Scene Archives

has returned to the inside of the Ziggurat. She has wide length of pale green cloth unfolded across her lap, a small embroidery hoop holding a small section near the beginning taut. There’s one completed animal on it–a bluejay, mid-flight. She seems to be working on some kind of terrestrial animal next. Could be a wolf or a fox–it’s hard to tell.

knocks on the side of the wall leading into the space Salme’s borrowed for now.

has outlined the body–small–with large ears–in a delicate dove gray, but has begun to fill in the body with a mix of thread ranging from warm gray to russet brown. She works quickly, surely–she’s accomplished at this, and she knows what she’s doing, swapping between different colors of threads to blend them into a soft, downy-looking fur. Definitely a fox.

looks up at the knock, and smiles. “Hello, Aury.” She looks down at her project and holds it up for him to inspect. “I’m going to add a bit of gold at the edges, but what do you think otherwise?”

: “Surprisingly detailed, and very good. One of your hobbies?”

huffs a laugh, “Yes. Embroidery is a hobby.” She gestures at her cloak, which is rich with it. “But I was more asking about your thoughts on your representation. Awoken is the bluejay, obviously. You’re the fox. Wolf will be a wolf, once I decide on which kind, Archie an otter, Unua … some kind of tree. I’m still working on it.”

: “…A tree?”

: “Yeah I don’t know either. I couldn’t make an animal work.”

: “Hmm, if I had to pick an animal for an endjinn…” He tilts his head to the side in thought for a moment. “Armadillo, probably.”

: “What is … an armadillo?” she frowns. “I don’t think we have those?”

: “Oh they’re like… little guys who uh… huh. Okay so like… take a large mole? And then you like… give it scales? Except they’re not really scales, but just the skin turning into really tough leather-esq armor? And they can roll up into a ball to defend themselves…?”

/em pauses, then pulls out a piece of chalk and makes a very rough sketch of one on the wall.

nods thoughtfully. “How large are they?” she holds her hands about a human head’s width apart, then about the width of her body, then wider. “I feel like Unua would need to be something large. That’s sort of why I picked a tree, at first. For shelter and safety.”

: “Oh well in that case I guess an elephant might work.”

: “Though that might be clearing the goal post a fair bit too.”

: “Hmm. Rhino?”

: “Aren’t those really aggressive?”

: “Not any more so than most creatures that hang out around the watering holes…?”

: “hmmm.” She doesn’t think she actually has seen a rhinoceros. She just as the … concept of one? Maybe from the Mask? Maybe from … whatever Wolf was wondering about. “I still kind of like a tree. Like the Spoken Wood.”

makes a pained face. “But Spoken Wood are people, not animals.”

: “You’re right! Ugh. It ruins the theme!” She looks at the embroidery. “Well, I have some time before I get to them. Do you think I might see an armadillo on the Beast?”

: “Assuming we have a reason to leave Queenstown, definitely.”

nods and looks at Aurelius’ rough sketch on the wall. It is … instructive, certainly, and she could manage the outline, but the textures would be all wrong without seeing a real one. “Okay. Well. It isn’t cheating to make Archie an otter, right? Do you think it could be offensive?”

: “…Oh man, I never thought about how weird it might be for him to run into an otter on another world.”

: “…Well, if it IS, you could always opt for a swift instead?”

nods thoughtfully. “That’s a good point. And I guess we’ll find out soon enough, since I assume we’ll meet some Kushtaka on Samudra.” Then she frowns. “You didn’t tell me what you thought of yours, though.”

: “Oh.”

moves up hands upwards the side of his head with his pointer fingers extended, then pushes against the back of his ears with them a few times. “No complaints there. Makes perfect sense as a choice, and it looks like it’s coming along quite nice.”

laughs. “Are you having a ‘I can’t move my ears’ moment again?”

wiggles them a bit more deliberately while letting his hands drop, “Just for extra emphasis.”

smiles a little wider. “Do you like them? Are they strange to have? Since, you know, part of you is human and part of you isn’t?”

