milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

[Not-quite-OOM, just prior: Physical therapy.]

"One more" turns into three more exercises by the time Gaeta departs the infirmary. Awful as he felt, it didn't feel right to leave off after so few; at least this way, he isn't wasting his or Dr. Tam's time with such a brief session.

Whether he'll be able to move from the couch he just collapsed on is another story. After requesting a glass of water from a waitrat, he gulps down three painkillers (the usual dose is two, but frak it, he hurts so much right now) before stretching along the couch's full length. Some minutes later, the same waitrat returns with a silver tray.

Gaeta eyes the tray's contents. "Um."

The rat chitters.

"Sorry for the language, but...what the frak is that?"

Squeak.

In lieu of pointing out that he doesn't speak rat, Gaeta just sighs, scoops up the small -- very colorful -- magazine, and opens it to take a look.

Apparently there's a tie-in comic book series for that famous squopera, Tentacles of Our Waves. Who knew.

[ooc: in and out for a bit, but back for good at 10 PM eastern!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"About grass?" Gaeta echoes, blankly.

He tries skipping back to the table of contents in search of this strange and elusive poem.

She glances over, and points him in the right direction.

It's longer, and more full of ideas she doesn't understand.

Gaeta lets out a tiny huff of breath when he reaches the end.

"Must be nice," he mumbles in agreement, mostly to himself.

"You can have it."

Beat. "The book."

She's pretty sure that was also a positive reaction. Right?

Gaeta draws in a slow breath. He looks down at the book, then back up at Elle.

Cautious: "Are you sure?"

"If you - want it."

Elle's not really sure how to read his answer. But then, she shrugs.

"I can get another one."

"If you're offering," still tentative, "I would like to keep it."

He draws his fingers along the pages of the book.

"Thank you."

She nods.

And then, with all the surety of someone's who's only seen other people do this, she offers a rather small, but still friendly, smile.

Gaeta returns it, a little more steadily.

And then glances down at the much thicker book.

She follows his gaze, then lifts the encyclopedia up to him.

"I used to read it a lot. My - Dad liked that kind of thing."

Her voice drops just a little on the second sentence, but she adds, "And some of them are - real in here."

"I've heard of that happening," he says, accepting the book with only the tiniest strain in his voice. Even that small a movement is enough to knock some of the air out of him. "People you know from stories, just...turning up in..."

He trails off as he opens the book, and stares at the table of contents.

She looks between him and the book, a little uncertain again.

"I know they're not like other stories, but..."

Well, that's about it. Elle understands that religion is different from The Wizard of Oz, and that some people used to believe the things in this book were real but now seemed to believe in other things instead.

That's about it.

"... I don't they really have these in my world."

"I have them in mine."

Half-whispered. He turns the page, taking in the first entry.

"I thought...gods. I know you named the other planets in your system after the Lords of Kobol, but..."

(He doesn't look displeased, it must be said. Gaeta just looks a little stunned.)

"They're named after them," she answers, pointing to the book.

"But I don't think they called them that."

Gaeta shakes his head. "Demeter told me nobody else called them that, either," he says, softer.

Greco-Roman. He has to remember that; if a single part of this conversation sticks, it must be that name.

"But they're the actual gods we worship back home."

"Oh."

And something rather distant in her mind clicks back to - 'You're not a god, are you?'

"People in my world - used to do that. But I don't think most of them do now."

"Yeah," he murmurs. "That's the impression I got."

He leafs forward a few more pages.

"You said you've met some of them here?" He looks up. "Which ones?"

"Um..."

She looks away, as though counting them off in her mind.

"Ouranos turned me into a bird."

Beat. "But in a good way."

And she got better!

"And the - nature one that's part goat? And Medusa."

And Aphrodite bartends sometimes, but Elle doesn't know that's her name.

None of those click with the same kind of surety as a full-fledged Lord of Kobol. Faintly, he thinks Ouranos sounds familiar, at least.

(Gods, you would think he'd bother to learn more by now, considering Demeter's fondness of him.)

Gaeta chooses to focus on the really important part of these statements: "In a good way?" he echoes, rather blankly.

"Not - like in the stories? When they do it because they're mad?"

She glances down at the book. "Athena turns someone into a spider. And Artemis turns her friend into a bear. Because they're mad. But he wasn't."

Gaeta's confusion clears. "Oh."

That...makes sense, he guesses. As much as any story about the gods can make sense, when one chooses to take them literally.

"I'm glad," he says, trying not to sound too much like he's floundering for words. "I've heard they, ah. They can do a lot of damage if they put their minds to it."

She shrugs.

"Some people in my world are kind of like them."

Elle's an example of that herself, after all.

"Right, so they can..." He trails off, struggling to think. Did she ever mention that before? That there were other people who could do the same things she could do?

What he unearths instead is her name: Elle. He remembers. Thank the gods he remembers something, at least.

"It's not always like, um." He makes an absent gesture with one hand. "Like the electricity though, right?"

She shakes her head.

"My Dad was, um..."

Elle reaches for the book, and gently slides the pages over, until they get to the Ms, and then -

"- like this one."

The page is titled 'Midas.' Not a god, just a king.

"But he could control it," she adds.

Gaeta skims the entry, skims it again to make the words sink in, and then:

"Oh," he breathes. "Wow. That's..." He glances up at Elle. "That's pretty incredible."