Scene Listing || Scene Schedule || Scene Schedule RSS
Owner Pose
Evehime Gevurah     Just because the interfering Elites that'd sided with Firewall had been yeeted out by Persephone doesn't mean that Persephone herself has to leave. In fact, 'the Hesed', now something that Evehime has caught and begun to use Persephone and Kore interchangeably, has been more than welcome to stay. Even if she originally arrived to interfere, the Gevurah is almost bizarrely magnanimous about the change of allegiance. There's an unspoken sense that she wouldn't be the other way around, but that this way is only natural. That and typically the mark of a good leader in history textbooks.

    By this point, the 'training exercise', a day of rust-red Valhalla, has wrapped up. One of the geometric points of the nameless outpost is swarming with activity, as green-marked men and women revive their red-marked brothers and sisters (and some vague cases). Despite the sheer brutality of not long ago, the mood hasn't changed much in the surreally quasi-tropical built-up crater under the warm second sun (its original counterpart far too distant and cold for that).

    Hundreds of blue-marked workers have moved out to the training fields to see to the heavy work that will take place to restore and modify it for the next day. Evehime herself is respectfully hassled by those with white marks, handing her two more of those crystallin 'scrolls', which the Gevurah herself 'unrolls' in the form of text made of light scrolling through the air, reviewing some material with an oddly professional mien, as if she had a more modern tablet computer. Foot traffic is gradually congregating to a different point of the outpost via the razor-straight network of interconnecting paths, near to the inexplicably induced waterfall, where a great deal of steam is rising into the air, and the noisy clamour turns to the distinctively more boisterous, the only clash of metal being that of a considerably sub-industrial tenor.

    Evehime has naturally returned to the general proximity of the tower, but is still walking (rather obnoxiously fast despite her reserved stride). Waving away the couriers, she puts away the remainder(?) of her reading for later, and thinking on her words a good long while, finally acknowledges her company with a short, but layered, question. "Why is it that you won't punish them? What happens when they return, misguided as before, but only more determined for the shame of defeat? Four that threaten ten thousand should not roam free."
Persephone Kore      Persephone seems delighted to irresponsibly relax in a place like this. Isn't it always fun, to see other people's homes? Why shouldn't I enjoy it? The fact that she almost definitely has other things to be doing, in some other place, only makes it more forbidden and thus sweeter.

     She sits on a bench (having made one herself out of glass marbled with iron, should none suffice) near the tower. Little wildflowers, foreign to this place and to Evehime's vision, have sprouted around her. Everyone else here seems to be busy, but I guess that's the way they grow. My growth is subtler. It needs rest. It needs quiet.

     Half the time her eyes are closed, just soaking in the feelings of everyone's hearts- Evehime's especially, greedy for every detail of her thoughts and feelings. So they are when Evehime approaches. But a slight intensification of her perpetual smile acknowledges the Last Warrior's presence regardless.

     It isn't a mystery how; even at rest, maybe especially at rest, I'm so obviously real that nearly everything else seems hollow and plastic around her. So of course she can see with her eyes shut. One should intuitively assume she can do anything.

     She answers the question first with a sweet little laugh, finally opening her eyes and cupping her cheek with an arm-warmer-cushioned hand. "Won't you sit down, Eve?" is the first thing she says. The second comes a moment or three later, reciprocating that deep thought.

     "Because it's impossible to change anyone's behavior by punishing them." That sounds like a stunningly naive thing to say, but she utters it with serene and total confidence. "Nobody changes for the better from a place of feeling ashamed or small. They just learn to hide the things they were punished for."

     She gives that statement a little room to breathe. Then, as a gentle afterthought: "Were you ever punished growing up, Evehime? I wasn't, even when I was weird and awful and didn't know how to behave. I think I turned out okay, ahaha."
Evehime Gevurah     Oddly enough, there are ample places to sit around, out near the water and in the greenery under the inexplicable dome of blue sky. Most people are too busy to bother, at least for now, but the implicit promise is there; that all these outdoor spaces are public spaces, and all of them are acceptable to linger at, just out of the way. It might seem an odd concession.

