ꙮ Well after the breakfast that Luĉja and Tasna made everyone, and more people are up and about, and at some point during the previous day Salme’d mentioned wanting to speak to Tasna, and so: Tasna’d asked Salme to meet her down in the valley, when she had some time; Tasna had some work to do in the valley while the air was still right for it, and Salme finds her carefully snipping at bits of a sprawlingly scraggly bush and collecting the bits in a basket hanging off one arm.
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meant to open more formally, but her curiosity gets the better of her. “What’re you doing?” she asks, nodding at the bush.
looks up at Salme and smiles at seeing her; she holds out a little sprig towards her, and it’s got a rich spicy smell, one she immediately recognises from Duškomira’s signature incense. “Gathering a few things for the others while it’s most pleasant in the valley. How are you feeling?”
takes a sniff of the sprig, and smiles a bit as she recognizes the smell. “I’m doing … well. Okay. I’m not a huge fan of caves, but yours is lovely as a cave can be.” She tilts her head at Tasna. “I was going to ask if you’d be willing to grant me the virtue of Counsel, Academician Emerita. Though I also don’t want to interrupt your work.”
: “Xilai’s put a lot of work into making them livable; he’s not generally a fan of caves, either. Most of the rugs and wall hangings are his work, too.” She retrieves the sprig once it has been summarily sniffed, places it in the basket, and shifts to focus more on Salme than on sprigs in general. “Oh, it’s been a while since I’ve heard a proper request for Counsel.” She smiles widely. “And I know you’re not supposed to have a favourite, but it was always mine. How can I help you?”
: “It’s not … really pleasant. And I’m not sure how relevant it is to the wider questions we’re dealing with but. I want to try to understand what happened with Ciet? I’ve seen the memories from their side of the door—I can show you if you want—but.” Her mouth twists. “It doesn’t make any sense. And it’s old history, certainly, but … I want to understand.”
tilts her head, curiously. “Well, what happened to them is something I’d very badly like to understand, as well. What about it doesn’t make sense, to you?”
: “There was a door, in the memory. And it was open a crack, and someone was holding the door open. I didn’t know if it was you or not. I wasn’t sure—there was no door at all in the Septentrione. And I was going to wait and ask Duškomira and Xilai about their doors—if they remember them—with everyone, but. I wanted to know who was holding the door open and … perhaps who carved it?”
leans in, a little, without even thinking about it, and squints slightly. “Holding the door open? How so?” She exhales slightly. “I- well, first of all, that wasn’t me; I wasn’t involved in… creating or maintaining the Doors in any way. And I’ve– I asked Duškomira and Xilai specifically if they remember any presence related to their door, because I felt but could not observe one pertaining to mine, and I’ve been trying to understand that ever since.”
: “I can show you the memory. Very precisely, if you’d like. Either the last time I saw the memory itself, or I can see if we can dive in the Mask together to see it. That might be easier.”
: “I’m willing to try anything you’re willing to let me see. Two observations can be better than one.”
: “I think …” she pulls the Mask out of where she’s kept it. “The last time there was a lot of … emotional noise. I can show you that memory later, but I think, seeing from the Mask, rather than what I remember from the Mask, might be the better path. If it’s feeling cooperative. It doesn’t like this memory.”
offers the Mask out to Tasna. “You simply need to touch it, and I should be able to bring you into the dive with me.”
reaches out towards the mask with curiosity - immediately glancing at Salme and understanding both the inspiration behind the Library and the scale of what she’d done using only this, and very briefly giving her a look of wonder, before they’re both falling-
ꙮ -and the mask carries you both, softly this time, more aligned with Salme’s own will than the last time this memory of its was accessed. A brief flash of Ciet hunched over something that makes Tasna startle in recognition; she reaches out, futilely, towards the image. She never did get to see them. And the vision shifts - to Ciet in the Shrine, to a door between heartwood and heartwood, barely held open.
startles, again, in recognition. “Oh.” Peers, closely- the memory slowing to a slogging crawl, never totally still, but as good as. “I never -saw- anything, with mine. It felt, though, it felt like it was being held open.”
blinks in surprise, and they are not united by a link of methexis, but her shock feels like might ripple through the slowed memory, real as anything else.
