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home is a place. a people. a memory. a home with open doors to those who need them, 1471 Thomas Sloane Avenue, better known as Laurie's House, is, has been, will be a place of becoming. but it is too late. 1471 Thomas Sloane Avenue, Laurie's House, is gone.
// Laurie's House is a TTRPG Actual Play, produced by tendervicious studios. Using The Home We Remember as its system, Laurie's House tells a tale of memory, identity, and community.
Hamnah: Welcome and thank you for listening to Laurie’s House! Laurie’s House is a Home We Remember Actual Play produced by tendervicious studios, a multimedia production studio that creates experimental shows with intent. We aim to challenge and redefine what is possible across mediums. Laurie’s House features Cai Kagawa as the Architect; Gwendolyn Kelly, Hamnah Shahid, and Amir or Nada Alami as the players; Sea Thomas as the dramaturg; Navaar Seik-Jackson as the podcast editor; and Lexi McQueen as the theme composer.
Hamnah: This episode of Laurie’s House would not be possible without our sponsors, Frivolous Bear Studios and Blackbird Revolt.
Frivolous Bear Studios is a new gaming studio focusing on tabletop roleplaying games that tell untold stories and uplift marginalized voices. The studio is currently accepting pitches for tabletop roleplaying games and other gaming experiences, as well as interest from artists, editors, and designers. Go to FrivolousBearStudios.com to submit your pitch or to express interest for creative work!
Blackbird Revolt is an abolitionist design studio creating designs that shift culture and build power. Through design, they aim to inspire people to engage in activism and movement work. Check out BlackbirdRevolt.com to hire them for graphic design and video production, and to buy their art!
Thank you so much to Frivolous Bear Studios and Blackbird Revolt for supporting our show. We hope you’ll join us in giving love back to our sponsors, so we can all continue to make weird, experimental art. Without further ado, let’s walk together into Laurie’s House.
Hamnah: Content warnings for this episode of Laurie’s House include descriptions of food, dysphoria, fire and burning, complex and complicated relationships, references to sex, discussions of self-harm, discussions of ableism, snakes, and birds. Please take care of yourself while listening and thank you for Going There with us.
Episode 7: WHAT WE GIVE AWAY.
Cai: Take a step forward. Walk into a different room. A different building. A different part of town. Look around you. Where are you? When are you?
Memories are not perfect snapshots of places, people, emotions, experiences. They are paintings, recreated every time we step foot into the past. The act of remembering is a rewriting of our personal histories coloured by the moment we’re in, by who we are right now.
Memories are held in places. In rooms. In buildings. In parts of town important to us. Time is a place you find. When you find it, you remember. You rewrite. You erase. You relive.
What story will you tell about yourself? And how many times will you tell it?
Cai: The diner. A place overflowing with a dragon. A place being stalked by a snow leopard. A place with extremely uncomfortable vinyl seats. A place where the menus are always a little sticky, the air always smells like burnt coffee beans, and the music sounds like it's being played via tin can on a string. Has it always felt this way? Or has the shine just worn off? Or is it just today? Yesterday was supposed to be a beautiful spring wedding. Today… Well… The bussed plates sit awkwardly at the end of the counter from people that have long gone. A plate sticky from pancakes and syrup. A neatly empty plate from jam on toast with a simple bowl of grits. A plate smeared with the telltale signs of hot sauce on an omelet. There's touches of other people having been here, but at the moment, it's just you three. Deen, Dione, and… Eira…?
Cai: Okay, then. I guess, Dione, what is your fondest memory on a plate here?
Gwen: Powdered sugar. On something that's not on the menu of this diner. There was a time where the three of them had spent actually all day looking for a neighbor's dog, only for it to turn up on the doorstep at the end of the day. This was the only place open, and of course, Dione hadn't eaten all day. None of them had. But instead of being normal about it, Dione asked the cook to make her an abomination. A monstrous Monte Cristo, a deep fried sandwich with maple apples, hash browns, eggs, fried chicken, topped with powdered sugar. And she spent the rest of the evening trying to explain to Eira and Deen that this could be fine dining! Even though she knew that hunger was the best spice included in the sandwich.
