Homeless - voice testing sort of!

[unaided]

I guess I should be flattered that you like me enough to push past being too shy to come here. This isn't so hard now is it? It's a little easier this way for me, too. There's something I think we need to talk about.

I know you've been trying to rationalize what you read about me, but try not to get ahead of yourself. I really don't want you to be disappointed if you end up wrong about this one.

It might even be better to just not think about it until you can afford the next one or two. We haven't been together long, but I know that if you keep thinking about it you wont be able to let it go.

I wont leave before you can figure it out.

I think I've disappointed enough people, don't you?

Comments

ffff oh yes a Lucy!

[ghostintheanimus]

AL-288-1, 1974

<sup>there aren't diamonds in my sky anymore

disappointed isn't the word</sup>

Incredibly new at that! And awestruck by your comment (also a bit panicked), you're brilliant.

[unaided]

Clay...

You're right. It doesn't even come close, does it?

Aw, you flatter me <3 And 16 is the worst greeter ever

[ghostintheanimus]

Don't. [He holds his hand up, warding.] Names make hooks. Set a variable value, that's safer. Call it Sixteen, for old time's sake.

You never know who's listening and looking.

[his eyes sharpen, with a shadow of fear]

Are you looking for me? Did they send you?

It is a special "welcome to the fandom!". And I'm just honest. Nervousness does that to me.

[unaided]

[She'll give him that. Like or not, maybe she owes him this much. No, she definitely owes him more.]

Alright... Sixteen, then.

Nobody sent me, not to look for you or for anyone else.

[She would promise, but she doesn't expect to be believed.]

Don't be scared! Okay, with him, maybe a little scared.

[ghostintheanimus]

[That's better. 16 breathes out.]

[He eyes her, looks around her and behind her. He stands ready for fight or flight.]

Say I believe you.

[He keeps careful track of the spaces between what she doesn't say.]

Why ^are you here?

The scared will probably go away when I can afford to buy Brotherhood. Probably.

[unaided]

[She'll stay still for him, hands at her sides and everything.]

Even I'm not sure why I'm here.

[Never have more true words been spoken. That is she knows she's supposed to be dead but that's it.]

I wish I knew.

[ghostintheanimus]

[That helps a little. Still, he keeps his distance.]

What do you know. I just showed up out of nowhere, body and all. Looks like we have a couple things in common.

[Including the dead part.]

[unaided]

[At this point she knows better than to push it, so distance it is.]

It looks like we do.

[...but now um...]

Do you know why we're here?

[Or why they're not dead, but one step at a time.]

[ghostintheanimus]

Playthings. We're someone's toys, picked off a shelf somewhere because they like us.

That's the price to live again.

[unaided]

To get a second chance at life, I could think of worse prices to pay.

[ghostintheanimus]

Life as ^they want, under their rules.

[16's voice gains a frantic edge as he starts pacing]

How is it different from Abstergo? It's the machine again. I'm back in.

[unaided]

[For him, that's sort of what she meant by worse. But she can't really do anything for him can she? Not now...]

[But she does manage to stop herself from calling him by his name.]

Sixteen, this isn't the animus. Abstergo can't touch you anymore.

[And if the one who picked her up is any indication...]

The person who brought you here will [probably] treat you better than I did.

[She can hope. And regret, but yes. Hope.]

[ghostintheanimus]

How do you k̡̝̜̜̟̈͋ͮͬͦ̄͆ͪ͝n̟̯̄̿ͫͧ̊̀͠ȯ̸̢̼̼͍̭͕̯̮̰̿ͮ͋ͥ̃ͅw?

[muttering rapidly] _{Over and over it happens but I can't learn to expect that the bow in my hand will melt away or the gaslights will twist away and turn florescent. There's the open night around me and I'm running, I don't know why I wasn't before, I don't know it's a lie until my face smashes into the wall. It would be funny if it weren't for how much it hurts and all the blood, and that's when I get the idea...}

[His eyes snap back in focus and he stops pacing abruptly to look at her]

You can't trust anybody who's in control.

People love a tragedy.

