@keith.kogane

[secondnature]

So. Some of you know this already, but Ciri's gone. She hadn't come home for a while. She was there with us when we first got into that accident a couple months ago. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I hope she comes back to us.

Until then, Ciri was interested in making sure we were all on the same page. Whether we like it or not, we're a team. We have a lot of the same goals. Some people want to help this world and others want to get home, but I think we all know the answers surrounding us can be found in the same place.

The idea was that we would meet once a month to touch base. And maybe get to know one another better. We'd do it outside of the safehouse so that it'd be our own thing. I think we decided on a buffet. But I'm not sure. Somewhere more private might be better. We could always start somewhere with food and find somewhere else to touch base.

If anyone has some ideas, let me know. I think these meetings can be important. If nothing else, we'll always know that we're not alone.

[And somewhere in there, Keith managed not to write "I don't know how to gather people for a party or make reservations or any of that because I'm bad at it." It was a true effort on his part.]

Comments

[secondnature]

No one's dead.

[Repeating himself because the alternative is to acknowledge that most people do not return.]

[ofobedience]

I'll take that as a no.

[secondnature]

I don't know who you are, but I know I won't think you're dead if you disappear suddenly.

So.

There.

[ofobedience]

So there? All right, then. Though really you're welcome to think of me however you like.

I'd prefer to know the truth of it, however. And if not dead, isn't it most likely those who have vanished are now in the hands of our captors?

[In truth, being held in captivity and experimented on might be easier for him to cope with than their current situation. But of course he doesn't say that.]

[secondnature]

Why wouldn't they be dropped off again? They never are. Not afterward. Not when they come back.

And some have. Like it or not, your idea doesn't hold up.

[ofobedience]

Like has nothing to do with it. It only seemed like the logical conclusion. If there are some who never return then they must have gone somewhere, and who's to say those who don't aren't in the hands of our captors?

It's a matter of preparation for all possible eventualities.

[secondnature]

It stops being logical if you have to make up reasons for the exceptions.

[ofobedience]

I used past tense. And as I say, one ought, always, to prepare for the worst.

[secondnature]

Right.

Because there's always a risk of someone dying.

[ofobedience]

The chances are fairly high of it, in my experience. Though I suppose this world may be different.

[secondnature]

I was making fun of what you had to say.

[ofobedience]

[The truth is, he doesn't understand what he's missed, where the 'fun' is supposed to lie, but chooses to say nothing of that.]

And here was I, only relaying my concern. And when I chose not to make fun of your tea party, at that.

[secondnature]

People are always dying. It's called getting old.

[ofobedience]

I can't say I've ever known anyone long enough for them to grow old. And yet most of them are long dead, regardless.

[secondnature]

Look, there's a risk of us dying whether we're here or not, but let's not just assume that's where someone goes because they disappear. That's all.

[ofobedience]

What optimism.

[secondnature]

It's not optimism!

[ofobedience]

No? What is it, then.

[secondnature]

Do you assume everyone from your world is dead just because you don't know that they're alive?

[ofobedience]

Most of them were dead before I left.

[secondnature]

[Way to kill his amazing argument.]

What about the ones who weren't?

[ofobedience]

[He's good at killing things!]

Hard to say, isn't it, when I'm worlds away from them. They could be alive, they could be dead.

[Except Mother of course-- it's beyond him to consider it. But alas for Keith, it's not something he knows how to put into words. Wouldn't want to.]

[secondnature]

That's not what I asked.

Are you assuming they're dead? Like you're telling me to do with the people who left.

[ofobedience]

The situations are hardly similar. They weren't captured and somehow transported to an alien world, by some unknown enemy who's motives we can't discern.

Besides, I'm not telling you to do anything.

[secondnature]

No, it's close enough. If whoever brought us here wanted us dead, we'd be dead already.