milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

autor,
lucas

(no subject)

Things don't get fixed overnight. It takes time and thought to heal. But it's possible to feel better in the process. After the Courage Badge was destroyed, Lucas felt better than he cared to admit. Once sleep and morning meditation administered their salves, the guilt of ridding himself of the badge was lessened further.

Now he's back to the grind, trying to make sense of The Strange but True Account of Our Otherworldly Abduction and the Secrets We Risked Our Lives to Learn.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Autor approaches the booth with tea and a smile, laying his hand on the table once he arrives. "Hello, Lucas."

Lucas looks up with a smile. "Autor, hi! How're you?"

And then, "Is that tea? It smells good. I should get tea, too."

"Yes, you should," he says, as he hails a wait rat. "Tea is good for everyone."

He scoots into the booth. "I am well. And yourself?"

He does just that, waving over a waitrat.

"I'm all right for now. I made friends with someone who helps people with PSI, an' he taught me something to do whenever I feel unwell. An' I asked for some books about the world from before."

He turns George's diary around for Autor to see.

"You don't think you could help me make sense of this, do you? It's what I got when I asked for a book about PSI."

Autor leans forward to peer at the diary. "I could certainly try," he says, adjusting his glasses. He reads the entries presented in the open pages and blinks. "This person was abducted?"

"I think so. I got that there were aliens somehow? But I don't know how it all works together."

His tea arrives and Lucas takes a sip while seeing what Autor makes of the text.

Autor sips his tea and carefully turns to the next few pages. "Hm," he hums. "Do you mind if I take this with me for a day or so? I'd like to read the entire thing before coming to any conclusions."

"I don't mind. I think I need some help makin' sense of all this. Oh, but I did figure somethin' out about my PSI that I should've guessed before. It works better at warmer temperatures, like when I get PSI fevers. But that can be done with things like hot baths, too."

"Really?" Autor says, blinking. "What a strange requirement. I am glad you're finding these things out about your abilities, though. Should prove useful."

He steeples his fingers. "You haven't had any PSI fevers in a while, have you?"

"I don't think so, not since the last time I pulled a Needle. Sasha might be able to make sense of some of it, but I forgot if I asked him about PSI fevers or not."

We didn't ask, but Sasha is aware of the time Ionia induced your first PSI fever, the Dark Dragon goes.

"That's true," Lucas says before drinking some more tea.

Autor turns his own cup around in his hands. "How did Ionia induce your first PSI fever?" he asks. "And who is Sasha?"

"We were at a hot spring, an' she held me under the water 'til the temperature was right. It seemed kinda weird, but it makes sense now."

That's usually how the past is, the Dark Dragon comments.

"An' Sasha Nein is the friend I was talkin' about. He's with a group called the Psychonauts. He helped me out the last time I had a- what had you called it again?"

A hallucinogen flashback, the Dragon supplies.

"Hall-u-cin-o-gen flashback," Lucas carefully repeats. "He used his PSI to make stuff look normal again an' taught me a meditation exercise to do if it happens again."

"Right, that makes sense, if hot baths have the same effect," he says.

At Lucas' next statements, Autor blinks for a long moment. "That's good. I am glad he was able to take care of you," he says. "The instruction should be useful as well. Have you had one since then?"

"No. I've been practicing the meditation every morning with a recording on my music player. An' the other night, I was really mad and got a little worried it might go that way. But I remembered it an' even a little bit helped."

Lucas isn't sure if this is going to be a permanent fix, but he's happy about how it's working out so far.

"Good thing it's working out, then," Autor says, frowning a little. The thought of Lucas having hallucinogen flashbacks bothers Autor more than he'd care to admit.

"What triggers them, do you know?"

"Well, Missy had said the mushrooms that cause 'em tear at the fears in your heart. So I guess what I saw there were things I'm afraid of. I would see people I care about sayin' they wanna hurt me, that others wanted to hurt me. That my PSI is bad an' that I'm bad."

He sighs over his tea before taking another sip.

"I was still thinkin' about how people're scared of the Dark Dragon. An' I asked someone about school an' I don't know why him sayin' a'course he'd been to school bothered me, but it really did."

"I can see how that would be frightening," Autor says quietly. "Is it difficult to discern reality during those times?"

Autor nods, mirroring the drink of tea. "Maybe you were angry about something else, and that was just a trigger."

"Yeah. Sasha was a real big help with that. He said what he did was somethin' like clair... clairvoyance? Only the opposite. He made me see how the world is for him."

Lucas scoffs through his lips. "I was plenty angry the other night, an' it sure felt better than that. Not good, I guess, but better."

Autor sets his cup aside. "What were you angry about?" he asks. "You're better now, right?"

Lucas frowns, still a little ashamed to admit it.

"I....I was mad at Dad," he confesses. "An' I'm better than I was the other night, way better even, but it's...he's my dad."

