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Lilian Rook     Lilian, experiencing both horrible timing for a trip any longer than a few hours, and also the best possible timing for exactly that, must intend to afflict you with exactly the same woes as punishment for your more normal lives, because you get so close to twenty-four hours of advance notice that the precision of it feels like spiting a cancellaton fee policy. That, or it's Arthur Lowell organizing, so everything must necessarily be a bombastic mess, but the odds are better than they usually are that it's her fault instead.

    When you're reinvited to the Dragon's Garden, you get the rare sight of most people being inside, the beach being busy with moving cargo, the cliffside meteorological equipment being actively used, and all four Blooms of Humanity out on the sand, who of which have packed.

    Between Ash and Lilian, there seems to be some disagreement on how long this will all take. The former has simply taken the backpack they already had from glotetrotting and crammed it full of god knows what, wasting no space, while the latter has a travel bag sized for an overnight stay and a tablet computer in her hands that she's scrolling through like a clipboard as crates disappear into stable portals.

    Between Nika and Sakura, there was some disagreement about what time this would start, because Sakura is dressed as if she intends to leave with you, and Nika is still in her pajamas and holding Ruble sleepily against her chest. He sports a brand new peripheral accessory in the form of a chunky plastic antenna with a slime green spirograph doodad and a thumb-sized engraved bronze mirror sticking off the top like bilateral halves of a probe dish.

    "We really will be reachable at any time, right here, I promise."
    "Okay yeah, I know, but I'm only gonna use that info to make sure you see the totally sick shit that's there."
    "Well then be sure you've taken a camera."
    "No I'm not really worried you're gonna miss it--"
    "Space is actually super duper ¶shy¶ when you try to get it on film; all of the images are ¶airbrushed/interpreted¶ by space guys so everyone else finds them interesting and not boring black with specks."
    ". . . Has that really never come up?"
    "Oh it's true. Looking out from a space station is like staring into the abyss."
    "Will you really be alright then?"
    "I mean, in the sense that you either skip your attention right off it, or you choose to sort of defocus and dissociate until all the little nuances and details come out, and then you see how it's pretty in a way that ordinary people don't have time for."
    "Jealous."
    "Dude you're already gonna see it! Why?!"
    "I think I should make a little flying island that's so high you can only see the stars and not the clouds so I can sit with my legs off the edge like it's a swing."
    "That's . . . very specific."
    "It's ¶fishing¶."
    "Well if you wouldn't get wet, I'd hope you'd allow me to accompany you for it."
    "You're invited!"
    "Want me to toss Petra up there?"
    "Yeah!"
    "What the hell is this conversation?"
Arthur Lowell > Arthur: Launch

    Ten years ago, the DRF Noir's Relief was a supply, support, and troop transport, responsible for transport of Derse Carapacian soldiers from the outer Veil to the Medium, and eventually to the Battlefield. After the defeat of Derse, it was decommissioned, its few weapons disposed of as part of the White Queen's disarmament policies. Its armor and most of its complex engineering was stripped out over time, for recycling and salvage purposes.

    Today, where the engine once was, the Relief now has a complex array of lenses that have been arranged in ways derived from Lilian's pseudo-paradox-induced "Bloom math". The troop transport complexes have had the complex ectobiology chambers replaced with a nice pool. Multiple cozy little cabins have been expanded with space-magic into full-scale rooms. The kitchen is restocked, and he didn't even stock it with awful gamer slop, it's real food.

    Arthur's handling engineering duties, providing power and motion for the ship, plus a side of navigation. Someone's going to need to handle captain-ing it, helming it, all of that.

    By and large, though, it's going to be relaxed. The place is well-furnished (with the rewards of an awful thrifting), well-powered (with the reward of awful puzzling), and well-intentioned (towards somewhere uninhabited, through space uninhabited, from a place they won't likely be followed).

    Load up. Arthur doesn't bring it disruptively close to the Garden, but he puts it below the cloud layer, and sets up some stable teleportation gates to get there.

> Arthur: Chill

    The guy himself is up on the deck. He'll need to be in the engine room when it's time to go, but he's gonna hang out and greet everyone when they arrive.
Tamamo     Given only the possibility that something could possibly go wrong, far from home, anyone with a lean toward overpreparation would be expected to pack far more than necessary. Given the circumstance of space travel, triple-checking everything is a given. Tamamo has not only an inclination toward prep -- made necessary by the style of magic she most often uses -- but has personally witnessed a crashed spaceship.

    It wasn't this ship, and Arthur wasn't involved, and it was piloted by a couple of tweens and an AI, but all of that hardly matters. Only her inability to understand the kind of engineering Arthur himself is so used prevents her from doing more than fussing about with supplies, walking all along every perimeter of every room to look for misfortune and 'flows of energy less than ideal,' and going through the kitchen to check both that complete meals will be available for three times the high-end expectation of the trip's duration and that the fridge is actually cooling to no higher than 3 degrees Celsius.

    She is, at least, calm enough to be casually dressed. This isn't a battlefield she's stepping into, obviously. Her shoes are still uncannily high off the ground, but dark stockings and a full, deep blue skirt is rather ordinary, together with a billowy-loose white summer blouse. The gold of her choker and her rings stands out more than usual, though the red ribbons tied into her sleeves spread the sense of adornment.

    'We really will be reachable at any time, right here, I promise.'

    "We shall call regularly, to be sure."

    'I think I should make a little flying island that's so high you can only see the stars and not the clouds so I can sit with my legs off the edge like it's a swing.'

    At a volume clearly only intended for Lilian to notice, but actually a bit more audible than that, "Cute..."

> Arthur: Chill

    "Hello, Mr. Lowell. Do not mind me, I will simply be looking over everything." All over the place, in fact. "There will need be someone else to steer, yes? I wonder as to who might be best suited." She's never leaned toward that kind of thing, so she's not immediately volunteering, even if there is a small affinity, given the environment.
James Bond Space is actually super duper ¶shy¶ when you try to get it on film; all of the images are ¶airbrushed/interpreted¶ by space guys so everyone else finds them interesting and not boring black with specks.

    "Shy is a good word, I think. It isn't just the darkness, but the quiet. I remember my first time--after touching back down again, I realized how noisy Earth is, in good ways and bad ways. It was a little disorienting, but it grows on you. It'll be nice to finally visit without it being related to work for a change."

    James' life isn't normal. He is used to being asked to move across the country on a day's notice. In this case, it was to spend time with people that he likes, and, in one specific example, owes an apology of changed behavior to. He is frustratingly at ease, wearing a cream-colored blazer and matching slacks offset by a wine red button-up left unbuttoned halfway down--very much a product of his time, in both the fit of the suit and the flare of the shirt's collar. His duffel bag hangs casually from one shoulder.
Xion Getting Specifically Invited:tm: 24 hours (exactly) before the event is a very specific timeframe for things to happen in, but also, is the sort of normal-weird that Xion just experiences generally and sometimes presages particular exclusive quests or events!

That it's Lilian means she's going, but getting advanced notice at all calms Xion greatly to the possibility of there to be a battlefield on the other side that will consume something from her that grew back only slowly. It was to be beach day! Trip day!

It would be totally fine and normal.

Appearing in a twist of space from the two-dimensional yawn of her black Corridor-portal, Xion saunters out of realm between in a pair of black shorts and a red and black plaid flannel shirt over black swimsuit with purple vertical stripe asymmetrically across the left front, holding Moogle-charm phone while already pre-looking up while arriving. She appears in the middle of discussion, seeing everyone packed up.

'Oh it's true. Looking out from a space station is like staring into the abyss.'

"Oh, space? It can be pretty nice at the tops of hills out in the wilderness or mountains, or if you're in a Gummiship or something, but it's also a *lot* empty. Have you ever thought if it's the opposite for other things? Beings that see all but the spots we put lamps in as 'bright' and clear?" She cuts in, wondering before laughing at the sprawl of the conversation and blinking at the very specific island idea.

"That seems like a pretty good idea, actually? What'd you be fishing for?"

'What the hell is this conversation?'

Xion shrugs while looking over to the ship he brings in closer to the Dragon's Garden, shading eyes and peering high. "Well, I don't know, I just got here. Are we going to fly up or is he going to teleport us over or-r-r. . ." The tailing-off of her tone lands on James, like he has a watch that'll produce a plane to solve this promptly.
Petra Soroka     'I'm going into space for probably a few days on less than twenty four hours notice' is the kind of thing that Petra made CMU as her college of choice for, being that they'll accept an email that says exactly that without question. Every other obligation, in the City and beyond, can be put on hold for this critically important mission. A mission wherein, not only will grand questions about the fate of the four Blooms and the world will be given answers, and not only will Dictum's guidance and yet another torturous time loop be put to use, but also, it's a little adventure with some of her favorite people!

    Petra here is more similar to Ash's preparations than Lilian's, which sort of justifies the latter's minimal packing. Her backpack contains nothing besides two robotic arms and a screen, because it's filled with all the mechanisms necessary to contain two beautiful women after lift-off. The Eggpack is also equipped with a special new hat, a rotating clover-shaped satellite dish surrounded by a thick vertical ring of polished metal. It bounces with every very excited step that she takes as she bounds down towards the portals in the Garden, carrying two stuffed-full tote bags on either side.