Cai: And Deen, what is your— No. Mint? Is it the mint? Maybe it's the carabiner. Something feels off. What's not sitting right, Deen? Is it your skin sitting over muscles, over bones, or is it something else?
Amir/Nada: It's both. Dione seems lighter. She seems present, even. It feels different. And Eira seems the same if they're even letting Deen read them right now. And something in Deen is sinking. It burns every time. And Deen commits it to memory until something compels them to leave the diner and they can remember things to forget the pain a little bit. Deen has been watching y'all describe your in-character thoughts and because they can't read people, they feel like they are failing at a game that everyone knows how to play. They can't read minds and it would be so much easier for everyone if they could. So, Deen feels a violent lack of anything good. In fact, they feel brutal. They feel like they're losing.
Cai: …Anyways, you also have a plate.
Amir/Nada: Mm-hmm. And wouldn't you know it? There is also, surrounding all of this, the remembrance of that kid whose dog we found. Tearing down missing dog posters around the street and laughing, as their tiny, too-small dog just chases after them in what we can only know as glee, as love, and… Deen wasn't gonna argue the fine points of fine dining. Right now, she— they don't have a plate of their own. They're trying to dig into Dione’s because… she's right about a lot of things when it comes to food.
Cai: So, someone else's plate. You want someone else's plate.
Amir/Nada: Uh-huh.
Cai: So, your fondest memory is Dione's memory.
Amir/Nada: What was the question?
Cai: Food on a plate, Deen.
Amir/Nada: Mmm. That's… not what they're focused on. And if people have been looking, they have been cutting up their eggs, the same food—their same food—into smaller pieces until it looks like they've eaten. They've not been eating. They've let the tea cool down. They've watched everyone fill themselves, and they're just sitting on the seat. They're not looking at the table. They're not looking at the food.
Cai: You know what, Deen? Draw a card. Major Arcana.
Amir/Nada: All right, but you know what card it is. It's the Emperor.
Cai: Deen: “What shape does your identity take on as you draw a new boundary for yourself?” Or: “What shape do you force your identity to fit into as someone else imposes a new expectation on you?”
Amir/Nada: I think if there is silence in this diner, Deen will let it continue. They are used to it, after all, but I know that that's not what's going to propel them. (Sigh.) They… They don't draw boundaries. I think normally it's Eira that says anything to get us, like, out of here. And it's very clear that the diner isn't for staying. It is for a sit-down and then leaving. And Deen doesn't want to be here.
Cai: Where does Deen want to be?
Amir/Nada: The house has burned down… three times? Cai, was it three times?
Cai: The house is standing.
Amir/Nada: So, I don't feel anything. And I remember this, but it is an idyllic— It is a perfect day and somehow, it is so irrational, I think, what comes out. This is the same person that cradles house flies out of the house for fear of mourning for their entire lifespan. And now… it is like… claws come out, and grab the vinyl for the first time. And it is like— It is— It is a sound like unzipping. It is a sound like loving a stuffed animal a little too hard. They… Their hair has always grown a little fast. It's covering their eyes, but their eyes are so sharp right now. It's only a matter of time until someone who's not Deen notices.
Cai: Well, someone has noticed.
Amir/Nada: Mmm?
Cai: The house has always been there. The house remembers. There's photographs. There's footsteps, worn handles. Places only Deen goes that the house remembers.
Amir/Nada: (Sigh.) Deen is doubting their memory. I think there's only so many times that this cycle of events stays the same until the inconsistencies that come with age or forgetting. They are up in center. And I think out of nowhere, Deen turns to Eira. And they say, “Do you remember what I said last time we were in the diner?”
Hamnah: “You said a lot of things.”
Amir/Nada: You're right. They retreat immediately into their hair, into the seat, uh, into shrinking. It's not good for them. It's not good for them. And they say, “I said— I… said that this better not hurt as much the next time. Do you remember what you said after?”
Hamnah: “I told you that it wouldn't.”
Amir/Nada: And there is an accusation there. There is, because “Eira, how do you feel? In your body.”
Hamnah: Eira, sitting in this vinyl, their leg shaking, knee bouncing up and down, looks at you, and there's a crack in the smile for a second. There's a swallowing in their throat, like there's something lodged there that they're trying to get out.
Hamnah: “I feel fine.”
