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[broughtwhiskey]

spam.

[In the early days of the port, Philip is down in the basement. He's commandeered himself a sword that isn't going to be missed by anyone living. Not his first choice by a long shot, but that will be a conversation with his warden for another time. He holds his own just fine in the servants' quarters. He's smart enough to try and avoid a fight if he can and even smarter to avoid touching any of the webs, but he does fine even when there are two or three spiders interested in what they think will be an easy dinner.]

[He makes relatively quick progress until he reaches the opera house. There he has a little more trouble moving on or back to the safety of the mezzanine. He refuses to stop and watch any of the "plays" being performed, but it's impossible for him to avoid being roped into a performance. Faced with the ghosts of his daughter and the woman he blamed for her death, he stands stock still, his sword falling from his hands with a loud clatter.]

[One way or another, he manages to escape the opera house. He's shakened by what happened there, even if he will not admit or show it to anyone else that might find him after that little "performance." He's not even trying to make it past the broken stair right away. Time unravels here as he seems to endlessly wander up and down until it seems to no longer matter. He can't keep going up and down forever though, so eventually he does take a seat on one of the steps. He's not giving up, but he needs to figure out which way is actually up and which way is down. He just...needs a minute.]

((ooc: You're free to pick anything from the library and down even if not mentioned explicitly here!))

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[broughtwhiskey]

[Some part of Philip, deep down, knows that none of this is real. Michonne, wherever she is and regardless of whether she's alive or not, is far, far away from this place. And Penny? Penny's long-since been out of his reach. But there's a part of Philip that doesn't want to believe it's not. Even though he knows what comes next, what he can't stop, he wants to stay frozen in this moment forever. When there's still a piece of Penny left, before everything fell apart and he lost himself.]

[He only spares Jean a glance out of his periphery as she's pulled away, sucked into her own fragment of a memory. It's almost enough to pull him away from his own, just for a brief moment. He doesn't know who the boy is or who he's talking about. There's a natural, morbid curiosity that this room inspires, but Philip has always been so stubbornly adamant about not getting to know people that he wants to look away as well. But before he can make up his mind for himself, there's another rasp from Penny and his attention snaps right back to Michonne whose grip on Penny seems to be tightening. He holds his other hand up to show that he has nothing, he's not armed as he takes a few small steps closer. He stops when Michonne straightens.]

It's me you want.

[He just glances over at Jean, wanting help and not wanting to ask for it either. He just wants his daughter safe. Even like this. But no. He doesn't want that, does he? He knows better. But she's there. She's here.]

[fireincarnate]

[Most of her mind is caught, overwhelmed by emotions she hasn't felt yet - grief, regret, guilt, fury. She's raging at the unfairness of - of leaving her son, he's her son.

Out of the corner of it all - of her eyes, of her thoughts - she sees Philip, frozen in his own helplessness. It reaches for her, but she can hear - ]

Sorry, Jean. He can't hear you. We're on an altogether different plane of existence now.

[Her gaze is dragged back, and instead of a child there's a woman - a woman with her eyes. She speaks of war and protection and family, she tells Jean she's dying, and she knows she's lost her daughter too, and it's almost too much to bear.

She turns her head, and her gaze locks with Philip's. She lets his thoughts flood her mind instead, and it's enough; she can turn her back on these phantoms of the future, and march over to someone she can actually help. It doesn't matter that the tears haven't yet dried.]

It's not real. [Her voice is firmer, this time, louder.] She's gone, Philip. There's nothing you can do.

[broughtwhiskey]

[Philip's attention is almost pulled in two different directions. There's a morbid curiosity, the pull of watching someone else's drama if only to avoid his own. Because the loss of a child matters so much less to him when it's not his own. But there's a stronger pull on him than Jean's struggle, a struggle she pushes past far quicker and stronger than Philip ever could out of his own. Because it's so hard to separate reality from this illusion, especially when he's not all that eager to separate the two in the first place.]

[When Michonne shifts, he holds up a hand for Jean to not get any closer.]

She's right there.