Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire [OTA]

[freedomsuitsme]

Who: The Great Maxwell and YOU!
What: Bopping around the ship, taking care of errands
Where: Library, Cabins, Windjammer, Various
When: Early October
Warnings: None Yet

Pick your poison, name your desire [Library]

It took some time to decide where exactly he'd work on Grace's suit. Though the lounge in Bobby B's is comfortable, he doesn't want the smell of cigars to permeate the fabric, not when it's so new and fresh and wonderfully pressed. Stan the Man would have been too crowded and noisy, the Atrium too open. What had sold him on the library was the presence of open tables and the soft hum of the alchemy engine.

Measure twice, cut once. It's an especially important mantra to follow when you have so little material to spare. Old muscle memory finds its way into his fingers as he works, and, steadily, the ensemble begins to come together.

He's engrossed in his work, but considering he's working in a public place, he's not about to shoo out anyone else who comes in.



I'm a great many things, but I'm not liar [Closed for Giles]

It's about a week into October when the magician comes a'knocking.

"Giles, it's Maxwell. I've run into a bit of a problem."



Despite your rage, despite your ire [Near Cabin 105]

Around midday, early in October, Maxwell can be seen entering, and very shortly after, emerging from Cabin 105- Grace and Valdis' cabin. He knocked first, then entered when there was no response... unless there was. Though he did try very deliberately to come by when he knew Ms. Grace would be out.

He doesn't make much of a deal about it, and he doesn't have a look on his face like he knows he's doing anything untoward or unusual.

Well, curiosity killed the cat, but since when did cats care about death taxes?

I'll be dancing around your pyre [Windjammer]

It's occurred to him that, given how food doesn't spoil and the depths of the Tommy Bahama are infinite, he probably shouldn't forego packing provisions for his eventual safari with Higgsbury. He knows the outing is inevitable now- the gift of a couple of very familiar pith hats from Sundries has convinced him of as much- and he wants to be as prepared as possible, given the scientist's lingering apprehensions.

He's packing a lot of bacon and eggs, an odd choice for a field mission. Perhaps there's something better and less greasy that he could be stuffing into his basket?

And our old grudges we'll retire [Wildcard]

Comments

[freedomsuitsme]

"Would I be amiss in referring to you as Ms. Millay? Apologies, it's a result of the time I come from, but I feel somewhat uncomfortable referring to others on such a personal basis unless I know them well. Though if Maeve is what you prefer..." He trails off, thinking. Yes, he knows her from somewhere, beyond just inhabiting the same ship, but he can't quite place exactly where.

[millay]

"If that is your preference. We don't have a lot of formalities where I'm from." Especially not at the Mariposa. "I am not particularly used to it even though people seem to believe that I must be." She shrugs. It feels particularly abnormal. "Do you have a preference for what I call you at this time?"

[freedomsuitsme]

"Mr. Carter is fine. Maxwell, if you do prefer the more casual." He isn't going to be terribly picky about what others call him. He's got a scientist calling him all manner of names and a fish that knows him as "the gentleman Maxwell," after all.

[millay]

Maeve nods. "I suppose that would be less confusing than trying to sort through multiple Maxes on one ship." Maxwell, Maximilien, and Max. She's not sure if the third has a longer name than that. "Are you very skilled with tailoring clothing?" She pauses briefly before adding, "I have my dress from the brothel I used to work in that I was considering making into something a little less...brothel-dress. Only I don't know where to start."

[freedomsuitsme]

"I would need to see it in order to know what magic I might be able to work with it. Unfortunately, our supply of fabric for adding to and altering garments is somewhat limited. You'd think the Infinite Tommy Bahama would have an infinite selection, and yet."

[millay]

"Of course. I'll have to bring it to you sometime. I've worn the dress out a couple of times, but it's..." Different. Because she's not the same woman she was the last time she wore that dress. "A lot for a cruise where the majority of the fashion is Tommy Bahama." That's probably easier than getting into Westworld anyway. "The choices of clothing to make something most people would go with is a little...wanting, I agree." There's a sigh. "But perhaps I can hope the Erda will hear the need for more fabric and help with that."

[freedomsuitsme]

"The Erda... I've heard that term multiple times, but I still don't understand quite what it is."

[millay]

"I suppose they would be called magical beings. They seem to grant wishes? But sometimes they just give me things I'd rather not have. Like countless outfits from a place that I'd never return to if I got everything I ever wanted." She waves it off. "But at least I can find a way to make them into something new."

[freedomsuitsme]

"Ah, yes, I've received a gift or two myself that seem to be meant as reminders of a time and a place I'd rather not return to. And then there was that awful footwear... not sure if anything ever became of those rubber shoes."

[millay]

Maeve tilts her head slightly at the mention of rubber shoes. "People wear rubber shoes?" She knew about wellies and that most shoes had rubber soles. "It is unpleasant at times to be reminded of a time where you were trapped in a situation that you could not get out of."

[freedomsuitsme]

"Oh, they were ghastly things. Luminous green rubber clogs full of holes. It was almost funny how repulsive they were. Oh, and they bit, too. Drew some blood from my finger and then made a copy of themselves. I left them in the Tommy Bahama, hopefully they haven't made any more trouble since then."