: “That’s actually kind of a funny point - I think where he originally came from, Meta-Humans, Monsters, Naiads, Kushtaka, Endjinn and Kin would all technically just be considered Human, too, so… not as weird as you might think, honestly.”

: “And yet you don’t seem to move them often. Or the tail. Badri is always thrashing his tail around. One time he knocked one of his orphans over when he was having big feelings about–something. I can’t remember. But you don’t do that.”

raises his hands defensively. “Seems like a lot of effort when I’m so good at using facial expressions and tone to convey emotion and intent instead.” A beat, then a grin.

laughs.

gives him a thumbs up.

: “Hey, now you’re gettin’ it.” He returns the thumbs up.

: “So was there something I can do for you, or did you just come to admire my handiwork and critique my thematic choices?” gesturing to the embroidery.

: “A guy can multitask.”

: “…But uh. Yeah. So. I figured it out.”

: “Why I was acting weird, I mean.”

can guess, almost certainly knows what he’s referencing, but she arches an elegant eyebrow in such a way that would make both Wolf and Badri proud. “Which time?”

: “When you kissed me.”

: “…Ah.”

: “Yeah, that.”

‘s laugh is a little less bright this time. She looks like she might be a bit–unsettled, but she steels herself and she asks, “would you like to tell me?” and then, after a pause, adds, “I promise I won’t–you’ll be my friend, no matter what you say. If you say no, or tell me to forget it, or ask me to back off–it’s your choice. I promise.” She said promise twice. Oops.

: “Right. Well. It’s not really a no, but. After a lot of thinking it out I realized what was making me react kind of strangely to it, and, long story short - you kind of remind me of his sister? Which was making things awkward.”

: “Right. His sister.” She nods.

: “You can see how that might be weird, right?” A pause, and then after a moment he takes a hesitant step forward with one hand outstretched. “Actually, maybe it’s not… Can I have your hand? I don’t want to explain this the wrong way.”

swallows and nods. “One moment.” She folds away her embroidery, taking an extra second or two to steel herself. “Sitting or standing?”

: “Sitting is fine.”

: “Okay. Well.” She reaches out and takes his hand.

takes Salme’s hand in his as he sits down, lacing his fingers around hers, before taking the other hand and doing the same thing. He then takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and leans forward to rest his head against hers. His eyes stay closed as he begins to breath again, and in short time the rhythm of it begins to match Salame’s own. Once this happens, green gnosis begins to well up from within him, and flow into her.

gives his hands a squeeze back before stilling, keeping her breath in time with his, matching it, accepting it, saying tell me, tell me

And along with the green gnosis comes the memory of… not just the words spoke with his conversation he and the Awoken just had (all of it), but also the emotions he was feeling at the time, primarily the confusion that would frequently intermingle with thoughts of a quiet, gentle resignation of acceptance, but also hints of determination. The need to understand things, the inability to always do so, but also… a fleeting, small belief that still needs time to grow, that just maybe the future is more important than the past.

(And, of course, all the numerous Worries.)

listens, and understands, and thinks and sends back want stronger than the word ‘crush’ could imply, something tenebrous, coiling, dark; and belief, firm, unshakeable, that the future is more important than the past, radiant, newly-sprouted, planted in her by his hands, and Awoken’s hands, and Wolf’s hands, and then a memory. Not a Mask’s memory, but hers. ⁂

is young, maybe ten, eleven at most, and small. A kind woman–she is the village headwoman; her hair is streaked with silver and she has large cat-like ears–is saying, “Salme, your parents have said they’ll come for you soon. They’re sorry your grandparent died, and they’re on the other side of the world right now–at the Courtyard, would you believe, but they’ll come. And you can stay here until they do.” Salme waits. ⁂

