If you’re new to the Great Game, please have a quick look at the blurb to your left, where you’ll find a short catch-up introduction!
She shudders, and when she speaks again, her voice is low and sad. “Eadida was a lovely, kind girl. She was my friend. It was just… hard. I thought I had this place down, but every step you take, you seem to make it freakier. It’s wearing me down. I’m not cold like you.”
Cold? That’s an uncomfortable assessment. “I…” What the hell do you say?
“You were going to mash her hand off with a log.” It comes out as almost a whisper.
Well, yes. I was. I shrug uncomfortably, and say, “It’s hardly for my own damn pleasure.”
She laughs quietly and bitterly, something between a chuckle and a sob. “You know what I am? I make jewellery. Necklaces, pendants, bangles. The Innsmouth stuff goes pretty well. So does the tacky Liberty crap. God. How am I supposed to deal with this?”
“One step at a time,” I say. “Bit by bit, without thinking too hard about what might happen next. Why don’t you tell me about your work. Do you have a shop?” Massinisa, over by the buffet still, nods approvingly, and starts picking at something from a plate.
She shakes her head. “Hell no. I wish. I sell my pieces through craft stores and little galleries around the city. Commissions too, when I’m lucky. It’s not easy, but I’m keeping going.”
“What about…” Wait. She said she was from ‘93. No eBay. “Um, corporate work?”
“Like mass-produced lapel pins or something?”
“Sure.”
Alice shrugs. “Sometimes. But that kind of work pays rock-bottom, and they always behave like they fucking own you.”
“Yeah, don’t they just.”
She sighs unhappily. “I miss my life. It was nice. I didn’t know how lucky I was.” She seems more pensive than despairing, more herself again. “How about you? How did you get so that smashing a girl’s hand off is no big deal?”
“Does it really matter?”
Alice shrugs. “You’re right, I don’t want to know.”
“I’m going to help you through this, OK? That’s what’s important.”
She looks at me directly. “Why? You don’t even know me.”
"Why? ...
- ... We have a deal, remember?" (38%)
- ... You were kind to a lost new arrival." (31%)
- ... I guess I've just got a bad dose of hero complex." (13%)
- ... Because it's the right thing to do." (13%)
- ... It must be those gorgeous eyes of yours." (5%)
Voting Closes at: October 19, 2009 @ 6:00 pm
Loading ...Today’s picture is Laura’s Awesome Cthulhu Necklace by Cryptonaut