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[The girl on the screen has pale skin, straight black hair and deep, vividly violet eyes that all but bore into anyone who meets them. Her expression, though, is mild and unassuming, with a hint of sullenness around the eyes.]

Hi. My name is Poison. I don't think many of you really know me. [And that is by design. She spends much of her time alone, and that's perfectly fine with her.]

I've been away from home for what feels like a very long time. Where I come from... I write stories. Stories of the things real people do in their lives. [Poison stops here, just for a moment, to brush her hair back over her shoulders.]

And you know, not every part of everyone's life is important. Not important enough for the Hierophant's archives. But I think that a lot of people don't know that your whole life doesn't have to be important. Sometimes, what I get to write is only a month, or a week out of a person's life, but it's the impact that time has on the world that matters.

[Her lips purse, then she smiles briefly.]

I miss doing that. Watching people shape the lives of others. Most of the time they didn't even realise they were doing it until it was nearly over. So... I'd like to hear yours, if you'd tell me. What you think the most important part of your life was... or will be. [Poison rests her chin on the heel of her hand, and lifts her slim brows.]

What's your story?

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I think I mighta told you this before, but dying. Dying was the most important part of my life. If I hadn't died, I wouldn't have become a Reaper. And if I hadn't become a Reaper, I don't think I woulda been pulled here. And here's been. Kinda good for me. In a lot of ways.

You did tell me. [But she thinks it's better to talk about it in this context than how it came up before. Dying is the end of a journey where Poison comes from, but she knows very well that it isn't always the case.]

I think writing your story would be just fascinating.

[a chuckle] Trust me, the first eighteen years are boring with the occasional humiliation thrown in here and there. I didn't actually get interesting until I died. And even then, I don't think I would've stayed interesting without here.

That's just what I said before. Not every part of your life is important. Just some parts.

[She spins a pen between her fingers, the ends of it flicking in and out of view of the screen.]

I don't know how here factors into it at all. Or if it does.

Well, most of mine when I was alive was boredom spiced with the occasional bit of cynicism and nihilism.

[she shrugs slightly]

Here taught me that I'm good at medical stuff and I really like doing it. There's no way I would've even considered doing anything like that if I hadn't wound up in this place. And I have friends. Like, actual friends. I didn't back home.

[Hm... well, Poison knows how that feels. She gives the smallest nod, understanding and empathy in the slight gesture.]

Sometimes it takes moving far away from where you come from to find where you're really supposed to be. [Poison presses her lips together briefly.]

But I don't know if here is where anyone is meant to be. I haven't decided yet.

[she shrugs slightly]

Yeah, I have no idea if this is where anyone is supposed to be, either. But, I mean, I'm trying to make the best of it, y'know? Which is as big of a shock to me as it would be to anyone who knew me back home.

What about you? Did you have to go away from home to figure out who you were supposed to be?

I did. [That's practically the tagline of Poison's story, the way she found out just who she was supposed to be and where her life was supposed to go.]

I crossed realms, did things I never thought I'd do. I left home, and I never went back.

Do you miss it? Home, I mean?

Mm... [She really does have to think about it.]

No. I miss my father, sometimes. But I don't miss Gull.

[George nods]

Yeah. I can get that. I mean, I miss my little sister, but I don't miss home exactly.

I'm better off not being there.

[And they're better off without her there, but that sounds too much like fishing for pity and Poison doesn't need it.]

You have a little sister?

[probably for the best. George would be useless at giving it and it sounds like Poison wouldn't want it]

Yeah. Reggie. Short for Regina. [a beat] I've heard that she becomes some big-shot FBI agent. Which is cool. Not what I would've expected of her, but cool.

Edited 2019-05-27 22:34 (UTC)

I'd like to think that the most important part of my story has yet to be told. There's something I still need to do first.

[Ah, how interesting. Poison often wonders what it might have been like if she'd known where her story could be leading.]

Do you know what it is?

I have to help my friends. Something awful happened before I was brought here, and I haven't been able to fix it yet. I have to. They're counting on me.

That sounds like something worth pushing on for. I hope it's everything you want it to be... and that your friends are okay.

Thank you. It...helps to hear that.

A lot of it seems important, even in retrospect. [ her brow furrows a bit. Cashmere has thought a lot about everything that's happened to her, but less so about which particulars stood out among the rest. ]

How do you decide what's most important?

