[ okay, so, while there's no real gauge on what is "normal" as how to react whenever you find yourself something between a sentient car and a shadow on the wall, here is this guy who is doing some sort of...limit testing as you could describe it within the dark room.
not that it's obvious until a car suddenly pops out from the wall and appears right in the middle of the room. if a car could shudder (or shiver) then that's exactly what's happening right here. ]
[The darkroom is incredibly small—there's no reasonable way it should be able to fit a car, let alone one that just springs off of the wall and into the room.
Because the place is packed with troughs, basins, and tables, a few of them surely get shoved this way and that by his arrival, causing a splash of various development fluids. Cantarella only adds to the crowding, her ever-present parasol snapping open in front of her, an oddly sturdy barrier between herself and the vehicle.
...Which is in the middle of the darkroom.]
...This room is stuffy, but these fumes are far too tame to give me any effect.
[ oops. sometimes you just forget the size of a wholeass car within a small space that typically would have been fine with two people inside of it... except, well, he isn't people anymore now is he?
not that it stops him from acting like one as he'll "back up" and knock into a few more water baths and developing areas accidentally. ]
I didn't knock anything over, did I?
[ and before she gets a chance to respond, he'll pop back into the wall as a shadow, however, given that this is a dark room jumping into a shadow to have light cast on him it's only temporary as he quickly becomes a car again. ]
Ughh... Okay. [ if a car could sound nauseated then here is a car sounding extremely nauseated. ] Never mind, I'm not doing that again.
[Lavi the car, for however much he can perceive this response, is getting an extremely rare glimpse of surprise on Cantarella's face. It's mellow enough that it's still very much her in its expression, but it's clear from her features that she had no way to expect this. And how could she, really. There's a car in the darkroom, and she's been rattled back against the far wall by all the jostling.]
Please do refrain. You'll drown us both if you keep that up. [Please, please...cease. Stop rattling the chemical bins and basins and drainage pipes.
Parasol still at the ready but tucked beneath her arm, Cantarella checks her pulse.] Being disconnected from the frequencies has either envenomed my mind or my dreams have decided to conjure new nightmares. I feel perfectly fine. I don't suppose you could...honk loudly, dream Echo...and wake me up, could you?
[ poor cantarella gracefully losing her mind as lavi (car) tries to understand everything that has happened to him. it's been a very strange day for him, okay? at least he'll listen to her and stop moving around and simply just stay where he's at. perfectly still.
while a part of him is offended that she thinks that this is all a dream, he also can't blame her for thinking that it is. all of this is very close to what someone could expect from a fever dream... though since she asked, he will deliver.
enough an extremely loud HONK that's less of a car honk but more of a person (lavi) yelling honk as loud as they humanly can be and in extremely close proximity. ]
D...did that work?
[ you know. assuming that this is a dream. (it isn't a dream.) ]
I'm still trying to get a handle on all of this. It's very weird.
[The "honk" brings her hand to her chest. That's normal, too. In fact, there's not a single symptom she can find that anything's amiss.]
That voice...
[Cantarella is haunted by the voices of the lost; as far as she's concerned, this is just another one crying out from the shadows. Or it would be, except he is a car. Tacet Discords form from the lingering frequencies of the world, and the voices of the dead join those frequencies. But this place is not like Solaris. Still, perhaps she wasn't so far off to compare the faceless beings roaming this tower to those disembodied sounds.]
[ not that he doesn't understand her confusion. she isn't the first person to have questioned it and she very well likely won't be the last person to question it. hell, even he questions it. the more important part is how things are going to work themselves out from here on out. not that they have a lot to work with on multiple levels. ]
I suppose you could look at it as a ghost story, but I'd be pretty offended if you did since I'm not a ghost. [ probably... ] I wonder if this is how ghosts feel.
That they also deny being ghosts despite all evidence to the contrary?
[Slowly, with a movement that's as graceful as it is guarded, Cantarella returns the parasol to its closed state.]
