hh_mirror | open RP: music is infectious. No, really.

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open RP: music is infectious. No, really.

Having been unknowingly infected with a self-replicating spell by the mischievous Simkin, Camilla went about her day quite as she always would. Since she'd heard inexplicable music in Simkin's presence it didn't seem to her strange that she should continue to hear it now. And because she happened to be in a fairly pleasant mood at the moment, the music she heard was not disconcerting. At the moment it was some nondescript and upbeat jazz, actually.

Being a fairly sociable person, she'd say hello to people she ran across in the halls. She had no way of knowing that her presence would also transmit the spell to them -- that was the self-replicating bit -- and that their own personal soundtrack would consequently follow them, mirroring their moods as hers was doing for her.

(( OOC: This one is Simkin-mun's idea! He says it's "a self-replicating meme, that attaches to people as they interact with one another, and plays music depending on their mood. ... if they've got a song stuck in their head, it'll play that. But if they're feeling predatory, it might play the Jaws theme, for instance."

If you feel like uploading songs, that's cool, but you don't have to. You can just describe them, as I've done, being lazy as I am.

Once a person is infected, they can then infect other characters. Eventually the spell will fade away and so will its effects. Have fun! ))

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It could sometimes be hard to pin down exactly what Camilla was talking about. She was so used to circumlocution -- whether for tact, or to avoid things she'd rather not tackle -- that it had become a habit.

"Less remote. More like the rest of us," she said. It wouldn't be nice to tell Ryder what exactly Susan had been repressing, or what it had been like for that repression to crumble. Anyhow she thought Susan had taken everything too far. She just didn't want to see the pendulum swing back too far in the opposite direction now.

"She didn't have to be like her grandfather. She put it on and now you could say it's fallen off. I'm sure she can still take care of herself. She could before. In physical terms, I mean. Goodness, you should see her with a croquet mallet -- vicious," Camilla said, not in an approving tone. "But she's lost her armor, I guess. I think that's a decent analogy."

Less remote. Ryder tried to picture a less remote Susan, and failed utterly. Having never known her any way other than, well, the Death way, he couldn't imagine what she might be like as something closer to human.

Okay, so say he could accept that she wasn't the freaky Ice Queen anymore--fair enough, fair enough. What did Camilla mean by 'lost her armor', and more to the point, what did she expect him to do about it?

"All right, so she's human again," he said, half questioningly. "Kinda. If she can take care of herself physically, what's the problem?" He paused, his inner serial killer making him add, "And what does she do with the croquet mallet? Are there skulls involved?"

"The croquet mallet? Nothing special. I think she just likes hitting things. It's rather extreme. Maybe she'll have gotten over that now," said Camilla, though dubiously. "Anyway I'm not saying there is a problem, necessarily. I mean, I'm not worried exactly. I just wondered if she was all right. And maybe it might be good if she had people around who were a little more savvy than that Shaun person when it comes to ... people."

Well, damn. Liking to hit things wasn't half so interesting as some kind actual psychosis. Oh well.

Shaun...Ryder had met Shaun, just before the post-annulment party and...whatever the hell had happened during it. He still hadn't quite figured that one out. Shaun seemed like a nice enough guy, but Ryder had to agree the man had very little understanding of human nature. Then again, neither did Ryder--and even if he had, did Camilla really expect him to protect Susan? There was something seriously, seriously skewed about this scenario.

"Okay, I'll bite," he said, deferring his doubts for now. "Why? Savvy in what way, exactly?"

"She hasn't seen a whole lot of what people can do."

Camilla wasn't trying to be evasive.

...All right, Ryder was beginning to understand how Henry could have some problems communicating with her. That was the most unhelpful answer he'd ever had.

"Seen what people can do in what sense?" he asked, trying to be patient. "Obviously you don't mean physically, or you wouldn't have mentioned her liking to hit things. Do you mean curses? Tricks? Bad cooking?" A rare flash of insight paused him, and he said, "Just why did she do the...Death-thing?"

