Scene Archives

is pacing in the center of the library. There is a certain rhythm to her steps, an almost frenetic energy. She walks almost from wall to wall, and under her breath she’s saying words, the same words again and again.

: “One day you will go longer than two days without having some kind of newfangled manic episode about increasingly random things.”

spins to look at him, if he’s there, and then says, “This body is at least 4,000 years old - there have been others.” The words follow the exact same rhythm that she’s been pacing.

: “Oh, is she still running on Monster rules? … Despite having been in a human body…?”

: “Are those monster rules? What does that mean?”

: “It means that the Caravan once took a pit stop in a world divided into Humans and Monsters. When a Monster died, their soul could migrate into a new body, rather than experiencing true death.”

: “I don’t think that’s generally true here, but, y’know.”

: “Yeah I don’t think that’s generally true here. I don’t know …”

: “I think I see the shape of it, what’s going on with her, and I feel insane and I kind of want to barf? If I’m right, it’s horrible.” She shakes her head, clearing it. “Did you read the logs?”

: “Yes, you’re very silly.”

: “For asking? Yeah probably.” She keeps pacing, then stops, then goes and sits down on one of the couches. “Her body is at least 4,000 years old. Something happened 1,296 years ago and it fucked her up. She said she’d rather have died than give the Mask up when I was telling her about being the Sword-Saint.”

: “Do you remember how Bahamut was supposed to endure through the cycles? It couldn’t, but it thought it could? I think that’s Jae. I think that’s what Jae is. I think she’s the one constant in this world. Her alone.”

: “Suppose you get in early enough you can make everything be about you and have it stick for once…”

: “Remind me again of the relevancy of 1,296 precise years? Especially given she said the world was already sundered when she got here?”

: “The cycles. The oldest known historical record on Samudra, and roughly corresponding to the length of Almachadta’s current cycle.”

: “Also a multiple of six, which is turning out to be an important number, but,” she shrugs.

: “So, what, you think she’s survived two plane rebooting events in this current body and had more than didn’t survive but she found a new one to camp out in?”

: “Yeah. Something like that. Well. ‘This body is at least 4,000 years old.’ We know that the cycles on Almachadta don’t last that long, they never last that long. We know … whatever wiped the historical records on Samudra happened 1,296 years ago. We think it’s synced up, right, across the planes?”

: “Okay. So you see this, think this, have SQ right there… and then… decide to come freak out at me about it instead of her, for… some reason…?”

: “She would’ve walked away. Or … she wouldn’t have given me an answer. I barely got the answers I did. And if she saw how badly I was freaking out about it … she might’ve never told me her story.”

swallows. “Sorry, sorry, I know this is annoying for you but. I didn’t know who else I could talk to about this.”

rolls a shrug, “It’s not annoying, I’m just mystified by the fact that you didn’t even try and ask. You’ve hounded much nicer people with much more pointed and invasive questions without a thought before.”

: “I’ve been asking her in DMs. She wouldn’t … she was close to. I don’t know if she would have run away, I don’t know if Stings and Kills can run away, but I was balancing really hard between getting what answers I could and also,” her mouth twitches, “being kind to my friend who’s fucked up and hurting.”

: “Hmm…”

: “Decent person couldn’t argue that I suppose.”

: “I know you have a … different history with her. With … him? When she was Crimson? Seye said something about … I know it’s different for you. Which is another reason why I wanted to talk with you, because you’re not going to be. Blinded by my excess of completely wigging the fuck out empathy.”

: “S&K is the perpetual shining, undefeated Hero as well as the scrappy underdog with nothing to lose and everything to gain from every encounter they find themself in. It’s. really hard to imagine them ever coming across a problem and deciding to run away and hide from it instead of confronting it head on.”

: “Well, except you even noted there’s something really wrong with her for not melting down Wolf’s daggers. Zaya’s noticed the same about her being distant and sad. And she’s repeatedly said there are things she can’t—or won’t—talk about because they’re too painful. I think it’s not something she can win against, and if Stings and Kills can’t win against something, what happens to her?”

