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Entry 601; Day 1296
May. 3rd, 2013 10:08 am[Filtered from Known DELILAH Members || Unhackable]
It is a strange thought to realise that I've now been in the City for six years.
I've been watching the calendar and had been--if not looking forward to this day, then at least anticipating it or expecting it.
Six years ago today, I decided I was tired of the usual conversation and the usual gossip at a party one evening in London. Perhaps that's what brought it all about, but that seems like a superstitious way to think about it, that some minor change in my plans brought these things about. But perhaps it put me in the right place--or the wrong place, as one might see it.
I left the party early and decided to walk for a while, even to walk home. And I think it was because I was walking that I glimpsed the Carousel at the far end of a narrow alley.
One doesn't often seen such things so unexpectedly appearing in London and I decided I'd take a closer look at it. I don't know where in that alley I passed from London to the City, or if it was only when I tried to retrace my steps in that alley that I found it didn't lead to London but only further into the City. But it was then that I found myself here--and I did think that perhaps I was, in fact, hallucinating or being deceived by my father and his wicked organisation. It took me some time to come to terms with it all. Perhaps I've never entirely come to terms with it at all. It was a strange and impossible thing, so far as I was concerned, to walk out of one world and into another, and to find myself bereft even of my enemies.
I owe a great deal of thanks to a great many people who are no longer in the City--Princess Rue, for the first, who encountered me so very soon after I arrived and offered me shelter in the Opera Abandoned, where I've lived ever since. She and Autor and Fakir--even if he didn't trust me at all when I first arrived--were very welcoming to me, as much as one can be welcoming in such a strange place. I think they stand out most in my mind among those I met in those first days.
And they were strange days, too. The City had just endured some massive ordeal--something on the order of an apocalypse, with demands for sacrifices for the preservation of particular worlds. I gleaned what I could from those who'd endured it, but there were few willing to say much. But that was at the end of the time of the 'Animal Trinity'--the cat, the harpy, and the dog called Adrastus. He's certainly come back since then. I think there are others now who recall him.
It seems like it was so long ago. Though six years is quite a long time, I have to admit. Perhaps I can be forgiven for indulging in a little reminiscing, especially on the Network (and I don't feel like dwelling on other recent ordeals, unjust imprisonment and so on, even if that isn't the first time it's happened to me). I could scarcely understand the Network or use it when I first arrived. I remember asking more than a few people for help in creating the kinds of locks and screens I wanted for it. I think they've all come and gone since then.
It doesn't seem fair in the least that so many would have come and gone and I would be left here still. Yes, I was granted a fortnight in my own world some years ago, for what good that does. But since then I've been in the City and only in the City. I've endured more curses and more ordeals, I've seen great threats to the City itself, I've seen invaders and would-be conquerors come into the City, and I've found myself even coming to the City's defense more than once. The City isn't home--far from it--but I've come to know it. I've come to build something of a life here. I don't defend the City out of love for it, but out of a kind of desperation to preserver what little I have here until I am, at last, permitted to go home.
There are times when I've likened my being here to a kind of exile. Perhaps that's the most accurate likening.
I've had foes and friends alike brought into the City--and even foes in the guise of friends (or lovers, rather). I'm thinking much on Riff and Merry today, and how much I miss their company. I suppose I'll tell myself again what I said when I first arrived: that this is the same as a trip out of town by myself, and there's nothing unusual or wretched in that. Someday soon I'm sure I'll find myself walking back out of that alley again, as I did that fortnight. I'll find myself looking at a clockwork carousel in a toy shop window and half-remembering the most peculiar dream I had of a strange city beset with curses and ruled by 'deities'. I'm sure that day will come, though I wonder sometimes when that will be.
I do miss London--and that longing is only made worst around this time of year, on this peculiar anniversary. More than London, I miss Riff and Merry and perhaps even Oscar (though I'd be hard-pressed to admit that any other time of year) and even my Uncle Neal. But my father is here, so there's work for me in the City. And I know full well that everything is waiting for me when I return to London at last. Six years have passed for me here, but perhaps only six seconds have passed in London. Shall I look on my time here in the City as a blessing or, perhaps somewhat humourously, as a curse? This place is all things that are impossible in my world--it's irrational, it's illogical, it's impossible, and yet here I sit in the midst of it, having witnessed all its madness for years.
I feel almost like I ought to lay eyes on the Carousel again today, listen for the perpetual ticking of the Clock (whose mysteries I was determined to solve when I first arrived, but how little we still know of it), drink a toast to the City, and walk the streets I wandered when I first arrived.
Perhaps I will. Perhaps I will go out and visit these same places, in the City that is both monstrous and wondrous.
~C.
[ooc: Yes, that's right--Cain has been in the City for six years as of today. Happy POLYversary, Cain. And may you have many more ♥ He'll be taking a walk around the City today. Feel free to encounter him on the Network or in the street--especially around the Fountain and the Carousel.]