    Petra is dressed for a road trip, which this is not. She's got big swishy harem pants on and a short fitted tee, with sunglasses on her forehead for whatever reason, and one of the bags has a not-insignificant amount of alcohol in it. She's also exactly as exuberant as she would be if this was a cute little road trip adventure and not an apocalyptically necessary voyage to a dead planet!

"Well then be sure you've taken a camera."

    "We've got one!" Petra holds up Twopence, skidding to a stop in a way that digs a little trough into the ground. "Upgraded his camera for better ISO capabilities and a gyroscope adjustment to the antigrav for long exposure. Can't really do long exposure on the Eggpack, given the, you know, streaming."

    She bounces on the balls of her feet, orbiting around the cluster of Blooms like a pack donkey carrying gear for all four of them. "It's gonna be alright. It'll be pretty, even! Nika and I managed to get the latency down from the Eggpack to basically zero even, like, transdimensionally and stuff, so literally the moment anything happens you'll know, good or bad. But it'll be good!"

"Want me to toss Petra up there?"

    That's pretty reasonable. Petra, known owner of a flying island, nods understandingly. "If we had a really long line you could fish off of the side of Hydrochoeria. I think there's spots with sky fish too?"

    Petra has plenty of stuff to offload into the portals, and for any manual labor needed on Lilian or Tamamo's part, she's obviously there for that too. To Arthur, while tetrising things into place, "Are your calcs gonna wig out if I got Qetra on board? I'll have to find a room to put the Beauty of Ash in if they will, cause I'm not going into space without my spaceship."
Angela Angela naturally can't, once again, go on a trip like this but this time because she's been in a deep sleep for a while now and hasn't woken up yet. But Tiphereth does know this trip is important TO Angela and thus is going to pull Roland along for the ride so they can give her a proper report. Tiphereth, after her previous visit to Dragon's Garden, has found herself having more of a connection to the Blooms and Lilian Rook even if it's still sprouting. She's a little nervous because she's never been to space and sure, Netzach was SLATED for this adventure module, but Tiphereth doesn't really trust them to handle it and Tiphereth has been kind of taking charge while Angela isn't in a position to greet guests. Fortunately, this largely means normalish library work rather than death pit battles.

"This is my first time in space, but I'll try not to get in the way." Tiphereth promises.

"I'll try not to cataclysmically fuck up." Roland promises. "Just normal manageable fuckups."

Tiphereth punches him in the arm, but he soon moves over to chill by ARthur who is a guy he understands the joy of combining items with other items and thus he's sort of partial to the guy, honestly. He even seems to have a complicated relationship with a spooky librarian or something? So, you know, they can vibe.

"Space is shy huh... Maybe that explains the kid." Tiphereth explains the very oftenly sad Child of the Galaxy, rubbing her arms together as she asks Arthur. "Made sure this is all ... working right?" She doesn't care if he's some sort of spatial god, she needs the reassurance here.
Lilian Rook     'We shall call regularly, to be sure.'

    Sakura always seems to be of Tamamo's frame of mind lately. It's hard to decide between 'relieved' and 'knowing' when reading her smile, but it's clearly somewhere on the same page. "Of course, I have left many of my own talismans with you, which Lilian has been of great help placing about the ship, so that you need not overly worry for your schedule. I should like to be able to call myself, you know."

    'Cute...'

    Lilian, still a little bit confuse, nevertheless leans closer to whisper back "How does she do it?" on autopilot.

    'Shy is a good word, I think. It isn't just the darkness, but the quiet. I remember my first time--after touching back down again, I realized how noisy Earth is, in good ways and bad ways.'

    Nika wakes up more when Bond starts implying being an astronaut. Athur might have an honest to god spaceship here, but the way James talks about it reminds her of countless videos and interviews regarding astronauts, the moon landing, the ISS, and all that chalk white and shiny chrome hope of the twentieth century. "I guess that's why Arthur has to make so much noise all the time." she says. "It's like ¶counterbalance/Maxwell's Demon/clickbait rantsona¶."

    'Oh, space? It can be pretty nice at the tops of hills out in the wilderness or mountains, or if you're in a Gummiship or something,'

    Lilian chokes on spit for a second as Xion casually compares 'sitting on a hill' with 'being in a spaceship made of candy' like an afterthought.

    'Have you ever thought if it's the opposite for other things? Beings that see all but the spots we put lamps in as 'bright' and clear?'

    "All the time, actually."

    'That seems like a pretty good idea, actually? What'd you be fishing for?'

    "Clips." Nika says, and then proudly smirks at her own two-whole-layered joke.

    'Well, I don't know, I just got here. Are we going to fly up or is he going to teleport us over or-r-r. .'

    "What a very good question." Lilian says, and then stares up into the sky, where Arthur is. "Get him to answer it would you?"

    'Upgraded his camera for better ISO capabilities and a gyroscope adjustment to the antigrav for long exposure. Can't really do long exposure on the Eggpack, given the, you know, streaming.'

    Sakura stares at Petra with a faintly perplexed, only slightly grudgingly fond smile, mystified by how any of this works or what the limitations of the goofy little backpack are despite her understanding every word being used. "Knowing you, these priceless artifacts of stellar discovery will end up on a wall as a poster." she says, her tone bordering on flustered. Nika says "Ceiling." like an obvious correction, and then Sakura's eyes widen, her hand lifts, and she says "Oh . . . That's a wonderful idea!"

    'I think there's spots with sky fish too?'

    Nika, nodding stoically through all the guarantees of her violating many physical laws in order to do VR hangouts with her international friends, suddenly snaps to attention at that. Skipping her own thought process, she self-bargains "Once we catch everything here . . ." rather than even assuming she has to ask Petra. The antenna on Ruble makes it deceptively look like he's wiggling in her arms, for a second, rather than Nika herself wiggling without moving her feet.
Lilian Rook     'I'll try not to cataclysmically fuck up.'

    "It's okay man." Ash says, clapping Roland on the shoulder. "If you put a hole in the hull, I know exactly how to shove your ass through it to plug it. Seen it on Spongebob a billion times." Nika cracks up laughing so immediately and so breathlessly, tearily out of control that you don't even need to look at Ash's stupid smirk to know that was the whole point.

    'Space is shy huh... Maybe that explains the kid.'

    Sakura lock-on achieved. "An adoption?" she ventures to ask. "At your age, as well . . ." is said somewhere between scandalized and reverently invested. Lilian presses her hand to her mouth and looks on as if it's unbearably precious, but doesn't even have to speak first. "You're making a look. This is esoteric trading pogs bullshit." "Got me."

    . . . . . . . .

    Entering the gate to teleport up to the ship with the last of the cargo, Lilian hesitates in an uncharacteristic way, for a weird amount of time, before coming back just to give Sakura in particular an awkward sort of one-armed reassuring hug. When Nika demands the same, the two of them have a giggle about it. When she's gone through, Ash glances back and forth between the two of them for some kind of cue, whereupon Sakura waves them off while trying to maintain a neutral expression by herculean force, and Nika holds Ruble up on her arm like a majestic falcon to match, making Sakura look like a medieval princess retroactively. By the time Ash actually gets on board, Lilian has already fucked off to the deck to harass Arthur.

    "So how long is this actually going to take?" The question is asked way, way later than it should be, never mind from her. "Give me a ballpark, and don't be a brat. I need to seriously weigh the pros and cons of enabling comms access. If I have to stay in touch with anyone else, everyone on board will too."

    Somehow, perhaps sensing the opportunity to be a looming shadow of disaster, Ash locates internal phone controls on a wall within minutes, and blares "Hey I thought you said there were four hundred rooms of puzzle bullshit." through every single speaker. "I'd say you're letting me down here, but holy shit is this furniture ugly as fuck." A few seconds later, the volume is fiddled with to be a little less grating-- because Ash was bombed with the echo themselves-- and you hear "Hey. Hey AI. Main screen. Main screen turn on. Fucking-- patch them through. Hailing frequency."

    It's unclear how they're fumbling spaceship controls to sound like a botched highschool announcement. "Hey nerd alert! How do I get the girls on the big screen?! I'm gonna miss the fuckin' game! Are we doing interactive holograms or what?!"
Arthur Lowell > Arthur: Don't mind Tamamo

    He's on a deck-chair, with a pair of sunglasses, sipping through a straw out of what seems to be the bottom half of a tree's fruit if such a fruit could physically resemble a Mountain Dew bottle. Like a messed-up substitute for a half of a coconut. Alchemiters are so fucking weird. He raises it in acknowledgment. "SURE THING HOMIE." He says. "Would be GREAT to have some HELMING. I'm gonna be running the ENGINE. Got anyone GOOD AT DRIVING?"

> Arthur: Acknowledge James Bond

    "I *SAID*," He sticks his head through the stable teleportation gate briefly, "Anyone GOOD AT DRIVING, would be great if we had SOMEONE GOOD AT DRIVING to help with the DRIVING TASK so I d--" He pulls his head back from the Gate, which sort of comically cuts off his dialogue.

    "--on't have to RUN THIS SHIP MYSELF." He chuckles, but waves a hand dismissingly. "But don't worry. Least I know I won't hafta do the COOKING TOO."

> Arthur: Are things going to wig out with Qetra?