    Feeling out the psychic imprint of so many people is deeply informative, and at once both strange and slightly familiar. The pace of work, going on just about everywhere, is staggering, but lacks a certain element of fatigue to it, more like someone being deeply immersed in a hobby that has consumed an irresponsible amount of their day. A general sense of unified purpose runs through those interpersonal connections like an electric current; even out of ten thousand quasi-strangers, it's difficult to find anyone who sincerely detests anyone else.

    A smoky mix of rich satisfaction tinged with sweet optimism and hints of bitter frustration is the inherent aura of places that are still running at full capacity, but the near corner has turned distinctly festive, almost celebratory. An immense release of tension, from those gradually becoming accustomed to battle, and the slow disassociation of revival with crushing financial stress and the worry and alienation of missing time, past and present. Like wary rescue animals coming to trust a new adopter. The feeling over there is like . . . a party? A feast, maybe. Some sort of group exercise to sublimate hard feelings, congratulate one another, bond over the exercise, and blow off a lot of steam and stress all at once.

    An additional detail becomes known to Persephone as a gaggle of children come running past, laughing and chasing each other without adult supervision. Evehime ignores their existence, but known to Persephone, doesn't fail to notice them. The way Evehime is mostly just a twinge of disgust that she'd discovered child psyches in the backup bank in the first place, having simply wrenched servers she knew were up for corporate audit and recruitment. A dim ember of reminiscence follows it and then blinks out, on names and faces she won't let herself remember for more than a second.

    For the most part, she's thinking of several things at once, without seeming particularly scattered. She's thoroughly processing the report(?) she'd skimmed through, quelling frustration with self-discipline and the knowledge that she is working with incredibly unrefined raw materials, internally repeating to herself the mantra that they're trying as hard as she can realistically make them and the start will necessarily be slow.

    She's reflecting on the encounter with the Elites, and the unease she's already voiced. A thought goes to the satellite she'd shot down, and plans are rapidly made to have her <architect class> build a tracking system for them, followed by how much she'll have to expand the sun to power it. She's thinking about the Pandora Gate, and trying to gauge a timeline of readiness where her people will feel secure in striking back against the powers that have owned them for so long. She's also letting her mind wander to hazy memories --ones she is still attempting to grasp and sharpen-- of another world, and making this one more like it. A thought is spared for a number of empty rooms still in that tower.

    There's scarcely a shadow of doubt or stress anywhere. It might even be said that sense of obsessively indulging in a fulfilling hobby might be originating from her as its ontological epicenter. There's a strange sense that the world inside her head is a lot larger --far larger than a normal person's-- but most of it is shrouded in a kind of fog, and focusing on what's going on now is sort of slowly building up a fire in the midst of it, pushing it back and clearly illuminating its surroundings, bit by painstaking it, incrementally larger each day.
Evehime Gevurah     There's also the sense that she really enjoys laying eyes on Phony. She finds her 'realness' pleasingly familiar, in a way that makes her face, her voice, easier to read. Like she doesn't quite 'get' the other Elites, but this one makes sense. She also thinks of her as a little short, but internally assesses her as firmly on the beautiful side.

    "Very well." she says, seating herself beside Persephone without complaint, staring ahead into the blue. The corner of her lips twitches upward at the nickname. "Of course I was." she replies, after a moment's hesitation, as hard as it is to imagine her being a child. "Discipline lives and dies in the tangibility of its rewards and consequences. They are required to give it definition. Without benefit, it is merely punishment for crude feeling's sake, but without consequence, it is merely a vague, aspirational spirit, for those who were blessed with it already."

    She thinks a few moments longer. "I don't care to change their behaviour. In actuality, I have no belief that it can be changed. Those ones are too old, too shaped, too confidently set in their ways. All of their growing limbs have been hacked away and sealed with fire. They have chosen their respective paths, and believe now that only force is needed to actualize them. Without even seeking to master force, crying as it is used against them. No, I have no need that they change. Only cease to interfere. If all I teach them is to stay far away for fear of punishment, then I have accomplished all I need. None of them are chosen, and none of them wish to learn."
Persephone Kore      The children catch Persephone's particular interest, moreso than they catch Evehime's. She knows better than to distract them from their play, but waves after them as they run, and joins in their laughter with a surprisingly girlish giggle.