Comments: http://poly-chromatic.dreamwidth.org/1008097.html
It is a strange thought to realise that I've now been in the City for six years.
I've been watching the calendar and had been--if not looking forward to this day, then at least anticipating it or expecting it.
Six years ago today, I decided I was tired of the usual conversation and the usual gossip at a party one evening in London. Perhaps that's what brought it all about, but that seems like a superstitious way to think about it, that some minor change in my plans brought these things about. But perhaps it put me in the right place--or the wrong place, as one might see it.
I left the party early and decided to walk for a while, even to walk home. And I think it was because I was walking that I glimpsed the Carousel at the far end of a narrow alley.
One doesn't often seen such things so unexpectedly appearing in London and I decided I'd take a closer look at it. I don't know where in that alley I passed from London to the City, or if it was only when I tried to retrace my steps in that alley that I found it didn't lead to London but only further into the City. But it was then that I found myself here--and I did think that perhaps I was, in fact, hallucinating or being deceived by my father and his wicked organisation. It took me some time to come to terms with it all. Perhaps I've never entirely come to terms with it at all. It was a strange and impossible thing, so far as I was concerned, to walk out of one world and into another, and to find myself bereft even of my enemies.
I owe a great deal of thanks to a great many people who are no longer in the City--Princess Rue, for the first, who encountered me so very soon after I arrived and offered me shelter in the Opera Abandoned, where I've lived ever since. She and Autor and Fakir--even if he didn't trust me at all when I first arrived--were very welcoming to me, as much as one can be welcoming in such a strange place. I think they stand out most in my mind among those I met in those first days.
And they were strange days, too. The City had just endured some massive ordeal--something on the order of an apocalypse, with demands for sacrifices for the preservation of particular worlds. I gleaned what I could from those who'd endured it, but there were few willing to say much. But that was at the end of the time of the 'Animal Trinity'--the cat, the harpy, and the dog called Adrastus. He's certainly come back since then. I think there are others now who recall him.
It seems like it was so long ago. Though six years is quite a long time, I have to admit. Perhaps I can be forgiven for indulging in a little reminiscing, especially on the Network (and I don't feel like dwelling on other recent ordeals, unjust imprisonment and so on, even if that isn't the first time it's happened to me). I could scarcely understand the Network or use it when I first arrived. I remember asking more than a few people for help in creating the kinds of locks and screens I wanted for it. I think they've all come and gone since then.
It doesn't seem fair in the least that so many would have come and gone and I would be left here still. Yes, I was granted a fortnight in my own world some years ago, for what good that does. But since then I've been in the City and only in the City. I've endured more curses and more ordeals, I've seen great threats to the City itself, I've seen invaders and would-be conquerors come into the City, and I've found myself even coming to the City's defense more than once. The City isn't home--far from it--but I've come to know it. I've come to build something of a life here. I don't defend the City out of love for it, but out of a kind of desperation to preserver what little I have here until I am, at last, permitted to go home.
There are times when I've likened my being here to a kind of exile. Perhaps that's the most accurate likening.
I've had foes and friends alike brought into the City--and even foes in the guise of friends (or lovers, rather). I'm thinking much on Riff and Merry today, and how much I miss their company. I suppose I'll tell myself again what I said when I first arrived: that this is the same as a trip out of town by myself, and there's nothing unusual or wretched in that. Someday soon I'm sure I'll find myself walking back out of that alley again, as I did that fortnight. I'll find myself looking at a clockwork carousel in a toy shop window and half-remembering the most peculiar dream I had of a strange city beset with curses and ruled by 'deities'. I'm sure that day will come, though I wonder sometimes when that will be.
I do miss London--and that longing is only made worst around this time of year, on this peculiar anniversary. More than London, I miss Riff and Merry and perhaps even Oscar (though I'd be hard-pressed to admit that any other time of year) and even my Uncle Neal. But my father is here, so there's work for me in the City. And I know full well that everything is waiting for me when I return to London at last. Six years have passed for me here, but perhaps only six seconds have passed in London. Shall I look on my time here in the City as a blessing or, perhaps somewhat humourously, as a curse? This place is all things that are impossible in my world--it's irrational, it's illogical, it's impossible, and yet here I sit in the midst of it, having witnessed all its madness for years.
I feel almost like I ought to lay eyes on the Carousel again today, listen for the perpetual ticking of the Clock (whose mysteries I was determined to solve when I first arrived, but how little we still know of it), drink a toast to the City, and walk the streets I wandered when I first arrived.
Perhaps I will. Perhaps I will go out and visit these same places, in the City that is both monstrous and wondrous.
~C.
[ooc: Yes, that's right--Cain has been in the City for six years as of today. Happy POLYversary, Cain. And may you have many more ♥ He'll be taking a walk around the City today. Feel free to encounter him on the Network or in the street--especially around the Fountain and the Carousel.]
Comments: http://poly-chromatic.dreamwidth.org/1008097.html