Death, from different perspectives

Grace
Studying in the library and working in her office certainly is nice and all. However, since returning from Bastion's world, it's pretty much all Grace has been doing. Sure Kalen and Elijah have been around for company, but at least one of those visits was exhausting.

As much as she values time by herself, she also values friends. And one friend in particular, she hasn't seen since said friend was burned to death by fighter jets.

Notes left on Ginger from Lena about how she was okay is one thing. Actually seeing Lena alive and in the (non-singed) flesh again is another. And so, Grace has gone and done some inviting. She's quite sure Lena is welcome at The Warehouse, and if she isn't, Kalen has some explaining to do.

The Warehouse is actually a Warehouse and Office (the two buildings are separate). And the warehouse proper is a strange combination of empty space, shooting range, storage, and comfortable couches. It's also only one-story, which is convenient for a Grace whose body is still getting used to the whole standing and walking thing. So it's the Warehouse that Grace invites Lena to visit.

She'll be waiting with freshly-brewed coffee. It is non-standard, non-Starbucks, all French pressed and deliciously full of caffeine.

Lena
Last time that Grace saw Lena, she was rushing out into a village in an act that would ultimately be her death.  The last time Lena saw Grace, she was comatose under Luke's care.  The Ecstatic had told Luke under no uncertain terms to take care of them and, when she was able to, headed back to her hotel.  It wasn't for a few days; Luke had insisted she stay and rest at least that long.  But she had left as soon as she could because she hates just lying there under someone's medical care.

She shows up at the building when Grace calls her, stepping to the outside door.  Lena in the dreamscape was free and...well, ecstatic.  Enjoying the experiences.  A little carefree even, even while she kept her focus on finding the others.  The real-world Lena is...mostly how Grace would remember real-world Lena.  Friendly, warm, reserved.  Here, she has disease again.  She can't forget that, ever.

But she's smiling still as she steps back, after she knocks on the door.  She's dressed in a simple black tank top and jeans, with a pair of sandals strapped to her feet with her hair pulled back into a ponytail.  As she waits for the door to open she looks around the street inquisitively, taking it in before looking back to the door.

Grace
[Awareness???]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )

Grace
Grace is already at the door when she senses the dying heartbeat of Lena. So those knocks are answered a second later by the door creaking open, and Grace cursing at it (because it is steel and seems so much heavier than she remembers). She's wearing jeans and a black t-shirt displaying a penguin wearing glasses. [https://img0.etsystatic.com/013/0/6153077/il_570xN.437331640_i30b.jpg]

She's also wearing a giant smile.

"Lena. So good to see you," she says, and that phrase is not the meaningless 'so good to see you' that people say without really thinking about it. Grace means those words.

It's good to see you, because the last time... well...

"Hey, I've got coffee," she says, stepping aside to let Lena in. "So you really haven't been here before? I thought Kalen brought everyone to this place at some time or other."

Lena
Grace's smile gets one in return, and she flicks a cigarette away just as she hears the door start to open.  So good to see you, Grace says, and while Lena doesn't give a verbal You too it's evident in every motion, her expression and her eyes.  If she were the touching sort she'd be hugging Grace, but...no, not now.

"Hey, you," is what Grace gets instead.  The smile becomes a but of a grin when the Virtual Adept says she has coffee and Lena steps inside as Grace moves to the side, looking around.  "Well, you know how to get a girl indoors, that's for sure.  This girl, at least."

She looks around the inside of the place, taking it in.  All the details of the interior get a quick passover, then she shakes her head.  She knows that means there's a little delay between Grace's question and her response, but it's just time after all.  "Not yet, no.  But then I'm not exactly good at inviting myself over to places.  Or, you know, taking them up on invitations as a rule.  You know me."

She looks back at Grace, appraisingly.  "How are you feeling?  After everything."

Grace
It doesn't look like a Grace kind of place, really. The furnishings are all that of a Hermetic, because trusting Grace with any kind of interior decorating will probably only grant you a shrug and a plastic lamp from Craigslist that doesn't match and why should it? It casts light well enough, right?

No, there are maps on the walls here, and matching upholstered overstuffed chairs and couches surrounding a table of solid wood. And on that table, the coffee along with a tray of random stuff. There's rock candy stirrers and caramels and a little silver pot that surely holds cream and a shaker of cinnamon and there are mugs on the side -- Kalen must have taught her how to do this whole hostess thing by example.

