Scene Archives

has by this point finished up his exercise routine from earlier, and has returned to the common area for the time being, as it was either that or suddenly pick up fishing. And he certainly wasn’t going to be the one responsibly for evoking a fishing minigame upon them all. So for now, he’s simply lounging on one of the larger couching, reading whatever reading material the tower residents might have left nearby, with a comically large glass of sweet tea set down next to him.

comes into the common room from outside–no telling where he’s been, save that it must have been outside the tower, as he’s dragging the scent of salt air behind him. Maybe the roof? His hair looks windblown, at least, but it…kind of always does. He walks in, sees Aurelius and stops. Looks at the door to his room. Looks back at Aurelius. Chews his lower lip. Inhales deeply, holds it for a long beat, exhales slowly. Steps a little bit more into the room. “Ah…Aurelius?”

: “Hmm?”

His mouth works for a moment. “Can we–“ He stops, almost starts to turn back to the door, stops himself, turns back. “May…” His words trail off into a growl, and he drags his fingers through his hair in frustration. Takes a deep breath, lets it out. “…is now a good time to speak to you?”

closes the book he’d been leafing through and places it on the coffee table. “Sure, I’m just killing time right now.”

: “Ah. Good.” He chews his lower lip some more, looking exceedingly grumpy, though…the grump does not appear to be directed outwards. He takes another deep breath, and seems to steel himself. “Aurelius, I believe I owe you an apology.”

tilts his head slightly. “…Do you? Hmm. Well, I can accept it in either case, but nothing really stands out.”

just…stares at him. Blinking. Slowly. He looks like Aurelius has just pulled the chair he was trying to sit in out from under him.

: “Oh. Well. Good.” He starts to head for his room, then stops about three feet out from the door, turning around. “You don’t want to know…why?”

considered for a moment as the sips on his tea, looking up, then to the side, before back to Wolf. “Well, I wasn’t going to initially but it seems like I probably should now, since it seems as if it was bothering you at the very least.”

experiences several different expressions in a row, some of them repeating–bafflement and frustration among them. He closes his eyes, pressing the heel of his hand to his temple. “I do not understand you,” he says, mostly to himself, in a tone somewhere between “pained” and “aggravated.”

: “I… have gotten that impression, yes.” He taps the side of the glass a few times in thought. “Is it uncommon for you to not understand people…? Perhaps it doesn’t bother me as much since I’m… used to not having a clear picture of others?”

growls softly, and laughs at the same time. “Yes, Aurelius, it is very rare,” he says, still pressing his hand to his forehead. “It is my…my role, to some degree. To know people, and guide them to greater harmony within the whole.” He sighs, and lets his hand fall. “And every time I think I have the measure of you, I am wrong. Goddess bright, I can’t even apologize in a way that…” Wolf lets out a growl. “Forgive me. It is not yours to deal with my frustrations, or my failures.”

gives a quite laugh. “Well I mean… I don’t see anything wrong with that, from where I’m seated. Even I don’t fully understand myself; it’d be silly to expects others to be able to. None of the bits and pieces that make me up are even from your world to begin with.”

looks at Aurelius for a long moment, then sighs. “And? You’re still a person. You’re still human.” He scrubs a hand across his face again. A deep breath. “First, cast out fear,” he says, though it’s not for your ears, not really. “Aurelius, I am afraid. I am afraid of what might happen if we go on as we have. With me not understanding. With me not…trusting. In the way that I fear that we will need, in days to come.”

: “Right. I can see how that might be cause for concern, with all the unknowns in play here. Is there something I could do then, to help us meet in more of a middle ground?”

blinks at him, a little. Sighs, goes to a chair across from Aurelius, and sits on the edge of it. “I…do not know.” He laughs, a little, without much humor in it. “To me…all I see are contradictions. When Salme relays your words to me? You are…wise. Caring. A worthy guardian of her heart.” He gives Aurelius a gauging look. “What I experience…is very different. And I am trying to figure out what I am getting wrong. Because she flourishes beneath your light, and I…” Wolf give Aurelius a wry, tight smile. “I find myself entertaining fantasies of strangling you. And that cannot go on.”