Amir/Nada: And you don't need to read minds. You know that was the wrong answer because they take it like a physical hit and they raise— they raise a hand as if to pinch a brow that is creasing on itself too much, as if the bridge of their nose can't contain, like, the amount of tension. They're, like, coiling as if they're a spring ready to come out of a box of... to reveal what? Like, a confession? They don't feel good. Deen doesn't feel good right now. And they say it as such. They say it right now to you, to you, to you. “This shit fucking sucks. And it hurts. And… that's not a reason to stop.”
Hamnah: “That's what we're trying to fix. That's what we're trying to change. I get that it hurts and it sucks. But why—?”
Amir/Nada: “Why promise me that—okay. Why promise me that something would change then as if you knew what was going to happen?”
Hamnah: “Because it will. Because if we do this enough times, it will.”
Cai: Deen, you're fighting the question.
Amir/Nada: Cai, what is the question?
Cai: “What shape does your identity take as you draw a new boundary for yourself” or “what shape do you force your identity to fit into as someone else imposes a new expectation on you?”
Amir/Nada: “Eira, please shut up.” And—
Hamnah: “You asked me a question! Why ask if you don't want the answer?”
Amir/Nada: That is like the meanest thing Deen's ever said to you.
Hamnah: “What's gotten into you, Deen?”
Amir/Nada: (Sigh.) “So much. I don't think this is— I don't think this is working. Eira, I think if there are rules to this game, we don't know them. And I think we need to admit that before we keep trying the same thing. Clearly, whatever is changing, isn't saving the hou—” Cai, I watched the house burn down. Three times.
Cai: The house is still standing.
Amir/Nada: But we can't just keep pushing. We can't…
Cai: The house is also burnt down.
Hamnah: “And why is it just me that you think isn't trying hard enough? What about Dione?”
Amir/Nada: “When did I say that you weren't trying hard enough?!”
Hamnah: “You just said that we can't keep doing the same thing because nothing's changing! I'm trying! Why do you think I'm going back over and over and over again. Do you not—?”
Amir/Nada: “We're going back?”
Gwen: “We have to go back. It's not the same thing every time. It's different.”
Amir/Nada: “What happened to you the last time, Dione?”
Gwen: “I rode the bus for the first time.”
Amir/Nada: Deen's waiting.
Gwen: “I—I rode the bus with myself for the first time.”
Amir/Nada: “You seem… like you're here with yourself.”
Gwen: “Yes, and— Yes, I am here and I— Yes, it hurts. It hurts. And we shouldn't be making promises. We don't know how this works. We don't know what to do. But wha— Why are we… Why are we going back and forth like this?”
Hamnah: “So, what do you want to do? Just sit here and let the house burn? Let Laurie die?”
Gwen: “I never said— I never said to sit here and Laurie is gone, OK?”
Hamnah: “Not if we do something.”
Gwen: “I don't… When I say Laurie is gone, I don't mean that she isn't here... I never met Laurie and she's still here with me all the time.”
Cai: Every time Dione says the name, you hear a knocking, Deen.
Amir/Nada: And Deen doesn't want to be here, and I'm narrating their thoughts and I can tell you. No one needed to hear me say it to know that Deen doesn't want to be here right now. But they're not going to say what it is they want right now.
Hamnah: “If you're going to point fingers, then you might as well just come out and say the whole thought, the whole feeling. Why hold back?”
Amir/Nada: And… the thoughts—?
Hamnah: “No, come on.” And Eira gets up and pulls Deen up with them, both of them being quite tall. I think there is this… not quite menacing, but confrontational energy between the two of them, as they stand there face to face.
Amir/Nada: If you could see their hackles, you would know that they were up.
Hamnah: “Don't hold back.”
Amir/Nada: Yeah, I think Deen finds it harder to open their mouth. And so, the thoughts are reverberating in their head louder in a narration that lets this time ticker go by that is louder. You hear it, you hear it, you hear it. I am speaking for them. The lion has watched their pride and joy burn down too many times, and it shows in how rigid they are. They… take— They— They don't— They never refuse you. And that is, I think, the part that makes me think they're not much of a beast at all. They're not much of anyone with a backbone, but they can't speak. Or I'm pushing them to speak. They speak.
