Aleph chimed in brightly.

"It's the virtual force that acts on everything in an accelerating reference frame, so technically it doesn't actually exist, but it's a really handy conceptual shortcut!"

Pylo tilted head head.

“Why would you have a word for that? It would almost never-”

Before she could explain how precisely foolish it was Quarti interrupted with a laugh sharp, loud and clear.

“It is my turn to tell a story! And I know exactly what story to tell!”

Quarti took a deep breath, and then called out in the confines of the orb, and reached out in resonance to all around her. Pylo could feel there was something significant requiring one of those weird terran cortices in their backs as well, but hopefully she could infer the details from how Aleph and Omega responded.

“Ia, aa, I once was a boy in the year of the turn. Where once was life ended to mourn. A people estranged, lost in the wane beneath the light of sun and mun”

It was a cry, a call and a chant. It was like a voice from distant reefs cast in light out across the void. It spoke of old and gone and far away.

Then Quarti took a heavy breath and began to move, the slight fading blue of leaking resonance sparking in the air and along her skin in blue and short light.

“They struggled to rise. He and aye, He and Aye. With straining fingers to touch the sky. like branches tall, Alas we fall. Out of reach of sun and mun”

It was yearning leaves extending for the brightness of a star. It was teeth and tongue biting at meat just out of reach. It was stone prime and fertile for new life.

Aleph and Omega stared transfixed and yet also echoing softly the words. Although in Aleph it seemed stunted and confused. Less clear and pure.

“So father and mother and I alone, we reached deep down to heart of stone. We tore it free, to build our tree and set ablaze in righteous tone.”

She swayed like the stalks of the baffles around them. She moved with arms and torso and neck and limb distal and proximal circling as she sang and spoke.

But in every pose, in every gesture she reached, she strove, she grasped for holds that were just short of her distals. Like a figure trying to grab hold to arrest their speed before drifting loose into the void.

Feverish and desperation in eye and brain.

“So did we fail, time after time. The branches broke and the sky remained. We abandoned tree, we knew now thee, was not the way to sun and mun”

Crumpling, as if being pressed down under acceleration. Quarti was splayed across the surface of the orb. It was only the subtlest of hints that she had hooked a single aft distil phalange on a crease to pull herself to the surface and hold fast.

The illusion of acceleration was nearly perfect.

The strain of the muscles holding her down somehow seeming to try and press herself up.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“We strove to swim but air grew thin, we raged with fire, and terrible sin. We gave up our choir and lusting desire, for greatest heights of sun and mun”

She grew still and almost whispered. Voice and mind thick with choking pain and anger, fury and blinded pain.

She was left poised, crouching against the surface of the orb. As if ready to push herself free and into the far voids beyond Tunie. But somehow the shift of posture suggested deep down the core of her had gone out, her faith in herself crushed. She would never leap again against that lesson in futility.

“Turned brother and mother and sister and daughter, struck out against all and killed one another. The sky grew black and our stains came back, clouding our view of sun and mun”

With every word and thought she snarled and slashed, she grasped and she punched, she flinched, weaved and was buffeted by invisible blows.

Her brain even stung from the impacts and water pooled in smearing rainbows across her face before she shook them loose of her eyes.

“But then we learned in fierce despair. A whole new path, a new way there. The weapon of war, could be so much more. Alit new hope for sun and mun”

She was worn, she seemed to be exhausted, worn out, almost collapsing under the unseen and unfelt acceleration. Hair slicked down with cleverly distributed water and oil so it stuck to the torb momentarily.

“I swore a pact on my father’s grave that turn, I kindled again the deep sky yearn. We looked once more, and built our store. Of frozen fire to reach our end”

She gave a cry, her throat seemed to carry the heat, her heart seemed to ring with a drum that grew faster and faster. Oxygen and hydrogen searing hot. Of great titanic metal towers rising.

And the cry grew to a scream, a roar and then faded to quiet. Stillness.

And she rasped in a whisper, drained and yet exultant.

And then she was afloat, drifting slowly away from the surface. Pylo could almost feel the sight of spheres hanging and yet bound to one another in her brain. Eyes looking upon a sight of beauty of wonder befitting any in the reef.

“I stood old and tired, no longer a boy. The journey I’d taken had much destroyed. But atlast I floated in circling twist, between the curve of sun and mun”

“And as I gazed back on where I’d been, I felt my heart break for the sights within. A land of beauty, a peaceful orb, a crescent lit by sun and mun”

[https://i.imgur.com/PCEg3Wo.png]

Aleph murmured softly voice raw and thick like she couldn't breathe right.

“I didn't understand it before... when I heard it I didn't understand”

Omega whispered softly with laughter in her eyes.

“I told you, over four thousand year old poet”

Pylo was simply stunned.

What even was that?