    "I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHO THAT IS," He casually lies. "But I got HELLA LENS STABILITY off of LILIAN'S STUFF. Ought'a last MONTHS, she's got SUPER-STABLE WISH THINGS. You bring any REFLECTIONS, s'all good." He gives a wise nod. "SPACESHIPLESS SPACE," He agrees. "IS BORING AS SHIT."

    He settles back into his chair, letting Roland take one next to him if he wants. The deck-chairs, too, are strange combinations, crafted out of the thrift excursion. "'SHY' is funny. 'QUIET' more like, if you ask me." He rambles to Tiphereth.

> Arthur: So how long is this actually going to take?

    "BALLPARK? I'mma say LESS THAN A WEEK and I'mma also say MORE THAN A FEW DAYS." He rambles. "We're kinda WINGING IT with the NEW ENGINE. Took her for some DRY RUNS but I don't wanna STRAIN THINGS, so we're CRUISING SLOW." Then he yells to Ash, "I've got a PESTERTALK GROUP CALL, just fuckin'-- GET IN COOLHAIL. Ought'a hook to the SCREENS, it's EASY. NIKA'S gonna have a REAL SIMPLE TIME. Make sure the MIC ICON'S NOT RED." He hollers, trying to diagnose things. "And the PUZZLE STUFF'S MOSTLY SOLVED! There was a WHOLE THING ABOUT IT."
Angela ''If you put a hole in the hull, I know exactly how to shove your as sthrough it to plug it. Seen it on Spongebob a billion times.''

"Thanks," Roland says genuinely. "One less thing to worry about." He is smiling so he probably knows it's a joke but that doesn't mean he doesn't still appreciate the joke. "Don't know who Spongebob is though."

''An adoption? At your age, as well . . .''

Tiphereth grimaces, hoping that's a joke too. "Uh, I was talking about the Child of the Galaxy. He's an Abnormality who is really shy." But she does grimace a little at the idea of adoptiong. "Well, I am an adoptee myself, but if I ever do adopt myself I'll be real worried I'd just be continuing the cycle somehow."

She's a little less worried about literally sacrificing a child for the greater good of the City and more just sort of being bad at it but...

"Ehhh... If you were gonna be like that, I doubt Angela would be respecting you as much as she does in the first place."

''QUIET more like''

"The Child of the Galaxy---is a little quiet I guess, but always weeping..."

But she smiles a little bit at Lilian getting support from the Blooms. She doesn't have a full understanding of that situation but it's good she's got a support group outside of the Elites and even Tamamo, really.

Roland tries to relax. He wonders if Angela's gonna wake up in the middle of that week. Or wake up at all. He had asked Hokma to check her out but he said as far as he could tell everything was normal but it's probably really hard to tell what is normal right now.

Is he losing sight of his purpose? He exhales out a litlte sigh and pushes it out ofh is mind. "Maybe there will be more puzzles when he gets there," He says, trying to make Arthur have something to look forward to.
Lilian Rook     'But don't worry. Least I know I won't hafta do the COOKING TOO.'

    "Tamamo and I will both be handling that." Lilian says, shamelessly proud. "It's be unfair not to take shifts with a dozen people involved, after all." Read: I'm going to show off what I've learned and you're all going to praise me.

    'Ought'a last MONTHS, she's got SUPER-STABLE WISH THINGS.'

    Her expression twists up; complicated, but not arguing. She shakes her head. "We did all of this just to be more stable than teleporting directly. It should be something that falls apart for one or two stowaways."

    The deck, topside, multiple implication inclusive, still gets her. "You're not going to toss a ball around in here are you?" Lilian says, now filled with idle suspicion.

    'BALLPARK? I'mma say LESS THAN A WEEK and I'mma also say MORE THAN A FEW DAYS.'

    "About as I expected." Lilian says, neutral-satisfied. "I suppose I'll have to do a bit of remote work, but it shouldn't be a problem." She lowers her voice as if Ash is somehow going to hear. "I'd sort of like Ash to not carpet bomb the Elite broadband though. It is my connection."

    'I've got a PESTERTALK GROUP CALL, just fuckin'-- GET IN COOLHAIL. Ought'a hook to the SCREENS, it's EASY. NIKA'S gonna have a REAL SIMPLE TIME. Make sure the MIC ICON'S NOT RED.'

    "Thanks Space Jam!" Ash calls from belowdecks. "I'm hooking up Nika for the longest couch coop! Type of shit they have unfunny couch commentary for!" You can tell they're dicking around with the computer now, because their volume decreases. "Yeah if we've got a pilot and an engineer and cooks and shit then we're set. Anything goes wrong and I can literally just walk out of the door and fix it on the outside. Not like we need a gunner to shoot aliens or something. Warning you though, I'm not cleaning anything."

    A second later, the thought strikes "Holodeck?" Lilian sighs, and raises her voice to be heard through the live intercom. "No. Of course not." "Did you look though?" "Why would I?"
Tamamo     'At your age, as well . . .'

    "Oh, he lives or works with many children," Tamamo says, in what is a spiritually true statement.

    'This is esoteric trading pogs bullshit.'

    "What is a trading pog?" Maybe she should've asked what a pog is, though Tamamo can sort of vaguely recall someone saying that it was a toy.

    Tiphereth mentions Abnos to Sakura.

    "Stories meant for children are prone to manifesting as children, themselves. They are, perhaps, more relatable in this way, though I suspect other causes."

    Lilian hesitantly one-arm hugs Sakura.

    Tamamo smiles for mysterious reasons.

    "Oh, but let us continue to talk of such things once we are underway. There will be a great deal of uneventful time during which everything is running properly, I am sure." This can't be a jinx because she's the one saying it.

    . . .

    'Tamamo and I will both be handling that.'

    "Naturally," says Tamamo, smiling for entirely separate, mysterious reasons. Mostly pride
Tamamo     'I'm not cleaning anything.'

    "Did you know that Ms. Soroka has a maid outfit?"
James Bond Anyone GOOD AT DRIVING, would be great if we had SOMEONE GOOD AT DRIVING to help with the DRIVING TASK

    "I heard you," says Bond, refusing to elaborate on why he didn't answer because he finds that refusal funnier than any answer he could give. His tone in particular implies that in fact, he isn't going to help, especially taken with the fact that he's just standing there like a statue for a moment or two before he finally drops the bit.

    Stepping through the portal, he tosses his duffel bag into one of the cabins-turned-rooms, not particular about which.

    "So you're aware," he says to Arthur, "I've got alcohol on me and I plan on taking a shot every time you shout near the helm." He probably isn't serious about that--more of his off-color humor.

    While he does not have a watch to summon a jet, COOLHAIL is easily attuned to through the watch he does have. "Let's see what we've got here," he says, scanning the controls at the helm without taking a seat, then working his way to the instruments.
Lilian Rook     'What is a trading pog?'

    "Weird little hobby item from the old world. There's a million different kinds and nobody knows what they do." Ash says. "Every time I hear of some coy little no-context Multiverse bullshit I think about them."

    'Oh, he lives or works with many children'

    'Did you know that Ms. Soroka has a maid outfit?'

    "Of-fucking-course." Ash says . . . approving? Making fun of Petra? God only knows.

    'Oh, he lives or works with many children'
    'Well, I am an adoptee myself, but if I ever do adopt myself I'll be real worried I'd just be continuing the cycle somehow.'

    Sakura glosses over the part where the word 'Abnormality' is involved and absorbs this information in a strange and bittersweet-romantic way. "Though there is ample opportunity to continue a cycle of mistreatment in the role of a guardian, it is the one and only place from which one may finally break it as well. For the future of generations from now, we must take on the heady risk of blame at some point."

    'I've got alcohol on me and I plan on taking a shot every time you shout near the helm.'

    "Your liver.You're gonna die."
Petra Soroka "This is my first time in space, but I'll try not to get in the way."

    "It's okay. The first time's the easiest." The thought that seized Petra's tongue with something approaching 'dry humor' is undeniably honest, but she couldn't explain what made her say it. There's no follow-up to it besides an awkward silent pause and then shiftily chewing on the inside of her cheek.

"Space is shy huh... Maybe that explains the kid."

    The multiple children of space contained within Lobotomy Corporation causes Petra to misunderstand which one Tiphereth means. "Fragments is just being careful. If they get shy, that's a more, um, intentionally self-moderating instinct than they had before, so it's good." In her mind, she overlaps Nika's words with Fragment of the Universe and gets a weird pang of longing. "Being shy and wanting to be seen and heard aren't exclusive, anyways. I think that's what stars are like. I was saying that to a clone of myself recently."

"It can be pretty nice at the tops of hills out in the wilderness or mountains, or if you're in a Gummiship or something, but it's also a *lot* empty."

    "Yeah..." Petra's been in a gummi-Jeep with Xion, so the Gummiship is taken perfectly in stride. "Honestly, it's kinda scary. But that's, like, fine. If total emptiness isn't at least a little scary then you're not thinking about it enough."

"Ceiling."

    "Oh-- wait, really?" Petra wiggles Twopence around in her hands, causing his little lens eyes to roll around. That's something she must have added on purpose, a wiggle emote indicator. "That'd be *so* cute."

    "I was actually kinda into astrophotography as a kid, but not for the reason-- not why you'd think. 'Cause it's actually pretty much impossible on Io, on account of the clouds and the light emitting upwards-- I mean, in orbit you can, but, you know. So! Space pictures!"

