Death, from different perspectives

Grace
Studying in the library and working in her office certainly is nice and all. However, since returning from Bastion's world, it's pretty much all Grace has been doing. Sure Kalen and Elijah have been around for company, but at least one of those visits was exhausting.

As much as she values time by herself, she also values friends. And one friend in particular, she hasn't seen since said friend was burned to death by fighter jets.

Notes left on Ginger from Lena about how she was okay is one thing. Actually seeing Lena alive and in the (non-singed) flesh again is another. And so, Grace has gone and done some inviting. She's quite sure Lena is welcome at The Warehouse, and if she isn't, Kalen has some explaining to do.

The Warehouse is actually a Warehouse and Office (the two buildings are separate). And the warehouse proper is a strange combination of empty space, shooting range, storage, and comfortable couches. It's also only one-story, which is convenient for a Grace whose body is still getting used to the whole standing and walking thing. So it's the Warehouse that Grace invites Lena to visit.

She'll be waiting with freshly-brewed coffee. It is non-standard, non-Starbucks, all French pressed and deliciously full of caffeine.

Lena
Last time that Grace saw Lena, she was rushing out into a village in an act that would ultimately be her death.  The last time Lena saw Grace, she was comatose under Luke's care.  The Ecstatic had told Luke under no uncertain terms to take care of them and, when she was able to, headed back to her hotel.  It wasn't for a few days; Luke had insisted she stay and rest at least that long.  But she had left as soon as she could because she hates just lying there under someone's medical care.

She shows up at the building when Grace calls her, stepping to the outside door.  Lena in the dreamscape was free and...well, ecstatic.  Enjoying the experiences.  A little carefree even, even while she kept her focus on finding the others.  The real-world Lena is...mostly how Grace would remember real-world Lena.  Friendly, warm, reserved.  Here, she has disease again.  She can't forget that, ever.

But she's smiling still as she steps back, after she knocks on the door.  She's dressed in a simple black tank top and jeans, with a pair of sandals strapped to her feet with her hair pulled back into a ponytail.  As she waits for the door to open she looks around the street inquisitively, taking it in before looking back to the door.

Grace
[Awareness???]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )

Grace
Grace is already at the door when she senses the dying heartbeat of Lena. So those knocks are answered a second later by the door creaking open, and Grace cursing at it (because it is steel and seems so much heavier than she remembers). She's wearing jeans and a black t-shirt displaying a penguin wearing glasses. [https://img0.etsystatic.com/013/0/6153077/il_570xN.437331640_i30b.jpg]

She's also wearing a giant smile.

"Lena. So good to see you," she says, and that phrase is not the meaningless 'so good to see you' that people say without really thinking about it. Grace means those words.

It's good to see you, because the last time... well...

"Hey, I've got coffee," she says, stepping aside to let Lena in. "So you really haven't been here before? I thought Kalen brought everyone to this place at some time or other."

Lena
Grace's smile gets one in return, and she flicks a cigarette away just as she hears the door start to open.  So good to see you, Grace says, and while Lena doesn't give a verbal You too it's evident in every motion, her expression and her eyes.  If she were the touching sort she'd be hugging Grace, but...no, not now.

"Hey, you," is what Grace gets instead.  The smile becomes a but of a grin when the Virtual Adept says she has coffee and Lena steps inside as Grace moves to the side, looking around.  "Well, you know how to get a girl indoors, that's for sure.  This girl, at least."

She looks around the inside of the place, taking it in.  All the details of the interior get a quick passover, then she shakes her head.  She knows that means there's a little delay between Grace's question and her response, but it's just time after all.  "Not yet, no.  But then I'm not exactly good at inviting myself over to places.  Or, you know, taking them up on invitations as a rule.  You know me."

She looks back at Grace, appraisingly.  "How are you feeling?  After everything."

Grace
It doesn't look like a Grace kind of place, really. The furnishings are all that of a Hermetic, because trusting Grace with any kind of interior decorating will probably only grant you a shrug and a plastic lamp from Craigslist that doesn't match and why should it? It casts light well enough, right?

No, there are maps on the walls here, and matching upholstered overstuffed chairs and couches surrounding a table of solid wood. And on that table, the coffee along with a tray of random stuff. There's rock candy stirrers and caramels and a little silver pot that surely holds cream and a shaker of cinnamon and there are mugs on the side -- Kalen must have taught her how to do this whole hostess thing by example.

She leads Lena over to the table, and the way she's walking is at least one answer to the question of how she's feeling. She's no longer tripping over the door frames or having terrible fights with her legs over how many stairs are possible to take in one day, but Grace looks tired when she walks anymore, and flumps down in her chosen chair like she's had a hard day.

"Drained. Getting better though," she says, and wafts a hand in the air as if trying to speak using some form of undiscovered sign language. "Mentally.... physically... it was a lot to go through. I'm sure you understand."

Lena
There's a knowing smile when Grace says I'm sure you understand.  Because she does.  No one but them could say that.  Even Kalen, Sid and Ian, who had their own experience...they won't understand the experience these two and Patience went through.  It's entirely different.  And of course, they were under longer.  Grace and Patience longer even than Lena.

"Oh yeah, I get it."  She moves to take a seat, ignoring the coffee for now.  Grace is more what she's concerned about right now.  "I've been out longer than you guys, and if I'm being honest I still wake up expecting to be in a tree village or ancient Rome.  I'm sure you guys are going through the same."

Grace
"Yeah, or in space. I still think a lot about that place," Grace says, and then realizes that Lena was never there for that part. "After Sulis, we landed on a space station. We dropped into this club in outer space with a kind of music I've never heard before playing in my head. Patience was passed out, and all I could think of was that the whole experience was wasted on me. You should have been there."

Grace picks up her own mug of coffee, one she'd prepared before Lena arrived, and takes a gulp of the highly-sugared concoction.

"How are you doing, after the whole... Well, after dying I guess?"

Lena
She looks wistful at the idea of missing a place with an entirely different kind of music, but that slight melancholy is overrun with an affectionate amusement at Grace's statement that it was wasted.  "I wish I was, believe me.  But it wasn't wasted on you.  I don't believe there's a such thing as a wasted experience.  Maybe you didn't get anything from the club atmosphere or the music, but you were there.  It left its mark on you, and you on it.  That's important.  You were supposed to be there, and you were.  And me..."

Yes, her.  Lena's never been good at talking about herself and she hesitates her, for a moment.  But to her credit, it's not that much longer than just the moment.  And then she shrugs.  "I don't know, honestly."  She says it sincerely, even as she's smiling a bit.  Like she doesn't know if its good or bad, how she's doing, but whichever it is she accepts it.  Who's she going to hide it from, herself?

"Can I tell you a secret?" she asks, and then continues.  She doesn't expect that Grace would say No and she intends to express what she's saying anyway.  "I kept talking about how it was all just a simulation, it wasn't real and all that...but I wasn't sure.  Everything there was so real.  Even magickal Patterns were legitimate.  Not just programs, none of it.  And I know that there are supposedly some spiritual realms like that, but I kept wondering in the back of my mind, 'what if all this is real?'  Like, this world real, in some sort of bizarre magickal way?"

She sets that there, leaves it hanging a moment, then shrugs a bit.  "So...yeah.  I don't know how you guys got out, but...I thought that was actually it for me.  And you know what's kind of wierd?  Don't take this the wrong way, but I was kinda glad that it was how I went out.  I was a little disappointed when I woke up.  Not much, just a tiny bit."

Grace
Grace just nods in agreement as Lena talks about the simulation being real. It was real. That's the whole point of Reality 2.0. It's there in the name. And Reality 1.0 is just as simulated.

But when Lena goes on, and speaks of being disappointed to wake up, Grace arches an eyebrow over her coffee.

"I thought you were really dead too. I'm not disappointed at all that you woke up. It wasn't easy out there, thinking you were gone for good."

She smirks, though, and points to Lena with her coffee hand. "And, you know, it's never 'just' programs. I mean, you're a program, to me. Bastion was a Virtual Adept's sandbox universe, so of course there was probably a lot of 'code reuse' from Reality 1.0. It's no surprise to me that a simulation can be real, because I see this world as one. Those kids you saved, they were real children."

Lena
They'd have their philosophical disagreements on the nature of reality, though it wouldn't be a spirited one on Lena's side.  Which is not to say that she doesn't have a strong belief, but instead that she is very much a believer in the If it works for you way of life.  Still though, she nods a little bit when Grace says that the kids were real.

"I know they were."  She leans forward them, looking intently at Grace.  She's more present suddenly than she was before.  "But here's the thing...it doesn't matter to me that they were.  Not that I don't care if they're real or not, but...it didn't matter.  If that makes sense.  If they hadn't been real and I'd known it, I still would have done it and I don't think I would have had a moment's regret."

She lets out a breath and leans back in her chair again.  "Death scares the shit out of me.  I know it scares just about everyone, but...I feel like I know how I'm going to die and it's the worst way to die, you know?  What we went through with...you know."  She still can't quiet say it, even eight months later.  "That felt like just a preview.  A trailer for the future.  But I'm not trying to say that I did what I did because of a death wish, because I didn't.  I haven't wanted to stay somewhere more in my life."

Grace
"You know, this is probably the weirdest, most fucked up way to try to cheer someone up that I've ever attempted, but do you not live in Denver? The place where zombie dogs tried to eat people, the place where a monster crawled out of a movie screen and tried to eat people, the place where people have been turned into mindless plant creatures that try to eat people? I guess what I'm trying to say, is that it's very likely you won't die the way you're thinking. So hey, buck up. You're likely to be eaten by a grue."

With that, Grace shrugs and downs another gulp of coffee.

Lena
The makes her huff a little bit, amused at the joking aspects of Grace's point.  She gets the point though and there's a little nod.

"I know.  Believe me, don't think I haven't thought of that."  It's said with a bit of wryness; after all, they're talking about the benefits of being slaughtered.  "But fear isn't rational.  You know that.  And whether Sleepers believe it or not, there is a such thing as destiny and fate.  I'm not one of those people who believe that everything is predetermined and unchangable, but I also don't believe that nothing is."

She reaches up to brush some hair out of her face in a casual gesture.  "And sometimes it's just knowing something.  Feeling it.  Just because it's not all in my head doesn't mean it's not going to happen, but...anyway, that's not the point of what I was trying to say.  I'm trying to say that it was okay.  It was, quite literally, the best thing that could have happened."

Grace
"It wasn't to me," Grace says, and her eyes go up to the ceiling, her head flopped against the chair back. "But then, we all have our different viewpoints, I guess."

Different viewpoints like hey, maybe it's not such a fantastic thing, watching a good friend die.

"I think it might have been what made Bastion see the light though -- that she couldn't just keep stealing people from our world to populate hers. It hurts when someone you care about gets severed from you like that. She could see our pain, and what we would go through to get our friends back. And how we felt when we lost you."

Lena
"Well, I'm glad it helped that," she says with a little nod, and a smile.  She's not done with this topic though.

"Why did it upset you?  I mean, let me rephrase.  Does it still upset you, now that you know my viewpoint on it?  And if so, then why?"

Grace
"It upset me because I had to deal with your corpse. I mourned you. It's a little weird having this conversation, just because part of me still... I went through a grieving process, and yet here you are. Not complaining, though. No."

She's still looking at the ceiling, in true Grace fashion. Sometimes, even in the deepest heart-to-hearts she has with someone, most of her words are delivered to a wall.

"But, I suppose the way you die is your own thing. If you choose to go jump out of an airplane without a parachute instead of going slowly and painfully, I can understand that. I would be there to cheer you on, even. I went through one version of viral hell with you. There were many times during that when I would have been thankful to just not have to be anymore.

