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Rita Ma      <Q-Conversation> Rita Ma clears her throat awkwardly. "... When you all have time, I'd like to show you something."
     <Q-Conversation> Rita Ma says, "About being the new Queen, and all."
     <Q-Conversation> Rita Ma says, "It hasn't been bad, once I've gotten used to it, but..."
     <Q-Conversation> Rita Ma says, "There's some things I might need help with, soon."
     <Q-Conversation> Rita Ma says, "That's all."

     The little fishing boat that Sea Monkey and Sonia take out, some twenty miles of open ocean away from Apple Tree Island, is so wave-worn that it doesn't have a name; all splintery fibers and cracked glass. It's frankly worrying, if not for the fact that the locals place their trust in it completely.

     The Challenger-Deep-worthy submarine it tows behind it, and the bulky pressurized diving suits packed into the tiny belowdecks area, are thankfully far more pristine. So's the artificial warpgate folded up in briefcase-like form- Elites don't need to sit through the whole journey, though of course they can if they want to.

     After an hour:
     "Is this the spot, Rita?" "Mmm. I think so." "You think so?" "Like I said, it's just a fuzzy feeling, Ms. Sonia." "Well, okay." Clunk.

     'The spot' where they've cut the engines looks like anywhere else on the endless blue ocean. Sonia unfolds the artificial warpgate's stand, spins up its little spinny projector, and then plugs it into a generator to fire it up for new arrivals. Sea Monkey, still in their own typical bulky suit, clambers over to the surfaced submarine behind and starts double-checking its instruments.

     Rita, in a white sundress and broad summer hat, seems only a little tensely uneasy, and uncrosses her arms to wave. (That's a good sign. A year ago, she'd have been incredibly uneasy). Sea Monkey remains unreadable under the helmet, but Sonia is positively perky toward the Elites, contrasting her reservedness towards Rita. She moves in for double-clasped handshakes.

     "Heyyy! It's been a while, it's been a while! I think it'll be about, uh, twelve hundred atmospheres down there; forty, fifty thousand feet- we're still over the Pacific Desert. I don't figure any of you can take that, so pick a suit or take the sub!"

     The suits are chunky. The sub, if you peep down the hatch, is just one a densely instrument-paneled chamber, but it'll probably be more comfortable at the expense of personal maneuverability. Sea Monkey waves up from inside. "No fighting over who drives. And it's a long way down."

     Rita waits, her mind clearly elsewhere, for everybody to be ready. She leans against the boat's railing and looks back at the water thoughtfully.
Redshift Operators     The chronically dour leader of the Redshifts has been playing liar's dice with the team's medic and sniper, as well as anyone who wants to join in. This is generally a completely bullshit given the medic's unusual foresight. Still, he tries anyway, until it's time.

"Gotta admit, nice to not have to bring the heavy guns anymore."
"You brought submachine guns, RD. And the combat shotgun."
"I said *heavy*. God."
"All these months at Apple Tree Island and you've changed not one bit."
"I got a tan."
"*Sigh.*"

"..."
"Hah!"
"There we go! Damn, tough crowd."

    The leaderly gunman get their gear, and does final checks with their titanic, ominous enforcer who will join him. Their suits should suffice. The astronaut-styled sniper could do okay too, but doesn't want to. "I'm staying in the submarine. The water pressure makes me feel bad." Is their explanation. The medic intends to man the limited medical facilities therein, in case someone gets ill with the depths or anything like that. And she just doesn't like bulky spacesuits!

    The gunman and giant grip the side of the submarine from the side, latching tactical caribiners for the descent. The medic and astronaut settle into seats inside. Sadly, the game of Liar's Dice can't continue for now.
White White is glad to get away from home again and answer the invitation. Glad enough that she's one of those to show up to the island promptly and ride the boat, or even stand atop the bobbing submarine as it's towed if space is too limited. She doesn't look too different from usual, but her dress is a little shorter today and her sleeves are skintight instead of loose and light. She still has the silk hood shading her eyes though, since she's not a particularly... *Sunny individual*. Heh.

     That aside, she recognizes Sea Monkey and greets her with a little dip of her head, and Rita gets *almost* the same treatment plus a finger-waggle-wave before White goes back to folding her hands over her lap as usual. There might've been a little upward twitch to her mouth, but it's genuinely hard to say whether that was an attempt at a smile or a hallucination. Sonia has no reason to recognize her on the other hand, and while she can survive being handshaked without issue she looks a little spooked if she gets the same enthusiasm as everyone else. Her hands are slightly cool even being warmed under the sun.

     When folks are warned about the depths, White has no complaints. She gives Rita a short, curious look through her shut eyelids but soon turns to approach the submarine hatch, reaching it in just a confident hop or two if she can't step smoothly onto it from the boat. Faintly, she kind of mumble-comments, "I float." Good a reason as any to let someone drive her instead of swimming.
Madeleine Cadrasteia     Madeleine arrived at Apple Tree Island early - with a large briefcase in tow. "This," she explains to Rita and anyone else who gathers, "is fresh from the MCRD lab. They've just synthesized a batch of vaccines for the fish disease. It won't be a miracle cure for anyone who's already affected, but if you administer it to people who aren't yet, it'll keep most of them from catching it." She goes over the dosage instructions (three injections across as many weeks) and expected side effects (mild fever during the treatment period), hands the briefcase off to a doctor, and catches Rita's attention to pull her aside.

    "So, uh," Madeleine starts, shifting uneasily, "There won't really ever be a good time for this, but I thought you should know. Foid's been shipping us binders full of his original research, and some of it's been... helpful, at least the parts we can verify. When it comes time to publish the MCRD's work on this, you might see him cited in one or two of the papers. Not in my hands to change that, unfortunately. Just didn't want it to surprise you." She shrugs, like that'll make it any better.

    Then, it's boat time! Hooray! Madeleine shakes Sonia's hand, though she feels a little awkward being greeted the same way as the others who'd actually gotten to know her better. Sea Monkey gets a "Hey," and Madeleine settles in for the ride. She even joins in a round or two of Liar's Dice, though she's out of pocket change pretty soon after. She has a lot of questions about the diving suits, though there isn't a hint of concern in her voice - she's just genuinely curious how much punishment (environmental or otherwise) they're built for.

    When it comes time to suit up or enter the sub, she opts for a suit without even a glance inside the submarine. Clambering onto the exterior of the submarine to ride it down with the Redshifts, she nods to the pair of besuited operatives and emits some deeply-muffled sounds before finding the radio switch on the suit. "-t's been a while," she says. "How's life treating you four?"
Dysnomia     Dysnomia found a seat near Rita, smiling briefly down at the little boat. As rickety as it was... "No fortified underside. No stealth paint...Not so long ago, this boat would have been torn apart. This ocean has changed a great deal, hasn't it?"

    "The one who made it happen should be praised, I think." Dysnomia's eyes lingered on Rita, expression curved into a mild little smile.

     "Heyyy! It's been a while, it's been a while! I think it'll be about, uh, twelve hundred atmospheres down there; forty, fifty thousand feet- we're still over the Pacific Desert. I don't figure any of you can take that, so pick a suit or take the sub!"

    "It has been a long time, hasn't it...? Well, I think I'll be...Hm. Hang on." Dysnomia swiped in the air, a holographic display humming into existence. Anyone with the know-how might recognize it as tech specifications. Her eyes widened, slightly. "Oh. I suppose I WILL need it after all..."

    She slips into the sub, with only a couple leery glances at its hinges and parts. Dysnomia moved its arms gingerly, like a halloween custome she was afraid to rip. "...Working with the materials they have." She said, a reminder to herself. "Something that can endure those sorts of depths is impressive engineering."

    She makes herself small against the side of the sub. "Can't say I've ever had to work under that many atmospheres." It's kind of oppressive, really, to squeeze all of herself into the sub. A thin mist hung about the floor, the condensed essence of Mia. "...It'll be an experience."
Angela Nonon is lifting Bisu up on her shoulders and cackling, predictably. She is wearing a speedo and a skull patterned bandana around her forehead. Periodically, without even confirming conversation with her, her GA HA HA speech bubble appears periodically. When she isn't GA HA HAing she is regaling a story.

"--And there I was, captured by the Twin Hooks, and Smee steps in and tells me that I best be telling her where I hid all my misbegotten gains. I told her, 'Ah well I do lots of pullups' and she places her pistol under my chin and spits in my face and tells me I know what she means. 'The treasure! Where be the treasure?'.

"You flexed your bicep right, mom? You showed off right??" Bisu babbles excitedly.

"Sure did! Which was a problem cause she thought I was tied up..."

Bisu, for those who haven't met her, is a woman with long teal hair and a durag around her hair. It looks nicer now than the last people saw her now that she's gotten tended to a bit half her body, including one of her eyes, is covered in a strange white substance. Despite the lack of visible gills, she does seem capable of swimming in deep water--which would explain how she was part of a coastal invasion force--but maybe not capable of fifty thousand feet deep for entirely different reasons. Nonon sets her down so she can get to the sub (Nonon intends to take the suit down).

"Well what happened then??" Bisu asks.

"Well I gave her a solid bonk on the head and ran before her mateys figured out what happened!" Nonon says. "By the by, I'd best put on one of the diving suits, Ga ha ha... I won't be able to pet Rita from the sub ga ha!"

She slides in one to get ready.

Bisu isn't the only mermaid that came along. Ariel has followed the boat out by swimming the whole way and once it has come to a stop is looking the whole way around as if expecting something to be there. Ariel fully has fins growing out her head, gills, and a second pair of eyes under her first pair. Her body seems more adapted to the environment than even Bisu and she seems ill inclined to get out of the water. But she does parrot, "Fuzzy feeling!"at Rita, slowly performing circles around the fishing boat like how she used to ambush them, but she behaves here.
Sarracenia      As the little fishing boat prepares to depart, there is an ominous low-pitched buzzing that can be heard as something large closes in on it from the horizon. Soon enough, the Sundew Sovereign comes rocketing in with Sarra standing on the prow of the ship! It makes a circle around the fishing boat before the 250 foot long wooden airship lands carefully in the water a ship's length or so away from the fishing boat. She is happy to join Sea Monkey and Sonia in sailing the open sea, especially in her far superior (at least as far as she knows) ship. "Are you certain you wish to use that thing? You are quite welcome to join me on the Sundew Sovereign instead!"

     As she speaks, the propellers are folded up along the masts and long, thin hatches open at the base of them so that crimson sails can be raised into place on the mast complete with Sarra's personal royal crest: a depiction of her hammer with a golden shield covering much of the handle and a pair of white wings coming off of it. The shield has a curled green frond of a Sundew on its surface.