Amir/Nada: “Don't you feel pain? Eira, don't you, like, let it approach?”
Hamnah: “We all feel pain. I told you the last time that we spoke. I told you when we were with Aspen. I get close enough to touch and then I walk away.”
Amir/Nada: “So, have I been the only one watching the house burn down? Have you two been looking away?”
Gwen: “We couldn't— I won't speak for you, Eira. You can speak for yourself.” And Dione stands up. “I can't do anything. I couldn't do anything the way that I was. You know what would happen if I went back to the house, Deen? I would be in the kitchen. And the kitchen would burn. That's it. That's all that would happen.”
Amir/Nada: Deen feels too big in their body, even though I put them there. Even though they're in the center of an angle of conversation. They shrink at that, still letting themself be held by Eira and placating. Again, they start placating. “I'm not— I'm not accusing either of you. I love both of you. Just… let me be upset, which, God…” Even now, placating, not a proper beast at all, least of all, a proud one. They hate themself in this moment. My voice is reverberating in their head so loud, it's as if everyone can hear. And they do. They're not even besides themself right now. They're below themself. They— Their hands, suddenly they're not in your grasp. They can't speak. They're trying to begin the components of… ASL? As if we're in America. As if we're anywhere at all besides where the narrative deems it useful. Maybe you as players, maybe you as characters wish that you learned it, even if there was a laundry list of more important things about them that were more important. There are so many small moving parts about this not-lion. They can't even babble in Sign. That is how nonverbal they are and I wanted them to dish it and take it.
Sea: Deen, open the door. The house wants to talk to you.
Amir/Nada: (Sigh.) Deen doesn't want to be in this diner and they cannot speak a word. But everyone knows it to be true because I said so. You can call me by name. You know my names. I narrate every thought Deen has and every thought they will have.
Cai: Then open the door. I asked you a question.
Amir/Nada: Deen doesn't want to go back to the diner and they open… as if that invitation needed to be verbalized again. Their hand’s on the knob.
Cai: The basement at Laurie's House is dim. The wooden steps creak, much like other things creak inside of the depths of Deen, but we're not talking about Deen. It's supposed to be a somewhat short-ceilinged basement, moderately unfinished. Good for storage, where the electrical, the water, some other supplies all just sit. The only other person who ever really touches them is Deen. They're not down here right now. The supplies, the water, the electrical, the source of the problem is not down here right now. At the bottom of creaky wooden stairs, taller than a cathedral, as wide as the eye can see, a beautiful vaulted ceiling. Gothic buttresses, arched windows, and dirt on the outside. What do you want?
Amir/Nada: I don't want to leave.
Cai: The diner?
Amir/Nada: Cai, where am I right now?
Cai: Oh, we're in the basement of Laurie's House that's still there, not burnt down.
Amir/Nada: Mmm. I don't want Deen to suffer. It's not that I wanted to pepper their backstory with misery, but if there was a healthy model for love, they have maybe only just seen it, and just as quickly, they've seen it stand in front of a towering fire, threatening to break everything.
Cai: So, Deen's only measure of love is a wooden structure built by hand sometime around the 1920s?
Amir/Nada: (Sigh.) I think it's the only one that Deen would be proud of in this moment. They—
Cai: So, we're going to not look at the hands that have helped them up, the people who cook for them, that uh, the people who watch out for them when they are sleeping, the doors that keep them in, the outside out? All of that, that's not a model of love. It's the door. The door is the model of love.
Amir/Nada: And what if it is? Or… Is there anything wrong with that?
Cai: There's nothing wrong with a house being love. But in the structure and architecture of love, yours cannot be the shape of a house.
Amir/Nada: [sigh]
Cai: Do you love the House the most?
Amir/Nada: I… didn't know there was any comparison, really. People don't really tell me that they feel loved as much as the House does, but that's… that's my normal.
Cai: Normal? Love is dandelions on a breeze. It's the sweet smell of grandmother’s cooking on a hot summer day. Love is footsteps on sidewalks. A warm blanket. It's holding someone's hand. It is kisses. It is sex. It is running. It's driving cross country at the last minute's notice. How do you decide your rules to love?