"If you put a hole in the hull, I know exactly how to shove your ass through it to plug it."

    Really all it takes to get Petra giggling, especially in this good mood-state, is for Nika and Ash to joke around, and from then on she's only a breath away from giggling at anything. "That's why we keep him around!"

    The idea that Angela has, in fact, personally crafted Roland's ass (having torn his previously existing one off) makes her laugh even harder in a way that's much more difficult to explain.

    When it's time to actually get on, Petra is *giddy* at Lilian hugging Sakura, in a way that she usually only gets when two beautiful men get into a homoerotically charged argument in front of her. She's immediately assaulted with *also* wanting to give the two Blooms left behind hugs, but she's thriving too much in the social environment to perform a goodbye-action right now, so instead she vibrates into Nika's vicinity with a suggestion.

    "Wanna walk around the ship some while we're prepping to launch? Cone-vision sucks without fog of war cleared." Several thoughts being skipped over between sentences, she means that it's hard to get a sense of place from the camera view without having been there personally first.
Petra Soroka "I'mma say LESS THAN A WEEK and I'mma also say MORE THAN A FEW DAYS."

    Up on the ship, Petra is buzzing around between objectives like an overexcited little worker ant, lifting things and placing them down in other locations with not much observable result. Her true intentions are betrayed when she says, in response to Arthur, hands on her hips and already getting out of breath, "Awesome."

    The delegation of tasks is easy! Petra could do many things, and certainly will be asked to, but her core role always remains the same. "I'll do cleanup and stuff. And I'm taking care of entertainment!"

    This phrasing will, inevitably, turn her into some sort of jester creature trapped aboard the ship, but what she means is that she brought along a bunch of board games and movies and books and stuff. Some of which she preemptively pulls out and places on raised spaces nearby the cabins, as examples.

"Hey I thought you said there were four hundred rooms of puzzle bullshit."

    "There were! There literally were! He made them just to torture us!" Petra cups her hand around her mouth to megaphone back at Ash. "Have you seen all the mouth furniture yet?"

"Hey nerd alert! How do I get the girls on the big screen?!"

    "Girls go in the little box," Petra says, swinging the Eggpack off her back and plopping it down. "It'd take a little rigging, but maybe I could get them onto the bigger screen? I dunno how much sympathetic attachment's needed for the transmission to work."
Arthur Lowell > Arthur: Speculate about holography

    "Maybe the HOLOPREVIEW on the ALCHEMITER, we could HOOK UP TO SOMETHING? Does NIKA got a THREE-SIXTY-CAMERA-ROOM? Fuck. CALLS IS NORMAL! Get on COOLHAIL." Arthur says, dismissing the idea that will inevitably come to pass regardless. "Either way I'm not carrying the ENTIRE SHRINE OF ADVERSITY on this thing."

    Even still, there's going to be holoprojection eventually, because he will get bored.

> Arthur: Maybe there'll be more puzzles when we get there

    "THERE'S ALWAYS PUZZLES DUDE." Arthur rambles. "Though honestly, we had, what, MONTHS of CONSPIRACY BULLSHIT just to get this TRAJECTORY? We might be ALL COVERED on PUZZLES. We're mostly LOOKING on this, not so much SOLVING."

> Arthur: Don't get involved with the helm

    Arthur grins and keeps his distance. The helm's a nice spot, only barely separated from the deck by its cabin. It was made for Carapacians, which means it needed to be something that someone could operate usefully when they're five hours old. His watch finds... chessboard-style QR codes? Scanned and manipulated, these might allow for more advanced functionality. But at the moment it's largely six-degree-of-freedom movement and rotation. Seems like it hovers naturally all on its own. As for linking into Pestertalk, he'll have to download a clumsy, RAM-hogging electron app, but assuming that the Q division isn't subject to anything like a RAM shortage and he doesn't plan on playing any games on his phone, so to speak, he ought to be okay.

> Arthur: What's a pog?

    "POGS ROCK." He says. "LATEST COOL TRENDY THING. You can have a CIRCLE." He doesn't... explain past that part. You can have a circle.

> Petra: Girls go in the little box

    Petra ought to have no issue hooking up things to the internals. God help us if she gets ahold of the alchemiter, but that'll undoubtedly be where holography gets its filthy little root in this trip. "I got the WI-FI SET, dawg. You're ALL GOOD." He does indeed have a very nice Wi-Fi network, inexplicably. But if she wants to get them *all over* the ship, on big screens, she'll need to rig up some way to solve the second layer of IoT nightmare networking that seems to be a mirror of the sokoban hell she was in earlier.

    Which she can do. Less for being an Elite with powerful tinkering skills, and more for being a girl trying to get a Wi-Fi signal to work right. But it'll be so annoying.
Angela Tiphereth assumes Tamamo is speaking about the other Sephirah AND the Abnormalities while Roland just assumes she's talking about the Abnormalities and just them.

"Mm... Angela seems to see them more as children, the Abnormalities, I mean, but I don't know if I'd say that's the unifying theme." She glances briefly to Petra but doesn't clarify further.

"Even adults in stories meant for children kind of have their own special vibe, usually." Roland admits.

''Though there is ample opportunity to continue a cycle of mistreatment...''

Tiphereth smiles at Sakura. "Thanks for saying so. It's only recently I've really begun to really think about my own dreams and expectations out of life, but it would be nice to settle down someday. Wonder if she feels the same." She must mean Angela.

"You two react the same exact way when I make jokes." Roland admits rather than talk about building a family at all, which he deftly avoids.

"The first time's the easiest?" Tiphereth asks. And she doesn't really see a strong need to correct her with the kid in question, exactly, mostly because she fixates on chilren of the stars and also the stars themselves. "Is that why they shine so bright so far away?" She asks, smiling at what she sees as romanticism.

''That's why we keep him around!''

"The toughest and most versatile ass in The City, worth the expense." Roland jokes back in good humor, also thinking about Angela bragging about the quality of his new legs.

''THERE'S ALWAYS PUZZLES DUDE.''

"I don't know, this sort of feels like a puzzle dimension whenever I'm here, to be honest, even if the puzzles aren't always so obviously puzzle-shaped."
Lilian Rook     'I was actually kinda into astrophotography as a kid, but not for the reason-- not why you'd think.'

    "That sounds like one of those things that would be so cool if you time looped ¶normal/fully baked¶ style." Nika says, mostly conversational, a tiny bit yearning. "I guess the mountains are kinda exciting too though. You're so close to the stars already." She smiles triumphantly at the praise for her idea. "If you get all the shots, we can make it, like, a dome!" There is no need to explain with her hands, but she does so anyways; badly. "Maybe it can glow too!"

    'Wanna walk around the ship some while we're prepping to launch? Cone-vision sucks without fog of war cleared.'

    "Yes! Yes yes yes!"

    Sakura extends her arms to take Ruble from Nika without even being asked, smiling as she watches her scramble right through the portal to scamper around on board. "The indomitable blonde spirit . . ." she says, when she thinks nobody is really listening.

    'And I'm taking care of entertainment!'

    "God you're so obvious."
    "I know what you are."

    The two share an implied little chortle, because neither of them actually sounded down on Petra about it. "There's a pool and an open space and everyone's own personal shit so we're gonna have games and sports out the ass. Plus we're in fuckin' space. We can do, like, spaceball." "I did actually bring a few entertainments from home. A ship like this affords a much better opportunity to employ them, as opposed to some horrid little cramped car. Honestly, if it weren't for the furniture, I could get used to this as the standard for 'road trip'." "You hate cars?" "Oh, no, I just hate being in them. Well, for more than an hour."

    'Have you seen all the mouth furniture yet?'

    "I'm looking at the mouth stuff right now. It's fucking scary. Whoever picked that needs to be punched in theirs."

    'I dunno how much sympathetic attachment's needed for the transmission to work.'

    Nika, blitzing past Petra to explore every room, yells over her shoulder "All the Sakura ¶talismans/heart-pieces/nucleation points¶ are like, a big blob of ¶mocap/stars¶ so it's super easy to find!" Because Petra said 'fog of war', she also runs around the perimeter of each room too, deciding on an arbitrary sphere around herself that means she traveled there.

    'Either way I'm not carrying the ENTIRE SHRINE OF ADVERSITY on this thing.'

[ansi(198,"Thank god. Or someone will end up sparring.")] Lilian scoffs. "What? You don't? That's so pussy-- . . . mode." "Thank you for not saying an American word. I know that took a lot of restraint." "Kiss my ass."

    'Thanks for saying so. It's only recently I've really begun to really think about my own dreams and expectations out of life, but it would be nice to settle down someday.'

    "The hearts that children entrust you don't require that you be stationary; only 'steadfast'." Sakura saus. "To be void of dreams is to risk seeking them through a child all the same, for incorrigible human restlessness. Our wants always find a way to leak out without us noticing, if untrained."
Petra Soroka "You're not going to toss a ball around in here are you?"

    Petra, in the midst of unloading entertainment objects, is caught holding a ball in her hands at this very moment. She looks like Lilian's trying to tug her favorite toy out of her mouth while she piteously bites down harder on it. "Can't we?"

"I'd sort of like Ash to not carpet bomb the Elite broadband though."

