Scene #9707:

Owner	Pose
Timespace Riders	A message arrives for Persephone Kore. It's handwritten, in an elegant and flowing script that calls to mind an image of a royal scribe, or perhaps a distinguished member of some world's literati. The first four words leave little doubt as to who it could be, even before Persephone reaches the signature. Esteemed Queen of Space, I hope this letter finds you well. It has been too long since we had a conversation, and I recall with some embarrassment my churlish behavior during the last face-to-face meeting we had. I offer my sincere apologies for that, and for the excessive span of time since our last meeting. I have had the privilege of meeting your friend Dylan Cruise. We discussed the beauty of the vastness of space, and also of an empty canvas. I would speak to you, if it please, about something you once mentioned to my dearest Sougo--your 'most true and perfect self.' Humbly awaiting your reply, the somewhat unusual time traveler Woz
Persephone Kore	PKore: of course it finds me well!! The message shows up on any Concord-registered communication device, but with candyapple-red formatting left over from whatever proprietary messaging software Sapient Heuristics uses. PKore: your letter was so sweet PKore: and the words were too! PKore: but worrying about me is completely and totally forbidden you know <3 PKore: how's sougo! PKore: how are you!! PKore: wait no just come over. i'll know when! Casual arrival to Sapient Heuristics is easiest via warpgate. It arrives in the dark-gray-metal cargo bay, with its swooping shapes, its sturdy crates stacked just-so for kids to scamper and play on, and its normally-shimmering forcefield to space. Today though, the room's glowing barrier is gone, and that entire absent wall looks out serenely into the starry void. The Milky Way is painted across the black. Is the Sun one of those stars? You wouldn't be able to tell, from here. It isn't brighter than any other. I'm holding the air in instead, and her back is turned, but that doesn't last for long. She looks back over her shoulder, hair drifting as if in zero-G, and waves serene-perkily.
Timespace Riders	Woz steps through the warpgate, book in hand, and a broad smile on his face. He returns Persephone's wave with a deep bow at the waist, one hand over his heart, eyes closed until he is almost upright again. "Hail to you, Queen of Space. Was this," he says, turning to one side, and gesturing to the backdrop of space with the sweep of his palm, "On my account, or merely the result of some maintenance?" He shakes his head softly. "No matter the reason, it is beautiful, and I am grateful to have seen it. The infinite expanse of creation... every twinkling light in that sea of stars is its own mote of potential. Each has its own gravity, and yet, in the vastness of space, no one star holds dominion over any other." "Shall we take a walk, O Queen?"
Persephone Kore	Persephone bubbles over into a fond little giggle at the bow, or at 'Queen of Space', or maybe both. Her legs hang over the bay's edge into space, as if its lip were the edge of a playground swing. "Hail to you too, Woz," she says with no less esteem. Her attention turns back to the stars, for just a moment, to appreciate them as he does. "Ahaha, I just come out here sometimes, you know?" She points, and light smears, space distorting under her gentle psychic pressure like a magnifying lens. It's like she's moving the stars themselves, but surely even Phony can't reach that far, right? "That blue one there, above the Milky Way's edge. You can't see it, but it has a tiny friend it's caught, and they've been together for a million years. That red one, it's gone already, but its light is still reaching us. They all have stories like that, like people." A wave of her hand dismisses the magnifying-lensing, and for a moment after the gravitational ripples make the starlight dance like fireflies. I halfway turn, and smile at you- you really are so sweet, too!- and I ask your movement-through-the-world what brought you here. Why are you the way you are today, Woz? She holds out her hand, with a little nod 'in' towards the station's interior, full of life and light and bustling children. "Ahaha, we absolutely will take a walk. Which way?" In for company, or out into space alone?
