1816/The Eternal Painting

The Eternal Painting
Date of Scene:	15 March 2015
Location:	A Quiet World
Synopsis:	Mizuki and Riva have a chat about the former's goals.
Cast of Characters:	183, Riva Banari

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Mizuki (183) has posed:
    The atmosphere around the Clock Tower has been quiet enough that Riva can likely hear the gentle echo of that building's ticks shortly after she's emerged from the warpgate. Yes, much has changed here since those first few days; where once Palora and Callia would have waited at the door and held it for any visitors, now it simply hangs ajar on the providence of some unseen stop. Where before fantastic visuals could be glimpsed from every direction, now all Riva would see are the ghostly impressions of those things -- silhouettes wrought from a pen that left the mortal coil too early to fill them in with colors from the palette of life. But ah, you've heard enough those tales of woe; you've been told too much of them, and now as their echoes swirl about your ears they've lost the shock with which to burn them. So let us not belabor this any further and hasten you forth to the tower.

    And past that door,

    and up the chasm of the elevator's shaft where the door to the artist's room could be glimpsed,

    and to the final stop where Mizuki waits upon her 'throne' of epochs.

    The air is stagnant -- that much has always been true since the moment any from the Multiverse had trespassed upon its solemnity. If it had ever seemed not to be, it would only have been lost on account of the presence of other beings from abroad, for they bring with them a sort of warmth that, in this waking dream, could never exist. Even Mizuki, all her nuanced passion considered, could never be a substitute for the vividness of a human heart. No, she is something else entirely... or so the picture of one's approach would have them believe. But in this world it must be remembered that every hall you walk and every thing you feel has been touched by Mizuki's own hand; as such, she has her subtle way of tempting preconception. Now that people have begun to know her and see this more fully, it's clear she feels not only for her life, but the impression she would leave were her being to be struck from history's parable.

    Though, enough! Mizuki would speak to cull the winds of reflection as soon as Riva has come within the distance that her speech should carry: "Again, Miss Banari, I bid you a pleasant evening. I'm rather pleased to welcome you back on a less... dire note, but I must admit our tone may become more serious as the minutes wear on nevertheless. First, though," She would gesture to her couch, "I would have you sit. There will be tea, if you wish for some; I am sure you already know how to acquire it."

Riva Banari has posed:
A world that stands on the razor-edge of the abyss. In a word, that is much of what Riva would use to describe such a place. She has had a chance to see both the wonders and fantastic nature of this world of imagination and story, only to be playing an active part in helping to destroy it. The act of doing so has left its mark on more than Mizuki herself, though Riva smiles nonetheless.

Smile in the darkness, smile in the light. That's always been how she's operated, and goodness willing, always will. So it is that she walks through the Clock Tower, her shoes echoing as she continues to take in the area, the architecture and paintings, seeking out detail with thirsty eyes. One hand fidgets with the new oversized paintbrush in a leather holder at her side, the Core Matrix at the fuller showing that it is in fact an Abstractum, but she remains quiet.

It's Mizuki's voice that jolts Riva out of her reverie. Where Mizuki is self-contained and proper, Riva very much shows most of her emotion on her sleeves. She looks up at Mizuki with a wide smile, and she picks up the pace, speedwalking up towards Mizuki herself and giving a little wave. "Oh, Mizuki, it's wondeful to see you again!" She plops down on the couch, perhaps insistant on not giving in to the propriety that Mizuki cloaks herself in. With a snap of her hand, a china teacu appears as if through sleight of hand, porcelain white with red chasing. She holds it out away from the couch, and a stream of hot tea pours out of some unknown location to perfectly fill the cup. Riva is scrunching her face a little, apparently not as used to exercising things this way, but that doesn't keep three lumps of sugar from plopping into the teacup from that same unknowable height, dissolving in the hot liquid just in time for Riva to take a sip. "Mmm. Nice." She chuckles, and then sets the cup on a small stand of swirled mahogany and glass and a saucer in a matching theme to the teacup, that weren't there a moment before. "I'd say it's been too long, but to someone who doesn't seem to quite obey linear time, it's probably the perfect time for you, eh?" She arches an eyebrow. "There's so much we could be talking about. Where do we even begin?"

Mizuki (183) has posed:
    Riva, as usual, gets a smile from Mizuki; ever unwilling to have her upbeat manner interrupted by Mizuki's own 'foreboding'. Truth be told, she likes that. She often wishes that more people would react that way, earnestly, even though she's often just as satisfied by the reactions of people who treat her with gentility or trepidation. But the less said of that; she's not entirely proud of how she tends to play with people. Not anymore, anyway.

