2020-10-18 - Things about Non-Things

(TXT to Byron Lilith) Alexander : Alternate realities!

(TXT to Lilith Alexander) Byron : What about them? Clayton?

(TXT to Lilith Byron) Alexander : The tour guide! She's a not-thing because she's not real! No man named Benn settled Gray Harbor. Except he did, maybe. Just not THIS Gray Harbor.

(TXT to Lilith Alexander) Byron : Funny that you bring this, Lilith and I were planning on doing research on that matter. Interesting. But with everything going on recently, including the two memories that Lilith and I both had, I had a feeling that there was another reality somewhere.

(TXT to Lilith Alexander) Byron : Sounds like a terrible one.

(TXT to Lilith Byron) Alexander : Think about what she said, though. Things got messy in 1884. I think, maybe, that the two realities either came together at that point and fucked everything up, or they were torn apart at that point. And fucked everything up.

(TXT to Byron Alexander) Lilith : To be fair what's "real" has a very different connotation where we happen to live. We could kind of say the same about the Exorcist herself while she's calling the tour guide a not-thing.

(TXT to Byron Alexander) Lilith : ... but it does make you wonder, if it's a not-thing and not a ghost from our time even... is it just an echo of something parallel to us because things somehow got... I don't know, split?

(TXT to Byron Lilith) Alexander : No. The Exorcist is real. The Veil is real. Or, at least, it's not-real in a real way. But I think this woman is NOT REAL, because she never existed in our world. And yes. Maybe? Or they got smushed together when they weren't meant to be.

(TXT to Lilith Alexander) Byron : She's real in her own reality though?

(TXT to Byron Alexander) Lilith : Smushed actually makes as much or maybe more sense than split. Somehow.

(TXT to Byron Lilith) Alexander : Maybe? If her reality exists. Maybe it got destroyed. Maybe that's why she's not-real.

(TXT to Lilith Alexander) Byron : This has nothing to do with the Revisionist as well? Rewriting the story of our lives?

(TXT to Lilith Alexander) Byron : Even despite Lilith and I have two memories at one point.

(TXT to Lilith Byron) Alexander : I don't know. I don't I don't think so. But maybe. I don't know.

(TXT to Byron Alexander) Lilith : If the tour guide is a 'not-thing' or echoes that linger of a reality that never happened by documentation history... surely, she's not the only one, right?

(TXT to Byron Lilith) Alexander : (...)

(TXT to Byron Lilith) Alexander : I, I suppose she wouldn't be.

(TXT to Lilith Alexander) Byron : The ghost throwing the tantrum though. Is this something the guide has to deal with in their reality?

(TXT to Byron Alexander) Lilith : Apparently. If ghosts are just energy echoes that get spawned for whatever mystical reasons, no matter which actual reality they come from, they might end up in the same ah... place when all is said and done?

(TXT to Byron Alexander) Lilith : Anyway, I mention that because if we can't find any info the natural way on this Benn family name, maybe we should visit the places most likely to have an echo of a reality that didn't happen. Like... WAS there a salmon cannery at some point here in town?

(TXT to Byron Alexander) Lilith : And why would the Addingtons never spawn their own ghosts while they seem to have the ghosts of everything else kicking around?

(TXT to Byron Lilith) Alexander : We don't know that they don't. Ghosts don't appear to just anyone. Maybe we should ask Addingtons about ghosts.

(TXT to Alexander Byron) Lilith : True, but the Exorcist did point it out as an oddity, otherwise I would just assume there's twenty more in there I wasn't seeing.

(TXT to Lilith Alexander) Byron : Sure, I can dial Hyacinth up if you like. Or are you meaning Margaret?

(TXT to Lilith Alexander) Byron : I just figured dead Addingtons go somewhere else rather than manifest here.

(TXT to Lilith Alexander) Byron : But who knows.

(TXT to Lilith Byron) Alexander : I don't see any possible reality in which Margaret talks to us voluntarily.

(TXT to Byron Alexander) Lilith : I don't see any possible reality where I don't have trouble punching her in the old smarmy face, either, but that's just a byline.

(TXT to Byron Alexander) Lilith : Did you notice what the Exorcist implied? About dying in the Veil and what you can become instead? And her badge in the Collection... I don't know. Something probably irrelevant, but it nags me.

(TXT to Lilith Alexander) Byron : That's why we try our hardest not to die in the Veil.

(TXT to Lilith Alexander) Byron : Magnolia's father, I think, died in the Veil. His partner too.

(TXT to Lilith Byron) Alexander : Does that mean he became an -ist of some sort?

(TXT to Lilith Alexander) Byron : I don't know. Maybe one day we'll find out.

(TXT to Byron Alexander) Lilith : That'd be bothersome news to learn, I hope not, for Mags' sake. But I admit...

(TXT to Byron Alexander) Lilith : I guess the reason I'm so interested in this Benn name is because everyone else kind of knows where they came from. I don't.

