Scene #7613: True Psychic Tales: The Cat That Found Its Way

Owner	Pose
Staren	This region looks sort of northwesternish, like maybe the very far north American regions. Forest, oddly-shaped mountains, and clear black starry skies are visible as far as the eye can see... except in the direction everyone is headed. Maslow Peak is twisty, "gnarled" in the way one might expect a tree to be, and all leading up to one singular peak in an almost pyramid-like way, it looks like it'd be a hell of a hike to get up there. Fortunately the signal is coming from only partway up. Approaching by road leads up the mountain's base; Densely forested with exaggerated evergreen growth, with snowy frosting at the top. A sign, slashed in two by some sort of energy weapon, declares: MASLOW/ /PEAK UNAUTHORIZED PERSONS/ /STRICTLY PROHIBITED Eventually the road ends, giving way to a rocky offroad experience, and eventually even that ends, leading to a foresty path. It's beautiful and serene. ...Until the path of destruction begins. Trees splintered in half by bullets or explosions, cut to stumps by energy blasts, and parts of the ground are marred by craters from explosive weapons. Staren's rented another hovercyle to fly here from the warpgate. Dark Staren -- The Ghost of Maslow Peak -- is driving, with Staren sitting behind holding on tight, both wearing their goggles to keep the wind out of their eyes. They stop by the sign, warping in a repaired one, and if Flamel isn't there, they ride further, both looking for him.
Flamel Parsons	Flamel's van is large, black, and brandishes a number of conspicuous metal dishes and antennas. It is the kind of van you would see outside your window and instantly think "monitoring me". It's parked a little ways up the trail, around where it stops being a car trail and starts being a foot trail, and he's out taking some notes about how the rocks are behaving since the things Persephone did. Not too hard to find! And he waves to the pair as they arrive. "Hey, Starens!" He calls out, long before they've come to a stop. "Really nice to see you two getting along a little more."
Staren	They land by the van and dismount, pulling goggles around their necks and shaking Flamel's hand in turn. "We're just Staren, aren't we?" He asks. "We're one person." Staren asserts. They look at eachother a moment. Then back at Flamel. "We, uh..." "We both needed to learn a lesson." Staren nods. "We were both running away from it, in opposite directions. I was trying new things without knowing what was wrong with what I used to do..." "...And I kept on believing it would work if I just kept trying." Staren looks from her double to Flamel. "It's... perfection. We can't reach it. Trying to force everything... could only work if we did... if I did it perfectly." Dark Staren nods. "Any little mistake... and when we had enough power to try, we'd... I'd expire, as Arthur puts it." Staren rubs her head. "I think that's what the Mountain was trying to teach me." Dark Staren looks up at the distant peak. "She was... I was... running away. Trying to kill my 'evil side' was a shortcut to perfection... unattainable. And then she ran away from who I used to be, without learning why." He scratches his head. "I think... maybe I was created like this, so that we could learn. To make it harder to backslide. To know WHY I need to seek a new path."
Flamel Parsons	"Oh, you are, yeah. But you're also plural at the moment! Which is nice." Flamel says, leaning himself off the side of the van. "When I was two people for a minute or two, it was bad." He crosses his arms, thinking intensely and looking back up to Maslow peak. He stops reminiscing, eventually, though. This is Staren's moment. "So, you learned your lesson at rock bottom there, nice! So, are you thinking of re-merging now that you've figured things out? Seems like you both are willing to accept each other's feelings about everything that happened! Though, can't blame you for riding around in that Cold Reader. It's not a bad kind of body! Infiltrator replicant solidarity." He tilts his head, tapping the side of one cheek. "Either way... I don't know you're really fully ready to climb the mountain, but, I think it's worth giving it a shot if you're learned your lessons. Worst that can happen is you fail, you know! Not a bad idea to give it a shot."
Staren	They nod at the re-merging question. Dark Staren chuckles at the comment about solidarity and offers Flamel a fist bump. "Did you see the Summer Island Mask fight? I can channel a huge amount of power through this thing..." He smiles, then lowers his gaze. "Though, I guess the lesson to learn from being 'Dark' is that raw power won't solve my problems." Staren gives a shorter 'heh' and smiles, then nods at her other self's comment. "Well... that's kind of why we wanted to talk to you. Damn, I keep doing that. Both of I do. Heh." They smile at eachother, then look back to Flamel. "Is there anything more we need to do before we merge? Something that would be awkward to forget and then have to fix later?"
Flamel Parsons	"Oh, that's easy!" Flamel says, smiling rather softly. "The Dark One represents something about you that usually can't speak up very well. And... well, if you have trouble listening to your own heart, things could get bad again. So, go ahead and re-merge, sure, but before you do: Anything you're afraid of doing, of being, when you can't speak like this?" He gestures widely. "Off the mountain, and with no Cold Reader... you won't be able to speak, out loud. You'll be, you know, the usual chemical impulses, gut feelings, things like that. You'll still be you, just, you'll be less audible like that. You won't be able to be heard through the ears, not unless I stick you in a Brain Tumbler or something like that. So..." He claps both hands together. "Is there anything you want yourself to be thinking about, put into real words, not just gut feelings?" A long pause. "You were expecting something sciency about the gender thing, but I'm just gonna let that one play out because it looks like that's solving itself, and just needs general support feelings."