     Whether everyone or no one joins her, Sarra sails the Sovereign to the diving spot, never leaving the prow where she can feel the breeze whipping at her. The red royal dress she is wearing flutters in the wind along with her copper hair, and she looks as happy as a clam. Once there, she heads below deck to change and emerges in a form fitting red neoprene dry suit. It is sure to be cold where they are going, and her research (of watching Viewtube clips) suggested this was a proper outfit for the expedition. She picks one of the deep diving suits and gets suited up, though she still has her purse on her.

     Rita is given a cheerful wave when she is spotted. "Hello, Miss Rita! It is good to see you again, especially outside of that simulation! I love your outfit! It looks lovely on you~" Sarra says brightly before pausing as she notices Rita's mood. "Are you alright?"

     Sea Monkey too is greeted fairly warmly. "Hello again, Sea Monkey!" she says, then takes a moment to look them over. It is rather clear she is trying to discern if Sea Monkey actually looks like the picture they were shown a while back.

     If she has met Sonia, Sarra does not recall it. Still, Sonia is offered a friendly wave and a cheerful smile in return for the friendly greeting. "Indeed! When Miss Rita suggested the dive I thought perhaps my frog suits would work, but when she revealed the depth I decided it was not worth the test." Sarra says with a bit of a giggle at the end.

     Sarra is delighted to see that Madeleine brought vaccines! "Oh, wonderful~! At this rate, I am sure a proper cure is within reach!" she says, surely naively.

     Sarra does not recognize tech specifications, but she does recognize Dysnomia if only by voice. Sarra knows little about her except she does not like Sarra, so she is glad to see that the mist heads into the sub.

     Sarra gets a but uneasy when she encounters Nonon and Bisu, but seeing them and listening to them makes her smile. "Hello Nonon. Hello Bisu. I am glad you are both feeling well and in good spirits. I...do apologize again for when last we met. I promise I will be much better this time."
Kukuru Kukuru's not going to doubt the boat that comes out to pick everyone up. Why would she? She's known Sea Monkey and Sonia on and off for a good long while now, so there's absolutely nothing to worry about in the sleepy healer's eyes. That confidence comes through in her bringing out brought snacks to entertain and feed both the hosts and visitors to today's visit, too, sharing a selection of fresh fruits and crispy spring rolls packed with crunchy vegetables and a ground pork/shrimp mix.

Rita, as usual, gets an extra treat in the form of a lidded ice tray with a convenient pop-tab hole (and vinyl star stickers) that would normally be used to pour tap water in. The bloody red meat filets inside, seasoned with plenty of spices and salt without tenderizing the meat too much, are most certainly not water. They're still warm, too.

"Mmmm, it's so good to see you all agaaain~!" Unable to hold back her excitement for long, Kukuru skips the handshakes and goes right for the hoisting hugs, taking care only not to swing Sonia around. She gives Sea Monkey a chance to brace before she goes in for the hug, too, and Rita...

No, she just goes right in for Rita, with an excited high-pitched noise and everything. Kukuru's not shy about showing favorites here.

Of course, she opts to stay with the boat and submarine. She could easily teleport herself over to the designated meeting point and even would if prompted, but if she's not? She's taking advantage of that hour to take a nice, relaxing nap over the waves. At some point during that nap, she even slides right into the water during her nap, seeming just as comfortable floating on the water as she does climbing back out of it.

"Twelve hundred? Um... Okaaay. I'll be okay, mhm. Doooon't worry about a thing." She asserts, just wearing a light pink summer jacket over a sleeveless black shirt and tan shorts. She's ready for a dive, and the pockets she pulled all those snacks out of continue to be fake. Her preparation for the dive, too, amounts to just hanging out near Rita instead of getting into the sub, squatting by the railing to rest her chin on it and peer out into the distance.

"It's so much nicer out here these days... Hmm. Feeling nervous about something, dear?" She murmurs, covering her mouth as she yawns despite the earlier nap. She glances over at Rita to see if she's looking over, ready to flash her that sleepily reassuring smile if she does. "If there's something you wanna get off your chest, I'm riiight here. Okay?"
Aidan Proudpick Near pirate stories is always Aidan, looking up in eager awe, flicking his tail as he listens. Then a blink, "Wait, you didn't have a sword fight with those big curved swords?"

And he is eager for handshakes. He does this quickly, trying to cling to the boat otherwise. "It's so HUGE," he murmurs in awe, several times over the course of the trip. "We don't have water like this at home. It's all underground." Tail flick, tail flick. "You could just jump in there and it goes on forever!"

He even sips the sea water. Just to make sure it tastes like beach water. Yep, gross, that's beach water.

He is dressed as one might be for the beach, though as someone with fur, this is with long pants and shoes. As Sarra's ship comes in from above, he waves his hand up at Sarra as she comes in by airship. "Hey Sarra!" He grins at her drysuit. "It was fun to use the boat. It gets you really close to the water." As Aidan starts pulling up his suit, he shoves a box into the sub.
Father Berislav      It's been a while since Waters Berislav has gotten to enjoy a leisurely ride somewhere. For him, the whole journey is a treat, not an obligation to be sat through. How fortunate that he could finish a service just in time to board!

    Sea Monkey and Sonia receive polite greetings from him, after he's shed a billowy forest green garment almost like a poncho and a simple but pretty stole in the same color, with gold trim and cross embroidery. Both are placed on hangers, then stashed away in burning orange space briefly revealed by the passing of his hand over empty air, as if the surroundings themselves were wallpaper, or thick brush pushed momentarily aside. The flowing white gown underneath the other two articles follows next, leaving him in his more likely familiar (to those who know him, anyway) plain black cassock.

    Rita gets a warm, friendly smile and a gentle squeeze on the shoulder. 'It's so good to see you again.' 'You've grown since the last time I saw you!' Maybe not since the Backstreets, or even Trideag, but certainly since the last time they spoke at length.

    "You must be Princess Sarracenia," the priest says. "I recognize your voice from the radio." That could mean a lot of things, but he doesn't dwell on it. "And... I believe you were among the Trideag Association's response team to that unfortunate business on the beach, some weeks back? It's good to see you in a less stressful context."

    Kukuru gets a polite, but short greeting, as does Aidan.

    White is a new face, as are Madeleine, Nonon, Ariel and Bisu. "Oh, hello! I don't believe I've met either of you yet," he says. "I'm Father Waters Berislav. Most people either call me by my last name--'Berislav', my title as a priest--'Father', or both, but it doesn't matter much to me even if you call me 'Waters.'"

    He spends most of the ride reading what is very obviously a paperback romance novel. The airbrushed cover art features two men embracing, one a rugged farmhand, the other a dashing prince, both with their shirts mostly unbuttoned.

--so pick a suit or take the sub!

    "Goodness," says Berislav, one palm to his chest in mild surprise. "That far down? I guess I'll take a diving suit." His cassock comes off next, unbuttoned gradually and stowed away just as the stole and chasuble were.

    His bare arms are visible now for the fact he was wearing a tank top beneath all that (who wouldn't? all those layers must be pretty warm). They have the wiry but ironclad definition of a martial artist--and also a patchwork of scars in various states of age. The oldest and faintest are orderly and surgical; the newer siblings are variously the starburst pucker-shapes of entry and exit wounds, the jagged tears of shrapnel and the uneven curvatures of cutting edges deflected or shed.

    He opts for the first suit that fits him, and seems to have little trouble getting it on.

    "If it isn't the Redshifts!" Helmet under one arm, Berislav fixes all four operators with a bright smile. The exchange between them sees a glint of mirth in his silver eyes. "Now, now, White Dwarf. That's just his way of showing he cares."

     "*I* thought it was funny," he asides to the large leader, before taking a spot on the other side of the sub.
Redshift Operators     "*Harmless* activities." The giant's armor growls as he speaks. "*Nothing* to fear." Because they've mostly been relaxing at Apple Tree lately! He's soooo relaxed after several months of vacation. And healed too! It's been nice, doing suit-maintenance and heavy lifting at the docks to get his muscles rehabilitated after everything that happened.

    "Gonna get back into the game." The gunman explains. "But we took a break. Had to. Too many hits."

    They've all partaken of the vaccine. Never hurts to be safe.

    The gang also give a friendly wave to Berislav. "Hello! Hah, of course," The medic chuckles knowingly. "But he'd never know I care if I didn't give him a little bit of teasing for his habits. Still, where we're going, the biggest threats are certainly the least vulnerable to small arms."
White White is finding a place to settle in on the sub, and reserves greeting strangers for when they make eye contact or address her (though even with her eyes closed, eye contact still counts), offering small nods. Depending on how charitable one's impression is, she might seem avoidant, shy, sleepy, or some combination of the above. Berislav though does get a very slightly different acknowledgement; a small examining tilt of the head, and a slightly longer gaze. She does, however, meet the introduction with "White.", simply and calmly. It's the first time she's meeting a multiversal priest, after all. She only really knows one other religious figure of authority, so it's unavoidable to draw comparisons initially. It might feel like she's watching him later though, when his attention is aimed elsewhere. Everyone else gets a turn to be eyelessly watched along the way too, but he's the first. At least at some point she seems to begin occupying her attention with weaving something instead, drawing thread from her fingertips over her lap and leisurely shaping it with both thought and movement, but no tools. Eventually, it's formed enough to be... A towel. Simple enough.
Rita Ma      It's Sonia, strangely, who seems the most emotionally-affected by the idea of a fish disease vaccine. Sea Monkey has it and just gives Maddie a good-job-clap on the back, but Sonia is misty-eyed and warmly haunted for a while afterwards, and sneaks a hug from behind once they're on the ship.

     "Thanks. Someday... someday it won't be part of the world anymore. Right?"

     Mia's praise makes Rita squirm a little in place, distracting her from the adorable spectacle of Bisu and Nonon. "Well... it's the daytime, so they wouldn't surface either way, but... maybe. I mean, everyone made it happen, but--"

     "But," says Sonia, arching an eyebrow. She might be cool towards Rita, but she's not about to let her deflect praise, either. "Mmmm...."

     Sonia protests a little about Kukuru's biiiig hugs, and Sea Monkey does her best to parry it with her forearms, but Rita embraces the squish and rubs her cheek against Kukuru's with a little laugh. "Oh! Thank you, Ms. Kukuru! I already ate, but yours is the best.

     A bite of the meat nuggets perks her right up, and she leans over the side to offer some raw meat to Ariel too! "Fuzzy feeling," she reiterates. "Ariel's really smart. Turn back if it's too deep for comfort, okay? But I like having you around?" Looking back to clarify for Beri: "Nonon's an old friend! And Bisu and Ariel are mermaids we rescued, with Ms. Sarracenia's help."

     The Dip is one of the few things Sea Monkey can convey behind that helmet, and so they reciprocate for White. It's so weird watching those rough, butch mannerisms knowing there's pink drill-hair just behind the dark glass. "Get food if you need it, water if you need it, anything else. I'm not turning this sub around."

