Scene Archives

makes the trip back to the sietch with about as much alacrity as she left, but takes more care to keep her hood up and her face covered under unforgiving radiation of the funeral pyre in the sky. She makes her way to the shelter system where the—her Clan has been staying for the past couple days. Wonders, briefly, if anyplace will ever feel like home after this. Wonders also what that would even mean.

hasn’t really been up to much in the meantime, and is simply sitting somewhere a bit quiet, occasionally idly bouncing a ball off the wall while lost in thought.

finds him, fairly easily. Watches the ball bounce off the wall for a couple passes, then says, “What’re you thinking about?” Her hair is in disarray, really. She hadn’t bothered to braid it, barely ran a brush through it. She’s in yesterday’s clothes. Her expression is neutral.

: “Giant dead birds.”

snorts. “Any revelations?”

: “Pretty big. Pretty dead. Probably explosive?”

: “Decidedly strange lack of bird iconography, anywhere, if this was apparently their God.”

tilts her head, considering. “That’s a really good point. Especially considering the temple was just … here, supposedly, when the First Cohort woke up.” She takes a seat near him, but not touching.

: “Yeah.”

: “Weird lack of anything, honestly, to do with the world before. They didn’t have any record of terms in Ancient in the archives. At least from what I thought to ask about.” She carefully unlaces her boots and slips them off, tucking her knees up to her chest.

: “THAT feels very deliberate.”

: “But like, even if you’re erasing knowledge of the past, it seems odd to scrub references to the appearance of God but not, like, God wholesale.”

: “Also why is the heart underground, with the body in the sky? And why does the body look like the attacker?”

: “Many bird questions.”

: “‘Talons you’ve watched sunlight glint off. They fall towards you. They part your flesh, they grab hold of that which was, already, in every possible way, their own.’ They were the same kind of thing. Maybe the same thing. Maybe loved each other. But I think I probably sound like a broken record with that.”

adds, “Also, might be more of a bat?”

: “Close enough.”

: “No bat imagry anywhere either at least.”

: “No.” She picks at the knee of her trousers. “I have a different kind of bird question. Probably less important, if it’s important at all.” Pick, pick, pick at the knee of her trousers, and she snags a loose thread and starts tugging it.

: “Hmm?”

: “I think I might not be the kind of person who … ought to be in a relationship. With anyone. I think I’m …” she pulls the thread and watches it unravel. “I think I’m someone who’s meant to connect with people briefly, in profound moments, and then remember their stories and move on. I think. I think I was foolish, and let what I wanted get in the way of what I’m capable of.”

: “That certainly sounds a lot like what the Mask wanted you to be, but I’m not really sure if that’s all you could ever do? Did it say something to you?”

shakes her head. “No. I was. I mean, I flounced away because I was upset. I was angry. At everyone, really, and I can’t even articulate why, even now. I think, when we were looking into the heart, I was … everyone was so fast and loud and certain. And I already wanted to run away, and then you made that comment about me to Chaya, and so I did run away, and I didn’t even tell anyone I was okay, and Jorule … pointed out I was being dramatic, and not communicating, and then I mentioned one of the things that upset me, and he asked me if I even really like you or just want to like you, and I do, I do, I just don’t understand why things are so different when it’s just us as opposed to when we’re around other people, and I realized I was going to have to have another shitty one of these conversations with you again and I think. I think I’m just rancid, you know?”

looks a little confused. “Are they different…?”

also looks confused, and then looks like she’s carefully sorting through what she said to—“Oh. I mean. When it’s just the two of us you’ll … touch me more? Talk more? You act annoyed sometimes but you also seem fond and like you like me. In a group it’s … it seems mostly like whenever you react to me it’s because you’re annoyed? A lot of sighing and rolling your eyes, especially more recently. I wasn’t sure. What was going on. And I don’t know whether it’s because you’re focused when we’re in a group or because you’re … trying to be something when we’re not?”

: “Oh.”

: “I mean… I really don’t think I’m treating you any differently…? Aside from not wanting to hang all over each other in public or when we’re doing stuff which I… am pretty sure is the standard protocol for these sorts of things?” He scratches at the side of his face. “Any eye rolling beyond the teasing we do even in private is just mild exasperation over seeing you make the same jabs at the same person repeatedly and wonder if you should give ‘em a break but also not caring enough to speak up in their defense…?”

: “Oh.” She’s got the thread on her knee in hand, and she’s pulling it now, watching the thread come free from loop after loop of fabric.

: “I guess it feels different, to me. When it’s just the teasing without any of the sweetness I guess. It doesn’t always feels like teasing? And … I don’t … sometimes it just feels like you don’t … like me? Don’t want people to think you like me?” She drops the thread and starts worrying the hole she’s started in the knee of her trousers, picking, picking, picking. “It’s probably a me-problem. Like I said. Rancid.”