shows him that she waited, grew to be twelve, then thirteen, and they never came. And she waited, and then got tired of waiting, and so she ran away to be bitter and angry somewhere else. And then she shows him part of her conversation with Wolf, herself saying, “Archie said that on Samudra you have. People who you tell your fears to. People who you trust. Someone who–waits for you to come back, who you fight to return to” and she gestures, wordlessly, at what she wants from him, from Awoken, from both of them together. ⁂

returns to him, to his memories, to the feeling–small, that needs time to grow–that the future is more important than the past. And she tries, though she’ll need her words for this, probably, but she tries to impress upon him that she will wait, she will help him foster that, if he wants. That she can be patient, as long as she knows the other is also fighting to come to her as well. 🙧

opens his eyes slowly as the connect ends - well, fades, really. It’s not abrupt like it often has been, but a gentle, slow fading out. As it does Salme can feel the Flourishing being replaced by the Radiant, just as the connection dissipates in full. “…That’s why you were so scared…” He closes his eyes again and squeezes both of her hands reassuringly.

: “You remember too much and not enough. Awoken doesn’t remember hardly anything. Wolf had his memories ripped away. Archie is … missing someone. Unua knows something. But I remember almost everything, and there’s simply not that much. Badri, and my … grandparent, whose name I still can’t remember. That’s it. So it’s been easy to–say ‘I want this’ and reach for it. I hadn’t considered what it might be like for you.”

laughs a little. “Well, not easy. You’ve seen me struggle. But. I don’t have people who are waiting for me.”

shakes his head slowly. “You haven’t done anything wrong, it’s not as if I’ve exactly been forthcoming, either. I’m also… sorry to hear that. How strongly you reacted to Jorule makes a lot more sense, knowing that.”

: “How so?”

: “You were scared of losing someone again, after having the experience already seared into your memory once before. I… I know it wasn’t me, but still. I’m sorry you had to feel that way again.”

: “Oh. Yeah. I mean. I think no one else actually thought that was a concern, but Awoken said something about him being the truest version of you, and then he wasn’t you, and I didn’t understand anything. I thought I did, but.” She shrugs. “I’m new to this. So.”

nods slightly, squeezing her hands again. “We’re all learning as we go.”

: “Yeah.” She pauses, and thinks for a moment, and then gives him a crooked smile. “I’m glad you think I’m ‘usually pleasant.’”

laughs, “You’ve clearly never seen yourself angry before. No world where being on the end of that is pleasant.”

: “You also don’t particularly enjoy people being angry at you either, do you? I mean, who does? But it seems to eat at you more than it does any of the others, I think.”

opens his eyes again. “Well… no, I do not particularly enjoy people I like being mad at me.”

looks into his eyes. They’re not glowing now, and so she’s able to enjoy the rich hazel of them–yellow-greens and warm browns. “I’m going to pretend I’m above being pleased by the implication that you like me to focus on the fact that … you really care about us all, don’t you?”

: “I… do. Protecting people is in my nature and… you don’t get like that if you don’t care about them, you know?”

: “Well. Intellectually, yes, that makes sense. Certain … personality flaws on my part have led me to a much more … abstract sense of care, as the Sword-Saint.”

bites her lip. “Have you looked at your brochure recently, by the way? You should. Maybe. Examine that.”

: “I am, as far as I can tell, much closer to a Yeresh than a Sword-Saint, yes.” A pause as he thinks.

: “I mean the most interesting thing recently was you and Jorule getting into a pissing contest but I imagine that’s not what you were pointing out…”

: “No that’s what I was getting at. I didn’t know if you had seen. I wanted to make sure you had before I asked you something.”

: “Ah.”

: “Yeah.”

: “Okay so. I appreciate you. Showing me what you said to Sininen, and I also sent back–some amount of thoughts. But that doesn’t actually really tell me where you’re at right now? With the. Whatever. Between us. I mean if you need more time or space to figure it out that’s fine. If you want. Something else. That’s fine. I just. Since you’re being so brave and I’m being so brave maybe I could just ask what … the conclusion to all of this is? If there is one?”

