Scene Archives

(Or whatever the hell Samudrians call monitors! I already forgot! Viewing screens?)

strides into the library briskly. “Oh Angel of Darkness, where are you?” she singsongs.

: “I’m right here, safely engaging in communication with you through a thing I was given to use and which you would not want to cause physical harm to. Not that I think that would really be possible regardless, but y’know.” Responds Jory the Librarian, using Jorule’s voice.

stares at Jory, and then laughs. “You. Do not. Get to antagonize me like that and then cry about fear of bodily harm.”

: “I’m joking about it! Anyway tough crowd, who would have thought saying I believed in you would make you upset.”

: “Yeah, no one’s ever found statements like ‘I believe in your ability to follow simple context clues’ sort of patronizing.”

: “I’m sorry, Salme. I did not mean to upset you, only tease you.” And Jory the Librarian really sounds like it means it, too! Not a hint of sarcasm.

frowns at the raven. “Okay, so. I cannot actually tell if you mean that, because you are inhabiting a bird.” Crosses her arms. “Which, I recognize, is sort of my fault, since I made the bird for you to inhabit, but—“ she sighs. “Forgiven for that, I guess.”

falls out of the bird as it makes a coughing gesture, and dusts himself off after rolling to a stop while sitting on his knees, somehow.

: “I see, I see. And how was the island?”

: “Amazing, actually. Also, you probably already looked.”

wobbles a hand. “I saw what you said and did, and a description of what you saw, but it’s not exactly the same, y’know?”

: “Hm.” Plops down on the ground across from him. “It’s beautiful. Alive. Unreal—it shouldn’t work the way it does and yet it does. I can’t affect it with gnosis, which is strange. I wonder if it’s the three-way weave of burning, flourishing, and pellucid?”

: “If you … want to, I could try to take you sometime? I don’t know if you could possess me, or share my consciousness briefly but. I’d be willing to try.”

tilts his head slightly. “Is that something you could do back on Almachata?”

: “Naw don’t work like that, though honestly I could just look through the memories instead of the logs to get a real look. Appreciated tho.”

: “I don’t actually know. I don’t know that I ever … tried? It’s just what the narrator told me.”

: “As trustworthy a source as any. Hmm.”

: “Not sure what to make of that then, but that’s probably as good a guess as any.”

: “Yeah.” She does something with her hands, almost like she’s weaving a bubble, but she isn’t, obviously, and then she says, “so. Are you ashamed of me for Melpomene? When I was talking to Aury about it, you chimed in and.” She presses her lips together.

: “Why would I be ashamed of something you did that had zero involvement from myself?”

: “I don’t know! Because we’re friends and I embarrassed you by behaving in a way you found embarrassing?”

: “Embarrassing and Ashamed are leagues apart score wise, goofball.”

: “Did I think it was dumb? Sure. A little embarrassing having the thing you made deliberately trying to invoke part of my Look As You Know It? Also sure. Ashamed? No, not even.”

: “Are they? What’s the difference. Enlighten me, Angel of Truth.”

: “Being embarrassed is a light, transient thing. The cheeks flush, you look around at nothing in particular, you feel silly for a couple of seconds, minutes tops… and then it passes. No big deal. Hell, you probably laugh about it later. Shame? That’s trauma shit. It stays with you, festers deep inside and lingers weeks, months, years even. The sort of crap that pains you so much you can’t talk about, but it’ll keep you awake at night as you turns the thoughts about it over and over in your head without every changing anything.”

looks at him for a long moment, considering, and then she nods. “That makes … sense. And. I really don’t think ‘having wings’ counts as copying your look.”

: “Name one other person with wings.”

: “I’m sure we’ll encounter someone.”

: “You’d think that but no, no winged races on the docket.”

: “You don’t know that. We’re going to run into a winged race just because you said that.”

: “Each world mentions the sorts of people that live there! If I am tempting fate by referencing materials we have explicitly been given, which would be VERY SILLY to alter after the fact, then so be it.”