: “It felt… one can tell when a system is having energy pumped into it, to keep it on the float. It felt, I remember vividly, as though it had only been open a crack, and then opened wide enough for me, and would not stay so for long. And– Principles, the interference. It’s why I- I explained to Luĉja what I did. Naiads can– it’s generally not a good idea to, but we can throw our consciousness into a body of water other than… our body, and I threw my self through the Door, leaving my body behind, believing - correctly, as it turned out, that I could avoid the worst of the interference that way. Xilai and Duškomira didn’t have that option, unfortunately.”
blinks. “Oh. And that’s why they found your body.” She frowns. “I think … I think the library might work in a similar way?” She swallows. “We can leave—unless you want to see the door shut on them, we can leave this memory.”
nods, and then nods again. “That makes sense. Utterly brilliant work, by the way, both of you.” She looks up, again - looks at the memory of Ciet’s face, looks at the way they were beaming back at Badri, before it all went wrong. “No, I don’t think I need to see that. But… thank you for sharing that with me, it means more to me than I can say.”
nods, and then draws them upwards, out of the memory and then out of the Mask.
tucks the Mask away. “I know you received at least … part of Aurelius’ message on your farcaster, but. Before that. Did you have any idea that we were … I remember, in the void, that first time, a vision of ochre hills,” she glances around their surroundings, “and of three old friends. One looked directly at us. I thought it might have been you.”
snorts very very softly at the mention, and recollection, of the farcaster message, but then- “…hn. I was looking into the fire. I had, ah. Placed myself in an altered state of consciousness, and when I do that, sometimes the fire shows me things.” She briefly looks away. “Certainly not the kind of thing I ever could have gotten away with saying back at the Academy, and I can’t prove anything, obviously, but.” She turns back, meets Salme’s gaze- looks at her eyes- “I did see your eyes. Saw yours, knew there were others with you.”
: “You saw my eyes?” she frowns, slightly. “I believe you, I’m just. Me?”
frowns. “May have been all of yours at once. I was not exactly in a state to perfectly accurately form memories, but– I know meeting your gaze right now that our eyes met, in that way, somehow.”
nods. “I think all of us, at once, would make the most sense. We were all together, in that moment.” She frowns. “I’d be curious, at some point, to see what an altered state of consciousness might yield for me. Though I’m not particularly well-attuned to the esoteric in the same way as someone like Wolf or Awa might be.”
: “Willing to bet you were looking straight at the weird unexplained thing more than some of the others were, just a hunch. Maybe that’s why I remember seeing your eyes.” She shrugs, then glances around the valley, chuckles. “I can have Xilai pack you a care package, if you’d like. It can be an enlightening experience. Or an enjoyable one. Or a terrifying one. Sometimes all of the above, sometimes simultaneously.”
laughs. “Well, what’s life without some recreational terror?”
snorts, then laughs. “I knew we’d get along.”
: “I had hoped. You know, for a long time I was the only one in the party who used the Breath aspect, and once Aury showed me how to see the Rite-tones, I—you were everywhere.”
: “I actually asked Solei about you, you know. I was just that annoyingly curious.”
cracks a grin. “I believe you mean virtuously curious.”
: “Well. Perhaps. I still have it somewhere—my copy of,” she clears her voice, and then affects a high, stuffy tone. “CONCERNING THE STRUCTURE OF THE INQUIRING MIND. Last I checked, I was failing at at least half of the virtues.”
snorts helplessly. “Oh, my word. You put it in the Library, right? I should look at it sometime, see what pointless arguments about the precise wording and order of the Virtues there’s been since my day.”
: “It is in the library, yes. I felt, reading it the first time, that I was witnessing the calm after several terrible and terrifying arguments.”
hesitates, and then says, “would you … like to see the memory of Solei? I’m not sure … I don’t know if we’ll be able to get them back, but it was a lovely conversation. And I don’t think you ever got the chance to see them really come into their own.”
laughs, softly and kindly, at Salme’s estimation, and nods, and then– “I can always hope. And I’d love to see that, yes. How does it work, is it the Mask’s, again, or-?”