: “…What does that have to do with - actually not important, you’re right, we probably don’t need to dig into every potential side street.”

: “Oh. Well. That … thing. With Jorule. Was probably me at some of my worst? So I wanted to make sure you. Know. Had a full view of … me.”

laughs. “Fair enough, though honestly pretty well within expectations. It’s not like any of us are always, uh, at out best? either.” He rolls a small shrug, before gathering his thoughts again. “I think… where I’m at right now is: now that I know why it’s weird, it’s probably easier to ignore the stranger lingering feelings? We’ve had several votes in favor of me, decidedly, not being Jorule. (and it’s not like they were even blood related in the first place) So… it’s one thing if I thought you reminded me of my sister, right? But an entirely different, much more mild and easy to discard thought if you just remind me of some other nice girl that a person I sort of know happened to know. You know? Especially since it’s not like you’re exactly the same anyway, just kind of the rough outline and… well… okay I guess I’m rambling again but what I’m circling around saying is: I think I’m open to giving it a shot.”

smile has been growing wider and wider as he spoke, and a couple times she had to bite back a laugh that threatened to spill out. Carefully–he could stop her at any moment and she would let him–she pulls her hands out of his and rests them on his shoulders, moving so that she is straddling his lap, looking down at him. There is nothing immediately sexual about it–she mostly just wanted the chance to look down at him–but she is the one in control. “We’ll just have to work on wiping away those sisterly residuals then, won’t we, Aavikkokettu?”

rests his forehead against her shoulder, while wrapping his arms around her waist. Opens his mouth and then closes it a few times, before opting to simply nod.

curls one arm around his neck, and buries the other in his hair, and rests her chin on top of his head. “Tell me about despair, yours,” she murmurs, “and I will tell you mine./Meanwhile, the world goes on.” She presses a kiss into the top of his head and lets them stay like that for a long, long moment. ⁂

moves away, back down to her heels, so she can look up into his face. “So. What about you and Sininen then?”

: “…We had a nice conversation in which neither of us was overtly an asshole to one another? You saw the whole thing.”

laughs. “I did! So are you immune to his passes in your direction as well, or do you need to (rotate) that a bit longer?”

: “I mean I guess we bonded a bit and came to a slightly better understanding but I don’t know what passes you’re referring to.” It doesn’t seem like he’s doing a bit.

bites her lip. She looks amused, and a little giddy about it. “Oh. Well. That’s something you’ll get the joy of discovering for yourself then.” ⁂

tilts her head to the side. “I do want you both, though. Is that something you’re okay with?” 🙧

flicks a single ear forward in her direction. “Mm-hm.” A pause as he pulls up memories. “…Seems much more common for groups of people to be with each other than solitary pairs in both of the places we’re from…? So.”

: “You know you can think about what you might want rather than … normative behavior?”

(she’s charmed by this aspect of him)

: “Oh, I just mean… why would someone doing a perfectly ordinary thing that isn’t harming anyone else bother someone…?”

: “Well some people on Almachadta are attached to having pairs. My parents were a pair, the couple times I met them.”

: “I just want to make sure you know you can choose.”

: “Aha, fair enough.”

considers, and then asks, “well, now that you’ve done the rotten work of talking about your feelings, would you like to do something fun?”

: “Oh, were you… not having fun…?” Both ears droop. But also, he is making no effort to mask that he is full of shit right now.

laughs again. “Oh my poor, sweet golden fox-lion man, I didn’t mean to hurt you so. Of course I was having fun.” She reaches out to take his hands again because she can and squeezes them. “I love being wretched and vulnerable with you. It’s especially enjoyable when neither of us want to use our human words to explain ourselves.”

: “Jokes on you, I don’t hate Feeling Things.” He grins.

