three. video. id: the Outsider. later tonight.

[crypdick]

[ It's traditional, when asking simple, broad questions to the Network to do so in a text post but that's not nearly melodramatic enough for the Outsider.

He's in the desert in the outskirts of Jeopardy, night has fallen and he's looking not at the communicator but up at the stars. There's some faeries nearby he's bribed to leave him alone with pizza, but they make it cold enough you can see his breath glittering on the air. ]

The places you come from are varied, where even the things that you take for granted may be different here, or for other imPorts. Even this reality is changing week to week.

With that in mind, I have a question for you.

[ Now he turns to look at the comm, eyes empty and black. He tilts his head. ]

What do you think makes a god a god?

(( And regular reminder that if you respond with video, you are completely free to include a vision for him to see if you want! ))

Comments

[stlg13bomber]

[Carter goes stock-still for a moment. The chipper smile drops from his face and he looks first surprised, then wary.]

How do you know that name?

[Nobody should know that name. Even the rats couldn't have told him that. Nobody here knows. Carter tries to think if he ever got drink and talked about it, but can't seem to remember.]

[crypdick]

I can see moments in time. They come to me unbidden. [ The Outsider has no reason to hide it; he suspects being cryptic with Carter will not work well. ] I saw... you getting a letter from a man wearing a different uniform, surrounded by unkind men.

[stlg13bomber]

So you're....like a psychic? [Carter looks at him in awe. Sure, why not. People can fly here. Psychic is fine.] You can read my mind? Wow.

Yeah, uh. Maybe that was at the Stalag? Who did you see there?

[crypdick]

Not your thoughts, only your history.

[ He thinks back to what he saw.]

A portly man in a black uniform with a smile. Other men, like you, but louder. They called out the mail, and upon finding out your lineage made fun of you for it.

What was that place?

[stlg13bomber]

Oh! [Carter laughs but it's a little bit forced this time. Almost as if he's saying the words 'ha ha' individually.] They aren't unkind, they're just joshing around. That was Stalag 13 - a prisoner of war camp I used to be cat. The fat guy was probably Sergeant Schultz--he was one of the guards, but wasn't a bad guy. He didn't really want to be there either.

[crypdick]

Who does want to be in a prisoner of war camp?

[ That intrigues him, though. Something he wouldn't have expected from such a cheerful man. ]

You speak fondly of him, despite him being the enemy and his treatment of you.

[stlg13bomber]

Schultz didn't really treat us that bad, and he looked the other way a lot for us. I mean, we did bribe him too, but that's just how it worked back then. [He's very chipper and matter of fact about it.] Some of the guards were real pieces of work but Schultz would have rather just sat around eating and drinking beer all day. But if he didn't do his job they'd have shot him or shipped him off, so...y'know. So it goes, right?