Forgive me, I— [have forgotten several details about what he looked like; even his voice is more like a hollow echo of what she can recall than something she can identify by name.] You are fading rapidly from this place.
[ and as she confesses that she's begun to forget him, and at "rapid speeds" then it just makes him a bit resigned. as much as a car could appear to be resigned, however, at least his voice will give the emotion that cannot be expressed with gestures. ]
I seem to be fading for myself as well.
[ which is. fine. who needs to remember him, right?? ]
If it's memories of what happened here then there's nothing to be worried about there.
[ a part of him doesn't want to share, but if he doesn't then who else, right? he knows this is important. it's what is necessary to keep things alive. ]
...I've been told that my name is "Lavi" by someone I can trust, but the rest around it has been smeared. The faces of people that I'm supposed to know are like smudges.
Even what I know doesn't have a clear context. I know I was on a mission to record but I don't know what for.
It sounds as if the thread begins unraveling outside of Father's purview. Reality is slowly being dissolved.
[It wasn't completely illogical to assume that information on all of them had been gathered in anticipation of their arrival, but from the gossip and the warping of the information on their identification cards, it's a poor imitation, mutating and dissolving into the barely recognizable shape of a person.
(What had his said...? She's kept so meticulous an eye on things, but this ran through her fingers.)]
You kept a bit of distance, my dear, not that I can blame you. Do you remember the person who raised you?
[ he really can't argue against what she's saying here because it isn't wrong. (distance was always important to him. distance kept him alive.) lavi might want to question the use of "reality" in this sense but the fundamentals are there and it doesn't change how unsettling it is to think about it. ]
The person who raised me?
[ there will be a long pause as he mulls it over. it's really unfortunate that he's a car like this because there isn't a way that he can show that he's doing such a thing. so, sorry for the extended pause, cantarella... the next time lavi speaks, he does so with some level of frustration. ]
I remember them being strict. Reminding me of something constantly...
[Well… reality has always been a rather sticky thing. There’s no sense now in belaboring what is real versus what is false versus what is true.]
That’s good. Well done, Lavi. [And it suggests the gossip hasn’t overwritten anything, so far… To encourage him to remember something more aligned with that, she prompts:] And their eyes?
[ unlike the previous question that she asked him, lavi is able to answer this one with much more ease. almost as though he has zero issue recalling the information. ]
That's a weird thing to ask about; they had the heaviest eye sags you'd ever find in an old person. If I'd make a comparison to anything, it'd be to a panda.
[ does he realize that he's stating something so easily? nope. he'll just answer her as flippantly as asking a small child to tell them what the color the sky was. ]
and when she points it out to him that there was a difference in how he responds, it doesn't give him a great feeling. he has an idea of what this means but does it overlap with what she has to tell him...? only one way to find out. ]
Does it matter under these circumstances? I'll take whichever you feel like sharing first.
Only to see if you prefer the sweetness before or after the poison, dear.
[Cantarella is going to start digging through her terminal, looking for the "benign falsehood" conversation that she once posted at the start of their first week here.]
You told me about this person on the forums. What you shared remained fresh in your memory and has yet to slip from mine. But the gossip around it all, on the other hand, was only that they "were a panda." [Though she's never seen such a creature, she had enough information to draw a picture in her mind. So... it is both good and bad. It's all based in those whispers, but the full context hasn't yet dissolved to flat rumor.]
[ honestly, lavi would never opt into taking any kind of poison if he had a choice. but he waits and listens to cantarella to explain her conclusions to him and he...doesn't know what to make of it. in ways it confirms some of his understanding of things but not in the best ways. ]
Isn't that what makes gossip good? Just having a grain of truth wrapped up with the falsities.
[ which, again, is something that she proved with her little test. he took part in it too, he can remember that. he can remember it so clearly and easily but his name... ]
Was that the sweetness that you had to share or am I still waiting on the poison?