    "But-- but that'd be *so* funny, though. I mean, could they really be worse than me?" Absolutely, the answer is yes. "I mean, we'll all be up here together for days. If they don't get their posting out somewhere then it'll fall on us."

"Anything goes wrong and I can literally just walk out of the door and fix it on the outside."

    Petra is thinking three steps ahead about what Ash might do while being able to walk around on the outside of a spaceship that Petra is trapped inside the moment the topic is brought up. Accusingly, with nothing having happened, she points at Ash as if engaged in a silent debate that she's already losing. "I can go out there too, you know. Just so you know."

"Not like we need a gunner to shoot aliens or something."

    All of a sudden, Petra blurts out the question that's been on her mind for months, and she's never found a chance to voice before. "I wonder what they're gonna think of us."

"Holodeck?"

    "What're you gonna *do* with it? We've *got* a holodeck. The Concord does, I mean-- no way Arthur's got anything remotely that useful-- oh, shit, wait, he did get a fuckin' *pool* in here, though."

"What is a trading pog?"

    It's already being explained to Tamamo, but Petra remains caught on this question. Her expression is faintly distraught, realizing that she does not have a fucking clue what a pog is for once. "I don't know. I don't know what a trading pog is."

"Did you know that Ms. Soroka has a maid outfit?"

    "I--" There's a tone being set for this trip already! Ash knowing that information feels more dangerous than what anyone else might do with it, at this point!

    Obligatorally honest, Petra has to conclude the sentence defeatedly by saying, "--do have it."

"I've got alcohol on me and I plan on taking a shot every time you shout near the helm."

    "I have so much more alcohol. By the way."

"We might be ALL COVERED on PUZZLES."

    "It's optional endgame stuff at this point." Already hitting the point where she's running out of tasks to do, Petra just gravitates towards squatting in people's vicinities and perching on top of raised features of the ship before wandering to the next. "The kind where you know the designer reluctantly dumbed down all the previous puzzles for accessibility through the story, and then put all the bullshit in their head in an extra section where every mechanic's used at once."

"You're ALL GOOD."

    She is not all good. Inevitably, Petra is going to end up in the endgame mirror puzzle dungeon during this trip. For now, at least, she can just stretch some Silver into an HDMI that adapts automatically to whatever horrible connectors Arthur's got going on.
Xion Dressed for a day out surfing off the coast more than interstellar travel and not carrying any bags, Xion falls into the crowd waiting for Arthur's space situation to present a portal up, easy as she stands around.

"Space is just like that!" Xion protests at a laugh, nodding to Petra at Lilian's choking reaction, though a 'choke' causes her to re-evaluate with a worry of a moment. Bringing knuckle to lips and resting teeth on curl of finger, Xion tries think of why that'd be a 'bad' thing, but can't think of anything after a few seconds.

"You okay?" She settles on asking instead, to Lilian. "I think I've considered total emptiness quite a lot actually?"

'All the time, actually.'

"Oh, that's good. Does it come up all the time because you find yourself going there in your thoughts, or it keeps being prompted? What prompts it?" She probes gently, not surprised by the response but obviously needing to ask more.

'ARTHUR: Explain Ship'

Xion's excellent ability to transition through scenes by snapping into loose spots in frames continues to avail her, sliding through portals and oozing into the crowd on-deck, though when they're discussing duties and Ash is pointedly trying to get out from under cleaning duties, Xion raises one hand casually before speaking.

"Ah, there won't be any space monsters, will there? Is that an endemic problem or just a crisis? If there's stuff like Heartless or whatever bubble-guys Arthur's got, and we know . . . do we. . . know?"

Her eloquence fails her as the noirette scrunches up face and just sort of guts through the understanding, buttoning up her flannel since they would not be hanging out by a beach OR a pool.

'AAnd I'm taking care of entertainment!'

Petra gets the biggest 'really, now?' single eyebrow quirk and long look out of Xion.

"I've got a bunch of board and card games we could play but I think Ash wants to do video games for a while. Is there anything left to do? Is there a weird thing to jump on or block puzzle to navigate or anything? Side-objective style hang outs?"
Angela ''It's optional endgame stuff at this point.''

"Ah no wonder." Tiphereth says before looking to Roland to explain. "We're obviously only just past the midgame point."

"Why we're heading into space here but nowhere near it back home. Space is usually an endgame zone." Roland asides to her.

"Though at least it's optional--"

"If we're going there we're going there in order to do the optional puzzles." Roland points out. "I hope you love pushing blocks, Tiphereth. We're gonna have to do at least two hundred and fifty five block puzzles."

''...Don't require that you be stationary-- only 'steadfast'.''

"What kind of training are you thinking?" Tiphereth asks. "I've got dreams, though I don't know if I could say they are realized as of yet, but I wouldn't want to foist any on them either."

"It's a little easy to imagine accidentally doing something like that though. Like, you want your kid to try all sorts of stuff right? And you're inclined to think they'll be good at stuff you maybe dreamed you'd be good at doing but better. Or at least primed for it. So it's tricky. Especially since you might have to push them a little to try things at all. Or maybe they'll get discouraged about something they messed up at but are still interested in, and it'll be tricky to encourage them without pushing them so hard they lose interest."

''Petra's maid outfit.''

Roland has quietly vowed to himself to not mention maid shit even if the multiverse depends on it.
Tamamo     'Maybe there will be more puzzles when he gets there.'

    "There will be something very puzzling, I am sure." That's different from puzzles, though.

    'Weird little hobby item from the old world.
    ...coy little no-context Multiverse bullshit...'

    "Oh, I see! It is the item I recall, then." Though she doesn't really remember anyone explaining what they were for, either. "It is as I said, in that she was speaking of a story's physical manifestation. I would guess 'Abnormality' to be a fairly arbitrary label."

    'You can have a CIRCLE.'

    Tamamo nods. That's as far as her knowledge gets, yep.

    Petra is picking things up and putting them down.

    Tamamo begins scribbling on a little tear-off notepad, producing bizarrely legible handwriting for how quickly she writes and how all the lines slightly curve, and sticks it to the fridge with a plastic sunflower magnet. "Ms. Soroka, see to this when you have a moment."

    It's a detailed set of time-aware meal prep instructions that stop just short of leaving anything where it could spoil. 'Retrieve this pan,' 'separate these portions,' and so on.

    '...but I don't know if I'd say that's the unifying theme.'

    "It would be difficult to say," Tamamo admits, "just what sort of theme might unify them all, apart from this: that there was a storyteller, and an audience. Both of these were of the City. Whether there was but one storyteller, and but one child listening, I could not say with certainty." Though that felt true of those she knew most.

    'I did actually bring a few entertainments from home.'
    'I've got a bunch of board and card games we could play but I think Ash wants to do video games for a while.'

    "I might like to try one of 'those' board games. You know, the sort that seem too large, with too many cards, to find the time to play, at any time but when there is longer than an evening to await another event. We must take such opportunities as they present themselves. Is 'travel' not the perfect timing?" Whether anyone did pack a dubiously designed eurogame is up in the air.

    'Ah, there won't be any space monsters, will there? Is that an endemic problem or just a crisis?'

    "We are expecting there to be nothing, for there was nothing to disrupt the journey we are tracing. On the small chance for that to have changed, I expect we shall have due notice." On account of there not being many close-by things to see in interstellar space.

    Thinking about cabin assignments and unpacking, "With your own means of entering another space, Xion, would you be able to do so from a moving ship? It has not come up as something needful to ask, before, but I find myself wondering, now. If I were able to do such a thing without limit, I would be able to bring my own bedroom with me wherever I went, and never need pack a pillow for another."

    After finishing finding things to delegate to Petra, and working out a request to set up something on a table to play between Lilian and Xion (even if they get to it later), Tamamo goes to find James and take her own look at the helm. This is as newer to her than the rest of the ship, having no experience with Carapacians. She resists the impulse to poke at anything. "Have you flown something like this before?"

    No way... right?
Lilian Rook     'Can't we?'

    Lilian sighs. It is implicitly a yes.

    'But-- but that'd be *so* funny, though. I mean, could they really be worse than me?'

    "Hm."

    Lilian is suddenly thinking about their previous discussions of forcing Sarracenia to deal with Ash now.

    'I can go out there too, you know. Just so you know.'

    "Ever seen Alien?"

    'I wonder what they're gonna think of us.'

    The mic volume peaks. "Oh fuck! Oh my god! Are we finally having this conversation?! I thought I was going fucking loco wondering if nobody else was even thinking it!" Lilian frowns. "I've been trying not to. It's been hundreds of years. They may not even be there. They may not be anything left. They may not even recognize us at all." "Yeah and we're going anyways. So what?" "I just don't think we're going to bump fists and talk about videogames, Ash."

    'The Concord does, I mean--'

    "Tempting." "Please don't sign up for the Concord." "No rush."

    'The kind where you know the designer reluctantly dumbed down all the previous puzzles for accessibility through the story, and then put all the bullshit in their head in an extra section where every mechanic's used at once.'

    "I don't play that sort of game." Lilian says, meaninglessly. "I do!" Nika says, ominously.

    'You okay?'

    "Ask twice and you'll get two different answers." Lilian sighs. "Yes, but not really. This is sort of something I need right now." she says. "All of this. Answers. Closure. A way forward. A break. All of you."

