Barbara / Ima Wiggles (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
gourmandized) wrote2017-05-17 04:04 pm
gourmandized) wrote2017-05-17 04:04 pm
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WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, BARBARA. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 816.19.528.16 *** wiggles has joined 816.19.528.16 <wiggles> Hello, this is Ima Wiggles. <wiggles> How can I get this machine to stop calling me Barbara? I don't go by that name anymore. <wiggles> If you'd like to speak with me please leave a message! | ||||
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[He smiles apologetically at her. It's a much less closed-off expression than usual - shaky and wry, with real vulnerability behind it. He usually looks older than eighteen; right now, he looks much younger, thirteen or fourteen. Despite the weariness in his expression, there's a childishness there that overrides it.]
[His hands close around his teacup again.]
I've said several times now that I'm not sure who I am. That... doesn't entirely cover it. I'm not sure what anything is.
It's like drowning in the dark. You don't know which way's up, which way's down, what's pulling you in what direction. And, I mean... I fought that, too. I'm not a fighter. I'm a Slytherin, not a Gryffindor. But I still have to fight sometimes, and I suppose... if you can't see what's dragging you down and what's trying to pull you up, you just lash out at all of it. It all looks like Inferi to me.
[He smiles again, weaker this time, and wipes his eyes on his cuff before hurriedly raising the cup to his lips.]
Sorry. Most of that probably didn't make much sense to you. This is why I ought to keep the thinking quiet.
The point is, I recognise that you were trying to help me. And I'm sorry I hurt you in return.
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I accept your apology. [She really does; she's still cautious, naturally, but this isn't just lip service.] And I hope you understand why I couldn't wait quietly for you to come to a slow conclusion.
[She already explained to him that her chosen family would have been some of the first on a "pure blood" fascist's figurative chopping block, even if she herself were to be exempt on the basis of good breeding. And she'd given him the gist of WWII, as well, during which she'd grown into adulthood.]
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Thank you.
I do understand. I think I do, at least. I just wish I could have come to a faster one, and saved us both some heartache.
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[She withdraws the small wrapped package from her purse and slides it across the table to him.]
It's not much of a gift, I know--but I think it's important.
[Ima had paid a visit to the museum gift shop when it first opened, and when she'd found copies of the pitch cards from the Cabinet of Curiosities she'd stolen them all, every single copy of every single person's. That's what Regulus will find in the box: promotional photo cards of every freak in the show (minus Dell and Maggie, whose cards she'd seen fit to not include), with the freaks' stage names on the front and various fun facts about them printed on the back. Ima's, which credits her as "Ima Wiggles, the Stupendous Fat Lady" is on top. Underneath are the rest: The Illustrated Seal, The Astounding Lizard Girl, Amazon Eve, Lobster Boy. And more. All of them apart from the two Ima removed. It's clear from these cards alone that a system like that which Regulus had once believed in would not have been kind to those pictured in them, and that's the understatement of the century.]
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[He takes the box carefully, with a little nod, and opens it slowly, folding the paper as he goes and setting it neatly to one side.]
[For a long time after he opens it, he's silent, looking through the cards. Once or twice, he raises his head and looks as though he might say something, but then shakes his head and goes back to the cards, examining them closely.]
[They don't move, and that's still strange for him, but he's getting used to the idea of pictures that stay still. The pictures themselves are...]
[Well, she isn't wrong. Some of what he sees could be fixed in his world, if they had come from the right families and had access to the right charms and potions. The dwarf with the beard actually reminds him a little of Professor Flitwick - an oddity, but one to be tolerated. But most of them would, he thinks, have been quietly shuffled off out of sight if they had been born into a family like his. If they were lucky.]
[He sighs, straightening the edges of the cards, and nods slowly.]
Your friends, I take it?
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[She and Desiree hadn't gotten along well at all, but unlike Dell and Maggie, Ima still counts the three-breasted woman as a part of the family. You don't have to particularly like all of your family members.]
I'm from what would be considered "good breeding." The rest of them weren't, so there'd be no chance of exceptions being made for any of them.
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They wouldn't have been our targets. I want you to know that. It wasn't about how people looked.
But I take your point.
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[It's why she couldn't sit by and keep her mouth shut.]
A rich young man of what might be called "pure blood" decided he owned us, the bizarre creatures that we were, and when we refused to be cowed he resorted to force. He killed us all, one by one.
That's why I can't afford to keep my mouth shut.
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[His voice, when he does speak, is quiet and apologetic.]
That's terrible. I didn't know.
I'm sorry.
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Thank you. [She believes in the truth of this apology too, so there's nothing snide in her thanks.]
I'm relieved that the two of us can move on from here.
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So am I.
Thank you. I'm not sure anyone's ever given me a second chance before.
[Besides the Fog. But he's got just about enough self-awareness not to turn this into a god thing.]