ꙮ Caion still thinks of it as Solei’s lab. He’ll probably never stop thinking about it as Solei’s lab, just like they never stopped thinking about it as Tasna and Thesis’ lab. But it’s his, now, at least for the moment, and probably will be for quite some time, the way a new Zeroth Circle is slowly forming around him, and so: Caion has a very secure lab, when he needs one, a lab in which he’s been analysing Salme’s mask as un-invasively as possible (which it turns out is really minimally invasive - there’s an odd crystal instrument pointed at it, being illuminated by an entire array of other instruments, and it’s positioned inside an otherwise-dark box, and somehow this apparatus lets him figure out roughly how long ago something was created.)
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← Active ScenesThe Academician's Lab, III
watches the odd crystal instrument like it will tell her something. She shifts from foot to foot. “Wolf will be here any moment.”
knocks on the door at that moment, as if Salme’s words have summoned him, which…they probably haven’t, but the timing’s a little creepy.
perks up and goes to open the door for Wolf.
: “Hallo, Wolf!” He’s bent over the instrument, using his crystallised arm to brace him in position so that he can keep fussing with some brass dials on it and sight-reading some fluctuations in crystal, all of which is apparently much less uncomfortable than it looks. “Door’s open, for you.”
steps inside, closes the door behind him, then pauses to blink at the scene. He glances at Salme, then back at the array of…stuff. “Should I try not to tread heavily?”
: “I’m not sure it matters. He’s been putting up with my pacing.” She goes over to stare at the Mask again and shifts from foot to foot, then goes back over to Wolf. “I’m glad you’re getting the hang of the Linkpearl and the Library.”
: “If I built something that can’t handle someone walking around around it, either I’ll have a sign up, or it’s my own fault for being a fool.” He straightens himself up, amiably. “Hypothesis confirmed, I’m pretty sure. I’m getting almost the exact same readings from it as I got from the noöplankton.”
twitches (impatiently?) just a bit, when Caion mentions the noöplankton.
breathes a sigh, though she isn’t really sure what she’s feeling. “250,000 years, give or take.” She goes over to peer at the Mask again. “May I have it back?” She’s been. Patient, for a value of patient, but having it out of her hands that long has been. Difficult.
rather apologetically unlatches the side of the weird little box it’s in, and motions for Salme to take it. (He had her put it in in the first place, he’s still unsure of the etiquette of handling someone’s world-ancient artifacts while in the process of doing science on them.) “Sorry about that. Thank you for letting me study it.”
: “No, thank you. I wanted to know, and it mattered very much,” she says as she carefully lifts the Mask out and tucks it away. “Seriously, Caion. The Acting Academician can’t apologize as much as you do or they’ll forget you have teeth and you’ll have to actually use them.”
: “Come now, Salme,” Wolf says, chidingly…before he undercuts his tone with a small smile. “He’d be much better off hitting them with that absurd staff.”
: “Oh, I don’t know, sometimes it can be useful to let people forget I’ve got teeth. Although, really, people have been… I don’t expect it to last forever, but we’ve been sticking together in the face of everything here.”
laughs at Wolf’s comment before … nodding seriously at Caion’s. “I’m glad to hear that.” She takes a breath, and turns to look at Wolf. “So you made a discovery, Scholar-Yeresh?”
pulls a face–really, how does he make an upside down “U” with his mouth like that?–at the teasing title. “Oh gods above and below, do not curse me so.” He glances apologetically at Caion. “No offense.”
snorts -loudly-, whether at the expression, at Wolf’s comment, or at his second comment is unclear. Grins. “None taken.”
just grins wider and laughs again.
: “First, I must ask your patience. I wish to first explain my reasoning behind my exploration, and then the result itself, which may take some time. I shall try to be as brief as can be managed.” Wolf starts to pace back and forth, hands clasped behind his back, making precise turns on his heel every time he reaches one side of the room–in many ways, inadvertently making himself the absolute picture of a scholar chewing on a particularly gristly thought. “The figure of Zosimos has plagued my thoughts since I learned of him–not only that he was very possibly the creator of my order, but that he had imbued the world itself with certain truths otherwise to be lost. Learning that he seems to have been a figure, of a similar nature, on at least three of the worlds only increased my curiosity.” ⁂
Feel free to react as desired between posts, I'm trying to structure each to be a complete thought in a chain.
valiantly does not comment on how very Scholarly Wolf is at this moment, and nods.
nods. So far, so ‘things that have also been gnawing at Caion’.
