fifthofthecovenant | The Last Voyages: IC Contact

There is always room for improvement. [Even (and especially) if said improvement isn't power-based. Zichen watches Chase and wonders over him silently.]

How old are you? We might be around the same age.

Doesn't mean I'm not the best even if I can still get better. And I'm eighteen.

[He pauses.]

Maybe nineteen by now, technically. Adding up time on the Barge. Why, how old are you?

We're not far apart. I was...twenty. [When he technically stopped aging.] It has been ten years since then. I would be close to thirty.

Sooooo you're thirty.

[Because if you lived all that time (or sort of lived; experienced all that time, maybe) Chase figured you ought to be able to claim the age.]

Unless you weren't awake for ten years or something.

Maybe? I haven't kept count. [Time has been...strange. It felt like it stopped while he was under the control of another.] I wasn't. I had no control over myself.

[Well. Okay, then.]

You can be twenty still, then, I guess. If you didn't actually live that time, or anything.

[If Chase can look closer to twenty-two than eighteen or nineteen, somebody can be thirty and look and feel twenty.]

When life is returned to me, my years will count. Until then, I am perpetually the same age.

[As unnerving a thought as that is, it's actually more comforting than acknowledging he literally has no idea how many years have passed since he died.]

Is that your deal, then? To have your, uh. Life returned to you?

Yes. I want to return to the man I was before the spell was placed on me.

[Not a terrible wish, Chase supposes. He doesn't know what the guy was like before, but if he spent twenty years not conscious, that would kind of suck.

So he shrugs one shoulder and says,]

Hope you get it, then. Got to get paired up for real for that, right?

[More like eight or ten years, but still too damn long.]

Yes. [That is said on a sigh.] I have been unsuccessful in that as of yet.

I don't think that's up to you, right? It's the Admiral who picks who gets paired with who.

Temporarily, yes. But permanent bonds are decided by the inmate and the warden.

[That's gonna be a big surprise to all the permapairs who made no such requests, buddy. Chase, however, doesn't know any better. He frowns at his plate.]

I didn't think inmates got to make decisions like that. So I'm guessing it's all the warden's choice, in the end.

[Poor Zichen thinks it has to be a mutual thing because, really, he wouldn't be happy with something forced. This is him being optimistic. And a bit naive.]

If they are working towards their betterment and graduation, why shouldn't they get a say?

Because we don't get a say in pretty much anything else?

[Though in the interest of honesty, he adds,]

Well, most of us. I did at least agree to come here, but a lot of people don't.

That basically holds true for Wardens too.

[Sometimes there doesn't feel like much of a difference - especially during floods.]

I did too.

All wardens do. Only some inmates do. Most of us don't get a choice. I'm kind of unusual like that.

[He looks around idly, then adds,]

Still can't leave if I change my mind, though. Not that I'm going to, because changing my mind means being dead, but still.

I like you alive, Chase. [Spiders, flies, wasps and all.] You are much too bright to die young.

[That's almost funny. There's literally no way Chase is not going to die young. It's just the way his magic works.]

You don't really know me, man. I might be a terrible person who ought to be dead.

I believe people can change. [If they wish to do so.] Have you given up on yourself?

Yeah, not all people, man. Some people are stuck with what they're born with.

[Which is not an answer. But kind of is, at the same time.]

I don't believe that. [Not in the least.] People are complicated and capable of amazing transitions.

Okay, whatever.

[Incurable optimist meets incurable pessimist. Sorry, buddy. There's not enough trust built up here yet for that to actually penetrate in any meaningful way.

Chase finishes up his last bite of lunch.]

Was that all you wanted to talk about?

[But he can stay steady, at least; solid in his beliefs so Chase knows he won't falter.]

I mostly wanted to know where you stood in regards to the Barge and what is asked of you.

The Last Voyages: IC Contact

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