: “Noted. And challenge accepted.” She squeezes his hands again. “But. You know what I suspect you enjoy more? Figuring out how things work. Like the Mask. Or when I talk like this.”

: “Well, you got me there.” He shrugs. “Though honestly I kind of lost interesting in the five base gnosis when it became obvious there wasn’t actually any strong underlying logic there and they were probably determined randomly.”

: “Mask is absolutely still interesting though.”

: “I don’t think it’s random. I think it … means something. At least, when I think about it, it means something to me. But it’s not like this, where it feels–like something completed, no.”

: “But to that end, the Mask is also probably more immediately useful.”

: “Well, that’s true, someone probably picked the particular [Glyph] out from the sea of [Static] with some degree of intent, but it’s not like… the correlation is lose, at best, and not something you can deterministically work out and…” He lets himself trail off, while nodding.

: “A puzzle that isn’t something you can solve isn’t quite as appealing? At least, that’s kind of what I think.”

pulls the mask out of its pouch and frowns at it. “I’m still not. Really sure what I’m doing with this. It just seems important to understand it, and to use what we can of it.”

: “Not every impulse has to be violent or sexual.” A barely contained chortle.

launches a crumb directly at Aurelius’ face. How did she do that? This stale heel of bread is turning out very, very useful.

: “That said it does seem… fairly hard to destroy given the destruction it’s already come out unscathed from, but backups never really hurt. And it could be useful to have a way of sharing that doesn’t require as much… familiarization. Wireless could be handy, too, yeah.”

: “Well, and there is a lot of memory in here. And I think. There might be some memories that don’t belong to the Sword-Saint of Almachadta. That maybe belong to us six instead?”

sets the Mask on the ground. “Would … pellucid make sense? For understanding?”

: “I thought only the Sword-Saint wore it? Why would it have memories from the rest of us inside it?”

nods.

: “Oh! I meant. Having our own repository of memory and experience that isn’t tied to the Sword-Saint. That’s–ours.”

: “Someone carved the Mask. Someone knew to make it. I want to understand how it works.”

: “Ah, aha.”

: “I think … let me know if you have a better idea, but I think the first step is to understand the Mask as an … object? What it is. What the gnosis woven in it does?”

: “As decent a place to start as any.”

(Salme is still holding Aurelius’ hand I believe, and if she wasn’t, she started to now. They’re good hands! She likes holding them!)

frowns. Is there anything other than pellucid, radiant, and flourishing gnosis?

: “Huh, it’s a circuit board made up of circulating gnosis. It’s crazy that it hasn’t gone inert after thousands of years.”

: “Circuit-board? Tell me later. There’s something else in there. Help me?” Thinks of rhizomes, thinks of roots, thinks of fungal mycelium reaching below the soil, changing, transforming, storing.

considers what’s there, the general flow of the pathways that connect, and then… pulls back, slightly, feeling for what feels different from the rest of the system.

tilts his head, aaaalll the way to the side. “…The constellations are… alive…? What the fuck does THAT mean?”

: “I have no fucking–wait. Does that mean every time I have–oh.”

: “Huh?”

reaches out and presses a slightly incensed index finger against the mask. “Every time I’ve … communed with the mask, every time I’ve drawn visions from it have I been speaking with a constellation?”

: “I don’t know about all that, it could just be passively powering it remotely most of the time? Though when you invoked it with me before it did seem to have a will of its own, come to think of it.”

: “It has a personality, certainly. With Badri it’s … almost sassy. It’s petulant sometimes, and judgmental. Sometimes I receive things and it almost sounds like … what we heard when we first arrived in Sanctuary, the incomplete voice that can’t speak like this. But sometimes it is The Duelist’s Mask speaking.”

: “Lamp-shading the Sage in plain sight seems like playing with fire, though I suppose it is only me here,” Aurelius mutters to himself after giving a quick glance around to make sure, then glances up at the void-sky, past the ceiling of the ziggurat.