     "They're not your responsibility. I understand," Persephone answers thoughtfully. Then: "I don't think they're my responsibility, either. But I understand them completely, inside and out, just by looking at them! And when you really understand someone, it's hard not to care. I love them, and I want to forgive them! Haha, even if it's not my place to."

     Persephone falls quiet for a bit. Without a glance or gesture, two of the colorful wildflowers near her bench are plucked by an invisible force, and their stems start to elaborately weave themselves together. They regrow near-instantly. Two more are plucked and woven in too, a moment later- is she making a wreath? You'll just have to find out!

     "Thank you for being patient with these people," she finally says, when the wreath is a third of the way done. Her eyes slide up to meet her friend's. They're a brown so vibrant it's almost orange, and they glimmer with unspoken happiness. "I know it's a little bit frustrating, Eve. Haha, or maybe a lot! Things seem really obvious to you, but for them it's hard to learn, right?"

     "But it's good for you too. I can tell! Having a place you can call home, even if you had to build it yourself... it's breathing warmth back into your heart, isn't it? No, that's not quite right. It's waking up parts of you that had fallen asleep. It really is beautiful to watch."

     The wreath is finished. No- it flips from meridian to equator, from vertical to horizontal, and becomes a crown. Persephone holds it up to her host with a smile; a silent gift, too tiny to come with any strings attached.

     "And I'd have liked to have been taller, you know," she says, in response to your thoughts. "I want people to look at me and understand that I'm big enough to hold them all!" One already understands that. Regardless of her objective impression on spacetime, Phony can't help but feel immense in some truer abstract sense. "But I grew up in a space station, so it wouldn't have fit at all. So that's what the doll is for, instead."

     Persephone seems at ease here, in a specific way she rarely is elsewhere. It's nice.
Evehime Gevurah     Evehime ostensibly (well, also Phony can just cheat and tell) takes Persephone at her first word. "I'm gad that you do." An amicable silence passes, not requiring any clarification. "Of course I understand you as well. That you cannot help but love them, because you cannot help but understand them. This is the path you have chosen to walk, and you are far along it. If nothing else, someone must understand them. When they one day go to their graves, soon or far from now, it is important that at least one person knew who they truly were in life."

    Evehime smiles in that enigmatic way when Phony thanks her. She turns to meet orange-brown with cyan-blue. "I must be patient, or I will be insane before long. There was no point in giving myself over to grief that humanity could have fallen so far. Law and discipline is only as good as the example it creates within its inference. What would be the point of taking out such rage on those who are too young, to maimed at heart, to know how to do better? It barely satisfies in the short term. If I am to feel any hope for the Multiverse's humans, it will only begin after long, strenuous effort."

    "Sometimes, things don't improve right away. Sometimes, the very first day that life is a little better, is already at the end of a long and miserably difficult road. I know it well enough. I will be patient with them, until they sublimate the debt their lives have placed them in, and finally reach the beginning."

    A very small laugh slips out of Evehime as she is offered the floral crown. Without any cold cruelty to it, it has a warm and smoky, contrabass resonance and crackle, as if a midnight bonfire could laugh. Gamely, she affixes it atop her head. "I wonder how many years since I've seen one of these. "Waking up. I could compare it to that feeling. I think that a lesser woman would have gone mad, or ceased to think at all. A human mind is not designed to endure the closing act of humanity. Even I am not quite invincible in all ways. I hold hope yet that warmer memories wil come back to me."

    A quiet, rumbling smirk follows. "I understand. By the standards of my people, that stature would be 'endearing', just as much as my own became 'intimidating' even by their comparison. But your 'size' is unmistakable." Another pause. "The 'doll' suits you well. The way you treasure it, despite its immateriality, its non-substance, is pure and admirable. It is something you have won through trial as well, I am certain. A different kind, but no lesser than one of mine. I understand the way that a Hesed fights now, after seeing it." A deep sigh follows (or maybe it just sounds deep). "Home. Perhaps. I wish that I remembered more of what my own was like. I spent so long on the campaign in heaven, and then there was no going back to it."
Persephone Kore      "You really do understand," Phony laughs. Her laughter is never abrupt, no matter how vivacious it is; it feels like a natural over-spilling of the good cheer that already fills her nearly to the brim. "It's so strange. Not that you understand me, but that you understand me in a light that I hadn't seen myself in before. I like it a lot, actually!"