: “Yeah, that’s not really something I’d be super into either.” A pause, to take another sip of tea as he glances around to make sure anyone else in the room or adjacent hallways.

: “So. Hmm.”

: “Neither one of you is… wrong, really? I can certainly have my moments in both directions - Wise, understanding, caring. But I’m also… impulsive, thoughtless, and just a bit self absorbed. And it’s. So you remember how strange everything was when we first woke up without our memories, right?”

exhales, jaw working. “Yes. I do.”

: “And you, I’m sure, would maybe like to forget the self described Angel but absolutely cannot. Ever since I’ve woken up, I’ve been… remembering bits and pieces from both of them - Annarr and Jorule both. And Jorule’s in particular are… dense and confusing, they don’t always even feature him being the same person. But those memories tend to come a bit easier. So I think… when I’m operating on instinct and impulse, those ones tend to come more naturally to me than the others. Where as… when the stakes are lower, slower, or something is more… immediately identifiable as something that needs to be taken with the utmost level of seriousness, the ones of Annarr are more likely to surface. So while most people obviously have a multitude of sides to them… mind aren’t all coming from the same box, if that makes sense? And I suspect that’s a large part of what can make dealing with me. Frustrating and a little difficult to parse?”

exhales as Aurelius speaks–leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and beginning to listen intently. “It makes…mm. Yes. Sense.” He smiles thinly, eyes wandering the patterning on the floor as he thinks. “If I may be blunt, it is not usually even what you say that frustrates me, Aurelius. It is how.” Wolf sighs, resting his head in his hands. “And I am, perhaps, more sensitive to that than most. I know too well the way a word mis-spoken, in anger or haste or carelessness, can rend hearts. Or even communities. It is my role to heal those wounds. Or, better yet, prevent them.” He chews his lower lip again. “And it has been what has confused me. The difference in your words in private, and in public. I suppose that would make sense, in that light.”

: “Ah. For what it’s worth, there is… still a fair amount of causally formed sentences and teasing even in private, she’s just learned to see past it now, I think.” Taps as the sides of the tea glass a few times. “The way it’s said though… hmm. That’s a tough one. I can imagine there’s still differences within various villages and communities on Almachadta… but I suppose with the worlds being as split up as they are, most of us don’t necessarily have a lot of experience dealing with entirely different cultures, do we…? … Beast is probably going to really shocking to a lot of you, now that I’m really thinking about it, hah.”

snorts softly. “More shocking than the world made entirely of water, where if you have a sufficiently strong negative thought at the wrong place and time, you can kill your entire community?”

: “That just makes them mind their Ps and Qs more, rather than less.”

tilts his head to acknowledge the point, but also grimaces. “And it’s nevertheless part of what’s wrong here.” He sits back in his chair more, running his fingers through his hair again. “As someone whose business is, to some degree, the way people relate to each other…” Wolf just stares up at the ceiling, frowning. “They cannot lean on each other. They cannot…hah. Anchor.”

takes another sip. “Being scared to speak their full minds and whatnot? Yeah.”

: “Indeed. Protocol is not a substitution for honesty. And the tension between the Virtues and ‘drawing-near is danger’ is…palpable. To me, at least.”

: “That’s a good point, now that you mention it. I guess I hadn’t really been thinking about it too hard from that angle, given how open Caion has been. Though I’m to understand he’s a bit of an usual case.”

: “He is. He has cast out fear. That is why he can do what he does. The fear…” Another grimace. “It’s everywhere here, to my eyes. A fear that no one can talk about, and no one can name. So it festers. Quietly, below the surface, until it boils up, and each eruption increases the fear, and on it goes…in a cycle. In a loop. Until the whole thing comes apart. Almachadta dies in hunger amidst plenty. Samudra…dies in fear amidst knowledge.” He looks deeply unhappy at that realization.