     Seating in the sub is two-by-two if you're comfortable squishing shoulders with someone else, or one-by-one if you aren't. Nonon taking a suit is a good call- she'd barely fit. The seats are stiff, but not killer; it's not so different from a car trip.

     Settling back into the pilot's seat of the sub, Sea Monkey whistles behind them at Bisu. "Got it worse than I do," they murmur, with a warm sympathy.

     The suits demand a bit more finesse- this isn't SCUBA gear, it's practically power armor. "Okay, big girl," says Sonia, slapping one of the air tanks on Nonon's back while glancing at Sarra and Aidan too. "You're down there for an hour, and the first tank isn't rated that deep. Before the pressure gauge shows five hundred, you open the clasp on your shoulder, and it'll dump the first tank. Hold onto the sub when it's going down, but I'm sure Rita'll be looking out for you. And if there's monsters, don't hyperventilate. I'm staying up here with the ship."

     "Alright. Dropping," Sea Monkey says after shutting the hatch, gripping the video game controller that serves as the sub's steering wheel. "Three... two..."

     And you go down.

     And down.

     And down.

     And down...
Rita Ma      The people outside the sub are meant to hold onto the metal rails on its sides to control their descent. Rita free-swims outside the windows, not unraveling her tentacles but still faintly luminous like an angel; the restless-to-playful way she circles implies she's waiting up for the sub, not the other way around.

     She can play little games with Ariel! And with anyone else adventurous enough to let go of the rail for a moment.

     And with the giant shapes that skulk and circle, after a minute's descent dims the sunlight enough not to burn them.

     The leviathans outside frighten and scatter the schooling fish. Every few minutes, one comes close to investigate the sub: that one like a chitinous shark, that one like a lobster-eel, that one a grouper with needly teeth and huge, stomach-turningly humanlike eyes. The last gently noses the sub- thunk- before Rita shoos it away.

     "No! Bad! Go!" The telepathic broadcast leaks through to everyone, sounding like she's scolding a dog. It turns sulkily, but not before giving the divers a chance to reach out and touch its slick scales.

     "Khhhh. I'll never get used to that," Sea Monkey mutters, tensely shaking their head. "Stay in your seats, everybody."

     ...

     'Forty thousand feet' doesn't fully come into perspective until you've been falling for an hour. It's pitch black, now, except for your headlamps, what light escapes the sub's windows, and Rita's natural radiance.

     That doesn't reach nearly as far as you'd like.
White White can be seen tracking the leviathan's approach through the walls of the submarine even where there is no window-glass. She looks almost uninterested, like she's simply visiting an aquarium and watching the dolphins do tricks, but when it noses the sub the attentive might see her hand slightly move. Fingers splayed somewhat, a little gleam of violet light in her palm. Rita shoos the giant fish away, and White clamps her hand down on the barely-composed spell to snuff it out again. She goes right back to her weaving like nothing happened; she's adding embroidery now. It'll be a little blonde teddybear face when it's done.
Redshift Operators     The medic of the Redshifts calls out, "As am I!" To White. She flicks her long pure-white ponytail dramatically and chuckles again.

    They descend. And during that descent, the giant's armor keeps creaking, groaning, its exotic metals even gently wailing sometimes. He seems to not react. The gunman sometimes has to do various calming exercises just to be alright with things, but his own armor, rated for both outer space and Company seafloor facilities, is doing okay. He and the gang play various road-trip games to keep things in a good mood, inviting anyone else to go along with it. The squad leader largely excels in games involving reading people's moods, while the medic is pretty good with guessing games and the astronaut is excellent at trivia, so between all of them, they can stay out of last place and typically fail to achieve first.

    It goes pretty quiet whenever Leviathans are around. The paranoid gunman keeps his hand on holsters, but... when one noses closer, he can't help but reach out and pat their head. Although, here's where it becomes clear his experience is a little limited. "Never knew earth fish could be friendly."

    It's important to note that he spent his entire life in space and has not actually had the difference between fish and leviathans explained to him. He has, all this time, generally been improvising and picking it up based off of context clues.

    "So, <Miss Rita>, what is it that could be all the way down here? No human construction, certainly. Leviathan activity of some ominous nature?" The medic breaks the silence of the Redshifts.
Angela ''Wait, you didn't have a sword fight with those big curved swords?''

"Eh? I never fought with a sword. I didn't even have a knife, I managed to knock down a hook--which I guess could be used as a curved sword if you squint--and use that as a cutting surface for the rope!" Nonon asides to Aidan. "I fight with my fists! And my gasharpoon!" And apparently a large axe in Elibe now that she doesn't have Gold Rush on her.

Nonon gets instructions. Nonon has been in diving suits before but she wouldn't say that the suits she wears and these are that similar, so the explanation is helpful! She also hasn't dived anywhere near this deep before, so the explanation is helpful again!

"Thanks for the advice, Sonia. Good to know! ... And I won't freak if I see a monster, I promise."

Partially because she's accustomed to monsters, but also because she feels very safe with Rita around. Once she's set up, she reaches out for the sub, and clings to it. She asks for Bisui to give her a headsup once they near 'an hour' of diving.

Meanwhile, Bisu gets on the sub!

''Got it worse than I do.''

"huh?" Bisu asks. "Oh were you eaten before...? I'm glad you got out mostly okay." That seems to be her thought on the subject.

Ariel chirps merrily at Rita and swims around her like she's trying to get Rita to chase her around a little--and then will try to chase RITA around a little if Rita'll let her. Nonon will reach out her hand to to offer/seize the opportunity for Rita pets but she's not going to let go of the sub--she'd be worried about catching up to it! She's never been on a ''sub'' before. Or had to swim after one fro that matter.

Nonon does happily pet a lobster-eel and look deeply into its humanlike eyes.

Her home and Rita's home, Nonon realizes, is even more similar than she knows. She's glad she fought to save her home. Maybe one day Rita will save hers, but that's not why she's so glad about it. It is just really uplifting to get to see and experience a place that feels so much...

...missing the horror of her home. Maybe that's new, maybe even precarious, but it's nice. It is a vision of a future that her home could have. The creatures of the sea and humanity in harmony, never having to fear the Whales again...

She gets the signal and dislodges her airtank, turning on her headlamp.

"So that's why they cally ou a Star of the City, Rita, you shine like the sun down here GA HA HA.""
Madeleine Cadrasteia     "Thanks. Someday... someday it won't be part of the world anymore. Right?"

    Maddie's caught a little off-guard by the hug, but she relaxes into it after a tense split-second. "Yeah," she says with a nod. "That's the plan." A little smile, where Sonia can't quite see. Sometimes this line of work really feels *good*, in a way that not many things can for an Excrucian.

    "I'm Father Waters Berislav."

    "Father Berislav... from the beach, right!" Madeleine smiles a little. "I meant to ask you but haven't seen you around: what's a 'garden of sin', to you? It's a phrase you used in trying to talk Merelisa down, and it's stuck with me. If you can't explain it in brief, consider this an invitation to converse later."

    Then the descent begins. Deep ocean feels at once both right and wrong to Madeleine. The continuum of matter, of *existence* here is clearer than in air - there's *something*, just outside the suit, in every direction with next-to-no empty space. It's almost enough to remind her of her home, but... the *something* here is wrong to her, just as all other matter in the 'real world'. As Rita plays with Ariel in the water, Madeleine finds herself *this* close, time and again, to letting go of the submarine, but can never quite find the courage to relinquish the familiar.

    She does her best to participate in the Redshifts' games, though her attempt at starting a round of "I Spy" doesn't go so well. When the creatures begin to circle around and investigate the ship, though, her attention turns solely to them and their interactions with Rita. The MCRD hasn't had a chance to try documenting the clades of sea life here, and even if they had, it might be an impossible task with how much uncanny variety the leviathans display. Two creatures of similar appearance could be taxonomically related, or completely disparate in origin. It's fascinating stuff, if a little morbid, so Madeleine doesn't chatter about it much to the rest of the crew. Instead she simply watches, in various states of fascination and awe, nearly forgetting to switch over her oxygen tank when the time comes.
Dysnomia     "*Harmless* activities. *Nothing* to fear."

    "That's right. Nothing." The joy in the big man's mind put a pit in her stomach. Could he be hoping for something to go wrong? Eager? Below his taciturn voice, his mask that gave nothing away, was a man practically elated to be here. Would he cause trouble? Might wondered, warily. "No. Rita is right there. Maybe he's just hoping..."

    "We'll have to make sure it's as uneventful as possible." She squinted, slightly.

    They went deeper.

    And deeper.

    Deeper.

    She looked up, but there was only steel above her. She looked out, and only the oppressive void of the deep. A curious wisp of her soul pressed through the walls, testing the outside, only to immediately be crunched into radiant, supercondensed fluid. It was not entirely unlike the feeling of a thumb being crunched to paste.

    Immediately, she YANKED it back inside the sub, making a sharp, sudden exhale. Eyes wide. She coiled herself tighter into the sub, around herself. She wasn't meant to be this wrapped up, this hidden. She was meant to be spread all around, in the air, a haunting presence, spread across the sky--spread between stars--

    --She was trapped in a little metal tube, surrounded by pressure that would crush her instantly--

    "Khhhh. I'll never get used to that,"

    --Something else. Conversation. Yes. "They're so mild now..." Dysnomia's voice couldn't fill the silence. "...I've never been on n ocean expedition before. I don't know if Unn's oceans even get this deep--I mean, maybe? It's..."

    "...The water's so *thick,* here..."
Angela PREVIOUSLY

Nonon brightens and waves a hand to Father Berislav--Bisu also waves, if a bit more mutedly. "Heard you're really making a splash in my work District. Hope the Kurokumo aren't giving you too much trouble! Bisu's my kid, nice to meetcha!"

Bisu's cheek half flushes one the side of her face that isn't covered by that white substance. "Um nice to meet you, Waters. Do you worship the Rivers or...?"

Then Sarracenia drops by and Nonon cheerfully tells Sarracenia, "Hm? don't worry about it. It's WATERS under the bridge Ga ha ha!"

"Ga ha ha...!" Bisu manages, and seems to be doing her best to follow her lead even if she isn't brushing it off as well as Nonon is.

"You helped save me so--" Bisu says.
Redshift Operators     "Not a lot of oceans run this deep." The gunman replies to Dysnomia. "It's... god, what was it? Hey, Newt, you there? Next up on trivia, what the hell's with this planet again, the depth stuff?"

    "The Pacific Ocean had an average depth of five thousand to seven thousand meters in this region. It's now over forty thousand, because sea level rose." The astronaut explains over the radio. "Pressure is massive now. It's about half the water pressure of an industrial water-jet cutter and more than the firing chamber of most guns. Did you know, that's part of why harpoonists use blades so much?"