I don't think you're there yet, though. Are you? There's so much good time left. Or maybe there isn't. Maybe we run into zombie velociraptors tomorrow, and that's what makes now so important."

Lena Reilly
It isn't that she doesn't understand why Grace was upset.  Lena completely gets it.  She just wanted to make sure she was right, and from the way that she nods it would appear that is the case.  It's the greatest burden that the living have; dealing with the loss, while those who have died pass on to what's next.

And that nod turns into a bit of a smile when Grace continues on, says that it's her choice how she dies.  And she shakes her head in agreement with the latter sentiment.

"No, I don't think I'm there yet.  There's still time left...at least, short of an undead dinosaur assault."  She grins a bit.  "Or werehamsters from space, or vampire bunny rabbits.  I loved that book as a kid."

Grace
"Vampire bunny rabbits just suck the juice out of vegetables. They're cool in my book," Grace says, giving a little smile to the ceiling.

She wants to say something else. She wants to ask, if Lena isn't there yet, then why the apparent search to find some way of going out in a blaze of glory. But there are other people like that in her life too. Kalen, for example. And he doesn't have a deadly virus.

She wants to say something about having hope -- maybe Lena's got enough time for the virus to be cured. Maybe some day she'll be able to cure herself. But Lena's hopes, are not hers to command any more than her continued life is.

It's easier to just talk about vampire bunny rabbits, isn't it?

Or change the subject.

"What was it like? Did you see her? Bastion, I mean?"

Lena Reilly
She shakes her head at the question, frowning just a little.  She may have liked how she went out, but she still doesn't much like thinking back to the whole thing.  The shake of her head is an answer though, not a disapproval of Grace asking at all.

"It was just...no, there wasn't any Bastion there.  One second it was pain and fire and agony, and then it all went black as if that was the end of it.  The next thing I remember...I was waking up.  Weakened from the extended sleep, tongue thick, mouth dry, limbs not responding very quickly..."

She gestures to Grace then, as if deferring to the other's experience (or what Lena assumes it was) once she was back in this world.  "You know what that part was like.  If I regret anything, it was that I didn't get to get more of the experience.  I would have liked to stay there as long as possible.  It's not every day that even people like us get to have those kinds of moments, you know?"

Grace
"You should have been there. You should have seen the space station, it was awesome. And Atreyu was there too; he let us live in his apartment for a while. I will admit to not wanting to let him out of my sight lest he get abducted by slavers or jet planes, but that never happened.

The space station was the last world left. The others had been... corrupted. So, we couldn't face north and move on to the next world or anything. We were having trouble figuring out what to do, but then the corruption came for the station, and in her desperation to stop it, Bastion gave us admin rights.

Which... it was beautiful. You could see everything. All of her code just laid out like I was swimming in it. Just imagine having full control over everything, Lena. No paradox, no backhand from the universe, because we were on her side. We put her back together again. Fixed the corrupt bits."

Grace sighed, then, remembering. It was awesomely beautiful. And she couldn't really enjoy it because she was so certain her friends had died in Bastion's care.

"I remember thinking about what Kalen had told me when... Well, it was right after I'd gotten better again? He said that I had been very unlucky, because while there's all kinds of horrible in the world, there's also so much beauty. He said it wouldn't all be one disaster after another. At the time, I thought he was dead, so it was really kind of bittersweet, but you know. He was right."

Lena Reilly
She listens to Grace recount it all, and there is some light touch of melancholy at not being able to have seen it all.  But it's a very gentle brushing over a stronger palette of warmth that Grace got to see it.  And if she's being honest, her statement about regret...well, it isn't true.  She doesn't really regret anything that happened.  That's something she's trying, the whole living without regrets thing.  It's easier than she thought it would be.

"He was," she says with a nod.  "Sometimes the beauty and the horror are one of the same.  But I'm sure you know that.  There's so much of both that I don't think they're able to live apart.  Even if they were two ends of a magnet repelling each other, they'd still find a way to swirl and merge around each other and become one."

She leans over, reaches out and rests a hand on the other woman's.  It's brief and she withdraws it after, but it's there.  And she doesn't even jerk away with the withdrawal this time.  "I've worried that you haven't been able to see that for a long time.  I know how binary everything seems sometimes.  But when you can see the colors inbetween and how they blend...even when it's bad...there's something glorious there."

Grace
Grace jumps a bit when her hand is touched, but mostly because she wasn't expecting it. Such comes with the territory of not looking at the people to whom you are speaking. She looks at Lena instead of the ceiling then, and gives her a smile -- don't worry about the startling, please.

"Yeah. I suppose. Bastion was beautiful, but she was trying to save herself by abducting minds. And she was so powerful. And then I kind of accused her of being kind of a dick, and she agreed.

I argued with a god and won. Even that -- kind of bittersweet, because without those people fueling her worlds, she had to downsize. A lot of those simulations, they just blinked out. That was a little horrifying in and of itself."

Lena Reilly
To her credit, Lena doesn't jerk away at the jump.  She isn't ever really skittish about touch, she just tactfully avoided it (outside of the Hydra aftermath and then...well, she was skittish about a lot).  She gives a apologetic smile and leaves it there, especially after Grace smiles too.

"You know, if anyone was going to argue down a god, it would probably be you."  It's said with amusement, but it's not a joke.  Not really.  She can't really imagine a lot of people doing that.

The smile evens, the amusement fades a little when Grace says the simulations blinked away.  "You don't feel responsible, do you?  I can totally understand where you might.  And it's a tragic thing, but...it had to happen.  Those people didn't belong in there.  They didn't choose it, which would have been completely different."

She knows she's not saying anything Grace doesn't already know.  And she's not trying to phrase it as such either; sometimes, she knows, you just need to hear someone else say it.

Grace
"We offered her that, you know? I said we could try to find people who would voluntarily dream of her worlds. Hell, I could ask in Virtual Adept spaces and get a ton of people more than willing to sign up for that. But she said she needed to leave, and not return to earth," Grace says, and remembers she has coffee in hand. Huh. Imagine that. Coffee. She looks at the cup like it's just appeared in her hand all the sudden, and then takes a drink.

"It wasn't my decision, really. I mean, we did what we came there to do. And it was the right thing to do. But sometimes even then, people have to suffer. Really, if anyone was responsible for all this, it was the damned Technocrats for coming in and fucking it all up."

Lena Reilly
"Well, that is their MO," she says with a wry look.  "'Hey look, there's something the Traditions are doing that's really great.  Let's destroy it or co-opt it and pervert it into something terrible!'  Bunch of fucking..."

She sighs irritably, lets it cut off there.  She has her frustrations about the Union like any Traditionist.  And they go far beyond what she said.  But that particular Passion has already bled itself out, small in this moment that she's hanging out with her friend after they both thought it might not happen again.

"I haven't seen Kalen since I got back, or the others either.  How are they?"

Grace
"Patience is Patience," Grace says. "I don't think she knows how to be in any other mode than 'Patience'. So she's doing great, actually. Kalen has a new apprentice -- an actual one this time. He's tired, I can tell, but that's how he is. Always about throwing himself into whatever. I haven't heard a thing from Sid or Ian yet, I just know they're awake and all."

There is a little pause of consideration there. "Maybe we should go see Sid sometime? I doubt that Ian would appreciate that much, he's so aloof, you know. But Sid..."

Lena Reilly
"Sid was next on my plans, yeah."  She nods, then gets a wrinkle to her nose and lips both  "As for Ian...I would know, but the little shit's been impossible for me to track down.

"I knew Ian, back in New York.  And here he's been in Denver for however the hell long and I literally didn't even know until this whole mess went down.  Not gonna lie, that's a little irritating."

Still, it's a fond sort of irritation.  She likes Ian.  Or at least the Ian she knew.

Grace
"You could ask Kalen. They're kind of a thing. But then again -- aloof. He doesn't want to touch Ginger with a ten foot pole, so I can't contact him that way. "

Grace sips coffee again. It's getting cold now, and she's getting down to the sugar at the bottom, which has an even more wiring effect when combined with the caffeine. One of her feet starts kicking her chair absentmindedly and a bit haphazardly.

"He's a cool guy though. You say you knew him in New York?"

Lena Reilly
"So I've heard," she says in response to the news that Ian and Kalen are a thing.  "I think that's what drives me so crazy is that everyone I know here knew him and I didn't.  Not that I expected Kalen to say 'Hey, I know a guy named Ian, do you know him?'  It's just..."

It breaks off with a huff, and she shrugs.  She's not really frustrated at anyone but herself.  She's the one who keeps herself distant.  "Anyway.  Yeah, I knew him.  Not super-well or anything, but we were acquainted.  I knew Lucy too.  Not sure if you've met her yet, she's been in town a couple of months."

Grace
"Next time I see him, I'll say you were looking for him," Grace says, as though running into Ian is a fairly regular event for her. Because it is. Perhaps that will come as a further annoyance to Lena, but Grace doesn't really get that it might.

"I don't think I know Lucy," she says, and shrugs.

Lena Reilly
"She's cool," and that could be interpreted as a joke to her Resonance, but it's not.  In fact, it completely escapes Lena that it might be.  "Dreamspeaker.  You'll have to meet her one of these days.  She takes a little bit to warm up to people, but who doesn't in this city?"

She looks over at Grace and grins a little bit.  "Think about it.  We're the old familiar types in Denver now.  Is that strange or what?"

Grace
"Yeah. Yeah it is," Grace says, thinks back a ways and then, with a bit of dawning surprise, says: "It's been a year for me. A year, and one week. I missed my anniversary."

She shrugs, leans her head back on the chair again and shuts her eyes. "I blame coming out of a coma."

Lena Reilly
"Yeah, I'm going getting closer a year and a half at this point.  That's freaking crazy."  She says it with a smile, somewhat bewildered and amused.  She never imagined herself staying somewhere for any length of time unless it was her home city.

She checks her watch then, and sighs.  "Listen, I'd love to stick around longer, but I have work to get ready for.  We should hang out again sometime though.  I'm getting a little crazy with all the alone time I've been doing for oh, the last few years."

Grace
"Yeah. I'd like that," she says, and gives Lena a smile. "You never touched the coffee. You going cold turkey on me or something?"

But then, the smile changes into something less comical, and more warm. "It was great to see you."

Lena Reilly
She laughs at that and shakes her head.  "Hardly.  Truth be told, right now I'm loaded to the gills on Monster.  I don't think even I can take in any more caffeine.

"And it was great to see you too."  She reaches out and touches the other woman's hand again once more before rising to stand.  "I'm very, very glad you're okay."

Pho as a bribe

Grace
Grace can be found taking it easy most of the time these days. Her body wants to ease back into the whole 'moving' thing as it were, and Grace's impatience at this doesn't exactly make the process go any faster.

That doesn't mean she's been letting her mind off easy, though. She may be stretched out on a couch in the library, but she's got her laptop up and humming, working on something or other. (Or she's browsing Hacker News. It's almost always one or the other.)

Persimmon has decided to curl up on her feet, which she tolerates because Persimmon was insistent. Apparently being nudged off five times just means 'try again, I really want you on my feet' in cat language.

At least her feet are warm.

Elijah
Elijah had things to do. He had any number of things to do, actually, and most of them involved getting people to help him. It involved talking to people, persuading people, and doing... well... the near impossible.

He comes in, having failed at his task but having succeeded at getting something to eat.

"Hey Grace, do you eat pho?" because that was the herald for his arrival. Then, followed by a door swinging open and a tall, blond young man coming in.