    'Oh, that's good. Does it come up all the time because you find yourself going there in your thoughts, or it keeps being prompted?'

    Lilian shakes her head. "Nobody ever prompts it. I'm just . . . inclined to think about separations and opposites, I suppose. 'Other sides' of things, cut in half."

    'Ah, there won't be any space monsters, will there?'

    "No. Space is normal."

    Nika, opportunely making her way to the deck, walks past Lilian with a 'seriously?' sort of side glance. Lilian, suddenly, looks as if she could break into a cold swear. "Oh god. I actually have no idea. Nobody ever goes to space. I just assumed we have a totally mundane universe besides our planet, but--" "Alien space fightersssssss" "Stooop!"

    'I've got a bunch of board and card games we could play but I think Ash wants to do video games for a while.'

    "I kinda had fun with that last time y'know." says Ash. "Normally I'm kind of a fuck off and explore meters type person. So any new stuff is appreciated."

    'What kind of training are you thinking?'

    "Training? My my, if there were any such thing, I'm certain its suggestions would be nothing short of tyrannical." Sakura says. "Perhaps there is only life-experience, or perhaps there is the model of those who've succeeded at raising their own."
Lilian Rook     'And you're inclined to think they'll be good at stuff you maybe dreamed you'd be good at doing but better. Or at least primed for it. So it's tricky. Especially since you might have to push them a little to try things at all.'

    "I personally plan to indulge whatever it is they want to try." Lilian says, strangely non-pensively. "And to put things in front of them that they don't think of. Not that I'd ever have an unmotivated child, but I think I was always correct to pursue every thing I tried when I was one, even when I didn't like them."

    The whole thing comes easily to her, fully formed, from who knows how long ago. She walks about the deck as she talks. "I can't think of a reason not to follow a child along on their little journey into what interests them for however long it does besides being perpetually tired and unable to muster the motivation. I mean, I, especially, can just find time and money for it. It's not as if I've ever parented before, but I think there's literally nothing more important than the number of experiences and breadth of perspective it takes to perceive the world for what it is. People just sort of do well when they have that, a safety net, and a feeling of being loved."

    'There will be something very puzzling, I am sure.'

    "Courtesy of Petra, no doubt." Sakura smiles conspiratorially.

    'I would guess 'Abnormality' to be a fairly arbitrary label.'

    "Doubtlessly. After all, there is hardly a normal thing to be seen here." Lilian, at this time, is cooing over how cute the little sunflower magnet is.

    'I might like to try one of 'those' board games. You know, the sort that seem too large, with too many cards, to find the time to play, at any time but when there is longer than an evening to await another event.'

    "Oh then we are set." "I knew you would be ¶one of those¶." "Nika?!"
Tamamo     'Like, you want your kid to try all sorts of stuff right? And you're inclined to think they'll be good at stuff you maybe dreamed you'd be good at doing but better.'

    "So long as they are happy and healthy, there is nothing more important." Tamamo says this automatically, only to continue with, "Ah, and yet, if said like this, it sounds as if I might inevitably spoil a child without pushing them toward fulfillment. Still, it seems so terribly greedy to ask for more, and there is little I would need leave another to discover that I could not seek to achieve, myself. It is different, I suppose, for those in less fortunate circumstances. There are surely many who become parents while filled with regrets, and let those feelings spill onto others. There are those who have no choice but to put down their tools for lack of the strength to use them, and must leave unfinished works to another."

    'I can't think of a reason not to follow a child along on their little journey into what interests them for however long it does besides being perpetually tired and unable to muster the motivation.'

    Tamamo gravitates over to Lilian's arm while exuding so much warmth there might be psychic splash damage. "What a wonderful thing to experience... to find what interests may develop, allowing for everything you might, and to join at each step. Only as closely as is proper, of course, to allow them, too, the chance to rise on their own feet. It is an unknowable discovery, except by setting forth to find it, no?"

    'People just sort of do well when they have that, a safety net, and a feeling of being loved.'

    Nodding, "Yes, of course. It is entirely different when one acts without the knowledge that failure is permitted, or that love may be conditional. These are as important as provision."

    'I knew you would be ¶one of those¶.'

    Half-mirroring Lilian, "Eh?!"
James Bond      Bond decides that he might as well scan the QR codes as well as download the app--knowing full well that it won't be his responsibility to remove either. This is a sort of game that he plays with the Paladins quartermaster, which is also a form of flirting and might be called 'torment.'

Your liver. You're gonna die.

    "It's funny," Bond says, poring over the watch, "That's the second time I've used drunk driving as a threat, and it wouldn't be, if it weren't for the first time getting me what I wanted." He pauses. "Or for the fact that Arthur could stand to be a little more frightened."

    "You know, there was a mission with Petra involved where I was driving a 4X4 Lilian had provisioned," he recalls with a smile. "I learned on the trip there that a vehicle is actually a fantastic accessory to teasing someone. Not just the obvious bits like a sudden veer, but the little details. Pulling over like you're going to let them out, then accelerating just a little." Fondly, he adds, "That 4X4 had a partition between the cabin and the passenger seats. I got a lot of mileage out of rolling it up performatively."

I have so much more alcohol. By the way.

    "Damn," he spits suddenly. "I'm just now realizing I enjoy Petra's company."

Is there a weird thing to jump on or block puzzle to navigate or anything? Side-objective style hang outs?

    "Even if there isn't, I'd rather you be here with us than not." He enjoys her company, too.

I just don't think we're going to bump fists and talk about videogames, Ash.

    "I don't know. Years ago, there wasn't any magic, or dragons, or knights, or keyblade users, or Antegents in my life. Just the cold calculus of reality and the neverending trial of conscious existence," he muses over COOLHAIL. "Not that all this Elite business really made that second one much better at first."

    "My point is that I feel as though I'm always having to adjust to a new normal. The moment I feel I've found it and hit a stride, there's something else to understand. It always feels as if I'm catching up to everyone else, and no, I don't only mean in the fantastical aliens-and-robots sort of way. I've been stumbling along for years now, so I think that you'll all be fine."
Arthur Lowell > Arthur: There won't be any space monsters, will there?

    "Between you and me," Arthur rambles to Xion. "I'm expecting FREAK SHIT when we hit KEPLER. ONE THOUSAND SINISTER PHYSICS MONSTERS or some shit. But," He gestures at the ship and the conspicuously absent gun turrets. "Not EXPECTING that hard. I think we've earned a REGULAR-ASS STUDY CRUISE." He winks. "Keep those BOARD GAMES HOT, this might be a WEEK."

> Arthur: This sort of feels like a puzzle dimension whenever I'm here.

    Arthur scratches his cheek a few times. "I mean, I've seen PUZZLIER." He mutters. "But honestly YEAH, there's a lot to KEEP TRACK OF. I gotta start writing a WALKTHROUGH or something. Or one of those new 'WIKIS'. There's like," He gestures vaguely. "THREE, FOUR DIFFERENT APOCALYPSE THINGS HAPPENING. And now there's DOUBLE PRECURSOR STUFF. Lot to SORT."

> Arthur: It's optional endgame stuff at this point

    "HELL NO, this better be VACATION MODE. Give me even more PROPER NOUNS TO LINK TO SHIT, I'm gonna fucking LOSE IT. I still don't have NOUNS for FIGHTING POLYGON TEAM and I am not FILLING THAT RESERVED SPACE UP with some ALIEN WORLD NOUNS." Arthur rants vaguely.

    "It's fine if they make me PUSH BLOCKS though."



    Bond makes strange and powerful discoveries. QR codes link less to apps and more to game mechanics meant for someone else -- but they'll work fine on his devices. In either case, the ship can take off easily under his adaptive, if not necessarily experienced, helming.
Angela ''I would guess 'Abnormality' to be a fairly arbitrary label.''

"Oh for sure. I mean, it isn't a technical label in the first place, though we sort of used it as a general designation for the children Carmen brought us." This might explain why Angela does feel some connection to them through that. "We wanted a different term than 'Anomaly' which is what the Hana Association tends to use for similarly unknown entities, or 'monster' which Outsiders--pardon me, those who live outside The City tend to use." Tiphereth explains, accidentally divulging the origin of using the capital O Outsider for Elites and the like. "And by we, I really mean the people looking after me, I was less a member of Carmen's team as I was a ward of it." Tiphereth focuses on Tiphereth. "I've a thought about it, before she became 'our storyteller', she was pretty ... focused on some stuff. But obviously, there's still going to be some variety. Unfortunately, she's not the type of storyteller content with easily achievable happy endings." She smiles grimly.

Roland honestly was kind of wondering what these aliens who might not even exist would think of them. Would they just like kill them all out of the blue? Dying to a random act of violence feels like a fate that is always circling around him waiting for him to slow down just a little too much.

Roland isn't going to tell Lilian that it's entirely possible for a kid to be super lazy even if their parents work hard but mostly because it's a little tough to imagine specifically Lilian haing a kid like that. "Yeah, they still need to experience things to know whether it's their thing or not. And as time moves on, they hopefully get better at picking out those things for themselves. Maybe too fast. I bet a lot of parents feel like they have to keep foisting options at them well after they've grown accustomed to finding their own passions." He smiles. "But hey, whatever happens, I'm sure the one thing they'll never struggle with is being loved."

rHe sighs wistfully after saying it. Would his kid even like him at all if she was here? What did he expect she'd be like? He looks to Tamamo, also wistfully. "If we're still friends, I'll do my best to spoil them when I visit so they have something to look forward to."

