Archie @ Aurelius

Hey! Thanks for being our tour guide so far. I have to say, for as much as you’ve described Beast before, it was hard to imagine anything like this before we actually arrived. What’s it like being back?

Is there a word for something being weird and also very ordinary at the same time? Because it’s definitely that. It feels… comfortable, at least, being in an environment that feels familiar after so long. Strange to meet people I have years worth of memories of for the first time though. Understanding how Wolf must have felt when we first landed on Almachadta now, I think.

I think all of us went through some amount of that when we went back to our home worlds. Samudra was a little weird for me. Did you know that when I first showed Solei the quintessence sample and he barely reacted I almost planned a heist to break into his office and read his notes because I was convinced he had been body-swapped or something? I feel awful for what really was clouding his excitement, and I’m definitely glad I didn’t go to those lengths to find out, but I guess my point is the strange familiarity put me on high alert for anything unexpected or unexplained. It did put me in the mood for a heist, though.

That is pretty funny as a glance into a specific moment in time, yeah.

Which reminds me - I think we’ve mentioned it offhand once or twice, but I can’t recall off hand whomever happened to be around when the topic came up. But. You should definitely be prepared for a Rite when we get to Queenstown. And probably make peace with losing early. SQ’s never lost a fight in her life afaik. (she probably won’t make us do anything embarrassing, but does have a tendency to take peoples swords and melt them into her throne… so maybe don’t bring the Good Knives?)

Well, now we know why she’s never lost. Honestly, as much as it’s kind of a dick move, I respect her for figuring out how to do it in the first place. We’ll find a way to beat her in a Rite someday, I’m sure of it, but for now I’m just looking forward to winning the Three Great Soups. Do you remember if you were much into food when you were here? Or if Annarr was, I suppose? I’ve gotten that you and Jorule are totally different and I can talk to you two separately, but I don’t think I’ve fully gotten a handle on what your experience with the Annarr part of yourself is, if you even feel a connection to him. Pretty personal to ask, I know, but if it’s not too unpleasant of a subject… would you be willing to humor me?

Yeah, there’s… honestly probably a couple of different tricks we could use that I don’t imagine most people would have ever thought too hard about. It’s subvertable, for sure, if you know it’s coming in advance.

Food. Hmm. Well, I don’t think there’s many people on the Beast that don’t have strong preferences. That’s sort of what that whole cook out things was about, back on Samudra in fact. Salme was going a little crazy trying to figure out some kind of… gift or grand gesture to give to me for whatever reason, and at some point I had casually mentioned wanting to eat a burger during our extended stay - not that the food on Samudra was bad of course, but I was starting to get tired of constant seafood - and then All That happened. Make sure you try some of the street from - from the various stalls that lines the roads, that is - before your palette becomes too sophisticated from the Iron Chef competition to proper appreciate a right and proper chicken skewer or pork bun!

As for the other bit. It’s. Hmm. Interesting, I guess is the word you’d use. Jorule’s been many people in many different places, and I have fragments of random memories from all of them in my head, but most aren’t super clear. As for Annarr… those are far more vivid, but there’s also… less of them? I remember a lot about the Beast itself, especially when I focus on memories of it and really think. But those of Annarr’s life are few and far between. Feels like they come to me slower than the rest of you, though, I have been getting… flashes of them since we’ve arrived here. But on the whole most of the memories of other people feel like… just that? It feels closer to memories of something I watched in a movie, er, read in a book, than something I experienced and lived myself. The Annarr memories are a lot closer than the others though, for sure. I imagine most of you noticed my usually, ah, awkwardness around Saranzaya.

It was hard not to notice, even though I tried to play it cool and let you have your moment. Is there a story between you two?

Thanks for explaining that. It makes sense to me, actually. I should ask Caion if he’s got anything on recreance shock that he can send over - what you’re describing is a lot like what Pearls go through on Samudra when they recombine after fracturing apart for a while. I was planning to do a little studying on it back on Samudra because I hoped we might find some of Synthesis’s other Pearls in the Septetrione, but we had no luck and I ran out of time with all the other research I was trying to cram in. Plus, y’know, family time, and boyfriend time. I wish he could have come with us. Been trying to convince myself I’m over it, that I’m cool with the fact that in the end I wasn’t able to keep my promise to take Caion with us. I’ll just have to make good on the promise to take him on our next great adventure, whenever and whatever that might be.

The burger thing was a ton of fun! I hope you enjoyed it. Caion and I tend to be more about a lot of little gestures, but grand gestures are nice once in a while too. I went to Spice Row today but didn’t get a chance to stop for street food. I want to, though. I bet you could blend together street food, Almachadtan meats, and Samudran veggies and come out with a pretty compelling entry into the Three Great Soups. Honestly, a lot of my strategy for the competition stems from relying on novelty, but if we’ve got solid cooking to back it up I think it just might work.

Story… hmm, I suppose. She’s actually the clearest I can recall of any of his memories. They were… rivals, after a fashion? But also worked together. For years and years and years. Confrontational, but with a deep bond of trust. She was the person he was closest to, I’m fairly certain. So. Well, you can imagine.

And yeah, I think Caion or perhaps Salme through Caion mentioned something about that? An odd thing to think about, really. That it’s a thing that’s common enough on another plane to have words for it.

Next time we get a chance, I suppose we’ll have to see how friendly the KPGs are to other folks. Popping into Almachadta was fairly painless on our end at least, so at the minimum you’ll have an opportunity to visit him again while we work on unlocking the Mu code on the gate in the void.

And it was! A bit embarrassing with everyone there, but still fun.

And yeah, novelty does tend to go pretty far from what I can recall, so that’s probably a good play.