Scene Archives

is thinking a bit, about how she wants to word things for Zvahr Yhjrn, and about a great number of Linkpearl posts. This means she is pacing about the common area upside down, walking back and forth with her hands instead of her feet. Occasionally, she’ll flip upright, before falling back into a lazy handstand.

has wandered to Clan Emberlight’s guest quarters, waits at the door a minute, then whispers “Okay, we can do this,” and knocks on the door.

flips upright, and answers the door promptly. When she sees who it is, she smiles. “Hi Qarina. Does this mean it’s gulab jamun time?” She still doesn’t know what that is, but she’s been very excited about finding out.

: “OhhiSalme!” she blurts out all as one word. “Uhh yeah, if you’re hungry enough for dessert, it’s absolutely gulab jamun time!”

tilts her head at Qarina and smiles a little more brightly. “That sounds excellent to me.” She reaches out and easily loops her arm with Qarina’s, assuming she lets her. “Lead the way.”

tenses a little bit at the contact, but manages to mostly not freak out. “Awesome! It’s not too far from here, we can just take a left here and a quick shortcut through here and I probably should have asked if you like sweet things, it’s really sweet. Pretty much everyone here loves sweet things because the sun sucks so much, but you’re not from here and uhhh I don’t know what you’re used to for desserts. But it’s my favorite thing in the world, except for my brother and Dyu and Teacher.” Qarina talks almost the whole way there, which isn’t terribly impressive, since it was a whole three minute stroll, but she sure did talk fast the whole time.

carefully follows what she says, nodding along. “I’m usually not huge on sweets, but I’m always willing to try anything once. The … iced creams were very good I thought. I’ve never had those before.”

is getting fairly swift at unraveling her complex garments, even after only—what, a day? She did used to spend even more time intricately braiding her hair every day, so this feels almost natural. She takes a deep breath of the air. “It smells amazing.”

: “Cold is always nice when it’s so hot all the time. Sometimes that’s the move. What are desserts like where you’re from?” She leads Salme inside and lowers her hood down. “Want me to get one for you?”

nods. “Thank you, I’d love one. And a lot of our desserts are fruit-based. Pies, especially apple pie and pumpkin pie and mixed berry pie. Cheesecake, again usually with berries. Tarts and cobblers—lots of fruit, really. Almachadtan food tends to focus on fairly simple ingredients, possibly because we have so many different kinds of fruits and vegetables.”

’s eyes go a little wide at the description of so many different types of fruits (and even vegetables) “Wow. That must be so cool. Just fruit…everywhere?” She walks up to the counter and politely asks for two gulab jamun, and brings them back to Salme. “We can sit in the shade for a bit here, unless you wanna go see more stuff. We can do that too.”

: “Let’s sit in the shade and talk? I’d love to get to know you a bit better.” She tilts her head at Qarina. “And your brother, I assume? Does he have a name? I know I can’t hear him, but I’d like to make him feel included.” ⁂

: “And yeah, fruit everywhere. Flowers. Vegetables. Trees. It’s very green. My favorite dessert is just … blackberries plucked straight off the bush.” 🙧

takes a seat on one of the cushions in the lounge area, “He doesn’t have a name! He’s been with me ever since I woke up. I asked him and he didn’t really seem to think it would make sense for him to have a name?”

sits on a cushion across from her, flopping down comfortably. “Why wouldn’t it make sense?”

: “He doesn’t see any reason to have one. Usually he’s just…oh. Breakthrough. He admits it could be useful to have one if a bunch of different people were gonna talk to him, instead of just me.”

: “Well, it’s really about what he wants, and about what you want. Names are important.” She takes her spoon, and carves a small crater out of her gulab jamun. It is very sweet, but the complexity of the flavors make the sweetness bearable. “Oh. This is very good.”

beams. “Hooray! So…the one guy gave me this…and…I’ll be honest, I’m more confused than anything else. You guys just all showed up from another world and someone could like, sense that?” Qarina holds up her tomestone.

: “Oh. I suppose that would be confusing wouldn’t it? I think your Yazhn Ravhi knew something was going to happen, but I don’t think he knew it would be us. We’re from different planes—Wolf, the one who kept staring at Ravhi, and I are from Almachadta. Aurelius, the guy who gave you that, and Luĉja, the robot, are from the Beast. Archie, the small furry guy, is from Samudra. And Awoken is from Valaïs. I can try to explain if you have questions?”

tries to follow along on their tomestone. “I think it makes sense. It’s just a lot to get used to. I can’t believe there’s so much more than just…The City and the desert and The Work…”

: “I can imagine. I … you know, getting kidnapped initially made the shock of it all a little less, well, shocking? There’s so many amazing things out there. I don’t know if I’d say I’m precisely lucky to get to see them all, but it’s hard to complain.”

giggles. “So you noticed the staring too?”