I don't decide. I just... know. It's my job.

[Poison smiles slightly, and shrugs.]

The Archivists go out into the world and collect stories, and I get to write the most important ones.

Fair enough. [ she pauses a moment, and then nods. ] If I think about the impact it has on others... then it would be when I volunteered for the Hunger Games. I won which means a lot of other people died, and then I came home to my brother. He could have lost me but instead we were bound together closer than we'd ever been.

Everything was different after I volunteered.

[Sometimes it's the small stories that count the most, but this sounds important. Interesting, too.]

What are the 'hunger games'?

[Somehow, she suspects it isn't what she thinks it is.]

Punishment. [ her tone is a little bitter, and it's clear that what she's saying is something that's been engrained into her. ] A long time ago our districts rebelled against the government, and when we lost they wanted to remind us of how lucky we are to be part of Panem and how the districts made people suffer because they didn't appreciate what they had. So they started the Games. Every year a boy and a girl from each district go to the Games to fight to the death. The winner is showered with gifts - a home, food, clothing, anything you could want. That's supposed to remind us of how generous the Capitol is.

[ she pauses, her gazes wandering for a few moments before returning to the screen. ] In my district we volunteer so we send the people with the best chances of winning. My brother won the year before me. It felt... important that I would know what he went through.

[At the first word, her eyes narrow just slightly and she tilts her head as if she doesn't immediately understand. As the information unfolds, however, and things become clearer her expression hardens and her lips press together slightly.

Cashmere is right, such a thing would be found in the Hierophant's archives, and yet... such a thing would never be found there.]

That sounds barbaric.

[ she nods once, acknowledging that description. it is barbaric. ] And yet, tradition. I can't even imagine what my life would be like without it. It's strange to think about who I might have become.

Who do you think you might have become?

[That's a topic that interests Poison herself, given how her life at home now is so far removed from what it used to be. People can go through such drastic changes, depending on where they are.]

Maybe that person could have never existed.

[She almost doesn't answer, because she still isn't sure she really has a story to tell. Alphys has never wanted people to know what she'd done, being ashamed of her actions, but...

Well, she has seen a lot of things here. Known a lot of people. She carries their stories, doesn't she? Maybe that will count.]

I don't know if I could say, uhm, m-most important. Maybe coming here, but.. I didn't really, uh, do that on purpose.

Sometimes the most important things that we do are the things we do by accident.

[Poison smiles kindly at Alphys, all the wisdom of her role as the Hierophant coming to the fore in that reply.]

I wonder how being here affects the narrative...

Heh, well...

[She wonders, too. Does it get to be a continuation of your story? Can you make it one? She couldn't say.]

Maybe it's just... a d-different path? A different set of choices to, uhm... make a better story. From one that was bad. Maybe.

Maybe... but don't we return home to the same point we left?

[She hopes, truly, that she will not return to the Box when she leaves here. Poison misses home.]

The same point in time?

Well... y-yeah, if you go home uh. Accidentally.

[She's quiet after that for a moment, but opts to explain herself instead of just hinting.]

What I mean is, uhm, some of us think when this is over, if we can beat the Null, we might be able to pick what we want. Where or, uh... w-when we want to go, maybe. Would that mess things up, uh, in the story? If that happened?

[That's something she had never considered. Poison frowns, mulling over the idea.]

You think we could choose to go home, or... to go anywhere? Would we remember what happened here?

Maybe? I think that's the uhm, theory.

[That they move from here. Not an aside, a continuation.]

I don't know if it's uh, p-possible, but... do you think it would make things go badly? For stories?

[She frowns slightly, thinking hard about the possibility.]

I... don't know. For me... it would mean there was part of the narrative that I couldn't see. Something that shouldn't have happened, but did. I don't know what that will do. Maybe nothing.

Is it bad if it, uhm. Shouldn't have h-happened, though? Would that cause something terrible?

[Alphys doesn't want to be the cause of something bad across the multiverse, of course-- especially not for her own selfish wants. Better to make sure, even if she doesn't really know why Poison would know all this.]

[She really has to think about this. Plot holes are one thing, but what happens if a character shows up who was never supposed to be there at all?]

It might... in my world. But I could fix it. I don't know how other worlds work.

