IC contact for wethelost

[devoutish]

Solomons & Melborn
1108 Sweet Cream Street

[Feel free to use this space for letter/package deliveries as well as visits/knocks on the front door!]

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[furgood]

You know, everyone says that. [She hums] I believe you, I'm just saying. I might pick something like this. Might pick something different. That's the beauty of surprises. You'll have no idea.

Maybe I'll do that trick where I put a box inside a bunch of other boxes so you won't know until the very last moment.

[devoutish]

They've got dolls like that, in my mother's country.

[furgood]

Really? Dolls inside of dolls? I'd ask how they're made but I imagine it's 'carefully'.

[devoutish]

They're hollow, and made of wood. I can show you, if you like. I've got one here.

[furgood]

Really? Do you mind? [She sits up a little and lets him retrieve his hand should he desire]

[devoutish]

[He lets her go and sets down his teacup, moving into one of the bedrooms along the back hall. He reappears moments later, carrying a painted wooden Russian nesting doll, completely stacked. He'll hand it to her for her to investigate.]

[furgood]

[She takes it very carefully and turns it over in her hands. There's the seam but she can't find a latch and she's afraid to just start pulling and yanking at it] It's beautiful. How does it open? I'm not going to break it, am I?

[devoutish]

Here.

[He reaches over and twists the top of the first doll, loosening it a little for her so she can lift it off.]

It's not from home. I found it in Norfinbury.

[Just so she doesn't think it's another family heirloom that she's afraid of manhandling.]

[furgood]

[Well that relaxes her a touch but she's still careful. It's his after all. ]

So it just--ohh...[She lifts the top of the doll and carefully pulls free the smaller doll within. Setting up the first doll properly before her, she takes in the different clothing, the way the details shrink or disappear. It continues on and on until she has a small row of dolls set before her.]

It's so intricate. Why was it in Norfinbury?

[devoutish]

[There are six in total, the smallest one shorter and only a little bit thicker than her pinky finger. Alfie picks it up, rolling it around in his palm.]

Dunno. Norfinbury had all sorts of strange things. It might've been because of me; it might've been pulled from my own memory.

[furgood]

I didn't realize they did things like that. [She picks up the largest and the second smallest, comparing them] It's like a mother and all her daughters. If daughters came neatly with two years between them.

[devoutish]

That happened too, sometimes. Family members would show up. Friends.

[furgood]

...i get the feeling that you don't mean in the normal sort of way.

[devoutish]

Well--

[ He pauses, because he hadn't been thinking of the anomalies, but they do come to mind now. ]

Sometimes they were wrong. Yeah. Monsters with their shapes.

[furgood]

Ah-- sorry if you meant just normally. I'm used to the way the Capitol did things. [She shrugs ] They brought in families of people and then brought them in once more during an arena, only wrong.

[devoutish]

Were they tricks, or were they really them?

[furgood]

[She shakes her head, breathing out heavily ] To know that, you'd have to talk to the people who ran that arena. I don't really know. They could change people as well as make mutts, abominations.

[ She fiddles with the doll and holds out her hand for the smallest doll.]

[devoutish]

[He places it in her palm, curling her fingers over it.]

I saw family once, not long after I arrived. They came spilling out of a monster and crawled along the floor, looking horribly in pain.

[furgood]

I'm sorry. [ She shakes her head] People love you use those you care about against you.

[devoutish]

Wouldn't call the things what ran Norfinbury people, myself.

[furgood]

You know what I meant. [ She carefully reassembles the nesting doll, making sure everything lines up. ] They know the easiest way to get to someone is through their friends, their family.

[devoutish]

They were masters of that. Yes.

[He closes his eyes.]

They pulled things from our heads; from our memories. It's very likely that it wasn't them. That they were never there.

[furgood]

[The doll is set to the side and she reaches out and covers his hand with both of hers] I'm sorry. It sounds awful. [She hesitates] Did they ever mess with who you were? What you believed in, your morals, things like that?

[devoutish]

They'd force us to attack people.

[So that definitely counts.]

Get into our heads, make us think that it was what we wanted to do. We'd kill; torture.

[All things that he's done, sure, but being made to do it when he wouldn't have otherwise had still been egregious to him.]

[furgood]

[He can surely feel her physical shudder. Her gaze dips and she looks blank and far away for a solid five seconds before she snaps back]

I'm sorry. I- I can't stand how they...