: “Furthermore, knowing that he created the Mask but did not wear it, combined with the knowledge from Bahamut that there was very likely information that Zosimos had been trying not to share with him inflamed my desire even more. What knowledge he concealed being, almost certainly, of far more import to our quest and an understanding of the world than what he left for others to find.” Pace, pace, pace, turn. Pace, pace, pace, turn. “But it seemed to me that there might be a way to glean knowledge in a way that he could not prevent. I believe I mentioned on the linkpearl that his ability to ‘sing truth into the Fire’ might be a more extreme version of that which allowed Tasna to imprint herself onto the Rite, yes?” He pauses, looking to the other two for confirmation of his own memory. ⁂
: “Yes,” she nods affirmation. “And, for an additional resonance—the Duelist’s Mask as a vehicle of memory, but also obscurity makes a kind of. Well. The kind of sense poets and storytellers like to make.”
cannot, at this help, smiling a little out of the corner of his mouth, because between being wroth at ‘i have a vital proof of this proposition that alas cannot be contained within the margin’ and the pacing, he really really -does- fit in here– and nods, in response to his question. “Obfuscation and taking care with what knowledge died with him. River’s Current, he really did found the Academy.”
: “Although, why take such care, without the threat of thoughtstorms.”
looks at Caion, sharply. “Do you really think people need the threat of a thoughtstorm to jealously guard knowledge? Ego. Shame. Fear. We can’t know. Or. Well. We can’t know yet.” She turns her gaze back to Wolf, watching him intently.
then wonders if her eyes are bugging out like Aurelius made fun of her that one time, and she straightens and blinks a couple times, trying to make sure she looks a little more normal.
: “Indeed,” Wolf says, nodding at Salme. “And I shall return to the Duelist’s Mask after a time.” Pace, pace, pace, turn. “And an excellent question, Caion. I was, and am, most curious as to what he would feel was so destructive as to conceal from the new worlds.” Pace, pace, pace, turn. “In any case. If this were true, and the technique was similar, then perhaps the act of imprinting these truths onto the Song of each world would itself leave a trace of Zosimos that one with the appropriate knowledge and ability could trace–just as one can tell what kind of brush makes the letter-stroke from the formation of the letter itself. The Song and the Singer are not separate, they cannot help but touch each other. And Bahamut, perhaps by accident, gave me the scent that would enable that hunt. He gave me Zosimos’ song.” ⁂
raises his eyebrow and leans forward, intent. He’s too much of an optimist for his own good, and he knows it, but there are pieces to this puzzle he KNOWS he’s missing…
makes a surprised and pleased hum at that. “Ah so you had a dual purpose in asking. How sly of you, Wolf.” She sounds extremely approving.
smiles wryly at Salme. “You do me too much credit, my friend. At the time, my interest was only to know such an extraordinary song. What else it might unlock came later.” Wolf takes a deep breath, seems to be considering his words carefully. “Recently, I went hunting. As you both know, I have a remarkable ability to hear the Worldsong, an ability that extends to Samudra as well as Almachadta. Many times in my youth did I allow myself to drift in its depths, gleaning small bits of the visions within, basking within it like one might laze within a bath. But there were always depths below that, to which I did not go, for I feared for my ability to return to myself if I dove into them. But I am no longer a child, and the Awoken had, albeit inadvertently, given me a paradigm by which I might recall myself if lost in the depths of the Song.” ⁂
: “Tethering myself to my body with an anchor-line of tenebrous gnosis, I resolved to dive into the depths–as far as needed–and to hunt there for Zosimos’ song, and upon finding it, see what might be found within it.” He allows himself to look just slightly smug. “And I succeeded.” ⁂
raises her eyebrows extremely high at that. Wolf high. Badri high. There is a whole dance that happens there, and her gaze does grow intent again as she leans forward. When he gets to the point about succeeding, she lets out a low, impressed whistle.
blinks. Allows himself, briefly, to consider what, precisely, ‘succeeded’ means in this context, and does not dare interrupt.
: “First, I was able to ascertain for certain that Zosimos’ song–the one notated in our knowledge as ‘Sanctuary’–is present deep within in Samudra’s Worldsong. That there is a source that sustains it. And I located that source.” He looks smug, but also…increasingly ‘chewing on gristle.’ “At first, it appeared to me to be a ball of blue light, which I reached out to…” Wolf’s expression becomes one of deep consternation and chagrin. “And found myself in the midst of a small school of noöplankton.”