''Years ago, there wasn't any magic, or dragons, or knights--''

"Man, even you haven't gotten used to it yet? I'm really boned aren't I?" He pats Bond on the shoulder sympathetically.
Tamamo     'I wonder what they're gonna think of us.'
    'Oh fuck! Oh my god! Are we finally having this conversation?!'
    'It's been hundreds of years. They may not even be there. They may not be anything left.'
    'I'm expecting FREAK SHIT when we hit KEPLER. ONE THOUSAND SINISTER PHYSICS MONSTERS or some shit.'

    "From what we know, the two most likely results are 'nothing' and 'life unrecognizable to the civilization that once stood there.' This is the end result of the transformative cataclysm that forced the voyager to flee."

    Tamamo thinks about it for a bit. "No more than one or two psychic monsters."
Petra Soroka > And I'm taking care of entertainment!

    Ash and Lilian getting on her ass for this is acceptable, even expected. *Xion* getting her for being a whore is the third strike that kills her instantly. Petra being killed amounts to little more than her holding her poofed-up stance for a couple seconds longer while turning pink.

"Oh, no, I just hate being in them. Well, for more than an hour."

    "Next time," Petra says without emphasizing her presumption that there'll be a next time at all so Lilian doesn't question it, "We'll absolutely have a bigger car. There's so much-- many nicer cars than Cadrasteia's little dumptruck."

"All the Sakura ¶talismans/heart-pieces/nucleation points¶ are like, a big blob of ¶mocap/stars¶ so it's super easy to find!"

    "Oh right! Duh!"

    Petra wasn't in a state to appreciate the ship that much after hours of block puzzle solving, so her excitement when tethered to Nika's map-clearing is like it's all new to her too. In a sort of escort-NPC-who-runs-into-range-when-you-get-far-enough-away kind of way, Petra's especially clingy to Nika's orbit during her wandering, abstractly emboldened to just pointlessly run around because she's doing it too. In her wake, objects are picked up and sat back down in different locations.

"Our wants always find a way to leak out without us noticing, if untrained."

    As a drive-by comment to Sakura while zooming around with Nika, Petra asides to her, "I read an essay about that just a couple days ago. 'Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons' by Ursula Le Guin. Really I feel like that idea of restless imagination along with the principles set out in Homo Ludens should get any parent seeing the point of play and dreaming and everything, both in their kid and personally, as a necessity for growth and whatever."

    And then she's off again.

"Ms. Soroka, see to this when you have a moment."

    "Oh! Yes ma'am!" Petra veers her path by the fridge and stops to give Tamamo an overeager salute. She mentally downloads the tasks, but the spoken-of moment will come after they take off, not while still setting up. That'd just make everything messier!

"Ever seen Alien?"

    "Ha! Obviously! But the woman wins in the end, you know!" The phrase 'implant whatever you want; I've already won' enters Petra's mind, but in the interest of having a peaceful and survivable week, she refrains from shouting it out.

"I've been trying not to. It's been hundreds of years."

    "Oh, I've been thinking about it *tons*! I mean-- that's *more* Blooms! Dictum said three on Kepler, but then there's a *dozen* other planets too!"

    Petra has clambered to stand on top of a thrifted rolling chair in garish pink with rose designs on it. With momentum and a bit of wriggling, she slides towards where Ash and Lilian are while standing on it, and then crouches down while inertia slowly drags her past them.

    "I mean, they're people. Exis's taught me pretty well not to think of them as not-that-- and I mean, Earth's a unique circumstance in a lot of ways, but they've been out here doing whatever for *eight hundred* years at *least*. We can't really guess their intentions, but I think it's pretty reasonable to assume that they're gonna be aware of the idea of other Blooms existing and might want to check you out."

    While drifting out of easy conversational range and slowly spinning away from facing them, Petra adds, "But we can't predict it at all. That's why it's exciting."
Petra Soroka "Please don't sign up for the Concord."

    "I didn't even mean that! I can get you in for freeee! I got the fucking VIP suites in there! Hit me up!"

"I just assumed we have a totally mundane universe besides our planet, but--"

    "Besides our planet, and also the moon, you mean." Which, Petra can only hope, the spaceship windows will be facing away from when exiting the atmosphere! Is the Man in the Moon dangerous in space when 'full moon' is something that only exists on Earth? "Maybe Kepler's sun is all fucked up. It's, like, really small and close, but I dunno if there's any moons or anything. Who knows what's up with Antegent after a millenium."

    Slowly spinning around on her office chair, Petra remarks, "Maybe it was fucked up and they fixed it already."

"So any new stuff is appreciated."

    "We've got games! Gonna do the first zero ping intergalactic gaming. Actually, which, though? I mean, a few days isn't even enough to get through some games. It's not like we're spending a month up here."

"Ah, and yet, if said like this, it sounds as if I might inevitably spoil a child without pushing them toward fulfillment."

    "Kids do have to be pushed sometimes. I think... after the most basic expectations of, um, actually wanting good things for the kid as an individual and caring about their happiness and everything... I mean, kids aren't supernatural, but they're not so simple either. I think the most important thing is that a child gets to feel like a participant in their own life rather than a passenger, even when they're super young, and then they'll feel a lot more comfortable about being pushed into things too."

"Pulling over like you're going to let them out, then accelerating just a little."

    "I woulda done it!!!" Petra interrupts to shout over at Bond from too far away. "I woulda gotten out and still beaten you there! Don't think I wouldn't commit!"

"I'm just now realizing I enjoy Petra's company."

    Petra smugly holds a hand up to her mouth, while still rolling by on her chair. "How the tables have turned."
Xion Xion starts getting out decks of cards, some in paper boxes and others rubberbanded to little dogeared rules sheets. A box for a game called 'Moogle House - As Seen In Golden Saucer!' is stacked under a plastic sliding tetromino shapes game and a set of dominos and a beat up secondhand library copy of Hoyle's Rules Of Games to go with her cards and handful of dice. Having stacked up a table and started setting up dominoes, Xion hears Tamamo's preference and nods, putting the chips away and clearing space to get out Tamamos' choice of either extremely intense historical fiction wargames based on the Hundred Years war, or, a game about being a group of spirit guardians of a cute island that colonial powers are invading broadly about environmentalism. She has others, but gauging Tamamo's interest with those would give her an idea -- later, as the topic moves on and Xion catches onto a question she's happy to answer.

'With your own means of entering another space, Xion, would you be able to do so from a moving ship?'

"Well," Xion presses hands together. "It's a lot more relational than putting in grid coordinates and arriving? And, more than that, I have no problem hitting *planetary* targets, and those are almost always spinning themselves *and* spinning through space - the universe is emptiness in motion." Nodding while drawing a little aperture of darkness open between middle with index and thumb widening. "It's like... Finding a star, in the distance?"

Snapping the little darkness plane into a telescope of black, she does a show of looking around before collapsing the dark spyglass by releasing base and holding out hole to reveal a few glittering points in the ink-distance, wherever Xion opened this portal to - if 'anywhere' at all.

"And those points each represent something important, somewhere important. So, by finding them, and having a good sense of how to navigate the between - which is like textured emptiness, intermittent nothing - you can travel between them. Follow, from where you are to that 'point of light'. That's how I understand. . . pretty much all going places, that way? I'm really good at skipping the middle, and if I'm close enough to see it or feel it or *be* there, it's a lot more like slipping backstage for a second to pop out someplace else, like I was always there? Sometimes the air gets confused but it's okay."

Pinching shut her little spy-hole into the emptiness, Xion gestures to Arthur with a tilt of the hand and curl of fingers. "Arthur does that but with more literal stars? But he's the one actually doing the orbital trajectory calculations and I'm the one appearing in the dark cut-out circle. Distance skipping can just mean doing the hustling while nobody can see you!"

'I'm expecting FREAK SHIT when we hit KEPLER.'

Xion's shoulders rise and fall. Xion shifts to rub her wrist, and when her hand comes away a long keychain rests wrapped around like a charm-dangling bracelet.

"Yeah. That may be your one thousand sinister psychic bubble beings bias talking, but,"

    "Yeah." Xion agrees, and doesn't sell or send her feelings more than that.

Back to Tamamo, Xion gets out a deck of cards and gets to shuffling idly. "I could probably go to and from this ship in motion, as long as it was where everyone was. It'd be harder to find if it was adrift and empty in space, and I'd probably have no chance if I didn't know about it in the first place. If I was following some-*one* specific, I can work right to them, usually, if my relation to them's strong enough."
Xion 'Ask twice and you'll get two different answers.'

"Well, alright." Xion chuffs lightly, amused. "I'm glad to be a part of this necessary expedition. And, congratulations, you've managed to make a party-shaped gathering enough about work I'm not trying to leap out the nearest window. So,"

"You okay?" Xion repeats, smile faint.

'No. Space is normal.'

"Um." Xion, who had flown around her local orbital in a spaceship made primarily out of blocks of jellybean gum shaped for children's construction and powered by large toy dog hood ornaments to destroy space-Heartless, asking a woman whose threat from Outside arrived from space and whose path outbound led towards a source of other-influence, squints at Lilian. She doesn't know which way this goes.