Even my friends say you're amazing.

[unaided]

[She may be a little shaken. This is mostly her fault, after all.]

I don't know. Maybe it's just what I want to believe.

[You deserve better than how she treated you, and nothing will convince her otherwise.]

*blush*

[ghostintheanimus]

"Want." Oh, that's a dangerous thing. Don't do that.

[She had a job just like he did. It wasn't her plan.]

[his voice softens.] It's not so bad. I'm not alone anymore.

Where are you going?

I admit it took three of us to puzzle out your first comment, all with glee.

[unaided]

I'll keep that in mind.

[But she probably wont stop wanting things to be better.]

[She'll smile a little. Good. Other than here she's alone, but that's a brighter thought about what he's going through.]

She hasn't told me yet. I'm not even sure I'll be going anywhere.

YES I am REQUIRING TEAMS

[ghostintheanimus]

I've been hanging around a little place. Not a lot of rules, nobody telling you what to do. It's over on the old ship but we'll skitter off with the rest of the rats soon enough. There're some familiar faces.

[two Lucys would break his brain beautifully]

Purgatory's no place for the living.

It was glorious. And they've stalked this ever since.

[unaided]

I'll look into it. She was never against that place, maybe I can even convince her it's a good idea.

[If her player gets over being petrified. It's something to work toward.]

[Two Lucys would probably break her brain, too.]

Even if maybe they deserve it?

[She's seen that opinion around before...]

Hi, threadstalkers! I love threadstalkers!

[ghostintheanimus]

It's like the Leap. You've gotta jump sooner or later.

[and trust that there's hay underneath]

[brain-breaking for everyone!]

Easy on the flagellation or Boniface IX will burn you at the stake.

I think they're more shy than I am. Also goodness, now I've gotten lost on Wikipedia.

[unaided]

And have some faith that something's there to catch you.

[It could be flowers. At least that would smell nice.]

[It's a brain-breaking party.]

I'll make sure I stay out of Rome.

[But she'll smile a bit.]

Sometimes it's a little hard not to wonder if those people are right, but I'll be okay.

[She wont even be burned. Scout's honor! Or something like that.]

Ever since I picked him up Wikipedia has been my best friend

[ghostintheanimus]

If there isn't, you'll only know for a second.

[16 is so good at being comforting.]

[Like when he went on his mission, young and proud and never looking back, and then there was nothing to stop his fall...

[16's not quite used to having a heart of his own again yet, let alone how it clenches to see her smile like that.]

...yeah. You will.

[He knows at least that she can take care of herself.]

I can imagine. It was my best friend while playing AC2.

[unaided]

Maybe there's some merit to the phrase "look before you leap".

[Never mind that she knows sometimes there's no choice. Most of the time, really.]

[She can take care of herself...but that's just about it.]

...and you?

[She wants you to be okay. Maybe this time she can actually help with that. Wishful thinking?]

[ghostintheanimus]

Aw, but that's no fun. [and you might not like what you see.]

I
'm
.
.
.

[16 touches his chest, his arm. A thoughtful look comes over his face.]

[he sounds rather surprised to think of it.] I'm okay.

[unaided]

Maybe I'm meant to be the boring one. [Forewarned sounds better than running blindly.]

[At first she's still and patient, more than willing to wait for an answer.]

[It's when he does answer that some of her tension seems to disappear, and her smile is a relieved one.]

Good. I'm glad to hear that.

[ghostintheanimus]

[he smiles without quite realizing he can do that]

I even ran into Desmond. [for a second he sounds like an excited kid.] It's incredible to talk to somebody in the present, without a code wheel, in person even.

You know.
In one piece.

[unaided]

[It's good to see him smile, it really is.]

[...but ah...Desmond... no. Focus on the here and now.]

I can only imagine.

[How his experience must be, it sounds like meeting Desmond in person was good for him.]

Did you two get along?

[There's almost a teasing quality to her voice, and only if you know what to listen for. But the question is valid, as she's seen Desmond and Shaun. Entertaining sometimes.]