She leads Lena over to the table, and the way she's walking is at least one answer to the question of how she's feeling. She's no longer tripping over the door frames or having terrible fights with her legs over how many stairs are possible to take in one day, but Grace looks tired when she walks anymore, and flumps down in her chosen chair like she's had a hard day.

"Drained. Getting better though," she says, and wafts a hand in the air as if trying to speak using some form of undiscovered sign language. "Mentally.... physically... it was a lot to go through. I'm sure you understand."

Lena
There's a knowing smile when Grace says I'm sure you understand.  Because she does.  No one but them could say that.  Even Kalen, Sid and Ian, who had their own experience...they won't understand the experience these two and Patience went through.  It's entirely different.  And of course, they were under longer.  Grace and Patience longer even than Lena.

"Oh yeah, I get it."  She moves to take a seat, ignoring the coffee for now.  Grace is more what she's concerned about right now.  "I've been out longer than you guys, and if I'm being honest I still wake up expecting to be in a tree village or ancient Rome.  I'm sure you guys are going through the same."

Grace
"Yeah, or in space. I still think a lot about that place," Grace says, and then realizes that Lena was never there for that part. "After Sulis, we landed on a space station. We dropped into this club in outer space with a kind of music I've never heard before playing in my head. Patience was passed out, and all I could think of was that the whole experience was wasted on me. You should have been there."

Grace picks up her own mug of coffee, one she'd prepared before Lena arrived, and takes a gulp of the highly-sugared concoction.

"How are you doing, after the whole... Well, after dying I guess?"

Lena
She looks wistful at the idea of missing a place with an entirely different kind of music, but that slight melancholy is overrun with an affectionate amusement at Grace's statement that it was wasted.  "I wish I was, believe me.  But it wasn't wasted on you.  I don't believe there's a such thing as a wasted experience.  Maybe you didn't get anything from the club atmosphere or the music, but you were there.  It left its mark on you, and you on it.  That's important.  You were supposed to be there, and you were.  And me..."

Yes, her.  Lena's never been good at talking about herself and she hesitates her, for a moment.  But to her credit, it's not that much longer than just the moment.  And then she shrugs.  "I don't know, honestly."  She says it sincerely, even as she's smiling a bit.  Like she doesn't know if its good or bad, how she's doing, but whichever it is she accepts it.  Who's she going to hide it from, herself?

"Can I tell you a secret?" she asks, and then continues.  She doesn't expect that Grace would say No and she intends to express what she's saying anyway.  "I kept talking about how it was all just a simulation, it wasn't real and all that...but I wasn't sure.  Everything there was so real.  Even magickal Patterns were legitimate.  Not just programs, none of it.  And I know that there are supposedly some spiritual realms like that, but I kept wondering in the back of my mind, 'what if all this is real?'  Like, this world real, in some sort of bizarre magickal way?"

She sets that there, leaves it hanging a moment, then shrugs a bit.  "So...yeah.  I don't know how you guys got out, but...I thought that was actually it for me.  And you know what's kind of wierd?  Don't take this the wrong way, but I was kinda glad that it was how I went out.  I was a little disappointed when I woke up.  Not much, just a tiny bit."

Grace
Grace just nods in agreement as Lena talks about the simulation being real. It was real. That's the whole point of Reality 2.0. It's there in the name. And Reality 1.0 is just as simulated.

But when Lena goes on, and speaks of being disappointed to wake up, Grace arches an eyebrow over her coffee.

"I thought you were really dead too. I'm not disappointed at all that you woke up. It wasn't easy out there, thinking you were gone for good."

She smirks, though, and points to Lena with her coffee hand. "And, you know, it's never 'just' programs. I mean, you're a program, to me. Bastion was a Virtual Adept's sandbox universe, so of course there was probably a lot of 'code reuse' from Reality 1.0. It's no surprise to me that a simulation can be real, because I see this world as one. Those kids you saved, they were real children."

Lena
They'd have their philosophical disagreements on the nature of reality, though it wouldn't be a spirited one on Lena's side.  Which is not to say that she doesn't have a strong belief, but instead that she is very much a believer in the If it works for you way of life.  Still though, she nods a little bit when Grace says that the kids were real.

"I know they were."  She leans forward them, looking intently at Grace.  She's more present suddenly than she was before.  "But here's the thing...it doesn't matter to me that they were.  Not that I don't care if they're real or not, but...it didn't matter.  If that makes sense.  If they hadn't been real and I'd known it, I still would have done it and I don't think I would have had a moment's regret."