[Because that's how it's often and best delivered, probably. She mixed the better conclusions with the worse ones.]
Though the bitter aperitif is that I lack the information to determine whether it's the gossip or you sharing the way you did that's kept the memory preserved. Your name—that is, Lavi [she fears she might lose it again if she doesn't saw it; it's already murky.]—is escaping you, but did you tell anyone your name directly?
[ damn. woman got him good and lavi can't even begin to feel bad for it. he appreciates how she works immensely. still, what she brings up does line up with what he has come to.
more or less. ]
I have. I did... I introduced myself a few times to people.
[ and yet the name, his name, is still one that he had to get from someone else. if it weren’t for them then who knows. when things are clear then they're clear but when they're murky then it's impossible. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
week 2, monday
not that it's obvious until a car suddenly pops out from the wall and appears right in the middle of the room. if a car could shudder (or shiver) then that's exactly what's happening right here. ]
Oh, that's so unpleasant.
oh my god shay, HIT POST COMMENT
Because the place is packed with troughs, basins, and tables, a few of them surely get shoved this way and that by his arrival, causing a splash of various development fluids. Cantarella only adds to the crowding, her ever-present parasol snapping open in front of her, an oddly sturdy barrier between herself and the vehicle.
...Which is in the middle of the darkroom.]
...This room is stuffy, but these fumes are far too tame to give me any effect.
:pet:
not that it stops him from acting like one as he'll "back up" and knock into a few more water baths and developing areas accidentally. ]
I didn't knock anything over, did I?
[ and before she gets a chance to respond, he'll pop back into the wall as a shadow, however, given that this is a dark room jumping into a shadow to have light cast on him it's only temporary as he quickly becomes a car again. ]
Ughh... Okay. [ if a car could sound nauseated then here is a car sounding extremely nauseated. ] Never mind, I'm not doing that again.
no subject
Please do refrain. You'll drown us both if you keep that up. [Please, please...cease. Stop rattling the chemical bins and basins and drainage pipes.
Parasol still at the ready but tucked beneath her arm, Cantarella checks her pulse.] Being disconnected from the frequencies has either envenomed my mind or my dreams have decided to conjure new nightmares. I feel perfectly fine. I don't suppose you could...honk loudly, dream Echo...and wake me up, could you?
no subject
while a part of him is offended that she thinks that this is all a dream, he also can't blame her for thinking that it is. all of this is very close to what someone could expect from a fever dream... though since she asked, he will deliver.
enough an extremely loud HONK that's less of a car honk but more of a person (lavi) yelling honk as loud as they humanly can be and in extremely close proximity. ]
D...did that work?
[ you know. assuming that this is a dream. (it isn't a dream.) ]
I'm still trying to get a handle on all of this. It's very weird.
no subject
That voice...
[Cantarella is haunted by the voices of the lost; as far as she's concerned, this is just another one crying out from the shadows. Or it would be, except he is a car. Tacet Discords form from the lingering frequencies of the world, and the voices of the dead join those frequencies. But this place is not like Solaris. Still, perhaps she wasn't so far off to compare the faceless beings roaming this tower to those disembodied sounds.]
Hah...Is this a ghost story?
no subject
[ not that he doesn't understand her confusion. she isn't the first person to have questioned it and she very well likely won't be the last person to question it. hell, even he questions it. the more important part is how things are going to work themselves out from here on out. not that they have a lot to work with on multiple levels. ]
I suppose you could look at it as a ghost story, but I'd be pretty offended if you did since I'm not a ghost. [ probably... ] I wonder if this is how ghosts feel.
no subject
That they also deny being ghosts despite all evidence to the contrary?
[Slowly, with a movement that's as graceful as it is guarded, Cantarella returns the parasol to its closed state.]
