Scene Archives

rests her arms against the balcony rail as she watches what she’s come to understand to be the morning Samudran light filter down onto the verdant greens of the island. She woke early, feeling well-rested and settled in herself. She watches the wind rustle the leaves of the trees below her, lets it catch at her loose hair, the silk—or something very much like silk—robe she procured from Ripple. Even the air smells different here—salty still, but fresher.

has absconded from the communal kitchen with a pot of coffee- he asked before taking it, of course- and four mugs hanging from his fingers. With careful nudging of the front door, he enters the room and carefully sets the pot down on a conveniently prepared plate, and the mugs next to it.

: “Coffee’s up!” he calls, shaking loose a small bag of sugar from a sleeve, and a few capped vials of cream. (The vials are on loan from the Academy.)

startles slightly—she didn’t notice him getting out of bed—and ducks back into the room. “And you are too.”

stops a moment, and looks at him. “How are you feeling? You took a pretty bad hit yesterday.”

: “What, that?” He grins and sniffs, uncapping a single vial and pouring it into a mug before covering it with coffee, and stirring with the gentlest touch of liminal gnosis, miming stirring with one of his fingers.

: “Anything more than my last breath and I’m good to go!”

: “You’re looking radiant in your flourishing and burning, yourself.” He winks.

should probably be beyond blushing, but she blushes. “Thank you,” she says. She then busies herself with her own cup of coffee. A dash of cream, a bit of sugar, though not much. She takes a long, slow sip, mostly just watching him. “I finished the library last night,” she tells him. “I also made a few discoveries. I don’t know if you’d … like to see or not.”

’s eyebrows raise at the sudden introduction of burning text, and to look in his eyes at that moment, you’d see him tossing a thought back and forth about asking about it, and then something else catches his attention. “What an odd series of words in sequence.”

: “Of course I’d love to see whatever it is!” he nods.

: “Why’s it an odd series of words?” she asks, as she goes to fetch the tablet.

: “Well…” He tilts his head this way and that. “I keep hopping between if you’re asking me if I’d like to see the finished library, or the few discoveries.”

: “I do wonder what else you’ve discovered about yourself and whom you’ve created, though.”

laughs a little. “I’m asking about both, rakas.” She picks up the tablet sitting, conveniently, on the desk. “The discoveries were in the library.” She holds the tablet out to him. “Shall we?”

wrinkles his eyebrows, taking a biiiiiiiiiiiiiig sip of coffee before placing the mug down on the table. “(The discoveries were in the library…)” He puts his hand onto the tablet. “We shal–“ oops he cut himself off.

laughs, and also enters the library with him.

reaches up an arm in offering as soon as she steps through as an enormous lavender raven trills a series of harp glissandos and lands on it. “Well, first thing’s first. This is Jory.” She offers her arm, raven included, to the Awoken.

: “Oh!” He startles slightly- wasn’t expecting that, for sure. He eyes the raven up and down before settling into a bright- “Well, hello there, Jory!”

offers his empty arm in encouragement.

Jory trills happily, because he loves what she loves, and she loves the Awoken. “I made him for. Well. I was worried that Aurelius’ bird was lonely, and might like a way to—exist, in this world, in some way or another. But.” Jory hops from her arm onto the Awoken’s. “He wasn’t interested, so Jory is the librarian now.”

takes a breath, and then gestures to the rest of the library. “And this,” she says, “is the Liminal Library.” All the walls that had previously held strangely flat blue walls with the suggestion of books in a strange white outline are fully-fledged shelves in a rich, aged teak. The shelves are stacked with what appear to be traditional books, but on closer inspection consist of two rectangular crystal slabs bound together with a spine of rich embroidery floss. Or, almost all the shelves look thus—the shelf that rests below the Key-and-Gate is a darker, richer wood, stacked with traditionally-bound books with bindings of gold, orange, lavender, red, green, and a familiar, stunning azure.