: “No, this is just my own.” She holds out her hand. “It’s like circling, but a bit more intense. I’m fairly good at controlling it now. All you have to do is say yes.” She lets the flourishing gnosis unfurl from her, and she invites her in.
takes a step closer, and reaches out her hand. “Yes, I’d very much like to see that.” And she half-closes her eyes, and–
ꙮ – it seems easier, every time, even with relative strangers, and they do not feel like strangers any longer, the moment your mind twines with theirs. What do you share with her?
shares the first moment, outside Solei’s door, where she hesitates—that moment of indecision, the uncertainty in her own judgement, and then the conversation—surprisingly easy and familiar, hearing, in some ways, her own struggles reflected in Solei’s voice. The question of fear, and finding one’s old self, the kind that’s filled with piss and vinegar. And the walking away feeling as if she’d made—maybe not a fast friend, but someone she’d be happy to speak to again.
observes - experiences it, feels the memory, and Salme feels Tasna’s joy at seeing Solei, who they became, at their lab having become Solei’s lab; the joy’s not unmarred by sorrow, of course, but it’s still joy. And, layered on top of that - Tasna’s utter, absolute wonder at Salme’s methexis, almost but not quite drowning out her emotional reaction to the memory itself.
doesn’t laugh, but Tasna can feel her amusement through the link, warm like a low, crackling fire.
: “Is there anything else I can share with you?” She asks. “I was not in Samudra very long, but I can share what I do have.”
: “Yes! I’d like to see the island. I’ve– I read about it, immediately, last night, but. I’d love to see it through your eyes. And I want to– I want to experience that again, is it– is the trick to weave Flourishing with it, or is there more that I’m missing, I– I wish we had enough time for you to teach me how to do that, but I’ll satisfy myself with another memory.”
takes a breath, and the memory shifts to Tulinsuojat, to a riot of blooms, of trees in their sapling phase bursting out of the ground, of the taste of nasturtiums, of honeysuckle, flavors bursting on her tongue. Not the memory of the Rite with Melpomene, but the after, when she walked side-by-side with Ksenija and they took in the wild, bright, beautiful blooms. And in the background, Cloudset’s hand-holding towers, and the soft waves of the Samudran sea.
beams, and takes it all in, slowly, breath by breath. Can smell the scent of the flowers, even, and she closes her eyes, and- “–ahh, and Samudra’s even more beautiful for it. Oh, that’s wonderful, Salme. Thank you.” Unclear, whether she means for the vision or– the island, and she’s just glorying in the memory until it fades with the link. “And it’s good to see Cloudset doing well.”
smiles, both through the link and not. “I wish I could explain how to … do this. I think … using a lattice of pellucid, almost like a Circle, and then … growing flourishing on it is … the best way? But it was mostly accidental, on my part.” Before she withdraws, though, she imagines the mechanics of the technique going transparent, imagines the link woven between them in literal form, hoping it might help her see. It might be an exercise in futility, but she’s always been willing to try.
pays very close attention to the mechanic - to the threads weaving and tying, to the vines growing and blossoming, the rootwork underlying it all - and lets out a soft puff of breath. “Oh, that’s. That’s lovely, I can see the shape of it, yes. I– did you learn that visualisation at the Academy or did you come up with it on your own– ahh, if only we had more time. That gives me so much to work with, though, already.”
grins at her as she drops the link, slowly. “It’s mostly me. On Almachadta we don’t—or at least I didn’t—use gnosis alone very often? It’s all … tied up in actions and objects. Once I started trying to do things more purposefully, I needed something to ground me, so roots and then textiles—thread, especially. I’ve always done a lot of spinning and embroidery.” She squeezes Tasna’s hand as she lets it go. “And I’ll always be very available via tomestone, though … I guess, that’s another question. Why way out here?”
nods, as the link drops and then she lets her hand drop. “No, that makes total sense. There’s- I used to explain how to Bubble with a string game you play with your fingers, it helps to have– physical metaphors to tie your thoughts to, I think. Anyways.” She looks around at the valley, breathes in. “Well. Before we found this valley and worked on it, we… wound up going from place to place, a lot. Khejvard was a Hunter and prone to wandering; I was paranoid and always watching my back, Xilai was… I don’t want to speak for him, but early on, being away from his home and not even being able to remember what he was missing? It hit him hard, and it helped him, I think, to be on the move.”