    "It's rather nice to see you, too, Miss Banari." Her grin softens just in time to make for a more graceful hello. "And, yes, there is very much we could talk about. Though I'd prefer I discussed the less pleasant aspects of conversation before the nicer so that, when the latter comes, it will be more of a reprieve. Doing things the other way would leave an unsavory taste when you leave, and I know neither of us want that." She would stop to summon a teacup here, too, gingerly lifting the thing to her lips and letting a bit of the liquid slide into her mouth. Once she's finished, however, she would get straight to the point.

    "You have seen a good number of disturbing things lately, have you not?" She would straighten her posture; the distinct way in which her body is seen in profile and struck against the stained glass in the background is almost like something one might see in a painting. "You have seen what I believe the future might hold. You have seen the form which my heaven would assume. So I must ask," She would turn to look at her for a moment, "what do you make of it all?" She would allow those words to linger in the air a moment. "I have heard word from Psyber. I know how Arthur feels, and Eryl -- all three of them are more concerned for my well-being than they are of my ambitions. Then there is Kimiko, and Homura, but I presume to ask nothing of them. But you." She would pause another moment.

    "You," She would echo, "have thought otherwise. You worry. As much as you continue to smile, I sense that there is a nuance to it now. As much as I trust that your ally-ship - and perhaps even friendship - with me are genuine, do you hold concern beyond that which would confirm my well-being?" Another moment of pause in which she briefly runs a hand across her face. "I suppose what I mean to ask is, to put things more clearly, this: do you worry about what I might do once all this is over? Would it put your mind at ease if I would elucidate my personal ambitions? I'm afraid I can do little to comfort you with regards to how this particular narrative will end, though, unfortunately; I am every bit as uncertain as you must be. But it has never been in my nature to worry so over the present moment; not even when it concerns my longevity. So I would prefer to discuss this with you now, so that I might find you well on the other side of all this."

Riva Banari has posed:
Riva seems content to stay wedged in an exceptionally comfortable spot on the couch. It's not nearly as dignified as Mizuki, but that's just how she rolls. Most of the time. "All right, let's get the meat of the matter out of the way first." She nods at that, sighing for a moment. "I'm extremely worried about you, Mizuki," She admits, "But maybe not in the same way the others are. You.... You're different. You're not like anyone else I've ever known, or ever will know, I think. You're unique among infinite realities."

She tilts her head, her red ponytail flopping to one side as she looks over Mizuki. "You're a being where thought and reality are the same thing. I honestly find you and these worlds you have made to be fascinating." She pauses, then looks away, continuing a little nervously. "But when you think about it, it can be terrifying, too."

    She lets that hang in the air for a moment. "It's like..." Riva gestures, as if looking for some words. "Well, this world. It's all part of you. It's all part of who and what you are. I understand what you're doing here and why we're doing it, but there's two things."

It's at this point, she looks directly back at Mizuki, folding her hands as she leans forward and rests her elbows on her knees. "I'm worried that in the process of doing this, you might lose what makes you /you/. And that might be a reason why I am worried about the other thing."

She sighs. "You're trapped in a cycle. You learn this eventually every time, I'm pretty sure. How many times did you try to break it like that? How many times have you tried to make that future, and why? The people might not have been the same, but I get the feeling this might not have been the first time. What are you really trying to do, Mizuki? What are your real goals?"

Mizuki (183) has posed:
    Mizuki would massage her forehead somewhat as Riva finishes. She would allow for another, long pause as she contemplates her method of reply. It's a bit ironic -- she had seemed more than ready to begin this discourse just moments ago, but now that her visitor has clearly established her precedents, everything has become more difficult. "I believe Arthur might share some of your concerns but is either too caught up in the narrative to fully understand what they mean, or otherwise much better than either of us realize at masking his understanding of things. Given who he is," She might sneak a smile here, "I would presume it's more the latter, but one never knows. Perhaps his personality is more 'layered', as it were; set up so that people will find something buried underneath the primary facade and believe they've seen all there is to see when, in reality, more lies beneath even that. But already I've begun to digress. Forgive me."

    Mizuki, too, would raise her head into the air and exhale. Her eyes would close. "... this world is the product of an experiment that has been running for ages. Until recently I had thought that the cycle of which you speak was structured thusly: I would be born. I would live. I would come close to realizing what it might take to achieve my goals, and then a monster from my own subconscious - Apathy - would manifest and destroy everything, causing my world to reset." She would finally bring herself to look more directly at Riva again. "You see, I had thought all this was purely symbolic. I initially knew who Apathy was because I had read about her in accounts..." She would bite her lip. "... I tell you this in the strictest confidence, but in accounts written by my previous incarnations. Each kept journals, and encouraged me to do the same. And every one eventually wrote a note mentioning that the 'time to use the clock had come', after which the memoirs abruptly would end."