Amir/Nada: Hmm… I don't know. How— Or, I didn't know I had that, uh, sort of control, if there are even rules. I haven't found it. Besides… I'm… It's not like I'm a house. Like, ideally, I could perpetually give, but I can't, um… So, maybe I wish I was the House sometimes.
Cai: Fine. From deep in the earth, you were nourished and grew. Well, not you. What would become your body. Because you are a house, like you said. You wanted to be one, right? Assembled board by board, brick by brick. Your eyes are windows. Your heart is a furnace. You were made to give and give and give, like she does. Did. Are you sure you can handle it? The wood rot. The sparking wires. The burn.
Amir/Nada: The fucking burn. I'm… not already. I'm… That feels like an impossible question.
Cai: [laugh] Well, it's because you are flesh and bone and blood. You're not a house. Being a house is just another form of almost self-harm, Deen.
Amir/Nada: Maybe. Yes, maybe. Yes. I'm… Hm. I'm bad at… being better than that from… accidents or from biology or habits, but… I don't smoke. I— I can't. And I can't not sleep. I can't. My… I don't self-destruct in the obvious way that people can see. I just— I just get up in the morning and isn’t that— Isn't that kind of fucking sad that it could look so fucking normal? Self-harm can look so fucking normal as long as you know how to hide it.
Cai: Deen, you can want to be a house, but as I said before, a house is too big, and… you can have your desires, but you can't be the tragedy. You need to be something else, not because I say so.
Amir/Nada: Well, that sucks because I want a lot of things. I, uh… I never really planned to want to grow up to be a janitor. I, uh… I wanted to be, like, a therapist or a nanny or a caretaker, but I'm here and I get to take care of you, so… In a way, I got my wish, but… I just don't, uh… I don't feel good in my skin right now.
Cai: Here in this, in the framework of our story, you could be a janitor, a therapist, a nanny, a caretaker, and you choose to be you. You're pushing on the rules, but you are also constraining yourself. Why are you doing that in this game?
Amir/Nada: As a player? Well… It reminds me of something. Uh, maybe on accident people make fun of it a bit when, um, you can tell that people have like learned to pronounce words through reading and not, like, talking and it's obviously wrong. And you can tell they've— they've, uh, never spoken it out loud to anyone that could correct them, you know? Uh… Languages and shit, but… That's how learning how to talk was for me. And my parents tried a few languages. I, uh, I couldn't. I was too quiet as a kid. I was too quiet through one, two, three… four. My parents paid someone to teach me to talk. And someone taught Deen that they needed rules to speak. They learned to hold their breath before they learned to chime in because that was the first step still. Deen loves taking turns and waiting before acting, but we know, Deen knows it's still— it's still a performance. It's just that these performances are true to life. It's a mask so leathery and old that it might hurt their skin to be exposed to air to the first time, if this is the first time.
Cai: You're saying rules make them, make you.
Amir/Nada: Rules make them speak. Rules make them hesitate. Rules make them silent, and they're also confusing. Rules do make them confused, but that's, I think, better than letting people think I have nothing to say at all. Which, that wouldn't make me a player. That wouldn't make me audible. So… I understand why it feels like pushing against, but what's horrible about this, or what's embarrassing about all of this is you being kind or even harsh or unkind or, like, revealing. It's like… It's some sort of proof that I need it. It's, like, proof that I'm broken or ruined. I, um… I don't like figuring these things out at the same time as everyone else.
Cai: I… I hear you. But I am only here to ask you questions that you give me. I am an architect. I am here to build scaffold, which is to say, to ask questions. They are for you, whether you're a house or not. They've only ever been for you. Do you think that I'm accusing you of moving too slow or maybe too stubborn or anything?
Amir/Nada: Nothing like that. Um, but that's the fear. I think that's the worst case scenario, but no matter what, I am getting acknowledged as hurting. The audience knowing I need to change before I know I need to change. I don’t know.
Cai: You are giving voice to… change. Whether people can see it, hear it, or not. And in that, you are hurting. You may not creak like a house or burn down in the first episode, but an ember is still a fire. Incense still burns, even if it's mostly done beneath ash. Your hurt doesn't have to be big or loud to make sense as it happens. Hell, it doesn't have to make sense long after. You are hurting and have been hurting all along. And I— we can see it.