Camilla had to laugh, a little, at the suggestion about bad cooking. The music bubbled up around her when she laughed, an effervescent swell of stringed instruments that carried it into another tune entirely, or another movement of the same tune. "Goodness, it wasn't exactly a case of food poisoning. I guess I may as well tell you. She had a bad break-up and couldn't deal with it, that's all. Honestly I think she overreacted. The man she was seeing is a friend of mine. He's not a bad person. And they weren't actually officially even together. But it turned out she was terribly serious about him. So when it didn't work out, she was devastated."

Camilla sighed. "I hope it's like chicken-pox. She's had this very extreme reaction once and it won't happen again. She's so very innocent in some ways, though, isn't she?"

She did not see any irony in saying this.

That surprised the hell out of him. The idea of Susan in any kind of relationship was even harder to grok than the idea of Susan as something like a human being. Ryder wondered who he'd been, and what had been wrong with his head that he'd gotten into anything with her in the first place. Ryder was a demon, and even he thought Susan was weird.

"I dunno that I'd say that," he said slowly--Camilla might not see the irony in her words, but he sure as hell did. "Then again, apparently I don't know her like you do. So what do you want me to do, kill any guy that comes near her?" He could see playing the overbearing father for Camilla, or Henry, or almost anyone else their age, but with Susan it just didn't work, because...well, she was Susan. Still, he kind of liked the idea of having an excuse to stab people.

"Of course not. You can't kill anyone here anyway and I don't think they'd necessarily deserve it. I just wondered whether she was all right, that's all. Getting rid of the Deathness might not have been very easy on her. And now she's got this fixation on making people see things the way she sees them when she's Death, which might be very interesting but she's a little too keen on it maybe." Camilla gave her one-shouldered shrug. A little apologetically, she added, "I really ought to have looked in on her myself. It's just that things keep coming up." Like unexpected trips to London. All right, just one of those.

He'd thought so, unfortunately. That Susan wanted to make people see things the way she saw them as Death--well, he found it pretty 'interesting' himself, and wondered if it would work on him.

"So you want someone to keep an eye on her, is that what you're saying?" he asked. "Make sure she doesn't get into any messes? Camilla, I gotta tell you, that's not really part of my normal job description. Sounds to me like Susan needs distraction, and I can try to do it, but you have to keep in mind that I ain't human, either." The idea of keeping someone safe--even in an unusual way--grated on him like nails on a blackboard, but he liked Susan, in his own weird way, just as he liked Camilla. "I'll try and look after her, if you want me to, I guess." After all, it was always possible that in the course of looking after Susan, he'd wind up with the opportunity to aerate someone's entrails.

"I'm sure she'll get in whatever messes she wants to make. I don't think she needs a babysitter anymore. Just, you know, look in on her every now and then? She might need to keep in touch with her nonhuman side, if that makes any sense."

The music surrounding Camilla shimmered down a diminuendo. Hushed though far from muted, it went on in a slightly different key. "If she hadn't owled I wouldn't have known things had gotten quite that bad. I'd never seen her like that before, when she wasn't Death. I think she'll be better off the way she is now, in the end. It just might be rough until she adjusts. Re-adjusts." In the background, the music abruptly switched to a minor key. "Transitional periods are always difficult."

Ryder wasn't sure it did make sense, but he'd keep it in mind all the same. He was mildly amused by the change in her accompanying music--it really was like a damn soundtrack.

He didn't know what to make of Camilla's saying things had gotten 'bad' for Susan, but he did understand one thing--transitional periods really were rough. He went through the same thing over and over, when he finished the Job for a while and hit his down-time. The disorientation, the irritability--yeah, he knew how that one went. "What if she starts getting bad, as you put it?" Not that he'd really be able to tell, he thought--not unless Susan was a hell of a lot more readable as a human than she was as Death. "What then?"