    "But." She would raise her hand in a flattened, rigid palm before curling it again to her forehead. "This means, yes, that there is some cycle in place here -- a cycle I do not fully understand. This means that I have tried to do what I plan to before, and failed. I do not know if you recall, but one of the Sentinels -- the Arch Curate -- once said this: 'If you allow this cycle to be broken, she will have the opportunity to destroy worlds'. In a distant sense..." She would take a breath. "In a distant sense, this is what I plan to do. But I will explain this momentarily. First, I will say that the fact my Sentinels are so fully aware of this even when I had never allowed that information to be shared on the cognitive network all beings in my world belong to suggests that information came from some outside source. Second, it would insinuate whatever that 'outside source' is does not wish for me to accomplish my goals. Ergo, this whole narrative -- all that we've been fighting to resist -- may simply be a cage of circumstance erected aeons ago by some being who wished to restrict me. Apathy may be that being."

    "So." She would rap her fingers gingerly on the crown of her couch. "That would... beg the explanation. What are my goals that they should /have/ to be limited? Why should anyone seek to stop me? Well." She would look off into a corner of the room. In a more hushed tone, she would repeat, "Well." Again, her eyes would close. "I want to preface all this by saying my experiences in the Multiverse have caused me to... rethink things. Not so completely that what I am about to share with you is out of the question, but enough... that I doubt its necessity." Mizuki would turn to face Riva fully, now. Her eyes dart open with a sort of pronounced intensity. Her expression is one that has abandoned all pretense of coyness.

Mizuki (183) has posed:
    "I seek to fathom a perfect world -- a utopia -- in which beings may live. My world is a working experiment into this ideal. In tandem, I also seek to create the perfect mind to experience that world; something that can never grow bored, but will always seek to better itself. Something that will fully comprehend the needs, wishes, and emotions of every being in creation, but still treat each of those beings as a distinct entity. And, most importantly," She would narrow her eyes slightly, "to craft a consciousness that is entirely removed from biological inclination. Something that, while appearing a vague impression of humanity, is distinctly separate from it because it has distanced itself from the ghost of a sense of need. Need is that thing which I have identified as the root cause of all fear and, by extension, all anger and conflict. If one could remove need while somehow retaining the sheer variety of feelings that make up the human experience, I would like to do so."

    "And then," She would fold her hands together, neatly, "I would like to set those essences about a collective purpose. I would like to ingrain in every one of those individual minds a tangible and consistent sense of justice, of happiness, of sadness. I would like to make all those concepts we call 'abstract' concrete more fully, and to make humanity the romanticized thing that your modern societies have begun to think. I would reform the human essence such that it could still feel, think, and experience with all the complexity that it does now, but so that it is also free from the limitations that make those things necessary. So, in short?" She would fold her arms behind herself. "I seek to create a new mind -- an ideal mind. I seek to create a perfect world in which that mind may dwell, and I seek to create a purpose for all those things to follow. More than that, I seek to etch superlatives upon the fabric of time in space so that reality itself will prefer goodness, and abhor violence. I wish to reshape the world in our image."

    She would give Riva some time to parse all this before continuing, but when she does, "I know. This is all very dangerous. And I know, there is a phenomenally slim chance of its success. I am all too painfully aware of how inept an attempt at this the Book of Heaven must have appeared to be, but know this: I understand now that people are too complex to be satisfied by only their most 'happy' fantasies. I would imbue... the plane that I usher into being with all the good, and the bad. It would be a world where all things end happily, but not one where all would be good. There would be firm, consistent regulation, but those participating in the dream I would create would never realize it in large enough capacity to be displeased by anything some might call 'prosthetic' or 'immaterial'. The dream would simply be reality. There would be no question. But how to fool the mind so thoroughly, and how to do this in a way that would truly be preferable to what this world affords, is something I am still ruminating on at present. My thoughts are inconclusive. My platitudes are not enough. But the moment I come to understand you and all those I've met with the complexity I need to, I would seek to rebuild this world in such a way that would better serve you, and never give you more burden than you are capable of shouldering."

Riva Banari has posed:
Well, she asked for it.

Riva poked at the dam and got a flood of information. Mizumi passionately (relatively) describes her driving goal, the true nature of what she wants to accomplish.

And Riva can say nothing for several seconds, trying to comprehend the structure of what Mizuki is trying to do. Her eyes are wide in surprise as she tries to understand what she says... And she's not sure she understands all of it.

But she might understand enough. "But..." She finally replies. "How can anything like that... exist? Is that how you made this world? These people in it? You have been trying to find a way to create a new mind, experiment with what it means to be human, try to figure out how we work? Is that it?"

Still kind of stunned, she shakes her head again, as if trying to clear it. "Okay, I need to dial this back, we're going to need to talk about a /lot/ of this and there's no way I can take this all at once. I'm no supergenius catboy here."

