[video] the real tragedies of life occur in such an inartistic manner

[depicted]

[It's video, so it's clear that Dorian looks the same. Still the bright roses of youth on his cheek, still the crisp dark curls on his head. The candour of youth in his face, and 'youth's passionate purity' in his smile. To look at him, you'd think he had kept himself unspotted from the world—even if all that the blue smoke around him is from one of Lord Henry's opium-tainted cigarettes.

But that is the visual half of things. As for the audio half?]

1986. The summer. [For audio, there is something torn in that low and musical voice, something of electrohouse's wretched distortion ripping the guts out of the base and leaving the jagged beat in its wake.

Dorian laughs.] It was 1986, it was the summer, and Highlander came out for UK audiences. Crooned over scenes of loss, Freddie Mercury asks a question he'll never need to answer: "Who wants to live forever?" [The cigarette held away, conductor holding the note to let the question hang.]

[And callously, we're back.] Contemporary efforts in medicine might suggest 'just about everyone,' but in stories about immortals, the weariness is always more loss of people than loss of time. It's more that you're watching your granddaughter's funeral than it is that the shop beside the graveyard is a chain electronics place instead of the private member's club where you met her grandmother decades ago.

[Another drag of the cigarette. He is still smiling a pleasant, youthful smile.] But it occurred to me, speaking with Rebecca, that that sense of loss, of friendships brief as mayfly lives, is one we all get to share here. It's not a curse of immortality, something known only in a long term. It's frequent, repetitive, and to all intents and purposes, mundane. We foreigners just lose people, over and over and over and over, and there is never any resolution to any of it. Like the workroom of a perfectionist, it's a slaughterhouse of unfinished stories, and the corpses just keep piling up. Only corpses would give more closure than disappearances, and we aren't likely to be here ourselves by the time we can hold a funeral.

So we get used to it. We cope and we carry on. [Cigarette between his fingers, he gives a salute that somehow doesn't come across as sarcastic.] Congratulations on all the recent efforts, and good luck to everyone still with us in the future.

[Dorian holds up a mobile phone (circa 2007) with all lightness of touch and tone.] Does anyone have anything to for a mobile's battery? I left the charger in the 21st century, and I'd like to get my music off of this, but it gave out.

Comments

[video]

[poeticverses]

[Jehan's thoughtful when he starts the feed]

While I realize you may not have meant it that way--that speech was lovely, Dorian.

[video]

[depicted]

[Helplessly, Dorian laughs.]

I shouldn't be surprised you thought it so, my Romantic. Let's see if I can recall that effusive poet's words . . .

[He clears his throat, and recites:]

But now upon this thought I cannot brood:
It is unstable, and deserts me quite;
Nor will I praise a Cloud, however bright,
Disparaging Man's gifts, and proper food.
The Grove, the sky-built Temple, and the Dome,
Though clad in colours beautiful and pure,
Find in the heart of man no natural home:
The immortal Mind craves objects that endure:
These cleave to it; from these it cannot roam,
Nor they from it: their fellowship is secure.

Video:

[solo_patria]

Do you suppose it is better or worse in that regard, here?

[Enjolras is curious as he looks out at the screen, the question written on his face.]

I suppose to consider it, we do have an immortality here in that...I have heard of those brought back from death, or that they have the ability to make us so at least. there have been...only a few of the more major losses for me here, but each time, they were painful enough. To consider we might grow accustomed to it is...disheartening somehow, as though we've given it less value, yet that does seem to be the way of things.

worrying, if nothing else, I suppose.

Video:

[depicted]

[Ah, Enjolras. Dorian hasn't spoken to him since he came back with no memory of it. Grantaire is gone—did they overlap, this one and that missing man? Dorian can't remember. He can't particularly care, either.]

Someone once said to me, "There's so much more to life than just the beauty. Death is just as vital."

