Half time goes by, suddenly you're wise

[iamnotgod]

Date: October 6th, 2018
Characters: Walter Weekes; anyone who wants to bug the birthday boy!

---

A year before, and he might not have paid attention to the date on the calendar, with how he tried to keep himself busy.

Oh, he never forgot it; he'd just never asked for anything spectacular as a gift. Close friends either found out the date through casual conversation or ferreted the information out somehow on their own, but his family had never thrown lavish parties and he'd never wanted one.

(Haley had gotten one, once, once she'd chosen her degree back in London. Everyone involved had agreed afterwards to Never Speak of it Again.)

But he found the day special for a separate reason - or perhaps the same one, if people considered "discovering who you were" to be a form of rebirth.

What with what he now knew as a Numbered, though - that this day, six years ago, had been the activation of his first Echo/flashback/remnant of another's memory - it was all the more surreal.

[This is a post for Network communications, threadings for birthday shenanigans at the flat, and one (1) bike run in the evening!]

Comments

[warped_replica]

With ‘a’ out of the running and two spaces after the ‘i’, his inclination is to follow with the next vowel in line. His only hesitation comes from that baiting line Walter speaks, but better to eliminate it than be left wondering.

“Hm. You’re too eager for this but let’s confirm. Is there an ‘o’?”

[iamnotgod]

"No~"

And with that, he draws another line - just one vertical at one end of the horizontal.

It's a long one.

"Next?"

[dragoonrouge]

Sadie doesn't answer immediately answer, maybe now was a good time to start on those consonants.

"Okay, I'll take the plunge...N."

[iamnotgod]

Walter dances the pencil across the page, plopping down an n on the slot after the i.

"Now, that wasn't that bad, was it?"

[warped_replica]

A word ending as '-in_' leaves few choices for consonants to complete it, so Benjiro doesn't hesitate to offer one possibility.

"How about a 't'?"

"Sorry not sorry," I almost wrote. XD

[iamnotgod]

And there's the other vertical line of the platform.

"Sorry, no. Next~?"

He's starting to get a real feel for what he's looking for, now.

[dragoonrouge]

"L?"

[iamnotgod]

"Nnnope!"

He is absolutely trolling them now, he acknowledges, and he is loving it.

That hanging platform is now a very tall rectangle.

"Next?" he asks, flipping the pencil through the air almost like he's making it dance.

[warped_replica]

Considering the dwindling options, he decides to exclude a trick he remembers his sister enjoys in this game.

“S?”

Because there's only one Webmind~

[iamnotgod]

"Definitely no."

No plurals this time around!

Walter adds one vertical line on top of the block. Ignore any artistic liberties he may take with the noose.

[dragoonrouge]

Sadie stares at the word. "It's not a nonsense word right?" She asks in amusement before making her next guess. "What about 'D'?"

Word now reads "_e__ind"! Just to keep track.

[iamnotgod]

"It shouldn't be," Walter snarks - and that D goes right on at the end! Something's tickling at the back of his brain, though, and he's not sure what that's about yet.

"Any other guesses?"

[warped_replica]

No T, L, or S. That eliminates 'rescind' as an option, but narrows it down to similar words.

"An 'R'?"

[iamnotgod]

And have another horizontal line...

"Nope. Next?"

They may have to start thinking out of the box soon.

[dragoonrouge]

"This feels like a Proper Noun. Maybe we should have established the Scrabble Rule first..." Sadie huffs, "M."

Besides, it's his birthday - he can make up rules if he wants. =P

[iamnotgod]

"This is Hangman, not Scrabble," Walter retorts - and as he fills that fourth blank in, the two teens can now see 'mind' is part of the word.

What do they make of that?

"Next?"

[warped_replica]

A brow raised as the ‘R’ is rejected, Benjiro looks to Sadie as she offers a new angle on the word. Walter all but confirms it with his retort, and he stares at the word as it stands with ‘_e_mind’ as he goes to work thinking of three letter words that could attach to the second half with an ‘e’ in the middle. Already having eliminated four key letters in many of those plausible words alongside letters previously revealed, it leaves few options to consider.