    "Okay, I guess you win *that* point." The squad leader sheepishly gives the astronaut a win for that round.
Kukuru "I already ate, but yours is the best."
"Turn back if it's too deep for comfort, okay?"

"Aww... I'm so glad to hear that. It never hurts to have a little more. We'll be going down for a while, I bet, aaand..." Kukuru purses her lips as she tries to come up with some other logical reason to foist food onto Rita. Failing that, she shrugs a moment later before rubbing her cheeks together. "Oh, I just like to!"

Raising herself just enough to hang over the railing, Kukuru waves lightly at Ariel. "He-llo, hellooo... Oh, that's super good to hear. I'll have to make sure to bring extra for you next time, then. Maybe... Oh, i'll make a little variety pack next time. Then there can be aaaall kinds of different things."

At the warning, Kukuru smiles confidently while tapping a hand lightly against her chest. "Of course, dear. A little discomfort won't be a problem, though. I like spending time arund you, too, aaand... Things look so much better without the glass in the way, you know?"

Kukuru means it, too, as she even takes her glasses off and stashes them into her pocket just before it's time to start heading down. She joins those holding onto the outside of the sub at first, then lets go to join in swimming alongside Rita. She cuts through the water fairly effortlessly at first, too, alternating between wriggling through it like a fish and using her palms to just propel herself along depending on what parts she wants to rest. She's eager to join in those games, too, although once the discomfort starts setting in...

No it doesn't. She'll be fine. Kukuru glows a little to compensate with her nanites as she keeps sliding along in the water, giggling softly at all the giant shapes coming out to see the submarine. There's her usual look of open-eyed mouth drooling as she realizes there's a whole world of things she hasn't eaten yet down here, but she stops herself from acting on it with a light smack to both cheeks right around when Rita scolds the one thunking the sub.

Of course she can't eat them. They're Rita's pets, after all, and eating pets is wrong!

"Never knew earth fish could be friendly."
"They're super friendly, mhm.. Well, Rita's are friendly." Kukuru asserts to the gunman, giggling softly while floating on by. She holds a hand out at a distance at first, letting him see her hands before slowly moving it closer and offering a light pat on the side of his helmet. "Don't worry. You're perfectly safe here, okay?"

She gestures at Nonon for emphasis with a quiet giggle. "See? Nothing to worry about."
Kukuru Eventually, though, the pressure does become quite a strain on Kukuru, but she keeps that serenely sleepy face on the entire time. She  yawns loudly somehow (probably with many bubbles coming right out around her head), then holds both palms together to pantomime sleeping  as a signal to Rita and those outside before languidly kicking over to the submarine and wading right into one of her usual teleportation clouds.

The exit cloud dumps her right into the sub with a wet thunk, and she quickly curls up into a ball so as to not get everyone else soaked inside. "That was fuuun... Ah. Did anyone else want to go out for a bit?" She asks, exhaling deeply in relief while also speaking  as casually as ever like she was just out for a stroll.

She also appears to have shrank roughly an inch from all sides.

Recalling that Aidan had drank the sea water, Kukuru furrows her brow as she peers right at him like she's staring right through his head. "Oh. Let me know if you start feeling weird, okaaay? I can make it go away with a quick flick~" She offers helpfully while unhelpfully not elaborating on what any of that means.

Berislav's a familiar face and voice, and Kukuru's considerably less wary of him these days. She smiles sweetly at him and raises her hand in a lazy wave, and she even offers him some snacks during the trip down. "Waterrrrs. Do you have any kinds of foods you're not allowed to eat? Oooor.. Can't eat, with your... Um. Holy... Guy?" She asks, having clearly forgotten several words in a row. The water pressure might've squashed her brain.

White's embroidery gets a curious look from Kukuru, too, and the healer scuttles over slightly to get a closer look at what she's working on. "Oh, that's adorable... Have you done this a lot before, White? Do you need anyyy... Extra buttons or beads?" She asks, gesturing at her soaked jacket pocket with a broad smile like that's supposed to make sense in context somehow.
Sarracenia      Sarra blinks in surprise as she is hugged by Kukuru. No one ever hugs her! Much less hoists her! "W-what are you-...!" Sarra starts, then hesitates a moment, then shrugs and hugs back. She likes Kukuru well enough, after all. "It is good to see you too, Miss Kukuru~" she says with a smile after being put down.

     Aidan drinks sea water. "Hello Aidan!" Sarra just giggles and shakes her head...until it is revealed that the sea water is contagious! She gives Aidan one of those stares for a few moments like someone who just discovered their friend has a terminal illness, but then it is pointed out once again that they have vaccines. "You should...get vaccinated as soon as possible." Sarra says...then after a moment adds, "I should as well. Just to be safe."

     'You must be Princess Sarracenia...'

     Sarra blinks in surprise, then turns to face the priest. Sarra is fairly certain they have met before, and a very slight frown appears on her face the memory of the incident and at not being remembered (despite all the forgetting of other people she does), but their first meeting was not a good one so she puts it aside and offers a curtsey. Which looks a bit odd since she is not in a dress. "Indeed I am! You are...the pistol-wielding priest if I recall correctly? I am just glad I was part of that response team! If not for me it could have turned out /much/ worse than it did." She tries to say it with her usual pride, but it doesn't quite come through fully. The princess has been humbled several times since then and lost her newest and most heroic friend in the process.

     Diving instructions are given out, and for once Sarra endeavors to pay attention. Open this thing before 500. Hold onto the sub. Trust in Rita. Sarra can do those things no problem!

     Sarra passes the time watching Rita. The glowing angelic appearance is enthralling, and the playing with Ariel is cute! Sarra lets go of the sub almost as soon as they are under the water. She can't pass up the opportunity to play with Rita and Ariel while doing what might be the coolest thing she has ever done! Those giant shapes draw Sarra's attention soon enough. She watches them circle, and is wide-eyed in combined fear and fascination. As they move in. Sarra moves back to the sub and keeps a hand by her purse.

     When that last one approaches, Sarra starts to reach into her purse. On her world there is a fairly common fish that will swallow you whole, so she is not taking chances with a GIANT fish with teeth like that! Rita shoos it, and Sarra relaxes again. And whenever they get near 500 she makes sure to open the clasp on her shoulder.

     'Never knew earth fish could be friendly.'

     Sarra snickers a bit. "Friendly. Yes." she says, then shakes her head. "It is much more likely it was deciding whether to eat us or not. Otherwise, Miss Rita would surely not have called it bad."

     'So that's why they call you a Star of the City, Rita, you shine like the sun down here GA HA HA.'

     Sarra can't help giggling a bit and rolling her eyes lightly at the comment. "A shining star in the darkness. I aspire to be that one day as well, even if only figuratively."

     'Hm? don't worry about it. It's WATERS under the bridge Ga ha ha!'

     Sarra blinks, then bursts out laughing! "That was terrible!" she says with amusement.

     An hour of falling and they still haven't reached the bottom. Sarra is starting to get restless. What things are out there in the dark watching them? With Rita on patrol and the sights out of sight, Sarra feels a bit like she is flying at night. She pulls out a leaf power-up and uses it, adding raccoon ears and a tail to her suit...which promptly poof away and she yelps as the pressure crushes them almost immediately. She can be heard wincing in her suit for a bit after that. "This is the worst. All we can do is fall now and hang on..." she mutters after she has recovered a bit. She also looks worriedly toward Kukuru as she flows into the sub.
Aidan Proudpick T
Aidan runs Nonon's pirate weapon choices through his head. "Wow, you always hear about sword fights and men with open shirts and that sort of thing." His mind is already rearranging what he's learned watching Captain Hook and reading romance novels TO IMPROVE HIS READING COMPREHENSION, replacing some of the handsome rugged men with Nonon bonking them over the head.

There's some horror on Aidan's face as he is told the water itself has the fish disease. "O-oh." Sarra sees the same look on Aidan's face she saw before. A sort of long worried thousand yard stare that he got before. "Really gotta ask him out to lunch," he mutters to himself, nodding in agreement with Sarra. "Oh. Let me know if you start feeling weird, okaaay? I can make it go away with a quick flick~" "Oh, thanks Miss Kukuru! I don't feel like a fish yet."

He shoves a mass of fresh fruit from Kukuru into his mouth before the helmet goes on, listening to Sonia. For once, Aidan is firmly focused, looking at his pressure gauge, then the clasp on his shoulder. "I didn't know water pressure can get that high," Aidan whistles out from behind the suit.

Community Center swimming has taught Aidan a little bit about being down here. That is to say, Aidan knows to move his arms and legs in a rudimentary butterfly that was taught to him amidst children half his age and under. It's a place without air. A single prick in the suit and Aidan would instantly die. So of course he's moving along with Miss Rita, kicking off of the sub. He manuevers like you might expect a normal squirrel thrown into a diving suit into the middle of the ocean might, flailing, spinning end over end, trying to remember which way is up.

"Wow... this is amazin-" Leviathan. Aidan jerks his head back as the first few show up. Watching people get consumed by the score. Bodies and blood all over the ocean, swimming and struggling. Aidan freezes in place, waiting. The first, the second, the third. As Rita is able to quite easily just... shoo the other one off, Aidan finally reaches out, tentatively, to touch the scales as it passes.

"A shining star in the darkness."

Aidan grins over at her. "One step at a time. Think about the small things ya can do first. The big will come later."
Father Berislav Nonon's an old friend! And Bisu and Ariel are mermaids we rescued, with Ms. Sarracenia's help.

    "Oh, is that so? Then I'm especially pleased to meet the three of you," he says to Nonon, Ariel and Bisu with a sunny smile.

But he'd never know I care if I didn't give him a little bit of teasing for his habits.

    The little nod from Berislav says 'of course,' even if he doesn't say anything out loud. That's how it is!

    If he is concerned by White's simple introduction, he doesn't show it. It could be he's used to it, having met plenty of people who don't know how to carry themselves around priests.

Um nice to meet you, Waters. Do you worship the Rivers or...?

     "I worship the Lord, Jesus Christ," smiles Berislav, his nose wrinkling with mirth. "There are a lot of water metaphors in the Bible, though, so I can see how you'd ask the question."
Father Berislav     On the way down, Berislav tests the suit; not in the way that one tests something they're suspicious of, but in the way of someone getting used to a new tool. One hand is held outward and away from the rail, digits waggling. Then he tries to bring it in as quickly as the powered frame and the water will allow him. Next, both hands come off, and he hooks the lip of the frame with his feet. "We're going to be descending for some time, so I suppose now is as good a time as any for that explanation, Madeleine."

    "Gardens of sin are... complex webs of interrelated institutions, ideas and policies that make it difficult for the average person to do good and very easy for them to do harm. For instance, a politician who owns a prison and makes money from the labor of the prisoners has an incentive to pass laws which create more prisoners." He tests the action on his legs, one at a time, bending, thrusting, kicking backwards and forwards.