[He shrugs.] Perhaps it's different for species born to immortality, perhaps humankind in a hundred thousand years will have adapted to the experience and made it liveable. But whether it's the deathlessness of resurrection or of the denial of death, something necessary for life, for life as we know it, is lost when death is taken away.

video;

[pandoricas]

[Well, that was. Er. Deep? Rory supposes. He's never been the best for epic speeches, but he kind of understands. Or at least, the deep part of him with his Roman memories gets it anyway. Although he always personally thought that Romans tended to be far too chatty and droned on too much.

Anyway. That's not why he's here.]

I managed to find a charger for myself a while back [Or rather, the Doctor made him one. It doesn't look fantastic, but it works, so...] I can lend it to you for a bit - I don't use my own phone much anyway.

video;

[depicted]

iIt was broodingly antihero which usually masquerades as deep Dorian smiles gratefully.] I would be infinitely thankful. I've managed to make mine last months, but it's my only source for music or pictures, so the battery still drains.

video;

[traitorously]

[There's something unreadable in her expression for a second, before it shifts effortlessly to chiding] Smoking's really bad for you, you know.

video;

[depicted]

[He notices it, and for a moment after the expression vanishes, he watches it. Then he smiles.] Is it now? Goodness gracious, Catty! Do you suppose there might be some mages or doctors here who would take a look at my lungs for me?

video;

[cravats]

Judging by the number of clavigers at home- and the number of drones the vampires have- quite a few people want to live forever. A few of them drop the idea, but not enough to ever deprive us of servants. I am sure Mr. Mercury could have gotten his answer quite easily.

[He doesn't really want to face the bit about losing friends.]

video;

[depicted]

[Dorian remembers Lyall's response to Norrington's disappearance. He laughs.] In your world, yes. I'm afraid we have to work from circumstantial evidence in mine, but I'd say it's more or less the same. Every story says that immortality is miserable, and every youth would trade his soul to have it.

[video]

[ironface]

That doesn't mean one shouldn't value those friendships.

[video]

[depicted]

[He remembers that voice, and recognizes the name.] Of course. Their brevity makes them all the more precious—something to that effect?

[kazilik]

[There's an anxious snout in the camera, she would be frowning a little if she weren't -- well. A dragon.]

Are you well, Dorian?

[depicted]

[This particular dragon is good at automatically countering some of Dorian's brooding self-pity. Perhaps because she's just so pretty. Good natured, he answers her,] I always am—except that, in this case, I can't get to my Wagner.

voice//as private as he can make it// you get a phone tag because ilu

[leviathaned]

...[he doesn't want to talk to Dorian, doesn't want to answer or validate this at all, but the sharp pain of the truth of it means Sei's voice is dull and oddly empty, only barely recognizable as him.

There is no one else who'd even understand the question. What choice does he have?]

...But does it ever really fade?

[Sixty years, and only ever three people that he'd cared enough about to feel the loss. It is a genuine question, even if it sounds as though he suspects the answer already.]

voice; private; ilu2

[depicted]

[As strange as the voice is compared to the usual, Dorian understands that shift in voice very, very well. He's silent a while before answering.]

Is it better that it doesn't?

[fatedchaos]

[She winces at the use of, well, everything that connects the foreigners disappearing to death really.] But corpses would also give us no hope that the people we've lost got to go home.

[depicted]

[Sorry Vanessa.]

There's no closure without hopelessness. [Well, that sure was said with resigned dispassion!] Besides, that depends on how things work here, doesn't it? The bodies were made here. If the souls go back home, it shouldn't matter what happens to the bodies.

[He feels an acidity rise in his stomach as he says it. They could be dissecting Steve Rogers right now, and Dorian can't find him. And all the others—Favrielle, Peggy, Toby.]

Video

[superoverachiever]

And we tell ourselves they go home. We're an army, but they say we don't have casualties.

[That was a very moving speech. It's brought out Ava's pensive side, though, which is more mopey than eloquent at the moment.] Rather than some of us making it back, either all of us do or none of us do.

And we won't know which until our part in the fight is done. Think it makes us better soldiers?

video

[depicted]

[A note of bitterness rings through the chuckle in response. Bright Ava—poor thing. He shakes his head.]

