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[Zatanna almost didn't go through with the announcement. She was tired of them. Of having to go on the public network and tell everyone about the disappearance of yet one more person close to her. After three years...and more discussion on the subject than she ever wanted to have again...]

[But then she found his scrapbook. The one he had started all those years ago, trying to record as many memories and notes of people that had come and gone. A way to honor their memory. After a time, it had become a shared project of theirs. He'd shown her the entries for Dick and Kyle and Pepper and Finnick and so many others. Now she had another name to add to it. As it was, the book could just barely be visible behind her, sitting on a chair with the beginnings of a new entry already jotted down at the top of what she knew would wind up being several pages long:]

Jack Frost is gone.

[To her credit, her voice was steady. Her face was freshly washed, hair combed. There were no signs of the tears that had fallen upon realization earlier. No evidence of her heartache. Only the slightest hint of reddened eyes from when she'd had to speak to some of the local children earlier.]

[Jack's children. The ones he used to play with in the park.]

[Her eyes lowered to a twin set of figurines sitting on the edge of her table. Two little turtles. Hand carved. After a long, contemplative pause, she turned the two of them so that their noses touched. In between the empty space formed a small heart. A Secret that had taken her far too long to figure out.]

The Welcome Center will continue on as normal. In case anyone was wondering.

And before anyone asks--[because she knows they will]--I'm fine. I'm...almost used to it by now.

[One of the biggest lies she'd ever told. She could deal. She could carry on. But she would never get used to it.]

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[He's not been into the Center for his shifts, recovering from his injuries during the earthquake, so Enjolras hasn't even SEEN Jack recently, and he cringes when he hears the news. He had thought that, well, certainly that he would see him again at some point soon.

Anyway. He's wincing at the news, and thinking that he sees in Zantanna's attempts to be strong something of his own attempts when Combeferre vanished. He's swallowing hard before starting a reply.]

I am so sorry to hear that. I will miss him. Very much.

Do you need anything?

{Zatanna didn't quite know the entire story as to why Enjorlas hadn't been around, but she was still more than a little relieved to hear him sounding well. Despite the forlorn circumstances.]

I think I'm alright for the moment. Business has been slow. Most people are still trying to recover from the earthquake.

How're you holding up, by the way?

[It does feel good to speak to her, considering what he's just heard. At least SOMEONE is still here and safe, right? It's a feeling that's not entirely good, but it could also be worse.]

I can certainly see how that might happen. It's held me up a bit myself. On the downside, I've got a bit of a recovery, even after they did the spellwork. On the other, they will be letting me go free soon.

Good. That's...good to hear.

[Forgive her for not sounding more enthusiastic. It wasn't anything personal.]

We managed okay over here. Minimal damage. One of the windows cracked, and there was some minor stuff with the roof, but the structure held up.

Jack's renovations a couple months ago really did the trick.

[No worries. Enjolras doesn't take it that way. He's been a bit caught up in other things himself, so he understands how it can happen. And losing people, even at the best of times, particularly quite important people, does have a way of superseding everything else.]

I was rather lucky myself. I certainly do not intend to take things for granted from now on.

Now THAT I am very glad to hear. The renovations served things well then. I...has anyone else been hurt? Things in the cafe that I visit did NOT go particularly well. In that case, at least it was not a terribly busy day.

It's good to hear my other friends have not suffered as well.

I'm not sure. Reports are kind of fuzzy. It's not the kind of thing people go around announcing publicly, you know?

If there were, I hope it wasn't anything too serious.

I suppose it would not be, no. I've not seen anyone I know around here at least. I count that as most of a positive until there is some certainty, anyway.

As do I. It would be nice to know we've gotten through this with nothing spells cannot repair a bit.

Edited 2015-12-08 23:48 (UTC)

Tell me about it. I hate when that happens.

[She wasn't just being glib; having spent most of her life relying on her magic for a lot of the big things, it was still unnerving to think of things affecting her or the people she cared about that she could do nothing to help with.]

It does seem rather more a pain than it has been worth, now I've seen a much better way. [Idly, he wonders if his own small skill, later, might be of some use, but it depends on when the spells he's had done kick in. For now, he's going to sigh a bit.]
Perhaps they do not wish for us to grow too used to anything here, whoever run the universe. Possible, right?

[She sighed.]

More than possible.

Considering, in the--what, four?--years I've been here, I've lived in like half a dozen different places...been through at least two Emperors that I know of...first there were no soul gems, then there were soul gems...oh, and the soul lanterns in between...and the locals...

