(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

[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."

[tragic_mask]

"So... like attracts like?" she asks.

[mechanicalswans]

"It does," he agrees. "But there are always easier or more difficult materials to use--easier for me to work with, or easier for them to find. I won't take any more effort than I have to, with people who annoy me."

[tragic_mask]

"Understandable," she says. "I try to pick and choose, too-- the people who will be easiest to work with, to inspire. Unfair, I suppose. But that's how I do it."

[mechanicalswans]

"I prefer doing work for people I like," he says. "Teja, for instance--I would have no trouble making nearly any project for him. But there's a certain sadism involved in doing work for people I dislike, and that has its appeal."

[tragic_mask]

"If you say so," she says, quirking a brow.

[mechanicalswans]

"I don't have the option of saying no," he says, barely audibly, looking away. "We've all got our limits."

[tragic_mask]

"Always," she agrees, but sadly. "I can't imagine being forced to create something for someone I couldn't stand."

[mechanicalswans]

"So I make it more difficult for them," he says quietly, "make it more costly, so they will change their minds, or possibly be killed trying to get the materials or payment."

[tragic_mask]

"I see," she says.