[video] -- an oracle-tale

[northerndragon]

[Jon looks pensive, and not a little dismayed, and perhaps a bit winded.]

I went to the Oracle Hall to try to find what I could of Cosette. I spoke to the Oracle -- bloody lot of stairs that was.

A woman had been there. Blonde hair. She fears that she will be forced to stay in Hatthevar against her will. She knew Matthias's heart well, and he had called her from somewhere else. The Oracle told her that the foolishness and stubbornness of men can't be cured by reason.

Can it be her? If it is her, she doesn't want it. Not Hatthevar. Maybe not a return to her father, either.

[Who would want to return to a madman, a man who has done such harm? Who would want to claim that legacy?

Before Jon cuts away, a hand tugs at his sleeve, and a voice says, "You can help me, can't you? I heard you know everything." Jon mutters "Seven hells," with exasperation and feeling, and ends the message.]

(but he'll be back with replies if anyone wants to chat about it.)

Comments

[spoilers]

( There's almost, almost a glimmer of sympathy. But then, he'd made his own choice to trek up all those stairs. )

Isn't calling people from somewhere else what he does best?

( Admittedly, she hasn't been here as long as some of the others. And asking her to understand magic is still a bit of a hopeless endeavor. )

I think we can assume he wasn't the best father.

[northerndragon]

I think we agree about that. If she is Cosette, then I don't think he cares about what she wants any more than he used to.

Might be that the dead just wish to rest. Some of them, anyway. It would be hard to be pulled back to anything like life, even if the one doing it wasn't making you his excuse for destroying the world.

[If he speaks from experience, nothing about the way he says these things indicates it.]

[spoilers]

( Not to worry. River has her own experience to draw on. She'd been deeply angry with the Doctor when she'd been left to live half a life, somehow even angrier after she'd given that up for one last chance to help him and then ended up here when it was finally time for her to rest. )

I'm not sure anyone would argue she doesn't have reason to keep her distance, whether his daughter or someone he'll hold in her place. She deserves her peace.

( But then, she thinks the same can be said for most of this city, so she isn't sure if that's exactly worth dwelling on. )

We should consider Matthias may not even know what he wants anymore.

[northerndragon]

It's possible. Years have passed. Look what he's done.

A long time ago, I got a little of what I thought I wanted. I didn't know what it would be like. Until I had it, I didn't know that it was nothing anyone should want, or what I would lose in getting it.

[spoilers]

Most things come at a price. Whether or not it's one worth paying often depends on the individual.

Matthias doesn't strike me as someone who cared very much about the cost when he started, but I think he lost more than he expected.

[northerndragon]

You'll have to forgive me if I misremember, but I think he was given the work he had, trying to find ways to surpass Taravast in their study of the dead, because he cared so little about what it might cost.

I fear that there is always some great cost in playing with the dead. They walk in my own lands. I don't know how to stop them, not when every soldier who falls rises to fight for the enemy. And I did nothing to bring them there. Matthias did much and more, it seems.

[spoilers]

Yes. And perhaps he lost everything in the process, including himself.

( She can't speak to the cost of raising the dead, and she's well past her days of playing judge and jury. Maybe Matthias had been blinded by the goal, believed the end would justify the means. Or maybe he truly hadn't cared. Right now, she's not even sure he'd remember. )

[downswing]

He calls upon the dead to murder the fathers of others.

Has set against a child before.

[spoilers]

To do many things it would seem.

Yes, but how long ago? I'm not sure how much we should equate Matthias as he was to Matthias as he is.

[downswing]

You find him improved?

[spoilers]

Not the word I would have chosen. Compromised.

( Might he still do murderous things? She won't discount it. She just isn't convinced even he's all that clear on his intentions at the moment. )

[downswing]

Unstable?

[spoilers]

Probably.

un: absterge

[downswing]

You 'know everything.'

Re: un: absterge

[northerndragon]

I keep telling them it isn't true, but they don't listen. Only a green boy thinks he knows everything.

[Still, the advice he's been asked for hasn't been hard to give. The problems of most people aren't all that complicated. It's the number of inquiries that has become a problem. The frequency. The insistence of the seekers. In some ways, climbing all those stairs had been a respite.]

[downswing]

Perhaps character steers as well as wisdom.

audio; un: a tentacute observation

[companionsgrasp]

I was wondering the same thing. What if she doesn't want to be reunited with her father?

I wouldn't force it on her.

[He would fight for her if that's what she wanted. To free her.]

un: ut malum pluvia | audio

[somebadnews]

[ Good on you, Jon. With Five's blinks being unreliable, he hadn't made it up those stairs. Maybe he will now that he knows what's up there. ]

He's been calling all sorts of people from the beacons, what makes you think it's her?

un: widow, text

[redhourglass]

could be a mistake
someone else called here while he was trying to get to cosette