laughs with his full chest, though is careful to keep his arm steady. “Well, welcome aboard, Jory! I hope you enjoy perusing our various selections of memories and writings.” He nuzzles into the bird’s breast before turning to look at what else Salme is showing him…

: “And such that it is now fully stocked!”

laughs. “Well. Sort of. The books are … mostly empty? You need to … hold one and think of what you want it to contain before it contains anything at all.”

turns and grabs a book off the shelf. The crystal of the books is not the clear, boundless quartz of the Samudran memory crystals. Instead, the interior of the crystal seems to contain suspended sparks and starlight. The one in Salme’s hand has a binding that gleams with a glowing, pulsing purple. “This is one of the only complete folios so far. It’s called {Speaking With Constellations}.” She offers it to him.

takes it with his off-raven hand, testing the weight before settling to read some of the words. He glances over it, eyebrows adjusting up and down as he wordlessly marvels at the construction.

: “Y’know, it feels so much stranger to read it like this, rather than experiencing it.”

: “Oh. I suppose it would. I think … if you connect with the folio in a … flourishing way you might feel more present in the memory? I know I tend to … hear it more than read it, but it might just have to do with approach?”

: “I also might be able to adjust the feel of it? I’m not quite sure.”

: “Somehow, I know that that’s you who wrote that bit at the top, too.”

: “(Beautiful handwriting, by the way.)”

blushes, pleased. “Yes. You can make notes at the top or … if you have a thought on a specific line, you can add those thoughts as marginalia. You can also make folios that are mostly notes too.” She pulls another folio off the shelf, this one titled {Rite Error Text}, and holds it open for him.

grins, when Jory plucks a pleased arpeggio and begins grooming the Awoken’s hair.

shifts his gaze, and leans into Jory’s careful beak not unlike a cat leaning into being petted. His eyes scan the text. “Ah, good, I’d… seen this before, but it’s much more helpful to have it all written out like this…”

: “Ah, more notes! Collaborators!”

: “Yes! The idea is—the idea that we can share knowledge more easily, to figure out what we’re up against. Anyone can add a memory to a folio, as long as its their own. For instance, I might start one on the suns, and perhaps you could add your memory of how you got a bit of the True Sun into that lantern of yours,” she says, a bit slyly.

examines the second folio closer. “Ahh, I see all the irons in the fire, now.”

laughs. “Oh? Do you? If you’re done with the first, Jory will put it back for you,” she says, noticing his hands are rather full.

lets go of the first book, but it hangs in the air thanks to an active application of liminal gnosis, he wouldn’t let it carelessly drop to the floor. He thumbs at the bottom of the Rite Error Text folio.

: “Ah, yeah, that’d help a lot.”

: “Please, Jory?” she asks the raven, who lets out a short four notes—low, high, high, low—and gently takes the first folio in his talons, flapping back to the shelf and reshelving it.

scratches at his chin. “The possibilities are endless, and the endless is currently swimming around in my head! Damn if I’m not ready to write a novella right now.”

: “I’d love to see whatever you’d write, though I always figured you more for a poet or a playwright.”

: “Hmm.”

: “They all write, right?”

grabs an empty folio off the shelf, and holds it for a moment, thinking. The crystal flares in her hands, briefly, and a bit of the binding turns azure. “Here,” she says, handing him {Sinitöyhtönärhi}. “I’ll let you see a sneak peek of this one.”

laughs. “Yeah. They all write.”

then frowns. “Wait. What’s a novella?”

: “Like a novel. But smaller. So you add a… certain flair to the base word to make it cuter.” He confidently nods, as though this explains everything.

: “But … a novel?”

blinks twice and then a third time in realization. “…oh!”

: “When you’re done with that one, by the way, it goes on the secret shelf,” nodding to the Sinitöyhtönärhi folio.

: “The simplest way to explain it right now is basically ‘a folio, but longer.’”

: “‘And it tells a story.’”

nods thoughtfully.

reads over {sinitoyhtonarhi}, it doesn’t take him long, because it’s so very short right now. He looks up to Salme and smiles. “I love you too, by the way.”

