starlightcalliope | We do what we must because we can

We do what we must because we can

A hooded figure sits atop a small dais and waits. Around her, a cave of ice expands into the void, harsh and bright and indifferent. Lava flows past her seat, patiently searing away the ice and the rock, carving streams through the ceiling like veins about to burst.

There is no way to measure the eternity she has spent here, waiting.

There have been visitors, pawns to move with her words and her stories to assure that her signal would arrive, but those have been few and far apart. Her own company has always had to be enough.

Which is not to say that the strange presence suddenly entering this dream bubble is of no interest, however. Not her signal, she knows without a doubt, nor the enemy, and she doesn't think there are any more game pieces to account for. So who? She raises her hollow eyes to meet his, and waits for his approach.

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"Whatever you can to bring her back," comes the answer without hesitation or doubt, as straightforward as a cherub may ever be. "I believe you must have the means, or will have. Otherwise you would not have found your way here." It is difficult to fathom but all signs point to the fact that he isn't from any universe in Paradox Space, or the denizens would have known, Echidna would have warned her. But it is impossible to think his presence here might not follow the same narrative laws as all creation.

Her clarity of expression and thought is short-lived, though. "Return her to the Void and her presence itself will fulfill her purpose." And then she is free to live as she pleases, but that's hardly relevant to anything. What matters is that events remain intact as they have been foretold, that everything every hero in every session has fought for is not rendered meaningless by a glitch. She rises to her feet and strides down the steps of the dais until she comes face to face with the stranger, the better to impress upon him her next words. She is a good bit taller than the child he knows, yet still finding herself looking up at him, fangs and cheek circles gleaming in the icy light of the cave. "When you have the choice to return her, don't hesitate. She doesn't belong with you. And I will not be forced to wait another eternity until her brother comes to slaughter me like all the other ghosts."

Edited 2015-12-07 22:00 (UTC)

The Doctor stands his ground, grudgingly meets her empty eyes. No, he doesn't have an argument to make. No, Callie doesn't belong with him, not really, she's right about that much, though maybe not the way she thinks. No one belongs with him, not ultimately, he's only a temporary steward, and that doesn't change even if his stewardship is over an utterly forsaken child on the other side of death. But looking after Callie is still the right thing, the only thing to have done. This ghost doesn't seem to understand, for all his backtalk and attitude he really had no way to immediately ferry her back to her void. Still doesn't. Isn't going to make it a priority. Who can blame him? He didn't ask to be indirectly responsible for the survival of this universe he knows almost nothing about. He was just a man investigating a spatio-temporal (and that's a conservative estimate) rift, when he found Callie in the woods. And now he's just a man having a dream. He didn't invite this. At least, not this specifically.

Why is there always a catch? Callie was supposed to be a consequence-free reversal of death, just one little token of justice, outweighing the sad realities of life not just in spite of her smallness and ultimate inconsequentiality, but paradoxically because of it. He can really only promise this being what he's already promised Callie, though something in this grim figure's bearing at least makes him consider honesty, even if it doesn't compel him to it. "I've already told her I'll help her get back to her universe if I can," when she's ready, when she feels capable, "And I know how she'll choose." It's not even a question. Her new life is anything but wasted on her. She deserves that and so much more. Braver than he'll ever be. "But why can't she live a little, first? You don't know me, but getting her back on time wouldn't be as difficult as you think. Basically a Sunday crossword, for me, if I'm really trying, if it's possible, as you say. Everybody wins." He looks at her, almost fearful. "Don't you want that, for her? Wouldn't you have wanted it, for you?" This is chalk and cheese, this is the limit of his ability to understand that which is alien, and he isn't sure at all.

He contradicts himself, claims he doesn't know how to return the signal, isn't sure if he can, but says it would be easy. If he is 'really trying', and that's the crux, isn't it, as expected. The fate of Paradox Space rests in the hands of his willingness, and he is here to be sent on the correct path. Not quite there yet, though, still wheedling and bargaining for her other self's, what, comfort? Life? Nothing of significance to the ultimate narrative she is striving to preserve.

