Morty's Apartment
This room was converted to an apartment long ago, abandoned, and then re-claimed. The lime-green wallpaper is peeling, revealing the original office decor underneath, a neutral tan. A stained, ancient mattress sits in one corner, with an old teddybear with one ear sitting on it, plus a couple of dirty blankets, one red, one blue. The room reeks of smoke, and there is broken glass on the floor.
The room is lit by a guttering, fly-speckled forty-watt bulb. There is only one way <out>.
Camilla says, "Ah. Still here, I see."
The flies buzz around your head.
Eli is lying on his back on a futon, flipping through a black moleskine notebook. He glances up at you and raises his visor. "Welcome to my home, Camilla. What brings you here?"
Camilla snorts. "YOur past life."
You say, "We have many lives, you know. We are reincarnated in to new roles many times between our birth and our death."
Eli folds up the notebook and sets it by the futon.
Camilla says, "If you subscribe to that, yes. Are you attached?"
You say, "To what? Anything specifc?"
Camilla says, "To life."
Camilla says, "You don't strike me as a boddhivista."
You say, "Oh, yes. I'm very attached to life."
You smell someone cooking hot dogs with... honey?
Camilla drools. Honey.
Camilla blinks, and wipes hir mouth with hir hankerchief. "Yes, well..."
You say, "That's just Ecton Bob, next door over. He shares, if you're interested."
You smell someone cooking hot dogs with... honey?
You say, "And yes, it's delicious."
Camilla's tail flicks. "I'm suffering from attachments, lately."
You say, "No, you suffer from guilt over your attachments. Your attachments themselves do you nothing but good."
A nearby groaning noise shifts slowly into the ultrasound range.
Camilla says, "Spoken like a puzzleboxer."
Eli smiles. "Well, perhaps I exaggerate. What attachments do you suffer?
Camilla says, "I'm ... self-indulgent."
Camilla looks at hir hands. "I'm rather weak."
You say, "Self-indulgence is not a sin. Self-indulgence to excess, that may be more problematic. In what do you indulge yourself?"
Camilla says, "Well, perhaps you haven't noticed, but I'm ... growing. Too rapidly."
Camilla is a humanoid dragon, standing a clear two meters tall when hir head is held high. Hir greasy, long hair is an eggshell white, draping down to the small of hir back. Two catfish-whisker barbels descend 15cm or so from either side of hir long face, curled lopsidedly. Thick whiskers protrude all about hir cheeks and jaw in uneven lengths, culminating in a scraggly Van Dyke beard on hir chin. Two three-point stag s protrude from hir head. When sie smiles, hir powerful jaw muscles bulge.
Camilla wears a Tibetian li-shu robe, about one size too small, adorned with fourteen brightly-colored symbols, such as the sun, a pheasant, a tiger, a willow tree, a Chinese dragon, etc. A noticeable bulge can be seen inhir lower belly. Sie often keeps hir hands in hir sleeves and stands stock still, though hir long, tufted tail can't help but thump the ground loudly or snort excitedly. Camilla sees the world through heavy-lidded, large yellow eyes, often blinking twice -- once with opaque eyelids, then again with transparent membranes on the opposite bias, like a croccodile's.
Camilla's scales are hypnotic black and white, but hir hair remains white, hir horns are a dull gold. In the right light, the tiny diatom scales of hir hide can be seen, as well as the larger ventral plates of hir neck and belly. Camilla radiates an oven-hot temperature somewhere around 300 degrees Centigrade.
Sie sees you looking at hir.
You say, "I hadn't. You do seem to be scorching my wood floors, however."
Camilla says, "Just how much of Besax are you?"
Camilla ohs. "Drat."
A techno beat slams into you from a chamber right below the room. It stops as suddenly as it began.
Eli waves it off. "They were half-scorched anyway. Don't worry about it. What do you mean, how much of Besax am I?"
Camilla says, "How much memories of his do you have?"
You say, "Oh, most of them. I can't recall all the details of those hundreds of years of his life, but I recall the gist of them, and everything recent."
Camilla nods.
Camilla says, "So what do you know of me?"
There is a clicking noise behind you.
You say, "I know you're a bit of a culture snob, you were created to convert orgone energy in to nuclear explosions, you're bitey, and jealous enough to borrow my knife with which to murder Sweet William out of spite."
Camilla raises an eyebrow. "Spite?"
You say, "What would YOU call it?"
Camilla says, "Mercy."
Camilla frowns.
Eli looks at you, then shrugs. "Perhaps." He changes the subject. "Anyway. Why are you growing, and why are you growing too fast?"
"Because I want to. It's ... rather enticing. And I suppose it's something to fret about,w hich is something I do." Camilla chews on hir fingerclaw. "Spite? Is that what people really think?"
"It's what I thought. I can't speak for everyone else. But you did jab a knife in to him after he dumped you for a priest, and most people don't share your crippling terror and hate of the Strangevirus.