: “Good,” she says. She takes the folio from him, and hands it off to Jory, who shelves it on the shelf that sits under the Duelist’s Mask constellation. The folio immediately disappears.

: “That will get longer, but it will be a surprise.” She leans in a kiss him, briefly. “So. Do you like it?”

kisses back, moving with her slightly as she pulls away, but does let go. “Absolutely! It’s a marvelous construction!”

: “Though…”

: “Why is that one wall in particular, different?” He gestures to the one under the Key-and-Gate.

grins at him. “That,” she says, “is my discovery.” She twines her hand in his, and pulls him over to it. “Pick one of the books in your color,” she says, nodding to the books on the shelf. They constantly shift, and the more you try to look at them the more they seem determined to not stay the same. “It helps to just … imagine you’re reaching for it as you reach for it.”

reaches for the azure book with intentionality. Books are made to be picked up and read!!

grins when he easily grasps the book, and her grin widens when she hears the firm click and the shelf slides down into the ground, revealing a door with the ꙮ sigil carved into it.

: “It turns out,” she says, “that the library was larger than we previously thought.”

slowly turns to look at Salme, slow blinking as he does so.

: “ ‘Larger than we previously thought.’ “ he repeats, somewhat monotone.

: “Er. Yes?”

staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaares.

then contorts, doubling over forward and putting a hand on the door to steady himself, while also hacking out laughter.

: “Ahahahaah, ahahahh– a dungeon so secret it was banished from written record and the memories of the architects and masons themselves!”

: “That’s really weird! I love it!”

: “Oh. Good. I thought you were going to get all Jorule about it.”

waves a hand. “If I ever get Jorule over anything, please, smack me about the head and neck.”

puts her hand on the door and pushes. It swings open easily, revealing a hallway with vivacious orange wallpaper and three nearly identical doors, each bearing the ꙮ sigil and a keyhole.

looks at him. “I think we can find better ways to bring you back to yourself,” she says, grinning at him.

: “You’re really enjoying this,” he half-asks, half-declares, with a half-pleased half-conspiritorial grin dancing on his face as he does so.

: “I am.” She looks at him. “Do you have any idea how often you and Aury both absolutely realign my world with your—casual approach to the impossible? I don’t mind being the grounded one, but every now and then it’s nice to also do the … well, not the impossible, but the unlikely.”

enters the hallway, but doesn’t get too far in before lazily leaning against one of the walls. “Humble words from one who created a synthesis of burning and flourishing gnosis, giving it will and a form.”

: “You say that, but this is me trying to—move past that sense of humility. To accept that I’m more than whoever I thought I was.”

looks at him. “And I am more than that,” she says, inclining her chin at him. She holds his gaze for a moment, and then walks past him to go over to one of the doors. If he focuses on it, he can get the sense of—sunlight, lushness, greenery. When she pushes this door open, he can see the Centrelight pouring out into the room. She turns and leans against the door frame. “Come in?” she says, extending her hand to him.

’s gaze follows her, and he wordlessly takes her hand, letting her lead.

pulls him into the room. It’s a workspace - warm reddish wood floors and walls, expansive enough to work within. One wall covered in skeins of thread and yarn and enormous baskets of fibre and basins for dyeing and drying and places for blocking, with several spinning wheels; the floor on the other side dominated by a truly impressive countermarche loom. The Centrelight pours through an enormous bay window, and thick wool rugs cover much of the floor. There are stacks of brightly-colored floor cushions for sitting.

: “The other two doors are locked, but this one—I thought about this room. I hoped for it. And the door opened and it was here.”

: “Oh… my!”

: “I don’t know about the other rooms, but … I hope we might all have our own spaces?”

laughs a little. “I guess … so much of this is about me. I don’t know if—well, thank you for being willing to look. I really wanted to show you.”

thumps a fist against his chest. “I’m interested in everything you have to show, and everything that you are, sweet sparrow!”

