4th Quest [Audio, early morning] [Dawntrail spoilers]

[bladeofnymeia]

[She's awake. Has been, since the weakest strains of dawn. But Firoza has not the energy or the desire to project any image of herself when she makes this post. She just wishes to speak to someone. Anyone. Even if no one deigns to respond.]

...So these months. The ones where new arrivals begin to appear. The hazy ones.

[A pause. A stifled sigh.]

They feel as dreams sometimes. Especially when whomever you met does not remain once the air clears. And...I am not opposed to dreams. Bittersweet though they might be. But it does make me wonder something.

[As much as Firoza is keeping her tone even, the emotion that seeps out is palpable. Heavy, tender sorrow. Longing and loneliness, and...a sparkling, defiant mote of hope.]

Do you think...a-and if this is personal to you, please, do not feel you have to respond. But could it be possible that the living are not the only ones who can find themselves here? That...that those who ought to have passed on, in one way or another, could still...appear?

[Just gripping those fuzzy memories of reuniting to her heart, bidding them not to escape. It would be too much.]

I ask only because...well. I adore you all, truthfully. Even if we have not been introduced properly. But I cannot ignore how sorely I miss so many from home. Both those who live, and those who do not. I just...even in a new form, I...I'd like to be a little selfish, and hope to see them again.

[She ends it there, but not without a definite sense of being torn by this desire. Both an insistent palm pressed to a deep bruise, and a gnawing worry tinged with gold.

"Am I as they were? So desperate to preserve their dead, allowing them no rest, no renewal? Stagnant and ever present in a dream?"

The thought doesn't mean to come out, but it does. Oh, it does.]

Comments

[shotinhead]

[ You know, he learned a lot from that. And he'd be putting that in his memories, things he could ask about later.

But his voice is a bit quiet now. ] So you and one of them were shards of a whole. [ He wonders, in a way, if that's what it's like with him and his brain, but he seems to be reluctant to speak on himself, once again. ] And the other was somebody good, in your mind. Yeah, I can see why you'd want them back.

[bladeofnymeia]

[Please do, give her an excuse to lore dump.]

Mm, that's right. I know it's not the easiest of things to understand, but...it's the truth. I can't explain it any other way.

[shotinhead]

Nah, it's sort of...

[ You have unlocked another friendship event! Over. Over the network. ]

Man. I'd say don't tell people, but we know people are listenin'. But back home? I was sort of two different things. Actually, it's sorta weird knowin' I'm back in one piece here.

[bladeofnymeia]

[Social link get!!!]

We could...perhaps make the connection more private? There must be a way to think very hard, and ward our thoughts from all but each other - because now I sorely wish to know the story behind this.

[shotinhead]

Or perhaps we can meet in person. You know, somewhere usual, so people aren't tryin' to listen in or follow.

[ It was said calmly, and there was almost relief in his thought-voice. ]

[bladeofnymeia]

...That is a much smarter plan. But now I don't know if I ought to ask what kind of usual place might suit us.

[She could scale his apartment building again if she had to?]

[shotinhead]

...somewhere convenient for you this time? I can, uh. Go anywhere.

[ There's a pang of something, though. He doesn't want to go underground, anything but that. ]

[bladeofnymeia]

Maybe somewhere on the main thoroughfare of the Bay would work.

[Vague enough that no one nosy would know where to lie in wait, but distinct enough to find each other. Heck, they could go have some tea or a snack or something too, if Six needed a little encouragement.]

[shotinhead]

[ A little bit of a grunt. ]

See you there.

[ And... silence. Seems he's headed out. It's almost thankful that he's somebody easy to spot in a crowd, right? ]

[transition to action?]

[bladeofnymeia]

[Nope, he's not hard to find at all. Wherever he is on the main road, Firoza finds him, smiling kindly as she approaches.]

Well, well, fancy meeting you here.

[It's a joke, and a silly little one.]

action :D

[shotinhead]

Howdy, stranger. [ He says, playfully, as he begins to walk - to her side. As soon as they're moving, he begins to talk. ] So. My whole thing doesn't deal with a soul. Because, uh. Where I come from, souls are just stories. I guess. Well, I believe in 'em, but not everybody does.

[bladeofnymeia]

[She keeps pace, listening. An interesting idea, to consider a world where its people did not believe in the soul. It's hard for her to imagine since it's so central to life and known knowledge - and her lived experience, encountering the souls of friends in the Lifestream itself being just one example.]

You believe in them, but...this isn't about souls. Okay. What is it about, then?

[shotinhead]

[ Deep breath. Time to explain, as he walks, leaning down slightly. He can do this. He won't be judged for it. He hopes. ]

So. The whole soul thing also sort of comes into this? But not fully.

To understand what I meant by-- how I got it, you and your pals' connection, gonna have to go back a few steps. Uh. So there I was back home, travellin' with a few of my friends. The doctor I've mentioned before, and my dogs. And then we saw a weird fallen satellite. It was still working, though? Projecting an image onto a screen.

I touched the satellite, because what else would you do? And. Uh. I blacked out. [ A pause, a beat. ] Accordin' to my doctor pal when I got back, it looked like I'd been vaporized. Like I'd died right in front of him.

[bladeofnymeia]

[She listens. Doesn't seem too shocked by the idea of weird technology falling from the sky doing weird shit. Just sounds like the wreckage of Dalamund to be honest. And, yeah, she gets it, you see a weird thing, you touch it. But-]

Vaporized...? I...can't quite visualize, I...is it akin to electrocution?