"Then she'll cry," said Camilla immediately. "It's awful."

Ryder stared at her. He could accept the idea of Susan as human--in an abstract sense, at least--but the idea of her crying just Did Not Compute.

"Cry?" he said, almost certain he couldn't have heard right. "Susan, crying? We are talking about the same Susan, aren't we?"

"I don't know any other ones," said Camilla, who thought this was a silly question.

Ryder rubbed the back of his neck. For once in his life, he was boggled--he'd ~~made~~ seen a lot of people cry, but he just couldn't picture Susan doing it.

"Crying," he said. "Shit. Well, it's a damn good indicator, at least. So...what do I do if she cries? Find you?" Disturbing as the thought of a crying Susan was, the idea of trying to deal with it was infinitely more horrifying.

"Give her soup or tea. It makes her feel better. Also, handkerchiefs. You can come find me if you want, if I'm here." It was apparently hard to know where Camilla would be at any given time, even if you were Camilla.

"...Soup." All right, this was such an alien notion that it very nearly shut his rational thought down entirely. He'd let Camilla deal with the tea and soup, tvym.

"So where's Henry?" he asked abruptly, unable to continue that line of convseration for fear his brain might start dribbling out his ears.

At that question the music went confused for a moment, a weird jumble of dissonant strings, before settling into a smooth and utterly forgettable melody, the aural equivalent of blancmange.

"He's in America. Supposedly touring a chocolate factory." Camilla offered a slight half-smile, as if to say, I know it sounds ridiculous.

Really, Henry wouldn't eat almost any American chocolate, Camilla would think.

Okay, as if Ryder hadn't been through for enough of a loop today. He blinked. "...A chocolate factory?" he asked.

Having spoken to Susan--though obviously before all the un-Death-ifying had happened--he knew why Henry might want to get away for a while. Had the question been asked, then? Had Camilla said no? D-Student of human nature though he was, Ryder somehow thought Camilla would be behaving rather differently if she'd turned Henry down. God, all these people were weird.

"I said the same thing." Camilla felt vindicated by what she interpreted as skepticism from Ryder. "I can't even remember the last time he ate chocolate at all, let alone that kind of chocolate. The postcards are coming with the right postmark on them, anyway, so unless he's mailing them for someone else to send from that town, he's where he says he is. God only knows what he's doing there."

She didn't sound particularly perturbed by this, only perplexed.

Okay, he had to ask. "Did he say why he went, exactly?" The fact that she wasn't upset said that she probably hadn't turned Henry down, but in that case what had she done? Honestly, Ryder would have expected Henry to come up with a better excuse for a vacation.

"Not why he really went. Just some hilarious story about organ trafficking. How organ trafficking is supposed to bear on the classics, or with astronomy or paleontology for that matter, I'm sure I can't understand. Oh, I can't say I'm not curious, but on the other hand --" she lowered her voice, and the music rippled lower too -- "I'm glad I wasn't expected to go too, you know?"

Then again, if it were something he thought was dangerous, he'd want to keep her out of it. A frisson of worry crept into her mind, and reflected audibly in a violin glissando.

"Organ trafficking?" Ryder snorted. "Why the hell would he go to a chocolate factory to investigate organ trafficking?"

He shook his head, lighting a cigarette. "I can't blame you for not wanting to go," he said, thinking he knew full well why Henry didn't ask her to go. If that was Henry Winter's idea of an escape, then he was a much odder man than Ryder had thought.

Camilla agreed. "I know, it's a ridiculous story. I think he actually expected me to believe it, which is also ridiculous."

Something dangerous -- he wouldn't have gone somewhere dangerous with people he didn't know and trust. He didn't know Professor Dax or Dr Silvey very well at all. So it hadn't occurred to Camilla that it might be something of that nature. Anyway, he's perfectly fine. He's sending postcards.

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