MOD EVENT ↠ IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE

[faderifting]

WHO: Anyone
WHAT: Some dreams
WHEN: Harvestmere 9:45–Wintersend 9:46
WHERE: The Fade
NOTES: OOC post!

Comments

[skulltasm]

"Oh come now, Sal," Pointedly ignoring Salvio's correction. "If I told you it'd take all the fun out of it!"

He looks at the lamp on the desk, up at Salvio, then back. Like a cat doing something he's not supposed to, Thaddeus starts to nudge the lamp closer and closer to the edge of the desk.

"What is it you like so much about this work, eh?" He asks, nonchalant in the face of doing something that threatens the welfare of every page in this room.

[assistente]

His flinch is first for the nickname, and then second for the lamp. But he can't leave the books, not unless he wants them to fall to the floor. Then again, the lamp's fall would be more destructive. Does he risk it? Can he push the books back into place, quickly, and save the lamp?

Keep talking. That will distract Thaddeus. Salvio swallows, and pushes a little at the stack of books, without looking at them, trying to get them back into place.

"I," he begins, "that is, it is-- good. Good work. Predictable and-- and of great help. Without being at all-- claiming of attention, or-- There are small tasks. That are not always given attention, and yet their-- their completion, remains of greatest importance, to the larger tasks. The larger picture. That is-- this. Please, do not--touch that--"

[skulltasm]

“So your idea of good work is being the guts of a clock?”

The lamp reaches its fulcrum point on the lip of the desk, and Thaddeus pauses. Not because Salvio has distracted him, but for the sake of suspense.

[assistente]

"Well--"

With great willpower, Salvio keeps his eyes fixed on Thaddeus. His face, his eyes--depthless, unknowable, who is he--not his hand, not anywhere near where he is touching the lamp. He dares not even hold that in his periphery. If he doesn't look, it won't happen. It can't happen.

"Well, yes. There is necessity to the-- to the guts, as you say. The inner workings. Without, the clock would not function. It cannot always be the face. Um, you," please don't, he almost shouts it, but bites furiously at the inside of his mouth, willing himself to shut up, shut up, shut up, "you, ah, disagree?"

[skulltasm]

Salvio gets a momentary reprieve from the lamp being edged ever closer to toppling onto the floor as Thaddeus moues thoughtfully. He reaches his decision quickly.

"No. I just know that it would drive me completely mad."

One final nudge and the lamp falls. It takes only a second to hit and, presumably, smash, but that second keeps stretching longer, and longer, the lamp moving more slowly than it should. To look at the lamp is to see the destruction it will wreak, the room ablaze and the precious tomes and books and papers destroyed forever--

--but looking away, there's no such calamity. So long as the focus is not on the lamp, it continues to fall as though through gelatine and the room stays uncharred.