[She hasn't been turbo-electrocuted by an eternal child prodigy yet, but it's coming.]

[shotinhead]

[ How to explain it... ]

It's sort of like. He thought my body had been turned to just dust, being burned away into nothing. Painful way to die. Sorta like electrocution, I guess?

[ A deep sigh. Spoken like he's seen it too much. ]

Anyway, I was there one moment. Sudden pain. Then I woke up on a balcony elsewhere after being... tampered with. [ His voice drops more, his tail dragging behind him. ] Turns out the teleport was linked to some mad science lab in an old crater. Didn't use to be a crater, mind you. But hey, I wanted some fuckin' answers. 'course I did. So I stormed back into whatever fucking building I'd been pulled into.

[ A pause. It seems he's about to say a lot, so he is letting her say anything she needs. ]

[bladeofnymeia]

Gods...

[That's. That's fucking terrifying. That's as if you were instantly burned away in a fire, or totally incinerated by a plethora of magitek weaponry. Her brow is furrowed worriedly, because she's well aware that the man next to her is whole and alive in this dragon body, but still.

Still!]

...I probably would have done the same. Gotten angry, went looking for answers. Did you find them...?

cw: medical trauma, surgery (?)

[shotinhead]

[ There is a deep sigh, as his movements slow to a stop. ]

Yeah. Well, I found the fuckers, but-- okay. So. They were scientists who'd turned themselves into brains in jars, give-or-take, so they could live forever and do more research. With screens, too. And had forgotten what people were.

[ A snort. ] They thought fingers were dicks, for one.

Anyway. In this place where they were experimenting - Big MT, but we called it Big Empty because it was that crater-- [ Oh, he is yapping on, seeming anxious for once, looking to himself. ] --well. They'd taken parts of me while I was asleep, replacing 'em with technology. My heart, spine, and...

[ Deep breath. He can do this. Looking right at her. Tail pressed to the ground. One of his claws going to the scar around his head. ]

Well, my brain. But I was still acting like myself, even with my brain removed. Replaced with-- well. Technology bullshit.

CW: Endwalker and Dawntrail Spoilers for sure

[bladeofnymeia]

[Firoza slows along with him. Stops. Becomes very still, the more of the tale that unravels.

People who abandon their flesh to live on. To continue their ambitions, to push onward towards a spiraling abyss of horror. To insist upon impressing the fate they had created for themselves upon others, and for that which once made them to be stripped away and forgotten.

She had seen it with the Ea. With the Omicrons. With the Endless, to a degree.

Firoza reaches out a paw without hesitation to reach out to Six's free hand, if she can even reach it. If he'd accept the contact as comfort.]

That shouldn't have happened to you. They shouldn't have...you didn't get a choice. I...

[It feels trite to apologize for something she didn't do. But still. It does solidify something in her heart, something that a friend once had presented to confront despair. That whatever made someone themselves was much more than their bodies, their minds, their souls, even if it was hard to define. Because Courier Six was still himself, despite it all, if he felt it was so.]

[shotinhead]

...I didn't get a choice.

[ He repeated, quietly. But in the way he doesn't feel like he has choice quite often. ]

But... I mean... I--

[ A little sigh. His expression dropped more, trying to not explain every single thing. He has so many stories, and yet, he needs to focus. He took her paw, gently, claw to paw. ] Thankfully. Uh. My brain was still alive. Put in one of those tanks, not a floating one but one that gave it a voice. It-- it and me were separate. And holding different thoughts.

Dawntrail Spoilers

[bladeofnymeia]

[Clutching that claw with her little paw!!!!]

...I can imagine it. Unfortunately.

[She's just. Thinking about the split between the Otis who lived on to take care of Gulool Ja in Heritage Found, and the one who had continued on in Living Memory. (Because she did not get to everything with Actual Living Sphehe by her canon point.)]

So wh...what...happened?

[shotinhead]

...we talked, me and him. He was given a voice by the machine he was in. [ Perrin, notably, can't help but still call his brain male. Gender stuff is hard! But he seems to be dropping his voice more and more, his claw - still wrapped around Fizoras' hand - tightening. ]

He decided to stay behind. Stay safe, after the threat of the Think Tank was pacified. [ His voice is a whisper, as if he's telling a secret. And perhaps, in a way, he is. ] He hated me, after all. For how much of a risk I was. [ At least, that's how he saw it. ]

[bladeofnymeia]

[I mean, it's...their gender? Gender is gender, and how you feel you are is how you are. How could it be weird? Unless brains just...since they were only brains, were too good for the concept? Mm, best to leave that kind of pondering for someone smarter and more educated on the subject.]

Hated you? But...even if you were separate, you were once one. [Unless this is a self-loathing thing, which she could understand a bit more.] He couldn't have existed without you in the first place.

[shotinhead]

...He'd prefer to be safe and scheming, I guess. But, I mean. It is true he wouldn't exist without me. I told him that, but.

...Well. I feel sort of bad since I seem to have him back here.

[bladeofnymeia]

...Huh?

[Wh. Huh? What? Wait. What??]

How - how do you know?

[shotinhead]

First of all, I don't have any tech in this head, unless you've seen me glowin' blue though my scars. And, like... I have a heartbeat back, so I probably have the rest of it.