thisavrou | (no subject)

I didn't run away to join the circus, only the circus archaeologists. [Wanda's TAB displays a stone carving of an acrobat, and then a figurine of a bull. They're sitting on a shelf, and the wall behind the shelf looks like rough stone.]

They're replicas... I asked if I could have one of the real ones, because there were about a million of them just in the tiny tunnel we were excavating, but they wanted to catalogue them all, so I went to the museum and bought the acrobat. The bull...I carved that myself, to the pattern of the real ones. It's only a keepsake...

It's funny, there are a million of the acrobats in the archaeological records of Deslora, but the bulls were new to the site I was working on. They want to discover what it means, whether the acrobats and the bulls are connected. They think the site used to be... important... Sacred dances and ritual danger -- that's funny too. Ritual danger.

But I missed the fun house and the crowds, I went to the fair and all I got were these tiny figurines.

[She zooms the camera view out, so that the whole shelf is visible, dwarfing the few things on it. Two figurines, a few origami figures.]

Oh, and this is my house.

[Zoom again, and pan to show a very simple room with wooden furniture that looks like someone fashioned it with an axe. There are a lot of cushions, though, in many bright colours and patterns, and a number of plants growing out of the floor. There are no windows, but light filters in from somewhere above, skylights perhaps.]

I'm still working on it, I've mostly been away...

[Zoom in, back to the shelf.]

It'll fill up with memories, eventually. At least that's the idea...

[Wanda sighs.]

It doesn't really feel like home.

[She turns the camera on herself for the first time. Looking directly at the camera--] What do you think makes a home a home?

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People.

[ That's a crummy answer in a place like this, where you don't get a choice in who comes through the Ingress or leaves, but in his opinion it's the only thing that makes home. Family, chosen or otherwise. ]

[If she had an answer rather than a question, that wouldn't be too far from Wanda's own answer, though hers has other elements to it. Being needed, particularly. And something that was a little harder to explain...]

Specific people? Or people who ... form a community? Or...

[She's thinking about the country she left years ago, the people, the language, the feeling of being among... her people. It doesn't quite go into words right for her, and she finally sighs and lets it go.]

I don't know. I guess that's why I had to ask.

Dunno. Depends on you, I guess.

People you give a shit about.

Yeah... [Wanda's voice is thoughtful, and a little regretful.]

I mean, you find folks. Don't have to be from home.

Just think you need people.

When you put it like that, it sounds easy.

Nah, maybe not easy... Worth it, even if it ain't.

I mean, you're askin'.

[ That counts as looking for a connection, right? ]

Yes, I am asking. [She just doesn't know what to do with the answer.]

[ His main response to that, eloquent as usual, is a vague grunt. And after a moment-- ]

Where're you from? Before, I mean.

[Somehow, the vague grunt comforts Wanda. At least someone else doesn't have all the answers either. The question, though-- There are a lot of befores to pick from. The silence stretches and then she sounds lost as she begins--] I lived in a ... [a city, a galaxy, a country, all of them gone.]

Does it matter?

Where are you from?

Georgia. Been a while. Lived somewhere else, the last couple years.

[For a second, Wanda thinks that he means the Georgia that's in the same part of the world as Sokovia, and her heart beats a little faster. She's never actually been there, but she's heard of the resorts...and the war. It's like Sokovia in that too.

Then she remembers that Georgia is also one of the United States.]

Oh.

Is it nice there? In Georgia, or the next place?

[ It rarely occurs to him that people might mistake it for the other Georgia, if only because of the accent. Well, and he'd never been outside the state until recently. ]

Last place was pretty good, til we had to go. Thought I'd get home but we ended up on the ship.

The Moira? [It's the only ship Wanda's heard much about, the newcomers to Thisavrou, though she supposes there could be other ships.]

I have travelled too... I am originally from Sokovia, in Eastern Europe. [She's actually not sure her original home still exists, but this doesn't seem like the time to bring that up.] I suppose everyone has. If you live in a nexus of connections, it only makes sense that everyone you meet will be a traveller in some way.

How many of you are travelling together?

Yeah.

[ The Moira never felt like home, though; maybe if they'd stayed longer they'd have found some way to adjust, but the crash--

Honestly, was probably the best thing, in some ways. He likes what they've got here, even if he doesn't trust it. ]

Three'f us from home. [ Hard to believe it's been so long, that they've been together through three worlds now. ] Where we were-- Teleios-- was kinda like this. People from all sorts'f places. Can't say I heard of where you're from, though.

That's a lot. [Maybe not objectively a lot, but to Wanda keeping three people together for years, while travelling, sounds impressive.]

Sokovia is small, and apparently it doesn't exist in as many places as I do. [That sounds confusing.] There are not so many Sokovias as there are Wanda Maximoffs, even though it is a country and I always thought it was much bigger than me.

[Still confusing.]

I do not think there are many Sokovians travelling in the multiverse.

[ He gets it-- after all he's known plenty of people on their own. Without family, Daryl would be lost. He knows that, too. ]

Yeah. We're lucky.

[ The rest of it-- well, that's mysterious as all hell. He takes a second to try to work through it. ]

Dunno why some folks show up and some don't. Wish I did. Places like this get... weird.

Weird, yes. But having an Ingress that can be controlled in some ways makes it less strange. People can use it for trade, and create cities, and there can be order and the ability for societies to establish themselves and grow...

[Wanda has thought about this.]

The first place -- galaxy -- I travelled to, there was only a rift. Things went in and things went out, but there was no way to go anywhere through it on purpose. It did not create a city nearby, it created a ... refugee area ...

[Wanda is rather abruptly distracted at the end of what she's saying, and a noise can be heard in the background. First, a crack, then a rumble, then a trickle and a drip, continuing...]

Umm, sorry, I need to go now.

Edited 2017-04-16 23:34 (UTC)

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