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[youngtimer]

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[youngtimer]

[Horatio listens intently: the nature of other people's homes has become a sort of fascination for him, especially since he'd started bartending. there's infinite possibility for conversation and connection that goes so far beyond imbecilic small talk.]

That's fascinating. Of course it wouldn't, degeneration itself is an impurity. But that raises another question for me: if the focus of the research was perfecting physical substance and form ... how is that going to affect a non-corporeal concept like understanding? Did the priestess think it was linked to some change made to people's brains? That wouldn't be magic, it'd just be ... really complicated science. Not a curse, but more like a disease. Right?

[alchepistol]

You're presuming a distinction.

[ Saint-Germain takes out a pen and a small leather-bound notebook. She sets it on the bar, turns it so it's oriented towards Horatio Hargreeves. Writing upside-down is not an issue for her. ]

Tangible and intangible realities, what you might call the realms of science and magic, are more linked than strictly scientific thought would have you believe. [ She draws a circle inside of a circle, labels them "microcosm" and "macrocosm" - adds an equals sign, another two circles, labels them "physical" and "spiritual". ] "As above, so below." What affects the spiritual affects the physical, and vice versa. Even if the physical effect of the curse is a disconnect from the realm of universal language, the changes happen not within the material brain but within the conceptual one.

Yet, as they are linked, perfecting tangible forms can give us clues as to how to perform the same transmutation upon intangibles. Certain intangible energy concepts also refuse to affix to any material object not already made perfect.....

[ She sketches a human figure, surrounding it with various glyphs, showing energy attaching itself to the body, then taking the form of armor. ]

The perfect body is a stepping-stone. The end goal is the perfection and re-completion of the world. This is what mankind has developed using the knowledge that was left to us....the pinnacle of alchemic ideology and triumph of the human mind.

[youngtimer]

[he watches her draw - first impressed by her ability to write upside down, then completely compelled by the explanation which follows. it explains so much, to him: particularly in regards to Klaus' abilities, and how their own might have come to be somehow. even if he and Saint-Germain are from vastly different worlds, it's a philosophy he can easily grasp ... especially here in Ryslig, where magic becomes as commonplace as breathing and is, in some ways, more advanced than science.]

So you're saying that you needed to change the physical world somehow in order to fix the curse. Or is that oversimplification?

[alchepistol]

[ It's close enough for her to feel he's following. She nods. ] The curse has a physical source. We sought to command it.

[ She starts to draw again. It's a circle with...there's a piece missing...like someone's taken a bite out of a cookie that's.....orbiting Earth.....beaming down rays..... ]

We intended to amass enough power to gain admin-level access to the ruins the Custodians left on their observation satellite, the Moon, and dismantle the universal language network jammer.

[ AS ONE DOES ]

[youngtimer]

[for some reason he finds this utterly hilarious, but only grins. he has enough tact to not laugh]

Jesus, I'm glad my brother Luther isn't here to hear you say that. He'd feel so goddamned vindicated.

[he pauses, then explains:]

My dad sent him up to work for him on the moon for like ... four years or something like that. He was convinced it was for some higher purpose and not just busy work to keep him out of his hair.

[alchepistol]

Your world has a Moon as well?

[ SHE'D WONDERED WHETHER CURSELESS WORLDS DID

RYSLIG DOES

BUT IT'S CURSED IN DIFFERENT WAYS ]

What's its purpose?

[youngtimer]

Yeah, we do. Its orbit is connected to the movement of the tides.

[he'll take up a napkin of his own and draw a diagram for HER. look at these two nerds, they're so great]

It's basic physics: has to do with the moon's relative gravity or inertia in relation to its position to the earth.

[alchepistol]

[ She studies the napkin carefully, following the explanation. ] A purely physical effect, but greatly preferable.

[ there are presumably also tides in symphoworld but we also didn't hear about them getting screwed up when somebody SHOT A HUGEASS PIECE OFF THE MOON not her; every season a different villain is like /cocks gun MOON'S HAUNTED so who the hell knows ]

[youngtimer]

Tell me about it. But yeah, my dad sent my brother up there to study it for some reason. This is while I was off stuck in time, though, so I don't know much about it. Other than stuff I picked up from reading old newspapers while I was camped out in the ruins of the library.

[he flashes her a little smile]

Good thing I've always liked reading. Always had something to do.

[alchepistol]

A library does sound ideal. If any lodgings under those circumstances can make that claim.

[ ....speaking of, by means of a discussion of "knowledge." ]

I wish I could have read what he found.