: “Huh. Yeah. … Yeah that makes a lot of sense.”

: “Aurelius. I do not know if I have the right to ask this. So I will not be offended if you tell me no.” Wolf tilts his head to one side, a hair. “What did you see, when you looked at the Ancient One?”

laughs quietly.

: “I can tell you but - I’m not sure if it will really make sense to anyone else.”

: “I’d like to know, regardless. They are one of the keys to this place. Any knowledge may aid.”

: “So initially it was a dragon, made out of paper mache. And after a few moments, it opened it mouth, revealing a massive, endless expanse of wide open grassland. The sky with tinged with dark clouded, giving off the impression of autumn just on the cusp of fading into a crip winter’s night. It then turned to stare at me in consideration for a moment or too and looked… bored with what it saw. Decided I was beneath its attention and turned to swim away, before Archie turned it into a googly eyed eel.”

frowns, thoughtfully. “That does not sound…fearsome. Strange, certainly, but…hardly a terror. I was not gripped by its seeming for long, but it was, in that brief moment, still a thing I feared.”

smiles slightly. “It’s all both terribly metaphoric, but also not at all at the same time. I think it was targeted at Jorule in specific, rather than Annarr. He didn’t like the memories it brought up, even as I laughed. Though perhaps part of the fishes’ game was implicitly targeting Jorule’s memories and not me to imply that I, too, was not… even real enough to make an attempt as effort? Who knows.”

: “Hmm.” Wolf studies Aurelius for a long moment. “I think…for my own part, that implication would be a mistake. Jorule has a certain…intensity. Or “density,“ perhaps,” he says, with just a bit of a wicked smile before he goes serious again. “But to say that makes you less real…well, I would argue with that. It was not Jorule or Annarr I felt the need to atone to, but you.”

nods slightly. “Salme and Awa were of the same mind, obviously, and I’m… coming around to it, myself. It is still odd to think about what parts of me are me and not… vestiges of someone else, though.” He pauses. “What did you see?”

: “A hunger-demon, from the Tangle.” It’s a flat, unhesitating admission.

: “And then, its true self. Which was humbling and beautiful in equal measure.”

: “Yeah, that checks out.”

looks faintly amused. “It does?”

: “If I had to make a guess, it would have been either those or the architect. And it seems like any fear of the latter you might have would be overpowered by your anger instead so… yeah, heralds of the end of your world seemed like a safe bet.”

: “Mm, yes.” He looks thoughtful again. “I still wonder. Why they have such a fearful seeming. Because they do not seem to be…truly fearful. Dangerous, yes–but we are beset on all sides by danger, for we our dangerous ourselves. Salme received from one…wisdom. Succor. So why seem so fearful?” Wolf looks at Aury. “I have a theory. But alas, I do not know if I can prove it.”

: “What are you thinking?”

: “That it is a test.”

: “‘Hope over Fear’?”

laughs, half surprised, half delighted. “Yes, I suppose you could say that. Though I would perhaps put it…’truth over fear.’” Wolf rubs his chin, drumming his fingers slowly on himself. “I did see a fearful thing. And I was afraid. But I did not…deny my fear. Or deflect it. Or avoid it. I acknowledged it. Faced it. Then–and only then–did I see true.” He makes a deep, rumbling grumble in his chest. “In this world of scholars…where truth is supposedly held above all else…one person among them all can see them truly.” He shakes his head. “There’s something…sad, in that.”

: “The terror of them does not come from them. It comes from us.”

: “Hmm.” More tea sipping. “Things definitely seem to be pointing in that direction. So… with that in mind… why present themselves that way? Guardians of some kind? Some horrible truth, perhaps in a way similar to the Duelist Mask, if there are deliberate parallels between the worlds?”

