Escape From Rochester (Camp Nano July'14 project) Prequil Vignette: Dorian

[aldersprig]

Fifth in a series of stories leading up to my Camp Nano Project - this one stars Dorian.

For information on the events they're discussing, see faeapoclive and faeapoclive

Landing page here.


"I don't get it." Dorian's shoulder was touching mine. I didn't think she noticed, that or the way her knee was pressed against mine, or the way the short curls of her hair were wrapped around her ear.

Because I didn't think she noticed, I tried not to notice. We weren't here to talk about physical contact; we were here because she wanted to take the world apart and put it back together, and I'd suggested I might have a wrench or two.

If not a wrench, I at least had access to a couple parts of the blueprint. So I had pulled out the most useful books on the subject I knew, and I was slowly levitating a leaf in front of Dorian while she poked it with all sorts of instruments.

"I don't get it." It wasn't exactly repeating herself; she'd changed the tone. There was a different it this time, I thought. "Gravity works, it's one of the constants. So telekinesis oughtn't work."

"There are quite a few constants." I could've, I guess, told her everything. Habits break hard, though, and silence was one of the oldest habits. "But look at those 'portals' - they're one of the ways that the universe shortcuts itself. And there's, well, smaller shortcuts here and there, too."

"The universe has cheat codes?"

This was a lot easier to explain to gamers and geeks. "Yeah. The universe has cheat codes.

"So what happens if I Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start?"

"Look, if you can figure out the Start button on the universe... let me know."

Comments

[thnidu]

Whose POV? Is this the only one so far that's from the POV of another character?

[aldersprig]

(Turns out I was right the first time)

I've done this & the 2 right before it from the POV of Raven, the narrator/protagonist of the planned story. Trying to get a feel for Raven's voice, not sure I've succeeded yet.

[thnidu]

D'ohhh! Yeah, I read those. Somehow I missed the connection. I think this one makes more of "POV character has special knowledge and/or powers" than the others do. Oh well. —There's also no indication, other than the landing page, that the "I" is the same in all three of these.

[aldersprig]

Hrrm, I shall fix that last.

And yeah, deciding how much to hint at with Raven.