tell him he's not real; please no other neils. otherwise, go nuts, backdate until the end of days.]

Comments

[and_immortality]

I don't know if I really count as being from home, but I'm kind of everywhere so I guess it qualifies, right?

Hi, Neil.

[had_not_lived]

Sort of? I mean, it doesn't really matter-- I'm glad to see you either way. It's just we almost never get anyone from home, but I always hope.

How have you been?

[and_immortality]

The same as ever! That's the thing about being the inevitable cessation of all things--in the grand scheme of things, you don't really change too much. I mean, unless you decide to change, which I guess I do sometimes. It'd be boring to spend the entirety of existence being exactly the same.

Also I got a haircut.

You're worried about that door thing, huh?

[had_not_lived]

I think you're a lot more changeable than people give you credit for. I don't know very many people who're as interested in, well, everything as you are.

I know I should be glad for everyone who needs to go home, or who can't stand the curses. But I do like it; I don't think I'd want to go home if I could. And... if everyone does leave, it'll be very strange to be here without them.

[inmyothertights]

Neil! Neil, hey!

[had_not_lived]

Billy! Oh my God, it's been ages! How are you?

[inmyothertights]

Apparently godlike. I went home and became the demiurge or something like that, I don't know. It's mystical and weird. Oddly magical reality-changing powers don't come with the ability to break into this joint without an invitation.

[had_not_lived]

I don't even really know what to say to that. Congratulations?

<3

[landed]

[ It takes a while to get her footing, so to speak, but she hears his broadcast in real-time, and once she has her hands on a device, she simply hopes she hasn't missed him. Nothing seems right, not quite as far as what she might say here. Though it has been decades she hasn't aged in appearance, but even all that time hasn't shaken certain memories: a life for someone who seemed to deserve it. A life for someone who, maybe more than that, they had thought should have it. Cosmic agreement or no. She doesn't mean to sigh but some of it comes out anyway. ]

It isn't selfish. It would be selfish to keep others here for your own sake.

[ She pauses, her tone in that not really condemning so much as honest. ]

If you simply don't want to go, though. That is not selfishness.

[ What she doesn't say:

I'm sorry.

She wishes all her living could tell her where the dead go. How they fare.

If they can be happy. If 'nowhere' could be somewhere after all.

But she can't say, so she doesn't. ]

[had_not_lived]

Where do you draw the line between wishing everyone wouldn't go and wanting to keep them, though?

[The true luxury of a beating heart is forgetting about it. Neil, a young man living a life here ordinary in its extraordinary nature, can sometimes forget for a minute or a day that he was ever only a dead boy who wished upon a star; he can feel, briefly, a young man's sense of immortality, although he knows better than most its untruth. At times this has made him feel ungrateful; more often, though, when he finds his mind slips away from the truth the sudden jolt of it is awe-inspiring, an ecstatic moment that seizes him with the magnitude of the gift she once gave him. Neil is alive and he laughs and breathes and lives and has a warm body to curl at night against someone he loves. Neil has learned to fly; he has ridden a dragon, he has befriended Death, he took sword fighting lessons from Robing Goodfellow and visited with river nymphs and Shakespearean heroes and a hundred other impossible beings, but the fact of it is, nothing is more amazing than this life he shouldnt have.

It's why he hasn't, couldn't have, forgotten her. Thought it takes him a minute to work up certainty, to place her voice.]

Yvaine, that's you, isn't it?

[landed]

It's hard to tell. [ She admits this based on the few things she knows -- a few more things than she did the last time they spoke, and perhaps a few more after that -- and pauses a while. ] But neither of those -- the wishing or the wanting -- is the same as forcing them to stay.

[ At the question, she smiles. It doesn't read very true to look at her, but her heart feels it: alive, remembered, honored. ] Yes.

I would ask you how you have been but things seem to be coming to a head.

Is Todd still here as well?

[ She figures 'yes', but wants to hear it from him. Using the time she has is at least something she has gotten the hang of in more human ways. Mortal ways. Mortal immortal. ]

[had_not_lived]

He's still here. We're doing well,

[he says, all warmth and for the moment no touch of the bittersweet uncertainty that's been nagging at him. Talking to her, it's easier to focus on the good times than the fear that they'll end.

He thinks of her often enough. Any time he glances up at night and happens to remember her wondering whether the stars here were stars at all. Late, when he can feel Todd's heart beating counterpoint to his own.]

I'm glad you've come by.

[notfuckingcasper]

You're not nervous about doors. You're nervous about what's behind them.

[had_not_lived]

A little, maybe.

[He's afraid of being lonely, on either side.]

[notfuckingcasper]

From one admirer of the art to another, you could use some bullshitting practice.

[joiedeviolet]

You should like visitors. What kind of people would get you a hamburger without asking if you really need one?

[had_not_lived]

I'm pretty sure it's my turn to get you one.

[highcostofliving]

Whatever will be, will be. That's one of those words of wisdom that go so well with song. Que sera, Sera. Doris Day makes it easier to swallow.

[had_not_lived]

I guess that's true, but not knowing isn't always so easy.

[practicingforhell]

You find anyone from your place yet?

[had_not_lived]

No, it looks like it's still just Todd and I.

[practicingforhell]

'S not too bad, if it stays that way. This door thing... what's that about?

deploys a father for great justice

[grahamonomics]

SAY, AM I DOING THIS RIGHT? HELLO!

AM I SPEAKING WITH what was it again? ah NEIL PERRY, OF THE KINGDOM OF WELL'S TON?

/gasps in awe!

[had_not_lived]

Oh-- I think you've got it all right. [A little loudly. But he'll try to not... mention that.] And yes, I'm Neil.

[grahamonomics]

[There's a learning curve, man. He'll get it sooner or later.]

Hello! This is King Graham, of Daventry. My daughter has told me a great deal about you!