maskormenace | Entry #004

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Entry #004 | Video

[ Here is Gansey, looking a little strange. He’s wearing a navy-blue sweater emblazoned with a raven – an Aglionby school sweater, over what appears to be ordinary clothes. His shoulders and hair are damp, like he’s been rained on, and he looks strangely pale. Despite that, he’s displaying a welcoming smile, and his hazel eyes are bright and vital with some emotion he’s holding back. ]

Apparently, I vanished yesterday.

I say apparently because it feels more like several weeks ago, but according to this – [ he holds up one of De Chima’s daily newspapers – a tabloid, headlined with speculation about the upcoming import elections ] – it’s only been a day.

A lot can happen in a day. Sometimes things that give you perspective.

Can I ask – the school year is almost over. Some of you will be graduating. I will. Which is odd, because I was here for eight months, and then I went home and it was Fall again, and Senior year was just beginning. I’m not completely sure what age I am now. I turned eighteen a couple of months ago.

[ Which, he actually never mentioned. It had seemed like there were more important things to be getting along with, and the thought of getting older in the wrong world had annoyed Gansey anyway. He’d kept quiet. Now, if he could do that over again, he thinks he’d celebrate it more – even though he’s only mentioning it now because it’s relevant to this. ]

Then I go home, and I’m seventeen again, so now I don’t even know what counts. Graduation will, though, I know that much.

So: to everyone else who’s graduating. Or even if you’re not, even if it’s just that you see change coming for you. What are your plans? Will you work, will you travel? What would you like to do, ideally? I think I’m ready for it to be summer again.

Private to: Billy Kaplan, Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch, Noah Czerny, Matthew Lynch

[ This part goes to everyone’s private inboxes. Gansey’s smile is less presidential here, but his eyes are even sharper. He seems energized, like he’s on the edge of something. His voice is trying not to sound like it. ]

Hey, everyone. I very much hope I didn’t worry you. I think I was mid-conversation with you, Billy. I’ll have to blame my rudeness on the Porter.

Listen, I’m on my way home. Could someone bring the car and pick me up? I’m getting pizza from that Italian place near the porter in De Chima. I’m absolutely famished.

I’d…like to know if anyone else vanished, too. Ronan, Adam?

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[ He would have known? That makes Gansey frown. If it hadn't been a memory block, then what could it be? ]

So, then...how do you account for the memories disappearing, as if they never happened? Presumably you regained them when you came back here, like I did.

They can't simply have been gone.

An excellent point! One that raises so many different answers. Transfer of consciousness, this is all just one exceedingly long and complicated shared dream, we're all a simulacrum, clones, the list goes on and on.

After all, our memories vanish when we return home but certain other things vanish as well. [ And here, the Doctor reaches up to the tattoo on his wrist, blazing 'UNSETTLED' and lightly taps it. ]

I think we'd know if it were a dream.

[ Or rather, Gansey thinks Ronan would know. He doesn't think the Greywaren could be tricked like that. Maybe he's wrong.

But he has faith. ]

You're right, though. I hadn't thought of that. The tattoo. [ Gansey runs his fingers over his own. Like the Doctor's, it reads 'UNSETTLED'. Today, that is all too true. ] The nanites as well, presumably. Do you suppose the porter removes them when she sends us back?

You'd think you know if it were a dream, but I've experienced some rather realistic dreams courtesy of some rather nasty dream crabs.

[ He's just said that with no explanation, just bam, dream crabs are a thing, time to talk about other things. ]

Well obviously the Porter removes the nanites. Some of us, most notably me, can track the nanites. I'd notice back home if my bloodstream was suddenly infested with nanomachines.

You...dream crabs.

[ Gansey just stares at that pronouncement, because what the hell are you talking about, Doctor? This conversation has gone from vaguely nerdy to Definitely Concerning Aliens in a matter of moments.

He clears his throat. ]

Well. All right, I suppose that's true. It could be a dream, regardless of it not feeling like one. How can you track the nanites, though? I thought the very nature of them was that they're so small they can go through your bloodstream. I didn't think any of us could feel them. Especially if we don't remember what we're looking for.

I don't dream crabs, they're dream crabs, get the facts straight.