If nothing else, I can say I was right all those years ago: this place is hardly boring.

It IS funny, how much time has passed in what seems just a handful of years, no?

[He pauses, counting on his fingers as he thinks it over now. There was the year he first arrived, marked by Malicant's arrival itself, Combeferre, turning 14 again, for a week and Eshai's presence and warning, the year of the war, and his attempted news broadcast that was not meant to be, and Evandau and losing friends everywhere, and Taraja, and losing Emperor and some of the Hatchlings, the war continuing, the lost year, and then this...And he looks up, shaking his head.]

I remember when we hadn't the faintest idea of what bound our souls, when we tried to take a lantern from the palace, no permission given, [He thinks of Damien especially, for that, somehow.] and then our housing and now...all of this. If nothing else, we've seen a lot of change here, those of us in it for the long haul.

...Do you regret your choice to stay, when you were asked it? Because I cannot say I fully do, but there are times it does feel...weighty...

...no. Not once.

I had my reasons for staying. Just because one of them finally up and disappeared on me doesn't mean the others aren't still there.

Me either. [And he sounds firm enough on that point, for all that Enjolras WONDERS.] For less of a reason than that there would be nothing at home either. I am not quite sure Why I chose it at the time, I may wonder at it forever, but I knew it was the only choice if that makes sense?

Yeah. It makes sense.

No use dwelling on it now, though. We both made our choices, and it's not like another opportunity will be popping up anytime soon.

[...that she's aware of.]

And the future here DOES move ever onward.

Not unless someone around here found a way to make time start going backwards.

And I'm good, but I'm not that good.

It WOULD invite a whole host of other issues, too, come to think of THAT.

True.

I mean, even Eshai never had that kind of power....I don't think?

[She actually had to stop and consider that for a moment. Bringing people to this world from different points in time and space wasn't the same, right?]

...no, she couldn't have. No way.

[There's a pause as Enjolras considers it too, about to start speaking and then stopping. There's a moment, almost, when you can hear his jaw clicking back into place, but then...]

Something in the palace should have told us if that were possible...I should assume.

[He would practically be able to hear her rolling her eyes on the other end.]

Oh, yeah. Because they're always been so forthcoming with all their information.

It's not like it took how long before we even knew why we were here in the first place?

[Fair. And deserved. Granted, he's under a fairly strong dose of medication right now, and some spellwork. So...

Still, Enjolras ponders the last point carefully.]

It was actually not so long for me until we were actually told. Perhaps...three or four months of being here. How long was it then, for you old timers?

[The irony of referring to himself as one of those when he's one of the older fixtures here doesn't escape him, mind you.]

...I'm going to pretend you didn't just call me old.

[She was only 18, gosh]

And...I don't remember, exactly. More than half a year for me, but then there were people who'd been around for close to a year before that, even.

I do not think I could forget the technicalities of it quite so soon as THAT. [There's a little snort from Enjolras there.]

One of the first times we spoke I was complaining because I had been de-aged during that spell, to a fourteen year old and inadvertently insulted you because you had been one not so long ago as that.

Unless we've slept for well over a hundred years, as in some of the tales, of course, I think you are in no danger of me forgetting your age truly.

[And THEN:]

...you haven't got a spindle to hand, have you?

Old guard, is perhaps the better way to say it, then?

Close to a year...then no. That seems as though it would have been unerringly cruel on Eshai's part, and she was no empress...emperor to indulge in idle bouts of that.

[There was so much to react to in that single message. The reminder of her greatest mistake in all her time here--she half expected him to reprimand her for that. Except...oh, yeah, she'd forgotten she'd gotten mad at him for the crack about ages then, too. Good. The more he was worried about not angering her, the less she had to worry about angering him.]

[It was a good system. It worked for her.]

...well, the "cruel" part is forever up for debate, considering some of the things she did threaten to pull.

Otherwise, you have a point. Or several points, I suppose.

[It's weird how things like that are actually kind of FUNNY to Enjolras now. To Enjolras, of all people, who doesn't seem to have much of a sense of humor most of the time. Then again, it was a while ago.

And hey, thinking about not pissing people off means he's obviously less likely to do it, so, yeah, definitely a win all around.]

All right, that IS a good point. Still, the majority of those seem rooted in a different place than out and out pulling it out just because. It seems that to Eshai at least, everything did have its purpose. Its own fairly often rather dark, but justified in her own mind purpose.

Ah points upon points then. ...We ARE talking rather thin ones the higher they advance...

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