She reaches over and drains down her extremely sweet tea, the invigorating beverage helping to jolt her senses into moving even if it's not actually real. She looks at the teacup speculatively for a moment, and then puts it back down, turning her attention back to Mizuki. "Needs are what drives us, Mizuki. People need comfort. People need to eat and drink. People need to feel happy. People need the presence of others. How are you going to make someone that doesn't have any of those things, but still understands other people? How will it empathize with humanity? How will we understand it? Will they understand it because you tell them what it is? How do you know your interpretation is correct? Why would you need to tell someone how to feel, think, and empathize?"

She'll get ot the rest of it later.

Mizuki (183) has posed:
    Mizuki would shake her head a moment once Riva replies, but it's gentle; not the sort that one would expect from a zealot chastising someone for not understanding their ambitions on their first attempt. It would have followed naturally from the content of her words, but it seems she's not quite so vehement as she may have come off after all. "... I don't recall how I made this world. No records exist of when it was built, so we may never know. But that is what I utilize it for now, at least. For instance." She would stare directly at Riva a moment, taking her hand if she's allowed to. She would squeeze her palm before retracting her grasp. "That sensation. You feel it with an artificial form. Whenever someone enters this realm, they... 'sleep', for lack of a better word, and project a form that functions, feels, and appears identical to the one they are accustomed to. This is accomplished rather similarly: this 'you' is made manifest by your expectations of yourself combined with the expectations of any others who know you who have come here."

    "At this instant," She would continue, "you lack any of those needs to which I referred. You are simply unaware of this fact. Unfortunately, this effect fails the moment you leave this place, and if you were to remain here..." Her eyes would close. "Things would become messy. Any entities that enter this realm and do not undergo a process of irrevocable conversion are eventually deprecated. When their biological form dies, their mind begins to go with it; after all, this projection is still something dependent on a brain to facilitate it. I have not observed the effects this process might have on an elite, given their unusual resistance to such changes, but I can only imagine they would be thrust out automatically as their biological needs become dissonant with their lack of them in this place." She would pause a moment. "But, do you understand? Speaking very technically, you lack need. All those things you experience in this place - hunger, thirst, et cetera - are all phantoms of those sensations. And yet, still, you are capable of empathizing with me due to your prior experience. Is this not so?"

    "The memory -- the conceptual imprint -- of understanding would survive in the collective unconscious that I have devised. People would not be aware of their reason for possessing empathy, nor even how they are capable of understanding others, but they would implicitly. Certain feelings necessary to the creation of an ideal mind, including pain, would be siphoned off where they would only unconsciously affect them." She would stare at her for a moment. "Does this make sense? Say, you had never experienced a loved one dying. Naturally you should not be able to fully comprehend the array of emotions being felt by another person who has, but because those memories exist in the collective unconscious, you implicitly can. And yet, you never have to experience that pain yourself. This is my -intention-, but even if these beings could not properly interact with the contemporary human, why would this be a concern if they were not able to interact with those beings anyway? What I create would not be human. It would have no cause to interact with anything outside of itself. Ergo, that is not truly a concern."

Mizuki (183) has posed:
    She would ball a fist, pressing it against the base of her chin. "Any other conceivable sensation would follow this principle. A universal memory, and all the feelings each individual thought would evoke, would be extrapolated to every inch of this world. Everyone would share in it. So long as the memory of all these feelings exists, so, too, will they be able to be felt. Essentially, because these feelings were, they will be, so long as a single being exists in this world to feel it. The only time that record would disappear would be when the last person dies, which should theoretically never occur given the beings would not have any natural cause for dying." She would conclude by reiterating, "People would thrive by continually nibbling away at the carcass of Man. Its experiences would become theirs. They would remember what it is to be human without themselves being human."

    Finally, though, Mizuki would take a break. She would raise a finger and take another sip from her teacup - still warm - and set it down. She would smile in attempt to lighten the mood. "Pardon my windedness. As I'm sure you've seen, I can become rather passionate about this. As I've said and will continue to say, though, none of this is certain. In this phase, I am still searching for answers. All I've mentioned... is just a possibility. Nothing more."

Riva Banari has posed:
Riva's hand gets squeezed, and she blinks. Mizuki then demonstrates that she is making a point, instead, and Riva's eyes drop for a moment as she listens. It's clear she's trying to understand that very complicated concepts being demonstrated here. "I understand you can take away biological needs pretty easily. I mean, look at Staren, or Rory White, or most of the immortal god-people running around. None of them /need/ to eat, drink, sleep, relieve themselves, or deal with the itty bitty details of life. There's been stories about that. I can understand not needing physical needs." She pauses. "... Maybe. I don't think I would enjoy it. Some of them aren't actually all that bad to deal with." She shrugs at that with a little smile. "Regardless..."

tShe holds out her hands, looking up at Mizuki as she tries to sketch out in her head what Mizuki is trying to do. "So you're trying to set up a kind of... communal pool of shared experiences that allow people to understand the emotional content of events without having experienced it themselves? I'm... not sure how I'd feel about that. How does someone who does not die understand death? You are creating a kind of echo chamber of experience? You want to create a perfect world, with perfect beings, but what does it matter if no one can ever see it and no one will be a part of it? Without interaction, you may as well just go back to the Book of Heaven."