: “But anyway I suppose that… explains the power source? No idea if that’s something we can tap into ourselves intentionally though, might need to make some batteries.”

: “It’s mostly,” she frowns. “A little unsettling. To think that the constellations are … sentient. And that the Mask is … also sentient.”

: “It’s a little weird, I’ll grant, but after some thought it’s really not much weirder than Spirits are on my end. Why’s it unsettling for you?”

: “I’m not sure,” she draws her finger across the mask, a little uncertainly. “Maybe it’s the … being observed part? Or maybe I’ve just been trying to convince myself that I should act according to my will because the Mask has none, only to find that it … might?”

: “Heh, well, give how many memories inside of it you’ve observed yourself, you had to figure at some point someone else would eventually see yours…?” He gives an amused head shake. “Even if it does, it seems pretty content to largely just observe and record, rather than instruct and dictate, so I wouldn’t worry about that too much myself..”

: “That’s … a good point. A great point, really.” She sends a little bit of burning gnosis into the Mask, an apology, and then says, “where were we? Circuit boards and batteries? What should we try to find out next?”

rolls his head around on his shoulders. “Wasn’t really much of an engineer myself but… How the storage works, probably? How it keeps the memories intact, and how it accesses them after the fact seem like the two biggest things we need if we wanna build off of it.”

: “Then… probably how to sort through them? And playback. Hmm.”

: “Would pellucid work … better for organizing? The flourishing aspect doesn’t really seem to be everyone’s favorite.”

: “Not sure how the backend is coded really matters all that much as long as it’s programmed well enough and there’s something simple to interface with to make it work? Like… It should be as easy as finding a book on a shelf and then pulling it down to read it, without having to go through all the tangled mess of the gnosis itself each time.”

: “Aurelius, you realize you’re Birding Out again and I understood precisely none of that? Well, the part about books, sure, but before that.”

: “Right, the first half basically didn’t matter. Use whatever gnosis you’re most comfortable with, assuming it’s set up correctly no one else should ever be touching it directly. Like you don’t have to look at this pulsating mass of energy every time you put the Mask on and look something up, right?”

: “Flourishing probably is a decent foundation, because we want to be able to easily interact with this so like… maybe we do imagine the inside of it as a library? That seems like a concept everyone should have some passing familiarity with, and grabbing a book from a shelf is simple enough to understand.”

bites her lip and pulls up her hand in a slightly-chagrined puppet motion. “My name is Salme and on our weird flourishing world we don’t really have large collections of books like you’d find in a library because we’re not civilized or advanced enough.” She’s clearly laughing at herself when she drops her free hand back near the Mask. “But I do have the concept of a library. For whatever reason.”

: “I can’t believe I’m dating a hillbilly…”

: “Anyway, yeah, I mean, close enough.*

: “Yeah, I bet Jorule’s sister wasn’t a hillbilly. She was probably cuter too,” she says dryly, thinking. “What would you bind it to?”

: “I mean she did make it all the way into Space and -“ Pauses with his mouth open, carefully steps around the land mine, and then wills himself to return to course. “Hmm. That’s a good point, this does seem to work better with a physical medium in place due to all the [Static] filling up the Sea… hmm.”

: “If you don’t have anything in mind I could pull something up?”

: “Be my guest,” she says, gesturing with her free hand while squeezing his other hand with her own. “I can also let go if you need both hands.”

: “Imagine needing two hands to pull something out of an extra-dimensional space. Pu-lease.” Tilts his head at the melody. It’s not… the same one Awoken was humming, right?

laughs fondly at that. “I also am not bothered at the idea of Jorule’s cute sister who’s been to Space. Though. The future is here.”

: “Hmm…” He shrugs after a moment and then flicks his hand, and a slab of rectangle, mostly white opal with rounded down edges appears in it and is then laid down on the ground. “A… tablet should suffice, as a storage and reading device.” Something in the tone of his voice suggest he’s making a joke, but Goddess knows what it is.

tilts her head at the music. Does it sound familiar to her?

shrugs and murmurs something about “bird jokes” and watches.