: “I think assuming that the Traveler’s Guide doesn’t leave anything out is perhaps a little silly? For instance, it fails to mention a fairly significant fact about the Scorpion Queen. And considering how it describes the undead on Valaïs, some might have wings.”

: “What, pray tell, did it fail to mention about the Scorpion Queen?”

looks at him. “Be fucking serious,” she says.

: “No, really, humor me.”

: “That she has a history that stretches back beyond our reality? Much like a certain angle I’m talking to right now?”

: “Oh. Yeah. Do you know how important or relevant that would have been without me bringing it up?”

: “(If you really wanna make 86 the opposite of chuffed you can let on that you know he does, too.)”

: “No, because we haven’t gotten there yet, but since she’s used that knowledge to completely dismantle at least one person I’m guessing it might be a problem.”

scratches at his chin.

: “Maybe. I think… her knowing the truth that burns was probably more of a function of her specific role in this story than it is otherworldly knowledge she’s using out of context, though.”

shrugs. “I mean, my point is only that the pamphlet doesn’t tell us everything. It didn’t even tell us what a thoughtstorm was!”

: “Sure, but it did tells us that humans, kushtaka, naiad and pearls live here, which was much better aligned with the point I was making.”

: “And anyway even if we see one in the future that doesn’t change the fact that you didn’t have an answer NOW so I still win regardless.”

can only concede the point, so she sticks her tongue out at him instead.

: “Anyway, you said it was embarrassing. Why was it embarrassing? To you? I mean, what part. With Melpomene?”

leans forward, placing a hand on Salme’s shoulder while tilting his head slightly to look at her from over the rim of his sunglasses. “Now. I realize. That I am the coolest person you have ever met in your life by a country mile. In both personality and appearance both. And I can’t really hold it against you for wanting to be more like me. But. Well. It’s flattering, I’m sure, but a bit embarrassing seeing express their desire to be more like me so clearly.”

stares at him. “Yeah? You going with that as your final answer?”

pats Salme’s shoulder once before sitting back up straight. “Absolutely, when I commit to a bit I’m in it to win it.”

: “Hm.” She draws her knees up to her chest. “I love you. Did you know that? And you might say my love is a thing that’s easily bought, but it doesn’t change the fact that I love you as much as I love Wolf. And honestly, your whole reaction to this Melpomene thing made me feel like shit and it made me angry at you. And I could be angry and abrasive at you, and have you get angry and abrasive at me too, but I’d rather just. Understand. And stop being upset about it.”

: “Hmm.” Jorule reaches out after a moment and pats Salme’s head. “That does sound an awful lot more constructive.”

: “But I’m on my own here, huh?”

rolls a shrug. “I mean that was the answer, given or take several degrees of. Not sarcasm but whatever that is. Like. Maybe you weren’t actively thinking it when it happened - you almost certainly weren’t - but I can’t imagine you have a lot of stories about people with split personalities, and one of them springing forth from the body as a separate being with it’s own appearance to boot. And then the wings, even! Like. There’s pretty clearly some element of your subconscious mind modeling everything - and then Samudra itself running wild with the seed of the idea - based on Aurelius and Jorule.”

looks at him and laughs. “I’ve considered ‘Salme’ and ‘The Sword-Saint’ separate people for my entire life, Jorule. They’ve been different masks I can wear. Or. I could wear the Sword-Saint to avoid having to be Salme, who I used to think of as very unpleasant and unlikable.” She laughs again, brighter. “I can see where your vanity would be offputting to people, but it’s actually kind of cute.”

rolls his eyes before leaning back with his hands behind himself. “Right just completely ignore the physical separation bit, which was the crux of the answer so we can try and make it look like I’m the dumb out of touch one instead, sure.”

: “You’re not dumb and out-of-touch, you’re moderately vain and overconfident. There’s a difference.” She grins at him. “Besides, Melpomene is still very much me and integrated in me. You and Aurelius are …” gestures aimlessly, because how do you even say that.