: “YOU WERE KIDNAPPED?”

her hand instinctively goes to where her hammer would be

: “Oh,” she laughs a little, chagrined. “You maybe didn’t get to that part yet. Yeah. Kidnapped, memory wiped, had some pathetic sad-sack excuse for a god tell us our worlds were gone. That’s how we all met.”

: “That sounds terrible. I’m sorry. It does look like you met some really cool friends though.” She stares off a little. “So…what are you guys looking for here?”

: “Well, Wolf’s clearly looking for a good time with your Teacher,” she says, and then she remembers she’s not talking to Aurelius so should maybe turn it down. “We don’t really … know, right? There’s this whole mystery about—the end of the world, at least in Almachadta and the Beast’s case at least, and what happened to set them on this path, and …” she shakes her head. “A lot of questions, and then a handful of answers that raise more questions.”

bursts out laughing and almost falls off the cushion. “Oh man. Thank God. I haven’t been able to talk with anyone about that since it happened. Dyu’s been really busy and my brother and I were talking about it a little and OH MY GOD DID YOU SEE THEM? Apparently they were up late drinking coffee together at like MIDNIGHT.”

perks up. “Oh were they? I noticed Wolf disappeared for quite some time.” She takes another little bite of gulab jamun, rolling it around in her mouth. “I’m glad? I—Wolf isn’t my brother by blood, but he’s my brother by choice, and his happiness means the world to me. As does the ability to tease him relentlessly.”

laughs again. “My brother says he bets they’re up late again tonight with their weird Yazhn shit.” she looks around and drops her voice lower “Did you know that he was like…here but not here? Apparently he knows some weird trick to show up places, but only part way. And he was staring at Teacher then too.”

blinks, and thinks for a moment. “I … did know that, but only because he shared the memory with me. He … I think something about Yazhn Ravhi called to him? He’s able to—hm.” She takes a moment, thinking of how to word it. “Wolf hears the world in music, and because he’s such an adept singer he can move through the music of … reality?”

: “Whoa. That’s…cool…but also absolutely some weird Yazhn shit. Is Wolf a Yazhn, where you come from?” Qarina loses herself for a moment, then suddenly sits bolt upright“Wait, you said he’s like your brother. So….is having ‘brothers’ in normal on your world? I don’t think anyone besides…well me and my brother use that word. Not even Teacher, I don’t think.”

: “Oh. Wait. You’re right. Xilai mentioned that … you don’t … have children here? You just suddenly are created? Everyplace else I’ve been it’s pretty standard to have parents and siblings—brothers and sisters—and that sort of thing.” She frowns now that she’s thinking of it. “Actually … where do you know the term ‘brother’ from?”

: “Yeah, we just…wake up? Sometimes the Kin have a new clutch of people, and suddenly The City is full again. No idea how they figure it out. They didn’t give me anyone. Or Dyu. That’s why we’re such good friends. He’s almost like a brother too. My brother tells me Dyu counts as a brother. He taught me the word. I was afraid when I woke up and I didn’t know what he was. He told me he was my brother. And I kinda…understood it?”

nods. “I don’t know if it’s the same, but there are certain things I understand intuitively, even if maybe it doesn’t make sense for me to.” She finishes off her gulab jamun and reclines back. “Would your brother be willing to tell me if he remembers the world being other than how Mu currently is? It hadn’t registered how strange the term ‘brother’ is, but now that I’m thinking about it …” she frowns, and then shakes her head. “Regardless, though, I’m glad you had both Dyu and him. It sounds like it’d be very lonely, otherwise.”

: “I don’t think he w…Yeah. He says he doesn’t really remember things before I woke up. It’s all just kind of a jumble of images and impressions.”

: “And since we’re only 7, that isn’t a very long time.”

: “You’re … only seven? Wait. Right. You don’t … you wake up older than the standard human baby.” And then, because she figures the clarification would be useful, she says, “Humans generally have babies. They’re round and fat and about the size of a … watermelon?” She holds her hands apart, suggesting perhaps a particularly rotund cat or, indeed, a watermelon, “and they can’t do much other than shit and barf for the first couple years of their life. Which, I mean, your way seems better in some ways?”

looks absolutely mortified.

