It turned out that the devices really did create a breathable atmosphere. Bell was still hesitant to let go of hers, but after Dema went back to patch up the hole they’d made to get down here, and after about an hour of Dema running around outside the bubble, she relented and stopped trying to absorb her back into it as much as possible.
Bell still kept her own bubble intact, though. She exchanged the air, but wanted to make sure that in case something went wrong, she would still have the barrier set-up.
“You can fetch Dema when something happens, right? And bring her back to me?”
Theora nodded. “The party screen shows me where she is at all times,” she explained. “I might lose consciousness myself if the air leaves, but I should still be able to bring her to you.”
Dema was soon nowhere to be seen, presumably off to fill the Manawant of every device out there. Apparently these hungry items caused a constant feeling of needing-to-do-something for very powerful mages. Bell eventually made off too — she said she wanted to take a look at the Observatory, although Theora had the suspicion Bell was mostly feeling responsible for Dema’s ability to breathe.
Meanwhile, Theora and Isobel strolled down another street, constantly getting distracted by the children’s statues. Well, they seemed to be made by children anyway; of course it could have been adults too. But children did appear to be the likely culprits. Who else would like to spend lots of time in the streets figuring stuff out and then not tidying up after themselves? Children… and Dema, perhaps.
Not like it really had to be tidied up, of course. It was a beautiful place.
“I’m glad I get the chance to talk to you a little before you’re going back to sleep, Mom,” Isobel said after a while. “The next few days will be busy because Dema and I will need to find a new place to hold the experiment.”
“I’m glad too.” Theora took a deep breath. This was the reason why she hadn’t run off together with Dema, and why she hadn’t accompanied Bell when she followed. The reason why she was walking down the streets with Isobel, alone. “I wanted to apologise to you.”
“What?” Isobel tilted her head, looking up. “Apologise for what?”
“For ignoring you when I was in ‘Reality’.”
“Oh, that. Water under the bridge!”
Theora sighed. Isobel helping find a replacement for [Obliterate] was one thing, but she was also working on dismantling the System from the inside, which would also benefit Theora. And Isobel was the keystone holding their group together — after Isobel’s reawakening, the old Bell had spent decades taking care of her while Dema and Theora were stuck at Hallmark, and that was the reason they’d all met. Then, while Theora was in space, Dema and Bell had spent about a hundred-fifty years travelling the world together with Isobel — and it was Isobel, again, who had both guided her up there patiently and forced an Orb of Seven Wishes as a quest reward so Dema could fetch her back.
And then, after thirty years of trying, she’d managed to reach out to Theora in Reality, and Theora had ignored her. Partly it was due to her own inadequacies, but also, Theora couldn’t deny that the quests that kept falling in her lap were somewhat important, or at least appeared so. She couldn’t have abandoned Hallmark, even if Hallmark was only preyed on by the Afterthoughts to keep Theora there. And she couldn’t have refused to go to space, because if she had, the world as they knew it might no longer exist.
Despite everything, Isobel still called her ‘Mom’.
Theora kept herself from sighing again, because that would for sure have prompted a response. “Let me know if there is something I could do to help you,” she said instead. “I want to be there for you too, like Dema is.”
Isobel smiled up at her. “Thanks! We’re all there for each other, aren’t we? That’s what makes me happy to be part of us. But yeah, I will. Always will! Thanks, Mom.”
“Mom,” Theora repeated, whispering under her breath.
“What do I hear there?” Isobel said with a little giggle.
“I’m just surprised,” Theora said, looking down into her lap. “And I do feel honoured. I know you have my tea within you, but that’s really all I did back then… Dema asked me, so I gave it. And I’m glad it means so much to you. But what I did and do for you is small, in comparison.”
Isobel reached out to squeeze Theora’s hand. “Not that small, actually!”
“Hm?” Theora squeezed back softly, unsure if Isobel could even feel it.
“There’s something I wanted to tell you. Figured it out after you came back from Reality. When I saw your internal System Logs.”
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“My internal System logs?”
Isobel nodded. They walked up a few stairs and then she found a botched statue of a picnic set-up and made them both sit down in it. “It’s like, where it notes down Skill level-ups and such. Sometimes Skill uses too. It gets overwritten a lot, so it’s not a full list of all Skills you ever used, but sometimes you can excavate some hints.”
Isobel said ‘excavate’ with a particularly purposeful intonation.
“Did you find something there?”