: “Ah. Hm. That hadn’t ever really been my intent. Sorry if I’ve made you feel that way.”

: “I didn’t think you were … trying to do that. Doesn’t seem like your style, really.” She pulls another thread free, then another. “I was confused, more than anything else. Scared, because I always worry about the worst possible reading. Angry, because … Jorule said it sounded like I was just looking for excuses to be angry, and I don’t think I am, but I don’t know anything anymore.”

: “Scared and angry at the same time, because you don’t deserve to constantly have to deal with this. And so. I don’t know. What. To do.”

scoots a bit over before wrapping an arm around her shoulder.

leans into him.

: “Do you really have to do anything in particular, other than speak up when something’s bothering you?”

does start to cry. “I don’t want to always be harping at you for existing wrong. I don’t want to be that kind of person. I want to be good.”

lets out a breath and stares up at the ceiling for a few moments, before leaning his head against hers. “Well… I guess that makes sense. If I am doing something wrong, though, I would like to know.”

: “What does ‘wrong’ even mean? I have things I’d like, that would be nice, that maybe I want, but I also don’t want to … I mean every time I’ve been upset at you, it’s been a misunderstanding. More or less. You were shitty about Almachadta. I don’t know … I don’t know when to speak up or when to try to get over it myself. My instinct is to tell you and Awa everything, but then I don’t know if it’s that’s annoying or … I don’t know. I don’t know, and I’m too scared to ask.”

: “Could asking hurt in any way?”

: “It feels like you completely changed yourself in the span of a couple days for me when we started dating. What if you do that again? What if it’s my fault for being a fuckup?”

: “Hmm…”

: “I don’t know, have I changed so drastically since then again?”

shakes her head.

: “Wouldn’t it make more sense then, to assume it was simply me settling into myself and the timing of you asking to be together was, perhaps not a coincidence, but simply only a part of that?”

tries to look into his eyes, briefly, but is too close to do so with any grace or without suddenly having the ability to crane her neck at shocking and odd angles. “Yeah. That. Makes a lot more sense, doesn’t it? It also doesn’t … your will is your own, isn’t it? And anyone who forgets that forgets it at their own peril.”

: “Yeah I mean, you can be kinda bossy but not that much.”

laughs, a little tentative and wetly, but a real laugh. She scoots closer, curling up beside him. “I think … I’ve maybe also been thinking a lot about what it means. To have the power we have, and the … obligation to use it well, when we don’t know the answers. And I think maybe I got in my head, thinking that I’m somehow strong enough to reshape you? And … if you could tell me that’s not true, I’d appreciate it.”

tilts his head to one side, thinking.

: “It’s probably more like… the water to a riverbed? You can enact change, but it’s small and gradual, something that builds up slowly over time, in ways you might not even notice when observing it directly? Nothing so dramatic as an earthquake.”

is quiet for a moment, and then says, “That … yeah. Makes sense. Is a … really lovely metaphor, I think.” She reaches to curl one of her arms around his torso. “When I—when I was trying to think, if Jorule was right, if I … was lying to myself, about what I felt, if I was harming you somehow, I—I didn’t know what I’d do if the answer was yes. I didn’t want the answer to be yes, and I was scared it was. I always do that, you know. But I kept thinking I didn’t know how I’d be who I am without you, or without Awa, because you’re both part of me now.” She is, of course, crying again. “I’m sorry I guess I’m a fucking faucet today.”

gently brings his free hand up to run his hand through her hair. “It’s fine. Seems like Mu’s been A Lot for you in particular.”

: “I mean, we did start off strong with you getting fatally wounded, if only briefly. But it’s … I’ve been off-kilter, yeah. And thinking a lot. Some of it has been useful but some of it has been … I don’t know. Probably not useful? And then the heart …” ⁂

: “The thing with the caves, with dark, cramped places, is … it’s that it reminds me of the shrine on Almachadta? And I’ve. I dwell on the shrine a lot. I … try not to, but,” she shrugs. “And I knew we’d be going down, and I thought—I didn’t want to hold everyone up because I was having a panic attack about it. So I found a way around it with the tenebrous … somatic assumption trick. And I thought … it wouldn’t be like that. It’s just a cave, it’s not the shrine. I’m not walking to the end of the world. And then. I mean, it wasn’t that, but it also kinda was? And I know no one was having a good time but.” She shrugs. 🙧

: “That all makes sense to me, yeah. I mean, it’s different, but I guess it feels more different because I didn’t spend half my life digging into the Mask’s memory banks.”

: “No. You only got the short-form trauma summary,” she says, but she sounds amused. “I had meant … I had actually meant to ask if there were … if you had questions about what I was thinking? You know, before I flounced off to the City and spent the night in a brothel. I think you might try to read me sometimes and … it’s also okay to ask? I like being asked.”

