“Traveling? With a capital T?” DJ’s eyebrow rose at that slight modification.
Kiya shrugged. “That’s just what he calls it: Traveling. He can’t do it physically, some law in his reality won’t let him. But he can send his will, his mind, across the dimensions and manifest. Sort-of manifest, anyways. There are limits when all you are is a mental projection from another reality.”
“Sounds just like being an Author, only in different places.”
The difference is belief. When you cross reality like that, belief is everything. It’s who you are, what you can do, and where you go. Zorlond Jaeger has a history that’s almost two decades long, by my world’s reckoning, and it’s my history. A sigh. But there are limitations. The physical laws of different realities make different demands, and if I don’t play by the rules, I get shuffled out of the game entirely. Sent spinning off in a very rapidly decaying dimensional possibility that quickly ceases to ever have existed, and I’m left standing there in the nothingness between worlds looking like a damn fool.
Kiya resumed the tale. “It’s why his powers, his nature, re-adjust and adapt themselves to fit in with the reality around him. It’s not a concern with people born here in the AddVenture because everything is so very similar in basic nature. But, when Zorlond came here, to this dimensional subset, he found he couldn’t manifest at all unless he took a local to be his Avatar.”
“Which is where Landis comes in.” DJ supplied. “But I still don’t see how this could be any different than the standard Author meta business. He shouldn’t be behaving like this.” She glanced upwards. “It also doesn’t explain the ‘voiceless presence’ bit, unless you’ve taken someone else to be your Avatar?”
No, I haven’t. I’m as dissociated with my Avatar as I can be and still have some kind of presence here. I can barely even affect reality like this. Took my whole budget just to… Never mind. The point is, my Avatar here isn’t my Avatar here only. Every now and then I find a dimension that allows me to be less present than I’d like, so I pull my Avatar from here over there.
“Thought you said we can’t leave this ‘subset’.”
Normally, you can’t. But with him pushing on his side and me pulling on mine, we can pop him out of this universe and into another. Just him, for any length of time, and definitely not so far away from the AddVenture that I can drag him into my reality. Tried it once with some passengers for the span of ‘one episode’, had a headache for a week afterwards. And it doesn’t work at all without some deep connections present…
“Which is why Landis was chosen in the first place.” Kiya interjected. “There was enough similarities there for him to manage it. But…” Kiya looked down at her fidgeting hands. “It’s different. There’s no Avatar and Original making an Author, out there. It’s just one guy: Zorlond. Wills, plural, ceases to be the case, and it’s just will, singular. Then, when things are… done… the Avatar is sent back.”
I’m able to do it with Kiya, too, since she’s so similar to my Avatar, but she… The voice paused, possibly noting Kiya’s growing discomfort. Ahem. Let’s just say I don’t pull her out of here much these days.
DJ, mulling all of that over, asked, “And what happens on these… trips?”
Kiya shrugged. “This and that. Some of it’s pretty similar to our adventures here Backstage, people trying to do the right thing. Some of it’s like what the Original writes about in the AddVenture proper. Some…” She lowered her head. “In any case, I think when the Landis memories awoke, my husband started wondering just where the division between himself and his Original was, or if it even existed at all. And without that division… He would be to blame.”
“For everything done during these ‘trips’ out of the AddVenture.”
“Not just for that, but also for everything that happens inside the AddVenture.” Kiya looked at Fruitbat. “Things done personally, and those not…”
Everyone simply sat and thought things over for a while, until DJ looked upwards again. “Solutions?”
I’m not just cutting him loose. I freely admit that I haven’t been very active of late, but right now that’d be a band-aid on a bullet wound. I know I wouldn’t be able to live with myself from his perspective if the only possibility of shifting blame, however remote, suddenly vanished. Right now, he’s stuck trying to figure out whether it’s all my fault or all his. Or if we’re one and the same, in which case it’s still all his. That’s why I’ve dissociated myself so much, last thing he needs right now is me in his mind. Frankly, I have no idea how this’d work… Though if he keeps banging his head on stuff the way he’s been…
“So, you want to leave it all in our hands, but at the same time, you’re keeping us from doing anything about him…” DJ snorted in contempt… rapidly followed by a brief noise of surprise as she jerked up straight in her seat.
This is to you and you only, DJ. Let me put things simply. Right now, my Avatar is suicidally depressed, violently angry, and blind drunk. I got Kiya and Kiyamakami out of there for their own safety, and I will not allow Anna or Darla in there at all. No daughter should ever see her father in that state, much less be in arm’s reach when it happens. I’m willing to let you, and whomever you choose, back into the suite if you need to. But the other Jaegers stay outside. Is that clear? DJ just nodded. Alright. Door’s keyed to you, the extra doors don’t even really exist. Blew my whole power budget getting the scrying stone out of there so my Avatar won’t have a back way out. I’m sorry for dropping it all on your lap, but if I knew what to do to fix things, I wouldn’t have even bothered to do it ‘on-camera’. With that, DJ felt the presence leave her mind.
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Sun Aug 22 17:58:46 2004
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