: “I think…” He runs a finger along the surface, tracing various symbols into it, alternating between tenebrous and flourishing energy. “We can probably have it pull energy from the light of suns and stars when it’s not in use like this, a rechargeable energy source in lieu of a fuel source… And then on the other side,” He flips it over after finishing, “You do your thing to reproduce the webs.”

reaches out and presses her palm into the font of the tablet and she thinks of roots, rhizomes, mycelia, reaching, touching, connecting–all of it in a web, a snarl of string, at its best a tapestry, and then a library. But she also thinks of walls, of boundaries, of what-if-they-were-not, what if there was not soil or roots to reach through but instead you could make a fold in space, in time, in thought, and be precisely where you’d like to be.

: “Fuck.”

: “Uh?”

: “What did you -“

: “Oh I just. Wasn’t. Very good. With the gnosis.”

huffs, a little like a vexed cat.

: “Oh you… sucked us into your mock up. Huh. Okay. That’s… cool?”

: “Oh.”

: “Aurelius, the Empty Space in the Sky. That’s what’s missing.” She squeezes his hand.

pulls the welding glasses out from somewhere and - puts them on Salme’s face, before stepping through the bubble with one eye closed.

: “Seems like a good guess, yeah.”

follows him, and luckily did have the welding goggles on because she’s staring straight into the Sun.

: “How the fuck did they lose a sun, though? What kind of shoddy ass knock off lego set were they using???”

: “Goddess, no one he wanted to remake it all. He lost. The sun!”

somehow stumbles, despite sitting down, as they return.

: “It was beautiful. It was …” her eyes are shining. “We did it. We can make it better. With more work, memory storage will work–that was the implication, but we can–we have a place, we saw the sun.”

: “Yup, yup yup yup on all fronts.”

kisses him, because she can’t help herself. “You’re amazing. Did you know that?”

pauses for a half second, but returns the kiss with some level of grace after the initial surprise. “I am amazing. You did really good for a first attempt at winging some deeply esoteric random ass bullshit, yourself, too!”

laughs and laughs and laughs. “And we saw the sun. It’s there. Or it was there.” She frowns. “Actually, do you think … what is the relationships between that room and time?”

: “Probably similar to your normal one with the Mask? S’what we’re basing this off of, after all.”

: “Then is the Sun destroyed or is it just … hidden?”

scoffs, “Hell if I know, but it’s pretty damning to the Architect’s portfolio in either case.”

: “That’s another bird joke,” she observes wisely. “A ‘portfolio’ is something an … ‘architect’ has. And his sucks?”

: “Oh that’s like… a collection or record of the various projects or jobs he’s done in a professional sense.”

laughs. “Okay yeah that’s a pretty good joke. He either fucked up the Sun or forgot to include it. What a dumbass.”

: “Yeah. Yeah.” He laughs as well.

: “Oh man.”

: “Okay, well. That’s ONE insane mystery solved that raises several other questions.”

: “And we didn’t quite get all the features running, but we can refine it. At least it seems like it’ll function perfectly well as a private sealed space to share, if not store, thoughts. And that’s definitely not nothing.”

: “Yes. That’s.” She frowns and thinks. “Actually, would you mind hopping back in there for a second?” Though she does return the welding goggles to him.

places them back on his forehead, as the Goddess intended, then nods while placing a hand to the tablet and falling into it.

goes with him

(Hmm…)

wants to listen, but to listen you need a little bit less noise. She’s. Never done it before, but she thinks about drawing a shade over the central pane. Not quite an eclipse, but darker than the glasses Aurelius wears.

wants to understand this light–anything about this light. Is it the same? Is it different?

is not afraid of being harmed. She tries to listen to what it is saying.

: “Fuck.”