     "He might push to criminalize some pastime of the poor, who have very little resources to defend themselves legally. Or he might campaign on limiting their access to resources by painting them as a 'strain' or as 'leeches' or something similarly repugnant." His bitter frown is cast in sharp relief by the suit's helmet.

     "Of course, they won't just sit on their hands and starve, and the politician knows this. They'll take matters into their own hands to provide for themselves and their families, while the politician's rhetoric turns them against each other. 'Don't you see? It's because of the people who are like you that you're poor, and nobody else.'"

     "So, the seeds sown by the politician's sin bear sinful fruit. He's rewarded with riches for harming his constituents, and his constituents are made to believe they'll be rewarded for harming each other--the whole time, they have a built-in rhetorical excuse for why they never *see* any rewards. A 'model citizen' becomes not someone with love for their neighbors in their hearts, but someone who helps preserve the orderly continuation of these cycles of abuse."

     As he grows more accustomed to his new range of motion, the resistance and the suit's ability to compensate, he's playing games with Rita, both for fun and for the opportunity it affords to practice. Pulling himself closer to the rail with a bend at the knees, he tucks forward and pivots along it to hold himself upside down with one hand, waving to Rita with the other. Watching his pressure gauge, he releases with the other hand as an invitation--and an opportunity to pet the departing Leviathan.

    "Friends of yours?" he asks--maybe Rita isn't piped into the radio, but that scolding sounded like telepathy.

Do you have any kinds of foods you're not allowed to eat?

    "Thank you, Kukuru! That's very sweet of you to ask. Not at the moment, no. I'll be delighted to try these later."

    --

    To be a speck in a great field of darkness isn't new to Berislav--but to be there without even the distant twinkling lights of the stars certainly is. He's quietly grateful that there's any light to speak of, regardless of how far it might travel.

Never knew earth fish could be friendly.

    "It's endearing, isn't it? I've heard they can be curious, but I've never had the chance to see for myself. That last one was almost like a scolded pet."
Rita Ma      Sea Monkey glances back at White's half-formed spell. With a soft leeriness: "Hey, uh. I get it, but if you put a hole in the sub, we are all supersonically dead. Alright?" Maybe it wouldn't have, but she doesn't know much about magic!

     "Oh were you eaten before...?"
     "Huh? No. Rita's the one who got ate. I got it from handling a stone egg. Foid says they brought the virus here from the stars."

     When it's pet, the creepy lobster-eel (twice the size of the sub itself) makes a klk-kl-krk grinding sound, lingers, and then swims up and away. "I think it liked that," Rita 'says', smiling after it.

     "you shine like the sun down here"
     She shines a little brighter with her hands over her face in embarrassment, then, before getting 'tagged' by Ariel, laughing, and having to chase after her too. Now she unravels a lone tentacle for the unfair reach advantage. "Poke! Got you!"

     When Berislav lets go, she ropes him in, too- 'chasing' only in ways that he can usually narrowly dodge, and moving a little slower for his benefit than she does for Ariel. If he gets too far away from the sub, she nudges him back towards it under the pretense of the game. After a while, she gets into it enough to laugh bubbles.

     "Friends of yours?"
     "Yeah!" Rita answers his unspoken thought. "Well... 'subjects', really. They're too dumb to be friends."

     The exit cloud dumps her right into the sub with a wet thunk,
     "Holy SHIT"

     "Did anyone else want to go out for a bit?"
     "Don't."

     . . .

     "It's getting warmer," Rita 'says'. "We're getting close." It is. And you are. And when Sea Monkey noses the sub down a little more, the reason why is visible through the front window.

     "Ohhhh. Uh. Huh." The endless black finally has a landmark. Down below are wide-spread scars of glowing red.

     "You're right, Ms. Dwarf. It's a leviathan 'structure'. Sort of," Rita 'says', with muted feeling. She drifts down ahead of the sub, taking the lead. "Do you remember... way back then, the old Queen was going to make a big eruption? It would've boiled the oceans, and launched her stone eggs into space... probably to hurt a lot of other worlds."

     Sea Monkey shakes their head, not entirely fond of the feeling of Rita's telepathy. (It is clammy and spine-crawly.) "Ugh. So that's what it looked like..."
Rita Ma      As the sub descends towards the flat seabed, its headlights illuminate what looks like an absolutely massive pipeline- or maybe a 'root'? Grotesque flesh, the tan-pink of things that have stopped caring about color, runs along the seabed as thick as a building. One of its ends, shown by Sea Monkey panning the sub to the left, plunges into a volcanically-glowing crag on the seafloor. It's like biological fracking.

     The smoothness of the 'root' is interrupted by the occasional patch of scales, or droopy fin, or scattering of teeth. The longer one looks, the more it seems like leviathans that sink down here- like whalefall?- are absorbed into it.

     But Rita goes to the right, and Sea Monkey turns the sub to follow her, and then the headlights show something else.

     Many roots converge on something. It's like a flower. An anemone. A great, beautiful rafflesia, maybe only twenty feet high from the seabed, but fifty feet across. Its lappets and frills are fractally delicate, and tentacles with the immaculate shiny-newness of fresh life sway in an airless breeze. It glows gently, almost like Rita does, but every shade of sunrise instead of white.

     Embedded in the center are strange gray ovoids, like seeds or pearls, striking in their colorlessness.

     Rita descends towards the flower. The tentacles deferently bend away from her. She plucks out a 'stone egg' and holds it, turning it over in her hands.

     "In a few years, I'll let this erupt into a new island like Apple Tree. If it built up like a corked bottle for another decade, it might become dangerous, like the first nest was. But, I realized..."

     She kicks at one of the petals with her foot, vaguely frustrated. "I can tell it to erupt, or not to, but I can't tell it to stop growing. It listens to me, but it's like a plant. In other words... unless I found every single nest and every single egg, this planet is always going to have leviathans."

     "So... if there's always going to be leviathans, I think..." She turns to look back at the sub and divers, smiling distantly. "I have to start thinking about what'll happen when I die, right?"
Redshift Operators     Tap-tap-tap-TAP-TAP-TAP-THONK! The medic charges down the aisle of the submarine at unbelievable speed and shoves herself against the fore window around Sea Monkey. "SEVEN!!" She is shouting. "*SEVEN GREAT INHERITORS* who all-- sorry, excuse me." She stops pushing around Sea Monkey. "Ahem. Seven-- four if you can't manage seven, but ideally, seven, grand creations, inheritors of your will whom you sculpt and teach, and who take an active role and responsibilities for humanity upon the surface and below the depths of this world."

    She wrings her cybernetic hand emphatically. "And they can't be identical! Otherwise, they all have the same vulnerabilities. They need *distinct themes*. Different depths and climes, different colors and anatomy, different types of mind and different teachings, all made with the interests of continuing your will." And then she puts her hands together excitedly. "And if you die, then they choose seven champions, who all now have to--"

    "No!!!" The gunman raps his knuckles harmlessly against the hull. "Settle down!!! Argh!" He sighs in a big, exaggerated way, and pushes off to look at the egg. "...She's not wrong, though. You need a system. An accountable one. Something where humans can say, 'you messed up, we're hunting you now'. But something where people, something that can think and feel, they're gonna handle this... tec--... techto..."
    "Tectonic."
    "That. No idea how long you live, the way you are now, but better you get something cooking now. Figure out easing this thing off the gas in the next hundred years, though."
Madeleine Cadrasteia     Berislav explains 'gardens of sin'.

    "I think I get it. So they're like, social machines that print suffering. Yeah, I can see how you'd find some of those in the City."

    "I have to start thinking about what'll happen when I die, right?"

    Something catches in Madeleine's throat. "Do we-" she cuts off before 'do we have to'. Of *course* we have to, Maddie. Now, think about this like an ecologist. "What do we know about the original queen's life cycle? Was she supposed to die in that final eruption, like some insects do when they mate? I mean, boiling the oceans would do a lot of damage... You're not the same as her, and you don't have to live the same way. But if that's where your queen life-cycle would lead you, we need to devise something else. I think White Dwarf's got the thrust of it right. You need an heir. But, I've seen enough kingdoms split and brought to ruin by it - I think there should be just one of them. There could also be like... like you said earlier, about a 'fish court'. But just one Queen to take the place of one Queen, I think."
White White follows Kukuru's teleportive entry to the sub like she had the leviathan's movements before, and gives her a bit of a Look that might be 'exasperation' if anyone else were in her place. But given Kukuru's interest in her work and the rather obvious relevance of a towel to a soaking-wet person beside her, White first responds to her inquiries by fluttering the towel to shake out its folds, then lightly tossing it over Kukuru's head like a net. It probably only manages to cover to a third of the way down the larger woman's back, though. Made of her silk, it's kind of extravagant as far as towels go by feeling, but probably not absorptive enough to fully dry someone who was fully waterlogged like Kukuru. It's enough for her hair and upper body, though! "Mm mm. Not towels." she answers, and after a moment asks "Wouldn't beads catch on your hair?"

     Sea Monkey's warning is a mild surprise, but White nods a little. "I know." she answers, even though she doesn't quite count herself among the 'all' in that warning. Still, she doesn't want to make something bad happen to Rita's friends. If only she'd say as much! Or that she hadn't planned on firing through the hull. But justifying herself takes effort, and that's a pain.

     Sea Monkey's anxiety doesn't take precedent over Rita's presentation anyway. It's what White is here for, ostensibly! A way to get Rita's thoughts about large sweeping responsibilities without having to ask, and maybe an idea about their future cooperation. As someone unfamiliar with the story thus far, White finally cracks her eyes open fully to try and supernaturally examine some of what she's seeing inbetween parts of Rita's explanation, familiarizing herself with the names and purposes of the different bits of organic mass. Then, there's the eggs. Rita elaborates, and White's freshly opened, faint-gleaming eyes slightly droop in thought, covering some of her additional pupils again. At some point she's stood up and walked closer to the front of the submarine, so poor Sea Monkey might feel loomed over in her silence. It's rather a lot to consider, all at once. And not *completely* unfamiliar, either.

     She reaches for her phone, but her hand pauses outside of the pocket in the side of her dress. Instead, Rita (and other telepathically sensitive individuals by proximity) senses White's mind reaching out directly. She doesn't typically initiate this kind of communication, but it feels light and noncommittal like a whisper beside the ear. "... Would you want to live forever to take care of it, if you could? Or do you think you can teach them?"
Dysnomia     "I have to start thinking about what'll happen when I die, right?"

    "...Hopefully no time soon--"

    "SEVEN!!"

    "--AGH?!"

    White dwarf screed.

    "...She's not wrong, though. You need a system. An accountable one. Something where humans can say, 'you messed up, we're hunting you now'."

    Dysnomia frowned, at that. When she finally answered, it was telepathetically, crisp and clear, without radios to interfere. "If they were just animals. I'd say that they should be left alone. But..."

