reality_crossroads | WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

A door opens, and suddenly the sound of a baby wailing echoes across the nearby chunk of the Nexus. A bleary-eyed Victor Van Dort steps through, bouncing said wailing baby in his arms. "It's okay, it's okay. . .look, we're -- um." He blinks a few times as he registers where he is. "This isn't. . .oh, dear, how did I manage to choose the wrong door?" He goes to step back through --

Then stops, shakes his head, and proceeds to the nearest safe-looking bit of furniture, still cradling his son. "No. Perhaps someone can help here. At least, Alice and the others will get some decent sleep for a change. . ." He looks up, an exhausted man at the end of his rope. "Is there anyone around who's had at least one child and might know why they sometimes just start crying in the middle of the night and won't stop no matter what you do?"

Current Mood: drained

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

lastest_ringbearer

Big change, yesss. We can't imagine. *He looks at the child as well, though his expression is more like a kind of hungry confusion. 'What is this new thing?'*

From:

deadgirlslikeme

[Victor would appreciate it if the "hungry" part of that confusion took a hike. His child is not edible!] I couldn't either, before it happened. I didn't even think I'd get married before my parents tried forcing it on me. [he sighs] Glad I avoided that. . .

From:

lastest_ringbearer

*That strange, greedily fascinated gaze darts back to him.* He avoided being married, yet he is married? That does not make sense, Precious.

From:

deadgirlslikeme

[. . .not really an improvement, but Victor will take it] My parents wanted me to marry a different person -- someone I hadn't even met. All for the sake of their social status. [another, more disgusted sigh] When I married Alice, it was my own decision, for love. Much different.

From:

lastest_ringbearer

*Curiosity was always Smeagol's weak point, and the Ring piled greed on top of that. At the moment he's more wary than anything, though; he's learned the hard way to pay attention to what's happening around him.* Love. We thinks we rememberses love.

Your parents wanted to rule?

From:

deadgirlslikeme

[fair enough, fair enough -- Victor's just the anxious sort, and gets fidgety easily. Though he can't help but smile while talking about his wife, lightly rubbing Chester's back as he does] Love is nice. I never though I'd have so much love in my life.

[he makes some faces as he thinks about how to answer] More that they were looking to prove themselves to those already ruling. . .but I don't think they would have turned down the chance had it been offered to them.

From:

lastest_ringbearer

Prove themselveses to be what, exactly? We thinks they jussst prove to be sssilly.

From:

deadgirlslikeme

Prove themselves to be their equals -- the nobility where I lived looked down on anyone who earned their money, and my father made our fortune through canning fish, so. . . [he nods, rolling his eyes] But yes, they were often proved to be silly. They tried so hard to fit in with people who hated them and just made fools of themselves. I never understood it.

From:

lastest_ringbearer

Glad that we don't care about sssuch things. Not likely to ever even meet nobility, unlesss the Black Hand counts. *A sharp, choked laugh.* Now that would be an unlikely meeting, Precious--Him and nice man's parentses.

From:

deadgirlslikeme

I never did either -- I hated that they always dragged me into it. The only nobility I'm likely to run into here now is any that might come through a portal, and. . . [he shrugs] None so far.

[Victor can't help a bit of a laugh himself at that -- though he chokes it off when it looks like Chester might be stirring. Once he's sure it's safe, he nods] Oh, I don't think that would go well for them. Or, knowing my mother, him either.

From:

lastest_ringbearer

It would go very bad for them, yes, but I doubt Sauron would be bothered by sssome nasty lady's whining. He's far worse than the worst nightmare of a fissshwife.

From:

deadgirlslikeme

Oh, I've no doubt of that, given what you've said. Nell Van Dort would probably be little more than a briefly annoying bug to one such as him. One to squash and then just forget about.

From:

lastest_ringbearer

Few manage to ssstand up to him even that much, we're thinking. Old heroes when the world was young, praps. Great glowing elf-princes with nasssty long swordses of a metal we can, we can no longer forge. There are memories of hearing such taleses when Smeagol wasss young, yes. But now the only way to win againssst him was to be a sneak, ha! And the sneaks dared to call us a sneak, yes they did!

But we won. Gollum won and Smeagol won. None could ever destroy the Precious freely, no. We were bound, yesss. We were bound by things worse than any chain. Oath and fate and we hates it.

From:

deadgirlslikeme

[Victor shivers slightly] It's -- worrying to think any evil could grow that big -- take over so much of a world. Become that -- well, "invincible" isn't the word, you brought him down in the end. But it wasn't easy, you made that clear. Makes my glad my world doesn't seem to have any counterparts.

[he gives Smeagol a sympathetic look] Being dragged into something against your will is the worst. [yes, his being dragged into things was on a much smaller scale -- and he escaped the pinnacle of it, the arranged marriage, in the end -- but he still relates, as best he can]

From:

lastest_ringbearer

Lucky man, yesss. Danger's best avoided.

Dragged into everything was Smeagol. But we're done now.

From:

deadgirlslikeme

Oh, definitely. And I have even more reason to avoid it these days. [holds Chester a little closer]

[he nods, smiling encouragingly] That's right. All your own destiny from this point on.

From:

lastest_ringbearer

All ours! All our own! Ssso nice to have no hand at Smeagol's back, yes.

From:

deadgirlslikeme

Oh yes -- nothing like being able to forge your own path in life. No matter where it might take you.

From:

lastest_ringbearer

At least one finds out where it goes on their own. We is thinking that everyone feelses that way now, everyone involved with the One.

From:

deadgirlslikeme

Probably. I imagine they're all relieved at the chance to pursue their own fate as well, without that hanging over their heads.

From:

lastest_ringbearer

*He nods. He's happily oblivious to Frodo's seaward yearnings and wouldn't count them as the same thing if he was. Even the burn of a scar from a morgul blade is light compared to the days in Mordor when there was a ten-ton wheel of fire at Frodo's breastbone.* Men and dwarfs and hobbitses and even nasssty elfses are free. Praps even orcses are free now. Most of all, though, Smeagol is free.

From:

deadgirlslikeme

Yes indeed. Free to live a life that isn't yoked by fear and duty. [he grins, nodding at the bowl] And full of nice new things.

From:

lastest_ringbearer

We are happy. It is good. *He doesn't really know what else there is to say. Centuries in a cave doesn't give you a lot of potential topics of conversation.*

From:

deadgirlslikeme

And that's the important thing. [he bounces Chester lightly] Thanks for -- being here. Putting up with me like this. It really has been nice to talk to someone else.