: “Well, I think now I am obligated to ask why you spent the night in a brothel? I had assumed you had something important you needed to reference in the library archives or something.”

: “I wanted to talk to the elemental in the red column.”

: “I bet that was nice and relaxing.”

: “I was angry, and it was … when we first met it—them—their name is Algol. Anyway, when we first met, they looked at me and I looked back and it wanted. Violence? And I thought … I was angry, and I could trade information and I could feed it scenes of violence from the Mask and if I was angry I wouldn’t feel too weird about it otherwise. The brothel was immaterial. One of the Rohsu gave me a recommendation. I didn’t want to go back to our rooms in the City by myself.”

: “I see. Did it have any interesting information?”

: “Yeah.”

: “I’ll tell you, but … tell me what you’re thinking first?”

: “I’m not thinking anything in particular about things I don’t know yet?”

nods. “I was right about the Stoicheia. They were once united—shade and elemental. They came untied from each other, were ‘clipped short’ when whatever moment the heart is trapped in actually happened. It can’t remember before that, and though it gloried in all sorts of violence it did not glory in that. Algol is shade and elemental reunited. A long time ago, one of the yazhn of yazhn wore a shade and threw himself into the mouth of an elemental. The Red Column was the result, and the glassy explosion is what remains of his body.”

: “The shade part of Algol, the glyphs, they’re kind and thoughtful. The elemental part is cruel. Algol said it wasn’t cruel, before it was severed. I believe them? I tried to see if I could help repair the thread of memory to see the past before the moment where they were severed, but the Glory told me, ‘It would take a miracle.’ Of course.”

: “Makes sense.”

: “Sure. We’re going to need a lot of fucking miracles at this rate.”

: “Apocalypses do tend to be like that, yeah.”

breathes out. “I did … also get confirmation from Jae. It is the Beast that devours Almachadta. That’s sort of an aside, but. At least it’s not the dead terror bird-bat corpse in the sky.”

makes a face. “That’s stupid.”

: “…Not you, the situation.”

: “Yeah I mean I figured. Though. Why ‘stupid’?”

: “It didn’t look like a creature from the telescope.”

: “And if it eats it, how the hell does it regrow? And why would that destroy Beast itself?”

: “I think it’s the Mother of Monsters specifically? And I think she rips out of the skin of the Beast, if I had to guess? I think everyone on the Beast dies first.” She keeps her voice level, but she squeezes Aurelius a little tighter. “I don’t know, though. Didn’t ask. I’m really ruining my reputation for invasive questions, but I’ve found she really only will confirm if I get something right.”

: “How does that tie into Samudra? Just get so haungry it needs to drink up the entire endless expanse of water and then it shits out an almachadta seed, pissed out another water world and curls back up for another nappy??? Ridiculous.”

laughs for real then, though it’s more like a cackle. “I have wondered if Samudra was Her being real thirsty and having a big drink. Caion wondered once if maybe the Beast was a messy eater.” Laughs again, harder. “I’m sorry the apocalypse is aesthetically displeasing, Aurelius.”

: “Uuugh it’s so dumb. At least make the Beast a tiger or something. Giant ball eats other giant ball. Stupid!!”

: “She may be a tiger! We don’t know! She’s got thirteen eyeballs. That’s the best I can do.” She laughs again, having to bury her face in his shoulder to keep from just completely losing it.

: “I don’t know if “tiger, curled up into the world’s most perfect orb’ is really much better… at least other weird Animal Worlds have the decency to look like giants from the outside, or turtles with plates on their shells or whatever.“*

: “Eh.”

: “Well again, I think She … hm. Did I not accession that memory? I think She rips through the skin of the Beast. Jae said she hasn’t been able to find any physical sign of Her on the planet’s surface. Though, I say that knowing you’ll probably just reply that you don’t think she looked hard enough.”

: “Eh!”

: “Goddess above, the Architect thought these were good worlds? The hell was he smoking.”

: “To be fair, these are the ones he says the Omniclast broke? The mosaic pieces left over.” She’s quiet for a moment. “I have another annoying feelings question.”

: “Hmm?”

: “We talked a lot about. Me. What I want and need. Is this. Is this still worth it for you? Even with how I am? And all the mess? Do you like us being together?”

: “Its felt like it was working to me.”

: “Aury. Do you like being together? I think we’re working too, problems aside. Do you like … this?” She wiggles slightly, implying that the way they’re entwined together is part of ‘this.’

: “I mean… sure? Yes? Like. If we’re being perfectly honest? Probably not nearly as much as you do? But it’s nice on occasion. If I didn’t like it at all I probably wouldn’t be here. You’ve said, more than once, that it’s not my job to manage or ‘fix’ you or whatever other possible thing you might be able to think up would be reason enough to Deal With It even if I didn’t like it at all.”

is quiet for a moment, and then says, “Well. That was honest. I do appreciate it.” She’s quiet for a longer a moment. “Wait. Did you think I was talking about physical intimacy only, or … dating, generally? Being a couple?”