    "...They're part of a great engine. Made to terraform and subjugate worlds. If left alone long enough, it might find its purpose again." She frowned. "Creating thinking, intelligent beings, that exist for no purpose other than to serve is..."

    Foul? Wrong? Disgusting? But, the word she found was... "...Dangerous. It might be better to give humans the tools to do it themselves...somehow."
Angela BEFORE

''I worship the Lord Jesus Christ''

Bisu doesn't initially understand. "Is Jesus like the head of a Wing? Or ... some other body of water?"

"Oh Jesus is a ghost." Nonon says helpfully.

Bisu's eyes widen and then she nods hurriedly, the confusion vanishing from her body.

Sarracenia mentions wanting to be a Star some day. A flicker of concern passes over Nonon's face (being a Star is in some ways more dangerous than being a Fixer) but it passes quickly.

Aidan says something strange to Nonon. "Well, you want some sort of protective gear. This isn't like a modeling competition." She supports Divesuit Ishmael.

DURING SUB

"Ohhh..." Bisu says, then quietly and anxiously. "ga ha ha..."

''Poke! Got you!''

Ariel squeaks. "Got you!" As she tries to tag Rita back.

Bisu is less interested in leaving the safety of the sub one way or another after hearing how dangerous those eggs can be. She reminds herself that there's a vaccine, that Rita has it under control--Nonon has talked Rita up PLENTY to her--but she can't help but be nervous. She ga ha has in an attempt to drive the anxiety off periodically.

''In a few years, I'll let this erupt into a new island''

"Oh shit! Wow!" Nonon exclaims. "That's incredible...! You're bringin' the land back huh?" Then she considers. "Well you've gotta lot of life left to live, don'tcha? Won't they be kinda used to not fighting humans at that point? Maybe they'll just keep doin' what you got 'em to be doin', and if there's a lot more land now--then even if some stay dangerous... It's not like it'll be as mandatory to take that risk as it used to be right?" Nonon frowns thoughtfully. "I mean...otherwise you gotta find an heir you ''dont'' treat badly for no reason at all, right?"

Nonon doesn't like thinking about it. "I mean... you're probably gonna be around a lot longer than me right?"
Father Berislav      Berislav seems used to moving in three dimensions, but unused to the element of sluggish weight behind it all. Rita's push back towards the sub is both necessary and appreciated.

It would've boiled the oceans, and launched her stone eggs into space... probably to hurt a lot of other worlds.

    "Then, in a sense, we're looking at the open veins of the world," Berislav marvels.

    As the sub pans and the light shines on the fleshy expanse between those scars, he utters a soft gasp. He descends, too, letting go of the rail to take a closer look. His boots gently impact, and the lights on his suit land on one of the Leviathans sinking into it.

I have to start thinking about what'll happen when I die, right?
SEVEN GREAT INHERITORS! And if you die, then they choose seven champions, who all now have to--

    Berislav sighs through his nose, and it's only a little bit because of White Dwarf's elevator pitch for a fantasy anime. "I wish that you didn't have to," he says. "You're a bit young to start thinking of successors and writing up wills. But... I guess you *are* an Elite. And even among those, your circumstances are pretty unique, like you've said."

    "So is that what you wanted--*why* you wanted to show us this? To take input on how to go about that?"

    He chews on his upper lip in a moment of thought. "Well... if we assume that you *won't* live to the End of Days naturally, that these nests are as abundant as you've said, *and* that you won't have any lasting influence on the Leviathans after your passing... I suppose there's not much else you can do but have a line of succession in mind."

    "I think, in that case, the less... 'inheritors' you have, the more of your time you can give to them, and the more wholly you can teach them right from wrong. Some of the worst wars in human history have been wars of succession."

    "I would say... before this 'inheritor' even knows what you have in mind for them, that you'd want them to be instilled of a great love for all the creatures of the world. Even the 'dumb' ones," he says, with a wan little smile.

    "'Even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.'"
Kukuru "It's good to see you again, too, Sarra. Ah, have you been behaving? I heard you've been on some reeeally big adventures lately..." Kukuru giggles lightly as she gives Sarracenia another, lighter pat on the shoulder. "I wanna hear aaaall about it sometime, okay? I heard there's even merchandise of that now..."

Madeleine isn't the only one listening closely to Berislav. Kukuru's listening on in as he speaks about gardens of sin, too, although her thoughts don't really start to come together until she's already back inside during her post-pressure break. <<"Then... Hmm. Do they have to be complicated to fix?">> She asks with a lazy yawn transmitted right through her earpiece, turning over onto her other side to try and find a comfortable position within the sub.

<<"Maybe they would be for average people, buuut... The Concord's not all average people. We get to do aaaall sorts of things that they can't, and... Hmm. I guess that makes it our responsibility to make things better, right? Fooor...">> She pauses to look around, starts to raise her hand in a gesture, then remembers that she's still in the submarine, and that Madeleine and Berislav probably can't see her. <<"Our family, and people that haven't joined us yet.">>

It's kind of hard in those cramped quarters, because she doesn't want to make everyone else uncomfortable. Sea Monkey already sounded pretty startled by her sudden appearance and offer to take anyone else back out of the sub. She half-stands to shuffle over to Sea Monkey, giving them a gently reassuring peck on the back of the head. "Aww, I'm sorry dear. Didn't mean to scare you like that."

Mia looks terribly uncomfortable in those close quarters, too, and Kukuru pauses to tap her chin thoughtfully even as she starts sliding over to Mia. "It's okay, it's okay.. I'm here. We're all here, okay? Nothing to worry about..." She murmurs, holding her hands out to her sides and wiggling them a little to make sure Mia knows that she's there and doing something ostensibly reassurance-related. "Look, see? Nooothing dangerous here. Come here, if you wanna." She offers, fully ready for a gentle embrace without forcing one on her like she did with several others while everyone was still above water.
Kukuru White's draping of that silken towel over Kukuru's head gets a curious noise out of the somewhat shrunken woman. "Hmm? Oh, not for me, silly. I meant for your little project there." She clarifies with a pleasant chuckle, reaching up to dry her upper half off with the towel anyway. She pauses in mid-head rub to take the towel off momentarily, too, marveling aloud at the feel of the silk and testing it a little more right on the dampest clump of hair on her back.

"Oh, this one's quality is really nice... Where'd you get this? I need to pick some up for home and my place, for suuuure." She adds with a satisfied hum, then seems to remember the bead thing in real time as she reaches into her pocket to dig out... Beads! A big handful of beads, too, in assorted sizes and relatively assorted colors. Only a few of them are crushed, but the rest look like they're in good shape. "I tried using these before myself, but..."

Kukuru coughs lightly, flicking a strand of hair out of her face. before drying it off with the towel. "They got tangled up, mhm."

Once the submarine starts reaching the even deeper parts of the ocean, Kukuru can start to see the massive root going through that seabed. Ooohing and aaahing in awe, Kukuru presses her face right up against the glass to stare at the great ocean flower with all those little stone eggs in the distance. Rita brings Kukuru's mind back briefly to the plans of the previous Queen, but Kukuru doesn't seem all that bothered when Rita brings up the possibility of having to handle the spread of leviathans to other worlds.

<<"You want them to have the best chance at being something great just like Apple Tree Island, right?">> Kukuru's smile somehow softens further, and she taps her forehead against the glass while being sorely tempted to head right back out there. <<"Could you... Hmm. Have any of them hatched yet? We could try and teach them, or.. Oh! Maybe a school for the little ones, and... Oh, wait. Can they understand us? We could set up a little school for them, even if they're like pets...">>

"Different depths and climes, different colors and anatomy, different types of mind and different teachings, all made with the interests of continuing your will."

"Oh, that'd be suuuper cute. I dunno how much we could change their colors and anatomy, but if they all had different..." Kukuru's struggling with words again. "Things.. Good things. Um. The one that's-virtues! If they all had different virtues they were super good at following, maybe that'd help them get along with humans aaaand make them teachers in their own right."
Aidan Proudpick "I think it liked that."

"Really?" Aidan watches it go, "I thought it was gonna be violent still. I guess without the Queen." His head tracks around, watching it go. "I'm not gonna forget that day any time soon, though." Still, there is that wonder in Aidan's voice. "Do you think I could make friends with the giant fish? I mean, if they like it, they can't be that dumb."

Aidan holds tight to the sub, lest he float back up, eyes roaming over the glowing red, the fleshy tubule. He moves closer, swapping hand over hand, finally tucking one foot into the railing to get as close as he can without actually rushing over to it. Like a dog running to the end of his leash, face in the air to sniff the exciting new things. That excitement turns into revulsion, leaning back as he sees the teeth. Flesh that melts into the root, absorbed, churned like paste. He shudders, remembering Ozhira.

"Is it... is it sucking the life away from the planet?" He follows the root with his eyes.

"Oh, you want a daughter!" The excitement tapers off as he listens to Berislav. He pulls himself back in to the railing, sitting on it, gripping it to listen. "I dunno if you can teach that. Love of everyone. And look how long it took Father Luciu- you don't know who Father Lucius is, but it takes a long time to learn the kinda love you have, Rita. And a lotta hardship."

White Dwarf speaks up, "Oooh, if the champions could act like a balance against each other, then... hmm, but wait, one of them will probably turn evil and try to kill the others."
Sarracenia      'One step at a time. Think about the small things ya can do first. The big will come later.'

     Sarra considers a moment. "Perhaps...but I have also heard that if you focus on the big things, then the small will simply fall into place. Like sand poured over rocks. Or...something."

     'It's good to see you again, too, Sarra. Ah, have you been behaving? I heard you've been on some reeeally big adventures lately...'

     Sarra's cheeks puff in a pout. "I am not the one who was misbehaving!" she insists in a rather childish way. She smiles for a moment at the mention of adventures, but it fades steadily to a slight sad frown. "...I just wish I felt I had been more useful in those big adventures..." she says quietly to Kukuru, then her cheeks puff again at the mention of merchandise. "Oh, there was merchandise. However, there was none of me. It is quite a crime, really. Although I suppose it is fine. Any they -had- made would surely be insulting to me." Sarra says with a huff.

     They reach the bottom finally, and Sarra lets go almost instantly. With ground and structures in view she feels pretty comfortable. And with Rita saying the creatures were curious and liked the petting she is feeling pretty safe. She follows after Rita, looking with a bit of disgust at the giant tentacle before marveling at the anemone thing. With the tendrils moving away from Rita, Sarra follows in to see the eggs.

     'I have to start thinking about what'll happen when I die, right?'

     Sarra's heart sinks and her throat catches much like Madeleine's. "D-die?" Sarra says in confusion. "For some reason I did not...think that you would." Apparently Sarra thinks being a leviathan queen means being immortal. Death is something Sarra has...recently experienced, thanks to Lilian Too. She is actively trying to find ways to become immortal herself.