: “These days…? The Valley’s nice, and it keeps the Queen and I out of each others’ hair.”
: “You and Jae. What’s it like between you two? She told me to tell you she said hi, politely, by the way. Which was a weird way for her to word something, honestly.”
looks thoughtful. “Did she tell you to tell me she said hi, or did she tell you to grab my ass for her?”
laughs. “Both. She told me to grab your ass for her, and then she said that translated to saying hi, politely.”
laughs! “She’s learning! I love that for her.” She shakes her head, still laughing a little. “That’s what it’s like between us. She’s–“ –and all of the following is said, to be clear, with audible admiration if not affection– “–infuriating beyond belief and she cheats like a motherfucker, and neither of us can stand being in the same room as the other for very long. And I’m very, very glad we’re on the same side, if the chips came down there’s not many people I’d rather be fighting alongside.”
considers her. “See. Here’s where my curiosity goes from virtue to vice because I’d love to see the two of you in a room together. Mostly because I doubt many people can get under her skin like you do.”
laughs with delight.
: “She can post on the linkpearl. Doesn’t have library access—I’m … friendlier with her than the rest of my companions, except perhaps Luĉja and that might change but. If someone starts driving you insane in a familiar way, that’s her.” She then blinks. “Wait. Did she actually try to grab your ass before?”
: “Oh, she’s successfully grabbed my ass. On multiple occasions. She’s got four arms, she’s fast as the wind, and I wasn’t particularly trying to stop her.”
raises her eyebrows Wolf-high and does not ask the question that immediately bubbles to her mind. “That must have been very interesting for you.”
laughs, again. “Like I said, she’s incorrigible. Maybe I’ll swing by Queenstown sooner rather than later, stop by and say hello. I suppose I could swing a Grand Soups judgeship if I pulled the right strings, now that I think about it. I do want to see the look on everyone’s face as the Beast’s culinary landscape is restructured forever.”
grins at her. “Oh please, please do.”
pauses, and then says, “I think it’s about time I let you get back to what you were doing, though I did want to … ask. I’m not sure if it’ll come up in our group counsel session, but … I would like to hear about Khejvard sometime. Even if it’s via tomestone.”
nods, a bit. “I get the impression it means a lot to you to keep peoples’ memories alive and tell their stories. He’d have liked that about you, I think. I’d be happy to talk about him – I suppose, if nothing else, the three of us could start a strand about him and our memories of him, and just… add to it as we think of things.”
: “I … yeah. I mean. As the Sword-Saint, that was … a large portion of my role. Here it’s … beyond that, something that matters a lot to me, yes. That … even if it’s the six of us changing things, that we carry the stories of the people who are guiding our journey with us. And that includes people we lost before we ever met them. Ciet, Annarr, Khejvard, Thesis.” She smiles at Tasna. “It also means carrying the stories of new friends and allies too, I think, but those are harder to tell. So yes, I’d appreciate that very much.”
nods, a bit. “There’s… old, old stonework traditions here. The idea that… someone is still alive, in a way that matters, as their story is still being told, and so carving someone’s story into stone is a kind of immortality. It’s a Reacher thing, I always felt it was rather romantic. I think I prefer your strategy, in the grand scheme of things, but I’ve always liked hearing stories, hearing theories explained, so. Anyway.” She smiles. “I’d appreciate that as well.”
considers that piece of information, and files it away, before nodding. “Is there … again, I know we’ve got a big talk planned, but is there anything specific I can answer for you? Even if it feels silly, or like it might not matter.”
: “Mmmm. I don’t think any question is silly or definitely won’t matter, honestly. That said, I can’t… think of anything I don’t intend to ask -all- of you, with the others also present, and even then I mostly just. Want to talk more and understand what your plans are rather than any specific deep curiosities. If I think of anything, I’ll let you know?”
: “Just… happy to have had the chance to talk, and– see what you had to share.”
: “Me as well,” she says warmly. “And … any time you’d like to talk, I’m often available. Thank you, for helping me understand … what happened with Ciet. I have some theories I plan to (rotate).” She gives a small wave, and then heads back toward the ravine.
goes back to tending to her plants and collecting a few things, with a smile on her face that wasn’t there before.