Amir/Nada: Okay… Okay… We see it. It's there. I think it is… something I'm so used to that I'm… I guess I'm wondering because people tend to say that in the hopes that the hurt gets better or it turns into something else. Uh, I don't know. What if it never does? There's only so many “get well soon”s before it doesn't happen, so… Will… Will your sympathy ever… run out? Is it, like, a transaction?
Cai: An architect is a part of the bones of the place that it builds. I won't leave and things will change even if the pain stays the same, but I will be here. Deen, “what shape does your identity take as you draw on a new boundary for yourself? Or what shape do you force your identity to fit into as someone else imposes a new expectation on you?”
Amir/Nada: Deen loves rules and hates rules in how they are simple, but they are the edge of the box, even if it's a sandbox. Even if… it's supposed to be big, so that we can play. I think… that hesitation to go without it, it is… it is lost to a memory that might be too far away, too buried. Doesn't mean it's not real in that way. But we're still in the box. And… yes, I think being a house would be the optimal— No. The easier thing to swallow, but I can't be a house, so… I want to be a dog. Dogs also hate rules and they love rules in the ways that we know them. And I will love being a dog because I might appreciate the rules most if I have, like, less pride than a lion. That's… something that I can be more open to.
Cai: Is that what changes on your character sheet?
Amir/Nada: Yes.
Cai: A dog is very different from a house. Are you sure?
Amir/Nada: Well, there's no way to do it painlessly, even if it's implied or behind the veil. Skin stretching over fat, stretching over bones is always at least a little bit painful, but, um… [sigh] So is doing nothing. It's also painful, so I unmask.
Cai: And what in the House changes?
Amir/Nada: It's really puzzling. It was made to fit. But the cane didn't fit anyone. But whoever got the chair was waiting for someone's retirement. Someone old or someone not, but that person must have spent more money than Deen has ever held in their hands ever in their life, just so another person wouldn't have as much trouble getting around the house. There's even a stairlift. So, who's it for?
Cai: Who says it can't be for you?
Amir/Nada: I guess not. I like that.
Cai: Welcome back. Welcome home.
Cai: Dione, Deen's on the floor. Again.
Gwen: Not for much longer. As Dione, moving awkwardly in armour, scoops Deen up and tries to meet their gaze through a veil, the heat of a body taking up so much space in the diner, radiating. “Deen. Hey. You with me?”
Amir/Nada: And Deen is ashamed and they are working their mouth open, but they are looking at you. They see the veil as familiar, actually.
Gwen: “Hey, take your time. What do you need?”
Amir/Nada: They are working their jaw again, and the heat that is emanating from them is a bit of shame for, I think, daring to be loud, but… They say something strange for— when they— when they come to. It takes a moment, a beat. “I need to not be here. I don't… I don't like it here. Remembering hurts almost as much as the house burning.” And then they pat their body. It looks normal to you. It is just that normal is bad.
Gwen: Dione looks at Deen and you watch as, in response to that question, a snake travels across the armour, the dress, the scales and grows wings and talons and the legs elongate and then shorten, as the face begins to flatten. “I— Deen, we can't run. Memories will always be there.”
Amir/Nada: Deen nods into the armour, the silk, the toughness of your skin, the strength of your grip. It is, I think, unfamiliar. Have you ever held Deen before?
Gwen: Dione’s tried.
Amir/Nada: We can think about how long ago that was, but… it still somehow feels like the first time, doesn't it?
Gwen: It's not the first time. And then the secretary bird becomes a snake again. And it is.
Amir/Nada: It is. “Dione, I'm sorry. Um… Do you want me here?”
Gwen: “I can't make you do anything, Deen. Nor would I… want to try to make you do anything. The thing is, is that I… want you to want me here, but if you don't want to be here…”
Amir/Nada: “I want us to not be here.”
Gwen: “Deen, I'm going to walk you out this door, but after I do… we won't be here.”
Amir/Nada: They do not understand what you're saying.
Gwen: “I don't know where you'll be, Deen, but I won't be there.”
Amir/Nada: “So, do you want to stay?”
Gwen: “I want to want to stay.”
Amir/Nada: They go back to placating. “Sorry, I... I haven't had to think about that in a while. You know why. So... I get it.” And then they look embarrassed. “Dione, I just—I just need you to help me get up.”
