10. reacclimate

[exnihilo]

[Public video, but filtered away from Harvey, David, and Iris]

[It might not be immediately obvious, between the low light and the strange angle, but Mira is lying on top of the unadorned altar in the nondenominational chapel on deck, some of her hair hanging over the side, comm held above her.]

Do you ever feel like you aren't real?


[Private to David 8]

How long was I asleep?


[Text private to Cassel]

Thank you again for the journal. It helped.

[She doesn't say with what.]


[Private to Harvey]

How was death?


[Private to Helena]

Iris says you watched me.


[Spam for Iris]

[One of so many pieces of paper Iris left in Mira's room, is slipped back under her door. It was disorienting at first, the colors and obtrusive scatter of trinkets, the scalding proof that time lost her for a little while, changed around her. She thought, of course she thought, it was her own memory that had failed, that had lost its mess of contents at least, but the notes, pieced together, gradually righted her assumption, twisting it upside-down like a flipped kayak. The page she returns is a poem, one of many Iris left in between more informative updates and sentimental messages. Beneath the attribution, Mira has scrawled in rough, childlike handwriting - the mark of a post-penmanship age - This one is my favorite.]

Comments

private

[patheticvillain]

you're welcome. I can make another one if you run out of space.

helped?

private

[exnihilo]

when i woke up i thought i'd lost time

i mean i did but not by forgetting

it was reassuring that what i wrote matched

private

[patheticvillain]

yeah. nobody took it away this time.

[private]

[halftheman]

Cold.

Beyond that, we have-- differing opinions.

When did you wake? [ He is a little bit frantic, a little bit nervous, a little bit more balanced then he was despite all this. ]

[private]

[exnihilo]

A few hours ago. I had a lot to read.

[A little dryly, a little pleased.]

[private]

[halftheman]

Iris can't stand comas. Especially with the people she loves.

Can't say we handled it all that well, either. [ Iris noticed when he chose to panic, to die in the place of living. Harvey and Two-Face know it, too. ]

[private]

[sickjoke]

All the time.

Worse these days.

[ Despite it all, Jack doesn't hide his face from this relative stranger. ]

[private]

[exnihilo]

[She doesn't blink. No one on the barge looks strange to her, and the only face that truly haunts her from the Joker's barge is her own. But she remembers. Her head angles slightly, contemplatively.]

Like he's the real one?

[private]

[sickjoke]

[ He taps his nose; she's got it. ]

Yeah.

That's-- pretty much it exactly.

[private]

[routemistress]

You're up, you're up, eeeeee you're up! I'm -

Can I 'ave five minutes before the rest of your catching up?

[private]

[exnihilo]

Yeah.

[Blushing, smiling - warmed all through. To know she matters so - unabashedly.]

Re: [private]

[routemistress]

[She's there inside two minutes, as unabashed as anyone could hope for, and she clutches Mira as though she's trying to protect her from acid rain with nothing but her own body to do it with.]

Oh my darling, I were so - I've been trying to work out where I'd even start looking if you'd disappeared. I'd 'ave to break time to find you again and I don't even care, I'll do it like a shot.

[And then she holds her at a small distance, so she can stroke her face and her hair and lift her chin and kiss her forehead and cheeks.]

...so good to see your lovely eyes again, and that dimple of yours. It doesn't 'appen when you sleep. Helena and me came and told you stories and I kept bringing you things like it'd wake you up. Like sacrifices to make the sun rise. Oh Mira.

[velocette]

Yes. All the time.

But the unreal is natural, so natural that it makes of unreality the most natural of anything natural.

What reality would you want to belong to?

[exnihilo]

What does that even mean?

[She is dubious.]

[velocette]

The woman who said it was talking about the supposed optimism of the United States. But I think it really means there's nothing wrong with being a ghost. You're more 'real' than you feel.

[strangehistorian]

I've felt very insignificant before. But not unreal.

[exnihilo]

Sometimes the most significant people don't know they are.

[strangehistorian]

I think those who seek significance are often those who cause the most trouble.

[warisart]

Felt, mostly.

Much less frequently in the present tense.

[exnihilo]

What helped?

[warisart]

Inventing myself, and then letting others see.

Welcome back, Mira.

private

[secretasshole]

Since August 16th. Today is September 15th.

Welcome back.

private

[exnihilo]

Thank you.

[For both things; her breath out is heavy, relieved, although she can't say what answer she would have been afraid of. But she trusts him, trusts him to be steady the way she trusts Iris to be kind, and if he says it's been a month, then she knows, then the time is accounted for.]

Private

[adelphoktonos]

[She wakes and she's terrified; there's this pulsing sickly red light inside her mind and she shrinks from it. The message makes no sense to her when she sees it first, shortly after waking to find herself in a room that seems unreal. Finally, the words twist themselves into something that seems more ordered but when she opens her mouth and replies it doesn't come out in English.]

Vy spaly protyahom tryvaloho chasu, sestra. [You slept for a long time, sister. There's still fear in her voice, a weakness and a vulnerability.]

Private

[exnihilo]

[Fortunately, Mira knows Ukranian - Mira herself barely knows how many languages she does speak, only that it's in the hundreds. She answers in the same tongue, her accent a little odd, but the words recognizable.]

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to.