: “What do you mean that humans have babies? Like they wake them up instead of the Kin, cause you don’t have Kin?”

: “How does that even work? Can they even walk if they’re that small? There’s no way they could like…help at all. We wake up ready to do The Work.”

: “No, it.” She closes her eyes, and breathes in and out and then in again. She opens her eyes. “Okay. We don’t have Kin, that’s correct. When someone wants to make a new person, they and a partner have sex. That sex leads to something called pregnancy. The pregnant person basically grows a new human in their body over the better part of a year, and then eventually pops the new person out in a process we call ‘birth.’ That person is what we call a baby. They can’t walk if they’re that small. It takes some time before they can even stand. That period of development is called ‘childhood’ and, for the most part, the child is taken care of by their family, clan, village, of some other unit.”

looks like she’s trying to scramble back into her cushion and out of this terrible new reality. “No no no no no no no. You’re telling me that…Yeah I know it does. Ew. Sorry. You’re telling me that…on your world…sex isn’t just…something you just do to enjoy it? And you get stuck cleaning up a pooping barfing little mini-human? In His Name, may I never have to experience that.”

: “Maybe the sun isn’t the worst thing in the universe after all…”

laughs. “I mean, there’s a pretty simple trick to do with the reversal of flourishing gnosis to stop it from being a concern if you don’t want it to be. I know I certainly am only interested in sex as something I do that I enjoy. And if you do get pregnant and don’t want it, there’s plenty of ways to terminate the pregnancy.” She shrugs. “Some people do want that though, which is good, I guess, because that’s how we make more people.”

does not look any less horrified. “That still sounds horrifying. So do people who are…taking care of the babies not have to do The Work? Do you guys even have The Work? You don’t live in a sunblasted desert, so I guess you might not…”

: “There isn’t … we don’t have a concept of The Work, no. There is work certainly. People have jobs that are necessary to do, but it isn’t … like it is here.” She tilts her head at Qarina. “I could show you, what it’s like on Almachadta? I can share memories and impressions. I’m also happy to keep telling you, though I feel like I’m just horrifying you more and more.”

: “No, almost everything sounded really nice right up until the babies!” Qarina holds up her hands. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to just hate on your world. It just…really sounded scary. The fruit and the plants all sound lovely. How…could you show me? Like drawing a picture?”

laughs again. “I’m not bothered. I imagine it sounds strange. And for what it’s worth, I feel about the same about babies.” She pauses. “As for showing you, it would be more like … you’d experience a few of my memories of being me, on Almachadta. You’d briefly feel like you were me, probably. It’s a kind of blurring of the selves. It’s also fine if that sounds unpleasant—Aurelius is one of my partners, and he prefers to avoid the experience completely. It’s just an offer, if you’re curious. I promise no babies will be involved.”

smiles and giggles at the last line. “I mean, that sounds…too cool to be real? I’ll totally try it!”

grins at her. “Well then. Take my hand, and I’ll open the link.” She extends her hand in offering.

grabs Salme’s hand

spares one brief moment to welcome Qarina’s shadow-brother into the house that is herself along with Qarina. She is used to being observed, yes. She is a performer, after all.

then draws Qarina into her memories. They are a young girl—younger than anyone every awoken on Mu, but they are not a baby. They are sitting in a room filled with thick, intricately patterned woolen rugs while someone with gentle hands and a soft, pleasant voice tells them the story of a spider that weaves silk the color of dreams. And then they are a teenager riding in the back of a wagon, kicking their legs over the deep-dug troughs in the dirt road, watching their village, their home, recede in the distance and feeling the soft warmth of the Centrelight on their face. And then they are older, though not by much, lifting a gleaming bronze compass from a mapmaker’s pocket, puzzling over the strange technology, slipping it back into a pocket before anyone notices it’s gone. And then they are on a stage, dancing, tumbling, performing, words steady in their throat as a rapt audience watches them. And then there is the taste of blackberries, and pomegranates, and strawberries, and pears. There are ripe tomatoes and warm stews. There are deep-fed springs where the water is cold, and forests so dense even the Centrelight’s glow grows dim. There is the wind through their hair as they ride a swift between towns, the free-fall of jumping down from the branches of a tall tree. There are arms full of flowers. There is triumph in the Rite. This is Salme’s, and this is also Qarina’s, and if Qarina wills it it can also be her brother’s as well.

tears up a little bit. “It’s…beautiful…there’s…so much…the light…doesn’t hurt?”