Gwen: “I shouldn't have said anything.” And Dione does. Dione helps you up to your feet, to whatever stance is most comfortable for you to be at, whatever height is your height.
Amir/Nada: “So, are you going to close the door on me? Would that be easier?” They are gripping the shirt—the bottom of your shirt—like they're pulling you.
Gwen: And it's ironic because it's kind of all Dione wanted… Before. “It's not my door to close, Deen. I'm not the house.”
Amir/Nada: They hang their head at that. And I think they just limp their way to the entrance, like the stiffness of their hip is very predictable. It is nothing like Eira's footfalls. It is a dominant leg, a weak leg, stuttering, like a pulse. And they cannot help but look back. They don't want to be the first one to let you go. You said you would take them to the door.
Gwen: She does.
Cai: Dione, where are you going?
Gwen: Dione, walking through the threshold of that door, is no longer in town.
Cai: Dione, will you pull a card for me? Thinking cups or wands.
Gwen: I think this is cups. That is the Eight of Cups.
Cai: Dione, “summer gleams and the chrysalis beckons. Are you willing to digest yourself—?”
Gwen: No.
Cai: “—into something—?”
Gwen: No. I'm not— Cai, I’m not ready to answer this question right now, okay? I… I didn't find the answer. I thought I would—
Cai: Well—
Gwen: —but I didn't.
Cai: The forest around you then grows loud with a deep rumbling as almost like vines and roots ballooning outward, suddenly, they're not roots. You realize that they are claws as the roots around your feet also become a tangle of scales and around you swells the great lumbering body of a Dragon.
Gwen: “Why are you doing this? Why can you do this? I thought these were parts of me.”
Cai: [snarling] A rumble from beyond the rolls of a massive body, smoke pooling out asks, “Why did you wait?”
Gwen: “Why did I—? Oh, okay. I get it. It's my question. Why did I wait? Why did I wait? I… I don't know. I'm looking. I'm searching. I'm trying to find anything. I'm trying to find something. Maybe I'm… I don't know. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was being selfish. I thought that I needed to be someone in order to save our home, but I'm not making anything better.”
Cai: The Dragon shifts around you, pushing against your body before shifting again, and you just see, like someone pulling past you on a train, scales as part of the Dragon moves just at the edge of your vision. And from a different side of you this time, “Why did you wait?”
Gwen: Uh, Dione turns, one foot planted, one foot pivoting in the direction she thinks the voice is. She's kind of unsure. “Why— Why did I wait? Why do I have to answer all of these questions? Why am I even part of this? I didn't get to be a character like everyone else in this story. I didn't get to be any of this. I got given pieces. And I have to play the same game? It's not a game to me. I have to— I don't— I don't know who I am. I'm a joke. Why are you asking me these questions? That's all that I've ever been: A joke. Do you know what my name is? Dione Cook. Titaness who tends to other people's wounds through food. It's a bit. I am here just to prop up everybody else. What am I supposed to do? Why am I answering all of these questions? I am a set piece.”
Cai: The trees break around you. The moon vanishes below treetops as the night sky of the forest becomes a void, and it is just you and the ambient glow of flame from the Dragon. Shifts again, lets out a deep [snarl]… as more smoke rises from a different side.
Gwen: [scoff] “Why—?” And Dione runs into a wall of scales and she is knocked forward as she stumbles. And she catches herself on a tree and, as she pushes back, she hits another wall of scales, a wing flapping. Uh, and she feels herself fall to the forest ground. [sigh] Just a slight jet of flame lighting up something reflective. And she looks up at the Knight, standing there, wallowing, mournful, directionless.
Gwen: “And what the fuck are you doing?” She looks up through layers of veils. “I've been— I've been taking up this mantle for so fucking long and all the parts of me are fighting with myself, like— I've been given pieces. I was never given a personhood. Nothing. I've just been given a puzzle, a game within a game for a game that isn't a game for me. What am I supposed to do? You're not helping.” And she grabs at the Knight's armour and she pulls herself up. And she grabs the sword in the scabbard and she kicks the Knight to the ground.
Cai: Around you, the maze shifts again. Dione, where are you going?