     Sarra listens to the suggestions of an heir...and naturally comes to a crazy idea. "...if you are going to let it erupt anyway...would boiling the oceans cleanse them? Or would leviathans and nests still remain after?" she says, then thinks a moment. "...no, I suppose boiling oceans would wreak havoc on land as well..." she murmurs, then sighs. She crosses her arms, cheeks likely puffed somewhat within her helmet as she listens to the others and considers the situation. "I am seeking ways to be immortal. It seems like something that should not be too difficult to achieve in the Multiverse. Surely that is better than leaving all of this responsibility in uncertain hands." While Sarra can't hear White, all the brushes with death and death threats over the last year or so have really had her thinking about something she was thinking about even before that.

     Others make pretty good suggestions on succession. Sarra has never had to worry about how to achieve succession. She was just born into it, an only child to a small kingdom. Sarra just listens for the most part. "Well, despite my plans to be immortal...I do still plan to find my hero. Perhaps you should find yours, Miss Rita. A hero would make..." Sarra pauses, then blushes a bit, "...one way or the other...the best heir."
Rita Ma      "Well you've gotta lot of life left to live, don'tcha?"
     "... Would you want to live forever to take care of it, if you could?"
     "You're a bit young to start thinking of successors and writing up wills. But..."
     Rita nods, sweetly melancholy (and perked a little by 'bringing the land back'), and her gaze drifts across White inside the sub and Nonon next to it. With a little fluttering hop, she drifts almost-magically across the pitch black 'sky' and lands next to Berislav, kicking up a little puff of silt.

     "I don't think I'm getting older. The old Queen said she was 'eternal'. But, like Mr. Berislav is saying..." A little squeeze of his hand for comfort. She puts her arm out for Ariel to side-hug, too! "Being a hero out in the Multiverse is dangerous. I don't want to give it up, but there's been a couple of times I might have died if I was less careful."

     "What do we know about the original queen's life cycle?"
     "I think part of her would have carried on to a new planet, like it probably had lots of times before..." In the otherworldly glare of the submarine's headlights, Rita frowns. Among the alien flesh and bulky diving-suits, 'a girl in a white sundress' looks so out-of-place. "But I don't want to chop myself up like that."

     The thump-thump-thump-THUMP of White Dwarf's approach snaps her attention to the submarine again, and then she covers her mouth, little bubbles filtering up through her bangs with a childish giggle.

     She chews her lip, then; rubs her arm; and looks away.

     "If I knew how to put it in humanity's hands, I would, Mia... but I haven't figured that out. Otherwise, one heir or many, I guess I do need to somehow make a 'successor'. Maybe one first-in-line like me, who I can give all the care a person deserves, and then some gentle monsters who wouldn't be so bad in second place..." But it's an idle rumination. She rubs the side of her head, hair fluttering as if in zero-G.

     "So is that what you wanted--*why* you wanted to show us this? To take input on how to go about that?"
     "Partly for advice," Rita 'says' to Berislav, looking sheepishly self-conscious. "Partly because I didn't want everyone to think I'm going crazy if I made 'successors'. And partly because, if I do decide to, I might need help. I can sort of..."

     Rita gestures up towards the great glowing meat-flower. At her mental command one of its tentacles glows brighter, bubbles, and buds off a little palm-sized jellyfish that aimlessly floats off, past the sub's windows.

     "... But that's about all. I don't know how to make something with a real brain. It might need better 'ingredients'."

     The seafloor anatomy's names, to White, read as something like:
     flower - Volcanic-Interplanetary Fruiting Body
     roots - Geothermal Instability Venous Pump
     stone egg - Viral Catalyst Seed
     petals - New-World Ingredient Pluripotence Cache
     It's a bit like reading data about a tree that nobody ever bothered to properly name.

     Sea Monkey doesn't mind the looming, but does say "'Scuse," put a hand on White's cheek, gently push her head back to check an instrument panel, nod, and then reposition White's head back where it was.

     <<Hmm. Have any of them hatched yet?>>
     "Huh? Oh." Rita looks down at the stone egg in her hand, then lifts it towards the sub to demonstrate, and crushes it. It just crumbles- hollow, nothing inside. "They're not real eggs. Just... catalysts for the virus that makes monsters. I think they synthesize it while seawater flows through them..."
Father Berislav Do they have to be complicated to fix?

    "Not at all. In fact, the solution is very simple. But something can be straightforward without being easy," answers Berislav, looking out over the vast undersea expanse. Part of him wants to shade his eyes, if not for the other part telling him there's no sun down here to make it necessary. "Climbing a mountain," he offers as an example. "Swimming a mile. Running a marathon. The obvious answer is making sure there are no more gardeners of sin. I've devoted my life to turning them from sin where I can--and sending them to meet Christ where I can't."

    "You and Sarracenia both have seen me in the middle of the latter; 'destroying evil' as opposed to 'nurturing good.'" Annie Green, in Kukuru's case, and the Kurokumo Vice-Captain Sumi, in Sarra's. So he did remember--and perhaps was just politely omitting that. "You have to be prepared to do the former when the latter is being choked out. If you aren't, they'll take advantage, every time. Liza, the Redshifts, or even Rita will tell you the same."

... But that's about all. I don't know how to make something with a real brain. It might need better 'ingredients'.

    Berislav watches the little jellyfish with awe and admiration. "That was beautiful," he says, gathering his thoughts after.

    "I appreciate you inviting us here to have this conversation. I have to admit, I *would* find it a little out of character for you if you suddenly announced a 'successor.' But... you're one of the most godly people I've ever met, so I'd assume you were going somewhere with it, despite my reservations. Ingredients, though..."

    "What better ingredients could there be, if Leviathans are in the mix? Is the rate of... exchange, shall we say, really that skewed?"

    He places his hands on his hips in undersea slow-motion. "Or... is it a question of diversity?" It dawns on Berislav that much of this fleshy lattice probably came from the victims of the monsters. He dismisses the thought swiftly. "Would monsters from other worlds help at all?"
Angela Ariel does have arms, she COULD hug Rita, but that's not how she thinks to show affection. Instead she circles around Rita and then she floats over and lightly boops her head against Rita's, her scales shimmering an array of bright colors before dulling once more. But Rita can still pull her in and Ariel will mimic the hug gesture if she does so.

''Being a hero out in the Multiverse is dangerous. I don't want to give it up.''

"Guess that's true..." Nonon admits grudgingly. "I guess even if it never comes to pass it'd be...irresponsible or somethin' to not prepare someone or somethin'." She's trying not to pout too obviously and failing because this is a subject she doesn't like to think about. Would she think Rita was crazy if Rita hadn't given her forewarning?

She knows that either way, Whalers would gun for Rita. No matter hwo nice she was, they'd want the honor of slaying a 'Queen'. The Whales are not quiiite as hostile to humans as the Leviathans seemed to be but that might just be because Nonon joined at the tail end of that war. Otherwise, they were just acting as normal monster-animals. She doesn't know.

But she just knows for a fact that Whalers don't neccessarily care aboutt he Whales for how helpful they could be or how dangerous they are, but for the reward money. For the valor and glory. She was nearly one such Whaler herself.

As Rita moves closer to Berislav, Ariel flies up to Father Berislav and tries to give him a little bit of a headbutt as well. She says. "Other worlds!" with her mmicry. "Skewed...!"

Nonon rubs at her neck awkwardly. It feels important to come up with SOME answer or something. But eventually she says, "Well ... There's a lot of strange stuff going on in The Great Lake. I don't know if it has an answer, but there's some ''similar'' stuff going on there. Maybe if we explore those waters more, we'll find something that could help? Probably not a fast way to go about it but--I imagine even if you don't find an answer, you'll still be able to help a lot of people or at least a clue at some point..."
Dysnomia     "If I knew how to put it in humanity's hands, I would, Mia... but I haven't figured that out. Otherwise, one heir or many, I guess I do need to somehow make a 'successor'.

    "Stars." She let her fist impact the side of the sub, but there wasn't any force to it. Her eyes were closed. "...It's a terrible thing. To wake up, and know your 'purpose' was already decided. And it doesn't matter what you choose, and what you want to be--you have a duty. And it comes first, always. It's--Suffocating."

    "I think I still could be, even if it was a 'good' cause. If we don't have a right to define who we are, then..." Her shoulders fell. "...Just. Please. Keep it in mind."

    "... But that's about all. I don't know how to make something with a real brain. It might need better 'ingredients'."

    "Would monsters from other worlds help at all?"

    Dysnomia's response is slow. "The Queen used its ingredients and got...inclinations? Ways of interacting with the world...?" She's still subdued, but she's found the edge of a problem to be solved, and always that helps rally her. "A vicious monster would risk passing on viciousness. And a stupid monster wouldn't have the right 'ingredients.'"

    "...In my world, most 'monsters' are more like animals. They aren't malevolent. They simply survive, and propogate." The more horrible ways some of it happened, might not be relevant. "They also have a strong psychic inclination. Perhaps something there could help to create a non-hostile, or kind, mind...? Perhaps using a mutualist symbiote as a base...?"

    She's already pulling up a holo-screen, swiping through records.
Madeleine Cadrasteia     "... But that's about all. I don't know how to make something with a real brain. It might need better 'ingredients'."

    "Do you think... So, your body responds in ways that match your intentions. That's probably how your ability to make simple things like jellyfish works, too. But maybe learning some biology could help you structure creatures that can operate without you? Not just 'exist and live', but think. Knowing how the parts usually fit together could be useful, maybe? Although... Berislav may have the right of it. You probably learn more by eating than by reading, now."

    "I'm afraid I don't really have suggestions for, uh, 'starting points' per se. For devising a successor. But..." She halts. Is she about to suggest this? In front of Rita, and everyone else? If it's an option, it should at least be glanced at... "Maybe you should find something that's already a person. And like, merge with it, or give something of yourself to it? That's... kind of how you happened, right? I think we should consider that, ultimately, a success story. It'd mean not starting from whole cloth, and not having to worry about like... how purpose-built something is."
Sarracenia      'I don't know how to make something with a real brain. It might need better 'ingredients'.'

     Sarra ponders that a moment as she watches the jellyfish, eyes a bit wide in wonder. "So...what you actually need is a volunteer. Someone who is willing to become a leviathan person like you." Sarra doesn't really know what went into Rita becoming what she is, but Rita seems like a good monster person. "Which is another good reason to find a hero." she adds.

     'You and Sarracenia both have seen me in the middle of the latter; 'destroying evil' as opposed to 'nurturing good.''

     Sarra blinks in surprise as she hears that from Waters. She looks slightly confused, perhaps not quite realizing what he did. And she frowns lightly at the idea of having to destroy those that can't be turned from evil. "...they will take advantage, hm?" she says, apparently not liking that sentiment. She as a rule tries not to kill people, but the thought of someone she spared taking advantage of it and doing even more evil is one she has not really considered. It is just what heroes do.