: “What.”
: “My reaction entirely, yes,” Wolf says drily.
blinks and then cannot help the laughter that escapes. “Huh.”
waits a beat to see if there will be any further reaction, then continues–not pacing this time so much as swiveling back and forth in place. “The song was not coming from all of them. The song was coming from one of them. And…” Now his expression is deeply troubled, but also…baffled. “Forgive me, what I am about to say may sound somewhat insane, but I have examined my own memory several times now and I am sure of what I experienced.”
: “Is Zosimos a fucking noöplankton?”
blurts it out before she really thinks but. What else is she supposed to think?
blinks at Salme, and then looks very cross for a moment, before laughing in amusement and exasperation. “Sister, I do not tell the endings to your stories!”
: “I. I’m sorry, what the fuck?”
holds up his hand. “Please. Salme’s guess is accurate but there is context that I must tell first.”
has a brief moment of am-I-using-their-swear-words-right consternation that’s visible as a brief flicker in amongst all of the other consternation which he is presently experiencing, but he’s holding back on any further expostulations until context is provided. He can be good.
nods, and another giggle escapes before she fully gets a handle on herself. “Apologies, brother,” she replies, with very little meekness but some general remorse, and goes back to staring intently.
takes a deep breath, clearly doing the mental equivalent of shuffling through his notes to make sure they’re still in the right order, then continues his back-and-forth swiveling. “When I reached out to the noöplankton, in the moment before I made contact, I had the most…peculiar sensation.” He frowns, staring off into the middle distance with an opaque expression, his voice going distant. “It was as if…time itself, for just a moment, ceased to be a forward-flowing river. As if past, present, and future, in some way…were all the same, were all then, now, immediate and yet…” He chews on his lower lip in silence for a moment, movement stilling, barely seeming to breathe. “As if the distance between aeon and instant had collapsed. As if all of time was happening in that one moment, that one spot. As best I could, I embraced the paradox. And reached out.” His eyes refocus, his voice returning to its normal strength and timbre. “I made contact. And in that instant, I knew–knew as absolute truth–that the noöplankton in front of me was….is? Was. Zosimos.”
: “Did the noöplankton Sing? Did it feel … different, from the others? Aside from that moment where time … stopped making sense?”
: “It looked different. It…did not speak to me, as the others did, at least I don’t believe it did. The song, Zosimos’ song, was emanating from it, sourced from it. I cannot say it was singing, actively, but…it was the source of the song nonetheless.”
: “So,” and where Wolf had been pacing, and then swiveling before, she now takes over. “Not ‘is’ a noöplankton in the sense of … say, if I suddenly turned into a frog, but ‘is’ a noöplankton in the sense of … whatever he once was, whatever he may be again, part of him is inscribed on this particular noöplankton. Part of it, perhaps, bears his memory?”
shrugs, helplessly. “I do not know. I learned no more. I…asked. But received no reply. All I know is…it was Zosimos.”
scrunches up his face, oddly, listening to Wolf speak– something about the specific phrasing of it– he’s trying to work past his immediate, profound incredulity and get to the root of his own sudden feeling of recognition, and he frowns. Shakes his head vigorously, like that’ll help.
: “When you say ‘knew as absolute truth’, and I know this is going to be an infuriating question but I have to ask it, what do you… mean? What is the provenance of your knowledge, in your own words, as best as you’re able?” This feels like a question he’s asked an Irós and gotten bopped on the nose for asking it before, you just have a feeling.
smiles very faintly. “I know. I simply…know. Water is wet, leaves are green, and it was Zosimos.”
says it with the same level tone as you would mention any other clear and obvious fact, like ‘Jorule is a git.’
nods. “Believe it or not, that gives me the information I wanted. The Academy’s always struggled with the fact but sometimes– gnosis doesn’t work along clean lines. And absent of being able to read Zosimos’ gnosis-traces somehow and compare them against this… this fucking noöplankton, that’s the clearest data I’m going to get. So. Hm.”
: “Ah, well. Perhaps I can help with that too. If I’m right about another theory.”
: “What do we know about noöplankton?” It’s HIS turn to get up and pace with his staff of office serving a functional purpose. “Not a great deal, unfortunately. They’re as old as the world -really- is. They can talk, and seem trapped in an eternal ‘now’, they don’t… remember anything that happened more than a few moments ago. When they do make brief flashes of lucid sense, they make reference to… things that never made sense -before- but…” Pace, pace, turn. “They’d talk about trees. They’d talk about– things that only Irós saw in dreams. Things that -you’ve- talked about seeing, on your home planes.” He looks up. “Yes?”
makes a ‘go on’ gesture. “Forgive me, it can wait until you’ve finished your thought.”