Forgive me, I— [have forgotten several details about what he looked like; even his voice is more like a hollow echo of what she can recall than something she can identify by name.] You are fading rapidly from this place.
no subject
[ and as she confesses that she's begun to forget him, and at "rapid speeds" then it just makes him a bit resigned. as much as a car could appear to be resigned, however, at least his voice will give the emotion that cannot be expressed with gestures. ]
I seem to be fading for myself as well.
[ which is. fine. who needs to remember him, right?? ]
no subject
It's two different things, to be forgotten and to forget.]
What do you recall? Perhaps it can be safeguarded.
no subject
[ a part of him doesn't want to share, but if he doesn't then who else, right? he knows this is important. it's what is necessary to keep things alive. ]
...I've been told that my name is "Lavi" by someone I can trust, but the rest around it has been smeared. The faces of people that I'm supposed to know are like smudges.
Even what I know doesn't have a clear context. I know I was on a mission to record but I don't know what for.
no subject
[It wasn't completely illogical to assume that information on all of them had been gathered in anticipation of their arrival, but from the gossip and the warping of the information on their identification cards, it's a poor imitation, mutating and dissolving into the barely recognizable shape of a person.
(What had his said...? She's kept so meticulous an eye on things, but this ran through her fingers.)]
You kept a bit of distance, my dear, not that I can blame you. Do you remember the person who raised you?
no subject
The person who raised me?
[ there will be a long pause as he mulls it over. it's really unfortunate that he's a car like this because there isn't a way that he can show that he's doing such a thing. so, sorry for the extended pause, cantarella... the next time lavi speaks, he does so with some level of frustration. ]
I remember them being strict. Reminding me of something constantly...
no subject
That’s good. Well done, Lavi. [And it suggests the gossip hasn’t overwritten anything, so far… To encourage him to remember something more aligned with that, she prompts:] And their eyes?
no subject
[ unlike the previous question that she asked him, lavi is able to answer this one with much more ease. almost as though he has zero issue recalling the information. ]
That's a weird thing to ask about; they had the heaviest eye sags you'd ever find in an old person. If I'd make a comparison to anything, it'd be to a panda.
[ does he realize that he's stating something so easily? nope. he'll just answer her as flippantly as asking a small child to tell them what the color the sky was. ]
no subject
That came to you quickly. Would you like the optimistic or the concerning news first?
[It's both better and worse than she'd thought it might be, but how quickly Lavi was still able to respond gives her some hope.]
no subject
and when she points it out to him that there was a difference in how he responds, it doesn't give him a great feeling. he has an idea of what this means but does it overlap with what she has to tell him...? only one way to find out. ]
Does it matter under these circumstances? I'll take whichever you feel like sharing first.
no subject
[Cantarella is going to start digging through her terminal, looking for the "benign falsehood" conversation that she once posted at the start of their first week here.]
You told me about this person on the forums. What you shared remained fresh in your memory and has yet to slip from mine. But the gossip around it all, on the other hand, was only that they "were a panda." [Though she's never seen such a creature, she had enough information to draw a picture in her mind. So... it is both good and bad. It's all based in those whispers, but the full context hasn't yet dissolved to flat rumor.]
no subject
Isn't that what makes gossip good? Just having a grain of truth wrapped up with the falsities.
[ which, again, is something that she proved with her little test. he took part in it too, he can remember that. he can remember it so clearly and easily but his name... ]
Was that the sweetness that you had to share or am I still waiting on the poison?
no subject
[Because that's how it's often and best delivered, probably. She mixed the better conclusions with the worse ones.]
Though the bitter aperitif is that I lack the information to determine whether it's the gossip or you sharing the way you did that's kept the memory preserved. Your name—that is, Lavi [she fears she might lose it again if she doesn't saw it; it's already murky.]—is escaping you, but did you tell anyone your name directly?
no subject
more or less. ]
I have. I did... I introduced myself a few times to people.
[ and yet the name, his name, is still one that he had to get from someone else. if it weren’t for them then who knows. when things are clear then they're clear but when they're murky then it's impossible. ]