Gwen: She stays right there and she waits. And she waits for that shifting of scales. She waits for that flapping of a wing, that release of smoke, steam, fire. And she waits until she can hear it.
Cai: [snarling] Dione, on the other side of what might be a leg or an arm, you hear the deep sound. It resonates at the same speed of your breathing, but deeper, like a rumble of earth. And then a small [thwoo] of smoke on the opposite side.
Gwen: And Dione takes her other hand… on— places it onto the hilt of the sword and she wildly swings above her head and she brings it down into the body of the Dragon.
Cai: The head lashes up, snarling, biting. Dione, what happens when you fight the Dragon?
Gwen: She laughs. She laughs in… maybe delusion, maybe actual joy, maybe frustration, maybe a relief. Because she was convinced that maybe there wasn't a face… to this part of herself. That there wasn't a face to any parts of herself. And she laughs as more jets of fire come up around her and she runs out of the way. She slashes down again. “Okay! Yeah! All right. Okay. Now we're doing something. Now this is something!”
Cai: Dione, “summer gleams and the chrysalis beckons. Are you willing to digest yourself into something unfamiliar?”
Gwen: Let's find out, Cai. And she drops the sword and she runs towards the mouth of the Dragon. And she jumps in as the maw goes wide.
Cai: And what object in the house changes?
Gwen: It's the knife again. A knife… that was previously somebody else's, except for it's not. This one is Dione’s. It is a dark carbon knife she had engraved with her initials. She had it custom-made, so that she can handle the dishes that she wants to make. And as long as she has her whetstone, she really won't need another one.
Cai: There is a spark deep in the walls of Laurie's House. As the fire surges down the front hallway and into the kitchen, it seems to only take seconds for the cabinets above the counter to lose structure, causing one of the shelves laden with dishes to succumb above the sink. Cups tip off the burning shelf onto a knife left carefully to dry over the edge of the sink. Dione, when the fire takes your kingdom, what blade do you call your own? Is it small enough to cut precisely or large enough to wield against a dragon?
Gwen: It's large enough to cut precisely against a dragon. It is Dione's custom black carbon knife.
Cai: The cup falls and tips the blade, but unlike if it had been made of steel—a sword, a dagger, anything to fight with other than in Dione's hand—it would have flung across the entire kitchen and sliced through the memory of Laurie, her apron hanging on the wall. Instead, it flies so high that it goes straight into the ceiling out of the fray. And when the house finally burns down, that section of the kitchen remains.
Cai: Upstairs, the third floor is burning. Aspen runs to the bunk bed where they grab a nicely coiled climbing rope with their bag and start to tie off the rope to the heavy-framed bunk bed while Eira looks for a way out away from the fire. But the window is locked shut. It has been for years. There's no screens on it, and unfortunately, the sash window itself has broken a long time ago. In the corner of an upstairs room, forgotten, is a cane which waits for use. Deen, what structure of love appears unclaimed in the stairwell of the house?
Amir/Nada: It is large, cumbersome if you don't use it. Deen has tripped over it so many times, and there is no better place to put it. I think it is a walker. It is a walker. Uh, but they knew, once they tried it in the corners of the house that were quiet and dark and would allow them to fall, that it needed to be heavy to anchor and catch in case of a fall.
Cai: A device made to catch falls and fall itself. From the outside of the window, we see it crash through, a rope tied to it and weighing it down, as it spirals bringing the rope quickly and sternly to the roof of the porch. An anchor. A safe bottom of the rope. Aspen slowly begins to lower themself, one hand over the other. Then, Eira, you can hear it. The decoration near the doorway has caught the bed that the rope is attached to. What adorns the bed that was once yours, once theirs? Is it comforting and new or worn and fraying?
Hamnah: The decoration is a series of felt balls that are left on the headboard, poorly made and in various sizes. They are loose, easy to knock over, easy to move around.
Cai: And more difficult to burn… The rope resists for just a moment longer. The tension at the bottom with the walker allows Aspen to safely descend. A moment later, the rope does catch enough that, Eira, you decide that you cannot safely descend that way and find an alternative route. But the house still burns. You all stand safely at a distance in the street and watch. The fire department—your fire station, Eira—arrives moments later, but it is too late. 1471 Thomas Sloan Avenue, Laurie's House, is gone.