: “They’re related to the Dream-Whales in some way. I thought they might … eventually grow into them, but if they only exist in the now, if it’s about time, are the Dream-Whales the future?”
: “If you go far enough that the sea stops making sense, if space stops making sense, can time stop making sense too?”
muses, thoughtfully, stroking his chin. “There are the persistent tall tales of people who wander into the Tangle and are seemingly lost, but then wander out some many years later…”
: “Part of the idea of the River Without Water is that– for us, there’s a ‘now’, because we’re in the current, but if you were standing in the right place, you’d just… see the entire river. And if you saw the wake of a ship, in the River in front of you– the idea that there could be things that we perceive, caused by things that have not happened yet. And it’s– I mean, it’s obviously nonsense, to every day experience, and yet there are… upsettingly-compelling gnosis-experiments that suggest that it’s an accurate model, in a way that matters.” He shakes his head. “Go ahead, Wolf, I want to know about your theory.”
nods, and then…turns to Salme. “Sister, I know it just returned to your possession, but…may I take the Mask, briefly?”
can’t help the inadvertent curl of her fingers, the desire to say ‘no,’ but she—this is about trust. She nods, and pulls the Mask out of the pouch, offering it to him with both hands.
takes it, bowing over it as he does so, and then holds it lightly in his fingertips, reverently stroking his thumb over one cheek of the impossibly old wood. He evens his breathing, purposefully, his voice starting to become distant as he speaks and begins to focus at the same time. “They are the same age. The noöplankton and the Mask. He carved the Mask. They are constants, both of them. I wonder if…he did not wear the Mask, because he did not need to. Because it was, also, him.” Wolf lets his eyes go heavy, reaching for that sense of…time-full timelessness. He hums softly, that bittersweet defiant tune. Sanctuary. “Let expanse contract, let aeon become instant,” he breathes, and reaches for liminal gnosis.
ꙮ Liminal, DC 3/13.
- The Wolf-Priest invoked their 🌌liminal gnosis [d6] -> 1.
- The Wolf-Priest spent 2 Arete and now has 5 remaining.
ꙮ I’m going to refund those Arete, with extra - you may [Take Half].
- The Wolf-Priest has gained 3 Arete, and now has 8.
🙧
He does so, then.
ꙮ You can almost feel his fingerprints on the Mask, you can turn it over and feel the rougher verso face of it where he cared less for its smoothness. It has a faint -sense- of him - and now having spent time in the presence of the noöplankton which was, somehow, him, you can tell– hm. Two things: First, that the Mask does not contain him, or any part of his self or his presence; he created it, but its ‘spirit’, if you will, is its own, illuminated by the Duelist’s Mask’s constellation. But…
ꙮ Give me a Pellucid, please.
- The Wolf-Priest invoked their 🔵pellucid gnosis [d6] -> 5.
- The Wolf-Priest spent 1 Arete and now has 7 remaining.
- The Wolf-Priest invoked their 🔵pellucid gnosis [d6] -> 2.
ꙮ If a master craftsman made two effectively-identical copies of a thing, and left one on Almachadta, and one on Samudra, and they saw long use on each world– their essence would be the same, in a fundamental way, but they would pick up immensely subtle differences in their resonances.
ꙮ And someone with a keen enough sense of the matter, who’d been to both worlds, and drunk his fill of their Worldsong, might be able to distinguish the difference, if he were to hold the two objects, one in each hand.
ꙮ What echo there is of Zosimos on the Mask is subtle, and delicate, but definitely present; when you compare its tone, in your mind, to that of the noöplankton you bafflingly met– there’s a ringing, a resonance– not that they’re out of tune with each other, precisely, but they’re just different enough to– well. To open up several new questions, I’m sure.
keeps his eyes closed for a long moment–you might be able to see the faint flickers of gnosis ghosting over the Mask from his fingers–and then he looks up, both chagrined and oddly…satisfied. “Hmm. I am wrong. To a point. It is not him, in the way that the noöplankton was him. However…” He hands the Mask back to Salme, gently, with another bow. “But they are…not the same, but of a kind. Or, perhaps, better to say that…at one point, they were, in many ways, the same thing.”