She leans back on the couch. "You must have had a long time to think about these things, Mizuki. Some of these ideas are pretty out there. How would you even do it? But then..." She purses her lips and squints. "What do you mean by nibbling away at the carcass of Man? Is that supposed to just be metaphor, or do you have some kind of assimilation method where you add to this pool you want to create?"

Mizuki (183) has posed:
    Mizuki would smile to Riva, and nod her head. "Yes, it seems you have a good enough understanding of all I've described thus far. A 'communal pool' is an apt summary, though it would be one allows for selective involvement. People may withhold whatever of their own memories they wish to from it, but still draw whatever they choose to." And as for the bit about /enjoying/ needs? Well. "Now, I will concede that I never really understood how someone could enjoy physical need. Enjoying taste is one thing, yes; I myself happen to enjoy the taste of tea quite a lot. But if you can have all the good and none of the, say, pain of aging, while also gaining all the psychological benefits of experiencing that pain, what practicality is there in it?" She would shut her eyes a moment, widening her grin. She looks like she's about to laugh. "... goodness, I sound like Staren. But this is why he and I get along, I suppose; we're both causeless rebels. Both so lost in our own whims."

    The next thing would get a slight quirk of her brow though. 'No one could experience it?' This probably bears some further explanation. "People would be able to interact with this world, within the world as freely as they choose, but the delicate nature of it would necessitate that some caution be levied upon those entering. Ideally, I would be able to devise some metric that would act as a 'test' -- something that would judge the capacity one's soul has to merge well with the founding principles of the world. This would mean that no one with malicious intent or philosophies that deviate too far from that of the general populace would ever have the opportunity to enter its bounds, but. It does -not- mean that no-one would ever be allowed entry. Nor does it mean that all those within the world will not be able to interact with all the fullness of experience that people do in the Multiverse! The setting would be smaller, yes, but each of these joined worlds functioned fairly well before they unified. A smaller world is not necessarily a less desirable one."

    "Also," She would steeple her fingers, "you may think of this next thing as you might a computer. You can program a computer to 'blacklist' certain websites, yes? To prevent you from navigating to those places, even by accident? Over time, ideas -- say, narcissism, sexism, hierarchy -- would be systematically registered to this blacklist. People would not be able to consciously access memory of these things, nor would people who exhibit believe in these ideas to an undesirable degree ever be allowed within the world, but their denial would not mean that new ideas could never enter the world. And if an unsavory idea that I cannot presently fathom -does- breach? I will simply add that to the blacklist and thrust the source out of the world. And that would be that."

    But, ah, how would she do it? She shakes her head. "It's as simple as coming up with the idea. The laws of this world are fully malleable through a device of pure imagination, so that is all that it would take. Yes, the -difficult- part is finding a way to assimilate other worlds into the region in which that sort of direct alteration is possible. I have not yet been able to fathom a way to do that, but I have seen some promise in Abstractum. Abstractum provide a way for people to strike at pure concept. If I could research the methods behind that so that I could tear into the logic of each world individually, though, perhaps I could rewrite natural law itself. I know I must have done something similar to bring this world into being, but I am so infuriatingly unbeknown of the -how-."

Mizuki (183) has posed:
    Though, her analogy. Here she would allow herself a fleeting grin. "Ah, that. No, no, no -- nothing so melodramatic. The 'carcass of Man' refers to the shade of experience that comes from life as a human -- a biological creature that a purely spiritual and conceptual essence should not be able to understand. The analogy simply explains how the beings I create would be dependent on humanity for the experiences they inherit, and the mention of a 'carcass' implies that the humans in question would not be with us any longer when that feeding occurred. That is all." She would stop to take another sip of her tea. "Though. Yes. Ideally, I would discover some method of assimilation. That way the pool of thoughts would be fluid; new ideas would constantly be entering which would keep those inside from becoming complacent."

Riva Banari has posed:
"There is a lot to say for understanding the basics of the human condition. All of those little things add up and create environments that help shape how we think, look, and act." Riva gestures. "We all feel hunger and thirst. We all feel pain. Eventually, all of us will have to understand and come to terms with the idea of death. But what about other things? A relationship with someone else, for example. Love is an intesely powerful and personal thing that you just can't create or be told what it's like. There's a world of difference there. Friendships and companionship... Or what about the need to achieve? To leave a lasting mark on the world? Where is ambition in this world you want to create? Evils can result from need, but so can goods. Have you considered that your wish to make the world a better place is a need in itself?"