[ghostintheanimus]

[He didn't do that much at Abstergo, unless it was at the ghosts. He knows there must be endless reels of security footage showing him in animated discussions with people who'd been dead for hundreds of years.]

[16 sees something pass over her face, just for a second.]

[Desmond is his roommate and doesn't even complain that much about code locks showing up on the refrigerator.]

Yeah. He's....

[16 scratches the back of his head]

Did you know there's such thing as good people?

[unaided]

[Security footage that Lucy's quite familiar with. It's nice to be on the receiving end of one of Clay's smiles though.]

[The something isn't likely to come back, though there is a shadow of guilt there when she answers his question.]

I thought I did before. But no, not really. Not until I met Desmond anyway.

[Because if Desmond is anything, he's a good person. She was sure Clay was too...but she didn't get the chance to get to know him the same way she had with Desmond.]

[ghostintheanimus]

[and she only sort of looks like a 13th-century noblewoman right now.]

[He's not going to chase anybody else's sorrows. He has plenty borrowed as it is.]

[Clay looks at her with a sudden ferocity.]

Neither of our sides is as pretty as we'd like, are they? The freedom fighters and the noble knights, both run by nasty, petty- no, that's wrong, Bill's the opposite of that, he sees the whole picture and does whatever it takes to get the pieces in place.

The only side I'm on is Desmond's.

[After being so many people, including some real bastards, 16 doesn't know what good or bad looks like from the inside anymore.]

Oh that's it I am so buying Brotherhood today, money be damned. I'm too impatient.

[unaided]

[Well, sort of is better than absolutely.]

[She'll keep hers inside, expression be damned. She kept control of herself...for the most part for a lot longer than a conversation of this length, after all.]

Neither side of this is really perfect, no... and I guess I didn't get to see William the way you did.

[Was that her fault? No... she didn't think so anyway.]

But I don't blame you for being on Desmond's side. I think it's a good choice.

[He's better than both sides, isn't he? Maybe she doesn't think she can make the same choice right now, but that doesn't mean her words were any less sincere.]

Hooray! I'm a bad influence!

[ghostintheanimus]

Things repeat, like the Fibonacci Sequence. Add this and that and get the next, different but with a little bit of both.

[gives his head a hard shake from one side to the other, makes a winding gesture in the air as if trying to winnow out the right words] Dropped in enemy territory and left because you might come in handy one day. Planted like a ^claymore mine and if you go rusty well there's always more where that came from.

[quiet and still for a moment]

[then, cheerfully] If he doesn't make it we're all dead anyway.

Bad for my money. Good for my sanity! Or...maybe babbling at myself on Plurk isn't sane.

[unaided]

[She'll be quiet as he speaks, at least for a while. What he says is the complete truth. She could even see it from the other side, from William's side. But she didn't have to like it.]

[Still, she manages to keep her voice even, not indicating any negative emotions she may be feeling.]

Exactly. If it still works, then it was worth planting it, but if it's broken then it's an expendable loss.

[And if it's tampered with...well, it's dangerous. But now there's no point in being bitter over what has happened, and she even manages a bit of a smile at his cheerful tone.]

If that's how it is, death may get a little crowded. [Not that people don't die every day, but that isn't exactly the point.]

Ahh who needs sanity anyway

[ghostintheanimus]

[He's not any more thrilled than she is.]

[speaks straight out for once] We both got used.

_{[used up, in his case]}

[But why should 16 be mad about the past? He has so many.]

Whether it was worth it or not, whether it mattered - we know who that relies on.

[what matters is he managed to leave something before he died. That's good. That's proof.]

[he lightens up a little] That's why we have to stop it. We want to stay special, don't we?

Boring people? Sanity is fairly boring anyway. So I suppose this helps my INsanity for the better!

[unaided]

[She'll just nod. There isn't much else to say, is there? They both did get used. Even Desmond was being used. None of them could escape that, now could they?]

We do. It may not be much, but now all we can do is hope for the best.

[At least hoping was all that she could do, now that she was dead as well. Clay meanwhile had done something.]

It isn't as lonely as I thought it would be. I'm okay with staying special.