squeezes her hand. “No. The light doesn’t hurt.”

shares also the infinite, storm-tossed waves of Samudra and the starry night sky of the Beast. “Each plane has its strengths and its weaknesses. But they are all beautiful.”

stares in wonder “This is incredible.”

grins, and Qarina can feel Salme’s joy in her joy. “Is there anything else you’d like to see? I can do this trick as often as you’d like, so it’s not a one-time thing, but since we’re here.”

quietly, “Show me who kidnapped you. I’m gonna think about smashing their face in next time I go out to break Elementals.”

laughs, quietly, and then shifts her memories to the beginning, to the Architect, with his smile that does not reach his eyes and his strange, sad loneliness. They wake up on a stone slab. They do not know their name. They know they are being told a lie. They do not know the strangers with them, and there is a strange dual-consciousness to this memory, because they also remember them—there is so much love in them when they remember their Clan when they were still strangers thrown together by chance or strange machinations.

nods “I’m sorry you got kidnapped. I’m not sorry I got to meet you though…WHAT? What do you mean?!”

: “What is it?”

: “My brother…recognized his face. He doesn’t know how. It sounded like remembering hurt.”

breathes in and breathes out. “I see,” she says. “There is another he might recognize, then—they were a pair, the captor and the freedom-giver. It is your brother’s choice, though, if he’d like me to draw that memory up. I don’t want to hurt him again unless he’d like to know.”

: “He says he wants to know.” She sounds worried.

squeezes her hand, and then the memories shift again, and the Omniclast stands before them with his cape of stars, his clawed hands, his bright charisma. He punches a hole in reality and they take Wolf’s hand as they jump through.

shakes her head. “Doesn’t seem like it?”

nods. “Hm. That is information as well, I suppose. Would you like me to drop the link now? Are you okay? Is he okay?”

: “Y..Yeah, I think that’s enough. We’re okay.”

: “Brother says thank you.”

gently lays the link down, and then she is just Salme, and Qarina is Qarina. “He’s very welcome.”

: “Also, I also…say thank you. Sorry. Just got a little surprised.”

: “You don’t need to apologize. Light knows I’ve flipped my shit over enough things since this started.”

does try to give a little wave to the shadow.

then says, to Qarina. “If it’s any reassurance, I’m hard to scare off. I’m not going to stop wanting to be your friend just because you get overwhelmed at something genuinely overwhelming.” She squeezes her hand one more time before letting go.

lets out a deep breath “Thanks. I…don’t really have many friends. I would really like to be yours.”

: “I didn’t … really have many friends before this all started. I’d be honored to be yours.” She pauses. “Especially if we can gossip about Wolf and Ravhi. But even if there’s no gossip to be had we can always get a fancy dessert and chat.”

giggles “There’s no way we won’t have Yazhn stuff to talk about. And there’s always more dessert to try.” She pulls out her Tomestone. “This says that you’re a professional story teller, kinda, right? And this part…says that this guy has stories on the worlds you visited.” Qarina opens the entry on ‘Zosimos.’ “Did you wanna go and see if the Archives know anything about it?”

: “That way…you could have a story from here too.”

: “Oh. I’d like that a lot. Though. I think beyond that, I’d like to know your story to carry with me. If you’d like to tell it.”

: “Oh. Uh. I could try. Dyu would probably do it better. He’s very good at speeches and explaining and Yazhn things. He’s gonna be the next Teacher eventually. Again, only seven years old. But I woke up with a brother and a word no one else knew. It was kinda scary, since we only had each other until Teacher introduced us to Dyu. We were made special. No one’s ever had a Shade attached to them before. Not really sure how that part worked. But it means that we’re a team, and good news for everyone, we’re the best team ever. We can crush Elementals into …well…nothing flat! Didn’t need to learn the fancy Rite-tricks the Rohsu use. But I was told that my part of The Work was to destroy the Elementals that kept attacking the faithful out trying to restore the world. And…well…that’s kinda it? Every day I check in with Teacher and the Rohsu and go out into the desert. Sometimes I take a hippalectria if it’s gonna be far. And I smash the stupid lie-monsters until they’re the regular kind of nothing, not the Elemental kind of nothing. Some days, I bring supplies out to people who are far from The City. It’s not super common, but sometimes people have to stay out in the desert at a shelter. And they need restocking pretty often. And defending. And sometimes, when there are extra packages… _{I take a little detour and bring the packages out to Chaya and the other apostates out in the caves, because they gotta eat too.} ”

considers all of that for a moment. “Don’t forget, of course, that you saved my life and the life of everyone in my Clan. I don’t think we would have survived that Elemental without both you and Dyu.” She considers for another moment. “If you didn’t have your Work, what would you want to do, to be?”

