UN: ScielCandide | Video

[cache_coeur]

[The camera is fixed on a table, upon which sits a neat stack of cards –– black with gold foil in the shape of a sun and moon bisecting each other. The user’s hands pass over the deck and spreads it wide into an arc. Her hands are tanned, with two rings on her ring finger and one on her index finger, and she has so many colourful braided bracelets that some wind around her palm.

Her voice is pleasant, playful, French, a little theatrical:]

Bonsoir, mes amies!

Tonight and tonight only, I will tell your fortune with a single card. Tell me your name, and if you would like to hear about love, money, health or the soul.

If it moves you, you must repay me with an amusing anecdote about yourself.

Ready to play?

Comments

[cache_coeur]

[The feeling is familiar, even if the details are entirely foreign. She looks up at him, the cheer on her face tempered with sad eyes.]

I’m sorry. Mine, ah… most of us are dead, too. There was a cataclysm in my grandparents’ time. For a while there was some thought that we could rebuild, and for a time it was better… but most of my life has been about preparing for the last generation.

[Grim, and fantastically so, but there’s a simplicity with being straightforward with someone who shares the same throughline.]

[nottheboss]

Shit. That's bleak. But that's pretty much what me and my people do, too. Prepare the world for the end.

[But he doesn't want to think about the Reapers right now. They're walking to a beautiful park and they have real food. They even have beer.]

What was the cataclysm that happened?

[cache_coeur]

Very bleak, especially for a first meeting, but you’re in good company, hmm? [A loose shrug of her shoulders.] We still don’t really know, but whatever it was, it tore everything apart. If you look at old maps, there’s a single landmark that shows where we started. The land itself is entirely different, now.

[nottheboss]

Huh. So even the land changed?

My father thinks the earth is glad to be rid of all the people. All the pollution.

But then I got here. And fuck, I've missed humanity a little.

[he gives her a little grin] I've missed picnics.

[cache_coeur]

[She wonders, idly, if her grandparents felt that way. If the Earth had opinions, in their eyes, and if it was something they could have told themselves to cope. She nods, and gives his arm a little squeeze.]

I’m lucky that I was born after the worst of the resettling. I get all that humanity has rebuilt and none of the nostalgia, and if I didn’t end up here, maybe I could have been the one to turn off the lights.

[She’s remarkably calm about that. It doesn’t matter. She has the smile she asked for.]

I’m glad to have brought you one, then. It’s not what I would have paired with beer but it is very good just the same.

[nottheboss]

If I'd known you were a Frenchie I would've asked. I don't know what pairs with anything, I'm just fucking excited to have alcohol again. It's been a long time. Last time we got anything close, one of my brothers tried to distill his own. It was the worst. You could've stripped paint with what he came up with.

[cache_coeur]

A Frenchie! [That’s amused; she’s never heard that before.] I’m glad to hear you’re at least weathering forced sobriety with your family… and someone’s got to figure out how to make it again eventually, hmm?

[nottheboss]

Well I say 'brother' but really he's part of my unit from the war. But we've been through so much it's closer than blood, you know what I mean?

[He looks at her, wondering] Am I wrong? Your accent just- sounds French. Does France even exist in your world?

[cache_coeur]

I do. I have family that way, too.

[Some of them might resist seeing it that way, but it’s the closest thing she has left, so that’s what it is to her.]

France is… complicated. [He is, actually, the first person to have questioned it; she’s been blithely letting Americans assume whatever they like for so many weeks.] Maybe we called ourselves French once, but France has been gone for a long time.

[It must have existed. But who could say when?]

Have you ever been to Paris?

[nottheboss]

Yeah, once. After my first deployment. I didn't want to go back to the States so me and a couple of guys went to France and Germany instead. [A huff, amused now after so many years] There were people protesting us outside the airport. But the city was great once we weren't in uniform anymore.

France was the last place in the world to fall to the dead. They fought the best, the smartest, of anyone.

But I guess...Paris is gone for you, too?

[cache_coeur]

[Without a trace of hesitation, and a deep fondness:] Sounds just like my people. We don’t suffer anything, and we don’t give up.

[That’s why they’re still the very last city standing in the known world.

As for Paris:]

Forgotten, but not gone. When the land split and broke us off into the ocean, the tower came with us. It’s bent over in a huge curve, but she still stands. And we call the city Lumière, because she’s the only light left in the world.

[nottheboss]

That sounds about right.... [he sounds somewhere between fond and admiring]

Does anyone still make croissants?

[cache_coeur]

Of course. [She lifts the picnic basket a bit in gesture.] Not even the end of the world could stop Lumièrians from making croissants.

[nottheboss]

Holy shit did you bring me croissants?

[his smile this time isn't so shy. He tugs her along to a pretty little spot in the shade by a stream]

This a good spot?

[cache_coeur]

And cheese, and grapes, and ham.

[What else do you bring on a picnic? Maybe the French had it all wrong, but Lumièrians know better. She follows along, smiling, even if the sound of the water makes the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. She hefts the basket up, ahead of her.]

It’s lovely. Here, help me with the blanket.

[nottheboss]

[He takes the basket and motions for her to sit]

Go on, get comfortable. I'll set up.

[He sets the beers down first then kneels and sets the basket down.]

[cache_coeur]

[Sciel’s hardly ever been the sort to sit around while others do the work, but she’s not about to argue with an offer, either. So she sits, choosing a place with her back to the stream.]

This whole place must be rather comfortable for you, compared to home.

[nottheboss]

It is. I mean. It's hard too. Nothing feels right.

No one's trying to kill me yet.

[He starts pulling out food and laying it out in easy reach]

So what drinks would you have told me to get? Wine?

[cache_coeur]

Wine would make most sense, but beer is fine. I would have brought sausages, for a picnic with beer.

[She leans her weight on a hand, her legs tucked up beside her. Like this, her lightweight trousers betray the shape of an ankle holster. She teases:]

Would you be more comfortable if someone was trying to kill you?

[nottheboss]

[Strange, isn't it, that he feels more at ease knowing she's armed?

He sits more comfortably and hands her a plate]

Is it sick if I say yes? I mean I know what to do when someone wants to kill me.

I'm... not so sure what to do when someone wants to feed me and teach me psychic shit.

[cache_coeur]

[She accepts it with a smile.]

I don’t think it’s sick. Unfortunate, certainly, but at least you’re not too awkward, all things considered.

[nottheboss]

[He huffs a laugh]

Well now you're flattering me.

When did you learn about cards and shit?

[cache_coeur]

[She pops a grape in her mouth. The rest of lunch is croissants with butter and ham and cheese, simple but rich.]

When I was a girl, twelve or so. I thought the whole world was going to vanish around me, and it felt like the only thing powerful enough to reassure me.

[nottheboss]

[he isn't starving anymore, but the desire to devour once he tastes his croissant is real. He eats politely out of sheer force of will.]

I can get that, yeah. I mean you were...fuck, you were dead on with me so. Yeah. I want to learn, too.

[cache_coeur]

[She watches him, smiling serenely.]

So you’ll learn. Would you consider yourself a good judge of people?