"So," She makes a guess. "Llllight, but not no, space monsters?"

'I kinda had fun with that last time y'know.'

Bridging her shuffle with a bigger smile, Xion looks up at Ash. "Oh? Actually I thought you weren't into it, but I had to be the last in the cycle, so I couldn't be fair. If we're just playing cards, I'm sure we can have a *little* fun," Xion believes, not understanding how much munny she'll lose to Ash, who will have to figure out how to spend Currency Shapes Of Candy Colors upon raking in her winnings.
Lilian Rook     'So long as they are happy and healthy, there is nothing more important.'

    "True as that may be, it doesn't mean there's nothing else that's important, right?" Lilian says, only slightly promptingly. "I sort of think that it's impossible to be happy while not pursuing anything, though. I know I'm sort of a restless striver by nature, but viewing the world through a pinhole has never been very good for anyone. I'd want our children to travel and meet people, so that it can be normal."

    'What a wonderful thing to experience...'

    "It also has to be so interesting, right?" she says, a little more excited. "I'm certain they'll take after us in some ways, but they'll be born in the Multiverse. Who knows what else they might resonate with? And wouldn't it be fun to get into it too?"

    'Eh?!'

    Nika thinks very (somewhat) hard about how to explain this to Tamamo, specifically. She concludes, after a moment of chin-holding reflection, "There are types of people who have to ¶slow down¶ to spend time with everyone for different reasons but they're always secretly looking for chances to drag everyone into something weirdly intense and like kind of ¶out of their depth¶ you know?" "Guilty."

    'Or for the fact that Arthur could stand to be a little more frightened.'

    "Men in general, really." Lilian burbles in stream-of-consciousness.

    'I'm just now realizing I enjoy Petra's company.'

    Lilian places her hand on Bond's back and nods very consolingly. "Don't worry. We're here for you." she says.

    'I'm just now realizing I enjoy Petra's company.'

    "Well-- Kinda yeah but nah I think it's fine too to like expect the 'normal' is gonna be kind of completely wild." Ash, staggerly, actually hitches for thought in mid-flight there. "I think pretty much everyone thinks they're catching up and just tries real hard to hide it so they blend in with the rotting fucks who never move at all." Projecting. Projecting. Projecting.

    'I'm expecting FREAK SHIT when we hit KEPLER. ONE THOUSAND SINISTER PHYSICS MONSTERS or some shit.'

    "Oh my god you're the one who wanted to go!" Lilian says, slightly incorrectly, because it's the type of blame she automatically assigns Arthur and not Petra. "Of course it is! We're venturing off into the cosmic couch cushions on purpose!"

    'And as time moves on, they hopefully get better at picking out those things for themselves.'

    "Well they'll have plenty of time for it. No waiting and yearning allowed."

    'I'm sure the one thing they'll never struggle with is being loved.'

    Lilian tosses her hair and puffs out her chest, looking very satisfied.

    'Next time'

    Lilian raises an eyebrow, and folds her arms. "There are half a dozen things I'd rate higher on my checklist for a 'next time' if that's what you're comparing it to." Lilian says. Like 'not being drugged' and 'not putting up with Mesmer' and 'not being in dipshit USA'.

    'I read an essay about that just a couple days ago. 'Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons' by Ursula Le Guin.'

    Sakura tilts her head. She decided to pick up 'poetry and literature' as her new experimental 'thing', but this sounds relevant, so, "Some suggested reading for the trip would be nice." she says.
Lilian Rook     'Ha! Obviously! But the woman wins in the end, you know!'

    "Yeah but then in the second one they reveal she got knocked up anyways." Ash says. "Watch out Cyborg." is as menacing as all get-out before they say "I'm not doing that." It's unclear whether it's a hasty retraction or an insulting threat.

    'I mean, they're people. Exis's taught me pretty well not to think of them as not-that-- and I mean, Earth's a unique circumstance in a lot of ways, but they've been out here doing whatever for *eight hundred* years at *least*.'

    "I'd hope they're a bit more mature than her." Lilian says. Ash and Nika's heads swivel attentively. "Three of her would be . . ." She looks at Tamamo worriedly.

    I got the fucking VIP suites in there! Hit me up!'

    "Oh hell yes. Knew you were good for something." Ash says. "I'm gonna fistbump you once before I hunt you for sport. For the culture."

    'Maybe it was fucked up and they fixed it already.'

    "Huh."

    'I'm glad to be a part of this necessary expedition.'

    "I'm glad you're a part of it too." Lilian smiles, if warily. "I knew I'd dial you in eventually."

    'You okay?'

    "No, but I'm already getting better."

    'Oh? Actually I thought you weren't into it, but I had to be the last in the cycle, so I couldn't be fair.

    "Oh I was insanely pissed off at the time." Ash says. "But now that I get to look back on it, yours was kinda my favourite part. Necessary component and all."
Angela ''How the tables have turned.''

"Oh nooooo..." Roland can manage a playing along of that level but he gives a nod to Lilian, leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes, dreaming without sleeping. "Gonna treat this like I'm on vacation until we get there," He murmurs. "That's the best a mid-game character can do for those who leveled up to to 99 already or whatever the max is these days."

It's all too easy to imagine Lilian with a wonderful future ahead of her but when his thoughts inevitably turn to himself, all he sees is pitch black darkness even now.
Tamamo     'I think the most important thing is that a child gets to feel like a participant in their own life rather than a passenger, even when they're super young...'

    "This is something many eras have afforded to but few, now that I think upon it, and they may have been far the worse for it, though it is difficult to make such a judgment through great distances. For us, we have the great fortune of being capable of more, and the means to make such an attempt. Quite often does one feel as if one can only react to that which the circumstances of the world present, no? Even in the case of such a thing as choosing a trade, or in choosing a path of learning, one is not without walls, but only given that handful of paths." Tamamo can go on about this for a while, and probably would if there weren't a bunch of other things to be doing.

    Tamamos' choice of either extremely intense historical fiction wargames based on the Hundred Years war, or, a game about being a group of spirit guardians of a cute island that colonial powers are invading broadly about environmentalism.

    Tamamo carefully considers each thing brought to her, holding up boxes in both hands and turning and reading silently but for the 'hmm' and 'oh?' Read carefully, here where she speaks without guard or pretense, one may be able to tell the distant affection she holds toward 'cute islands,' like a fondness linked to something else, rather than directly to cute things. The nod of understanding toward '(environmentalist) guardian spirits' is more straightforward -- something she knows and appreciates (humu).
Tamamo     'Colonial invasions' bring a less-clear, slightly-gossipy tone of 'oh my.' The detailed war sim gets less high marks for her. There's traces of bafflement, though she does try to avoid being outwardly negative. It's a game presented to her, after all! But she does have certain negative feelings around military matters, and that makes it harder to understand the appeal of its deep simulation, no matter how lovingly crafted.

    'And those points each represent something important, somewhere important. So, by finding them, and having a good sense of how to navigate the between - which is like textured emptiness, intermittent nothing - you can travel between them.'

    Tamamo nods along to the explanation, "I see, so it is like that. It is still 'traveling,' but made faster for 'skipping,' and it may involve a bit of effort, to find something or someone again. Had you need to skip out for a bit, you could do so, but it is more than simply walking back and forth through a door. It is certainly more convenient than many methods, but setting up a cabin should not be skipped. We have quite enough of them, but I suppose they shall not be used for a good bit, as everyone remains quite full of energy."

    She peers into the little finger-spread telescope to maybe-elsewhere, as if trying to identify something... but doesn't, eventually giving a little laugh. "Even after this many years, I can still be struck by the number of things close to myself that escaped my understanding. Ah, but this is ever so, perhaps. The tapestry of existence is a complex weaving, and there are ever so many threads to follow. Still, I would be glad to follow yours more than this." There'll be time to talk, surely.

    'I sort of think that it's impossible to be happy while not pursuing anything, though.'

    "There are degrees, I think, to happiness, as well as to satisfaction, to fulfillment... and to many things. There are, too, people who believe they are following their own happiness, yet never feel as if they are attaining it. It may be that none can acquire happiness without pursuit, yet here I mean something more akin to 'the pursuit of happiness,' and how one must set, as a priority, a greater range of matters. It is a thing to keep in mind, only. For myself, of course."

    'Who knows what else they might resonate with?'

    "Oh, it is so terribly exciting, at that. This is, you know... ah, something that has never truly happened before." And she's suddenly shy about something. Time to change the subject!

    'There are types of people who have to ¶slow down¶ to spend time with everyone for different reasons but they're always secretly looking...'

    "Oh! So, this is what you meant..." Tamamo has to stop and think about it. "'That type'... am I, perhaps? I do feel as if there is always very much I wish to be doing, and that I always wish for new experiences with others. Is it true, then...?"

    'Yeah but then in the second one they reveal she got knocked up anyways.' Ash says. 'Watch out Cyborg.'

    Tamamo looks at Ash, utterly scandalized. The look doesn't vanish entirely at 'I'm not doing that.'

    'Three of her would be . . .'

    "Oh, terribly dangerous, yes. That is rather the basis of what I expect, in fact. Perhaps a 'best case'...?"