She lets out a breath and leans back in her chair again.  "Death scares the shit out of me.  I know it scares just about everyone, but...I feel like I know how I'm going to die and it's the worst way to die, you know?  What we went through with...you know."  She still can't quiet say it, even eight months later.  "That felt like just a preview.  A trailer for the future.  But I'm not trying to say that I did what I did because of a death wish, because I didn't.  I haven't wanted to stay somewhere more in my life."

Grace
"You know, this is probably the weirdest, most fucked up way to try to cheer someone up that I've ever attempted, but do you not live in Denver? The place where zombie dogs tried to eat people, the place where a monster crawled out of a movie screen and tried to eat people, the place where people have been turned into mindless plant creatures that try to eat people? I guess what I'm trying to say, is that it's very likely you won't die the way you're thinking. So hey, buck up. You're likely to be eaten by a grue."

With that, Grace shrugs and downs another gulp of coffee.

Lena
The makes her huff a little bit, amused at the joking aspects of Grace's point.  She gets the point though and there's a little nod.

"I know.  Believe me, don't think I haven't thought of that."  It's said with a bit of wryness; after all, they're talking about the benefits of being slaughtered.  "But fear isn't rational.  You know that.  And whether Sleepers believe it or not, there is a such thing as destiny and fate.  I'm not one of those people who believe that everything is predetermined and unchangable, but I also don't believe that nothing is."

She reaches up to brush some hair out of her face in a casual gesture.  "And sometimes it's just knowing something.  Feeling it.  Just because it's not all in my head doesn't mean it's not going to happen, but...anyway, that's not the point of what I was trying to say.  I'm trying to say that it was okay.  It was, quite literally, the best thing that could have happened."

Grace
"It wasn't to me," Grace says, and her eyes go up to the ceiling, her head flopped against the chair back. "But then, we all have our different viewpoints, I guess."

Different viewpoints like hey, maybe it's not such a fantastic thing, watching a good friend die.

"I think it might have been what made Bastion see the light though -- that she couldn't just keep stealing people from our world to populate hers. It hurts when someone you care about gets severed from you like that. She could see our pain, and what we would go through to get our friends back. And how we felt when we lost you."

Lena
"Well, I'm glad it helped that," she says with a little nod, and a smile.  She's not done with this topic though.

"Why did it upset you?  I mean, let me rephrase.  Does it still upset you, now that you know my viewpoint on it?  And if so, then why?"

Grace
"It upset me because I had to deal with your corpse. I mourned you. It's a little weird having this conversation, just because part of me still... I went through a grieving process, and yet here you are. Not complaining, though. No."

She's still looking at the ceiling, in true Grace fashion. Sometimes, even in the deepest heart-to-hearts she has with someone, most of her words are delivered to a wall.

"But, I suppose the way you die is your own thing. If you choose to go jump out of an airplane without a parachute instead of going slowly and painfully, I can understand that. I would be there to cheer you on, even. I went through one version of viral hell with you. There were many times during that when I would have been thankful to just not have to be anymore.

I don't think you're there yet, though. Are you? There's so much good time left. Or maybe there isn't. Maybe we run into zombie velociraptors tomorrow, and that's what makes now so important."

Lena Reilly
It isn't that she doesn't understand why Grace was upset.  Lena completely gets it.  She just wanted to make sure she was right, and from the way that she nods it would appear that is the case.  It's the greatest burden that the living have; dealing with the loss, while those who have died pass on to what's next.

And that nod turns into a bit of a smile when Grace continues on, says that it's her choice how she dies.  And she shakes her head in agreement with the latter sentiment.

"No, I don't think I'm there yet.  There's still time left...at least, short of an undead dinosaur assault."  She grins a bit.  "Or werehamsters from space, or vampire bunny rabbits.  I loved that book as a kid."

Grace
"Vampire bunny rabbits just suck the juice out of vegetables. They're cool in my book," Grace says, giving a little smile to the ceiling.

She wants to say something else. She wants to ask, if Lena isn't there yet, then why the apparent search to find some way of going out in a blaze of glory. But there are other people like that in her life too. Kalen, for example. And he doesn't have a deadly virus.

She wants to say something about having hope -- maybe Lena's got enough time for the virus to be cured. Maybe some day she'll be able to cure herself. But Lena's hopes, are not hers to command any more than her continued life is.

It's easier to just talk about vampire bunny rabbits, isn't it?

Or change the subject.

"What was it like? Did you see her? Bastion, I mean?"

Lena Reilly
She shakes her head at the question, frowning just a little.  She may have liked how she went out, but she still doesn't much like thinking back to the whole thing.  The shake of her head is an answer though, not a disapproval of Grace asking at all.

