eachdraidh | second trial. | voice (unlocked)

Entry tags:

second trial. | voice (unlocked)

[ thomas has not been a common presence on the network since his arrival to the drabwurld; gaining the ability to talk telepathically with the people who've been close to him have made it fairly easy for him to communicate without it. but this time, thomas addresses the network at large, although only with a (perhaps semi-familiar) voice.

he sounds uneasy. tired. ]

Do any of you have nightmares? How do you deal with them?

[ it's a stab at anonymity, mostly because he doesn't want to show his face, but the storms currently raging over head have not made his life any easier. thomas sleeps fitfully, twenty minutes at a time, wakes up screaming. no one's going to see his face as an effect of that. eventually, he tacks on a soft--]

Thanks. [ --and the line goes dead. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

No, it is something we have where I'm from. A medicine that the doctors often give you if you tell them your mind won't rest, and for all sorts of other reasons. [And it terrifies Dorian, the things that doctors do to people whose minds aren't well, so he never tells anyone.

That is probably why he hesitates a little before he answers Thomas's kindness.] I . . . I wouldn't like to say that I have more than the ordinary amount. But I don't think there ever is anything distracting enough.

Is there a song you like? If you get someone to play it for you, it might help you rest.

[ the way he speaks of that sounds bad, and thomas, frankly, has enough experience with bad medicine to last a lifetime. he's had quite enough people wanting to mess with his brain, and some kind of medicine doing to him what the WICKED doctors were planning to do...well, he'd rather just self-medicate somehow. he makes a thoughtful noise, pondering. ] It sounds like something we should be keeping out of here, then, just in case. I was wondering if there might be a magical cure or something, but--I'm still trying to deal with the fact that there's so much magic here.

[ thomas pauses and considers that. ] I...don't know. I can't remember ever listening to any music, so...

It is a strange thing, isn't it? It reminds me of a fairytale.

[Oh. That seems truly sad.] If I had a piano, I would play for you. You might be able to request musicians from this world, or call on others who might have their instruments.

Yeah. [ something like that. thomas had only known science for most of his life. science helped him talk to teresa, science moved him from place to place via flat-trans. it wasn't all that different, really, but thomas still preferred the plausibility of science, the predictable way he could make things work if he followed a pattern. science wasn't volatile. science just worked.

he makes a noncommittal noise on his end--it's no big deal, really. thomas can't remember anything like that and there was definitely no time for it once he'd arrived to the glade. ] Maybe I'll do that. I guess you can't knock it until you try it.

It may not mean the same thing to you. [Dorian's fingers are free, the locket on his table. He can look down on them and see his mother's hands, and this boy won't know what he is wishing for.] But I always liked music, for the sound promised that whatever I faced, I was not alone.

[ ducking down a little, thomas smiles, just faintly. sure, it doesn't mean the same thing--he doesn't know anything about music--but he can think of something similar. can think of minho, clapping his hand on his shoulder. newt's laugh until the end, his smile. in the end finding that thing that helps you face the dark things in your life is what could really fix it, isn't it?

idly, he strokes his fingers through the fur of the fox sitting at his side as he speaks, voice fond. ] That definitely makes sense.

[ eventually, he adds, just a little awkwardly: ] If...you ever get a hold of a piano, I'd like to hear it.

I would like that. [He tries to say it more confidently, as if to compensate for Thomas's awkwardness by trying to mask his own. He even smiles a little.] Might I ask a name, to know for whom I would be playing?

I am Dorian Gray.

Thomas. [ bless you, dorian. thomas is not good with people and it's already starting to show. the smile's pretty obvious in his voice, too, even if its faint. ] Thomas...Edison, I guess. Or Murphy. Either one.

[ that part of the name wasn't his. "thomas edison" was a WICKED scientist and engineer. thomas murphy was an escaped munie pretending to hide from WICKED. he felt more comfortable with murphy than he ever had with edison, but more than anything else, just thomas was the person who he was today, good decisions and bad and all. ]

Oh! Like the inventor. What do you prefer? [Dorian is getting better at remembering to ask that, now; there are so many different customs here that he realizes he cannot just address a person by their surname until they were on familiar enough terms to refer to one another by their Christian names.

(He doesn't want Buffy to compare him to an old lady again.)]

Yeah. [ he winces a little, lucky for the video not to be on. it's not his name and never will be his name, but thomas was the one he owned. tommy, tom too, but those are special.

he smiles a little, covering the wince. ] Just Thomas is fine.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only