: “Maybe Samudra itself was inspired by your whole deal though? Could be.”

: “Y’know what, yeah, I’ll take it. An entire world being more influenced by my presence than you tracks.” Jorule nods seriously.

: “(upgrading the vanity rating to ‘majorly vain’),” she murmurs.

: “Well. That does help though.” She tilts her head. “Have you ever had self-loathing issues? Is the vanity a front or is it genuine?”

: “You do realize you sound like a fucking sociopath asking that point blank, right?”

: “I’m sorry. Ideally I’d lead in with some candlelight and a burger but instead we’ve got the floor of the library and a loving sun. And you can’t eat food anyway.”

: “Also you literally know all about my self-loathing in excruciating detail so it seems a little fair.”

: “It’s fair to ask, but phrasing. You’re never gunna make Yeresh at this rate.”

: “Anyway.”

: “Neither, honestly. I am maybe a lil bit a jaded old man at this point whom is Forever 17, but like, I don’t know I’m mostly just kinda shooting the shit, wasn’t really expecting to make as many repeat appearances as I have.”

: “Oh Light I’d be a worse yeresh than … you, probably. Considering you just crabbed at me about phrasing like Wolf crabs at Aury. I wonder if Wolf reminds him of you. That’s a comparison that’d make precisely no one happy …” she gets lost in thought for a moment, then shakes her head.

: “Anyway.”

: “What do you think of all the repeat appearances? Do you … remember all the people you’ve been better than Aury? Do you … want anything for yourself? Or are you just … adrift?”

: “Haha.”

: “Oh, I’m like, probably one of the most blatantly meta motherfuckers in the Caravan at this point, so, yeah I can remember most of my different lives pretty easy at this point.” He pauses for a moment, considering. “Hmm… yeah, I guess adrift is probably a good word for it.”

: “That sounds. Well. It would bother me. I won’t speak for you.”

: “Funny, considering.” He gestures to the satchel Salme keeps the Mask in.

: “It definitely doesn’t bother me, though, no.”

: “Oh. Not the remembering different lives. The being adrift.” Touches the satchel. “I do think I told you this, though, via the pamphlet maybe? That if you ever did want to remember them. Or talk about what it feels like to lose them and persist that I could probably relate.”

: “That does sound like something you’d say, yeah.”

: “But really it’s… eh. It’s not so bad once you get used to it, I don’t think. Imagine being able to discover and travel to all these new worlds like you are… only without the ever present question of “who shattered this into 5 worlds which are dying“ and more just… “oh this is a really weird place, haven’t see anything quite like this before. Time to explore!“, I guess.”

: “I mean I can see the appeal. I think I’d probably even like it, were I in your position. I just. Wouldn’t want to do it alone? And I think I’d struggle to be a passive observer.”

: “Oh yeah no, being alone would suck ass, probably would have packed it in and taken a bow during one of the curtain calls if it meant flying solo.”

: “It seems like you are alone a lot, though. At least here it sounded like you were … fine to just passively let things happen, existing at the edges of stuff.” She stretches her legs out in front of her. “Light, I’m sure I sound silly to you, but I don’t like the idea of you … not mattering. Or being outside of things.”

: “You do sound silly, but not in a way I can really find fault in you. Better to care about people than to not.” Jorule glances to the side, then back. “But I mean, I was initially content to mostly just play the character I was given but like… well, it’d be a little awkward trying to go back there now, ha.”

: “And so now you’re not playing the character you were given at all but. Just. Trapped?”

: “I could probably fuck off if I really wanted to, though no clue what would happen with Aurelius if I did.”

: “And it’s not like I’m uninteresting in where this story is going.”

: “I mean. I’d miss you, if you left. And not just because I’d be upset if meant Aurelius was also gone, though obviously I’d be pretty … unhappy about that. But. I’m glad you’re here.”

: “Of course.”