"After all," says Eli, finally getting to his feet, "Odds are good most of them know someone who has it."
Camilla snorts. "More people should be programmed to be half-turing sex slaves."
There is a clicking noise behind you.
Eli looks at you blithely. "An interesting opinion. Why do you hold it?"
You say, "I wouldn't have imagined you needed that many sex slaves."
You hear a distant siren.
Camilla snorts again. "No. No one needs one."
Eli begins to clean his nails with a knife. "So why should more people be programmed in to half-turing sex slaves, then?"
Camilla says, "MOre people need t o know what it would be like to know how close they came to not being free."
Camilla's tail flicks, tossing dust.
You say, "I take it this is a more personal issue."
Camilla says, "Isn't it *all* personal?"
You say, "I'm not even sure what we're talking about any more. Let's get some honey hot dogs and discuss this over breakfast - I'm starving."
Camilla says, "I'm not supposed to metabolize... but yes, I'll come."
Eli opens the door and heads over to the one next over, knocking twice. "Bob! Bob, it's Eli. I smelled your hot dogs - might myself and a guest indulge in some?" There's no response for a moment.
"...Sure. Sure, c'mon in."
Camilla sniffs the air, and smacks hir wet lips.
The door lock -click-s open, letting out a dull whine of an electric generator. Eli steps inside, where a doleful looking basset hound pedals dutifully away at a flywheel to keep that generator running, and keep power flowing to the grill where several honey-glazed hot dogs are sizzling.
Several floors overhead, you catch a sound like violin strings snapping, followed by a deep growl.
Camilla says, "Hello. You must be Bob."
The basset hound squints his droopy eyelids at Camilla, then unclips a monocle from one of his ears and holds it up to his eye, making it look enormous. "A-yup. Un what's yer name, mis'ser?"
Camilla says, "They call me Camilla. You must know Eli."
Eli helps himself to a small metal tray and a pair of tongs. He fetches a hot dog bun from a small bread box, and slides a honey-sticky hot dog in to it before settling down on a milk crate. He tears in to it, while Bob says, "A-yup. He's a good neighbor, he is. He helped ol' Bob build this here grill, he did."
You catch a faint smell of cat piss.
Camilla says, "That's curious. Why do you live here?"
Ecton Bob says, "A-priv-acy, a-quiet. I'm an ol' dog - uh need muh rest."
Camilla says, "Ah,yes, Privacy."
Eli glances up to Camilla. "Are you sure you don't metabolize? These really are delicious," he says, licking some honey from his lips. Bob turns back to his pedaling, looking like the saddest dog in the world, as basset hounds tend to.
Camilla says, "I didn't say I didn't. I said I shuldn't."
"Aw, shucks," says Bob. "A lil' honey dawg ain't ever done nobody no harm. You g'wan 'head and have yerself a snack."
The light dims for a moment.
Camilla smiles politely. "Well... I d-don't want to be rude."
Eli glances to Camilla curiously. His visor flickers for a moment, then a message scrolls across it such that Camilla can read it without notifying Bob. - Would it be dangerous? -
Camilla puts hir hand on Eli's shoulder. "I suppose I worry too much."
Bob blinks a bit. "Aw, worryin' ain't never solved nuthin'."
Camilla says, "ANd yes, I like honey."
Eli hands Camilla his tray and tongs. "Indulge yourself."
The flies buzz around your head.
Camilla opens her mouth wide, slides the hot dog in, and swallows with one gulp. -.- Her swan's neck bounces.
The whole building is shook by the rumbling bass of an unheard song, which suddenly stops with a loud, short snap.
Eli grins, and Bob smiles a bit. "That was cute," says Eli, as Bob picks up a hot dog with his tongs and nibbles on it straight up.
Camilla puts a hand on hir chest, and frowns. "What?"
Eli smiles. "You swallowed the whole thing at once. It was cute. I didn't expect it."
Camilla's whiskers curl. "This ingestion is ... something I'm not properly schooled in."
"I forget myself," Camilla says.
"There ain't no wrong way to et a hot dawg," says Bob, licking some honey from the tongs.
Camilla says, "Is there more?"
Bob's face lights up in a big smile, showing off bad teeth. "Yuh can have all yuh like," he says.
Camilla frowns. "And here I was discussing with Eli about how I must curb my appetites."
Bob shrugs. "Well, yuh don't have to take more'n yuh want," he says, as Eli begins devouring another hot dog.
Camilla says, "Well, it's not a question of what I want. It''s a question of what I need."
You say, "I think your problem is you're not sure which is which."
Camilla says, "Or what's spiteful and what's merciful."
Bob eats his hot dog.
Camilla looks hungrily at the bucket. "I should go."
Through the floor, you can hear the tinkle of a glockenspiel hit several times, tunelessly.