Riva frowns, putting her head in her hands as she stares ahead, the words of Mizuki being considered, mulled, and visualized in her own mind. She stands, then, agitated as she begins to pace around, gesticulating. "So let me get this straight. You want to create a sort of collecitve understanding of the experience of humanity, where people can choose to donate or withold from that pool as they will. You will stand guard over it, weeding out objectionable concepts based on your own understanding. The entities who lived within this world would have no physical needs and perhaps no physical form at all, existing as constructs of thought and spirit within this world. People from outside the world could gain access to it through a series of trials that you devise to measure worthiness and to prevent objectionable influences from entering."

She then pauses. "So you basically want to straight up become the God of the Old Testament, creating a heaven for your angels where no evil can pass and the worthy can come to dwell with your for all eternity, while destroying all that is evil."

Mizuki (183) has posed:
    Mizuki would shake her head to Riva, here, though it's a very gentle gesture. One that might suggest the other girl has perhaps 'misunderstood' something but, in stark defiance of her archetype, excluding any hint of anguish or aggravation owing to that fact. In explaining the specifics of her philosophy and goal, one might say, she seems unusually patient; she's likely just glad of any listeners she may be allowed to have. And Riva is a very good listener -- she knows this, appreciates this. She is following everything that she's saying well enough to conjure contradictions that further challenge the bounds of her thoughts, and she relishes each one. Whether she does so because it gives her more opportunity to prove her 'rightness' or because she truly seeks to learn, though, is terminally uncertain.

    Either way, she would voice her 'correction' swiftly, soundly: "While it is true that exceedingly 'unique' experiences of love's ilk - which I have my own thoughts of which I will exclude from this discourse, mind - may seemingly be incomprehensible within the system I've proposed, I would argue that they are not. Most worlds I have observed seem to be a mixture of nature and nurture. If what I do is a removal of the biological nature aspect that would foster such individuality of feeling, I would correct this with a nature of spirit. You see, the collective data bank that I propose would distribute not the thoughts themselves, but their implicit essences. And those essences can be broken into infinitely smaller components Eventually they become so small as to be 'mental molecules' of sorts, which may be organized and recombined into lattices that can encapsulate so large a range of personalities, preferences, and feelings that the uniqueness of things like 'love' will at least be virtually preserved."

    "It is my feeling," She would continue, "that while this bank would be more limited at its onset than the currently existing machinations of worlds I've seen, that it would eventually grow larger. And furthermore, this system is only temporary; it is an interstice, a hall of waiting within which I mean to foster the ideal mind. The world will be made first, and then through careful analysis and growth I will then build a mind better suited to this world. Things must be done in this order for the mind to be sufficiently divorced from the one predisposed toward conflict which I have already reviewed."

    "This cycle would be without end -- it would 'update' with every new person who is allowed entry into this place, while also trying to innovate with what it already has in attempt to truly 'create' new feelings -- feelings and personalities that could never have existed in any of these worlds. Something that goes beyond rather than existing within certain constraints. This seems exceedingly difficult, but it is yet another of my fondest aspirations. Rest assured, however, that I would actively be taking steps to give this world all the complexity these worlds have... before I then give it -more-. Before I make it so much better that one will never recognize my utopia as the shallow 'mimic' it once was. This is necessarily something that can not be done immediately, but must instead be accomplished gradually, as more and more spirits merge. And as the new mind that I accrue in this speculative world begins to innovate."

Mizuki (183) has posed:
    But, well, that next thing... hm. Mizuki would rest a cheek in her hand, studying Riva's eyes. "An apt enough comparison, but there would be no need for violence because 'evil' simply would not exist. There would be no parables or 'demonstrations' of my might, because I would not have any especially in the end. If my plan succeeds, I will not have ultimate authority. I will be a gatekeeper and a sojourner who recovers souls, but it is not and never has been my intention to 'preside' over this realm. In a sense, the world itself would be a cell, and I its membrane -- I would become a living embodiment of its concept of selective permeability. I would have no special powers inside this place once I was certain of its stability... though I do admit, finding such a balance will take time. Time enough for me to lose myself to some loathsome corruption, perhaps, but this is why I wish to find friends who might temper my judgment."

    "My goal isn't to destroy evil," She half-reiterates, "so much as it is to make it so that evil never did, and never will exist. My world is not fit for everyone to dwell in. Certain people will enter, certain people will be invited to enter. But if the soul is considered evil by my world, there is clearly some fundamental dissonance between it and they. If this is so, that dark one should naturally prefer to be elsewhere anyway. So the problem is almost self-solving; my presence would only be necessary to root out those rare exceptions."

Riva Banari has posed:
Riva stops her pacing as Mizuki gives her response. As always, despite her agitation, she forces herself to stop and listen to what Mizuki is saying. She meets Mizuki's gaze, unafraid to match it. Her gaze is searching, a mix of curiosity... and fear. Oh yes, definately fear. But for what? Her hands fidget and rub against one another, a testament to her unsettled state of mind as she hears Mizuki's words.

