(no subject)

[tragic_mask]

Arriving at the Visitor's Center, Melpomene takes a look around.

"Well, this is it. In all its touristic glory. "

Comments

[mechanicalswans]

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

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

[tragic_mask]

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

[mechanicalswans]

"See? We are unstoppable."

He is content, just to be close to her.

[tragic_mask]

"Essentially invincible."

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

[mechanicalswans]

"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."

[tragic_mask]

"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."

[mechanicalswans]

"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."

[tragic_mask]

She tilts her head at him.

"Yes?"

[mechanicalswans]

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

[tragic_mask]

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

[mechanicalswans]

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

[tragic_mask]

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

[mechanicalswans]

"...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."

[tragic_mask]

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

[mechanicalswans]

"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."

[tragic_mask]

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

[mechanicalswans]

He chuckles.

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

[tragic_mask]

"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."

[mechanicalswans]

"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."

[tragic_mask]

"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."

[mechanicalswans]

"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."

[tragic_mask]

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

[mechanicalswans]

"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."

[tragic_mask]

She tilts her head.

"What sort of materials would these be?"

[mechanicalswans]

"It depends," he says. "Say someone wants to have a charm made that will help them move more quickly. I could ask them for a wheel from a very old car that had traveled an extraordinary number of miles during its time... or I could ask them for six inches of rail from a particular platform of Grand Central Terminal, that they must cut themselves."