: “There is… “ He taps his foot, trying to find the words.

: “There is something about how this space was found, but also, how it was so specifically desired and created.”

: “What do you mean?”

holds up a finger. “It’s something delightful, before I get too lost describing the feeling.”

: “I ask- this other doorway, hallway, series of keyholed doors, that was not a creation of you and Aury?”

shakes her head. “No. It was. Jory revealed it. I was thinking of.” She blushes, a little. “I can put the memory in a folio for you to see, but when I made him I was thinking of … Jorule. Watched by the Key-and-Gate. I made him while sitting below the constellation, and he’s the one who … noticed the shelf.”

: “He was … I told him that ‘You were made for the purpose of speaking and for the purpose of opening doors for those who seek knowledge within this library.‘ And I guess he. Did.”

crosses his arms, nodding sagely. “So… that brings up several interesting possibilities, and probable realities!”

: “Yeah?”

: “Consider!” He dramatically points with a finger.

goes over and plops down on one of the floor cushions, looking up at him.

: “The sigil on the door and the sigil at the end of the {Rite Error Text} is the same. I declare that this is not an accident nor natural happenstance!”

: “No, probably not,” she says, crossing her legs beneath her.

: “Continuing under the assumption that the entity- which can be both or one of either who or what- constructed this area, then we come to- when was it created?”

: “That this deep oubliette was created after the library is a natural assumption to make. But it’s not the only possible one that exists.”

: “I would think it … existed as part of the library. Or even before. I don’t think I created it. I’d have more control over it if I did.” She reaches forward, folding in half as she stretches out horizontally over her crossed legs. She holds the position, then straightens. “Actually. It is … linked to the library, but it’s different. Jorule and I were able to feel that we were moving through different spaces as we crossed each threshold.”

nods. “In essence, this area was pre-prepared for us to find.”

: “Maybe, in a different universe, along a different timeline, there’d be another way we’d find and access it. But this is the one we have and the one that is utilized.”

: “And!”

: “Whichever entity has linked this hallway- do we have a name for this wing of the library yet? no? we’ll work on it-“

: “Has either done so from within the library without being detected by the guestbook, or bypassed the library altogether, grafting the space onto our own.”

blinks. “Well. If it weren’t such a kind gift, I’d say that’s terrifying. Aury’s going to hate that theory, you know.”

shrugs, with a silly grin. “What can you say except, ‘thank you’!”

: “To be honest, I think the guestbook is kind of pointless, but I’m not going to stop its function or creation or anything.”

: “Plus, it’s ridiculously cute and a brazen display of care.”

: “Why do you think it’s pointless?” she tilts her head to one side, then the other, stretching the muscles in her neck, and then rolls from her sitting position into a handstand.

: “So, I guess it’s not entirely pointless, but the point isn’t exactly what it does, either…?”

: “I don’t think that memories we care to share are memories that could ever hurt us.”

: “Hm.” Upside down, she walks on her hands over to the bay window, then moves forward into a controlled tumble, coming upright. “I’m not sure I agree. I think any memory could be used as a weapon.”

: “How so?”

: “Memories are—hm. Take, for instance, the folio about the Duelist’s Mask constellation. It tells whoever reads it something about the world. It also tells them something about me. What I care about. What I value. And once you know what someone cares about, you can figure out how to hurt them.”

: “True, true. So I’ll retreat to the point I actually want to make-“

: “Could your memories ever kill you?”

blinks. “In what sense?”

: “In the sense that matters.”

: “Could your memories ever end your life?”

: “No. At least, not by … just experiencing them. If some unknown used the information from my memories to try to kill me—“ she blinks. “Well, I don’t know why anyone would need to do that. So no, my memories couldn’t kill me.”

puts his hands on his hips and nods sagely. “Anything more than your last breath, and you’re good to go.”

: “I guess I’m just… not afraid of being hurt, really. Hurt is… natural. Hurt happens in the pursuit of greatness, of heroics, of conflict.”