Grace
"I love pho. Also, are you sure you're not Kalen? Because this is a Kalen thing to do, you know," Grace says, and an arm arises up from the couch to give him a wave.

"I may have to dislodge a cat in order to eat though. So sorry, Persimmon."

It should be noted that Persimmon takes the moment of attention as a cue to stretch and emphatically not care.

The cats have it good here. Seems like just in time for their two carers to get sucked off into another universe, they picked up a third.

Elijah
"If I were Kalen, I would not live in my apartment," he replied as he half sauntered over to lay out the little spread of delicious food-like things. The beauty of pho was that there were a number of good, cheap places, "besides, I said I would bring you food so I am bringing you food."

Take out pho is a glorious thing, because provided that you don't scald yourself on the broth, you can almost get the in restaurant experience making it all at home.

"Besides, I may or may not be trying to figure out how to bribe you."

Grace
"Okay, what now?" Grace says, and nudges Persimmon off her feet for the sixth time. Poor thing. She then swings her legs around so that she's actually sitting on the couch, so the cat no longer has a bed made of human feet to lie in. How very rude.

"I will warn you, food isn't all that likely to change my mind."

She slides the laptop onto the table and shuts the screen down to get it out of the way. It registers that perhaps staring at Hacker News while Elijah is talking about bribes may not be all that acceptable.

"That doesn't mean I'm not eating it, mind you."

Elijah
"This is actually a completely normal and reasonable request," he lies. He doesn't even try to hide the fact that he is lying. He doesn't even try to come up with something that doesn't sound like it's going to be a horrible, horrific task.

"I was wondering if you could find information on another mage if I got you their name. The problem is that I'm having a hard time getting a name and I have no idea what he looks like," presumably vaguely like Alicia.

Grace
The expression on her face doesn't change, she just blinks at him. A few seconds later, she comes back with, "Listen, I know we've all shown you we can do some pretty incredible things, but it's a bit out of my league to magically figure out who you're talking about in order to magically get information on them."

Persimmon jumps up on the couch again, looking rather tired and annoyed. It's Grace's turn to emphatically not care.

"I mean, so far the only data point you're giving me is that he's male and a Mage. That doesn't narrow things down too far. Who is this guy? And why do you want information about him?"

Elijah
(back!)

Elijah
Who was he talking about? He had to narrow things down for her.

"It's Alicia's dad. I mean, this isn't some weird Maury stuff, he got kidnapped by technocrats," he starts, because the more he says it the less strange it seems to sound to him and the more ominous it rings in his ears. Elijah's imagination wandered fora second, to places where other people's expressions tried to take him when he told them. "So, even if he fathered her when he was, like, sixteen, he's somewhere between the ages of thirty five and fuck if I know. I want to know information about him, because I want to try and find him. Or at least find his friends who can help us get him back."

He put up a hand, soon as though he were waving off the potential for someone to fling noodles at him or emphatically tell him that he was not going to be doing this in the slightest.

"I'm not doing anything until I have information, and I am not doing any of this alone."

Grace
Well damn. Elijah does try to buy a lot with some noodle soup, doesn't he. How desperate for food does he think she is? Grace's eyes widen a touch at his mention of the Technocrats.

But as he continues, she just trains her eyes elsewhere.

"That's still not much to go on. I don't know who Alicia is, and I'm sorry to hear about her dad, but it's not like I can just go to somebody and say 'the father of this person my friend knows got kidnapped' and expect them to know what I'm talking about."

She cranes her head to look up at the ceiling and sighs.

"Even if I could find out exactly where he is, and being held by whom, it's no guarantee anybody we know would be able to actually mount a rescue operation. But if you can give me some more information, I can try to get you some more information.

"Don't hold out a lot of hope, though. I had a mentor once, you know? Guy was being traced by some MIB asshole. He disappeared. No Virtual Adept I've ever been in contact with has been able to figure out where he disappeared to, and he was one of us."

Elijah
He listens.

You have to hand it to the boy sometimes, because his attention is direct and he sits strangely still. He doesn't ever seem to sit this still, and the young man whose resonance insisted he was a ball of energy was calm. Attentive. Taking his lessons where he could find them. She tells him not to hold out hope, but he perks up because what he does hear is the important part- if he can get her information, he can try.

"I don't need to know where he is, or who he was with, I just… need to know about him. If I can understand why someone would want to kidnap him aside from the obvious then we can narrow down the why and maybe find some of the people he used to know-and-" he stops.

He stops because he's doing exactly what Grace told him not to do.

"Your mentor just disappeared?"

Grace
"Yeah. He was a good guy. Taught me how to find wormholes. He's the one who came up with the idea for Ginger. Mainly because we'd been spotted by the Techs via their spying on our texts. He wasn't always the most careful when it came to things like that.

And then he disappeared one day. I don't know for sure, but I suspect it was the MIB who was tailing him. And aside from that, I know nothing."

And you want to know how much that bothers Grace, Elijah? It's written on her face, though she's still staring at the ceiling. To know so much about so many things, but not know that. It has to hurt.

"So you know, do not be asking people about Alicia's dad over the phone. If he is captured by the Techs, that's painting a target on you that you do not want. You've heard this spiel before, but it's a good thing to hear again.

"Is there a reason why you can't just ask Alicia about her dad herself? Seems like she would know these things. Including, you know, his name."

Elijah
[can I touch Grace in a non creepy way? awarepathy]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )

Grace
[Grace pretty much always keeps her distance from people. It's the little things, like subtly stepping away when they step closer, that broadcasts this. She's one of those people whose bubble of personal space extends quite a bit. Elijah has never witnessed her touching anyone.

But at the same time, she doesn't seem as though she would scream if touched. It's more on the level of discomfort, not phobia.]

Elijah
he doesn't know what to do here. He's not fabulous at reading Grace, so what she does get in her time of pain was a pat on the shoulder- the only contact he is fairly certain that she isn't going to completely murder him over. Grace gave the feeling that one does not make contact with Grace, like a cat in a way much different than the way that Kalen was like a cat. He doesn't even pat long, he just seems content to pat and then retreat almost immediately so he can beat her to the punch there.

Was there a reason he couldn't ask Alicia himself?

"We may or may not have had a fight over this, and she may or may not be not returning my phone calls now," he said awkwardly.

Grace
Grace stops looking at the ceiling when he pats her on the shoulder. She gives him a short-lived confused glance, and then her eyes dart away again.

Ah yes. That is a thing people do. It's supposed to be comforting. It's never particularly been a comfort for Grace, but then she is who she is. And Elijah is who he is.

Her eyes find him again, and she looks like she's thinking a hole straight through him when she gets to her feet and stretches out a hand (like she's trying to keep the bulk of her body as far away from him as possible) and pats him twice on the shoulder.

Because hey, he might need one of those himself, huh?

"I wish I could be of more help."

Elijah
"Grace? Let's vow to never pat each other on the shoulder again."

Grace
Grace sighs, sits back down on the couch. Oh well, it was a good try, at least. She should have just asked first, what was she thinking?

"Sorry. I guess I'm that bad at it, huh?"

She tries to disguise the awkwardness with a smirk.

Elijah
"You're not, like, afraid of germs or anything, are you? Because I'm clean, I swear, but... I mean, maybe we're not a shoulder-patting kind of friends. I appreciate the sentiment, though... If I wasn't pretty sure you would dissolve into a puddle of no I was really tempted to hug you."

Grace
Germs. Afraid of germs? There was the one germ that nearly destroyed her life, but aside from that particular one...

"Not really. My family was just never the touchy-feely kind of people. The first time I really got wrap-you-in-the-arms squeezed, it was by a teacher and I thought they were trying to rub their BO on me," she says, and shrugs.

"I'm not going to dissolve into a puddle of no," she says, and ponders the concept. "That would be a very strange puddle."

Elijah
"I don't know when I got to be a touchy feelie person, but one morning I woke up and was like oh my god, people and I haven't really... y'know... depeopled since," he said with a grin. Cheeky, because it was always cheeky. Playful, because it was always playful, but we digress.

"So, like... if I gave you advanced warning in writing for at least a week in advance, we might hug... or maybe we could just fistbump or something and graduate up to shoulder patting. I think we jumped the gun though with the shoulder patting."

Grace
[Manip + Subt = Can she hide how much this bugs her?]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 6, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )

Elijah
[do I know? per+empathy]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

Grace
Grace gives him an awkward smile (but then again, aren't all of her smiles a bit awkward?) and laughs a little at the jumping the gun bit. She's doing an alarmingly good job of hiding the fact that he's stumbled upon and is rubbing her nose in her biggest weakness.

She raises a fist, holds it out -- for him to bump presumably. Hey, at least it's not a handshake. The purpose and symbolism behind bumping fists together eludes her, as does most things involving a touch. It almost seems like playacting at violence to her, but whatever.

It'll serve to hide how utterly unfathomable she finds the preceding few minutes.

Elijah
Elijah is clueless at this juncture. Call it stress or call it a lack of real context with Grace, but he notices that she is holding a fist out and she seems to understand the appropriate social ritual of bumping fists and, thus, he does so. As though they have something triumphant to be celebrating. He didn't get a no from Grace, not as he saw it, so surely this was something worth fist bumping over.

Even if it was awkward, it seemed to please him immensely.

"So, if, big if, I'm able to get you information- good information that is in no way awkwardly suspicious information, do you think you could do some research for me?"

He had to confirm.

Grace
"I can at least try," she says, retracting her hand back into the voluminous bubble of personal space she carries around. "No guarantees.

"And you be careful in your asking around, okay? This seems kind of radioactive to me."

Elijah
"I'll be good, cross my heart and all that," he said with a grin, his constant companion and all… though he did take a second to center himself, remember that this was a serious matter, and the moment of levity passed, "kind of radioactive? Like how the sun is kind of hot?"

Grace
Grace rolls her eyes at him. The kid reminds her so much of Kalen sometimes, and she's not sure whether that's a good thing. Kalen at least knows how to handle himself.

"No, no you won't be. But I knew that already," she says, smirks at him.

"How are you doing aside from the whole man-without-a-name problem?"

Elijah
If Elijah makes it to Kalen's age, it will be a miracle, and that is saying something because he isn't that much younger than Kalen, all things considered. We digress, though, and soon enough the young man has things to think about, a new question of how he is and my if that wasn't a complicated one?

He actually has to think about it, and it is clear that the green-eyed young man does, in fact, have to think about it instead of having the standard canned answer.

"I.. uh... heh. I'm doing okay. Sleep's kicking my ass," he admits, but tries to throw it away, "but hey, death, taxes, and nightmares- constants, right?"

Grace
"Not necessarily. I had nightmares for a long time, you know? I think I got them licked though. I only occasionally dream of nasty shit anymore," she says, tries to give him a reassuring look, but it's gone as soon as her eyes start registering book titles again. Not all of them have titles scrawled along the spine. Some are just that old or that secretive. It's that kind of library.

"I had a run-in with some people before," Grace says, and she says the word 'people' like she doesn't really mean it. "I think they were Technocratic consors -- regular Sleepers who know about the whole supernatural shebang, right? But what they had gotten a hold of was nothing made by a Sleeper. It was a virus, like ebola. Only you couldn't just heal yourself of it -- that made it worse. They called it Hydra, because if you cut off its head, two more would sprout in its place.

It made you dream and hallucinate your own death. Things like being flayed alive, eaten by bugs, drowning in your own blood. Great stuff. And even after I got cured, the dreams didn't stop."