Autor stills. "Oh," he says. "I don't know what to tell you--except that you can be mad at your dad."

"Yeah. I'm still gettin' used to that."

Autor stares at the book in front of him. "So," he starts. "So this book came from the Bar, right? Did it come from your old world?"

"Yeah. I guess it was the only book on PSI they had."

Or the most comprehensive.

"I wonder what other things you can ask for from there," Autor muses. "Probably more books, if you want them. Maybe plant seeds. This was a smart idea, Lucas."

"It was?"

Lucas? Smart? This is a thing?

"Well, yes," Autor says, blinking. He taps the pages with a fingertip. "Yours was a great idea. I can't imagine learning about PSI any other way, and this way you can learn other things, too."

Lucas smiles at that.

"I wrote down some other stuff I wanna look up. I don't go through books too fast, so I only got this an' another one. But I got a list."

He takes the book back and flips to the back, where the list sits. It reads:

Porky Minch
~~Dr. Andonuts~~
Runaway Five
Chimeras (probably with Dr. Andonuts?)
~~PSI~~

Autor peruses the list and nods. "I see," he says. "These are the things that you remember from your old world? Hm..."

Then he places a hand on his cheek. "Oh, that reminds me. I've transcribed Leder's story, if you want it."

"Those're the things I know about from the world, most of 'em hopefully from before Tazmily. I learned a little about the Runaway Five from here an' then saw them in Porky's movie. There's prolly not much to 'em, but I thought I should write down everything I know is from before Tazmily.

"Transcribed it? What is that?"

"Good idea," Autor says, nodding. "You'll learn quite a bit, I'm sure of it."

He smiles a bit and pulls his sylladex out of his pocket. "It means I wrote it down," he says, and then speaks to his storage device. "To keep an adjunct to remember thee, were to import forgetfulness in me.*"

He withdraws a small pouch from the sylladex, and opens the drawstrings. Eventually he finds three folded pieces of paper, which he hands to Lucas.

*Shakespeare, Sonnet 122

Lucas unfolds the papers and looks it over.

"Oh! This's great! We can see if anything fits together with the books from the list. Oh, in fact, I think Dr. Andonuts has somethin' to do with the time distorter Leder had mentioned."

"Does he? Interesting," Autor says, picking up his teacup again. "Sounds like he's a rather well-rounded doctor. You could even learn about the Pigmask Army, though that might be better kept with Porky himself."

"That's a good question. I remember what Tazmily was like before the Pigmask Army, but I guess that don't mean they just started there. Though they sure got bigger there."

Lucas sighs again.

"Man, this is better when I got someone to talk to about it. Oh yeah, and thinkin' of that, I wanna hear what you said before about the Magypsies."

"About how they're named after modes of music?" Autor says, sipping his tea. "All right. What do you want to know?"

"Well, I guess first to see if that's true for all of 'em. An' then to see if those modes mean anything anywhere else, or if the fact that there's seven of 'em means anything."

"Well, Christianity and other religions have a lot of symbolism dealing with the number seven--especially when it comes to creation," Autor muses. "Alchemy has seven stages as well. I doubt those mean anything, though."

"Hmmm. Maybe not, but I was thinkin' of something when Sasha taught me how to meditate. He taught me what he called the rainbow meditation an' had me think of different colors in different spots on the body. An' the Dark Dragon an' I remembered each Magypsy had a different favorite color. So some things might be worth checkin' anyway."

"I've never heard of anything like that," Autor says, blinking. "I wonder if other people have. Have you talked to anyone about this other than me?"

"I think Sasha knows from helping me with the meditation, but I woulda told him anyway."

"It's good you have an ally in him," Autor says, filing away Sasha's name for later. "Not to change the subject, but how are your sunflowers?"

"Oh, they're coming along, due to bloom in the summer as always. Workin' out there's helped a lot."

"Good, glad to hear that," Autor says, nodding. "You seem to be doing better than you were."

"Yeah. I guess I am."

There's no real denying it. This is way better than sitting on the floor crying until he's exhausted.

Which reminds him...

"Hey, thank you for everythin' you've been doing for me, Autor. I really do 'ppreciate it."

They had talked before about how friends do things for each other without worrying about who owes whom, but that doesn't mean not showing gratitude.

Autor starts, and looks away. "To be frank, I feel I haven't done enough. I'm sorry about that," he says, and then looks back, with a small smile. "But you're welcome."

"Don't be like that," Lucas says, dismissing the first notion. "You did a lot to help. An' I dunno if some of the things goin' on are things people can help with anyway, but you're still helpin' out."

Autor opens his mouth and then shuts it again. He dips his head. "I'm glad I can," he says. "I'll get back to you about the diary as soon as I can, all right?"

"All right. Thank you again for helpin'."

And with that, Lucas is glad to have some tea with his friend.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only