: “Rope some other smucks into doing the hard work before swooping in for the kill shot and glory.”

: “Historically.”

’s laugh is a pale shadow of her normal one. “Yeah, but. She’s been … weird … and almost scared about even getting attached to any of us.” She closes her eyes and takes a breath. “I guess I should be systematic. This is the entirety of what I learned from Libra: Jae Carver, the Scorpion Queen of the Beast, the self-proclaimed Hero. This body is at least 4,000 years old - there have been others. Also known as Stings-and-Kills, the Angel of Hope, lashed to the world with chains of utter, unshakable determination. This is her story, and she shall not falter!”

: “Ah, Lucja’s vision and Zaya’s dream.”

: “Huh?”

: “Sorry, did we think there were two mysterious women lashed to the Beast in chains?”

blinks. “Oh. Well. I mean I guess I kinda … maybe? She doesn’t really seem like a ‘mother-of-monsters’ type, personally.”

: “Probably got bored in the last 1,296 years.”

does laugh for real this time.

: “Though, more seriously, unless her trauma is about popping out too many fucking fiends, I’m pretty sure the woman from Luĉja’s vision and Jae are … different? She also doesn’t strike me as the ‘ever watchful’ or the ‘yearning’ type.”

: “You were just telling me about how depressed and hurt she was about not being able to win against something.”

: “Yeah, but that something isn’t postpartum depression I don’t think.”

: “Right, that would be stupid, and isn’t at all what I was implying.”

: “You asked SQ about Hope, right? Got the whole never get up never surrender etc etc thing? I know you did.”

: “And you can clearly see in the scan data that is in play.”

: “So. What does S&K do when they run into an insurmountable problem? They sure as fuck don’t give up. They find a way to even the odds. Duno what the problem is, but, seems likely that the monsters were building towards the Endjinn, and that that is part of some elaborate scheme to give SQ a leg up.”

nods slowly. “She said. Hm. She said that … she’s an incurable optimist and that ….” she pulls out her tomestone and scrolls through it. “‘i think you six are going to beat me in a rite some day, and and i think that i will eventually tell you everything i know.‘ I don’t know if those are tied together?”

: “She said they aren’t but she said it in a weird way … I don’t know. I don’t know if her losing is part of the whole setup here or what.”

: “Right. S&K doesn’t know how to give up, but I can imagine SQ getting very bored waiting for the rube goldberg machine to finally kick into high gear.”

: “Very bored and very listless. And very … hurt. The way she reacted when I told her a bit about what I was like while I was waiting to die as the Sword-Saint was …” She frowns. “I kinda just want you to read the whole thread and that’s shitty of me. She’d hate me and you’d probably hate me. But I just don’t know what to think.”

: “Do you really think you still have horrible sides of yourself I haven’t been exposed to already?”

: “Anyway, I think Lucja is going to save the Beast and SQ is somehow gunna make it about her.”

looks at him and gives him a tired, grateful smile. “No, I guess not. So maybe not you, but she’d hate me. She’s … she’s gone out of her way to not look. She’s barely glanced at the logs.” She looks up, at the True Sun. “And I bet you anything you’re right there. And Luĉja probably wouldn’t even mind. I just … when I think of it, when I think of her, of anyone, enduring the end of the world cycle after cycle, watching everything die when you endure? The Sword-Saint role sucks but at least it doesn’t suck that much. Or do you think that’s a … weird assumption to make? Maybe that’s an assumption I don’t even have to share with the others.”

: “Hmm. Well. I think for the sort of person who can’t stand the thought of loosing so bad they somehow, someway, wound up with a rite that causes them to instantly win regardless of circumstances, that surviving to continue to put up the fight is probably better to them than simply accepting the loss.”

nods. “That is … probably true. It still …” she reaches up to fiddle with her necklace. “I wish she’d just tell me. It probably can’t be worse than I’m imagining.”