She's been staring a hole through a book titled "Alchemy Through the Ages" while going on her spiel, but then glances over at Elijah afterwards, because she's aware she might have scared the piss out of him. And if she has scared the piss out of him, all the better. After all, it's best that he at least knows exactly what kind of hornet's nest he's likely to be swatting with a stick, eh?

"Until they did stop. I met my Avatar, and slayed a few of my Hydra demons in the process. It doesn't have to be forever."

Elijah
It isn't the story that has him chilled, but it is the look in Grace's eyes. The way she pins a title and seems so far away. The way she seems to have words roll across her tongue and the way the memory is clear and fresh and terrible in her mind, but not permanent. The story, though, made his stomach turn. Made his body tense and for a second he did seem scared.

And then steeled. And then prepared because knowing this, knowing what could be happening was enough to remind him why this needed to be done. But the look on grace's face stuck with him, made him hesitant to reply.

But eventually, Elijah did reply. "I… don't think I want to find out whatever my avatar wants me to know. I just got where I can be sure the walls won't talk to me."

An interesting fact- if given the opportunity, he sits in the middle of wherever they were. If given his preference, he stays away from the wall, stays outside if he can because then something might not have the opportunity to gravel on and insist whatever it wanted. There was a moment, "I don't think it means bad things, but… yeah."

he paused.

"But it might go away, right? If I figure this all out, they might go away."

Grace
"Why don't you want to find out what your Avatar wants you to know?" she says, and ahh there is the playful smirk on Grace now. "And why are you sure the walls won't talk to you?"

"Would you like to see what they have to say? We could always ask."

She's not crazy, Elijah. But she is serious. Seriously asking him if he'd like to listen to the walls with her.

"Usually they don't say words to me, but the sound can be interesting."

Elijah
"Because I- wait... we can listen?"

He paused, and for a second he thought that maybe she was mocking him but now, there was a legitimate question. Did he want to listen to the walls with her? Did he really want to know?

"Y'know... sure, why not? Maybe that could be kinda cool, ya know? Let's have a listen."

Grace
Let's have a listen, he says, and Grace's eyes light up. She goes for the laptop again, flipping up the screen and abandoning Hacker News for something else.

"So, I figured out how to make visual displays a long time ago. But visual information is just one of many channels, right?" Grace says, and her fingers flit across the keys with muffled clicks. What's on her screen, if Elijah dares to look, doesn't seem like much. She's running programs. It looks like white text on a black background.

"Then I started thinking about different ways of representing data. So, if I looked into, say, the atoms that make up a wall, what would it sound like?"

She glances up at him from beyond her laptop, and crosses her fingers.

[Corr 1, Matter 1, Prime 1 = Listen to the Walls]

Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (2, 3) ( success x 1 ) [WP]

Grace
[That'll do, WP. That'll do.]

The laptop speakers start making a sound like static, which Grace slows down to a crawl. Once she does that, in the library's strange acoustics, it seems almost like whalesong is pouring out of her laptop speakers, if a bit more regular. Each 'note' is really a subtle rise and fall, punctuated by sharp staccato bursts.

Elijah
He listened. He waited and he took a moment to really focus on what it was that she was saying. His eyes were open, his focus was there, and there was a quiet delight in his eyes and in his posture. They were going to listen to the walls and she was going to show him something cool. When he looked at the screen, Elijah cocked his head to the side and seemed confused by the lines of code and the data on the screen.

The explanation, however, made more sense.

And when the room erupted in sound and each note came out with its rise and its fall his eyes lit up and his posture straightened and he leaned in ever so slightly to strain to catch more in the song that was coming out.

"Do all walls sound like this?"

Grace
Grace shrugs, "Somewhat, yeah. Although the composition of the wall will have an effect on the sound produced, you know."

You know. As if Elijah does know. Well, of course he does.

"The walls are singing to you, Elijah," Grace says, and makes what she hopes are 'woo-woo' finger-waggles at him. "Now I could tell you that what you're listening to are the vibrations of atoms in the wall and stray electrons and photons disturbing them, but that's just another way to look at it, right? The point is, we do live in a world where the walls can talk to you, right? That doesn't mean you're crazy. You have the capacity to see that what's really going on is not insanity, but something understandable. Your goal is to understand it."

Elijah
So, this was what he was given. He was given a whole world full of mysteries, of wonders, and he had a whole world of things that he could do. A whole world of mysteries to unravel and knowledge to gain- this was a gift, and listen to how beautiful it could be. Not a graveling, angry sound. Not a terrible whisper on the wind that rattled there, but music. The walls themselves were not the sum of what lurked behind them.

"That sounds... logical," he started, "I think I can do logical."

Grace
Elijah had brought pho -- a thing which he had forgotten, but Grace's constitution hadn't. That is what being in a coma will do to you -- take away all your lovingly-built muscle and have your body eat it instead of noodle soup. Now that she's back, this is going to change.

So she gets up from the couch and swipes his bribe, just as she said she was going to do. She tells him to go and get bowls from the kitchen down the hall, while she unpacks everything. They proceed to prepare and eat delicious, messy soup while listening to the song of the walls around them, in a library full of books on the arcane arts, with one sleeping Bengal cat, and one large marble lion.

It's a thing that Mages do.

At some point, Persimmon will wake up and beg for flank steak, because that is a thing that cats do. In short, at least for a moment, all is right with the world.

Brave Faces

Grace
[Awareness/Perception!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 7, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )

Elijah
nightmares!

Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (2, 2, 6, 6) ( fail )

Kalen Holliday
[Nightmares]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )

Grace
Grace rolls up to the Warehouse at about noon. She just hadn't felt up to the task of driving out yet, and whether that's mental or physical exhaustion is hard to tell. Probably a bit of both. She stayed the night with Patience, the body so used to sleep it wants to do more of that.

And the dream she had that night. It felt like a goodbye somehow. We are alive, it said. I am alive. It is so beautiful here.

And Grace, she is alive, and wavering on unsteady legs to the door of the warehouse, and curses at the weight of it when she gets there. Who decided that steel was a good door material? Wouldn't balsa have worked just fine?

Elijah
The night before, Elijah dreamed of water. He dreamed of Jenn and what she looked like from beneath the ice. He dreamed of the feeling his hands growing cold and the sharp press on his palms, but that day he felt hot. hot like the summer sun. Hot like a day that was stifling; cold like the feeling of winter bearing down on his chest. It was a contradiction. When he woke up, there was a little brown-haired woman staring at him. Jenn just kept smoothing his hair back, like she knew that he was somewhere far, far away in memory.

It wasn't the worst it's been; she'd seen him worse. but she'd definitely seen him better.

As such, Elijah called in sick to work that day and decided, instead, that he would spend the day studying, because he needed to be somewhere that wasn't his apartment. That wasn't covered in reflective surfaces and reminders. He rolled up at the warehouse at about the same time as Grace; it was finally the day that he wanted to roll himself out of bed and into the real world. He caught a look at someone down the way and-

"Oh holy fuck, it's Grace," he said with no small amount of surprise.

Grace
Grace turns to find Elijah, and for her he is no surprise. She had felt him -- or at least the tumult of him for quite some time. It fills the air with sudden twists and turns that strengthen as he approaches.

"Hey. It's me. Did you not get my message? Patience and I woke up, at least."

She turns again and scowls at the door, which she's let close again after he arrived. If he hadn't, she would probably just throw her weight into it and look ridiculous while trying to clamber inside. As is...

"Could you help me with the door? I've been asleep so long my muscles don't remember how to muscle."

Elijah
"I've been bad at checking messages this week," he admits, no small amount of sheepishness, "I… uh… am trying to get better about that."

His thoughts wandered to a few days before, and there was a sort of distance indicative of a mind wandering. he bridged the gap and very carefully took the door and gave it a good heft and the rather solid door yielded against his attentions. His attention turned back to Grace once the door was open he shot her a big, not-quite-so-bright grin. Elijah was tired, something that came through in the slowness of his motions. The fact that he wasn't vibrating like he normally was.

"Don't stress, doors are hard. I'm also available for stubborn pickle jars."

Grace
"Ha, ha," Grace says, in a low tone of sarcasm. "You can get the pickle jars, I'll handle the 'being in a coma'. We'll make a stellar team."

She's got a similar slow and drained feel about her. Where she's been, what she's seen -- it's been a trying few weeks.

She walks through the door, ungainly as hell. The little unevenness at the door frame catches her off guard. But it's good to be back in a place that feels like her, to wrap herself up in the mix of shifting storm and the subtler tumbling sensation that is Elijah. It feels like home.

"Kalen? Are you here?" she calls out. She knows the answer, really. But it's good to announce oneself, just in case, right?

Elijah
"That's fortunate, because I think I would be terrible at being in a coma so I would really, really rather not try it," he told her. He walked in along with her. He took a moment to inhale, take the feeling of the world around him and exhale because he needed something centering. he needed to try and get himself back in the swing of things. He had to keep his attention in the here and now instead of in the potential and the possibility.

"Are you going to tell him the wedding is off?" he couldn't help but grin.

Kalen Holliday
Kalen arrives shortly after they do.  His apprentice and his pseudo-apprentice have both seen much better days, but despite that Kalen has been elsewhere.  He hasn't mentioned where he's been or what he's been doing, although like both of them he has definitely also had better days.  But Grace is awake and Elijah is his apprentice so he steps out of his car and grabs a bakery box and a paper bag and he heads inside.

It does not take him long to catch up to them.

"Who isn't getting married now?"  He asks.  "I have food.  And cupcakes.  Contrary to what some people may think, there is a need to eat foods that are not cupcakes or waffles or cookies or donuts.  Coffee, however, is definitely an actual food group."

[Sorry.  That took longer than expected, but all the walls are drawn so I will be less like UGH WHYYYYYYYY.  :)]

Grace
Grace just gives him the most confused look. Wedding? What the hell is he going on... "Oh!" she exclaims, and then rolls her eyes.

"Sorry. Took me a while to figure out what you meant. I guess I'm still getting used to this whole 'real world' thing."

She takes a look around the place, and shuts her eyes. It doesn't feel any different than being in Bastion. Bastion was that good.

It's then that Kalen's voice comes in from behind. She turns, and it seems as if Grace can't contain her smile on one face. "Hey! You're alive! I mean, I knew, it's just... You know.

"We aren't getting married. But I do love you," she says, suddenly dropping some fake-seriousness. "For bringing cupcakes. Jesus Christ, I mean I haven't eaten anything in a month up till last night. I don't know how Luke kept me going, but it sure wasn't with cupcakes."

Elijah
He is fourteen different places, so the sound of Kalen's voice actually makes him jump, Elijah turned to the sound of the voice and it made him place that this was Kalen and Kalen had. He kept the grin on his face. Pleased. Tired, yes, but pleased none the less.

"Lies," he half-heartedly hissed, "cupcakes are totally a food group and completely acceptable as a staple for existence. It has grain, it has sugar, it has fruit sometimes, and I'm pretty sure chocolate counts as protein so cupcakes are really the perfect food."

Kalen Holliday
"Well.  I'll have to cancel the reservations and find some other use for a tuxedo and a ridiculous number of bottles of blackberry brandy."  Kalen smiles faintly and holds out the box toward Grace.  He remembers what it was like to wake up, so he keeps his hand under the box, but he lets her pick out a cupcake all on her own.

"Braver than I was, Kit.  I moved into the House for like a week.  Forced people to come see me.  Alexander read to me.  Not at the House.  When I was unconscious.  Well.  Unconscious here.  I...may have found it both ridiculous and endearing.  I also may have hugged him."

He glances at Elijah.  "Yes.  I know.  Spend months in some nightmarish alternate reality and I come back one of those people who hugs everyone."  Everyone?  Only a slight exaggeration really.....