: “Who wouldn’t be glad the great Jorule, Angel of Darkness and Truth, is here, right?”

laughs. “It’s true, there’s at least one entire ass civilization out there that was writing books about me before I even met ‘em.”

: “The worst thing about you is I have no way of verifying if that’s true or bullshit.”

: “No lie, was in the Book of Angels the Services had written before we ran into ‘em.”

: “So was it roughly correct? Did they get the beautiful hair right? The dramatic wings? The sunglasses?”

: “Wings are mostly a legacy gag from a short lived story that never really quite spun up, but yes I’ve always had this one hundred percent all natural hair.”

: “And sunglasses.”

: “You were born with them? Must’ve been rough for your mother.”

starts laughing.

: “Aaaah… yeah, for sure.”

: “Don’t tell me there’s a ridiculous Bird-story there.”

waves a hand dismissively. “There’s probably not a way to tell it that would bring across the humor or make it sound interesting, to be honest.”

: “Fair enough.” She shrugs, and then falls silent for a while, before, after a moment, she says, “sometime, when it’s a bit … louder,” here she flicks her eyes up narrator-ward, “I wanted to see what happened if I tried to dive through the Mask’s memories with you. If you’d be willing.”

: “Don’t imagine it’d be too much different from doing it with anyone else but sure, who doesn’t love a good science experiment?”

: “Well, the magic you know is different, and … I don’t know if it’s just a function of when you … overlaid Aurelius’ body in the real world, but the light in the Mask’s memory warped around you oddly. I’m curious how it would react to you as a … foreign object. And also if you might have some tricks to making it … speak to me differently.”

: “Hmm, fair enough. Though like. It’s probably important to remember that even if we’re different aspects of a spark, we’re still basically… hm.” Jorule puts a hand to his mouth, thinking. “…Hmm. Actually that’s a strange thought. I feel confident in saying I’m the predominate… core of my Spark - I’ve taken control directly over from Theodore and Aurelius both when the situation called for it - but is it fair to say we’re also different people…? You could probably make a case for ‘no’ with Theo, but it probably gets stranger when you start including Zhaeid, Elizabeth… Serenity… Especially Ezekiel… huh.”

: “Y’know I’d kind of been sitting on a ‘hey have you ever thought about the fact that maybe when I said I’d humor you, that’s really all I was doing and I’m just an insanely good actor and Aurelius is for sure not real’ that I might throw out with some degree of malice if we ever really got into it again but now I’m really thinking about it and… huh! I wonder. Where and how, exactly, the lines are drawn.”

: “You know, that’d be a pretty shockingly cruel thing to do to me, especially considering the implications that would have about consent.” She doesn’t sound upset, really, more—almost distracted, like she’s thinking through the implications of it. “Like. I think you’re capable of cruelty, certainly. If necessary, sure. But do you think you’d actually be able to do that to me? That you’d want to?”

: “I certainly don’t intend to now, which is why I mentioned it.”

: “Yes, but. Hm. I actually think highly of you, unfortunately, and it just seems. Unlike you. To hurt someone like that.” She shrugs. “Though. As for whether you’re different people or not … I certainly feel like you are. Aurelius feels like he is. Obviously I have a vested interest in you being different people though, but you are also both very alike in some ways. I think … there probably aren’t lines, if I had to guess? That there are blurry zones between all of the … selves that you are and can be?”

: “For instance, some of your selves were women but do you ever conceive of yourself as female?”

: “I mean I’m not as asshole, just a lil crude. But yeah.” He tilts his head to the side. “I mean, right now? Not really, not as Jorule. But on the flip side it’s not like Serenity would have considered anything about herself manly in any way at all, either.”

: “You’re kind of an asshole sometimes, but I don’t think you ever really intentionally set out to hurt me even when were talking past each other? Like. I mean, sure, some of that stuff stung but it wasn’t.” She shakes her head. “I’d feel like a monster, if you told me Aurelius was a lie and I think neither of us would enjoy the resulting despair. Which. Is good you’re not planning on throwing that out there, but just as a note for the future, sometimes what you say matters to people and you have more power to wound than you think.”