[Alphys isn't sure she understands, but Poison seems to know what she's talking about, so she has no reason to challenge that. But it makes her realize how dangerous her previous plan was. Would she doom a world by entering it when she isn't supposed to? The physics alone of supporting monsters might be too dicey, and now she's getting actually worried.]

Well, uh... f-fix it? How could you fix it? Is it like a uh, a physics thing, or...?

It's a hard question to answer. As you say, sometimes it's difficult to know what's important until after it's already happened.

[ That said, she can hazard a few guesses about her own life. ]

It sounds as though we have similar professions. I was a chronicler of stories as well, for many years. We were explorers, doing something no one had ever tried to do before, and it was my job to record everything. To tell those stories.

[Poison doubts that they have quite the same profession, but she's seen enough of the strange looks she gets when she tells people exactly who and what she is to her own world to keep it to herself for now. At least, until she gets a better idea of what reaction she might get this time.]

You were an explorer? [Looks can be deceiving... she knows that better than most.]

Sometimes a person has more than one story. Maybe you're one of those.

Oh, I think all of us have more than one story. Most of the time, we don't get to hear them. But that doesn't mean they're not important, if only to the people living them.

I was an explorer, though, yes. [ She smiles, as if at a secret joke she's not quite telling. ] When I was younger, of course.

Some of us have more than one. Some of us have large stories, and some have small ones... but they're all important. [Poison can agree on that. Sometimes, the smallest story can hold more importance than the tale of a great battle. It all depends on your perspective.]

Why did you stop exploring?

Well... [ How much does she want to tell here? ] We didn't choose to stop so much as...our mission changed. It became less a research expedition and more of a, well, an intelligence mission, and eventually a fight.

[She nods, understanding the implications if not the details.]

Sometimes things change... and you can't predict how, or when. You change with them, or you quit.

There really wasn't much of a choice, in our case. We were being...hunted. We had to run, and try to fight back.

It was certainly nothing any of us predicted, though.

I do not know if I should be the one to say what of my deeds have been the most important; I am sure they have impacted different people in different ways. I can say what I am proud, of, though... and what of my actions have felt the best, both in the moment and echoing long after. Usually that seems to be a fairly good indicator.

That being said probably the most important thing I ever did was learn to put my prejudices against humans behind me. It was not easy, and I knew they would not always afford me the same, but... such a fascinating race, with more merit than I would have imagined. I think getting to know so many of you has helped me become a better, more understanding person myself. [It is one reason of many he has decided to stand and defend them despite their misdeeds against him, both here and back in his own universe.]

[She smiles to see him. Even if he doesn't really know her as he did, Glacius has not changed from the person that she knew him to be.]

That does sound like something worthy of some pages. It's interesting, how people talk about being here as something that they see as important.

[Even if Glacius might not ever know Poison as his Box-self did—that would be impossible, given that no two lives are ever lived the same—he still does want to get to know her. That much is evidenced by the way he keeps reaching out to her, despite the fact that he is still a little wary of the existence of his other self that she reminds him of.]

"Here" as in... being present with people? Or "here" as in here in Hadriel? I may not like being here, but I cannot deny that it has been... instrumental in forcing me to open up to others. And that among those others there are people who have shaped my life in ways I would not have expected.

Here in Hadriel.

[It doesn't make any sense to her. She knows better than most that the stories of people's lives don't move in a single thread, but being here - just as being in Box - is like a break in the narrative. A spin-off. Something happening outside of time, where it shouldn't happen at all.]

Do you think it's worth it? Everything the people here have been through?

I do not think I can speak for them. Personally, I wish none of us had to suffer any of this—the imprisonment, the torture of the gods, the war they dragged us into. Some of them would agree, I think. But others... others say there is even less for them back in their own world. They would likely say otherwise.

[Glacius neglects, for the moment, to speak of himself. He has extremely complicated, twisted feelings over it all. As Poison can no doubt surmise from the venom in his tone when he speaks of the suffering they endure here, he has no love for the city or its depraved, parasitic overseers; it falls far too close to the sort of imprisonment and torture he endured in his own past.

There is a difference, though—in Ultratech's confinement, he was alone. That is not the case here, where he has somehow been able to forge deep friendships and even a romantic partnership. Those are not the sort of things he would sacrifice for anything, not even to undo all of the suffering he's been through... it is the suffering of those that he has come to love here that keeps him from accepting it out loud. It still feels wrong to him, somehow.]

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