     Persephone appraises the crown atop Evehime's head, giving it an approving nod, and scoots a little closer to lay her hand on the warrior's shoulder. It's too far up- and too far across, besides- to put her arm around Eve's shoulders, but that is clearly the intent, because Phony's 'telekinesis' supplies a gently heavy contact across her shoulders regardless.

     "Thanks for having faith in them, too! For not just assuming they're broken from the start. I know they aren't, and it makes me happy you believe that too! But you deserve a little gratification now, too, don't you? If you're doing the right thing, someone should reward you for it! I really want to, however I can." It is an open offer on the surface, but she does sound like she has something already in mind. Shhh, don't spoil it!

     As she listens further, she crosses her legs to prop her elbow up on her knee, and from there to rest her chin in her hand, looking up at Evehime with a warm and slightly drowsy attentiveness. "It was really hard on you, to be without a home like that. I can't even say I understand. I've never felt a pain like that- if my home went away, I'm not sure I could go on. But I'm so glad you made it here so I could meet you."

     "I'd love to take you home someday! Maybe the place that made me would remind you of the place that made you? But you're busy here, and they haven't made the ceilings tall enough, so that can't be the reward I meant just yet."

     "Instead: would it be okay if I shared 'my truth' with some of the people here? It's meant for sharing, so of course it would be easy! But I really don't know how well it would harmonize with yours." Her eyes twinkle. "You can't say we're even just because I showed you how a 'Hesed' fights. After all, I got to see you fight before, so that was just getting even!"
Evehime Gevurah     "We are, after all, opposites." Evehime says to Persephone. "Not of the kind of mutual exclusion, like heat and cold, but the kind that informs and defines the other, even taken at the same time, as sweetness and bitterness. I should be able to do that much." At the invisible pressure around her shoulders, Persephone feels Evehime lean towards her just the slightest degree, before the Gevurah realizes where Phony's physical hand is, and sets to a smile intensified by a few faint degrees instead. A thoughtful look comes over her, fingers laced and palms upturned in her lap.

    "I still cannot say whether I have faith in them. Their science is not wholly unfamiliar to me. Knowing the rest of it tells me more by the day of how they arrived at their dead end. Breaking them down, to the base person beneath all of their learned uselessness, and building them back up, with only my own guidance, bereft a worthy community and left to rely only on one another; it is no easy task, and not one that speaks accurately of their virtue. But I must choose to believe in them regardless; the alternative is too much to bear."

    "I must rely on them, must believe in them, to know of themselves what I do not. The slow process of refining bodies worthy of receiving my tutelage. Of augmenting their minds to begin to grasp the Truths. Of absorbing <teachings> and reaching for connection with their inner humanity. All of these are things in which I can only steer them, and must blindly trust in their fumbling progress to accomplish with the means available to them. They move steadily forward each day, but I can only wonder for how long. I can only pray that their limits lay not before the threshold where I might take over."

    A low, sizzling chuckle follows. "Rewards and gratification, is it? I've had few of those in this time. But then, I had thought my very last had come and gone before. I have never been one to need them to pursue what I know is right and necessary. But I admit many have been disappointments. Only the Archwolf has proven lastingly entertaining." It seems like a noncommital sort of acceptance. One that turns to growing silence when the subject becomes more serious.

    "It is easy to miss it, while far from home for long. But harder to notice the subtler effect it has on you, just from the unconscious knowledge that you will go back to it one day, when you have finished. The way it anchors you, keeps your thoughts and memories in order, and assigns times and places and limits to your emotions, is so very difficult to see until you no longer have one. When your feet come loose from the earth and you drift away, you become truly aware of gravity for the first time." She pauses. "The second time, for me, but it had been long enough to nearly forget the first."

    "But then, if I didn't continue on, it would be as if it never existed. There would be no one who remembered it. And that would be worse. My swings in fortune have always been considerable, and not the least for this being the one of countless futures that should bring me back." She raises a hand slowly, pushing a little bit of hair out of her face, and massaging an eye with the heel of her palm. "One day, perhaps, I will go back. But for no reason of nostalgia. It would never be the same to see."