: “Anyway.”

: “That’s my point. Your other selves have clear parts of themselves that you don’t share, that you probably couldn’t even conceive of having. The gender thing was obvious, but I’m sure there’s plenty of other things.”

nods absently.

: “For instance,” she says dryly, “you said I was extremely unappealing, but Aury seems to like me well enough. I’d guess your other selves have probably had other lovers that you wouldn’t have chosen? And they certainly fought differently.”

: “I believe I said you were not my type, which is QUITE different Ms. Self Loathing, but fair enough.”

: “But hmm. I mean fighting different’s easy, but I guess it’s not too much different from little personality quirks or speach habits or whatever, I think I get your point.”

: “Look, there’s a lot of things you can lay at the feet of my own self-loathing, but you are not the first man who’s ever derisively told me I wasn’t his type. You can’t deny there’s a connotation there, and I didn’t know you were the kind of person who says exactly what you mean.”

: “And yet despite knowing better now! Immediately after having brought up that I have also been a woman before!” His left hand raises long enough to flick a bread crumb at Salme.

: “So I guess I can’t blame you for taking it that way, certainly, but I can blame you for misinterpreting it after the fact.”

: “Well you certainly aren’t a woman now.” She flicks the crumb back at him. “You are, indeed, a tired old man in a seventeen year old’s body.”

: “And I actually didn’t bother to remember what you said verbatim, just the gist. I will, in the future, record your insults so future insights can yield clarification.”

: “Really, that’s all I ask.” Jorule gives a sage nod.

: “Fine. I’ll start a library folio of all the times you insult me. I’m sure that will be edifying and a good use of time.”

: “Please, we both know you have enough of an eidetic memory to not need to go to the trouble of manually making a note of them.”

: “Anyway the point I’m trying to make is that you are different in a lot of ways, and the same in a lot of ways. I am pretty sure I probably just. Love the Spark that makes up both of you, and the different aspects change the nature of that love? It’s not like I don’t see the commonalities. And where you draw the line probably largely depends on how you define a person?”

nods again, but more like a normalish person this time. “Sure. And that’s where it gets Interesting, though like, without a real answer I guess.”

: “Well, no. It again just …” she shrugs, and then gathers her thoughts. “It’s not as. Distinct. But if you’re watching what happens you might see that I kind of … shape myself to who I’m interacting with? Sometimes less so, but often … it’s easy to slip into roles. Not as the ‘Sword-Saint’ or as … whoever I am when I’m just myself, but as … a storyteller, or a historian, or a friend, or a sympathetic ear, or—any number of things. These aren’t roles with names, but I’m good at seeing what people need or want from me and being that. And I think that’s true of a lot of people, that we show different aspects of ourselves to each other. Which one is the true version?” She shrugs. “I think you’re looking at the same problem, on a larger scale. And you might have a different answer than someone else would.”

: “You help me with my problems in a different way than Aurelius does. You both help. You both care. You’re both kind and you’re both irritatingly indecisive. But your care looks different from his, and your kindness is, actually, more obvious in your words than his is. Your indecision comes from different places too, I think. Yours from experience, his from disconnection with the world around him. And if the weird memory backwash keeps happening maybe he’ll grow more like you and …” here, she stops, just for a beat, and chews her lip, “and maybe the distance between you two will shrink, maybe even collapse, but. As much as you might not know where to draw the line, as I encounter you both you’re different?”

taps at his chin a few times before sitting up. “Yeah, that all makes sense. Though like. Man, how long have you been wanting to talk about this sort of thing with someone else? Feels like I am perhaps not the only one often inside their own head thinking way too much.”

shrugs. “I mean I didn’t have a lot of people I could confide in prior to being kidnapped by a self-proclaimed god, after which I found out everything I ever knew was wrong—on multiple levels—and then started dating not one but two reality-warping weirdos. One, whomst could I talk to? And two, how could I possibly not ruminate about it?”

laughs.