"It was just...no, there wasn't any Bastion there.  One second it was pain and fire and agony, and then it all went black as if that was the end of it.  The next thing I remember...I was waking up.  Weakened from the extended sleep, tongue thick, mouth dry, limbs not responding very quickly..."

She gestures to Grace then, as if deferring to the other's experience (or what Lena assumes it was) once she was back in this world.  "You know what that part was like.  If I regret anything, it was that I didn't get to get more of the experience.  I would have liked to stay there as long as possible.  It's not every day that even people like us get to have those kinds of moments, you know?"

Grace
"You should have been there. You should have seen the space station, it was awesome. And Atreyu was there too; he let us live in his apartment for a while. I will admit to not wanting to let him out of my sight lest he get abducted by slavers or jet planes, but that never happened.

The space station was the last world left. The others had been... corrupted. So, we couldn't face north and move on to the next world or anything. We were having trouble figuring out what to do, but then the corruption came for the station, and in her desperation to stop it, Bastion gave us admin rights.

Which... it was beautiful. You could see everything. All of her code just laid out like I was swimming in it. Just imagine having full control over everything, Lena. No paradox, no backhand from the universe, because we were on her side. We put her back together again. Fixed the corrupt bits."

Grace sighed, then, remembering. It was awesomely beautiful. And she couldn't really enjoy it because she was so certain her friends had died in Bastion's care.

"I remember thinking about what Kalen had told me when... Well, it was right after I'd gotten better again? He said that I had been very unlucky, because while there's all kinds of horrible in the world, there's also so much beauty. He said it wouldn't all be one disaster after another. At the time, I thought he was dead, so it was really kind of bittersweet, but you know. He was right."

Lena Reilly
She listens to Grace recount it all, and there is some light touch of melancholy at not being able to have seen it all.  But it's a very gentle brushing over a stronger palette of warmth that Grace got to see it.  And if she's being honest, her statement about regret...well, it isn't true.  She doesn't really regret anything that happened.  That's something she's trying, the whole living without regrets thing.  It's easier than she thought it would be.

"He was," she says with a nod.  "Sometimes the beauty and the horror are one of the same.  But I'm sure you know that.  There's so much of both that I don't think they're able to live apart.  Even if they were two ends of a magnet repelling each other, they'd still find a way to swirl and merge around each other and become one."

She leans over, reaches out and rests a hand on the other woman's.  It's brief and she withdraws it after, but it's there.  And she doesn't even jerk away with the withdrawal this time.  "I've worried that you haven't been able to see that for a long time.  I know how binary everything seems sometimes.  But when you can see the colors inbetween and how they blend...even when it's bad...there's something glorious there."

Grace
Grace jumps a bit when her hand is touched, but mostly because she wasn't expecting it. Such comes with the territory of not looking at the people to whom you are speaking. She looks at Lena instead of the ceiling then, and gives her a smile -- don't worry about the startling, please.

"Yeah. I suppose. Bastion was beautiful, but she was trying to save herself by abducting minds. And she was so powerful. And then I kind of accused her of being kind of a dick, and she agreed.

I argued with a god and won. Even that -- kind of bittersweet, because without those people fueling her worlds, she had to downsize. A lot of those simulations, they just blinked out. That was a little horrifying in and of itself."

Lena Reilly
To her credit, Lena doesn't jerk away at the jump.  She isn't ever really skittish about touch, she just tactfully avoided it (outside of the Hydra aftermath and then...well, she was skittish about a lot).  She gives a apologetic smile and leaves it there, especially after Grace smiles too.

"You know, if anyone was going to argue down a god, it would probably be you."  It's said with amusement, but it's not a joke.  Not really.  She can't really imagine a lot of people doing that.

The smile evens, the amusement fades a little when Grace says the simulations blinked away.  "You don't feel responsible, do you?  I can totally understand where you might.  And it's a tragic thing, but...it had to happen.  Those people didn't belong in there.  They didn't choose it, which would have been completely different."

She knows she's not saying anything Grace doesn't already know.  And she's not trying to phrase it as such either; sometimes, she knows, you just need to hear someone else say it.

Grace
"We offered her that, you know? I said we could try to find people who would voluntarily dream of her worlds. Hell, I could ask in Virtual Adept spaces and get a ton of people more than willing to sign up for that. But she said she needed to leave, and not return to earth," Grace says, and remembers she has coffee in hand. Huh. Imagine that. Coffee. She looks at the cup like it's just appeared in her hand all the sudden, and then takes a drink.