[ DUH, GANSEY. ] As for the nanites, they are so small that they can go through your bloodstream and they are small enough that it'd be hard for twenty-first century Earth technology to detect them. The key word here, is twenty-first century technology.

[ Gansey is developing a headache here. ]

So…you’re not from the twenty-first century.

[ Okay, that’s fine, he can believe that. Time is not the linear device it pretends to be, anyway. ]

When, then? And is a dream crab something from your time? Because I’m fairly sure we don’t have them here.

Yes! Yes, of course I'm not from the twenty-first century. I never said I was from then in the first place, keep up Prep School.

[ Sorry Gansey, you're stuck with a nickname now. ]

And yes, points again! You don't have dream crabs here but it's not the when that's the reason why you don't have them. It's the where.

[ ...you know what, he'll take that one. It's true, anyway. ]

Well, I didn't know we were discussing future timelines!

Or...other places, actually. Where is it that you're actually from? When can be a difficult question, I know.

Originally? I'm a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey.

A Time Lord.

[ Beat. ]

Is that a title? I thought you were a Doctor.

[ The Doctor sighs before continuing, a bit of a grumpy frown on his face. ] I'm from the planet Gallifrey so I'm Gallifreyan. Some Gallifreyans are Time Lords just like some humans have a Ph.D. I'm the only Time Lord who calls himself the Doctor just as you're the only human who calls himself Gansey. Understood?

[ ...Well... ]

Technically speaking that's a family name, and there's been three Richard Campbell Ganseys before me, so...

[ No, stop it. That's not the point, Gansey. ]

But what does it mean, then, to be a Time Lord? What is it that you do?

[ Richard Campbell Gansey, that's...oooh. Ooooooooh. ] Well, I see why you go by your last name.

[ but as for the question, ] What I do is I putter around in a police box. What other Time Lords do is putter around and make certain time stays running and nobody mucks it up.

[ Gansey shrugs. ] It's a bit of a mouthful.

[ And the alternative is shortening his first name, which for various reasons, he would rather not.</small. ] So, you make sure time stays running. Because if you didn't, there's always the danger that it might stop, is there? My experience of time is somewhat...opposed to that idea, I suppose. The right kind of magic seems to interfere with its linear illusion. So to speak.

Well, I say time stays running but it's more of the keeping people from mucking it up. Time's like a watch, once it's wound it'll keep going for a while...unless some idiot's built a device to rupture universes or is going to change the flow of history by meeting himself or a genocidal race of pepperpots are planning to destroy the Earth.

Meeting yourself.

[ Gansey grins, unable to help himself. ]

That's a little more 'Back to the Future' than I had in mine. I mean, I understand that time isn't really divided into past, present or future, that's just how we perceive it. Because we have to, we're not really made for anything else.

You're talking about actual time travel. That's quite incredible, Doctor.

You're talking to an actual time traveler, Prep School. Of course it's incredible. [ yeah the Doctor's being a tad egotistical here but so what? Time travel's awesome! ]

Oh, but you must have seen amazing things. Not to mention places, I -

[ Wait a minute, here. Priorities. ]

I don't suppose you've ever met the Welsh King Glendower, have you? Late fourteenth, early fifteenth century. Fought against the English.

Sorry, I hung out on the other side of that conflict. I've met Henry the Fourth and Prince Hal but I haven't met Glendower yet.

[ Doctor, you traitor. ]

It was worth a try, I suppose. He's a fascination of mine.

[ That is putting it mildly. ]

Does that mean you witnessed their lives? Front row seat on St Crispin's Day?

[ sorry Gansey, he's King Traitor ]

Course I did! What's the use of having a time machine if you don't hit up the highlights?

That’s marvellous. History is a passion of mine. I mean, Glendower in particular, but World history in general…

I’ve always felt quite aware of time slipping away.

[ Or slipping, in general. That’s a little harder to define. ]

You know where you are with history. It's never going anywhere.

You know where you are if you're looking back. Owen Glendower didn't know where he was going on St. Crispen's Day, after all.

I wonder which side he’d have taken, had he lived to see it.

[ Gansey smiles. It’s almost like he’s thought of this before. ]

I can’t help thinking it might have been the French. I imagine he’d have sympathised.

Tell me something, Doctor. If that’s what you think of the past, what are your thoughts on the future?

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