Timespace Riders	That red one, it's gone already, but its light is still reaching us. They all have stories like that, like people. "Sougo would adore that," Woz muses fondly. "I am quite certain that I do, too." Why are you the way you are today, Woz? It all began with Xion, and it seems so very far away. I was very different then, less kind, more concerned with being correct than with being right. Kamen Riders fight with their feelings; sometimes, your own feelings are louder than someone else's, and even if you drown theirs out, you know, faintly, in the back of your mind, that you haven't won, because the point of fighting in that way is to reach someone, like you reached me. Kamen Riders have to have someone to fight for, and she made me realize, over time, that there's no such thing as a Kamen Rider for one person. So, Woz became a Kamen Rider for people that struggle against what's hopeless, or as you might say, against nine point eight meters per second squared. It hasn't been easy. Fighting for people like that means that sometimes, you lose, and that hurts. It hurts the most when those people feel responsible, in some way. Even so, it has been worthwhile--he has learned so much about himself, and though Persephone can still see the streak of smugness and the lofty airs he holds for people he feels are beneath him, he has grown into being able to open himself to people that he wouldn't have before. Once, there were two people struggling against the impossible. One of them was struggling to be born, and the other was struggling to hold onto the memory of the man he loved. I care deeply for Angela, but I felt just as deeply for Benjamin. What would I do, if someone took Sougo from me? So, he went to someone who speaks often of love, to see how it could be true--how he could fight for both of them even if, in the moment, he had to take a side. From she who is the sun, I learned to be warm--and I began to see the faintest traces of my 'most true and perfect self.' He came, with Sougo, to visit Dylan, much later, and put more to the idea, then. He's close, now, having spoken of the many worlds within the vastness of space, how different they all are, the meanings and stories and happiness that Dylan found in each one she visited. Thinking about what I might find, among those worlds, was a thrilling novelty. I chronicle, I cook, I celebrate--nearly all that I do is on behalf of others. To think of something only for myself, to keep moments and meanings of my own, like planets adrift in the universe... I believe that is part of it, too. If one boundary of this new land is 'the warmth and radiance of the sun,' and the other is 'the countless planets in the sea of space...' Woz's eyes light up. "'Which way?' " he asks, catching on to the implication--or at least, hoping very much that he has. "Do you mean that we could walk among the stars? If that is possible... I believe I would enjoy that, very much. I would enjoy, as well, hearing how you found 'your most true and perfect self,' if it is no great trouble to discuss."
Persephone Kore	It's not hard to tell when I'm looking at your heart! Maybe you can feel it, and maybe you can't, but it's hard to miss the way her eyes grow soft-awed and her smile grows tender. Phony cradles her own cheek with a hand, as if overcome. ... I don't know. I don't know what you'd do! Ahaha, that's just, really hard? So I'm proud of you for finding an answer, Woz. And I'm double extra proud of you, that that answer is 'loving yourself through other people'. ... Sometimes I'm good at that too. Other times I think I should be better. But if I did anything to teach you, then I really did do good. So, thanks, for letting me warm you. Ahaha, I mean it!! She nods, and offers her armwarmer-clad hand, still warm from her cheek. "You're beautiful," she says. "Do you know that? I think you do. Ahaha, but not as much as you should?" Of course it's possible to walk the stars. Persephone steps out into the void, leading him behind her. Clack, and her heels tap audibly against nothing with the first step into the void. There's air, because there should be!, and gravity because I'm holding you, but Persephone is neglectful- or maybe playful of hair and clothes. Those float and billow lazily in the sparkly void; her earrings clink like wind chimes. With each step out- two, three, four, five- the 'night' sky swallows more of the space around you. How much have you ever really been exposed to the sky before? Fifty percent, on flat ground? Fifty-five on a high mountaintop or skydiving? But this is seventy, eighty, ninety... There is no horizon and no ground. Just an infinite sphere of stars, and the station's utilitarian exterior receding away behind you. She's used to it, of course; and lets go of your hand (you're okay, right?) to turn around, and sit back on an imaginary chair to bask in it. "Which one?" Persephone says serenely, hand to her cheek again. Even if she's used to this, I can appreciate it all over again through you. Ahaha, isn't that beautiful? "The Queen in Veils? Or this?" This body, if hers is still a body. This dream-of-the-dreamer.
Timespace Riders	Woz takes Persephone's hand, and smiles bashfully, looking away. Only Sougo has ever used that word to describe me--and, yet, somehow, I feel as though you mean it in the same way he does. "It... is appreciated." In the void, his scarf trails ethereally behind him, his billowing hair framing his face and accentuating the quiet elation and amazement writ on his features. When she releases his hand, she finds that he is very much okay--he takes a step, then a second, and his third becomes an arms-wide pirouette. He sweeps his gaze upwards, after having cast it around in that earlier spin, arms gradually falling to his side. He takes a breath, as it to savor the air out in the sea above and beyond the Earth. "Both. When did you feel as though each was worthy of that title, 'true and perfect self?'"