But finally, she forces herself to sit down again, watching Mizuki intently as she adopts that Thinkeresque pose once more. "I admit, a lot of what I am hearing feels... incomprehensible to me. How can you break down an emotion? What happens when you take such a thing out of context? Wouldn't these concepts and thoughts lose meaning without the environment they were born in? I don't know."

She looks down, fidgeting again for a moment. "I'm worried, Mizuki. I'm being unfair to you, maybe. This thing you're proposing... It scares me. I'm afraid of what will be created with it, and what will happen there. What you will do to create that world... And what that world will do to /you/. You of all people should know what it's like to have someone's creation reflect back on themselves."

She looks out into the audience room again, her gaze going long as she looks at that stained-glass window. "Can evil exist without good? And can good exist without evil? Who defines what good and evil are? I don't know if it's possible, Mizuki. Maybe you can do it. Maybe you dare to dream."

Mizuki (183) has posed:
    Mizuki would stop a moment. Her hands would remain folded in her lap, her head ever so slightly tilted off to one side as she studies Riva's reactions. Her own eyes seem to be filled with something akin to a distinctly warm, human concern, but also the curiosity with which a child might observe something from afar. For both reasons, they glisten -- they glitter almost like stars as she rises from her place on the couch and, if she is allowed to do so, she embraces the woman. It's a light, gentle thing; more an invitation for her to return the gesture with more vehemence if she wishes to. At the least, it's clear Mizuki doesn't wish to intrude.

    Regardless, she would eventually back away. And she would smile. It's... an odd sort of smile. Like a mother's, and yet like a child's; imbued with passion, yet by equivalent degrees of a sort of quietness of spirit. It looks entirely different from anything Riva might have seen from her before, and yet also like something that must have been hiding behind her eyes at every moment of her life. To put things more succinctly, Riva has stumbled upon another of the scattered components that make up Mizuki's personality. Psyber found the vulnerable little girl; Faruja found the zealous judge; Arthur found the melancholic dreamer.

    And now Riva has found the benevolent Goddess that she might have been, or one day might be. She has found Mizuki's ideal of quiet strength, personified, consecrated beneath layers and layers of idealistic armoring.

    "You aren't being unfair," She would be quick enough to say, "and you are well within your rights to be afraid. Humans... are meant to be afraid of what they do not understand. Once, I thought myself beyond that somehow and judged that tendency very harshly. Now, though, I see I am every bit the same. Only..." Her eyes would close. "... I have had so much time to contemplate this, Riva. I have had so much time to think on what death might be like, what it might mean if my consciousness were to one day fade... if it even -could-..." Her eyes would open halfway, leaving them wearily narrowed. "... so, I cannot be afraid. I am ready for difference, now. I am a creature of flux and change, and now is my time to move on. I feel this strongly and implicitly. I know not whether that is the Fate of my world reverberating in my ears, but even if it is, it compels me."

    Her gaze would turn upwards a moment, and her eyes would study the ceiling of her Clocktower. Slowly, the walls turn translucent, then dissipate. The rest of the world follows suit until the fair of them are left in a void of stars where the only touch of humanity left is Mizuki's own couch and the pair of them. Slowly, the lady would begin to smile; her fists would clench gently.

    "... oh. It may be a trifle dissonant with the course of our conversation thus far, but..." She would turn back to Riva, linking her eyes with hers. They've dyed themselves blue, now. "One of my plans for this world, once it is finished... is to transform Silent Night into a place where people may read books about other people and, in doing so, live the lives in question. I plan to create a world such that they could experience life in a world precisely like this one but then, at the end of that journey, return home. To the Quiet World. And so occasionally, I wonder..." She would regard the Clock's stained glass, now floating by its lonesome. "... have I already succeeded? Am I just a resident of that world now, like any other? Is this just some book I've happened to turn open and read? If so, are you reading a book as well? When we expire... will we return to a place of such peace and happiness until again we see fit to travel? Were it only so easy to believe, like Faruja does, that my heaven already was..."

    She seems entirely lost in reverie now. Book or no, she certainly has her way of wandering.

Riva Banari has posed:
Riva barely needs prompting. The hug is her favorite gesture of support, and she gives Mizuki a warm hug herself, holding the dream-goddess for a short time. When Mizuki draws away, Riva lets go, sighing for a moment. "Everything ends eventually, Mizuki. All stories have to have an end. All people will eventually move on. There's nothing eternal in this thing we call a 'life'. That's always been what I believed, and that's why I want to try to live so much, Mizuki. I want to laugh, cry, and feel everything. I don't want to live a life full of safety, regrets and emptiness."