: “Yeah okay.”

: “Though, on the note of … selfhood and agency and consent. Is it actually all right if I’m—like. Does my being with Aurelius violate your consent in some way? Is.” She shakes her head. “The annoying thing about deciding that actually you matter is that then you matter. Is it okay if I’m with another aspect of your Spark if we don’t have that kind of—Light, I’m embarrassed just trying to ask this.”

starts laughing harder.

buries her face in her hands. “Please answer that. I’ll get in my head about it if you don’t.”

: “You sure would, wouldn’t you.”

: “I mean, don’t see any good reason why you should stop at this point.”

: “It’s fine.”

: “Well. No weird shit where I can see it, but otherwise.”

: “That goes extra for you and 86 tho, not even really an Aurelius thing.”

: “What qualifies as ‘weird shit’ to you, Angel of Darkness, because it sounds like you aren’t the most experienced so … like does this encompass basic restraints? I assuming kissing is allowed? Hugging? Are we only allowed to imply that we’re having missionary with the lights off?” She is, at this point, blushing furiously, and each word makes her blush more, but her teeth are gritted with determination. If she’s going to be uncomfortably, by the Light he is too.

: “Goodness no, you aren’t even married yet.”

: “You forgot to mention one of your other selves was a fussy auntie.”

: “You kids are lucky you even get to make eye contact while holding hands, I tell you hwat.”

: “Back in your day, they hauled you to the gallows if you so much as touched someone’s arm while fully clothed, I know, I know grandpa.” She flicks a crumb at him.

makes direct eye contact with Salme. “But no seriously, the second those fucking tenebrous orbs come out, or your hand catches fire, or whatever, better hear one of you shouting “SCENE“.”

laughs. “The best thing about this,” she tells him, “is that you really cannot do anything to stop us and, indeed, it is maybe incumbent upon you to stop looking.”

laughs harder, “but you can’t. You can’t and so you’re at our mercy.”

: “I mean I could but it’d be pretty gauche. And. Really. Do you want that sort of thing floating around for anyone to potentially see?”

: “No,” she says, still laughing. “And we do have some sense of circumspection, but. It’s just very funny that my legitimate concerns about consent got derailed into. Whatever you’re communicating here. General discomfort with sexuality? Specific discomfort with me being sexual? Whatever weird thing you have going on with Sininen? I don’t know.”

: “Can’t a guy say he doesn’t wanna see two people having weird kinky sex without it being weird anymore? Sheesh.”

launches a barrage of crumbs at him. She’s going to have to make a little mouse-fiend to gather them all up probably. “Again. This is the problem of a log-reading voyeur. But. I’ll try to be mindful of it.”

: “It’s you! You’re the one with the power! To not get your freak on in front of NIP!”

: “Ain’t that complicated.”

: “NIP would probably be fine with it. I mean. You’ve interacted with them.”

: “I mean.”

: “…I mean.”

: “SURE but then we come back to them also wanting to share everything they see and welp.”

laughs again. “I promise to protect your delicate sensibilities, Jorule, and keep it strictly behind closed doors. Won’t even log it in the library. Which. Is complete. And I should be praised for, thank you.”

: “Looked like you got a lot of praise for it already, eyebrow waggle, but sure, yes, good job on finally completing it. Clap clap clap.”

: “Gunna make my thing seem less cool but that’s FINE, you are the star after all.”

: “Speaking of don’t you have guns to go play with or something? Get outa here and lemme get back to work.”

: “Yeah yeah,” she grumbles, standing and straightening with a theatrical groan. “You’re working so very hard and not just sitting around until Caion finishes his part.”

heads toward the exit, but stops and turns at the last minute. “Thank you for talking, Jorule. I really do appreciate it.”

: “Your welcome, Salme.”