: “The noöplankton are meant to serve the same function as the Mask, you mean? He … made them?”
laughs, rocking back on his heels a little wearily. “One of them, in any case. They are made for the same purpose.”
ꙮ Let me clarify something?
🙧
Sorry.
ꙮ It was my mistake entirely— I did not mean to imply that the noöplankton were a vessel. What I meant was this: that the Zosimos that carved the Mask, and the Zosimos whose essence you felt in the noöplankton, experienced Almachadta and Samudra, respectively, and you can feel the differences between their gnosis-echoes accordingly.
: “So …” she begins slowly. “We are not talking about a single man named Zosimos, but multiple versions … iterations of the same man?”
frowns deeply. “I think…more like…the same man…starting from the same point…going in different directions? Yet…”
looks up. “What did you… find?”
: “They are not the same in a…fundamental sense. The noöplankton is the noöplankton, the Mask is the Mask. But…the man who crafted the Mask, and the man who became the noöplankton…were the same person, but they were not.”
makes a frustrated little gesture with his hands. “I know the feeling of him now. His resonance, his song. Zosimos carved the Mask. Zosimos became the noöplankton. I can tell, because I can feel that resonance on both of them. But it is…the same chord in different voicings.”
nods, slowly. “There’s… always -been- a theory that the noöplankton are– or, were, at one point– people, but for obvious reasons it’s never been one we’ve been able to even approach proving in a useful way…”
: “How does that theory work? That they were once people?”
blinks, then, beneath his breath. “I think one of them was a fish…”
laughs, softly, at Wolf. “Well, it’s– I’m not even sure you can call it a theory. Or even a hypothesis. They just– they can talk, if you can hold one’s attention and it’s not distracted by others you can almost have a brief conversation with one, their gnosis is– is heavy, in a way that you generally only see in what the Ancients would call anthropoi– humans, or Naiads, or Kushtaka, or Pearl clusters big enough to talk– but they’re not… they’re so stuck in an eternal moment that it’s impossible to get through.”
: “Because they are…constants.” Frowns, suddenly. “Caion. You said that…reality, here, is held together by…consensus. By thought.”
frowns as well, as she traces—well, guesses at—perhaps where this line of inquiry is going.
: “I wonder if…” His voice trails off, musing, thoughts clearly not quite cohered. “They are constantly in one moment. Constant. A constant set of thoughts. As the Mask is the continuity between the cycles, the seed from which our world regrows…are the noöplankton that, for Samudra?”
: “A different solution to the same problem, from a man who was dealing with the same problem five times, from five different angles and selves.”
’s eyes go wide, suddenly. “Oh!” He looks at Salme. “The sun!”
: “They can’t agree on anything except perhaps that there is only the current moment. Though if time is as … flexible as you think it might be, if the Dream-Whale represent a kind of … unknowable, impossible future, it could—wait, what?”
waves, frantically, for Salme to continue. “It will hold, go on.”
more to himself than anything else, “-would we be able to sustain this world at all without them? Have they been quietly…” -he looks up, listening.
: “Is it…say perhaps that the Dream-Whales are not ‘impossibility’ but…’infinite possibility.’ A constant, anchoring the world, and a possibility…holding it open?”
: “That would make sense. To me, at least. To remain in the present moment, and to look forward.”
: “You mentioned the Sun. Is this … Aurelius thought, at first, that time moved differently in the library under the Sun of Mu. Is that—do you have some insight there?”
nods! “The noöplankton as an anchor, on– that there has to be a Now. I wonder how much they’ve always had to do with the Sea’s ability to calm after a storm, now.”
: “…new possibilities, grown over and over…as if…he was searching for something…” Wolf shakes himself out of his thoughts, spoken to himself more than to anyone else. “Ah? Yes. When I gained insight into the Sun of Mu by, ah…experiencing it…” He looks a little chagrined. Just a little. “…one of the things that I realized about it was that it is…stuck. In a moment very much like the one that experienced with the noöplankton. The experience of…an injustice. Happened, happening, to happen, all at once.”
: “….hunh.”
: “I do not have the faintest clue what it means, but the similarity in sensation and experience is…striking.”
: “Weird to have two fish with the exact same scales, yeah.”
: “Would it be worth. Testing it? Seeing if time moves differently, and … now that you know this feeling more clearly if it is the same?”
winces, a little. “I cannot say that I am necessarily looking forward to the idea of more time with that Sun, but. I think it might be worth examining…somehow.”
frowns. “Though I am very certain it was the same phenomenon, as I muse on it. All three happening at once, a fixed point constantly in motion.”