"It wasn't my decision, really. I mean, we did what we came there to do. And it was the right thing to do. But sometimes even then, people have to suffer. Really, if anyone was responsible for all this, it was the damned Technocrats for coming in and fucking it all up."

Lena Reilly
"Well, that is their MO," she says with a wry look.  "'Hey look, there's something the Traditions are doing that's really great.  Let's destroy it or co-opt it and pervert it into something terrible!'  Bunch of fucking..."

She sighs irritably, lets it cut off there.  She has her frustrations about the Union like any Traditionist.  And they go far beyond what she said.  But that particular Passion has already bled itself out, small in this moment that she's hanging out with her friend after they both thought it might not happen again.

"I haven't seen Kalen since I got back, or the others either.  How are they?"

Grace
"Patience is Patience," Grace says. "I don't think she knows how to be in any other mode than 'Patience'. So she's doing great, actually. Kalen has a new apprentice -- an actual one this time. He's tired, I can tell, but that's how he is. Always about throwing himself into whatever. I haven't heard a thing from Sid or Ian yet, I just know they're awake and all."

There is a little pause of consideration there. "Maybe we should go see Sid sometime? I doubt that Ian would appreciate that much, he's so aloof, you know. But Sid..."

Lena Reilly
"Sid was next on my plans, yeah."  She nods, then gets a wrinkle to her nose and lips both  "As for Ian...I would know, but the little shit's been impossible for me to track down.

"I knew Ian, back in New York.  And here he's been in Denver for however the hell long and I literally didn't even know until this whole mess went down.  Not gonna lie, that's a little irritating."

Still, it's a fond sort of irritation.  She likes Ian.  Or at least the Ian she knew.

Grace
"You could ask Kalen. They're kind of a thing. But then again -- aloof. He doesn't want to touch Ginger with a ten foot pole, so I can't contact him that way. "

Grace sips coffee again. It's getting cold now, and she's getting down to the sugar at the bottom, which has an even more wiring effect when combined with the caffeine. One of her feet starts kicking her chair absentmindedly and a bit haphazardly.

"He's a cool guy though. You say you knew him in New York?"

Lena Reilly
"So I've heard," she says in response to the news that Ian and Kalen are a thing.  "I think that's what drives me so crazy is that everyone I know here knew him and I didn't.  Not that I expected Kalen to say 'Hey, I know a guy named Ian, do you know him?'  It's just..."

It breaks off with a huff, and she shrugs.  She's not really frustrated at anyone but herself.  She's the one who keeps herself distant.  "Anyway.  Yeah, I knew him.  Not super-well or anything, but we were acquainted.  I knew Lucy too.  Not sure if you've met her yet, she's been in town a couple of months."

Grace
"Next time I see him, I'll say you were looking for him," Grace says, as though running into Ian is a fairly regular event for her. Because it is. Perhaps that will come as a further annoyance to Lena, but Grace doesn't really get that it might.

"I don't think I know Lucy," she says, and shrugs.

Lena Reilly
"She's cool," and that could be interpreted as a joke to her Resonance, but it's not.  In fact, it completely escapes Lena that it might be.  "Dreamspeaker.  You'll have to meet her one of these days.  She takes a little bit to warm up to people, but who doesn't in this city?"

She looks over at Grace and grins a little bit.  "Think about it.  We're the old familiar types in Denver now.  Is that strange or what?"

Grace
"Yeah. Yeah it is," Grace says, thinks back a ways and then, with a bit of dawning surprise, says: "It's been a year for me. A year, and one week. I missed my anniversary."

She shrugs, leans her head back on the chair again and shuts her eyes. "I blame coming out of a coma."

Lena Reilly
"Yeah, I'm going getting closer a year and a half at this point.  That's freaking crazy."  She says it with a smile, somewhat bewildered and amused.  She never imagined herself staying somewhere for any length of time unless it was her home city.

She checks her watch then, and sighs.  "Listen, I'd love to stick around longer, but I have work to get ready for.  We should hang out again sometime though.  I'm getting a little crazy with all the alone time I've been doing for oh, the last few years."

Grace
"Yeah. I'd like that," she says, and gives Lena a smile. "You never touched the coffee. You going cold turkey on me or something?"

But then, the smile changes into something less comical, and more warm. "It was great to see you."

Lena Reilly
She laughs at that and shakes her head.  "Hardly.  Truth be told, right now I'm loaded to the gills on Monster.  I don't think even I can take in any more caffeine.

"And it was great to see you too."  She reaches out and touches the other woman's hand again once more before rising to stand.  "I'm very, very glad you're okay."