: “You heard how old they are. They are the terrible truth, in a way. Waiting for someone who can bear it without tearing the world to shreds. Because…if you can’t face their fearful seeming, you cannot be trusted with that truth, perhaps.”

: “Waiting for those willing to truly put truth above fear.”

: “Makes sense to me.”

shakes his head. “I enjoy this world. It is beautiful indeed. I hope we can keep it from tearing itself apart.” Wolf stands with a groan, stretching, then: “Aurelius. Salme…said that I should tell you something. Something I told her.”

: “She’s real determined to have her fingers in every possible pie like that.” He shakes his head in amusement, then looks to Wolf and waits for him to continue.

: “Yes, well.” Wolf smiles a little. “Unfortunately, a thing I have learned across my years is that, if one wishes to be listened to when one gives good-but-uncomfortable advice, one must be willing to hear it in their turn.” He takes a deep breath, face going serious. “Aurelius, I would trust you with my life in battle. I trust you with the heart of us, dearer than any jewel. I have not…felt that I could trust you to be kind to the ignorant, or the slow. Like myself,” he says, with just a bit of a self-deprecating smile. “I see now that I was wrong. Will you trust me in turn? Your words burn fiercely. I do not think you would want them to burn others in ways you did not intend. I would…like it very much, if we could rely on each other to…” He trails off, sighs, then laughs at himself a little. “I promise I will try not to snap. I do not wish to be the mother hen. Just to…help.”

: “Of course. And.” He glances around. “Honestly? Sometimes half the things I’m saying don’t even fully make sense to me, or until a numbers of seconds after I’ve said them. So don’t ever hesitate to ask for clarification if something that comes out of my mouth is… less than illuminating.” He smiles with half his face, awkwardly. “I do trust you though, and I’ll certainly be looking forwards to your continued insights. I’m not always the best at articulating my own findings, and can’t hear the Song besides.” He stands up and faces Wolf, before extending his left half hand.

looks at the proffered hand, and smiles, and clasps it with his own–firmly, but not painfully. Just solid, and present. “Perhaps…Caion said there might be a way to share my understanding of the Worldsong. Songs.” He smiles a little, almost shyly. “I have heard just a tinge of the Beast’s song, in a dream. And it is glorious, my friend. I would very much like if I could help you hear it.”

’s clasp is just as firm and he shakes the hand once. “I imagine that device Synthesis gave us might be able to help, it’s very good at creating sounds I wouldn’t think a, uh, pearl would be able to produce.”

smiles wryly. “The sounds are part of it, yes. But there is…more.” He shrugs a little, releasing Aury’s hand, looking almost…wistful. “I would very much like you all to hear what I hear. To not be the only one who…mm.” He pushes his hair off his face, looking very tired suddenly. “Thank you, Aurelius. Truly.”

: “Your quite welcome. I’m glad this talk seems to have been helpful.”

: “Yes, well, it’s amazing what happens when we actually talk to each other, eh?” Wolf laughs. “Even when it’s hard. Or maybe especially then.” He gives a little fraction of a bow. “If you see her before I do…tell Salme that she was right, blast her.” A little bit of a cheeky smile. “If she keeps giving good advice like that, she’s going to put me out of a job.”

: “Hahah, I wouldn’t worry about that one. She seeks it as often as she solicits it.”

: “Yes, that’s why she’s becoming wise. I believe Counsel is supposed to be a virtue?” He chuckles to himself, finally heading towards his room for real, with a little cheeky wave of his hand. “Be well, Aurelius. And…” He pauses on the threshold, looking back briefly. “Just like Salme…there’s more to you than you might think there is. I’m sure of that.” And then he’s gone.

nods to Wolf as he leaves, lost in thought for a bit before he looks down at his glass of sweet tea. And then his thought turn to that: it’s only halfway gone. How… how did that strange Naiad imagine people would be able to consume entire jugs of this stuff at once…?