[millay]

Maeve is even more bewildered by this news. "Oh. How...curious." A beat. "Actually, it sounds rather unfortunate. Both stylistically and because of the biting." The luminous green doesn't sound appealing and what is the point of shoes with holes in them?

[freedomsuitsme]

"I'm really not sure what this 'Erda Flow' was thinking in giving them to me. I suppose it might have been a jab at the gifts I would receive from my other mysterious benefactors back home. The shoes even came in the same sort of box, wrapped in red with ribbons made of grasping shadows."

[millay]

Maeve shrugs. "I don't know. But perhaps it was like that. Sometimes it gives us things we do really want. I got a dress just in time for the throuple marriage." And she really likes that dress still. "What are grasping shadows?"

[freedomsuitsme]

"The throuple- is that Messrs. Summer, Watson, and Salazar? Did they all get married at once? I'd been under the impression it had been a sort of cumulative... dynamic? Forgive me, I don't know a better term."

"Grasping shadows- in the world I come from, shadows are an extension of a great and unfathomable intellect. While those shadows can form full creatures, they often choose to form simple limbs to perform simple task. A grasping shadow is simply a disembodied arm made of corporealated umbral essence."

[millay]

Maeve nods at the question. "Yes. They were married all at once. It was a lovely ceremony. I've never seen multiple people married at one time. The good doctor has been one of my closest friends since the beginning. He is one of the first humans I told of my condition." She pauses. "After a young woman exploded part of the ship and embedded pieces of wood into my skin." Host skin is much different from human skin in that way.

It feels rather familiar in a way that makes her posture shift slightly. "I saw something similar in a dream. Which is rather unusual as Hosts do not dream. We are programmed with the concept and understanding of dreams so that should a memory of things in our loops somehow pop up, we could explain it away as a dream and not real life." But perhaps that is confusing. "There was a man on a throne that spoke of something and I rather think I died once more. Though, I have to give credit for its being different from the previous."

[freedomsuitsme]

"Programmed... are you some sort automa- oh, sorry, that word apparently isn't taken well here. Are you a sort of Omnic?" It hasn't quite dawned on him that Maeve is the figure he encountered in his poppy-induced dreams.

[millay]

Maeve has heard a great deal of terms and she's not really insulted by any of them. "We are called Hosts. But I am not particularly bothered by any of the terms available. So yes, but also no."

[freedomsuitsme]

He looks slightly flustered under that suave façade.

"I see. It isn't your place to educate me on this, but perhaps you might clarify- how might I distinguish a Host from an Omnic? Or is a Host a type of Omnic? Or... an Omnic a type of Host? I only know what I've been told not to call someone of the... artifice persuasion. I'm rather baffled as to what the correct terms actually are."

[millay]

"Well, it's more that our creators called us Hosts. In my world. I am not from the same world as Maximilien or anyone else from his world. It is a little complex, I understand. We were built with the specific purpose of looking like humans. We were meant to entertain the humans with our roles and loops and the things that happened. And they could kill us over and over with no guilt. We even bleed like humans." She shrugs. "As far as I know, I'm the only one that does that. So Hosts are just what Ford and his ilk called my kind. Most of the others are more sensitive to certain terms than I am. It's because of how people spoke to them and treated them back home from what I understand of it."

She can't say she fully comprehends how Host and Omnic would be in terms of things. "I guess what I'm saying is I do not mind being called an Omnic, android, or whatever. So if one is preferrable to you or it's easier to remember one as opposed to many, I will not correct you or feel disgruntled about it. As long as you treat me as a person, it doesn't matter."

[freedomsuitsme]

"I suppose I'll stick with Host, then." He briefly thinks about how much every self-identified automaton he knows would chafe at being made to imitate humans.

Suddenly, something else he said hits him belatedly.

"You mentioned that you saw animate shadows in your dreams? Dreams that are... uncharacteristic simply by their presence?"

[millay]

Welcome to Westworld. She does seem very human despite not being terribly so.

"Yes. I think so, anyway. We don't dream. Not really. At least since I have awoken, I have not had a single dream. I can sleep like humans, but it isn't necessary. Much like eating. But those things were...unusual. We do not have anything like that where I'm from, so I know it was nothing about Westworld."

[freedomsuitsme]

"And yet you saw Them, somehow. Wait a minute-" His eyes widen.

"I saw you in the Throne Room..."

[millay]

Maeve studies him for a moment. "There was a throne, yes. That was your world?" She frowns. A cage of an uncomfortable sort. "I believe I died there, but it was different." She wonders if this is another instance of a memory that happened back in another world.

"You were trapped by these shadows? And the throne? I am sorry if my choices negatively impacted you. I wasn't sure what was the right choice, but even if I'd died, I would have preferred to be free and I have been fighting for freedom since my world. It didn't seem right to let you stay caged when you seemed so unhappy with the situation as it was."

[freedomsuitsme]

"No, no, it's nothing you need to apologize for. It was... only a dream." Though now he's wondering how much she saw, how much she heard of Their whispers. He remembers that she put the key in the lock, which means that the shadows must have bound her as the new monarch afterwards... right?