Persephone Kore	Anywhere Woz steps, or leans, or sits, he finds a solid surface to support him- it's as if whatever furniture and terrain he expects is, invisibly, there. Because of course it is! Ahahaha. Persephone's eyes- that brown so vivid they're nearly orange- smile themselves shut, and then turn restfully thoughtful while a fingernail taps at the corner of her lips. She's lit by the soft glow of starlight, all around, so here she seems oddly shadow-free. Aww. You're so sweet to me? I'm glad Sougo does, but more people should say that about you, too!! It's not as if your pretty heart is hard to see. "Hm. I don't know. Maybe, when I stopped being embarrassed of them? One of those bodies has grown and changed with me, and one of them hasn't changed at all," Persephone says. Seated with her legs crossed, one leg sways and taps tranquilly. "The Queen in Veils is a toy, for saying something with. You know? It doesn't have to be everything about me. It's okay if it just says one truth, really loudly. 'I love you. I don't want to hurt you. Shouldn't conflict be this way, and not that way?'. That can be simple." "And this body--" She hugs herself a little, then slides a hand down her side to her leg before reopening her eyes. "--wants to be everything about me, because I don't take it off. It's been absolutely perfect for years now, but it keeps changing bit by bit too? Because five years ago, it was the shape that was perfect for me then. And now, it's the shape that's perfect for me now." "... Do you want a new body? Does he? A toy-body, or a body that doesn't come off?"
Timespace Riders	Woz slowly paces around, drinking in the endless, jeweled expanse of space as he listens to Persephone. He indulges in a twirl on the heel, doing an about-face to let his gaze then rest fully upon her with a smile. "I was thinking of the Queen, when I asked," he admits. "But it has been so long since I have heard you speak your truths that I dared to have you elaborate on both." "I am happy with my body, and I believe Sougo would say the same. Where toy-bodies are concerned... for Sougo and I, they serve a very similar purpose--speaking a truth about ourselves, loudly." He leans against a 'wall' across from her, one leg propped up against it, hands folded in front of him and gently cradling the book. "It seems that I am on the verge of a new one," he offers, holding up a Miridewatch a good deal larger than the others, "And it would appear that this new toy-body shall say three things. Two, I know already." Woz's watches are square-faced, unlike Sougo's, and the faces, she may recall, open up like doors to be read by his transformation belt. But set into the body of this particular watch is a broad silver-and-black gear, like the asymmetrical ring of a planet. He turns it sideways, and Persephone can see along the edge of the gear there is a triptych--one third displays the sun, burning brightly. He turns the gear to reveal that another displays the Sol system, yet when he turns it a second time, the final third is empty. "It seems obvious that the missing piece is space, and yet, I have had no sudden revelation," he admits, turning the watch over to look at its face. "Could it be that I am embarrassed? This toy-body was not made for me, and this would be my first expression about myself, rather than an emulation of another..." "I do not feel that way--at least, not here, with you. I thought when I first visited this place with Sougo, that I would feel so very out of place, but instead, I felt more at ease than I ever imagined, after an adjustment." Looking back up from the watch, "What is space, to you? What is it that made you take the throne?"
Persephone Kore	"Aww. Well, it's good to be happy already!" I say, with a little breath-out laugh. Her eyes rest brightly on the horaidauxrigo, patiently waiting for its trick; that the third slot is blank seems not to let her down. "Could it be that I am embarrassed?" "Hmm. Are you?" Persephone says, just as thoughtfully. "The world hasn't given you many chances to open up and express your heart, has it? That can feel scary, sometimes." She stands, still thoughtful, and walks with a gesture for Woz to follow. Her trajectory takes her closer to the station, but not back inside; instead she's walking past the windows, peering into Sapient Heuristics from outside. There's an apple-red corridor where identical triplets play tag and scientists take their lunch in an alcove; there's the atrium with an old willow tree... Some of the kids inside wave at both of us. Phony waves back, covering a warm laugh. "I'm really glad that this is a place your heart can feel safe, too," Persephone says as she watches the children return to their games. "I don't think about 'space' as much as you and Sougo think about 'time'? Ahaha, I'm sorry, I'm sorry~. But, if I had to say..." Her hand falls, from the waving. Another little pause. Persephone isn't ashamed of taking a long moment just to think of the right words. "It's so easy to be kind here, and open here, and relaxed here, because kindness was absolutely the start?" she finally says. She looks off towards nowhere, or I think towards Earth, invisible in the far far black. "And our dream is for everyone. Earth will be like that too, someday. The whole Multiverse will. But..." "'Space' means to me, 'making a place where people can be their best selves'," "And it means 'acting gently, like I'm setting the rules for the whole world when I move'," "And it means 'changing the rules of the universe to be kinder, so people will be kinder too'." "Ahaha, does that make any sense?"
