15 - Here and Back Again

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[and after a great many months, someone is appearing much more as they should. Hair artfully arranged, and in a gown of burgundy velvet the previous three months might never have happened to the less than discerning eye. She is reclined on her favorite settee, and on an adjacent table rests a decanter of wine. With an amused smile she is reading the latest of Voltaire's scribblings]

Comments

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

And why is it, then, do you think?

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Because with you, I cannot presume to know the answer.

I know the answer far too often.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

That's why the Academy was so dull.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[her next question came easily]

What do you not know, then?

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

[his response is just as easy]

The solutions to the Agathon Equations and the Skasis Paradigm, to start.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[child's play is both endearing and informative, but she is much more suited to the here and now]

What of to finish?

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

Well, if I knew those, I suppose I'd have finished it all. Which would be more than a mite dull, but I'm sure that Ultimate Cosmic Power would give me enough room to create a universe where that was not the case. Could try out the divergent universe, maybe, though the lack of time there would be murder on me.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[the the words are not any she would ever use, Reinette appreciates the sentiment]

More wine?

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

If you don't mind.

Do you have a thing to start and a thing to finish?

[there are gaps in the meanings of his words, overlaps and ambiguities, and it is in these that he finds his answers]

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[with deliberate grace she refills his glass]

I have enough new in my life of late, and the promise of more than enough endings. I occupy myself with what is in between.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

Seems a good enough way to go about it.

[as he lifts his glass again, he stops to look at her. It's almost like a jump, a clasping on his hearts, but it is his mind that is taken. The Master looks at this fascinating woman, and he remembers that her death comes on 15 April, 1764. Just snuffed out.]

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[she sips at her wine with an easy, almost careless smile. She rarely looks this way]

It is what I know.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

I think we just established that what one knows is often quite dull.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Thus the wine to ease the boredom. I would ask if you might suggest other distractions.

[she meets his glass over the gaze]

But now I know what ever enchantment you produced you are bound to take away.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

[he does not look away]

The most interesting things do not belong in the world you're from. My world can give them the universe and eternity; Versailles cannot even give them the respect they deserve.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[for all that on almost any other day, and other hour she might agree with him, still she visibly bristles]

You should not speak so harshly of Versailles until you have experienced its pleasures.

I am of there. Do you mean to suggest I cannot respect them?

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

No. You are in Versailles, not of it.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

We are not all as transient as you, or the Doctor.

Some of are indeed of things.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

Oh, but you are transient, Reinette. Ephemeral. And Versailles, for all it's wonders - and I have been there once or twice, it's hard not to when your best enemy is the Doctor - Versailles isn't all the universe.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Not all the universe, no. But in turn it is also a universe all its own. With stars and comets and constellations, journeys both predictable and bright.

Perhaps it was some inherent skill that first allowed me to see within the Doctor's mind, but it was my experiences that allowed me to understand what was within. Knowledge is nothing without understanding.

So perhaps I should amend my words. No, Versailles is not the Universe. But it is universal.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

I suppose I have to give you that one.

[he leans back again, turning his sight to the stars, now, and takes a sip of his wine]

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[she sips her own as well, watching him. He is not universal, he is unique. And so she is fascinated]

You referred to him as your 'best enemy'.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

He has, I believe, said the same.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[she is curious still]

Is that so important? That he say the same?

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

Trading relations, Reinette. Unequal trading relations can lead to disaster.