: “Maybe it’s an OpSec thing? You simply knowing could somehow endanger a plan that’s already well in motion.”

: “Hm. Maybe? Though she phrased it as ‘some shit is too hard to talk about’ and I don’t think she’d say that if she could have just said, ‘for the sake of the Beast, there are certain things I can’t tell you’?”

: “Which one is Salme a lot more likely to accept?”

looks at him seriously. “The second, actually.”

: “And yet.”

shoves his hands into his pockets before kicking off the wall and spinning through the air aimlessly. “That’s just my take though, given what I know about S&K and the sorts of people they tend to become. Could be wrong tho.”

: “Y’really should have asked her how old Lucja was, though.”

: “Or about Zosimos.”

: “Don’t we know how old Luĉja is?”

: “Do we?”

: “Nothing’s immediately springing to mind other than ‘way older than anyone else other than SQ’.”

: “Well they might know? They got most of their memories back, right?” She frowns. “As for Zosimos, I mean. You saw how she could barely answer ‘can you put me in contact with a historian.’ I’d like an answer, but I don’t think she’d give me one.”

: “Which. Is fucking annoying, but at least it doesn’t make me want to vomit in horrified sympathy.”

: “Our historians don’t know jack shit about Zosimos, can’t even agree on if he was a beloved ruler or ruthless tryrant.”

: “Well from what you remember. I get the impression Annarr probably wasn’t a big history reader? I mean, maybe he was, but.”

points out a hand with an accusing finger at Salme. Which looks ridiculous with him spinning in the air since it doesn’t really stay pointed at her terrible long, but, you know. “You underestimate the golden lion at your own peril, lass.”

: “SQ being the inheritor of the world from Zosi was basically the only consistent though, so she kinda has to know something.”

: “I know,” she grinds out. “Maybe Aurelius or Luĉja could get it out of her in a Rite, if they can figure out how to win?”

: “Oh. And Luĉja’s 120 years old. I just remembered. Which. Is also another multiple of six.”

: “Funnily enough I actually like The Prince’s solution to winning the best. but.”

: “120??? Really thought he was older than that, huh.”

: “Well that’s just what they told me.” She shrugs. “‘One hundred and twenty years is a long time to learn how to wait,’ they said, when I was discussing my lack of patience and their relative skill with it.”

makes a face. “Are you going to start calling him ‘The Prince’?”

: “I’m not calling him The Awoken, and calling him 86 after your conversation is probably a little weird.”

: “Less weird but more confusing, but point taken.”

: “We could always go with The Angel of Deez Nutz but I don’t imagine that really gels well with the overall feel of this story.”

laughs. “Does he have an official Angel Title? I didn’t think to ask that.”

: “Not in as far as I know.”

: “Hmm.” She taps again at the the crystal on her necklace. “Well, that’s immaterial at this precise moment anyway.” She takes a breath. “From what I told, from libra and what I’ve said about my conversation with Jae, even from our duel together … what portions of that information are necessary and useful to tell the others, do you think?”

: “Why do you think anything important and useful to you and I wouldn’t be to the others?”

: “When you’re trying to corner the truth, all data points are useful. All perspectives are useful. Tell everyone everything if you want them to be able to give you their best deductions.”

: “Even my suspicions about her persisting through cycles?”

: “Especially those?”

: “How in the hell could that possibly not be relevant?”

: “I …” she looks down. “Well mostly I’m not sure I can do it without crying about it, and I think that’d be a distraction.”

: “Well, odds are good Archie will catch it from the dates anyway so maybe you’ll just have to nod in agreement.”

nods. “I don’t know if I should comb through our DMs for evidence or not either. I know I’m a bit. Prissier about that sort of thing than you are, but.”

: “I guess I could just ask her, but I finally got her to cheer up and I don’t want to upset her again.”

: “Eh, SQ strikes me more as a beg forgiveness than ask permission sort of person.”

: “Emphasis on the beg, I think,” she mutters dryly.