    A more genuine laugh breaks that line of thought, at the simple and plain absurdity of Persephone talking about ceiling clearances. "I see. I do remember, that one most intense of ironies is that 'space' is a scarce resource, in amidst the void of stars, though I visited seldom."
Evehime Gevurah     "Shared . . . No, that is only logical. The Truth of generosity should spread its comprehension to open hearts. I see no conflict. They cannot possibly comprehend Gevurah as they are now. Their understanding of all the things it embodies is still hopelessly corrupted by those who call themselves 'law' and 'civilization' while sucking their blood dry. And . . . though I try my hardest, there is no doubt that my half-recollections of my people are not sufficient to give them everything they need to become worthy spiritual descendents. Two Truths can only be more than twice as strong as one. That ours are mutually aligned is an unexpected boon."

    "You may spend as long as you like, however you like. Roam where you will, speak to whomever you please. No place shall be off-limits to you. This near-dead planet, these recently-dead people, they can only benefit from your presence. Heal them as I prepare them for war. Teach them what you have learned, whilst I banish the two terrors they live in fear of, first by my hand, then by theirs. Then you will owe me nothing." A little bit of pointed tooth shows as her grin widens by an inch. "We may discuss matters of gratification separately."
Persephone Kore      "Ahaha. Space is a little cramped! But I'm going to tell you something I told a very special friend of mine, once." Special in general, or special as a friend? Maybe both.

     "Earth is our cradle, but I've always thought space stations were the most 'human' places. Every inch of them, someone made on purpose. 'The human part isn't the ear, but the hole we make for the earrings; lipstick is real, but lips are not.' You understand what that means especially, don't you, Evehime?"

     Persephone goes quiet, her eyes drifting shut, as Gevurah elaborates on her home and the loss of it. Her right hand stays on the warrior's shoulder (along with that gentle telekinetic impression around them), but her left lays flat in her lap. Were the right there to mirror it, it'd be a perfectly symmetrical posture, so unlike her usual graceful laxity. Is it something she's practiced for meditation?

     "The second time, for me, but it had been long enough to nearly forget the first." "If it's like that, then I might almost understand, a little bit." That's the first time she speaks up, and it's solemn, quiet. "Feeling as if you're going to dissolve into the universe. Everything loses its shape, its definition, because there's no zero point anymore. Humans weren't meant to be alone, in any sense."

     "I'm glad you found your gravity again, Evehime." The first time or the second time? She doesn't clarify.

     "Teach them what you have learned." "I will, then. Not just the gifts, but the foundations. The ways to shape yourself, to become the kind of person who could discover them on their own. That's what you want, isn't it?" Her answer is simple, but earnest. Her eyes open again, glancing up at Evehime with a smile, and then sweeping back across the people of the plaza, as if to assess them as raw material for the shaping.

     "And don't worry about the 'gratification' one bit," she adds, pushing herself up to standing. Finally the warm pressure around Evehime's shoulders ceases, but it's replaced by a gentle tousling of her hair. Phony glances back over her shoulder with that unbearably beatific smile as she walks away. "I told you, didn't I? That you've been good! And that good girls deserve a reward."
Persephone Kore      Persephone's message is taught in a number of ways, along with the more traditional dissemination of her gifts. Her all-pervading presence murmurs the fundamentals into people's minds in their quiet moments. She leaves touchstones and quiet vistas where those who awaken to her narrative-reading can tap the impressions of sentiments too subtle to be spoken. She tells warm secrets to the children, subtly steering the way their thoughts develop, and to echo through the hearts of mind-readers.

     There is little visible 'teaching' that happens. What she conveys is not an articulate philosophy. It is a locus of control, a way of relating to other people, a persistent and contagious mood, a subtle shift behind the eyes that changes the way one sees. But if she put it into words, it might sound like:

     The world can sin. The world can be guilty. The world can be wrong! If the world disagrees with human kindness, it isn't human kindness that's wrong. Challenge it! Get mad at it! Reject it! When it's mean to you, take it personally!

     Most of all, make up for it. Lift up the people the world puts down. Undo the mistakes the world makes. Space-time doesn't bend to make wishes true, so you have to. Mass-energy doesn't care about people's hearts, so that's your job!

     Someday soon you'll know in your heart that you could do it better. Someday soon you'll be big enough, and kind enough, and real enough to make them listen, make them bend. When you are, remember: the only universe without fault is a universe of human love.