[ She never made it to the moon herself. Her goal was usurped and twisted before she had the chance to seize the lunar ruins....And now it seems unclear whether succeeding in this task would have fulfilled her ideals, after all.

Still. As an alchemist, who seeks complete comprehension. It would have been nice. ]

[youngtimer]

Pretty sure all he did was send back bags full of moon rock. Not a clue why Dad wanted them... turns out he didn't even open them.

[if Saint Germain has not made this hypothesis yet, it will surely start to form now: Reginald Hargreeves is an asshole.]

[alchepistol]

[ Yes, though in her lexicon, "asshole" tends to get a different name. ]

Your father sought control.

[ And there it is. ]

I can't remember, are you okay with spoilers for S1?

[youngtimer]

To the finest degree possible.

[he snorts, shaking his head]

We only got half an hour of "recreation time" on Saturdays. Everything else was either training or fighting. Fine for a revolution in search of perfection, I'm sure - but not fine for a group of kids who hadn't even hit puberty yet.

spoil me thoroughly i am a 100% spoiler friendly zone at all times

[alchepistol]

[ Oh, this ticks her off. Saint-Germain has little use for leisure, herself - but that's her choice, based on her ideals. Cagliostro and Prelati - she had explained what they'd be getting into when she offered them perfect bodies born of alchemy! In her whole long life, those two alone had shared her ideals....and thus, she had approached no others.

No one should control anyone else. ]

Nor for anyone who hadn't agreed wholeheartedly to such measures.

HOKAY SO MASSIVE S1 SPOILERS THEN, also CW: mention of suicide

[youngtimer]

See, we all ended up feeling the same way. That's why I found out, eventually, that we all left. My sister Vanya wrote a tell-all book about it - I read it in the library ruins while I was stuck in the apocalypse. Diego left, first to join the police, then he went vigilante. Allison became a movie star. Klaus just ... drifted in and out of rehab because drugs were the only way he could avoid his power, poor idiot. And you already know about Luther and the moon. We were all kinda scattered to the winds, living our lives ... until we found out he died. The day I came back from the Commission was the day of his funeral. Luther and Diego got in a fight over whether or not Dad had been murdered. Luther was convinced he had been. Diego wasn't. But I was too determined to stop the apocalypse to care either way.

[he sips at his drink, taking a slow breath once he's swallowed. he's had so much time to think about this, and it still absolutely stymies him]

Turns out they were both wrong. Klaus got a chance to talk to Dad's spirit, right before everything started going haywire. He fucking killed himself, because he knew it was the only way to get us all back together again so that we could save the world. You want to talk about control - [he snorts, flailing a hand in the air] - well.

Reginald Hargreeves could probably be your posthumous poster child.

[alchepistol]

......Impermissible.

[ Not that she can do anything about it. And not that she's good enough at being a social person that she's offering condolences. But Saint-Germain sits here, a pillar of grim indignation. Horatio Hargreeves has.....!!

She is practically emanating Righteousness. Getting it all over your nice den of sin. Beg pardon. ]

[youngtimer]

Pretty much how I felt about it, too.

[he sighs, finishing off his own drink]

But in the end, he got what he wanted - even if he was the one who set the whole problem up in the first place. I don't know if he realized that part, though: that suppressing Vanya's powers as a kid would make her go nuclear once she found out. That she was the one who would have caused the Apocalypse.

[alchepistol]

If he did, it's an awkward way to make amends.

[ ....That said. She closes her eyes, trying to cool her head, sipping her drink. Who was it whose desire to liberate mankind from control was used by one who wished to exert that control.....? And who then burned up her own self in the hopes of finally being of use to others....? For whom, being there, when she was needed, was enough to make her feel her long life had been worthwhile....? ]

Though I'm one to talk.

[youngtimer]

I don't really think amends had anything to do with it, personally, but ... it's a nice thought, I guess.

[her final remark makes him tilt his head at her curiously]

Pretty sure you're about as far from anything like my father as anyone could get.

[alchepistol]

[ To speak honestly? That warms her heart. Perhaps it's a false comparison. He would know - and, if an attempt to benefit humanity did not lie at the heart of Reginald Hargreeves's actions, the parallel does crumble. ]

I'll take that as a compliment.

care to start wrapping this since they have the theatre plot later?

[youngtimer]

That's the right idea. ... Anything else you want to know?

sounds good!

[alchepistol]

I believe that suffices for today.

[ Haste makes waste. This is why Saint-Germain's default response to seeing something she absolutely can't ignore is......watch it. Like a hawk. A revolutionary hawk.

Who is discovering that the falcon one tree over is well worth bordering territory with. ]

Thank you again.