[PRP] somebody told me (liam & jeremiah)

[Silverah]

Liam shook his head. "No," he said. "I doubt it. In my experience, that's not how this sort of spellwork works. If I were pressed..."

He trailed off, reached into the desk, and dug up a legal pad. He held it out to Jeremiah, showing him a crude drawing of the new sigil.

"It's all about intentionality. The key is a possibility. It can lock and it can unlock. My hope is that this is a cage they intend to open. That they can be convinced."

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

Jeremiah took note of the sigil, the rendition better than the last one he had seen. A tree with a trinity knot of roots and keys on the branches. It was certainly a different motif but it seemed more tied together than the previous with everything interlinked.

"I'm under the impression that that is the case. That the key was included for just that reason; a way out if we need it or open when the time comes." His gaze raised and focused on Liam once more. "Is it really as simple as convincing them to open the cage?"

Silverah

 

[Silverah]

"No," said Liam, "but it is an excellent first step."

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

Jeremiah let out a breath, nodding. Of course it wasn't. "Something to start working on then because if not now, when?" If they waited too long, then things might become more difficult or something else would come along.

He took another sip of his glass. There was a question on the tip of his tongue but it was pushed away for the moment. "I am passed the point of thinking of either of you as bad or evil or even enemy." He was no fool and knew the lengths he would go for friends and family. "It also seems the goals are mostly the same, so I see no reason to not help."

Silverah

 

[Silverah]

Liam laughed languidly. "Well," he said, "then that's proof that the cage has done its intended job. Renard and I are no longer dangerous - if you say so."

He gestured to Jeremiah's glass. "Should I top you off?"

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

The laughter, what Liam said, got a raise of an eyebrow and an amused snort from him. "Oh, you absolutely could still be dangerous - I can be dangerous - but the other parts? Not necessarily. Others may not be so easily swayed to believe it either."

Jeremiah had started playing with his glass (rolling it between his palms), a habit of his when it was empty and held it forward.

"By all means." He watched Liam pour the drink."This all started because you wanted to save your friends, didn't it?" Just confirmation of what once had been said but there was more on his mind.

Silverah

 

[Silverah]

Liam set the bottle down and nudged the glass toward Jeremiah. "Yes," he said. "We did. The problem lay with our methods."

"But I do not think we have any inclination to resume those," he added, shrugging.

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

"Not in accordance with how the rest of the world thought?" he wondered aloud, inclining his head in thanks before taking the glass once more. Jeremiah did not immediately take a drink. They had been caged for a reason.

"I suppose I should admit that part of the visit is because of what I've heard about the events in the rift," he continued, "as at some point, you knew me. An older me."

Silverah

 

[Silverah]

Liam's lips quirked upwards at the corners for a moment. "I've known many versions of you," he said. "Some of them have been older..."

He trailed off.

"Ah," he said. "You mean Jerry Tailor. What do you want to know about him?"

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

"I probably should've been more specific," Jeremiah chuckled, "but- Jerry?" There's this look on his face, as if he could not imagine at all being called Jerry.

The drink his downed then and set down instead of fiddled with because Jerry. "I suppose if we're talking Tailor, there's two of them I've wondered about but, yes. The one that owned a bar that you worked in and the one who's in a painting at the mansion. I know the one that there's a painting of disappeared and later reappeared dead two years later." He still wondered about that and, with everything going on, had not had time to look into it.

"... but that was here, not some place else. Was that before this happened?" The cycles, the cage, everything that trapped them all. "Andromache?"

Silverah

 

[Silverah]

"The first time I met him, yes," confirmed Liam. "Andromache was outside the cage. Before the cage. Jerry Tailor was a good cop. Homophobia forced him off the force before his time, so he cashed out his pension and did what any self-respecting f** would do - built a drag bar."

Something about his wording seemed practiced - like maybe that was the exact way Jerry Tailor had phrased his motivations.

"I found the place because I was looking for somewhere new to drink my sorrows," Liam continued. "Renard was a performer. Sybil Liberties. And Jerry was the paterfamilias of a family that was about to get blown to hell."

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

Jeremiah snorted, lip curling upwards at the corner because of the phrasing. "Sounds like something I would do if homophobia saw me off the force." Do something that made it very clear where his loyalties were.

"Blown to hell?" Was that in the way that his own was likely to end with him? Or something else? His head tilted. "You met Renard there?" There might have been another twitch of a smile. "... though I suppose that means Renard also knew Jerry as well then." If he was a performer.

Silverah

 

[Silverah]

"Jerry was like a father to Renard," said Liam, and he looked sad.

"You know," he continued after a moment. "Sometimes I envy the lives you all lead - you're trapped. Sometimes you never know it. But you have your families. And when things change, you never know it. You never know when your past-life lover has fallen for someone else. You never know when you're born to different parents, in a different time or place."

He sighed.

"I don't have that freedom. I have to know. I have to remember how long its been since I've seen my mother and father. Since Vivien was mine and I watched her die."

His eyes narrowed. "But then I remember it's a different kind of prison. And it's no better."

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

"It is it's own kind of prison, yes." Jeremiah had thought it a special kind of torture to be able to remember each time, to know the differences and never forget. The mention of Vivien triggered some inexplicable feeling, something he couldn't quite explain.

It was an idea in his mind of constantly seeing someone you love but never getting to have them, their death a constant. That was the type of thing that would drive him mad.

He fell quiet, wanting to ask one thing but then distracted by another. "Yet- I'm a Noble of the Court." No point in not saying it. It wasn't as if he couldn't know. "If there's another reset, what happens then?" For him, for those who were newly noble this time. So far as he was aware, the cycle was something they were no longer part of. "Will we remember as others do not?"

Silverah

 

[Silverah]

Liam made a choked sort of noise - surprise, probably. Was it possible he hadn't known. "You will be outside the cycle of reincarnation entirely," he replied. "Not only will you remember - you will have no option of skipping the boring years. You will live hundreds of lifetimes. You will watch everyone you know and love die, over and over while you live the lonely life of an immortal."

He pursed his lips.

"Haven't you wondered why there aren't more nobles?" he asked. "Most are driven mad. Immortality is a long, slow death."

azuredreams