tragic_mask | (no subject)

"We can do anything you like. If any part of it makes you uncomfortable, we can change it to your liking. The beauty of being a crafter."

"Certainly good to know you, in that regard." She smiles up at him.

He returns the smile, slipping his arm around her waist for a moment.

"And wonderful to know you. You inspire me, my dear."

"Then I'm doing my job," she says wryly, leaning against him.

"See? We are unstoppable."

He is content, just to be close to her.

"Essentially invincible."

After a time, she asks, "You ever going to let me see your world?"

"Oh, of course," he says. "Any time you like. But you must stay close, there--there's a war on, and I would hate for you to be hurt."

"Well, I think I might be more resilient than you suspect, in that regard. I heal remarkably well from injuries. And I've been on several battlefields, in my time."

"You'd be a target, just for being near me," he says. "Unless we never left my apartment, the forge, or... well, you'll see."

She tilts her head at him.

"Yes?"

"There are pockets of elsewhere," he says, "and I control them, and they are safe."

"Well then, if you really feel the need to keep me safe in your world, it seems there will be options," she says dryly.

"Several of the nine worlds still exist," he says, "though very few can leave the one where they were born, these days. I can."

"Why can't they? Why can you?"

"...well, mortals are limited," he says. "They don't believe in that cosmology anymore, either, so they could never travel. Also, they lack my aircraft, or my portals."

"Those seem to be important things. Belief, and transportation, I mean."

"If you don't believe, it will never be possible, even if somehow you manage to find the transportation," he says. "Though the transportation itself is not easy."

"Sounds a bit... mythical," she says.

He chuckles.

"Well, I suppose it does, at that."

"So, you'll take me there, then?" she asks, seriously. "If I believe, that is. You've seen my world, in its mundanity, now clearly I have to see yours, all of it-- including the war and the mechanical woman."

"If you believe in me--that I exist, that I can do what I say I can do, and having seen my work I doubt you could disbelieve--then you should have no trouble with it."

"I think it'd be hard to deny your existence, and the existence of your power," she says. "Though I have seen people deny things they've seen with their own eyes."

"They will believe in my existence--existence as a mortal man, because anything else would be impossible. They may believe in my power, but only after they have seen it."

He takes a drag on his cigarette. "I take commissions from people who do not believe, and I charge them much more for them."

"Because it's harder to create things without belief?" She can understand that, at least.

"Because they're more likely to believe in something if it costs more," he says. "And a surcharge for the nuisance of dealing with them. I am also more likely to make them supply their own materials, and they may not survive the attempts to get them."