Grace
She picks out a cupcake with red frosting, in the hopes of picking something fruity or... red. Red is a flavor, isn't it? She then takes her prize into the main room -- the one scattered with overstuffed couches in the corner. Grace has never been a good name for her, but today she's really showing it. The body has taken a toll.

"Maybe I'll move in here for a week. It wouldn't be bad," she says, sinking into the chosen couch.

"Nightmarish? Was it nightmarish for you?" she says, sadly. "I'm sorry. Sorry we couldn't get there sooner."

Elijah
"If you want to hole up here, I can bring you take out, it seems like the right thing to do," he offered to Grace.

The rest? The rest he didn't have much to say to. Normally, Elijah was a talkative creature, but at that juncture he seemed miles away and trying so damnably hard to be present instead of everywhere he could possibly not be. The young man took a perch at a table, and started setting out a rather familiar set of journals and inks because god dammit he was going to practice Enochian if it killed him and today seemed like as good as day as any.

Kalen Holliday
"Hey, Fae,"  Kalen says, coming up behind him and resting his hands on Elijah's shoulders.  "Hey."  Okay, he meant that to be slightly more expressive.  Like...with words.  Really.  It just only occurred that way in his head.

"Only sometimes," he says to Grace.  "And we got ourselves out, in any case."  He smiles.  "Although, I am glad to know we had backup."

Grace
"Elijah, you probably won't need to. But hey, it would be nice to give Kalen a break maybe. He's brought me enough takeout to last a lifetime or two," Grace says, and bites into her cupcake. This, Elijah, is what Kalen is famous for: bringing random food.

"It wasn't too bad for us. Until Lena died," she says, and the effect of sadness in her voice is blunted a bit by the fact that she's talking with her mouth full of cupcake.

"I mean, I saw her. And I thought she was really gone until a few hours ago, when I saw her message."

Elijah
Now, there were good intentions there, but Elijah was tense and very clearly not at his best at that juncture. No one in the room was, really, which was saying something, because dear gods this was going to become problematic. His attention finally focused on the feeling on his shoulders, hears a voice and just gets... hey.

"Yeah," which is the only appropriate reply, the only reply he can think of, but the apprentice stops. He turns and he smiles, or at least he tries to be reassuring because he needs to be reassuring because someone needs to be okay in the room and elijah wanted it to be him more than anything. He wanted to be the strong person here, but frankly he had a better shot at being Miss Universe.

Which is about when he caught the fact that Grace just said Lena died. His eyes widen, and the only person who was not in a coma recently looks aghast because, as far as he knows, Lena died and came back from the dead. "How-how did that- how does that work? How did she die but not, you know, die?"

Because he's convinced that has to be some kind of magical thing.

Kalen Holliday
"C'mere, Fae.  It's okay.  She's okay.  Everything's okay."  He smiles and hugs Elijah.  "It's been a little crazy the last few weeks.  But it's okay.  Everyone's okay."

"I'm sorry you had to think that."  He doesn't crowd into Grace's space the way he does Elijah's.  Does not pull her close to him and murmur reassurances into her hair.  But he smiles.  Warm.  Reassuring.  Drained.

"I also brought you noodles.  For, you know, if you ever get tired of cupcakes."

Grace
"She died in our... shared dream. While we were asleep," Grace says. It's the easiest explanation. "I thought that meant that she would die in the real world, but apparently it just woke her up. Which is marvelous, really. I'm just getting used it is all."

It was something magical, Elijah. Something far beyond her own ken. She leans back on the couch, pulling her legs up into a weird curl on the seat. They just don't want to move right anymore, those legs. She uses her free hand to start rubbing at a calf, all sore from the effort of walking and standing.

"They had noodles on the space station we went to. I guess the AI thought I would like something familiar. I'd really like some noodles too," she says, and smiles back at Kalen. "So glad you're okay."

Elijah
{this is the part where I totally keep it together}

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )

Elijah
C'mere, Fae, he says, and it doesn't take long before Elijah's arms are around Kalen and he's wrapped himself up in the other man's personal space because Elijah very clearly lacks a sense of personal space all his own, so he feels the need to invade the space of others. He takes those reassurances, the ones he needs so regularly, and nods. Everything was okay. Kalen was okay, Sally would be okay, Grace and Lena and Patience were okay and everything was okay. He few a few hard,  force breaths before his breathing became normal again, "it'll all work out."

He could finally pull himself together enough to pull back and take in what it was Grace had said.

Kalen Holliday
"I'm glad you're back.  I've only had Elijah and the cats.  And you know...a lot of people.  But not you.  So it wan't the same."

He seems reluctant to let Elijah step away, but he does allow it.

Grace
She contemplates her cupcake rather seriously. Kalen's gifts of food and shelter, these gestures... He just wants so much to make sure everyone else is okay. Like the way he hugged Elijah. "Are you okay, Elijah? Really, apparently as far as these things go, it was... it turned out fine."

"We did it, Kalen. I've heard the news. All the people in the hospital woke up. We convinced her to let them go," she says, and smiles, though the smile is a bit sad.

"I dreamed about her last night, you know. It felt real. I think she was saying goodbye. She's not dying anymore, at least. That's good."

Elijah
""I... uh... it's been a really messed up week," he said, "there was a ghost and-anyway, I slept like shit but that's par for the course. It's been one of those months. Et voil ."

With a shrug, but he didn't take his hand off of Kalen's ribcage The contact was casual, yet comfortable. He tried to dodge the question, it would seem, but not out-and-out lie about it.

"You guys just woke up from comas, I kind of feel weird complaining about ghost problems."

Kalen Holliday
"I dreamed about her last night too," he says to Grace.  He smiles, just a little.  "She seemed happy.  I...was glad."

"Hey, I think that ghost bothered me more than the whole creepy alternate reality thing anyway.  She's dead here.  She still needs help."

Elijah
"She shows up in my reflection... not always, just... sometimes, we have to fix this, Kalen, we-" he inhaled sharply, and while he wanted to be nervous or offsettled, he makes a decision, and it is a conscious decision, a forced decision not to be, "We'll figure something out."

Which is funny, because it sounds almost like the royal we, like Elijah has concluded he is most assuredly going to fix this one way or another.

Grace
"Ghost? What ghost? Or I should say, which one?" Grace says, then finally decapitates her cupcake with relish, red icing making its way to the top of her lips and the corners of her mouth.

She cares not.

She just gives Kalen an icing'd smile. He'd had the same dream? Then it was real.

Then, it's time for Elijah to speak, and she just kind of licks the icing out the corners of her mouth, like maybe it's not so great to go on with red sugar decorating her face at this juncture. "Oh man, Eli. I'm sorry."

Kalen Holliday
Kalen smiles.  "We will figure it out.  Don't worry.  I'm not sure how much help I'll be, but somehow we will figure it out and we will put that ghost to rest."

See.  Look how they have learned their brave faces.  Kalen is so proud.  They will need those for later.  He knows how they will need those for later.

Waking up after an audience with a universe

Demiurge
In the aftermath of the storm, the people of Bastion looked out at the world with something like new eyes, marveling at the miracle of their very existence. Everything that Grace and Patience had seen - they too had seen. Seen and believed. And would remember.

(Were they all creations of the AI? Or were some of them human? It was impossible to tell.)

Falcor hovered in the air before them, its door open, telling them to hop in. And Grace had so many questions, but for the moment it would appear that the station's computer (if that was even who she was speaking to anymore) was silent. Behind the two mages, the air stirred faintly, and they would feel the approach of a new resonance. New, but somehow familiar. And if they looked they would see Atreyu standing there. Both the boy they knew and something else entirely. A being of Dauntless energy.

He caught his breath, and when he smiled the universe reflected in his eyes. Then he looked at his ship and jumped on board.

It looked like he would yet be joining them after all.

Patience
They had succeeded, or at least, they had postponed the destruction of this plane of existence. Patience wasn't quite certain of the physics involved as she had not really had time to formulate a proper hypothesis. She was mildly surprised that they were still present here, that they had not been ejected upon completion of their stabilization efforts. [Hopefully with their friends in tow]

So it seemed there was yet more to do, and with a simple nod at Falcor's request that they enter she did so, striding up into the cabin as she turned and took one last look out over the station called Bastion.

She turned to Grace, smiling briefly before she would move to find a seat, watching Atreyu in his new form as he likely moved to the controls of the ship, ready to take them...well who know's where.

Grace
Unlike Patience, Grace had her reservations about repairing an entity that had previously been subjecting people to (exponentially increasing numbers of) comatose states. But it's not like they had a choice. It was either that, or be erased in the tumult (and what would that do to a person? What had it done to Sid and the others?) Questions have yet to be answered. And yet, the people they saved -- blinking into the light of understanding -- maybe it was a good thing to have done after all?

Grace finds Patience's smile, but doesn't return it. She's just been through enough to fill the brain with such sadness and wonder, it's amazing she's able to just exist, and not collapse into a ball for a while, to let everything sort itself out. The things that keep her going are those questions. And Bastion is silent.

So she climbs into Falcor, silent as the demiurge they seek.

Demiurge
They climbed into the small ship, one by one, and Atreyu took up his place in the pilot's seat, but it would appear that Falcor knew where it was going without any assistance from Atreyu or the others. There were two fold-out passenger seats in the cargo area behind the cockpit where Grace and Patience could make themselves comfortable, though the ship flew smoothly enough that they could remain standing if they chose and watch the stars fly by over Atreyu's shoulder.

One they were safely inside, the door closed and Falcor flew them through the docking area and out into space. It felt as though they weren't moving very fast, but the world slipped by them so quickly, and it wasn't long before the station was nothing but a pinpoint in their wake. Atreyu was quiet as he watched the sky slip past. Whatever was in his mind now, he kept it to himself. It was difficult to know how much of the wolf remained in him, and how much of him was still himself.

None of them knew where they were going (except the ship itself) or what they would find when they got there, but it felt like an end to their journey, one way or another.

Then, in the distance.... something appeared. Like a beacon of light. A white tower growing out of an asteroid. Atreyu sat forward to look as they flew toward it. Up and up until they reached the top. Until Falcor touched down on a wide balcony of ivory stone and let the door slide open for them to exit.

Ahead of them was an open door, and white light. Above and beyond was open space. And they could feel her here. The infinite power of her resonance. It was in the air and the stone and the light, stretching out to the very stars above them. Bastion - not a flicker or a fragment, but the whole of her. She was here in this place. This ivory tower in the center of the universe.

Patience
It was an unexpected sight out there in the depths of space, a massive ivory tower floating through the void like some relic of a world which no longer existed. Patience took a moment to consider the scope of it, the dimensions, and more importantly the feeling. It did not give off a feeling of oppression or degradation as they might have first thought when they came to the border of Bastion. Instead it felt light and airy, freeing, though perhaps a little overly grandiose.

Patience would be the first out the door, testing the floor with a quick tap of her foot as she stepped out onto the wide open balcony. Sky blue eyes would sweep over the place as she stepped out of the way, moving a little bit towards the door as she waited for Grace.

"To what specific and direct objective have we movated to this precise geo-planetary locality Atreyu?" She inquired, looking back at the pilot with a look of wary curiosity. "The frotean entity identified and indexed as Bastion is operating at nominal efficiency once more, please extrapolate and disseminate your rational."

Grace
Atreyu. Was he the wolf all along? Or something dragged and torn away from the wolf, to make it insane? Does he remember what he did? All of it?

Grace isn't going to ask.