: “Both?”

: “Ah.”

: “I don’t think I feel things as strongly as you do, in general though so this shouldn’t really be too surprising?”

: “That might be true. I’m not you, so I don’t know. I … I mean, I guess, maybe I’m a little confused? About … you’ve said you loved me? But that this is just … nice on occasion? I guess I have a hard time making sense of those two things. Unless ‘I love you’ is just a thing you say?”

shakes his head. “Degrees of intensity, or, I guess, need? I’m not saying I can’t love, just that I can love in smaller doses. The difference between someone that goes out of their way to eat their favorite food several times a week, versus someone that might only go out of their way for it after a few months but otherwise would still pick if it presented with the choice.”

nods slowly. “I think … okay. I think I understand that and I’m okay with that. I think …” she laughs a little. “I’m a bit of a romantic at heart, so we might have some mismatches there, but I also think—there’s something romantic about working toward something together too? Building trust, and figuring out the world? Just being together as friends and Clan as well as partners?”

: “As long as the intensity from me isn’t a turnoff? I can also tone it down if necessary.”

: “It’s been fine so far, as I said.”

: “I guess I’ll let you know if it ever isn’t?”

nods.

: “The other thing I had wanted to mention … I had wanted to take you down to where the amphilyke pillars are, since you said you liked caves, but I don’t know if you want to relocate right now, but. I’ve been working through some things down there. And … the other day I caught something’s attention. I don’t know what. It wasn’t the Omniclast.”

: “Hmm…”

: “It was when I … I was doing some experiments with somatic assumption. Once I pulled liminal into myself and ascended I knew, very precisely, ‘That got someone’s attention.’”

: “How many weird ass disembodied people are just laying around here…?”

snorts. “A lot, apparently. I also … when I was just …” she shakes her head. “I’m going to sound insane.”

considers who she’s talking to.

: “I mean…”

: “Yeah, yeah, you haven’t taken the escape hatch so we’re in this together. The other thing was … when I realized that the amphilyke columns were the same as—hm. You haven’t seem Wolf’s mystical crystal tree in his garden room have you? At any rate, they’re the same material. And I was …”

: “Okay, so I don’t know if it was tied to the tenebrous somatic assumption, but I was in that state, and then I saw something? A shaggy-haired wolf-dog, with pointy ears and bright eyes? And it was curled at the base of one of the pillars and it almost greeted me? And then it was gone?”

: “I think it might have had something to do with death? I just … these are probably more Wolf questions than Aurelius questions, but. I don’t know.”

: “I think, whatever is going on, there are more players than just Architect and Omniclast, I suppose?”

: “Yeah, I got nothin’ there.”

: “Not much of a materials science guy outside of fiend recipes, and ‘death wolf’ isn’t sparking anything. And I didn’t even know about somatic bullshit until yesterday.”

: “I already gave Luĉja several samples, and … honestly, I didn’t even know about somatic bullshit until yesterday.” Aurelius can’t see her raising an eyebrow, but she is raising one. “Though I see how you feel about that particular technique.”

rolls a shrug. “Seems really energy, effort, and concentration intensive for minimal payback.”

: “I mean, I’d say ‘not being roasted alive’ was worthwhile. I think also being able to breathe under water would be neat? Holding all three was … well. Again. An exercise in self-understanding.” She shrugs. “The understanding isn’t important, really. I suppose it’s just … I’m not Wolf. And I’m willing to accept that I’m fucking weird in my own ways, but I’m not ‘getting random visions’ weird.”

: “Though I guess things change. I guess I thought it was important to … let you know it was happening, and again that there’s … other weird-ass disembodied people.”

: “Yeah, you can just use enchantments for all those things though.”

: “And no you are that weird.”

: “Have been for a while.”

: “Peril of inviting every strange creature you meet into your home. Word gets around.”

: “So, I guess we’ll just… keep an eye out for that now.”

: “I’m not really that good with enchantments if they don’t use textiles?”

: “Which, I guess, is a good thing I have you?”

: “Not much sense in having a lot of skill overlap in a group this small, yeah.”

nods a bit at the rest. “I think that’s all I had. Algol asked me to bring Awa back for a visit, and I do want to talk to Ravhi.”

doesn’t move.

: “Alright.”

: “Would you appreciate my weird cave rocks, or is that not your speed?”

: “We could probably go down there if you wanna stretch your legs and aren’t particularly expecting any revelations.”

: “I’m pretty sure I’ve wrung every revelation out of that place. It’s just kind of cool to look at?” She doesn’t move for a moment, and then slowly disentangles herself.

stands, stretches, and offers her hand to him. “Come with me?”

: “Of course.”