I admit, I'm not exactly a true believer in the idea that we're all sent safely back to our times, souls intact and memories absent. But an army that doesn't have to fear death is a bolder one. More reckless and stupid, maybe, but it might be easier to get us to go over the top.

[His memory serves him too well when he calls up that metaphor. Dorian recalls trench war very, very intimately, and the flicker of discomfort reflects that before the 21st century reasserts itself over miseries a near-century old.]

But what better way to find truth than a survey? What about you? Do you think yourself a better soldier for it?

voice;

[redjay]

A corpse doesn't give closure than disappearance, not if the reason for death is as nonsensical as the disappearance. But I do like whatever you're smoking.

voice;

[depicted]

Opium tainted cigarettes. Or whatever this place substitutes for opium—frankly, I've no idea. [And he is not exactly concerned with what he is putting into his body.] Life is rarely artistic enough to give sensical reasons for death.

audio;

[passively]

[Ricardo doesn't understand immortality, but he understands repetitive, meaningless, numbing losses. Some were his own, and most were others'. The loss of a parent, spouse, child, grandchild, comrade, friend -- the list was endless and the emotions that came with it numbing, the only saving grace being that these were only memories and the associated feelings fainter than they could have been had he experienced them directly. He did see those losses through Sham's eyes in the last year as well but those were easier as the entity he shared a mind with was less incapable of suffering grief and mourning than Ricardo himself was. (He isn't sure if it would have been any different; his reaction to his own parents' death was just as pathetic as Sham's initial understanding of loss.)]

... You understand immortality?

[It's more out of curiosity than anything else.]

audio;

[depicted]

I happen to have it.

[That's all. It is what it is, and he has confirmed it publicly enough that there's no reason to try to be discrete.]

audio;

[wintershepherd]

[ Jack's voice is light, but there's a definite note of understanding in it. ]

Smart guy, that Freddie.

audio;

[depicted]

I wonder. But he did have a beautiful voice.

[He knows what that understanding sounds like.]

video, private

[una_persson]

[There's a depth and age to Una's grey eyes that not many people see, and it's not just a trick of the light and the smoke from the cigarette that she holds lightly in her fingertips.]

There's one thing to be said for not living in a linear mode—it is far easier to see all times as one, and no loss is eternal. But even in the moment of a loss, that's a cold comfort, and it isn't much help to those without other options.

video, private

[depicted]

[He knows the look in her eyes too well. A strange and elegant mirror.]

I'd say you have no idea how I envy you, but I imagine you actually do. It's always a pleasure to see your face, Una.

audio, private

[epigrammatical]

[The delay in Henry's response to this is highly uncharacteristic, like his silence in the face of Alcuin's post a few days before. Also uncharacteristic: his decision not to use video to reply, a medium of which he'd become inordinately fond.

In fact, he hasn't been seen out and about much since Zatanna's spell was broken. He hasn't been calling on his friends, and visitors to Daowei's bookshop might have suspected he was actually hiding in the back. All of this suggests something is not well, a suggestion confirmed by the unwonted emptiness of his tone when he replies.]

Bientôt nous plongerons dans les froides ténèbres;
Adieu, vive clarté de nos étés trop courts!
J'entends déjà tomber avec des chocs funèbres
Le bois retentissant sur le pavé des cours.

audio, private

[depicted]

[It is a while before Dorian answers—Dorian, who noted Harry's absence and guessed its reasons, who had forgotten that loss in the face of his own, who hears the miserable voice of his oldest friend and wishes he could choose what stays and what fades away.]

Come to my place, Harry. We'll have drinks.

[backinakidflash]

[His face is practically plastered to the screen.]

You. have. music?!?

What kind? Has anyone gotten it off there yet? Do we have the tech to copy it?

[depicted]

[ARE YOU OK SON.

Dorian's eyebrows go up a bit.]

A variety—mod, New Wave, house, Romantic. [He considers.] No idea about copying it. Suppose we could just record it to the consoles if it came to that.