Calliope is about to dismiss his questions accordingly, considers them meaningless, nonsensical even. But there is a plea in his voice that gives her pause, an appeal to her neglected imagination, stirring yet more feelings she thought she'd long forgotten. It's disquieting, chafing like an old cloak, but compellingly familiar nonetheless and she lowers her gaze, letting her hood obscure her features. "I used to wonder, once I had learned of her existence and her life, what it must be like..." she confesses, soft and distant. "And why I was punished for being strong, for doing what a cherub is meant to do. Her weakness earned her peace, for a time, while my efforts earned me martyrdom." Perhaps her other self's upbringing affords her the perspective to understand the justice in that, if there is any, but she has learned to settle for inevitability. Grim again, she adds, "But there is a limit to my imagination, and no comfort in futility."

That's not entirely truthful, though. Whatever limits to her understanding she may have, there is one thing she can always relate to. And so she does, suddenly and achingly, looking up at the stranger as a hesitant question escapes her, fragile like an icicle. "She isn't lonely anymore?"

The Doctor would hesitate to call Callie weak, though that's not an objection to raise at the moment. It's debatable, at the very least. Is adopting compassion against the nature of your species a weakness? Is it? With the knowledge of the consequences, it never is, but did she have that? Sometimes he does and sometimes not, but he's relieved to know that he usually chooses the same, whether ignorant of the outcome or spitefully aware. Callie, would she have gone forward with her 'weakness' and her friendships? He knows very little about her actual downfall, but he sees enough of himself in it. She gave out enough second chances that she deserves one or two herself. Was she weak? This ghost is altogether wrong; sometimes futility is the only comfort there is.

Still, he can see enough of the Callie he knows in this ghost to break his hearts. She understands more than her native love of rules would suggest. Just a little, just around the edges. That feeling of injustice, he could probably do a lot with, given a thousand years. Maybe it's for the best he won't be teaching her anything about justice on a less cosmic scale. He grieves anyway. Once again, any of his help is just too little and long past too late. Callie deserved and got better, so why doesn't she? Nothing could make Callie's resurrection meaningless, but how much comfort can that be, to this sad creature? He shouldn't have asked. He stares back at her, looking hurt, almost accused, before he breaks away, takes a tired seat with his back to the dais. It's as much running as he feels capable of, at the moment, though he wouldn't mind escaping entirely, if it were an option. "No," he says, with all the finality he can dredge up. "She isn't lonely anymore. She has friends. She's very well looked after." He scrubs at his face with his hands like that might break up these words enough to make them less potentially hurtful. "Safe, alive. No shackles. No murder. She's happy and free," moreso than this Calliope will ever be, can she even understand, or does she just feel an incomprehensible lack? "And I mean for her to stay that way."

In the wake of his sudden retreat, Calliope attempts something like empathy for the first time in her life and death. Although she can't fathom an absence of loneliness, doesn't understand friendship or being looked after or assured safety, she now sees her other self is allowed to consume the fruits of that existence into which she had been shaped. And while said existence, with all its pleasures and pains, will be barred from her comprehension forever, she knows that is a worthwhile thing to have. Even in the face of its ultimate irrelevancy to the greater good, perhaps. "I think I would have wanted that," she muses quietly, answering his earlier question half to herself.

But where does that leave her? This stranger holds the key to her fulfillment, too, and his final assurance hangs in the air like a threat. "I won't be free until she returns," she reminds him, the realization sharpening her voice to a bitter point. "If she lives now, she may die without ever serving her true purpose. Am I to wait another eternity, no longer even certain of my ultimate fate? What makes her more deserving of freedom than me, in your eyes?" It's more accusation than question, uttered at his indifferent back with a degree of fierceness that surprises even herself. Paradox Space can't be held accountable for her suffering, her unjust failure followed by endless empty waiting, and she had accepted that. Both her selves had sacrifices to make, both of them had roles to play. But now all that is in the hands of this stranger, this meddler, who presumes to risk all of creation for her weaker self's happiness, and his judgement can be questioned.