     'Partly for advice, Partly because I didn't want everyone to think I'm going crazy if I made 'successors'. And partly because, if I do decide to, I might need help.'

     Sarra is once again confused, but flattered at the same time. "I do not know what help I could possibly be to an endeavor like this one, but...whatever help I can give, I will. So long as it is not...you know..." She doesn't finish the thought because the thought of Rita doing something bad is almost impossible in her mind, but the expression on Sarra's face and the way she hesitates makes it pretty clear.
White White exhales through her nose as Rita answers everyone. On one hand, she's relieved that Rita isn't *expecting* to die. On the other, her point about her dangerous line of work is hard to refute. So, it's similarly hard to decide what the right choice would be. White herself has been avoiding her closest equivalents to these concerns ever since she became aware of them, after all, so she's hardly a beacon of philosophy to rely on. She's stalled by the complexity of Rita's main concern long enough that a secondary one comes up, and when she talks about 'chopping herself up' to propogate, White is unusually firm in her telepathic warning. "You shouldn't. When you split apart, the other you isn't you before long." It's one of the few things she feels confident being an authority on from experience, odd as that is.

     She's focused enough that she almost doesn't react to Sea Monkey touching her and pushing her out of the way, shifting her balance on reflex before force is applied to her and remaining slightly askew until her self-awareness kicks back in- She 'retaliates' by wobbling Sea Monkey's head slightly with a palm atop her helmet. Then she takes a moment to pan her sight across the other people present, feeling out the kinds of people that Rita knows and trusts, in aggregate. Drawing on what she can see of who they are and what they are, together, for a better understanding of Rita herself. When you're bad at something... Learn as much as you can about it. Eventually, after trying to gas herself up with some visible shifting in posture, she switches from telepathy back over to her phone, where others can hear what the text-to-speech voice conveys from her.

     "... The best ways I know to control two sides are... Religion, or reliance. If you could make the humans and the fish revere each other, that could last a while." She pauses, then seems to flinch back to full attention. "Or you give them both another threat to focus on."

     As if uncomfortable with leaving that thought to hang for long, she starts to type again with a couple of short pauses to cast her glinting-red gaze back toward Berislav, or toward Dysnomia when either starts to speak. "You made me consider something a bit more seriously after we spoke before, Miss Rita. Especially with what people said at that meeting. I'll have to start planning for something a little like you are, soon. But for now, if it's really as simple as using monsters as material, or an external threat to face-"

     Then she hears Madeleine and Sarracenia, and they might hear a small 'hmm' sneak out of White's throat while she types more. "... It sounds like you might need to create your own 'Angel'. It would be incredible if you could manage it. But if you can have someone like you here... You can be each other's support. I know a lot of people who needed that, and some people who have it."
Kukuru "I just wish I felt I had been more useful in those big adventures..."

"Ah, that feeling... Mhm, I know that one." Kukuru nods solmenly at Sarracenia, standing up on her toes to reach up and give her a light ruffle on the top of the head. "Always wondering if you could be doing more to help everyone, trying not to make a mess of things even when you do try to help... I used to have those kinds of feelings a lot, mhm. And then..."

She holds her other hand up, letting a few nanites dance around in her palm before reabsorbing them into her. This does not help her height. "Some stuff happened, I joined the Concord, and now I'm helping out plenty most of the time. I might not always get what... Um. You know. Most people are talking about when it comes to the complicated stuff?" She gestures at everyone else in the submarine. "Buuuut I'm helping with what I can do good, and I'm learning plenty of new stuff being around so many smart people. So... As long as you're learning something from all these and not making things any worse, then you're making progress."

One more pause. "Unless you wanna improve reeeeal fast. Then... Um. Then we've both got a lot work to do, mhm."

"You and Sarracenia both have seen me in the middle of the latter; 'destroying evil' as opposed to 'nurturing good.'"

There's a slight twinge of pain on Kukuru's face as she's brought right back to her earliest encounter with Father Berislav. How could she not feel it, after remembering just how crushing it all felt at the time? That truly was a long time ago, however, and Kukuru's expression slowly shifts back into a bittersweet smile. "I remember... I really was so much... Hmm."

She recalls a different conversation, with several other members of the Concord some time after that. "I was nicer back then, I think. Buuut... Niceness doesn't always fix things, and being too nice to too many people isn't really great for..." She pauses to recollect her thoughts again. "... Anybody? Anybody. So... Mhm. Even if there's good in everyone that could come out, if they're bad for the family I already have..."

She claps her hands together with that pleasantly cheerful smile returning. "Then they've got to go, even if they promise they'll be good after they've already been real bad. It's kind of like that, riiight?"

"Partly because I didn't want everyone to think I'm going crazy if I made 'successors'."

"If they're yours, I know you'll do a wonderful job. And... I'm really glad you asked us for help with this, too." Beaming a heartwarming smile at Rita, Kukuru strokes her chin softly while she starts thinking back to her own upbringing and what she's learned in the past year or two. "It's not easy raising one child, never mind one... Or a couple, with so much responsibility. If it's anything like things were at home were for me, though... If we all pitch in, it's all going to turn out great even if they're not that smart. Being good to this one will definitely spread to everyone else, too, so..."

A beat, and then she grins a little wider. "Maybe we don't even have to think about this like just focusing on one if we look it at that way. Spoiling this one could be like spoiling aaaall of them, so let's make sure we raise those few the best we can!"

One more pause, and then she purses her lips. "which one do we pick, though?"
Aidan Proudpick "...one way or the other...the best heir."

Aidan chokes in his helmet, "Sarra!" But it turns into a laugh, rather than admonishment. A hearty leaning back against the submarine joviality. He lets out a long woosh of breath. "I think that's up to her. The other thing, not the finding a hero thing."

"The Queen used its ingredients and got...inclinations?"

A nod of the helmet. "It's the same, right? When you- uh-" A lump forms in Aidan's throat. "When we met in the city. And you had lunch." He pushes to move on as best as he can. "Memories and intentions are important, right? They leave a mark." Aidan is getting to the line of thoughts at the end of this, stumbling over his words. "If we could find some normal way of putting those in without, you know."

It'd mean not starting from whole cloth, and not having to worry about like... how purpose-built something is."

He is quick to move on without having to think about 'hey maybe we should find good people to jump in the furnace'. "And that. But they also have to be someone here who loves this world. It's almost just like waiting for a destined hero!"
Rita Ma      "That was beautiful."
     "You think so?" Rita says. She's likely done it a few times by now; but swept up in Berislav's reaction, she can be touched like it's the first time again. "... Lots of pretty things are down here that no-one ever sees. Even the whale bones are pretty, I think."

     "But... you're one of the most godly people I've ever met..."
     Having had it explained to her what that means, it makes Rita's eyes tender like little else. She squeezes Berislav's hand, though through the pressure-holding glove, he can only feel it as a little tremble.

     "To wake up, and know your 'purpose' was already decided."
     After bonking heads with Ariel, rubbing them together, laughing, and drawing her into a side-hug afterwards, Rita turns warmly-melancholy again to Mia in the submarine above. "Mia," she thinks gently, "that happened to me, too. I know."

     "You shouldn't. When you split apart, the other you isn't you before long."
     "Mmmm. That makes sense. I don't even trust the me that is me very much," Rita answers, with a little jokey lilt in her mental voice. "Although..."

     "Or... is it a question of diversity?"
     "I think this is how the old Queen happened. My mom's body fell into a nest like this," Rita 'says', looking away from Berislav at the flower. With a warily nodding glance at Aidan and Madeleine: "Sort of like I'm 'a Queen made with the ingredient of Rita'. But turning out like I did, as still 'Rita', is probably a miracle. If you threw someone else in... they'd just be dead."

     "The old nest probably had lots of ingredients. But it blew up. The newer ones don't have much. Maybe I could make something smart if a human fell in... but I don't want that. And 'kind'," a nod to Kukuru and Dysnomia, "is more important than 'smart'. This isn't a hard job," she thinks aloud with another tiny bubble-laugh.

     "... Religion, or reliance."
     "I think they're a little too dumb for religion, Ms. White," Rita 'says', smiling. "What all goes into making an 'angel', anyway? I don't guess you've done it before, either."

     She's winding down now. With a tiny flutter-kick, Rita lifts off the bottom, offering Berislav a hand up to lift him back to the sub's rails. She seems more buoyant in another sense; shoulders relaxed, her boat-tension gone. It's a weight off her to open up.

     "... It'd be good to learn more about the whales, Ms. Nonon. And if you find any monsters that are really kind, that'd help me a lot, Ms. Mia. Besides that... we should keep an eye out for monsters that have powers that are good ways to help people."

     "And, I guess, if someone good dies and they can't come back any other way..."

     She looks back at the glowing flower's soft petals with a tiny, tiny shudder.
White White nods slightly, even if Rita can't directly see her face at the moment. "They would have to be smarter for religion. But not too smart. It's complicated. It took Dustin a really long time. Even with humans." she replies, still tapping away at her phone. "... 'Angels' are harder, though. Sariel was more like a machine than a person, for a long time. She had a 'directive' before a personality. She protected humans one-sidedly, even when they didn't want her to. Eventually they got used to her. She was a force of nature they could talk to, but not push away."

     White enters that description while she considers the rest of her phrasing, and her shoulders tense a little as if in frustration. She's slower to continue. "She only started becoming more human once humans knew they didn't have a choice but to live alongside her. A millenium or more like that is too long for most people to wait to be accepted. But maybe..." She pauses again, and looks around as if to acknowledge the world itself.

     "Maybe with this few people, in this rough of a state. Maybe with someone like you pushing things along. Maybe you could still make them accept your 'angel'."
Father Berislav Other worlds! Skewed!

     "Aren't you precious?" Berislav laughs. If Ariel lets him, he reaches out and gently pats her on the head, following the headbutts.

You can be each other's support. I know a lot of people who needed that, and some people who have it.

     "That wouldn't be a terrible idea," the priest muses. "Especially since if Rita had to... choose a volunteer, instead of creating someone outright, whoever it was would likely already be positively predisposed towards her. Somehow, though..."

     Berislav pauses, recalling a conversation between himself, Rita, and a member of his congregation.

You can't force other people to care for you, Mr. Richard. If they're caring for you, it's only because they want to. Try to think of it like... you're doing them a favor by being brave enough to let them help.

     "I get the feeling she'd rather not 'choose volunteers' if she doesn't absolutely have to." He gently squeezes her hand back.

Kind is more important than smart.

     Berislav smiles warmly at Rita.

I guess, if someone good dies and they can't come back any other way...

     "Then," Berislav gently offers, "They can be buried here. I can give them their last rites. And with that, this place can go from an almost lethal wound on the world to the birthplace of something beautiful."