Timespace Riders	Woz follows. As the two of them pass the window, he lifts his hand with a flourish to the kids, placing it over his heart after raising it in greeting to bow his head to them. "'Kindness was the start...' by this, you mean that the very first rivets in the very first plates which would become the hull--even those were set with it in mind? I imagine you must, given your dream." Ahaha, does that make any sense? "It does, even if we differ in some regards. I am not an unconditionally gentle person," Woz says. "That is, I do not show my gentle side to just anyone. To be your best self, a certain amount of effort is required, is it not? More than that, the best Persephone Kore of today is different from the best Persephone Kore of five years past. There is no summit, even if it seems like there is, from the base of the mountain." Gesturing towards where he imagines Earth to be with a swipe of his free hand while still facing Persephone, "There are those who struggle to scale even the base, but who struggle nonetheless, and they are among those to whom I may be gentle. There are those like yourself, and like Lilian Rook, who inspire me to keep climbing, and I may be gentle to you, as well." "Those who have no interest in improving, and those who effortfully pull others down from their hard-won footholds, I have no warmth for--" He allows himself a chuckle. "Though we have known each other for long enough that I suspect you have seen this in action, by now." "I do think that comfort has its warts--it is one of a few things which incentivizes such people to behave as they do, and so, I tend to attack it, when I sense it plays that sort of role." "Be that as it may, a world where there is less incentive to behave that way is not objectionable to me. I could not say that I love and support Sougo, if it were," he says with a warm smile cast over his shoulder, as if he hopes that down on Earth, Sougo will feel it. "To change the rules, to make them kinder, is why he wishes so fervently to be king." He pauses, then, his brow furrowed, searching for words. "I... perhaps that has something to do with it? It is gravity which makes the ascent up that mountain difficult. Yet in space, where the average density is very low..."
Persephone Kore	"They were. I can ask them their stories, you know," Phony says, about plates and rivets, warmly touching the station's hull with her hand. "All of them were made by someone content, who thought they were building something good. Space is nothing. It's what we make of it." Her smile fades, a moment later, while she looks back at Woz. "I do not show my gentle side to just anyone. To be your best self, a certain amount of effort is required..." "Oh," she says, with a thoughtful frown. "Isn't that horrible, though? Doesn't it make you so so mad?" It does for me. Because, "It doesn't take 'effort' for the stars to shine for us. Or for that rivet to be its best self. Nobody had to yell at them to make them behave. Nobody had to deprive them of comfort so they'd shape up. Most people are just hurting a lot, I think, because nobody is gentle to them ever in the ways they need it." "If the universe lets some people be comfortable with hurting others, then that's the universe's fault, not comfort's fault. Ahaha, it's totally awful and unfair? But everyone deserves to be happy. That's what happiness is." It's a little soft outpouring. She's upset, a little,, but not with Woz, mostly, and it just sort of bubbles over in a success of trust rather than a failure of composure. At last, she sighs, and steps up off the invisible 'floor' to drift while looking off into the stars again. "... If you're not big enough that you can afford to be gentle with everybody, I wish you were. I wish you wouldn't laugh about it. But it should be easier for you too."