: “But yeah, up to you.”

: “I’ll … think about it. Though. One more question. I can ask Aury and Luĉja this too, but … are surnames common on the Beast? I noticed that libra didn’t give me a ‘tou whatever’ name for her. She had an actual surname. I don’t know that anyone’s had that before.”

: “Hmm… I think Glory’s taking a break at the moment but I think it’s mostly Clan Names and Honor Titles given and not so much surnames…?”

: “If anyone was gunna have one it’d be Zaya, her’s family’s actually kind of famous if I recall correctly.*

: “So I guess double check with her.”

: “Okay. Because if that fucked-up name monster is crawling around here I’ll … I mean, I guess we’ll just fight it, but. Not looking forward to that.”

: “Oh. Lmao.”

: “If it is it’s missing its fangs, at least.”

blinks. “How do you know that?”

: “Because Maria is carrying one of them.”

blinks, then laughs a little. “Okay. Well. Good? Good.” Then laughs a bit more. “Now I’m just imagining some fangless horror terror gumming on some unfortunate with a last name. So thanks for that?”

: “No problem.”

: “Also funny story CRIMSON MADE THE FUCKING THING IN THE FIRST PLACE,”

: “So if it is here SQ’s being a real fucking dumbass.”

: “Yeah, Seye told me which is sort of why I thought it might be around.”

: “And.”

: “I love her, but I think she’s like. At least partially a dumbass by nature? Like I think that’s just a part of her.”

: “Flippant, aggressive and spontaneous with a devil may care attitude, but I’d never call them unintelligent.”

thinks.

thinks real hard.

: “Also we killed it when we got Flip’s name back, that’s right. Yeah no worries on that front.”

: “‘Unintelligent’ and ‘dumbass’ are two different kinds of stupid you know,” she says, standing. “For instance, I’d say you’re a dumbass sometimes, but you’re also one of the smartest people I’ve ever met.”

frowns. “Also glad at least there’s one sort of hellish monster we don’t have to worry about. Was just surprised she had a last name, mostly. Especially one that’s so … ‘Carver’. Just like. Someone who carves things?”

: “She does like her blades.”

snorts. “See. Dumbass.”

shrugs helplessly.

: “I … think that’s all I needed? But. Thanks. For showing up and helping me work through this. In person, even. For whatever value of ‘in person’ this is.” Since, you know, he isn’t obeying the rules of gravity.

: “Fun perk of being Shade as Fuck. Or, you know, not existing in a corporeal form. Which is, well, pretty shady. So.”

: “But yeah, no problem.”

: “Did you just read my narration text?”

doesn’t like that.

: “Oh it’s weird when I, the figment of a person that ought not exist do it, but EVERYONE ELSE doing it with NIP is perfectly fine.”

concedes that she is being pretty unreasonable. And it’s not like he wouldn’t be able to read it in the logs after it was archived. Though, she supposes, there’s not much of a point in even making words with her mouth if he can just. Read this?

: “Start doing that and you get real weird real fast.”

laughs, because ‘real weird real fast’ has already happened. They are so far out past ‘real weird real fast’ that they’ve maybe reached around back to perfectly anodyne.

: “That said. Thought. Said. Whatever. You cannot physically manifest in meatspace and then get cranky people acknowledge your existence. I mean, I do appreciate the miracle, but you did very much do that.”

: “Hmm…”

: “But yeah it’s fine.”

, and did notice those nickname changes.

: “Yeah but it’s dumb when you do it because you’re not a bizarre alien who’s hostile to the physics of the world.”

flips him off.

: “Zaya’s about to call you all up to visit Zaed’s work shop by the way so you might wanna put that finger on your tomestone instead of in the air if you wanna be done responding to a billion messages before then.”

rolls her eyes and shifts her gesture into a thumbs up before walking backward out of the library. “Thank you for being a wonderful friend, dearest Jorule,” she says right before she pops out of the soap-bubble entrance of the library.