: “Should it always, happen? No. If it always happens, you should probably wear gloves and a helmet!”

strides over to him in a few swift steps, and stops in front of him. “I am trying to trust you,” she tells him. “I am trying to believe in you. But sometimes I hate it when you say such things, because I do not love the thought of you being hurt more than necessary.”

takes a breath, a deep one. “I understand sacrifice. And I can endure anything. But,” she rests a hand on his chest, over his heart. “It is so much better to not have to endure.”

puts his hand over hers. “If we wanted to live quiet, painless lives, we’d be ranchers on Almachadta.” Beat. “Until the fires came.”

pushes him back, though she laughs at that. “If you can’t see the difference between a ‘quiet painless life’ and having no concerns about being hurt as long as you, technically, aren’t dead then I have more to worry about than previously thought.”

chuckles at that. “I’m tougher than you think!”

step forward again, crowding into his space. “I know you are.”

doesn’t back down, utilizing the whole inch-and-a-half-plus-boots height advantage to look down slightly at her. “Do you fear, at some point, your belief will be tested?”

: “I know it will. And I refuse to falter when it is.” She looks up at him. “Do you know how many memories I have of dying, Sininen? Do you know how many memories I contain of someone I love dying? Of being hurt? I can endure anything, and I know we will both be hurt on this path. I do not fear it, but I also don’t have to like it, Valkopäätiainen.”

: “Liking it has never been in the arsenal of words I utilize with ‘hurt.’ It’s just the thought that ‘hurting’ and ‘dying’ are the same thing.”

: “Which, they are not.”

: “No. In some ways I’ve always thought dying would be easier.”

: “It’s through all this that I’m surprised both of you seem amiable to utilizing this hallway and set of doors, but I’m certainly not going to fuss about ignoring possible implications. And even then, implications can be shattered with a swift blow from reality- external, or even better, ones we create ourselves.” He makes a fist.

steps back, swiftly. “The possible implications,” she says, just looking at him. She shakes her head. “Yes. I suppose I was foolish, wasn’t I? I shouldn’t have walked through the door. I shouldn’t have explored the room. I’m so glad I have you to explain to me the possible implications and that dying and being hurt are not the same thing.”

laughs. “You’re welcome!”

: “I like the reckless part of you, even if I don’t understand how it interacts with the protective side of you.”

: “But I don’t need to understand wholly to still love you.”

: “Maybe,” she says, and her voice is low, a bit of a snarl, “you could ask rather than assuming I’m stupid, or thoughtless, or—“ Her hands clench into fists. “I know I don’t always succeed, but I try very hard to understand you, and sometimes I feel like you aren’t looking at me at all.” ⁂

pauses, and takes a ragged breath. “But sometimes I feel like you do and … I don’t know.” She takes another step back. “I guess I didn’t think. The room felt like a gift. I didn’t feel like something that needed to be guarded against. That was probably foolish.” 🙧

: “I hear you every time you say you worry about me, you know.”

has no intonation in his voice.

: “But I don’t what you want from me, regarding that.”

: “Would it be better if I stopped?”

: “Stopped what?” She isn’t looking at him.

: “Being foolish. Being daring. Leaping into the sea with a hacked-together fiend and a bunch of loosely-connected theory.”

shakes her head. “No. I would hate it if you stopped. You wouldn’t be you if you stopped, and I love you.” ⁂

looks at him then. “Your ability to [Walk The Strange Paths]. Your—odd relationship with the edges of the world. Your bravery and foolishness and heart. Those are all you. And I know. I can see with your every action that you are becoming more, and building ways to make sure you can come back to me.” ⁂

: “I am also trying to become more, to build ways to be both parts of myself, all parts of myself, in a way that doesn’t hurt me. Because you don’t like it when I hurt myself worrying.” ⁂

looks back down. “But it’s still … a work in progress. I’m still. Trying. And I’m glad you’re okay, but I didn’t like it when you took that hit yesterday.” ⁂