Timespace Riders	Isn't that horrible, though? Doesn't it make you so so mad? Woz gently shakes his head. "There are some things which deeply frustrate me about the universe--but that is not one of them." "The star did not always shine, but underwent immense pressure to become what it is. The rivet was unformed metal before it was a rivet, and before it was unformed metal, it was buried within the earth. Yet stars rarely form alone, and rivets have the guiding hand of machinists--what discomforts they endure, they endure together or with careful guidance. In this universe, at least, they could not be what they are without some level of discomfort." "However..." He drums his fingers along the cover of the mysterious book he nearly always carries, frowning thoughtfully. "I do not wish to make you uncomfortable, and so, I apologize for making light." He holds the watch, turning the dial almost meditatively in silence, for a few seconds. "Perhaps," he resumes, "I could spend more of my strength on protecting those whose progress is precarious than on attacking those who are comfortable stagnating. Someone must look after those people in this universe, while people like you and Sougo build the next. I would be happy to do that, proud to be part of this movement with you, in my way." Turning the dial again, he reflects on the truth of the Queen in Veils. I love you. I don't want to hurt you. Shouldn't conflict be this way, and not that way? There's that furrowed-brow concentration again, as his thumb caresses the dial. "I will protect and nourish what you love," he says, as the image of the sun clicks into place. Pushing past it, to the planets, "The universe is big enough for your world and mine." A half cicada, half mechanical buzzing (like a watch wound in timelapse, maybe), sounds from the Miridewatch in Woz's hand. "And..." he turns the dial a second time, to the empty portion of the rotating tryptich. "'...I will help you escape the apathetic grasp of gravity.'" The final third of the triptych fills in, a sea of stars. "I believe this is what I want my toy-body to say, to those people."
Persephone Kore	"In this universe..." Persephone's upset-with-the-world-ness dims to a slightly melancholy look. Her eyes fix on something Woz can't see. Then the Sapient Heuristics station falls away from them; her hair flutters slightly to the side, with space scrolling by. It shouldn't be possible to 'gently' accelerate something to most of the speed of light, but it doesn't even feel like you're moving at all. Pluto, the cold dim planet, is simply summoned under-foot a second later; nearly like teleporting. I want it to be warmer and brighter, of course, so it tolerably is, but it's still a cratered expanse of dusty-gray ice. "I forgive you. And that's a good purpose. But... it's important to me you understand this, too." Persephone holds out her hand over the middle of a crater; a bit of a meteorite levitates up into her palm. There, with a wish, the meteorite's matter gently begins to rearrange itself. Rock and star-iron amicably divorce. The iron compresses itself, and curls like a tiny snake, and without heat its atoms are smoothed into alignment. "Nothing has to be this way, ever ever ever," she says, as it assumes a recognizable shape- another rivet. "Space, by itself, is just a vacuum that kills us. The rules of the world can be unfair! They can be wrong. If they couldn't be, there's no point in Sougo and me building a new one. It's right to be mad, a little." "If someone decided the universe should be full of pain like this..." Pluto blurs away again, plummeting into the distance. Two and a half seconds later, we're back outside Sapient Heuristics, perfectly smoothly again. "... that's awful. And if nobody decided it, that's awful too?" "There could be a gravity that loves you, instead, you know? If you want to be a friend to space, and not an enemy, you've got to change it first." At her inviting gesture, a bolt removes itself from the station's hull, replaced a second later by the one she just painlessly forged. The old one, she holds out to Woz fondly. Maybe he can find use for it as a charm. "If you want to know space like I know it... could you make your own kind world, for me?" she says. "Even if it's small."
Timespace Riders	Of course, Woz is too familiar with Persephone, and too trusting of her, for his surprise at the sudden presence of Pluto to have any negative quality to it. It is simply there, and these are his new surroundings. Pluto as an allegory for the thoughtless harm of an uncaring world reaches me in a way I hadn't expected. Someone who is a friend to space would naturally feel empathy for a celestial body with pits and scars. It has endured so much, for so long, distant and silent... His reflection on it lasts longer than the planet's presence before him, and Persephone's offering of the bolt is the second surprise. He puts the Miridewatch away and takes the rivet gingerly, turning it over in his thumb and forefinger. If you want to know space like I know it... could you make your own kind world, for me? Even if it's small. That, at least, he answers without hesitation. "Naturally," says Woz, with a warmer version of his characteristic cat-got-the-canary smile, holding the rivet up as if raising it in a toast to her. "That is precisely the point of protecting those I am Kamen Rider to--to make a small, kind world for them, until the larger space which you and my Demon King have prepared is ready for them." "As always, it is my honor to stand shoulder to shoulder with you," he concludes, tucking it away in a pocket of his coat. "And an honor as well would it be to partake in a luncheon with you aboard the station." He gestures with a sweep of his palm towards the station, wordlessly asking, 'shall we?'