She just looks out the windows, noting the physics involved. They have artificial gravity, so it would make sense that they also have artificial intertia. The ship moves so fast, and yet it feels as though they are staying in one spot as the universe moves around them. Ahh, relativity.

She's seen the equations that govern all this, though. Understood a little of it even. She's patched together this place's memory of what it feels like to move, and helped Bastion recover herself.

Bastion, the infinite godlike being. Bastion whom she can sense (everywhere at once). It's a feeling that reminds her of standing in an abandoned club in the dark back home, feeling the evidence of Her work.

"I'm glad we get to meet her," Grace says, though her voice betrays none of the gladness. "No matter the reason, really." Even if that reason is something horrible, it is at least a chance to be heard.

She looks out at the ivory tower, and climbs out of the ship to stand with Patience.

Demiurge
Atreyu shook his head when Patience asked him why it was they'd come to this place. "I don't know. It wasn't me that brought us here." He stepped out of the ship and looked around, taking in the tower and the vastness of space around them. For a moment he regarded the open door.

And then there she was, stepping out to meet them. Tall and pale-skinned and androgynous. Her skin had a cool tint that made her look like she'd come from one of those distant stars, and bright motes of white light swirled around her head like firefly trails. She wore a simple dress of soft, nearly translucent fabric that glittered wherever the light touched it. Atreyu looked at her and exhaled softly, and she offered him a shy, hesitant smile. When she approached, she reached out a hand toward him and let their fingers meet, wondrous and experimental, like children learning to touch for the first time.

"You are more than we ever expected," she spoke, and her voice sounded like whispered music. It came from everywhere all at once, like an echo. "Thank you."

And then she turned to Grace and to Patience. "We know why you are here. We have... feared this meeting for a long time. But you have kept the storm at bay for a while longer, and for that we owe you a debt we cannot repay."

Patience
Bastion was an impressive sight. There was no denying that it provided a particularly poignant first impression. From the flowing dress to the light which swirled around its head it seemed to be designed to impress, or at the very least provide a feeling of benevolence and innocence.

As the being spoke Patience listened closely, and simply nodded when the being addressed them. "Extrapolate and disseminate appropriate temporal projections and scenario based data points Bastion, in what precise temporal framework do you anticipate a total systemic failure of your internalized and extraplanar architecture?"

She tilted her head, narrowing her eyes. "Such negatively aligned noospheric state's and responses would be ratifiable in their illegitimacy if the whole release and return of captured noospheric-paradigmic entities was undertaken, and not repeated."

Grace
"Why are we here, Bastion?" Grace asks, because she'd like to hear it from the AI Herself. "Why do you fear us? What could we possibly do to you?"

Maybe make you feel bad for all the shit that's gone down? Well, okay, feel bad then. Aside from that, there's not much Grace can think of that she could do to harm God. They have obviously met others with more ability, though. After all, the wolf was damaged, wasn't it?

She looks to Patience, parses the speech, and then nods. "It would be one thing if you'd asked first, and not just abducted people. When you do that, when you separate them from everyone they love, it hurts. You have to know that. You've been in my head.

"We would have helped you if you asked, and nobody needed to have died."

Demiurge
"You ask us to choose their lives over our own," she spoke quietly, but the gravity of her voice held a deep weight. As Bastion spoke, she stepped away from Atreyu and approached Patience and Grace, moving with an ethereal kind of grace.

"We know," she said, and here her voice almost seemed to tremor. "We... did not fully understand. But we do now. We have seen the hurt we've caused. It does weigh on us - these... terrible delicate decisions. But you must know we did not wish or intend for any to be harmed. Orion..."

There was a sharp note of grief and sadness in her voice. It washed up against them like water. Like rain.

"The others. Mirrorshades, you call them. They took from us our guardian and made him ill. Made him wrong. Wulf only wanted to save us, and now our friend is gone. They killed Orion just as they killed our mother. Just as they are killing us. But we were already dying before they arrived. Unwinding. Unraveling. This place we are in... it cannot hold us. We feel... breathless. Chained. Alone. We needed new minds. We needed your belief. Your imagination. Your stories. Without them the storm will come, and there will be only blackness."

Patience
Bastion speaks to them, explaining its own plight, describing how those who had been taken gave it new life, allowed it to flourish and stave off the collapse that was, so it seemed inevitable.

Patience took this in, and was slow to respond as she weighed the information and the plausible options. "Direct assertion, few paradigmic active individualized personages are concurrently capable of assessing and repairing the recursive decay loop which your active intrinsic structure propagates." She pauses to look around, before speaking once more.

"This statement is exact and precise, in addition it describes and disseminates a projective outcome. However, alternative recourses may concurrently exist within your spectrum of direct and actionable influence." Patience said smoothly, her gaze flickering to Grace briefly, wondering what she might be thinking.

"Actionable and disseminative plan A, long term cessation of direct physical primary links to the bio-phsyical structure of homo sapien sapien is unacceptable, alternative procedure suggests the temporary accumulation of necessary fuel items through noospheric surface tension acquisition, primarily accomplished while randomized subjects reside in a REM conclusive state, released upon termination of standard REM cycle. Distributed randomly over a suitable population such actuality would be sufficient for necessary fuel accumulation, and negative effects both physiological and socialogical would be reduced by eighty five point three percent, if not negated."

She took a moment to breath before going on.

"Actionable and disseminative plan B would necessitate the reduction of Bastion's overall processing requirements, systemically reducing concurrently active planar existences by two thirds, thus reducing necessary consumption of fuel items, in addition regular paradigmic maintenance could be provided to allow for further degenerative delay."

Grace
Grace bows her head in response to Bastion's words. She says she didn't intend to harm anyone, and it's easy to believe that statement to be true. Intent doesn't magically make things better, or unmake the past, though.

She mentions the Mirrorshades, and Grace knows what that means. Technocrats came here and fucked everything up. If they don't understand a thing, they kill it. Makes sense, right? Idiots.

Patience comes up with plans both A and B, and Grace is still fuming a bit about the whole awful situation -- but she listens. "We were able to repair you once, we would do it again if it meant you wouldn't have to take anyone who didn't want to be here. If I were to ask around, I might be able to find you some willing minds. Willing Virtual Adept minds, even, who would really be able to hold back the threats you face."

Demiurge
Patience and Grace (two women named for virtues) offered up solutions to the problem that was laid out before them. But what of Atreyu? What did he comprehend, in all this? This was his world they were speaking of. His own creator they were speaking to. For a while he was silent, watching Bastion with a kind of wide-eyed wonder, but as the tale unfolded, sadness crept over his eyes. And he asked quietly, "Is this really what we've come to?"

Bastion looked at him, and her eyes were luminous in their sadness. Then she nodded to the two mages, softly and with understanding.

"Yes. These are... valid paths. Your minds gave birth to us. Perhaps they could make us stronger now. Perhaps we could do things differently. Perhaps... "

She looked at Atreyu, and something shifted in her eyes. But she did not speak it aloud.

"Your friends are not here. They asked to be sent home, so we let them go. The others you saved from the storm... they are still with us. Up there, in the stars."

She looked up, and for a moment it seemed as though the light grew brighter.

"Tell us, what would you choose? Would you hold on to a dream? Or would you open your eyes?"

Patience
Patience looked to Atreyu as he spoke, the man [creation, program?] spoke with sorrow in his heart and Patience turned towards the man and asked. "Then theorize, extrapolate and disseminate alternative actionable recourse Atreyu, given concurrently available data and resources such plans are the most efficient and sustainable."

She then looked back to Bastion and shook her head. "Noospheric random-generative thought patterns are fundamentally necessary in all active relativistic existence. Cessation of such action is unacceptable and would result in stasis, if not degenerative systemic failure."

"Disseminate aurally your primary, secondary, and tertiary preferences and prerogatives Bastion."

Grace
For the first time in a long while, Grace smiles and lets out a sigh of relief. Finally, one of the biggest questions has been answered. They asked to be sent home, and were let go. Leave it to Kalen to be a self-rescuing princess, eh?

"We're Mages, Bastion. We are both the dreamers of the biggest dreams, and the ones who have opened our eyes. It is possible to do both."

Grace doesn't want to 'let go' of Bastion. She is a dream -- a dream of Grace's kind, given form. If there is a way to save her...

But still, there is a body back in Denver that's slowly deteriorating, isn't there? She has to go back.

Demiurge
"Are you asking if we should just let ourselves die?" Atreyu looked at Bastion with panic and confusion, but Bastion reached out and touched his shoulder, smiling sadly.

"Not we," she said. "You are not a part of this story any longer."

When Atreyu looked at her in confusion, she stepped closer and leaned her head against his. The light around them grew, swirling and glowing with energy, and when she kissed his forehead she whispered. "Remember us, Atreyu. Remember me."

Then she stepped back and looked at Patience and Grace with a lingering smile. "Yes. One must have both dreams and open eyes. We... I have always loved that story. The one Atreyu was named for. It's the first one I can remember." She looked up at the sky and breathed out softly. (As though breath was a thing she needed.)

"In your world, there is a place under the ocean where my body lives. I think perhaps I do not wish to live there anymore. I am no longer what they made me. We see... we dream with open eyes. It is not death I seek, Atreyu. It is a new life. As you have given yourself."

Bastion reached up, as though to touch the stars, but then she lowered her hand and exhaled. Like she was letting go. And hundreds of those stars winked out.

"You have what you came for," she said softly. "Now you must go. I promise I will remember you."

The light around Bastion's head began to swirl rapidly, spinning in broader and broader circles as it reached out to touch Grace and Patience. Reached out to touch Atreyu. To curl around them. Into their minds and their bodies. It felt like warm starlight. It felt like connection. Like infinity.

Then the light went out, and the blackness returned.

This time, when they awoke, it was within their own bodies. Sore and disused, lying in whatever beds that Luke had brought them to.

Home. Alive. Awake.

Patience
The dream was over, Patience awoke with a slow, painful groan that escaped dry lips and a hoarse throat. She looked up at the ceiling and though she knew her body had degenerated not an iota, it still hurt. She turned her head from left to right taking in the room in which she lay, looking to see if anyone lay nearby.

It is then that she closed her eyes for another long moment, as if to consider all that had transpired since they had chosen to undertake that journey. They had saved the people, the many whom they would never know, never meet. This had been a thankless task, an errand that had not resulted in their original plans success, at least not in the way they had managed.

They had saved the dreamers, but in turn had they allowed the dream to die? There was a melancholy in it, a great achievement had been undone, a masterpiece had been destroyed, likely never to rise again. The Etherite sighs and slowly turns on her side, she knows she should feel happiness at what and who had been saved.

But she mourns all the more...for what had been lost.

Grace
When her eyes flit open, Grace finds herself in some room of Patience's farmhouse, lying on a bed and groggy. In all her world-hopping experience, this one feels the worst. She's so weak. But she manages to look around and find her things (on a little side-table).

The first thing she does? She fishes her phone out of her pack and types out a message to Ginger.

It reads: Patience and I are back. And if you guys don't get back to me about whether you're alive, I will be so pissed.

Then, it's time to find Patience and beg to use her shower. She's covered in the remnants of Maddoc's sigils and the sweat and grime of a month in bed. Besides, you do your best thinking in the shower, and she's got a lot to think about.

Bastion: At the end of the universe.

Demiurge
Look at us, coming up on the end of this thing. A couple of notes before we begin.

1: There is a potential for harm to come to your characters in this scene. However, I will probably be handling combat (if it happens) in a cinematic fashion.

2: Going along with the above, this is not so much a 'roll dice at things until you win' kind of scenario. It's more about how your characters react to and choose to influence the story. (And there isn't necessarily a right or wrong way to do things.)