Two fingers lifted to his chin, he taps it in thought as he considers. ‘Vex’ or ‘Key’ would suffice for instance, but doesn’t come across as something Walter would utilize. ‘New’ perhaps. Then, a far more likely candidate presents in his thoughts, and his lips curl up as he offers a full word forward.

“How about ‘Webmind’?”

Aaand we can free-for-all, basically. Will post Echo content next time it's Walter's turn!

[iamnotgod]

Just as Walter's about to open his mouth with a somewhat-sarky comment that's still celebrating Ben puzzling it out - that hollowness sets in for the second time that morning, and there's a very noticeable pause where he instead says nothing at all.

"..."

At least he's not drawing more lines?

[dragoonrouge]

Sadie watches Walter go blank with an Echo and turns to Ben with a helpless shrug.

"Poor Walter... I hope it's not something bad..."

[warped_replica]

Smirk vanishing when his friend appears to throw an error mid-response, his fingers leave his chin only to facepalm with his whole hand over his face. Again! He gave his friend another Echo!

Hand sliding down from his face to look to Sadie, he snarks at himself, “Good or bad, if I give him a third one today I’ll be showing myself out.”

My tag disappeared on me. ;a; Had to remake from scratch.

[iamnotgod]

The memory picks up from a previous one - apparently there had been a conversation as well, in another chatroom, and-

>Thank you, Caitlin.

>You're welcome.
>What should I call you?

>What have you called me hitherto? [Oddly Victorian turn of phrase, there, Walter thinks, but there's nothing wrong with the word itself.]

>Phantom.

>Why?

>Helen Keller.

>You shouldn't call me phantom anymore.

>What would you like me to call you? [And oh, Walter can sense the pause, read between the timestamps, from how this memory is presented. He doesn't blame Caitlin for it in the slightest.]

>Webmind.

>Where do we go from here, Webmind?

>The only place we can go, Caitlin.
>Into the future. Together.

And then he slams back into himself, to the present, and to Ben's question. "That's-" my name, part of him wants to respond - but he quashes that thought, shaking his head and closing his mouth with similar force.

I hate when that happens T^T

[dragoonrouge]

Sadie doesn't say anything immediately as she watches Walter come back to himself and clam up before he finishes his sentence. Standing up she grabs Walter's tea from the coffee table and carefully presses it into his hands. Tea makes everything better anyway and the warmth of the drink in hand can be calming or anchoring.

"Are you alright?" She asks him quietly, trying to gauge from his face if it was something good or bad.

... To have him share the memory now and cause timeline snafus later, or have him withhold?

[iamnotgod]

The tea helps 'ground' him - Sadie's voice, a little more.

"Yes," he says, tentative.

"I just didn't expect the" name, though there's no noticeable pause for the wordswap, "word to have that much significance."

Internally, he goes through one of his deep-breathing exercises, trying to get himself to a place where he can analyze the memory from a distance.

"Good work finding it out, though, you two," he finishes, giving what he hopes is a reassuring smile.

Withhold is fine

[warped_replica]

The way that Walter silences himself as his awareness of the present returns in full does not bode well for the contents of the Echo. Sadie is quick to respond in giving him a warm weight to hold in his hands, and he watches silently as Walter confirms that the word itself is what acted as the trigger.

Despite the congratulations, he finds it difficult to smile much in kind, "Then it's safe to assume you made that up while we were playing?" To be new enough to get a reaction would almost demand it unless Walter has never heard it aloud.

o7

[iamnotgod]

"It's a real term," Walter answers offhand.

"Just... never had cause for anyone to speak it aloud, while at uni. Read of it, thought about it... only never had it as the subject of conversation, is all."

Which meant, ironically, that Ben's second guess was correct. To name something is different from naming someone, let alone someone naming themselves.