Isobel smiled. “Yes. Something that made me quite happy, actually. As you mentioned, I did always think of you and Dema as my parents because I have her blood and your tea running through me. But it’s probably a bit more than that.”
“More than that?” Theora tried to remember that day; the day she’d watched Dema piece Isobel together from shale rock and moss.
“Well, for one, there’s Dema’s [Immortality], of course,” she chirped.
Theora nodded. Obviously, she cherished Isobel either way, but the fact that Isobel was only alive because of Dema’s Skill did make it seem like Dema had supplied the bulk of the effort.
“But turns out, that’s not all,” Iso went on, making Theora perk up. “Like… if you think about it — I am a giant Isopod girl, yes. But I’m not quite made of just one fossil. It’s a patchwork. And yet, I feel whole. If you think about it, it really shouldn’t have worked.”
“What do you mean by that? Should not have worked?”
“Well, I mean that it sounds a little ludicrous, Dema’s idea. She only knew she could extend the effect of ‘always being alive’ to another entity; that doesn’t really mean that a fossil will just wake up and run around if you use it on one. Fossils are… well, they are just animal shaped rocks. There’s nothing left in them of what used to be the thing that died. They are not remains like bones or bodies.”
Well… yeah. Now that Isobel mentioned that, this did seem somewhat peculiar. Could you revive a fossil? “I figured Dema just made it work somehow.”
Isobel let out a lighthearted giggle, so sudden it echoed in the silent city. “Yeah, no. It’s not just Dema who ‘made it work somehow’, Theora.” She looked up with eyes glinting. “You’re doing much better now, but you still have to learn to give yourself the credit you deserve.”
Theora swallowed at the admonishment; that did still seem a scary concept. Still. “The credit I deserve?”
“Well, yes. Look, I won’t mince words here. We all know it, if we’re being honest with ourselves: I’m not just unlikely, I’m straight-up impossible. It would need a bit more than [Immortality] to just make me wake back up from what’s just rock and stone. But [Immortality] and [im//possibility]? Now that’s another story.”
Theora opened her mouth to say something, but no words nor thoughts came out.
“So,” Isobel continued, smiling wide, “that’s what I found in the logs. You used that Skill right before Dema found me. You made me possible. I wanted to thank you for that.”
Theora didn’t know what to say to that. She’d made Isobel possible? Was that even how her Skill worked? But still, Iso was making a good case there. It did appear at least unlikely for Dema to succeed at reviving a fossil in the way she did…
“Thank you for letting me know,” Theora answered, and her voice caught. Oh, she was about to cry again, huh? She’d already offered Isobel help whenever she might need it, what else could she do for this precious being?
“Yeah,” Iso said, then turned her head when she heard some noise in the distance. Dema had probably done something. “Well, as I said, I’m glad we got to talk. But… maybe we should call it a day, we weren’t necessarily prepared for an excursion.”
Bell was probably the one who needed that the most, considering how her day had gone so far. Theora gave Iso a nod of acknowledgment.
Isobel hummed in response and tapped her chin. Then, Theora received a message in the party log from her, sent to all of them: “Actually, it’s getting a little late. We could turn back for today, and prepare a plan on how to explore the city some more?”
“I… kind of want to stay here a bit longer,” Theora admitted in writing. “Can I wander around while you go back? I’ll sleep here in the city. Maybe I’ll find a bed.”
“No,” Isobel and Dema both sent at the same time, prompting Bell to send a string of characters that looked like an amused smile.
Theora pouted. “Why not?”
“Come back with us,” Isobel pleaded while giving Theora a smile. “At least to fetch food and water. I know you technically don’t need those, but—”
Theora sighed and grazed through her ponytail. “Fine, alright.” She threw a yearning last glance around as they decided on a meet-up location.
The truth was, she felt a little drawn to this place, like Dema did. She kind of missed V47, similar to how she missed the people stuck in the Frame of the Lost. It appeared Theora got attached quickly. That wasn’t a trait she’d realised about herself to that extent before. Her feet wanted to carry her through the streets and houses for longer, in hopes of finding something that reminded her a little more of him. Was he still alive? Had he gotten into another pickle? Over two-hundred years had passed since they’d met.
Perhaps if she got to meet the people from the Frame of the Lost again, she could visit him one day too. But for that, she needed to rest first.
On their way home, lost in her thoughts, Theora was feeling a little tired after that eventful day. Dema and Isobel were right. Perhaps she should spend the night at home with the others, in a comfy mossbed, wearing Treeka’s soft dress.
Maybe find the time for a dream or two.