Staren	"We just agreed he's 'Dark' because of the color scheme and the powers. I had something similar happen to me briefly a long time ago." Staren comments. She looks to him, and he rubs his chin thoughtfully. They both blush when he comments about the gender thing. "I can't tell if I'm really the guy part, or if thinking that is just making us both act differently." "Although, if it IS psychosomatic... I guess it's a chance to explore feelings with a 'justification', huh..." Dark Staren crosses his arms. "I'm not sure how much there is to it..." They look at eachother. Then back at Flamel. "Anyway, I already said it, didn't I? All my mistrust of my allies that I was holding in. Feeling like I was never enough. ...Although, I was free to say it because I knew I'd be seen as the evil-ish copy, not because of thinking any differently... I think... could the Mountain have planned for that?" "Geeze. I guess it really is smart." "And arguing that flawed ideology, which needed to be talked about... What else could we-- could I need to think about?" They look at eachother, thinking.
Flamel Parsons	Flamel shakes his head. "I mean, you are the animus. But, it's not like you being out means Miss Wiremu doesn't have that too. This is definitely a psychosomatic thing on some level, but that's kind of a spectrum. You can psychosomatically resist a lot of weird things too, or something can be partially psychosomatic and partially 'real', or... well, everything's at least a little psychosomatic. Really, just think about how you feel and how you want to feel, I guess. There's no good answers! Not unless I peek in there so hard that it wouldn't be your own decision anymore." He nods a few times. "But, good. You like talking unprompted! You got most everything out. And, you record pretty much everything too. Guess you won't have much that got left unsaid. I suppose... Though, don't give the mountain too much credit. Maslow Peak only brings out what's in you. That's your smarts it's got." Flamel beams! It's a very enthusiastic compliment. "I guess the only thing I'd say to talk about is... What do you want? In general? What should the Staren-who-leaves think you want when you're a longing gut-pang? After that... well, there's nothing much you need to do to merge besides exit the Cold Reader and, one way or another, leave Maslow Peak. Victorious or trying again some other time, I think you've gotten a lot of what you wanted!"
Staren	"What Penelope said. 'Wouldn't it be wonderful if the universe had to care about..' what we care about." Staren nods at her double. "I like that dream to... But I guess we won't achieve it by being really powerful. We need to... work with other people, or something? Maybe the key is that if everyone cared, like that, the net effect of their efforts to mold reality would be the same?" "We could never make a society like that, though." "But we don't have to. We just have to... find someone who can?" Staren shakes her head, long hair bouncing back and forth. "No... maybe if we just keep helping people, some of them will kind of nudge it in the right direction?" "Like how we gain power by helping other people. Fighting with the power of friendship, you magical girl you!" They both smile. The Ghost scratches his chin. "But fixing the world is a duty. What I want... is people I can trust. People who trust me. People I can talk to openly. The Concord says they're like a family. If they are, I guess I've found it. I just... convinced myself it couldn't be true." "Even after we learned that lesson in the Union... what changed?" The ghost shrugs. "I guess that fear is some deep-seated psychological thing? Maybe it will be fixed if the Concord makes you feel at home again." He blinks. "I want to never carry that pain again. In the future, if you doubt your allies... talk about it. Whatever happens is better than feeling this way." He steps forward and hugs her. "Okay?" Staren looks unsure at first, then hugs back, then her expression sours a bit. "I did. They took it as me... holding my membership in the faction hostage, pulling some kind of 'You need me, behave or I'll stop lending you my aid' power game." He deflates a bit, ears and tail drooping. "Oh right. That did happen. Well... you have Penelope now, to clear up those misunderstandings." "Persephone. But I can't always count on someone else to handle that all the time." "True. I guess that's another problem to solve. The mountain can teach one lesson without teaching all of them, though. We'll... I'll keep working on it." She nods, "Yeah, I will." They unhug.
Flamel Parsons	"So, maybe when that gutfeel pang of pain happens, it means you wish the universe cared as much as you do. And you want to never feel that pain of precariously being at risk that way." Flamel says, smiling. "I think that's a good wish. The collective will is a wonderful thing! And you deserve safety. But, I guess what matters isn't the method. It's the dream you're after. As long as you know what that gut feeling means, you can know yourself a little better, and that means you can do what you need to do a little better. It's that simple!" He nods in a satisfied way. "Or, well, it's that complicated. When you leave, you'll need to keep in mind that when you feel that feeling, you should find an assurance and maybe someone else who cares. An assurance that you aren't in that precarious position anymore, and an example that you're really not alone in caring about the things you care about. I hope that'll help you feel better, Dark Guy." He laughs, a bright, happy, encouraging thing. "Or just keep hitting that gut-feel button until Staren comes back here and checks in with you. Either works." "Well... if that's it, all you need to do is exit the Cold Reader. After that, leaving Maslow Peak's the only thing you need to re-merge. Though, feel free to stick around as long as you want. I think you've earned authorization."