For God's sake, Doctor, when will you learn not to ask? He sidles guiltily past that question as well as the voice it's asked in. He's always the meddler, who should know better but somehow never does. Poor Calliope, doomed to mirror him just like her other self, but there's absolutely no comfort in that kinship now, not in her bitter hurt and futile questions. Oh, not all of them, some of what she says is as level-headed and practical as ever. Nothing in life is free, not even cosmic orphans. But the real question is the last one, he can safely ignore everything else, of course the fate of a universe and a sad ghost rests on his ability to return one child to her proper place in the gears of creation, what else, sure, why not. It's her final demand that really hits home. Doesn't she deserve, just as much? Can't reality ever offer any reward for the strife it imposes? He never wanted a mirror for this. On some level, he's exceptionally impressed, relieved even, at just how bad it hurts to have one.

Because the answer is no. It's always no, no matter how deserving she is or he isn't. His hopes are treacherous things to teach and offer. Beautiful and right, but on a level that doesn't matter. Because nothing in life is free, there ain't no justice, there's no such thing as a free lunch, whichever old timey science fiction aphorism is at the top of the pile. Because only an idiot believes otherwise. Even though all those lines of thought are barely the tiniest scratches on the surface of the universe's impartiality. "Why ask me? I met her dead in a dream, and she turned up alive on my doorstep." Well, the doorstep of a space-and-time ship belonging to an earlier incarnation of himself, so really it should be expected he was working through some things. But why complicate the issue, which is that he didn't save her then and can't spare her now. If it had been you, it would have been exactly the same, he doesn't say, because even idiots get it right sometimes and he knows or at least suspects that there's no comfort in that thought for this duty-bound creature. At last he's been dragged around to honesty, internally kicking and screaming all the way. "I've already promised her I'll bring her back," he says, exasperation poorly covering all the awful realness of pain in his heart, but still such an improvement over cold resignation. "I promise you, too. And this isn't the first time the fate of the world has rested on some decision of mine." Maybe what makes her more deserving is that she could accept freedom, for a time. Could this Calliope? Is that what makes people undeserving, some inner capacity to bear what must be borne? Or is that just something that people tell themselves for a consolation prize? It's not much of a consolation, if so, not to him and unlikely to be for her either, here, alone. "If the only fairness there is is what we make, would it make the world a fairer place, to swap your freedom for hers?" It doesn't matter, of course. "It will be her choice, to go back. I can't take that away."

It is a particularly harsh kind of disappointment to realize that the stranger, much like Paradox Space, has no good answer to offer her. No longer is her martyrdom solely a narrative inevitability, someone is now responsible for her stay in limbo, for her release from it, but still there is no justification, no reason given that consoles her. All he does is deflect, trying to shake off the responsibility that some glitch in reality has placed upon him, as though it mattered to her which version of her had been taken. She understands perfectly well that it hadn't been his choice or doing. But correcting the mistake and thus granting her freedom very much is.

It's infuriating and it hurts in ways she hasn't felt for an eternity, since the day the worthlessness of all her efforts had dawned on her, to be denied justice once more. He promises and claims experience with the role of a hero like it's supposed to reassure her, when he may well be a Bard, equally likely to save or doom a universe. It's clear he is affected in some way, but he hasn't offered anything new, nothing to make her think the fate of Paradox Space and her own is safe in his hands. "You know how she'll choose, you said," she points out between agitated flicks of her tongue. "You also said you can return her if you try. Will it be her choice, or yours?" Tired of speaking to his back, she moves around to face him again, allowing no escape from her anger and determination. "Will your sympathy for her grant her brother his final victory? If friendship is to risk everything that countless generations of players have fought to preserve, it truly is a wretched thing."