: “It certainly -sounds- the same, the way you’re describing it.”
: “I am more interested in if time moves differently between the library and outside it under Mu’s Sun, but that also can wait. If that is an experiment we should run, I can … be the lab rat. I don’t mind.” She shakes her head. “We, of course, don’t have to do that now.”
: “Though with the sun, it…seemed to almost…wish to move beyond it? The noöplankton are, as you have both experienced, quite happy, by all seemings. The sun…wished?…to have some kind of completion attained. So that it might be otherwise.”
looks at Wolf, thoughtfully. “An injustice, right? A trauma, even. Happened, happening, to happen, all at once. That can upend your sense of time. Your sense of everything, I think. It becomes your only possible future, and the only thing about your past that you can see. If the noöplankton were created to exist in the now, that’s very different from—a harm that overwhelms everything else about you.”
: “Yes. Very much so.” With a grave, empathetic look for Salme at that. “One wonders if they are both ‘solutions’ to the ‘problem,’ in the same way, as well.”
: “Or…related…in some way, at least?” He grumbles and rubs his temples. “Trying to think in these terms makes my head ache.”
: “Really? You seem to have done an impressive job, Wolf, and to have put together a lot of information I’m not sure anyone else could’ve.” She goes over and bumps his shoulder. “Don’t forget, however, that they do have those fine baths for relaxation, Scholar-Yeresh.”
grumbles, good-naturedly. “Yes, and nowadays I find myself leaning back to drift off to sleep…and thinking about these gods-blasted questions.“
gives Wolf a Look. “Salme’s right. You’re… inventing an entire discipline of knowledge here at one lumen per lumen, friend. Go easy on yourself and have a soak in between.”
looks, briefly, very black and frustrated. “It nearabout serves to drive me to…to rage, sometimes. Every answer I find opens up a dozen more questions, I feel like a dog chasing its own tail.”
: “I do not know…” Almost plaintively: “I do not know what it all means!”
gravely, but with sincere sympathy: “That is, traditionally, how one feels at this stage of one’s Scholar’s Work.”
: “One usually does not… feel like they have this much riding on the process, though. If there’s ever any way I can help, please reach out?”
: “Not a single one of us does, Wolf,” she says softly. “We’ve only been to two of five—or possibly more—planes. We’re still at the beginning of the story. And we,” she closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, steadies herself, “we don’t even have to have perfect understanding to be able to act. Just enough to know we won’t cause harm.”
: “Mm.” Wolf smiles a little, nods a little. “Indeed. It is…good to know that it is not unusual.” He laughs softly, pushing his hair back from his face–it’s starting to get a little shaggy. “I am simply used to…to being the one giving the answers, I suppose.”
: “Well, you’ll be one of the few able to give answers about… a great many things, sooner rather than later; congratulations and/or condolences as you wish.” He smiles.
snorts, chuckling a little humorlessly. “Is revelation supposed to be quite so confusing?”
: “Yes,” she volunteers immediately. “At least, it’s been for me. Each thing I think I understand, I gain more questions. And while I have many skills,” here she meets Caion and Wolf’s eyes to signal she’s not putting herself down, “I’m not half so good at presenting grounded, well-articulated theories. I think there’s … a kind of relief, for me, in having the certainty I always lived with yanked away. Once I got past it getting yanked away, of course.”
: “Sometimes,” Wolf says softly. “Possibility is better than certainty. Possibility can also be…hope.”
: “Yes. And choosing hope is a miracle indeed, sometimes,” she says, just as softly.
breathes in, exhales. “No choice but to walk the road, and see what might lie along the path.”
nods, in response, and– it looks like that’s a sentiment he’s (rotated) around in his head more than once, the past few days. “Possibility, rooted in the moment, and in the fact that we’ve got one another for Counsel.”
smiles, faintly, his voice soft. “A world entire.”
: “Can’t tell you how glad I am that Jorule and I were able to get the Linkpearl working. I know I’d be able to wave goodbye without it, but I. I wouldn’t enjoy it.”
: “Someone who I love and trust very much told me … that it is not given to us to know what echoes will come of our Song. But we must Sing, regardless. And then he taught me that I had known how to Sing all along,” she says, looking intently at Wolf.
: “I hope he knows the same is true of him.” She looks to Caion, “and I feel similarly.”
ducks his head briefly–for once, not trusting his voice. But he smiles.