: “Yes,” she grinds out between gritted teeth.

thinks that it’s not her trick, but she’d like to try to [Turn the Chessboard Around]. Like flipping a Lucre, maybe, or … shifting a road. She wants to control what the window looks out upon–not this light, but the other (with, of course, the opportunity to switch, but only intentionally).

…..

takes deep, gasping breaths, shuddering, shaking, trying to recenter herself. She brushes away the shaded awning she had unsuccessfully tried and frowns up at the Sun. ⁂

and she reaches out, thinking of empty space, collapsing space, trying to understanding what she is seeing, trying to see the relationship between the two–the light that cannot harm, and the light that can only harm, and the empty space in the sky where neither of them sit. 🙧

presses her lips together. That isn’t good enough.

smiles, pleased with herself. “That’s better.”

closes her eyes and tries to feel the echo of it. She is especially curious about the empty space.

: “Where are you now? Or can you not speak?”

laughs, a little chagrined. “Fair enough. I can do the impossible, but usually not on my own.” She looks for the door back–is it still there?

looks around one last time, and steps through.

draws her hand away from the tablet and takes a deep breath. “So.” Then she frowns. “Oh Light, what happened to your skin?”

: “The power of a sun pouring down on me with no solar shield? What didn’t happen to yours?”

: “Er.”

: “Well. I guess I. Resisted it for a while. Almost–hm. I’m not sure what would have happened if I had taken on any more stress. Fixed the pane so we should only see the Sun that doesn’t harm? Because apparently there are two?”

: “I can show you?”

: “Damn, no wonder angle bird doesn’t like you, you’re the exact same kind of idiot.” A beat. “Sure, lets go.”

: “Do you want to go into the room, or just share the memory here?”

eyes the tablet a little uncertainly, but that was why she created it.

places his hand firmly on the tablet.

places her hand there too.

: “I was able to … make it so you can change the view. From this Sun to–ah–the other one.”

: “I see.”

: “What are you thinking?”

: “I’m thinking, maybe we don’t do that. Also, it’s weird there’s two suns. And especially that one wants to protect, and one wants to destroy.”

: “Much like there’s two gods? One that only creates and one that only destroys?”

: “Well, there are many more gods, but.”

: “The duality of man, I guess.”

: “Hm. Well. Good on you for getting the shutter installed, that could have been way worse, I think.”

laughs a little awkwardly. “Yeah. It was. Hm. Do you want to see what happened, or does this explain it well enough?”

: “I think I can live without standing directly in front of Son of Angry Sun for several minutes. Especially since it… yeah, looks like you got it all under control again.”

squints at he looks upwards.

: “I meant the memory but. Fair enough.”

: “Yeah so, funny thing about the memory sharing?”

: “You still FEEL all that.”

blinks. “Oh. Yeah. Of course. Like the death of hundreds of worlds?”

(she maybe still feels a little bad about that)

: “Exactly like that! Yeah.” He laughs, a little in amusement, a little in exasperation.

: “I’m sorry. I know you said–but. Considering you do have all those memories of dead and dying worlds from your Bird Problem already, you probably didn’t need more.”

waves a hand while he shakes his head, “It’s fine, I’m just pulling your chain not - It’s fine.”

: “Hmm,” she says, thoughtfully. “Well. If it isn’t. It’s not the same, but if there is anyone who has had to face the death of a world many times and still keep going, it is me. And I am here for you.”

reaches out and ruffles Salme’s hair with a smile. “Duly noted.”

gives him a thumbs up, but has to stifle a yawn. “Okay I think I need. A nap? A snack? Something.” She gestures to the door. “I’ll see you back on the road?”

: “Oh yeah, I think I saw Unua setting up camp before I came in? Maybe he’s got a stew going or something.”

: “Oh, stew sounds wonderful.” She gets on her tiptoes enough to kiss his cheek, and then walks through the door back to reality.

gives a quick glance around the room, mentally flagging a few things In Need Of Refinement, then follows after.