There, now she understands perfectly. That's as good a definition for friendship as any, bizarre game language aside, and it's undoubtedly more wretched than she can fully understand, in this incarnation, but at least it's a start. He's tempted to say as much, too, but that would be just as confusing for her, no use in ranting at a ghost, as grade-A Scottish as that would likely be. And as tired and frustrated as he feels, he isn't quite to the point of antagonising her deliberately. She didn't ask for this, either. She's right to be angry. It's an improvement over her eerie cosmic detachment, for sure. How can he possibly convince Calliope that taking these kinds of sentimental risks, preferably with an entire universe at stake, is precisely the way to knock an impartially harsh reality down a few pegs? It's a conviction one either carries in their bones or doesn't. May as well set out to teach the real Callie to make lasagna. Without any candy substitutions.

She likely doesn't want any philosophical reassurances that the work he's doing couldn't be more diametrically opposed to her brother's victory. And he's not one hundred percent on the unphilosophical specifics, it would start off with 'I have a time machine...' and just roll downhill from there. It's tempting to start thinking about those specifics, just so he can stop thinking about his current circumstances, but Calliope would probably be less than appreciative of a speculative lecture. What else can he appeal to? "If this universe is worth saving from her brother, then Callie's worth a little friendship, risk or not. When she wants to play whatever role she has here, I'll make sure she's there on time. That's what I can do, that's all I can do. Keep her safe, and let her see a little of what she's supposed to help save." There are rules, damn it. But what else is there to say? Your freedom is important, please stay on the line. How long has she been in this stupid lair? Longer than he's been letting people make sacrifices? "You'll get your freedom, too. I promise." Always making promises to these green children, but he really means this one. He'd do more if he could, but they've all been dealt just a really stupid hand, and this ghost probably cares about meaningless apologies as much as she cares about friendship. He'll spare her that, out of an almost military respect. "It's wretched, but it isn't weakness. You, and her brother, are wrong. I can promise you that, too."

Promises. They're meaningful, they're binding, but she isn't so sure, with this stranger. He is too alien, too out of place in her cosmos, how is she to know how steadfast he is, or how capricious, if she doesn't know his role nor title? If there is no telling what his part in the story will turn out to be? He has the means to return her other self, that much is certain, so perhaps he can also keep her safe and deliver her to the right place in the Void. And perhaps he can't. Perhaps his selfish friendship will doom a creation he has no rights to. It's this uncertainty that burns the tranquility she had reached so long ago, like the lava flows through ice and just as painful.

Calliope stares at him for a long wordless moment, a scowl of anger, frustration, and fear. A soft, strained clacking emerges from her fangs as she considers, tries desperately to think of another move to make, another way to wring certainty and justice from him. But in his eyes she sees a weariness and timeless age so familiar, she almost doesn't recognize it on someone else's face. And then she understands, his place on the board is as immovable as her own. She has lost an impossible challenge once more.

The rims of her empty eyes glisten wetly before she turns away, gazing up at the dais where she had met the mother of monsters and received her purpose. But there is no one there to guide her now. "The only thing that made eternity bearable was the immutability of my agreement with Echidna," she admits, barely even addressing the stranger. "The promise that I would be free to make a difference to Paradox Space despite my failure, if only I waited long enough." He made her that promise, too, but he is no mythical denizen. Briefly, incongruously, she wonders if her other self finds it easier to believe his promises. Yet another peace she will never know. "When you look at her, will you remember this?" she asks and turns back to him, cold and harsh and despair refined to a point. "Will you remember that you hold the fate of a reality in your hands that was never meant to be yours?" She doesn't care how many worlds have depended on his judgement before; he has never even set foot into this one, has never braved any of its challenges, no innumerable ghosts of his form the foundation of a successful timeline. Paradox Space has its own heroes, and he has stolen one of them off the board. "You must assure her safety."

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We do what we must because we can

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