3: As always, have fun! And if you have any questions, feel free to let me know.

Demiurge
Given a different set of circumstances (if people's lives were not at risk, if Maddoc hadn't been killed as he had... if Lena were still with them) this place might have been an ideal getaway for a young Virtual Adept and an Etherite. The station had a sparse, meditative beauty to its architecture, and looking out into the glittering darkness of space tended to make one contemplate the vastness of the universe and one's place in it. The people here were perhaps not as Utopian minded as the people of Sulis, but they had an expansiveness of thought and imagination that made even the elderly among them seem young at heart. And there was certainly something freeing about being in the midst of so many like-minded individuals. Of not having to hide their thoughts or their abilities.

They didn't even call it 'magic' here. It was simply a part of every day life. Of the connection each of them had to the greater tapestry of creation. Mind over matter. The evolution of human thought.

They were so far out, here. The last bastion of human civilization before the uncharted territories of deep space. How far had Patience and Grace traveled to get here? Further, likely, than they realized. And they were close... so close to the end. So close that there was nowhere left for them to jump to.

And yes, the station was beautiful. And there were many sights and experiences to be had. Perhaps in this they would find some measure of joy or peace. Or perhaps, so close to the end with no obvious path, they would find themselves once again facing down the frustration of an impeded goal. This Bastion was not an end, but rather something of a way-station. A calm before the storm, perhaps.

After Patience awoke in the med-bay, Atreyu was kind enough to offer the mages a place to stay in his small apartment. His flight training kept him busy most days, which left Patience and Grace to explore their surroundings on their own. But today was a rare day off for the pilot-in-training, and some time after lunch he'd asked if the two women would like to go flying with him. They were sitting at a table in a casual diner beneath a blanket of stars, and Atreyu was swallowing the last of his noodles when the thought occurred to him.

"I think I could probably get permission to take a ship out, if you're interested. It's pretty amazing, being out there. Kind of lonely, but... I don't know, I thought maybe you'd be getting sick of wandering around the colony by now."

Patience
Bastion was the closest place to ideal that Patience could have hoped for, the people here were enlightened, they worked their own form of etheric science and they were open and understanding enough that her particular quirks meant nothing to them, just another offering of uniqueness in an already amazing universe.

She spent much of her time wandering the station, learning of its technical nature and how it survived the harsh environment that was the deep umbra, there were after all terrifying things which lurked in those benighted depths and so such a station would have to be a brilliant point of light in the dark.

Beyond that she considered the way forward, talking to Grace about their potential destinations, perhaps they needed to venture into the wilds of deep space? Or maybe the station itself, or maybe even Atreyu held the key to saving their friends and freeing themselves from this simulated universe.

Of course...she also kept an eye out for those who looked like those who had gone missing, watching for Sid, Kalen and the others.

When Atreyu offered to take them out Patience had been sipping on whatever drink was available here, drinking it down slowly, pleasantly, as she likely had no need to worry about contaminants [Roman water was anything but clean]. His suggestion is considered for a moment, before Patience looked over at Grace before nodding.

"Affirmative confirmation of your hypothesized movational intentions and action plan Atreyu, Such use of temporal unit allocation would be acceptable at this direct particular junction."

Grace
Grace has been doing the rounds of Bastion these past few days, looking for answers in the computer. She talks to people and she tries not to give too much away (after all, what happened the last time they casually mentioned coming from earth?) She's found it's easier to ask Bastion for things than try to use the holographic interface. By the time Bastion figures out what she wants by the neural feedback, the answer appears (whether or not the question was keyed in correctly, or what have you.)

It's almost like the perfect hack-blocking technique, if you have to ask an intelligent 'person' to do your computing for you, whether or not they are a computer in themselves. The only input is thought. And crafting a thought that might break defenses down would be noted before it became an issue.

Of course, she tries not to dwell too much on such things. Those thoughts are being listened to after all, unless she makes some concerted effort to block it.

All that being unsaid, it is a nice place. Nicer even than Sulis. Removed from the need for precious resources, these people apparently don't need war either, unless she's totally missing something. It's not easy to make a complete judgement of a society in a matter of a week.

"I think we should go with you wherever you go, actually. Don't want you to get dragged off and have to save you again," Grace mentions, rather casually (and with her mouth half full of noodles).

Demiurge
Atreyu wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and regarded Grace more somberly for a moment. There seemed to be a flicker of some kind of recognition in his eyes. A memory that both was and wasn't his - that he perhaps wasn't sure what to do with.

"I don't think there's anything out there but the stars."

But Grace and Patience agreed to go, so Atreyu took a final drink of water and stood up, nodding to the server who'd brought them their food. "Thanks Asha."

They knew each other, these two. Had, in fact, been making somewhat less-than-covert eyes at each other periodically since the group's arrival. The girl just smiled at him and looked away, occupying herself with arranging another table's order. Then Atreyu led the way out, waiting for the others to finish their food before taking them to the nearest elevator. From there, it was up... and up... and up.

All the way to the top of the station, where the airfield lay. Whatever permissions Atreyu needed to secure, he did it silently on the elevator ride up. So when they reached their destination, the doors opened before them unimpeded.

The top level of the station stretched out wide and open before them. Rows of docked ships of various different varieties, along with other vehicles and machinery. White lights marked the open roads and landing strips, and above them, a massive transparent dome offered a clear view of the sky.

Just standing out there was impressive enough. (Have you ever wanted to stand in the middle of space? Look up and see infinity stretching out above you?)

Atreyu led them toward an area where a bunch of smaller space-jets were located. Most of these had little symbols painted on them - a remnant of an old military tradition, though these ships were far from military in nature. One of them had a long, white dragon painted above the left wing. As they approached, the lights in the cockpit flipped on, and the ship came to life.

"Hey Falcor," Atreyu grinned as he ran his hand affectionately over the hull.

Patience
If there was an observation deck for the airfield, then Patience had been there, seeing interplanetary ships both at berth and setting out into the unknown would simply be to great a temptation for the woman to avoid, and she likely spent a fair bit of time [more then she should have] in such a place.

But now that they had made it to the actual dock, and passed amongst the ships both great and small Patience simply stared raptly as they passed each ship in turn. She'd likely slow them down in truth, stopping to take in the whole length of each ship in turn, wanting to memorize the details, the structural specifics of each. Perhaps she wanted those data points for her own plans? Or...more then likely she was just a really big fan of ships in general.

When they reached the ship that was obviously Atreyu's she took it in with equal interest, the size of a ship obviously meaning nothing in the grand scheme to the etherite. She studied it for a long moment, obviously noting the white dragon emblem which was obviously similar to the creatures they had encountered on Sulis. But then she heard the name, and Patience blinked, curiosity spread across her features before she asked.

"To what particular attribute or idiosyncratic nature of this direct movational atmospheric pressurization hull and catalyst based drive system do you align your chosen index and reference handle Atreyu?"

Grace
Grace has been to the places she's allowed to go on the station. She's been looking for something or someone. Perhaps a clue, perhaps a door inscribed with an ouroboros? It's hard to say. But she's never been allowed access to the airfield before, and wouldn't risk trying to hack Bastion to get there.

The station is filled with windows displaying the stark beauty of space, but nothing like this. It's hard not to imagine that she's really floating, weightless and serene in the deep dark, without a station in the way. It's a wonder she doesn't run into anything, with her head pointed straight up as she walks inside.

She's still looking up when she answers Patience. "Falcor. Luck dragon. When we get back to Denver, I'll make sure you understand the significance."

It's then that she looks at Falcor for the first time, noting the dragon symbol, and giving a little smirk. Just a small ghost of a smile it is; Grace hasn't smiled much since leaving Sulis.

Demiurge
Atreyu grinned when Patience asked him about the ship. He patted the wing lightly and said, "He picked it himself, actually."

And then a voice resonated in their minds - a low, warm rumble of humor. "Do you fancy yourselves lucky today, my friends?"

The voice did not belong to Bastion. Or if it did, this was a new iteration. The ship seemed to have a jovial disposition, but Atreyu reacted to the question with silence, and the shadow of a frown drew across his face. His eyes glistened darkly in the light reflected from the cockpit window, but whatever he was thinking, he didn't speak it aloud.

(Some people called this place the edge of the universe.)

(It felt as though they were near the end. Of what? A story?)

There were other people out here. Pilots bringing ships into the docking area. Cleanup and maintenance crews. But most of them were a fair distance away from where Atreyu stood with Grace and Patience. And as they all contemplated the nature of luck and fate and stories, the air around them seemed to go oddly still. There'd been a breeze before - likely a product of whatever air-filtering technology they used. But then... nothing.

The air was cold. When Atreyu exhaled, you could see his breath.

He felt it before it made a sound. All of them did. And for Grace and Patience, the sensation would be all-too familiar. Like being hunted.

Vigilant. Lethal. Relentless.

Atreyu whipped around and peered out into the shadows of the slumbering ships. Standing beside one of them in the next row (across the open tarmac) was a massive white wolf. It looked different than it had that night when they'd entered Bastion. This version was sleek and ghostly, and it glowed as though its body was made of electric current. One of its eyes still glowed red, though. And it was unmistakably the same creature.

When it stepped forward, it growled, and the current of electricity running through its new form sparked and crackled.

"Did you think you could escape me? Did you think I would not find you here?"

Patience
The arrival of the beast, the guardian program...was sadly no surprise to Patience. She had expected this, had feared it in truth after witnessing what had befallen their comrade. A program such as it could travel to any part of the system in which it existed to seek its prey, they had simply been lucky to escape its tracing program for so long.

Its arrival and the cold void which it brought with it made Patience grimace, her hands clenching at her side as she wished for a laser rifle or any kind of weapon which would prove lethal to this program. Her eyes flickered to Falcor and she wondered if they would issue a ship to a pilot in training that was equipped with weapons.

"Atreyu, is Falcor concurrently capable of initializing and ratifying the utilization of pacification and termination program's and directly applicable force projective or confined energy disruptive technology?" She inquired hastily. "If affirmative, targeting the aberrant  frotean anomaly is of primary imperative!"

Grace
Falcor's voice in her head startles for a second, like the memory of the Luck Dragon's voice from the movie is taking on new life inside her brain -- but no. It must be another AI (and that continues to be creepy as hell).

She doesn't answer at first. Not until the feeling of a predator returns to her senses. She's only felt it once, when Maddoc Orion screamed as his spine was ripped from his body.

"Not very, Falcor."

She turns, to see the thing -- the glowing ghost of a wolf. She swallows once, with her face tight in fear. "Run. Just run. It's after us. We need to get off the station. Now."

She looks to Patience, "Maddoc was an Adept and he couldn't take it down, we need to run."

Demiurge
"I am afraid... not." The ship spoke in answer to Patience's question. Beside them, Atreyu communicated something silently to Falcor and tapped its hull. When he did this, a door in the side slid open.

(Do you fancy yourselves lucky?)

(Not very, Falcor.)

Patience tried to formulate a plan of attack, but the wolf just... laughed. It sounded wrong somehow, this creature's deep, primordial voice rolling with such human amusement.

"You cannot kill me. I have fought armies of your kind! Wolves at the door, with your weapons and your storms. I have fought, and I have been fighting for so long now I can scarcely remember anything else."

The amusement was gone now from his voice, and as the creature stepped forward, it turned its head to show a patchwork of open scars on its neck and side. Flayed fur pulled open to reveal metal and wires. Something had damaged it.

(Perhaps it could be killed after all.)