: “I think. One of the ways I survived being the Sword-Saint, even knowing Almachadta’s cycle was at its end, even knowing—or, suspecting—that we would all die, was by keeping everything at a distance. Treating everyone with an equal, distant care. I’m still figuring out how to balancing caring as much as I do, having as much as I feel like I do to lose, with … my desire to guard against the worst. I know it’s a tension, and it’s one I’m working on. I want you to see that.” [x]

voice drops. “I do see it. I see how you struggle with it. I’m seeing right now how it tears at you.” ⁂

: “That’s the worst of it, hating yourself for being who you are.” ⁂

: “It shouldn’t feel that way, hurting yourself over it.” ⁂

: “So… please don’t. Please don’t hate the foolish, reckless, impulsive part of yourself. It may just be the thing that saves us, at some point. Like treasured memories, it may even hurt us sometime…” ⁂

: “But I know, I know, that it can never kill us.” ⁂

: “And again… I don’t think that the memories could hurt us, either. And I know, because I know you, that whatever grand protective movement you could do to stop us from doing the unthinkable- if one day you will the sprouts below to rise and form a tree around us- a tree of all the worlds, impossibly gargantuan, its roots and tips at ends of creation, dense enough to deaden the sound of Song’s dissonance from shaking us apart?” ⁂

: “I’d find a good knothole to nestle in and curl up with a few roasted acorns.” 🙧

: “The thing is I don’t. I don’t hate the foolish, reckless, impulsive part of myself. I—can’t, anymore. I brought an anchored island into being with that part of me. I just. Don’t know how it fits with who I also am. Not yet.” ⁂

steps towards him again, and twines her fingers with his, and adds, “and the other part of it, the part about hurt, and death, and suffering, and protection? I thought that if I ever did have to stop you from doing the unthinkable, if you were going to make a grand sacrifice to save all the worlds, I could and I would stop you. But I was kidding myself. If it were necessary, if our path required some grand, heroic, self-sacrificing act and it needed you to make it and you desired to do so? I would let you. And I so I feel as if, knowing that moment might one day come, I feel like I am begging you to be certain. That if you ever must sacrifice yourself, let it be a necessary one. I would endure, but it would be awful.” ⁂

laughs. “So. No knotholes and acorns for you,” she says, burying her forehead in the crook of his neck. 🙧

rests his chin alongside her head. “Shame. It was starting to get a bit cozy in that dream.”

: “Oh. Well. If you were a bit cozy … I was meaning to ask. What would … a home be like, for you?”

: “Hmm…”

wraps his arms around her shoulders, gently swaying the both of them.

: “It… wouldn’t be too different than right now.”

laughs silently, but he can feel the slight shake of her shoulders. “I think that’s cheating,” but she sounds pleased.

: “Somewhere warm, and gentle, with loved ones.”

: “Ranching on Almachadta?” she says with a laugh.

: “Yeah. Or clamming on a shore of Samudra. Or… heck, the Beast is probably warm enough, and I’m sure an iron throne feels good with silken doilies draped over them.”

: “(Not Mu though, probably too hot.)”

laughs.

: “Another question. Whenever you talk about Aurelius … you described his ‘ridiculously cute and brazen display of care’. I’ve never quite been sure … are you teasing him, or are you … interested? Just, since you spoke of loved ones.”

: “Can’t it be both? But I’ve gathered he doesn’t really feel wholly the same in return. Which is fine.”

: “That’s people!”

: “To be fair, or perhaps unfair, to him, he may not even know what he feels. He doesn’t seem to unless he’s forced to confront it directly and repeatedly.”

laughs. “Which, is also people.”

takes a breath, and says. “I want to make a home. For the three of us, at least. A place to return to. I want to always having amazing, world-altering adventures. And I want a place that will always be easy for all three of us to find our way back to. And if anyone else wants to be there too, then they’re welcome. The door will remain open. But I want that. Safety and protection alongside impossible adventure.”

: “I think I’d like that, too.”