(TXT to Byron Alexander) Lilith : But for as drugged and drunk and uh. Adventurous as Hank was, I doubt he went and smashed a non-thing to make a Lilith. All the same, I am curious to know how they relate to this rift of realities. Maybe we should just look at papers from 1884 entirely and try to catch clues.

(TXT to Byron Lilith) Alexander : Your father really never told you who your mother was?

(TXT to Alexander Byron) Lilith : No. My birth certificate was amended, I think, or sent in for. It only has his name on it.

(TXT to Byron Lilith) Alexander : Interesting.

(TXT to Byron Lilith) Alexander : And worrisome, for you, I'm sure. Just. As a mystery, it's interesting.

(TXT to Lilith Alexander) Byron : And we all know that you like mysteries, Clayton. But yes, we could do some digging up. Find some differences, but this might mean hitting the archives if you know what I mean.

(TXT to Lilith Byron) Alexander : Don't you two think you've broken the poor Archivist's heart enough?

(TXT to Byron Alexander) Lilith : Yeah, about that, I really should start dress shopping to find something that might pique the Pink Thing's sense of uh. Style. Since we'll be giving the dress back to Claire's poor ghost.

(TXT to Lilith Alexander) Byron : I don't know what you're talking about.

(TXT to Lilith Byron) Alexander : You know. With what we now know? The Archivist was once a person. A human person. With feelings and everything.

(TXT to Byron Alexander) Lilith : Or a blobfish that got humanized after death and given a consciousness. Who frickin' knows.

(TXT to Byron Lilith) Alexander : I'm just saying that it wouldn't hurt to be kind.

(TXT to Lilith Alexander) Byron : The Archivist didn't ask for just any dress. He asked for... what was it. Claire. David's sister. Married to Robert. Margeret, Thomas. Robert. Jeremiah's dress.

(TXT to Lilith Byron) Alexander : Who's Jeremiah?

(TXT to Lilith Alexander) Byron : The youngest Addington in that line?

(TXT to Byron Alexander) Lilith : I know what it asked for, I'm just thinking it might be better to deliver the news that it will not be getting the dress... while holding a pretty dress. I'm trying to think outside of the box where I end up fighting everything, okay.

(TXT to Lilith Alexander) Byron : That's kind of you, though I think the whole thing is bizarre. Spending money on a wedding dress for the Archivist when we have our own wedding to plan for.

(TXT to Lilith Alexander) Byron : But I do agree. It's a nice gesture.

(TXT to Lilith Alexander) Byron : Though it could piss them off as much as please them. It's hard to tell.

(TXT to Lilith Byron) Alexander : I suppose it depends on if you'd like to get a dress from someone Byron left you for.

(TXT to Lilith Alexander) Byron : You can't leave if there was nothing there.

(TXT to Alexander Byron) Lilith : Admittedly, it did not seem to like me very much...

(TXT to Byron Lilith) Alexander : The heart wants what the heart wants.

(TXT to Lilith Alexander) Byron : Maybe your lineage is a mystery to the Archivist as it is to you. Or anyone really, Lilith.

(TXT to Lilith Alexander) Byron : So it couldn't pull up random names from your bloodline.

(TXT to Lilith Alexander) Byron : Alexander, maybe we should ask the Archivist about their past. Who they were before.

(TXT to Lilith Alexander) Byron : I mean, when I say we, I don't really mean myself.

(TXT to Lilith Byron) Alexander : I could look into your mother for you. If you want, Lilith.

(TXT to Lilith Byron) Alexander : And Byron, my rates are reasonable. Less reasonable if you want me to risk ticking off the most helpful -ist we've met.

(TXT to Byron Alexander) Lilith : I mean, if it's not documented and recorded, it kind of makes sense the Archivist wouldn't have a clue either way, when it comes to my family history. Because given the look of the place, it seems to be records.

(TXT to Alexander Byron) Lilith : And you could. That's quite kind. But I don't... know for certain if it would help me or hurt me to know the answers to something that's just been a hole all my life. I'm used to the hole, you know?

(TXT to Byron Lilith) Alexander : Of course. Just keep it in mind, if you ever decide you do want to know. While Gray Harbor is a mysterious place, your father probably talked to someone, drunk or not, about your mother.

(TXT to Byron Alexander) Lilith : He probably did, at some point. I'll think about it and know you'd be well-suited to such an investigation.

(TXT to Byron Alexander) Lilith : Do we have a salmon cannery now or in the past of note? I don't pay attention to the industry buildings, really, and I've been gone a while.

(TXT to Byron Lilith) Alexander : I don't recall us doing much in that area. Just timber. But I haven't really tracked all the businesses in Gray Harbor.

(TXT to Byron Alexander) Lilith : Well, we'll look into what we can look into and share anything interesting. I think that's all we can plan to do at this point.