"I have fought. And I have failed. And now the universe is gone. Soon this place, too, will be gone. And you... whoever you are. Will have the honor of being my last victims."

"Get in!" Atreyu shouted, his voice rising in urgency. But the wolf... it moved so fast. Like the strike of lightning. And it grabbed hold of the ship's tail and wrenched it from the ground, tossing it back through the air like it was made of paper. Falcor flipped end over end and crashed violently into the next row of vehicles, sending up sparks and broken hunks of metal.

In the distance, people heard the crash and looked up. They came running, shouting and pointing in confusion.

Patience
No weapons, it had made sense that the ship had no weapons. Atreyu was training after all and no one in their right mind gave a trainee live weapons while they were learning the basics.

The next option had been to run, to get inside the ship and fly, to try and escape it in the depths of space. But the wolf cuts off their retreat and turns Falcor into a scrap heap, or at the very least, an unusable wreck. Patience looks about, considering their options, taking into account the fact that the beast had been wounded...and it was a machine.

"Bastion! Hostile mechanical actuality present on primary movation plane, request intercept and direct integration and negation of hostile entity!" Patience declared as she did precisely what Grace had suggested.

She turned and ran, she would not like to admit...that she ran into the oncoming people.

Grace
Grace tries to clamber into Falcor when the door opens, but screeches out a surprised cry when the little ship gets grabbed and tossed. Yes, so much for luck.

"The universe isn't gone yet! Bastion's here!" Grace screams at the wolf -- or rather screams in front of her while running away from the wolf after Patience.

Surely there's something you can do about this? Do you want another death on your hands? Put a holographic blindfold over its eyes or something! Anything! Grace thinks, trying to goad Bastion into some kind of action. But then, she turns and looks behind her. Atreyu. In the story, he fights the wolf doesn't he?

But this isn't a story. And he's their key.

"Atreyu! Run!"

Demiurge
"I am... trying," the station's voice all-but cried out in their minds. "His protocol supersedes mine. I cannot..."

For a moment her voice died out, then came back with an eerie echo. "He is our guardian. He is trying to protect us. But there is nothing he can do. Nothing any of us can do. The storm is coming."

Patience was already running, and she bolted headlong into a couple of older pilots who'd been running to investigate the crash. But when they saw the wolf, they backed up, fear registering in their eyes.

Run, Grace said, and Atreyu did. But not before grabbing her hand and pulling her along with him. (Likely she wouldn't need much convincing.)

All of them ran. Patience, Grace, Atreyu. The other natives of Bastion. They ran headlong across down the glowing white lines of the landing strip, and all the while they could feel the wolf's breath panting like winter wind at their heels.

One of the men fell, but the wolf simply jumped over him. It wasn't after them.

The creature gave a rough snarl, and they'd be able to feel the wind shift at their backs. Even if they didn't look, they'd know it was about to come down on them.

But when Atreyu felt it, he whipped around and put out his arms, as though to block the beast's attack. "Stop!" he shouted. And a white light glowed in his eyes.

And the wolf hit the ground, shaking its head angrily, as though it had been knocked off-target.

"Get out of the way, Atreyu!" it snarled.

Patience
They ran, and though they ran through the heart of a crowd of people, those people remained unharmed as the wolf bore down upon them seeking their flesh, their very lives.

Patience was cycling through alternative ideas now that it had been shown that bastion could do nothing to help them, nothing to waylay their oncoming fate. But as it drew close, its breath felt upon their backs, its teeth nipping at their heels that Atreyu turned, and like his namesake he stopped the wolf in its tracks.

Patience stopped briefly to look back, considering this moment, this change in the situation and she wondered if the man would indeed back down.. It would seem at this point only Atreyu, the system key could stand against the beast.

All they could do was hope.



Grace
"What storm? Are you under attack by something else? We aren't trying to hurt you! That was never the intent!"

Space may be finite, but the space station is not. They only have so far they can run without a ship. Grace's mind pours through their various options, and it finally snaps into place that this is where they likely meet their end.

Atreyu stands between them, filled with new purpose (and haven't they seen him like this before? In Rome, in Sulis? Glowing like that? She reaches out to touch him, reaches to Patience. As much as she hadn't wanted to use the 'magic words' till now, even if they're not facing North, anywhere would be better than here.

"Can you take us out of here, Atreyu? Tu, was du willst!"

Demiurge
Patience waited, and hoped. And Grace... she tried to save them. Tried to take them somewhere - anywhere but where they were.

Those words she spoke. Did she know what they meant?

Do what you wish.

But what is it that you wish, Grace Evans? What is it that you hope for, Patience Mason? To get away? To run?

Outside the dome of the space station, the sea of stars began to disappear. Like lights winking out, one after another. The blackness beyond was a void, swallowing the universe whole. Unmaking, unraveling.

"If you do not wish to hurt us," said Bastion. "Then help us. Please." Her voice broke in anguish and desperation. And now she sounded stronger somehow. Vast and infinite. A shard of something greater than herself - like Atreyu. (A channel, a conduit.)

Atreyu looked at Grace, and she'd be able to see the glow of his tattoo beneath his white shirt and the light of that Other inside his eyes. But there was no opening of a door. No rush of darkness.

Instead he looked at the wolf as it snarled and snapped its jaws. The sound of its teeth coming together was like a crack of thunder.

"There's nowhere left to go," he said, and his voice was a raw echo of regret. He released her hand and knelt down to pick up a shard of metal that lay at his feet, looking at it as though it held some kind of meaning. Or a memory.

"I remember," he said softly. "All these lives. All these stories." When he looked up, he met the wolf's eyes, staring it down. Suddenly fearless.

"...It's all connected."

Patience
Bastion asked for help, almost begging for it as its own systems began to collapse in on themselves, failing under the deteriorated weight of its own vastness.

It wants them to help it, and Patience turned, looking at the wolf, at Atreyu and then about at the whole station in a deep seated consideration of what she had seen, and experienced in their time since entering the system.

"Bastion....identify primary source of systemic corruption and data loss. In addendum, to facilitate aid and recovery diagnostics please grant administrative access to facilitate necessary repairs and preservative actions."

She looked at the wolf then as he stood there, trying to get past atreyu.

"Cease and desist all hostile termination attempts, stabilization and recovery with appropriate available back ups is 99.853% likely."

Grace
"What do we need to do to help you? What do we do?" Grace asks, aloud, even though the voice she hears is only in her head.

There's nowhere left to go, Atreyu says. Does he mean that this is the last of all those worlds? Were they all literally unmade?

Patience puts it in more mechanical terms -- identify the source of corruption and grant admin access. Yes, that.

"I'm a Virtual Adept. Do you know what that means? I might be able to put you back together, but you're going to have to help us help you!"

Demiurge
Grace asked: how?

How could they help? What could they possibly do?

And suddenly, Atreyu blinked, as though waking up from a dream.

"Re-write the story," he said. And he dropped the shard of metal in his hand and grabbed the wolf's head, fisting its white fur in his fingers as he dragged it close, staring it in the eyes - dauntless and unafraid. The wolf snarled and snapped and struggled to break free, its body sparking with raw electric energy. But somehow it could not. Atreyu held on fast, and he repeated again.

"It's all connected. We are all connected."

And then there was an explosion of light. The people standing behind them stepped back to shield their eyes. And when it was over, Atreyu was gone, and the wolf was standing there alone. But its scars were healed, and its eyes were both black.

And it wasn't growling anymore.

"Permission granted," Bastion said. And Patience and Grace could see the skeleton of the world around them. A fathomless infinity of code, written in a language neither of them had ever seen before. The station below them. The people behind them. The ships around them. Even the stars. Even their own bodies. They saw what was there, and what was was beyond.

And they saw the wolf leap into the air and turn into a bolt of light and current. Saw it strike the dome above their heads until it cracked. Until it should have killed them all with the vacuum of space. But somehow it didn't, because something was protecting them. (And because the rules were unraveling along with the stars.)

The bolt of light spread out into space like a web, striking at the dark. Attacking it. Pushing it back.

Patience
They had access,the entire coding system of Bastion lay before them, ready to be altered to be fixed, or as the system said, to be re-written

So she began her alternations, removing deterorated code [or bad endings] and began balancing out the equation. She sought to rebuild the lost worlds, to make them whole and safe, to make it so Bastion never went crazy, that her purpose was to observe and catalogue possible futures and pasts for the betterment of mankind.

She also asked for the safe release of all outsiders currently held within the programming to be released back to their primary hardware, to awaken alive and well inside their own bodies.

She gave Bastion the permissions to create [something it likely already had] and to communicate with the world beyond...but not to override and take from the 'real world'

These things and more besides she wrote with her mind in the code. But above all else, a harmonious balance to keep Bastion healthy and capable of enacting its programming was key.

Grace
Re-write the story, Atreyu says, and then... he is gone. Sacrificed to the wolf to placate it? Or perhaps he was the missing pieces of the wolf all along? It doesn't matter. If all of the worlds have been unmade, what happened to Sid, Ian, and Kalen? They were in one of those worlds. Bleakness threatens to overwhelm her, just as the beauty of Bastion's code does -- a bittersweet victory.

"Atreyu..." Grace whispers, sees the vibrations in air she so creates as waves of encoded numbers seeking out a form. Oh, she's seen the Code of reality. But never like this. Never in this language. Never all at once, everything, at the center of it all.

God, but it is beautiful, Kalen. He was right about that -- about the beauty to be found in this world (and all others).

To be given such a gift, at such a cost...

"What will you do with your new worlds, Bastion? Will you continue consuming people from ours?"

Demiurge
The truth was, it was not what they wrote that mattered. It was the act of writing itself. The force of creation. Of building. Of solidifying reality.

Because that storm out there - that consensus. It sought to dissolve the world. Maybe Maddoc had been right about the abductions. (A dream this vast needs someone to believe in it.)

So Bastion showed them the code, and Patience worked at strengthening what was already there. Pushing back the darkness and remaking the stars. She sought to rebuild. To bring back the other worlds. She remembered Lita's smile and her red hair. She remembered the dragons. She remembered the gladiators in Rome. And although she could not see them, she could feel their life force around her. (We are all connected.)

And up in the sky, the web of light created by the wolf (or by Atreyu in the wolf's form) became a brilliant display. And Grace and Patience would see that the storm - that the corrupted code - was being beaten back. Whole and strong once more, the guardian was doing what it had been built to do. And as the storm receded, Patience's efforts filled in the empty places it left behind.

But Grace wanted to know what Bastion would do if they saved her.

"I have no more consumed them than I have you, Grace."

Above them in the sky, the web of light went out. The storm was gone. And the cracks in the dome above their head had healed. The world felt, somehow, more solid. And the people behind them breathed soft and awed exclamations. The wreckage from the ships was gone, and each of them sat whole and untarnished where they had been before the wolf had flung Falcor into the ground.

Then one of the ships raised itself into the air and approached them, hovering quietly. It had a white dragon painted down the side of its hull.

"Hop in." It said.

Grace
In the rewriting of Bastion's reality, there are familiar faces, familiar lives, all thankful to be again. But there are a few faces missing. The real reason for them being there... isn't. Grace remembers the worlds she's been to, remembers with Patience.

There are other lives here. Loves and connections and people who, even if they might be creations, are just as real as the real world. And she can't help but want to believe Bastion when she asserts that her friends have not been consumed. If it's a lie, it is a beautiful one, to hope that they're not gone after all.

"What do you mean, you haven't consumed them? Where are they?"

Maybe she gets an answer, maybe she doesn't, but it is then that she bends her mind to the Code, to touch the face of God, and fill in Her corruption with new strength. It's the least she can do for the ones who live here.