The world dissolves around them, and Riva looks up into the stars. Riva brings up her legs, hugging them to herself as she looks out into the sparkling darkness, and she tilts her head to looks over at Mizuki as she describes her plans. "Do you think a book can capture a person's life like that? I've seen what some of your books can do, but... that's pretty complicated. How many layers are there?"

She watches Mizuki carefully again. "You have some beautiful ideals. There is wonder in what you uwant to accomplish, things so fantastic that I don't know if I really understand them. But I want to. I want to understand your dreams."

It is at this point that Riva smiles. "And I want to understand you, Mizuki. I know you're not like other people. You're not like anyone else I've ever met. I can't... I can't really judge what you're doing until I've seen and felt the shape of what you're trying to create. But what is it going to take to make a world like that?"

Mizuki (183) has posed:
    "And I want to give you eternal life, Riva, without invalidating the vividness that comes of living with the expectations and constraints that you do. Believe me when I tell you, there is no feeling I love more in all Creation than that which wistfully acknowledges the concept of mortality. And yet, if all that could be felt... if we could have all that complexity without the pain itself... wouldn't that be wonderful? It seems impossible -- doubtlessly the thoughts are 'logically' exclusive of one another. But this is the point where I again ask why that must be so. Why must one only be able to remark so whimsically on the condition of death when they themselves can experience it? I seek... a way where we may have everything. Where we need not choose. Where we need not compromise, and yet never become spoiled..." She widens her smile faintly. "But ah, I've repeated this enough already. I'm sorry."

    Ah, but. Her books. Goodness knows she loves talking about those. "At present, the books are only a visual record of the experiences which I have recorded. The people and stories held within them are simply caricatures of the genuine articles, but there is a catch -- a redeeming quality. Through interaction with beings that have full wield over their emotions and thoughts, those characters may attain those things for themselves. Like children, they absorb feeling until they can rationalize it for themselves, and then they gain their own sentience. And when a single character in a given story has gained sentience, the book blossoms from a novel... into a world. It's an effortful process, but a worthy one; I have found many friends and lived many different lives in this way already."

    She shakes her head. "But I could never innumerate the layers. They're infinite. Wheresoever there exists a world in earnest, there must exist a certain infinity of possibility. I do my utmost to reflect this in my novels, that those living inside them might have the same opportunity to live and grow as we do. One might say that each book I write is an... experiment -- a test into the ideal methodology with which to approach my grandest scheme of all. In other ways, though, they're all pleasant, idle diversions. But I suppose, in that one way," She would cover her mouth with her sleeve, as if suppressing a laugh. "I am a bit like a true Goddess. I give consciousness to things, occasionally. I am able to breathe 'new life' by feeding something conceptually inanimate emotions from things already alive. Palora, Callia, and all the Sentinels were like that. I'm extremely proud of all of them. They're like my children."

    After she's finished speaking this time, she would bow to Riva. She would hold the position for some time before rising. "... thank you for your eagerness. It warms my heart beyond what I've words to explain. To know that someone cares so very much to hear what I have to say... it's heartening. There are not very many beings I've come across who are quite so willing." She would sigh, as if contented. "As 'unique' as you may think my views are, there is a distinct specialness to your viewpoint as well; many are wont to prattle on about nonsense as I do, but very few are as willing to listen to others. So again, you have my gratitude. But more than that..." Smile~.

    "You have my oath that I will do my utmost to show you the shape of the world I would bring into being. Once all this foul business in my world is taken care of, I will show you books I have written. I will introduce you to some of the Seekers I've adopted. All my records and libraries are open to you, Miss Banari; you are more than welcome to explore it all to your heart's content. And I would be glad of the opportunity to guide you."

Riva Banari has posed:
"As far as I know, Mizuki... I already have it. I don't know if I even really want it." Riva sighs. "I've experienced death a few times. It was never pleasant... But I've never had a chance to move on. I've never taken the Grim Reaper's hand. But most people aren't like me. I don't know, maybe some people would be interested in living forever. Maybe not. I... Well, there's just so much I don't know yet."

She gestures. "Maybe there will be a way where you can have your cake and eat it too. But there's only one way to find out, I guess."

"So... The people in your books... They learn from others, huh, and that's how you create your worlds? That's pretty fascinating, really." She smiles at that. "You never know what you're going to get, just like real life, I suppose. People are always a fountain of surprises. Where do you get the emotions for your Sentinels, though? Do they come from you, or..." The trails off, thinking.

When Mizuki bows to her, Riva just shakes her head. "Don't worry about me, Mizuki. I'm just a normal girl who grew up in modern America and tried to live a dream. I found a different one instead, though." She chuckles. "I want to share who I am with everyone. Art is one way to do it. I want to think. Feel. Listen. Understand. And one day, maybe I will." She nods, then. "I'm looking forward to it, Mizuki. I want to learn about you. Maybe one day I can understand what you want, and I won't have to be afraid anymore."