whatthewrackspurt | 4th Spell

4th Spell - [Video, Spam]

[In her room, Luna has stacked up all her furniture in the middle of the room in order to reach the ceiling. She lies on her back on a desk that's tilted precariously on a chair, a globe, three books, and a coat rack. Somehow it all manages to stay upright.

Paint drips into her hair as she paints her ceiling. Faces of people on the Barge are recognizable - people she's met and interacted with, Iris, Bush, Steve, Facilier, MewTwo, and others.

She's not a bad artist, really. It's a lot more fun than the art room, where they expect you not to paint on the walls]

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[Luna goes quiet and wide-eyed at the mention of souls]

..Yes. We've got our own ways of touching souls as well.

Magic and science. It's all the same, once you get down to it.

What are they like? Your ways.

Probably very strange compared to the ways of Muggles. We're small in number compared to them, but we're more..experimental, I think, because we have more doors open to us.

It was my job to kill everyone who knew how to do it.

Copy souls, I mean.

It's not something we like to talk about in our world, either. It's not something anyone should be doing.

There was a man. An artificial, Oscar.

Someone copied him. And I had to - get rid of one, to hide that it was possible.

How did you decide which to get rid of?

It didn't matter.

[That was the horror of it. It didn't matter.]

It mattered to the one you destroyed.

It mattered to him least of all.

Well, yes. Afterwards, I expect.

When you sleep, your consciousness is suspended.

You are, in a small way, briefly dead. And then you resume. Location doesn't matter. The body doesn't matter - the body is constantly remade. The mind that resumed when I put Oscar Vale's core back in his chassis was identical to both black boxes. Identical in every quirk and response.

He went to sleep. And then he woke up.

[She's crying, now. Poor fucking Oscar Vale.]

That sounds awful.

Yes.

[Even though she lives - lived - for it, those moments of power and tenderness...it was different with Oscar Vale. And that part of it was awful.]

He remembered me. The one who survived remembered something I only said to the one who died.

I don't. I still don't know what that means.

It means they share a soul.

[She hangs up. She needs to think about that, or not think about it. Drink and work two kitchen shifts in a row and she wants to fight something but also she doesn't. Curls up for a while, after dinner, quiet and silent with Iris's dogs.]

i should have reported it when i realized the anomaly

but they would have made me kill him too

that him i mean

and he was so broken and alone and i didn't want to

so i told them he was harmless

I'm glad you didn't. It seems like it's an important thing that he live.

[Most people, in Mira's experience, aren't important at all. Certainly Oscar Vale went on to do nothing of historical significance. But something holds her back from pronouncing this.]

Why do you think so?

Everyone's life is important to them. You saved him, so you were the most important person in his life, and that helps you in return.

It feels like that when they die, too.

[When she kills them.]

What's more important to you?

[A long pause before this reply, too.]

I don't know.

Is that why you haven't graduated yet? Because you don't know?

[I don't know, she wants to scream, wants to throw her comm against the wall or over the side. She doesn't know. That's not her job. That's David's job, and he isn't here.]

Do you remember me killing the other you?

No, but give me a minute to recall. I don't remember what I had for breakfast either.

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