Day 58: Arts & Crafts (Fourth shift)

[immortale]

Firo was glad to see the end of lunch, if only for the fact that in a few more hours, the day would be over. Night was the only time he had any real freedom of movement, and it was the only time he could do something worth doing, instead of just sitting around.

The usual soldier came to fetch him shortly after the announcement, with only a curt, "Come along, Saviano." Firo frowned, but followed him out of the cafeteria into the Sun Room.

He would have been fine with stopping there, but the soldier apparently had other ideas. When Firo stopped, he went so far as to grab hold of his shoulder and roughly steer him into one of the adjoining rooms, ignoring his protests all the while. The new room was full of round tables with various items like colored paper and paint in the middle, and Firo had a sinking feeling about it. What had the activity mentioned in the announcement been? Arts and crafts?

"What am I supposed to do in here?" he spat at the guard.

"Draw a flower. Make a bracelet. I don't care," was the gruff response before the soldier disappeared out the door.

Firo had half a mind to follow him out, but no—he'd wait a few minutes first, just in case he got shoved back into the pointless room. In the meantime, he took a seat at one of the tables, turning his chair towards the door and leaning his head against one arm propped up on the table.

[For Battler]

Comments

[age-of-kings.livejournal.com]

The words 'to do to you' reminded him of his conversation with Anise. Human experimentation. At least he was able to keep his face mostly composed this time. But he couldn't keep the images from coming to his mind, of the mindless and twisted things he had found beneath his city. That such horrors had been happening for years under his own nose....

But fretting over it wasn't going to do a lick of good.

And the unpleasant bit of the conversation was over. The young king listened with apparent interest when Claude explained he came from not another world, but another time. Carter had mentioned time, as well. It was an amazing concept! And why couldn't it be possible? If there were societies and worlds capable of travel from world to world, why not time to time? He understood it all had something to with energy. And possibly water.

Of course, attempting to think about it any deeper was sure to bring on a headache. But he supposed it gave Claude an advantage over most people Tolten had met, and Tolten himself. He was at least familiar with this world! And presumably had studied history....

"Oh, me? I'm from Plank. It's...not like this world. It's not entirely different, but...oh, it's terribly hard to explain! Things are similar, but not quite the same." And sometimes those just-different-enough differences were enough to make his eyes hurt. "And I think we may be more advanced...at least in some ways."

But it was really so hard to tell, when all he had to go on was what he'd seen and what little he'd gleaned from the library.

[full-score.livejournal.com]

Plank -- he couldn't say he'd heard of it before, not even among the other captives here. It was very possible that Tolten was the only one from his world. Claude could relate to that, having been stranded on Expel for so long before arriving here, but at least he hadn't been held in a mental institute on top of all that. No wonder some differences were difficult for Tolten to articulate. It's not like he could gain a true understanding of Earth in a place like this.

When he mentioned that Plank had things Earth didn't, though, Claude couldn't help but ask for more details. "Advanced?" he echoed curiously. "You mean technologically? Like how?"

Claude wondered if they had something similar to heraldry, and had managed to make a science out of it. On the other hand, the people of Plank may have other sources of energy that made their lives more efficient. Either way, he was curious to know more about it.

[age-of-kings.livejournal.com]

"I think?" Tolten frowned thoughtfully, nervous now about discussing his world's technology. "It's technology to us, but...it runs on an entirely different power than..elektrics." He hoped he was saying it properly now. "I don't know how to explain it to anyone who hasn't grown up with it, and apparently there are worlds and times where saying 'magical energy' means you're mad. Or...ignorant."

But Claude was friends with Anise! And Anise herself was perfectly familiar with magic. So there was a good chance that Claude wouldn't decide he was a raving simpleton. Not that he thought Carter thought he was a raving simpleton, but...

Well, he truly hated being thought of as...as...well, what he used to be.

[full-score.livejournal.com]

"'Magical energy', huh..." Claude rubbed his chin as he considered what Tolten told him. "It sounds like something called 'heraldry' that my world recently discovered where I come from. We still use electricity for most of our stuff, but we're trying to understand how heraldry works. During this time period, though, nothing like that is supposed to exist here. But I've seen other worlds that use 'magical energy' to power devices, so I know it's more common for different people."

Not that many people on Earth called it magic, but Claude understood that other cultures might describe the phenomenon of heraldry (or other things, like fonons) in such a way. There wasn't necessarily anything wrong with that, though. Earthlings in his time just generally didn't like the unscientific context of a word like "magic".

"I guess this place must be pretty strange to you," he added after a moment. "For what it's worth, you're always welcome to ask me about anything."