clears her throat “But that’s really most of it. A lot of smashing Elementals, and teasing Dyu, and delivering supplies, and listening to Teacher, and making sure I do The Work real good, and helping Dyu sometimes after I tease him, and getting gulab jamun, and avoiding all the people near my age that think I’m a freak, and crushing more Elementals, and not listening to them yell at me. You know.”

genuinely looks confused, “What else is there to do? I would be so bored if I didn’t have The Work.”

: “We gotta fix the world. Bring our God back. What else is there to do? I got enough time to shatter every Elemental I can find, tease Dyu, and eat dessert!”

considers that for a long moment. There are several things she could say, or ask, but she really—“The Elementals talk to you?”

: “You say that. Just by the look of all of you…I’m pretty sure you guys could figure out a way to take one out. Maybe not as fast as me. But I got seven years of practice on you. Especially your boyfriend. Partner. He looks like he can FIGHT.”

: “I mean, I wouldn’t say they talk to me. They scream real loud when I hit them though. My brother helps me not listen mostly.”

: “I thought the metal guy was the scariest, until he had the little animal for me to pet.”

laughs and laughs at that. “Oh. Luĉja can be terrifying, but they’re very kind. Aurelius is—you should challenge him to a Rite, maybe. He’s exceptionally talented. Though …” she blushes a bit. “Aury and Awoken are … both mine. I mean. I have two. Boyfriends. Partners.” She blushes harder. “I mean, it’s negotiable, they aren’t mine, and I haven’t used the term ‘partner’ in front of Aury I don’t think? Maybe? I don’t know. But. Uh. He’s very talented. At a lot of things! Fighting’s one of them.”

: “Oh, he’d probably beat me. I like the Rite and all, but uhh, my main thing is that I don’t need to use it…so I don’t practice a whole lot.” She grins, sheepishly. “Also, why are you blushing? That’s a thing a lot of people have?”

: “OH MY GOD YOU GUYS GOT KIDNAPPED TOGETHER AND STARTED DATING YOU’RE SO CUTE”

goes from ‘medium amount of blushing’ to ‘incredibly flushed.’ “I-I suppose it is? I never—thought of it that way. As … cute … before.” She lets out a rather shaky laugh. “Anyway I’m wildly jealous of your ability to hit things without invoking the Rite. Light, I’ve wanted to punch some people before.”

: “It only works on Elementals. I’ve tried.” She looks disappointed. “If I figure it out though, I’ll teach you first.”

also looks vaguely disappointed, and nods, giving her a thumbs up.

is still absurdly flushed from the enthusiastic commentary on her relationships’ cuteness.

thinks it might be terminal.

: “Oh, cool, you’ve been here already! Gonna learn all the stories?” Qarina turns to Zvahr Yhjrn, waves, and bows slightly, “Hello! My friend Salme was telling me a story about her travels and I was curious…do we have any stories about a guy named…Zo…Zosimos? They might be really old.”

has managed to get her blush under control, and it looks like she’ll live. She waves off Zvahr Yhjrn’s concern—it really hasn’t been long at all, and she hasn’t held up her end of the bargain either—and nods to Qarina. “History on Almachadta is … hard to get a handle on. I came here because I was curious about the oldest records. Zvahr Yhjrn was exceptionally helpful with that.”

: “But yes. We were curious if there’s a record of anyone named Zosimos.”

does go peek at the index volumes, and once she figures out exactly how they function, something lights up in her eyes.

definitely is paying attention for the first time in here. (She usually just makes Dyu read things)

: “We’ll try there later if we can. Thank you!”

nods and gives a little goodbye wave, eyes still gleaming at the concept of an “index.”

sees how Salme looked at the “index volumes” and is wondering if she might have to start actually reading things

whispers, “you can. You can reference information but having an alphabetical list of that information that points to the information?” She shakes her head in wonder. “What’s the Gallery?”

: “Pfff. You keep saying that. Oh. Sorry. Out loud again. The Gallery is in the Temple, surrounding the Holy of Holies. It’s where everyone whose time has come while continuing The Work rests until He returns and restores us all.”

: “Can people just … go into the Gallery when they want?” And she narrows her eyes. “What does he keep saying?”

grumbles “That people who read are gonna be a good influence on me.”